Almost Done

Gorman Reach had had enough. He couldn't remember how many times today he'd been knocked down and had his face pushed against something nobody would want their face pushed against. "It was more than once, I'll tell you that," he thought. And that was once more than he felt necessary. Gorman Reach is a ghoul and being such, doesn't feel pain in the same way a human does, but discomfort and humiliation are feelings universally shared. And right now, he was feeling an inordinate amount of both.

"You keep asking me questions I can't answer," Gorman mumbled.

"Can't or won't," the Caterwauler, who's name was Victor, asked grinding Gorman's cheek into the broken pavement.

"Can't," he replied. "On account of you pushing my face in the ground."

The Caterwauler, which is akin to a werewolf, but a cat instead, and not prone to admitting a mistake, lifted his clawed foot from Gorman's cheek only slightly.

"Oh," its terse reply.

"Yeah, oh," Gorman spat. "To answer the dozen questions you spewed, No, I'm not working for anyone you know. Yes, I have been following you. No, it is not to indict you in any wrongdoing. Yes, I have followed others of your kind today. No, it had nothing to do with them personally. Yes, it has to do with something you have ties to. No, no one else knows I'm here. Yes, it might benefit you to let me do my job. No, I won't shoot you as soon as you let me up. Yes, I will hold it against you if you kill me. No, you probably can't actually kill me. And Yes, I am the same Gorman Reach who took out Claudette Debussy for farming half-breed vampires. Now, please, let me up."

To his surprise, the Caterwauler did so. "Make no sudden movements, Mr. Reach," it spat.

"Ghouls aren't really the sudden movement types," he replied. "You do business with the Faux Men, yes?"

"We do business with many," the Caterwauler hissed. "It is not our policy to divulge with whom we deal, or in what we deal."

"Look, I know you work with the faux men, and I don't care what work you do for them," Gorman said. "I just need to know where I can find them. They've been up to some shenanigans that my client would like to put a stop to. And if that happens, you'll notice your bottom line benefitting as well. So, can you tell me where I can find them so I don't have to keep following Caterwaulers?"

"You will not divulge your client or their interests in this matter beyond what you've already stated," the Caterwauler asked.

"No," Gorman answered testily.

"Very well," it replied. "There are some of my kind that have also had reservations about what the Faux men are getting up to lately. They've been overstepping their station among the hierarchy, much like you have, if one were to ask me. You can find them at the Antediluvian downtown. They have a room in the back reserved in perpetuity."

Gorman gave a polite bow and nod, none of which he meant. "Thank you," he said.

"I needn't remind you to keep my involvement to yourself, lest you find yourself flayed to the bone one day," the Caterwauler asked.

"Cross my heart," Gorman said and left Victor staring balefully after him.

It had started to rain. That black, slimy, rain you only get in big cities. Gorman hailed a cab and directed the driver to a parking garage downtown several blocks from the Antediluvian. "Don't need to tell him where I'm actually going," Gorman thought. With the rain and the traffic, Gorman had time to go over what he'd learned so far about the Faux Men's activities.

One, the Caterwauler's, at least some of them, were involved. Two, the Faux Men were dealing with some seriously heavy hitters. No vampire nations or demon clans as far as he could tell. Not yet, anyway. But, some powerful mortal organizations and some representatives from The Tiers. Gorman had never seen The Tiers. He'd heard wildly varying stories about the place over the years. Some say it's Heaven on Earth. Some say, literal Hell. Gorman was inclined to believe the latter given the state of Echelon, where he resided, in a country covered in the perpetual purple of twilight with no night or real day that was considered the upper crust of this world. Gorman had been having serious thoughts about both places lately. Some of the cases he'd had the last couple of years, led him to question what he thought he knew about the world around him. He'd always had a feeling that something wasn't quite right but he'd learned things recently that made the ground he was treading on more solid. But these Faux Men? Simulacrums of real humans, the genesis of which, no one knew, were throwing him off his axis completely.

"We're here," the driver said. "Three fitty."

Gorman thew some wadded bills at the man and got out without a word. "Damn, dirty, rain," he thought. He pulled his trench coat around him and pulled his hat down low over his eyes. He wasn't trying to conceal his identity, he was just cold. By hook or by crook he knew he couldn't get into the Antediluvian and was surprised that the Faux Men could, them not being one of the older or more established communities in The Country. He'd just have to wait them out and follow them once they'd left. There was a diner across the street that didn't ask too many questions, regardless of how sketchy you looked, that he could post up and watch the entrance. The coffee wasn't bad either.

It wasn't long before the Faux Men came out. They were tall and broad and uglier than anything he'd ever seen or heard of in his life, which made them easy to spot. Gorman left a ten on the table and proceeded to follow them. He didn't know much about the Faux Men and his employer didn't give him much to go on but he could tell he didn't want to find himself in a precarious situation with them. They looked mean and dangerous. And given that they were basically mortals throwing around their weight in a non-mortal world, their looks were probably not deceiving. Gorman kept his distance.

He followed them to a warehouse. Gorman knew it well. It was where he discovered that Infinity Inc. was harvesting the blood of half-vampires to create a serum that turned regular humans into immortals, or near as. It was also where he ended the whole scheme by shooting the founder, Claudette Debussy, in the forehead.

