by S. E. Lund
"How do I know when I've found your last legal kill?"
"You just have to let your mind go like you did in the dojo."
"Can't you just block me?"
"Not everything. Your gift is that you can sense violent memories, either in objects or in us – see our kills. I can try to block other memories, but not of my kills or anything associated with them."
"Some gift," I say and close my eyes. I blank my mind for a moment, focusing on my breathing, and when he enters my mind, I almost gasp from the connection that forms. It feels so intense and disorienting… I'm aware of his senses, as he leans over me, touching my hand. I can tell he doesn't want to look at me, but can't help watch my face, his eyes moving over my mouth with a sense of longing, going to my cheeks and remembering my dimples. His sense of regret that he can't – that he shouldn't – have me.
"Concentrate," he says. "Focus."
Then I seem to fall into a memory, like I've tripped over the entrance to a deep well. When the memory comes into focus, it's late evening, moonlight, a woman with garish makeup and a low cut bodice, and beneath it is a long skirt. She stands in a dark alley as if looking to turn a trick. Another century. London. 1896. I'm in his point of view, and I feel his feelings, think his thoughts as he experienced them.
That night, he's hot for human blood, and there's still a part of him that's reluctant to reveal how base that lust was and still is. He still lusts after humans, our bodies and our blood, and even now, getting one is almost all he can think of like some junkie for a hit.
But that night, he sees the whore standing there, her ample bosom and flesh suggesting she's full of blood. With only a tiny hint of remorse, he slips to her side and pulls her into the doorway in a dim alley before she can even protest. He's so fast, unnaturally fast, and in the dark she can't see him.
His lust builds, his heart pounding, and the woman bared her neck, willing Michel to touch her. His eyes are so acute he can see the tiny capillaries in her fair skin. When he touches her, he feels her pulse like it's his own. But more than this, he searches her memories and relives them as he prepares to bite her and the memories are almost as important as the blood. He caresses the soft skin on her neck and it's sexual to him, like taking a woman's virginity, like penetration, and he bites down, draining her blood, taking it in, lost in the sensations.
I feel everything he does – the woman's blood draining out of her and into him, warming him, the pleasure in the sensations as close to orgasmic as possible without actually fucking. He's reliving some memory from her past when she was happiest, in the arms of her first lover. I see and feel the moment just before the woman dies, her body going limp in Michel's arms. Then, just before the woman's heart stops, he drops her to the ground and is gone, no more than a shadow in the darkness, his bloodlust slaked but a renewed sense of self-revulsion building in his consciousness.
"That's enough," Michel says and I ignore him, not wanting to break the connection. I keep it between us, unwilling to stop and just like he says, he's unable to prevent me from staying. Despite what I've just witnessed, despite what I've just felt, every fiber in me screams out for him to let me continue. I want to prolong that moment of connection for as long as possible. I try to find more and he feels so much affection and desire for me but also guilt and fear and then he physically pulls back, blinking, stepping away and our connection breaks because we're no longer touching. He leans against the table and runs a hand through his hair, breathing hard.
Nothing I've ever experienced – no sexual encounter – no physical experience – can match the need vampires feel for human blood, for that connection with the human is overwhelming. How they manage it and function, I have no idea.
I cover my face with my hands, trying to get hold of my emotions. Finally, I breathe normally and sit back up, avoiding Michel's eyes, my cheeks hot from the intimate moment we shared.
"I saw you kill a woman." I swallow as I remember the scene. "I felt it. London. 1896."
"She was the last human I killed illegally," he says, his voice soft. "Now, like all other vampires who are part of the treaty, I subsist off donors."
Terri pours me a glass of ice water from the pitcher. "You passed the test." She offers me the glass and I spill a bit in my eagerness to drink. Ed turns to me.
"Welcome to the Special Cases Unit of the Council of Clairveaux, Boston Division. You're hired," he says. "Not that there was ever any doubt once you beat poor Michel." Ed grins at me. "I think his pride is still smarting."
