Tainted

by Claire Farrell

  “They come out of the pub. Sometimes they don’t see me, and I follow them.” He gestured to the left. “There’s a house two streets away. It looks deserted, but they go in there at night, and nobody ever comes out. Sometimes they bring girls with short skirts. They’re too young to drink, you know.” He nodded sagely. “They think it’ll be fun, but they go in that house, and that’s… that’s it.”

  I exchanged a worried glance with Val. I knew by her expression that she was as interested in finding those vampires as I was. My phone beeped. Moses had texted me with an address.

  “Lar,” I said. “We’re going to take a look around. We’ll be back to take you somewhere safe for the night, okay?”

  “You won’t come back,” he said cheerfully. “Not if you’re looking at that house.”

  We walked away. I heard the sounds of his slurping up his breakfast for several yards.

  “What do you think?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

  “I think that a lot of things have changed, but almost everything stays the same.”

  “Is he crazy, or are there girls in that house?”

  She looked at me pityingly. “You think they’re still there? In the coffee shop, there was a missing-person poster. I think he was right, at least in part.”

  “We need to ask questions.”

  “Let’s start with the shop. The woman behind the counter is annoyingly chatty.”

  We strode toward the corner shop. The place was empty apart from the clerk behind the counter. Val pointed out the missing poster. The face of a pouting teenage girl looked back at me.

  “Can I help you?” the clerk asked brightly.

  “I’m wondering about that poster,” I said, pointing. “The girl’s missing?”

  She waved her hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that. The manager put it up there to shut the mother up. You know what it’s like.” She smiled conspiratorially. “These girls want attention all of the time. Posting selfies online, looking for drama where there is none. Then they blow up and run away to be special. They leave their families waiting for them to come home, and we have to look at their faces all day, whether we like it or not.”

  I stared at her, taken aback.

  “So this happens frequently?” Val asked.

  The woman rolled her eyes. “Yes, attention-seeking teenage girls tend to be runaways.”

  “What if she’s been hurt?” I demanded. “What if she’s lying in a—”

  “Then she probably asked for it,” the woman said nastily.

  The only thing that stopped me from punching her in the face was my complete shock at her attitude. I took Val’s arm and led her out of the shop.

  Outside, I had a new thought. “You know, the girls could be vampire volunteers.”

  She shrugged me off. “Don’t you start victim blaming.”

  “No, I mean unwilling volunteers, as in they don’t know what they’re really volunteering for.” I cringed. “If they’re going to a pub frequented by vampires, they probably already know what’s in there. Everyone knows now, right? But maybe they assume it’s all romantic and stuff, but it goes bad, and then they’re stuck. And because they’re teenage girls, maybe girls who act a little wild, people assume that they ran away. We need to find that girl’s mother and ask her some questions.”

  “I thought we were here to question the volunteers?” Val asked with a hint of a smile in her voice.

  “We are! I just want more information first.” I started walking down the street.

  Val caught up to me. “And is that before or after we take a homeless man on a trip?”

  “Shut up. It’s just one of those days.”

  “You’re coming back to life.”

  I stopped and stared at her. “What?”

  “This is what you need to be doing, Ava. You should be out on the streets, trying to help people and getting involved.”

  She was right. I felt better than I had in ages. I was taking control of a situation instead of waiting around until it came to me. Screw the Eleven. Ten. Holy crap, I was one of them. They were me. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t turn into the person who had to sit around and discuss the outcomes to death. I needed to act. I needed my life back.

  We came across a group of women and one man. They were pushing prams and about to head into the community centre.

  “Hey,” I said. “We’re looking for a woman whose daughter went missing recently.”

  The women feigned puzzled looks.

  The lone man sighed. “They’re talking about Carrie Matthews.”

  “Oh, yes,” one of the women said. “And her lovely daughter, Crystal.”

  The other women giggled. I exchanged a confused glance with Val. Was there something in the water?

  The man stepped forward with his pram. “I’m Jack. I live nearby, and I can show you were she lives.”

  The women murmured some half-hearted protests as they watched us walk away with the man.

  “You’ll get used to this place.” He cocked his head to the side. “Actually, you won’t. You just learn to live with it. They don’t like Carrie. Or Crystal. They’re blow-ins.”

  Val looked at him as if he had two heads. “Blow-ins?”

  “They’ve only lived here for five years,” he said wryly. “So they don’t belong. And they’re both attractive. Apparently, that’s not allowed.”

  “Know them well?” I asked.

  “We’re neighbours,” he said. “She usually keeps to herself, but she’s obviously devastated. What do you want with her?”

  “Just chasing down information about her daughter’s disappearance,” I hedged. “Is she okay to talk about it?”

  “She’s probably desperate to talk about it to anyone who’ll listen.” He frowned. “That’s her house up there.” He pointed.

  Two teenage boys were busy throwing things at Carrie Matthews’s front window.

  “Bastards,” Jack said. “They won’t leave her alone, and their parents don’t give a shit.” His baby began to whimper. He shushed the child absentmindedly and pushed the pram a little faster.

  When we reached the house, Jack slapped one of the boys across the back of the head.

