The Protectors: Halloween Rave (Short-story sequel) FREE (Vigilante Cops Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  THE PROTECTORS: HALLOWEEN RAVE

  by

  Bernard Lee DeLeo

  *****

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Bernard Lee DeLeo

  And

  RJ Parker Publishing

  THE PROTECTORS: HALLOWEEN RAVE

  Copyright © 2013 by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  *****

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. Please respect the author’s work.

  THE PROTECTORS: HALLOWEEN RAVE

  Oakland Police Sergeant Ben Donaldson came out of the men’s locker room with a grin. It changed to a scowl when he saw who was waiting outside. Alameda County Staff Psychologist Julie Morrison posed in a ‘Sandy from Grease’ costume, skin tight black tights, off the shoulders strapped black blouse, black high heels, and blonde hair curled up on top of her head and swept back. She held a black leather jacket over her shoulder.

  Next to her with an arm around her waist stood Oakland Police Officer Ellie James in what could only be described as around the neck attached black polyester stretched material covering the center of her body, bare everywhere else but her spiked black boots. The cat ears, black mask, and off the hip utility belt completed the adult Catwoman costume.

  “Well don’t you ladies look ready for undercover Halloween night with a vengeance? Good Lord, I guess you two will blend in after all. I thought this was never going to work, but you might pull it off.” Donaldson held up a warning finger. “Anyone snickers at Opie when he comes out, and you get cavity searches for a month, Ellie!”

  Ellie straightened away from Doc Morrison. “C’mon boss, what the hell?! Opie can take it. Besides, Jules here will be the one to set me off. Punish her.”

  “She’s not under my jurisdiction, El. You are. Remember what your damn mission is. If you piss off Green Lantern so much he refuses to go, we miss the first big sting night where we can end this flesh eating drug’s introduction in Oakland. We’ve had three cases show up in a week. I want this stopped before the users start blaming us for it!”

  “I know, boss. That Krokodil shit is horrifying. These damn whackos and that stuff that eats you from inside out give me the creeps. What’s Opie’s problem. He’s the one who found out about this Halloween rave down on East 12th.”

  “It’s the costume,” Julie answered for Donaldson. “I shouldn’t have bought him the Green Lantern costume. It’s… it’s just that I saw the movie, and Connor will look terrific in it, much better than that guy who played it in the movie. He didn’t like it, huh?”

  “He’s in there staring at himself in the mirror, and he ain’t happy, girls. Uh oh, here he comes. Remember what I said, El!”

  Connor paced out of the men’s locker room, fists clenched. Instead of laughing or grinning, the two women shared short intakes of breath. Donaldson smiled. At well over six feet tall, the heavily built Connor Bradwick stretched out the black and green costume in a form not counted on. In simple terms, with the professionally made Green Lantern costume Morrison had bought, Connor was Green Lantern.

  “Oh my… Jules… you were so right. He looks amazing!”

  “Good Lord, Ellie, he is Green Lantern.”

  “This is without doubt the dopiest antic I’ve ever been talked into. If when I told you I had information about the rave it would come to wearing this freak show costume, I would have cut my damn tongue out.”

  “Man up, Opie,” Ellie ordered. “There’s a good chance that ‘Krokodil’ crap will show up at the rave along with the dealer you heard about. I’m not certain why we even bother to save a bunch of needle whack jobs bent on ending up looking like decaying zombies, but it is what it is. C’mon, no more whining. Get into it or I’ll have evil ‘Sandy’ over here spank you.”

  “Very funny, El. I’m in, but we’re going out the back way… you hear me, boss!”

  Donaldson nodded, making placating gestures at Connor. “It’s all set. We have an unmarked car outside the emergency exit. No one will see you… at least no one that hasn’t already seen you. The guys who volunteered to back you three up in plain clothes are by the exit too. We have three teams on it.”

  “Fine!” Connor turned toward the indicated exit.

