Brittle Midnight

by Harper, Helen

  I swallowed. Despite my sympathy for the vampires and their plight, I couldn’t lose sight of what had happened. ‘Valerie’s killer deserves to be brought to justice.’ My voice hardened. ‘It will happen, make no mistake about it. But the people in there think we’ll kill Philip if he’s the culprit. That’s why they said to make it quick. If we do that, we’re the ones who are monsters.’ I looked away. ‘Maybe we are all monsters in the end.’

  ‘I’ve always been a monster.’ Monroe laughed harshly. ‘Whatever. If Philip did this, we can’t shove him out of the city and let him loose on the rest of the world. He’s our problem and we’ll have to deal with him. We exiled Max. But a stone-cold killer who’s also a vampire? That’s an entirely different scenario.’

  I breathed out. ‘Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But we can’t let every vampire be tarred with the same brush.’ I smiled sadly. ‘Besides, this community is safer than you think. Valerie wasn’t killed here. And Philip, if he is our killer, doesn’t live here either.’

  Monroe looked away. ‘Maybe you were right,’ he said distantly. ‘Maybe isolation from others was the worst possible thing I could have encouraged.’

  ‘Not everything is your fault, Monroe. You made the best decision you could with the information and feelings you had at the time. We’ll find Valerie’s killer and then we’ll deal with everything else. We’ve got this.’

  For a moment he didn’t react then his hands squeezed mine tightly. ‘It looks like that break in the Travotel worked for you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’ve made a sudden return to blind optimism and care for the whole community.’

  I grinned. ‘I can highly recommend a day or two away.’ And, I added silently to myself, it was amazing what a big problem could do to provide focus and clarity. There wasn’t time to feel stressed about other worries and issues. Perhaps every cloud did have a silver lining.

  Like he’d read my mind, Monroe tilted his head and offered me a crooked grin. ‘I could do with more sunshine in my life,’ he admitted.

  A thrill ran through me. If that didn’t brighten me up, nothing would.

  ***

  ‘Go on then,’ Monroe said, gazing up at the red-brick house where Philip, the potential murderer, was supposedly staying. ‘What are the odds that he is the killer we’re looking for?’

  ‘I’m not a police investigator,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he conceded. ‘But you worked for the police and I bet you picked up a lot from them. You’re too curious and too nosy not to have rifled through their papers and paid attention to their procedures when you were cleaning for them. Anyway, I know you’ll have already calculated the odds in your head.’ He leaned towards me. ‘From what I know of you, you’ll be spot on.’

  ‘Three to one,’ I told him. ‘It’s not looking good for him.’

  Monroe nodded. ‘But it is looking good for us.’

  I could only agree. As long as Philip the vampire had scratches on his skin, we could prove we had our man. I hoped so. It would be great to think that Monroe and I had solved a murder in a mere morning. It would certainly deter anyone else from thinking about doing something similar – and it wouldn’t lead to further misery and accusations for the rest of the vampires.

  ‘Shall we knock?’ I asked.

  Monroe shrugged. ‘Sure.’ He walked up to the front door but it wasn’t a fist he raised to it. He threw out a powerful kick, splintering the wood and causing the door to crash open. He turned and grinned. ‘Knock, knock.’

  I rolled my eyes, but secretly I was pleased to see that Monroe was acting more like the wolf that I knew. Yes, he was mercurial and still suffering badly but it was good to know that the old, arrogant Monroe lurked behind those blue eyes.

  If we’d been expecting Philip to storm down the hallway at the sound of our intrusion, we were disappointed. The only response that greeted Monroe’s battering ram of an entrance was silence. In theory that should have been a good thing but it filled me with foreboding.

  ‘How good is your magic these days?’ Monroe asked as we continued to hover on the porch. ‘Can you use it to tell whether anyone is inside?’

  I pursed my lips. ‘Potentially, but I don’t want to over-use it.’ I told him about my fears that I might cause more magic to flood the atmosphere and lead to further problems across the city.

  ‘There’s only one of you,’ he pointed out. ‘There were loads of faeries here for decades who caused the magic build-up.’

