Fang and Claw

by Markie Madden

  A single tear rolled down her pale cheek, but he didn’t look upon it for long, knowing it would only serve to embarrass her. She seemed overwhelmed with emotion, unable to speak, and just shook her head.

  “I know it must have been terrible for you.” George leaned forward, using open body language to offer her some solace and comfort. “I can’t tell you I know how you feel. I have no idea the kind of scars that incident has left on your psyche. It must have been a horrible thing to witness and to experience.” With a sigh, he stood, the leather chair creaking as he lifted his bulky body from it. He circled the desk to put a hand on her shoulder in support.

  When she finally looked up, he saw that the tear was gone. He could feel her body trembling under his touch, but his closeness and touch seemed to calm her just a bit. He could tell she was in full fight-or-flight mode. “It was...reprehensible.” Her voice was a thin whisper. “I still have nightmares about it. I can still see...and hear...my mentor...”

  He tightened his grip on her shoulder. “I can sympathize with you. Lacey,” and he turned her in the chair so she was facing him, using her first name to imply that he wasn’t her employer, but her friend, the person who had been her partner. “You need to talk to someone.” They’d had this conversation before, but he hadn’t pressed her too hard to seek the help of a professional.

  He realized now that he had made a mistake in not ensuring she had someone to confide in. This time, he would make sure she saw someone, though the image of him attempting to force her single-handedly into a shrink’s office did amuse him. “I think it would really help if you talked to someone.”

  “It wouldn’t.” Her lips were tight. “There’s nothing they can give me, human drugs won’t work on Vampires.”

  “There’s more to it than just the drugs. Sometimes, just talking about a traumatic event with someone who is skilled in the way the mind works can be helpful. They’ve had recent breakthroughs in hypnosis for Immortals as well.” He could see that she was still resistant, more so when he mentioned hypnosis. “Think about this very carefully. Do you want to keep your job or do you really want to leave?”

  She stared out the window with the blank look of a person searching deep within, and seeing only what they wanted to see. Her hands clenched and unclenched as she thought. “No, sir. You know I like being a cop,” she said after a long pause. “For decades, that’s all I’ve known.”

  “Let me ask you this and I want an honest answer: do you blame Colton for what happened to you in Greece?”

  She opened her mouth to respond but hesitated. It seemed, now that she had calmed down, she was seeing the situation in a different light. She took in a deep, ragged breath. “Well, no, of course not, obviously. He wasn’t even born that long ago. He had nothing to do with it, even though he shares the blood of those who did.”

  “You agree he’s a good cop?”

  “Well, he’s a little defiant, a lot disrespectful, and seems to flout authority and regulation whenever he can get away with it. But yeah, he’s a good cop.”

  “You could make him better. It’s one of the reasons I put you together. The two of you are opposites. You can temper him, and he might be able to make you face your demons. Are you afraid that he might hurt you, attack you, when your back is turned?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “No, sir, it’s not like that. I just--it just shocked me, that’s all. But he knew it all along and never mentioned it! It feels like a betrayal! You worked on the streets, some of it with me. You know how important it is to have someone you trust with your life going through that door with you!”

  “Then the fault for that betrayal is mine. I assumed you already knew, would have known as much as you could about the pack that killed your family.” George purposely avoided the use of the word ‘coven’ when describing Lacey’s fellow Vampires. In recent years, the word had begun to get quite derogatory. “He probably thought you knew, as well. We had a short conversation about it after he was assigned to the Major Crimes Unit. I told him not to bring it up unless you did.” He walked back around his desk, preparing to sit, when the glistening sun setting on the deep clouds of a distant thunderstorm drew his attention. “Come, look,” he commanded with a gesture of his arm.

  She joined him at the window. He felt the coolness of her body through the thin, sateen shirt he always wore under his suit jacket, which hung on the antique coat rack in the corner of his office. He felt as if the very air temperature in his personal space had dropped by several degrees. He pointed with his chin at the building storm clouds. “You see? A storm’s brewing.”