  They popped out from everywhere as Connor and his entourage headed to the escape route. The congregation of Oakland police well-wishers led by the infamous Officers Jason Ladd and Luis Arvizo made it seem as if the undercover operatives were on a Hollywood ‘Red Carpet’ of flash photos. Connor immediately gave up his surly inclination, posing, and clutching his partners in picturesque form. He knew the score once they were entrapped. Every show of anger or displeasure would be magnified. With Donaldson’s help, it ended quickly and Ellie was driving them to their destination. Their back up teams left shortly after, checking in with the three costumed for the sting in the lead car.

  “Oh… are we going to have fun after this is over back at my place.” Julie hugged Connor from the backseat. “You look incredible, Connor.”

  “Stifle yourself, Sandy,” Connor retorted. “We could have hit this rave with goth gear no one would notice. You’ve made us into a beacon no one could miss. I knew you two would turn this into a debacle while making us the laughing stock of the department.”

  “Hey, why don’t you grow a pair, Opie!” ‘Sandy’/Julie smacked Connor in the back of the head. “You act like we dressed you in a Princess Leia costume. Man the hell up, you wussy.”

  Dr. Morrison’s uncharacteristic upbraiding of Connor had Ellie laughing so hard by the end of her spiel, she pulled off the road for a moment.

  “Sure… yuck it up Catwoman. I can’t believe Donaldson okayed this travesty.” Green Lantern leaned his bulk back against the seat, deciding not to give the two anymore ammunition.

  “I don’t think GL is going to get into the mood.” Julie sat back too, arms folded over chest. “I guess we’d better go get this tour of duty over with. I’m already getting sick of this costumed prima donna.”

  “See, Opie! You’re ruining Halloween!” Ellie shook Connor’s shoulder angrily. “Now, you’ve got Marla Moody upset.”

  Julie gasped, and smacked Ellie’s arm. “You did not just call me moody!”

  “Of course not,” Ellie answered. “I gave you a proper name for that self-loathing binge you’ve been on lately. This is the first time you’ve deigned to act like Doc Morrison the Mime killer in weeks.”

  “Oh… my… God!” Julie went open mouthed aghast in countenance as she stared back and forth between Ellie and Connor. “I did not kill that mime on purpose, and you know it! I saved you and Connor from an ambush with the only weapon at hand.”

  “Then she slammed those two MS-13 gangbangers into the building wall with the hood of her weapon,” Connor added, warming up to a Julie roast. “I told you she needed help. We should have forced her to talk with one of the other psycho babblers she works with, El.”

  Ellie nodded. “She’s gone over to the dark side for sure. Jules watches all the action movies and bad ass bitch TV shows now. This change in her is frightening.”

  “Baiting me is not going to work, El. Just because you put on some extra weight, there’s no need to take it out on me.”

  “What?!” Ellie’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, her mouth in wide open shock, before glancing in the rear view mirror with murderous intent at the now laughing Julie.
“You couldn’t get away with that if you didn’t constantly look like a third world starveling, you anorexic twit.”

  “Oh great,” Connor complained, looking up for divine intervention. “Now you’ve done it, Doc. You just had to push El’s weight button.”

  “My…my weight button? What the hell does that mean, Opie?”

  “Never mind what it means, Chunky Cat. Get your head in the game.”

  “Opie… I see a reckoning on your Honky Dog horizon you will never forget.” Ellie chuckled at her companions’ laughter over Connor’s Chunky Cat dig. “Connor! Up the street on the right!”

  Ellie slowed, trying to determine what she was seeing. Three men in vampire and zombie regalia accosted a woman and little boy at the corner of 38th Avenue where it dead ends into East 12th Street. She made the mistake of retreating inside the open gate to a basketball court at the Ascend Elementary School with the boy scooped up in her arm, making placating gestures at the men. The little boy hid his face in his mother’s neck. Ellie did a quick right, and sweeping left to a screeching halt in front of the court. Connor left the vehicle on a dead run.

  “Call it in, Jules!” Ellie followed her partner into the darkened area.

