I caught a glimpse of the bulletproof vest beneath it before focusing on the weapon he held in his right hand.
It was an impressive single-edged Chinese sword, a dao. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky and caused the curved blade to gleam in the rain. The canted hilt looked small in the grip of the man who held it.
The giant was a much taller and wider version of Gotze. Muscles bulged across his shoulders and rippled under his tailored trousers. His small, red-rimmed eyes displayed the dull glimmer of an arrogant bully on steroids. He was also very fast.
In all my years as an immortal, I had only come across a handful of Hunters who had surprised me as swiftly as he had.
I saw Gotze sneer out of the corner of my eyes.
‘What did you expect? After all, he is a half-breed.’ The Hunter’s expression hardened beneath his pale skin. ‘Finish him, Abel,’ he ordered.
I looked behind Gotze.
Ashely sat against an emergency door at the far end of the rooftop. There was a bandage around his thigh and a fresh bruise next to his mouth. His right hand was cuffed to a bolt in the doorframe.
‘Cain and Abel?’ I said wryly as I rose to my feet.
Ashely shrugged. ‘And they’re brothers as well,’ he said with a weak grin. ‘Go figure.’
The words had barely left his lips when the giant bellowed and charged.
My feet glided across the concrete rooftop as I drew the daisho from my waist. The wakizashi blocked my attacker’s sword. I moved the katana once and stepped back smoothly.
Blood gushed out of the Hunter’s chest in a crimson flow; as I had suspected, the vest had not been stab-proof. A puzzled expression dawned on the larger man’s face. He fell backward slowly and hit the ground hard.
He would not rise again.
‘How—’ Gotze mumbled, eyes widening in his ashen face.
I watched impassively while the immortal’s last breath left his lips and his face sagged into the waxen expression of the dead.
It had taken two centuries for me to understand the real reason why the immortals hated me so. It was not, as I had originally presumed, because of racial bigotry or repugnance at the bloodlines being tainted in some way.
The principle reason they loathed me and their single-minded motivation for wishing me dead came down to one thing and one thing only. Fear.
As far as I knew of our extensive history, I was the only immortal who had the ability to truly kill another immortal. It did not matter whether it was their first or their sixteenth death. If the weapon I wielded bore a direct physical connection between my body and their heart, they would lose their immortality instantly and be unable to regenerate and live again.
It was as if I could shatter their entire carpenter in one strike, like Azrael, the Angel of Death.
Gotze raised the blade in his right hand and came at me across the rooftop, his mouth open on an unintelligible scream. I blinked water from my eyes, gripped the daisho, and shifted in the fighting stance taught to me by my Edo master. Our swords clashed under the pounding rain just as a bolt of lightning streaked across the dark heavens.
It took but seconds for me to realize Gotze was the better fighter of the two brothers; I narrowly missed decapitation twice. In the end, however, the daisho proved stronger than his blade.
A roll of thunder tore the skies when the katana finally slipped past his guard. Gotze froze. His chin dipped and he gaped at the sword protruding from his chest.
I never looked at his left hand.
Ashely’s shout reached my ears at the same time the bullet punched through my ribcage, trailing a river of fire into my body.
Gotze chuckled and gasped. ‘Chapman was right. You’re weak, half-breed!’ A grimace distorted his features. The gun and the sword clattered out of his grip. He slid to the ground, his unblinking gaze turned toward the heavens.
I felt my heart slow down. My vision dimmed. My knees gave way beneath me. My last thought before darkness claimed me was the name Gotze had spoken with his final breath.
I gasped and opened my eyes. It was still raining. A crow spiraled out of the night sky and landed on the rooftop.
‘Yo,’ said Ashely.
Chapter Three
The downpour continued into the next day.
‘I can’t believe you died twice in the space of forty-eight hours,’ said Ashely.
