The Makepeace raised her gauntlet, scanning the floor, then the room. When she was done, Nico looked at her expectantly.
“We must exit, potential citizen,” she said. “We have found nothing unordinary.”
***
Nothing unordinary.
Nico understood. Dust outlines were hardly evidence. She had screwed up, and the Makepeace had nothing. Nico felt rage build.
Amazon Woman scooped her up, placed Nico over one shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and walked out of the room.
“Are you leaving?” Dann called from his booth when Amazon Woman turned for the stairs. “Did you want to sign for another night?”
The Makepeace ascended and passed the boys’ dorm, then the girls’ dorm. Sleepy vampires trailed and looked at Nico curiously, who clenched her fists, fangs to the fore, wanting to bite something—anything.
“No worries, mate,” Jess called to her in a concerned tone as the Makepeace climbed the steps for the broken roof exit. “We know how nightmares are.”
Amazon Woman stepped over the bent door and on to the rooftop, walked towards the edge, and put Nico down. The night breeze touched Nico’s hair and face, and she heard the traffic, people, and sounds of the nighttime city. The holo board across the way played its advertisement. Amazon Woman stood as still as a statue, possibly in communication with something.
“I know what I saw. Somehow the kidnappers knew to put them all back. I wish I had something you could shoot,” Nico said in frustration.
Amazon Woman then scooped Nico up again, cradling her in her arms. A levitation bubble blipped into being around them. They took off and flew over the rooftops, Nico suppressing a shriek of astonishment. The Makepeace travelled a block’s length, then descended slowly for the street. She put Nico down and the levitation bubble blipped from view.
“Proceed down the street and continue for two blocks. Do you understand, potential citizen?”
“Yes—yes ma’am,” Nico said, wide-eyed.
“Good night.”
“Uh. Good night.” Nico started walking. She wanted to look behind her, but wasn’t sure if that was allowed per the instructions.
“Is she sending us to Tough Guy?” she asked Bear. “Maybe she’ll buy us ice cream later?”
When she crossed the street for the second block, memories of what she’d seen in the dorm returned.
A trick that a witch like Shayla or a Makepeace’s equipment can’t detect.
And they still want me to come back, like nothing’s wrong.
A long-bodied, black vehicle stopped beside her. A male vampire in a mod-cut suit stepped out the back—tall, with mature features, pursed mouth, and a cool, blue-eyed regard. He wore thick-rimmed frames and stood with relaxed confidence. Inclining his head, he indicated that Nico step inside the vehicle.
“Don’t touch me, please,” Nico requested when he moved to place a hand at her back. He paused, unperturbed, and she sensed no aggression from him.
I like him, Nico thought in surprise. I bet he has a harem.
A small, round-faced Asian woman sat within the vehicle and leaned to look at her. She smiled and held up a silver shield illustrated with a blindfolded angel bearing a sword and scales. It said:
Other Being Mischief
Investigative Division
in service to the
Tribunate
“Helloo Ms Alexikova,” she said, her voice bearing a singsong lilt.
“Hi. Do we know each other?” The woman appeared to be human. Nico stepped in, intrigued, and the male vampire followed. He sat beside the little woman in the seat facing Nico. The hatch closed and the vehicle sped away.
“Nooo, but we do now. I’m Special Agent Yoo, this is Special Agent Rotherhithe. We’re with the Other-beings Mischief Investigative Division.” Yoo pronounced her lilting words as if each had special meaning.
“You’re the OMID?” Nico said.
“No, we’re the OI.”
“But you said—”
“It’s the OI,” Yoo interrupted.
“Why are you called misch—”
“Because the division is 700 years old.”
“Well, what’s happening inside Again Friends is not some prank,” Nico said.
“Aaand the original meaning of mischief is not pranking,” Yoo said lightly.
“Why are we talking?” Nico said.
“Ms Alexikova,” Yoo began, smiling.
“And Mr Bear.”
“Ms Alexikova and Mr Bear. Again Friends has been under our surveillance for eight weeks now. We’re very close to cracking this case.”
