by Jon F. Merz
Love though – that’s strictly forbidden. Taboo. The ultimate sin in the vampire community. Needless to say, I’ve never had a problem adhering to that one.
So, my folks were both vampires as well.
It was a strange thing for a kid to grow up with.
Different schools and everything.
Don’t even get me started on my prom. Good God. It was like Carrie meets the bar mitzvah boys. One part blood bath, one part coming of age, ten parts shit awful.
Somewhere down the line, between when you first start teething – that was when we hit puberty and the fangs come on out – and graduation, you visit with the Council. They’re a group of the elders who govern our society. Locally and internationally. Most of us as kids considered them a bunch of old fogies. No one had really ever paid much mind to them before our initial meeting.
They determined what part we’d play in the society. Some of us hold down ordinary jobs, some school the children, some are historians and monastics, and a few…very few, in fact…end up like yours truly.
At my meeting with the Council, I was led down a long hallway, brought in to face them and then put through a weird set of tests that judged my reaction time, probed my responses to various stimuli, and asked a bizarre set of questions. Mostly, they were about the history of the vampiric world and what the old values meant to me. I answered them honestly, saying that while I felt they were important, they sometimes seemed a little trivial.
When they were done with the questions, they brought out a series of objects and asked me to pick the one that I liked the best. On a simple tray with a bright crimson cloth they’d placed a small statue of a bull, a tiny silver dagger, a gold necklace, and a set of scales. I thought the scales looked kind of cool, so I chose them.
It brought a smile to their faces. It also garnered me my profession. The scales were the symbol of my new role.
We’re called Fixers. Mainly because it’s our job to make sure the Balance, the delicate, tenuous coexistence between the vampires and the humans, remains unbroken. Undetected. And if it gets thrown out of whack, we make it right.
Or we try to make it right. Having a royal ass like Cosgrove around tends to make things a little difficult.
Regardless, I’m a Fixer. Guess it sounds a little more humane than vampire hitman.
I’ve been working for thirty-five years now. Ever since I hit my centennial, which might be equivalent to your college graduation. That’s when we go out into the real world and make something of ourselves. As subtly as possible, of course.
Thirty-five years is enough time, in my humble opinion, to suggest that humans have a helluva lot of problems, not including the Cosgrove situation. Between the constant murders, road rage, terrorism, and even the apocalyptic repercussions disco music will eventually cause, it amazes me sometimes.
Suffice it to say, and in case you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a bit of a cynic.
Most folks think I’m a cop.
Except I don’t have a weight problem from eating too many donuts. Yeah, I know it’s a stereotype. But come with me over to the Dunkin Donuts outside of Porter Square, and I’ll show you exactly how stereotypes get started. Christ, it’s got to be the safest place in America, what with all those cop cruisers and ambulances parked outside.
Mimi finished her calisthenics and began snoring. It seemed like a good idea, so I followed suit. After all, if I was going to kill Cosgrove, I’d need all the strength I could get.
Chapter Five
Monday morning dawned gray. The sky looked bloated with puffy clouds filled with the kind of cold spitting rain that makes November notorious. I watched the rain streak my bedroom windows in lazy downward rivulets and sighed. Definitely not the kind of morning I like to get out of bed.
But I had to.
Because before I resumed my hunt for Cosgrove, I had some other business to tend to. Personal business.
Showered and shaved, I went to my closet and took a long glance at the shirts and suits hanging there. Myself, I don’t like the garb of corporate America. Suits are too confining for my taste and fighting in them is a royal pain in the ass. Still, there are times when I need them to blend in and do my work. And because of that, I chose my outfit with conservative care. Twenty minutes later found me dressed in a charcoal gray suit, white shirt and navy tie with small polka dots maneuvering my way down South Huntington Avenue and onto Huntington Avenue proper.
The Eastern Orthodox church sat down near the bottom of Mission Hill, close to Northeastern University and the Wentworth Institute of Technology. Its architecture stood out from the sleek modern and decidedly American lines of the buildings nearby. A domed roof hinted vaguely toward Islamic influences and the heavy wooden doors seemed carved from giant redwoods. The sheer weight of its appearance was reinforced by the manicured green playing field nearby, almost as if city planners hadn’t wanted to build anything else too close for fear of causing a sink hole.
I was surprised the service was being held in this church instead of a mosque. I supposed Simbik’s family was one of the few holdovers from the Eastern Orthodox influence of Turkey.
Inside the darkened church, the scent of myrrh and frankincense cloaked the air like a mist. I breathed in, feeling a little lightheaded and at the same time, the spiritual significance of this holy place washed over me.
Conservative thinkers tend to argue that as vampires we are at opposite ends of the religious spectrum from humans. As such, we can be dispatched with crosses, holy water, and the like.
That’s not really the case.
Sure, some of the really twisted folks in the past may have fallen under those weapons, but by and large vampires tend towards a very spiritual belief system. And it’s not one focused on Satanism, either. We’re very much into leading a community-centered existence that benefits everyone, including the humans we coexist with. But we have our legends. We have our ancient superstitions. I’m not really big on them, but others, like an old friend of mine, make a hobby out of studying them, learning the old ways, and passing them down to the young kids. Me? I flunked ancient vampire history in school.
