Bloodlinks

by Lee Killough

  Hearing his words shot back at him brought a chill. Did she, like Holle and the housekeeper, recognize him for what he was? Though she had not indicated that by a single word or action until now. Why not? Or did knowing another vampire account for that.

  “Of course, you can prove I’m wrong by cleaning up that plate...or even swallowing a single bite.”

  So she still felt uncertainty? Maybe he could pretend to swallow and hold the bite in his mouth long enough for her to walk away. Or would she walk away? She might well ask him a question to see if he really swallowed.

  Her lip curled. “No, I didn’t think you could. Fine. What you’ve done to yourself is your concern, not mine...not this time.”

  Her anger and disgust startled him. Not at all a reaction he expected.

  “But your agenda and secrets, another matter. Those I’m going to dig out. Enjoy the party.” And she walked away.

  He stared baffled after her. Not this time sounded as if she had indeed known another vampire...maybe been in the same position as Christopher Stroda’s family. But what did she mean by what he had done to himself? Did she think he wanted to be what he was? Had the vampire she knew asked to be brought across, as Lane had?

  Plants rustled and to Garreth’s disgust, Fowler slid between two of the pots carrying a couple of beers. Impulse wanted to tell Fowler to go away. Instead Garreth found himself being polite. “Are you enjoying the party?”

  Fowler smiled. “Quite, though I don’t blame you for retreating from the crush.”

  He held out one of the bottles, which Garreth took because it gave him a reason to set the plate down beside the empty beer bottle.

  “I have almost a surfeit of police personality detail for background color and characterization, not to mention a vast fund of war stories. Do American coppers always party like this?”

  “No.” Garreth tipped up the bottle and pretended to take a swallow. “Sometimes we get really loud and obnoxious.”

  Fowler eyed him for a moment, obviously unsure if Garreth were joking. “Quite,” he said again, then turned to look out at the view. “This is a beautiful city. It reminds me of those along the Mediterranean. I wonder you could bear to leave it.”

  More small talk? Garreth said nothing, hoping that might make Fowler leave.

  But the writer turned and sat against the rail as Girimonte had, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “But of course you had no choice if you wanted to follow that postmark lead to Lane Barber.”

  Garreth’s breath stuck in his chest. He had been foolish to think Fowler would not hear about the fingerprints in Lane’s apartment and connect the dots to Baumen. He braced to hear that Fowler also realized why the apartment had just one set of prints.

  Fowler took another swallow. “It’s unfortunate you found only Mada, and lost her before she could lead you to Miss Barber.”

  Garreth blinked. Despite the prints, Fowler thought Mada and Lane were different women? Garreth remembered thinking, the night he finally realized what he had become, that no matter how much evidence of the supernatural stared people in the face, they rejected it for “logical” answers. That apparently also applied to authors who had written about the supernatural.

  “I’m just curious why you stayed in Baumen after Mada allegedly died.”

  Garreth frowned at him. “Allegedly died? You’ve seen the article about the apartment fire.”

  Fowler sniffed. “Which never mentioned a Mada Bieber among the missing. I believe they merely used that and the so-called friend’s call to Anna — undoubtedly Miss Barber — to make you think Mada died. It’s an old trick of hers. She’s faked her death twice before in Europe, one time to escape the Nazis, as she related dramatically and at length to my parents.”

  A gut lurch at Fowler’s dead hit on the strategy for explaining Mada’s disappearance turned to relief at the writer thinking Lane helped in the plot. Garreth let his frown become a stare. “To make me think so?”

  Fowler sighed. “Of course. You’d tracked her to Baumen. After her hit man failed to kill you there, how better to stop you from tracking her further than become a literal dead end.”

  Hit man? Good enough. What else did Fowler think? “It looks like you’ve worked out the whole story.”

