by J. R. Rain
Now I was on the road with a Starbucks mocha between my legs and a belly full of scone. What the hell is a scone, anyway? I’ll Google it later.
The sun was rising to my right, in the east, as I headed steadily up the 5 Freeway. Or, as my friends in San Fran call it, 5 Freeway, minus the article the.
San Franciscans are weird.
Cool, but weird.
So I was heading up the 5 Freeway, listening to the wind whistle across my partially open window, and wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.
Maybe I should have listened to Roy.
Maybe I should have laid off the case. After all, wasn’t Veronica, or Valerie, nearly an adult now? Hell, hadn’t she basically been on her own since witnessing her parents’ murder three years ago.
Yes, and yes, but one thing shouldn’t be forgotten here: More than likely Veronica was delusional. More than likely she had erroneously pitted the blame on an innocent writer of vampire fiction. And if she had attacked him with a fucking silver stake, well, she was still a threat to the man.
For his safety, she needed to be stopped.
For her mental health and her own safety, she needed to be stopped.
And I was just the guy to do it?
Apparently so. After all, I didn’t pick the cases, they picked me.
As the sun came out in full force, I dropped my shades and headed steadily north.
On the 5 Freeway.
* * *
I called Detective Hammer of the LAPD Missing Persons Division. He picked up on the fourth ring.
“So I’m a fourth-ring friend now?” I asked.
“Since when were you a first-, second-, or even a third-ring friend?”
“Now that’s just mean.”
“I happen to be a busy man, Spinoza. You’re lucky I picked up at all. Now what the hell do you want? I’ve got a mother waiting outside my office who hasn’t seen her seven-year-old in five hours.”
My own stomach plummeted at the thought and my heart went out to her. I made a mental note to check up on her and offer my services. I said, “I need you to put me in contact with a buddy of yours on the San Francisco PD.”
“You think just because I’m with LAPD that I have friends around the country?”
I waited.
“Okay, you’re right. I don’t have time to fuck with you. What’s this about?”
“Our friend the vampire slayer.”
“Talk to me. Fast.”
I quickly caught him up to speed. When I was finished, Detective Hammer whistled lightly. “Yeah, a real nut job. Here’s a name and number. Detective Sparks. A good man.” He gave me his number and added, “So this guy really writes vampire novels?”
“Yes, apparently.”
“Aren’t most vampire novels about teenage girls running around and, you know, acting retarded?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “But you seem to be some sort of expert.”
He said something derogatory about me and my hygiene, reminded me once again that I was nothing more than a glorified mall cop, and hung up.
* * *
I called Detective Sparks with the SFPD and caught him up to speed. I did my best not to mention the words “vampire slayer” until the very end. And when I finally did—because I inevitably had to—I could practically see the detective’s eyebrows shoot halfway up his forehead. I had never met Sparks or heard of him, but I had a mental image of a man shaking his head and his eyes rolling up.
“Vampire slayer?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“As in, you know, vampires?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, now I’ve heard everything.”
“Sadly, now you have.”
“And you have a picture of this girl?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Swing it by the station and we’ll give it to our guys.”
“See you then.”
We hung up, and I continued driving north through the heart of California, past acres and acres of farmland. I had heard once that California farms fed most of the world. Out here, driving up this empty stretch of highway, it was easy to believe.
And as I sat back and dug in for the rest of the drive, I idly considered the possibility that perhaps Veronica had really witnessed her parents being killed by a vampire.
Now I almost regretted not working the cheating spouse cases. Almost. No matter what, Veronica was a minor and she needed help.
One way or another, I was going to help her.
* * *
Four hours later, and using my GPS navigation to direct me through the busy streets of San Francisco, I soon pulled up to the SFPD Main Station. Shortly after that, I was directed up into Detective Sparks’s office.
The detective was pretty much as I had imagined: average-sized, thick around the neck and shoulders, and balding. We shook hands, chatted briefly. He took Veronica’s pictures and made colored copies of them and gave them to one of his men. The images were then uploaded and broadcasted to various officers. Within minutes, Veronica’s mug was everywhere.
I left the station, feeling as if I had somehow betrayed the girl, denying her the chance at retribution.
Maybe, I thought. But more than likely she was going to hurt someone, including herself.
I checked the time. 1:00 p.m.
The book signing was in one hour.
Chapter Eight
Apparently this James P. Storm was a pretty popular guy. A line filled mostly with titillated women wended itself through the store, out the front door, and around the building.
I was in the wrong business.
Many of those standing in line were clutching various books. I noted that most of the covers were darkish and gloomy and seemed to scream vampire.
Inside, the Borders was everything a super bookstore should be, and perhaps a little more. This one, it seemed, had three stories. That’s a shitload of books.
I silently vowed to read more someday. Maybe then I’ll finally figure out what the hell a Kindle is.
