by D. R. Perry
“Good call.” Maya stretches, then downs the rest of her beverage.
I could stay here with her all night, and our psychic touching earlier means I know she’s of the same mind. But vampires get hyperfocused. We’d distract ourselves out of keeping the rest of our obligations, and other people are counting on us.
“How’s everything going over there with DeCampo anyway?” I keep the conversation going. “He’s kept himself scarce every time I’ve been over lately.”
“You’ll see for yourself when you get there, I guess.” She turns her back, then heads to the sink and rinses the now empty mug.
“That doesn’t sound good.” Watching her perform such a simple task with her supernatural grace softens what she’s implying. That the king’s not all right.
“It is what it is.” She rinses the soapy mug along with her hands.
“How’s Raven holding up?”
“Stephanie didn’t say anything about them?”
“Really, Maya?” I watch her set the wet drinking vessel on the drying rack. “Answering with a question?”
“Back at you.”
“Okay, I understand.” And I do, after everything I went through at the end of August. We vampires are bound by our word. Literally. And since Maya’s older than me, she’s made more promises than I have. Finally, something occurs to me. “Hey, Maya?”
“Yeah?” She turns, adjusting the golden bangle on her right wrist.
“Does Steph give me all this reading to do because she can’t tell me what’s up directly?”
“Yes, that’s exactly right.” She reaches up, drying her hands on the towel hanging above the rack.
“Oh, boy.” I shake my head, then lower it into my hands. The corners of my mouth twitch.
“What’s wrong?” Maya’s hand is on my shoulder. I place one of mine over it and look up.
“I’m just trying to imagine what I’ll have to do if I ever turn someone in the future.” I snort. “Probably make them a mixtape. Or a YouTube playlist. Maybe tag them in a series of memes on social media.”
“We use whatever method works.” She tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“Makes sense.” And it does. “’Whatever Works,’ the motto of House Crispo.”
“It’s served you well enough so far.” She smiles, then crosses my one-room apartment to grab the bag of gear I asked her to bring with her from the coat tree by the door.
“Which isn’t saying much.” I shrug and rise to my feet. “Maybe it should be ‘Too New To Know Better.’”
“Valentino.” She shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “You’re landing on your feet most nights, even if you don’t always realize it.”
“Thanks.” I smile back, striding over to put my arms around her. “For everything.”
We kiss. Maya slips her hands into my back pockets, and I chuckle at the quirky, affectionate gesture. After we part, she hoists the bag over one shoulder before heading out the door.
It’s not until I’ve dropped my car at the body shop and climb into Scott’s rusty blue pickup that I notice my girlfriend left a gift in my pocket. It’s one of those flip-top notepads, the kind mildly forgetful people like me ought to carry around. I’ve got a few of those, but this one’s different. It’s fancy, with its own refillable mechanical pencil, refillable pad, and a moleskine cover that snaps shut.
I hope I can remember to make good use of it.
Chapter Four
Scott waits in the elevator with me, the pit of my stomach dropping as it rises to the fifth floor at Kent County Hospital. I'm here on business with Dr. Maris, but first I need to see Maury Weintraub. He needs to see me too.
When you're in the hospital for a weekend of chemotherapy treatments, it's probably reassuring to get a visit from your best friend and his tag-along kid neighbor. But that’s not the only reason we’re here. He called me asking for a favor, and I love Maury like a brother, so I’m here.
The elevator dings and the doors open, rolling back slowly to reveal a white hallway, atypically calm. But I know the visual impression of peace here is only that. My ears pick up an auditory account of the true chaos on this oncology unit.
Nurses argue with doctors about bedside manner. Family members of all ages huddle tearfully in the all-denominations chapel, giving vent to thoughts and feelings they don't dare express in front of their ailing kin. And I recognize one of these voices. It's Mrs. Weintraub, Maury's mother.
I take a left instead of a right, heading away from all those faithful-yet-distressed voices and toward the end of the hall where Maury’s room is. I probably should visit the chapel myself. It's religious but not consecrated, which means maybe I can actually go in there and get my prayer on.
