The man quirked a brow and so did his wife.
“Do you have a son, by any chance?”
They exchanged looks.
“We did have a son,” the woman said eventually, “but I’m afraid he’s no longer with us.”
Sully nodded, pressing his lips in a tight but polite smile. No longer with us. Sounds so much like he’s dead.
“I’m sorry to hear about it. He’s a good man. What was his name…? Chaz… um. Um.” Sully snapped his fingers when he pretended to remember. “Chaz Solomon. Right? He looks just like you both.”
Again they exchanged looks. “I’m afraid we don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“You don’t?”
“No,” the man said more curtly this time. “And if you’ll excuse us—”
Sully turned and stalked out the door, determined not to let Chaz’s family provide any more admonishment of their son. He was halfway around the block before he realized his chest was heaving. Tears stained his face. Why am I crying? This isn’t about me. This isn’t…. He thought of the last time he saw John, sleeping in bed. He’d kissed his forehead and left him a note. He hated John, but he’d still given him that last gasp of a good-bye. A proper way to send him off. How come Chaz’s parents couldn’t even grant him the dignity of admitting he was still alive?
Maybe it wasn’t them. Sully could admit that. But it still seemed wrong. So, so wrong. Sully dipped into an alleyway to catch his breath. He shoved the tears away. It was silly. It was all so stupid…. But you love him. You love him. And it’s hard to let anyone you love go, even if you wish they were dead.
Sully shuddered. His phone buzzed again with another message from Trina. Get back here. I miss you.
He wrote, I miss you too, and headed out onto the sidewalk. The rain had started, but Sully didn’t feel it. It was easier being dead, Sully knew. Easier but not always right.
“I HAVE no brother. He is dead.”
Sully walked into the foyer of Artie’s house and was surprised to see a TV on the coffee table where magazines were. Trina sat in front of it along with Tabby, and a new woman named Lexie, completely enthralled. Artie was nowhere in sight and the front desk had all but been abandoned.
“What is going on? What are you doing?”
“Shh.” Trina placed a finger over her candy-pink lips and winked. “Glad to have you join us. Come and watch Atticus Dubcek’s exclusive prison interview.”
“Why the fuck would I want to watch that trash?” Sully shucked off his leather jacket, spraying rainwater everywhere as he did. Trina squealed as some splashed on her, but she soon focused intently on the TV screen again. An annoying pop song played between snippets of Atticus claiming he had no brother.
“Nat Wyatt, you mean?” the interviewer said. “He died in the badlands along with the Oracle?”
“He is dead to me. Betrayal severs all bloodlines. That is all I can say, or risk my nice digs here in this cell.”
When the commercial started, Trina sighed. “Well, that was underwhelming. What else is on?”
She flicked through other channels in a flurry, barely stopping on any long enough to see what was being broadcasted. Sully hated how much Atticus’s words still lingered in his mind. Combined with the chance meeting with Chaz’s parents, everything seemed too difficult. Families sucked. Sully should have known that from the beginning, which was why chosen families—like the one at Artie’s—mattered so much more.
When Trina stopped for longer than two seconds on a channel, the sound of a yelling crowd was clear.
“Down with vampires. Down with vampires,” the protestors on TV chanted. Sully walked around the coffee table so he could see the scene. Protestors with signs stood outside the police station. They waved them all in the air, adding more chants, while a reporter stood in front and relayed the information about vampires found on the police force.
“Vampires?” Tabby said. “I thought there was just the one?”
“Meh. There are supernaturals in all jobs. Hiding. Boring.” Trina flipped the channel, making Sully jump.
“No, no. Go back. I want to see.”
“Since when do you like TV? Isn’t it too much for the common people?”
“Shut the fuck up and tease me later. Go back to that other station.”
Trina rolled her eyes but did as Sully asked. The reporter, Maxine Dream, droned on and on about Alan Ramirez, but she hinted that there were more. A chill ran through Sully. Something wasn’t right here. Something was about to go very, very wrong. A graphic ran at the bottom of the screen, announcing an all-inclusive interview with a special informant coming up in three hours.
