Chapter 1
“So tell me Sergeant Bradford, what makes your prisoner so important that the normal extradition process couldn’t be followed?”
The unwelcome question snapped Andrew out of his peaceful reverie. He had been staring out the window at the German countryside. They were in an unmarked sedan owned by the Bundespolizei, the German federal police, headed towards the Munich international airport. The overly curious man was sitting in the front passenger seat. His name was Robert Zamardi and he worked for Canadian foreign affairs. Andrew was sitting in the rear driver’s side seat.
“You weren’t told by your superiors?” Andrew asked in response.
“No,” Robert replied favouring Andrew with a friendly smile. He was a short man, balding and overweight.
“Well, maybe that’s because you aren’t supposed to know that information,” Andrew said in an impassive tone.
That brought a snort of laughter from the driver of the car. He was Polizeimeister Niclas Becker of the Bundespolizei. The prisoner in question was in his custody, at least until they got to the airport. He was six feet of stocky muscle glaring at the world through a perpetual scowl. Even though he wasn’t wearing a uniform, his ill-fitting grey suit and military haircut practically screamed police officer. If there were a competition for who looked the most like a stereotypical German cop, Niclas would have won it easily.
Then again, Andrew wasn’t under any illusions that he looked like anything other than a police officer himself. Slightly taller but less muscular in build, his clothing was a near match to those of his German colleague. It was difficult to find a suit that would fit while wearing a shoulder holster and he couldn’t afford to get one tailored for that purpose, especially not on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant’s salary.
Robert glared at him and then turned his back muttering something distinctly un-diplomatic under his breath. Andrew didn’t care. The man should have known better than to ask a question like that. Everything about this prisoner and his transfer into Canadian hands was classified. The details were only to be revealed on a need to know basis, and Robert Zamardi definitely didn’t need to know. His job was simple. He was to witness the transfer and sign the paperwork, making it nice and legal.
In point of fact, Andrew’s job was an easy one as well. He was supposed to collect the prisoner, escort him to the airport, escort him on the plane, and then hand him over when they arrived in Toronto. It was a milk run, nothing difficult.
In the rear passenger side seat of the car, was the prisoner in question. At first glance, he wasn’t much to look at. He had shoulder length black hair and a slightly tanned complexion. His cheeks were smooth, devoid of any sign of facial hair and he had a slight, almost feminine build. His facial features were indistinct, seemingly Mediterranean in origin but with a slightly oriental appearance around his large eyes. He was dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, prison issue if Andrew had to guess.
Andrew hadn’t been told much about the prisoner, but he didn’t need to be told. The man’s hands were secured with a pair of plastic zip tie handcuffs. They weren’t standard issue for transferring a prisoner. That would have been a pair of stainless steel handcuffs. With the way the tips of his pointed ears kept peeking out from behind his hair however, it was a good bet that steel handcuffs would have burned his skin to the bone.
The prisoner was fey. That was what was so special about him. He belonged to a race of semi-mythological creatures that officially didn’t exist. Fortunately, he could pass for human. That wasn’t always the case. Andrew had handled more than enough prisoners who had to be transferred with a bag over their heads. It was part of the job, part of working for Zulu division.
Uninterested in his fellow passengers, Andrew went back to looking out the window. They were coming into a more developed area, leaving the idyllic German countryside behind. Endlessly rolling green meadows were giving way to more and more buildings. He always found it strange, traveling in Europe. The continent was so steeped in history that world war two was considered the recent past. It showed in the wide variety of building types and architecture. Here in southern Germany there was a semi chaotic mixture of architecture spanning nearly four hundred years. Occasionally he would spot an ancient building, which would have been a museum back home, being used as a family home or as a hostel. It was almost enough to make him feel small and unimportant. Of course, that sensation wasn’t helped by the massive mountains standing ever-present in the background. They loomed over everything, countryside and old buildings alike. The snow caped ancient behemoths made even the most ancient of structures seem like recent construction in comparison.
“Verdammt,” Niclas growled as he hit the brakes, slowing the car. Ahead of them was a sea of brake lights. The road had two lanes going in each direction but the vehicles on their side of the road were slowing down and coming to a stop. Andrew shrugged to himself. It was probably a red light, nothing to get upset about.