  The writer shrugged. “It’s partly conjecture, of course, but I fancy it fits the known facts. The likeness between Mada’s mug shot from the forties and publicity pictures of Miss Barber make it clear they’re closely related. Instead of the illegitimate son you ascribed to Mada to explain your presence in Baumen, she had a daughter years later, but as with your fictional father, she never told her family. Not out of shame, I’d daresay, but because she gave it up for adoption to avoid being tied down. When she needed the girl some years later and retrieved her, she probably decided it was a bit late in the game to inform her family of her motherhood.”

  Interesting story. “Needed the girl? Why?”

  “As a lure.”

  Garreth blinked. “Lure?”

  Fowler nodded. “I believe Mada suffers from a form of porphyria — which causes sensitivity to light and is often thought to be the origin of the vampire legend, you know. She drinks blood to treat herself, which she collects from her bed partners, probably after drugging them so they aren’t aware of the needle sticks. As she aged and the disease affected her skin, she stopped being attractive to men. How did her face look when you met her?”

  “Like a mask.” Perfectly true...using makeup to mimic a cheap facelift and hide her youthful appearance.

  Fowler spread his hands. “So she brought in Miss Barber, perhaps winning her over with a sob story about years searching for her after she was stolen at birth. Porphyria is genetic so it’s possible Miss Barber has it, too, and after she’s shagged that night’s prey, they share the blood. On occasion they undoubtedly take too much, Adair and Mossman being examples. Or those gentlemen realized what was happening and Mada felt they had to be silenced.”

  Garreth liked the story...interpreting the facts with no supernatural agent involved.

  Fowler smiled. “But killing Knight has given them away and you can resume your hunt for them.”

  “No.” Luckily he had the perfect argument against that, without having to fight Fowler’s belief Mada still lived. “Lieutenant Serruto made it very clear he’ll hand me my head if I involve myself in the investigation.”

  Fowler arched his brows. “So we won’t mention it and work on our own.”

  We? The last partner he wanted to take on! “Why? Harry and Girimonte are not only official but have resources we don’t.”

  “You appeared to do well enough without those resources in tracing Mada to Baumen. And I notice you didn’t bother to inform anyone ‘official’ once you had done so. Would this be any different?”

  “Maybe not, but I didn’t like being a lone wolf and don’t want to go that route again.” As if a private visit to Holle were anything else. “Acting on our own would be difficult anyway while we’re riding along on the official investigation.”

  For a moment Fowler eyed him, looking ready to argue, then blew out his breath. “Quite. Though everyone would win. I feel certain Miss Barber has gone to ground with her mother, so if we find Mada, the police will have their killer and I’ll be able to interview Mada about her experiences in World War II.” He finished his beer, set the bottle in one of the pots, and slid back between the plants the way he came.

  Garreth leaned his head back against the house. So Fowler’s war book had apparently not moved to the back burner after all. Interesting, however, he never suggested to Harry and Girimonte that they focus their hunt on Mada Bieber. Because Fowler had a personal agenda he wanted to fulfill first?

  Pouring his beer into a pot, Garreth considered his own current agenda...arranging a visit with Holle. Ideally he ought to approach the man again at the Philos Foundation in the hope of a friendlier reception. But finding an excuse to break away from the ride-along for that looked diffic
ult, especially after the song and dance he gave Fowler. So...what? Swing by the house tonight? As a friend to vampires, Holle might stay up late enough to spend time with them. Not that it meant welcome for uninvited visitors, Garreth knew, but he had to try.

  Later. Seeing Holle was not worth hurting Harry or arousing curiosity by leaving the party. Now if only it did not last all night.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It did last until one...but then the day’s threatening clouds began wringing themselves out. A spattering of fat drops turned to a sprinkle, then steady drizzle, clearing the yard and street. He and Harry stayed to help clean up. By the time they left Garreth wondered if it was too late to find Holle awake.

  At home he waited in an agony of impatience, willing Harry into bed.

  Harry laughed at him. “I guess you enjoyed the party. You still look wired.”

