“You know, I’m a bit like Edwina to your Bella,” Tasaria commented, after a few seconds of silence. I wasn’t sure if she was mocking ‘Twilight’ or not. Nothing pop culture related did. I’d only seen the movies – and that wasn’t time I would ever get back. Annie had read the books and liked them well enough, but I could never understand them.
“Oh, shut up.”
She put her hand on my lap. “But there is one problem with that hypothesis, Marlowe…”
“Oh, and what is that, exactly?” I said deliberately. I knew where this was going.
“…we haven’t consummated our relationship,” she continued, sliding her hand up the inside of my shirt.
Susie interrupted our flirting. “Hem, hem. Eleven-year-old girl back here. Save your flirting for when I am out of the immediate vicinity. And should you ever feel the need to sleep together, give me notice in advance. I’ll disappear off the Captain Schlaukopf’s for the night.”
“Right…” I muttered, clearing my throat. Tasaria took her hand away. “I’ll keep that in mind in the future.”
“You do that, Martin. You do that,” said Susie coolly.
5
Marlowe Investigations
‘Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.’
(The Aeneid, Virgil)
Tasaria ended up on the couch that night. Ashley clearly hadn’t thought this through properly. She just didn’t want a vampire in her house, so she’d dumped the vampire with me and my family. Typical Ashley, completely selfish. As usual, Susie fixed breakfast for me. Tasaria seemed pleasantly surprised at my adopted daughter’s skill in the kitchen.
“Any ideas for what I should do today? A few box sets, maybe?” mused Tasaria, chewing noisily on her pancakes.
“Well, actually…” I began, clearing my throat. “I was wondering whether you’d work with me. Hunting seems similar enough to investigating and I’ve been thinking about hiring extra help for a while.”
“Great idea,” said Tasaria contently. “I actually make a living as a private investigator anyway.”
“Or pretend to, anyway,” put in Susie.
Tasaria looked at her. Susie was unfazed. “What? I know you Hunter types. Fraudsters, burglars and drunks the lot of you.”
“Okay, maybe you’re right,” said Tasaria, smiling. “But still… it’s a handy way for normal people to trust us. Otherwise, they think we’re just nutters.”
“Maybe we are,” I muttered.
“‘we’? Normally, you Huntsmen look down on us.”
“We do?”
“Yeah. They think just because we travel, and maybe certain Hunters have got drink and violent revenge problems, means that we’re somehow less important than they are. We’re soldiers, you lot are just…”
“…police officers?” I supplied succinctly.
“Yes. We don’t stay near haunts like Huntsmen. We travel, anywhere and everywhere,” answered Tasaria. There was a certain amount of badly disguised pain in her voice “It’s… a nice life, most of the time, but… it means that we can only ever really marry within our own circles – which are pretty small – and we don’t have many friends.”
“Is that why, why you came here?” I continued, unabashedly curious “To Ashley. For friends.”
Tasaria just shrugged. “I have no idea why I came here. I was high and drunk – in more ways than one, I’d drunk enough blood to drain two cows. The urge took me. I just hopped on my Harley-Davidson and drove to Seattle. I still don’t know why. It just… seemed right. I don’t know why I came to you instead of going to the Mansion.”
“So, will you take the job?” I asked.
“Yes. I hope you’re not one of those sleazy PIs, always nosing in people’s private lives, though.”
“Only sometimes,” I answered. “Most of my work is with the Police Department.”
“You mean with Wilhelm Muller.” I looked at her, surprised.
`“Everyone knows Seattle’s resident Grimm. We went out for a bit in High School. I like him. I’m actually not surprised he and Ashley got together. She always did like smart men.”
“Probably trying to make up for her brother,” Susie muttered under her breath. She clearly knew full well that we could hear her.
“Hilarious, Susie,” I said dryly.
“Obviously,” agreed Susie, smiling.
In the absence of the defense’s leading lawyer, Adam Lewis’ trial was temporarily suspended. His body had not been found, of course, as Nicolae and I knew our business. Captain Schlaukopf still had a large caseload, though. A lot of them were suspected murder-kidnappings, though no bodies had been found. No one was sure, and Schlaukopf didn’t have enough evidence to voice any concerns, but it seemed as if Seattle had a serial killer on its hands.
Of course, none of the cases seemed to be related to each other in any way. They happened in completely different areas of the city, with victims who had nothing in common with each other. Some were men, and some were women. A small majority of the missing persons were women. That was odd, as, statistically, more men went missing every year than women. Blood had been found at some of the crime scenes, and everything about their disappearances pointed towards foul play. Susie’s Geister Sicht wasn’t showing up any information – it was an unreliable power at best, as not all murdered spirits opted to stay in the world, not all murdered spirits had my wife’s burning desire to survive.
I had a niggling suspicion that Lewis and his gang of vampires might have something to do with the cases. If Tasaria shared my suspicions, she didn’t show it.
When Tasaria went to the ladies’ room, Walker took it as an opportunity to gossip about her. He said, something like, “What’s with the new employee? I didn’t know you were hiring.”
