Dead Man Stalking

by TA Moore

  He hoped Anderson thought the man hours were worth it.

  “I walked into a trap house and spent the day in that hot box,” Took said to Madoc over his shoulder. “What I need is a shower and a change of clothes. I can smell myself.”

  “But you can’t look at me?” Madoc asked.

  Took scrubbed his hand through his hair, blood sticky as gel under his fingers, and turned around. He looked at the lean, dark sprawl of man, muscle, and bone wrapped in Kevlar-reinforced leather and buckles propped against his rented doorframe. He’d cropped his hair short, gone from shoulder-length to a shaved-up-at-the-sides undercut that drew attention to the gray at his temples. His shoulders were solid and wide with heavy muscle that he’d worked for at some time. There were few other signs of age—his gray eyes were unlined, his jawline still tight and closely shaved—but it was enough to set him apart. Most dhampirs were turned in their late teens or early twenties, before years and sun darkened their hair and thickened their skin from rice-paper pallor. Madoc had been a grown man when his blood finally caught up with him. Humans thought him pale and elegant, but among his own, he was a crow of a man.

  “I fucked up,” Took admitted, his voice harsh in his throat as he tried to make it sound like his professional pride was all that was on the line. “I got sloppy. I didn’t watch Gatlin’s back, and I probably got him killed. We both know it.”

  Madoc didn’t look like he was fooled. It wasn’t a lie either, so he let it go.

  “We do,” he agreed with Took instead. “What I want to know is why.”

  “Ten minutes,” Took bargained.

  Madoc thought about it for a moment and then shrugged his surrender. “Ten minutes,” he said as he strolled into the room. There was only one chair. Madoc put it back on its feet and folded his body into it.

  “I can wait,” he said.

  Took considered a protest, but he was done. He shrugged instead and headed into the bathroom. A shove closed the door behind him, and he took in the mess the deputies had made of his toiletries. Every bottle and tube had been opened, emptied, and tossed into the sink. His soap had been roughly quartered with a knife. He suspected if he rearranged the uneven chunks he’d find they carved a cross into it.

  He stripped, grabbed a chunk of soap, and climbed into the shower. A flick of his hand turned the tap on and the water battered down against his scalp and his shoulder. He lathered the soap and briskly scrubbed himself down. His hands were impersonal by habit until he curled his fingers around his cock and lingered on the jut of the half-erect shaft.

  The scrape of lust had caught him by surprise earlier in the jail cell. It had been hot and tight and… familiar. Ever since he woke up with fangs, Took’s old map of his desires and hungers wasn’t dependable anymore. His go-to fantasies, the hard-wired type he always went for, were cordoned off and his wants detoured to darker places… deeper places. Lust came quicker, affection slower.

  Maybe it was normal—Took had a shit couple of years under his belt; that had to have an impact—but it scared him that it might not be. Worst-case scenario, it might just be the start of… something.

  But he’d never been comfortable with the way he wanted Madoc, and he still wasn’t. It had been hard enough to work with vampires, to walk out of a trap house with black blood on his boots and horrors in his head and crack a joke with a monster who wore a badge. That wasn’t something he’d learned at his father’s knee. And he’d never quite wrapped his head around the fact that he wanted to crawl all over one of the undead.

  It had put him on edge then, and it put him on edge now. That was almost reassuring… but not enough for Took to be comfortable with jerking off in the shower while Madoc listened. He flicked the water to cold. It didn’t have quite the same impact as when his blood had been above room temperature, but it still shocked his cock out of its high hopes.

  Took leaned forward and braced his hands against the wet white tiles. He let the water chill his shoulders and run down over his ass while he counted off Madoc’s patience.

  A fist thumped the door. “You don’t even sweat anymore,” Madoc growled his complaint. “How long does it take to get clean?”

  The water swirled thick rivulets of gray ichor around Took’s feet until it was sucked down the drain. Madoc had made it to nearly two minutes. He’d learned patience while Took was… taken. Took licked the water off his lips and pushed himself upright.

