by John Conroe
“What happened to Tanya? Fifteen years ago? She killed her own nursemaid by accident, didn't she?” I guessed.
“Oh, Northern, I have to apologize. You are quicker than you look. Yes, Tatiana's vampire minder wasn't paying attention and she was feeding on Belina, her human nursemaid. Something frightened her, we don't know what, and she never stopped her feeding. She was devastated. She really loved Belina.”
“That's why she thinks she's evil, isn't it,” I guessed again.
“Yup.”
“What happened to the vampire who was minding her?”
“She was me. I volunteered to be her minder.”
Another question occurred to me. “Lydia, what were you doing waiting table last Friday night?”
She smiled in the dark interior, the instrument lights reflecting off her teeth.
“Nika heard Vadim when he saw you in line. Something about you caught his attention,” she said. “ I checked you out myself when you came in with your friends. There was definitely something that caught my attention as well. So I took the table to keep an eye on you. Looks like I was right. You’ve really shaken things up.”
After a moment I pushed on.
“So Galina is ....threatened by me?”
“Tatiana Demidova is viewed like royalty throughout the vampire world. Born vampire. Abilities from birth that take centuries to develop. Galina's position has more to do with the status of being her mother than anything else. She's only about two hundred and seventy, or so.”
Lydia explained.
“Suddenly, her little girl is awake and learning again, making decisions, growing mentally, interested in business, life and chasing boys. Well, just one boy.” she teased. “And, the Elders are coming to see for themselves. She's panicking. Kinda stupid really. If she drives you away, Tanya will only follow you. She must be in denial. Hmm. Don't worry about it. Let me handle it. You just keep the demon things away from Tanya.”
Watching me, she continued.
“Now it's my turn to ask a question. How do you feel about Tanya?”
I couldn't answer, my emotions were too raw and unfamiliar. Elation, wonder, sun hot happiness mixed with fear of disappointment into a confusing jumble. Lydia was watching my face and she nodded. “Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought.”
“Okay, my original mission, before we got sidetracked, was to give you some Tanya pointers. First, she's extremely worried about you. Protective AND territorial. Her feelings are cement, but she is worried if you will feel the same way. I think you do. But just keep doing what you’re doing. She came home floating this morning and hasn't taken that damn sweatshirt off since.”
She paused in thought and I threw in a question.
“When you say protective, is that why she got in Arkady's face? What if he had pushed it, she might have gotten hurt.”
Lydia snorted in amusement. “Please! Arkady would never attack her. He worships at the alter of Tatiana. But if for some reason he lost his mind and did? He wouldn't have lasted a nano second.”
“She's a good fighter?”
“Chris, I don’t think I have the vocabulary to describe just how good a fighter she is. For the last fifteen years, all she has done has been to study and to practice fighting. She’s a natural, and she’s faster and stronger than any other vampires except the Elders. Every day she fights as many fighters as Vadim can plead, bully and bribe into sparring with her. Whips all of them. And now that she’s got a boyfriend, she kicks all their asses in half the time. Like she’s been holding back, but now has places to go, a guy to see. Matter of fact, I think she’s been on hold for awhile and now is making up for lost time. She even cracked a joke yesterday; at least I think she did?”
“No way. What was the joke?” I asked.
“Well, when dusk hit, she shot straight outta bed and raced downstairs. She knew you had been in the house. When I caught up to her she had cornered Deckert and four of his guys, demanding to know who had hurt you. She smelled your blood and was ready to go to war. I got her calmed down, and Deckert reassured her that you only scraped your face fighting the demon thingy, but by then one of Deckert’s guys had pissed himself. Pretty understandable really, ‘cause she was scary as hell. Never seen her do that before.”
She grinned in the darkness.
“Anyway, Tanya apologized and then offered to buy the guy new pants, but they would be black or navy so the next time the piss wouldn’t show up so much. Then she smiled. Of course, they didn’t know if she was joking or not, but I laughed.”
“That is sorta funny. The guy pissed himself? Really?”
“Oh Northern, you have no idea what she was like. Do me a favor and don’t get hurt. And don’t flirt with other girls!”
“Ah, I don’t flirt. And girls don’t flirt with me.”
“Hmm, I’m not so sure about that, but don’t be surprised if they start.”
“Why?”
“Never mind, just trust me.”
I was already trusting her with my life, what more could I do.
We were at my building and I found a spot to park not far from the door. Lydia leaned over and pecked my check, then was out of the SUV in a blink. “Alright, go be nice to my girl.” I started to nod, but she had faded into the dark.
Tatiana was sitting in my leather chair, wearing jeans and the NYPD hoodie, paging through one of my books, The Hobbit. She bounced to her feet when I came in, a little smile on her face.
“Hi zayka” She said. “Hi right back at ya” I replied with a grin. “Er. What’s a zayka?”
“It is a bunny.”
“A bunny?”
“Is term like …’honey’.” She said.
I guess that was okay. Then I studied her some more. She was paler, circles under her eyes and a nervous sort of edgy look about her. She froze while I thought about it for a second.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” I guessed.
She didn’t answer for a moment, then gave a little nod and said, “A little.”