  ‘All the same,’ I said, ‘I’m still uneasy about it. I’ll use magic when it’s the best option but when we can go down the old-fashioned route…’

  ‘In that case,’ he replied, ‘ladies first.’ He gestured at the door.

  I smiled and walked past him into the house.

  At first nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. True, the place felt empty but that didn’t mean our potential killer wasn’t curled up in bed somewhere upstairs until the sun went down. Ignoring the ground floor for now, I tiptoed upwards. The stairs were creaky but there was still no sign of anyone living and breathing. And yes, no matter what some werewolves might think, vampires are both living and breathing.

  It wasn’t a grand place. Upstairs there was a small bathroom, filled with all manner of masculine accoutrements from shaving cream to anti-perspirant. Our Philip took care of his appearance, if nothing else. There were two bedrooms, one that didn’t appear lived in and one which was clearly where he slept. The bed was neatly made with the duvet smoothed over.

  There was an open book on the nightstand. I picked it up and examined it: William Butler Yeats. So ol’ Philip really was a poetic soul. Although if I dredged through my memories, there were more facts to consider. I’d once gambled on a national competition where people could vote on their favourite poet. It didn’t take much to work out that Kipling would be the winner – Brits are a predictable bunch – but I took my research seriously. Even though Yeats was Irish rather than British, I’d given him the attention his poetry deserved. From what I could recall, Yeats was an interesting man. He’d been part of a secret society that conducted ritual magic. I tapped my mouth thoughtfully. Maybe Fangy Phil just enjoyed the poems – or maybe there was more to it than iambic pentameter.

  I glanced at the scrap of paper he’d been using as a bookmark. It was an outline drawing of a man with a swirly pattern where his head was. A few words were scribbled underneath it: Therapy For Survivors. Well, Valerie certainly hadn’t survived.

  From downstairs, Monroe called up. ‘He’s not there, is he?’ There was an odd note to his voice.

  ‘No,’ I shouted. I turned on my heel and clattered down the stairs to join him.

  Monroe was standing in the living room. I paused at the doorway, sweeping my gaze around. Well, shit.

  It looked like a whirlwind had torn through the place. Chairs and tables were upended. One painting was hanging haphazardly off the wall and two others were on the floor. There was broken glass, scattered papers and splattered blood. A considerable amount of splattered blood. I let out a low whistle.

  ‘What do things look like upstairs?’ Monroe asked.

  I gazed at him grimly. ‘Philip is a neat guy. Everything has a place. It’s clean and tidy and…’ I waved a hand around the devastation in the living room ‘…not like this.’

  Monroe turned slowly, examining the room with a critical eye. ‘Is it possible,’ he enquired, ‘that after a struggle he killed Valerie here and then took her dead body back to the Travotel to leave it there?’

  ‘It seems unlikely. What would be the point?’

  He glanced at me. ‘To make her death appear to be an accident.’

  ‘Her body was drained of all its blood,’ I said, still feeling somewhat ill at the thought. ‘That was no accident.’

  ‘Something happened here, though,’ Monroe said. ‘Something violent.’

  I swallowed and nodded. ‘Could someone have got here ahead of us? Some bright spark might have worked out Philip�
�s culpability and come here to take their revenge.’

  Monroe frowned and crouched down, his fingertips touching one of the blood splatters. ‘This isn’t very fresh,’ he said. ‘Whatever happened here, it was at least a day ago. Most of the blood is already dry.’ He flipped over one of the fallen paintings. It was an old portrait of Yeats. Him again. That didn’t bode well.

  I sucked on my bottom lip. ‘Whatever happened to Philip, he’s obviously not here. We should go back to the Travotel. Anna will have combed through the murder scene. If there’s any more useful information or evidence, she’ll have it.’

  Monroe agreed. ‘Let’s vamoose. This place is giving me the creeps.’