James P. Storm was nowhere to be found, having yet to make his grand appearance. As I cruised the bookstore, following the long line of excitedly chatting women, I looked for Veronica. Would have been nice if I found her standing there wielding a stake, but no such luck.
At the front of the line, which ended up at the second floor in the mystery section, I found myself at a long table draped in a red table cloth and stacked high with gloomy-looking vampire books. A life-sized cardboard cut-out of James P. Storm leaned against an easel next to the table.
I walked over to the cut-out. Storm wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Certainly nothing to write home about, although he seemed to take himself a little too seriously for someone who simply wrote vampire novels.
And that tan. Sweet Jesus. The man looked practically radioactive.
I tried to imagine him pouncing on Veronica’s mother and father, ripping open their throats, and drinking from them. I couldn’t do it. Mostly, I couldn’t imagine him tearing himself away from a tanning bed.
I checked the time: 1:50.
His Royal Tannedness would be appearing soon, no doubt to the delight of those waiting in line for God knows how long. I moved away from the table and checked out the security set-up. A single policeman was standing off to the side, near an “Employee Only” door. He didn’t look happy about his assignment. I didn’t blame him. I scanned the crowd and spotted two security guards patrolling the line. The security guards looked a little more into it.
I knew from Detective Sparks that a plainclothes officer was in the store as well, looking for anything unusual. Granted, an endless line of chattering women waiting for a too-tan man seemed unusual enough, but whatever.
I noted that one of the security guards had a piece of paper rolled up in his back pocket. The paper and the partial image I saw looked familiar. It was Veronica, an image no doubt distributed by the police. Good, there was nowhere for her to hide or to run. We were going to find h
er, and save her from herself.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
I checked my cell. Five minutes to go.
She was here, somewhere. I knew it. I felt it. But so far no one matched her description: that of a tall, dark haired, seventeen-year-old girl with murder in her eyes.
A murmur began behind me. The murmur turned into outright cheers and clapping. I turned to see a tall man emerge from a backroom door, escorted by two very serious-looking Borders employees and another police officer.
James P. Storm waved to his adoring fans, flashed a white smile, and took a seat at the long table. He picked up a pen, nodded to one of the Borders employees, and the first in line was permitted to stand before the table. Both policemen took up their positions to either side of the author. Both policemen looked as if they would rather be anywhere but here. One actually yawned.
As I stood watching the scene from about fifty feet away, I couldn’t help but notice that Storm seemed frail and sickly, despite his brilliant tan.
Fake tan, I suddenly thought.
So fake that I suspected it could have been make-up. I had lived in Hollywood long enough to have seen my fair share of fake tans. Bronzers they call them. Something you rub on the skin. No sun required.
Perfect for a vampire.
I should have laughed at the notion. I should have banished it from my thoughts. I should have done anything but take it seriously. But it suddenly made some sense. Weird, strange, incomprehensible sense. Oxymorons on top of oxymorons.
I frowned and watched him smile brightly at the next girl in line. He took her book with an equally tan hand, and spoke quietly to her, smiling, and then leaned over and wrote something inside the book. As he wrote, I noted a change in his pleasant expression.
He wasn’t smiling now; indeed, he looked like he was in pain. Or deathly ill.
Like a vampire forced into the light of day?
I shook my head. Craziness.
As he handed back the book to the young lady, his white long sleeve rode up his arm a little, and I couldn’t help but notice the fanged head of a snapping dragon. A helluva big tattoo. No doubt that beast wrapped all the way up his arm, and probably then some.
Don’t get caught up in the craziness, I thought. Lots of people have dragon tattoos.
And then Storm turned his head slightly and caught my eye and something very close to a chill coursed through me. He gave me a half smile and nodded and held my eyes for a half a second. He squinted a little and then he turned back to the next girl, smiling brightly at her, as well.
What the hell had that been about?
I didn’t know, but there was nothing more to see here on the second floor. I had just turned toward the escalator, when I stopped short and almost gasped.
Almost, but I kept my composure.
It was her, Veronica the Vampire Slayer.
Chapter Nine
It was as if I was staring at a ghost, something that might not really be there, something phantasmagorical and ethereal. But she was there, in the flesh, real as hell, and she was heading up the escalator to the second floor.
After I got over my initial shock, I processed what I was seeing. Veronica was wearing a long blond wig and a long flowing white dress. She might have even gone unnoticed had I not spent the long drive up to San Francisco memorizing every detail of her face.
And so, despite the wig, and the distance between us, I immediately recognized the strong jaw and her challenging eyes. The blond girl was tall, too, as tall as Veronica would have been.
It was her; I was sure of it.
And so far, no one else seemed to notice.
She stepped calmly up onto the very escalator I had planned on using, and as she slowly ascended, I saw that she was sporting a guitar case strapped to her back. I seriously doubted there was guitar inside.
I considered my options. There weren’t many, so it didn’t take long. I could find the closest policeman, convince him that the guitar-wielding blond was a delusional psychopath. Or just follow her up myself.
