50

  When Timmy and Wally arrived back at the precinct, it was a whirlwind of activity. Officers charged back and forth in various states of preparedness as their superiors barked instructions and insults. Riot gear was pulled out of storage, dusted off, and distributed with frenetic speed. Wally and Timmy ducked in and out, trying to fight their way down the basement, when they saw Charlie Nelson strapping on a plate vest large enough to protect the flank of a horse.

  “Charlie!” Timmy called to him. “What’s going on?”

  “Raids lad!” Charlie boomed back. “For your lieutenant.”

  “Raids?” Wally said to Timmy. “‘Oo are we raidin’?”

  Timmy shrugged and turned back to Charlie.

  “Who are we raiding?”

  “Triads!” Charlie shouted back with a beaming grin on his face.

  “Thanks Charlie!” Timmy shouted, waving his hand. “Be lucky!”

  “And you boys!” Charlie said, waving a battering ram like it was a billy club.

  “Looks like Conway’s taking Duprey’s word that this is the Gnommish triad,” Timmy said.

  “I didn’t trust that little feller,” Wally replied. “‘E was super sketchy.”

  “Conway must trust him, why else would he have sent us to him?”

  “Did you trust ‘im?” Wally asked as they made their way through the throng of officers gearing up

  Timmy shrugged.

  “Not really.”

  “Yeah me neither,” Wally said, shrugging his boney shoulders.

  “You heard Marney,” Timmy said. “There’s no Burn in the city. We raid the Gnomes now and we aren’t going to find anything! We need to talk to Conway before they blow this operation!”

  Wally sighed.

  “Wouldn’t be the worst fing,” he muttered as Timmy started to push through the throng of officers.

  “Edgewater! Washbottom!” a stern voice barked at them.

  Instinctively, then spun on their heels and saluted. The effect was somewhat spoilt by the fact that they spun in two different directions.

  “Sergeant Errol, sir!”

  “Where are you two mangy mutts sneaking off to?” Sergeant Errol snarled as he marched towards them.

  Sergeant Errol was all chin, chest, and vitriol. He hated all corporals and especially Timmy and Wally.

  “We were going to go see Lieutenant Conway…” Timmy stuttered.

  “Conway’s in the briefing room with the Captain! Get your arses in there! They’re briefing the troops before the raids!” Errol shoved them from behind into the briefing room full of coppers.

  The Captain was standing at the far end of the room on a little raised platform.

  “Right, shape up and shut up!” Cap’n Mallory barked over the rowdy coppers. “We’re hitting these three targets tonight!” The Cap’n slapped a short stick against the map behind him. “We have solid intel from the Drug Enforcement Squad all three of these locations are Triad stash houses. We’re looking for Burn and any other controlled substances. The wagons will be rolling with us, so we’re arresting anyone and everyone we find inside. These Triad sorts are known to be armed, so we’re going in heavy! I want everyone in full gear and ready to crack heads! Sergeant Flynn, Sergeant Errol, and Sergeant Cauldron are leading the three teams. We’ll strike at the same time to avoid them tipping each other off! I want Burn on the table and bodies in the cells! Look after yourselves, and don’t you dare come back empty handed!”

  The officers grunted their approval and began filtering out of the room. Conway was lurking to one side of the room with his arms crossed and a sour look on his face. He sucked his teeth and then slunk away. Timmy and Wally ran after him.

  “Conway! Lieutenant Conway, sir!” Timmy huffed as they caught him on the back stairs leading back down to the basement.

  Conway stopped and looked at them.

  “Sir, we have to call this raid off!” Timmy said, trying to catch his breath. “There’s no Burn in the city. These deaths are something else. If we raid…”

  “It’s too late boys,” Conway said, holding up a hand. “The Cap’n has made up his mind. He’s taken all the intel we’ve got, and he’s going after the Gnomes, as if they’re dumb enough to keep kilos of Burn anywhere we can link to them.”

  “But sir, there is no Burn!”

  “How do you know that?” Conway said.

  “Our informant,” Wally said.

  “The girl that brained the baker?”

  “Yes sir. She said that no one’s got any Burn and definitely not in the RatHoles. Them deaths weren’t OD’s.”

  “Then what were they?”

  Wally looked at Timmy.

