by Declan Finn
Amanda looked at him… strangely, was the only word he had for it, as though she were searching for something in his eyes. “I can stay longer, if you want me to.”
Would it be possible for her to be interested in him? Personally? Emotionally? Though she was about his age on a physical level, chronologically, she was old enough to be his grandmother. But his mother had never looked that good.
He smiled. “I’d like that… and if I time it right, our sleep patterns will match up.” He slid his other arm around her back, hugging her to him by the waist. They started walking towards his dorm. “So, what are you going to do when you go back to New York?”
Amanda paused for a long moment. Too long. “Research Day.” She looked at him. “You get into such trouble, Marco. I want to know how.”
“You mean my sparkling personality isn’t enough of an explanation?”
“Not this time. You have somehow managed to attract a demon on par with armies.”
He shrugged. “And we still managed to wipe the floor with him. Color me impressed when we get our asses handed to us, or if we have a body count… which would pretty much be the same thing.”
She wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him against her side. He didn’t try pulling away. “I just hope you are not the death of me.”
Marco snorted. “Funny, I didn’t know I looked like a giant piece of wood.”
She laughed, then reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “I would not even take that opening.”
“Aw, pity.”
Chapter 23: Coming Home
Amanda walked Marco back to his dorm, and she was starting to regret the idea. They talked congenially, nothing more than friends…
And she was starting to think she was an awful actor.
Certainly, any one of her kind could pick up exactly what she was sensing. They could hear Marco’s heartbeat pulsing mellowly along. They could catch the faint hint of sweat, a light musk mixed with Ivory soap and Pert Plus shampoo, and especially the tinge of blood from the cuts where Day had struck him.
But any vampire older than a week undead would have been able to ignore every last bit of sensory input, otherwise they would all have to smoke like a Bristol chimney just to block out all the data in an urban environment. Hundreds of years ago, that kind of mental control was necessary, but the progress of years had made it even more so. There were millions of intrusive sounds and scents—cars, trucks, food, garbage, EM-waves from electronics, thousands of people crammed into high-density areas like Bombay… or New Jersey… with natural and chemical scents . Without an ability to cut off that data, a vampyre would be driven mad.
Amanda was a hundred years old, and a vampyre for over eighty years, and perfectly sane, and could cut off anything from overwhelming her…
Except Marco.
Amanda had not noticed until Catalano had left New York. She knew where he was every second of every day… but that could be explained by cell phone communication…
She knew what mood he was in by his scent… but that could be explained because they were very well tuned to each other…
And, now, after only a few weeks of being apart from him, she was being driven crazy by the amount of data he was throwing off… and she couldn’t block him out.
As they walked down the hall to Marco’s dorm room, she became very, very aware that she was only wearing the cheongsam that she had acquired from Jennifer Bosley. The skirt was short; she had no bra, and no underwear.
And she was going to Marco’s private dorm room, just the two of them.
“By the way, how’d you get the clearance?”
Amanda started, looking at Marco as though he had suddenly appeared. “What do you mean?”
“Standard terrorist protocols for the government after a terrorist attack is to ground all flights, and make the entire country a no-fly zone. But you managed to get clearance for two planes today. The commandos and the jet Bosley sent you. How’d you pull off that trick?”
It was just that simple. He was just curious. It wasn’t a big deal, just a cute trick she’d managed. He didn’t accuse her of keeping a secret or of being anything other than she was. It was odd.
“You don’t sound upset.”
Marco furrowed his brow, and bunched up one side of his mouth in a frown. He stared off to one side with the intensity and focus of a supercomputer geared to one problem. “Why would I be? You’re easily four times my age, and I presume that you have a long bio. You haven’t exactly written it down, so what should I have a problem with?”
Amanda gave him a little smile. “I keep forgetting you’re different from other people.”
His smile turned into a grin. He stepped in front of her, dramatically wrapped her arm around her waist, put his lips next to her ear, and said, in a voice four octaves lower than usual, “Oh darling, you have no idea.”
Amanda’s breath caught. Her knees went weak, and parts of her lurched in ways that were completely unfamiliar to her. She caught herself on his chest, “I should go back to New York. I’ve been giving the gang members personal treatment.”
“How so?”
“I’ve been biting them… lightly, of course. I haven’t been drinking, but—”
Marco nodded. “I get it. From what you described to me, they were lucky to stay alive. If you’re the only thing really keeping them in one piece, then, by all means …”
Marco’s face hadn’t changed, but his scent had. Maybe she was imagining it, but it was possible that he was as lonely here as she was in New York …
The idea that he was in love with her, though, didn’t even enter Amanda’s mind. After all, she was a vampyre. He was a human. And that was that.
Marco nodded slowly, unlocked his door. “Maybe you could at least stay around for a quick bi—?” He glanced over his shoulder again… and discovered her gone.
He stepped into the dorm room and closed the door behind him.