  “I’ll sue you,” the boy snapped. “You fucking arsehole.”

  “Hurry on, then,” Jack said. “And leave that woman alone, or next time, I’ll deck you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the boy jeered once he had crossed the road with his friend. “I’ll have you, I will.” He walked backward to show us his middle fingers.

  Before I could blink, Val had run across the road and grabbed both boys by the scruffs of their necks. She began to shift, her shoulders and back rising as the horns embedded in her skin extended. Her eyes reddened, and I smothered a giggle at the expressions on both boys’ faces.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” I told Jack, who had huddled protectively over his pram. “She’s a pussycat underneath it all.”

  He glanced at me with widened eyes, but he didn’t say a word.

  Val dragged the boys back over to us. “You’re going to apologise to this man,” she said through gritted teeth. “Then you’re going to knock on that woman’s door and beg for her forgiveness. You’re going to offer to do jobs for her until she gets sick of you. And I’m going to come back and tear you limb from limb if I hear you’ve forgotten what I’ve told you. Do you understand me?”

  A dark stain appeared on the crotch of the mouthy boy’s trousers. The other looked too shock to speak.

  Val shook them. “Do you understand me?”

  They nodded. She let go and took a step back, clearly enjoying herself.

  The boys muttered an apology to Jack then ran into Carrie Matthews’s garden and knocked on the door. Jack spun his pram around and quickly made his escape.

  “Val,” I said, shaking my head, “excessive much?”

  “Not at all,” she replied.

  We followed the boys to the house and reached it as the door was opening. The woman who an
swered looked utterly surprised when she saw the entourage on her doorstep. The boys made their apologies and their offerings, just as Val had ordered. As soon as they had set a time to return for work, they gave Val a fearful glance and ran off.

  The woman was beautiful. Her dark hair was short and stylish, and her cheekbones were amazing. I couldn’t tell her age, but she definitely didn’t look old enough to have a teenage daughter.

  “Carrie Matthews?” I asked.

  I could still sense Hell steaming from Val, and Carrie was watching my companion closely, probably because the half-hellhound still had red in her eyes.

  “Calm down,” I muttered.

  Val pretty much deflated. She moved back a little until she was almost behind me.

  “Ms. Matthews,” I said, “we’re here to ask you about your daughter.”

  Carrie’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you with the police?”

  I shook my head. “We sometimes work with the new government, but Val here is a private investigator.”

  Val shifted on her feet. “I’m a finder.” When Carrie looked confused, Val sighed and conceded, “It’s pretty much the same thing.”

  I struggled to maintain a straight face. “We were in the area, looking into a different matter, but we were wondering about connections with your daughter’s case. Could we maybe ask you a few questions?”

  “Is here okay?” she asked nervously. “I’m not sure…”

  “Here is fine,” I said. “How long has Crystal been missing?”

  “About six weeks. Last week was her seventeenth birthday. Everyone thinks she ran away, but we were close. We just had one little fight. She stormed out and never came back. She doesn’t have many friends. She tried, but they always turned on her. She’s the odd one out, so I didn’t even have anyone to call when she left. I had no idea where to look. And then the police called her a runaway. They won’t even help me!”

  I gave Val a pointed look. She was supposed to be the “finder.”

  Val cleared her throat. “Did she ever go to the pub near the park?”

  Carrie sucked in a breath. “I think so. She wants to be a grownup. We all did at that age. She wears short skirts and flirts and posts pictures of herself online, so everyone thinks she’s trouble. Whatever happened…” She shook her head. “She’s a person, just like anyone else, and she doesn’t deserve anything bad to happen to her. The things those girls at school did to her… and everyone around here is just oblivious to the way their little darlings act. They can’t see past the clothes, but Crystal’s a great kid. They think they know everything, but they judged her without even knowing her.” The woman’s voice edged on hysterical.

  “Maybe we should come inside,” I said gently. “I could make you a cup of tea, and then you can tell us all about Crystal. Would you like that?”

  She nodded and opened the door wider. Her home was small but well kept. Pictures of her daughter papered the walls. I felt awful. It was as if her daughter was all she had. And Crystal was gone. We entered the kitchen, and I started filling the kettle.

  “Private investigators,” Carrie said as if just realising what we’d told her. “I can’t afford to pay you.”

  “You don’t have to pay anything,” Val said. “We came to you.”

  I decided not to announce I wasn’t actually working as a private investigator. Telling the woman I was a landlady wasn’t going to instil much confidence in my investigative skills.

  “The world has changed,” Carrie said. “There are so many more things to be worried about. When Crystal never came back, I was afraid she had gone into town and been caught up in one of those riots you hear about. She would never survive. She wasn’t a tough girl. Not in that way. She was bullied in school, beaten up, and the one time she hit back, she was suspended. How is that fair?”

  “It’s not,” Val said. She sounded pretty compassionate… for Val.

  “Have you been to that pub?” I asked Carrie. “Do you know the kind of people who frequent it?”

  “Old men, mostly. I haven’t been. But Crystal said all the girls at school went every weekend.”