It wasn’t the worst place in the world to be stuck in traffic. To the left, were three and four story gothic buildings looming over the street. They were packed so closely together that an adult would be unable to fit between them. To the right, was a large expanse of grass and meandering trails studded with trees and flower gardens. The trees shaded the area into near darkness in the nighttime lighting. A lone lamppost illuminated one corner of the park, like an island of light in a sea of shadows.
Niclas continued muttering in guttural German as he brought the car to a halt, stuck behind a line of cars. He was clearly less than pleased with the state of the local traffic.
Suddenly Andrew spotted something unusual out of the corner of his eye. A figure dashed through the pool of light created by the lamppost in the park. He only caught a fleeting glimpse but what he saw didn’t seem right. The figure had been a man, stocky and muscled, but standing no more than four feet tall. The man was wearing a costume of some sort, made up of a cloak overtop of something shiny and metallic. He had also been carrying what looked like a farm implement in his arms.
The hair on the back of Andrew’s neck started to stand up and a shiver ran down his spine. He started scanning the immediate area looking for anything else that was unusual. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.
Dark figures were moving in the shadows of the park. It was impossible to make anything out, but there was something going on. Behind the car, a woman crossed the road, jaywalking and not looking where she was going. She was staring in the direction of the park and hurrying away from it with a worried expression on her face. Andrew’s instincts started screaming at him. Something was wrong and they were exposed.
“Niclas!” Andrew said, his mounting sense of danger putting a note of panic in his voice.
“Ja?” Niclas replied trying to turn in his seat and look at Andrew. A difficult task since Andrew was sitting directly behind him. Robert and the prisoner both turned to look at him as well.
“Something’s happening in that park!” Andrew exclaimed pointing in the direction of the lamppost and the spot it was illuminating.
“What?” Niclas replied looking in the direction Andrew was pointing, “I don’t see …”
Interrupting Niclas in mid sentence the front passenger side window exploded. Blood splattered across the windshield, the dashboard, and Niclas’ face. Robert slumped against his seatbelt, the handle of a small axe protruding from his skull.
Andrew was frozen in shock. A guttural sound of dismay came from the back of Niclas’ throat as he started to frantically paw at the blood on his face. In his horror, Niclas’ foot slipped off the brake pedal. There was a sense of motion as the vehicle drifted forward and then a sudden lurch as they banged up against the car in front of them. The impact caused Robert’s body to flop around in its seat as if it was a puppet whose strings had been cut.
With a squeal of metal on metal, the two passenger side doors of their car were suddenly ripped off the sides of the vehicle. Framed in the rear doorway was a short and stocky form that was wearing a loose cloak. The cloak did little to conceal the thick bronze plates of the armor it was wearing underneath. The creature was short, no more than four feet tall, and had thick muscular arms. Its face was gnarled and warty with a grotesquely bulbous nose and short black beard. It had bulging eyes and absurdly large pointy ears. The creature was fey.
A second creature silhouetted itself in the front passenger doorway while more of them milled about outside the car. They were fey warriors outfitted in bronze armor. Each of them was wearing a small reddish brown cap on its ugly head. The creature in the doorway reached into its cloak and produced a bronze knife. The immediate threat of the knife shocked Andrew into motion. He went for his gun.
Reaching across his chest with his right hand, Andrew tried to draw his gun from its shoulder holster. He had practised this move thousands of times, making it a fast and smooth motion that required little thought. At least, on most days. Today was not one of those days. His hand jammed painfully up against the shoulder strap of his seat belt. The low speed collision with the car in front of them had locked his seat belt, pinning his jacket closed and making it impossible to draw his weapon.
The creature in the doorway reared back and stabbed with its knife, driving the blade deep into the chest of the helpless prisoner in front of him. The effeminate looking fey screamed. It was a high-pitched bubbling sound, more animal instinct then intelligent reaction. He tried to fight back but it was hopeless. Between the handcuffs and seatbelt, he was helpless against his visibly stronger attacker.
While Andrew struggled to get out of his own seatbelt, the attacking creature planted one hand on the prisoner’s chest and pulled the knife out, only to stab it back in, over and over again. Blood sprayed everywhere. A detached part of Andrew’s mind discarded the theory that this was a rescue attempt.
