by Hannah Jayne
“What else did Dixon say about the murders?” Alex asked, dipping the stubby end of an egg roll into a dish of hot mustard.
I fidgeted, then stuffed my mouth with a mammoth bite of chow mein. “Um, not much,” I said finally, trying my best to get my food down my rapidly closing throat.
“‘Not much’ like he doesn’t know about it, or ‘not much’ like he had nothing to say about it?”
“Dixon has something to say about everything,” Nina groaned.
Vlad’s eyes flashed at his aunt. “Dixon Andrade is a very well-respected man.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t,” Nina answered. “Well-respected men can be total windbags, too.” She shot Vlad a sweet-as-pie grin—or at least it would have been sweet as pie if her fangs weren’t tinged fresh-blood red.
I pushed the food around on my plate, my internal dialogue arm-wrestling over what I should and should not tell Alex. “Dixon thinks that the person responsible for the vampire death may have been a werewolf, too.” The words came out in a solid chain before I had the chance to stop them. My admittance felt like a betrayal, a silver bullet in Sampson’s heart, and silence blanketed the table.
“So, who’s filling Octavia’s position?” Nina asked slowly.
I looked up curiously. “I don’t know. Blakely Grimshaw, I think.”
It may have been the fresh pint of blood coursing through her frozen veins, but Nina’s face seemed to go from everyday pale to fire engine red. Her nostrils flared and she fisted her hands, squeezing the remains of the blood bag mercilessly until blood bubbled around the straw she had shoved into it. “That’s just like a man. Blakely is, what? A hundred? A hundred and five? And she always wears those stupid little tank tops so she can show off those fake melons of hers.”
Alex leaned down and lowered his voice. “Vampires can have fake boobs?”
I shrugged and wound a noodle into my mouth, relieved that the subject had been changed. “News to me.”
“Ugh! I can’t believe the nerve of that man! What even qualifies that little twit to take over for Octavia? Octavia was brilliant.”
“I thought you hated her,” Vlad mumbled.
“Did you want Octavia’s position?” I asked Nina.
She rolled her glazed eyes. “No.” She drew out the word. “Of course not. I wouldn’t be caught dead again doing that.” She flicked her hand distastefully.
“So?”
She plopped out her lower lip. “I would have liked to have been asked.”
“You’re impossible,” I groaned.
“It’s what makes me lovable.” She grinned.
“Okay,” Alex said, eyes raking from Nina to me. “What makes Dixon think that it was a werewolf who murdered this victim?”
“The brutality,” I said, my voice suddenly a hoarse whisper.
“Like the Sutro Point murders.”
“That bad?” Nina asked, apparently no longer pissed.
I nodded while the images of those women crept back into my mind. I shifted in my seat, feeling suddenly sick, suddenly bargaining with God, Buddha, or whoever else was listening to help me keep my kung pao down—and keep Sampson out of the picture.
“Well, if there was a great deal of brutality, the only other race with the power to remove the head of a vampire is the werewolf.” Vlad cocked his head, a slight appreciative grin playing on his bloody lips. “Although Buffy the Vampire Slayer got in a few lucky chops.”
“I can’t believe you, of all people, watch that,” Nina said.
One of Vlad’s ink-black eyebrows quirked and all the humor drained from his face. “It’s official Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement research.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “And I volunteer at the Red Cross for the cookies and juice.”
“They do have good cookies,” I mumbled to my plate.
“So, other than—” Alex began.
“Kill theory,” Vlad supplied.
“Other than kill theory, there is no other evidence that this woman was killed by a werewolf?” Alex said.
“I really don’t see what else it could have been,” Vlad said, crumbling his empty blood bag.
I knew Nina was staring at me; I could feel her eyes burning a hole through my temple. “That’s not entirely true,” I said to my chow mein.
“What’s that?” Alex asked.
I glanced up. “Well, there are other demons that are powerful. And, it wouldn’t really make sense for a werewolf to go after a vampire. Werewolves kill to feed, so they go after meat and blood. They hunt by smell. Vampires don’t have a smell.”
