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Re-killing his brother was tiring.
CHASE THE FIRE
JON F. MERZ
What if vampires weren't undead, but had evolved in secret alongside humanity, protected by an elite cadre known as Fixers? In the Lawson Vampire series, Lawson is one of the elite, constantly battling rogue vampires, terrorists, spies, and more. "Chase the Fire" is a glimpse at an insidious plot brewing from within the vampire governing body, one which Lawson will soon have to deal with.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
We found him in one of the brothels on De Wallen."
Shiraz Aziz eyed the tiny man before him and smiled. As always, the temptations of vice worked for those who knew how to use them to their advantage. He scratched at his bristling beard, which he'd started growing to help conceal his identity. At day eleven, it was almost relentlessly itchy.
But that would pass soon enough.
The tiny man shivered in the cool night air, clad only in a flannel shirt and jeans, teeth chattering as he kept glancing around. Shiraz's men eyed him like he was already dead. But Shiraz gave him a warm smile.
"And how are you tonight, my new friend?"
The man looked up at him. "Do I know you?"
"No," said Shiraz. "You do not. But I know you, and that is far more important. In fact, you might say that it's perhaps the most important thing of all." He smiled some more and then leaned forward to the man crouched on the floor. "I'm going to ask you some questions now. Be a good lad and answer them."
The man said nothing, just continued to look up at Shiraz.
"You are what is known as a Ferret. Is this true?"
The man shook his head and stuttered a quick denial. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Shiraz allowed his smile to fade for dramatic effect and then looked at his men. "Perhaps we have the wrong man here? Maybe you got confused when I asked you to bring him to me? Maybe it is not really who I was looking for after all? Hmmm?"
Hassan, his right-hand man, frowned. "It is possible, I suppose. There was a great deal of confusion when we arrived there. Clothes strewn about everywhere. Perhaps we were mistaken." He nodded toward the man. "But if he is not the one we want, then what should we do with him?"
Shiraz waved his hand. "I don't care. Kill him, so no one tracks his location back to us." He stood to leave and almost immediately, the tiny man reacted as Shiraz knew he would.
"No, don't kill me!" He grabbed at Shiraz's leg. "I'm the Ferret. It's true. Don't kill me. It's really me."
Shiraz eyed him with mock suspicion. "And how do I know you're telling me the truth? You could just be saying that to save your own skin."
The tiny man gulped and then looked back up at Shiraz. For a moment, he said nothing. And then the words tumbled from his lips. Guttural. A mongrel amalgamation of hundreds of forgotten languages. "Haz letand min shako."
Taluk. The ancient tongue of the vampire race. And the Ferret had apparently given a recognition code that only another Ferret would know the answer phrase to. Shiraz did not know what the correct response was, but it didn't matter. The Ferret had admitted he was indeed one of the intelligence specialists assigned to work for the Council, and that was enough for Shiraz to ply him with questions.
But he still made the small man wait another two minutes before resuming his seat. "Your name?"
"Wilkins. Roger Wilkins."
Shiraz looked him over. Unlike the Fixers--the elite spy commandos dedicated to preserving the secret existence of the vampire race--Ferrets were decidedly unremarkable. Wilkins looked like a rail-thin college professor with squinty eyes buried beneath thick glasses and a pimple-ridden face that defied his age. Tufts of hair sprouted at weird places on his scalp, but he was clearly going bald. As far as vampires went, Wilkins was about as un-bloodsucker-looking as you could possibly get. No doubt he never hunted, but just subsisted on the shipments from the Council for his daily allotment.
"Very well, then. As I said, I am going to ask you some questions," said Shiraz finally. "Some of them I already know the answers to. Some of them I do not. You will not know which is which. Do you understand what this means?"
Wilkins blinked. "You'll know if I'm lying."
Shiraz smiled. "Very good, my friend. Very good." He clapped his hands together. The interior of the warehouse was cold, deliberately so. The more uncomfortable the environment, the easier it was to get someone to talk.
"Where is the Fixer known as Lawson?"
Wilkins didn't hesitate. "Boston."
