He smiled and it was wicked, unfriendly. “You expected wrong.” He started to turn away.
“Do you know why I became a cop?” she asked, and he paused. “Because my dad was a cop. And his dad was a cop. I was starting to think maybe that’s because you were a cop…but I guess you’re just a Commie, huh?”
He moved faster than a human could have; that proved, once and for all, what he truly was.
Between one blink and the next he was right in front of her, leaning into her face, his hand hovering around her throat – not touching, but warning; there and ready to close, to choke, if she provoked him. It was a clear threat. But she wasn’t afraid.
She felt the greasy touch of smoke against her face when he spoke. Low, rough, furious. “Don’t call me that.”
A wild, unhinged laugh built in her chest, and she swallowed it down. Now she knew they were related, because her reaction was immediate and unstoppable. “Then don’t act like that,” she said, just like the disappointed relative she was. “If you’re as strong as I think you are, what’ve you got to lose by helping us?”
“Hey!” she heard Lanny say, and then Sasha’s soothing voice as he intervened. If not for him stepping between them, she knew Lanny would have been on top of them, a strong right hook aimed at Nikita.
Her great-grandfather moved away from her with a snarl, pacing up the sidewalk a little ways, standing with shoulders rigid, head tipped back.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Lanny said, and she heard a scuffle as he tried to duck past Sasha. “Let go, shithead.”
They were somehow, blessedly alone out here. A few couples walked hand-in-hand across the street on the opposite sidewalk, and three doors down a laughing, rowdy group of young people waiting to get into a restaurant made enough noise to drown out their little family tableau.
“Nikita,” Trina said, soft, thinking he could probably hear a lot better than she could, “if you…you drink…from Sasha, it’s because you don’t want to hurt anyone. Whoever bit our victim needs to be stopped, and I can’t even begin to know where to start. Lanny and I need your help.”
A beat. Then he turned to her, expression laced with defeat…and, she thought, a little bit of fondness. “You look a little bit like her, you know,” he said. “Your great-grandmother. And you’re pushy like she is.”
Trina smiled.
39
BELIEVE
Lanny was quiet in the passenger seat on the way back to the precinct, which wasn’t unheard-of, but Trina could feel the tension vibrating off of him. He wasn’t the sort of man who kept his thoughts – or feelings – to himself; then again, he’d kept the thought that she was beautiful from her, so who knew what else he was hiding? She figured he was going to let loose, though, sooner rather than later, so when she parked in the lot behind the precinct, she killed the engine and then turned to him.
“Okay,” she said. “Say it.”
He stared straight ahead through the windshield, brows jumping in silent question.
“Lanny.”
“What?”
“You’re thinking so hard over there I can smell smoke.”
He made a mocking sound in his throat.
“You still don’t believe? Is that it?”
“Oh, I believe.”
“Then what–”
“Were you just gonna let him do it?” he exploded, and it was a relief. She wanted to get this over with.
“Let him do what?”
“He was gonna strangle you!” He slapped the dash with both hands, breathing hard through his mouth. It was too dark to see in the car, but she knew the veins in his temples and sides of his neck would be standing out, throwing shadows.
Christ, don’t let him rupture something, she thought, remembering the tumor, the coffee churning in her stomach.
“He wasn’t,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “He wouldn’t–”
“You don’t know,” he cut her off savagely. “You don’t have a fucking clue what he would or wouldn’t do. You don’t know him, Trina. You don’t even know if he’s related to you.”
“He looks like my dad did when he was young. I’ve shown you the pictures. You know I’m right.”
He turned to her finally, jaw clenched, eyes blazing. When his gaze landed on her, she realized he was even angrier and more frightened than she thought. Desperate, more like. About to fly to pieces.
“What’s happened to you?” he fumed. “You don’t buy into weird shit. You don’t trust strangers. And you sure as shit don’t invite them to help with our cases. You’re a good cop, and I ain’t ever seen anybody pull one over on you. This isn’t you, Trina.”