"Not at all," Michel says, not meeting my eyes. "If she couldn't beat me, she couldn't work as a witness." Then he does meet my eyes. "We need you, Eve. You have to be able to protect yourself from my kind. You're very valuable. Vampires will kill each other to get you on their side."
That's what Julien says. "Why?"
"You can kill us. Some want to use your kind as assassins against their enemies."
Terri speaks up. "Michel can fill you in on the politics of this unit and why it started some other time. For the next six months, you'll train to be a blood witness. You'll help on special cases – those that involve vampires killing outside the law. You'll gather evidence to help us find those they work for. When we get a suspect, you'll read them – see their kills. Judge if they were sanctioned or illegal."
I shake my head. "I thought I was going to do research."
"You will, but you need to train as a blood witness, because you're very rare. When we get one, we don't let go."
"I know it's a lot to take in," Ed says. "Come with me. I'll show you your new office." He leads me to a room at the back of the building. "The cubicle in the corner," he says and points to a small alcove by the window. I check it out. A small desk and filing cabinet. A laptop computer. A partition that separates me from the rest of the room. At least I have a window.
"The case files for each murder are there as well as background information on the SCU are in the filing cabinet," he says. "Everything you need to get up to speed. I trust your university courses have made you a quick study." He buttons his jacket. "We'd usually just let you do some reading on your first day, but we have a new murder to investigate."
I raise my eyebrows. This is a surprise and I turn to see Michel standing in the office, leaning against the wall. He's put on his cassock-coat and has his hands in his pockets. He looks like a blue-eyed long-haired very pale Neo and I can't shake the sense that I've truly swallowed the red pill and there's no going back.
O'Neil hands me the River Man case file. I opened it up once more, my hands shaking just a bit. I flip the pages, the crime scene photographs, autopsy diagrams, the witness testimony.
"Get your coat," Ed says and pulls on his trench. "We're going to the crime scene."
In the sedan, O'Neil reminds me to keep quiet around the Boston PD detectives and uniforms who are there on the scene. No mention of any special skills or of vampires.
"Hopefully, the killer left a bit of himself behind so you can get a better sense of him and what drives him."
"What should I look for?"
"Anything," he says, shrugging. "Could be a cigarette butt, a coffee cup. Who can tell? They often leave some trace. Trick is finding it."
"Do I touch the body?"
Ed shakes his head. "You're there to look for physical evidence before Crime Scene Unit messes things up. Besides, dead bodies don't hold memories for very long due to decay. As soon as a person dies, their cells start to die and the neurons lose their structure at a quantum level. Solid objects retain theirs and so they're more useful to a telepath. In general, the lack of forensic evidence at the dump sites indicates that the victims were killed elsewhere and their bodies decapitated before being transported but even an extremely well-disciplined killer will touch objects and often leave something behind. As long as the kill was recent, anything a killer touches will hold traces of their memories of it."
We drive along the streets to the docks. The floodlights of the forensic unit are vis
ible from a block away and my pulse increases at the prospect of a real crime scene. Ed parks the sedan and the four of us walk the rest of the way. We stand on the periphery while Ed ducks under the police tape that cordons off the crime scene. He shows the detective in charge his credentials and speaks to the man in hushed voices, gesturing towards us.
Mist rises off the Charles River, blocking the view of the Charlestown Bridge. The late May night is unusually cold. I shiver and it isn't just the fact that a real vampire stands beside me – one who shared a very intimate, almost sexual experience with me not so long ago.
I try to block the memory from my mind.
The waterfront bordering the dock area has become an industrial graveyard. In the harsh floodlights surrounding the dump site, the moss-covered ruins of the old piers rot in the tides and old float barges and crumbling docks decay along the shore.
Michel stands beside me, his long hair tucked behind his ears as he reads messages on his Blackberry.
