Deliver Us From Evil Read online

  “Can I help you with something?” A young, red-haired woman asked from behind the counter.

  “Yeah, I’m looking for someone who was supposed to meet me this morning. I have to drop something off?”

  “Oh, you probably want Cappo. He’s in the back. Let me tell him somebody’s here looking for him.”

  The woman left Kurt standing in front of the counter while she went through a door in the back of the deli. He heard the murmur of voices from the back and then she reemerged.

  “Cappo will be with you in just a few minutes. Can I get you something to eat or drink while you wait? We have all sorts of toasted bagels and I make a pretty good coffee.”

  “I guess coffee will be fine,” Kurt replied. He turned and watched people walk by the front window while the woman poured him a cupful of the fresh brew.

  She placed a paper coffee cup on the counter and pointed to a shelf at the end of the counter. “You can find cream and sweetener down there.”

  “Great, thanks.”

  Kurt headed down to the end of the counter and made up his coffee and stood there sipping it while he waited for Cappo to come out from the back. He turned and watched traffic pass by outside the front window.

  A deep, gruff voice came from the back of the deli. “Kurt Carter, I figured it was about time we met in person.”

  Kurt turned around. A diminutive, bald guy wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian T-shirt stood there at the back of the deli. Kurt’s eyebrows shot up in surprise when he saw the guy.

  Kurt’s expression seemed to amuse the other man. “Not exactly your typical gangbanger, am I.”

  “No, I guess not,” Kurt replied. “So you’re a member of the Hells Gate Clan?”

  “You might say that. Come on back to my office. I assume you brought the payment?”

  Kurt patted his jacket pocket. “I’ve got it right here.”

  The man, who must be the one the counter girl called Cappo, nodded and waved for Kurt to follow him. Kurt fell in line behind the odd, little gentleman and went into the back.

  They passed through a storeroom. It had shelves full of supplies for the deli out front. A door at the back of the storeroom led to a short hallway with several doors on either side. One of them was open. That was where Cappo headed.

  “Have a seat, Kurt. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “I know I’ve never met you before. I’m not sure we’d have anything to talk about. I’m just here to drop off the payment. I guess you’ll make sure it gets to the right person.”

  Cappo laughed and slapped his desk as he sat down behind it. “Yeah, I’ll make sure it gets to the right person. You really don’t know do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Who I am.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite, who are you?”

  “I’m Cappo Czerech, leader of the Hell’s Gate Clan.”

  Kurt just stared at the tiny man. He couldn’t be much more than a meter and a half tall. Kurt struggled to understand how a guy like this could run a ruthless, interdimensional criminal organization like the Hell’s Gaters.

  “You don’t seem convinced, Kurt. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to change your mind, unless you’d like me to invite a few of my colleagues over to put a beating on you. Is that what you’d like me to do?”

  Kurt held up his hands. “No, I’ve had enough of beat downs from your people.”

  “Good, then let’s get down to business.”

  Kurt reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope stuffed full of crisp paper bills. “I still don’t understand why you don’t accept credit or some other form of easily transferable payment.”

  “Too easy to trace,” Cappo said. “Cash is still king in my book. Well, cash and gold, along with other precious metals and gems.”

  Cappo looked the cash in the envelope, running his fingers across the bills inside, but not counting them. He pulled open a drawer in his desk and dropped the envelope inside.

  “It looks like everything is there. I know you wouldn’t be stupid enough to shortchange me.”

  “I have to wonder why you decided now was a good time for us to meet. Care to tell me?” Kurt asked.

  “Fair enough question. When I found out you were the one who knocked off our four brothers, I have to admit I was a little bit shocked. Your reputation for avoiding bloodshed and killing precedes you. That’s one reason I had you chosen for that particular mission. Jag can get a bit heavy-handed at times. I needed someone on the delivery who could handle themselves without escalating the situation.”

  Kurt nodded. “I guess you were wrong.”

  “Maybe,” Cappo replied. “And maybe not. Since then you’ve returned to your more pacifistic ways. Either you broke from tradition for that one job, or you weren’t the person who killed my crew at all.”

  The gang leader let the statement hang in the air between them while he studied Kurt’s expression in response.

  Kurt didn’t answer. He wondered if Cappo had figured out it was Marci who killed those men. He couldn’t let that happen. Kurt had to distract him. He’d have to be careful. He was a pretty good liar, but he suspected Cappo was pretty good at seeing through deceptions. It would be a survival trait in his line of work.

  “Well,” Kurt said. “I hate to disabuse you of that notion, but it was me. That brings me to something I need to pass along to you. I’m a little strapped for cash and I’m probably not going to be able to make the next payment.”

  “How strapped for cash?” Cappo asked. “This isn’t like a mortgage payment where you can just pay a late fee. There’s the clan’s honor involved here.”

  “I might be able to make one more payment, but after that I am tapped out. I was hoping perhaps to get an extension on the payment plan.”

  Cappo laughed and waggled his finger at Kurt. “You have quite the set of balls on you, Kurt Carter. You come here to pay a blood debt, a debt I’m pretty sure you aren’t responsible for. Now, you want me to give you an extension on your payments.”

