'Can't hurt. Not tonight, though. See you, Doc.'
It was a few minutes before midnight. 'September gave up early,' Stagger Lee said, and breathed out fog.
Stagger had driven Danny around town for twenty minutes or so, in one of the wobbly lightweight cars. They parked in an allev Stagger Lee carried a black nylon shoulder bag. Danny had his red paramedic's bag; the leather doctor's kit was fine tor carrying a few-essentials, but too small for a serious trauma kit. And besides, he knew his own bag. He and Stagger wore dark topcoats and hats. So did the two people on the street corner ahead. Danny saw the glow of a cigarette, no faces.
'Evening, brethren,' Stagger Lee said, cheerfully though not very loud. 'Have you seen the true light?'
'Shinin' like a beacon,' a woman's voice said.
They were in a warehouse district. Windows were barred at ground level, or bricked up. Webs of razor ribbon caught the moonlight, and the hard shine of bare electric bulbs.
The four of them walked a block, and met two more people: McCain and Patrise. Patrise carried a silver- headed cane. There were nods, a hi or two. They kept walking. Then Patrise gestured with a gloved hand, and they stopped.
Patrise tapped the cane on the sidewalk. A fluid shape slid out of the darkness: a small figure in a wide- brimmed hat and a long cloak. The hat tilted up; Danny saw a flash of lace, and a face. It was Kitsune, the Tokyo Fox.
'Around the corner, two doors along,' she said. 'This is as close as I get.'
'Naturally,' Patrise said. He took a step, and the Fox's cloak swept; Danny was aware that something had changed hands. Then the Fox hurried on into the night, almost floating, with no sound at all.
The group moved on, around the corner, to the indicated door. It was a hinged steel door, with a massive padlock. There was no light or sign of life from the building. The woman who had joined Danny and Stagger Lee kept on walking. Patrise gestured at the padlock, and Stagger Lee reached into his bag.
Stagger wrapped a length of soft metal ribbon around the door hasp. He looked at Patrise, holding his hand arched. Patrise nodded. Stagger Lee moved his hand, and a match flared; the thermite caught, there was a ring of white fire and a spray of sparks, and the hasp and padlock dropped into Stagger Lee's gloved palm with a plop.
McCain grabbed the edge of the door and flung it wide open. Light spilled out. Patrise walked through, just as if it were La Mi-rada. The others followed.
The warehouse space was more than two stories high, lit by bulbs in green tin fixtures; cardboard and junk sheetmetal had been duct-taped over all the windows. Toward the rear was a dimmer space, a metal framework, and stacks of crates. Up front was an assembly line, snaking back and forth around the floor.
At one end, a young man took empty bottles out of crates. Another pushed them along rollers; they stopped below a glass tank of red liquid, with a long rubber hose leading from it. Another person dribbled a half inch of the red stuff into a bottle, then sent it along to another station, where the bottles were topped off with clear fluid from a tube attached to an iron tap. At the next stop, the bottle was capped, shaken to mix the contents, and placed in a wooden case. Another worker leaned on a hand truck, staring into space, presumably waiting for the case to be filled.
None of the workers seemed to have noticed the intrusion. They just kept on shoving, filling, stacking. Their clothes were battered, ragged, filthy; they wore ruined tennis shoes or none at all. Danny could see that the capper's hands were scarred and bleeding. Some of them looked like part-elves, some human, but their skin was so dirty, their eyes so red and vacant, that it was hard to be sure who was how much of what.
He looked again at the tank of red fluid. He knew well enough what it was. The workers were Vamps; the red stuff was elf blood, cut with water to make it go farther. This was where the addicts got their supply.
A woman in a red leather jacket appeared on top of a stack of crates. She had a clipboard in one hand and a long-barreled revolver in the other. Her hair shone blue-white; her skin was the color of bone, her eyes silver. She wore black jeans with a hip holster, and army boots.
