Chrono Inquisitor (Gods Be Damned) (20 page)

“So are you. I have orders to arrest the man known as Paxton Thrass.”

“Who?”

“Enough games, Mr. Yan. Either you’re going to help me, or I’m going to have to arrest you as well.”

I laughed. “I applaud your dedication, but you’re going to fail this assignment. It would seem we both have conflicting orders and only one of us is going to be successful in completing them. I fully intend to follow mine. If you want Mr. Thrass, you’re going to have to go through me first. And I warn you, if you attempt to do so, you’ll find out why people have come to call us reapers.”

The elevator reached the eighth floor. The doors opened. I picked up the package and stepped out.

I felt her follow. And then Kali informed me she detected a weapon pointed in my direction.

A tingling sensation started in my lower back and quickly encompassed my body, sending a shiver down my spine like I’d suddenly been drenched in icy water. I slowly turned and found Alvarez with a bug zapper pointed at me.

“That was the lowest setting,” she said. “It’s now set to max. We can do this in a cooperative manner, or, I’ll drag your unconscious ass out of here. My orders weren’t specific about the condition of anyone involved.”

This has been the craziest assignment I’ve ever had, I thought.

I stepped towards her.

Alvarez fired.

I had already determined she wasn’t bluffing, which is why I instigated her by taking the step, which had actually been the beginning of a pivot. The shock bullet missed me by mere millimeters, but, a miss was still a miss, no matter how close.

While I was pivoting to dodge the bullet, I fired my own weapon. Luckily for her, and in a way me, I had decided to only carry dozer rounds, and not one of my more lethal varieties.

The dart landed true, sinking into the flesh of her neck. The drugs would take a few seconds to work their magic, which meant she was still a problem. It assuredly wouldn’t do me any good if she managed to land one of her shots, and we both ended up unconscious.

I rushed towards her, staying clear of her attempts to get me in her crosshairs. I reached her quickly enough and grabbed at her wrist. I could tell the drugs were already beginning to take effect by her not fighting back as hard, though she did attempt to knee me in the crotch. At the last second I deflected the blow and took it to the inner thigh which still hurt like hell. I pushed her back, up against the wall, so that she wouldn’t be able to fight back as easily.

After just a few more seconds, the fight in her rapidly depleted. I noticed the dart in her neck and it made me a little queasy. It was tiny, but I’d always had an issue with needles, even if they were tiny as hell. I pulled it from her flesh. Without thinking, feeling strangely sorry, I kissed the little red pin prick where it had been.

“You’re in danger,” she said. “We all are.” Her eyes began to flutter closed. “Don’t…trust…”

Her eyes closed and didn’t open. She began to collapse.

I took her in my arms and laid her gently down against the wall in the hallway.

I made sure she was in a comfortable position so that when she woke up in about an hour, she wouldn’t have some odd pain from an over stretched muscle.

She looked like sleeping beauty. Her lips were too much to resist. I leaned in and gave her kiss on the lips. They were as soft and warm as I had hoped they would be.

Then I got a nasty zap that shot me back on my ass, slamming me against the parallel wall.

Damn. How the hell could I have forgotten about the Molestation Act.

I felt a bad headache coming on and felt a buzzing in my ear. The headache was a result of the unwarranted kiss on Ranger Alvarez. The buzzing was a result of Paxton trying to get my attention.

‹“Hey, boss, you better make your way to Beit’s apartment like you have the shits and it’s the closest toilet, because we got a major fucking problem.”›

I practically sprinted to room 817, left the package on the doorstep, knocked hard, and bolted to the nearest elevator.

Then I ran full throttle to Beit’s apartment. At that point I no longer cared what anyone thought or discovered. My head was pounding like I’d decided to soften the blows between a blacksmith’s hammer and his anvil.

It only took me five minutes to get back to Beit’s room. Paxton was nowhere in sight, but the door to the apartment was wide open. I peeked in and of course, there he was.

“What the fuck are you doing in there? You want us to get caught?” I said.

Paxton didn’t say a word. He was partially turned away from me, looking down at the ground. I couldn’t see what it was he was looking at. There was a sofa blocking my view.

Seeing as how our cover was assuredly shot to hell, I entered. The first thing I noticed wasn’t the body of the man I was supposed to be investigating lying on the floor. No, it was the Holstein hide leather chairs. Quite possibly, yet highly unlikely, the very same ones I’d had Quentin remove from our suite just hours ago. It was troubling that the more likely scenario was that there were even more of these hideous monstrosities. Hell, the whole resort probably had thousands of the damn things.

I shook my head in disgust.

Paxton finally seemed to realize I was there. He threw up his hands in innocence. “I didn’t do a damn thing, so don’t start getting pissed at me.”

It wasn’t until I got closer that I saw Beit’s body lying on the floor in a manner which didn’t indicate he was simply taking a nap. I hoped to hell that Paxton had simply gotten into a similar situation as me and Ranger Alvarez.