That said, crosses and churches don’t really bother me at all. And I can gargle or chug as much holy water as I want to without any ill effects. To kill me, you’ve got to stake my heart and the cut my head off. That’s it.
I sat in one of the back pews and watched the service. An Eastern Orthodox priest spoke in deep resonating tones, his voice finding every niche within the confines of the church. The focus of his sermon, a brown mahogany coffin draped in a beautiful tapestry woven rich with burgundy and yellow silken hues, sat nearby.
Inside, Simbik’s deflated body rested eternally more.
As I said before, I don’t have many friends.
And even fewer are humans.
Simbik was an exception.
We understood each other on levels you can’t easily fathom. He may never have known I was a vampire. He may never have cared what I was. But he always seemed to know there was something different about me. Just as I knew he was different himself.
Perhaps that’s what drew us together.
I’d only ever seen Simbik’s parents once before when they flew into Boston to surprise Simbik at work. I think they respected Simbik as much as I did for trying to forge his own path in life without relying on their wealth to sustain him. Their pride was obvious.
They must have flown in yesterday.
Simbik’s father knelt with his head down. Every ounce of bodily control seemed exerted on not showing any emotion. At his left side, Simbik’s mother wept in controlled sobs that would not dishonor her son. Turks are an extremely proud people.
But there was someone else here too. To the left of Simbik’s mother.
A woman.
I never recalled Simbik telling me he’d had a sister. So who was she? It was tough to see much about her beyond the confines of the lightweight black lace veil she wore on her head, draped slightly to co
nceal her eyes.
But even from this distance, I could sense her presence.
Japanese call it hara, the physical point about two inches below your navel. But on a much higher level it refers to the presence of your being – physically, mentally, and spiritually – the total of them combined to make you what you are. People with a strong hara could walk into a room and everyone would feel the presence. Westerners try to brush it off as just having a strong personality, but as usual, they fall far short of its full ramifications.
This woman’s hara was more than strong. It was almost tangible.
It was at that precise moment when she straightened slightly, and turned her head back in my direction.
Have you ever been caught looking at someone and when they pick it up and catch you, you feel as sheepish as a schoolboy looking at his first girl?
Well, that’s precisely how I felt at that moment.
But I didn’t look away. Instead I inclined my head vaguely out of respect. When I brought it back up she was still staring.
It was, no doubt, her eyes that made the impact.
Dark and luminous, they looked like the polished chestnuts I used to collect as kid. She’d been crying, too. I could tell even from my distance. But it was something else within her eyes that piqued my interest. An inner strength seemed to radiate out from her. Almost a predatorial presence.
She was a hunter.
And a good one at that.
But human.
She held my gaze, which isn’t easy to do. It goes back to that whole magnetism thing that helps me secure my sustenance. I can pretty much talk a nun out of her underwear if I want to.
This woman, whoever she was, didn’t flinch at all.
And all the while she held my gaze, I could feel her probing and searching me out. Was I friend or foe? Was I responsible for Simbik’s death? Was I a threat to the sanctity of this funeral?
All of this rolled through my head in the space of a few seconds and then stopped just as fast as she resumed her position by turning around toward the front of the church once again.
It was only then I noticed I’d stopped breathing.
The service concluded, I moved out of the pew toward the front of the church and stood in front of Simbik’s casket. I placed a hand solemnly on the polished mahogany and closed my eyes, wishing him a final farewell.
"You’re Lawson."
The words interrupted my silent homage and quickened my pulse. I opened my eyes and turned to see her standing before me. She didn’t look Turkish at all.
Asian.
I must have frowned because she smiled slightly. "Simbik told me about you. He didn’t mention many people. You must have been good friends."
I paused, still looking at her. "We…understood each other, I think."
She nodded. "Simbik didn’t have many friends to speak of."
"Good ones are harder to find than most people realize."
"Indeed." She was searching with her eyes again.
I looked down at the casket and shook my head. "I’ll miss him."
"As will I."
I looked up. "Forgive me, Miss, but what gives you that right?"
She began walking away from the casket toward the exit. "Let’s leave this to the attendants now, shall we?"
I followed and only after we’d exited the church, standing under the overhang still sheltered from the rain, did she turn around, take a deep breath, and offer me her hand.
"Talya."
"Sister or cousin?" I shook her hand surprised at the flexible strength it seemed to contain.
She smiled and it was radiant despite her obvious grief. "Neither. His fiancee."
Fiancee? I’d never known Simbik to even have a girlfriend. Aside from an occasional warm body in his bed, he lead a solitary existence. "I’m sorry, I had no idea."
She shrugged. "It wasn’t really something he would have publicized." She sighed. "Honestly, it wasn’t exactly a mad love affair."
I decided not to ask. "But you’re not Turkish."
"No."
"Asian," I said. "But not from the far east." I looked at her cheekbones. "Mongolian, possibly from the Kirgiz Steppes-"
"Not bad."
