Children of the Night Aff: Act 1, Scene 1 (Rated: R)
The Children of the Night Affair
Listen to them- the children of the night. What sad music they make!
- Dracula, film version.
Act I:
The Blue Plate Special
Somewhere in Greenwich Village, New York City. A Thursday afternoon in March.
Oliver was dreaming of an outdoor barbecue, with wagons and horses and family all around. At least, he thought they were his family. He’d been a vampire so long, he couldn’t really remember them anymore. But these faces were pleasant, and he often dreamed of them as if they were his family. It didn’t matter any more. The women wore long flowing dresses and the men would either be mugged or hit on in the modern streets of New York with their calf-clinging hose and their enormous cod pieces.
He missed the horses, mostly. It felt like the world around him had changed in the blink of an eye. A hundred years ago, even America was no more advanced than the world he was a boy in. But in the last century everything had changed, and that disturbed him. No wonder he kept dreaming about his family, about a distant simple age when people had the good sense to be afraid of vampires.
Today the vampires were the ones who lived in fear.
Damn. He woke up, but the dream lingered. He could smell the smoke from the barbecue. Had they even called it a barbecue? No, of course not. It was just a fire lit by travelers to warm their evening meal. There was never any romance to it, never any festivity attached. His mother complained the entire time about not stopping at the inn, and his father snapped at her harshly about the danger of cutpurses who sneaked into rooms through the windows.
Servants! Some of those faces belonged to servants, he was sure of it now. Funny how they were turned into family members in his dream.
He exhaled slowly, releasing the pent-up chemicals from his lungs. What a pleasing odor. Much nicer than wood smoke. He lifted a sluggish arm and reached across the bed, but he was sleeping alone. That made him sad for a moment. Oh, well, how long could he expect to hold the attentions of such a beautiful boy as Devon was. All that smooth skin and those perfect pink lips and those dark curls did not make up for the fact that he was a spoiled and demanding child who couldn’t decide whose bed he wanted to warm. Let Veracity have him.
Oliver smiled languorously in the dark. Veracity would soon regret stealing the boy away. My next lover must be older, more mature thought Oliver. He frowned in the dark. I really do smell smoke.
He threw his covers off and forced himself to concentrate. Vampires were deep sleepers, and he needed time to clear his head, time to think. But his heart rate was picking up speed, jolted up to six beats a minute by the adrenalin generated by the smell of… “Fire!” He tried to shout a warning, but his vocal cords wouldn’t work yet, and it came out croaky.
He could hear voices now, filled with panic and pain, coming from the basement. The young ones were sleeping down there! He threw open the door of his bedroom and descended two flights of stairs. At that point, the smoke was thick and acrid, and he could see flames licking at the living room drapes. He heard sirens, but they were still blocks away. And there was something else.
The smoke made it difficult to separate one scent from another, but he smelled strangers in the house. Humans!
The door to the basement exploded outward, splintered by the rush to safety of two panicked males, Guy and Adolfo. The figures that rushed after them were human, spraying a garlic solution and carrying sawed-off shotguns.
Oliver tried to think. What are humans doing in my house? How did they get in? They must have set the fires.
Guy and Adolfo made it to the front door and pulled it open. The afternoon sun blasted them with its accursed rays, and they screamed as water blisters began forming on their bare arms. They turned and rushed back into the burning house, into the arms of the humans who subdued them with the garlic, then pressed the shotgun muzzles to their heads and pulled the triggers.
The sound of the blast and the smell of vampire brains exploding against the walls caused another level of sound and horror to rise from the basement.
Oliver backed up the stairs, wondering if the humans had seen him. He was thinking of alternate routes of escape, already mourning the loss of his companions. Then he froze, transfixed by the vision of Veracity stepping out of the basement and into a black plastic sack. Two humans were zipping her inside. He watched as one of them hefted her over his shoulder and walked out the front door into the daylight. He reached out a hand, as if to draw her back inside, and his lips formed her name, but his instinct for self-preservation kept him from making a sound.
The sirens were closer now. He knew he could not let the New York City Fire Department find vampires in the basement. He would have to go down and help the others. He managed to open the door but the smoke and flames were too thick to go any farther. It smelled like their bedding was in flames, as if someone had set fire to their beds. But how could the humans have entered and done that kind of damage before they were detected? And what about Veracity? Had they drugged her? Was she injured? She didn’t fight them at all when they zipped the bag up around her.
He couldn’t see anything, and what was worse, he couldn’t hear anything from below. Something told him he was alone in the house, that his other companions, including the boy Veracity had stolen from him, were gone. Or dead. The smell of burning flesh was overpowering. No wonder they were screaming. Sirens were very close now, and he was filled with a sudden dread greater than his fear of fire. Water! They would aim hoses at the house and douse it with water! He had to flee!
Outside the neat, Greenwich Village brownstone, sitting in the rear seat of his parked Lincoln Continental, Walter Barbarossa watched the fire burn with a certain satisfaction. Perfect. The operation had gone smoothly. Having ditched the prize in the body bag in the back of the faux ambulance, Walter’s lieutenant, Joey Marcazzi, loped over to the limo. “All set, Boss,” the skinny kid said with a wink. He was tall and lanky and had the bright eyes and slight tremble of someone who had a bit too much cocaine in his system. “Went like a charm. We got her.”
“Good,” Walter said, nodding his balding head. Already, crowds were beginning to gather. “We better get going.” Behind them, the wail of the sirens was getting closer - and so was something else: a black Chevy tearing purposefully down the avenue, dodging the traffic, coming their way. Walter saw it from the corner of his eye.
Uh-oh, he thought. Not the cops. U.N.C.L.E.
Shit, the Thrush chief swore under his breath. “Get in the car Jo-Jo -”
“What?”
“- get in the fucking car! Now!” He grabbed the kid’s arm and dragged him into the back of the limo, then ordered the driver, “Go!” The limousine peeled away from the curb, burning rubber, followed by the ambulance.
As they roared into Twelfth Street, Illya Kuryakin floored the accelerator, taking the turn hard and tossing his partner, who was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, against the side door. Napoleon Solo took it in stride, bouncing easily off the panel. At times like now, Illya always drove this way.
“There they go,” Kuryakin said, motioning with his chin toward the retreating cars. But Solo’s attention was drawn to the burning brownstone and he noted movement in the windows. “Somebody’s still in there.”
“The fire department is on its way,” Kuryakin observed.
“They might not get here in time.”
