Blood Magic

by L. J. Red

She shook her head. “They live on their reputation,” she said. “No one’s gonna hire them again if they know they’ll squeal on their employers the moment we pick them up. Do you know what they were after?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “The vampire file,” I said.

  “The drained victim case? What was in there, your notes?”

  “Valerian brought me the file direct from the court.” She leaned back in her seat. “Don’t even go there,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did I say anything?”

  “You were thinking it,” I said.

  “So, the vampires turn up out of the blue and offer you a file on the murders?” I nodded. “Anything in there I’d like to see?

  “It’s nothing you don’t know already,” I said, “but here you go.” I pulled the file out of my bag. I’d guessed she would ask for it.

  I had no problem sharing information with the police. These were murders we were talking about, and I wanted the vampires to pay for what they had done. I had a vivid sense memory for a second—Valerian pressed up against me—but I shoved it out of my mind. Dreams didn’t matter, facts did, and the fact was that these two innocent humans had been drained dry by vampires and they deserved justice.

  “Can I keep these?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Make a copy.”

  She gestured for me to follow her over to the copier.

  “Listen,” she said, half closing the door and starting the machine so our words were masked by the sound. “You’re lucky those thieves aren’t pressing charges. The injuries your vampire gave them put them in the hospital.”

  “He’s not my vampire,” I said.

  “You’re not listening,” she said. “They were seriously injured.”

  “Why do you care if the vampires get sued?”

  “That’s not what I mean. That vampire you were with—”

  “Valerian; his name is Valerian.”

  Her eyes were a heavy weight and I knew she was seeing more than I liked. I’d never told her, never told anyone, exactly who it was that had drained me and left me on the street.

  “He’s dangerous,” she said, “violent, and I don’t like that you’re working with him.”

  “First of all,” I said, “I’m not working with him. I’m working this case my way. And second, you think I don’t know that? He’s a fucking psychopath. They all are. They get off on it. The violence. Vampires are incapable of human emotions. I’m not going to make the same mistake as last time. I know you think I’m running into danger but I need you to trust that I’m not going in blind.”

  The copier stopped, the silence suddenly falling between us. She handed the originals over to me. “I do trust your judgment, Tiana,” she said. “That’s what I wanted to say. I wanted to apologize for going so hard on you last night. I know this is tearing you up inside. But I also know what you’re like. I’ve seen you chase down the truth before. You’re like a dog with a bone, single-minded, and it scares me to see you doing that on a case like this. The stakes are serious and I don’t want to see you get hurt. Not again, not like that. If anything happens,” she said, “if you get spooked at all, call me. I’ve got your back on this.”

  I met her eyes. “I know you do,” I said, my voice as serious as hers. “Since we are in a sharing mood,” I said, changing the subject. “What can you tell me about the two victims? I forgot to ask at the morgue, do either of them have family in the city?”

  “Sevda Sahin,” she said, walking me back to her desk and pulling out her notebook. “Lived with her parents and younger brother in international district. We already interviewed them.”

  “Did you get anything?”

  “Not much. They didn’t know very much about their daughter’s job—she kept to herself—but they said she seemed stressed over the last few days. They just thought she was dealing with something big at work.”

  Something big, I thought. Something benign, like a fundraiser, or had she found something out the vampires wanted to keep hidden?

  “Right, that’s where I’m headed next. Even if they can’t tell me anything new, seeing the place where she used to live might give me something.”

  “You find anything,” she said, “you share it.”

  “That goes both ways,” I said, waving the case file in goodbye as I headed out of the precinct, back into the city.

  Chapter 21

  Sevda’s parents owned a Turkish grocery store. Fresh produce sat in crates outside, the name Sahin emblazoned in curly script across the front. Inside, packs of dried seeds, flours, and spices lined the shelves along the walls. The woman behind the till was somewhere in her sixties, and I recognized the same slope of eyebrows and cheekbones as in her daughter.

  “Mrs. Sahin?”

  She raised her eyebrows, taking in my ripped leather jacket, scuffed jeans, and boots.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, her accent giving a soft curl to the words.

  “I have some questions,” I said, “about your daughter.”

  She frowned. “I already told the police everything.”

  I know,” I said. “I won’t take up much of your time. I’ve been asked to investigate her murder by one of her friends, Eve.” I handed over my card, figuring the lie would spook her less than the truth.

  She frowned down at it. “A private investigator? I don’t know Sevda’s friends,” she said. I nodded, trying to look understanding and trustworthy.

  “Like I said, I won’t take up much of your time.” As I spoke, I was unfurling my connection to the half world. Stepping past the veil and reaching out through the shop. I suspected the Sahins lived above the shop, and so I sent searching tendrils upwards into the apartment upstairs. “I understand that she was unusually stressed in the time leading up to the incident,” I said. “Can you tell me anything about that?” She frowned, and in her drawn face I suddenly saw that the marks I had thought were age were actually grief. I recognized the hollowness in her eyes.

  “I told the police she didn’t tell us much. We were so proud of her, of her job. I wish we had never encouraged her to apply. I wish she had stayed here in the shop with us.”

  I looked around. “It’s a family business, right?”