She bit her lip to keep her immediate retort at bay. No, nobody ever pulled one over on her – and Nikita certainly wasn’t going to be the first to do so. But she recognized the craziness of this scenario.
She took a deep breath. “Except that it is me. Weird shit’s going on, and this is me handling it.”
He panted, chest heaving.
She reached across the armrest for him. “Lanny–”
He snatched her hand, gripped it hard in his, tight enough she could feel the bones shift together. “It’s not fair,” he said. “I don’t have – I don’t have long. And I – I don’t want to – I don’t wanna deal with this shit! I don’t! I just wanted things to be normal. I wanted us to…” He looked down at their joined hands and eased his grip, thumb stroking over her knuckles.
Trina felt something cold settle in her belly. “Normal?” she asked, quietly. “You mean, where you go out drinking and having anonymous hookups in bathrooms? And your mom invites me to Thanksgiving, and you keep whatever you think about me – about us – to yourself?”
His hand tightened again, but not as tight as before. “Trina.”
She swallowed hard. “I love you,” she said, and the admission felt like cutting herself open, letting him see her naked. “And I think you know that.” She could stop there. Lean across the armrest and take his face in his hands, feel the hot, hard shape of his jaw against her palms. Press her lips to his and taste bourbon, and regret, and desperation.
“But,” she said instead. “I wish you didn’t have to wait until you were dying to figure out you love me too.”
It was the truth, but it was the wrong thing to say. He blinked at her, processing the words, and then she saw how carefully and delicately his walls had been built, because she saw them fall, crumbling away like wet papier-mâché.
She caught the fast glint of tears in his eyes before he turned away from her and popped the car door. “Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “Uh-huh.”
“Lanny, wait–”
But he didn’t, striding off across the parking lot.
~*~
She decided to let him cool off. It wasn’t their first, or even their most volatile argument, but it was the worst. The only one that had made her want to cry.
She went into the precinct and snagged an empty conference room, papered the long table with files…and then went to fetch more.
There wasn’t a pattern, not like with a serial killer. But there were things she noticed. Abnormalities inexplicable by human standards.
Four months ago: A young woman found dead in the alley of a pub, throat torn open, body drained of blood.
Three months ago: Two teenage boys found in the same condition, after hours, in the gym of their school. The janitor discovered their bodies when he made his morning rounds, upon which he found the exterior door of the gym forced open, the door frame bent.
Two months ago: A bloodless bodega clerk slumped over his counter, called in by a would-be customer.
Just two weeks ago: An elderly woman on her own balcony. She’d been “taking the air” her husband said.
Trina wondered how many others there were, homeless or living in bad neighborhoods, where the murders hadn’t been reported.
An electric jolt went down her spine when she found what she’d been looking for: the one that go
t away.
“Jamie Anderson,” she read aloud. “Assaulted on his way home from the bar.” That had been just last night.
She jotted his address down on a Post-It and slipped it in her pocket, rather than use her official PNB.
She checked her phone for the time, shocked to find that she’d been at this for three hours. It was almost midnight. Shit.
She sank down into one of the swivel chairs, only then realizing how exhausted she was. Poring over files had a way of tiring out a person’s back and neck and legs in a way that, unlike the pleasant burn of a good workout, left you achy and dizzy.
She let her head drop onto the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling, where thin stripes of streetlamp light from the cracked blinds cast shadows like prison bars.
She needed to check on Lanny.
She needed to find the vampire who was preying on the city.
If she hadn’t already met him tonight, that was.
Damn.
A loud bang from out in the bullpen startled her upright. Her heart lurched, and a dozen potentially-horrifying scenarios unfurled in her mind. Man-shaped creatures with fangs dripping blood. Four-legged shaggy beasts with Sasha’s pale hair. And, strongest of all after last night, she imagined the eerily-composed, robed and bearded figure of Grigory Rasputin. Our Friend. Coming back to claim Philippe’s bell.
