Chapter Four

When it came to the supernatural, time was definitely not relative. One week may sound like a ridiculously short timeframe to find an ancient artifact that has been lost for thousands of years. But in the unnatural world I worked within one week could literally mean years in the natural world. If Albert Einstein knew what I knew, he would have given up science and spent the remainder of his life hiding in the deepest and darkest hole he could have found. Not everyone was cut out to know the truth about the world. In my case that truth came at a hard price.

After leaving Uno’s office with a million dollars in my pocket, most folks might have been a bit paranoid. That was a lot of cash and there were a hell of a lot of desperate and unsavory individuals in Detroit. But I wasn’t nervous. I could have been waving the million with both hands in the air like pom-poms and no one would have touched me. For the time-being, I was under Uno’s protective net. If anyone even considered trying to rob me, they would have been dead before the sun rose the next morning. And if the robbers happened to already be dead, then I didn’t even want to consider what Uno would have in store them.

Stepping onto the street, I hailed down a cab. My senses were on full alert. Sigma was nowhere to be found and he was going to be a problem. Though Sigma currently worked for Uno, his true loyalties laid with the Assassins Guild. The Guild was made up of killers from both the natural and unnatural worlds. For thousands of years these paid killers lived and breathed its murderous Code of Conduct. Neither being in Uno’s employ nor being under his protection would halt Sigma’s attempts to take my life.

Normally that wouldn’t have bothered me, but I was pretty much defenseless against a killer of Sigma’s measure. Yes, I had my retractable blade, but the assassin would definitely have more weapons to use at his discretion. Uno’s men striped me of everything I had when they abducted me. The only reason they hadn’t found the blade was because of a wizard’s incantation that kept the wrist mound invisible and melded to my arm. To take the wrist mound off required relieving me of my entire arm and unlike Sigma I can’t reattach my limbs.

The cabby’s skin was as dark as night. He rolled down the passenger windows and the smell of garlic wafted out. When I bent down to look inside, he pointed a Desert Eagle magnum in my face. “I only take human fares,” he said with a thick Indian accent.

 It was nearly two in the morning and between midnight and dawn, taxi drivers run into all types of strange and unusual characters. To protect themselves they learned quickly what elements or magic are lethal to whatever supernatural entities they took as fare. More often than not, the customer seeking a ride never attacked the drivers and paid their fare like anyone else. But sometimes racialism extended beyond a person’s skin color, beliefs or nationality—sometimes that hate crossed to subspecies.

“I’m human,” I assured him.

“Prove it!” He offered me a small leather pouch. “Prove it or I’ll shoot you and leave you bleeding on the curb!”

Nice guy. I took the pouch already knowing what it contained, a razor blade and Band-Aids. There are hell of a lot of creatures that look, act and smell human. The quickest and simplest way to prove you’re not one of them and one of us was to cut yourself and bleed. Human blood was red, vampires didn’t bleed, and mummies are so old their blood has become sand and so on and so on. I nicked my finger and showed the evidence to the driver.

Satisfied, he lowered his pistol. “Get in,” he said pleasantly.

I used the Band-Aid, gave him back his pouch and jumped in the back seat. The glass that separated the driver from his passenger had protection spells written all over it. If a passenger posed a threat to the cabbie, the incantation would automatically transport the troublemaker to the South Pole, butt naked into a rookery of mutated ravenous killer penguins. No, I’m not making that up.

The cabbie glanced into his rearview mirror. “Where to, sir?”

“Wayne State University on Cass Avenue.”

I glanced around once more for Sigma seeing no sign of him, but that didn’t mean anything. There were plenty of shadows and crawl spaces to hide around the neighborhood. The cab pulled away from the curb and I relaxed just a little. Between the driver’s protection spells and my silver blade, I may have had a chance to get out of the area without the assassin trying to kill me.

Boy, did I ever call that one wrong.

A loud heavy thud settled on top of the cab causing the roof caved in several inches. The driver screamed in his native tongue, but kept control of the vehicle and was smart enough not to stop. Stopping when something strange lands on your car at that time of night could prove hazardous. Better to keep moving and hope whatever it was doesn’t get a foothold. More thuds hit the roof and I could make out the shape of knuckles in the metal. Luckily the cab was reinforced by black magic; otherwise the unwelcome visitor would have already punched his way inside.

The cab accelerated. The driver swerved right and then left trying to shake the intruder off. Sigma’s face appeared on the other side of the glass at right rear window. He struggled to hold on, but seemed to be losing the battle. Fueled by the desire to kill me, he risked losing his hold and rammed the side his fist into the glass.

It held.

He struck it again and again.

Despite the magic protecting the cab, a spider’s web shape eventually formed—fragments of small glass poured onto the seat.

Sigma smiled knowingly.

The driver did the unexpected--he slammed his foot on the brake. Sigma lost his footing, and went soaring across the air in front of the cab. He slammed hard into the ground and rolled five or six times before his momentum came to a stop. Lightning quick Sigma jumped up to his feet and growled at us. He face and bare chest were heavily scarred and scratched, but I knew his wounds were already healing.

The driver put the car into reverse and hauled ass. Sigma flexed his muscles, perhaps to push broken bones back into their proper place and then came after us. His powerful legs blurred as he charged. A determined vampire could run up to sixty miles per hour and he was damn determined. The cab didn’t have the horsepower to speed up fast enough before the assassin caught up. I yelled for the driver to stop and ordered him to turn the car to the right side so that I was facing the vampire.

He must have heard something in my voice, because he didn’t argue and did exactly as I instructed. I kicked opened the rear door but stayed inside the car. Sigma’s fangs glistened under the starlight as he bear his teeth. He had me and he knew it. The silver blade flitted out of the invisible wrist mound on my arm. I pushed myself to the far end of the rear passenger seat until I was stopped by the door on the opposite side.

Out of nowhere it seemed, wicked looking daggers appeared in Sigma’s hands. As I suspected, he ignored the driver completely and came right after me with lust in his red eyes. He leapt inside the taxi and went straight for my jugular with one of the daggers. I blocked his strike, forcing his hand hard into the protective glass. He was about to strike another blow when he suddenly stopped.

His physical form started breaking apart as if a million micro-sized ninjas were cutting him into small bits. Sigma looked at the glass and saw the magical spell written on it. His red hate-filled eyes told me he understood what was happening to him. He tried once more to slash my throat with his dagger, but the hand around the weapon was gone and it dropped helplessly to the floor. I grinned and waved goodbye to the assassin as he faded completely away leaving me alone in the backseat of the cab. Hope those penguins enjoy their meal.

With the danger long gone and feeling safer the cabbie launched a verbal assault on me in at least three different languages. I showed him five of the Benjamin Franklins Uno gave me as a commission ending his tirade. Insurance could take care of the roof’s damage, the steep tip I was giving him took care of everything else. I closed the rear door and the cabbie happily kept me as his fare.

We drove all the way to the university without talking. We nearly died tonight and neither of us wanted to think much about it. With Sigma temporarily freezing his ass off in the South Pole it lifted a certain weight from my shoulders. I didn’t have to watch my back every second wondering when he would strike. Still, sooner or later he would return and be madder and more determined than ever.

Since there was no negotiating with members of the Assassins Guild, I won’t have any other choice but to destroy Sigma. There were of course drawbacks to that. The Guild might decide to take my action as an offense to them. That meant every member would take a blood oath to hunt me down with extreme prejudice. On the other hand with the vampire assassin’s death they might consider the entire matter closed. It really depended on the mood of the Guild leaders and whether or not they thought I was worth all the trouble.