Demon Driven by John Conroe

as Carbon 60 or fullerenes. They've been found in
soot, and so well, it's a physicist thing,” he finished. “Anyway,
let me just save this data to my thumbdrive, delete it and we're
done for the day.”
    “What about the trash can?” I asked.
    He held his finger to his lips. “We'll just
let the others think they did it.”
    Finished with his work, we were headed toward
the door, when Jacob's head popped up from the rear of the lab.
    “Hey Chet, can I use Trashy later?”
    “Yeah, but don't break it. It's been acting
sketchy today.”
    He winked at me and we left the lab.
    “Trashy?”
    “What do you expect? It's a trash can!” he
said.
     
     
    We headed our own ways outside the lab, Chet
back to his computers at Police Plaza; me back to my place to get
my gear ready for the next morning. Despite my general dislike of
Briana Duclair, I was genuinely interested in seeing how her team
operated in the field.
    My trip home took me, naturally enough,
through a corner deli for a meatball parm sub and then an order of
perogies from a Polish place near my building.
    My gear was already in good shape, but I
always like to go over it before a raid or field case. My handguns
were already cleaned and reloaded with silver-filled hollowpoints,
but I re-holstered both in my vest rig. Tactical vests are all the
rage with law enforcement types for the simple reason that they
keep everything handy and organized. Mine has a cross draw holster
for one of my Glocks and an attached thigh holster for the other.
The many pouches hold multiple pistol mags, as well as a flashlight
(don't seem to need that much anymore), first aid supplies (use
that more for other people now), protein bars (need more of those),
zip ties, handcuffs, evidence bags, latex gloves, industrial grade
handiwipes(great for getting blood off your skin) and all the other
paraphernalia of modern law enforcement. A long narrow pouch under
my left arm was intended for a collapsible baton, but I had
re-purposed it. Snugly tucked inside were two silver spikes roughly
the length of knitting needles, the butt end of each wrapped with
black parachute cord to form handles.
    Tanya had presented them to me as one of my
Christmas gifts. Whether it is odder that vampires celebrate
Christmas or that Tanya choose to give me the silver darts that had
pinned her to a cinderblock wall when we first met, I'll leave to
you. To her, they were sentimental good luck symbols of our first
meeting. She had carefully wrapped the ends to provide me a solid
handle whenever I should use them as the weapons of self defense
she intended them to be. She had had to wear latex gloves to
protect her skin from the almost pure silver content of the spikes.
The fact that I could handle them without gloves had been a huge
surprise to the vampires. As I am riddled with the V-squared virus
that makes a vampire…well, vampy, everyone felt I should have the
same allergy to silver. But for whatever reason that I'm not a
vampire, I’m also not sensitive to silver as weres and vamps
are.
     
    Tanya had also given me the long silver
plated bowie knife that the Hellbourne had dropped at our first
meeting when I smacked it with a plastic crate. The knife was
strapped to the vest's back, upside down in a very tight fitting
kydex sheath that I had ordered for it. I could reach the handle
with either hand should its use be necessary.
    My roll out bag got a once over to make sure
it had sketch pad, pencils, extra clothes, raingear and more food.
That food part isn’t just ‘cause I like to munch. My pimped out
metabolism will literally consume me from the inside out if I don’t
keep it fed, especially if I engage in fighting or chasing bad
guys.
    My gear set, I kicked back and watched some
tv and generally puttered around, waiting for darkness so I could
attempt to explain my coming absence to Tanya. Her connection to me
started to fade at about two miles distance. She didn’t much care
for anything less than a full