Marco Catalano slumped against the door, closed his eyes, and sighed.
He never did find out if she was wearing underwear.
* * * *
Merlin Kraft went home to his little shop in San Francisco, and sent the photo of Day to his employers of unknown name, and had them run facial recognition software.
The first stop was something simple and basic… on AOL news.
There was a photo of the explosion from the second World Trade Center building, where a giant face formed in the flames.
And it looked a little like Day.
The next hit came from the security videos of the United Nations building.
Day was a regular, almost weekly, visitor—to Kofi Anon, Secretary General of the UN. Merle swore he heard Dalf’s malevolent chuckle echo in his mind.
Merlin narrowed his eyes and scowled. He reached over to his secure phone, when it rang. He paused. Clairvoyance had never been his strong suit, but now… “Hello?”
The general he had spoken to the day before didn’t even bother introducing himself. “Merle, we’ve something that’s right up your alley, and we need you on point in Afghanistan. Satellite imagery shows us two improbable scans. On thermal, we see nothing, but in optical, we have moving human beings.”
Hardly human… I can at least tell Kristen that I really am going to be hunting these bastards. Merle was about to reply when a firm pounding on the front door reached him.
It had to be George Berkeley; no one else matched that knock. “One moment, General.”
Merle moved to the door. George immediately said, “I want to kill them.”
This was new. “Anyone in particular?”
George’s hulking frame heaved with his enraged breathing. “The terrorists.”
Merle looked George over. He was big, strong, experienced and motivated. And Merle was about to head in-country against vampires. It was a perfect match.
Merle raised the phone to his mouth and said, “General, I’ll need to bring someone with me.”
* * * *
&
nbsp; By September 14th, things had gotten back to something resembling normal. There were even some flights here and there throughout the country. Her son could finally be allowed back in school, now that San Francisco had come to the conclusion that no, Arab terrorists did not want to nuke San Francisco.
Kristen sighed, and thought back to the news she had seen that morning. People known as International ANSWER had already decided to rally in response to the attacks—rallying against the United States. “ANSWER” apparently stood for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” For some reason, before the US even had an enemy, discussed war plans, or even knew for certain who was behind the hospital attack, these people had come to the conclusion that “they” were being treating unfairly… whoever they were.
A cute trick since we haven’t done anything yet… in response to this, or anything at all as far as this administration is concerned… then again, it is San Francisco.
Hell, even the definition of “normal” doesn’t work here, Kristen Kelly thought as she looked around the police bullpen. It wasn’t really the type of thing she was used to. Back in New York, the Detectives were lined up two-by-two, desks nose-to-nose with their partners. They didn’t even have the decency of a large cubicle.
Now, in San Francisco, she was trying to figure out whose bright idea it was to put the police department in a building with genuine wood-paneling, hard-wood floors—even the desks were made of solid wood. Okay, the entire building was older than she was, and apparently in fairly good shape… but there was just something wrong about a police station that was this clean.
Kristen looked at the reports scattered out along her desk, and she instantly decided that she was on the “new guy” shift. She didn’t even have a partner with her yet, possibly because of the “new guy” factor.
It wasn’t bad enough that the SFPD had given her every strange case to hit town since she did. But every unsolved case from the last five years had landed on her desk with a solid “thud.” Murder cases, an ever-increasing body count… she had even taken to organizing them by month. They were in neat little piles on her desk, because that was the only thing she could do with them—play her own personal game of solitaire.
Kristen stared down at it, and shook her head. She just hoped she could get back to something like a real workload soon.
She sat down, still staring at the piles before her…
And blinked.
The piles, organized by month, had been getting smaller.
Kelly had never been much of a numbers person. She always preferred people. She knew each and every one of these people dead in the files, because they were her dead, now. She was responsible for them. They were hers, and she would take care of them to the best of her ability.
And her ability was limited. People kill strangers these days. Most murders were easy—the average murder victim was most likely to drop dead in their own bedroom between one and four in the morning, killed by someone they loved. These files, of course, had none of those instances. The murders were savage, the victims unconnected, and probably not even connected to the killers. She could remember what most of the dead died from, and the only way to link them would be to try using ESP to divine one… which had already been tried. Twice.
She also knew that a cut throat wasn’t much of a signature. Especially when it was being done by different weapons, tools, and in dozens of different fashions. Gang rituals had been discussed, strange initiation ceremonies for Wiccans or Goths, or vampire wanna-bes. In fact, it was so strange, the strangest thing about it was that she was surprised no one had gone to Merle Kraft—expert in anything remotely resembling “strange.”
The thought of Merle made her think of something. She wasn’t sure what, but she was certain that Something. Was. Up.
Kristen leaned forward and very carefully grabbed the telephone, staring at the piles of folders as though they may run away from her if she took her eyes off of them. She dialed the file room. “Hey, Freddy, how’s life in the darkness? Yes, that is rhetorical. Could you tell me how I can get the numbers on murder rates in the city? Online? Freddy, you’re in records, and you remember everything, just give me a quick breakdown. Have things been up lately? What do I mean by ‘lately’?” She eyed the piles. She already knew that the murder rate was down since she arrived… “How about the last five years?”
