Chapter 16: Earning Your Keep - The Night Market

The lobby of Leroux Tower had bled into siren-light. Red strobes pulsed across polished marble like a heartbeat. Security guards were posted at the doors, guns drawn but unsure where to point them. The outside world had become a roar – distant, chaotic, climbing.

Laik walked through to the entrance, met by Swan who fell into step beside him, his coat ragged and dripping with gutter water. His left cheek was swollen and already darkening.

‘Looks pretty,’ Laik said, spying at the injury.

‘Just adds to the handsomeness, I say.’

‘Trouble on tonight of all nights,’ Laik muttered, gaze cutting toward the front doors. ‘They must be crazy . . . You up for this?’

‘Still standing, ain’t I?’

‘Alright. Who are they?’

Swan spat something bloody into a handkerchief before tucking it into his pocket. ‘Street vamps. They’re family-less, looks like some sort of gang. Security got jumped, a couple of us Enforcers at the same time. I was out having a smoke with Duncan when it happened. Didn’t get a good look at any of their markings. Don’t know who they are,’ he said. ‘But I know what they are.’

He looked at Laik with a smirk. ‘Dead.’

The security guards flinched as the Enforcers approached. Swan didn’t slow. ‘Open the doors. Lock them behind us. They don’t open until we give the all-clear,’ he ordered.

The locks disengaged with a reluctant chunk. Cold air kissed the lobby like a warning. Laik stripped his suit jacket off and tossed it onto the security station, muscle rolled beneath the fabric of his shirt as he worked the sleeves to his elbows.

Then they stepped into the night.

The street outside Leroux Tower had turned into a war zone. Glass crunched underfoot, lamplight flickering off chrome and blood. Cavendish Enforcers were already in the thick of it – some swinging, some sprawled, some not moving. The unaffiliated had come in force. Street vampires. Bruisers. Grudge-drunk with nothing to lose and too much to prove. The jealous. The manic. The dregs of their kind.

Laik didn’t hesitate. He dropped into the fight like gravity had shifted direction.

The first vampire barely saw him coming. A fist across the jaw sent him to the kerb. Another grabbed Laik’s arm, but Laik twisted, and shoved him against the wall, gripped by the collar. Headbutt. Once. Twice. They crumpled.

Swan tackled a brawler off Duncan’s back and flattened him with a knee to the ribs, then pulled his blooded, but thankful, partner to his feet. A slap on the back got his head back in the game.

Across the street, the pack had reformed, a dozen street vamps huddled like a rugby team, fresh enough to be dangerous, old enough to be cocky. One of them, a rangy man with gold in his teeth, cracked a length of pipe in his hands against flagstones.

‘Here we go, fellas!’ he howled, baring his fangs like an animal. ‘They had to spit out a few more because they didn’t like a fair fight! Don’t matter none, does it? Now we can show the Family dogs what a real party looks like!’

Laik dabbed the blood trickling from his nose and grinned. He knew their type, and it would be a joy to break this one in particular. Sure, violence was a requirement of the job, but in a situation like this, it wasn’t just an obligation – it would be a delight. Instances like this convinced him that if God did exist, not only would he be watching, but Laik would be carrying out his will.

Laik heavily stepped onto the bonnet of a parked car, made his way to its roof and looked at the faces in the alleyway staring back – eyes keen, fangs already out and catching the streetlight. These didn’t seem like the normal unorganised vampires looking for a scrap, but at this point he was too eager getting down to business to work out the specifics.

‘I don’t know what your beef is and, frankly, I just don’t care! But you listen up and listen good!’ Laik barked. ‘You’ve already forfeited any chance of being allowed to walk away from this, so that leaves you two choices! You can surrender yourselves to the Cavendish Family and be brought in to be reprimanded! Or . . . you can stay as you are. But if you take the latter, I am warning you: things will get messy!’

‘Ha!’ The street vamp raised his arms. ‘With just a handful? You should have brought an army with you, Cavendish! It would have made this a fair fight!’

As his companions fell in behind, Laik’s face darkened with a smile so terrible it would have made the Devil shiver. When he spoke, his voice dripped with danger. There was nothing more liberating than permission.

‘Funny. I was about to suggest the same to you. Have it your way!’

Duncan led the charge with seven others, roaring as they met the pack like a hammer to glass. A few of the street vamps pulled knives – flashes of metal that caught the light like warnings. Swan singled out the culprit who’d roughed him up earlier, pointed at him and stormed forward toward the violence.

They crashed together. Snarls. Yells. Somewhere, tyres screeched and a car alarm wailed as background noise. Laik raced forward, lashing out at what he could, the one with gold teeth directly in his sights. A blur of bodies in his sight skimmed and fell and was shoved before, in seconds, he was already upon what he presumed to be the one running the show.

