Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon by Ken White Read Free Book Online Page B

when I came in
    tomorrow morning.
    “Seeya tomorrow morning, Han,” I
    said, laying a five dollar bill on the counter.
    “No dinner tonight?”
    “Gonna be busy till well after
    you’re closed,” I said, heading for the door. “There’s only five shopping
    days till Christmas.”
     
    To get to the east side from
    downtown, you have to go through midtown. My crack about shopping days to
    Hanritty didn’t seem as amusing as I crawled through the city’s commercial
    district.
    It wasn’t quite eight in the
    morning, but the traffic was already bumper-to-bumper on Second Street.
    Since the war, most people crammed their whole day into the time between
    sunrise and sunset. Because after the sun went down, they’d have to share
    the streets with Vees. Not appealing to a lot of humans, even six years
    after the war.
    But there was no escaping the
    reminders of the war, the defeat, the Vees. Not in this week before
    Christmas. Which was also the week before Christmas Eve, the Vee
    celebration of the start of the war.
    Santas, candy canes, and Christmas
    trees dominated the holiday decorations, on the street and in the store
    windows. But now and then I saw something else. Something very
    non-Christmasy. A blood red banner with a man’s face.
    Colonel Wright.
    I didn’t know exactly who Colonel
    Wright was. Joshua had told me the name when I asked, but wouldn’t give me
    any more information. We were tight, partners and best friends, but he was
    a vampire and I was a human. And there were things that Vees didn’t discuss
    with humans, no matter how close the relationship.
    Last summer I’d heard from a couple
    of people that the vampire takeover of the U.S. had probably started with
    one Vee. My guess is that one Vee was the same Colonel Wright that stared
    down at me from the banners on Second Street.
    I caught a break after I got north
    of Regis. The percentage of high-end department stores and trendy boutiques
    dropped as you got closer to the mostly-residential uptown part of the
    city, and with it the holiday traffic. When I made the right turn onto
    Fowler, I knew it would be clear sailing into the heart of the east
    side.
    Part of me wanted to make a quick
    drive-by of the Floresta. Just to see what it looked like these days, and
    maybe get an idea of where I might be able to park for my
    stake-out.
    That wasn’t a smart play. If
    Schleu’s Resistance buddies were camped out there, my guess was they’d have
    people watching the street. Sharp people if they had any tactical sense. A
    dark-gray Jeep Cherokee cruising by might not mean much, though any car
    going by would get a good look. That same dark-gray Jeep Cherokee
    returning, parking down the block and staying there would get a lot more
    than just a good look.
    So the drive-by was out. When I
    went to Tuxedo Avenue, it would be to settle in. And I wasn’t quite ready
    to do that. I needed some up-to-date information on the Floresta, and I
    knew where I could get it.
    I parked down the block from
    Eastside District station, and walked to the front doors.
    Eastside station isn’t exactly a
    new station. Unlike the Central District station, they hadn’t leveled
    everything and built a new police station on the empty land. The
    68 th Street station had previously occupied that spot, and
    they’d just done some renovations. Bricked up all the windows, added a
    second windowless floor to the existing building.
    They hadn’t replaced the double
    glass doors at the front of the lobby, but that would probably change when
    Daryl’s integration plan was fully implemented. Clear glass was fine when
    Vee officers were only in the lobby after sunset. Less fine if they were
    going to be in the lobby during the day.
    I pushed one of the doors open. No
    security station, no metal detectors, just an open rectangular room with a
    high desk at the far end. The desk sergeant watched as I approached. He
    wasn’t much older than thirty-five or so, but most of the hair