'What the fuck is this supposed to be?' she shouted, in a chiming voice that might otherwise have been beautiful. 'If you're coppers, you can just-'
'Not at all, madam,' Mr. Patrise said, tipping his hat and bowing from the waist. 'Not a copper button among us. We're merely a community interest group. North Side Citizens 1 Sanitary Committee, at your service.'
He gestured with his cane, and Stagger Lee went to the kid who was filling the bottles. Stagger took the hose from the boy's hand, not roughly; he just stood there, looking slowK around.
Stagger Lee gave the hose back. The Vamp took it in both hands and stuck it in his mouth. The red stuff dribbled down his front.
Patrise said, 'Grossly unsanitary, madam, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm afraid we'll have to file a formal complaint.'
'Complaint?' the Ellyll woman said, still stuck between anger and puzzlement. Then she drew herself up straight, and her hair seemed to crackle and spark. She threw down the clipboard and brought up the pistol. 'Why don't you complain about this, asshole?'
To one side, windows near the roof crashed in. Glass and cardboard fell away, and the tall woman Danny had seen earlier stepped onto the high platform, holding a tommy gun. She was flanked by two bulky men wielding axes. %
The woman fired, a long spit of yellow flame and a noise like a chainsaw. There were little explosions from the crates below the elf's boots; splinters of glass flew, and the red stuff bled from the crates. The elf shrieked something, not in English, ran to the back of the warehouse and dove out of sight.
'Lincoln,' Patrise said, and McCain's Colts were instantly in his fists. He fired once, and the tank of blood exploded. All around the room, the workers' heads came up, scenting the air. They converged on the puddling fluid.
'Hallow,' Patrise said, 'you and Lincoln clear the area. Ladies and gentlemen, let's file our complaint.'
Danny and McCain rounded up the kids from the bottling line. They didn't respond to speech, but followed numbly when herded along. McCain led the way to the street: a canvas-covered truck had pulled up before the door. Cloudhunter got out of the passenger seat, swinging his shotgun. The Vamps let themselves be loaded aboard, and the driver took off.
Danny said to McCain, 'What was that? Withdrawal?'
'Outsider's Disease. Sometimes they turn nasty-Loop Garous. But they don't use the violent cases for work like this.'
Back inside, the gunner and axmen had come down to ground level, and the other man had produced a crowbar and sledgehammer from under his coat. Stagger Lee was examining the machinery.
'Here,' he said, and the hammer struck once hard; a whole section of the assembly line collapsed.
Cloudhunter handed his gun to Patrise, who said, 'Thank you, Cloud,' and began firing into the crates, smashing more glass, sending up sprays of fluid. He handed the gun back, and Cloudhunter reloaded it, as the axmen continued the job. Stagger Lee had strapped on a dust mask and taken some canisters from his bag. He began spreading powder over a pile of cardboard crates and wooden pallets.
There was a crash from the rear of the warehouse, then a movement: a figure in red and black, running straight at them, at Patrise. Cloudhunter took a step, leveled his shotgun: it clicked. He let it go and raised his empty hands. There was a blinding sweep of light, a clunk as the shotgun hit the concrete floor, and a yelp like a hurt animal. The running figure fell down.
Cloudhunter suddenly had his long jeweled knife out, and in front of him lay another of the Vamps, wrapped in the elf-woman's jacket, his head nearly severed.
'Loop Garou,' McCain muttered to Danny. 'Everybody's got a job to do.'
The Ellyll woman, in a white shirt, appeared from around a corner and fired. Cloudhunter jerked, doubled over. McCain's pistol was out then: he fired twice, the woman screamed, and then the Colt jammed. McCain started walking forward, clearing the jam, ditching the magazine and slamming in another. But the woman had disappeared again.
'Cloud,' Mr. Patrise said, and woke Danny up. He dashed to Cloudhunter's side, unslinging his bag. The elf was in a half-crouch, right arm pressed to his chest, left hand still holding the knife at guard. 'Can you sit?' Danny said. 'Here, lean against this.'
Cloudhunter had taken the hit in the upper left chest, just below the collarbone. He was still bleeding freely.
