Cronin's Key (25 page)

Alec wasn’t sure if Cronin was thanking him for the promise of driving lessons or for making his friends laugh. He guessed it didn’t matter which. “You’re welcome.”

Alec ordered his groceries, and given the standard vampire kitchen was lacking pots and pans and a sandwich press, he added those to his list as well.

“I feel terrible for depriving you of such basic things,” Cronin said. He hadn’t moved from where he was leaning against the desk at Alec’s side.

Alec stood up and leaned against Cronin. He put his forehead to Cronin’s so he would see the sincerity in his eyes. “You know, when I first got here, when I first learned that I was kinda stuck here, I was pissed off. I felt like I’d been taken hostage.”

Cronin pulled his face back, with a look of horror and shame. Alec quickly took his face in both hands.

“But now I know it’s not like that at all. Cronin, you’ve not
deprived
me of anything. In fact, you’ve given me more than I dreamed possible. And I don’t mean material things, I mean in here.” He took Cronin’s hand and put it over his chest. “No, it’s not an ideal way to meet, but I’m still grateful we did.”

Cronin smiled so shyly, a faint blush tinting his pale cheeks. “I am grateful too.”

Alec took Cronin’s hands and held them in his. He leaned in and kissed him sweetly. “We have a few hours to fill in, yes?”

“What do you have in mind?” Cronin asked, his tone dripping with suggestion.

Alec laughed. “You still owe me that first date.”

* * * *

“This is disturbing,” Cronin said quietly.

Alec had thrown himself onto the plush corner sofa in the theater room and Cronin joined him as the little spoon. They were lying on the sofa like a normal couple, arms and legs entwined, watching their second movie.

“Disturbingly good? Or disturbingly bad?” Alec said with a laugh.

“Disturbingly accurate.”

“Oh.”

The film
Interview with a Vampire
was halfway through, but Alec hadn’t thought of actual credibility when he chose it. He just wanted Cronin to see some vampire movies, given he hadn’t seen any.

“You lived like that?”

Cronin nodded. “It’s not far wrong.”

Alec tightened his hold on him and started watching the movie with a new appreciation. “Will you tell me all about it one day?” he whispered.

Cronin sighed. “It’s nothing glorified. Some of it was brutal and unforgiving. You may think differently of me if you knew some of the things I’ve done.”

Alec kissed the back of Cronin’s head. “No I won’t. You are who you are, no excuses, no regrets. I don’t have any pretenses about what vampires do. I just want to know more about you, the man. What you lived through, what you’ve seen.”

“You’ve mentioned that a few times now,” Cronin mused.

“It fascinates me,” Alec said. “I can’t even imagine it.”

“Can you imagine the things you will have seen a thousand years from now?”

Cronin said it so casually, like it was a given that Alec would see a thousand years. An assumption that he would be turned vampire, to live a millennium with Cronin by his side.

Just a week ago that would have enraged Alec. He would have bristled, pissed off that someone dare assume the course of his life. But now it felt right, and better yet, Alec couldn’t wait for it to start.

He breathed in deeply and, with smiling lips, kissed the back of Cronin’s head once more.

* * * *

It had been such a perfect evening and just what Alec needed. Quiet conversations, quiet kisses, hand holding. Alec had almost forgotten about the pending war with a certain Egyptian Queen, despite the maps of pyramids strewn over the living room. It wasn’t until his cell phone beeped with a message from Campbell that he remembered.

His order of vampire-killing wooden bullets was ready for collection.

It was two in the morning—his body clock now completely warped—and he read the message out loud. “Order ready for collection. Leave payment on table.”

Cronin held out his hand. “Are you ready to go?”

Alec went to the kitchen drawer he’d put the other bundles of cash the other day and took three. “I only owe him twenty grand, but I’ll give him thirty.” He looked at Cronin, and considering it was his money, Alec asked, “Is that all right?”

Cronin nodded. “Of course. Pay him what you like.”

“He’s had a pretty rough couple of days,” Alec said with a shrug.

“Why did you agree to not meeting with him again,” Cronin asked, “but prefer to just collect in his absence?”

“The guy was about to drop dead of shock and fear,” Alec said. “And I figured if we ever needed some arsenal again at some point, he might be a good contact to have.”