She grabbed at her leg, as Nikita had done in her glimpse of the past, but it wasn’t there; it was tucked safely at home in her sock drawer.
Another bang sounded, and her pulse pounded in her ears. She reached instead for her hip, her Smith & Wesson .45. She was afraid in a way she hadn’t been before, breathless and shaking.
She–
“Hello?” The night janitor poked his head through the door. “Anybody in here? Oh,” he said when he spotted her. “I saw the light on. Working late on a big case?”
The adrenaline rushed out of her, leaving her limp and weak. She let out a deep breath. “Yeah. Something like that. I was just about to leave, Stan, so you can vacuum in here.”
“Take your time.”
But she didn’t. She scraped all the files and photos together, put them back where they belonged, and got the hell out.
It was true that New York never slept, but after midnight there was a certain muted, bottom-of-a-glass quality to its wakefulness. The shadows seemed dense and liquid tonight, hiding secrets; the halos of light – hazy sodium and the bright punch of pink and blue and red and green neon – buzzed with a sinister, grating sort of energy. Everything seemed sharp-edged, but fuzzy in the center, like she’d been drinking
Nerves, she thought. Fatigue. An intense worry for Lanny that was growing moment-by-moment as she walked to the parking lot, keys in one hand, the fingers of the other resting on the butt of her gun. She shouldn’t have let him walk off, she thought now, regretting what she’d said, even though it was true.
At another time, she would have walked, but tonight she took the unmarked cruiser, driving over to Lanny’s building and squeezing the sedan into a spot on the street. She felt flayed, bloody and vulnerable, and she sat in the car a long moment after she shut off the engine, wondering if Lanny was even home, wanting badly to crawl under a heap of blankets on her bed and hope that tomorrow dawned to prove it all a bad dream.
Finding out that the creatures from her childhood imaginings existed made her revert to childishness, it turned out.
She scanned the street for a long moment, searching for ghosts that weren’t there, before finally climbing out – double checking that the doors were locked – and heading inside. She had a key to the building, and let herself in, walked across a quiet lobby, rode up alone in the elevator. By the time she reached his door, her heartbeat was leaping, pulsing in her fingertips and toes and ears.
To her surprise, Lanny snatched the door open before she finished knocking.
He looked awful: hair mussed, eyes red-rimmed and glassy, clothes rumpled. He’d changed when he got home, apparently, into threadbare gray sweatpants and an old gym t-shirt, all of it wrinkled like he’d dug it out of the bottom of the laundry basket. His bare feet – pale like that strip of stomach she’d glimpsed that morning – struck her as terribly vulnerable, toes wiggling against the rug.
“What?” he said.
The same moment she said, “Have you been drinking?”
They stared at one another.
Lanny made a frustrated sound. “No. Get inside if you’re gonna accuse somebody of being a drunk. Damn.”
Lanny had bought his place – in cash – at the height of his boxing career. The first time she was invited over, Trina had joked that she’d expected to see overwrought Greek statuary and fake sports memorabilia he’d paid way too much for on eBay. Lanny had joked that he’d had to sell all that when he became a cop.
The reality was that his place was nice, but not lavish, comfortable and spacious. He kept house like a military man, uncluttered and spotless. The fridge was always full of Tupperware containers of boiled chicken, the cabinets full of chocolate protein powder. His spare bedroom housed his weights, a mirror, and a treadmill. His flat-screen TV was his sole indulgence, everything else from Target or Ikea.
The mess was such an uncharacteristic sight that it brought her up short. She stopped just inside the entryway, felt her mouth drop open as she gaped. “Oh shit.”
“Get in.” He nudged her the rest of the way in and shut the door with a forceful thump.
A sequence of narrow floating shelves in the front hall served as a place to set keys, phone, wallet, and the occasional minimalist decorative doo-dad. An old-fashioned silver salver, something his grandmother had brought from Italy, served as a stopping point for his mail; Trina knew he sorted through bills, junk, and various dudebro magazines every evening. No clutter, not Lanny; there was a lot wrong with him, but he detested a mess.