There was nothing more he could do this night, he thought so, he got up to leave but a sudden searing pain starting at his head and shooting down his back, put him, once again, face first into the ground. He didn't even have time to ask "who" when a boot to his nose, knocked him out cold.

When he awoke, it was in a dark room and he was tied to a chair. "Of course," he thought. "Not much imagination in these bad guy types." But Gorman could see in the dark and it wasn't easy to tie up someone who could dismember themselves and then reattach the limb in question as though it were velcroed to him. Grunting, because though he could reattach them, it still hurt like hell to pull them off, he pulled out of the ropes, letting his hands fall to the cold concrete below. "Might as well have a look around," he thought after reattaching his body parts. He hadn't gotten far when he heard a familiar voice cutting through the dark.

"Gorman," the voice said oozing wealth and sophistication with every letter. "I never expected to see you here again."

It was Vyren Montclair, head of the most powerful Vampire Nation in the Country, possibly the world. A vampire he had helped out on more than one occasion and who himself dabbled in dubious practices involving half vampires.

"Vyren," Gorman says evenly. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"You, my friend," Vyren says, "are still rather good at sticking your nose into places it doesn't belong. What are you doing here?"

"Just retracing my greatest hits," Gorman replies. Before the last word is fully out, he's hit hard in the stomach by one of the Faux Men.

"That's enough," spits Vyren. "I didn't ask you to do that. If you value your continued existence, you'll refrain from thinking for yourself."

"Thanks," Gorman sputters out. "You created the Faux Men?"

"We needed a new supply of human blood after Claudette destroyed our storehouses and there just weren't enough of them left to go around. So, we created the Faux Men using DNA cloning. Even I don't understand it, but it's enough to say, that their blood is human enough to keep the Montclair Group in charge of the Country for the next thousand years."

"Why not just move to the Tiers," Gorman asked reasonably. "It's favorable to your kind and you have family there, supposedly."

"My half-breed son," Vyren questioned. You really think Claudette sent him to The Tiers?"

"S'what she said," Gorman answered. "He could still be there living off rats and cuddling demons."

Vyren exploded out of his chair and grabbed Gorman's throat. "Keep your insolent tongue in your mouth. What I did was to protect Claudette and my son."

"Is that what you tell yourself," Gorman asked. "More likely it was to protect you and keep your control over The Country."

The vampire let Gorman drop to the floor and turned away. "I would have raised him, you know," he said. "But he wouldn't have been safe here. With me. He would have been food. Who hired you to look into the Faux Men?"

"Even if I knew, I couldn't tell you," Gorman replied. "I'm still a professional after all. I was hired anonymously and the pay was too good to refuse."

"You make a habit of working for people you don't know," Vyren asked.

Before Gorman could answer, a voice like silk broke through the darkness.

"It was I who hired Mr. Reach," a familiar voiced hissed. "Though to be honest, I didn't expect you to be involved, Vyren."

"Victor," Vyren said coldly. "Why would the leader of the Caterwauler's be interested in this business?"

"Some of my people were dealing with these Faux Men," he replied. "Going outside their purview and station. I needed to find out what the Faux Men were after and if it could harm my nation. Now, I find out they're just blood donors and using my organization to transport their wares. How very disappointing, Vyren. Still only concerned with prolonging your reign on this Country and continuing to miss the bigger picture."

"Which is what," Vyren asked.

"You know of what I speak," Victor spat. "The curtain is coming down. Our kind won't be in charge much longer if we don't act."

"Fairy tales, Victor," he replied. "And even if your rumors turn out to be true, I can't help from a position of weakness. The Montclair Group is all that holds this Country together."

"Geez," Gorman groaned. "Listen to you two. So self-important and self righteous. I don't know what you're talking about but I do know you're toying with people's lives who have nothing to do with us. Make your pathetic fake humans. But if you ever start using the real thing again, I'll be back."

With that, Gorman started to walk away, done with the entire episode.

"Mr. Reach," Vyren said to his back. "Don't let me catch you in my business again."

"Pfft," Gorman replied.

"Thank you, Mr. Reach," the Caterwauler replied. "It was a pleasure doing business with you. Perhaps, I could keep you on retainer?"

Gorman held up a finger in answer.

When he returned to his apartment, he was cold, soaked to the bone, and seething. He was in the service industry. He understood that, but he was tired of being used as a pawn in the schemes of the rich and powerful. A change in business focus was in store. Finding lost pets. Investigating insurance fraud. Anything to keep away from that other world where rules are decided by the strongest. Where life was meaningless. He opened the door with his name stenciled on the glass and stopped short. Someone was here. He pulled his large revolver from the pocket of his coat and brought it up to bear.

"Who's here," he called out. "Show yourself or I'll blow your head off."

"Now, now, Mr. Reach," the voice said smoothly. "Is that any way to talk to someone you've known for so long?"

"I don't know you, pal," Gorman answered. "Never heard your voice in my life."

Slowly, a tall, lean figure stepped out of the darkness, hands up in supplication. "I think you do know me, Mr. Reach," he said. "I think you've been looking for me for a long time. Come in. We have much to discuss."

Gorman closed the door, wincing at the sound of the lock engaging.

The End For Now.