Muttering a Russian curse, Kuryakin switched his foot from the accelerator to the brakes and the Chevy squealed to a halt.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Solo said, already on his way out the car door. “You see if you can catch Barbarossa.” He didn’t need to hear Illya’s reply. Solo and the car were already moving in opposite directions.
Gaining the stoop, Solo looked up, surveying the facade, squinting against the plumes of smoke. Damn. It was bad. From the drift of the smoke and the radiance of the heat, he guessed the fire was rising from the basement. He laid his hand flat against the front door and felt it warm but not untouchable. He yanked at the knob, found it locked as expected, and drove his elbow through the glass, shattering it. Smoke billowed through the new opening. Solo reached in and unlocked the door while shaking out a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.
Inside, the house was filled with a thick, swirling grey fog. Flames glinted at the rear of the house, at the far end of a long hallway.
“Anyone here?” Solo shouted, his eyes watering from the smoke. Then he called out again.
Oliver heard the human’s question from his bedroom where he threw on dark trousers, a shirt, and shoes, grateful for vampire muscles that allowed him to move at a speed no human could achieve. Next, he wanted to save his mother’s locket, the only family memento he did not store in his safety deposit box, but he couldn’t find it. He tried one more drawer, knowing he was risking his life by delaying his exit. He flung clothes over his shoulder until at last he spied the silver heart-shaped locket.
One side of his mouth curled in a brief smile. Humans thought silver was anathema to vampires, but, in truth, it was gold they couldn’t touch. It was gold that kept them out of the early churches and it was the gold of the early crosses that made people think they feared the Christian symbols. Vampires were allergic to gold. But his mother’s silver locket was the one artifact he could actually remember seeing around her neck, and he would not leave the house without it.
Below, Solo heard the sound of rummaging. Someone was upstairs and whoever it was sounded frantic. “Hello,” Solo called out, “Where are you? Are you hurt?” But there was the very real possibility that the person couldn’t answer and the fire was spreading from the kitchen fast.
If he was going to stage a rescue, he had to act quickly. There was no help for it. Replacing the handkerchief over his mouth, Solo ducked his head and headed up the smoke-filled stairway. Halfway up, his vision blurry, he nearly tripped over a body, regained his footing, then tripped over another. Straining to see, he made out the forms of two young men. Or, at least, judging from the torsos and the remains of their blood soaked clothes, they looked like young men. It was hard to tell since neither had a recognizable face. Someone had apparently pointed a shotgun barrel close to each of the heads.
“Jesus,” Solo murmured. All the exposed skin on the corpses had blistered so badly it’d gone black, which was odd since the fire was still mostly confined to the back of the house.
Upstairs, Oliver clutched his mother’s locket in one fist and stumbled into the corridor. At the back wall, there was a sliding panel concealing a secret passage with a fireman’s pole that extended down through the house, through the basement, and underneath to an abandoned sewer pipe.
He’d only been down there a few times. The pipe was only four feet in diameter. He would have to scuttle through it in a half crouch, but it led to a modern section of the city’s storm drain system. He could stay below ground, then exit through a manhole cover after dark. With single-minded purpose, he stumbled through the smoke to the end of the corridor.
Life had been easy since he came to New York. He cursed himself now for not thinking more seriously about escape routes. But he could get out before the humans found him. All he needed was to find the button that activated the panel. Where is it? Damn you, Veracity, why did you have to remodel?!!!
The fingers of his free hand searched in vain for the piece of paneling that was supposed to give way under pressure and reveal the mechanism that would activate the sliding wall. But he couldn’t find it. He howled with rage and pounded his fist against the wallpaper.
Solo heard the howl and the blow, and as he rounded the banister, gaining the second floor, he saw a shadowy, partially obscured figure in the hall. “Hey,” he called out.
Oliver’s last blow sent his fist crashing through the access panel. This time he howled in pain, as a sharp edge of paneling sliced through his forearm from his wrist half way to his elbow. He thrashed and struggled. When he finally pulled his arm out, he was bleeding freely, but what hurt the most was realizing he had just destroyed the mechanism for sliding the wall. The smoke was thick and noxious now, and he struggled to breathe. I’m going to die.
But in the next moment, Solo was beside him, grasping his shoulder above the injured arm. The agent hadn’t a clue what this young man was trying to accomplish by punching in a wall, but whatever it was, there was no time. “C’mon,” Solo said. With his free hand, he grasped the young man’s arm. The bloodied limb was tacky under his fingertips, but the injury looked only a little worse than superficial. “This way.”
“No. No!” Oliver struggled against Solo, but he was so overcome with smoke that he could not even disengage from the grip of a single human. In his mind’s eye he saw Veracity being zipped into the black bag and suddenly feared the same fate awaited him. His throat ached and burned, but he managed to rasp out, “Who are you? What do you want with us?”
At first, Solo was confused. Why would someone resist aid in trying to escape a burning building? Then he remembered the corpses he’d just tripped over and understood: he was being mistaken for one of Barbarossa’s goons.
“Us? Are there any more folks up here with you?”
“No. No, I’m... alone.”
You mean you are now, Solo thought bitterly, remembering the corpses. “I don’t know exactly what happened here,” he said, spitting the words out quickly, “but I’m not one of them. I’m trying to save you. There isn’t much time.” He put both steel and velvet into the next words: “Please: trust me.”
Oliver had survived almost four hundred years by trusting his instincts with people, both human and vampire, and something told him to trust this man. Besides, he hardly had the strength to do otherwise. His own weakness terrified him more than the fire. His rescuer was an inch taller than he was, but most modern males were, outside of East Asia. In his normal state, Oliver had the strength of four or five men Solo’s size.
Then Oliver realized what must have happened. The original intruders had subdued the young vampires with liquid garlic. He must have breathed some of it in before retreating up the stairs. Solving the mystery alleviated some of his confusion. Garlic was unpleasant, but a small dose was survivable. He might yet live to avenge his friends.
Solo nudged his own shoulder under the young man’s injured arm, offering support, and was glad and relieved to see it accepted. He wrapped an arm around the other’s waist and wheeled around, heading back to the stairs. The young man was staggering, gasping, sucking in great lungfuls of air. “Try not to breathe too much,” Solo murmured. “The smoke is just as deadly as the flames.” He took the handkerchief from his own mouth and pressed it against the young man’s lips and nose. “Here, take it.” The body that leaned against his was slender but strangely heavy, as if it weighed a lot more than was apparent.
Must be solid muscle under those clothes, Solo thought fleetingly as they began to descend. They dropped down each step carefully, cautiously, maneuvering around the pulpy corpses.
At the bottom of the stairs, long tongues of hungry flame were lolling out the open doorway, reaching for oxygen. Fire trucks had arrived, and at any moment torrents of water would smash through the windows, and along with the water, sunlight...