  “I thought the need for constant entertainment was something my generation came up with?” he shot back as he turned off the shower. “Read a book or something.”

  Madoc laughed with a low, throaty roll of humor that gave Took’s cock a boost of enthusiasm. “You think the Borgias were big fans of delayed gratification? That the Drakul squirreled brides away for a rainy day?”

  “I think they could wait ten minutes.”

  “You sorely underestimate them.”

  Took turned his back to the mirror and looked over his shoulder. The explosion had lain his back open. It was a stripe of raw meat with blistered edges that ran from one shoulder to the other. In the hours since, the edges had barely scabbed, never mind stitched back together. He twisted his arm behind him and poked carefully at the wound. It had hurt earlier, but it seemed like that had worn off. Some vampires would have healed already, but he’d take not being in pain as the next best thing.

  “Yeah,” Took said quietly as he grabbed the shirt. The cotton smelled of latex and cigarettes from some deputy’s fingers. He grimaced and shrugged it on anyhow. “Sometimes I do that.”

  THE NICKEL and Dimer had the aggressively kitschy charm of somewhere that might cover its overhead with local business but needed tourist bucks to make a profit. Last time Took had been with Gatlin and the place had been packed with families having breakfast. They’d had coffee at the counter—it didn’t do much for Took anymore, but he couldn’t quite give up the ritual of addiction—poured by a waitress with big hair and a bigger smile who’d upsold the PumperNickel pie and called them both sweetie.

  That was twenty-four hours ago. Things had changed.

  “Sign in the window,” the chef, a big, bearded man with a stained apron who probably intimidated most people, said as he glared at Took. “You read it? No heartbeat, no service. You can just fuck on back to your coffin, pal.”

  Took picked up his menu and unfolded it. He looked over the top of it at Madoc.

  “It was your idea to come here,” he pointed out.

  Madoc pulled a badge out of the pocket of his uniform. The silver stake and stylized fangs glittered against the gold shield. The chef scowled as he took it in.

  “Your sign’s illegal,” Madoc said as he tucked the badge back out of sight. “So if I were you, I’d take our order and then go take it down before a passing VINE agent runs you in.”

  The chef hesitated. He rubbed the back of his neck, and his eyes cut nervously from Madoc to the cluster of rough, grim-faced locals at the end of the bar. Mud was dried on their jeans, and most of them had silver-shod stakes tucked in their boots and belts.

  “Tell them to fuck off, Nick,” one of the men called over. The only distinguishing feature of his heavy, doughy face was the mean around his mouth and bloodshot eyes. He laughed like he’d said something funny and slapped the man next to him on the shoulder. “We like our meat well done round here.”

  His companion slouched from under the heavy hand and drank his beer. Took checked him out briefly—the jeans were battered Levis with work-worn cuffs, but they were clean and there was no wear on the knees or pockets. Unlike the others, he didn’t wear a stake at his hip or ankle, but he carried himself like he was armed. Took’s money was on a ceramic spike up his sleeve.

  Hunter gear but not illegal.

  Nick took a deep breath and let it out through tight lips. He rubbed the back of his neck again, his palm slick with sweat, and dropped his voice.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he said. “But this is a small town. I’m still going to be
here when you leave. You guys don’t even eat. Just go. Okay?”

  Madoc shrugged and reached over to snag the menu from Took. He glanced briefly at it and tossed it back onto the table.

  “We’ll have coffee,” he said. “Green tea and a slice of pie for my partner. She’s on her way.”

  Partner. It startled Took how much it stung to hear someone else called that. He hadn’t even wanted to work with Madoc’s Biters when he was first assigned to them. Like the name suggested, they were mostly vampires. But Madoc had wanted a “daylight perspective,” and even though cardinal was a defunct honor, he still pretty much got what he wanted. Back then he’d resented being designated Madoc’s pet. Now he resented that Lawrence had the title.

  He swallowed it. His field skills might have gotten rusty over the last year, but he’d only gotten better at not thinking about things.