“Special informant?” Trina looked at everyone on the couch. “Any one of you talk?”
They all shook their heads. Trina shrugged. “So it can’t be that special.”
Sully stood in mute horror as he watched the protestors take shape. Several in the front row had on jackets with the Citizen’s Brigade logo on the collar. And one, dead center, was none other than Reggie.
Chapter 35
WHEN CHAZ parked his car, his blood was already boiling. Protestors lined College Street, displaying signs and holding up the neon header of the tabloids. He’d seen over the Citizen’s Brigade livestream the story about the rogue cop turned vampire. A red vampire hidden in blue, Alan Ramirez haunted the Toronto streets seeking out his next victim. Well, some vigilante justice gave him what he deserved. A photo of the body was there, complete and in color. The tabloid was salacious and dreadful, but Chaz had thought it was over.
Now, the protestors demanded that all hidden vampires be outed, no matter the cost. Their signs declared NO VAMPS IN CITY HALL and RED VS. BLUE. Someone with a megaphone was shouting about how they needed to test the blood of every single person in the police force to be sure they were clean. Monthly tests after that just in case anyone turned later on. It was a blatant invasion of privacy that no one would go for, but it still made Chaz uneasy. By the time he left his car, a crowd had formed around him. He carried the heavy evidence boxes and pushed past people, muttering “no comment” and not meeting anyone’s eyes. At one point a woman with curly brown hair and yellow, demon-like eyes stepped in front of him and wouldn’t move. In spite of the chills the entire group gave Chaz, he was sure every single one of them was human. There was never this type of protest against a specific sector of monsters unless it was started by humans. Maybe some demons and wolves were in the group as well, but they could never start and maintain a movement like this.
“Red versus blue. Red versus blue,” the yellow-eyed woman chanted. “We’ll bleed the vampire right out of you.”
Chaz felt her words like a rash on the back of his neck. He pushed past her to get to the front steps of the police building. He flipped his badge at the new security guard and was let inside.
“Better hurry,” the guard said. “I think the brass upstairs is looking for you.”
Chaz gulped but tried to maintain his composure. They just wanted the evidence logs. That was it. When he stepped into the squad room, he could barely make out Jack in the center of all the chaos. Several different rookie cops in blue hurried around with files or perps, and every single detective in a trench coat seemed to hang around bulletin boards with even more victim profiles on them.
“What the hell is going on?” Chaz exclaimed. No one seemed to hear him. With a sigh, he dropped the evidence boxes on his desk, which was already filled up with paperwork and old coffee cups.
Declan, who had been napping at his station, sprang to life. A red crease ran under his eye to his ear from being wedged against a file folder.
“Declan. What the hell is going on?”
“Sorry. I’ve been using your desk as a sleep station and fridge.” He rose from his seat and gathered up all the coffee cups. He made several trips back and forth before he seemed to see the protestors outside. Chaz followed Declan to the window, where they both looked out at College Street and the clogged traff
ic. The protestors and their signs in garish red paint were a bigger eyesore than the construction on the Don Valley Parkway.
“Yeah, they’ve been here a while. Ever since I called you.”
“This is bad. I saw the tabloids. Any idea who snapped those photos?”
“No idea. You’ve been vetted, obviously. But we’ve been reassigned the case, along with every single other vampire case we’ve ever had come across our desks in the past ten years.” Declan gestured toward the rookie cops wrangling several suspects into their holding cells. “And we’ve finally gone in and broken down the vampire dens in the city. Seems like we’re really cleaning this place up.”
Chaz nodded, still stunned by everything around him. He’d wanted attention paid to these crimes, but now, as he scanned the people in the holding cells, he worried that someone from his past would come out of the woodwork. He had his glamour to keep people from recognizing him, but he was still worried. If Artie could find his information, who else could? He didn’t want to ruin the good thing he had going.
