Bloodlines (The Guardian of Empire City Book 1) Read online

  Bloodlines

  Book One of The Guardian of Empire City Series

  Peter Hartog

  Copyright © 2018 by Peter Hartog

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarities to the lives and names of real people, living or dead, are coincidental, and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Second Edition

  Cover art by Lance Buckley

  Created with Vellum

  To Ms. Long, who encouraged my imagination.

  To Doug, whose still waters always run deep.

  To my dad, my biggest cheerleader, and the man who taught me character is about action, and not words.

  To Traci, who is my rock, and the boys, who are my world.

  And to my mom, for buying me books, and everything else that matters.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  Save an Author, Write a Review

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Peter Hartog

  Pieces of Eight

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  No matter what century you live in, the world will always be filled with assholes.

  “Watch the threads, man!” my prisoner cried as I led him roughly toward the booking officer’s workstation. The suit’s hands were cuffed behind his back. I put my hand on his shoulder and drove him face-first into the top of the metal desk.

  Hard.

  “Oops, my bad,” I said, then grabbed his shoulder again and shoved him into the chair.

  “I’ll have your badge, asshole!” he sputtered.

  See what I mean? Blood from a split lip decorated his starched dress shirt in pretty crimson splotches.

  “Yeah, you and everyone else,” I muttered, then nodded at the booking officer, who gave me an aggrieved look before manipulating the virtual controls of his workstation.

  Holo-windows clung to the air above the workstation, translucent bubbles full of text and images. The glimmering ghosts contained the personal data of James Reynolds, including enclave ID, home address, and known associates.

  “Now, nice Sergeant Collins here is going to ask you some questions,” I instructed. “Cooperate and make this quick, or I’ll dump your sorry ass Upstairs. I hear the crazies love Wall Street boys. A pretty e-trader like you will fit right in.”

  It wasn’t an idle threat. “Upstairs” referred to the holding cells on the floor above where all the violent offenders cooked before being sent offsite to less pleasant accommodations. Downstairs catered to a tamer crowd—drunks, goldjoy addicts, and anyone not sent Upstairs. I’d dubbed the rest of the 98th Precinct’s Central Investigation and Resources Division “Purgatory” the day after I’d arrived here six years ago.

  “I know my rights, Holliday,” he stiffened. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Try me,” I growled.

  The name’s Thomas Henry Holliday. Sometimes I worked the homicide table for the Empire City Police Department. Most days, though, I was chained to a desk filing everyone else’s paperwork.

  What few friends I had called me “Doc.” While I liked to think that I’d earned the tough guy sobriquet after the famous gunslinger, the truth is I had a PhD in classical literature from Empire City University.

  Oh, and a Master’s in gourmet cooking. I was a pro at boiling water.

  But I still had plenty of bite to go with my bark. You see, I used to be one of the three best homicide detectives in Empire City. Used to be.

  “Holliday!” Lieutenant Joan Flanagan bellowed from across the room.

  God, I hated mornings. Especially Mondays. And, in my experience, nothing good ever happened on a Monday.

  Guess which day it was?

  “In a minute,” I yelled back.

  The bullpen was busy today. And loud. I had already developed a nice headache from spending the past five sleepless nights interviewing witnesses, collecting evidence and running down the leads. By the third day, it had escalated into a full-blown pounding.

  “Your desk in ten,” Flanagan ordered.

  “Whatever,” I sighed.

  “I want my lawyer,” Reynolds whined. A sullen red weal had formed on his face from where it had met the table. “I want my call. I want—"

  I’d had enough.

  “Listen up, pal.” I leaned in close. “I’ve got you on Murder One for the job you pulled on Frederick Murray last Thursday. Remember him, your co-worker whose drink you spiked with ’joy at D’Antoni’s Rooftop Bar? Then he ‘accidentally’ fell ten stories to splatter his brains all over the clean pavement? Did you know he had a three-year-old daughter named Molly? Thanks to you, someone else will have to walk Molly down the aisle. So shut the fuck up, you sack of shit. Your life is officially over.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about them,” he sneered. “Or you.”

  Something in his voice gave me pause. A familiar tingling formed around my eyes, then raced down my back. My hands trembled. I clenched them into fists in the vain hope that would halt the tremors, but my breathing quickened in time with my racing heartbeat. The precinct’s clamor dropped to a dull roar, as if I stood behind a closed door in another room. I concentrated on the cocky e-trader in his designer suit and slick hair, my eyes burning with a white fire only I could see.

  Suddenly, true dread dripped into my bones.

