by W. J. May
“That they needed agents in the San Francisco field office,” Tony replied matter-of-factly.
Agent Swift nodded. “I see.” He paused for a few seconds while Tony studied him. “So they didn’t tell you we’ve started a separate branch of the D.O.J.?”
“Well yes, he may have mentioned a sub-branch of the FBI, or I suppose, the D.O.J. for that matter. What’s this about?”
Adam took a deep breath, then began to cough. When he had regained his composure, he said, “The D.O.J. has started a branch called the Bureau of Supernatural Investigation. It’s something you’re going to have to keep an open mind about.”
Internally, Tony smiled. He was wondering when they’d catch on to the existence of the supernatural. He’d had plenty of experiences with vampires and shapeshifters in his seventy-plus years, but he feigned innocence. “What do you mean by ‘supernatural’, Agent Swift?”
Adam picked up the smoldering cigarette and took another long drag, measuring Tony with a serious stare. After blowing a long stream of smoke out, he replied, “Vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, and the like.”
Tony’s eyes got big and he laughed, keeping up the ruse. “Seriously?”
Adam nodded. “Yes, apparently the Bureau thought you were cut out to handle it.” He stared intently at Tony. “So, are you?”
Tony shrugged, appearing to be indifferent and open-minded. “Sure, I’ll investigate whatever the government wants to as long as they keep paying me.”
It was hard to act so aloof when inside he was so excited he almost peed himself. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to get paid to investigate the supernatural, when as of now, he was only receiving immortality for doing the very same thing. He had to suppress a chuckle.
“Oh, good. Because we already have a job. There’s a dead body at the city morgue we’ve got to go look at.”
“Gah... dead bodies. Not my favorite. But lead the way, Agent Swift.”
Adam crushed out his cigarette and eyed Tony speculatively, thinking he’d been a little too accepting of the new agency and its odd assignment. Then he chalked it up to youth, thinking maybe he was just more open-minded than Adam had been at first, since there were so many movies and radio programs out with monsters and the like.
The truth was, Adam had almost had a heart attack that day in the boardroom at the FBI Headquarters when Director Blackwell had told him he was going to head up the San Francisco division of the BSI. He couldn’t believe his ears. He’d been working for the government his whole adult life, and was good at his job. He hardly had any unsolved cases, but the ones that were unsolved, he had to admit, were strange. After he’d had some time to think it through, he had pulled out his file of cold cases and had gone through them. He’d begun to realize that the Justice Department’s idea to start investigating these things wasn’t so farfetched. The unsolved cases – all three of them – were the ones that kept him up at night. Two murders and a missing person’s case – were all under very strange circumstances.
The first was a grisly killing that took place in Golden Gate Park. The victim had been found with his throat ripped out, his head practically torn off. He was a local man with no family, who had just gotten out of the Army, having served his time in the early stages of World War II. The police were called in the early morning of dawn, while the lowlying fog was still sitting along the walking trails of the park where an older couple walking their dog made the horrific discovery. SFPD had determined it was most likely an animal attack. But that never sat right with Adam Swift. Wild animals did not wander into Golden Gate Park, even in the early morning deserted hours, but he could never put his finger on it.
The second was a simpler case, but just as bizarre. A body was found completely drained of blood in the back alley of McGuire’s Irish Pub off of Polk Street. The medical examiner couldn’t figure out how the blood had been drained, as there were no cuts or wounds on the young girl, yet during the autopsy, it was determined that she contained less than two pints of congealed blood in her body.
The third was the most baffling to Agent Swift. A young bike messenger had gone missing out of an alley in the Mission District. His bike was found, along with some blood, but no body. He seemed to have just disappeared into thin air. SFPD had it open as a missing person’s case, and had blamed the mob, but Agent Swift didn’t buy it. The kid was barely twenty years old, and his father was an SFPD officer and had no reason to owe anything to the mob – Irish, Italian, or otherwise.
And it now seems he may have a fourth case to add to his sleepless nights.