  She nodded. “Sevda wanted more. She wanted to look after us. She always said she would earn enough that we could close up the shop, retire back to Istanbul.” Mrs. Sahin smiled, but there was no humor left in it. “She had such dreams,” she said. I saw the sheen of tears appearing in her eyes.

  Shit. This wasn’t getting us anywhere. “Can you tell me anything about the job?”

  She swallowed, pulling her tears back under control. “Everything seemed to be going fine, she was enjoying it, and then in the last couple of weeks before… she changed. She wouldn’t talk about it. She became secretive. Going out all the time.”

  “At night?”

  “No, the night was when she worked. She started going out in the daytime too. So tired, running herself ragged.”

  I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. Why would she be going out in the daytime if vampires were involved?

  “It would be really helpful to me if I could see her room.”

  Mrs. Sahin stood, surreptitiously brushing away the tears from her eyes. “Of course,” she said. She flipped the sign on the door to closed and led me up into the apartment through the back door. The apartment was small but spotlessly clean. Arabic calligraphy on marbled paper graced the walls and the upholstery was worn but well maintained.

  Sevda’s room wasn’t much bigger than the humans’ rooms in the vampire court. A little window looked out onto the back lot with a fine view of dumpsters and a fire escape. “Thank you,” I said, glancing around. It would look a bit weird to her if I stood in the middle of the room with my eyes closed and my hands spread. Anything to avoid nice Mrs. Sahin from realizing she’d just invited a witch into her house. People could be weird about magic. And since her daughter had died connected to vampires, I thought the l
east amount of supernatural behavior was best.

  “Could you… I’m sorry, could I trouble you for a glass of water?”

  She was hesitant, clearly uneasy leaving a stranger alone in her daughter’s room, but politeness won out. “Of course,” she said, stepping out but leaving the door open. The moment she left, I surreptitiously nudged it almost shut with my foot, then turned and stood straight in the middle of the room.

  I breathed in deeply. I could smell the faint scent of perfume. The wardrobe door was open, colorful clothes inside. I stepped up to it and ran my hand over the soft silks and warm cashmere. Sevda was clearly doing well for herself, and yet… I turned back to the rest of the room. The red and black coverlet on the bed was worn like the rest of the things in the apartment. These were work clothes, I realized. She put on her face, put on her fancy clothes, and went out into the world pretending to be the affluent and successful woman she wanted to become. The clothes would be too new to give me anything.

  I turned toward the bed and pressed my hand against the coverlet. The design was abstract and geometric, black cloth with handstitched red embroidery. I spread my fingers, sinking them into the soft fabric. This was better. This was made with love. It should be imbued with memories, but when I shut my eyes and shoved my senses into it I found nothing at all. I unbalanced; it was like missing a step. My physical body stayed still but my mind tumbled head over heels, a jarring disconnect that shoved me up and out of the half world and back into myself. Not a moment too soon, as Sevda’s mother returned, pushing the door open, a glass of water in her hands.

  I straightened quickly and took it from her, still feeling jittery, the water spilling slightly over my hand as I took a long sip. How could this be happening? How could her presence have been erased not just from her body and from the vampires’ lair but from here as well. There was no way the vampires had been invited into this house, not after what had happened, and I couldn’t sense them anywhere. There was no scent of death anywhere in this apartment, which made no sense. The loss of their daughter should be hanging heavy in the air, but instead I felt the void where their daughter’s spirit should be. It was like a missing tooth, painful and hollow.

  I lost no time in thanking Mrs. Sahin for her help, urging her to contact me or the police should she remember anything else and getting out of there. I stood on the street outside the store, trying to still my shivers. Mundanes got creeped out when they sensed ghosts; I got freaked out when I couldn’t sense them.

  I turned to face the city. Perhaps I would have better luck with Oliver.

  Chapter 22

  Walking through university district took me back. This entire case had been a trip down memory lane. An unwelcome one. Not that my memories of Washington U were negative exactly. I had enjoyed my time here, but it only reminded me of how oblivious I had been. How I hadn’t been there for Violet when she needed me the most.

  The winter sun was shining—it always seemed to be shining on campus—and I was surrounded by happy students just as oblivious as I had been, thinking themselves grown-up and experienced, thinking the world was their oyster, ready to open and expose the pearl within. Boy, were they in for an unhappy awakening. I cut through the clusters of brightly clothed students like a black cat dragging bad luck behind me.

  Outside the admissions office, I put my game face on, unbuttoned the top two buttons of my top, and fluffed up my hair before striding in confidently. I smiled at the security guard and leaned down on the countertop, giving him a good look down the front of my shirt. “Hi,” I said, my voice pitched higher and more girlish. “God, I’ve been such an idiot.” I curled a strand of hair around my finger.

  “How can I help you, little lady?” he said. Bingo. I smiled even wider and then bit my lip, watching with satisfaction as his eyes dropped down to my mouth.

  I leaned in. “I spent last night with this guy.” I grinned. “He was really cute, like, really cute. And I just, you know how it is…” I giggled and shifted position, tilting down even further.

  “Sure,” he said. “I know how it is.” His eyes weren’t anywhere near my face.

