by Lily Luchesi
Danny put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Love, you’re not driving.”
“Fine. Then I’m picking the music.” She went to get her jacket and on the way out the door Harriet stopped her.
“You know, the last time I saw a couple as cute as the two of you, it was on the Addams Family.”
Angelica patted her arm. “Thanks. I know to you that was backhanded, but that actually made me feel pretty good.”
As they drove, Angelica was reminded why she hated the suburbs. Identical cookie-cutter houses, boring cars, even the pets looked apathetic. She had never had the instinct other women did to settle down, give up the city, have kids, and trade in her black leather pants for woolen skirt-and-sweater sets. Or give up her Disturbed to listen to Michael Bublé, for that matter.
Suburbia reminded her of socially acceptable misery masquerading as normalcy. Every time she had to go out of the city for a case she was reminded that normal is fluid for every person. Maybe these people were happy with their barbecues and small town gossip. Good for them. Angelica’s normal was chasing down rogue bloodsuckers in the moonlight and tasting Danny’s sweet blood after she let him tie her to their bed. To each their own.
They got to the empath’s house and it looked fine from the outside. Angelica remembered a conversation she had with her friend Sean when he had told her a bit about his tortured past. “People are like houses. They can appear pretty on the outside, but on the inside they each hold their own personal Hell.”
She had been talking about emotions and mental health. Inside of Maya’s house was something that a human would think came from literal Hell.
The room looked pretty normal, what you’d expect from an elderly lady: the furniture was covered in plastic, the curtains were heavy and a bit dusty, the art was Michelangelo’s religious replicas, the carpeting was thick, and there was a cabinet full of porcelain knickknacks and china no one was allowed to use unless it was a holiday.
It would have been normal, except for the bloodless, glassy-eyed corpse sitting on the armchair, blood drying on the plastic and in the carpeting below the chair.
The stench of blood mixed with the potpourri and dust, making even Angelica feel sick.
Covering his mouth with his hand, Danny said, “Except for the cadaver, this could be my aunt Marguerite’s house.”
Poor Maya. The lady had lived a hard life, she didn’t deserve to die in fear, a vampire mutilating her before they drained her dry.
“There’s something on the corpse,” Harriet said.
Angelica put on yet another pair of gloves and picked up the stationery that probably came from the dead lady’s bedroom. Written in that same calligraphy was, “One by one, Miss Cross. Who shall be next?”
Disregarding the threat, Angelica thought about what could help them catch him. “He’s old. This and the other card were written using an old quill. I collect them, and I always loved using them when I was young, despite pens getting metal nubs when I was born. He’s either extremely clever or extremely mad. Or worse…he’s both.”
“You think there will be more bodies?” Danny asked.
She looked up at him, a small tendril of fear gripping her heart. “If we don’t catch him, I think there will be many more bodies.”
***
“Please. P-please…I’ll do anything…give you anything…” The tiger shifter was bound in silver, unable to use her powers. This pleased him to no end, to see a fierce predator brought so low as to beg before him.
“Ah, but you see, you have only one thing I want, and I shall be taking it whether or not you offer.” He smiled, knowing all she could see in the darkness of her office was his eyes glowing above her. “Your life.”
The shifter was the manager of the Lincoln Park Zoo and she had been quite easy to find. Angelica had secured her this position a few years back.
“When Angelica Cross gets to you, you’ll be the one begging!” the shifter said, a growl evident in her voice.
He chuckled, playfully jingling her chains. “Oh, I highly doubt that. You are under the misconception that I am trying to evade Miss Cross. On the contrary, I am just waiting for her to find me. One person at a time.”
He waved a hand and the girl floated up to be directly before him. She was whimpering, looking nothing like the brave animal she held inside of her DNA. He made her neck tilt and he leaned in close, teasing her flesh with his lips and teeth. He was glad this was a tiger, not a wolf.
“You’ll be calling card number six. Pity. I thought Angelica was a better hunter than this.”
With that, he sank his fangs into her throat and drank until her heart ceased to beat.
***
“For fuck’s sake, this is a press nightmare!” Harriet cried when Angelica and Danny came to the crime scene the next evening.
It had been all over the news already, a woman was found murdered with a broken neck and slit throat in the tiger cage of the Lincoln Park Zoo. At least the PID had managed to get there before the mortal police found the note left at this crime scene.
“Tut, tut, little Empress. I had thought you better than this.”
Angelica tugged her hair in frustration. “This bastard. When I get my hands on whomever this is, they’ll be crying for mommy. Count on it.”
Danny felt awful for her. When he was a detective, he had never been taunted like this. Shows like Law and Order and NCIS made it seem like these types of killers were common, but they were actually rare. He was glad he had never had to deal with one, but at the same time he was afraid that soon enough this vamp wouldn’t be satiated with taunts and come for her. Not that they couldn’t take him or her, it was just nerve wracking. This was his wife, and he wanted to keep her safe.
“We’ll get him,” Danny said, taking her clenched fist in his hand, gently massaging it. Two centuries on Earth, and Angelica had never learned how to relax. “And I might have an idea later this evening.”