“You’re welcome,” Nina said with pride.
“But humans have a smell?” Alex asked with raised eyebrows.
“A powerful one.” Vlad’s eyes were hooded and dark, and his lips snaked up into a sly grin.
“You just ate,” I warned him.
“So, basically, there’s a good chance that the murders we’re looking at—human and vampire—aren’t connected.”
“Right,” I said, completely uncertain of what I was proving.
“No,” Vlad said at the same time. “They’re definitely connected.”
“So, we’re exactly nowhere closer to where we were pre-dinner,” Alex said, raking a hand through his hair. “Hey, Lawson, can you come up after work tomorrow, and maybe we can get an angle on this thing?”
I nodded, not really hearing what Alex was saying due to the loud, uncomfortable buzzing in my head.
We all jumped when the Christmas wreath that was circling my sword finally flopped to the ground, the top cut cleanly by the blade.
Alex had just left and I was scrubbing errant grains of rice off the kitchen table when Nina came up beside me.
“Here,” she said, handing me a package.
“What’s this?”
“A ShamWow. Like a chamois, only . . . wowier. Whisks water away like nobody’s business. I ordered it—”
“From QVC?”
“You’ll thank me. It’s a total life-saver. And the price was right.”
“We really need to get you out of this apartment. Why don’t you go down to Poe’s or something?”
Nina slumped at the table. “No one’s around. With heat like this, most of us took off or headed underground. I’m so insidiously bored. But try the ShamWow.”
I unwrapped the thing and eyed her. “What did you do when this happened before?”
She shrugged. “I had a nest. There was a bunch of us. We’d just migrate somewhere gloomier. But I can’t do that now.”
“You can’t?”
Nina used her fingernail to pick at a grain that my ShamWow missed. “Nope. This is home. This is where I have roots.”
I couldn’t help but feel a tender warmth growing in my belly. “That’s sweet, Neens.”
She narrowed her eyes, but her lips were quirked in a tight smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
“So, what happened to the people you used to nest with?”
Another shrug. “Some moved on, one got killed, some . . .” She waved at the air.
I sat across from her, my eyes wide. “What?”
“There’s a huge suicide rate among vampires.”
“Really? I had no idea.”
“Eternity is a really, really long time.”
I frowned, considering, and Nina let out a long sigh. “Think about it. Every minute you’re alive is one moment closer to your demise. Every single moment, you’re aging. Your body is breaking down, cells don’t reproduce, everything is slowing down. Every day is one day closer to your death. Not me. Not us. Every day is . . . just another day. Every moment is just another moment. No closer to death, no closer to any kind of finality. You should be happy with your wrinkles, with your gray hair.”
I felt my upper lip roll into a snarl. “What’s the homicide rate among vampires? Big?”
Nina rolled her eyes. “You’ve got romance. You’ve got ’til death do us part.’” There was a distance in her eyes, a wistfulness th
at I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “It’s romantic.”
“Do you ever—” I kneaded my palm, looked away. “Do you ever think about it? Death, I mean? Suicide?”
Nina swallowed. “Eventually, we won’t be friends anymore. You’ll age and I’ll look like this. Will will die, you’ll die and . . . I’ve thought about it. It scares me, death. I don’t know where I’d go.”
“You mean like Heaven?”
Nina cracked a half smile that was mirthless.
“You’re a good person, Neens. Of course you’d go to Heaven. You’re the best person I’ve ever known. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“I damned my nephew, Sophie.”
“But only because your sister begged you to! He would have died otherwise. He was sick. You had to save him. That was a good thing to do.”
She stood up and headed toward her bedroom. “Was it? He’s alone, like me. We’re all alone.”
My voice was small. “You’d go to Heaven. Your soul is good.”
Nina’s hand was on the doorknob, her back to me. “I don’t have a soul.”