"I’m close," I said. "But not entirely."
"Not entirely. My mother was from Oskemen. In Kazakstan. My father was Chinese."
"Kazakstan, at the end of the old Silk Road. You grew up among some incredible mountain vistas, eh?""
She seemed surprised. "The Altai Mountains, yes. Not many people are familiar with that part of the world."
"It’s remote," I said. "Some would say desolate. Lonely." I shrugged. "I prefer raw."
"Yes. Raw describes the land well. You’ve been?"
"My life has provided me with plenty of opportunities to travel. I was there once. A long time ago."
"We might have met."
"Possibly. But I’m afraid my business kept me from enjoying the region’s hospitality for long."
"There’s always tomorrow, then. Another day."
I smiled. "Your English is superb. No discernible trace of an accent – any accent, for that matter."
"I was…well-schooled."
I nodded. "And you sure got here quickly. Kazakstan is quite a ways away. Probably take you at least twenty-four hours of travel time to get here."
She turned facing toward Huntington Avenue. "I was nearby. New York, actually. I caught the Shuttle up this morning."
Something in the tone of her voice made me wonder exactly what she’d been doing in New York. Hunting? It was possible, given the way she carried herself. It wasn’t too obvious, but more subtle than anything else. And it was that subtlety that made me think she might be a professional. I just couldn’t prove it.
Yet.
The rain increased as the pallbearers filed past us, ushering Simbik’s coffin into the black hearse at the foot of the steps. In a few minutes it would be laid to rest in a nearby cemetery.
"Are you going to the burial site?"
I shook my head. "Cemeteries depress me. I’ve said too many good-byes before. Simbik’s memory is strong with me. I’ll grieve in my own way."
It was then she narrowed her eyes and focused another laser intense gaze on me. It took her a few seconds of standing there, one foot on a higher step than the other. Rain pelted her gray coat, sliding south before slipping off to the cement below. Then she took a small breath and expelled it all at once.
"You know who killed him."
Her intuition must have been incredible judging by the way she seemed to trust it. I was shocked to say the least. And that takes a lot.
For some reason, unknown even to me, I answered.
"Yes."
She came closer. And suddenly seemed a lot more dangerous. Gone was the fact that she was Simbik’s grieving betrothed. Gone was the proper and attractive woman I’d noticed in the front pew of the church.
In its place stood someone who operated on a much more primal level. She, Talya, had switched modes and become the predator I knew she truly was.
A wiser man would have been scared.
But wisdom’s never been one of my strengths.
I was intrigued.
"Who did this ?" It was more of a hiss than a question. She reminded me of a panther.
Trust me when I tell you that for her to have this kind of effect on a vampire – on a Fixer of all things – she must have been something unlike I’d ever known before.
I broke her stare and took a breath, tasted the rain and frowned. November rain never tasted like the freshness of a summer shower. November rain was a place-holder before the snows settled in. November rain held all the death that winter ushered in with it.
"Cosgrove," I said after a moment of this introspection, "His name is Cosgrove."
She looked at me. Hell, she hadn’t stopped looking at me. Her gaze seemed unshakable.
"Why Simbik?"
I looked at her. "There’s no particular reason. He chose Simb
ik the way you or I choose the air we breathe. Maybe with even less thought than that."
"Killed for no reason?" She shook her head. "Makes no sense."
"Sense doesn’t figure into Cosgrove’s way of thinking. He kills for his own selfish reasons alone."
"Dead men kill no longer." She turned and hurried down the steps to the black limousine behind the hearse.
"Wait!" I called after her. She stopped, turned, and frowned. Waiting.
"It’s not that easy."
"Why?"
I bit down on my inner lip. "He’s not exactly an easy mark."
She smiled, but it looked like an empty, vacant smile with no joy in it. "I’ve heard that before."
"Not like this you haven’t. Cosgrove is dangerous. Trust me."
"Why?"
I knew a girl named Mary once who asked "why?" until she sounded like a broken record. But she was just plain dumb. Talya asked "why?" with the kind of steadfast confidence usually reserved for people who don’t let too many things get in their way.
"Because of Simbik. Because I know Cosgrove." I looked again at the sky. It seemed a lot darker all of a sudden. I looked back at her, weighing the options and deciding in a second. "Because I’m hunting him, too."
She nodded. "So, we’ll hunt him down together."
I shook my head. "Not a chance."
She smiled. "You think maybe I couldn’t hold up my end?"
Not against a vampire she couldn’t. "It’s not that simple."
She frowned again. "Nothing is as difficult as it seems. Why should this be any different?"
"You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
She hesitated. Then another smile. This one curious. "Try me."
So I did.
Chapter Six
If surprise was an almost forgotten aspect in my life, I was making up for lost time today. Contrary to what I expected, Talya wasn’t the least bit shocked when I told her about Cosgrove’s true vocation. In retrospect, I guess I hadn’t really expected her to be shocked. She seemed too switched on to allow that to happen.
Still, I would have thought telling a human about the existence of vampires wouldn’t normally be received with such nonchalance. Talya was rapidly retooling my definition of "normal."