by Jon F. Merz
"No."
"So, people like me-Fixers-we help make sure our people don’t break the laws. We make sure the humans never find out about us."
"You’re like the human police?"
"Sort of, but we’re also a lot more than just police. You see, we sometimes have to punish the people who break the laws, too. And sometimes, we have to do other things. Sneaky things. We don’t like to have any attention. We fulfill a special job in our society and we’re almost a secret, too. Do you understand?"
"I guess."
That was good enough for me. "I know it’s all a little confusing, but this is a part of our world."
After we passed a few more streets down close to the optometry college, he spoke up again. "Lawson?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever punished someone for breaking the law?"
The car felt warm then. "Yeah. Yeah, I have."
"What did they do?"
"Different things. Bad things. Always bad things. It’s tough to explain sometimes, Jack. You have to understand that our people need to survive. And if some of our people put our existence in danger, they have to be punished. It sounds complicated and sometimes it is. But what I do is very necessary."
"How did you get to be a Fixer?"
I smiled. As if choice had had anything to do with it. "When I was a young boy. I took a test of sorts. The answers I gave, told some people that I was supposed to be a Fixer."
"You couldn’t choose?"
"No. Apparently, it was something I was born with."
"So, it was kinda like my-gift?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Do you think I’ll have to take some sort of test, too, Lawson? Will I have to meet with the Council? What kind of job do you think I’ll have?"
Kenmore Square blossomed in front of us and I wheeled the car further down Beacon Street. "I don’t know, slick. But let’s take it one step at a time, though, okay?"
"Okay."
"You like Chinese food?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we’re going to have the best Chinese food in town for lunch, okay? And then maybe afterwards we’ll go see a friend of mine and see if we can’t make some more sense out of what’s going on."
"That sounds good."
I grinned again. "I’m glad."
Chef Chang’s House sat just outside of Kenmore Square and served the best Peking Duck in the Boston area. They had some pretty great luncheon specials as well. Complete with a steaming bowl of hot and sour soup, a plate piled high with Chef Chang’s food could pretty much keep you fortified for the rest of the day. I knew because I ate there at least once every damned week.
We sat in the inner dining room, away from the windows, even though it wasn’t crowded. Precautions like that were drummed into my head with such thoroughness, that even years after graduating from the Fixer Academy, they still instinctively guided me in my daily life. Thank god, because they’d saved my life more times than I usually cared to recall.
Jack ordered the orange-flavored chicken and I stuck to the spicy beef with vegetables, extra sauce on the side for dipping the dry noodles. I like a lot of sauce with my meals. And the wait staff here knew me well enough by now to bring the sauce automatically, which cut down on explanations.
The waitress brought our soup first and I smiled as Jack poked at the steaming broth with the ladle spoon.
"What is this?"
"Hot and sour soup. It’s good. Give it a whirl."
He frowned, bent his head lower and took a quick sniff. His eyebrows perked and he took a spoonful into his mouth.
"It’s good," he said around chews.
Smart kid.
We finished the soup and I checked my watch. We had plenty of time. Our main dishes arrived and Jack’s eyes exploded at the sight of so much food.
"Wow."
I watched him while he ate the egg roll that came with his meal. Kid was taking this all pretty well. After all, according to Wirek, he’d been born with a pretty special gift. Add to that fact he no longer had any parents, one of them courtesy of your truly, and the guy was quite the trooper.
Most of my experience with kids at that point was limited to thinking they were the only innocents on the planet. That their time was far too short before they realized that most of society sucked the big one.
And vampire kids had it rougher than normal. Striking up friendships with human kids meant trouble. SO vampire kids tended to stick together which was okay, provided you had a good neighborhood. Trouble was, most of the time, they only saw each other at school. It was tougher nowadays, especially in the cities, to have a secluded enclave of vampire families.
Families.
Occasionally, I’d see a couple with a baby carriage and think about what a peaceful life they must have been living. I don’t actually think it was envy that made me wish on those rare times for a child, but more for the tranquillity and domesticity they seemed to represent.
Because being a Fixer, the last thing in your world you ever get to appreciate it tranquillity.
I sucked down another coke to finish up the meal and glanced again at Jack. Good table manners on the kid, too. I chalked it up to his mother since he’d said himself his father wasn’t home most of the time.
"You like?"
He nodded. "Really good."
He was laconic the way most of the kids his age seemed to be. The way I remembered being at that time.
"You missing much at school?"
He shrugged. "Some. I’m not really interested in it."
"What’s your least favorite subject?"
"Math."
"Join the club. I was awful at it in school. You into algebra yet?"
"Yeah."
"Learn about FOIL yet?"
"What’s that?"
"First, outers, inners and lasts. Ring a bell?"
"Oh. That." He nodded. "Yeah."
I could tell the topic was about as popular as it was for me. "How you feeling? You need any juice?"
"I’m okay."