The agents arrived at the city morgue, which was located in the basement of the city hospital. They showed ID to the woman in the nurse’s uniform at the front desk, and were instructed to take the stairs to the basement.
Upon arrival, the lone doctor on duty, Dr. Jerry McKee, was more than happy to show them the body. Walking to several bodies on stretchers covered by white sheets, he lifted back the sheet to reveal a body drained of blood. This one, an old man.
“It’s very odd, you know. It’s just like the girl we found behind McGuire’s,” Dr. McKee said, pulling back the sheet with his right hand, while his left held a cigarette, its ash falling to the stone floor of the morgue. “I don’t get it.”
Agent Bianchi looked at the doctor and pointed to the body. “May I?”
Dr. McKee was in his sixties, with thinning gray hair and watery hazel eyes. “Knock yourself out, kid.”
Tony grabbed the corpse’s face and turned it slowly side to side. Pulling a handkerchief from his front pocket, he got very close, and with the handkerchief over his nose, looked at the neck and smiled as best he could through the stench of death. He pointed. “Look there.”
Agent Swift and Dr. McKee got in close and examined the two very faint puncture wounds on the victim’s pale, wrinkled neck.
“By golly you’re a sharp one, kid,” Dr. McKee said, setting his cigarette down on the edge of a sterile metal gurney and looking excitedly at Agent Bianchi. “What made you look there?”
Adam shot Tony a warning look. Tony shrugged. “Just a hunch. Perhaps the perpetrator used some sort of tool to drain this old timer’s blood out.”
Dr. McKee picked his cigarette back up and scratched at the remaining hairs on his head. “Why on Earth would anyone want to drain this guy’s blood?”
Agent Bianchi shrugged and looked at Adam Swift. “Maybe they’re obsessed with blood. Maybe some religious fanatics or devil worshipers.”
Dr. McKee nodded and grabbed the clipboard attached to the end of the gurney and began writing, speaking out loud. “Cause of death: Exsanguination by puncture wounds to the jugular vein.”
As the two agents exited the hospital and got into their car, Agent Swift said, “How did you know to look for puncture wounds?”
Tony’s handsome face lit up with a knowing smirk. “Why, Agent Swift, you mentioned we were now investigating vampires, so why not look for teeth marks?”
Agent Swift studied Tony for a long minute, his keen investigator skills knowing there was something not quite right about his new colleague and said, “All right, Agent Bianchi, you got me on that one.”
“I’m hungry. What’s good in San Francisco?” Tony asked in deflection.
“I know a diner,” Adam said, steering the car toward Third Street.
* * *
Chapter 3
The sun had set on the City by the Bay as Agents Bianchi and Swift parked in the back lot of Sal’s Diner. A chilly ocean wind blew around them and Tony pulled the collar of his trench coat higher around his neck. As they entered the quaint diner, it was fairly busy, but they found a booth quickly and slid into a squeaky red one. A waitress with blonde hair in a ponytail and a pretty smile welcomed them. “Hi, I’m Sandy. What can I get you?”
“Two coffees and menus, sweetheart,” Agent Swift replied.
She grinned extra wide at Tony, then flicked her eyes back to Adam. “Coming right up.” And she was off.
; They watched her walk away and Adam folded his hands on the table and looked at Tony. “So where you from, Anthony?”
A smile lit up his chiseled features. “Please call me Tony, only my mother calls me Anthony.” Or she did, when she was alive, Tony thought to himself.
Adam Swift smiled.
“Well I’m from Seattle. My parents were Italian immigrants, though. Moved to America when I was two.”
Adam nodded.
Sandy came to the table with their coffees. “What can I get you boys to eat?” She was mostly looking at Tony, chomping on gum and grinning.
“I’ll have the country fried steak and green beans,” Adam said.
Tony smiled at the pretty blonde. “Just a burger, sweetheart.”
She nodded and walked off.
“So did you like Seattle? I’ve been thinking about moving to Portland. My son just moved his family up there to take a job with Portland P.D.”