  Cappo leaned back in his chair. “I’ll tell you what. If you can get me your next payment in equivalent value of gold-plated comm chips, I’d be inclined to offer you a two-month extension so that you can catch up for your next payment.”

  Kurt thought about it. He hadn’t expected the request to work. Still, gold-plated comm chips were used for the implantable devices most people used to communicate over the wireless system that blanketed most of the planet.

  If someone got ahold of a large supply, they could implant new chips in people that were untraceable. They’d be clean with no identifiers. It would essentially make it so a person was completely off the grid.

  You could turn a normal chip off and drop off the grid for a short period of time. But, if the government wanted to find you, they could activate the chip remotely and track you down using your unique identifier code.

  A blank chip wouldn’t have that code. Because of that, they were scarce and illegal to possess.

  “That’s a tall order, Cappo,” Kurt said. “Clean comm chips are a risky thing to traffic in.”

  “So is lying about who killed my people. That’s the deal I’m offering for an extension. Take it or leave it.”

  Kurt stared at the Cappo for a few seconds then shook his head in resignation. “I’ll see what I can do. There are a few places I can check on and see if I can turn up supply.”

  “See, Kurt. I knew I could count on you. Don’t worry, the secret of who really killed my people is safe with me, for now.”

  Kurt knew the threat left unsaid at the end of that statement was real. If Kurt didn’t come through with the chips, this guy would keep digging and eventually figure out Marci was responsible for the deaths.

  “I’ll get your chips. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Good man. Now, get out of my deli. I’ve got work to do. I think you’ve got things to do as well, right?”

  Cappo tapped on the keys of an archaic deskto
p computer. Kurt stood up and left the gang leaders office. He walked back through they outside to the deli store front.

  “Do you want me to freshen up your coffee?” The woman behind the counter asked.

  Kurt waved his hand. ”No, thanks. But it was good. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Have a nice day.”

  “Yeah, you, too.” He tapped his wrist comp to leave payment and a tip with the deli’s automated system.

  Kurt left the deli and got back in his SUV. He had to figure out where he would find these chips. The first place to check was the place he always went to find rare and expensive technology.

  He hoped Jonesey didn’t mind him dropping in unannounced. She tended to shoot people who surprised her like that. It was a chance he’d have to take.

  Chapter 3

  Kurt headed across town towards Highlandtown. It was a rough neighborhood even in broad daylight. He kept his eyes open as he drove towards Jonesey’s warehouse lair.

  Parking out front, near the single gray steel door in the building’s side, Kurt locked and engaged his SUV’s security system before heading over to the door.

  Though he couldn’t see any cameras from here, he was sure he was under surveillance from the minute he pulled up. He looked up towards the roof and waved then press the intercom button on the wall.

  “Yeah?” Josie’s voice came over the speaker. “I don’t think we had an appointment, Kurt. What are you doing here?”

  “Hey, Jonesey. Something came up, and I needed to check in with you. It’s kind of urgent. Sorry I wasn’t able to make an appointment ahead of time. Can you squeeze me in?”

  There was a long pause with a crackle of static over the speaker before the Elven tech mage spoke again. “I’m busy, but come on in if you can be quick about it.”

  Kurt shrugged. That was easier than he expected. It kind of worried him. Maybe Jonesey was tricking him into coming inside so she could take her ire out on him for the interruption.

  The door lock buzzed and Kurt pulled the steel door open, stepping inside the caged vestibule. Only after the exterior door shut did the interior cage door pop open. Kurt headed down the long hallway towards Jonesey’s workshop.

  He found the tech mage sitting at her worktable on a tall stool as usual. She hunched over her latest project though he couldn’t see what it was. All Kurt could make out was a bunch of circuit boards and the smell of fresh solder in the air.

  “Stand right there. Don’t touch anything. I’m almost finished.”

  Kurt nodded and stayed put. He knew better than to go wandering around touching anything in Jonesey’s shop. That was a good way to lose an arm.

  She continued working on the circuit board in front of her with the solder gun for almost five minutes before she looked up and put the soldering iron down.

  “I am surprised you didn’t make an appointment. I’ve been very explicit about my rules on that.”

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that, Jonesey. You see, something—”

  Jonesey cut him off with a wave of her hand. The cigarette between two fingers traced a line of gray smoke through the air in front of her. “Actually, I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been trying to get ahold of your partner. She had me looking up something for her and I needed to give her the answer on what I found.”

  The answer surprised, but he ran with it. “You’re looking for Marci, too?”

  “Yes and I figured you’d know how to get ahold of her. I guess that’s not the case if you can’t find her either.”

  “I haven’t heard from her in two weeks, not since we got back from that zombie job.” Worry creeped into his tone. What was going on with Marci? She hadn’t been in touch with her father either.

  Then, she had Jonesey looking for something for her but doesn’t return the elf’s calls. He decided that would be his next stop today after getting what he needed here.

  “If you do run into her, tell her to give me a call. I have the answer she was looking for, or at least part of one.”

  “Do you mind me asking what she was looking for?” Kurt asked.

