Bishop and Truman are considered to be the proverbial ‘Bobbsey Twins’ of Vampire enforcement -- even though they look nothing alike. However, if you happened to find one, the other was sure to be lurking somewhere nearby.

Truman appeared as the older of the two, both in weathered looks and physical age as well. It had been a rare feat to reach the mid-fifties back when he’d last been mortal. Bishop on the other hand, was more of your average middle aged Vampire; mid to late thirties with enough experience under his belt to harden his outlook on life much like his partner.

What tied them together in most peoples memories, if you lived through meeting them -- was what you saw in their eyes.

Shark eyes are pretty much unique in the animal world. They view most everything as prey. You can see it when you look into them. There is absolutely no question about it. By the time you recognized you’re in danger, they’ve already found your weaknesses, made plans to exploit them, and may just have an idea or two about disposing of your corpse afterwards.

Presuming there will be a corpse to dispose of when they’re done with you.

No one was sure which had come first. Much like the chicken and the egg; both were rumored to have become Vampire enforcers about the same time. Known widely as Parquette’s left and right hands when situations called for them; I’d often wondered if that was done to keep a closer eye on their activities rather than how good they actually were as enforcers.

Jealousy can do that. So can paranoia. Enforcers are highly competitive. It’s a job where promotion is often done through eliminating the person above you.

The other thing about Bishop and Truman was that Bishop smiled most of the time, while Truman didn’t. It was rumored he didn’t even know how to fake one. Bishop was smiling from ear to ear when he saw me open the morgue door; the smile just not quite making it all the way to his dark eyes.

“Ohhhh boy, ohhhh boy is Miss P. gonna be pissed. We are gonna have us some fuuuuunnn today for sure, for sure.” Bishop drawled. Truman munched on a toothpick and looked down at me. He was a few inches taller and probably enjoyed using that to his advantage. Not that he needed it. I’m fairly sure he was just about to add some meaningfully insignificant and inappropriate Truman-like comment as he pulled the toothpick from his mouth, snapped it in two and let the pieces fall to the ground. But I never got to find out.

We were interrupted by Parquette’s voice calling down from above. “Let them come up gentlemen, I would like to know what she found.” It was tempting to stick my tongue out at Truman, but that would be childish and I might not get it back. He was not someone you messed with lightly.

Begrudgingly the two men moved aside as we passed them and climbed the stairs. I didn’t like having them at my back, but it seemed I wouldn’t be having much of a choice for the time being. “Nice duds. Planning on going out later Phantom?” Bishop teased. “Your coat looks like the type of wrapping you might put around dead fish. Imagine that eh, Truman?” His partner didn’t reply, but he’d already replaced the toothpick. Perhaps an ego did lurk somewhere in those murky depths. I assumed it was probably a very dark and lonely place wherever it was hidden.

Parquette ‘the perky one’ was still acting her part. She stood at a table across from us with several documents spread open. I could see a couple photographs in the mix as she made a show of gathering the paperwork together and placing them neatly into a folder. I kept track of Bishop and Truman as they positioned themselves nearby. I was glad the bissles were locked and loaded and ready to go. Truman won points by moving to my right. Bishop was stationed eagerly to my left; good doggies that they were.

“So Abby; was there anything new with this latest girl? Your reports on the other two were not the most interesting to read. Really kind of cut and dried.” So that explained why Abby had been familiar with KOTC. She’d been here before. It also explained how easily she’d been able to compare the three dead women so quickly; apparently having been called in to do their autopsies as well. I should have caught on to that earlier. It might prove to be a small, but significant detail to remember.

“I don’t have anything new to add. Basically much the same report as the other women.” Abby replied, not bothering to look at me. Perhaps she too was worried about what Parquette had planned for us.

“That’s very good Abby, you can pick up your things and go back to whatever you were doing when I called. Thank you for coming so quickly. We probably won’t need you again anytime soon. Please, take your equipment with you.”

Abby nodded, turned and smiled at me in passing as she moved to pack up. Glancing around I noticed several instruments and pieces of test equipment spread out on another table nearby. I also noticed she was taking her time as she started packing them up. She was delaying her departure as much as she could. Another detail I hoped was going to turn out to be in my favor.

Something else became suddenly obvious as well. Most of the enforcers I’d seen milling about earlier were gone. Parquette wasn’t known to enjoy witnesses. Disposal can be a messy business in her line of work. Things were not looking good for the geek.