“Sure you are. What’s happening? Why are vampires disappearing?”
“That’s for us to know, and for you to not worry about any longer. This is a whole new world for you—both of you,” Yoo said to Bear, “and we’re trying to keep you safe.”
Nico suppressed the roll of her eyes. “Special Agent Woo.”
“No, Yoo.”
“Who, me? I mean you.”
“That’s right.”
“All it takes is one predator, one, to hurt everyone, and then no one’s safe. You really don’t know what’s going on, do you? You need to be inside,” Nico said. “You have someone on the inside,” she added in realisation, suspecting Re’shawn. “Is Ozzy girl one of you? Because she’s trying too hard.”
“You’re a recent arrival, Ms Alexikova,” Yoo said, smiling. “We appreciate that you are a concerned potential citizen, but we ask that you not return to Again Friends Youth Hostel and further jeopardise matters.”
“They’re using veils. I saw it.”
The vehicle stopped and the hatch popped open. “Good niiight, Ms Alexikova,” Yoo said pleasantly.
Nico stepped out. But before the hatch closed, she looked at Rotherhithe.
“You don’t need glasses,” she said. Rotherhithe smirked. The hatch shut, and the vehicle drove away.
The agents left Nico on a cross street by a teeming, open air market, bright with hung lanterns, neon-lit food carts, and fiery, little portable stoves on which flat bread, kebabs, and noodle broth cooked and hot tea brewed. Scents, steam, and smoke rose. People wandered, ate, sat around portable glow-tables, and played luminescent mah-jongg, the tiles clacking.
“If you wanted to distract me from my big failure at Again Friends, it worked,” Nico said to the vehicle that had already disappeared into traffic.
Her dose of pUff was wearing off, leaving her feeling even lower than she already felt. A stall behind a butcher’s shop served fresh, slaughtered blood in cups to vampires in spiky mohawks. Nico gravitated towards the scent of true animal’s blood, her fangs emerging.
She hoped the stall accepted credit chits. Once she drank her fill, she needed to find a place to burrow, one where vice did not dwell and what haunted her could not pursue.
“We just need a place to sleep,” she said to Bear.
“The Makepeace and police have made an arrest in the North Park vampire murder, where the upper torso of a male vampire had been found, his organs and his heart missing. Three humans are now charged.
“Their identities have not yet been released to prevent retaliation by the vampire primacy, but we do know that one is a holo film producer, and his accomplices, the owners of a small film studio. The three had been seen with the victim, allegedly lured the vampire to the producer’s home and held him captive. Over the course of several days, they removed and ate his organs, saving the heart for last. Police say this may have been a ritualistic killing, where the kidnappers hoped to gain youth and immortality by eating living—or in this case, un-living—vampire flesh.”
Nico unbuttoned the cuffs of her long sleeved shirt, and then swung a bamboo stick at a hung futon airing in the bright morning light while Dorothy played the news. Her cardigan and Mr Bear hung from another laundry pole, enjoying cleansing sunshine. She stood on the rooftop of a narrow building sandwiched between other crowded structures in Again NewYork’s Japanese neighbourho
od. Nico had wandered into it off the night market proper, and found patrons cooking sizzling okonomiyaki over open grills and sitting within busy noodle shops and sake bars. In a closed sundries store displaying stationary, Hello Kitty, manga, household products, and colourful vinyl Makepeace figures, a vintage 1960’s wood and plastic television set had stood. It had played a kaiju film with a monster-battling, giant Makepeace, and Nico had lingered in the television’s light, watching in fascination.
At that very late hour, a little old lady had appeared on the walk, bowing to a young Indian couple that had apparently dined with her. The couple had the rosy scent of the contented. But the old lady did not stand before a doorway leading to a shop; instead, it was a very narrow, residential building. When she saw Nico, she beckoned.
“Kite kudasai,” she cajoled.
“Mama-san, I’m a vampire,” Nico said.
“Hai-hai.” The little old lady beckoned more.