  “Well, I left my phone. Can you believe it? I left my phone in his room, only, I can’t remember which halls he was in.” I closed my eyes as if mortified and pressed my hand to my chest, surreptitiously pulling my top down a little further. “Can you help me out? I can tell you his name.”

  There was a pause, then. “Sure,” he said, dragging his eyes away from my tits. “What’s the name?”

  “Oliver,” I said. “Oliver, um, Carpenter? He’s a freshman.”

  The guard tapped away at his computer for a moment.

  University bureaucracy was glacially slow. I was betting, in the couple weeks since Oliver had been found dead, they hadn’t taken him off the roster just yet.

  “Here we go,” he said. “Oliver Carpenter, Oakwood Hall. Room 203.”

  “203,” I exclaimed. “That was it. Oakwood. Oh, you are a lifesaver, thank you.”

  “Happy to help,” he said to my breasts.

  Yeah, I bet you were, I thought, pushing up from the countertop with a little wave and walking quickly back out into the sunshine.

  Oakwood Hall was a pleasant grass-lined building on the edge of the university district. Windows looked out onto the street, a pride flag handing from one, music drifting out of another.

  Breaking into halls of residence was depressingly easy. Students were never the most safety conscious of individuals. All I needed to do was find a likely looking group of students and slide in behind them, grinning and flicking my hair back as if I was laughing at what they had just said. I caught the door in their wake and slipped inside. I took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor and found the hallway to Oliver’s room.

  I’d come prepared with lock picks and I only had to wait for a noisy conversation between a girlfriend and her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend to finish. Her door finally slammed closed and he walked past me with a face like a thundercloud. True love, I thought wryly.

  It was the work of seconds to get the door open and then I was inside. The tell-tale white powder from fingerprint dusting lay over the surfaces. The police had already been in here. Oliver’s things were half packed into boxes. I suspected his parents were still in the city somewhere, forcing themselves to go through their dead son’s possessions. I didn’t envy them their job. I still had boxes in storage that had belonged to Violet. Things I couldn’t bear to look at. I pushed the thought away and focused on the room. Oliver had a single room, which must have cost him, or more likely his parents, a little extra, but other than that, it was just like any other student room across the country. Small, messy. Bed, desk, chair, a closet and a couple of narrow bookshelves against one wall. I pushed open his closet door and fingered some of the shirts and sweaters. Designer labels. Nice stuff. I pulled open the drawers on the desk. There was no laptop; the police would have taken the electricals but Detective Pierce hadn’t mentioned finding anything useful so far.

  I sat down at his desk. There was a photo on the side: smiling family. Hands around each other’s shoulders. He’d inherited his hair from his father, red fading into gray with age. I closed my eyes on their smiles and settled into the half world, reaching, not expecting to find anything. I was right. The room was empty, wiped clean just like Sevda’s, and it was starting to seriously freak me out. I spent a few more minutes searching through his things, but all I found was stuff relating to his studies and the extra curriculars and societies he was part of. Not much sports but a lot of charitable efforts. A bookmark shaped like the Amnesty International logo and a volunteer schedule for some kind of organic food co-op. I noted they were running a street market today. Maybe I could find some of his friends there.

  I gave the room a final look before heading out the door. He’d been just another student full of energy and excitement. Where had all of that gone? Why was there no mark of his presence left in the world? I walked out into the sunshine and cros
sed the campus. How had he even got in with the vampires? That was the missing link here. Sevda made sense, she wanted good employment, wanted to climb the career ladder, I might hate it, but the vampire court was a big deal in this city, hell in the entire West Coast, not a bad place to start a budding Public Relations career. But Oliver? A freshman with no apparent connection with the supernatural. He had no reason to seek them out.

  The market was being held on the other side of campus—a row of about twenty stalls selling cheeses, breads, cakes and pastries, and, on the far end, fresh vegetables packed up in colorful printed tote bags. The line bunched up in front of me, blocking my view of the stall until the last moment. Standing there, cheerily greeting me by the till was a familiar face. Eve’s smile dropped off the moment she recognized me. “Oh shit,” she said.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” I said.

  “I can explain,” she said, raising her hand. I looked down. She was still holding a bunch of carrots.

  “With those?”

  “Huh? Oh, no. One second.” She placed the carrots in the basket and smiled at the lady who had been in front of me in the queue. “My colleague will finish your order,” she said in a rush. She grabbed the girl standing next to her and tugged her over, stepping toward the back of the stall.

  I circled round to meet her, wary and ready to follow should she try and run. But she didn’t. She just came over to me, wringing her hands. “I didn’t say anything,” she said before I could speak. I hadn’t intended to anyway. I found it was best to stick to silence in cases like these and let the suspect do the talking. I crossed my hands over my chest and glared.

  “I just thought it would look bad, you know, if I told you I knew Oliver. I didn’t mean to lie. It just kind of happened, and then you knew about Sevda and I thought it was too late to say anything. Better to just keep quiet.”

  “Well, you better stop keeping quiet now and tell me what the hell is going on,” I snapped. “Why didn’t you just tell me you knew Oliver?”