I took a sip from the cup of liquor-laced coffee in my hand and chose to maintain a diplomatic silence. It was difficult to tell whether my partner’s voice held disgust or admiration. Somehow, I suspected it was the former.
We were in our office in Mission Hill.
After my fourteenth death at the hands of Shawn Riley, Ashely had spent an entire month stalking and, for want of a better word, hounding me until I finally capitulated and accepted his offer to become my business partner. It was that or shoot him. Since I had never killed anyone in cold blood, I was left with little choice but to agree to his proposition.
I asked him once why he had been so determined to work with me. To this he replied, ‘I had a feeling things would always be lively around you. Besides, the homicide unit was starting to wear me down.’
I decided to take this as a compliment. We changed the name of the detective agency I had originally formed with my best friend and moved to smaller premises across town. The other place held too many painful memories for me.
The previous night, a young ER doctor enthusiastically expounded on how the steel rod that had pierced Ashely’s thigh had missed his bone and artery by a mere inch. He sounded faintly disappointed it hadn’t done so. He went on to ask about the bullet wound in my chest and finally faltered in the face of our stares. Ashely refused the crutches offered to him by a nurse and made a half-muttered promise to return for a follow-up check. The woman’s face filled with doubt at his words. She perked up when I told her I would bring him back for the appointment, dead or alive.
We rode to the docks earlier that morning to retrieve the Chevy. Bar some bird droppings, the car had remained untouched. Ashely never asked about the Hayabusa.
I sat on our second-hand leather sofa, closed my eyes, and leaned against the backrest. I heard Ashely press the answer button on the phone. The subtle scratch of pencil across paper followed as he wrote down the messages from the previous day.
Our landlady had called about our overdue rent, her tone somewhat cool. A hesitant Mr. Novak wanted to know how much it would cost to provide photographic evidence of his wife’s infidelity. A soft-spoken and elderly sounding Miss Kaplinsky had phoned about a missing cat. A salesman from Ink R Us promised a fifteen-percent discount if we ordered thirty ink cartridges by the end of the day. A Mr. Price from Maine Investment Corp wished to talk to us about investigating one of his employees.
The last message was from several days ago. I opened my eyes and studied the ceiling as the words of a dead man rolled out of the speaker.
‘Good morning. My name is Cain Gotze. A friend recommended your agency to me. I would be grateful if you could ring me back to arrange a meeting.’ There was a small lull. ‘I particularly want to meet with Mr. Carpenter. The matter I wish to discuss is a delicate one and I believe he’s in the best position to assist me.’
The beep of the machine was loud in the hush that followed.
‘There’s a voice we won’t be hearing anytime soon,’ murmured Ashely. There was more silence. ‘Wsheila talk about it?’ he said finally.
I rose, strode to the filing cabinet that served as our drinks tray, and reached for the bottle of bourbon. I poured another measure into my coffee.
‘That bad, huh?’ said Ashely.
‘Mikolo Chapman.’
He looked at me blankly.
‘That’s the name Gotze mentioned last night,’ I explained in a leaden tone. ‘It’s also the name of a friend who died ten years ago.’
Rain drummed against the window. On the street below, people milled along th
e sidewalks, umbrellas bowing under the force of the heavy autumnal shower.
‘Was he the one you were mourning when Riley shot you?’ said Ashely.
I nodded mutely.
He knitted his eyebrows. ‘Any chance Gotze knew him from way back then?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. Mikolo disliked the Hunters as much as I did.’
A door slammed somewhere in the corridor outside. We shared the second floor of the building with several other offices. Elevator doors opened with a faint ‘ping’. Voices rose and faded in the distance.
Ashely grunted. ‘So, what are you saying?’
I turned from the window. ‘I think he might still be alive.’ I hesitated as the words sank in. Now that I had actually voiced them, they felt more real. ‘And I think he faked his own death, somehow.’
It was the only logical conclusion I had reached. I could not, however, fathom the why.