  “Have any others gone missing?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Just my baby. It’s always her. She’s the unlucky one.”

  “What did you argue about?” Val asked. “The night she left. What was the argument over?”

  “A boy,” Carrie said sharply. “I saw her with a boy. I didn’t see his face, but he looked older—a man, really. I was on the bus, so it was fast, but I saw him push her. What kind of man does that?”

  “Where was this?” I asked.

  “Oh.” She furrowed her brow. “It was near that abandoned house, the one that has all of those squatters. I went there after Crystal left, but they wouldn’t talk to me. The police said they spoke to them, but I got the feeling that they’re not taking this seriously. Crystal was too old, and the rumours were that she was wild, too.” She broke out into sobs, putting her face in her hands. “She was a baby. My baby. She wasn’t wild. She was just a little girl trying to fit in.”

  I swallowed and vowed to find out what had happened to Crystal Matthews.

  Chapter Twenty

  I set a brisk pace as we started back toward the park and the abandoned house.

  “People! They are amazingly shit to each other. What is wrong with people?”

  “It makes them feel better about themselves,” Val said.

  I hadn’t expected an answer. “How? How could putting someone else down make anyone feel better?”

  “Perhaps they’re happy it’s not them. When you talk about Seth, how evil he is, how demented, don’t you feel glad that you’re not that way?”

  “Please stop talking, Val.”

  She snorted.

  When we reached the abandoned squatter house, I turned to her. “I don’t think Seth is here.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “We need to use Crystal as a cover story.”

  “Who is the investigator here? And what was that about anyway?”

  “People are more comfortable with terms they’re familiar with. Everyone knows what a private investigator does, or at least, they think they do. A finder sounds weird and foreign, and that will put people off.”

  “Huh.” She glanced at me. “We’re not exactly getting a lot of interest. Do you think that’s why?”

  “Of course. And you need a name for this business, something that appeals to both sides of the fence and makes it obvious you’re sympathetic to humans and supernaturals.”

  “Like what?”

  “Okay, supernaturals don’t use surnames, but humans can’t comprehend that in anything other than a celebrity. So why not use your full first name and Peter’s surname together? When supernaturals see Valeria, they’ll know it’s not a run-of-the-mill human name. Brannigan tends to evoke all kinds of emotions, but it’s common enough for humans to deal with.”

  “You seem to be overthinking this.”

  “Or neither of you are thinking ahead enough. One of you needs to think of this as a business and not a calling. Peter’s head is stuck too far up his own arse to pay attention, so it’ll have to be you. You have to cater to two different worlds. Make two different types of business cards if you need to, but—”

  “Business cards?”

  “Sweet Jesus! I’ll organise your business cards and letterhead.”

  “Letterhead?”

  I ignored her. “I’ll have something simple designed then have copies printed. Shit, I miss my old work. Martin Breslin takes care of all of the landlady crap, and I hired Carl to work on my accounting. You know what? I’m going back into business properly. I have this opportunity to learn about real artefacts. Why not go whole hog? So if you find anything useful on your quests, you know who to talk to.”

  The confusion in her eyes said I’d clearly just had a conversation with myself.

  “Never mind,” I said. “You did better than I expected with Carrie back there.” />
  “What do you mean?”

  “Well…” I hesitated, trying to think of a way to say something that would be sort of insulting without her actually getting insulted. “You were… soft with her. Sometimes, you need to step away from the ‘grr’ side of your nature. People need a little empathy when they’re telling their problems to strangers. Peter’s too stiff and gruff to be sufficiently sympathetic, and people tend to look to the woman for that. You need to be the one they can talk to.”

  “I’m not sure I like where this conversation is going, Ava Delaney.”

  I held up my hands. “Sometimes, you’re going to come across people who want to talk to someone non-threatening. You have to learn to be that person when you need to be, and I was just saying that you did a good job back there.”

  She frowned.

  I patted her on the shoulder. “Let’s go round up some volunteers.”

  The abandoned house was large and derelict. There was no way it housed an important member of the vampire race. We checked around back and found one large door.

  “I’ll go in this way,” she said. “You enter from the front. We’ll clear the first floor and hopefully not lose too many of them.”

  I nodded and ran around to the front of the house. The door wasn’t open, so I searched around for a spare key. I finally found one under a fake stone in the yard. I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Wincing at the creaking sound, I eased the door shut and pushed the bolt home. If anyone ran, he’d at least make some noise.

  Filthy carpeted stairs were situated right in the hallway, and I spotted three doors on the ground floor, one open, two closed. I almost lost my shit when Val stepped lightly through the open door. I gestured at the stairs, but she shook her head and pointed at one of the closed doors.

  We had a silent argument for a moment before she angrily jabbed a finger at me then at the stairs. So we weren’t great at taking commands from each other.

  I crept upstairs. There were four bedrooms. Most of them were empty. The last contained a lone girl asleep on the bed. I put my hand over her mouth and shook her awake. Her eyes popped open then widened when she focused on me.

  “Let’s go downstairs with the others,” I said softly, removing my hand and taking a step back. “I have questions for you all about a missing girl.”