  He caught the look of puzzled yet polite confusion that crossed her face. “Sir?”

  “Those clouds have the potential for violence, true?”

  “Of course. Tornadoes, flooding. We’ve seen a few of those here in Dallas before.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “We’re not really in ‘tornado alley’, but we’ve had a few bad ones over the years. My point being, those clouds will come, and likely dump a bunch of water on us, maybe lightning will strike a tree and start a fire, or take out a transformer. But eventually, it will blow off to the east and take what’s left of itself away from us, and the sun will shine over the city again.”

  He saw a flash of sheet lightning as he gazed over his city. He silently counted under his breath, “One, one thousand. Two, one thousand,” though he knew there was no possible way to hear the thunder at this distance, much less through the thick panes of the unbreakable glass. It was a childhood memory, one that he had passed on to his kids, and lately, to his grandkids. He looked over at Lacey.

  “Your storm is starting now. How you weather it, is up to you.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  As if he had said the magic words, she felt the tension she’d been holding inside release with an almost audible sound. Lacey slumped over as her feelings melted away. She still didn’t trust Colton any farther than she could throw him, but that was perhaps just a remnant left in her brain, just as the attack on her family was.

  George turned away from the wall of glass windows and seated himself at his desk. “Do you really want to leave the Undead Unit?”

  “No, sir.” She returned to her chair. “I really don’t.”

  “Here’s the deal.” His tone of voice left her no doubt that he would accept no strings attached or any negotiating on her part. “You’ll stay in charge of the unit. But you will go to see Marcell Dilorenzo.” He referred to the department’s on-staff psychologist. “One of the reasons we have him here is that he has specialized in psychology of Immortal species not just for his profiling abilities.”

  “But--”

  “Nothing.” With a raised hand, he smoothly interrupted her. “There will be no discussion on this. You go see him, and for God’s sake talk to him and follow his advice. Or you’ll force me to place you on administrative duties. Indefinitely.” He gave her a wry grin. “Besides, you two should get along well. He’s one of your kind.” He walked her to the office door and then patted her on the shoulder. “I had a feeling something like this had happened. Your first appointment is in an hour.”

  She must have been scowling as she walked through the bustling building and back to her office; people who were often friendly and outgoing passed her by without even so much as a hello. She thought she didn’t mind; in her varied past, Lacey had become accustomed to being ostracized and ignored. It did make her feel a bit uncomfortable in this case, however. The humans working here at the Dallas police department were far more tolerant than most.

  Colton was nowhere to be seen in the bullpen as she made her way to the office. Since maintenance had yet to replace her door, she would be unable to hide behind it as she would have liked. To have been so transparent to her commander, who knew more of her story than the others she worked with, was bad enough. But to look discomfited in the slightest to those she was technically commanding would not be appropriate at all!

  She did feel guilt
y about the way she’d treated Colton on the drive back to the department. Now that some of the shock had worn off and she was more in control of herself, Lacey wasn’t sure what she could say to make it right.

  It was obvious to her that the commander was going to keep him on as her second and partner, no matter what she said or did. Nothing, short of her submitting her resignation, would make any difference. And she had meant what she had told her commander in his office: she liked her job and wanted to stay on it.

  She rolled her eyes as she imagined her upcoming duty to the shrink’s chair. Suddenly, she booted up her laptop. I’m an investigator, aren’t I? So, investigate. She entered the name Marcell Dilorenzo into the department’s employee database, wondering what she might discover about this man whom she’d never met.

  No birth date was listed, of course. That was a common problem among those who were Immortal. Many of them could not remember the day they were born as humans, and somehow using the date you were ‘Changed’ or otherwise admitted to the ranks of the undying seemed almost crass. She, too, had left the box blank on her own application. He was listed as Vampire under the ‘species’ category, since Immortals, unlike humans, could not list their ethnicity under the box for ‘race’. Lacey always felt somewhat slighted whenever she came across the ‘species’ box on a job application.

