by Eve Paludan
“Mom is busy with her paying case investigation, and I don’t want to interfere with her career. The next few hours before dawn are critical, and if you tell her about this, she’ll order us not to go and stop working on our case to work on the situation at the high school. I don’t want to mess up her work.”
“Well, neither do I.”
“But we have to go. Soon! And do this ourselves.”
“Why the urgency?”
“Because there’s cheerleading practice in the school gym every Saturday morning. And I bet you, dollars to donuts, that the vampires are lying in wait for those helpless girls to show up.”
“You’re right. We can’t just walk away and let them do it to the cheerleaders.”
“Yes, now you get it. There are girls, Anthony, girls in short skirts. Jumping up and down, all innocent and bouncy and about to get themselves killed or turned.”
“Fine, fine, I’m in. You don’t need to paint me a picture of what cheerleaders look like in the wild. But I don’t want to stab anyone. I’m not wired that way. I am a feet-and-fists defender, not an aggressor with a blade.”
“Don’t worry. I am putting together a fairly solid plan that will be bloodless extinction.”
“Oh, really? Just how do you propose to kill vampires in a nonviolent way?”
Tammy sang just five words from an R. Kelly song and gave Anthony a meaningful look.
“That’s your plan? To make them believe they can fly? In theory, yes. But in real life, not a chance. You’re insane. Anyway, if they dive off a building, they will not die.”
“If you don’t come with me, I’ll go alone.”
“Please say you’re joking.”
“I’m not. I’ll face them alone if I have to.” She gave him a pleading look. “Are you with me?”
“Yeah, but only because Mom would never forgive me if I let you go on this suicide mission alone and you got killed. It’s better if I don’t have to face her at your funeral. And I won’t have to because we’ll both be dead.”
“Thanks, bro. I was holding out to bribe you if necessary, but I’ll just go ahead and offer a bonus just because.”
“What’s the bonus?”
“If you help me kill the bad vampires at my school before dawn, you can share my onion rings for the rest of the school year.”
“For the rest of the calendar year, you mean,” he countered.
“Done.” She offered her pinky, and he latched onto it in a brief pinky swear.
“Yeah, bro, you’re the best!”
“But obviously not the smartest guy you know. I’ll come and help you, but on one other condition.”
“What?”
“You need to ditch the Ugg boots and get your Asics on because we’re both going to be doing a lot of running.”
Chapter 13
Before things got too sexy, Sam had emailed Kingsley all of her notes from the Tarkington case. And then, things had gotten very, very sexy…
Even though he was a bit tired from making love with Sam, several times—he’d left her sleeping soundlessly in his massive bed like the undead vampire she was—Kingsley had just bought a one-day membership from the self-serve kiosk in the lobby that spit out key cards to the locker room, the gym and the pool.
It was about 4 a.m. and Kingsley was already inside Day-or-Night 24-Hour Gym doing deadlifts in black compression shorts and a faded gray Adidas T-shirt when Kevin walked into the weight room from the locker room. It was just the two of them in here at this time of night.
Kingsley gave Kevin a little side-eye glance in the mirror as he deadlifted a hundred pounds over and over, not Romanian-style either—he did the full deadlifts each time from the floor and up to the shoulders. Nope, the guy didn’t reflect in the mirror.
And then, Kingsley purposely made some amateurish lifting mistakes. The ploy worked like a charm.
“Hey, there,” Kevin said, “you shouldn’t be doing that kind of lift without a spotter. Even a guy as big as you shouldn’t be pulling a hundred without someone else in the room watching out for you.”
“I know. My personal trainer didn’t show tonight, but I was determined to work out anyway.” Kingsley did another sloppy lift while Kevin watched.
“I know that feeling, of people not showing up when they say they will. Um, you shouldn’t roll your shoulders back and extend your hips forward when you get the bar halfway up because it puts unnecessary pressure on the spine. You could herniate a disc in the lumbar region.”
