Cronin's Key (19 page)

Alec stared wide-eyed at the neat and crisp bankrolls. “Um, shit. I didn’t mean that much.”

“You didn’t specify amounts,” Cronin said. “I don’t know how much a
shitload of cash
is in quantifiable figures.”

Alec smiled at him. Their faces were close again, and he whispered, “I like it when you talk all middle ages.”

Cronin blushed and ducked his chin, and Eiji laughed. “Please, would you two stop that already?”

Alec laughed again and took out his own cell. “I can’t use mine,” he said. “They’ll be tracing it, no doubt. But I need some contacts out of it.” He scrolled through some numbers until he found the one he was after and entered it into one of the phones off the table. Then he called it. Cronin could hear the whole conversation.

“Campbell, it’s Detective MacAidan.”

The voice sounded muffled, tired and still-asleep.
“It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning. What the fuck do you want? I told you the other day I don’t know nothing.”

Alec smiled. “No, no, no.
It’s not about that. I need you to do something for me. Are you at home right now?”

Silence.
“It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning. Where else would I be, asshole?”

Cronin gritted his teeth. He didn’t like this Campbell fellow at all.

“Then put some fucking pants on, and walk out into your living room,” Alec said, seemingly unfazed at the language used against him.

“The fuck?”

“Do it!” Alec snapped. “Get your ass out of bed. I have a deal for you.”

Cronin heard mumbling and what sounded like the ruffling of blankets through the phone.
“This got anything to do with your little disappearance the other night?”
Campbell asked.
“Don’t think we ain’t heard about it.”

“Just do as I say, asshole.” Alec clicked off the call, stood up, and pocketed the other phone and two bundles of cash. Then he walked over to the table and picked up the small wooden bullet he’d found in Mikka’s ashes.

Cronin was quick to be beside him. “Alec?”

“You just need an address to be able to leap?” he asked Cronin.

“Yes.” Cronin was concerned. “Alec, where do you propose we go?”

“I want to pay a visit to an old friend of mine.”

“A friend?”

“Well, someone I busted a time or two.”

“You want me to take you to see a felon?”

Alec rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure vampire trumps felon.” Then Alec showed Cronin the address on his phone. “Trust me.”

Cronin gave a little growl and pulled Alec against him, making him moan and smile. And with Alec firmly against him and the address in his mind, Cronin leapt.

* * * *

The room was small, dark, and stank of stale beer and old food. A man, who Cronin assumed was this Campbell, was sitting on the sofa. He was African American, possibly thirty years old, and screamed like a child when Cronin and Alec magically appeared in his living room. His legs lifted, and it appeared he tried to climb up the back of the sofa.

Alec gave a shudder—he was growing more tolerant of leaping every time—and he put his hand out, palm forward, to Campbell. “It’s me, MacAidan.”

Campbell blinked and gaped, his heart stuttering dangerously in his chest, and Cronin wondered if it would actually stop. It didn’t. “What the actual living fuck was that?” he cried, his eyes bulging.

“New mode of transport,” Alec said.

Campbell stood up, visibly shaking, though his adrenaline now surfacing as anger. He went to grab Alec, and Cronin was in front of him in the blink of an eye. “Do not touch him.”

Campbell fell back into the sofa. “Who the fuck are you? How’d you move so damn fast?”

“Who I am is not your concern,” Cronin sneered. He showed his fangs.

Campbell blanched. His eyes shot between Cronin and Alec. “What the fuck?”

“Calm down,” Alec said. “He won’t hurt you unless you try to hurt me, or if you run.”

Campbell swallowed hard and fidgeted. Cronin could tell the human was warring between his fight and flight instincts, and apparently Alec could tell this too. “Don’t even think about it, Campbell,” Alec said, completely at ease. He pulled out one bundle of the bills and let it drop heavily onto the coffee table.

Campbell straightened up immediately. Clearly money was the motivating factor for this man. Cronin realized now why Alec wanted it.

“Ten G to start,” Alec said. His street-cop talk sounded so natural to Cronin, who had never heard him speak in such a fashion.

Campbell shook his head. “Wh-wh-whaddya want? Why me?”

“I want bullets,” Alec said, sitting in a chair across from Campbell. “Special bullets.”

“You a cop, man!” Campbell said. “Ain’t no way I’ll admit to knowin’ nothin’.”

