Dancing with Monsters

I went home after the takedown and had a great night's sleep. It was a relief to be able to cross another name off of my list of monsters.

Once I woke up, I made my way to the precinct to meet up with my partner for this case, William Kowalski, to follow up on some information we had received about The Specialist.

Although my mother had warned me that there were many types of monsters out there, some of whom had faded into obscurity to be nothing more than just myths and legends, the only monsters I have come across so far have been human.

I could not get over the amount of violence that one human can inflict upon another.

Take a look at our next suspect: The Specialist. He is not a serial killer, but the body count that was attached to his name was in the millions.

He was known as The Specialist because he specialized in the purchase and transportation of weapons.

Some days I wanted to meet the person that came up with all these lame nicknames and give them a smack upside the head. I only hoped it was not the guy himself that determined his own name…

Anyways, I digress. The second member of the Magnificent Seven had single-handedly decided the course of war for many organizations and nations. He was the leading black market arms dealer, and as such, provided many weapons of mass destruction to cartels, mafias, and drug dealers… you know, all the people that we wanted to have an unlimited supply of weapons. (Cue eye rolling)

Now technically, we are not supposed to be investigating him, we are homicide detectives, not FBI agents, but our Staff Sergeant had given us free rein with anything that involved The Seven.

Our informant had told us that The Specialist was about to buy his latest shipment of weapons from a company called Knights Securities, so after making an appointment, that was where we were heading now.

I hated going any place unprepared, so I did as much research online as I could on Knights Securities and the type of business that they did while Kowalski drove us to our meeting. I was really loving this new age of cell phones and all the information in the world at your fingertips. Seriously, it was the best! I wish we had this a hundred years ago! It would have made life so much easier!

Apparently, the company was owned by a Viktor Singer and Singer was one of the wealthiest men in the world. His name alone commanded both fear and respect from politicians to criminals and everyone in between. Heck, even I had heard of him and that never happens.

He was the CEO and a descendant of the founder of Knights Securities. His company produced everything from bodyguards to mercenaries and they even dabbled in weapons manufacturing. And by dabbled, I mean they were the number one producer of weapons for the US, Europe, China, the UAE, and even Russia.

If it was meant to protect or to kill, Knights Securities had its hands in it.

And I will fully admit, I was fascinated by him

As I read the information out loud, Kowalski turned to look at me. "Maybe you should take point with this one. You seem to have a handle on it."

I nodded my head still reading the article about the private life of Viktor. I had no problem doing all the talking. Let's face it, I did most of the talking in any given situation anyways, might as well put my skills to use.

It took us almost an hour to get from our precinct to downtown Manhattan, where the head office for Knights Securities was located. And then add another ten minutes just to find a parking spot... by the end I was ready to kill someone.

Why on earth I decided to call one of the busiest cities in the world my home, when I clearly hated people, I would never know.

Taking a deep breath, I got out of the car with my partner and headed to the main entrance of the building. The horse head logo was displayed proudly over top of the door where a company's name would normally be.

I guessed they were trying to underplay their prestige and prevent random people from coming inside the building.

Kowalski and I entered the floor-to-ceiling glass high-rise building and went straight to the secretary sitting at her desk in the lobby.

"Hello, I'm Detective William Kowalski and this is my partner Detective Nadezda Sokol with the Third Street Police Homicide Unit. We have an appointment with Mr. Singer, if you could let him know we are here."

"Just one moment please," said the secretary in a soft voice.

"You have been cleared. Please go through the security screening and then proceed to the 21st floor. Mr. Hatmanu, Mr. Singer's personal assistant, will be able to help you."

I looked at Kowalski. That was not supposed to be the arrangement. We were supposed to talk to Singer, not his assistant.

Kowalski shrugged his shoulders. 'Beggars can't be choosers' he seemed to say.

I rolled my eyes. I was definitely not a beggar, and I could be very choosy when I wanted to be.

We passed through security with just a smidgen of trouble... they wanted us to leave our guns, we were not willing, a disagreement ensued, and we won…before we entered the side elevator to take us to the top floor.

As soon as the elevator doors opened to Mr. Singer's floor, I stiffened in horror.

I knew about the horse head, it was all over the internet, but I had never seen the internal logo that Knight Securities used to identify themselves in the field. But the logo in front of me was definitely not a horse, and unfortunately for me, I had definitely seen the logo displayed proudly on the wall before. And that was not a good thing.

Mr. Hatmanu met us at the elevator and noticed me staring at the logo of a shield with a rook chess piece in the middle of it.

"Mr. Singer has many ties to the Old World and has a history dating back generations. The original name of our company was Knights of the Holy Order, but it was changed around 100 years ago to simply Knights Securities. That symbol, designed in pure silver, is the original token of our company dating back thousands of years. It is truly magnificent."

Ah, shit… I knew I should have checked the calendar before I left my house.

The Knights of the Holy Order was an organization based in Transylvania, Romania, to hunt down Dracula and his offshoots. Legend says that it was founded by Jack Van Helsing, the son of Count Dalibor, and his wife, Countess Olivia Von Dracula.

I had just walked into the very organization that has hunted down monsters for longer than even I had been alive… the Van Helsings.

I think I am in trouble.