Vampire (Alpha Claim 8-Final Enforcement): New Adult Paranormal Romance (Vampire Alpha Claim)

by Eros, Marata

  *

  “Caleb!” Mom snapped her fingers in front of me.

  Huh? I whipped my head in her direction and I was standing where I'd been lost in my thoughts of scheming.

  “There you are, thought I'd lost you! What were you so deep in thought about?” she asked.

  “Ah, I was thinking about what my friends and I were talking about.”

  She looked a question at me.

  “We are waiting on Jonesy's Aptitude Testing for this Friday and I need to get a hold of Garcia and Gale and figure out the creeper who's doinʼ all the killing and—”

  “Officers Gale and Garcia.”

  “Right.” Whatever .

  “Actually, they're going to be dropping by after supper tonight.”

  Mom wasn't too sloppy of a schemer herself.

  “Okay.”

  “They have to talk about everything with a parent present.”

  “Not for long,” I said.

  “You're not grown-up quite yet, Caleb.”

  “Fifteen in October.”

  “Yes, but not legally independent until sixteen.”

  Dad breezed in, tossing his pulse-top on the couch along with his briefcase thing full of papers, really? Papers? He even used a pen sometimes to write. Retarded.

  “Who is not independent?” he said, messing up his hair with his fingers.

  Mom sighed, noticing. “Our son, honey. He is in an all-fired hurry to grow up.”

  Mom was heating up to a rant.

  “Is this about Officers Gale and Garcia's visit tonight.”

  “Listen... guys...”

  They turned to me mid-sentence. “I need to pulse Tiff and get her and her parents here too. She wants to help.”

  “That's fine. She and her folks are welcome here.”

  I was surprised. “I thought you didn't really dig her that much, Mom.”

  “She has sort of grown on me,” she said in a droll way.

  Dad nodded. “Smacks one a little of—”

  “Jonesy,” Mom finished.

  “That's it!” Dad said, snapping his fingers.

  He came up behind Mom and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  My total cue to leave.

  “When's supper?” Dad asked. “Do I have time to clean up?”

  “Sure, want company?” she asked in that super-awkward sweet voice.

  I looked at them, getting out of there in a hurry. Geez, parents. “I'm gonna go pulse Tiff now...”

  “Okay,” Mom said in a kinda dreamy way, eyes only for Dad.

  Eesh.

  I bounded up to my room, Onyx on my heels. I whipped out my pulse and thumbed it, scrolling through the contact list until I got to Tiff:

  Initializing.

  Glowing letters filled the screen.

  Hey Hart, how's it hanging? TW

  I had to remind myself on a weekly basis that Tiff was a girl. Like now.

  Ah... good. Did my mom get a hold of your mom? - CH

  Yeah, they're gonna be over at your place at 6:30. -TW

  Are ya nervous about the whole deal? CH

  Nah... I wanna kick that guy's ass...killinʼ all those kids, I've never been able to scrub it outta my mind, have you? -TW

  No .-CH

  K... see ya @ 6:30 .-TW

  Cya .-CH

  I depressed my thumb and thought: Hibernate.

  The screen went dark and I sat there on my bed thinking about a murder investigation. How the pressure fell on two kids in high school to find a guy that had, so far, killed ten kids. The remains had been found in the old cemetery where the ghosts had been last year.

  Kids our age .

  ****

  Tiff came skulking through the door in her trademark hoodie, black jeans and matching All-Star tennis shoes. (But, unlike Jade... she probably shoots hoops, she had that look) accompanied by her parents on her heels. It was weird to see Tiff subdued. In fact, I didn't think it was possible.

  Her mom gave her a glance and said, “Tiffany, hood.”

  “Mom...” she started in.

  “Do it,” her dad said, looking alarmingly like an older Bry.

  She flipped the hood back, her face revealed.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi.”

  “Where's Bry?”

  She rolled her eyes and Mom's eyebrows shot up.

  “He's out with this girl...”

  “Already? Geez, that was fast.”

  “Nah... he's been eye-ballinʼ her all summer.”

