Intrigued, I pressed, “Her accent?”
“Yeah, it was German, but mixed with something soft. Maybe Australian?” He pondered it for a second. “Like she born in Australia, but she moved to Germany in her formative years or something. Or vice versa.”
“Anything else you can tell me about her?” I asked.
“I –” Jack looked up at me and his shoulders slacked. “You’re going to look her up, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to try to.”
He leaned back in his chair, but didn’t let go of my hand. “I don’t need you checking up on me like that. It’s probably nothing.”
“Jack, it’s part of my job. Yes, I want to make sure you’re safe, but I’m also charged with policing this area for the Agency. I have to take all claims of vampires behaving badly very seriously.”
“She wasn’t behaving badly,” he argued. “Maybe she just had a crush on me. I am an attractive guy, you know.”
I smiled at him. “I know.”
“It was odd, sure, but I don’t know that she’s dangerous.” He leaned forward on the table. “If she shows up again, I give you my blessing to look into her. But can you just hold off until then? I don’t want you hassling some poor stranger and scaring away customers. That’s no good for business.”
“Okay,” I relented. “But you have to promise to tell me if any other weird things happen, especially with this lady.”
“Deal.” He grinned broadly at me, and his earlier unease seemed to be finally melting away. “Hey, how did it go with that Catherine vampire? Did she tell you anything?”
“Not really. I mean, not anything I didn’t know,” I said, then decided to switch tactics. “How much do you know about Elise?”
“Not much at all. Peter barely even spoke her name to me. Most of what I’ve gathered, I got from Ezra,” he said, putting him in the same boat as me. “Why? What were you hoping to find out?”
“I don’t know. Something, I guess.” I took a deep breath. “Elise was murdered. Did you know that?”
“Yeah. She got in some scuffle with vampires or something.”
I nodded. “They never caught her killers.”
“Ezra told me something about that once. They searched everywhere, but never found any sign of this roving band of territorial vampires.”
“It just seems really strange, doesn’t it?” I asked, staring off as I thought about everything I knew about Elise’s death. “She’s lived in Ireland all these years without any problems? And then right before she leaves, she gets murdered?”
“Uh oh,” Jack said, and I turned to see a bemused smile his face. “I know that look.”
“What look?”
“That look you have right now.” He motioned to me. “You’re going to try to solve this murder, aren’t you?”
“I mean, no. I don’t even know if it can be solved,” I contended. “But yeah, I was thinking of looking into it.”
“She died over a hundred years ago,” he pointed out. “It was the 1800s, wasn’t it?”
“No one’s ever told me an exact date, but Ezra said he hadn’t seen Catherine in at least 150 years, so I’m guessing it had be around 1864 or even earlier than that.”
Jack let out a low whistle of dismay. “This is a cold case. You really want to go digging around for clues when there really might not be any?”
“It might give Peter some peace.”
“You still feel responsible for his unhappiness,” he realized.
“Well… don’t you?” I asked.
“Sometimes, yeah, I do,” he admitted, sounding unusually somber. “I love that I get to share my life with you, so I know exactly what he’s missing out on, and I understand why that would make him sad. But he’s got his own life. And I’ve been talking to him a lot more lately, and he really does sound happy.”
“I hope so,” I said.
He smiled thinly at me. “But if this has a chance of making Peter happier, and making you happy in the process, then I support it. I’ll help you however you need me to.”
“THE STOKER & HAWTHORN AGENCY. This is Sabine speaking. How may I help you today?” The receptionist answered the phone just as I opened the door to the Agency’s office suite. She smiled politely at me from under her oversized glasses and held up her index finger, letting me know it would be a minute before she got to me.
I took a seat in one of the slick black chairs that were set up in the lobby. Across from me was the water feature – a floor to ceiling waterfall with color changing lights, bathing the waiting area in soft pastel colors.
Abner rounded the corner, coming from the hall that led to his office. His gray overcoat was draped over his arm, his homburg hat was on his head, and a rather grim expression was plastered on his face. When he saw me, he stopped short and managed a confused smile.
“I didn’t except to see you. I thought you’d be off enjoying your vacation.”
“Bobby’s on vacation,” I explained. “I’m still hanging around the city.”
“Looking for work?”
“I actually just came in to talk to Ettie, but I am free. Did you need me for something?”
“Not anything specific, and not right this minute, but maybe,” Abner said, sounding dejected, and I noticed a few splatters of blood on his off-white dress shirt.
Sabine had gotten off the phone, and she’d politely waited for a gap in the conversation to address me. “Ms. Bonham, you’re here to see Ms. Lefèvre?” I nodded. “I’ll let her know you’re here.”
Once Sabine had disappeared down the hall to alert Ettie of my presence, I turned my attention back to Abner. “What’s going on?”
He sat down in the chair beside me with a heavy weariness and took off his hat. “I feel like more humans have been turning up dead lately.”
“There’s a spike in vampire-on-human crime?” I asked.
“I’m still in the gathering data phase, so I don’t have exact numbers yet. But I think so.” He paused. “Or maybe it was just a long night.”