Once they were at home, Danny went to his computer and used a few tricks that his mother had taught him. His mother was a hotshot real estate agent in Chicago and the suburbs before she died, and she knew the city better than most cops did.
“How do vampires usually like to live?” Danny asked Angelica, who was lounging on the sofa, a book in her lap.
“Some live on the run. In caves and sewers and such. However, this vampire speaks and writes too well to be one of those rogues. Vampires like privacy above all else. Basements as well, to keep their coffins. Very few live how I always have,” she replied. “But the old ones like luxury. Maya’s neighborhood, for example.” She gestured to their house. “Our home.”
“Do you think this vamp would have been here long?” Danny asked.
“No way. This was someone who came here recently after finding out I am the Empress.”
Danny nodded, still doing some searches on sites that he, legally, had no business being on. His mother would roll in her grave if she was watching.
“Angie…I think I found him.”
She leapt from her seat and stood behind him. Her dark hair brushed his back and shoulders, and he felt that she was cold. She needed a bit more blood than what he had given her that day.
“Here. This is a house not far from Maya. Vacant for years, abandoned by the developer. Costs nearly a million dollars, and has a basement. The purchaser is ‘August Summers’. Like that’s not a fake name.”
Angelica squealed and wrapped her arms around Danny’s neck from behind, her book accidentally knocking his reading glasses askew. “Have I told you how much I absolutely love you?”
He smiled. “Not for an hour or so.”
She kissed the top of his head. “Soon, you son of a bitch, you’ll see you messed with the wrong vampire.”
Chapter Five
“Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me right?” Angelica cried when they pulled up to the house. The place looked straight out of a bad teen vampire movie: the traditional creepy, Victorian-looking home that the monst
er always lived in. “Maybe I was wrong about their age. This has to be a complete, out-of-touch idiot who wants to pretend he’s starring in Van Helsing or something. Vampires don’t even act this obvious on the CW for crying out loud!”
While she thought the house was beautiful, she’d never live somewhere so pretentious and obvious for a vampire. It was why she picked the cold steel and glass high-rise as her home the moment it was built. She had grown up in a creepy manor, and had too many bad memories to ever really like them again.
“Looks like the vamp is out hunting,” Danny commented.
The place had a deserted feel to it, that was certain. Angelica wished Danny could sense vampires, so they could be certain, but she figured that the two of them could tackle one vamp on their own…provided there was only one vamp calling this place home and not a nest.
They left the car a few houses down and crept closer to the house. While vamps didn’t need light to see, they usually lit candles or low lighting to fool human neighbors. This house was completely dark. Chances were that the vamp was on the hunt again.
Angelica took out a skeleton key from her pocket and easily unlocked the front door.
“Um…we don’t have any warrants,” Danny said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m the Empress: I don’t need permission. Stop thinking like you’re still a mortal detective.”
Angelica could easily see in the darkness, but Danny used his cell phone’s flashlight feature to help him see. The place looked beautiful, tapestries and portraits lining the walls. Every vampire was different, so Angelica had no idea where they might keep their coffin. Her plan was to destroy the coffin and ambush the vamp once they got home.
She and Danny looked in sitting rooms, an empty kitchen, and finally came across a doorway that might lead somewhere: it looked like a library. If the vampire was at all sentimental, they’d have personal effects somewhere in there.
As soon as she walked into the room, there was a loud door slamming and metal clanging.
“Why the Hell did you do that?” she asked Danny. One good look at his stunned expression, however, proved to her that he hadn’t done that at all. She raced past him and tried the door. They were locked in.
“Mother of fuck!” she cried as her hand began to burn. It was a mix of iron and silver, deadly to a vampire if they touched it too long.
“Angie, as much as I love you, this is not my idea of a romantic getaway,” Danny complained, as he tried to break down the door.
“I feel like an imbecilic newbie,” Angelica complained. “I’m supposed to be this big savior to the vampire race, and I manage to make a rookie move like this!”
Danny leaned his back against the door, hands running through his dark, reddish brown curls. He was so hot when he did that, Angelica wished they were in an entirely different situation. “You would have guessed this guy would have a vampire-proofed room?”
She sighed. “Being in the PID, we have a similar motto to the Boy Scouts: be prepared for anything. That includes this.”
Danny began studying the door, as if he could find a secret way to open it somehow. “Maybe I can shoot it off. The latch is there.”
Angie sighed again. “You carry a nine millimeter. All you’ll do is ding the door and then the bullet will ricochet around the room, possibly killing you or injuring me in the process. To do what you want to do, you need a higher caliber.”
She walked around the room, finding that everything from the fireplace to the books on the shelves were fake. This room was simply a trap against intruders like the two of them. Their captor was obviously not just wealthy, but paranoid and brilliant as well.
“We have to wait here and be ready to attack when he or she opens that door. As far as I can tell, there are no other entrances or exits to this room,” she said.
“Or we can be ready to negotiate. Always with the violence,” Danny teased.
Angelica was about to respond when the door slowly creaked open and a mortal woman walked in, brandishing a gun and a vial of holy water in each hand. She looked dazed and her voice sounded like she was in a dream as she said, “My master wishes to see you.”