I pull my collar up against the breeze off the water. "God, it's so cold."
"Really?" he says without looking up. "I wouldn't know."
I glance at him and he turns to me. Sure enough, there's that lopsided smile on his lips. I can't help but smile back. He looks at me and makes that throat sound, his smile fading, his eyes on my cheeks and I know he's doing it – making me smile on purpose so he can indulge himself and it sends a little jolt of something through me.
He turns back to his phone.
What is this? Some kind of foreplay? Torture? I thought he was going to be completely professional.
As I gaze across the river, I try to imagine what it would be like to work with him on a daily basis and not go there – to 'us'. I can't imagine it. It will be hell.
"I don't know if I can do this," I say softly. "Staying just professionals."
He stops typing for a moment.
"There are many things we don't choose in life," he says and glances at me, his bright blue eyes intense under the floodlights from the forensic unit. "The thing is, we need you. Personal desires must be denied."
I say nothing in reply for what he said makes sense, as much as I hate it. I'm numb, uncertain how to feel. Instead, I watch the detectives from Homicide examine the body.
While we're waiting, I see another figure arrive on scene. Another detective? Then I see his skin and I know it's Julien. He's wearing the same leather trench with a scarf tied around his neck and faded jeans.
"Julien," Michel says. "What are you doing here?" Michel glances at me as if he already knows.
"Ed called me. Said another Adept had been killed. I thought I'd drop by, see what you're up to." Julien turns to me and stuffs his hands in his pockets, giving me that lopsided grin. "Of course, I already know what you're up to."
"Leave Eve alone," Michel says, his voice dark.
"I'll do what I want. If Eve wants to talk to me, that's up to her. Eve has a lot of questions about her mother. It looks as if you're not much into answering them."
"You won't be answering them either," Michel says, putting his phone away. "Eve only has to know so much. To tell her more would put her in danger."
Julien laughs at that. "You mean put your little suicide mission in danger."
Michel takes my arm and pulls me towards Ed, who's waiting at the shore.
"Ignore him," Michel says. "He just likes to stir things up."
We join Ed and stare down at the corpse, which has been photographed and removed from the water. Julien joins us as well and stands off to the side. The body's laid out on a plastic sheet in wait for the coroner to come and do his work, the severed head at an odd angle to the neck.
"Check around, see if anything catches your eye."
"What should I look for?"
"Forensics hasn't swept the scene yet so whatever looks out of place. Most Adepts I've worked with before just feel around, hoping something they touch grabs their mind."
"What about my prints?"
"Forget about it. We have jurisdiction and your work is more valuable than their pitiful tests."
I take a flashlight from Ed and walk along the shore, hoping something draws my attention. I look for something the killer might have dropped or touched but nothing pulls me closer. Pebbles and seaweed litter the mud between the stumps of wood that used to be part of a dock – nothing more. I bend down and run my hands over the dirt bordering the area where the body was found. A piece of green beach glass glints in the flashlight's beam and so I pick it up.
For an instant, my world collapses away and I'm him. The killer -- whoever he is -- sat here. A strange sense of being out of time washes over me as I slip into his perspective and I feel an incredible dread. I try to focus, opening myself to the experience. I don't get much from it at first, except the knowledge that the killer touched the pebble.
Then, I sense him. The killer was here scoping the place out a few nights earlier, staring out across the river, deciding where he'd dump the body. He picked up the glass and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers the way I do now, turning it over, admiring it. Then he dropped it. He had more important things to occupy him than an old bit of beach glass. Like when Evan . . . . I try to focus, squeezing my eyes shut. When Evan Cooper would die.
"Evan Cooper," I say, clearing my throat, struggling to resurface long enough to communicate. For an instant, I see the victim as the killer saw him, stepping out the back door of a drycleaners into the alley for a quick smoke break. In the vision, I look down from a window across the street. "He saw Cooper from a building across from the alley behind the dry cleaners." My voice is gravely. "Second floor window."