But is it all that good? You haven’t been happy in years. And when you are happy, it’s with Sully. Chaz pushed those thoughts away, having no idea what the ideal situation would look like. The last time he felt like he was doing some good for the city, he and Sully had found Alan strung up.
When Declan and Chaz turned away from the window, Jack was at their desk. The bags under his eyes had grown. Each movement he made seemed exhausted, but he still grinned at Chaz.
“Hello again. Welcome to the funhouse. It’s been… insane here the past few days.”
“I can see that. I brought the evidence. I should head back.”
“No, sit. Tell us what you found.” Jack gestured to Chaz’s seat. As Chaz sat, they opened up the box of Czech files, some of which were only partly translated in order to not reveal information about Artie and her house. Chaz directed both Declan and Jack to the missing routes Sully had gathered.
“These people came through the monster hospital,” he said, “but I believe they went missing afterward.”
Jack nodded eagerly. He gestured toward one of the poster boards. “I think we’ve found the missing people you’re looking for. Here, come. I’ll explain what we’ve been up to.”
Over the next fifteen minutes, Jack rehashed all the vampire cases they’d reopened. Many of them had to be discarded, since the vampire’s death already had a perp attached to it (even if there was no official arrest), but the ones that were left were the same types of crimes that matched the MO: vampire with puncture wounds from another vampire, bled out or sucked dry in a secluded area, and possibly sedated.
“What about the saint cards or candles?” Chaz asked, holding his breath.
“Only a tiny fraction of these murders have those. The ones that do, though, match your translations.”
“And those are the murders in pairs,” Chaz said, understanding even more. “Not always with another vampire—sometimes with a witch or elemental but always in pairs. Shit.”
“I know. This is intense. It’s also not just in Toronto but all over Canada.”
Jack gestured to some of the photos they’d tacked up in the Maritimes and the West Coast, along with Nunavut. His mind immediately jumped to the other houses of Heather, Didi, and Anna.
“This is intense,” Chaz said. “I’m not even sure what to do next.”
“You know, neither are we. We’ve been told to open these cases again, because if we can prove that Ramirez did them, then we can quell the people outside.”
“But these go too far back. We’re looking for someone with way more experience,” Chaz said. He skimmed the dates on all these crimes. “We’re looking, at least, for someone as far back as 1998.”
“I know. Ramirez was a kid then. He didn’t do any of this.”
“Or he had a partner,” Declan added in. “Lots of options are possible. I’m still thinking gangs. Just because we don’t have the saint cards doesn’t mean they’re not involved in all of them.”
“Yes, and you know what, I’m hoping for gangs,” Jack said.
Chaz was about to ask why, when he remembered: unless this guy hurt a human, there was no way they were going to get him on murder. Alan Ramirez wasn’t human, even if he was a cop. The only reason these cases were getting attention was to quell protestors. Not for any kind of justice. The thought made Chaz’s stomach sink. He’d been glad to help, and especially glad when Sully’s translations proved to be helpful for the missing fleets. But now… everything felt sour. Tainted. Like the blood the vampire would have had to drink.
“A self-hating vampire could still be part of this gang,” Jack added. “But I wonder what his angle is. Why attack the other people who weren’t vamps? Was it really just collateral damage?”
“No. They represented something just as distasteful.”
“Gangs?”
“No, sex. Blood. If he’s a self-hating vampire, he hates that he needs to feed. He hates that he’s attracted to people too,” Chaz said.
“Why do you say attracted?” Declan asked. “What does attraction have to do with blood?”
Chaz wanted to say “everything” but shook it away. He kept seeing Sully in his wineglass full of blood, feeling Sully from the inside out, and knowing they could change one another’s lives. He wanted to tell them the long and complicated theory he’d learned from Artie, but he held back. He couldn’t release that information without putting everyone at risk.