  Reynolds’ features bled away, his face growing sallow and sunken. Withered, dry tissue covered his body, as if his skin was wrinkled parchment. Gone was the arrogant businessman, replaced by a helpless scarecrow, all scrawny arms and legs. A twisted shade had wound itself around the cadaver that had once been a man, trapping Reynolds in its intimate embrace. Small motes of living light seeped from the e-trader’s flesh in a glittering shower. Each fragment was plucked from the air by the creature’s shadowy fingers, then devoured as if it was the finest of delicacies.

  My mind reeled at the sight. The parasite was grafted to the man in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine. I experienced Reynolds’ agony as something tangible and real. Paralyzed by horror and
fear, I was transfixed by this tableau of a helpless, soulless man, and the thing born from nightmares that fed on him.

  The shade regarded me with dark, endless eyes. It uttered an empty shriek, but I heard nothing.

  And then the vision was gone.

  Reality returned in a blinding rush. I jerked backward and jostled the empty desk behind me, bashing my hip. Jolts of pain coursed down my leg. I caught myself before I toppled over.

  “When I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you’d never been born,” Reynolds shouted as two uniforms led him away to be printed and imaged. “You hear me, Holliday? YOU HEAR ME?”

  I stared ahead, not registering anything. I felt wasted, as if I’d run a marathon in late summer while wearing winter clothes.

  “That it?” Collins asked without looking at me. He’d been busy collating the data that he had collected from Reynolds. I blinked, quickly regaining focus, then looked around. No one else had noticed my reaction.

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Yeah, thanks Mike.”

  I stumbled drunkenly across the floor toward my desk. Crashing into my chair, I waved a weary hand in front of my workstation to clear most of the holo-windows of filings and reports everyone else had dumped on me from the previous week. I worked a breathing exercise I’d mastered to get my shit together. My heart rate steadied, but the image of the awful thing I’d just witnessed screamed at me whenever I closed my eyes. I’d have to live with it, along with the long catalogue of other strange and horrible things that I’d encountered over the years.

  I grabbed my mug and gulped half its contents, then grimaced. It was disgusting, but cold coffee was better than no coffee. The coffee slowly worked its potent spell on my body as the sludge pretending to be my brain slipped into second gear.

  A lone window floated above my workstation detailing an article posted last night by a beat reporter for The Daily Dose. The Dose was an online rag full of sensationalized stories, from celebrity bed-buddies to government conspiracies. I ran through the article, using the distraction to bury my macabre encounter with Reynolds and his dark passenger to the remotest corners of my mind.

  “Jesus Christ, Holliday,” Flanagan interrupted, stomping toward me. “You look like shit.”

  The squat, carrot-topped officer hovered over my virtual workstation like the harbinger of halitosis. The fat fuck reeked of old gin, stale sex and dirty socks. I glanced up at her, my haggard face warm from the glow of flickering data flowing across my holo-screen.

  “Gee, Jo, thanks for caring.” I graced her with a wan smile.

  “Yeah, right,” the lieutenant grunted. She stepped closer to squint at my screen. “Vampire in Lower Manhattan, news at eleven.” Flanagan chuckled in derision. “You actually read this horse shit?”

  “Reading this ‘horse shit’ breaks up the monotony of my day,” I replied, asserting a false bravado. Dealing with the lieutenant always brought out the best in me, which wasn’t saying much.

  She fixed me with a gimlet glare. “Glad to know you’re so busy.”

  I held up a placating hand and placed the other on the wrinkled lapel of my faded brown blazer.

  “As a proud member of the 98th, it is my sworn duty to protect the lives and property of our fellow citizens, and impartially enforce the law.” I indicated the news story with my chin. “Besides, the vic lived nearby, in Bay Ridge.”

  “So?” Flanagan shrugged, her expression shifting from dour and annoyed, to dour and grim.

  Flanagan gave me shit most days, but we’re supposed to be people first and cops second. Sometimes I wondered which one I was.

  “So,” I continued, drawing out the word. “The stiff was found last night in an alley down in the Financial District. Her throat had been shredded. But here’s the interesting part. According to the EMTs, there wasn’t any blood. Crazy, right? I mean, no blood? How does that happen?”

  Flanagan’s pasty complexion grew two shades lighter. Sweat formed on her brow, and one of her eyes twitched. Not exactly the reaction I’d expect from a veteran cop who’d probably seen worse back in her glory days.

  “And so now you believe some goddamn tabloid?” She recovered, clearing her throat nervously as she scanned the bustling floor. “Nice detective work, Holliday. Real professional. Is that how you close all of your cases? If it’s in the Dose, it’s the gospel? Let me give you a piece of advice, free of charge. Let. It. Go. It’s not our jurisdiction. Besides, your old pals from downtown will handle it. Am I clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  “And file those reports,” Flanagan grumbled as she wandered off to berate another detective on the floor. “They were due last Monday.”