“What happened?” I asked, glancing down at the blood on his shirt.
Abner ran his fingers along the brim of the hat and stared down at his hands as he spoke. “Got a call about a disturbance down in the De Wallen district. When I got there, it was just this young girl, maybe eighteen-years-old, lying in an alley, and I don’t even think she was a beethoer.
“Her neck was torn open, and she was barely breathing,” he went on, grimacing. “I tried to save her, but she only hung on for another minute, and then she was gone.”
He fell silent for a moment before saying, “I’ve heard some of the older vampires talking, saying that death gets easier. That you get used to humans dying so quickly and so frequently around you. Life stops having this innate value to it.”
“You don’t think that’s true anymore?” I asked, trying not to sound as hopeful as I felt.
Rebekah and Ezra had warned me of the same thing, that living forever causes life to lose its worth, so I feared that would someday be true for me, too. But hearing Abner still struggle with death, even after being alive for 125 years, reaffirmed my belief that we didn’t have to lose our humanity if we didn’t want to.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But somedays, I wish the apathy would hurry and kick in, and other days, I’m grateful that I can still feel.”
“Which one is it now?”
He smiled bitterly. “Ask me tomorrow.”
I heard Sabine before I saw her, her high heels clacking down the hallway and the rapid pounding of her heart. She returned to the lobby, glancing apprehensively at the clearly distressed Abner, before smiling at me.
“Ms. Bonham? Ettie will see you now.”
“Thanks, Sabine.” I stood up and gave Abner a comforting pat on the shoulder. “And you call me if you need me, okay? I’ll always be available to help.”
He put his hat back on and offered a more genuine smile. “I’m gonna take you up on that, Alice.”
&nbs
p; As the head of our region, Ettie had the largest and nicest office. It had a very French modern style to it, with sleek elegance and practical functionality. All the furnishings were subtle gray or soft white, with a few mirrored and glass touches.
The wall behind Ettie’s chic alabaster desk were all windows, overlooking the heart of Amsterdam. Another fog had rolled in, darkening the view, but the city lights still managed to twinkle through.
A MacBook Pro sat open on her desk when I came in. She was leaning forward, studying something on the screen, and scribbling a few notes in graceful cursive on her stationary, under letterhead that read Etionette M. Lefèvre. The warm light from her desk lamp gave her dark skin a wonderful bronze glow, almost highlighting her beauty.
When she’d finished, she looked up at me with a radiant smile, and she motioned for me to sit in a slipper chair across from her desk, so I complied.
“Alice, what a lovely surprise. How are you doing?” Ettie asked in her French accent.
As thick as her accent was after being alive for two-hundred-odd years, travelling over the world, I suspected she actually had to work to keep it. Most accents faded with time. Even Ezra and Mae, when they first moved to England, people commented on their American inflection (but to people in the States, they still sounded perfectly British.)
I never asked Ettie about her accent, but I wondered if she hung onto it because she’d had it when she was human. Some vampires pushed away any remnants of their mortality, discarding anything and everything that tied them to their past life, but others clung to even the tiniest bits of their humanity.
“Good. I’ve been good,” I replied.
“Très bien.” She folded her hands in front of her, with her diamond tennis bracelet clinking gently against the desktop. “Are you still enjoying working with your human associate?”
There were dozens of humans that worked throughout the agency, but Bobby was the only one working as a hunter in Amsterdam. Humans were generally considered weaker, more fragile, and inferior fighters, so most people that worked for the cause had safer desk jobs, like Sabine.
When I’d initially been hired on, Ettie had been skeptical about Bobby working with me, but during my freelance work, I’d needed him as backup. Now I had the Agency, so it theoretically made his role less necessary, but I’d gotten used to having him by my side. We made a good team, and he’d saved my ass enough times for it to be worth it.
Besides, Bobby loved the job, and I don’t think there was anything else he wanted to do.
“Yeah, Bobby’s great,” I said enthusiastically.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Ettie said. “Many clients have reached out to extend their compliments on how efficient and discreet you and Bobby work.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the commendation. “We do our best.”
“So, what can I do for you today?” she asked.
I felt strangely nervous to broach the topic with her, but I was here, so I had to get on with it. “I was actually wondering if you had any advice about looking into a murder that happened 150 years ago.”
Ettie tilted her head as her interest piqued. “This was a vampire that was killed?”
“Yeah, she was a vampire supposedly murdered by a gang of vampires in Ireland.” I simplified the story I’d been told, in part because I wasn’t sure how accurate any of the particulars were.
“Ireland?” She frowned and shook her head. “I don’t have much experience there. In the mid-1800s, I was working as a hunter, but I was stationed in Morocco.” Then something occurred to her and her eyes narrowed. “How do you even know of this murder? You’re much too young to have known them.”
“She was a friend of a friend. My friend never quite got over it,” I said, but that was really putting it mildly.
“Well, the only good news is that gangs of vampires tend to go reported.” She began typing on her laptop, presumably going into the Agency’s database of rogue vampires, major crimes, and other important events and vampires.