I couldn’t believe I was about to do this, but it seemed natural.
“Okay, let me change and then you can ..er..feed?” I wasn’t sure how to phrase it.
She started to shake her head, but I jumped back in.
“No really, Tanya,..zayka, if you’re hungry and my blood is especially good for you, then we feed you. Simple as that. I got lots.”
I tried for light but it was such an odd thing to say that I didn’t get it quite right. I changed out of my uniform and gear, putting on nylon wind pants and a red Fall Out Boys tee shirt.
She was nervous, but I had settled myself down while changing and I just asked, “Okay, what’s the best way to do this, or maybe I should say, what’s your preferred way.”
Her eyes got wide, her pupils fully dilated and she licked her lips nervously.
“Oh, you haven’t done this in a long time, right? Why don’t I sit on the futon and you can lean back on my chest and feed from my wrist?” I suggested, holding up my right arm. She nodded and so I got into a comfortable sitting position, my feet on the floor and she sat next to me, her legs out on the futon, my right arm around her.
She looked at me and asked, “Are you sure?” and when I nodded she gently pulled my arm to her mouth, her eyes on mine and bit. I felt a sharp pinch, like the doctor always says you’ll feel, just before he jabs you with a spear sized needle. The tiny pain was gone in a flash and I felt heat radiate up my arm and through my chest, down my torso, pelvis and legs. It was nothing like the night at the club. Waves of feeling rolled from my wrist through the rest of me, the sensation completely pleasurable. Really pleasurable. In fact, I was glad she was only leaning on me and not sitting on my lap, or she would have instantly known just how much I liked it.
I could thoroughly understand how vampires could find willing donors. Thinking back to my one night at the club, I could now see that some of the clubbers had been there just for that reason. Tatiana was drawing blood very slowly and whi
le I could feel the blood flow out, it didn’t create the panic I had felt the other night. It seemed like a long time, but it was only four or five minutes, when she finished, licking my wrist. I was breathing hard, my pulse racing. Her saliva healed the punctures instantly. My left wrist didn’t even have a pink spot from her first feeding. Her cheeks were flushed and she smiled, stretched, arching her back in a lithe motion, and then kissed me.
Soft at first, the kiss built its own momentum and we spent quite a bit of time exploring each other’s lips. She smelled of jasmine, lilac and musk. She tasted clean and coppery from my blood. It was entirely new for both of us and I think that mutual lack of experience kept us from being self -conscious. Suddenly, she popped up with an “Oh!” and zipped into the tiny kitchen, returning with a big glass of orange juice. Nothing would do, but that I had to drink the whole thing down before she would return to her previous spot.
We were having the teenager experience that we had both missed out on. The kissing continued and she seemed pretty good at it. I mentioned that. “Oh, Lydia showed me how.” That image stuck. She asked more questions, this time about Hellbourne, so I filled her in.
Basically, I knew of two kinds of demon. The ones that settled in a location, like a house and then went to work on the inhabitants. Feeding on misery, pain and anguish and then creating more by manipulating one or more inhabitants. I opened the browser on my laptop and found a recent article of a guy that suddenly went nuts, killed his wife and kids, then himself. They happen daily and almost always are the result of a house bound demon.
The second kind inhabited a body and moved through the world creating chaos and mayhem with direct action. They were the more powerful of the two kinds. “How do they get the bodies?” she asked.
“Sometimes a person will invite them in willingly, not realizing that their own soul will be tossed aside like trash. Some are the result of Wyrms.”
“Worms?”
“That’s what I call them, but with a ‘y’. Hellbourne will toss them on people as they move about. If a person is weak-willed or despondent enough, the Wyrm will get a hold and start to dig in. Mindless and brainless, the Wyrm weakens the person’s hold on their own body. When the time is right, the Wyrm becomes a doorway for a demon to take over the body. Most people fight them off without ever knowing they were at risk. Friends and family can really help. But enough people succumb to make my life interesting.”
“And these demons know about you?”
“Yeah, they would love to take me out, but just as they can cloak from humans and vampires, I am cloaked from them.” I didn’t add that it was what had protected my eight-year-old self when I cowered in my brother’s closet. Because I was too afraid to tell her just how cowardly I was, which, ironically, proved my cowardice all over again.
“Why don’t they hire a human to kill you? Why don’t they go after your Gramps?”
“Both good questions. I don’t know the first, although I have been expecting something like that for some time. Gramps is pretty protected by a whole bunch of fetishes. My turn for a question. Are there other types of paranormal beings besides vampires? You know…like werewolves, zombies, ghouls, witches, and chubacabra?” I asked.
She laughed, a warm throaty kind of laugh that made me want to laugh with her.
“Of course, it only makes sense that if vampires are real so are a bunch of other legends. Certainly weres are real, with the wolves the most numerous. But others too. Werebears, were- panthers, weretigers.”
“How about weredeer?” I asked.
“What? Of course not! Only carnivores.”
“Okay, what about wereweasels?” I joked.
She nodded without smiling. “Yeah, they’re pretty dangerous. Really quick.”
“As quick as you?” I asked. She just smiled and shook her head. I had a feeling that there wasn’t much out there that could match her.