“I wasn’t. Until this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Yeah, I know. I’d been thinking about it for a while really. I mean I’ve already got a secretary – Susie seems to delight in investigations – but she’s got school, and she’s just a kid, so… Tasaria’s got experience as a Private Investigator.”
“And you know that how?”
“She’s a friend, from High School. I went out with her for a bit,” I answered. I’d resolved not to lie to anyone about Tasaria; I just wouldn’t tell the full truth. “Her parents knew my grandfather. I don’t know how they knew each other, though, but it wasn’t through the business. Granddad always had friends everywhere. Besides, it’s good to have a hot employee.”
“Jeez, I think you’ve returned to your pre-Annie days.”
“Not entirely. And Tasy has yet to fall for my charms – she did in High School, though she chickened out before…” I said. “She’ll probably kill me for saying this much.”
“Really?”
“I make a general rule of not pissing off Harley-Davidson riding biker women.”
“She has a Harley-Davidson?”
“She has a lot of things.”
“You could say that again.”
“Walker?”
“What?”
“You’re married.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy some of life’s free gifts, does it?” Walker was smiling.
“Life’s free gifts? Dude, you need to come up with better euphemisms.”
“Since when have you said ‘dude’?”
“Since I started hanging around with Tasaria Brasoveanu.”
“That might do it.”
“That it might.”
“Another missing persons? What is this, the Bermuda Triangle?”
“Maybe, Marlowe,” answered Tasaria, smiling. “Except I don’t see any UFOs.”
“You know, they’ve never proved everything about UFOs in the Bermuda Triangle,” I said.
“They’ve never proved anything about UFOs in general.”
“Then why did you…?”
“Hem, hem” interrupted Walker. “We have a job to do, a real job to do, Mulder and Scully.”
“Twenty bucks to guess who’s Scully and who’s Mulder,” said Tasaria, laughing freely. “I’m Mulder all the way.”
“What? So I’m the red-haired doctor, who happens to be a woman.”
“Fits,” said Tasaria, smiling smugly. She was looking at something over my shoulder. “She happens to be the skeptical one, who doesn’t know shit.”
“Focus, Marlowe Investigations,” interrupted Walker again. “Captain Schlaukopf doesn’t pay you to stand around and make pop culture puns.”
“Actually, I was examining the scene, Detective Walker.”
I really had been examining the crime scene. A young woman had disappeared from her shared college apartment. Blood, a massive amount, was all over the apartment. One bed was pushed against the wall on the right, another on the left. There was a wardrobe next to the door to the left, and another on the right. Pictures, pinned up by both roommates it appeared, adorned the apartment. It, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be a normal college campus flat. A small window opened out onto the street. It had been left slightly ajar, the clasp undone.
“She was pulled out through the window, Detectives,” I announced confidently.
“And then carried her down three stories on the outside of the building?” queried Muller “That doesn’t sound plausible.”
I shrugged. It was a loose end. “A fit and young man probably could. It’s not impossible, just improbable.”
“And improbable is much better, isn’t it?” commented Tasaria.
“It’s better than impossible,” I retorted.
“Nothing is impossible, Marlowe.”
“Not with you around anyway.”
Tasaria smiled. A dirty smile it was too.
“The blood trail lead towards the door, Phillips?” pointed out Walker, ignoring us.
“That may be the case, Andy, but there’s blood on the outside of the window,” I pointed out. “Now, please explain to me how that could have happened if she was not dragged out of the window?”
“There is blood on the outside of the window.” Muller walked over to the window, and peered through the glass onto the windowsill. “You’re right. How did you manage to get time to see what I couldn’t see in between the bad X-Files puns?”
“Powers of observation, Wil. Nothing more. You should hone yours more often,” I answered. I decided they deserved a proper answer. “Alright, I didn’t notice it first. Tasaria did, when she was saying something about Scully being the skeptical one who doesn’t know shit.”
“And how did you know that she knew that there was blood outside the window if you didn’t know?” asked Muller.
“Is it confuse everyone you meet day, Wil? That sentence made absolutely no sense.”
“Very funny.”
“I know,” I agreed. “Tasaria and I maintained eye-contact throughout most of the conversation. She glanced out the window, then her expression changed, first to shocked, then to smug, because she always liked to feel that she’s smarter than everyone.”
“And I am, smarter than everyone,” Tasaria said.
“That isn’t true,” I added. “You’re smarter than everyone except me.”
“Why were the both of you keeping eye-contact throughout the conversation, instead of actually looking around?” said Walker.
I shrugged. “First rule of flirting with a hot girl; keep eye-contact. It makes you appear more confident than you would otherwise.”
“Who said we were flirting? We weren’t really,” said Tasaria defensively.
“What? Like the time I did you history assignment for you, because you were busy watching movies all weekend?”
“That wasn’t flirting. That was… taking advantage of a cute history buff in my class, who thought every girl he met was into him.”
“Who thought every girl he met was into him? Oh, please. Look into this handsome face and tell me that you do not find me in the least bit attractive?” Tasaria didn’t answer. No one ever does when I ask that question, because the honest answer would be no, but I thought that Tasaria might be different. “And I’ll have you know, Tasaria Brasoveanu, that doing someone else’s homework – when I barely ever did my own – was worth it for when you leaned over the desk to take the assignment off me. Eye candy.”