“If it were an individual, I would say that it would be all but impossible for you to really solve it on your own. But gangs leave traces,” Ettie went as she stared at the computer screen. “There were many vampires in Ireland then. There was a famine, and the dead and dying attract us like vultures.”
That did make sense. I’d heard of vampires following various plagues and disasters around the world. Finding victims was easier, because they were often weak or alone, and their deaths would easily be chalked up to the devastation around them. Plus, everyone was so concerned with surviving that they didn’t have time to even notice the immortals, let alone plot a counterattack against them.
She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “I’m not seeing much listed. In Dublin, there was a group of vampires called the ‘Monto Boys,’ but they seemed to mostly deal in prostitution – of both the sexual and blood variety. By chance, was she a prostitute?”
Since I didn’t know Elise, I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that she had never been a prostitute, but I did know Peter. And there was no way he would’ve been able to share, especially not letting others bite her, without losing his mind. So, that would’ve had to have ended before she died, if she ever had been one at all.
“No,” I answered. “And I don’t think they lived in the city, either. I think it was small village.”
“I’m not seeing any specific gang activity beyond Dublin. Outside of Ireland, there were a few.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at me. “But the closest one would’ve been in Turkey, with the House of Basarab.”
“The House of Basarab?” I asked in shock.
“Yes,” Ettie said, then elaborated. “They’re probably the oldest vampire gang – although I think ‘cult’ is actually more apt a title. They have ludicrous but dangerous ideas about species superiority and manifest destiny.”
“I heard someone mention them the other day,” I said, feeling as though I should explain my curiosity.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said, unfazed. “Rumors are circulating that they’re regrouping. It happens every century or so, and while they’re very passionate, we always end up stamping them out. Until they rise up again.”
“So you’re not worried?” I asked, trying to gauge if she needed to know about my recent altercation with Cyrus and Omar in Prague.
I didn’t want to keep things from Ettie, but the vampires were gone and taken care of, so they couldn’t cause any more harm, and Ettie was already aware of the possible resurgence of their cult. Telling her would only succeed in getting me reprimanded and possibly pulled from the streets for a while, especially since I hadn’t reported it right away.
Plus, I didn’t want to get either Olivia or Bobby tangled up. Bobby because he was on his honeymoon, and Olivia because she was retired, she wasn’t supposed to be handling stuff like that anymore.
“I’m not worried, exactly, not yet, but I am cautious,” Ettie explained. “And you should be, too. Don’t confront any members of House of Basarab alone, and Bobby doesn’t count as backup. Not with them. They’re well-trained, zealous, and insane, which is always a very dangerous combination.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said quietly.
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help about your friend’s murder. If you want to solve this, I suggest you go back to Ireland, to where she died, and see if you can find any vampires that were there or know the local history.”
THE HALL CLOSET IN OUR apartment was surprisingly deep and filled with all the junk we couldn’t find a place for. Old hockey equipment, mismatched gloves, a torn jacket, Bobby’s skateboard, and a million other things we’d never need. As I rummaged through it, knocking things over and making a mess, Jack came out of the living room and eyed me up.
I had gotten home from talking with the Ettie at the Agency, said a quick hello to Jack and the dog, and then immediately gone on a hunt through the apartment.
“Is this some kind of spring cleanin
g thing?” he asked. “Because it’s June. I think you were supposed to have finished that up last month.”
“I’m looking for something.”
“Well, yeah, I kinda figured that. Perhaps if you illuminated me what you’re searching for, I could help you.”
I took a deep breath before turning to face him. “Remember that box of Peter’s memorabilia? It somehow accidentally got mixed in with our stuff when we moved out, and we keep saying we’ll give it back to him, but we hardly ever see him, so it just never happens.”
“I do, actually,” he replied. “Is this about the murder investigation?”
“Yeah. I talked to Ettie about it, and she couldn’t really help me, so I thought I should start looking at anything I had that might help.”
“Right this way, then.”
Jack led me to the bedroom and to our spacious master closet. In there, he had a large steamer trunk where he kept his most valuable comics, some notebooks and pictures from his mortal life, and a few other pieces of important memorabilia.
There, underneath an autographed Prince album and the Detective Comics #31 (in “immaculate condition,” according to Jack), was a wooden box, slightly larger than the average shoebox. It looked antique, with brass hinges and worn wood. Except for the sticker on top, with an important message scrawled across it in black Sharpie.
He handed me the box, and when I brushed my hand across the marker, he gave a sheepish laugh. “Yeah that was for me. I used to snoop through his stuff, back when I’d first turned, and he got annoyed with me. But he never wanted to talk about his past or himself, and how else was I supposed to find anything out?”
“Did this sticker work on keeping you out?” I asked.
“It did,” he replied defensively. “I’m not a total ass. If he wanted to keep some things private, I had to respect that.”
I scowled at the box. “Now I feel like we shouldn’t open it.”
Swear (My Blood Approves #5) Page 11