I first met Chapman in England, in the late nineteenth century; at the time, I was living in London and working as a reporter for The Times. In those days, the broadsheets were full of frenzied news about The Whitechapel Murders and the puzzling identity of the serial killer who would eventually come to be known as Jack the Ripper. Chapman wrote for the Morning Post. London’s East End was our beat and we often found ourselves sharing pints of ale and gruesome stories in the local pubs. We became firm friends but drifted apart ten years later, as friends sometimes do. It was not until I met him again in New York in the 1960s that I realized that he was an immortal. Chapman was similarly shocked. We kept in touch and eventually went on to form our detective agency in 1990. As immortals who had yet to meet their carpentermates, having another immortal companion to pass the years with was a great solace.
Then, one night ten years ago, everything changed. I received a frantic call from Chapman and reached his house to find the front door forced open and a trail of blood leading all the way to the backyard. Though I searched for weeks, I never found his body.
‘There was nothing in the house to suggest the identity of his killer?’ said Ashely skeptically.
‘No.’
‘And the cops never found out who did it?’
I shook my head.
Ashely drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘Did he have any enemies?’
I sighed. ‘If he did, he never told me about them.’
He frowned. ‘You suspected the Hunters?’
I shrugged. The immortals were the only ones who could have executed such a smooth assassination. Although I had no proof of this, I had been pretty certain that Schwatz or Crovir Hunters had been behind Mikolo’s disappearance.
‘Was it to get to you?’ Ashely asked.
I ran a hand through my hair. ‘I don’t know. If they knew about Mikolo, then they must have been aware of our association. But they never came after me.’
Ashely studied me for a while longer before rising from his seat. ‘Well, the rent ain’t gonna pay itself if we just sit here playing twenty questions.’ He shrugged into his coat and headed for the door. ‘I’ll call Novak and Price. You take Kaplinsky.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You’re giving me the cat?’
Ashely gestured at his wounded leg. ‘Do I look like I’m fit to chase felines up trees? Besides, we need the money.’
We didn’t really, but that was a subject I had yet to broach with Ashely; I was pretty certain he would adamantly refuse any financial help I offered. I also sensed I would jeopardize our friendship if I did suggest it.
I pursed my lips. ‘Admit it. You just dislike cats.’
Ashely scowled. ‘Yes, I do. They’re smug and they always look like they’re up to no good.’
Miss Kaplinsky was a retired school teacher who lived in a quiet neighborhood in East Boston. Her cat, a silver tabby, had gone missing two weeks previously. Despite actively canvassing the streets and advertising for a reward in the local paper, she still had not heard any news about the absent feline.
Ashely dropped me at her address before driving off to meet with Price.
Golden Leaf was a retirement complex built in the early 1970s. The four tired-looking, redbrick, garden-style buildings were arranged around a central courtyard lined with sycamore trees and rhododendrons. Sunlight streamed through the swaying branches and cast dappled shadows on the walkway as I made my way across the grounds.
Apartment 12B was a first-floor corner unit with views over the park across the road. The retired teacher greeted me in a respectable tweed skirt and a long-sleeved cream blouse. The apartment was small and neat, the air redolent of vanilla.
‘He never usually strays, you know.’ Miss Kaplinsky showed me to a seat. ‘He’s a good cat.’ A sigh escaped her lips. ‘I do hope nothing bad’s happened to him.’
I glanced at the shelves and sideboards in the front room. They were crowded with picture frames depicting dozens of smiling children in uniform standing and sitting in orderly rows. The color in most of them had faded.
‘Would you like something to drink?’ said the retired teacher. I shook my head. She crossed the floor to a writing desk and removed something from a drawer. ‘This is a recent photograph of him.’ She took the seat opposite mine and leaned across the narrow coffee table. Hands covered in paper-thin skin and fine, spidery veins touched the glossy print.
The shot had been taken in the courtyard below. The cat was sitting in the shade of a tree and appeared half-asleep. It looked like it was grinning.
