I stared back at him without saying another word. He, however, now appeared to be ignoring me in favor of the “coronary on a plate” in front of him. Of course, what he appeared to be doing and what was actual fact weren’t always the same thing, and I knew that, so I waited in silence.
After swallowing a bite, without looking up he repeated the preamble to his question, “Like I said, Kemosabe, don’t blame me. I handed ya’ the goddammed salt.”
“So you think your homicide case is why my neck hurts?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.”
“It hurts because I slept on it wrong,” I replied with heavy emphasis on each word.
Unfortunately, I had a feeling what I said was for my own benefit as much as his. There was a familiar peculiarity about the pain that I had been purposely ignoring since its onset, one that transcended the boundaries of the physical. Now, of all things, I had a gnawing bother erupting in the pit of my stomach that definitely wasn’t a mere attack of hunger pangs.
“Whatever you say,” he grunted, not even bothering to try hiding the fact that he didn’t believe me.
“Come on, Ben… Even if I’m wrong, you aren’t seriously saying that you think a vampire killed this woman, are you?” I asked.
“Didn’t say that,” he replied. “But you’re the one holdin’ your neck.”
Out of reflex, I dropped my hand to my side, even though the pain had become sharper and more pronounced. “Dammit, Ben. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just two and two, Row,” he said with a shrug. “That call was a status on the prelim from the medical examiner. I got an unidentified, very dead young woman with a hole in ‘er neck and most of ‘er blood gone, but no blood at the scene. Now I got the king of the friggin’ Twilight Zone -namely you-sittin’ across from me holdin’ onto his neck. Gimme a break… Do ya’ really think I’m not gonna at least ask?”
“Fine, but that really isn’t the point,” I replied. “Be serious. You know as well as I do vampires don’t exist. Metaphorical vampires, as in people who prey on others, yes… I’ll even give you psychic vampires because I’ve actually dealt with a couple of them myself… But, even then it’s still a metaphorical term. In the literal Count Dracula, undead, blood sucking sense of the word, they simply don’t exist.”
He held up his free hand and shook his index finger as he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but what about the wingnuts that think they’re vampires?”
“That’s a whole bizarre subculture in and of itself, and I really don’t know what to tell you there. It’s definitely not my thing.”
“Okay, just wonderin’. They touched on some stuff about ‘em in a seminar I was at last year. The brainiac givin’ the lecture said there was a crossover with Pagans and the occult and all that jazz, so I thought ya’ might know somethin’.”
“Paganism in general attracts all sorts of people, and it definitely gets its share of the Goth crowd, so it wouldn’t surprise me to get some of them as well. But as to the vampire types, I’m pretty sure the operative phrase there is think they are, Ben. Because that’s all it is. They aren’t really vampires.”
“You don’t want to say that to them,” a familiar voice offered.
We both looked up to see our waitress as she was sliding a plate of biscuits smothered in gravy onto the table next to me.
I shook my head and apologized, “Sorry, Wendy. I didn’t realize I was being that loud.”
“You weren’t. I’ve got really good hearing,” she said then pointed to the lunch counter a few feet away. “Besides, I was just right over there.”
Ben waved his fork absently. “So you actually know somethin’ about these freaks?”
“A little.” She shrugged. “Not a lot. I mean, it’s way too weird for me, but someone a friend of mine knows is heavily into the whole scene.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod.
“So this person actually thinks…” he began as he settled the fork on his plate then reached over to his jacket and rummaged around for his notebook.
Reading the unspoken question in his hesitant pause, Wendy answered, “She.”
“Thanks… So she thinks she’s a vampire?” he finished.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “And, she’s pretty serious about it too. The first time I met her she was really offended that I thought she was joking.”
“So, what, she just walked up and said, ‘Hi, I’m a vampire’?”
“Not right away, or in those exact words, but yeah, it was almost something like that. She brought it up while we were chatting. She told me she was ‘out of the coffin’ and just went from there.”
“Out of the…” Ben muttered and shook his head as he scribbled. “Jeezus, you gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“That’s apparently what they call it,” Wendy told him. “You know, like out of the closet.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he replied. “I just… never mind… So she just up and told you she was a vampire?”
She continued, “Yeah. She called herself a sang vamp.”
“So she’s what,” he chuckled. “A singin’ vampire?”
She gave him a half shrug. “Actually, I guess so. She does sing with an all-girl industrial metal band. But the way I understood her explanation, the sang has something to do with blood.”
“It’s probably verbal shorthand for the word sanguine, then,” I offered. “Bloody, or having to do with blood is one of its definitions.”
Ben glanced at me and nodded then turned back to the waitress. “Hell, Wendy, sounds like you shoulda been givin’ that lecture… So are ya’ sure it ain’t just all part of her act for the band or somethin’?”
Wendy shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess it could be. She definitely dresses the part. You know, the heavy-duty Goth chick look. But, she claimed she actually drinks blood.”
He harrumphed. “Not exactly shy about this crap, is she?”