Goldie, as Laik affectionally named their leader on account of his teeth work, swung the metal pipe wide – its radius wide enough to be dangerous, but slow enough to be easily ducked beneath. A second swing sailed overhead, leaving them open for a kick to the chest that Laik swiftly delivered. The pipe clattered on the ground. But the punk to his left was too quick with his punches. The first few landed against raised forearms until hooks to his kidneys made them lower just enough to expose him. Laik staggered, sucked wind. His jaw shuddered from knuckles. Then they had him. Two of them grabbed hold, dragging him down. Goldie, who hugged his chest to ease a cracked rib, lifted something with a metallic click.

A pistol.

‘Outta the way!’ Goldie snarled, trying to aim through the flurry of grabbing and swinging.

* * *

Swan thrust a knee into something hard that cracked beneath the pressure, pushing its owner away before scanning the mess of limbs where Laik had been pulled under. But it was too late to stop what was coming.

A flash accompanied a tight thunder crack.

Goldie admired his handiwork.

Then something shifted.

The shooter stepped back.

Swan held a breath, staring at the execution he had just witnessed. Rage began to bubble and brew, but it was being subdued by disbelief. And then, alarm.

Without warning, the two men on top of Laik were launched. Not shoved but catapulted away with power. One slammed into the side of a parked van, cratering the panelling. The other crashed flat against a brick wall before tumbling down in an unnatural heap.

Laik rose.

Only . . . it wasn’t just Laik anymore.

His frame grew larger, casting a broader shadow. His spine had curved slightly forward, his hands swelling at the knuckles, fingertips blackened as though dipped in ink. His eyes were burning pits. A deep growl echoed out from somewhere too deep in the chest to belong to a man.

Goldie twitched to fire once more, but he was stopped from pulling the trigger. Stopped from standing, as his legs were pulled away beneath him. Stopped from seeing the world right way up. And as the colossal mass whipped Goldie over and over into the pavement, gold teeth scattering in the road, he stopped resembling anything human or vampire.

The thing that Laik had become shifted its gaze. The shimmering, burning pits that were his eyes bounced between the rabble.

Someone ran at him with a knife.

The creature snatched the arm mid-swing and hurled the man backwards. He hit the wall so hard, it cracked.

Swan whooped, even as he ducked a flying elbow. ‘Alright! Let’s go!’

The street vamps were faltering now, with the Enforcers emboldened by the transformation. A few had already fled, kicking up trash and blood as they scrambled for alleys.

The beast roared, thundering after them.

It charged, shoulder-barging into an obstructing car so hard it skidded sideways. It hit the group like a wrecking ball – bodies flung, one man lifted clean off his feet and slammed into a bin that buckled under his weight. Others were swept aside, broken.

It was too much. Swan knew the signs. This wasn’t Laik winning a fight – this was the thing inside looking for an excuse to keep fighting.

He chased after, waving and yelling, intercepting just before the entity could bring a steel bench down on someone’s head.

‘Laik!’ he barked. ‘Hey! Hey! Back to me! Remember who you are.’

The creature snapped its head toward him. Eyes locked.

‘You’re Cavendish. You’re an Enforcer. You have rank. So, let’s ease it down, right? You don’t wanna be seen like this . . .’

The monstrosity turned its entire mass and began to march toward him with unknown intent.

Swan felt the ground shudder on approach, starting to worry. ‘Whoa, buddy! Calm! We drink together! You like bad music, and I rib you for it! And you still owe me a beer for that job in Montford. We’re friends, you asshole!’

Still no change.

Swan gritted his teeth. ‘You really want to scare someone helping you?’ he shouted. ‘What do you think Pepper would say if she saw you acting like this?!’

That did it.

The entity flinched. The growl collapsed into a rattling breath. The hunched posture shifted. Inch by inch, the shadow inside Laik crawled back down into his being and vanished. And finally, Laik drunkenly stood beneath the streetlight, before staggering back to a wall and sliding down it. He coughed once, then winced sharply, hand instinctively clutching his chest. He looked at his trembling hands, attempting to work out which of the blood that soaked his shirt was his. Fragments of people, debris of brick and wood and bone lay around him. Fallen comrades. Still enemies. Hot blood infested the night air.

Swan kicked one of the street vamps over, gauging how dead they actually were. A shoe nudged their head side to side, checking their tattoos for any sign of gang markings. He couldn’t see any . . .