That was good because I didn’t want to head home until I’d had a chance to check out a few other things. I motioned for the bill, paid it up and got us back to the car. Once we were inside, I turned sideways to face him some. "Okay, we’re going to see another friend of mine. He’s a cop."
"Human?" He seemed shocked.
"Yeah."
"Is that allowed?"
"Our society doesn’t say friendships with humans are illegal, Jack, just that they can cause problems. Getting too close can be dangerous is all. So we have to be careful. In my line of work, however, I need to have what are called ‘contacts’."
"Not eyeglasses."
"No, different. A contact is someone who gives me information about something. And a lot of my contacts happen to be human."
"Do they know about you? About what you are, I mean?"
I thought about my old friend Simbik. He’d suspected something but respected me enough to never ask. He died at the hands of my oldest enemy before he could figure it out. "No."
"So, why do they give you information?"
"Depends. Sometimes it’s a favor, sometimes I pay them, sometimes I have to persuade them in other ways."
"You beat them up?"
"Not usually." I cleared my throat, wanting to change the subject. "See up there?"
The Brookline police headquarters straddled route 9 in the old Brookline junior high school building. Cruisers and prisoner transport vans lined the street on either side of the divider. I pulled the Volvo into a space behind an unmarked patrol car and turned my cell phone on.
"Now what?" asked Jack.
"I’ll call my buddy." I punched the number in and waited. Three rings later it picked up.
"Larazo."
"It’s Lawson."
"Hey, hey. What’re you up to?"
"I’m outside. You got a minute?"
"Not especially. But since you went through all the trouble to drive on over and park – probably
in an illegal police parking space – I suppose I could scare up a cigarette break for ya."
"Thanks." I hung up and looked at Jack. "Do me a favor. Don’t say much when this guy comes out, okay?"
"Okay."
Larazo sidled out of the station a minute later, hoisted his gunbelt over his hips and ambled down the steps toward the street. He turned away from the wind and lit his cigarette, but I knew he’d just been verifying where we were parked. For a cop, Larazo was still pretty sharp.
But at forty-two years old and fifty pounds heavier than he should have been, he’d been sidetracked to a desk job in the station. Larazo missed the field work and never stopped telling me that, as if I had some magic wand I could wave and get him back on the street. I’d known him for seven years, since I’d helped him break up a convenience store robbery.
He made it to the car and slid into the back seat, deftly tossing his cigarette into the gutter as he did so. That was good. I hate cigarette smoke.
"Long time, Lawson." He looked at Jack. "Who’s this?"
"My nephew."
"Nephew? I never knew you even had a family, Lawson. You’re full of surprises, huh?"
"Something like that." I leaned back over the seat. "I need some information."
"I didn’t think this was a social call." He grinned. "Now, what can a humble Brookline civil servant score for you that your buddies at the Bureau can’t?"
Despite my never confirming or denying anything, Larazo assumed I worked for the government. As long as he kept feeding me solid intelligence when I needed it, he could assume anything he wanted.
"Home invasion last night over on Longwood."
Larazo frowned. "We were supposed to keeping that one hushed. How’d you hear about it?"
I raised an eyebrow and he grinned. "Yeah, yeah. Okay. What do you want to know?"
"The three stiffs that were brought in-"
"Three?"
I stopped. Shit. "How many were there?"
Larazo frowned. "Two dead on the scene. No sign of anyone else." He eyed me. "You know something I don’t?"
I shrugged. "Probably just a grapevine error is all. I heard there were three dead."
Larazo’s frown eased. "Nah, just two. Strange thing about their deaths, though."
"What’s that?"
"Well, they had plenty of external injuries. One of them raked his own eyeball out. Pretty grim." He glanced at jack. "Sorry, son."
Jack just nodded.
"Anyway," said Larazo. "Autopsy report says they both died of massive heart attacks. ME said that there was a huge dump of adrenaline into their system right beforehand. Like something scared them to death."
"You got any sort of make on who they are?"
"They weren’t carrying anything. We took them to be pro hitters. Possibly gang-related. We think the guy who owned the house might have been involved with drugs but were still checking. We haven’t been able to find him anywhere."
Next to me, Jack’s body stiffened. I nodded at Larazo. "Okay. I appreciate the info."
He started to move toward the door. "Lawson, you hear anything, let me know okay?"
"You know I always do."
"Try never you ungrateful bastard." But he smiled anyway and got out of the car.
Next to me, Jack’s eyes shed a single tear that rolled slowly down his cheek and ended somewhere down his neck.
I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze even though I didn’t think it would do much good.
Chapter Seven
Hard-charging chain-smoking waistline-expanding Officer Larazo of the Brookline Police Department had given me something to go on – whether he knew it or not. And naturally, it seemed preferable that he not know.
There had only been two stiffs.
Not three.
And there’d been three goons at Jack’s house.
I thought I’d nailed one of them with a shot before Jack took over with his gift, but I must have only winged the guy. And since they were humans, the wooden bullets wouldn’t have necessarily killed them like they would a vampire.
That meant there was someone alive, hopefully, who might know who was behind sending a hit team to either kidnap or kill Jack.