  Did he. It gave him an idea. Thank you, Harry. “I am...so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll drive to the beach and go for a run.”

  Harry’s brows rose. “In the rain? At this time of night?”

  “I can’t sleep; it isn’t a downpour; and at home I always run at night after my shift.”

  After eyeing him for a moment, Harry handed him the spare house key and slapped him on the shoulder. “Just make sure you wring yourself out and lock up when you come in. And feel free to sleep as late as you want. I plan to.”

  In record time, while trying not to look hurried, he changed into a t-shirt, dark blue sweat pants, and the windbreaker and headed for the car. Where he needed all his will power not to floor it across town to Presidio Heights...gloomily worried that not even Mach 1 could get him there in time to catch Holle.

  To his surprise and relief, then, when he cruised down the street, light shone between the drapes of an upstairs window...the library, if he remembered the interior architecture correctly.

  Garreth took the precaution of parking around the corner. No sense advertising a late night visit. He walked past the house, then darted back at vampire speed into the entryway. Where he shook rain from the windbreaker and pushed the bell. Being awake did not mean Holle answered at this hour. Better to try it, though, than face certain hostility if he just walked into the library.

  As he waited for a response, he noticed something he missed in the misery of daylight on the last visit, the little glass eye of a CCTV camera high in a corner. For a moment his gut knotted, imagining a recorder on the other end, then he grimaced at his paranoia. Unless Holle was really paranoid, too, his camera merely monitored the entrance. Garreth hoped. He held up his fingers in a peace sign.

  Presently the door opened enough to let out a floral scent and reveal a frowning, barefooted Holle in a cardigan sweater and jeans. “At least you rang the bell.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Desperation for answers.”

  He sighed. “I’m not desperate for answers...at least not the kind you’re thinking. I’ve learned what I need to get along.”

  The frown turned skeptical. “What’s your blood supply?”

  Garreth stiffened at the hint of accusation. “I don’t victimize people!”

  The frown eased. “You use willing donors then?”

  The scent drifting past Holle turned citrus.

  “If you’re talking about informed consent, no...but I doubt David Knight’s ladies knew what they were doing either.”

  Holle’s twitch of brow conceded the point.

  “But like Knight’s, my ‘donors’ are never harmed.”

  “So...what do you need from me?”

  “Time to talk. Someone’s murdering vampires.”

  Holle eyed him a moment, then stepped aside. “Come in.” After Garreth hung his windbreaker on a Victorian hall tree by the door, Holle led the way to the sitting room and with no more light than came through the archway from the hall, motioned Garreth to a chair. He sat on a coffee table facing it. “You’re saying there’s more than David?”

  “Two more, within the last week.” Garreth described the hooker and hustlers’ deaths. “They had to be killed by another vampire. Irina’s note to Mada— ”

  “How do you know about that!” Holle came on his feet, backing away to the other side of the coffee table. A hand plunged into a pocket of his sweater.

  Reaching for a weapon? Something effective against vampires? Garreth relaxed in the chair, making his posture non-threatening. “Hey...easy. I picked it up in the hall of the apartment. Lucky for you, so the police didn’t find it and learn the Steiner story is bull. ”

  Holle’s hand remained in his pocket. “How did you get in?”

  “Passed through the door. I guess Irina’s warning came too late.” He paused to let Holle absorb that.

  But Holle understood instantly. His eyes narrowed. “Did you clean out the apartment?”

  Might as well admit it. Garreth nodded. “To keep the police from seeing too much.”

  Now Holle nodded. “Yes. What did you do with everything?”

  “Stored it somewhere safe until I can return it to her family in Baumen. Do you know what kind of danger Irina’s worried about?”

  The question brought a thin smile. “Maybe...you.”