  “Run your mouth on the way back to the counter,” he told Nick. “We’ve heard worse. They’ll appreciate the show.”

  Nick looked trapped.

  “What….” He tugged absently at his beard. “What sort of pie.”

  Madoc shrugged. “Surprise us,” he said. “And get on with it. I don’t feel this conversation needs an audience.”

  There was something in Madoc’s voice, an edge that itched just above the upper range of Took’s hearing. It wasn’t exactly audible, but it vibrated in his sinuses. He worked his jaw from side to side as he tried to pop the airlock.

  “What—”

  “Fine!” Nick snatched the menu off the table. His fingers left wet smears on the laminated fabric. “I’ll get your goddamn pie. I’ll put my dick in it too. Tell VINE I’ve got some for them too.”

  The locals laughed, slapped each other roughly on the back, and urged him on. “Go on, Nick. Let them have it. Think we’re just going to sit back and let them kill our kids?”

  The quiet man was the only one who didn’t join in.

  “Lawrence,” Took said as he dragged his attention back to Madoc. “I don’t remember her. Anything to do with the Director—”

  “What are you here for, Bennett?” Madoc interrupted flatly. “And why are two deputies dead?”

  “Do you really give a damn?” Took asked. He could have meant either question.

  “Yes,” Madoc said. He could have too.

  Fair enough, Took supposed. He leaned forward and braced his elbows on the sharp edge of the table.

  “I’m still the best preternatural behaviorist on the books,” he said. “So sometimes people ask me to… look into things.”

  Madoc raised one heavy, dark eyebrow and smirked. “I always said you were a dick.”

  “Not exactly,” Took said. “Usually I don’t need to find people, just mistakes—misinterpreted signatures, behavioral patterns that weren’t identified, the occasional Death Valley prisoner interview they want me to interpret. Most of the cases are dusty, no harm no foul.”

  “If you wanted to keep your hand in,” Madoc said, “we’d have paid.”

  “They pay,” Took said.

  “So do we.”

  “VINE doesn’t pay consultant fees to their own employees. I had some… expenses… to cover.”

  Took shifted. He didn’t want to talk about how broken he was, about the way vampirism had stitched his body back together—untidy as it was—but left his brain fractured like a dropped glass. So far, Madoc only seemed to have noticed the surface stuff, and Took didn’t want to dredge the rest of it out. He couldn’t sleep behind a locked door, even in a hotel, and he sleepwalked through most days because he refused to adapt to a nocturnal schedule. He didn’t want Madoc to look at him the way everyone else did, like the best they could ever expect of Took again was fucking functional. “You have your phone?”

  Madoc raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you make your one call in jail?”

  He had. They hadn’t picked up. Took couldn’t blame West for that, but… he did a bit. That—him and West, their first kiss to the never-quite-ended relationship—had always been off-limits for Madoc. It just hadn’t felt… fair. Took didn’t plan to break that rule now.

  “Phone or not?”

  Madoc leaned back and unfastened his jacket so he could reach inside and pull out a thin rectangle of glass and plastic. Tech had never been Took’s passion, so he didn’t recognize it, but he assumed it was expensive. Madoc held it out over the table and then twitched it away as Took reached for it.

  “I’ve changed my passcode,” he warned with a hint of his old sly smile.

  Took rolled his eyes and grabbed the phone. He wasn’t that rusty. This was an old game, and he hadn’t lost a round since Madoc had cheated and used face recognition. The thing Madoc could never quite believe was that the code didn’t matter, it was the person who input it that didn’t change.

  If Took could work out why Killer Vampire A only bit people who’d bought a Klondike bar from the corner of Main and James Street, then he could figure out the sequence of numbers Madoc thought he’d remember. For reasons both professional and personal, Took had spent a lot more time in the study of Cardinal Madoc than he had of Case File 92.

  Every three months Madoc changed his passcode. So he’d changed it, at most, twelve times since Took had last guessed it. Maybe less, he might have slacked off during the investigation into Took’s kidnapping.

