Darius had slicked black hair, with dark beady eyes. The sunken look wasn’t cosmetic. It looked more like malnutrition. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen, a plain wicker thing.
I would let Teresa take the lead on this. I had never actually done an interrogation before. My experience with questioning was mostly on the receiving end.
Teresa started. “So, Darius, is it?” She grabbed him by the jaw, forcing his head to turn to me. “You’re dead to rights. This human here? He’s said you fed off him, unwillingly.”
He laughed a little. “This human? He’s lying.”
I nearly shot at him. I hate being called a liar. However, Teresa butted in. “The human does not lie. I would smell it if he does. You, however, reek of guilt.”
“I do not, bit-“
She slapped him across the face. “Finish that word, and I will drain every drop of blood from you onto this floor.”
Darius rolled his head, grunting. He looked at her, and said. “At least I’ll die knowing I got the better of you. You’re a little, legal, synth-drinker.”
“Synth-drinker? You think that is an insult to me?” She laughed. “I don’t take humans by force. It makes the blood run sour in my mouth. You are nothing. But you have questions that I need answering. Do you confirm or deny attacking and drinking of this man?”
“I confirm it. I drank the witch’s blood. And it was delicious. So empowering.” His lips peeled back to show rotted fangs. “If I didn’t have this silver in my leg, I would rip you both to shreds.”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Teresa nodded. “But you’re just a little fanged boy who’s bound, shot, and silvered. It really depends on how you want to take things from here. Either you answer our questions here, or I take you to Ishmael, and he will be far less forgiving, Darius.”
“Forgiveness? I have no desire for your petty mercy.” Darius hissed. “But let us see what questions you ask?”
I decided to speak then. “Why are you so interested in Sam Coolidge?”
“Had to know what you knew, witch.” He hissed. “What Francis knew about the girl.”
“Who took her?” I asked. “Who hired you?”
“Human, go fuck yourself.” He laughed, though a wheeze made his way into it. “I’m not telling you nothing.”
“Can I put another slug into him, Teresa?” I asked, aiming the pistol at his head.
“No, that may kill him. I’d like to have him alive.”
“Do it.” Darius sneered at me. “Just do it, you little witch. You’re just a pathetic little weakling. Just like the bitch Coolidge. She whimpered, begged us not to hurt her.”
“Eric, stop.” Teresa said. “He’s baiting you. If he’s dead, we can’t get anything from him.”
“Can’t you just drink his blood then, get the information?”
She shook her head. “Vampires don’t drink other vampires’ blood. It’s...unnatural. And we can’t gain knowledge from the blood of the dead.”
My mind sprung to something. “Is that why you drank from me, Darius? You said you needed to know what Francis knew. But he was dead.. How did he die?”
“Fuck you.” He spat blood on me.
I responded by whipping him across the face with the butt of the pistol. That felt good. Better than it should have.
“He snapped his neck.” Darius coughed.
“Who snapped Francis’s neck?” Teresa growled in response. “Answer, or I start pulling teeth out. We’ll start with the molars. One by one. The fangs will come last. You won’t grow those back. No, you will end up defanged...”
He swallowed. “I never got his name.”
Teresa patted his shoulder. “That’s a good man. Who is he?”
“He wanted her. He thinks the fox is a Scion.” I didn’t know what he meant, so I figured I’d ask Amy or Teresa later. “He wanted her blood. And he gets what he wants.”
“Describe him.” Teresa said.
“Tall. White hair, uh…He’s a vampire. Old too, a master vampire, he had to be. And he wore an eye patch over his right eye.”
“Shit.” Teresa hissed. “I know who we’re dealing with.”
“Care to share with the rest of the class?” I asked.
“Later. For now, I have business to wrap up.” She looked back to Darius.
“No,” He shook his head. “Please, no.”
Teresa centered her pistol. “Darius, for the crime of forced feeding, there’s only one sentence I can pass on you.”
He tried to break free of his bonds, but he was too weak from the silver. “No, please no.”
“Any last words?”
He shook his head, and I remained silent. I watched as Teresa disengaged the safety. She put the gun to his chest, right over where his heart was. The sound of the gun filled the air, and I didn’t look away as his blood spilled onto the hardwood, and Darius died his second death.
We sat in the car afterwaDrd. We weren’t driving, we were just sitting there. I didn’t really know what to say.
We had been sitting for about ten minutes when Teresa spoke. “I had to do what I did. It was justice.”
“He died because of me.” I said, almost immediately.
“Are you ashamed that you had the courage to say what happened, and that you were able to say without fear that you wanted justice for the wrong done to you?”
“I didn’t want him to die.”
“We couldn’t imprison him. Our resources aren’t extensive enough to hold every criminal of ours. The human authorities would have done no less. This is the Arcane. People do die, as unfortunate as this. You were probably not the first he had done this to. He won’t hurt anyone any more.”
I nodded. “Yea, that’s true. I’ve just never seen someone die before.”
She sighed. “Yes, I suspected. But we know who took Samantha Coolidge now. And that means we at least have an idea of where to look.”
“Who is he, this vampire?”
“His name is Lucien. He’s about five hundred years old, a Venetian. In life, or at least by what Ishmael’s sources claim, he was an assassin for one of the factions in the city. When he died, he continued his work, becoming a contract killer. He lost his eye in a fight during his first century. After that, however, he’s been methodical, cruel, and risen to power in the European courts. However, he holds no title.”
“And what did Darius mean by 'Scion’?”
She paused a moment. “Scions are born weres with a stronger ability than most. It is a trait that is restrained until some trauma or life event unleashes it. Their blood, supposedly, will give them more power than they could imagine.”
“Do you believe in this?” I asked.