Cronin refrained from correcting his poor use of the English language. Instead he hissed at him. “You will help him if he so asks.”

Campbell shrunk back into the sofa. “How do I know you not tryin’ to punk me?”

“I
was
a cop,” Alec said. “You said yourself that you heard about my disappearing act that kinda put me on their now-wanted list. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help.”

“Why me?”

“Because I know you’ve been manufacturing this shit for years,” Alec said. “And I know your product is good.”

Campbell still looked unsure, so Cronin stepped a little closer. He might have shown his teeth when he spoke. “Bullets?”

“Okay, okay,” Campbell said quickly. “Hollow point, open tip, soft tip, frangible, exploding, armor piercing?”

Alec didn’t answer. He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out the small wooden bullet. “I want hardwood.”

Campbell blinked, then shook his head and laughed. “Is that some kinda joke?”

Alec didn’t laugh.

Campbell’s smile died. “You kiddin’ me, man?”

“I want lead casing, hardwood tip and core.” Alec thought for a moment, then looked at Cronin. “What kind of wood would be best?”

Cronin gave him a smile. “There is a certain type of hardwood that was common in Ancient Egypt and would be perfect. It is called Christ’s Thorn.”

“Christ’s Thorn it is, then,” Alec said simply.

“In
Ancient
Egypt?” Campbell asked. “You got a time machine I don’t know about because where else am I gonna get that shit from?”

“That timber is still found in parts of Northern Africa,” Cronin told him. “You can source it.”

Campbell looked as though he was about to object when Alec pulled out the other bank of ten thousand dollars and threw it onto the coffee table. “Make some phone calls,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re not connected.”

Campbell blinked a few times in quick succession. “How th’ hellami gonna make wooden bullets? Why would you even need wooden bullets? You gonna fight a bunch of vamp…” His question trailed off when he looked up at Cronin. His mouth opened and shut a few times like a gaping fish. “Oh.”

Alec put the second cell phone on the table. “I will use this phone to contact you. Keep it charged and if it rings, you will answer it. If the police ask you questions, you will tell them nothing. Believe me, these are not enemies you wish you make.” Alec nodded toward the money. “I will double the payment on collection.”

“How many you need?”

“As many as you can make. Hundreds if you can do it.”

Campbell made a face as though he was working things out in his head. “When you need ’em by?”

“Two days.”

“Two days?” he cried. “You fuckin’ crazy?”

Cronin let a growl rip through the air, and Campbell cried out in fear. His eyes went wide, his hands up. “Okay, okay. Right, got it.” He grabbed his crotch and Cronin caught a brief whiff of urine. The man had almost pissed himself.

Alec stood up. “Forty grand, all said and done. It buys me what I want, and it buys me silence. You speak of this to no one, ya hear?”

Campbell never took his eyes off Cronin, but he nodded.

Alec grinned. “Good.” He put one arm around Cronin’s waist and held up his other hand showing two fingers. “Two days,” he said to Campbell, and probably scaring the religion out of him, they leapt.

* * * *

Cronin leapt them back to his apartment, and more specifically, his bedroom. Alec groaned through gritted teeth and shook his body out, only to then try and look around. Cronin realized Alec couldn’t see in the darkened room. “We are in my bedroom.”

Alec’s heart calmed immediately. “Oh. Thank you. It’s so dark in here,” he said, keeping his arm around Cronin. “Everything okay out there?” he asked, nodding toward the door.

“Yes,” Cronin answered. He listened for a moment, knowing Alec could hear nothing, and told him, “They’re making maps.”

“Just wondered why we’re in here?” Alec whispered, and Cronin could feel Alec’s lips move as he spoke.

“I just wanted a moment with you,” Cronin said. “It’s been a long night.”

“It’s been an incredible night,” Alec said, moving his hand up Cronin’s back. “Going to Scotland with you was… well, it was the best thing ever.”

“You were great with that criminal,” Cronin said. “I must admit I liked seeing you in your element. You must have been a remarkable police officer. The bullet idea is genius.”

Alec snorted out a laugh. “That
criminal
, as you call him, has a name. Campbell’s a street thug with a penchant for guns and ammunition. He’s been on our list for years. And the bullet idea wasn’t mine.” Alec pulled out the small wooden bullet from his pocket. “Do you think it will work?”

