Jim Cogan - The Dirty City

We reached the gates at exactly one minute to midnight, bang on schedule. I’d always believed that immaculate timing is the hallmark of a good private detective.

A welcoming committee of goons stood by the sides of the open gates, brandishing automatic rifles in threatening poses. I assumed these were Vitalli’s regular hoods, I figured vampires wouldn’t need to bother with guns.

I pulled up at the gates and almost in tandem, every goon trained their guns on us. I signalled to them that I was armed and indicated that my gun was trained only on the Doctor. The nearest goon, evidently the senior character here, approached the car.

“Lady, get out of the car and keeps your hands high,” he said, gesticulating to Del-Ray. “And you, throw the gun out the window, then get out, slowly, hands up. And don’t try anything clever.”

I did as he ordered and then two hoods approached and patted us both down. The goon searching me quickly located the Doctor’s vampire slaying device – he removed it from my pocket, looked it over then passed it to a companion. When they were satisfied that we were not carrying any additional concealed weapons, we were ushered through the gates, guns pressed uncomfortably into our backs the whole time.

A short walk into the complex and the goons then handed us over to a different group who obviously were vampires. They weren’t trying to hide it either, their eyes glowing that familiar luminous green, and they all displayed the contorted features and fangs. I ascertained that vampires had an element of control over whether they chose to look reasonably ‘normal’, in human terms, or whether they decided to show their true form, presumably the hideous, green eyed, fanged and contorted variation. I glanced over at Del-Ray – she’d not previously seen one up close, she couldn’t disguise the mix of shock and disgust on her features.

One of the hoods handed the vampire slaying device to the nearest vampire. He studied it briefly, then with a flick of his hand he dismissed the goons, then turned to us.

“Is this the weapon?” He snarled.

“Indeed it is,” I said apprehensively. I was considering trying to make a bit of small talk, but I caught the look in his eye and thought better of it.

The vampire snorted, dropped the device to the floor and crushed it to pieces with a single, violent stamp of his foot.

“Where is the Doctor’s associate?”

“What, the jerk? He didn’t really agree with the plan to come down here, he tried to jump me. I redecorated the wall of the Doctor’s lab with his brains. Messy business, ain’t that right, Doctor?” I was going for the ‘I’m on your side’ angle – I figured that would at least buy me enough time.

Del-Ray looked at me with convincing disgust. The vampire shrugged.

“This way. We’ll take you via the scenic route, I reckon you’ll appreciate seeing the farm,” he sneered as he turned and marched off. The other three vampires shoved us along after him.

The farm turned out to be an enormous warehouse of prefabricated iron. From the exterior it looked pretty derelict, but the vampires has obviously been very busy inside. We were led through a couple of double doors then into the horrific vastness of the main expanse of the building.

“Oh my God!” Del-Ray, eyes wide, was struggling to keep to her composure.

The huge interior was pretty much filled a gigantic, uniform structure of a metal frame work – and within the individual frames, suspended upright, hung the limp bodies of countless people, all naked, unconscious and hooked up to elaborate tangle of pipes and tubes, intravenously draining the blood and presumably human waste from them into huge separate vats below. The scale of the operation was both mind blowing and horrific.

As we reached the far end of the warehouse we passed a couple vampires pulling down some poor souls who’d evidently been drained clean, their bodies pale as ghosts, completely lifeless. We watched as the vampires dragged the corpses away and dumped them down a disposal shute, with the similar distain of someone disposing of their garbage.

And at almost the same time, two more vampires were wheeling in more people on stretchers to take the places of the deceased.

Thankfully, we were then led back outside through a rear door – if I’d had to spend any more time in that terrible place I’d have been starting to retch.

We walked for a couple of minutes, which took us deeper inside the complex to a main courtyard. A crowd of thirty or more vampires awaited our arrival. We were frog-marched into a clearing in the middle of the throng and waiting for us was the familiar figure of Shelly Valance, thankfully back in her more appealing human form. To her right stood a tall, well built and muscular guy, I estimated him to be in his early thirties.

I decided if I was going to say anything then now would be the time, “well, it’s nice to see you again Miss Valance, but I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your good self, Mr?” I offered my outstretched hand towards the big guy, slightly worried in case someone decided to bite it off.

“Shut the hell up, Jerome,” evidently he was in no mood for niceties. “My name is Gianni Vitalli, and you have been a massive waste of my time.”

So, this was the main man, the kingpin of organised crime in Santa Justina. I didn’t fancy my position, Vitalli was a lot more intimidating than I was expecting, but I decided I had nothing to lose – what the hell, it was time to play hardball.

“Whatever, Mr Vitalli. Now, I’ve delivered the good Doctor, here - and one of your goons has taken away her little box, you know, the thing that caused your friend, McLane, to repaint an alleyway with his own innards earlier tonight,” I let that hang in the air a little – I figured vampires weren’t used to someone openly declaring that they weren’t as invulnerable as they obviously believed themselves to be, “now, I want to see Lydia. Or do I have to ask your boss, here, about that?” I said, indicating in Valance’s direction.

I briefly saw her smirk, then my attention returned rather quickly back to Vitalli. He fixed me with a murderous glance, and then…

“Oh crap,” I heard myself utter. His eyes had begun to glow green as well. Gianni Vitalli had not only gone into league with the vampires, he’d actually become a fully paid up member of the God damned club.

I think he struck me violently with the back of his hand – in truth, it was so fast that I didn’t see it coming at all. The impact of the blow was so severe it lifted me off my feet and sent me tumbling backwards a good five yards. My vision blurred, my head throbbed and I felt at least two teeth come loose in my mouth. I lay motionless for few seconds before dragging myself to my feet. My body was still aching from the beating McLane had given me earlier – taking a second severe beating inside twenty four hours was just completely unfair.

I threw a quick glance to my watch – one minute to go.

Vitalli was already advancing toward me, I was worried that he might let the moment go to his head and beat me to a bloody pulp right there and then. I was mightily relieved when Valance spoke up.

“Easy, Gianni. Remember, you must control those primal urges – you’re part of the superior species now.”

Reluctantly he held back.

“Johnny!” A very familiar voice reached my ears, I looked over and I saw Lydia, face bruised, clothes torn and battered, had been dragged in the clearing. Valance, eyes green, fangs bared, behind her – clasped her arm violently around Lydia’s throat.

I instinctively moved toward them.

“Stay there or I rip the bitch’s head clean off!” Lydia’s eyes widened in horror as she looked at me helplessly.