  Him and me both.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘None of the other hotel residents saw or heard anything useful,’ Anna said. Her frustration was obvious, although I thought I caught a glimmer of something else too. Horrific as Valerie’s death was, Anna was in her element. She had been a police officer before the apocalypse after all; investigating a murder probably felt like normal to her. ‘We can’t even be sure if it was your jam-sandwich eating that set off Timmons’ alarm or if it was our vampire’s actions. Timmons said the system has been faulty from the start. It could have been a delayed reaction or it could have nothing whatsoever to do with Valerie’s murder.’

  I’d have been seriously concerned about any magical alarm that thought purloining a breakfast butty was worse than killing someone, but the unfortunate truth was that we were all still fumbling about in the dark where magic was concerned. Even Timmons, who was supposedly the most experienced of us all.

  I told Anna what we’d discovered about Philip and his house. ‘He could have killed Valerie there and brought her back here in the middle of the night.’

  She didn’t appear convinced. ‘There are all sorts of beasties out there,’ she said, ‘especially when the sun is down. I find it hard to believe that someone could drag a corpse through the streets and avoid the apocalyptic creatures that roam around at night.’

  Anna had a point. Even during the day you had to keep your wits about when you were crossing areas that were unoccupied by either of our communities. Nimue was only the start; all sorts of nasties had appeared as a result of the apocalypse. Maybe they’d been created by it. If they smelled a whiff of death, they’d descend in an instant; transporting a corpse would be nigh on impossible.

  ‘Have you checked the cars?’ Monroe asked. ‘He could have driven her body here. It would have been the safest bet if he wanted to stay away from other magical predators.’

  ‘Timmons already did that. He’s confident that no new vehicles have been left in front of the hotel or nearby for weeks. Not many people drive any more, and those who do don’t tend to leave their cars here for long.’

  Anna pointed at the long-since-defunct security camera. ‘There’s CCTV everywhere,’ she said irritably. ‘And none of it does us any good. None of it works – like everything else in this damned city.’ She aimed a kick at a nearby chair.

  I suddenly realised that all of us were suffering under the pressure of this new life. It wasn’t just Monroe and me; we all had a lot of adjusting to do. It didn’t help that there were constant reminders everywhere of what used to be.

  For a fleeting moment, I let the crushing maw of depression open up and suck me in into a spiralling pit of black despair. Then Monroe’s hand brushed against mine and I remembered to breathe again. It was okay. I had this.

  I made a deliberate effort to relax my muscles and zoned in on Anna. ‘Was there anything about Valerie’s body that indicated it wasn’t a vampire who killed her?’

  ‘Nope. The only wound was the one on her neck. Some fangy piece of shit sank his teeth into her and drank her dry.’

  I glanced at Julie who was doing a good job of looking casual but whose rigid neck betrayed her. ‘You’re adamant that’s not possible?’

  ‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I told you before that it is possible. But it’s pointless. A couple of pints of blood will sustain a vampire – any vampire – for a week. There’s no need to take it all.’

  ‘No need,’ I said grimly. ‘But perhaps plenty of desire and bloodlust. You said before that if you drink too much, you become bloated and happy. Is there anything else we could be looking for? Any clue as to what our killer might do after such a meal?’

  ‘What happens to you when you eat too much? We’ve covered bloat. You might also be sick. Goodness, drink all the blood in one human and you’d definitely be sick.’

  ‘Could there have been more than one vamp?’

  She shook her head. ‘There would have been more bruising. I checked and double-checked. There are only two puncture wounds. I just…’ She muttered a delicate curse. ‘I just can’t see the point in drinking all of it.’

  The answer was right in front of us but it took Monroe to voice it. ‘To kill,’ he said flatly. ‘The point wasn’t to feed, it was to kill. This was no accident, much as we might want it to be.’

  We were all silent. We’d been through a great deal in the last few months – that was a given. To have struggled and made a life for ourselves, despite our disparate communities, and then have someone swing along and ruin our work because they had murder on their mind was horrible to think about. It was almost impossible to fathom. It was, however, the stark truth.

  ‘We searched Valerie’s room,’ Anna said, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. ‘She had a lot of cash scattered around. Given that this is a cashless society, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘She was a gambler and old habits die hard. She kept inviting me to her poker nights.’