‘Round all of ours up,’ he ordered to the Enforcers in earshot. ‘If they’re hurt and can walk, get ’em up to medical. As for all this trash, drag them in for questioning. Doesn’t matter if they ain’t moving. Someone has to be alive enough to speak. And if they do object, hit ’em until they learn better manners. And someone lift the damn lockdown!’

Swan exhaled and looked around at the ruin before squatting before Laik, spying the soaked patch of red on his shirt. ‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘so much for the dress code. You back with us, buddy? You had me worried for a moment there.’

Laik grunted with a pained nod.

‘Didn’t know you cared.’

‘Yeah, that’s me. Real sentimental type. This is the last thing we needed. An attack on our turf, and while we’re hosting company? Mortis will be out for blood. You just stay there a minute, don’t push yourself.’

Laik eased the ruined shirt away from his skin and squinted at the hole. Blood-soaked, scorched around the edges. ‘Pain in my bloody ass. At least it went through.’ He smirked faintly before it was interrupted by a hiss. ‘Didn’t ruin the suit, though.’

It would be sore as anything until it was healed. Thanks to his nature, this wouldn’t take long at all, a handful of days at the most, but the inconvenience was the annoyance. Yet all this was nudged from his mind as he was haunted by the obvious: why didn’t they go for a kill shot? The heart, the head, the two vulnerable points for a vampire – they were completely exposed. He failed to believe that it was bad aim at such close range . . .

Security was already erecting barricades and rolling out lengths of hosepipe to begin washing away the aftermath. Reese strode out of the main doors, leading a gaggle of security behind her, who fanned out on her orders. With a finger pressed to her ear, she spoke to the tower in coordinating their response efforts, before addressing the pair.

‘Boys. What’s the damage?’

Swan didn’t sugar-coat it. ‘Three down, maybe more. Few got cut up, they’ll need checking, but I’m predicting a couple’ll be benched for a while. Duncan is out here somewhere. And he’ – he gestured at Laik’s chest – ‘I’m surprised he’s still ticking. That’s a close one . . . lucky sod.’

Reese blocked the light as she bent over Laik and made a low whistle.

‘Nasty. I’ll get medical to check you over, there’s a few down here.’ She looked to the swelling on Swan’s face upon rising, leaning for a better view. ‘What about you?’

‘Just a tap. I’ll be fine.’

‘If you insist.’

‘We need a hard perimeter, just to make sure there’re no stragglers,’ Swan advised, pointing here and there. ‘Start at the top of the car park entrance and cordon off the side roads. Leave just one open for the guests but make sure security don’t have guns showing or anything. We don’t want to scare the VIPs.’

‘Got it.’ Reese spoke into the radio, administering directions. Uniforms and suits broke from their set positions in the street.

Swan reached out and helped Laik up, steadying him with one arm. Laik staggered, hissed at the tug across his torso, then found his footing. Strength was already returning.

While they did, Reese had her finger pressed to her earpiece. Her face set into a frown, remaining silent. When she was finished, she addressed them.

‘Guys,’ she said, shifting nervously from foot to foot. ‘There’s something we need to see.’

Reese led them around the tower’s east side, where the outer lights flickered like dying stars. Just past a line of barricades, down a slope slick with tyre-marks and oil, was the entrance to the service garage. A camera above the bay door hung crooked, yanked aside so it faced a concrete pillar instead of the entryway.

They proceeded carefully down the incline.

Laik smelled it before he saw it.

They rounded the corner, and the parking garage unfolded in grim silence. At the far end of the bay, strewn over and under valet cars like discarded mannequins, were eight bodies. Torn, brutalised, pieces missing. A torso hanging over a windshield. A severed hand resting on a hood. One figure stuffed halfway beneath a rear axle, like they’d tried to crawl away. Most of what belonged inside the individuals was dashed over concrete.

On the wall behind them, smeared in thick, arterial red, were the words:

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW?

Laik stared. Swan didn’t speak. Reese spat the horror from her mouth. Behind them, other Enforcers began to gather – two exchanging a cigarette, another cradling a broken arm, all of them staring at the message like it had been addressed personally.

For Laik, it was.

Swan exhaled slowly. ‘Jesus. Guess in the chaos, nobody noticed.’

‘They must’ve slipped in during the fight,’ Laik wheezed. ‘Moved the camera, security wouldn’t have caught a thing.’

‘Victims?’ Swan asked.

Reese manoeuvred around a corpse in overalls silently soaking in a puddle of its own fluids. The Enforcer nodded grimly. ‘Valets, mechanics.’

Swan rubbed the back of his neck, then checked to see if a molar was about to come loose. ‘Hate to say it, but I’m glad it wasn’t guests. Can you imagine if someone important got carved up like this during the party? The fallout . . . heads would literally roll.’