  “We… don’t know sir. But if we raid the Gnomes, we risk exposing everything we’ve learned,” Timmy said.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Conway snapped. “It’s too late, boys. The brass need headlines before someone loses their pension.”

  “Timmy! Wally!” Charlie’s voice booked down the corridor. “You’re with me, boys! Come on, the wagon's rolling out in five and you need to suit up!”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Go on lads, you better get out there and watch our work go up in flames.” Conway turned and shuffled down the steps, muttering to himself.

  Wally’s head sunk, and he walked down the corridor with a morose Timmy on his heels.

  “Come on lads!” Charlie boomed, gripping them around their shoulders. “We haven’t had an honest to goodness raid in years! Might even get in a couple of punch ups if we’re lucky!”

  *

  Wally and Timmy were sitting sandwiched between Corporal Nelson and another equally hefty corporal in the police wagon. They were stationed just down the road from the Golden Bowl restaurant. Timmy looked at the place and then at the six police wagons brimming with riot geared officers. The last time he was here, they had broken in with nothing but three undercovers and some fancy suits.

  “Just waiting on the word,” Charlie muttered keenly, the battering ram resting between his legs. Of course, Corporal Nelson would be first through the door.

  “Who’s going around the back?” Timmy asked.

  “What?” Charlie said.

  “The back exit, is anyone covering it?”

  “There’s a back exit?”

  “Yeah, just through them alleys,” Wally said.

  “How do you know that?” Charlie asked.

  “We’ve been ‘ere before, undercover.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Wally said, slightly smug. “It’s a proper maze down there. Gotta be careful.”

  “I’m sure we’ll have someone stationed there,” Charlie muttered distractedly.

  They fell silent. There was tension in the air. A moment of quiet before the madness. Timmy’s palms itched, and sweat trickled down the nape of his neck. He looked at Wally, who was drowning under his heavy riot gear. Wally gave him a grim nod in return and then frowned.

  A shrill whistle blew and the wagons burst open. Coppers in their heavy riot gear flew from the backs of the wagons, charging towards the door of the doctor’s office that hid the Golden Bowl. Charlie kicked the door in with one massive blow. Two dozen officers followed them through the office and down the stairs to the heavy metal door of the Golden Bowl. Charlie was the first there with the reluctant pair of Timmy and Wally on his heels. The door withstood four massive blows from Charlie’s battering ram before it exploded inwards on its hinges. Timmy and Wally were bundled through the cramped door by the rush of police officers.

  “Police!”

  “This is a raid!”

  “Don’t move!”

  “Police!”

  They charged through the labyrinthine hallways of the Golden Bowl. Officers peeled off as the hallways branched, kicking down the doors to the private dining rooms. Timmy and Wally stuck close to the massive back of Charlie as he jogged his way through the restaurant.

  “This way, Charlie!” Timmy said. “The stashroom is through the kitchen!”

  Charlie followed behind them as they worked their way through the restaurant.

  “This ain’t right,” Wally said, looking around. “Where is everyone?”

  “Could be laying in wait,” Charlie said. “You boys form up behind me. If it’s a trap, I want you to run back the way we came and get back up, understood?”

  They didn’t need telling twice. Timmy and Wally shrank into the massive shadow that Charlie cast as he carefully picked his way towards the kitchen. They could smell food but there was no sign of any activity. Charlie stopped outside the kitchen and held up a hand to Timmy and Wally. He dropped the battering ram and drew his heavy truncheon. With a quick nod, Charlie kicked open the swinging doors and threw himself into the kitchen, Timmy and Wally following close behind. Charlie froze, and Wally ran into his back, bouncing off of him.

  “Dear mercy…” Charlie breathed.

  Timmy looked around him, and his eyes grew wide.

  “Wot? Wot is it?” Wally said, scrambling back to his feet and pulling his helmet up off his eyes. “Oh…”

  The kitchen was a slaughterhouse. Gouts of blood and viscera painted the formerly pristine walls and surfaces. Cooks were splayed across their workstations with their throats open and dozens of stab wounds in their torsos, their white uniforms soaked red. Serving staff lay on the floor, cut to ribbons. Not even the greeter had been spared. Her beautiful kimono was stained red with her own blood.

