BloodWalk

by BloodWalk (lit)

  "Yeah. I wish you were here. You deserve to be in on the kill . . . so to speak."

  Garreth started again, prodded by an idea. Time away from here might be just what he needed . . . to avoid the bloodmobile and Fowler and that reporter, to think about his relationship with Maggie. "Maybe something can be arranged. I'll get back to you this evening."

  Not until he had already hung up did it occur to him to wonder: if Lane's ghost haunted him here where she had lost to him, what might it do where she had been strong and triumphant?

  1

  In the morning light San Francisco rose bright and inviting above the waters of the bay. A feel of homecoming enveloped Garreth as he drove across the Oakland bridge, countering day's lethargy and the headache from sunlight sneaking around the edges of his trooper glasses. At the same time, however, he felt as though he drove into cold and shadow. Lane's laughter echoed in his head and foreboding lay like lead in his gut. Was he wrong to be coming back?

  He had refused to think about it until yesterday, and the question was easily shoved aside in the rush of preparing to leave Baumen, in the strain of trading shifts with Maggie and working a day shift on Saturday in order to leave that evening. Certainly he had no time to doubt while driving cross country, not with watching the rearview mirrors and road ahead for cars with light bar silhouettes. The vast open stretches of I-70 and I-80 had been too tempting to resist and he turned the ZX loose, slowing down only for the mountains and when instinct suggested troopers might be around.

  Which had brought him rolling into Davis and up to his parents' house early Sunday evening, and to his surprise, into the middle of an unexpected family reunion.

  "Hey, we couldn't waste this chance to celebrate the current family hero," his brother Shane said, and dragged him from the car into the crushing hug that always made Garreth pity anyone meeting Shane on the line of scrimmage.

  Not only had Shane come from Los Angeles with his wife and daughters to join their parents and Grandma Doyle-Shane looking content and healthy, obviously satisfied with giving up playing end for the Rams for a position on their coaching staff-but his ex-wife Judith was there, too, with his son Brian and her husband. The scents of blood, and sweat from the inevitable Sunday family scrimmage, washed around him, making Garreth glad he had taken a long drink from his thermos before reaching the house.

  Phil Mikaelian wrapped a beefy arm around his shoulders. "That was a damn fine piece of police work catching Frank Danner, son. I'm proud of you."

  No praise meant more than those few words from this cop Garreth had grown up worshipping. He grinned happily. "Thank you, sir."

  "But it doesn't look like you're taking time to eat," his mother said. "Or can't your Maggie cook?"

  "Mom, I eat enough."

  "His sport is running, remember, not football," Grandma Doyle said.

  "Not football?" Shane's wife Susan pretended shock. "Esther, are you sure you brought the right baby home from the hospital?"

  Judith and Dennis greeted him less boisterously, Judith with a light kiss, her husband shaking hands. Brian, so tall and husky now that he looked twelve instead of ten years old, held out a hand, too. "Hello, sir. Congratulations."

  Such formality from his own son stung, even as Garreth recognized that he could hardly expect more when he saw so little of the boy. Judith had been right to have Dennis adopt Brian.

  Still it felt like-it felt like someone had tossed a match on his bridge. Suddenly all pleasure drained from the evening. Even at home surrounded by laughter and chatter, he stood alone.

  By the end of dinner the swirl of blood scents and the strain of playing with his food to hide the fact he ate none of it left him feeling suffocated. He fled to the dark and peace of the back yard. Sitting down in one of the lawn chairs, he breathed deeply. Out here the air smelled wonderfully of nothing but flowers, grass, and earth.

  Presently the back door clicked and footsteps moved across the porch. The scent of lavender drifted to him on the night air.

  He looked around. "Hello, Grandma."

  She crossed the lawn to sit in the chair next to his. "It's a lovely night."

  That was all she said for a long while. They sat in silence, not the strained one there would have been with his father or Shane, who both treated silence as a void to be filled, but a sharing of solitude, each wrapped in separate thoughts and reluctant to intrude on the other. If he had to be alone, Garreth reflected, Grandma Doyle was a comfortable person to be alone with. If she felt any horror at what he had become, she was careful never to show it, yet she did not appear to be afraid of mentioning it either.