“Phantom, Phantom, Phantom.” She said, applying a purr of disappointment to her voice that just didn’t seem to work as well as she might have wanted it to. ”I’m not going to ask how you managed to join our dear Abigail, or why you’re dressed in that overcoat. A very Van Helsingish look by the way. Planning on slaying someone tonight are we?”

Laughter exploded from Bishop. “I knew it!” he yelled. “I knew I saw that damned coat somewhere else before. Got a cross bow or two under that thing there boy?” Parquette turned and glared at him. Apparently this was her show and she wasn’t going to share. I’ll give Bishop a lot of credit; he shut up faster than I would have.

“I bet you are wondering where your friend Midknight is; or do we call her Mids? I forget now Truman, do you recall?” Parquette was being all theater tonight, something she enjoyed when she was in command. I began to wonder if there was going to be an intermission soon.

“They all called her Mids.” Truman muttered over the toothpick. He didn’t smile, but his eyes sent a message. I think they said I was going to be dinner if I read them correctly.

“Mids it is then.” Parquette replied with a nod, moving around the table. “Miss Mids has locked herself in her room and won’t come out to play with us. We want you to open her door for us like the nice little boy you are and let us in to play with her.” Parquette perched herself on the corner of the table and batted her eyes at me. It was at moments like these that I was glad I was a resistor. I could see through the mask and clearly saw the viper behind it.

“And where would this room be?” I asked as calmly as I could manage, not entirely sure where Mids would’ve secured herself out of their reach. There were several places I’d would probably have picked for starters, but given the modifications that’d been made downstairs, I’m sure there were many new areas that I was blissfully unaware of.

Parquette turned her head and I followed her gaze past Bishop. She may have silenced him earlier, but he was still grinning. It was just part of his nature I guess. Then I saw what had been so amusing to him; and I knew exactly where Mids had secured herself.

The steel wall and door were all I needed to see to know what other modifications had been made. Mids had asked me to do some research for her not long ago, and now I knew why -- she’d built herself a panic room. Given the various innocuous research questions that she’d posed at the time, I had little doubt that she’d applied the information she’d received to the letter. Knowing her as well as I did, she’d probably added a few more just to be safe -- literally.

Poured, steel reinforced concrete walls intermixed with rubber baffles and insulated with Styrofoam panels had proven through my research to do an exceptional job of keeping most anything from escaping the room once the doors were shut. No sound, no light, no air. You might call it a tomb of sorts when it was properly locked down as it apparently was now. Buried communications lines and internal backup power would keep the room secure from external power failures. With its own air ducts, cooling and heating systems, it would be completely separate from the rest of the complex -- and quite secure.

Six-inch thick steel doors, biometric and optical security systems would undoubtedly also be in place to keep the curious and other uninvited visitors out. Unlike in the movies though, one cannot simply remove a finger, or eyeball, and hope that the computers will be fooled. Cooking them in the microwave or wearing them over your own are also out. The computers were designed to know better, and react accordingly.

I’d written much of the software she’d requested and I had a pretty good idea exactly how it worked. She’d also have access to all the monitoring equipment currently in use throughout the complex, and would no doubt know what had been going on and where. She was probably watching us now. I didn’t sense anything clearly at the moment, but then I had to hope her room wouldn’t be spider proof.

I sighed. This was not going to go well. It was like going to the dentist with a bad toothache. You knew he was going to have to pull the tooth. It might feel better afterwards, but you didn’t want to go through the motions between pain and pleasure. Such was my luck. I was so screwed. Well, maybe not. If she’d built the panic room, she may have added other things I would know nothing about. Hope is a wonderful anesthetic. I prefer rum myself. Lots and lots of rum.

“You’re out of luck, Parquette. Not even I can open that thing.” I finally admitted to her, waiting for the temper tantrums. Theater or not, she always had been somewhat predictable.

But she surprised me. She simply smiled and crossed one leg over the other showing a lot of bare thigh. Suddenly I wondered who might have told her she could be seductive. I wanted to shoot them, really I did. And not exactly in the head, oh no; that would be entirely too quick and painless. I could think of more anatomically correct places that would do for that purpose. She was even stretching her crossed leg and trying to be cute by wiggling her foot and dangling one of her high heels. Some women can pull that off naturally, but apparently she hadn’t mastered it quite so well yet.

“Oh, I think you can Phantom. You just have to go over and ask her nicely to open the door and then you can leave; like the good boy we all know you are.” The ‘good boy’ part probably was the capper; I knew then and there that this would be a closing act.