“Dude! Do you like admitting to being a pervert?”
“What is it with you Brasoveanu’s and finishing everything with a question?”
“Now who’s the one asking questions?” Tasaria stalked out of the room.
Muller waited a few seconds, then said, “Marty, you two really need to get a room. I’m no psychic, but there is something going on here.”
“That’s what I thought fourteen years ago,” I agreed ruefully. “Turns out Tasaria’s family are religious, and she wouldn’t dare have extra-marital sex.”
“And yet she flirts that openly?”
“She’s not a teenager anymore. And besides, the only family she has within a hundred miles is her brother, and, let me tell you, he’s dirtbag even compared to me when it comes to women.”
Muller gave me a knowing look. He knew exactly what I was talking about. He couldn’t say it in front of Walker, though. So, instead, Walker asked a question “What did he do? Sleep with a girl you were dating?”
“Slept with a girl I cared about, then slept with another girl, and slept with the girl I cared about again, without acknowledging to either girl that the other existed.”
“He cheated on Ashley in High School,” Walker surmised.
“Yep. Bingo, Walker,” I answered. “You’re getting good at Marty-reading, or something like that… I should come up with a term for that. What about Martyology? Sounds good. Right?”
“Is he retarded?” said Walker, ignoring my long ramble that followed the main point of the conversation.
“Ashley had less of a temper back then,” I said, though it was a fair question. “But he did end up in A & E and threatening to sue the son of a homicide detective.”
Walker raised his eyebrows.
“What?” I answered defensively. “She’s my sister. Sleeping with seven women a week’s one thing, but dating one and sleeping with someone else... Even I have better standards than that.”
Muller said, “I didn’t know you even had standards.”
“You spend way too much time with my sister.”
“Don’t I know it?”
Tasaria and Muller hung back with me hung back after Walker left. Muller was looking at me funny. He said, “What’s up, and I don’t mean you two? Tasaria, Nicolae’s been looking for you for months. Where have you been?”
“None of your business, Wilhelm.”
He gave up immediately. No one got information out of Tasaria Brasoveanu when she didn’t want to give it. Muller turned to me. “So… the defense lawyer in one of your cases disappears and Nicolae Brasoveanu rolls up in his Gran Torino on the same night. Not suspicious at all.”
“What? Coincidence” I said, probably sounding falsely flabbergasted.
“There’s no such thing as coincidence with a Brasovneau involved.”
“Who said it had anything to do with Nicolae?”
“I did.”
“And since when have you always been right?”
“When I was talking about Nicolae Brasoveanu.”
“Yeah, I suppose, Nicolae is predictable,” I admitted. “Sleep with everything that moves, as long as it’s not a man.”
“What is it? Vampires, or Werewolves? I hate both of them on principle, but everyone does.”
“Do they?” I said, sharing a sympathetic glance at Tasaria.
“Well, if they didn’t, there’d be something wrong,” said Muller innocently. “They’re monsters.”
“Whatever you say.”
Muller didn’t like that. He could tell I was being evasive about something. Wilhelm Muller could pull a lie out of thin air, turn it on its head, and uncover the truth. I am, by my own account, a good liar. But even I can’t l
ie perfectly to Wil. I mean, he can tell when I’m lying, but that’s more to do with my evasive attitude than my ineptitude at lying. “Anyway, Vampires or Werewolves?”
“Vampires,” answered Tasaria firmly.
“How did you know?”
“Oh, please, Marty…” said Tasaria coolly “A bunch of people start disappearing in Seattle all of a sudden. The leader of a gang in the city keeps getting off on a few dozen charges. Vampire all over it. Werewolves are normally far more incognito, and nothing matching the cycles of the moon.”
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t that difficult”
“Clearly,” Tasaria agreed dryly.
Muller coughed loudly. “Marty, tell me everything.”
“Everything? As in everything ever?”
“Marty, cut the fooling around. Tell me what happened with Nicolae,” said Muller. His suppressed German accent surfaced again, as it always did when he lost his temper.
“He dragged me off to Roger Sharkey’s place. Sharkey had a girl over. Adam Lewis turned up, took a bite at her neck. Sharkey took a sip, then we went in after him. I chopped his head off, he stabbed him in the heart for good measure.”
“And the girl?”
“She’s back in the Manor.”
“Has my brother slept with her yet?” asked Tasaria.
“I hope he didn’t. I’ve got my eye on her. She’s a model.”
“Are you two going to argue over her like you did with Ashley?” she enquired.
“We did not argue over Ashley like that.”
“Maybe not,” conceded Tasaria, “but you still argued over her.”
“She’s my sister, and he’s a sleazy dirt-bag liar. So, yeah, we argued over her.”
“Fine,” muttered Tasaria. “Are you two going to argue over her like you did with Annie?”
“That was different,” I protested. “And how do you remember that anyway? It was years ago.”
“Different in what way?”
“We were… arguing over who got to deflower her first.”
Marty Phillips (Book 2): The Taste of Blood Page 4