Being a Catholic vampire sucks, although I have to admit I don't know what it's like for vamps of other faiths. Maybe they can go into their houses of worship, or maybe not. It’s possible some of the undead set have established alternate and structured ways to worship. I won't know unless one of them decides I’m worth telling about it. Anyway, I'm more concerned with captaining my own faith. And I can visit the chapel some other time.
I knock on Maury’s door even though it's open. It's a courtesy, and something I wish more medical staff would do. Even with debilitating or life-threatening conditions, people deserve a basic level of privacy and respect for same. I don't like the idea that anyone on the payroll here might not extend that to my best friend. But, I can either assume the worst or hope for the best. After everything I've been through recently, I prefer the latter.
"Come in." Maury's voice is louder and brighter than it was last time I spoke to him. He must have gotten some rest, then. Good.
"Hey, buddy." I step through the doorway and up to Maury's bedside. Scott shadows me, saying nothing. "How you doing?"
"I can't say I've been much worse than this." Maury shrugs. "But what do you expect? It's cancer, not a trip to Disney World. You know what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, I get it."
"So, what's up with you?" Maury squints, peering at me from behind the horn-rimmed glasses he usually replaces with contacts. "You look different. Like something happened over the last couple weeks."
"Auditioned for Nine at Cranston Playhouse." That’s all I can tell him. Maury’s not in the know about my undead status, and I’m not allowed to tell him.
"Oh, yeah?” Maury grins. “How'd you do?"
"Zack Milano was there."
"Shitballs." Maury pouts briefly, then lets out a chuckle to let me know he’s goofing around. But the laugh turns into a cough. "Dammit," he croaks.
I pat Maury's back while Scott heads over to the bedside table, pours a glass of water, and hands it to him. I keep rubbing my friend’s back, waiting for the fit to subside. Before I can say anything, another voice rings out from the hallway.
"Slow breaths, Maur." The light click of heels accompanying the raspy flat-voweled voice is like a traffic signal, telling me to move over for Mrs. Weintraub or risk getting run over.
"Mama," Maury sips water from the cup in his hand. "I'm okay."
"No, you're not. Not yet." Maury's mother is a tiny woman, just an inch or two over Stephanie's height. Somehow she manages to be thinner and more birdlike than my vampire sire. I always wonder how Mrs. Weintraub managed giving birth to a baby who grew up to be six foot two.
"Mama, we talked about this."
"All the books say you gotta keep a positive attitude with cancer." Mrs. Weintraub shakes her head, a gesture that contradicts her words. "You'll never beat it if you start thinking you can't."
"Whatever you say, Mama." Maury's expression is familiar. It's the one he always wore when our captain down at Cranston PD wanted more paperwork after we already turned in our reports. I get the feeling he's been through this conversation with his mother, or one almost exactly like it before. It’s turned into a routine, and not the knee-slapper kind you see on Saturday Night Live, either.
"Such a mensch, my boy is." Mrs. We
intraub looks up at me, smiling. "But you already know that, Valentino."
"Hi, Mrs. Weintraub." I lift my hand and waggle my fingers at her, feeling like I'm about ten years old again. Hanging around with your childhood friends and their parents tends to take you back in time. Scott stands there silently, possibly feeling like a preschooler, for all I know.
"Hey, Mama, can you go down to the cafeteria and maybe pick up some snacks?"
"Oh, you have an appetite?" The light in Mrs. Weintraub's eyes goes from a feverish and desperate gleam to a glassier variety of warmed-over hope. "Of course, I will."
"Get yourself something too while you're there, okay, Mama?" Maury grins, but the expression stays on the lower half of his face, getting nowhere near his eyes. "I can't remember the last time you had anything to eat."
"All right, kiddo." Mrs. Weintraub turns her back and walks halfway to the door, then looks over her shoulder and smiles. "Love you."
"I love you too."