She clicked the door shut behind her and I kneaded the ShamWow in my hands, good and evil flip-flopping in my mind. Was it really that easy? Did the good become bad—even if things were out of their control? Nina had been turned into a vampire—but she was good. And Sampson—turned into a werewolf. A good man turned into a bloodthirsty animal. If he did things—terrible, heinous things—while he was a werewolf, things that he didn’t remember the morning after, in his human form, did that make him bad through and through?
I swallowed hard and stood up, pressing the cloth to the fake veneer table and scrubbing until my shoulder ached.
Because there was something else.
It nagged at the edge of my mind. A murmuring that I couldn’t stand to hear—but couldn’t seem to shut out.
My father.
The devil.
I tried to push the thought—the image—away, but it was etched in my mind. If a girl was born of evil, could she ever truly be good?
The next morning was hotter than the previous one and I dressed in gauzy layers. I poured myself a travel mug of coffee while assuring Nina, who stared up at me with the most pitiful puppy dog eyes in the underworld, that I would bring her a whole cache of celebrity trash magazines and let her color my hair once I got home.
It was surprising how a play-by-play of Kim Kardashian’s postdivorce woes and a box of Clairol Ravenous Red could bring a fanged smile to my roommate’s pale face.
“What about me?” Vlad said with a monotone glower.
“BloodLust Four?”
Vlad glanced down at his computer screen—currently flashing the blood-splashed graphics of BloodLust 3—and grinned. “Cool.”
“Anything you want me to let Dixon know?” I asked Nina.
She pressed her lips together, then turned up her tiny ski-jump nose. “Not at all.”
I stepped into the hallway and paused in front of Will’s door. I took a few tentative steps, then pressed my ear to the door.
“You know, it works better if you hold a glass to it.”
I whirled around, clutching my thundering heart while Mr. Sampson smiled at me from the hallway.
“I’m sorry, I uh—knocked,” I lied, “but I didn’t hear anything. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Sampson held up a paper Starbucks cup. “Had to get out. Will’s place is nice but full of tea. And did you know he keeps his cleats in the dishwasher?”
“The racks help stretch out the leather,” I murmured. “So, you’re getting some cabin fever cooped up in there, huh?”
“Not really,” Sampson said, sinking Will’s key into the lock. “I’ve been able to get out, get some information.”
A little flower of hope bloomed in my gut. “Oh, really? Anything worthwhile?”
Sampson swung his head and my hope died. “Nothing panning out yet. But I’ll keep you posted. Have a good day at the office.” He flashed me a smile that was kind enough, but almost bordered on aloof. The slight chill stayed with me all the way through the workday.
I had successfully avoided Steve’s unholy stink and Dixon’s eyebrows-up stares when 5 PM rolled around. I wasn’t particularly excited to study the minutiae of the Sutro Point crime scene—especially since my guts had been wound in a tight, angsty coil for the last eight hours—but I was ready to leave the office. But first I had to finger-walk through the Underworld Detection Agency files, snagging out any creature, demon, deathwalker, or dragon that could have the ability to kill a vampire—or at very least, had the ability to remind Alex that something other than a werewolf could be responsible. My stack wasn’t huge, but it was a start, and I was able to escape the office without fanfare. I felt my tension rise as the elevator brought me closer to Alex and the crime scene photographs. I tried to convince myself that it was solely the details of the case that had my pulse racing, but every time I thought of Alex, of those ice-blue eyes pinning me with one of his steely gazes, it wasn’t just my pulse that throbbed.
“Get yourself together, Lawson,” I murmured to my reflection in the silvery wall. “Murder, mayhem, clearing a dear friend. Not sexy time.” I glared down at my zipper. “Not sexy time.”
I kept up my no-sex mantra all the way to the diner across the street, where I picked up a double bag of burgers and fries. By that time, I was so enamored with the smell of greasy fries and oozing cheeseburger that I had abandoned the idea of taking Alex into a dark corner, and instead fancied taking a cheeseburger there.