“I can’t see why it wouldn’t,” Cronin said. “And even if it doesn’t, it has to be worth trying.” Cronin took the small wooden bullet from Alec and held it between his fingers to inspect it. “Is it not crazy that such a small insignificant object can kill a creature such as myself?”

Alec’s brow furrowed. “It can kill bad vampires, not you.”

“A wooden stake, a wooden bullet, or sunlight does not discriminate between good and bad, Alec.”

Alec frowned and shook his head as though it didn’t bear thinking about. “And you’re not a creature, thank you very much.”

Cronin smiled. “Well, I am not human.”

Alec lifted Cronin’s chin and whispered against his lips, “You are vampire.”

A warm shiver ran down Cronin’s spine. “And you are remarkably tolerant of such things.”

Alec drew his nose along Cronin’s jaw. “I am remarkably smitten with such things,” he whispered, then froze apparently realizing he’d said it out loud.

“Smitten?”

“Shut up,” Alec said with a smile. He pulled back a little. “And you did that growling thing again. I think you scared the shit outta him.”

“Urine, actually,” Cronin corrected.

Alec laughed louder at that. “Well, at least he took me seriously.” He took Cronin’s hand. “As much as I’d like to stay in here with you—and lock that door so Jodis can’t interrupt,” he said louder, knowing she’d hear him, “we should probably go out there and tell them what I did.”

Still holding Cronin’s hand, Alec led the way out to the living room, where the vampire intelligence confab was still in full swing. There had been progress: the dining table was now covered in maps, a row of laptops were on a shelf, all displaying what Cronin recognized as pyramidal tunnels in three dimension.

“I wasn’t going to interrupt you,” Jodis said, smiling at Alec. When she saw that Alec and Cronin were holding hands, her smile turned to Cronin. “Things went well?”

“Very,” Cronin said. “And here?”

“Productive,” Eiji said. “Did you get what you were after?”

“Ordered, not acquired,” Alec said. “As many wooden bullets as he can make.”

“Wooden bullets?” Jodis asked. “Like the one that killed Mikka?”

“Similar,” Alec explained. “I can only assume that bullet came from a blow dart or some such thing and that you’d need vampire strength to fire it to be effective on a vampire; a human would not have the lung capacity. These will have a half-jacket of lead, so I can fire them from a gun, but with a hardwood tip and core.”

All the other vampires stared at Alec, a little wide-eyed, though mostly impressed, even Johan. Eiji grinned and said, “I knew I liked you.”

Alec shrugged. “I don’t have superhuman strength like you guys, so I figured I should up my ante.”

Cronin, still holding Alec’s hand, pulled him a little closer. “I thought it was creative and effective. Though we should try it here before we leave for Egypt.”

“I’m not shooting anyone here,” Alec said, alarmed. “Remember? Bad vampires, not the good guys.” Then he said, “Oh, maybe I should source some crossbows too.”

Eiji clapped Alec on the shoulder, with his usual grin. “I can order those! They’ll be here overnight if you like.”

Alec nodded. “It can’t hurt. We’ll need to look at special arrows.”

“Leave that to me,” Eiji said. “When will your bullets arrive?”

“I gave him two days,” Alec answered, then looked around the room at the laptops, the maps, the books. “Is that too long? Things look like they’re moving quickly.”

“You have four days,” Eleanor said. “I see you moving on the fourth day. It is a new development, Cronin,” she said. “I would believe that Queen Keket has implemented a course of action, and so my vision changed to reflect this.”

Alec looked at Cronin. “Four days,” he whispered.

Cronin squeezed his hand and swallowed hard. Almost thirteen long and lonely centuries had come down to just a matter of minutes. “It is too soon.”

Alec dropped Cronin’s hand and went to stand by the table. “We have to learn everything. What are these maps for?”

Cronin was quickly by his side and reclaimed his hand. “Stop.”

“We don’t have time to waste,” Alec started to say.

“Stop,” Cronin said again, a little more adamantly. Alec turned to face him. His voice was softer now. “I have learned many things in all my years on this earth. And, Alec, there have been many years, days, hours, but none so important as these. Not for learning, not for preparing for war, but to be selfish. We will learn tomorrow, I promise. But for now, in these few hours, please give me us.”

Alec’s expression was stunned, apparently so moved by Cronin’s words and the haunted sincerity in his eyes that all he could do was nod.