by Lily Luchesi
The footsteps stopped abruptly and then continued to his side of the bench.
“Yes... Detective Mancini?”
He looked up at the woman. Short, maybe five feet tall, in her mid-thirties, with curly black hair highlighted with caramel, olive skin, and a wide smile. This was his informant. This was also someone who could have been related to his wife. Creepy, and somehow comforting.
Danny stood and shook her hand. “Thank you for meeting me. Please, sit. This won’t be long, I imagine you’re cold.” She was bundled up in a brown parka with fake leopard print along the hood and sleeves.
She giggled. “Smart man.”
“All right, I’ll cut to the chase. The PID is under attack.”
Frieda nodded. “I know. I’ve heard. People aren’t too happy that the Empress hasn’t done anything about it.”
“We’re trying,” Danny said, a little annoyed. “But we need outside help. And I thought that a witch with CIA ties could be perfect.”
“First, what is killing people? What am I looking for?” she asked.
“A skin changer.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Is that like a shapeshifter?”
“Yes and no. A shapeshifter can only shift into one shape — an animal. A skin changer can appear as anyone, any race and gender, anytime they want. No limits,” he explained.
“How the Hell do you catch one of those?” she wondered.
“With difficulty and perseverance,” he replied. “I would like you to cast some spells and extract information from anything, anywhere, where murders took place. Look for anything strange, anything out of place. See if anyone in the deceased people’s personal lives have disappeared or were acting different around the times of the murders. That could be the skin changer. Just be charming and cute and a little witchy.”
Frieda laughed as she took the file Danny was offering her. “I’ll do my best, Detective. But it sounds like you’ve really got nothing to go on.”
He smiled and said, “That’s why you’re here.”
Chapter Five
“Hey, have you seen everything Mahon sent over to us from his study of that one skin changer?” Sean asked Angelica a week later. Thanksgiving had just passed and they were no closer to finding the murderer than they had been when they started.
“Halfway through,” she replied. “Why?”
“Check this out: ‘Both Linwood and I observed that skin changers have very high brain activity, and being around one in an isolated situation was nearly unbearable’.” He lowered the paper and raised his eyebrows. “Danny can find it no sweat.”
“Umm, not exactly,” Angelica said. “Turning him took his powers away. He’s no longer a precognitive. And besides, I already knew that about them.”
Sean groaned, leaning against the doorframe of Angelica’s office. “Can we ever have a mission go smoothly when you’re around? I swear, shit like this only happens when you’re involved.”
“Bite me,” she said, flipping to that page in the report on her tablet. “I’ve been thinking: can we find another precog? I admit, I haven’t met any...well, any that are still living.” She looked down, remembering her friend Brighton, Mahon’s reincarnated little brother. He had been a wonderful friend who had died at only thirty-six years old during a fight with a vampire.
“But we have.” Sean held up his tablet and told her to open a file. “I decided to do a sweep for unusual brain activity, the kind found in precogs like Danny. I figured they can be used for nefarious means if demons or energy vampires ever got their hands on any, so we’d best keep track of them. You’re right: there are precious few, and only one in Chicago. Here.”
Angelica was looking at a file on a young man named Daniel Castorini, a postgraduate psychology student at the University Of Illinois. He was thirty, and had reported to have heard people’s thoughts as a child. Sean had obtained childhood medical files, where the boy claimed he could hear what most people were thinking, and had predicted certain events he couldn’t have possibly known.
“His mother put him in therapy three years after his first utterance of a vision, and he attended from ten until thirteen. He told the doctor it was the grief of losing his great-grandfather that made him act out.”
“Since when is being psychic considered ‘acting out’?” Angelica interrupted.
Sean shrugged. “Evidently it is with normal people. Well, one of the monitors you always had in place saw the kid’s brain activity and we’ve been keeping tabs on him ever since. I’m pretty sure he’d be calm and accepting to a temporary job here, since he was so blasé about his own powers as a child.”