With a final twitch, the prisoner stopped fighting back and slumped lifelessly. He was dead. His murderer looked up from its grisly work and made eye contact with Andrew. A sneer split its grotesque face suggesting that Andrew was next.
There was a sudden loud noise inside the car. Almost as if a firecracker had been set off. This was no firecracker though. It was a gunshot. In the front seat, Niclas had managed to get his weapon free and was firing it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t coming to Andrew’s rescue. He had his own problem to deal with. One of the fey warriors had gotten inside the car and was climbing across Robert Zamardi’s body with a hatchet in its hand.
Niclas fired three more shots in rapid succession. A strange metallic screeching sound reverberated through the car and part of the front windshield shattered. Niclas’ bullets were bouncing off the creature’s armor. He got one more shot off and then the creature was close enough to grab for his gun.
A mad scramble of limbs resulted as the two of them fought hand to hand in the intimate confines of the front seat of the car. More gunshots sounded. A bullet, sounding like an angry hornet, buzzed passed Andrew’s ear, blowing a hole in the rear window.
Giving up on his fight with the chest strap, Andrew reached down and hit the seat belt release. The fey warrior with the knife started climbing into the car, over top of its victim. It was clearly intent on following the example of its friend battling in the front seat. Unfortunately for it, Andrew’s gun was no longer pinned.
He drew his weapon and fired, all in one motion. The creature was so close he didn’t need to aim. The pistol kicked in his hand causing the familiar firecracker bang but there was no ricocheting sound, just a metallic thump and a spark of purple light. There was a momentary pause as both Andrew and the fey warrior looked down at the creature’s armor. A smoking black hole, the diameter of a pencil, had been punched in the center of its chest.
“Didn’t expect that did you?” Andrew yelled in response to the look of surprise on the creatures face.
It responded by gritting its teeth and continuing to climb into the car. Blood dripped from the corner of its mouth and a wet sizzling sound started coming from the smoking hole in its chest. Andrew put two more shots into its chest and one into its face. Each of the bullets to the chest produced the same spark of purple light and black smoking holes in the creature’s armour. The shot to the face blew a fine red mist out of the back of its head. The fey warrior collapsed. The smell of burning flesh started to fill the car.
Opening his door Andrew scrambled out of the car and onto the street. As he got out, the driver’s side window shattered. The creature that had been fighting with Niclas in the front seat started climbing out through the broken window. Its cloak was ripped, the creature was covered in blood, and the hatchet it was holding in its hand had blood dripping off the blade. The blood didn’t belong to the creature. Niclas’ body was lying lifeless in the front seat of the car. He hadn’t died without putting up a fight though. The creature’s armour showed numerous dents where Niclas’ bullets had bounced off it.
Andrew didn’t let the creature get out of the car. He fired three times, punching an equal number of holes through its armor in the center of its chest. The creature continued struggling to get out of the car for a couple of seconds, before slumping over and lying still. One of the holes Andrew’s weapon had created was right next to a dent that Niclas’ bullets had made.
It wasn’t Andrew’s weapon that was making the difference. It was a standard issue nine-millimetre pistol, no different than what Niclas had probably been carrying. It was the ammunition that was different. Normal bullets were made out of lead with a thin copper jacket. On impact, with something hard like a bronze plate, they would flatten and deform. Up against the magically protected armour of the fey, they didn’t stand a chance of penetrating. Andrew’s weapon was loaded with copper-jacketed steel slugs. They were capable of punching through just about anything, and the steel would destroy any fey enchantments on contact. Essentially, Andrew’s bullets were designed for penetrating fey armour. A sizzling sound and the smell of burning flesh started coming from the fey warrior hanging halfway out the window. One of his bullets was probably stuck inside the body. The creature’s flesh was burning from being in contact with the steel.
Looking around, Andrew saw a scene of pure chaos. The traffic jam, or at least the dozen or so cars he could see in the nighttime lighting, was being attacked by a score of fey warriors armed with axes and knives. The creatures were ripping open the doors of the cars and hacking away at the people inside. It was a slaughter. The German civilians were unarmed and unprepared for the wanton savagery of the fey warriors. Would be victims were screaming and scrambling from their cars trying to run away. Others were trying to bash their way out of the traffic jam by ramming the cars in front or behind them. It was pandemonium.