“Me?” Angelica stared at the girl, who couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. She stepped a bit closer, wanting to get a look at the girl’s glazed eyes.
“Yes. Come with me.”
That mechanical tone, the vacant expression, and the heavy-lidded eyes all pointed to one thing: vampiric thrall. Angelica had never put people under thrall except for one time when she was searching for Vincent, and she glamoured an entire nightclub. She hated the idea of glamour, and avoided it whenever possible. What she hated even more was a vampire who so blatantly broke the law and glamoured a human into being their familiar.
“Your master has no idea what he’s gotten himself into,” Angelica said. “I will go on one condition: let Danny go.”
“I cannot do that,” the girl said in that eerie voice. “I can promise he will not be harmed.”
Angelica looked back at Danny, concerned about leaving him alone. Vampires had a code of honor, and if this girl’s “master” claimed he would not hurt Danny, he probably wouldn’t. However, not all vamps lived by that code, like Miranda Valdez. Even Vincent had lived by their code of honor.
“Go. I can take care of myself, remember?” Danny gave her what was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but only made Angelica worry more. “Give him Hell and then bust me out.”
The girl gestured for Angelica to walk ahead of her down the right hand corridor. Angelica thought how different this was from any other time she had faced an enemy. For one, the girl was only armed with holy water: Angelica could have killed her ten times over already. For another, the girl had not told her to disregard her weapons. Anyone in this manor was at her mercy now, and Angelica had never been a very merciful person.
Angelica was made to go down two staircases, into a dark lower level that was deep underground. Were this Los Angeles and not Chicago, an earthquake would have buried the place by then. She was tempted to call it a dungeon, but perhaps it was a crypt? Flaming sconces lit the walls, and there were a few eerie paintings she happened to covet. For many, this would have scared the living daylights out of them: for her, it felt like home.
They came to a large, carved wooden door and the girl lightly pushed past Angelica to knock on it.
“Miss Angelica Cross is here, sir,” she called blandly.
“Send her in and go away,” was the response, coming from a deep, accented voice. Those few words did something to Angelica that had never happened before: her heart raced and her palms began to sweat. Usually that only happened around Danny, because she loved him. How had one small sentence seemed to have begun to unravel her like that?
The girl scurried away and the door slowly creaked open, silently inviting Angelica inside to discover what secrets it held. Taking a breath, she pushed it open further and walked inside the dim room. It was dimly lit with many candelabras, draped in velvet and silk. The carpet was plush, the color of freshly spilled blood. The walls were burnished gold, hanging with paintings that must have cost as much as it had to run the PID for a century. Picassos and Monets, all of them. While she liked Monet, Angelica preferred Gorey and Dali.
There was a large, carved black coffin sitting on a raised dais in the left hand corner of the room, with black velvet draped beneath it. A circle of graveyard dirt surrounded it. On the right-hand side of the room was a small table with four ornate chairs. Three chairs were empty. The fourth was occupied by the man who had trapped her and Danny, though calling him a man might be a bit of a stretch.
Easily over six feet tall, he was draped in a black silk suit and a black velvet shawl, with skin so white she thought he might be made of marble; long, slicked back black hair with silver streaks, and the darkest, most piercing eyes Angelica had ever seen. He was beautiful, stunning, and ancient. He could be anywhere from thirty-five to three thousand. Angelica had never seen a vampire
so old. His very essence called out to her, enthralling her—the Empress!
Something else caught her eye, making her look away from the vampire: a large portrait hung on the wall of a beautiful vampiress, painted in the era of the ancient Romans. The woman was her. Or was it? The severe structure of the cheekbones and up-tilt of the eyes said otherwise.
So shocked was she by the sight, she barely noticed that the man had stood, staring holes into her. “Angelica Cross.” Just her name rolled off his tongue like music, sending shivers down her spine. She didn’t even think of correcting him, that she was Mancini now. “Daughter of Veronica Delarue?”
“Are you asking or telling me?” she asked, trying to keep her head.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Asking.”
“Yes, I am.” She stood with her back straight and her head held high.
“Veronica Delarue, daughter of Livia, granddaughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor, great-granddaughter of Empress Livia?”
It was Angelica’s turn to arch her eyebrow. “I am sorry, I have no idea who you are talking about. I know little of my mother’s background. Who are you, to be speaking of her as though you know her?”
His impassive expression never changed. “You do not know who I am? You, the descendant of Livia, not know me?”
“Are you hard of hearing? That’s right, I have no clue who you are,” Angelica snapped.
He tutted, and she felt her blood boil. Who was he to treat her as though she was a rebellious teenager? “It is a disgrace for the Empress to not recognize her Emperor.”
That gave her pause. “Excuse me? Look, you’re going to have to start at the beginning or I’m going to have to decapitate you.”
He chuckled, but there was no mirth in it. More like morbid amusement. “Oh, Angelica, how cute it is that you think you could stand a chance against me. I have lived since sixty-three BC, and have been a vampire since before fourteen AD. You are the equivalent of a mosquito trying to take down a lion.” He flicked his hand and the other chair at the table moved. “Sit, my dear.”