  Occupied in the puzzle, Took let that thought skate over the surface of his brain. It almost didn’t sting, and it reminded him of something.

  “Got it,” he said after a minute. The screen cleared from black to the minimalist apps and empty background that Madoc favored. TOOK35. The anniversary of his kidnapping had been three years ago in May, last month. “Try five. Asshole.”

  Madoc rubbed his thumb over his lower lip. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I just wanted you to know it hasn’t been forgotten. I’m still looking for him.”

  Him.

  Although, of course, it could have been her. Or both. More. A random stranger. A vampire with a grudge. Took, with his brain full of blank spaces, certainly couldn’t tell you.

  Took stared at the phone in his hands and the faint, distorted reflection that slid in and out of the glass. Or it could have been the vampire sitting opposite him—his partner, his friend, and one of the few people who knew where Took had been headed that day.

  The suspicion tasted like old blood and ingratitude in the back of Took’s throat, but he couldn’t quite dismiss it either. Madoc was used to getting what he wanted, and he’d wanted Took… back then.

  He connected to the internet and backdoored into his server to pull down a file.

  There was no evidence, but there was no exoneration either. Took just had to live with the possibility.

  “Storm Warning,” he said, his voice rough and uneasy in his throat as he pushed the phone back over the table. At least, that’s what he’d called himself online, as he gave the Breathing Rights movement an appealing face. A young man with fair hair and a strawberry birthmark around his eye stared out of the screen with a tentative smile. Madoc knew the face. “Although his legal name is Dominic Waring. His parents think VINE got it wrong. That you got it wrong.”

  Chapter Four

  IN TOOK’S picture, Dominic Waring was seventeen years old, played football because his father expected it, and dated a girl called Mikaila Blake who didn’t expect to be treated very well. He had 20,000 followers on his streaming channel and clowned to demand. The year before he’d run away from home to hitch to LA, although he’d been picked up a week later just outside of Michigan, and in roughly four months he would run away again.

  This photo was the one his parents used for the missing-person appeal, teary-eyed on TV screens and social media. For a while it had been everywhere, until another photo supplanted it in the public consciousness. In it, Dominic had been thin and fevered, with a shaved head and blood all over his shirt from the family he’d murdered.

  “His parents think he’s innocent?” he asked as he flicked the photo off
-screen. The underlying folder structure spread out over the screen of his phone—a chaos of unnamed files, random stacks of photos, and a dozen identical shortcuts. Took’s filing system had always been enough to make a cat wince, and despite the old wives’ tales about vampiric OCD, it obviously hadn’t changed. “He was caught red-handed. Literally.”

  “They think VINE framed him.”

  Madoc sat back and raised his eyebrows. “You know better than that,” he said. “So why take the case?”

  The arrival of the coffee meant that Madoc had to wait for his answer. He watched Took as Nick slammed the coffee down on the table in front of them and brown liquid splashed over the white Formica. For a second, it had been his old partner slouched across from him, ice-pick mind at work behind that pretty, surfer-boy face. Then it was gone, and the brittle, glassy shell had clicked back into place.

  Maybe Madoc should have just opened his phone himself, but he didn’t think it was that.

  “Choke on it,” Nick said loudly for his audience of yokels. His hands shook as shoved a wedge of pie and sloppily applied whipped cream across the table. “I hope your bit—”

  “Don’t push your luck,” Madoc told him. He plucked a napkin out of the chrome dispenser on the table and fastidiously sopped up the spilled coffee. When he was done, he tucked the sodden paper into the pocket of Nick’s apron. “And take that sign down. If I have to do it, I’ll make you swallow it.”

  Nick blanched behind his beard and backed away from the table. This time the jeers from the wannabe Hunters were at him, the solidarity of breath forgotten in the joy of humiliation. An old ember of contempt flickered in the back of Madoc’s mind. If it hadn’t been so easy to convince humans to turn the pitchforks on each other, the Empires of the Undead might have remained nothing but a boyar’s fiefdom.