  One Marcell Alonzo Dilorenzo (really, his initials spell MAD and he’s a psychologist? What a cosmic joke!) held both a PhD and a doctor of psychology degree, which Lacey assumed was obtained throughout his Immortal lifespan, plus he was also a licensed psychiatrist, which meant he’d attended medical school after attaining a Master’s degree and completed four more years of schooling after acquiring his M.D. Marcell had more than 30 years of continuing education after getting his degrees; like most higher level professions, the state determined that a certain number of accredited classes had to be taken to maintain licensure.

  Lacey noted with some interest that he also had a degree in criminal profiling, something that was started by the FBI, if she wasn’t mistaken, about 50 years ago. Prior to that, criminal profilers weren’t required to earn and maintain a specific degree because most of their training was on the job.

  He must really like his work, she thought. That much education, even for an Immortal, is almost staggering. She privately wondered at his age, thinking that perhaps he had gotten his many degrees under different names, in a time when Immortal people had still remained hidden from society.

  Such studies had never appealed much to her, and she was often baffled when encountering people who’d spent so much time in school. Speaking of work, Lacey noticed that their staff psychologist had almost as much time on the force as she had, and he had worked with the New York Police Department before that.

  Glancing at the clock on the lower right hand corner of her screen, she realized that if she didn’t hurry, she’d be late to her enforced ‘therapy’. She quickly shut down her laptop and headed for the door, nearly running Colton down in the process. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off as in as kind a way as she could. “I’m sorry, I have an appointment and I’m late. Catch me in an hour?” And she brushed by him without a backward glance.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Even though she was certain she was late, Lacey paused outside the open door for a brief moment. What have I gotten myself into? Before she could lose all her nerve, she knocked briskly and stepped over the threshold. Marcell was sitting pushed away from a sleek and shining cherry desk, looking rather unassuming and comfortable with one long leg crossed over his knee at the ankle.

  The rest of the man looked just as put-together in a high-end, pale blue linen shirt and an obviously silk, dark blue and burgundy diamond-patterned tie in a precise knot. His skin had a gray cast to it, as Lacey’s did, and his jet black hair with a slight red tone, rather than making his complexion appear more sallow, gave the appearance of a warm flush in his high cheekbones. His eyes, a deep honey-brown in color, were already sizing her up. He stood and walked around the desk to greet her, hand outstretched.

  “Lieutenant, so nice to finally meet you.”

  She shook his hand, grateful that she didn’t have to curb her grasp to avoid injuring him as she would have done with a human. “It’s...um, it’s nice to meet you too, doctor?” Her voice made it a question; she wasn’t sure by what title a man with so much education would choose to use. Where she was from, Lacey would have addressed him as “master”, though the term, at that time, simply meant one who was skilled, not denoting a master/slave relationship.

  “Please, call me Marcell. I want you to feel at ease here.” He gestured to an antique leather chair of cocoa coloring, with gold buttons running decoratively down the arms. She almost refused; it looked as if one could get entirely too comfortable in this room.

  “You have too many letters behind your name for me to be really comfortable here.” She nodded toward the desk and the name plate in its polished gold stand. Marcell stood, still as a slab of granite, and with an inner grin she recalled Colton having muttered something under his breath about Vampires’ ability to stand perfectly still without fidgeting. Well, I guess he won this round. I bet he’ll never let me live it down if I told him! Without any other choice, she sat.

  Marcell glided around the desk so that he could face her. His eyes never left hers as he asked, “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, perhaps?”

  “Chai tea. But, if not, coffee, sweet and light,” she replied, assuming that he didn’t have anything other than coffee. He went to one corner of the office where she saw a silver tea set in an alcove of the wall. While he was busy playing host, she got her first good look around the office. The entire wall behind the man’s desk was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, filled to bursting with books. Her eyes narrowed as she came across a steamy romance novel by a popular author from the last century.

