by Maria Arnt
Only her dad had believed her. They had always been close, and she remembered lying in bed at night listening to him and her mother fight about it. After a while, he gave up. He came into Tanya’s room one night, when her mother was already in bed, to talk to her.
“Tanya, I still believe you, really I do. But I don’t think anyone else does. Maybe if we just... If we just don’t tell anyone else, they’ll let you off the meds, you know?”
She had shrugged. It was as good an idea as any other. She had gone back to the psychiatrist, said the things they wanted to hear. They lowered her dosage, slowly. She didn’t tell them that the less she took, the angrier she felt. She had a right to that anger, and they weren’t going to take it away from her again. Finally, a year later, when she had managed to squeak into graduation by the skin of her teeth and the pity of her teachers, she was allowed to stop taking it altogether.
Her grades were shit, though, and there was no way she was going to a nice university. Her mom had laid out a number of very good paths she could take: go into the military, get a job, or go to a tech school. She settled on community college and started taking classes. When her dad finally asked her what her plan was, she told him.
I’m going to hunt those bastards down. And she did. It took her a couple of years, but eventually she found the female vampire responsible for Jake’s death. She’d caught the female during the day, tied her up, and dragged her into the sunlight to burn. She hadn’t even woken up.
But she’d never found the man with steel eyes. She had thought it would be enough to avenge Jake’s death, but knowing he was out there, that he could do this to someone else…. Tanya couldn’t let it rest. So she’d kept looking, and traced him across the state.
Tanya had never meant to make a life of hunting vampires. She’d just wanted to get those two, to settle the score. But her prey was elusive, and every time she found a vampire that wasn’t him… she couldn’t just ignore the situation. When she lost the trail in St. Louis, she’d just started looking for any vampires, and gone from there.
Along the way, she had learned a thing or two about vampires and how to kill them. It wasn’t like there were books on the subject, at least none that she could rely on to be truth and not imaginative fiction. Mostly it was trial and error, and looking back she was surprised she hadn’t gotten herself killed. None of the deaths had made her feel any better, though, so she just kept going. After a while, it stopped being about finding her attacker and was just what she had to do. She got better, discovered that killing a Master vampire would instantly kill all of his minions. Got smart about it after Bradley caught her.
She had lost count. Probably somewhere in the thirties, as far as the ones she had actually killed herself. As for their minions, who knew? Hundreds, she would like to think. Sometimes she wondered if she’d already killed the man she was after, killed his Master. Bradley kept an eye on John Does in the morgue, but a lot of bodies were never found.
Tanya shivered. No, he was out there. She could feel it. Somehow she would find him, if she had to kill every single vampire in the world to do it. Tomorrow she would start the hunt for one more.
She put the glass in the sink, and shuffled off to bed, changing out of her sweat-drenched clothes and into PJs first. Seth Walker, your days are numbered, she thought, and smiled as she fell asleep once more.
5
The bartender, a teal-haired and tattooed girl named Jackie, handed the photo printout back to Tanya. “Oh yeah.” She laughed. “Seth Walker, right? We call him Casanova.”
Tanya raised her eyebrows, not sure she wanted to know why. “Know where I can find him?” She already knew where her target lived and worked, had found out her first week in Chicago and she’d been there almost a month, but she was curious what the bartender knew.
Jackie shook her head. “Nah. He comes in about once a week, usually finds someone to go out back with, and then leaves early. Alone.” Laughing again, she tossed her shocking hair out of her face and went back to checking her stock below the bar. It was early, only about 4:30, and they were getting ready for the evening.
She frowned. It was the typical pattern for a vampire, except for the going home alone part. “And the girls he takes out back, they’re okay?”
The bartender gave her a weird look, and Tanya knew she had asked the wrong question. “Well, A, they’re mostly girls, but not all. B, I’d say they’re more than okay. Isn’t that right, Izzy?” she shouted over to the waitress who was sweeping around the tables.
