The Lot

by Snyder, Clayton

  I grabbed the edge of the board and pulled, the nails popping free with small screeches of protest. More smoke billowed out, and now I could hear flames crackling. I pulled harder, and the board came away.

  "Anyone in there?"

  I waited for a moment, trying to see through the cloud in the room. After a time, a series of coughs greeted me, and a figure stumbled out. It was Cora, her skin and clothes smudged with smoke. She sank to her knees and took deep breaths. I gave her a moment to catch her breath. She gestured behind her.

  "Adam grabbed Henry, but I didn't see Vlad." She coughed again. "Looks like Hyde got his way."

  I shook my head. "Jekyll was with Adam and me. This had to have been Timothy."

  I shouted into the smoke. "Vlad!" No answer. "VLAD!"

  A shape emerged from the smoke, and I saw it was Adam. He staggered through the haze and into the back yard. He shook his head. "He is not here, Wulfy."

  "What do we do about the fire?"

  "Already out. It was more smoke than danger."

  "Okay. Let's let the place air out and bring Jekyll inside. We'll need to question him."

  Adam looked lost for a moment. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him and Vlad apart, and I imagined it was getting to him already. Finally, he nodded. "Let's go."

  We circled around to the front of the castle, and found the car open, the cords we'd used to tie Jekyll lying in a heap on the ground. There was no sign of him. Henry leaned against the car, his rheumy eyes looking more morose than usual. Adam cursed in German, and I sat on the edge of the back seat and wished for a cigarette.

  Frying pan, fire.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Sitting there, I realized two things. One, this day had gone straight to the great toilet in the sky, and two, I was hungry. You wouldn't think a man who had dealt with all that stress and anger and frustration and a pressing need to keep his world from igniting any further would want, let alone need to take time out to stuff his face, but there it is. I was hungry, the Beast was hungry, and judging by the tectonic rumbles I could hear from Adam's stomach, I could tell he was hungry, too. I looked around at the others.

  "Breakfast?"

  Adam nodded, the expression on his face half-embarrassed, half-grateful. Cora nodded along, and rubbed her head. I felt another moment of guilt at seeing the yellowing bruise on her jaw. Henry waved the offer away. Eh, the undead. What can you do?

  "My place, or...?" I let the question trail off.

  Adam shook his head. "Is fine inside. Fire's out, we have eggs."

  We went inside and sat around the big dining room table while Adam banged around in the kitchen. In just a few minutes, the room was filled with the smells of scrambled eggs and toast, and miracle of miracles, bacon. My stomach rumbled, and I thanked Adam as he appeared from the kitchen and set plates heaping with breakfast and glasses of orange juice in front of us. Cora and I waited until he sat, and then we tucked in.

  The room was quiet but for the soft sounds of chewing and the occasional sniffle as someone took too big of a bite. The eggs were good and fluffy, the bacon crispy, and the toast was golden brown. Even with breakfast, Adam was a food savant.

  After a while, we sat back in our chairs and pushed our plates away, and absently rubbed our full stomachs while Henry stared off at some point in space. I absently picked at a piece of bacon in my teeth and tried to think my way out of the steel-clad paper bag I seemed to be trapped in.

  Jekyll was free. That meant Hyde was free. Plus one psychopath. Timothy was still wandering around. Plus one more psychopath. Vlad was missing. Minus one vampire, minus one for the good guys. The church seemed to be out of goons, as least temporarily, so plus one good guys. My count made that plus two for the homicidal maniacs, and zero for team Wolf. Something itched at the back of my brain, and I made way for it, frowning in concentration. Cora noticed.

  "What is it?" She asked.

  I held up a hand. "Shh. You'll scare it."

  It bloomed to the front of my mind. They'd set me up to be hurt. They'd had Cora shoot me with regular bullets. They'd sent men with regular weapons. They'd tried to vomit that red stuff in my face. They didn't want me dead. They wanted me compliant. They were after something big here. So far, the only ones they'd actually tried to stop were those who had almost stopped them cold. That meant they might still want me. Or, with no new attacks in the past hour, maybe they'd gotten what they wanted, and didn't need me anymore.