  “Tiffany.” Her mom gave her a warning tone.

  She turned to her mom. “It's okay mom, it's just Caleb.”

  I ranked. Nice.

  “I didn't meet her at Gramps?” I said to her as we wandered off to the family room.

  The parents spoke quietly with the Weller's, and I had a chance to look at them. Wow, maybe Bry would be kind of a big dude. Wait, check that; he already was. Mrs. Weller was tall, like a couple of inches shorter than Dad. But Tiff was a shrimp.

  I asked her about that.

  She shrugged. “I don't know, that height gene passed me by but I got hit with the AFTD right between the eyes.”

  “That's not so great of a trade-off.”

  “It'll be cool if we can help the cops,” she said.

  I nodded, it would validate our AFTD asses, that's for sure.

  There was a knock at the door and Onyx gave a soft woof.

  Showtime.

  Garcia came in and introduced himself to the Weller’s; we listened in abject boredom.

  “Gil Weller,” Tiff's dad said, pumping Garcia's hand, “and this is my better half, Shirley.” She stuck her hand out, looking him almost in the eye.

  “Good to meet you, Sergeant Garcia.”

  He smiled in that disarming way of his. “Just call me Raul. I think we'll be communicating a lot. So, no need for formality. This is Officer Bobbi Gale.”

  They all looked at her, way down, she was Jade's size. Maybe she was a buck ten. I gave a little smile.

  “What's so funny?” Tiff asked.

  “I was just thinking about Gramps saying Jade was a buck five, and thinking Gale was about the same size as her.”

  “God. That was the lamest comment ever.”

  “It was Gramps. He just-I don't know...”

  “He was born without a filter.”

  “Like Jonesy, but not.”

  “No, Jonesy is sorta harmless, but your Gramps—he's an old dude that can kick ass and take names.”

  Yeah he was.

  Shirley Weller gave a sharp look to Tiff. Had she heard the swearing?

  Tiff nodded at my expression. “Maybe, she's got, like, super-hearing or some crap. Bry and I have given up, we mime now. We'd rather look retarded than get our asses quarantined to the house.”

  I heard that . But, I didn't have any siblings so I couldn’t empathize as much.

  “Mac's your mom's dad?”

  I nodded.

  “Man, she is completely different than him!”

  I nodded again, polar opposites.

  “It was fun hanging out there this summer.”

  “Yeah, it was. If we still get good weather we can be out there almost to Halloween,” I said.

  “Don't they drain the lake?”

  “Yeah. I don't remember when but I'll ask. My mom will know.”

  The cops stopped all the hand-shaking BS and came to stand in front of Tiff and me.

  Bobbi Gale said, in that contralto voice that so didn't match her, “Did ya guys have a good summer?”

  “Yeah, it's been fun,” I said.

  “Action-less for once,” Tiff said.

  I knew what she was talking about.

  Garcia said, “This will probably change that.”

  Our gaze went to the folder in his hand.

  “First, we need to have your parents pulse their consent,” Gale said, placing her pulse-pad on the coffee table where it sat like a rotting tomato.

  “Gil, are you sure that
the kids should be exposed to this?” Shirley asked.

  He turned to her. “We've hashed this over to death. These kids are watching movies that are more realistic than the crime photos. And this,” he pointed to Garcia's burden he held against his chest, “is real. These are kids that are the same age as Tiff and Caleb.”

  I interrupted, “We're ready. What good is AFTD if we can't catch the bastard that's doing this?”

  Nobody corrected my language .

  Gil studied my face, taking my measure, then he turned to Shirley and she nodded. My folks already knew that my life was always gonna be dangerous. They just wanted to be part of it so they could help prevent as much as possible.

  Good luck with that. We'd barely escaped last year in one piece: I was almost beaten up by two different dads, kidnapped by the Graysheets and stalked by the loser-duo, Carson and Brett.

  Our respective parents pressed their thumbs to the consent form that illuminated Gale's pulse-pad, then leaned back in their seats where Garcia was spreading the crime photos like a deck of cards in front of us.