“The fireplace,” choked Oliver.
“What are you talking about?” Solo said, raising his voice over the roar of the flames inside and the organized chaos of sirens and shouting from the street. He tried to aim the young man toward the door. “We can make it.”
“No!” Oliver pulled in the opposite direction. “I’ll die!”
Die? Solo thought, bewildered by his terror. “No, I told you: we can make it,” the agent repeated. Anxiety must be giving way to hysteria. Either that, or the young man had gone loopy with the smoke.
Oliver leaned in the direction he wanted to go and gasped, “Secret exit!”
Solo squinted to see through the smudged windows. A group of city firemen were circling outside, moving into position, tantalizingly close, but still out of reach. He wanted to shout to them, but before he could, the young man in his care was moving away, toward the parlor.
What the hell-? Then the words suddenly registered. Secret exit.
“Wait!” Solo cried out, following reluctantly as the young man staggered away. He’s not going to make it, the agent thought.
All around them, ribbons of fire licked the walls. Solo saw a large vase on a stand in the hallway, grabbed it, ripped out the long stemmed roses and splashed the water, half of it on the young man’s clothes, half on his own. If they were going to chance another escape route, they’d better be damp.
Oliver grimaced and twisted his face away. He didn’t care for the feel of water, but he understood what the man was doing. His eyes burned with the smoke, but he knew exactly which brick to push to activate the sliding door next to the fireplace.
“Quick! Inside.”
Inside? Solo hesitated for a moment, but the heat at his back was like the afternoon sun on a Hampton’s beach in mid-July. It was enough persuasion; he didn’t need more.
Once they were in, Oliver pushed a lever on the back wall of the passage, and the secret panel slid shut. “This way.” He tugged at the human and they inched along the dark narrow compartment until they reached the firemen’s pole. Oliver took one of the man’s hands and placed it on the pole, knowing from experience that humans couldn’t see a thing in a space this dark. “We go down,” he coughed.
“Down?” The word leaked from Solo’s lips. This house had more surprises than U.N.C.L.E. HQ. Solo grasped the pole, wrapped his legs around it, careful to protect his crotch, and slid down as he had other poles in the past. Wooden poles were always trouble; at least this one was smooth steel.
Oliver followed, gratified to feel the effects of the garlic wearing off. He was able to control his descent even while favoring his injured arm. At the bottom, the human had moved aside and was exploring the surrounding darkness with an outstretched hand.
“Are you all right?” Solo asked blindly, trying to gauge the young man’s condition by the sound of his movements.
Oliver admired his fearless attitude. His vampire vision allowed him to make out the dimmest outline of curved pipe walls ahead. The heat of the human’s body made it shine a warm yellow against the cool blue of the tunnel.
“There’s a pipe straight ahead. They don’t use it anymore. Four feet high. We’ll have to stoop.”
“Is there a light down here?” Solo asked. It was black as pitch. “How will we find where your pipe is?” The agent concentrated, picturing how they were situated by recreating the geography of the house in his head. The pole had confused things a bit but he was pretty sure they were facing west.
“No light, sorry.” Oliver thought fast. It wasn’t a good idea to let the man know how well he could see in the dark. “No time to grab a flashlight. But I know this passage well. If you want to hold my shoulder, I’ll lead. The pipe leads to the subway, about a block west.”
“S’okay,” Solo said. He reached into his pocket, produced a lighter and thumbed the wheel. A small flame burst into life and burned slightly blue. Solo held up the light, the glow reflecting off his young companion’s pale face. For the first time since they’d met, the agent had a chance to study its features.
The eyes were large and gray, almost silver, shiny, like mercury in the flickering light. The dark brown hair was thick and wavy and styled like a pop singer’s, the sort that attracts adoring teenage girls. Despite a strong jaw, the face had a soft callowness about it, a kind of ethereal sadness that Solo had seen only in Renaissance paintings.
“What’s your name?” the agent asked.
“Oliver.” He hesitated, then added, “King. Oliver King. And you?”
“Napoleon Solo.” He motioned with the lighter. “You said the subway was in that direction?”
“Yes. About a block west of here, this pipe emerges in the Sixth Avenue subway tunnel. Then we can follow that north a distance of two blocks to the Fourteenth Street station.” Oliver stooped a bit and began moving through the pipe.
Solo nodded and ducked his head in order to follow, reconstructing their escape route in his mind. A brownstone with a literal pipeline to the nearby subway: who would have expected that? He wondered exactly who owned that house. Had it been Barbarossa’s headquarters? And if so, why would the Thrush chief burn it down?
Solo had even more questions to ask, but then, it was hard to talk as they moved, nearly bent in half at a crouch. They also had to negotiate the thin stream of runoff water that flowed between their feet. Besides, it wasn’t clear exactly how this Oliver King was connected to Thrush. When they emerged from the pipe a few minutes later, the agent decided to try an indirect approach. Turning serious, he inquired softly, “Oliver, who were those dead people we stepped over on the stairs?”
Oliver’s voice was rough with feeling. “Guy and Adolfo. So young! Their families sent them to me to help them adjust to life in New York. Oh, God, I must tell their families!”
Solo frowned. It was an odd reply, not one he was expecting. “You’re all immigrants then? From where?” Although Oliver’s speech had a whiff of formality to it, like an actor in an old Depression era movie, Solo couldn’t pick out an accent.
When Oliver answered, he sounded a million miles away, swept up by memories of his childhood. “My father was British, and my mother was Catalan. I spent my childhood in England, but I’ve been traveling for many years. The young ones in my charge were from European clans, mostly. Although Veracity…” His breath caught in his throat, as if he’d just remembered. “Dear Lord! They took Veracity!”
“Veracity?” It sounded vaguely like a woman’s name from a Victorian novel. “They kidnapped a friend of yours?” Solo sighed as he clicked the top of his lighter shut. Suddenly, the walls around them began to vibrate with the far-off rumble of an approaching train. “Let’s find a better place to talk,” Solo said, raising his voice to be heard. I’m - ah - well, let’s just say I can help you.”
Oliver was touched. “You would do that?” He turned mournful eyes on Solo. “You would help me?” But of course he would, you silly fang. He doesn’t know what you are. Even so, the offer meant a lot. “That is so kind. Although, it may be that Veracity prefers not to be saved. She has been known to keep unsavory company, and lately I’ve been tempted to evict her.”
Solo snorted. To call Walter Barbarossa “unsavory company” was an understatement. And how about you, Oliver? he wondered. Do you dabble in the dark side too?
