“See where I hit ‘em?” Pike Rolson grabbed the ‘wolf by the ears and lifted its face off of the ground. “Right between the eyes.”
From most Seconds, such a statement would be a boast, a way to one-up the First they were training, but Pike Rolson was simply stating facts; teaching Barry how he could be most effective on the streets. He was a good man and a good teacher, though most assumed a different sort of character lurked below the surface of his scarred face.
Barry looked away from Rolson’s thin frame as the Second let the creature's head drop back to the wet pavement. It was another night of rain, a silvery drizzle that mingled with the blood and filth on the streets, not quite strong enough to wash it all away.
In the streetlight the whole city seemed covered in dark, slippery blood, oozing through the cracks in the pavement and slipping quickly around corners to pool out of sight. The Bridge had been seeing more action than usual; two werewolves in the space of three days and twice that many vamps, so they’d been told to step up patrols in the area.
For most of the guys on the street it was chance to show off – to them, it was about who could bag the most undead and with the most “style”; Rolson was one of the few that seemed to care more about the job than the killing.
A nod from his partner told him it was time to go, and Barry made his was to the waiting squad car, holstering his gun as he went. The first time they’d come up against a ‘wolf he’d drawn his Chastiser just like they’d told him in training, and Rolson had torn him up one side and down the other.
“Use that thing if you have to," Rolson had said through clenched teeth, “not because they told you to. If you’ve got the range, draw and fire – don’t get me killed out here, First.”
Rolson hadn’t mentioned the incident again, but Barry had been very careful to leave his Chastiser at his hip.
Once they were both seated and safe behind the bulletproof glass of the car, Rolson pulled a small pad from the center console and made a quick notation. He kept his Kill List meticulous and accurate, a testament more to his ability to do his job than the size of his ego. Trammel had made the right choice in picking the tall Second as a training officer, at least from where Barry was sitting.
“Another one,” Barry tried to keep his voice steady, but actually seeing the undead in person was a whole different ballgame than having instructors dressed up in foam suits and growling at him from across a gym floor, “what the hell does this mean?”
He’d been told vamps and ‘wolves liked to congregate wherever there were pockets of concentrated unholy energy, invisible disturbances in the normal order of things that humans would perceive as “creepy” but drew the undead like moths to a hellflame.
“Mean?” Rolson’s voice was soft in the car, but it carried the confidence that came with experience. “It means there’s a bubble here, Howe.”
“Yeah, but,” Barry hesitated – his time on the streets amounted to little more than a month, but from what others in his training class were telling him, the amount of action he’d seen was far out of the ordinary, “there are just so damn many of them. More than usual.”
“Usual,” Rolson said, and Barry could hear the amusement in his voice, “more than usual. Really, Howe? Is that your considered opinion? From your years of long experience?”
Barry shifted in his seat; he hadn’t spent long as a Deacon, but that didn’t mean he was completely green – he’d done four years with the sheriffs in his home town before coming to the big city. “My experience doesn’t really matter – there are more undead here than there should be. I’ve looked at the daily reports, same as you. This is one of the biggest spikes we’ve seen in a while.” He turned from scanning the darkened streets to look directly at Rolson. It was a breach of protocol; Firsts were supposed to always be “eyes out” in the car, but the Second needed to know he meant business.
Rolson met his gaze for a moment and then his mouth curved up in a small smile, tugging at the long scar on the side of his face. “Not bad, First. At least you can read the dailies well enough to know a spike from your own ***. Most can’t.” He pointed a thin finger out toward the bridge. “Now get your eyes back where they belong.”
His point made, Barry went back to scanning the pavement in front of the car. The undead could move faster than he’d ever believed and even parked in the open, a werewolf or vampire would be able to cover the distance to their car in a matter of seconds.
“It’s about that ‘wolf, isn’t it?” Rolson asked softly, and Barry nodded. The Second had seen what happened, even if he didn’t understand it either. Two weeks ago, their first call at the bridge and a shaggy brown ‘wolf had run them down, cornering Barry and cutting him off from Rolson.
There had been a moment of awful silence, of horrifying realization that his throat was going to be torn out and spit on the ground like so much gristle, and then the thing had actually spoken.
“He comes,” the creature had said, and then loped off into the darkness, leaving both Barry and Rolson stunned. They’d both heard it; these things were supposed to be brain-dead monsters, twisted human representations that had sold their souls to a lower power.
That ‘wolf had been different.
“Look, Howe,” Rolson spoke slowly, “we’re just grunts, you and I. You’re smarter than the average First I train and maybe I’m not your typical Second, but they don’t pay us to think. They pay us to keep people safe, to keep the streets clean,” he drew his Chastiser and thumbed the button, black spikes springing into view, “to kill.”
Barry grunted; somehow, that didn’t feel like enough.
- D
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