  “No, it had to do with that big crystal you guys picked up on a job a while back. She was trying to track down something about its origins.”

  “What did you find out?” Kurt asked.

  “Just that the crystal seems to be from one of the more powerful dimensions as far as magic goes. I can’t tell anything else without seeing it myself. I’m only going on her description on how the magical interface worked when she used it that one time. Anyway, let her know that I found out something and that she can call me if she has any questions.”

  “I’ll let her know.”

  Jonesey nodded. “Now, what can I do for you? It must be important or you wouldn’t have driven all the way over here without an invitation and interrupted me this way.”

  “I need a place to get my hands on untraceable, gold-plated chips.”

  “Clean ones?”

  Kurt nodded.

  “I know you deal in a lot of black-market items, but I didn’t know you were delving quite that deep into things of such a heavy criminal nature. Untraceable comm chips are something the feds take very seriously. If they knew you were dealing in them, it would put you on the radar of more federal agencies than just the GEU.”

  “It’s a one-time deal, I hope. So, do you know where I can get my hands on a supply of them?”

  “I do. I have a couple of cases in the back.”

  Kurt’s eyebrow shut up in surprise. He knew Jonesey kept a lot of stuff stashed away in this warehouse, but most of it was weaponry and things that would be considered interesting magic and technical gadgets. Untraceable comm chips was something else entirely.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why you happen to have a couple of cases lying around, will you?”

  “I do a little bit of personal enhancement jobs for friends of mine from time to time,” Jonesey said. ”I know I can do a better job than some back-alley medical hack can do. When people I know want to disappear, I’m more than happy to help them get away.”

  “Can you let me have a case and I can pay you back sometime down the road?”

  “I don’t give credit, Kurt. You know that. But, I suppose you wouldn’t ask for something like this unless it was important. What are you doing with them if I give you a case?”

  “You know about my trouble with the Hell’s Gate Clan?”

  The elf nodded.

  “Well I finally arranged a payment plan with them, but I’m a little strapped for cash right now. They offered to extend my payments out a few extra months if I can get them a case of clean chips.”

  “And if you don’t, I suppose they’re going to break your legs, or worse, to make an example out of you?” Jonesey asked.

  Kurt started to answer, but the elf waved him off. “I know all about the Hell’s Gaters. I know what they’re capable of and what they’ll probably do to you if you can’t pay up. I don’t suppose I can let something like that happen to one of my best clients. You can have a single case of the chips. It’s not free. I reserve the right to ask you for a special favor down the road. No questions asked. Whatever it is, you have to drop everything. Deal?”

  Kurt nodded. “Deal.” He figured it was better to be in debt to Jonesey than go back to dodging gangbangers with a price on his head.

  Jonesey got up from her stool and waved for Kurt to follow her. She slid a key card from her pocket and held it up against a security pad next to the door at the far side of her workshop. Kurt walked over and waited while she entered a code. A door slid back into the wall.

  “Come on, and don’t touch anything.”

  Kurt had never been beyond Jonesey’s workshop room before. This was exciting. He was about to get a look at the tech mage’s inner sanctum. He didn’t think there were many people allowed back here. Heck, he might be the first one.

  Jonesey headed back into the depths of the warehouse. There were pallets of crates stacked here and ther
e. Some of them were stacked five or six crates high. Kurt wondered what she might have in those crates.

  There were also rows of shelves containing all sorts of what Kurt could only call junk. He could think of no other word for the stuff he saw. He saw crates with bundles of wire, spare car parts, and scrap iron. There was nothing he would call particularly useful in the various items he passed on the shelves.

  Eventually she stopped and pointed at a briefcase sized cardboard box sitting on the top shelf in front of her. “Reach up there and grab that for me, would you?”

  Kurt stepped up and reached up for the cardboard box. The weight caught him by surprise given the size of the box. He handed it to Jonesey. She turned around and set it on top of a crate nearby.

  She flipped open the cardboard box’s flaps revealing plastic bags full of tiny electronic chips. She pulled out one vacuum sealed bag and handed it to him. “There you go; comm chips. They’re guaranteed to be clean and untraceable just like you want. You can have one bag. They each contain a hundred chips. Given their price on the street, I should think that will be more than enough to cover your debt for the next six months or so.”

  Kurt just stared at the contents of the box. Along with the single bag he held, there had to be at least six hundred chips in there. This was a small fortune despite their illegal nature. Jonesey just had them sitting in a cardboard box on a shelf in her warehouse. No signs of extra security, no nothing.

  “Come on Kurt, I don’t have all day. I have to get back to the custom circuit boards. Put the box back for me, grab your chips, and let’s get out of here.”

  Kurt looked at the bag in his hand. It was about the size of his fist. It would fit inside his jacket pocket. He slid the chips into his pocket and closed the box lid. He walked over and placed the box back where he’d gotten it.

  “This good?” He asked.

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  Kurt put the box back, then followed Jonesey back out to the workshop.

  She climbed back up on her stool lit a fresh cigarette and pointed to the door leading outside. “Don’t forget to pass along my message to Marci.”