Oliver paused and laid a hand on Solo’s arm. The agent recoiled automatically before he suppressed the instinct. There was a surprising strength and weight to that hand.
“There’s a door ahead. I’ve used it before to gain access to the station platform. It eliminates the need to jump down by the tracks and climb back up.”
“Good,” said Solo, who had no desire to play tag with the D train. “By all means, then, lead on.”
Oliver inhaled deeply of the cool air and felt the last effects of the garlic evaporate on the exhale. His lungs still ached a bit, but he knew it was from the smoke he’d inhaled. When they reached the door, he was able to turn the handle easily and muscle it open.
Solo watched with interest. Wasn’t that sort of door usually locked?
On the other side, startled pedestrians gawked for a moment, then rushed on, jostling for a better position to board the approaching train. Oliver motioned Solo through, then closed the door without a glance at the “Authorized personnel only” sign. “Safe at last,” said Oliver.
Ignoring the early rush hour crowd, Solo indicated Oliver’s injured arm. He’d stopped bleeding, but it still looked ragged. “You might want to go to an emergency room to get that patched up. St. Vincent’s is right across the street.”
Oliver glanced down at the angry red streak along his forearm. He’d nearly forgotten it. “Oh, it’s nothing.” Especially now that it’s half healed.
“Are you sure?” Solo asked uncertainly.
“I’ll just rest here a moment on that bench.”
“Just a flesh wound, huh?” The agent chuckled. He could relate.
Oliver’s mind was racing. What was the normal thing to do? A human would be wringing his hands in front of his burning house, cheering on the firemen. Oliver would do his hand wringing privately and not in the light of the sun. His lawyer and insurance agent wouldn’t be available until nightfall, anyway. Right now, he wanted to be free of Solo and gather his wits. He needed to think. Had Veracity told those men about his house? Did she go with them of her own free will? And if so, had she also revealed the locations of his back-up lairs? He dropped onto the wooden bench and lowered his head into his hands.
Sympathetic, Solo sat down beside him. Apparently, the gravity of the situation was finally beginning to sink in. “Oliver, you said before that one of your, ah, friends - a woman - had been kidnapped.” No, taken, Solo reminded himself. The word he’d used was taken. “I need to know and you must be honest with me: were you or she working for Thrush? What were you all doing in that house?”
Oliver raised his head, his face a question mark. “Thrush? Is that like the Audubon Society?
“Hardly,” Solo said with a harsh chuckle. “It’s a criminal organization - sort of like the Mafia.”
“No, no, we - well, to be truthful, I have no idea what Veracity may have been doing lately. I certainly work for no one. I live off my… investments. Yes, that’s the word.” He turned a hand over. “But Veracity? Who knows? She used to share with me, tell me things. However, of late she has become overly secretive. I fear-.” He stopped himself. I fear she is hunting humans for their blood. How do I explain that to this very handsome man? He let his eyes wander over Napoleon’s concerned features. “I fear she may be involved in unwise activities.”
“Then, maybe she wasn’t taken exactly. Maybe she went of her own accord.”
Oliver nodded sadly. “I fear you may be right. And if so, then her timing was certainly suspicious, wasn’t it? To abandon us at the very moment the hunter entered the lair…” He shuddered. “As for what we were doing there, why, we were living, of course.” The weight of his losses finally landed on his shoulders.
“I tried to go down to the basement. I tried to help the others. But there was no one! I fear they all died.” He tried to remember if he’d caught their scent in the secret passage, but he’d been thinking only of his own safety then. “I can’t call their families until I know for sure.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough. There may be a preliminary fire or police report already.” Solo reached into his breast pocket and extracted his pen communicator. Discreetly, he began to uncap it. “I should call my partner, too. He took off after Barbarossa - the guy who directed the assault on that house. By the way, who owned it?”
“I did. I do. What’s left of it.” He lowered his eyes to his injured arm. If he wasn’t careful, it would heal up in front of Solo’s eyes. And that would surely raise questions. He folded his arms across his middle and tried to sound casual as he asked, “You have a partner? Are you in business together? Or…?”
“I’m a security agent,” Solo volunteered. This Oliver appeared to be telling the truth. Though there were gaps in his story and he wasn’t quite the usual run-of-the-mill innocent type that Solo ran across, the agent decided to trust him for the time being. “I work for an organization called the U-N-C-L-E -U.N.C.L.E. Ever hear of it?”
Oliver frowned. “No, not that I can recall.” He looked miserable. “The only good thing that could come out of Vercity being involved with criminals would be the faint hope that the others were a part of her plan, that at least one or two might still be alive.”
“Others?” Solo narrowed his eyes. “Well, there were two corpses on the staircase and when I asked, you said there was no one else trapped in the fire but you. What ‘others’ are you talking about?
Oliver raised a hand to his lips, suddenly afraid he’d said too much. But there was nothing for it now but to try to explain. “There were four others.” He ground a fist into one hand, trying to think. “Cousins of mine,” he faltered. “Distant cousins. A youth named Devon, a man named Casper - he looks fifty or so - and two women, a redhead named Fiona and a dark-eyed fawn named Nieves. Veracity is blonde with big blue eyes that appear more innocent than they are.” He pulled himself together. “Forgive me, in all the excitement, I didn’t mention them earlier. I am hoping they used the secret exit as we did.”
“We met no one else in that tunnel,” Solo reminded him, the agent’s own suspicions piqued. He considered the communicator, still clasped in his hand. All this time and Illya still hadn’t called. The chase had either gone very well or horribly wrong. “Y’know, Oliver, on second thought it might be a good idea if you came with me back to headquarters. We could go over the police and fire reports. You could fill me in on what you overheard your friends talking about. Maybe I can show you some mug shots of Barbarossa and his pals-”
Oliver’s pale face lost the rest of its color. “Go out? Now? Oh, no, I mustn’t. I mean, if you could give me your card or an address, I could come later, but now I must try to reach my solicitor, my lawyer.” He stood up and began edging away. “How can I reach you later? For the police reports?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call you,” Solo said. “Just give me a phone number.”
Oliver saw out of the corner of his eye that the last person on the platform was entering the train car. He backed away, holding a palm up, as if fending Solo off. “No, no, there’s no phone where I’m staying.” He turned and in three long strides was at the train car. He stopped the doors from closing by blocking them with one arm, then he muscled them apart and disappeared into the throng of commuters.
“Mr. King!” Solo called out, trying to follow, but a crowd of German tourists got in the way. “Oliver! Wait!” But it was too late. The train pulled away and the agent was left standing on the platform, watching it go.