Now I had to find that guy.
I still had reservations about dropping Jack off at Wirek’s place. While the old drunk might have supplied me with some vague information, the fact remained he was still an unkempt mess.
Maybe it was some long silent parental instinct coming to the surface that made me want to leave the little dude with someone a bit more responsible. I couldn’t fathom it, but I sure wasn’t going to ditch him at Wirek’s pad.
Still, I did know someone who might fit the bill nicely. If only he could be convinced…
The Council headquarters sat in a beautiful old brownstone on Beacon Hill just a quick spit from the State House with its gold-domed top. Iron fencing closed off the front courtyard proper, small though it seemed.
Once inside, however, the place exploded in size. The Council had purchased the surrounding brownstones almost one hundred years before and knocked down the interior walls, thereby connecting them all with an intricate series of long winding hallways, dark sublevels, and antechambers.
The Council decided to use Boston as the seat of worldwide power just over a century ago. Boston, with its unique location, layout, and history, appealed to the more traditional inclinations of several of the older Council members. Historically speaking, the Council vampires were a bunch of addicts.
Still, finding your way around the inside of the Council building took a lot of time if you didn’t know where you were headed. I
should know. I’d broken into the Council building a few months back with my friend and mentor Zero.
But Zero was dead now, too.
I forget which well-known poet said something about being judged by the friends you keep. If that’s true, I was headed for a long downhill slide since few of mine seemed to still be alive.
In the process of breaking into the building, however, we’d met up with one of Zero’s old friends, a former Fixer named Arthur. Arthur now spent his days acting as a butler and caretaker for the Council building and lived there year round.
Part of me thought it kind of sad that after faithfully serving the Council for years as a Fixer, Arthur was now relegated to that boring existence. After all, he’d risked his life more times than most other vampires in our society.
But Zero assured me that peace and quiet was a wonderful reward following years of active Fixer duty. It seemed a foreign thought back then, but lately I had to admit the idea did have some appeal.
Boring existence or not, Arthur was my only choice as a suitable guardian for Jack. He could look after him while I went hunting.
The question was how to get in touch with him.
Simply showing up at the Council building unannounced wasn’t a good idea. I wasn’t normally well-liked around those bureaucratic parts. Even though my record was almost immaculate, my bedside manner apparently left a lot to be desired. Go figure.
Fortunately, vampire society functions a lot like human society. Bureaucracies rule the day with their mounds of unending paperwork and banker’s hours.
The Council might rule the building between the hours of nine-thirty in the morning and five o’clock in the evening, but Arthur ruled the night.
We made it back to Beacon Hill by four-thirty, just in time to avoid the rush of fleeing city workers who scampered home to their suburban three bedroom homes to live a few short hours before returning to their indentured servitude the next morning.
I parked in the Boston Common garage, underneath the Boston Common itself, the oldest tract of public land in the city. Over the years the Common had served as a gallows, a place for troop encampments, and a place to graze livestock.
Nowadays, during the winter months, they had an ice skating rink, Christmas lights, and a fair assortment of homeless folks out searching for liquid warmt
h and a few coins.
And vampires parking their cars underground in the garage.
Jack’s energy level seemed okay, although I could tell the strain of the day was probably getting to be a bit much for him. Running back and forth all over town can get exhausting even for me. And I’m not twelve years old.
We crested the stairs leading up from the garage. I don’t normally use elevators if I can avoid them, preferring the exercise of stair-climbing where I can find it.
Outside felt like a frigid wind tunnel as the icy gusts ripped around our coats, poking into open gaps and robbing us of precious warmth.
I wished it was darker, but evenings in February don’t grow black until well after five. I checked my watch, saw it was only a few minutes past and steered us over to a gray bench.
"Why are we stopping?" asked Jack. "It’s freezing out here."
I nodded. "Think you can you hold tight for about ten minutes? I need to see someone and he may not be available yet."
Jack frowned but hunched himself down further into his collar and plopped down on the bench beside me. We sat there on the hard bench feeling the cold seep into our backsides and up our spines. People rushed past us, intent on catching a bus or a train, virtually ignoring two vampires on the bench. We might have been homeless, but for our clothing. We might have been just another father and son spending time together, but for the bad weather. We might even have been humans…
We might have been.
Ten minutes sped by mercifully fast and I hustled us across Beacon Street, dodging a Boston Transportation Department van that carried the meter maids on their rounds of plastering orange tickets on windshields all over town.
I paused us outside the brownstone and whispered a silent prayer that everyone would have gone home by now. Late workers were a rarity in vampire society, except to those of us always on the clock.
Jack tugged on my arm. "What is this place?"
I looked down at him. "This is the where the Council works."
His eyes grew wider. I remembered the same feeling when I’d come here so many years ago for my first meeting with them. Every vampire comes here around their centennial birthday. That’s when you find out what your job is going to be in our society. For some, it’s a fairly simple matter of having a normal job. They go to school, graduate and enter the swim of society.