  She broke the silence by mentioning it. "You handled dinner very well. I hardly noticed meself that you weren't eating anything."

  He smiled wryly. "Thanks. I'm glad I don't have to keep it up for more than a couple of meals in a row, though."

  "You're going on to San Francisco in the morning then?"

  "Yes."

  She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. "Don't."

  Cold slid down his spine. "Do you have a Feeling about it, Grandma?" Grandma Doyle's Feelings had been a source of amusement for friends and neighbors over the years, but no one with any experience with them ever laughed, not even tough cop Phil Mikaelian. "What kind of Feeling?"

  "There's danger waiting there, and maybe death."

  He smiled wryly. "I thought you said I'm already dead."

  Age had not slowed her hands. She thumped him on the head with her knuckle just as fast and hard as she had when he was a boy. "I won't be taking backtalk from you even if you are grown and dearg-due. Perhaps you're dead, or it's as you say and just a different kind of living, but there is a true, final death for even your sort, and it's waiting in San Francisco."

  "From what? Can you see?" He rubbed the sore spot on his head.

  She sighed. "No, I can't. There's a woman involved, though, a woman with eyes the color of violets."

  The words echoed in Garreth's head as San Francisco loomed nearer across the bridge. A violet-eyed woman, and death. He stared across the bay. Was he a fool to go there? He could still turn around on Treasure Island. But the city called to him, echoing with the past . . . Marti, Harry and Lien, good times and love, friendship. Bridges whole and strong.

  He kept driving.

  2

  Leaving the terminating I-80 at Bryant Street and pulling into the police department parking lot was like slipping into familiar old clothes. All the months away might never have existed. His feet automatically fol­lowed the familiar path into the building and up the elevators to the Homicide section, where the faces were exactly as he remembered: Rob Cohen with half-glasses riding the end of his nose, Evelyn Kolb with her ever-present pump thermos of tea on the corner of her desk, Art Schneider. Schneider appeared to be wearing the same brown suit he had worn the day Garreth cleaned out his desk. And the room smelled the same beneath the blood scents . . . of coffee and cigarette smoke and the acid tang of human bodies sweating in frustration and anxiety.

  One new face at a desk near the door looked around from talking to a red-eyed female citizen. "May I help you, sir?"

  "I'm looking for Harry Takananda."

  The detective glanced around the room. "Sergeant Takananda and Inspector Girimonte aren't here right now. Can someone else help you?"

  Girimonte must be Harry's new partner. Garreth did not recognize the name. "Maybe. Thanks. Hi, Evelyn, Art," he called.

  The double takes around the room were classics. "Mikaelian?"

  "My god." A grinning Schneider loped around his desk, with Kolb and Rob Cohen close behind. He pumped Garreth's hand. "Harry wasn't kidding when he said we wouldn't recognize you."

  Cohen slapped his shoulder. "If you're an example of Kansas cooking, remind me not to eat there."

  "I think he looks great," Kolb sighed. "What's the name of your diet?"

  Garreth grinned back, warmth spreading through him. This was like another family reunion. And why not? The depa
rtment had been his family, too, the Homicide inspectors his brothers and sisters. "You're all looking great, too."

  "Well, well. The wanderer." Across the room Lieutenant Lucas Serruto had appeared in the doorway of his office, as dapper as ever and still with the dark good looks of a TV cop-hero. "Of course we all want to welcome Mikaelian, but remember that we're here to serve and protect the taxpayers of San Francisco. Let's get back to it as soon as possible. Mikaelian, grab a cup of coffee and join me when you're through saying hello." He disappeared into his office again.

  Garreth followed in five minutes or so with a mug of Kolb's tea.

  Serruto motioned him to a chair. "That Danner business was a good piece of work. I take it you're enjoying rural life?"

  "Oh, yes." Garreth sank gratefully into the chair. Lord he hated daylight. "You might say cattle are in my blood now."