I listen to her heels click away down the hall. Mrs. Weintraub overdresses for pretty much every occasion. She always says that if you dress better than you feel on a crappy day, circumstance improves, and then you feel better. Maury's mother is a Jewish woman of faith, which means she’s a big believer in the power of positive thinking, being the light you want to see in the world, and doing good wherever you can.
It's a mindset you can't blame her for clinging to under the circumstances. That last part is already built into my psychological architecture anyway. For a moment, I consider adopting it for Maury’s sake. Because more positivity can’t hurt, right? But the werewolf stops me.
"Tino, we need to talk." Scott taps me on the shoulder. His nose is so wrinkled up I'm worried he's going to vomit right there on the floor.
I breathe deliberately through my nose, letting my vampire senses tell me what Scott shouldn't and Maury won't. A positive attitude can hurt in this case.
The cancer is terminal.
I close my eyes and exhale, holding in the bloody droplets forming at the corners of my eyes. I can’t focus enough to make human-seeming tears like Maya taught me. Not at a time like this.
"No, we don't need to talk, Scott." I open my eyes and turn, leveling a withering glare at the teenage werewolf.
"But Tino—"
"Don't ‘but Tino’ me, or you can take your butt the hell out of here." I put my hands on my hips. Scott is one of my most reliable friends, but Maury's my oldest and best. I'm going to defend him, no matter what or who threatens him or in what way. Giving him a diagnosis the doctor hasn’t yet is no better than walking up and slapping him across the face.
"Okay, boss." Scott steps back, but he rolls his eyes. Then he leans one shoulder against the wall, crosses his ankles, and stands waiting. For what, I don't know.
"What's up with you guys, anyway?" Maury's glance moves from me to Scott like the ball in the tennis match.
"We've been working together too much on all the PI stuff, is all." I shrug. "A little time and distance might be in order if we can ever get a break."
"So business is booming, huh?" Maury chuckles. "See? I said you were a natural."
"Yeah, and if only the chief thought so, we'd have stayed partners."
"That's the way his cookie crumbles, I guess." Maury’s lopsided grin carries me back to days spent in the tree fort back behind the ball field we never played on.
"I don't know, Maury.” I blink, banishing the bygone image. “I miss working with you."
"Yeah, me too. The plan was womb to tomb, right?"
"Yeah, but West Side Story doesn't have a happy ending, so I don't know why we expected the whole career thing to go any differently." I lock gazes with him. “And now this cancer.”
"You're too smart, Tino." Maury looks away, staring at the analog clock hanging across the room from him high on the wall. I wonder what he's using it to count right now.
"Yeah, but you're a freaking genius."
"Stop complimenting me so much, or my ego will grow to Zack-sized proportions." Maury closes his eyes, resting them for a moment before continuing, “Anyway, working together is why I called. Or working, anyway. I want to hire you.”
“Huh?”
“There’s been a series of…I guess you could call them assaults. In Cranston and the surrounding.” Maury closes his eyes, tilting his head. “Weird stuff, women waking up with no memory of how they got where they are, and they’re not filing reports.” He opens them again. “You understand.”
“I’m sure the PD has someone good on this, though, Maury.”
“They do but not a genius like me.” He drops a wink. “Or even a too smart guy like you. So I want you to look into this serial whatchamacallit.”
“You should be focusing on getting better, not sending me out on an investigation with no charges filed.”
“Like I said, it’s weird, Tino. Hinky.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The victim last night was Kayleigh Killarney. She holds grudges like a pitbull with lockjaw.” Maury gestures at a manila envelope sticking out of his satchel. “Everything I’ve got on it is in there.”
I realize that the only way Kayleigh, who grew up in a house full of psychic hunters, wouldn’t let the police do their job is if she or her family think the crime or the criminal is supernatural in nature. This problem that Maury dropped in my lap is literally one of mine. But there’s no way he could possibly know about my new undead lifestyle, right?