“What?” Izzy asked. She was a skinny girl, a little younger than Tanya, with mousy brown hair.
“Didn’t Casanova take you out back that one time we got invaded by the football team?” she asked.
Izzy’s face turned bright red, and she visibly shrank like a turtle trying to escape into its shell. “Jackie, you promised you wouldn’t tell!” she hissed.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Tanya said soothingly. She weaved around the tables, coming closer so they wouldn’t have to shout across the room. “What happened when you went out back?”
The girl blushed even deeper and giggled nervously. “We made out,” she admitted.
Tanya balked. “That’s all?” What, are we back in high school now?
She shook her head slowly. “No. I mean yes, I guess we didn’t do anything else, but...” she glanced toward the back of the bar. “I’ve never had somebody kiss me like that before.”
In the back of her mind, Tanya remembered how she thought that vampire was going to kiss Jake. “What do you mean?”
Izzy licked her lips and took a deep breath. “It was amazing. He was just... totally into me. Like I was the only thing in the whole world at that moment. The way he touched me...” she shivered, and her pupils dilated just thinking about it. “Well, I had to go take a bathroom break afterward, you know?”
Tanya didn’t know, not really. After Jake, relationships just hadn’t seemed worth the effort. Besides that, it was out of the question in her line of work—she couldn’t afford any more liabilities than she already had.
It was time to go out on a limb. “Izzy, can I ask you a weird question?” she murmured.
She glanced over to Jackie, but she was too busy to pay them any attention. “Sure,” she whispered.
“Did this Casanova guy bite you anywhere?” she asked quietly.
She blinked a few times, thinking. “Yeah, he was a biter all right.” She giggled. “Why?”
Tanya frowned. “Where’d he bite you?” She couldn’t see any scars on Izzy, and her waitress uniform didn’t leave much to the imagination.
“Oh, all over,” she gushed. “On my neck, and my arms.” She ran a hand across one forearm, and except for the sudden goosebumps that rose on her skin, there wasn’t a mark in sight. “Even my hands,” she rubbed a finger over the fleshy part at the base of her thumb. “It was really sexy.”
That was the last thing Tanya had expected to hear. Most vampire victims she had run across—if they were lucky enough to survive the encounter—were pretty traumatized by the experience. She fingered the scar on the inside of her elbow absently. “Huh. Well thanks for answering my questions,” she murmured.
Izzy’s face lit up. “You could try hanging out here, he’ll show up eventually, and you probably won’t have any trouble getting him to talk to you. He likes redheads.” She touched her own hair self-consciously.
“Thanks, but I’m… not actually looking to meet him just yet.” Tanya murmured.
The waitress frowned. “Then why all the questions? What are you looking to.... Wait, is he married?” Her face paled.
Tanya laughed. “No, he’s not married. And I’m afraid the reason for my investigation is confidential, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to him.”
“Okay.” She bit her lip, thinking. “But if it was something bad, I don’t think he did it. He’s a really nice guy. Good luck anyway,” Izzy gave her arm a little squeeze, and then shuffled off to finish her w
ork.
Tanya walked outside and folded up the picture, putting it in her back pocket. That had been the third bar in the area he frequented. They had all said the same thing: he came in, had a drink, went somewhere with a newly-made friend, and then left. No bodies, no suspicious disappearances. It was the damnedest thing.... He fit the pattern in every way, except for the trail of evidence.
She had been trailing him for a couple weeks now, and every day she became less and less sure whether or not he was a vampire. He worked a regular nine to five job at the museum. He came and went as he pleased, sometimes taking long strolls in the late summer sunshine. Even powerful Master vampires tended to avoid sunlight when possible, out of habit.
And there was more. He drank beverages: sophisticated cocktails, fancy coffee in the morning, and tea at home judging by his garbage, but never once ate a single bite of food the entire time she had been watching him. He prowled the local nightlife but left no bodies in his wake. He fed, but didn’t kill, didn’t even leave scars. And apparently, he was a really great kisser.