  I wondered why they hadn't tried to use the red gunk on Hyde, and figured it must've been a mutual interest (and probably a healthy fear on their side) that kept him free from its control. As for Cora, they'd needed someone with enough autonomy to reel me in. I assumed there wasn't much they could do with Henry. He didn't necessarily have a traditional nervous system. He wasn't even really alive. Expendable, then. That's why they'd let Hyde corner him. Which left Adam and Vlad. Adam was a force of nature - unpredictable in combat, and almost always with myself or Vlad. Which meant they wanted Vlad for one reason - to control Adam.

  I cursed under my breath. Henry snapped out of his trance long enough to shoot me a disapproving look.

  "What is it, Wulfy?"

  "Vlad. If they got him, which I doubt, they're going to use him against you. I think you're out of the fight, buddy."

  "Sheisse."

  I nodded. "Yeah. Looks like this is my problem."

  Cora spoke up. "What's your plan?"

  I shrugged. "Anywhere's a trap at this point. Best I can do is not let it be. That, and I've got just over twenty-four hours before the full moon. Things are gonna get nasty."

  "How can we help?" Henry asked, his voice creaky.

  "Adam can keep an eye on you two. I've got to deal with the church somehow, which means I've got to find a way in. Henry, I just need you to rack your brains for a solution to this red stuff. Cora - just stay put. I owe you."

  She nodded. "Fair enough. No argument. I don't have any great urge to be someone's puppet again anytime soon."

  Henry spoke up. "Be easier with a sample."

  "I think Adam can get you one. Yeah, big guy?"

  "Ja."

  "Perfect."

  I pushed back from the table and stood, then made my way to the front door and out. The others followed me to the threshold. Adam put a hand on my shoulder.

  "Good luck, Wulfy."

  "Thanks buddy. Don't get dead." I cleared my throat. "In your case, Henry, deader."

  I started down the drive, and they waved me off, the sun at my back. After a moment, I heard the front door close behind me. I walked on.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Coming down the switchback drive, the day was clear and cool and smelled of damp greens. A slight breeze ruffled my hair, and from where I stood, I could see deep into the lot - the old Victorians laid out to my left, the museum row to my right, and downtown straight ahead. I could also see the strobes of red and blue, distant but bright, dotted here and there across the lot, and the black and whites attached to them. My heart dropped. Either Hyde had called the cops after all, or they had finally followed up on Reznick's report.

  I could hear the purr of an engine and smell exhaust, and as I turned the corner, an unmarked car pulled to a stop in front of me. Two men got out, one short and bald with dark eyes and a slightly skewed tie, and the other tall and skinny, with an eagle's nose and thick eyebrows. The short one eyeballed me and opened his jacket to reveal his badge clipped to his belt and his pistol in its shoulder holster.

  "Mr. Peckinpah?" The tall one.

  I stopped in my tracks and nodded. The short one's hand hovered near the inside of his jacket. The tall one opened his and showed me his badge and gun.

  "I'm Detective Sheling, this is my Partner, Detective Mack. We need to talk."

  He began to approach me and stopped an arm's length away. "You have any weapons on you?"

  I sighed. "Yeah. My revolver."

  "You mind handing it over?"

  "Do I
have a choice?" I asked. I got the impression Mack would have growled at me if he could have.

  Sheling smiled. "No, of course not. But I'd hate for there to be a misunderstanding."

  I smirked in spite of myself. I opened my jacket, slowly, and pulled the pistol out, and handed it to Sheling, butt-first. He made a show of checking the safety and the cylinder, and then let it hang at his side.

  "What's this about?" I asked. "Is this an arrest?"

  Sheling had turned to look up at the castle behind me. "No, don't think so. It's just a follow-up. Someone called in suspicious activity out here. You know, little weird, finding you out here, on an abandoned lot, what with a dead boy's remains all cut up in a house over there." He looked back at me. "Wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

  I shrugged and out on my best innocent face. "If it's who I think it is, the kid's father hired me to find him. Looks like I'm too late."