Tony smiled. “Well Portland and Seattle aren’t exactly the same, but if you like dreary weather, either will do. Although,” he paused, “I haven’t seen much sun here in the Sunshine State yet.”
Adam waved him off. “That’s because we’re the Golden State, not the Sunshine State. That’s Florida.”
Tony took a sip of his coffee and smiled around the rim of the cup. “I stand corrected.”
“Besides, it’s winter. I’ll get better in the summer.”
Tony stared at Adam, sizing him up. He could already tell Adam was a straight-laced kind of guy who was probably married to the Bureau and took his job seriously. He decided he could trust him and was happy he’d have him as a partner. “So, Agent Swift, what do we do about the body in the morgue, drained of blood? It’s not as if we can put out an APB for a vampire, can we?”
Adam chuckled. “Call me Adam, please. And no, we won’t be doing that. That’s why the DOJ made this branch. We’ve already begun to establish contacts in the communities where these supernatural creatures dwell. For instance, we know a clan of vampires that hang out in the Mission District. We don’t have contact with them, but we do monitor them. We’re hoping to gain actual informants and confidants among these creatures. We are also setting up liaisons with the local PD. In fact, we have one we’re training right now.”
Tony nodded. “I see. So what kind of creatures are we talking about?” He wanted to know exactly what the government knew. “Vampires and, what did you call them, shapeshifters?”
Sandy returned with their food and set it down in front of them. “Let me know if you need anything else, boys.”
Adam waited until she was a safe distance away. “Yes, mainly just vamps and shifters. We call them that because they seem to be able to morph their human bodies into different animals. At first we thought them to be werewolves, like the ones from folklore, but that’s not the case. While we’ve seen a few take a wolf form, we have also witnessed dogs and cats.”
Tony looked amused. “Is that so? Why would anyone want to lower themselves down the food chain like that?”
Adam swallowed a bite. “We can’t figure it out, but wonder if they only do it when it suits them, or maybe they’re just made differently and have to? We’re not sure. We’ve also noticed they are affected by the cycles of the moon.”
“Just like in folklore. I suppose that’s where the stories came from,” Tony smiled.
“We’re sure of it,” Adam confirmed.
Tony decided the first thing he was going to do when they were done with their meal and he was back in his hotel room, was contact the head of the Immortal coven out of San Francisco. First, he’d have to find out who it was.
∞∞∞
Three weeks after his arrival in San Francisco, Special Agent Anthony Bianchi stood on the sidewalk on Hyde Street dressed in a pristine gray suit. He placed his hand on top of his derby to keep it from falling off his head as he stared up at the seven-story building. He held a small manila folder in his hand and smiled.
He slowly made his way through the front doors of the new building and walked up to the receptionist. She was a sassy blonde named Kathryn, and Tony had already set his sights on her. He could tell she was into him, too.
She looked up from a book she had been reading and smiled at him, her red-painted lips twisting into a lippy smirk, her blue eyes dancing with flirtation. “Agent Bianchi, what can we do for you today?”
“Now, doll, I’ve told you to call me Tony.”
“Okay, Tony, you here to see Jonathan?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed toward the elevator. “You know the way. Sixth floor, honey.”
He tipped his hat at her and walked off toward the elevator.
As he got in and closed the grate, he gave the beautiful Kathryn one more of his charming smiles, his deep, chocolate brown eyes twinkling back at her in his flirtatious way.
He knew he had to ask her out. He also knew she was another Immortal out of the San Francisco coven, and was glad he had located the coven so quickly upon arriving in the famous city.
He exited the elevator once it reached floor number six and padded down the hallway, then lightly rapped on the door marked Murphy Architecture.
Jonathan Murphy, longtime friend and owner of the very building in which they now stood, opened the door, a cigar clamped between his teeth.
“Tony, this is a nice surprise,” he said, removing the cigar and patting Tony on the back.
Jonathan towered over Anthony Bianchi. At six-foot-four, Jonathan’s wavy dark blonde hair and steely gray eyes were a stark contrast to Tony’s jet-black hair and warm brown eyes.
“Cigar?” Jonathan asked, taking a seat behind his desk.