“My bad. Thanks for the great tips. Care to spot me?” Kingsley asked, thrilled that the vampire had approached him. In fact, he seemed very interested in him.
“Sure, and you could spot me, too?”
“Quid pro quo. Seems fair.”
“You spout Latin like you know it well. You a lawyer?”
“Yeah, I am. And Latin is a useful language. You can say exactly what you mean.” Kingsley offered his hand. “Kingsley Fulcrum.”
They shook hands and Kevin Holden’s hand was icy, as was to be expected. Kingsley didn’t flinch from the cold. Sam’s body temperature was icy cold, too. He was used to vampires by now.
“Kingsley Fulcrum? That’s familiar. I may have heard your name a time or two. I’m Kevin, by the way. Years ago, when I started with the PD as a uniform, I remember that you got shot five times outside a courthouse and survived. I remember seeing a security cam clip and lots of news reports about it. You seem none the worse for wear, all these years later.”
“You have a good memory for faces. And yeah, I’m tough to kill. And I take care of myself, except for my addiction to red meat and consuming many flavors of ice cream a week. If I ever had a cardiologist, he would be rolling over in his grave.”
The vamp laughed. “We all have our addictions.”
Kingsley knew he meant his addiction to drinking blood. After a beat, Kingsley said, “You’re with FPD.”
Kevin nodded. “I’m a detective.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” Kingsley said.
“Yeah, I love my job. Couldn’t be happier, in fact.” Kevin gave a soft smile that Kingsley instinctively knew was about Amber Tarkington.
“I love my job, too.”
“Defense attorney, right?” Kevin asked.
“Money talks,” Kingsley said. “And sometimes, I actually do save the innocent from prison.”
“At least you’re honest about it.”
Kingsley said, “I’m usually honest to a fault.”
“Spoken like a lawyer,” Kevin said.
They spent the next forty minutes becoming lift buddies, spotting each other, and talking about the economy and the constant intersection of lawyers and cops and how each affected the execution of justice. And Kevin even dropped a couple of “girlfriend” comments.
“Yeah, my girlfriend would do anything for me,” Kevin had bragged.
Kingsley kept mum about Sam because it was always in the back of his mind to protect her investigation, and of course, her.
“It’s nice to have someone like that,” Kingsley replied vaguely. Carefully keeping his face casual, he said, “There seems to be a shortage of single women in the world who would do anything for their boyfriends.”
Kevin said, “There’s a shortage all right—she’s not single.”
“Oh?” was all Kingsley said, waiting for Kevin to fill in the missing pieces.
“Unfortunately, she’s married. But circumstances threw us together and we spend so much time together, it was inevitable that she’d fall for me.”
Kingsley said, “As a lawyer, I gotta tell you, if you work with her, and you’re both cops, both your jobs are at risk if you get caught. The PD would not take this lightly.”
“We’re careful.” Kevin paused. “I mean, we try to be.”
“Just keep it off the property, be really discreet?” Kingsley raised his voice in a question at the end.
“It’s hard to do that when she’s so hot for me—” Kevin suddenly stoppe
d talking, as if he realized he’d said too much.
Kingsley said, “This has impending disaster written all over it if you’re going at it in your cruiser. Do detectives have body cameras like patrol officers do?”
Kevin didn’t answer that question. Instead, he shifted his feet uncomfortably as Kingsley kept talking.
“You have to protect your job, and hers, too. If you want to talk further, give me a buzz at the office later and we’ll set up a consultation. I can give you some legal tips to avoid what could be a career disaster if you two get caught.” He paused. “The first tip is preventative: Transfer to a different department before the gossip starts.”
“Thanks for the advice, but I gotta go,” Kevin said, his mouth now set in a grim line.
“My office number is on my website or just use the contact page to email me.”
“Got it. Goodbye, Kingsley,” he said stiffly.
Kingsley just nodded his goodbye as Kevin practically ran away from him.