  As Serruto's brows rose Garreth kicked himself for the wisecrack, but the lieutenant did not pursue the subject. He leaned back in his chair. "Don't think I'm being hostile, because it really is nice to see you again, but let's have something straight from the beginning, Mikaelian. Despite the understandable score you have to settle with Lane Barber, she isn't your case any longer. You don't work for this department now. You're just a guest, a ride-along. Remember when you resigned and we had a chat about how much I dislike vigilantes? I still do. So leave all action in this case to official personnel. Is that understood?"

  No, the lieutenant had not changed a bit. "Understood." Garreth sipped the tea. Its heat soothed the burning in his throat. "Do you mind if I ask how you found the apartment, though?"

  Serruto smiled wryly. "The way we get most of our really big breaks . . . sheer blind luck. We had a hit-and-run and when we found the vehicle and checked it against the list of cars involved in other accidents and crimes, lo and behold, the computer announced that the Vehicle Identification Number matched the one on the car you found in the Barber woman's garage. We hoped we'd get a lead backtracking the car through the used car lot where the hit-and-run driver bought it, but she sold it the day after she attacked you, using her Alexandra Pfeifer alias and the Telegraph Hill address. So that went nowhere. But when the lab examined the car for evidence on the hit-and-run, they found a section of apartment rentals from the want ads down behind the passenger seat. The yellowing indicated it had been there a while so we took a chance and checked every apartment listed."

  Garreth leaned forward. "Some neighbor or leasing agent identified the Barber woman's picture?"

  Serruto grinned. "Give the man a cookie. We found a guy she'd sweet-talked into carrying a box of books up the stairs for her. She hadn't even disguised herself, just used an alias, Barbara Madell, and put her hair up under a kerchief." He paused. "That bothers me. It's like she wasn't trying to hide at all. Like she wanted to be found."

  The words reverbereated in Garreth. Lane had wanted to be found, he realized suddenly . . . only not by the police. She had known that by just tearing out Garreth Mikaelian's throat instead of breaking his neck he would become a vampire. She was expecting him to come after her, was waiting for him. By finding her he would prove his suitability to be her lover and companion. Only she had over estimated him. He never thought to look for her car, had never found the planted apartment listings.

  Garreth sipped his tea without either tasting it or feeling its warmth any longer. If he had done as she had expected, had followed the trail she laid and found her here in San Francisco while he was still frightened and confused by what he had become, and she so knowledgeable and assured, so seductive . . . how different the outcome of their confrontation might have been. A twinge of regret stirred in him. Whatever she might have made of him, he would at least not be alone now.

  Belatedly, he realized that Serruto had said his name several times. "I'm sorry. What?"

  An elegant dark brow rose. "That's my question. Did you fall asleep? It's impossible to tell through those glasses. I thought you'd want to know there's someone trying to attract your attention." He pointed toward the squadroom.

  Harry waved wildly from the other side of the glass forming the upper half of Serruto's office walls.

  Garreth leaped out of the chair for the door.

  Outside it Harry enveloped him in a fierce hug. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow, Mik-san. What did you do, confuse the highway numbers with the speed limit?"

  With the arms also came the scents of Harry's aftershave and the salty-warmth of his blood. A vein pulsed visibly in the older man's neck. Garreth broke away, covering by pretending it was to eye his old partner with mock concern. "Lien's still starving you I see, Taka-san."

  Grinning, Harry slid his thumb inside his belt. "Not lately, as she would say. Oh, I'm forgetting introductions." He turned toward a woman behind him. "Old partner, meet new partner. Garreth Mikaelian, Vanessa Girimonte."

  Girimonte made Garreth think of a panther . . . long, lithe, and mahogany dark with hair cropped to velvet shortness. Even her name purred.

  He held out his hand. "Glad to meet you."

  "Likewise." She shook the offered hand, then stepped back, dark eyes dissecting him. Reaching into the breast pocket of her slack suit jacket, she pulled out a pencil thin cigar and lit it. "I don't know, Harry. For me the lean, hungry look and mirror glasses add up to menace, not boyish charm, but I suppose you can still be right. If the old adage about cold hands holds true, he definitely has to be warm-hearted."