“Kali, lock onto Beit’s Chrono and give me readout.”

‹I am unable to do so. The only
ChronoGen I am detecting other than your own, of course, is Mr. Thrass’s.›

“Well keep trying, and figure out why the fuck that is.”

I approached the body, knelt down next to it, and started visually inspecting the apparent corpse of one Julius Illiam Beit. I couldn’t feel a pulse.

“What in hades happened?” I said, turning my attention to Paxton.

“I told you, I didn’t do a thing,” he said.

“No? Wow. I never did believe in magic. Not even as a kid. But now here we are. There’s a corpse at our feet. I don’t why. And you’re telling me you have no idea what happened. Not even how you came to be in a locked apartment. Must be teleportation. And considering scientists haven’t figured out how to do that yet, must be magic.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know how I got in here. I said I didn’t do anything.”

“Then start talking.”

“I got the bag from that Charles guy, then I came straight here. When I got here I found the door open. I stood outside for a bit. Then I thought I heard something from inside. I went to the door and listened. Didn’t hear anything. Then I knocked. Figured I’d give the gift to whoever answered. Still didn’t hear anything, so I took a peek, that’s when I saw feet sticking out from the couch. Then that’s when I called you. I had walked in just before you showed up.”

While Paxton was recounting the events leading up to this point, I kept trying to scan Beit’s body, looking for any sort of clue as to the man’s means of departure from this realm. On the side of Beit’s neck I found a small red pin prick, which made me think of Alvarez. She’d tried to warn me about Paxton, and here we were with a dead body. Had he killed Beit? But why would he? Wait a second. Was the woman Paxton was trying to warn me about, Ranger Alvarez?

I realized then that I hadn’t actually asked Paxton for a description of her. “That woman who could identify you, what did she look like?” I asked.

“Redhead. Green dress. Why?”

I decided to take some precautions. “No real reason. I just realized you hadn’t told me what she looked like. There was a woman who gave me a package to deliver which is why I called you to keep an eye on Beit, thought it might be her.”

I began to do the math for a timeframe in which something could have happened to Beit.

“What time did you get here? And consult your CerA. I need to know the exact time.”

“6:22:37,” he said.

That gave a thirteen minute window in which something could have happened. Scenarios began to formulate in my mind.

Maybe whoever Beit was supposed to be secretly meeting had come along during that time. Maybe they had some sort of argument and Beit lost. On the other hand, maybe Beit had just so happened to die of natural causes. It was rare, but people still died mysteriously. Aneurisms still occurred, even though mytes were supposed to detect their possibility and deal with them before they actually happened.

“You didn’t inject him with anything, did you?” I asked Paxton in regard to the apparent needle mark.

Paxton held up his hands. “Never even touched the man.” He then pointed to his feet. “This is the closest I’ve gotten.”

I turned Beit’s body over just enough to get a full look, trying to see if there was anything else that caught my eye.

It turned out there was nothing noticeable, except of course, that little red dot w
here something had pierced the skin. Maybe I was forcing my own perceptions onto the matter. The pinprick could be some sort of insect bite, or allergic reaction. I looked around the room. I didn’t know what it normally looked like, but nothing seemed out of place or disturbed. It didn’t seem likely that a physical altercation had happened.

“Well,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead, which means we’re done here.”

“He’s really dead?” he asked.

“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, the fact there’s a dead body at our feet.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t. He’s dead, as in, the circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems are no longer functioning. As in, his
ChronoGen is zeroed out. Id est, dead,” I said.

“But why is he dead?”

I headed for the door. “Do I look like a fucking lifeguard to you?”

“No, but you’re an Inquisitor, aren’t you?”

I stopped. “What’s your point?”

“Aren’t you supposed to have some medical training? Shouldn’t you know why he’s dead? It’s what you do, don’t you?”

Paxton was right. I did have medical training. I should know why. Or at the very least, Kali should know something. Problem was, Beit’s timer wasn’t functioning. At all. That was the oddest bit about the whole thing. Chronos ran off various processes of a person’s body, but even a dead body still powered one for at least a day or two. I’d never seen a blank timer so soon after death. Kali wasn’t any help either. She didn’t find any record of such a thing.

Again I wished I had my vault.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s dead,” I said.

“Well when I came in his clock still had an ass load of time on it,” Paxton said.

“That’s normal,” I said. “When someone dies and their time isn’t supposed to be up yet. By chance do you remember how much time he had left?”

“Um, it was at least two hundred years. I didn’t see the whole thing from my angle.”

“You’re sure?”

He looked like he was double checking this time. “Yep.”

What the hell did it mean? What could drain a body of all its lifeforce in just a few minutes?