Ace had taught us to think calmly at this point if it ever came to it. I began applying all the calming tricks I could think of. Mind calming exercises are the sure fire method to control physical waves of growing adrenaline. Sure. Riiiiiiiight. But I tried anyway. I had nothing and everything to lose. It would be now, or never. It was time for the next phase in the game.

“Actually, Parquette, and I’m really sorry to be the one to break this to you, but I think it’s time for you and your … goons to leave. I’ll talk to Mids and let you now if she wants to talk to you.” As I said it, I saw the foot stop wiggling its shoe, and the smile fade completely.

Bishop laughed. “Spider boy has grown a real pair of cajones eh Truman? Shall we go and play catch with them?” He‘d made a small yet significant tactical error without even realizing it; even had I not had spider senses to work with, his voice had helped the shotgun in my left hand zero in more accurately after it cleared the holster. Truman discovered the one in my right as he stopped chewing the toothpick. Kim was right it had zip; three point five pounds later it would also have bang. Trigger pull is a key element that is weighed in pounds of pull, don’t you know. I’d shortened that distance by two pounds after the safeties were unset.

Okay, I’ll admit it. At this point it was the spider boy comment. Not the three dead women or the thoughts I had fearfully entertained earlier that Mids had been amongst them. It wasn’t even that the enforcers had invaded our complex. Truth be told, I really didn’t care if they had been given permission or not. It also didn’t have anything to do with Mids locking herself up in her new fancy shmancy panic room. Nope, none of that really bothered me any more than I would have expected it to.

Okay, the perkiness thing with Parquette might have aggravated things a bit.

I take it back about the three dead women on slabs in our basement. They still bothered me. I’d come up here with the specific purpose of finding out exactly what’d been going on. Now that I had all the information I needed, I didn’t have any more use for the three stooges than they’d probably had a use for me. Time for a little game called Texas Hold Em -- shotgun style. I was going all in and was planning on taking my pot back. The whole damned thing. Anything extra would go to the three dead women. I would see to it that they even got a bonus. Yes, the roller coaster was back on track and had left the building. The spiders were pissed and their boy was packing serious heat.

I suppose if you happened to have had a pin at that particular moment and dropped it, you might have heard it bounce off of the floor; even without Vampire or spider senses.

Well, once you removed the rug, the carpeting and the padding that was under it. I think there was something hard that it would have bounced off of. I’m fairly sure of it. I think there was tile down there originally. Blue flowery patterns if I recall. I’d been among the carpet majority that’d covered it up.

Parquette folded her arms and moved to stand directly in front of me. She turned to look at Bishop to my Left, and then Truman to my Right while my eyes never wavered from Truman. I figured he needed to die first; the rest would come as they fell.

“You know, I’ve been more patient than they wanted me to be. I played along with your little game of spy versus spy.” Tapping the index finger of her right hand against her lips, she began ticking items off on each finger for emphasis as she thought something over that was apparently beginning to upset her. I was getting the impression Parquette was losing some of her perkiness.

She was like that, slow to boil but once she got that point, look out.

Sighing deeply, she started with one finger again. “First, I’m not holding it against you that you locked me out of the morgue. Second, I’m not going to hold it against you that you snuck down there. Third and foremost I’m not going to hold it against you that you managed to point those stupid weapons at my enforcers.” She put her hand down to her side and moved close enough to touch me.

You could say we really were chest to chest, mano a mano, or even tit for tat. I readily admit that I have a wicked sense of humor at the oddest times.

“But, dearest Phantom, and I mean this in the nicest way possible. I am the master of this fucking city and you will damn well respect that!” She hissed at my face. Wow, Parquette really was pissed off, go figure. The ‘perky one’ had finally left the building. Pay the geek.

“Actually the real Master of Toronto regrets to inform the pretender that she fully agrees with the one you call Phantom. I might have to correct him though; it is long past the time for you to have left.” A new female voice said evenly from the door.

Okay, perhaps I was overly distracted, or the spiders were off disemboweling their dinner. I hadn’t noticed the woman’s arrival any more than Parquette or the others apparently had -- and they’re the Vampires folks. For crying out loud, they’re supposed to notice things like that. It’s just supposed to be a given.

Parquette inhaled deeply to cover her surprise, closing her eyes in frustration as she gathered steam for a new target. “I’ll be right back, don’t you even think of going anywhere.” She whispered theatrically as she pointed her long index finger in my face for emphasis. Turning, she began to stiff walk toward the new arrival when she suddenly recognized who it was.

Parquette stopped in her tracks. I would have said dead in her tracks, but she’s a vampire and well, Vampires are considered undead rather than actually deceased. Unfortunately after spending too much time around them, I tend to remember those pesky small and annoying geekish type details.