She led Nico a storey up to a tiny room with tatami mats and a futon, Nico obligingly having left her shoes in the tinier genkan. The futon filled the room. The scents of a cooked meal lingered on the ground floor, in a room that probably served as living area as well. The old lady bowed, slid the door closed, and ascended to the next floor to retire for the night. Nico understood then that she was in a public area of the house—one that did not require a formal invitation for Nico to cross the threshold. The little old lady liked to let her extra room out to those she extended hospitality to.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re meant to be her rottweiler for the night, too,” Nico told Bear.
Nico enjoyed a deep, undisturbed rest, then rose with Mama-san at the break of dawn to help with her chores. While Mama-san diligently tackled her portion of the walk with her broom, Nico carried the futons, coverlets, blankets, and pillows to the roof for an airing. For good measure, she decided to beat the dust out of them too.
She was proceeding to the second futon with her bamboo stick when the morning news concluded. The failed bust at Again Friends had not been mentioned.
“Don’t think about it,” she told herself, but then she did think about it; of all the girls she’d failed to rescue from him.
Nicky, her maker chastised, game over.
She switched Dorothy to the hundred civics questions that might be asked on the citizenship exam and practiced answering them.
***
“Hello?” Nico said to her Id.
She had left Mama-san behind after finishing the morning chores and was proceeding to the Victorian sector. Hair brushed, outfit laundered, and Bear refreshed with sunshine, Nico had felt the effects of failure recede—until Specs’s call.
“Ronin Nico,” Specs greeted as his holo popped into view. “Some nights you can’t win, huh?”
“Something is wrong at that hostel,” Nico said. “I know it. But I guess I ruined it for the OI. Now they’ll need to back off if whatever I was trying to bust hasn’t already folded, moved, or gone underground. I never heard of the OI before now.”
“The OI likes a low profile, is why,” Specs said. “The Makepeace are the ones front and centre because the public loves ’em. Think of the OI as the colonel behind the Elvis.”
“This is why there are Makepeace toys,” Nico realised. “And television shows. And porn.”
“Have you listened to the Makepeace 5 album? They sound kinda like the Bee Gees. I like it. Hey, since the OI warned you off laying siege to castles, what village are you defending today, Nico and Bear?”
“Nothing really. I’m studying for the citizen’s exam, and I’m having elevenses with someone I’ve met.” Nico skipped as she said that.
“Sounds like a date.”
“It’s not a date.”
“Y’okay. Mind if I ask what fair lass caught your bushido eye?”
“Lass is correct. I bet you’ve heard of her. It’s Shayla O’Fey.”
“Well now. Well-o-well. I have heard of Ms O’Fey. She has quite the reputation with vampires.”
“Vampire Alliance has been running a smear campaign against her,” Nico exclaimed. “With photos of Shen Jin that are three years old.”
“Yeah, that. Like I said, El Nico, the last time an unauthorised vampire-making happened in this fair city, it got complicated. I assume you’re not in support of the grey issues?”
“What grey issues? If it had been me there and Shy had asked, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Specs grinned. “The surviving Ms O’Fey would have appreciated that.”
“They call her the Gunslinger,” Nico said. “I didn’t tell her that I knew that.”
“Ah yes.” Specs’s tone was pleased. “There’s a certain Slaughter Spawn fight you may want to see.”
“I’ve watched it twenty times. Then my social worker approves?” Nico asked, curious. “My spending time with a vampire killer?”
“Lone Nico, far be it for me to tell you who you get to see. Only a vampire like you would see nothing wrong in being with Ms O’Fey.”
***
“Ye’re quiet taeday, Niky,” Shayla said.
Nico sat with Shayla outside the Blue Owl Tea Room, looking out upon the cobblestoned street. Since it was a very tiny table, Bear remained strapped to Nico. Shayla had chosen to only have tea with a few cakes, while Nico simply had her blood tea. Her thoughts kept returning to what Specs had said.
You’d think I was trying to be Ted Bundy’s wife. Rubbish.
“I guess I’m working out my complicated internal sanguivoriphobia,” Nico answered.