I needed my tools which were back in my suite. I didn’t want to tell Paxton that I was at a loss. That things were abnormal. I figured that if I did tell him I’d probably lose some of the mystique of my position, not having an actual answer didn’t help either.

“I didn’t see any visible sudden mass trauma,” Paxton said, not letting the situation go. “No bullet or stab wounds. Did you?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t see no blood.”

“Any,” I corrected.

“What?” Paxton said, not understanding.

“You didn’t see
any
blood.”

Paxton looked confused. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“Never mind, you were saying?”

“I was saying that I can’t figure out how the man can be dead with no visible sign.”

“Obviously you don’t have medical training. There are thousands of ways in which a man could die with no visible cues.”

“Which was my other point, Mr. Medical Man, how did he die then?”

“We’re wasting time. Listen, go back to the suite. Bring me my bag with the red tag. It has my equipment which will hopefully shine some light on this.”

“Sure, boss.”

“And be quick about it. The last thing we need is someone showing up.”

Paxton left Beit’s apartment.

I decided I’d contact Frank and tell him what was going on before I notified hotel security. So much for avoiding Sam. I should also be notifying the Rangers, but considering I’d recently rendered one of them unconscious, what could I say, I was fucked.

‹“Beit is dead,”› I said as soon as the connection was made.

‹“Inquisitor Yan,”› responded a voice I wasn’t familiar with. For half a second I thought something was wrong with Kali, but then the voice said, ‹“Mr. Grenadier is indisposed at the moment.”›

‹“Who is this?”› I asked.

‹“Horseman War.”›

What the fuck was going on? Why was I speaking to a Horseman? I didn’t even know that could be done, redirecting a C-link.

‹“Did you say that Mr. Beit is dead?”› War asked.

‹“That’s right. He’s dead. I don’t know how. I found his body in his apartment. He was fine less than a half hour ago when I saw him, but now he’s dead and his timer is blank.”›

‹“You’re saying his Chrono is blank?”›

‹“That’s what I said. You heard of such a thing?”›

Silence.

‹“Hello? You still there?”› I said.

‹“Where are you now?”›

‹“I’m in his apartment standing over his corpse. I figured I’d call Frank before I did anything.”›

‹“Stay where you are. I’ll notify the authorities.”›

So much for avoiding that scenario. And here I’d thought calling Frank was the smart decision.

‹“Okay,”› I said. ‹“So when will Frank be around again?”›

‹“Just stay where you are. I’ll let Mr. Grenadier know you tried to contact him.”›

I felt the link sever.

Stay where I was? Frank is indisposed? It sounded like something was going on and I was out of the loop. It sounded bad. Bad for me.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, Mrs. Beit walked in at that very moment.

“Honey, you awake? You left the door open.”

She saw me then and screamed.

I held my hands up, palms out, in the I’m not a threat position. “Mrs. Beit, my name is Inquisitor Travis Yan. I need you to stop screaming. I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket to show you my badge.”

She continued to scream. It got louder when she caught sight of her husband lying motionless on the floor at my feet. That’s also when the waterworks started. She didn’t even look at my badge. It was like I’d suddenly disappeared. She sprinted to her husband. Kneeled down at his side.

Seeing Mrs. Beit in that wa
y, bent over her husband, it reminded me of my mother leaning over the body of my little brother. The hair color was wrong. The height. The build. But the emotions. The emotions were exactly the same. Speaking of emotions, mine were beginning to surface.

I was finding it hard to continue thinking of Mr. Beit as simply an assignment anymore. He was turning into a man. Someone who had emotional attachments to others. Someone who was now dead.

I’d been around plenty of corpses before. A lot I’d even happily created. A nice example was the thugs I’d disposed of less than thirty-six hours prior. But none of the men I’d killed had been family men. Oh, sure, some had
families
. Some had wives. A few had children. But the difference with them was that no one really cared that they’d left this earth. Sure, they cried at the funerals, but deep down, they were tears of joy. I made it a point to only dispatch those who truly deserved it.

Beit didn’t deserve it.

I wasn’t sure if he was or wasn’t E3. If he was or wasn’t a terrorist. It was a good possibility that he was. That he was a murderer. Maybe he’d been responsible in some way for those bombings I’d read about in the newsfeed yesterday. I’d followed up since that initial report. Thirteen people dead as a result.

But in my gut, I didn’t think so. The case hadn’t smelled right from the beginning. Oh, it smelt foul. No doubt about that. At first I’d thought it was simply a ploy by Frank to get me to deal with my past and Sam, but now it was smelling all kinds of rank. Beit was involved somehow, why else would he have been murdered. And I was positive he was murdered. It was beyond cosmic probability that he’d coincidentally died of bizarre but natural circumstances.

I knelt down next to Mrs. Beit. I wasn’t sure what to say. Just like I hadn’t known what to say to my mother as she knelt over my little brother’s body when he’d been hit by a car just two months after that night at the art gallery. I did what I’d done then.