Taking up a shooting stance, Andrew started firing at the fey warriors who were nearby. He needed to do something to help protect the otherwise defenceless civilians. He had never seen fey act this way before. The bloodthirstiness and wanton cruelty weren’t out of character but in his experience, the fey would normally stick to the shadows, killing only when they thought they could get away with it. These ones just didn’t seem to care.
Taking a second to aim, he put two shots into the chest of one of the fey warriors. It stumbled off into the darkness. In the chaotic melee, it was difficult to tell if he was having any real effect. The creatures were tough. He could hurt them, but it would take a lucky hit to the head or heart to stop one in a single shot. At point blank range that had been easy enough, but now that he was firing at moving targets that were further, away it was more difficult. It didn’t help that he had to try to look in every direction at once. The threats were all around him.
He stepped out of the way as a car went careening down the opposite side of the road towards him. The driver was trying to steer while wrestling with a fey warrior that was hanging out the window. With a squeal of tires, the car swerved off the road and slammed into the side of a building, crashing to a stop in a spray of broken glass.
Suddenly, a soundless explosion of purple light illuminated the far end of the traffic jam. Andrew couldn’t see what had happened but the light was the same colour as the sparks that had been produced when his bullets penetrated the fey armor. Multiple sirens could be heard approaching in the distance. In the chaos, someone had managed to call for help. The German police were on the way.
Frantic activity drew Andrew’s attention. In the pool of light, cast by the lamppost in the park, a young woman was being dragged away by one of the fey warriors. She was kicking, screaming, and trying her damnedest to escape, but the creature was too strong for her. Flailing about, she managed to land a punch on the creatures face. As if dealing with an unruly child, the creature responded by grabbing her around the torso and pinning her arms, it then continued to drag her into the darkness.
Planting his feet, Andrew took aim at the creature, but it was hopeless. The target was at least forty meters away, a difficult distance to shoot with a pistol in the best of situations. To make matters worse, the woman was struggling around so much that he couldn’t get a clear shot. He was just as likely to hit her as he was of hitting the fey warrior abducting her.
Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew spotted one of the fey warriors throw a hatchet in his direction. Ducking under the thrown weapon, he returned fire, putting two shots into the creature’s abdomen. It stumbled and took cover behind a car. He turned and looked back into the park but the young woman and the creature that had grabbed her had disappeared into the night. It had dragged her off somewhere and there was nothing Andrew could do about it.
The wild melee didn't give him time to mourn her fate. A fey warrior stepped out from behind an abandoned car and snarled at him. This one was carrying a massive bronze axe. The weapon was almost as long as the creature was tall. Andrew took aim and fired, however the creature started moving just at the right moment and he missed. Correcting his aim, he pulled the trigger again, but nothing happened. Glancing quickly at his pistol he saw the reason why it wasn’t working, he was out of bullets.
The creature bellowed an inarticulate war cry and began charging towards him. Andrew frantically backed away. While his feet moved his hands went through a routine he had practised hundreds of times, he started to reload. With one hand, he pushed the button releasing the spent magazine while his other hand reached into his jacket pulling a fresh one out of his shoulder holster. The fey warrior pulled back its axe ready to swing it two handed. The creature was too close. He wasn’t going to finish reloading in time.
Fortunately, he ran out of space before running out of time. The street curb caught the back of his frantically moving feet tripping him. He made no effort to catch himself and let himself fall under the swinging axe. The bronze blade swept by, inches from his face. The concrete sidewalk slammed into his back in a painful impact while simultaneously his weapon made a little clicking sound as the fresh magazine slid into place. The fey warrior came to a skidding halt and ended up straddling him where he lay on the sidewalk.
It raised its axe high over its head while Andrew’s hands finished their routine, pulling the slide back and letting go. At that moment, with the fey warrior standing above him ready to split his head in half with an axe, Andrew couldn’t help but notice how big the creature’s eyes were. Its pupils were nearly the size of quarters set into its large bulbous eyes. The huge pupils suddenly reflected a series of fiery flashes. The muzzle flashes pulsed in time with the rapid firing of his pistol. The fey warrior fell over backwards with a half dozen smoking black holes in the center of its chest.