  A fan of dead bodies splayed out before me, my first thought was: definitely not like a movie .

  Tiff paled a little, and I gave her the guy clap on the shoulder.

  She steadied right up.

  “This is pretty graphic, so if someone needs to leave and take a moment...” he looked at the adultsʼ faces, finally settling on mine and Tiff's.

  She nodded, we're okay .

  It was utterly horrible and...very real.

  One photo in particular caught my eye, and there was something about it that stirred a memory I'd had it last year too. A flash of red and some concrete.

  Garcia's eyes were pinned on me. “Have you thought of something Caleb?”

  “This body.” I pointed to one that had the remnants of some clothes around it.

  “The one with the red sweatshirt?” Gale pointed.

  She and Garcia looked at each other.

  “What?” Tiff asked, her faced a pinched mess, it was getting to her.

  “ This is the oldest body and...” she looked helplessly at Garcia.

  “The child was reported missing about ten years ago. And, we have made a positive ID.”

  Who? What was with all the cloak-and-dagger shit?

  Garcia said, “It was Brett Mason's younger brother.”

  WTF?

  Tiff and I gaped at each other. Brett had a younger brother!? News to me.

  Mom said, “I remember hearing about that, because the boy was so close in age to Caleb, but I didn't make the connection.” She covered her mouth, looking shell-shocked.

  Us too.

  Dad had the thinking-about-Science-thing look. “The boy would be—how old now?”

  Gill said, “Isn't that the family that has all the domestic...”

  “Stuff,” Shirley answered, nodding confirmation.

  “Could it be,” Tiff began, “the dad,” she whispered.

  “No,” Garcia said. “He's been cleared, he has an alibi.”

  Too bad. He was a putz, and needed to be put out of his misery.

  We all started talking at once and Gale said, “Guys!”

  We stopped, looking at her. “We need to think about this as a local job.”

  Wasn't it local?

  She saw my expression. “We hadn't excluded the possibility of a transient. Someone that lived here for a time, but moved on. But we know now that it is someone familiar with the area, someone who may have contact with kids by profession or some other means.”

  Hell, that sucked.

  Tiff and I looked at each other. Sure would have been easier if it had been Brett's dad. Or even better, Jade's I thought dreamily. That'd rock.

  Garcia bent toward me, using the well of silence that Gale had produced to ask me, “You looked like you were remembering something.”

  I nodded. I'd had that same fleeting fragment of memory edging around my mind that first day I pointed out Jade to Jonesy. He'd elbowed me and it'd slipped away.

  I told Garcia what I remembered.

  “But what does this have to do with the dead body?” Tiff asked.

  I shrugged, I wasn't sure but somehow, they felt connected. The photo reminded me of the memory.

  Gale was nodding. “It's possible that somehow you're having a death-connection.”

  Garcia looked at her. “Non-paranormal speak, please. Just humor us mundanes, would you?” Garcia had a little edge to his voice.

  I guess there was a learning curve getting used to the paranormals. Or, maybe it was just Gale. She'd take some getting used to. She was definitely her. .. all the time. Whether ya wanted it or not.

  She blushed a little. “Ah, there's this thing we're trying, with some of the AFTDs where, they get some vibes or whatever, that they can connect to a real-life incident.”

  She looked expectantly at us and we stared blankly back. What?

  Dad stepped in. “Let me try—do you mean that if there was a time in Caleb's life, that he ever met the victim, then said victim,” he paused, “ passes, he can connect the memory to the death?”

  She exhaled. “Yes, kinda. I mean, it's the AFTDs who are great murder/trauma locators that are good at this ʻdeath-connectionʼ thing. And, of course, they have to actually have a memory to connect. Not everyone is lucky enough.”

  She looked at me. “Or unlucky enough to have stumbled on the victim when they were alive to have the memory connection after their death.”

  “You mean that I looked at the photo and immediately connected it to that memory and my AFTD ʻknewʼ it was related.”

  She visibly relaxed. “Yes.”