Cronin nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Would you like us to come with you?” Jodis asked.

“No thanks,” Alec said with a smirk. “I think you scared him the most with the little icy touch at the end of your last visit.”

Jodis grinned at the compliment. “Thank you.”

Cronin laughed quietly, put his arm around Alec, and they were gone.

The pickup was simple. The small bunker room was empty, save boxes of wooden-tipped bullets on the middle of the table. “There are two hundred,” Cronin said simply.

“Are you like Rain Man or something?”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Cronin picked the boxes of bullets up; Alec exchanged them for the three separate bundles of ten thousand dollars. He put his arm around Cronin’s waist and they leapt back to Cronin’s apartment.

Cronin put the bullets on the table, and Alec quickly sent Campbell a message, telling him there was extra payment for his trouble and not to forget to destroy the phone. He wasn’t going to, but in the end, he added that if they needed anything he could help with, they’d be in touch.

He didn’t need to add the fact they could find him wherever he was hiding. Alec was pretty sure Campbell knew that already.

But the exchange of bullets made Alec think of something else. Cronin was quick to notice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” he said, distracted.

“The line of your brow tells me otherwise,” Cronin said with a smile. “As does the way you worry your lip when you think.”

Alec smiled at him. “Well, I think we need to visit the police headquarters.”

Cronin stared at him, as did Eiji and Jodis. The room was deathly quiet. “What for?” Cronin asked coolly. “You know you can’t go back there. You’ve seen the papers and reports. They’re still looking for you, Alec.”

“Not to my old department,” Alec corrected. “There’s a large storage room in the fourth level basement. It’s where they keep the recovered weapons and bulletproof vests.”

“Bulletproof vests?” Eiji asked, somewhat intrigued, somewhat amused.

“Not for me,” Alec said. “But for you guys.”

This time the three vampires looked at him like he’d lost his mind. Alec picked up a bullet. “If we have these, what’s to say they don’t? I mean, they killed Mikka with a wooden bullet to the heart, didn’t they?” Alec shrugged. “I don’t want that to happen to any of you.”

“Okay,” Cronin whispered. Alec wasn’t sure if he agreed out of fear for his own life or because Alec was worried, but he was just happy he agreed. He gave him the address, and with a promise to return quickly, Alec and Cronin leapt to the NYPD headquarters.

The storage room was deserted and lit only with emergency lighting. There were rows of shelves filled with boxes, all with case file numbers, every type of gun ever made that the police had confiscated from the streets, and the bullets to go with. There were knives, swords, shivs, bats. You name it, it was shelved, catalogued, and stored right here.

Alec had been to the Property Clerk Division, or the storage vault as they called it, a few times over his years as a cop. He knew it was locked to the whole force, manned only by officers at the front of the cage-like front wall who required approved paperwork before retrieving the specifically numbered item to the requesting officer.

No one else could get in here.

Unless you could just magically appear by way of quantum leaping.

“This place isn’t manned from 10:00 p.m. ’til 6:00 a.m., but it’s locked tight. We shouldn’t be interrupted,” Alec explained. “Most of this stuff is for criminal cases—evidence, confiscated weapons, that kind of thing.”

“Good lord,” Cronin whispered, taking in the height and length of shelves full of weaponry. “I’m glad Eiji didn’t come with us. He’d never want to leave.”

Alec snorted out a laugh. He was officially on the run from the police, he’d hacked into an online streaming account, and he was now stealing police property. There was no doubt on which side of the cop/felon line he now stood. He didn’t even try to justify his reasons in his head. He looked at Cronin and had every reason he’d ever need.

He searched the shelves until he found a military style backpack and started to collect what he wanted. He took a few Glock 9mm pistols, a dozen empty magazine cartridges. He found the holsters next, thigh, shoulder and ankle, and put them into the backpack. He saw some flares and on second thought, added them to his collection as well.

Next he found the cache of crossbows. “Remind me to come back here at Christmastime for Eiji,” Alec said.

Cronin laughed. “What can I get for you?”

“The vests?” Alec said. He scanned the shelves. “I don’t know where they are.”