“Well, I’ll admit, after she said she was a vampire, I asked,” she replied. “Morbid curiosity I guess. But, I’ve never actually seen her do it myself, thankfully.”
“Yeah, no shit… So, she happen ta’ say where she gets this blood?” he pressed.
“Her girlfriend, I think.”
“Is that your friend?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Mary Ann just tends bar at the club where the band has a regular gig. Desiree is the singer-she’s the vampire… I don’t remember her girlfriend’s name. She might have mentioned it, but she wasn’t there, so we were never actually introduced or anything.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The sharp tone of a counter bell rang, and Wendy shot a quick glance over her shoulder. Turning back to us she said, “I’ve got an order up.”
“Okay,” Ben said with a nod but didn’t let up. “So what’s this Desiree do? Go around bitin’ ‘er girlfriend on the neck or somethin’?”
“I really don’t know, it was all just kind of implied,” she replied with a visible shudder. “And believe me, I don’t want to know either. The whole thing pretty much creeps me out. I only talked to her a couple of times, and these days I try to avoid going to visit Mary Ann at the club whenever they’re playing because they tend to attract a whole crowd of them if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, a bumper crop of freaks…” he answered with a nod. “Jeezus, that’s some fucked up shit.”
“I really need to…” she started.
“Wendy!” a gruff male voice called out from the area of the grill, cutting her off.
“…go,” she finished. “Like I said, I’ve got orders up.”
“Just a sec,” Ben said, holding up his hand to delay her departure.
“Yo, Storm,” the male voice barked again from behind the counter, this time much closer and louder. “Ya’ think I can have my waitress back? I got customers wantin’ their food ya’know.”
“Just a minute, Chuck,” Ben called back to him without looking. “Thi
s is cop business.”
“Yeah, it’s always cop business,” he replied, voice not quite angry but definitely carrying an annoyed tone. “Ya’ got two seconds.”
“Desiree…” Ben mumbled as he pressed his pen against the page. “How’s she spell that? S or a Z?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure the band is called Lilith’s Daughters though.”
Ben jotted down the information then flipped his notebook shut. “Thanks, I ‘preciate it, Wendy. Guess I’d better let ya’ get back ta’ work before Chuck has a hemorrhage or somethin’.”
“No problem,” she replied as she hurried off.
My friend had placed his notebook off to the side and was now resuming his full frontal assault on the dubious delicacy known as a “kitchen sink omelet.” I watched him for a moment and then picked up my own fork. A handful of minutes dragged by as I pushed the food around on my plate, never actually taking a bite. It wasn’t that anything was wrong with my order, but the rumble in my stomach had officially morphed into a bitter churn of nausea in the wake of all the talk about drinking blood. Given everything I had experienced and seen over the years, why the conversation did this to me I couldn’t say. All I knew is that I was definitely hungry before the banter on that subject, now my appetite was beyond non-existent.
“You goin’ soft on me?” Ben asked without looking up.
“Maybe I’m just returning to normal,” I replied, pushing my plate to the side and cradling my mug of coffee.
“Yeah, well, you know what I have to say about that.”
“I know, Ben,” I said with a nod. “According to you, I ‘ain’t normal.’”
“So, whaddaya got planned for the rest of the day?” he asked, sharply veering the conversation onto a different course before shoveling more food into his mouth.
“Not much. I’ve got a potential new client who needs a quote on a custom database, but that’s about it,” I told him then embraced a sudden tickle of suspicion at the back of my skull and asked, “Why?”
He shrugged, swallowed, and then answered, “Just makin’ conversation.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“‘Cause you’re paranoid, I guess.”
“When it comes to you I have good reason.”
“Bullshit,” he huffed. “You know better’n that.”
“Who’s shoveling it now?”
“Truth? From what I can tell, both of us.”
I contorted my face as I shook my head. “What did I do?”
“Fed me a line of crap about bein’ retired.”
“That wasn’t crap, Ben. I’m serious.”
He gave his head a quick nod in my direction. “Yeah, well the way it looks ta’ me I think maybe your mouth is writin’ some bad checks, Row.”
Upon hearing the words I shot him another confused look, but before I could ask what he meant I noticed that my hand had returned to my neck of its own accord. How long I had been massaging the area again I didn’t know, but it seemed my friend was at least partially correct-someone on the other side of the veil wanted my attention.
In all honesty, I had expected something of this sort to happen eventually and because of that had already resigned myself to dealing with it. I just hadn’t been expecting the annoyance quite this soon.
This certainly wasn’t the first time I had tried to renounce this curse of communicating with the dead. This go around, however, my resolve was driven by a deep fear. My unwanted ability had been bringing the horror closer and closer to home, and most recently the nastiness had literally set up shop inside my wife. While Felicity was able to find a thousand reasons why it wasn’t my fault, I could only see the one that laid the blame directly on me.
I hoped that if I ignored the chatter inside my head for long enough, the disembodied voices would move on to some other unfortunate sucker. It wasn’t that I really wanted to wish it on anyone else. I simply felt like my luck was running out, so I was trying to heed what I perceived to be a wakeup call and get out while I still had some shred of sanity.