This has to be handled delicately. At least here and now with Maury’s knowledge of the situation. Whoever’s mucking around in the memories of a bunch of supernatural folks won’t get handled with kid gloves. And I’m already suspecting that this is the work of Providence’s newest and youngest crime boss, Sebastian Caprice. Who just became a memory-stealing monster a couple months ago. So, of course, I’ll take this case.
“Well, if it’s this important to you, then it’s a priority to me.”
“Knew you’d say that.” He taps his temple. “What did they call me at the precinct?”
“Mind-reader Maury.” I reach down and take the envelope, stuffing it in the interior pocket on my sport coat.
He always debunked anything supernatural with logic every time someone applied that moniker. I let out a chuckle before the sob in my throat can escape. None of this is fair. Maury gets promoted, I get turned. Our frenemy happens to be a magician, and the neighbor kid’s a natural-born werewolf. But Maury, who we all thought had every advantage growing up, gets the short end of a metastasized stick.
Out of all of us, Maury deserved to have power over his own destiny. But fate decided otherwise when it gave him lung cancer. Zack ended up with major power, Scott with equal amounts of strength and responsibility, and me with this deathless existence of eternal obligation. Now I feel utterly unseated, like the world flipped upside down and then turned itself inside out just for good measure.
But I could fix fate’s wagon. I could turn Maury’s tables right back over again.
All I’d have to do is vamp him.
Chapter Five
At first, I don't think I'm storming out of the room. It feels like I'm striding with purpose, direction, and the sense of justice that has been a constant companion my whole life, only a day longer than Maury's been in it. I can't imagine losing either that or him. And that's why I'm leaving the hospital, or at least attempting to.
"Tino, wait up, man."
"Ain't nobody got time for that, dog breath." Yeah, I snarked off to Scott. It's not the first time, and it won’t be the last. I know he means well, but I'm in a hurry.
"You can't do this, dude." Scott grabs at my shoulder, his fingers catching on the polyester-blend fabric. I'm fast when I want to be, even without burning any blood.
"There's no law against asking DeCampo anything I want to." I snort. “Including this.”
"I'm no expert, but according to Gramps, he doesn't have the authority right now." Scott’s voice cracks. “He’s king of nothing,�
�� he clears his throat. “Supernaturally speaking.”
"Shitballs." Scott's right, and it's damned inconvenient. I almost turn around and bare my fangs at him, but that would only give any vampire king worth his salt grounds to refuse my request. So I don't vamp out in the hospital hallway, even though I want to. But I do keep on walking.
"So stop already. Or at least slow down." Scott’s sneakers squeak on the linoleum as he works to keep pace with me. " We’re supposed to see the doctor."
"Yeah, but she can't help me with what needs to be done."
"Slow down.” Scott’s not even panting, although the average Joe would be. And for the first time, it’s pissing me off that he’s got powers because I don’t want him to make sense of this mess when I just want to act.
“Better yet, stop and think.” Scott’s voice is low enough so mortals won’t hear it. “You're helping DeCampo by seeing the doctor, or at least trying to. You want him to owe you, right? Have some sense, man."
"You kids today with all your facts and your insight." I stop short, feet dead-flat in the middle of the hall.
Scott bumps into me, of course. Yeah, I slammed on my brakes out of spite. Which is wrong, and why I immediately turn around, help him up, and apologize.
"I'm sorry, Scott. This just sucks, you know?"
"No, I don't really know exactly,” he shrugs. Thank God, Scott Fitzpatrick isn’t some know-it-all. “Nobody in my family ever had cancer. But I understand why you’re freaking out."
I can't think of anything else to say. I'm struck silent by simple facts. Scott's right again. He does understand, because if he didn't, he’d be filling the silence with a bunch of inane and ill-thought-out sentences and phrases, pretending sympathy. But he’s better than that.
Usually, I don't pay much mind to the common platitudes that go with disaster and grief. I was a cop, so I've used them, and know why they work in general situations of shock. But an ageless vampire and a disease-resistant werewolf beginning the process of grieving for their cancer-stricken mundane friend is different. It’s certainly nothing general, and definitely not something the police academy or my years on the force prepared me for.