Tony shook his head as he moved two cardboard tubes out of the way and sat on one of the couches in Jonathan’s office. “No thanks, man. Just came here for the weekly report.” He handed Jonathan the manila envelope.
Jonathan set the smoldering stogie on a green glass ashtray that sat on the edge of his desk and opened the envelope.
After he’d silently studied its contents, he closed it slowly and looked at Tony. “What is the Justice Department doing about this?”
Tony smiled. “All we can do, man. What are the Immortals doing about it?”
Jonathan picked up the cigar and took a drag, measuring Tony with an intense stare. After blowing out a thick stream of blue smoke, he said, “What we always do, keep the bloodsuckers in line. If we catch them doing shit like this,” he pointed at the envelope, “we take care of business.”
Tony nodded. “Well then it appears we’re going to need some of your help, as we can’t seem to locate the vampire or vampires who are doing this. This is the fourth. There were already two unsolved cases when I moved here, bodies exsanguinated as I told you last week, and now there are two more. Between you and us, we have to do something, or else the fine citizens of San Francisco are going to have a full-scale panic on their hands. I’m surprised the Chronicle hasn’t already made up some ridiculous name for this killer yet.”
“I’ll get with the head of the vampire clan.”
Tony perched a dark eyebrow at him. “What? You just going to invite him out for cocktails or what?”
Jonathan tapped an ash into the tray and leaned back as far as his squeaky leather chair allowed. “I don’t know how the coven in Seattle did business, but down here, we don’t screw around. Will is the head vamp around here. Although,” he said, looking out the window, “I haven’t seen him since Thomas’s little... mishap.”
“Thomas, your newest recruit? You gotta get that kid outta here, man. My partner, Agent Swift, is hot on your trail. He wants to solve that missing person’s case in the biggest, baddest way. And he’s got a nose like a bloodhound. He’s going to figure it out.”
Jonathan’s eyes flashed in anger and he pounded his large fist on his desk. “No, he’s not. I’ve got it under control. You remember, Bianchi, you are an Immortal first, a Justice Department employee second.”
&nb
sp; Tony stood up and calmly grabbed the folder from Jonathan’s desk. “You don’t need to remind me of my place, Jonathan. I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Jonathan stood, setting the cigar down again. He walked around the desk and put his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry. I just get a bit defensive when it comes to Thomas. The Queens promised me a partner a long time ago, and when they didn’t deliver, I had to get one for myself.”
Tony looked at Jonathan’s hand on his shoulder and back up into his face. “I know. I get it. It’s cool, man. I’ll keep you updated.” He held up the folder. “Talk to you later.”
As Tony opened the door and walked through it, Jonathan called out, “And stay away from my receptionist!”
Tony gave a devilish smirk and closed the door behind him.
∞∞∞
A week later, Jonathan, Tony, and Thomas O’Malley were all sitting in Jonathan Murphy’s large Chevy, watching a small house that sat scrunched amongst all the others at the top of Lombard Street. From the very top of the street, one could see the entire city of San Francisco with its twinkling lights and black water sloshing onto the sandy brown shore.
Night had set hours ago. As they sat in the car, they began to get restless.
“I say we just go knock on the door,” Tony said.
Jonathan shook his head. “No. Wait for them to come out. These leeches are trapped indoors all day, trust me, they’ll come out eventually. A vampire’s gotta eat.”
Thomas raked a hand through his wavy black hair and shuddered. “That’s so disturbing.”
Tony laughed, taking the gum out of his mouth and wrapping it in a piece of paper. “Get used to it, kid. It’s your job.”
Thomas O’Malley, just twenty years old and new to the Immortal coven of San Francisco, looked at Agent Bianchi. “Have you ever been bit by one?”
Tony scoffed. “No way. I’d never let one get close enough.”
“Well, I’ve seen one up close. It’s extremely frightening.” He shuddered at the memory.
Jonathan looked into the backseat at his newest recruit. “Well, you got skills now, kid. You won’t ever find yourself in that situation again.”