“Um. Well,” Chaz fumbled. “Blood-to-blood contact doesn’t just happen from feeding. It can happen from sex too. Maybe this self-hating vamp was turned through sex, and now he’s trying to track down everyone he had sex with to see if he can find the source of his ailment.”
“Like a gigantic booty list?” Jack asked. Then the realization seemed to dawn on him. “That makes a lot of sense, actually. We should run with that. If we can find the first official victim, maybe we understand who changed him.”
Jack turned his attention back toward the board. He ordered all the older cases by likelihood it was the same perp, then started to draw connections between every victim that came from that. Jack even broke out the red thread to start making these connections visually. Maybe they wouldn’t need to know what Chaz had figured out at Artie’s to get the guy the old-fashioned way.
“Declan?” Jack asked. “Can you pass me the scissors? I think I have something.”
Before Declan grabbed the scissors, he shot Chaz a look that made him feel rooted to the ground. Maybe Declan was upset to be bossed around on yet another mission that seemed pointless to him. Either way, Chaz took a step back, no longer wishing to participate in this reenactment.
He took out the sketch that Tabby had drawn and the info Sully had given him about their Latino John. He tuned out Jack and Declan’s work and fell into his own. He tried to find the make and model of cars, but when too many kinds came up, he narrowed his scope. If this guy was at the blood conference, then he was probably registered. After some searching online, Chaz pulled up a list of speakers at the panel. No Juan. Nothing from the photos of the event listed a Juan or contained a man matching Tabby’s description either. Chaz called up Gordon and asked him to do the same e-mail trick he’d done before, this time with the registration for the conference on the official website.
“Does this mean you’re back at work?” Gordon asked. “Can we celebrate?”
“Hah, I don’t know.” Chaz pushed away the sinking feeling of no longer being useful here. If the mandatory blood tests happened, he’d definitely need to find a new place of work, or be forced out with his secret exposed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Fair. I’ll run the system and e-mail you the info. Good luck with the search!”
“Thanks, Gordon.”
Fifteen minutes later, Chaz had the entire registration list, including people who came in just to talk. When he ran those names against the description of the car, only one name popped up: Juan Sandoval. As i
t turned out, it had been his real name. He had no job listed, no income tax for the last couple years, but when he pulled up the license, the photo matched Tabby’s drawing. It wasn’t perfect—the cheekbones were a little softer, the eyes a little kinder—but the scar above the left eyebrow sealed the deal.
“I’ve got you,” Chaz said. He noticed an address listed on the license. “And now I know where you live.”
He tried to quell his excitement as he deleted search histories from his computer and shut it down. Juan was probably the guy, but the line of evidence to his name now was shaky. Chaz would need a confession if he wanted it to stick. He rose from his desk and walked to the coffee machine to get a mug and plot how he was going to get away from the crowd.
“You forget where the cream and sugar is?” Jack asked, appearing by his side. “You’ve been staring at your mug for ten minutes.”
“Not even,” Chaz said. “More like three minutes. And I like my coffee black now.”
“Ah, well, learn something new every day.” Jack filled his own mug with coffee, then an ungodly amount of sugar before he swallowed it.
“You been sleeping?”
Jack waved his hand in a fifty-fifty gesture. “Hard to when I keep seeing Ramirez all over the floor.”
“I’m sorry. I hope you know—”
“I know. You didn’t take the photos. You were just doing your job. And we found the PI you used.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. He took the photos and sold them to a reporter named Igby. They knew you but said what I already knew: you were a good cop. You only went to them to make sure the streets were safe.”
Chaz nodded. He took a long sip of his coffee before he asked, “Do you trust me?”
“What?”
“Do you trust me?”
Jack tilted his head. “You were my partner for years. I trust you with my life.”
“Do you trust me with your job? With this case?”
After a moment, Jack nodded. “I take it that you have something else I shouldn’t ask about but quietly let you pursue. Since I’m your boss now, our words become tricky.”
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