Yes, I am a fickle lover.
The police station was filled with the usual buzz—ringing phones, squawking shoulder radios, officers trying to calm down screaming clients. The smell of sweat and fear hung heavy in the air and was only offset by the cheery shafts of sunlight that made their way through the three inches of dust on the big bay windows. I wound through the maze of desks and people, keeping my eyes firmly focused in front of me and my hands on my shoulder bag, my thumb digging into the corner of one of the file folders. By the time I got to Alex’s office I had worked the folder into a stinging paper cut, the pain a calming reminder that these demons were the only ones who caused pain, were the ones who could be truly bad.
I stopped in front of Alex’s office door. He had moved offices since our last meeting and this new office—more permanent, I guessed—actually had his name stenciled on the door. It should have made me feel comfortable that Alex was rooted enough to his job, to San Francisco—to me?—that the police department had seen fit to paint his name on the door, but suddenly, nothing made sense anymore.
I rapped gently with the back of my hand. “Alex?”
I didn’t wait for him to invite me in, even though I should have known better by now. Instead, I pushed open the door and my knees immediately went rubbery and weak and before I knew it I was staring at his coffee-stained carpet, knees hugging my ears, wildly sucking in huge gusts of stale air. Alex was crouched by me with a paper bag in one hand, his other hand resting gently on my knee. The heat from his palm seared my skin and helped to reground me.
“It’s okay, Lawson. Just relax.” His voice was soft and comforting. He patted my knee awkwardly and thrust the paper bag directly into my upside-down line of sight. “Do you need this?”
I slowly straightened up. “No, I’m okay.”
“Do you want me to turn this around?” He was standing next to the huge white board that had made all the blood rush out of my body and strangled my heart. The entire board was covered in full-color photographs of the bodies from Sutro Point. And although I was there, had actually physically seen the bodies, they failed to have as much impact as they did here, photographed, laid out in graphic, static detail, mouths forever locked in silent screams, fingers constantly clawing for safety that would never come.
“It’s okay.” I turned my chair around so I wasn’t staring directly at the unseeing eyes of one of the victims—a blond girl who, before t
hat morning, was probably close to my age and carefree, judging her life by the day, by her exercise routine, by what she was going to have for lunch that afternoon. I stifled a shudder.
Alex set a paper cup of water on the arm of my chair and leaned back against his desk. He kicked out his long legs and crossed his ankles, crossed his arms in front of his broad chest. His eyes were wide and bright and had that uncanny—but comforting—way of seeing me so completely that I shrank back a little bit in my chair.
“Where’s my culinary fee?” He shot me that cocky grin, but I couldn’t appreciate it. I pulled the Fog City bag from my purse and pushed it toward him.
“You’re not eating?”
I shook my head. “Not much of an appetite.”
Alex looked startled. “Are you sick? What about a donut?” He reached into a pink pastry box sitting on a stack of procedural handbooks and waggled a sprinkled donut in front of my face. I felt my lip curl and my stomach acids churn.
“I don’t see how you can eat with that”—I gestured to the white board—“and all of this going on.”
Alex dropped the donut and grabbed his burger, splatting a packet of ketchup on it. “All of what going on?”
I took a short breath, feeling an anxious flutter go through my belly. “Everything.”
Alex set his burger down, his eyes turning to a deep ocean blue. “It’s a practiced skill.”
I watched Alex eat for a few silent moments, stacking and restacking the UDA files on his desk. “Did you pull any files? You know, ex-cons, or unsolved cases with similar MOs?”
Alex smiled behind his burger. “Someone ought to get you a badge.”
I cocked my head, my angst turning into slight annoyance. “I’m serious. Does the department have any leads about who might have done this? Gang retaliation, Satanic offering, or something?
“Do you know how many actual cases of Satanic offerings there have been in San Francisco County?”
I felt my brows raise, suddenly obsessed with knowing if any of my neighbors—past or present—had set out a little offering to dear old dad.