An inarticulate groan of pain escaped Andrew’s lips. His back felt like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. Between trying to avoid the fey warrior’s axe and reloading his weapon, he hadn’t been able to do anything to mitigate the effects of the fall. He lay on the sidewalk for a few moments feeling stunned. With a second quieter groan, he moved his neck and looked over at the fey warrior. Its face was locked in a grimace of pain and thin wisps of smoke were rising from the holes in its chest. It was dead.
The sight of the dead fey served as a grim reminder of the precarious situation he was in. Now was not the time to be lying down. He rolled over and climbed to his knees. Spasms of pain shot up and down his back. A little nagging voice in the back of his head told him that no matter how bad it hurt right now, it was going to be worse tomorrow.
Gritting his teeth, he climbed to his feet and raised his weapon, looking for more targets. There were none to be seen. The twisted remains of the traffic jam were relatively quiet. A few civilians could be seen in the distance, running away from the scene, and the sirens of the German police cars were getting closer, but otherwise there was no movement. He was alone amongst the dead bodies and broken cars. The fey warriors were gone.
Looking around, Andrew spotted the car he had arrived in. Despite the wild melee, it was no more than a couple dozen paces away. It was in bad shape. Most of the windows were broken, the passenger side doors had been ripped off their hinges, and the front fender was crumpled. The creature he had shot and left hanging halfway out the driver’s window was gone.
Walking over to the car, he moved carefully, with his weapon out in front of him. The creature was gone but it had left a large bloodstain and a bronze hatchet behind. It was strange, he had been certain he had killed the creature, but there were no drag marks or anything else to indicate what had happened to it. It had simply vanished. Inside the car Niclas, the German police officer, lay sprawled in the driver’s seat. He had multiple deep wounds and he didn’t appear to be breathing. Andrew checked for a pulse anyway. He didn’t find one. The man was dead.
While he checked on Niclas, Andrew couldn’t help but notice a disturbing detail in the back seat of the car. The prisoner, the effeminate looking fey who had been stabbed in the chest, had been decapitated. At some point in the melee, after Andrew had left the car, one of the fey warriors must have sawed off the prisoner’s head. It was gone. It wasn’t the only thing missing either. The other creature he had shot, the one with the knife, was gone too.
A shiver ran down his spine. He turned around, knowing what he was going to see. The body of the fey warrior, the one with the huge axe, was gone too. The axe was there, along with a large quantity of blood, but there was no sign of the body.
“God damn it! Not again,” Andrew muttered to himself. It was impossible. He had been standing right next to the body. The other two could have been dragged away while he was fighting, but not this one. He would have noticed. There was only one possible explanation, magic. Some sort of fey magic had made the bodies of the dead creatures disappear, conveniently removing any evidence of what had attacked the people stuck in the traffic jam. Andrew slammed his fist down on the roof of the car in anger. He really hated magic.
A sudden silence descended. The police sirens, which had been slowly approaching, had stopped. Andrew knew what that meant. He carefully put his gun down on the roof of the car. Keeping his hand near the weapon, he scanned the area. He saw them before they saw him. Stepping away from the car, leaving his gun behind, he put his hands in the air.
“Polizei! Bewegen sie nicht!” a voice yelled out in German. The local German police had arrived. There was a pair of them. Uniformed officers, they had their weapons out and they were looking rather wild eyed. Not surprising really, since they were first responders to the scene of a massacre. With the fey warriors, both alive and dead, having pulled their disappearing act, Andrew was the only one left standing in the immediate area. He wasn’t alone though, there was blood and human bodies strewn about. Things could have gone very badly if they had spotted him holding a weapon. As things were, this wasn’t going to be pleasant. He was standing in the middle of a savage crime scene and unable to speak a word of German.
One of the two police officers yelled something at him in German. He didn’t understand the words but he knew the intent. Keeping his hands above his head, he slowly lowered himself into a kneeling position. It was too late to pull out his RCMP credentials. They would probably shoot him if he tried to reach into his jacket for his ID. It didn’t matter. They would find it eventually.
Keeping his hands up Andrew carefully placed himself in a prone position face down on the pavement. In reward for his silent cooperation, he got a knee in the back and his arms were roughly twisted into position for handcuffs. Andrew had never been arrested before, nor had he ever been interrogated through an interpreter. It promised to be a long night.
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