  "Yeah. Say, how about you take a ride with us?"

  I groaned internally. Even if everything worked out - which it probably would, there wasn't enough to connect me to anything, except location, and hey, I'm a PI - I go weird places for money - two things would happen here. One, the Church gets me out of the way for a while, and two, if it's long enough; the cops get to deal with a murderous giant wolf.

  "Don't suppose it's something we can settle here?"

  He shook his head and put on a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, just have to make sure all my letters are dotted and crossed."

  "All right. Fair enough." I knew there was no way out of this that didn't end in a shooting or manhunt. I walked over to the car, and Mack opened the back door. The detectives got in, and we began to drive away. I hoped Adam would be able to keep the others out of sight until the rest of the cops drifted off as well.

  We passed patrol cars as we drove out, parked here and there, and I recognized one in front of my house. I hoped Vlad had scrubbed the place well. Past the main street, we picked up speed, and the Lot fell away behind us.

  *

  The precinct was a long tall white building with tall dark glass windows. Palm trees decorated the corners of the parking lot, and small bushes with long knifelike blades crowded the glass double doors. Men and women came and went, both in uniform and out, and we pulled into an empty parking spot next to a row of patrol cars.

  Mack and Sheling let me out of the car and escorted me into the building, where it was cooler than outside, big air-conditioning units on the roof sending a gentle hum through the building. There were people inside, queued up for help in the lobby. They led me past the glass partitions and wood and stucco paneling and through a door that led to a drab hallway. Down the hall and to the left, where they asked me to wait in a small room with a table, two chairs, and a mirror that wasn't fooling anyone.

  They let me cool in there, and I looked out the small barred window. The sun hung high in the sky, and just on the other side of a well-manicured lawn, traffic - both human and vehicular - trundled by. The door opened behind me, and I turned.

  Sheling came in - alone this time. He smiled and pulled out a chair and lay the folder in his hands on the table, then gestured at the seat across from him. "Please, Mr. Peckinpah -" his smile grew a bit wider. "Like the director?"

  I groaned a bit inwardly, but didn't let the irritation show. "No sir. Just a family name. You can call me Peck, if you like."

  The smile slipped. "Okay, Mr. Peckin-Peck - have a seat, please."

  I took the chair across from him. This was getting old, fast. I wondered what Hyde was up to, what Timothy was up to, and what Adam was doing to stay safe. I wondered where Vlad was. Sheling interrupted my thoughts by opening his folder and turning it so it faced me. On the interior was a picture of the boy, pale and lips blue, a y-shaped stitched incision on his chest.

  "This the boy you were looking for?"

  I made a show of pulling the picture of the kid from my jacket and laying it next to the post mortem one. I looked up at Sheling.

  "Yep."

  "What were you doing on the lot?"

  I pulled out the other picture Reznick had given me. "His father thought he'd gone there."

  Sheling picked up the picture and looked at it. He nodded, half to himself. When he was done, he handed the picture back and looked at me.

  "You see anything weird out there? Anybody weird?"

  I shook my head.

  "Because it looks like someone's living out there. It looks like maybe several someones. Not sure how you missed them."

  I shrugged. "Maybe they're shy. I wasn't there very long."

  "We found your car up on the hill. Why were you walking?"

  "Trying to get closer to the case. See if I could sniff something up."

  "Any luck?"

  "No. You guys showed up too soon."

  "This look familiar?" He flipped a page in the folder, and a picture of the pistol Cora had been holding the night before was in front of me.

  "No, sorry."

  "Didn't think so. Weirdest thing. Had silver bullets in it. Even weirder - I remember calling you this week. Your office burned down."

  He closed the folder and looked at me. He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his smile was gone.

  "I'll be honest with you. I don't think you had anything to do with the boy's death. I know you were hired by Reznick to find him - we already checked with him." Relief flooded through me. "But-" Damn. "I don't think you're maybe telling me everything. And I don't have to arrest you to keep you for 24 hours. So, you're going to stay with us for a night. And maybe tomorrow, your memory will be better."