  Garreth winced. "Harry, don't tell me you've been trying to sell her on me."

  Harry grinned. "I want you two to be friends." He picked up his coat. "Come on; we'll show you the hideout."

  Girimonte frowned. "Now? Harry, we-" She broke off as he raised his brows. "Go ahead. If you don't mind, though, I'll stay here to get our woman's description in circulation and see what possibles Missing Persons has."

  "Sounds good." Harry headed for the door. "See you later. A fine officer," he said in the corridor, "except maybe a workaholic. A bit like you that way, Mik-san. I think she also has ambitions of being chief some day."

  "She didn't seem too happy about you leaving. What are you working on?"

  Harry grimaced. "The usual assortment . . . a liquor store clerk shot during a holdup, some nut case who walked into a clinic in the Mission district Friday afternoon and opened fire with a shotgun-killed a nurse and wounded three patients-and a woman found in Stow Lake this morning."

  "Then you shouldn't have to bother with me right now. I'm tired from the drive to Davis anyway. I'll find a hotel, then this evening we-"

  "Hotel!" Harry interrupted. "Nothing doing. You're staying with us." He punched for the elevator button.

  Visions of a solicitous Lien plying him with an endless succession of the dishes he used to love ran through Garreth's head. The situation would not be like last night at home, where everyone was so busy talking that they paid no attention to anyone else's appetite or lack of it. Lien would notice he ate nothing. And she would try to find out why. Panic flickered in him. "I don't want to put you to any trouble."

  Harry rolled his eyes. "You're not putting us to any trouble. You'll be saving my hide, in fact, because Lien will have it if you don't stay with us."

  The argument echoed familiarly in Garreth's head. Harry had always said the same thing when dragging him home to dinner with them. He found himself reacting the same, too; mention of Lien melted away his resistance. How could he refuse anything to someone he owed so much?

  He sighed as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. "All right. You have a guest." He would work out something . . . perhaps hypnotize her into thinking he ate normally. "Now tell me about Lane's apartment."

  3

  She had gone to ground almost under their noses, just moving west of her old Telegraph Hill area apartment into the residential section of North Beach. Harry parked with his wheels turned into the curb to keep them from rolling down the steep street and pointed at a house half a block below, a two-story blue Victorian
structure with bay windows and white gingerbread.

  "She has the second floor."

  Seeing the house gave Garreth a sharply uneasy feeling, compounded of a sense of being late for an appointment and a feeling that he stood on the edge of a trap. The knowledge that the trap could no longer be sprung somehow changed nothing. Perhaps it was still a trap. The house tugged at him.

  "She hasn't been around for months but you still think you're close to catching her. Why?"

  "Her downstairs neighbor, a guy named Turner, the guy who ID'd her, says there's a guy with a key who had been coming in Sunday afternoons to collect Barber's mail and check the apartment, and once a month with a cleaning woman. Then starting just before we found the apartment Turner noticed the mailbox being emptied every couple of days. It was still the guy and not Barber doing it-he knew because he met the guy at the mailbox one evening. The guy didn't say so but Turner got the feeling he was hoping to find Barber in. He must have some reason to think she might showing up."

  Garreth started. Lane had a friend? Someone close enough to entrust with keeping an eye on her apartment? His pulse leaped. Another vampire? He could not understand a vampire choosing daylight visits, but would Lane trust one of the humans she despised and preyed on? Vampire or human, though, neither jibed with her claims of loneliness when she was asking him to become her companion.

  She could have lied, of course.

  "Have you talked to this guy?"

  "We will as soon as we find him." Harry sighed. "So far all we have is a description: fifties, five-ten, 180 to 190 pounds, gray at the temples, blue eyes, mustache and glasses. He's never given Turner his name and since we've been around Turner hasn't seen him to get a car description or license number. I was about to talk Serruto into a stakeout for him when I called you. After you said you were coming out-"

  "You thought you'd let me volunteer for the job," Garreth interrupted dryly.