Damn, he thought.
Listen to them- the children of the night. What sad music they make!
- Dracula, film version.
Act I:
The Blue Plate Special
Somewhere in Greenwich Village, New York City. A Thursday afternoon in March.
Oliver was dreaming of an outdoor barbecue, with wagons and horses and family all around. At least, he thought they were his family. He’d been a vampire so long, he couldn’t really remember them anymore. But these faces were pleasant, and he often dreamed of them as if they were his family. It didn’t matter any more. The women wore long flowing dresses and the men would either be mugged or hit on in the modern streets of New York with their calf-clinging hose and their enormous cod pieces.
He missed the horses, mostly. It felt like the world around him had changed in the blink of an eye. A hundred years ago, even America was no more advanced than the world he was a boy in. But in the last century everything had changed, and that disturbed him. No wonder he kept dreaming about his family, about a distant simple age when people had the good sense to be afraid of vampires.
Today the vampires were the ones who lived in fear.
Damn. He woke up, but the dream lingered. He could smell the smoke from the barbecue. Had they even called it a barbecue? No, of course not. It was just a fire lit by travelers to warm their evening meal. There was never any romance to it, never any festivity attached. His mother complained the entire time about not stopping at the inn, and his father snapped at her harshly about the danger of cutpurses who sneaked into rooms through the windows.
Servants! Some of those faces belonged to servants, he was sure of it now. Funny how they were turned into family members in his dream.
He exhaled slowly, releasing the pent-up chemicals from his lungs. What a pleasing odor. Much nicer than wood smoke. He lifted a sluggish arm and reached across the bed, but he was sleeping alone. That made him sad for a moment. Oh, well, how long could he expect to hold the attentions of such a beautiful boy as Devon was. All that smooth skin and those perfect pink lips and those dark curls did not make up for the fact that he was a spoiled and demanding child who couldn’t decide whose bed he wanted to warm. Let Veracity have him.
Oliver smiled languorously in the dark. Veracity would soon regret stealing the boy away. My next lover must be older, more mature thought Oliver. He frowned in the dark. I really do smell smoke.
He threw his covers off and forced himself to concentrate. Vampires were deep sleepers, and he needed time to clear his head, time to think. But his heart rate was picking up speed, jolted up to six beats a minute by the adrenalin generated by the smell of… “Fire!” He tried to shout a warning, but his vocal cords wouldn’t work yet, and it came out croaky.
He could hear voices now, filled with panic and pain, coming from the basement. The young ones were sleeping down there! He threw open the door of his bedroom and descended two flights of stairs. At that point, the smoke was thick and acrid, and he could see flames licking at the living room drapes. He heard sirens, but they were still blocks away. And there was something else.
The smoke made it difficult to separate one scent from another, but he smelled strangers in the house. Humans!
The door to the basement exploded outward, splintered by the rush to safety of two panicked males, Guy and Adolfo. The figures that rushed after them were human, spraying a garlic solution and carrying sawed-off shotguns.
Oliver tried to think. What are humans doing in my house? How did they get in? They must have set the fires.
Guy and Adolfo made it to the front door and pulled it open. The afternoon sun blasted them with its accursed rays, and they screamed as water blisters began forming on their bare arms. They turned and rushed back into the burning house, into the arms of the humans who subdued them with the garlic, then pressed the shotgun muzzles to their heads and pulled the triggers.
The sound of the blast and the smell of vampire brains exploding against the walls caused another level of sound and horror to rise from the basement.
Oliver backed up the stairs, wondering if the humans had seen him. He was thinking of alternate routes of escape, already mourning the loss of his companions. Then he froze, transfixed by the vision of Veracity stepping out of the basement and into a black plastic sack. Two humans were zipping her inside. He watched as one of them hefted her over his shoulder and walked out the front door into the daylight. He reached out a hand, as if to draw her back inside, and his lips formed her name, but his instinct for self-preservation kept him from making a sound.
The sirens were closer now. He knew he could not let the New York City Fire Department find vampires in the basement. He would have to go down and help the others. He managed to open the door but the smoke and flames were too thick to go any farther. It smelled like their bedding was in flames, as if someone had set fire to their beds. But how could the humans have entered and done that kind of damage before they were detected? And what about Veracity? Had they drugged her? Was she injured? She didn’t fight them at all when they zipped the bag up around her.
He couldn’t see anything, and what was worse, he couldn’t hear anything from below. Something told him he was alone in the house, that his other companions, including the boy Veracity had stolen from him, were gone. Or dead. The smell of burning flesh was overpowering. No wonder they were screaming. Sirens were very close now, and he was filled with a sudden dread greater than his fear of fire. Water! They would aim hoses at the house and douse it with water! He had to flee!
Outside the neat, Greenwich Village brownstone, sitting in the rear seat of his parked Lincoln Continental, Walter Barbarossa watched the fire burn with a certain satisfaction. Perfect. The operation had gone smoothly. Having ditched the prize in the body bag in the back of the faux ambulance, Walter’s lieutenant, Joey Marcazzi, loped over to the limo. “All set, Boss,” the skinny kid said with a wink. He was tall and lanky and had the bright eyes and slight tremble of someone who had a bit too much cocaine in his system. “Went like a charm. We got her.”
“Good,” Walter said, nodding his balding head. Already, crowds were beginning to gather. “We better get going.” Behind them, the wail of the sirens was getting closer - and so was something else: a black Chevy tearing purposefully down the avenue, dodging the traffic, coming their way. Walter saw it from the corner of his eye.
Uh-oh, he thought. Not the cops. U.N.C.L.E.
Shit, the Thrush chief swore under his breath. “Get in the car Jo-Jo -”
“What?”
“- get in the fucking car! Now!” He grabbed the kid’s arm and dragged him into the back of the limo, then ordered the driver, “Go!” The limousine peeled away from the curb, burning rubber, followed by the ambulance.
As they roared into Twelfth Street, Illya Kuryakin floored the accelerator, taking the turn hard and tossing his partner, who was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, against the side door. Napoleon Solo took it in stride, bouncing easily off the panel. At times like now, Illya always drove this way.
“There they go,” Kuryakin said, motioning with his chin toward the retreating cars. But Solo’s attention was drawn to the burning brownstone and he noted movement in the windows. “Somebody’s still in there.”
“The fire department is on its way,” Kuryakin observed.
“They might not get here in time.”
Muttering a Russian curse, Kuryakin switched his foot from the accelerator to the brakes and the Chevy squealed to a halt.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Solo said, already on his way out the car door. “You see if you can catch Barbarossa.” He didn’t need to hear Illya’s reply. Solo and the car were already moving in opposite directions.