  I took a fortifying breath, then shunted the article aside in favor of the mountain of e-paperwork that awaited me. Dozens of holo-windows repopulated the screen. My own collar would have to wait until I’d finished with these, otherwise I’d see more of Flanagan, something I tried to avoid as often as I could.

  “EVI, halt streaming and fade to black, please,” I instructed. The holo-screen went dark. “Play Sonata Pathetique, first movement, low volume, and bring up my calendar.”

  Empire City’s law enforcement, social services and emergency services worked within a centralized network administered by an AI called Engineered Virtual Intellect. Through the implants all ECPD personnel carried in our skulls, I accessed a vast cloud of detailed information, manipulating the data in the literal blink of my eye.

  EVI controlled everything, right down to the lunch menu. To some, it was scary, but the machines hadn’t taken over just yet.

  I had no idea what they were waiting for.

  The tech boys had given the AI a soft, feminine voice because they were a bunch of frustrated nerds who needed more holo-porn.

  “You’re welcome, Detective Holliday,” EVI replied coolly in my ear.

  The soft melody in C-minor floated through my brain’s audio center. A grid materialized in the top right corner of my main holo-screen outlining the month of October. Other than today, a single cube next week containing the image of a grinning jack-o’-lantern stood out from an otherwise empty calendar.

  I sighed, then downed the rest of my coffee. With my headache fizzled, I got to work.

  An hour later, I wandered to the break room for a fresh cup of java, navigating the frenetic floor as officers escorted handcuffed perps decrying the system or pleading their innocence. A handful of officers nodded as I passed, but most ignored me.

  Armed with a full mug, I loped back to my little slice of heaven. Three prostitutes, each cuffed to a different chair, blew me lewd kisses with their free hands. My tired grin broadened as one offered up a few interesting suggestions on what we could do later if I happened to find the keycode to her cuffs. I chuckled, shook my head and walked away.

  At least someone wanted me.

  To be honest, I’m not what you’d call pretty. Disheveled and careworn, I sported a broken nose and deep, dark circles under my baby blues. Measuring around six feet, I was wiry, but made of thin-corded muscle. As the old saying went, mine was a face for radio.

  My scratched and crooked desk rested in a nook, obstructed by the blunted corner of a faded and cracked plaster wall. I sat alone, ostensibly due to a lack of space to accommodate a partner, which was convenient since I’d never been assigned one. I’m like your annoying Uncle Frank who no one wanted to get stuck with at the family reunion. Except for the occasional table scrap Flanagan tossed my way, my case load was non-existent.

  As I turned the corner, I came up short, spilling hot coffee on my hand.

  “Morning,” the man occupying my chair said with a cheerful drawl. Shrewd brown eyes regarded me.

  I flicked my wet hand in annoyance, then set the mug down with care.

  “Not a bad job with that fuckwad, Holliday,” he continued placidly. “Open-and-shut. Still, anyone given a shit case like that would have to be a complete idiot to fuck it up.”

  He was my age, somewhere between late thirt
ies and early forties. Sharp features framed high cheekbones, a hawk nose and grizzled mustache with goatee. A small silver hoop hung from his left ear. Dressed in street clothes beneath an ill-fitting leather jacket, he resembled one of Sam Gaffney’s narcs. Cigarette smoke clung to him like a second skin. Faded white scars crisscrossed the knuckles of both hands, and old calluses decorated the tips of his fingers. The man was no stranger to a fight.

  “Who are you?” I asked, eyes narrowing.

  “Deacon Kole.” He didn’t extend a hand. “You boys in Empire City sure do like your e-paperwork. Damn, son, it’s a wonder y’all get anything done ‘round here.”

  I frowned. He seemed at ease, but I’d catch his eyes straying past my shoulder. It was something born from habit, a practiced paranoia all cops learn early in their careers. That’s when I made him.

  “You’re a Protector,” I said. “What do you want?”

  The Confederate States of Birmingham was the seat of religious extremism and intolerance on this side of the world. The Deep South survivors of the worldwide terrorist nukes and the pandemics that had followed rallied around churches, using faith as the driving force for unity. Their enclave ruthlessly excised differing beliefs, adhering to a rigid morality. Decades later, the lunatics in the CSB still believed the Rapture had happened, and Armageddon wasn’t far behind.

  As for the Protectors, they were Birmingham’s twisted version of cops. From everything I’d heard, they were first-class nut-jobs, acting as judge, jury and executioner.