I’m really starting to think I need to meet this guy.
Tanya laughed at her train of thought as she made her way down the busy streets back to her car. Yes, she should probably try to find a way to get a closer look at him, but not for that reason. There was something about powerful vampires, that strange buzzing sensation that lifted the hair on her arms, like Etienne du Lac had given off. If she could get close enough, maybe she could confirm her suspicions. Maybe at the museum....
As she climbed into her car, her phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and answered.
“Hi honey, I just wanted to let you know I’m about an hour outside of Chicago,” her mom’s voice came over the phone.
“Okay, Mom. Do you have the directions to the hotel?” she asked.
“Yes...” she didn’t sound very happy about it. “I was thinking, how about I just find a parking space at the edge of town and take the L to where you’re staying?” Her mom absolutely hated driving in busy places. She always made someone else drive when they went to St. Louis, so Tanya couldn’t imagine how intimidating Chicago would be to her.
“It’s an idea,” she said reluctantly. “It’ll probably be expensive to park your car there, and we’ll have to drag the stuff we buy all over town, though.”
“Well that will just keep us from buying too much!” her mother laughed.
“All right.” Tanya chuckled too. “I’ll come meet you at the station.” She gave her the name of the stop where she should get off. After she hung up, she sighed and leaned her head back into the car seat.
What had she been thinking, agreeing to let her mom come visit her in Chicago? Tanya had put her off for as long as she could, but then yesterday her mom had called to say that her friend Anne was covering her shift on Friday so she could come up. How was she supposed to say no to that?
Sure, this wasn’t exactly the most dangerous mission she’d ever been on, but then again, maybe it was. If this Seth guy really was a vampire, then he was a damn powerful one. What if he figured out she was trailing him, asking questions?
It’s just for the weekend, she reminded herself, and started the car.
“Mom, over here!” Tanya shouted, recognizing her mother’s distinctive platinum blonde hair in the crowd. Julie dyed it now, but her hairdresser did a good job, and it was the same shade Tanya remembered from her childhood.
“Tanya!” Julie made her way through the crowd so she could hug her daughter, her overnight bag bumping into Tanya’s hip.
“How was the drive?” Tanya asked.
“Ugh,” her mother shook her head. “Long. I’m stiff all over. Let’s go drop off my stuff and then get walking somewhere!”
“Sure, where should we go first?” Tanya asked, taking her mom’s bag and putting it on her own shoulder. The hotel she’d checked into the night before was only a couple blocks away.
“Well, actually, I was wondering if we could go look at that museum you were telling us about?” Julie said hopefully. “Before we get all bogged down with shopping bags, you know.”
Tanya stared at her, and nearly tripped over a street musician. “What?”
“I was talking to Sherry,” Julie explained. Her friend Sharon was a psych nurse, and often doled out advice to the other nurses when they got lunch or coffee together. “She said that maybe I should try to understand your work a little better. I think she’s right, I don’t give you enough credit for all the effort you put into it,” she patted her daughter’s arm affectionately.
Great, Tanya groaned inwardly. Of course Mom would pick the perfect time to decide to bond and be interested in my ‘work.’ She glanced at the clock on a nearby marquee, 6:12 PM. “The museum closed at five,” she said, sighing with relief.
“Oh,” her mom looked disappointed. “Is it open on Saturdays?”
“Yeah,” Tanya smiled. Her target was strictly a Monday through Friday kind of guy, choosing to hole up in his apartment on weekends. Saturday would be a great time to go scope out the museum without risking it too much. “Let’s go tomorrow morning, before the crowds,” she suggested.
“Sounds like a plan!” her mother wrapped her arm around Tanya, giving her a half-hug as they walked.
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.
As they entered the Ancient Egypt exhibit, her mother looked around with trepidation. “This is what you’re researching?” she asked.