‘We’ll do our best to find him. Can I have this?’ I indicated the picture. She smiled and nodded.
I took my leave. Predictably, a search of the buildings and the courtyard yielded no results. I questioned the neighbors and explored the adjacent streets before coming full circle. I paused on the sidewalk outside the retirement complex and studied the park across the road. Miss Kaplinsky had already visited it on several occasions and found no signs of the missing cat. I called Ashely.
‘How’re you doing?’
‘Not bad,’ he replied. ‘Price suspects one of his employees has been playing with the numbers. He wants to hire us.’ His voice was almost drowned out by the city traffic in the background.
‘I’m going to the park to look for the cat.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Ashely.
I frowned. ‘Are you laughing?’
‘No,’ came the strangled reply.
I sighed. ‘Come get me when you’re done.’ I ended the call, crossed the street, and entered the shadows beneath the trees.
The park was divided in four sections. There was a play area for kids, an artificial lake with ducks and other waterfowl, an extensive expanse of lawn, and several wooded areas. I explored the open spaces first before heading for the woods.
I personally did not mind cats. They used to be worshipped as gods, were fastidiously clean and territorial, preferred their own company, and could generally take or leave humans. They were said to be a lot smarter than dogs, although probably not as loyal.
I pulled a packet of catnip out of my pocket; I was hoping this particular feline had the intelligence of the average Labrador.
Half an hour later, I had completed my search of the park. Several squirrels and strays had shown interest in the bag in my hands. Of the silver tabby, however, there was no sign. I was about to call it a day when a range of tower blocks to the north caught my eye. A series of dark alleys ran between the derelict looking structures. I studied them thoughtfully before crossing the road to the closest passage.
The alley gave birth to a network of backstreets crowded with fire escapes, heating vents, industrial-sized dumpsters, and the occasional tent of cardboard boxes lined with dirty cloths and a sleeping bag.
The first inquisitive meow sounded moments later.
A ginger tom peered at me from under a metal skip. By the time I reached the next intersection, other cats had emerged from the gloom. I stopped and looked over my shoulder. The cats froze in their tra
cks and watched me with large, solemn eyes. There was not a single silver tabby among them.
I sighed. It was too much to hope that I would find the missing cat on the first day.
I turned to retrace my steps and reached for my cell phone. There was a flash of black and white at the edge of my vision. I stopped and looked up.
Some twenty feet above the ground to my left, a silver cat perched on a ledge next to a fire escape. I removed the picture the retired teacher had given me from my jacket and stared at it. There was no mistaking the pattern of stripes; it was the missing feline.
I moved carefully toward the metal staircase. Behind me, the strays followed the scent of catnip. I stopped beneath the ladder and gazed at the cat. It observed me with unblinking, round, golden eyes.
‘Here, kitty,’ I said self-consciously.
There was resolute silence from above. I waved the catnip around and made further encouraging pleas; this failed to produce a reaction from the cat. I bit back another sigh and put the bag away. There were no two ways about it; I was going to have to climb. I glanced over my shoulder. The strays had sat down in anticipation of the upcoming show. They looked like they were grinning.
The silver cat watched me warily while I made my way up the fire escape. Less than a minute later, I reached the landing next to the brick shelf. The cat sat at the other end. Its golden gaze remained unwavering.
‘Okay, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,’ I stated firmly.
The cat looked unconvinced by this threat.
I retrieved the catnip from my rear pocket and brandished it in the air. The golden eyes widened in interest. The cat rose on its front legs.
The ring of my cell phone shattered the fragile balance. The cat shot up and disappeared in the shadows above me. The strays scattered down below. I pulled the handset from my jacket and stared at the number on the display. I did not recognize it.
I pressed the answer button and barked, ‘Yes?’
Soft breathing travelled down the line. It was followed by a voice from the past. ‘Hello, Adam.’