  He left the room, and an officer entered. He escorted me down another hall, and into a room lit with bright fluorescents. There was a room on the other end with reinforced glass walls and a steel door. Behind it was another door with reinforced glass and a corridor leading to what I could see of traditional cells. A man was sleeping in there. I looked at the officer, whose nametag read "Pretty". I sighed.

  "Drunk tank?"

  "Yep."

  I wasn't looking forward to the smell.

  He opened the door with a switch on the wall, and led me inside, then left, and closed the door behind him. It clanged shut, and I was left alone with a hairy man who smelled of sweat and Jameson, and snored like a freight train. I sighed, and sat on the far end of the bench. After a while, I hunkered down, closed my eyes, and tried to ignore the Beast, who was urging me to eat the drunk before his smell and snoring drove me mad. After a while, despite myself, I dozed.

  *

  You get a lot of time to think in a cell. I was stressing over the Lot, about the full moon the next day, and whether the smell of vagrant would come out of my clothes. I also counted the tiles on the floor, peed twice, and napped once. I poked the drunk guy to see if he would wake up, but all that got me was a snort. Finally, I resorted to banging my head softly against the glass wall. Five minutes and a red mark on my forehead into that, I spotted a tall dark figure in a smart suit approaching the cell, escorted by Officer Pretty.

  The door opened, and Vlad stepped into the cell. His lips turned up into a faint smile. I had to restrain myself from hugging him. Pretty spoke up.

  "You can go, Peckinpah. Lawyer got you released."

  Vlad turned and walked out, and I followed him. Pretty led us out again, back the way we had come. Sheling and Mack were waiting by the front door.

  "Peck." Sheling said.

  I nodded slightly. "Detective."

  "We'll keep your weapon, for now. You understand. If you remember anything-" He handed me his business card. "Call me."

  Vlad and I walked out the front door, and got into a car he had waiting outside, a black Town Car. The door shut, and I leaned over and hugged him anyway. The precinct fell away behind us. When we were a ways down the road, I turned to him.

  "You got some 'splainin to do, Lucy."

  He smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  "I'm very old. I have a lot of money and t
ime." Vlad said.

  I waved that away. "Not that. Where were you?"

  He looked out the window. "I had to run."

  "Why?"

  "They got to me. Whatever it was, they got it in me. It tried to take hold, but I was able to fight it. Maybe because I'm not really alive." He shrugged. "I just knew if it did take hold, I would hurt people. Maybe you. Maybe Adam. So I ran, to one of my places in the city."

  "What is it? What does it do?"

  He looked at me and shrugged. "Dunno what it is. As for what it does - imagine a feeling of perfect comfort. Then imagine a voice in your head talking to you, reassuring you, telling you to just sit back and it will do the rest, and nothing is ever wrong. It's alive, Peck, and it's smart, whatever it is."

  I shuddered, and then another thought occurred to me. "How did you know where I was?"

  "The Lot was in the news. Reznick is pretty wealthy, even in my circles. His kid disappears, and shows up butchered somewhere - that's a story. I guessed they might have found you or any of the others. I have a few connections. How's Adam?"

  "Still at the Lot. Looking out for Henry and Cora. Probably worried sick about you. We should get back before Timothy and Hyde go berserk."

  Vlad shook his head. "Can't. Cops and reporters everywhere."

  "How do you know? Wait. You know a guy."

  He just smiled. I let out a breath. "On the upside, that means the Church and Hyde will have to be on their best behavior. It should give Adam and the others a fighting chance, provided they keep their heads low."

  "The castle has a few secrets. Even if they get in, they won't find much."

  "This is the first I'm hearing of this."

  He shrugged. "I know a guy."

  A thought occurred to me, only somewhat related. To know people that knew secrets, you had to be trusting. Or you had to hold to the old adage that two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead. I wondered how many people were keeping Vlad's secrets permanently. Which led me into wondering how he had healed so fast. That wasn't a bloodless process for him either, so to speak. I decided not knowing was better than the alternative. I shivered despite myself, and turned to the window.