Angelica nodded. “What are you waiting for? Go get him.”
* * *
Daniel was so close to receiving his doctorate, becoming a certified psychologist, and hopefully helping kids like him, who were emotionally dissected and made to believe that they were insane. He hadn't even turned eight years old when his great-grandfather had told him he had latent psychic abilities, just a night before he passed away. As if the death had been some kind of noose loosened upon his mind, he suddenly started hearing people’s thoughts, sensing their emotions, and seeing visions when he touched them or objects that had meaning.
He remembered his first occurrence of the ability clearly, a week after his Pops’ burial, when he touched a bruise on the arm of his best friend and had a vivid vision of her being abused by her father.
He’d gone to the school headmaster and reported it, but when questioned, Daniel had made the mistake of telling his mother how he knew about the abuse, the one thing his Pops had made him promise he’d never do. Pops had been right, his mother didn’t believe him, just as she never believed the outlandish tales Pops used to tell about vampires, werewolves, and witches. She’d sent him to a shrink who had made him feel like a psycho you’d see on the streets of downtown, talking to themselves.
They had put him on medication that did stop the visions, but also made him very sick. Stifling his powers had given him headaches, stomach aches, mood swings, and more. It took him till he was thirteen to wise up and say he had made it all up, it was grief, and everything else the little man in the half-moon spectacles had wanted him to say.
Ever since then, he kept his powers to himself and vowed that one day he would become a doctor and spare any child the shame of being ridiculed as he had been when he had been a patient. And if he ever met another child like him, he would help them, teach them, assure them that they weren’t insane.
It meant a lot more time in school, but that was okay. He came from a long line of city workers and civil servants, and he would be the first person to be a postgraduate and retain a degree that gave him letters after his name. His mother had been so proud until she died in a mugging gone wrong when he was twenty-six. His father had fled when he was first diagnosed with acute stress reaction to grief at ten, so his approval didn’t matter much to Daniel.
He was leaving a late class, eyeing up a pretty undergrad and wondering if asking her for a drink wouldn’t be presumptuous when someone called his name.
Turning, he spotted a stocky, well-built man a few inches shorter than him, clad in a long black coat over jeans and a Star Wars t-shirt.
“You’re Daniel Castorini?”
“Yes, who are you?” Daniel asked. He sent his mind out, but the man had his guarded well. Daniel would need to concentrate to break through the shield, and he didn’t know how to do that.
The man held out an ID like a cop, but Daniel had his Pops’ old ID from the Chicago Police Department, and it looked nothing like this badge. It was silver, with a bat, crossed swords, a cross, and the inscription: ‘PID, Chicago, IL, Est. 1881’. It said his name was Sean Wireman.
“Um, sorry, have I done something wrong?” Daniel asked.
Sean shook his head. “Not at all. Actually, I think you might be able to help us.”
“Help whom, exactly, and with what?” Daniel asked, wishing he had weapons training so the pocketk
nife he carried could actually be of some use in case this guy was a whackjob.
“The PID. Look, why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you all about it and what you can do for us.” Sean gestured to a nearby bench.
Daniel walked over with him but declined to sit.
“Okay, I’ll get right to the point,” Sean said. “You’re a precognitive psychic. And we could really use your help in catching a paranormal criminal who’s killed seven people already in Chicago.”
Daniel’s eyes widened. “How can you claim something so ridiculous? Did one of my roommates set this up? Is this a prank because I used to believe in monsters as a kid?”
Sean heaved a sigh, looking concerned. “Look, don’t talk like an asshole and I won’t treat you like one. My badge, the PID, it stands for Paranormal Investigative Division. We’re a part of the FBI. Part of our job is to monitor the world for possible paranormals or humans with abilities like yours, to make sure no one goes darkside.” He gestured to his shirt with a grin, but Daniel wasn’t paying attention.
Sitting down heavily on the bench, eyes wide and unblinking, he said, “You’re real? The Paranormal Investigative Division actually exists?”