Gaining the stoop, Solo looked up, surveying the facade, squinting against the plumes of smoke. Damn. It was bad. From the drift of the smoke and the radiance of the heat, he guessed the fire was rising from the basement. He laid his hand flat against the front door and felt it warm but not untouchable. He yanked at the knob, found it locked as expected, and drove his elbow through the glass, shattering it. Smoke billowed through the new opening. Solo reached in and unlocked the door while shaking out a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth.
Inside, the house was filled with a thick, swirling grey fog. Flames glinted at the rear of the house, at the far end of a long hallway.
“Anyone here?” Solo shouted, his eyes watering from the smoke. Then he called out again.
Oliver heard the human’s question from his bedroom where he threw on dark trousers, a shirt, and shoes, grateful for vampire muscles that allowed him to move at a speed no human could achieve. Next, he wanted to save his mother’s locket, the only family memento he did not store in his safety deposit box, but he couldn’t find it. He tried one more drawer, knowing he was risking his life by delaying his exit. He flung clothes over his shoulder until at last he spied the silver heart-shaped locket.
One side of his mouth curled in a brief smile. Humans thought silver was anathema to vampires, but, in truth, it was gold they couldn’t touch. It was gold that kept them out of the early churches and it was the gold of the early crosses that made people think they feared the Christian symbols. Vampires were allergic to gold. But his mother’s silver locket was the one artifact he could actually remember seeing around her neck, and he would not leave the house without it.
Below, Solo heard the sound of rummaging. Someone was upstairs and whoever it was sounded frantic. “Hello,” Solo called out, “Where are you? Are you hurt?” But there was the very real possibility that the person couldn’t answer and the fire was spreading from the kitchen fast.
If he was going to stage a rescue, he had to act quickly. There was no help for it. Replacing the handkerchief over his mouth, Solo ducked his head and headed up the smoke-filled stairway. Halfway up, his vision blurry, he nearly tripped over a body, regained his footing, then tripped over another. Straining to see, he made out the forms of two young men. Or, at least, judging from the torsos and the remains of their blood soaked clothes, they looked like young men. It was hard to tell since neither had a recognizable face. Someone had apparently pointed a shotgun barrel close to each of the heads.
“Jesus,” Solo murmured. All the exposed skin on the corpses had blistered so badly it’d gone black, which was odd since the fire was still mostly confined to the back of the house.
Upstairs, Oliver clutched his mother’s locket in one fist and stumbled into the corridor. At the back wall, there was a sliding panel concealing a secret passage with a fireman’s pole that extended down through the house, through the basement, and underneath to an abandoned sewer pipe.
He’d only been down there a few times. The pipe was only four feet in diameter. He would have to scuttle through it in a half crouch, but it led to a modern section of the city’s storm drain system. He could stay below ground, then exit through a manhole cover after dark. With single-minded purpose, he stumbled through the smoke to the end of the corridor.
Life had been easy since he came to New York. He cursed himself now for not thinking more seriously about escape routes. But he could get out before the humans found him. All he needed was to find the button that activated the panel. Where is it? Damn you, Veracity, why did you have to remodel?!!!
The fingers of his free hand searched in vain for the piece of paneling that was supposed to give way under pressure and reveal the mechanism that would activate the sliding wall. But he couldn’t find it. He howled with rage and pounded his fist against the wallpaper.
Solo heard the howl and the blow, and as he rounded the banister, gaining the second floor, he saw a shadowy, partially obscured figure in the hall. “Hey,” he called out.
Oliver’s last blow sent his fist crashing through the access panel. This time he howled in pain, as a sharp edge of paneling sliced through his forearm from his wrist half way to his elbow. He thrashed and struggled. When he finally pulled his arm out, he was bleeding freely, but what hurt the most was realizing he had just destroyed the mechanism for sliding the wall. The smoke was thick and noxious now, and he struggled to breathe. I’m going to die.
But in the next moment, Solo was beside him, grasping his shoulder above the injured arm. The agent hadn’t a clue what this young man was trying to accomplish by punching in a wall, but whatever it was, there was no time. “C’mon,” Solo said. With his free hand, he grasped the young man’s arm. The bloodied limb was tacky under his fingertips, but the injury looked only a little worse than superficial. “This way.”
“No. No!” Oliver struggled against Solo, but he was so overcome with smoke that he could not even disengage from the grip of a single human. In his mind’s eye he saw Veracity being zipped into the black bag and suddenly feared the same fate awaited him. His throat ached and burned, but he managed to rasp out, “Who are you? What do you want with us?”
At first, Solo was confused. Why would someone resist aid in trying to escape a burning building? Then he remembered the corpses he’d just tripped over and understood: he was being mistaken for one of Barbarossa’s goons.
“Us? Are there any more folks up here with you?”
“No. No, I’m... alone.”
You mean you are now, Solo thought bitterly, remembering the corpses. “I don’t know exactly what happened here,” he said, spitting the words out quickly, “but I’m not one of them. I’m trying to save you. There isn’t much time.” He put both steel and velvet into the next words: “Please: trust me.”
Oliver had survived almost four hundred years by trusting his instincts with people, both human and vampire, and something told him to trust this man. Besides, he hardly had the strength to do otherwise. His own weakness terrified him more than the fire. His rescuer was an inch taller than he was, but most modern males were, outside of East Asia. In his normal state, Oliver had the strength of four or five men Solo’s size.
Then Oliver realized what must have happened. The original intruders had subdued the young vampires with liquid garlic. He must have breathed some of it in before retreating up the stairs. Solving the mystery alleviated some of his confusion. Garlic was unpleasant, but a small dose was survivable. He might yet live to avenge his friends.
Solo nudged his own shoulder under the young man’s injured arm, offering support, and was glad and relieved to see it accepted. He wrapped an arm around the other’s waist and wheeled around, heading back to the stairs. The young man was staggering, gasping, sucking in great lungfuls of air. “Try not to breathe too much,” Solo murmured. “The smoke is just as deadly as the flames.” He took the handkerchief from his own mouth and pressed it against the young man’s lips and nose. “Here, take it.” The body that leaned against his was slender but strangely heavy, as if it weighed a lot more than was apparent.
Must be solid muscle under those clothes, Solo thought fleetingly as they began to descend. They dropped down each step carefully, cautiously, maneuvering around the pulpy corpses.
At the bottom of the stairs, long tongues of hungry flame were lolling out the open doorway, reaching for oxygen. Fire trucks had arrived, and at any moment torrents of water would smash through the windows, and along with the water, sunlight...