  “Me?” Garreth stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because you want revenge. It’s a natural reaction when you’ve been forced into this existence. And that hatred of your rapist can become hatred of all of your kind.” His hand visibly clenched in his pocket. “With each of your kind you destroy, you strike at Mada and your own self-loathing. There is no Van Helsing more zealous.”

  “That isn’t me,” Garreth protested. “I’m not happy being what I am, but I live with it. Besides, Knight and the hooker died before I arrived out here. I’ve come to you because Irina says you’re a trusted friend and we need to find this killer before he, or she, kills again. We obviously can’t use human police in the hunt but maybe Irina knows something that will help.”

  Holle’s hand came out of his pocket. “Let’s hope. I thank you for this information and will pass it along. However, since I doubt you can help—”

  Garreth jumped to his feet. “I’m a trained investigator!”

  “Trained to deal with humans, not vampires.”

  “I— ” He bit off the rest: I dealt with Lane.

  “That will get you killed.”

  The echo of Grandma Doyle’s warning sent a chill through him. Still... “So...you know what this is about. Tell me!”

  Holle shook his head. “Leave the matter with us. If you don’t think you can, go home. But before you go, I urge you to join the Philos Foundation. You qualify as a life member, which lets us— ”

  “Screw the Philos Foundation!” Stonewall him and brush him off, then a breath later try to hit him up for donations to the organization? Yeah, like that made him feel charitable. “And screw you!”

  Holle sighed. “As you wish.” The scent of pine eddied around them. “Goodnight, Mr. Mikaelian.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Now he really did need to run. After parking south of Cliff House off Point Lobos Avenue, he took the stairs to the beach two at a time and launched himself down the sand. Letting the drizzle beat on him, he pushed himself, stretching his legs, trying to become nothing but a racing shadow. Leaving behind his anger and all thoughts except awareness of the rain, beach, and surf.

  In vain. The conversation with Holle kept replaying in his head all the way south until he ran out of beach near the zoo and found surf around his ankles, then while he headed back north again toward his car. And despite acknowledging that maybe the local vampires Holle knew did have the best resources for finding this killer, each repetition of the brush-off, treating him like a kid sent off to bed while the adults played, set Garreth fuming all over again.

  Worse, the run brought burning hunger...too much to be satisfied by the blood remaining in Harry’s fridge. Which only added to his resentment. Now he had to go hunting, and since he had not checked out other blood sources, t
hat meant stalking rats.

  Locating an all-night Walgreens on the way east across town, he bought a thermos, then headed for the Embarcadero.

  Hunting took concentration that finally accomplished the distraction running had not. Picking a likely pier, locating rats by sound and scent, mesmerizing them so he could pick them up and wring their necks before slitting their throats and draining their blood into the thermos. In the end, he had to fill the thermos twice when hunger drove him to drink the first batch on the spot. Too bad the blood tasted just as thin when warm as it did cold, he reflected while tossing the heap of rat bodies into the bay. When memory of the sweet fire that would satisfy threatened to well up in him, he forced himself to focus on regret at not having along any anti-coagulant to keep the thermos contents from turning to jelly. A repugnant thought, though he knew it would taste the same as liquid blood.

  Back at the house, he found the blood still liquid enough to slide into the larger bottle already in the fridge. No sense having to explain the presence of a new thermos. That one he washed out and, after tossing his wet clothes into Lien’s dryer, buried the thermos at the bottom of his suitcase along with Lien’s pictures. In dry skivvies, he stretched out on the bed, and let the earth in the pallet under the sheet pull him into sleep.

  Where he found himself running down street after street with deep-set doorways filled by menacing shadows. A gleam like fangs showed here, and eyes reflected red there. Or were they violet?

  But when he tried easing in for a closer look, a hand came down on his shoulder. “Sorry, little fellow. Adults only allowed from this point.” The voice behind and above him sounded like Holle.

  Little fellow! Snarling, Garreth started to twist away from the hand...and spotted a bar overhead with the lettering: You Must Be This Tall To Hunt Killer Vampires.