“You heard of us?” Sean asked. “How?”
“My Pops claimed to work for you. Of course, everyone told me he was lying, making up stories to entertain me.” Daniel felt numb all over, stunned and pleased and confused all at once. All his life he had wanted to believe his Pops’ stories, but as he grew up, the only paranormal thing he ever saw was his reflection, and he was perfectly human as far as he knew.
Sean said, “I haven’t worked here long enough to know anyone before twenty-eighty-seven, but if you come with me, I know someone who can tell you if he was telling the truth. And she can explain what we need from you as well. You don’t have to agree: all you have to do is give us an hour of your time to listen, that’s all. If you don’t want to help, you’re obviously free to leave.”
In a normal world, Daniel should have told Sean to fuck off and ran away, but the lure of finding out about the mysterious PID that his Pops used to talk about so animatedly was too strong to ignore. He’d lived his life thinking he was alone, that there was no one else “abnormal” out there.
“Are you human?” he asked Sean abruptly.
The man chuckled. “No. I’m a siren. I’d give you a demonstration, but since neither of us are gay, I think that would be way too uncomfortable.” He stood up, long coat sweeping against his ankles like some kind of modern Neo.
“Good deal,” Daniel replied. “I’ll follow you in my own car.”
Sean’s grin widened. “You’re just gonna go along with all this?”
“Yeah. I could be going to my death, but I’m far too curious for my own good,” Daniel admitted.
“You’re going to fit right in.”
Daniel went to the parking lot, which was where Sean had parked as well, and got into his car, his veins strumming with adrenaline. It was complete insanity, but somehow he knew, deep down, that he wasn’t being fed a line of bullshit. And if he was, well, that was his fault for being this gullible.
All his life he knew, deep down, there had to be more out there than your average humans, he was living proof of that. And he was right.
They drove into the city, coming up to a shiny, glass-walled building a hundred stories high, and parked in the underground lot. Daniel realized that he remembered this place, when they’d dropped his Pops off in the FBI’s hospice care. That was the only time he had been there until now, and he mentioned it to Sean.
“See? You’re already familiar with us,” the siren said, using a keycard and a keycode to get into the building. He waved to the girl at the front desk and led Daniel into the elevator, hitting the top floor. He glanced over at the student. “Nervous?”
Daniel nodded, “A little. Mostly just because I’m wondering if the doctors were right and I really am crazy and hallucinating.”
“Want me to pinch you?” Sean joked. “You’re not crazy. Trust me, when I found out I wasn’t human — sirens are often born to humans — I was freaked out. But you adapt to learning that there’s more out there than what was in your philosophy.”
“Wow, how old are you that you still quote Shakespeare?” Daniel asked.
“Don’t push me, kid.”
The elevator dinged, revealing a wide vestibule with four doors. One nearest them said it was Sean’s, another said head of security, and he couldn’t read the other one as Sean led him to the one furthest away. He knocked and Daniel heard a woman say, “Enter.”
Sean stuck his head in. “Castorini is here.”
“Perfect. He can come in. Monitor everything for me, will you?” the woman asked, but Daniel knew it was not a request. The authority in her voice was obvious and more than a little bit of a turn on. “And tell me when Danny returns.”
“Will do,” Sean said. “It’ll be awkward with a Daniel and a Danny around, won’t it?” He turned to Daniel. “Go on. I’d say she won’t bite, but then I’d be lying.”
Huh? Daniel was a little confused and even more unnerved as he entered the large office. A woman was reading something, her head down. She had long hair the color of ink and pale hands, her curvy body clad in what looked like a black pantsuit. Under the table were spiked black heels as dark and shiny as the woman’s hair. He noticed a lack of anything coming from her brain. What was she? Definitely not human.
“Um, hello?” he said.
“Sit, Mr. Castorini,” she commanded, looking up at him at last. Her eyes were as black as her hair and clothes, so dark and deep he felt pinned to the spot. Her skin was as white as new fallen snow, and her lips were blood red. She was beautiful, ethereal, inhuman.