Shayla’s mouth quirked. “How was yer night?”
Nico paused, considering how much to share. “That was complicated too.”
“As complicated as yer previous night?” Shayla’s tone was casual as she sipped her tea.
“You could say that.” Without saying it was the ranch house. “Something happened, and I screwed up in trying to solve it. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I see what the only solution can be. I know you’d agree, if you were in the same situation.”
Shayla raised a brow. “I dinnae ken the situation, love.”
“That’s okay, I think I know what you’d say.”
Shayla looked at her, perplexed. “Are ye comfortable at yer hostel, Niky?”
Nico almost laughed. “Again Friends is part of the problem. I lucked out finding a very sweet, little old lady to take me in for the night.”
“Ye should’ve come tae me,” Shayla said with concern.
“But you were at work,” Nico said. “And for me and Bear to show up at your doorstep in the middle of the night like a lost—”
“Kitten.”
“Frog. That’s quite an imposition, I think.”
“Ye’re no imposition, love.” Shayla’s tone was meaningful. “Especially when ye saved myself and PETH the task of takin’ down Grun.”
“Who?” Nico said. Shayla’s words at the lake and the gift of her blessed bracelet then made sense.
“Such an innocent face.” Shayla smiled, and reached over to tap Bear’s nose, which made Nico squirm as if tickled. “Nothin’ happens at the spaceport, Niky, that Lucy’s doesn’t hear about. I dinnae bring it up earlier because ye like yer secrets, don’t cha? Know that ye have my gratitude.”
Nico nodded, allowing herself to feel pleased, then returned to solemnity. “The next thing I’m going to say, you may not thank me for. But I feel I must. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, since reading about Shen Jin.”
The good humour fled Shayla’s face.
“And I apologise for doing the creepy thing again, reading up on you,” Nico added hastily.
“What words have ye, love,” Shayla asked quietly.
I’m sorry to make you remember. “When you shot Shen…” Shayla looked away. “As ey went down,” Nico added more gently. “I bet ey looked at you, surprised. I bet ey looked at you like a kicked puppy, betrayed. But no matter how much he thought he was helping you—doing good, saving Shy. He was
not. Deep, deep down, he knows that’s not what he was trying to do.
“Making another is a selfish act. A vampire who says it’s not is a liar. Shen owns Shy’s soul.
“And after three years, if he still hasn’t told you this, he’s a jerk, letting you suffer so.”
A tear left Shayla’s eye, and Nico knew more would come. She reached behind Bear and found her tissue pack. She handed it to Shayla.
“Ey doesn’t blame me for shooting em. Ey telt me so,” Shayla said, hoarse. She accepted the tissues.
“He’s a jerk still. That wasn’t what he was supposed to say. And I forgot my pronouns,” Niky added in a whisper.
Shayla laughed briefly, sad. “Dear Niky.”
***
Nico could guess why she lost her gender neutral pronouns, besides the fact that Shen favoured facial hair and looked too much like a boy. Nico had been thinking of her own maker. She was projecting onto Shen and perhaps being unfair. However, Shen making a surrogate Shayla ey could control and Nico’s maker raising a sick puppet he could pull the strings of seemed the same to her.
I really shouldn’t be thinking about my being a sick puppet or working so hard to make women cry. I should have started this tea by recalling where I saw the local police box last so I can give Shayla sex.
Shayla wore another pretty dress, of embroidered white, with a scoop necked, sea green cardigan, and Nico’s gaze fell to Shayla’s exposed throat and esculent clavicles.
Shayla wiped another tear away.
Elevenses ruined. The grandstand of Bears booed.
Shayla scrunched the tissue in her hand, her tears done.
“I appreciate yer words,” she said. “And so strong are they. After what ye telt me of yer reflection, I assumed yer rising was not a gift, Niky.”
“No,” Nico answered, and she felt it was her turn to become a shadow, fleeing emotion’s touch. “I was a murder. I thought that was normal, too, until I met other vampires. You can tell when a vampire rose from a bestowed making, because they’re so well adjusted.
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