“No, Ben,” I said as I started shaking my head. “I can’t do this. Not anymore…”
“Didn’t ask ya’ to,” he replied. “All I did was ask if ya’ knew about vampires. You don’t, so no harm, no foul.”
“But you had a reason for asking.”
“Yeah. I already told ya’ the reason. I’ve got a dead girl in a cold storage drawer over on Clark, and from the minute I arrived on scene this mornin’, my gut’s been tellin’ me somethin’s extra hinky about it. You and your neck just confirmed that for me.”
“You aren’t helping.”
“Look, white man, believe me, I’m not tryin’ ta’ drag you into it. Hell, I’m usually the one who’s tellin’ ya’ to stay outta the way and let us cops do our jobs, ain’t I?”
“Yeah, but that’s not exactly how it sounds to me at the moment,” I returned.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been down this road with ya’ before, Row. You might not know it, but right now you got that look. It’s the one you get when the hocus-pocus is gonna take over and shit hits the fan. I’ve seen it a dozen times, and it always means you’re gonna be in the middle of it no matter what.”
“No. No I’m not.”
He shook his head. “For your sake I hope like hell you’re right. But I gotta be honest, I sure as hell wouldn’t put money on it.”
“Remember I just said you aren’t helping?” I grumbled. “Well, you still aren’t.”
“Sorry, white man.” He grunted. “Just callin’ it like I see it, and from where I sit there’s a signpost up ahead…”
CHAPTER 6:
By the time I arrived home, the pain was screwing itself into my neck with a vengeance. It had gradually escalated from sharp discomfort to a tortured sting that rose and fell in intensity with each beat of my heart. Fortunately, although my stomach was still off-kilter, the acidic queasiness that plagued me earlier had subsided a bit, which was at least some small consolation. Of course, my appetite certainly hadn’t made haste to return, so the still untouched breakfast was in a Styrofoam to-go box resting in the passenger seat of my truck.
I had no doubt that I was dealing with the earthly manifestations of someone else’s ethereal torment. That much was a given in my mind. In fact, despite my initial objections, I was also more than willing to believe the victim in Ben’s current investigation was the one assaulting me across the veil between the worlds of the living and dead. Nonetheless, I was clinging to my resolve and remained set on ignoring her no matter how much it hurt. There was just one small problem. Everything my friend had said about me earlier at the diner rang truer than I cared to admit. Whenever the dead came to me for help, I always ended up in trouble. Always. While I couldn’t really blame him for pointing it out, just thinking about it made my mood as sour as my stomach.
After parking my vehicle in the garage next to Felicity’s Jeep, I let myself in the back door of the house. As I came into the kitchen from the sunroom, both of our dogs met me and began snuffling about before finally sitting and looking at me expectantly. They immediately jumped up and followed along as I skirted around the island then pulled open the refrigerator door and started to make room on one of the shelves for the takeout container I was carrying. After a moment our English setter snorted a low sigh followed by something that wasn’t quite a bark but was definitely meant to convey a message. I looked over and found both of the canines sitting a few feet away, staring at me with imploring eyes as they quivered in excited expectation.
“You ate this morning,” I told them. “It isn’t dinnertime yet.”
The Australian cattle dog perked his ears and let out a short yip. The English setter followed with a repeat of his non-barking dog speak. I stared back at them and sighed.
All I really wanted to do at the moment was put the carton away then down a couple of painkillers and relax for a bit. But, I knew if I was going to insist on ignoring the etherea
l pokes and prods, then I was going to need to learn to function around them as well. That meant, very simply, I couldn’t use unexplainable aches and pains as an excuse to eschew my responsibilities, even though I may want to do exactly that.
“Yeah, okay…” I mumbled in a tired drone, abandoning my task and swinging the refrigerator door shut.
A minute or so later I had the canine’s dishes up on the island and was still in the middle of dividing the contents of the container between them when I was verbally admonished from behind. This time, however, there was no need to interpret because the scolding was spoken in perfectly understandable English.
“You’re spoiling them, you know,” Felicity said.
“And you don’t?” I replied without looking up from my task.
“That’s not my point,” she returned, a smile in her voice.
“Of course it isn’t,” I returned, trying not to let my foul mood creep into my tone, which was no easy task since physically I seemed to be entering a steep, downward spiral. “Besides, Hon, they’re getting old. They’ve earned a few between meal snacks.”
She was next to me now and inspecting the contents of the bowls. “Snack? That looks more like a whole meal to me.”
“It kind of is…” I replied. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“You aren’t coming down with something, are you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied with a weak sigh.
The blatant lie might have worked had it not been for the fact that I winced as I said it-not to mention the fact that my free hand automatically went up to my neck.
“You sure aren’t acting like it, then,” she said. “What’s wrong with your neck?”
“Nothing,” I told her. “I think I just slept on it the wrong way or something.”
“Do you want me to give you a massage?” she asked, reaching up to move my hand. Before she could pull my fingers away, however, she let out a small gasp. “Rowan, you’re ice cold!”
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