Her eyes widened. “My God.”
“What?” Daniel asked, worried.
“I haven’t seen you since you were a boy,” the woman said. “You look just like him.”
“Just like whom, ma’am?” Daniel asked.
“Your great-grandfather, Danny Mancini. Who else? How stupid I was to not have wondered whatever became of you?”
Now he was officially confused, but a little bit hopeful as well. “You knew my Pops? That’s impossible. You’re what, twenty-five? Younger than me. He died when I was a little kid.”
The woman laughed, a deep, full sound. But the sound sent the bad kind of chill down his spine. That was the laugh of a madwoman, someone who would tie you up and slowly kill you over a period of days or weeks, enjoying the torment and keeping a body part as a souvenir.
“Looks can be very deceiving, Castorini,” she chided. “I am two hundred and ninety-six years old.”
“Holy Hell,” he said. “What are you? Who are you?”
“I see you have your priorities straight.” She sat back, smirking.
He wasn’t sure if it was sexy or if he wanted to run as fast as he could away from her. Never had he met someone who was such a paradox. “I’m a vampire. The Empress of all vampires, if you’d like my official title, and founder of the PID. My name is Angelica Mancini, formerly Cross. Perhaps your ‘Pops’ once mentioned me.”
Daniel felt his stomach sink to his knees. It wasn’t possible. “You — you’re dead. You died ninety-three years ago from garlic poisoning.”
“Actually, I’m Undead,” she corrected. “It’s quite the long story over why I made Danny think I was dead, and not one that is currently important.”
Daniel was in a state of pure disbelief. The PID, monsters, they were real. That he could comprehend. But Angelica Cross, the woman his Pops had spoken so reverently about, the star of every single story he had ever been told, the woman who was a hero figure in his mind as a child, she was real. She was right there, in front of him. Real. Alive. That was unbelievable.
Her voice broke through his jumbled thoughts. “Yoo-hoo, you all right?” She waved her hand before his blankly staring eyes, bringing him back to Earth.
“Yeah, I’m just...you were a hero to me, s
omeone I begged to hear stories about. Someone who made Pops smile when your name was mentioned. I know he loved my great-grandmother, but when he talked about you...he was a different person. He loved you for seventy years till he died. Literally, right up till that last day. I used to dream of you as a kid, after he died, wishing you were real and would come take me away. I used to think that if anyone would understand and accept me as I am, it would have been you.”
Those unfathomable dark eyes softened. “Here I am, and here you are, kid. Don’t let anyone tell you dreams don’t come true.”
Just then, there was a quick knock at the door and it opened. Daniel turned to see who had walked in and nearly fell out of the chair. The man standing there would be him in twenty years. They could have been father and son.
“Angie, what the fuck?” the man asked, unable to take his eyes from Daniel.
The vampire sighed. “As usual, my life has become a cross between Supernatural and General Hospital.”
* * *
Danny had been out in the night, canvassing the streets near the former home of one of the murdered PID workers, checking in case the killer returned to the scene of the crime. He’d felt at a disadvantage all night. For the first time since turning, he missed his precognitive powers. He’d gone back to the PID in a frustrated state, only to have his preternatural hearing pick up a man’s voice in Angelica’s office, a voice that sounded similar to his.
He opened her door after a perfunctory knock — a habit he’d never get out of, no matter how long he and Angie were together — and saw a miniature of himself seated in the visitor’s chair. This man’s hair was a bit shorter and darker, but still reddish brown curls, the same proud nose, the same mouth that always looked ready to smile and laugh. He was maybe thirty and looked younger because he was clean-shaven and clad in a leather jacket and tee with some new band’s logo on it.
His “what the fuck” statement had been perfunctory; he hadn’t meant to say it. Judging by the looks of the kid in the chair, he was as shocked to see a lookalike as Danny was. His powers were gone, but his intuition was still intact. There was something with this kid.