I decided on the latter. I was, after all, a man of action.
As she continued to ascend, I picked up my pace and just as I reached the escalator, a very large elderly couple stepped on before me. Damn. Veronica reached the top of the escalator and made a right. She flashed me a view of her strong profile, and then she was gone, out of my line of sight.
Double damn.
It was at that moment, as I was about to impolitely push through the elderly couple in font of me, that an icy chill coursed through me. I shivered as goosebumps rippled along my forearms.
Someone was watching me.
I glanced around for the source of the feeling. I didn’t have to look long. Below, staring up at me from behind the table draped with the red tablecloth, a squinting James P. Storm was watching me ascend.
I shivered and looked away.
* * *
She was gone. Or, rather, I had lost her. Shit.
At the top of the escalator, I hung a right and moved quickly through an area of low tables and oversized gift books. The third floor, like the other two, was laid out in a perfect square, with the center open. A low glass wall gave shoppers a view of the floors below. From up here, I could see the book signing taking place below, with a clear view of James P. Storm smiling and talking pleasantly to a young reader. The winding line of humanity looked a little like the Great Wall of China.
As calmly as I could, I checked each row and aisle for signs of the girl. I made a full circuit of the top floor and soon ended back at the escalator landing, with no sign of Veronica anywhere.
I stood there, confused. Maybe I was losing my mind. Maybe I had imagined the girl. The third floor seemed darker than the other floors, and quieter, too, since all the action was taking place on the floor below. Still, there was a handful of people up here. The elderly couple that had blocked my ride up the escalator were holding hands and laughing and moving slowly down one of the aisles. A man and woman were sitting together cross-legged in an aisle, reading. An elderly man was flipping through a magazine, sitting in a reading chair. A young man holding a laptop case strolled over to the brass railing and looked down, a bemused smirk on his face.
I continued scanning. As I did, my heart thumped once in my chest, then twice. Hard. Something was going to happen. I could feel it. Either that, or I was going to keel over and die right here of a heart attack.
So where the hell had she gone?
The bathrooms were all downstairs on the first floor. Up here, there was only a single Employees Only door, with a keypad.
Maybe she had the code.
I doubted it. Confused, I began systematically searching each corner of the upstairs, one after another, and when I got to the fourth and last corner, I found it.
The guitar case. Leaning against the far end of a bookcase. Hidden unless one ventured deeper into the corner, as I had done.
I hurried over to it, opened it. Inside was a blond wig and a white dress and no guitar.
“Ah, hell.”
* * *
As as I ran out from behind a tall bookcase, the first person I saw was the young guy with the laptop case. He was still standing near the railing, on the opposite side of the room. I noticed he was no longer smiling bemusedly. Instead, he was unzipping the case and pulling something out from within. It was most certainly not a laptop.
No. It was a small, stainless steel crossbow.
And the young man wasn’t a man.
It was Veronica.
* * *
She had, of course, cut her hair in a boyish way and was wearing men’s jeans and t-shirt, both of which had been hidden beneath the long white dress. Enough of a disguise to temporarily throw me off, especially since I had been locked on to finding a blond girl in flowing white dress.
“Veronica?” I shouted. “Stop!”
She had just rested the weapon on the brass railing, when her head snapped up. She scanned the area, spotted me from ac
ross the open space. She frowned, and then went back to her crossbow, squinting along its sights and ignoring me.
Now I was running, not as fast as I would have liked, and certainly not very gracefully. I barreled recklessly around the first corner, dashed down an aisle crammed with reading glasses and cheesy-looking Velcro book covers.
Veronica was now on my right, carefully taking aim. Ignoring me completely.
The overweight old couple looked up, startled, as I swept past them. I dodged a low wooden bench at the last second. Back in the day I would have hurled it. Now, it was all I could do to just avoid it and not fall flat on my face.
Already I was gasping for air.
“Veronica, stop!”
But she didn’t stop. Instead, she was taking careful aim.
I turned the final corner. Now she was directly in front of me, about thirty feet away, ignoring me completely. The metallic crossbow gleamed brilliantly. I realized too late that she could have just as easily turned the weapon on me. If she did, there was nothing I could do.
I also realized that I was now holding my own gun. I had no intention of using it, but maybe it would help convince her to stand down.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Or I’ll shoot!”
Yes, I actually said that. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even acknowledge me.
Instead, she pulled the trigger.
Chapter Ten
The bolt burst from the crossbow.
I whipped my head around in time to see James P. Storm, who had been looking down and signing a book, reached up without looking and snatch the crossbow bolt out of the air.
I gaped, dumfounded. That did not just happen.
Storm looked curiously at the bolt, and then calmly looked up at us. Other people looked, too. No doubt they saw two people standing at the railing, one holding a gun, and the other holding a very medieval-looking weapon.