“Wererats?”
“Eww, don’t be gross.”
Sweet! I managed to gross out a vampire princess.
“How about zombies?”
“Well, I’ve heard rumors in the vampire world of some who can temporarily animate the dead.”
“Can you animate things?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m pretty certain I can animate you!”
She was right.
Chapter 9
Monday dawned cold and wet, which, of course, meant that it had to be my day for an outdoor workout. One of the local parks has a series of bodyweight exercise stations – chin up bars, dip railings, wooden posts and I use them as the basis for a work out. Most times, my hands would be ice cold by the time I finished the last set of pull-ups and began the run home, but today I managed to stay warm.
I stopped at a corner deli for an order of chili and corn bread, with a big cup of hot tea. All morning I had been noticing odors, the wet leaves, dead worms, diesel fumes, garbage, pipe tobacco, women’s' perfume, and a thousand separate foods. By the time I hit my apartment door, I was too hungry to shower, opting to eat my takeout first. I emailed Gramps after my shower.
Gramps, Count me in on the land purchase (if you can talk my Trustee into it). I'll fill you in on the daytime thing when I visit at T-giving. Hlbrn interested in a girl. Too complex for email. Work is going well. Weather down here is cold and damp, but I see from the weather channel that you've already had snow. Can't wait to see the farm, the dogs and of course your old curmudgeon self.
Love Chris.
Seeing as Gramps was my Trustee it was as good as a done deal that we would buy the adjoining farm and its six hundred acres. He would take half the money from my Trust, which had been funded after my family's murder. During the last fifteen years the principal had grown from just over six hundred thousand to slightly over two million, although the market crash had knocked it down a bit. Gramps had about half the account in Treasury bonds that had gained in value as the market declined and so offset some of the stock losses. Now we would get a great deal on a large chunk of land, which to Gramp’s way of thinking was always a good investment.
I layered my uniform over a solid base of synthetic Under Armour, grabbed my heavy rain gear and patrol bag, and headed into work. The Muster room smelled like a moldy locker room, the result of changing through two shifts of wet cops. “Hi Bernice, whata we got today?” I greeted my partner.
“I got prisoner detail, you gotta see the Sarge about an interview.”
“What? What interview?
“Sugar, you got some suits from the Plaza to talk to. Sooo, I get to stay dry and move bad girls around.” She looked at my expression and added, “Don't sweat it, Chris. It ain't a bad thing.”
Before I could answer, I heard the Sarge calling my name and I turned to find him almost upon me.
“Gordon, get your ass up stairs. Some suits from Police Plaza wanna see you. You been up to anything I should know about?” He asked.
“No Sarge, not a thing. Who are they?”
He eyed me for a moment then answered. “Inspecter Roma, Special Situations. Now why would Special Situations be interested in you?”
“What the hell is Special Situations?”
“Hmm, never mind. Just get your ass upstairs and don't embarrass us.”
He turned away before I could ask any other questions, leaving me nothing for it but to climb the old stairs to the second floor. This was the domain of the detectives, Homicide, Robbery, Narcotics and Vice. The Robbery detective at the first desk sent me back into the Homicide division’s realm at the back of the building. An overweight plainclothes officer saw me enter the bullpen and turned to his right, nodding at a muscular blond guy in khakis and black turtleneck. The blond immediately approached me. “You Gordon?”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“Come with me.” He turned and led me down a hall to a conference room, where he knocked on the door once and stuck his head in. “Sir, Gordon's here.”
“Send him in, Steve.” I could hear from inside.
The blond guy pushed the door open and waved me through. As I took in the room, I could feel ‘Steve’ follow me in and close the door, standing directly behind me. In front of me was a small table with four chairs, one of which was occupied by what had to be Inspector Roma, who was making a show of studying my file. That it was my file was obvious from the photo conspicuously displayed on the inside cover. I'm not sure how I noticed that as most of my attention was centered on the female detective standing just behind the Inspector's left elbow. My heart sank into my shoes as I realized that the hard brown eyes in the dark suit belonged to Gina Velasquez, Peter's observer from Saturday night.
The badge and gun clipped to her belt told me that my career in the force was over and Special Situations was a smartass name for Internal Affairs.
Roma finally looked up and after a moment announced, “We're not Internal Affairs.” He stood up and held out his hand. I took in his details as I shook his hand: strong grip, about five nine, trim cyclist's build, short dark hair peppered with gray, mustache and trimmed goatee, expensive suit and a pair of penetrating gray eyes. He looked more like a hardened corporate attorney than a cop.
“I'm Inspector Martin Roma. I head up the Special Situations Squad, which is a subgroup of Special Operations. We handle...unique cases. You've already met Detective Velasquez and behind you is Detective Steve Sommers.”
Special Ops is the unit that holds Emergency services, the NYPD Harbor unit, NYPD Aviation and a host of others. Essentially the largest SWAT force in the country. Whatever this Special Situations group was, it was headed by a full Inspector, which was unusual to say the least. Most precincts are headed by Captains or higher ranked Deputy Inspectors. Inspectors are the next rank higher.