“Yep,” Tanya replied, looking around at the displays. She thought it was pretty cool, complete with 23 mummies, a fully decked-out embalmer’s shop, and even a replica of an old market.
Julie gave Tanya a skeptical look. “Mummies?” when her daughter just nodded, her expression turned concerned. “Honey, this isn’t like…” She made a helpless gesture, not wanting to finish the sentence.
“No, Mom.” They did not talk about the attack, period. She was surprised her mother would even hint at it.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Julie held up her hands. “What is it then?”
It took a few moments for Tanya to calm down enough to remember the cover story she had thought up while shopping last night. She sighed and gestured for her mom to follow her over to one of the mummies on display. They got as close as they could, and then she said, “Mom, this is a person.”
“What?” her mother frowned.
“I mean, technically it’s a dead and preserved body, but at one point, a long time ago, it was a person,” Tanya elaborated.
Her mother looked at the mummy with newfound respect. “Okay, I understand.”
“It’s an Egyptian person. And the people in Egypt want him back because nobody asked permission when they dug him up, they just took him,” Tanya went on.
“Ohh,” Julie said softly. “I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t. There are mummies all over the world, almost all of them stolen. And nobody wants to give them back, and they’re fighting over them like they’re just things, but they’re people, Mom. How would you like it if a thousand years from now, somebody dug up Nana and took her off to some museum halfway around the world, and did all kinds of tests on her body? Even if nobody in the family was still alive, it would still be wrong.”
Julie stared at the display for a long moment and then turned to face her daughter. “I’m impressed,” she admitted. “This really means something to you, doesn’t it?”
Tanya laughed and shrugged, breaking the tense mood. “It’s a good story Mom, that’s all. People like controversy. In all honesty, with the crap that’s going on in Egypt, they’re probably better off here, safe.” It was the same argument Dr. Walker had made in an article she had found online while researching, but it made sense.
Her mom gasped but then smiled. “You’re terrible.”
“Let’s check it out,” Tanya said, and led the way.
They made their way through the exhibit, and for a while Tanya let herself relax. She had already scoped out the way into
the private parts of the museum basement earlier and had a good idea of how she could make her way in early Monday morning. For now, she could just have some fun with her mom.
“Who is that supposed to be?” her mother asked Tanya, pointing up at a sideways-facing lady painted on the wall of the embalmer’s shop.
Tanya looked up and shrugged. “I dunno, Isis?” she guessed. She turned her head to the side, looking at the weird hat she wore.
“That would be Nephthys, goddess of death,” said a man behind them.
Tanya spun on one heel to find the last person she wanted to see, dressed neatly in a dark gray suit that bore a plastic name tag. S. Walker, Ph.D. Egyptology. He stepped forward out of a poorly-lit corner and smiled.
In that moment, she knew he was a vampire. The buzz was there, and the unnatural grace in the way he moved. But then he laughed, and suddenly she wasn’t so sure. It seemed such a helpless, awkward laugh. “I’m sorry, ladies, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you!” His voice had a posh British accent. He wore glasses and looked over 40. Most vampires looked like they were in their early thirties at most. It made her frown.
“That’s all right,” her mother chirped. “But I thought Anubis was the god of death.”
Oh god, she thought helplessly. My mom is arguing with a vampire. Or not. Tanya was confused.
“Anubis, who is the son of Nephthys, is the god of the dead, yes, but the process itself is her purview. Also childbirth.” There was something familiar and relaxing about his voice, like something from a History Channel special.
Her mom nodded. “That makes sense, didn’t something like one in five women die in childbirth back then?”
He smiled, clearly impressed. “That’s true, and a good observation. She was largely worshiped by women in that aspect, so not much of her cult has been preserved, I’m afraid.” He came to stand between the two women, staring up at the hieroglyphics. “She was very important to the guild of embalmers, though, and was frequently worshiped in tandem with her sister Isis and husband Set, so, fortunately, some record of her remains.”