Cronin left him to it, and Alec collected a few crossbow arrow quivers, knowing Eiji would
love
them. The sleek quivers strapped onto the back like a holster and held arrows at the ready. Alec smiled as he added them to his cache in the backpack.

“Stop!”

Alec froze.

“Put your hands where I can see ’em!” the voice barked. The voice was a few shelves over and Alec realized it wasn’t being said to him, but to Cronin.

And that just pissed Alec off.

He stalked toward the offending voice, with no concern for his own safety, snatched a pistol from the shelf, and clicked a magazine into it. The sound was deafening in the silence. He pointed the handgun out, ready to fire, and found a middle-aged, pudgy uniformed officer holding a gun at a smirking Cronin.

“Stop pointing your gun at him,” Alec demanded, his voice booming in the otherwise quiet room.

The man spun and then had his gun pointed at Alec. “How did you get in here?” the man asked. Then he narrowed his eyes, recognition flashed in them. “Hey, you’re MacAidan! The cop who disappeared.” He turned back to Cronin, his voice was shaking. “I saw you in the footage too.”

In the time it took to blink, Cronin stood in front of the officer and had the standard issue handgun pulled into four misshapen and bent parts of metal. He held them on the palm of his hand. “Your gun fell apart. You really should be more careful.”

The officer, now wide-eyed and three shades of white, took the deformed pieces of what was his gun in his shaking hands. “What the… how’d you… what the hell are you?”

Now that the cop was unarmed, Alec put the gun on the shelf beside him. He made a point of reading the man’s name badge. “Officer Bryant, we’re not going to hurt you. And yes, I am Detective MacAidan. So now that we’re acquainted, you’re going to help us. I need bulletproof vests and night vision goggles. Where would I find those?”

The older man shook his head. “I can’t…”

Cronin snapped out a growl. “You will do everything Alec asks of you.”

Bryant took a reflexive step back, clearly his instincts screamed at him that Cronin was dangerous, a realization that Alec found amusing. His wide and frightened eyes met with Alec’s and he nodded. “Third aisle, at the back.”

Alec gave him a warm smile. “See? We can all get along.”

Cronin herded Bryant along with Alec until he found what he was after. “Excellent,” he said, putting one pair of NVG in his almost-full backpack. Then he found the vests. There were six. “We’ll take all of them.”

Cronin picked them up easily. “Is there anything else you’d like?” he asked Alec.

“Yeah,” Alec said, looking at the corner security camera and then to Bryant. “I want you to give De Angelo and all the boys in my division a message for me. For all the times they laughed and called me crazy, tell them this: they don’t know the half of it. They’re clueless to a whole other world.” Then Alec looked back up to the camera. “And De Angelo, consider this my resignation. I’m not missing, I wasn’t abducted, you’re an asshole, and I fucking quit.” Alec punctuated his little speech with a salute.

Cronin laughed. “Have you everything you need?”

“Yep,” Alec said simply. Then, considering Cronin was holding an armful of armored vests, Alec walked behind him and slid his free arm around his waist, holding on possessively. He rested his chin on Cronin’s shoulder and smiled at Officer Bryant. “Wanna see something special?” he asked him. The pale-looking policeman shook his head. Alec laughed, and they leapt.

* * * *

Alec was still laughing as they arrived back at the apartment, though the effects of leaping made it sound more of an amused groan. But as soon as they arrived, they noticed a panicked movement to their right. Cronin quickly threw the vests onto the floor, stood in front of Alec, and gnashed his teeth.

Alec hadn’t even blinked.

Cronin realized before Alec that it wasn’t a threat, but reason for concern nonetheless. Johan, Bes, and Eleanor were there, talking so fast Alec could barely understand them, but he recognized the look on their faces.

Something was wrong.

“They were attacked,” Eiji explained. He looked just as worried.

“What happened?” Cronin asked, only then moving from in front Alec.

“We were coming back last night,” Johan said, “long before sunrise, when Eleanor saw us being ambushed. We had the advantage of foresight, but their numbers were many.”

“What did they want?”

Johan’s gaze slid quickly to Alec. “They wanted the key.”

Cronin started to growl, and Alec put a reassuring hand on his lower back.

Bes spoke next. “They were from Northern India, Cronin. I know this from their dialect. We heard them say they would get rid of the key so the war is over.”