She waited a moment. She didn’t even bother grabbing a pen. This would be burned into her brain for a while. “Up for the last three years, declining for five months… up in August… down for the past two weeks… Okay, Freddy, thanks.”
She hung up, and thought a moment. Six months ago was April … when Merle had asked her about Marco Catalano, and Amanda Colt of dubious origin. After that, the murders by throat-trauma dropped… until August…
Kristen looked at her pile for August. In July, there was a definite gap, only one murder of the strange variety. On the top of the next pile was the first corpse of August.
She grabbed it. The young woman had been named Sarah Bell, student of martial arts, and death by …
Kristen tried not to gag at the crime scene photos. It looked like she had been killed in a war, ripped apart by artillery. She had been literally torn apart and partially eaten, with bite marks of odd origin—not quite human, but too much of an arch to be animal. In fact, the entire alley looked like here had been nothing but a war zone. But there was only one body by the time it was found at daybreak.
All of the people questioned were found, tracked down, and interviewed at Merle’s store…
Kelly shook her head. No, Merle couldn’t have been involved. He had been in New York that day, with her, helping her and Arthur pack for the move to San Francisco. There was nothing he could have done to be even remotely…
She stared at one of the witnesses, one of Sarah’s friends. Tiffany Whitman worked for Merle, in his shop. Another was her boyfriend, George Berkeley, a friend named Yana Rosenburg, and her girlfriend Tara… and supposedly there was someone with a bad dye job hanging out there by the name of Rory—no last name.
She flipped back to the date. The day after—or that morning, depending on how you looked at it—Merle had received a phone call that sent his mood through the basement and him half out the door.
So, Merle’s involved in keeping the murder rate down. He put together a team of Buffy-lites, puts them in place in San Fran, and something goes wrong. One of them gets butchered. He hears about it, doesn’t feel like talking about it. But he only put it together in April…because he only learned about it in April. Did he learn anything from Catalano and Colt? Well, you have the phone number for him around somewhere, use it.
Kristen quickly tapped out the New York area code she knew so well, and slowed down a bit for the actual number.
“Doctor Catalano.”
“Hello, sir, my name is Kristen Kelly of the San Francisco Police Department, I would like to talk with your son, Marco. Is he there?”
There was a long moment of silence, and then he released his breath. “Oh, sorry. I heard SFPD and worried for a moment. I assume that you don’t know that Marco’s in San Francisco.”
“That would be correct, sir. My apologies. When did he move here?”
“September, with the start of the semester.”
When our mystery murder rate started to drop again. “Ah, thank you sir, I’ll get a hold of him here. Thank you.”
Young Mister Catalano comes to San Francisco, and suddenly, the murder rate plummets, and that kind of killing motif almost disappears once again. On Tuesday, there’s a small rampage through cemeteries, with no bodies, even though there looks like they had been taken over by the homeless, or someone else…
Kristen’s phone rang, and she arched a brow at it before she picked it up. “Detective Kelly.”
On the other end was a man who sounded a little confused. “Oh, hello, Detective. My name is Peter Sharpe, and I wanted to talk with you about some samples that had been collected from a few cases you’
d been working on.”
She blinked at the folders on her desk. “Oh? Which samples?”
“Well, you can probably find them in the murder books under ’strange biologicals’. Your coroner sent them to us, and we’ve decided to take over your cases.”
She looked at her piles once more, and considered getting a copy machine ready. “Oh?”
“Yes. They are a part of another investigation already in progress. I’m sure you’ll be glad to get these off your desk, Detective.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Oh… you’d be surprised, Agent Sharpe. You’d be surprised.”
Hello, Merle… what are you up to this time?
Epilogue
New York
Amanda Colt walked into the chambers of Jennifer Bosley. The President of the NYC Vampire’s Association leaned back in her desk chair, bare feet up on the blotter. The glass in her hand looked like red wine.
Bosley gave Amanda a big grin. “Care for a glass?”
Amanda shook her head. “I do not drink… wine.”
Bosley laughed. “Quoting Dracula? How long have you been holding on to that one?”
“A while.”
Bosley waved at the bar off to the side. “Well, this isn’t wine, but we have more than just booze here.”
“Thank you, but no.”
“Suit yourself, love.” Bosley took another sip, and looked at Amanda a bit more intently. “Something the matter?”
“I love Marco.”
Bosley grinned and laughed aloud. “Wonderful. How’d he take it?”
“Fine. He told me he loved me, too.”
“Great! Cheers!” Bosley saluted her with her glass, and was about to take a sip when she paused. “Not great?”
“Not great.” Amanda took a slow, deep breath. “I told him I loved him as a friend. He said it as the same.”