When they parted in the locker room to shower in separate, private showers that opened with their keycards, Kingsley cleaned up and was combing his wet hair at the long mirror in front of the long row of sinks when he noticed that Kevin was already gone from the locker room and the gym as well. There wasn’t a sound from anyone else. He guessed Kevin the vampire creep was having second thoughts about telling him about his affair with the married cop and now, wanted to duck out on any further conversation about the matter.
***
As Kingsley was heading to his vehicle in the parking lot and was shifting his duffle bag to his other hand, he felt for his car keys in his pockets, thus, both hands occupied, Kevin burst out of the shadows like a wraith-ish blur.
All Kingsley saw was the flash of a knife under the pale streetlight. And all Kingsley felt was the sudden, spreading bloom of pain in his chest that knocked him flat on the asphalt parking lot. His car keys went skittering and his duffle bag rolled away.
He lay there for a moment or three, catching his breath, and with a roar of pain and rage, pulled the knife from his chest and flung it away.
Again, in a blur, the vampire, Kevin, leaped on top of him and tore away Kingsley’s shirt to get at the fountain of blood spurting from his chest.
It took all Kingsley had to sit up, put his hands around the vampire’s throat and flip him over, so that Kingsley was now on top of him.
“That fucking hurt!” Kingsley shouted. Even as his wound spilled blood on the now-petrified vampire, Kevin still tried to lap at the lessening stream as the wound began to close.
“What are you? What. Are. You?”
“What I am is stronger than you, asshole. Is that the way you treat people? You make friends with them in a gym and then, try to kill them in a parking lot, so you can drink their blood?”
“How are you not dying right now?” Kevin asked.
“That’s a question you should be asking yourself. How are you not dying by my hand right now?” Kingsley said and held him flat to the parking lot. “I could kill you right now, you know.”
“I can’t be killed. I’m immortal.”
“If that’s true, then why are you so weak?”
“My regular feeder is dangerously anemic, and I am forced to go into the street and find my food. The pickings have been slim since I can’t drink from drug users in case there’s a random drug test at my job.”
Kingsley banged the vamp’s head on the pavement a couple of times until he groaned and was bleeding himself from the back of his head.
“Ow!” Kevin said.
“So, you thought it would be a great idea to bleed a guy dry who outweighs you by at least a hundred pounds?”
“Well, you look so damn healthy and clean, so I did the math in my head and a blood meal from you would be like a two-fer for any other human feeding. Instead of nine pints, I’m calculating you have at least eighteen.”
“I probably do, but I’m not human.”
“Not human? What are you?”
“I’m Superman, otherwise, how could I live through this?” Kingsley said.
“You’re lying. You’re not Superman. You said you’re usually honest.”
“I ask the questions here, vampire scum.”
The vampire started shaking. “I need blood, and yours smells so good.”
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the Fullerton PD out here and file charges against you for attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Because, by the time they got here, your wound would be closed up… werewolf.”
Kingsley frowned. “Okay, you have me there. The werewolf was a lucky guess, but I have you, too. What’s to prevent me from sitting on you until sunrise and letting you burn up in this parking lot?”
“No, please, don’t! Not that!”
“Why shouldn’t I? You were going to kill me and suck me dry.”
“Don’t kill me, Kingsley. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
“What do you want, werewolf? Money? Sex?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Kevin. You aren’t even pretty, and you sure aren’t the woman I love.”
“Then what do you want, Kingsley? My silence on your alt-life as a werewolf?”
“Oh, I want more than that. Southern California is my turf. Mine, you hear? I want you to get out of it and never come back. And when you leave, you leave alone. Leave your anemic feeder behind, whoever she is, and never darken her life again. I want you to take the compulsion off her before you split. And you’d better make her forget you were a vampire and she was your feeder. She’s a human being, not your endless fountain of blood.”
“How do you know about the compulsion?”
“Why else would anyone ever let you suck their blood?”