  One of the vampires saw Green Lantern running at him only a moment before Connor ran him over with a forearm blow to the head. Taser needles struck the zombie, with Ellie cranking up the juice. Hearing the commotion behind him, the vampire sealing the mother and son against the basketball court fence turned comically with a hiss of fanged teeth. Connor’s elbow shot to the side of his ear launched the vamp head first into the fence, where he rebounded unconscious to the court surface. Connor looked back, but Ellie waved him off.

  “I got the zombie. You gather up the fangers.”

  The little boy looked up from his death hug on his mother to see the huge Green Lantern frisk the groaning vampire first struck on the scene. “Mom! It’s Green Lantern and Catwoman!”

  “Ssshhhh…” the woman cautioned her son, staying still while watching the Green Lantern pick up the vampire and heave him over next to his unconscious cohort. Catwoman shoved the plastic tied zombie into the fence next to them.

  Green Lantern smiled and waved at the little boy, as Catwoman came over to inspect the two. “Are you okay, Ma’am.”

  “We…we’re fine, thanks to you. Those guys were trying to carjack us. All I got to my name for wheels is my Honda over there. I…I was trying to get the keys out of my purse to give to him.” She set her son down. He immediately ran over to Connor, reaching up to grab his hand. Ellie slipped her low light camera out of the utility belt with a grin.

  “Aren’t you going to say it, Green Lantern?”

  Connor kept his eye on the three restrained thugs, but knelt down next to the boy. “Say what, buddy?”

  “You know… the Green Lantern code.”

  Connor glanced back at Ellie, knowing he was had, and hung out to dry. He stood up, his right hand with black glove and Green Lantern costume ring pointed in a fist at the thugs. “In brightest day… in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power, Green Lantern’s Light!”

  Applause and laughter broke out amongst the plainclothes officers who had snuck up on the scene with Julie. The little boy danced around, pumping his fist. Arvizo and Ladd came over next to the scowling Connor.

  “We’ll take it from here, GL,” Louis Arvizo said, patting Connor’s arm.

  “You and Catwoman better get back on the streets. Evil is lurking everywhere on Halloween night,” Jason Ladd added, as he and Arvizo moved over to the carjackers. “We’ll take this lady’s statement. Louis already called for transport. We’ll follow close on, but you may want to delay your entry into the rave for about twenty minutes.”

  “Okay,” Connor agreed, resigned to the fact it would be months before his night as Green Lantern did not get him a daily roasting at the station. He knew it would be complete with posters, banners, and Green Lantern rings everywhere.

  The little boy ran up for a last hug of Green Lantern and Catwoman. Julie grabbed Connor’s hand. “You were awesome! Thank God Ellie had her camera.”

  “Oh yeah… thank the Lord for Ellie getting the video. I think you need to put Ellie on desk duty. She barbecued the zombie back to life with the Taser. She needs a timeout.”

  Instead of getting outraged, Ellie nudged against Connor. “I say we blow off the rave and go somewhere for a little Green Lantern action.”

  “Oh yeah,” Julie agreed.

  “How compassionate of you two unfeeling robots to suggest abandoning the cheap heroin substitute users in their hour of need. You two should be ashamed. I hate to say it, but if it weren’t for the danger of some stupid kid getting hooked on it, I probably wouldn’t give it much thought either. It would be one of those comical Darwin’s Law reality TV specials, where people too stupid to live inject themselves with a combination of cooked up codeine, paint thinner, gasoline, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous.”

  “The problem is as you say,” Julie agreed while they got into their undercover vehicle, “a kid could be talked into trying it a couple of times just out of utter stupidity, winding up hooked on something so potent they will be horribly dead in a year.”

  “Okay… okay,” Ellie said, taking the wheel once again. “No need for any more morality lessons. I get the drift. Education should work, but it never does. They could pass out those pictures of the idiots with bones showing through their melting flesh, and some young dolts would go ‘oh cool, I could be a real live zombie’.”