  Wow, this just kept getting weirder.

  Fine, now what. “So now what do I do?”

  “We want you to touch all the bodies and see if you have more connections.”

  Tiff huffed next to me, “Why do you need me then?”

  “You're his amplifier, right?”

  Tiff nodded. That was a swift nameplate for her.

  “You can help him connect. ”

  “He has to touch dead bodies?” Mom queried, looking ill.

  “I could raise them, they'd have to, ya know—answer me.”

  Garcia rubbed his chin back and forth, like a nervous habit. “How old would you say this memory is?” he asked without answering me.

  I thought about it. “Old.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  I thought more. “I wasn't in school for sure, I don't know, maybe earlier.”

  He looked at Mom. “Maybe we could get you to think of places you may have frequented and narrow down the most public. We're sure that some of these kids were abducted in everyday locations, in broad daylight, right under their parentsʼ noses.”

  Shirley's hand flew to her mouth and Mom gasped. “Do you think...?” she began.

  Garcia was nodding. “I do. I think it's plausible that Caleb may have witnessed the abduction and somehow seeing Jade connected it even before he saw this.” He tapped the photo of the broken body on the table, the neck twisted, the clothesʼ brightness faded by age and the dirt that had caressed them for a decade.

  Wait a sec, something didn't add up. “What does Jade have to do with it?” I asked, a worm of worry burrowing through my body, my palms growing clammy. It made me want to pulse her this second. I would the minute we were done here. Brother, creep-factor one hundred.

  The cops stood and so did the parents. More hand-shaking while Tiff and I silently communicated by a silent glance how fast this had gotten bad.

  Garcia was talking to us and I had missed it, my thoughts consumed with Jade. I wanted to make sure she was okay. It wasn't rational but the hell with it, I would calm down if I could pulse her.

  “....and then you can....”

  “What?” I asked. The Parentsʼ eyebrows lowered into that uni-brow position that's code for perk up or die . Right.

  “Excuse me?” I corrected. The eyebrows relaxed.

  One lectur
e avoided.

  “I was saying,” he looked at me, knowing I'd been off in dreamland, “that you and Miss Weller should come down to the station and check out the bodies.”

  No problem, Mr. Officer, just let me pencil you in so I can come do a little corpse-grope. Geez.

  Out loud I said, “Okay. When,” I looked at Tiff, who shrugged noncommittally, “do you need us to come in?”

  Garcia thought about it for one second. “Tomorrow would be great.”

  “We know that you just started high school but—” Gale added.

  “We know how important this is for—” Dad started.

  “—Everyone,” Shirley finished and the dads nodded.

  “Okay.” I said. “We'll do it.”

  The cops walked to the door and Gale turned. “Remember, I'll be there too, you're not going to have to do it on your own, Caleb.”

  “I know,” I said and looked at Garcia.

  “Oh.” He slapped his forehead. “Yes, you could raise one of the victims but, there is a theory about that.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “They're not sure if traumatic-victims remember their attackers. The same thing that allows AFTDs to find them may disallow a Cadaver-manipulator to get a confession or whatever.”

  We'll just see, won't we?

  “Okay, but, since I can—I should.”

  “Have you ah...” Gale asked as her hand landed on the doorknob.

  “No, I took the summer off,” I said.

  She looked relieved. “After the year you had, raising zombies probably didn't sound so hot.”

  I shook my head, it didn't sound so hot now either.

  The cops looked at us. “You can't tell anyone. This is a police matter and if word of the investigation were to get loose...” Garcia trailed off.

  “It could endanger you guys,” Gale said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “It's like Sophie said, ʻthe murderer isn't gonna want us breathing if he knows you're on to him.ʼ ” Unhelpful-much Tiff , I thought, seeing Mom's expression.

  “They already know we're gonna be working with ya,” Tiff said.

  He nodded. “Yes, but they don't know details. Impress upon them the need to stay quiet. Especially with Mr. Jones, who seems like a loose cannon.”

  Loose cannon. My parents looked at each other with the mention of Jonesy.