“No, I won’t give her up. I love her.”
“You have a horrible way of showing it. I guess I’ll just sit here on you, with my fat ass on your chest, and wait until the sun sizzles you into blackened, shriveled, used-to-be-human bacon.”
Kevin struggled under him. “No, please! And you’re so heavy. How much do you weigh anyway?”
“None of your biz. And don’t even try to get away, you weakling, because I have you, dead to rights. I can easily turn and bite your head off and swallow it.”
Kevin grimaced, but said, “If I was full of blood, you’d be sucked dry by now, Kingsley.”
“But you aren’t full of blood. I don’t even know how you made it through all that weightlifting. Are you on steroids?”
“No, what you saw earlier was under my own vampire power.”
“For a vampire, you’re sick and weak. And you’re damn lucky I’m making you this offer. What’s it gonna be? Dead or undead?”
“Let me up. I have a job offer from the FBI. I’ll call them today. I’ll take off the compulsion on my feeder, and I’ll leave today. I swear.”
“Prove it,” Kingsley said and squeezed Kevin’s throat until he wind-milled his arms and then, he let go.
“You’re insane to threaten a cop, you know that?”
“A vampire cop. Puts a whole new spin on my threat, doesn’t it?”
“Is that blackmail?”
“No. It’s just the truth condensed down to two words: vampire cop.”
“I may be scum in your eyes, and I may be undead, but I value my existence and I’d like to continue it. So… I’ll find another feeder woman.”
“You could drink animal blood, you know. From a slaughterhouse.”
“I know that.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Maybe I’m not there yet. It’s been so easy to have a feeder, a convenient one, a willing one, a beautiful one. One I care for.”
“Are you really going to leave town right away?” Kingsley asked.
“Yes, I want to continue this existence. And I suppose if I don’t leave, you’ll get footage of my stabbing you in this parking lot and get the FPD after me. After all, they know where I live.”
/> “That’s thinking like a cop, now, isn’t it?” Kingsley didn’t bother to remind the vampire that he didn’t show up on camera.
“I do good things in the world. Or I did until this vampire existence was forced on me.”
“Choose well, then, your path. I’ll be watching you until you’re out of Orange County. And if you delay, and if you lie, and if you leave that woman in tatters, I will hunt you down with my werewolf brethren—we’ll be armed with silver blades instead of steel—and that will be the end of you. Death. Mortem.”
“More Latin thrown at me?”
“Thank your lucky stars for Latin. It could be my fist smashing your big, white circa dentes meos right now.”
“I need my teeth to feed. I’ll leave, wolfman. Let me up. I have a long commute to my daytime hideout, and I have to leave right now to make it in time. I’m going to need all day to make phone calls, and I have to see my feeder before I go. In the Fullerton Hospital. I didn’t put her there, just so you know.”
“I’ll be sending someone to watch you there, someone who could take you down.”
“Fine with me. I would never hurt her.”
“You already have, you selfish bastard.” Kingsley let Kevin up.
His face was even whiter with shock. “Why are you letting me go after what I did to you?”
“None of your business.”
“It’s her, isn’t it? The feeder. This is all about her. Her husband must have figured out she was cheating on him and hired you to follow me. Or something like that. Or you’re just the brute squad for some P.I. Yeah, that’s it. The ugly, hairy henchman.”
“Don’t press my buttons unless you want to press your luck.”
“I’m a cop, a vampire cop, and I wasn’t born yesterday. How do you even know who she is that you can send someone there to ‘watch’ me with her at the hospital?”
A bit worried that the cop vampire had so quickly figured out that part of the puzzle, Kingsley realized his mistake, turned on his heel and walked to his black SUV. He hoped it wasn’t just a matter of time before Kevin’s analytical cop mind made any sort of connection to private investigator, Samantha Moon. Private vampire investigator Samantha Moon.
What were the odds anyway, that two vampire detectives would ever collide in Orange County, California and end up duking it out?