“The fireplace,” choked Oliver.
“What are you talking about?” Solo said, raising his voice over the roar of the flames inside and the organized chaos of sirens and shouting from the street. He tried to aim the young man toward the door. “We can make it.”
“No!” Oliver pulled in the opposite direction. “I’ll die!”
Die? Solo thought, bewildered by his terror. “No, I told you: we can make it,” the agent repeated. Anxiety must be giving way to hysteria. Either that, or the young man had gone loopy with the smoke.
Oliver leaned in the direction he wanted to go and gasped, “Secret exit!”
Solo squinted to see through the smudged windows. A group of city firemen were circling outside, moving into position, tantalizingly close, but still out of reach. He wanted to shout to them, but before he could, the young man in his care was moving away, toward the parlor.
What the hell-? Then the words suddenly registered. Secret exit.
“Wait!” Solo cried out, following reluctantly as the young man staggered away. He’s not going to make it, the agent thought.
All around them, ribbons of fire licked the walls. Solo saw a large vase on a stand in the hallway, grabbed it, ripped out the long stemmed roses and splashed the water, half of it on the young man’s clothes, half on his own. If they were going to chance another escape route, they’d better be damp.
Oliver grimaced and twisted his face away. He didn’t care for the feel of water, but he understood what the man was doing. His eyes burned with the smoke, but he knew exactly which brick to push to activate the sliding door next to the fireplace.
“Quick! Inside.”
Inside? Solo hesitated for a moment, but the heat at his back was like the afternoon sun on a Hampton’s beach in mid-July. It was enough persuasion; he didn’t need more.
Once they were in, Oliver pushed a lever on the back wall of the passage, and the secret panel slid shut. “This way.” He tugged at the human and they inched along the dark narrow compartment until they reached the firemen’s pole. Oliver took one of the man’s hands and placed it on the pole, knowing from experience that humans couldn’t see a thing in a space this dark. “We go down,” he coughed.
“Down?” The word leaked from Solo’s lips. This house had more surprises than U.N.C.L.E. HQ. Solo grasped the pole, wrapped his legs around it, careful to protect his crotch, and slid down as he had other poles in the past. Wooden poles were always trouble; at least this one was smooth steel.
Oliver followed, gratified to feel the effects of the garlic wearing off. He was able to control his descent even while favoring his injured arm. At the bottom, the human had moved aside and was exploring the surrounding darkness with an outstretched hand.
“Are you all right?” Solo asked blindly, trying to gauge the young man’s condition by the sound of his movements.
Oliver admired his fearless attitude. His vampire vision allowed him to make out the dimmest outline of curved pipe walls ahead. The heat of the human’s body made it shine a warm yellow against the cool blue of the tunnel.
“There’s a pipe straight ahead. They don’t use it anymore. Four feet high. We’ll have to stoop.”
“Is there a light down here?” Solo asked. It was black as pitch. “How will we find where your pipe is?” The agent concentrated, picturing how they were situated by recreating the geography of the house in his head. The pole had confused things a bit but he was pretty sure they were facing west.
“No light, sorry.” Oliver thought fast. It wasn’t a good idea to let the man know how well he could see in the dark. “No time to grab a flashlight. But I know this passage well. If you want to hold my shoulder, I’ll lead. The pipe leads to the subway, about a block west.”
“S’okay,” Solo said. He reached into his pocket, produced a lighter and thumbed the wheel. A small flame burst into life and burned slightly blue. Solo held up the light, the glow reflecting off his young companion’s pale face. For the first time since they’d met, the agent had a chance to study its features.
The eyes were large and gray, almost silver, shiny, like mercury in the flickering light. The dark brown hair was thick and wavy and styled like a pop singer’s, the sort that attracts adoring teenage girls. Despite a strong jaw, the face had a soft callowness about it, a kind of ethereal sadness that Solo had seen only in Renaissance paintings.
“What’s your name?” the agent asked.
“Oliver.” He hesitated, then added, “King. Oliver King. And you?”
“Napoleon Solo.” He motioned with the lighter. “You said the subway was in that direction?”
“Yes. About a block west of here, this pipe emerges in the Sixth Avenue subway tunnel. Then we can follow that north a distance of two blocks to the Fourteenth Street station.” Oliver stooped a bit and began moving through the pipe.
Solo nodded and ducked his head in order to follow, reconstructing their escape route in his mind. A brownstone with a literal pipeline to the nearby subway: who would have expected that? He wondered exactly who owned that house. Had it been Barbarossa’s headquarters? And if so, why would the Thrush chief burn it down?
Solo had even more questions to ask, but then, it was hard to talk as they moved, nearly bent in half at a crouch. They also had to negotiate the thin stream of runoff water that flowed between their feet. Besides, it wasn’t clear exactly how this Oliver King was connected to Thrush. When they emerged from the pipe a few minutes later, the agent decided to try an indirect approach. Turning serious, he inquired softly, “Oliver, who were those dead people we stepped over on the stairs?”
Oliver’s voice was rough with feeling. “Guy and Adolfo. So young! Their families sent them to me to help them adjust to life in New York. Oh, God, I must tell their families!”
Solo frowned. It was an odd reply, not one he was expecting. “You’re all immigrants then? From where?” Although Oliver’s speech had a whiff of formality to it, like an actor in an old Depression era movie, Solo couldn’t pick out an accent.
When Oliver answered, he sounded a million miles away, swept up by memories of his childhood. “My father was British, and my mother was Catalan. I spent my childhood in England, but I’ve been traveling for many years. The young ones in my charge were from European clans, mostly. Although Veracity…” His breath caught in his throat, as if he’d just remembered. “Dear Lord! They took Veracity!”
“Veracity?” It sounded vaguely like a woman’s name from a Victorian novel. “They kidnapped a friend of yours?” Solo sighed as he clicked the top of his lighter shut. Suddenly, the walls around them began to vibrate with the far-off rumble of an approaching train. “Let’s find a better place to talk,” Solo said, raising his voice to be heard. I’m - ah - well, let’s just say I can help you.”
Oliver was touched. “You would do that?” He turned mournful eyes on Solo. “You would help me?” But of course he would, you silly fang. He doesn’t know what you are. Even so, the offer meant a lot. “That is so kind. Although, it may be that Veracity prefers not to be saved. She has been known to keep unsavory company, and lately I’ve been tempted to evict her.”
Solo snorted. To call Walter Barbarossa “unsavory company” was an understatement. And how about you, Oliver? he wondered. Do you dabble in the dark side too?