The newcomer was a complete stranger to me. I saw a woman in what appeared to be a black robe, zipped to the neck and covering her feet. Kind of like Morticia Adams from the Adams family, only this woman was younger and had raw natural elegance rather than Morticia’s flair. Her aura was also the darkest I’d ever seen. It might almost be safe to say it was like looking at a black hole without any color around it. She was older than LaRouchette in Vampire years by a long shot.

Oh goodie. She was going to be old school in a Vampire way.

Her dark black hair fell straight down and back over her shoulders. She just oozed age and royalty. Of course this was all seen through my peripheral vision. There was no way in hell that I was taking my eyes off of Truman. I still had about a pound of pressure to apply to take his head off. I’d eaten my cereal and wanted my damned prize. I simply do not like him, Sam I am. You might say it was mutual by the way he was looking back at me.

“What are you doing here?” Parquette hissed with little or no evidence of the perky nicer Parquette that we’d seen earlier. The gloves must be off and the claws were out. Let the catfight begin. Anyone have a mud pit they could loan us? Truman saw my smile and must have thought I was thinking about him. Paint him the moron. I was thinking about wet tee shirts and mud wrestling. Maybe followed up with a Jell-O filled rematch.

The visitor seemed to glide across the floor as she moved down to face off against Parquette. No tit for tat jokes here. I had enough on my mind to keep smiling at Truman and keep him on his toes. Who cares what he thought I was thinking about.

“I am here to tell you that the Council feels that your tasks are fully completed and have other more … important things to occupy the time of an enforcer such as yourself.” Give that Woman credit, she didn’t have to act. The threat carried by the tone of her voice alone was more than just implied malice or violence. Whoever she was, she was well versed in giving orders and having them followed. She was starting to remind me of Leviticus LaRouchette.

Parquette must have foolishly started to object when the woman reached out, grabbed her by the throat and yanked her off her feet to hold her above her. That’s a hard maneuver to accomplish no matter what they show you in the movies. It takes a lot of arm strength to do it; and the Woman wasn’t breaking a sweat. Damn that Truman. If he’d only move a little to the left I could get a better look at what was going on. Okay, no more smiles. I pictured his head all over the wall behind him. Damn it, I felt myself smiling again. Crap.

The Woman calmly held Parquette by the throat and didn’t seem to be anywhere near losing her grip as the enforcer struggled fruitlessly in mid air. Her captor looked up at her, and her eyes had gone black as night. I saw the power of her aura as much as the spiders felt it. “You will leave now Parquette. If you choose to disobey me, you will regret it.” I was starting to like this woman. She lowered her arm and unceremoniously tossed Parquette back toward the elevator without much effort. Give Parquette credit, it is very hard to land smoothly with high heals and not stumble. “These three belong to me. You will be leaving alone.”

These three? Ah yes. I’d forgotten Abby was behind me. Silly, silly, chauvinistic me. I’d broken yet another one of my cardinal rules. Oh well, it looked to be only be a five yard penalty and a replay of the down. Unintentional Vampire forgetfulness was the call. Only I would think of football at times like this.

Parquette rubbed her throat, and apparently thought about spitting out one of her usual retorts when she changed her mind and wisely spun to march toward the elevator. It must have been left locked open and waiting for her. She angrily pounded the button that closed the doors. I’ll keep the Kodak moment she had as the doors closed. It would have looked nice in a frame. Maybe blown up and matted behind glass -- glare proof most likely.

“You can put the guns away now Phantom, you have nothing to fear from those two anymore. You have my word on that.” The woman said calmly, turning to look at me. Damn, Truman was going to live. Damn the luck. I reset the safeties and put the guns away. My arms had been getting tired anyway. I really needed to work out more. Truman was still glaring at me. “Bishop and I’ll be up in the club. There will be no warnings next time we have this conversation Phantom.” He said evenly before moving past me and following Bishop to the elevator.

“Phantom, Grace. Grace, Phantom.” Abby said as with some amusement as she walked up behind me. I truly was starting to feel comfortable with Abby at my back. I had to start trusting some of the Vampires. Perhaps her laughter earlier had simply clinched the deal.

Grace nodded and frowned as she turned toward the stairs leading to the morgue. “I think we need to talk.” I couldn’t have agreed more. Her eyes were back to dark blue and filled with pain and sorrow.

Vampires usually don’t look as sad as she did, especially about a morgue. You’d think dead bodies wouldn’t bother them all that much.

* * *