  Another entire wall was also covered with shelves, and there she saw a wide variety of things, most of them not book related. She noticed several games, mind puzzles, and even an interactive play set for children. Though the floor was carpeted in a deep brown tone, there was also a multi-colored Oriental rug, the white fringe on the short sides laying straight and flat.

  The opposite wall, next to the tea service Marcell was currently setting up, had a long, low couch of deep blue, and the mate to her armchair sitting to one end. A small table was situated next to the sofa, so that it, the chair, and the couch made up the shape of a letter L. The sight of the cozy couch made her shudder with fear. Would she be laying there soon, being forced to reveal all the secrets of her soul, all her innermost and deeply private thoughts?

  Lacey averted her eyes as Marcell picked up the tea set. She was studying the diplomas, credentials, and awards the man had earned when he brought the tray to his desk. He handed her a delicate cup and saucer, then poured his own from the pot. She brought the cup to her nose, expecting to smell the half-unnatural scent of dairy substitute. Instead, the warm and spicy ambrosia of her favored tea reached her nostrils. She took a hesitant sip, delighting in the richness of the flavor.

  “I do believe I’ve surprised you,” Marcell said with a hint of amusement. “And believe you me, George told me that was not going to be easy to do.”

  Now I know who to blame for having a big mouth. Yeah, as if. She tried to pull off an uninterested tone. “As a matter of fact, not too many people keep it around.”

  His brown eyes seemed to laugh at her as he took a sip of aromatic coffee from his own cup, and she sampled her tea warily. “Tell me a little about yourself.”

  She nearly rolled her eyes. “I’m a good cop.” Lacey shifted her weight while trying to balance the saucer on her knee.

  “That much I can learn in your file.” He leaned forward in his chair, eyes boring into hers, and his open hands were unmoving on the desk blotter. “Tell me where you were born, how you came to be, and how you ever ended up here.”

  “Do we have eno
ugh time for that?” Her voice held a hint of cynicism.

  “Just start at the beginning. I know many of us who are Immortal don’t remember our human birth. How about when you were ‘Changed’? What do you remember from that time?”

  Her eyes closed as she turned her thoughts inward. “It was the year 1621, outside Athens, Greece.” He nodded and smiled encouragingly. “It wasn’t an easy life for any of us, then, human or otherwise. My parents were just peasants who worked in the fields, and I did, too, when I was old enough. We never had much, but we always had enough food. And then the Black Plague came again.”

  Marcell shifted his weight and crossed one leg over his knee, much in the same way he had been when she’d first stepped into his office. He nodded for her to continue.

  “I was infected when Aegon came to me. I probably had very little time of my human life left. He told me what he was, and that he and his wife wanted a daughter. He had long before stopped turning anyone to the Immortal life, or feeding on the humans from the village. But when he asked, I accepted. He saved my life.”

  When she didn’t continue talking to fill the silence, he asked, “And how was life with, did you say, Aegon, and his wife?”

  “Abana,” she said, a wash of sadness coursing through her as she thought about her ‘mother’. “They treated me as if I were their true daughter. I was already a young woman when they ‘Changed’ me, but I was so fresh to the life of an Immortal that I still needed their guidance. Abana, too, had already strayed from taking human blood; they only fed on animals and had learned that we could still survive that way.”

  “I think a good many of us found that out for ourselves, no matter where we were.” Marcell raised his eyebrows at her and smiled, encouraging her.

  “You’re right,” she replied, beginning to warm to the topic. “Abana and Aegon were already old Immortals when they met. She told me that, before she met Aegon, she would still feed on humans when she had no other choice. She grew up in Aetna, Sicily, what would be Catania today. She said sometimes they couldn’t find enough large animals to keep them fed on the island. In Athens, we had a lovely home in the country. Aegon made and peddled his clothes. Abana tended her flowers. There were eventually more of us. Then the Wolves came.” She looked down at her hands as she thought about memories that had long been too painful to bear.