Now, though…
At least two weeks’ worth of mail obscured the salver from view. A few bills had tumbled off the edge and lay on the floorboards like fallen leaves. Empty Bud bottles cluttered the shelf above, their sides dull with a light coating of dust.
In the living room beyond, she spotted more bottles, sticky plates, and empty takeout containers on the coffee table. The TV was on – the Yankees game – and in its glow she spotted more plates on the floor, a tipped-over, hopefully-empty Burger King cup, a few crumped tissues. A quick glance proved the connecting kitchen – or at least the breakfast bar that separated the two spaces – was likewise burdened with trash.
“Lanny.”
He walked around her into the living room and threw himself down in his recliner, gaze pinned to the TV screen.
Trina followed, picking her way carefully. She had to move an entire stack of Men’s Health off the couch before she could sit. Her heart clenched when she hefted them; this was his favorite magazine. He’d been known to clip out and pin up photos of Hugh Jackman and David Beckham, tape them to the mirror in his home gym, flex and frown at his reflection, comparing himself to celebrity bodies. Vain in his own way, insecure because he’d lost his childhood dream.
And now here he was losing his life.
There were people in the world who had it worse than him, death sentence included. The children in the cancer ward at the hospital; victims of natural disasters; the murdered; the raped.
But it seemed indescribably unfair, because he was hers, and she loved him, and she hadn’t had the chance to kiss him yet.
She stared at his stony profile, the hump of his broken nose, the tiny, tiny tremor at the corner of his mouth, betraying his fear and heartbreak. She stared at him…and a terrible idea occurred. It started as a tiny kernel, almost a dare – she dared herself to let the thought solidify. And then it did, and then it rolled downhill, gained momentum. Until she had to say it.
“Lanny,” she said, voice calm, “I think I might know one sure-fire way to make you better.”
He grunted a half-interested question.
“Lanny.” It vibrated through her: certainty and fear and reckless, impossible hope. “Nikita’s a vampire.”
He looked at her then, finally. Brows up to his hairline, a clear question glimmering in his eyes, the blue TV glow making them flat, frightened. “Yeah. So?”
She swallowed hard, all of her insides aching, the hope swelling in a painful surge. “He’s never going to die. Not naturally. Not from a disease.”
Lanny’s mouth fell open. He licked his lips and cleared his throat before he said, “What the fuck,” flat and toneless.
“We should get him to save you, that’s what the fuck.”
Lanny didn’t react for five…four…three…two…
Then he exploded up out of his chair. “What the fuck?”
Hardly believing herself, she said, “I’m gonna ask Nikita to turn you.” And she knew, with a fresh burst of fear, that she absolutely would. All that was left to do was pray Nikita said yes.
And get Lanny to agree.
“Are you outta your goddamn mind?” He shoved both hands roughly through his hair and started pacing the length of the coffee table, tight circles. He whacked his shin on the edge during the first pass and didn’t seem to notice. “I’m serious. Are you fucking insane?!”
“Possibly. I’m also related to a one-hundred-and-two-year-old man who still looks twenty-seven. So. Crazier things and all that.”
“I…I’m…” he tried, and let out a frustrated huff. “Don’t say shit like that. Just don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” He stopped, turned to face her. Held his arms out to the side, imploring. His face was twisted up, and she realized now that the red-rimmed eyes weren’t the product of drinking: he’d been crying. “I can’t,” he said, and his voice broke.
A lump formed in her throat. She remembered, distinctly, Nikita’s terror – the same as Lanny’s. And Sasha’s – the same as her own. She wondered, hoped, that Nikita knew that only something as strong as love could compel a person to ask immortality of another. That love was bigger than death; that when the natural course of things became unacceptable, as it so often did, when bystanders couldn’t bear to be bystanders…sometimes the impossible was the only solution.
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