‘That’s a very fair assumption, Swan. Can I take that as you volunteering for the job?’ someone asked.

They turned in unison beneath the humming strip lights and the painted accusation.

Mortis Cavendish approached at a leisurely pace, hands in his coat pockets, eyes already sweeping the bloodied parking garage. He drew a slim, wooden cigarette case from his pocket, older than anything parked here, and lit a cigarette with the flick of an old brass lighter. The orange flare briefly cast shadows under his cheekbones, the silver in his hair gleaming like frost.

Swan straightened. ‘Give me a shot, sir. I’ll happily bring the culprits in.’

Reese ran a hand through her short hair. ‘Provided they’re not already dead.’

‘No,’ Mortis replied, exhaling a thin stream of smoke. ‘The ruckus was just a distraction. This,’ he said as he gestured vaguely to the slaughter spread out, ‘the message, was the real intention.’

He stepped forward and crouched, appraising one of the corpses without touching it. His eyes narrowed faintly. Then, standing again with the sigh of someone who had seen, and approved, such massacres over his long tenure, he shook his head.

‘What an absolute mess.’

Laik tried to straighten himself. ‘Since when did you start smoking again, sir?’

‘Since things like this started happening.’ Mortis gave him a side glance. ‘Don’t tell Concetta. She would absolutely kill me for it. You best get that looked at, son. The last thing we need is you bleeding out.’

‘I’ll be going to medical after this.’

‘Then make sure you do.’ He looked toward Reese, plucking the smoke between his large fingers. ‘Who else has seen this?’

‘A handful, apparently. And them.’ She thumbed behind them. ‘Word hasn’t travelled yet.’

‘Good. Lock it down,’ Mortis said. ‘Get it cleaned up. I don’t want this to cause a commotion.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Reese promptly turned to those congregating and, with her hands and a few choice words, began to disperse them.

Swan gave the graffiti on the wall a longer look, the words still glistening wet.

‘You got any idea what it means, sir?’ he asked.

Mortis inhaled again, eyes narrowed to slits through the smoke. ‘Not yet. But the list of those who have eyes on the Family is as long as . . . Well, it’s pretty long. What about you two? Any thoughts?’

Laik exhaled slowly through his nose. ‘I think it may be a rogue Ode Enforcer. One with a particular grudge against me.’

Mortis’s brow lifted faintly. ‘Does he have a name, this troublemaker?’

‘Horus,’ Laik said flatly.

Mortis frowned in recollection. ‘Why does that sound familiar?’

Swan scratched the back of his neck. ‘He’s the asshole who hijacked a blood van last month, claimed it was cutting through Ode territory when it was on the border. I had my suspicions he was involved in that Vow Runner hit but couldn’t confirm it. Year before that, he tried to start something at the Night Market, said he had the right to shake down some of the stalls. Three years ago, had a brawl outside the Kingfisher. Killed three of ours solo. Almost single-handedly set off a war.’

Laik added dryly, ‘Only earlier tonight he tried to start something. I knew him before I fell under your name, sir. In fact, he was the one you personally told to shove off when we first met. He’s persistent and obsessive. Vindictive. Plus, he’s just a massive twat.’

Mortis nodded faintly, amused despite himself. ‘Ahh. Aren’t they all? That would make sense. And the gutter vamps here he would have paid off to do the dirty work. Classic cowardice dressed as performance. That is, if you’re correct.’

He took another drag.

Swan stepped closer. ‘Why so brazen? He must know this would get back to Lord Ode.’

‘He doesn’t think it will,’ Laik said, his voice dropping. ‘Or he doesn’t care if it does. So, what do we do about him?’

Mortis flicked ash to the concrete. ‘Nothing.’

Laik looked over. ‘Sir?’

‘Nothing – for now.’ Mortis’s voice was firm. ‘Any action taken publicly would jeopardise the pact between Families. The moment we accuse one of Dominic’s men of orchestrating this, we strain some already difficult relationships. We risk more than bruised egos, and I suspect that may be what the culprit wants.’

He exhaled smoke, watching it curl toward the red emergency lights still flickering overhead.

‘We endure. Until we can’t.’

Laik scowled, wincing at the throb in his chest. ‘Sir, letting anyone get away with this is—’

‘—outrageous?’ Mortis finished, giving him a look. ‘Yes. But wiser men than us have swallowed outrage to preserve the peace. And besides, we’ve a few of this rabble in good enough shape to talk. Let’s see what comes from their mouths before we brandish our weapons.’

He turned to walk, cigarette burning low between his fingers.

‘I won’t let generations of peace be undone by one lunatic,’ he added, without looking back. ‘And neither will you.’