  “Our main one to look out for in this is Makar Gurin, the guy who we suspect started making the cheap substitute. We haven’t been able to locate him, but an informant Ellie and I use when he’s not getting blitzed out of his mind told us Gurin would be at this rave in person. Although people can whip this stuff up at home on their own, they seldom do. The addicts supplying themselves will have to go on the Darwin Awards show. I doubt we can stop them if pictures of rotting people don’t have an effect on what little of their brain is left.”

  “Tonight was a hell of a lot more fun when we were saving that mom and little boy,” Ellie said. “We haven’t even gotten to the part where Opie here knew the Green Lantern oath by heart. That in itself deserves intense study.”

  “That was so cool,” Julie said. “Did you see the little boy while Connor recited it at the bad guys? I got excited hearing it.”

  “Uh oh, Opie, I think bad Sandy had a party in her pants.”

  “Did not.”

  “Oh, you so did. Was it during ‘brightest day’ or blackest night’?”

  “You are so annoying! Will your friend be at the door, Connor?”

  “If he’s not, we’ll have to abort until he is. Duane Cantor’s an old friend. He’s a cop in Area 1. He works the doors at all the raves that he can. It’s good money, and we get immediate intel if something goes bad. Duane can get us past the metal detector without an Oakland PD badge show. I’ve already explained the situation to him. He knows how deadly this Krokodil drug is. Duane was our source for a picture of Makar Gurin. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a clue what he looks like.”

  Ellie parked the car two blocks from the rave. “I’m getting the creeps just thinking about being in the same building with the stuff. You two have seen the pictures. Ever think of it mutating into a zombie creating disease like in ‘Walking Dead’?”

  “Gee, there’s a happy thought, El,” Julie replied. “Halloween freaks me out. Thinking about being on the front lines against a zombie apocalypse makes me yearn for the oath. Give it to me, GL!”

  Connor chuckled and held up his ring, repeating the oath with the proper attitude.

  “Damn… that stupid spiel even gives me the goose-bumps,” Ellie admitted. “We aren’t superheroes, Jules, so don’t start letting reality get away from you. Don’t hesitate to use your stun gun. We have to circulate in this noisy chaos and find our target, so check in
every few minutes. Otherwise, Opie and I will end up more worried about you than our job.”

  “I won’t screw this up, El. Thanks for getting Donaldson to let me come along.”

  “I’m still not comfortable with this splitting up idea,” Connor said.

  “Yeah… yeah, we know all about it. You’ve belched it out numerous times for everyone, Opie. We have three back up cars, and all exits covered. Give Jules a break. She’s worked hard to get this undercover break. Don’t screw it up for her.”

  “I won’t.” Connor stepped out of his door, only to have two men run up at him from the shadows. “Shit! This is just not my day.”

  “Get your bitches out of the car, and give us all your money and the keys!” The one leading had moved too close to Connor, jamming the 9mm auto against his chest, while his companion banged threateningly against the car.

  Julie lowered the window with a big smile. She waved. “Hi, I’m Sandy.” Then she zapped the guy with her stun gun.

  The distraction allowed Connor to take the lead one’s weapon, twisting it to the left and out of his grasp. He smashed the handle down onto the top of the carjacker’s head. Ellie had exited her side, and ran around to follow up on Julie’s stunned man down. She plastic tied his hands behind his back, while Connor repeated the same restraining action on his man. He looked at Ellie with shaking head disbelief.

  “Great. Now we’ve run dead on into a carjacker gang.”

  “Don’t you pull that darkness crap on me, Opie. We’re doing fine. So what if we’ve been fronted more times in the last half hour than in our last three weeks duty on patrol. We’re up. We deal. Great move, Jules! You toasted this clown as cold as ice. I like it! The mime killer is back!”

  Arvizo and Ladd pulled up next to them. “Holy Jesus, Connor, are we ever going to make it to this rave deal?”

  “Eventually, Jas. I hope you still have the meat wagon available.” Connor danced a step and pointed at the perps. “Two for the tank, El!”

  Ellie leaped right into it, joining him with the Ghostbusters dialogue. “We be fast, and they be slow!”