  They stood in silence, unable to comprehend the horror in front of them. Then they heard a noise below. It sounded like running feet. Charlie took off on instinct. He leapt over the bodies and made straight for the stairs.

  “Charlie! Wait!” Timmy said, but it was too late. He was already gone.

  “Tim…” Wally began, but Timmy was already picking his way around the bodies towards the stairs. “Shit!” Wally ran after him, slipping in puddles of blood, his eyes fixed firmly on the stairs, desperately trying to avoid seeing the bodies.

  Charlie and Timmy ran down the stairs after Charlie. It was the stashhouse Timmy and Wally had seen and it was a similarly grizzly scene. Blood was splashed across the walls. As they stared, they heard a noise to their left.

  “Watch out!” Wally screamed as Charlie turned towards the source of the noise.

  Charlie raised his truncheon but he was too slow. He took a rapier to the chest.

  “Charlie!” Timmy screamed.

  Charlie took the blow, his chest plate stopping the point of the rapier just inches from his heart. He grabbed the flying Gnome behind the blade around the throat, plucked him from the air, and dashed him into a tower of crates. Three more Gnomes came out of the darkness, rapiers poised as they advanced on Charlie, jabbing him from every angle. One got him in the thigh, and another tried to lunge but ate a truncheon to the mouth for his trouble. Without thinking, Timmy ran at one who was circling behind Charlie and swatted at him with his truncheon. The Gnome was fast, way too fast for clumsy Timmy. He slipped Timmy’s wild swing and lashed out with his rapier, catching Timmy across his chest armour. The rapier skidded across the armour, making a shrieking sound as it went. The Gnome dodged around Timmy’s body, raising his rapier to stab him through the back when Wally cracked him across the head with a crate. The Gnome stumbled and fell to one knee. Another group of Gnomes suddenly appeared from another hallway, and now Wally was frantically swinging his club and backpedalling, trying to keep them at arm’s length.

  Charlie mowed through anything that moved, but the big man had taken a couple of nasty wounds to his meaty thighs, and his movements were slowing and becoming clumsy. Timmy had righted himself but wasn’t much use still. He swung his truncheon hopelessly but missed every time. The Gnomes danced around his wild swings, and if it wasn’t for his armour, he would have looked like a pin cushion. Charlie laid out another Gnome that got too close and then flipped one of the sorting tables with one hand to scatter the group of Gnomes.

  “Police!” Charlie roared breathlessly. “Throw down your arms!”

  There was a brief pause in the melee. The Gnomes looked at each other. A silent signal passed between them, and they grabbed their fallen comrades and fled back down the hall. Charlie roared and tried to limp after them. There was a heavy clunk as an iron bar was dropped across the door on the other side. Charlie hammered his fists against the door but it wouldn’t budge. He raised one of his massive tree trunk legs to kick it down, but his injured leg couldn’t bear his weight. He collapsed backwards and sent more tables and crates flying.

  “Charlie! Are you alright?” Timmy said, running to his side as Wally grabbed him from the other side.

  “I’m okay. Little buggers stuck me good though.” Charlie waved a hand at his bloody thighs.

  “You’re bleeding!” Wally yelped. “We need to get help!”

  “It’s okay lad,” Charlie said calmly. “Go get the boys upstairs. We’ll flush those Gnomes out. They couldn’t have gone far.”

  “That’s the way to the back exit,” Timmy said. “They’re probably already back out on the surface.”

  Charlie cursed and gritted his teeth. They heard the sounds of the boots above them.

  “We’re down he…” Wally began to shout as he stood up and then he froze, his mouth gaping wide.

  “Wally?” Timmy said, seeing the horror on his friend’s face. “What is it?”

  Timmy followed his gaze, and he saw the pile of bodies in the corner of the room. Throats cut, bellies slashed open, guts hanging like slimy ropes, expressions of pain and despair frozen on their lifeless faces. Timmy looked away and then saw into the office, where there were three more butchered corpses, blood oozing across the floor.

  “What the hell happened here?” Charlie breathed, his face going white.

  “What kind of creatures would do this?” Timmy gasped.

  “Something evil,” Wally muttered before vomiting into an empty crate.

  “Get the boys down here now!” Charlie said to Timmy. “For the love of all that’s good, get me out of here!”