Ed nods and gets on his cell, speaking into it in a soft voice.
I return to the pebble. The killer has an emotional distance from the victim, a studied sense of purpose rather than one filled with passion and bloodlust Michel had when I was in his mind and he drained the woman. The killer doesn't hate Cooper, either the man himself or what he represents. The killer feels more like an executioner than a vampire searching for a blood feed. The killer has a sense of mission. Even a sense of religious fervor.
I drop the glass as quickly as possible, for the longer I spend in his perspective, the dizzier I become. While Ed and the detective speak in quiet voices, I take in several deep breaths, trying to combat this vertigo.
A light rain starts to fall, just a mist at first, the air cool on my cheeks. Michel comes to my side as I lean against the remains of the dock.
"Are you all right?"
I nod, embarrassed to show weakness. I'll have to get used to being in the mind of a killer and so I go back to the glass and touch it once more. Maybe if I fight the vertigo, something else will come to me – some detail that will lead us to the killer.
I search through the sensations and impressions of the killer as he surveys his victim. Nothing comes to me at first. Then, a hint, just a fleeting image of a river in the middle of a desert. Tall reeds line the riverbank. A sense that he's protecting someone fills me, but who that someone is remains hidden. As I turn the shard over, I know that the manner of death is important. Decapitation is significant in some way.
"He killed in this way and dumped him here to send a message." I swallow hard, fighting the nausea that rises in me at the continued connection to the killer.
O'Neil nods. "What does decapitation and dumping the body along the shore mean?"
I shake my head. "No idea. I saw a river at nighttime," I say, remembering a momentary image of a river. "With tall reeds along the shore. But it was only very brief."
"Nothing else?"
I shake my head, getting nothing more from the glass. It's as silent as the now non-existent breeze.
Once we're finished at the dump site, we walk back to the sedan and Julien joins us.
"So, Eve, why don't you and I have a cup of coffee, talk about things," Julien says to me. "I'm sure you have more questions."
"What things?" I say, but I think I know what he means
.
"Oh, your mother, being a blood witness," he says, smiling as if everything amuses him, as if he takes nothing seriously. "Training. The whole killing all vampires thing my brother's on."
I look at Michel and he shakes his head quickly.
I take in a breath. "I'd like that."
Julien smiles broadly, glancing briefly at Michel as if he's scored some kind of point.
"Great," he says. "How about tomorrow night? The coffee shop?"
"Sure."
"Great espresso."
"Eve will be working tomorrow night," Michel says, his voice low.
"We can meet before. Say, just after sundown?" Julien smiles.
I smile back. "Sure. I'll be waiting."
"Ooh, those dimples," he says and clucks his tongue. He just stares at me for a long moment, taking in a deep breath. "I'll come up and get you," Julien says. "What's your apartment number again? 3C?"
Michel takes my arm. "You can meet her at the coffee shop," he says, pulling me along with him.
Julien holds his hands up in mock surrender.
"Ok, ok," he says, laughing. "I won't go in her apartment. Unless she invites me up, that is."
I glance back at him as Michel opens the car door for me.
"Until tomorrow night, then," Julien says, grinning.
I get in the sedan and Michel gets in beside me, sitting closer to me than necessary as if he's trying to show Julien I'm his. He actually starts to do up my seatbelt, but I take it out of his hand.
"I'm not a child."
"Compared to us, you are. Don't forget it. Just because you can kill us, don't think you can manipulate us."
"Oh, I'd never think that," I say, emotion welling up inside me. Does he really think I'm a child? I clip my seatbelt in place and turn my face away.
"I'm sorry, Eve," Michel says after a moment. I turn back and he's rubbing his forehead. "He has that effect on me."
"Was he always that cheeky?"
"No," he says and shakes his head. "But when you're a vampire, everything about you is strengthened. You feel everything with ten times the intensity. Whatever cheek he had before is just that much stronger."