  Everyone looked at me. ‘Did you go?’ Anna asked. ‘If Valerie had a group of regulars that she played cards with, they would be a good place to start. The other hotel residents said they joined her for a while but she abandoned them when she found others who were more skilful and more … interesting. We don’t know who they were, though.’

  ‘That sounds like the Valerie I knew,’ I admitted. ‘She was always on the lookout for the next best thing.’ I picked at a hangnail. ‘We don’t know who these new people were?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Anna said, shaking her head. ‘But we did find this.’ She held up a leather-bound book. ‘It’s a diary. If what she’s written here is true, Valerie was quite, uh, generous with her attentions.’

  I motioned towards it. ‘Can I have a look?’

  She passed it over. I flipped open the first pages and scanned through. There were a lot of random sketches and scribbles, many of which were rather lewd. Despite her advanced years, Valerie had clearly enjoyed an active sex life. As far as I could tell, the drawings were her way of capturing her own experiences. There were little comments etched by the side, such as Worth a second go or Doesn’t wash often enough. Unfortunately, none of the drawings or notes gave identities. It was also impossible to tell whether any of Valerie’s lovers were vampires: fangs were not mentioned.

  ‘Is this real?’ Monroe asked. ‘It could be her imagination getting the better of her.’

  ‘The Valerie I knew pre-apocalypse,’ I said, ‘flitted from one young man to another. She enjoyed the chase and she wanted men she could control. She was always wealthy and she seduced them with promises of a better life.’ I shrugged. ‘When she got bored with them, she dumped them back where she’d found them.’

  Anna looked interested. ‘So there could be a plenty of men who held a grudge against her,’ she said. ‘That helps.’

  Monroe nodded. ‘This Philip guy we’re looking for is a loner. She could have targeted him as a lover and then tried to get rid of him when it suited her. Except it didn’t suit him and he got his revenge by bleeding her dry. After he’d had a tantrum and destroyed his own house, of course.’

  It was certainly possible but I couldn’t help feeling we were missing something crucial, and Monroe’s conjecture didn’t help with the most pressing issue. ‘Having a motive
doesn’t help us locate him,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Honestly, Charley,’ Anna told me, ‘I’m not sure we can locate him. He could be anywhere. This is a big city with a lot of empty buildings. He could be hiding in any of them.’

  I bit my lip and nodded. Hiding out – but bloated and maybe ill from such a big meal. I turned to Julie, who was still draped languidly over her chair. ‘Do you get indigestion?’ I asked.

  ‘Me personally, darling?’

  ‘Vampires. Do vampires get indigestion?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I assume that your bodies work the same as ours?’

  An expression of faint disgust crossed her face. ‘If you’re about to ask me about my defecation habits then—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m asking you if indigestion tablets affect your kind in the same way that they affect human kind.’

  Julie shrugged. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  My eyes met Monroe’s. ‘All the shops around here were cleared of their contents weeks ago. I doubt there’s anything useful in the pharmacies nearby but Philip might not know that. If he stumbled out of here after his … meal … in the middle of the night and didn’t feel well, he might have tried to get some sort of medicine.’

  Monroe ran a hand through his hair. ‘In the absence of any other leads, we might as well check out the pharmacies. If there’s any kind of trail, I might be able to pick something up.’

  I nodded. It wasn’t much of a plan but it beat standing around and wringing our hands. ‘We need to tell everyone to be on the alert in case Philip shows up. Timmons can put the hotel on shutdown. Cath and Anna, you go home and make sure everyone knows to keep a look out and to keep away from anyone strange. And ask around to see if anyone attended Valerie’s poker nights. Julie,’ I paused and looked at her hopefully. ‘You spend time with Monroe’s lot. Can you go to the north and warn them?’

  ‘Julian,’ Monroe interjected. ‘Speak to Julian.’

  She didn’t look very enthusiastic but she nodded. ‘Very well, darling. But this Philip person won’t be able to do anything but sleep, quite possibly for days.’