Oliver paused and laid a hand on Solo’s arm. The agent recoiled automatically before he suppressed the instinct. There was a surprising strength and weight to that hand.
“There’s a door ahead. I’ve used it before to gain access to the station platform. It eliminates the need to jump down by the tracks and climb back up.”
“Good,” said Solo, who had no desire to play tag with the D train. “By all means, then, lead on.”
Oliver inhaled deeply of the cool air and felt the last effects of the garlic evaporate on the exhale. His lungs still ached a bit, but he knew it was from the smoke he’d inhaled. When they reached the door, he was able to turn the handle easily and muscle it open.
Solo watched with interest. Wasn’t that sort of door usually locked?
On the other side, startled pedestrians gawked for a moment, then rushed on, jostling for a better position to board the approaching train. Oliver motioned Solo through, then closed the door without a glance at the “Authorized personnel only” sign. “Safe at last,” said Oliver.
Ignoring the early rush hour crowd, Solo indicated Oliver’s injured arm. He’d stopped bleeding, but it still looked ragged. “You might want to go to an emergency room to get that patched up. St. Vincent’s is right across the street.”
Oliver glanced down at the angry red streak along his forearm. He’d nearly forgotten it. “Oh, it’s nothing.” Especially now that it’s half healed.
“Are you sure?” Solo asked uncertainly.
“I’ll just rest here a moment on that bench.”
“Just a flesh wound, huh?” The agent chuckled. He could relate.
Oliver’s mind was racing. What was the normal thing to do? A human would be wringing his hands in front of his burning house, cheering on the firemen. Oliver would do his hand wringing privately and not in the light of the sun. His lawyer and insurance agent wouldn’t be available until nightfall, anyway. Right now, he wanted to be free of Solo and gather his wits. He needed to think. Had Veracity told those men about his house? Did she go with them of her own free will? And if so, had she also revealed the locations of his back-up lairs? He dropped onto the wooden bench and lowered his head into his hands.
Sympathetic, Solo sat down beside him. Apparently, the gravity of the situation was finally beginning to sink in. “Oliver, you said before that one of your, ah, friends - a woman - had been kidnapped.” No, taken, Solo reminded himself. The word he’d used was taken. “I need to know and you must be honest with me: were you or she working for Thrush? What were you all doing in that house?”
Oliver raised his head, his face a question mark. “Thrush? Is that like the Audubon Society?
“Hardly,” Solo said with a harsh chuckle. “It’s a criminal organization - sort of like the Mafia.”
“No, no, we - well, to be truthful, I have no idea what Veracity may have been doing lately. I certainly work for no one. I live off my… investments. Yes, that’s the word.” He turned a hand over. “But Veracity? Who knows? She used to share with me, tell me things. However, of late she has become overly secretive. I fear-.” He stopped himself. I fear she is hunting humans for their blood. How do I explain that to this very handsome man? He let his eyes wander over Napoleon’s concerned features. “I fear she may be involved in unwise activities.”
“Then, maybe she wasn’t taken exactly. Maybe she went of her own accord.”
Oliver nodded sadly. “I fear you may be right. And if so, then her timing was certainly suspicious, wasn’t it? To abandon us at the very moment the hunter entered the lair…” He shuddered. “As for what we were doing there, why, we were living, of course.” The weight of his losses finally landed on his shoulders.
“I tried to go down to the basement. I tried to help the others. But there was no one! I fear they all died.” He tried to remember if he’d caught their scent in the secret passage, but he’d been thinking only of his own safety then. “I can’t call their families until I know for sure.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough. There may be a preliminary fire or police report already.” Solo reached into his breast pocket and extracted his pen communicator. Discreetly, he began to uncap it. “I should call my partner, too. He took off after Barbarossa - the guy who directed the assault on that house. By the way, who owned it?”
“I did. I do. What’s left of it.” He lowered his eyes to his injured arm. If he wasn’t careful, it would heal up in front of Solo’s eyes. And that would surely raise questions. He folded his arms across his middle and tried to sound casual as he asked, “You have a partner? Are you in business together? Or…?”
“I’m a security agent,” Solo volunteered. This Oliver appeared to be telling the truth. Though there were gaps in his story and he wasn’t quite the usual run-of-the-mill innocent type that Solo ran across, the agent decided to trust him for the time being. “I work for an organization called the U-N-C-L-E -U.N.C.L.E. Ever hear of it?”
Oliver frowned. “No, not that I can recall.” He looked miserable. “The only good thing that could come out of Vercity being involved with criminals would be the faint hope that the others were a part of her plan, that at least one or two might still be alive.”
“Others?” Solo narrowed his eyes. “Well, there were two corpses on the staircase and when I asked, you said there was no one else trapped in the fire but you. What ‘others’ are you talking about?
Oliver raised a hand to his lips, suddenly afraid he’d said too much. But there was nothing for it now but to try to explain. “There were four others.” He ground a fist into one hand, trying to think. “Cousins of mine,” he faltered. “Distant cousins. A youth named Devon, a man named Casper - he looks fifty or so - and two women, a redhead named Fiona and a dark-eyed fawn named Nieves. Veracity is blonde with big blue eyes that appear more innocent than they are.” He pulled himself together. “Forgive me, in all the excitement, I didn’t mention them earlier. I am hoping they used the secret exit as we did.”
“We met no one else in that tunnel,” Solo reminded him, the agent’s own suspicions piqued. He considered the communicator, still clasped in his hand. All this time and Illya still hadn’t called. The chase had either gone very well or horribly wrong. “Y’know, Oliver, on second thought it might be a good idea if you came with me back to headquarters. We could go over the police and fire reports. You could fill me in on what you overheard your friends talking about. Maybe I can show you some mug shots of Barbarossa and his pals-”
Oliver’s pale face lost the rest of its color. “Go out? Now? Oh, no, I mustn’t. I mean, if you could give me your card or an address, I could come later, but now I must try to reach my solicitor, my lawyer.” He stood up and began edging away. “How can I reach you later? For the police reports?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call you,” Solo said. “Just give me a phone number.”
Oliver saw out of the corner of his eye that the last person on the platform was entering the train car. He backed away, holding a palm up, as if fending Solo off. “No, no, there’s no phone where I’m staying.” He turned and in three long strides was at the train car. He stopped the doors from closing by blocking them with one arm, then he muscled them apart and disappeared into the throng of commuters.
“Mr. King!” Solo called out, trying to follow, but a crowd of German tourists got in the way. “Oliver! Wait!” But it was too late. The train pulled away and the agent was left standing on the platform, watching it go.
Damn, he thought.