“I think it’s a bunch of poppy cock.” She chuckled. “But I would guess Lucien believes in it, and that he believes Samantha is one of them.”
“Fantastic.” I sighed. “Now, where do we find Lucien?”
She shook her head. “I do not know, yet. But if he is in San Francisco, we can find him. Trust me, we will.”
“After tonight? Yea, I trust you.” I whispered.
She leaned over across to my seat, and kissed my cheek. “You did well, Eric. Keep the gun. You’ll need it in the future, I think.”
“That’s, uh, kind of you.” Guns in San Francisco were not very easy to come by. Over recent years, the laws regarding firearms control had relaxed, but it was still devilishly hard to get a handgun license, much less a license to carry one around.
“I’ll see that all the paper work is put in. It’s an old weapon. Treasure it, and see that it’s put to good use.”
“I wouldn’t dream of anything else.” I answered.
“Good man. Now, let me get you home. You deserve the rest.”
We drove home in silence. The city was quiet when we got back. It was around three in the morning. A lot of the night life had died down, and all the respectable humans were long asleep.
Teresa pulled up in front of my building, parking the car. “I hope we can h
ave a second date. I don't usually take my work to drinks.”
“I'd like that.” I quickly added. “The date, not the hunting outlaw vampires.”
“Aren't you the least bit excited by it?” Teresa asked, a gleam in her big brown eyes. “The thrill of it, the adrenaline rush?”
God help me, I did feel something. I wondered what that made me. Crazy? No. Suicidal? No. A witch? Maybe. “Are you?” I asked, redirecting the question.
She leaned in closer. I hesitated a moment, remembering Darius, the last vampire to get this close. I had to force myself to sit still. “It's a nice little reminder.”
“A reminder?” I was curious now, and I found myself leaning in to match her.
“Indeed.” She purred. “A reminded of when I was alive, of how the body gets, the rush of excitement.” Teresa looked at me, her big brown eyes peering into mine. “Eric, I promise that I won't bite you, but may I kiss you?”
I responded without words. I leaned forward, and pressed my lips to hers. It was an impulse, one that I couldn't help. I wanted to kiss her. There was some crazy part of me that was coursing with the soaring of adrenaline running in my body, and the rest of me wasn't complaining. She wasn't cold. Somehow, I had expected vampires to be cold. How surprised was I.
We kissed for a long moment, lips pressed to each others'. I wasn't sure how long I just enjoyed that moment, but eventually my body reminded me of my desire for oxygen. I broke the kiss, and looked into her eyes again. “No, I'll kiss you.”
A wide grin broke on her face. “Clever witch.” She chuckled. “Give me a call sometime?”
I smiled right back. “Hell yea.”
I hit the bed, shoes and all, a matter of seconds after I got through the door. I only stopped to lock my door, as I didn't want a repeat of the previous night. Wow, what a night.
A part of me still dwelt on Darius's death. I wasn't used to death. That was an oddity. I wasn't new to it. My mother and father had died. My mother had died a few days after I was born, and my father a few months before. My grandmother had died when I was off at college, a stroke, and my grandfather died from the grief of losing her.
But I'd never watched someone die. It was over so fast, I could hardly believe it. And only a small time after that, I had kissed a beautiful woman, breaking several years of dating-hiatus with a vampire. I was serious kinds of screwed up.
I dreamed that night. I was in Pax, but the bar was empty. I was sitting at the bar, my arms folded on the bar. The wood was smooth, and smelled old and used. It was actually rather comforting.
A woman appeared behind the bar. “Hello, Eric.” She had dark hair, in a braid that reached the small of her back. She wore a simple flannel button-down shirt, and jeans. I recognized, almost instantly, her eyes. They were ice blue, like my own.
“Where am I?” I asked the woman with my eyes.
“A dream. This proved to be a convenient place. Your mind brought us here. It is new, but your mind recognizes it as a place you find safe.”
“And who are you?” I had to ask, had to confirm what I suspected.
She smiled. “An idea. Locked inside your blood, inside your heritage. It was waiting for you to discover what you were.”
“So, are you…”
The woman shook her head. She reached out, and cupped my cheek. “No, I am not her, Eric. She is dead and you cannot stir the dead, for all the power of magic. But, this is a dream all of your blood must experience at some point.”
“And what’s the reason for this dream?” I asked. A pang of disappointment filled me.
“You are in the middle of a trial, a test of character. You told the woman who calls herself Amy that you wish to use your power to protect, to help.”
“Wait, the woman who calls herself Amy?” I furrowed my brow. “Explain.”
The woman chuckled. “That is not for me to explain, Eric, only her. She will have to, some day.”
“All right. But yea, I do want to help people. It would be selfish of me to do otherwise.”
“Why not be selfish? Magic is a powerful gift, and you should be able to enjoy yourself.”
I shrugged. “My ancestors. What did they choose?”
“Oh, naturally, they chose what you have. Good runs in your blood. But Samantha Coolidge, she does not have much time. Lucien will keep trying to unlock her powers, and if he cannot, he will kill her.”
“How do you know that?”
“I have no gift of prescience, nor do you, but that is how those of his type will act. You don’t have much time.”
“But I don’t have any way of finding her. The only thing I have is the brush, and that took us to the apartment with the clippings.”
“Well, then, you must amplify the spell. Put more power into the magic.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“That is a question you must answer. You must find a strong connection to her, and you can find her.”
“What’s a stronger connection than her own hair?”
“Your mother left you the answer. Why don’t you do what you do best?”
“And what do I do best, exactly?”
“You read, Eric.”
Chapter 17
It wasn’t until noon that Amy appeared in my kitchen, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. She looked around at my coffee table in the living room. “Oh, you are kidding.”
“Nope, dead serious.” I said as I cleared a spot off on the futon, which I had moved into something resembling a couch. “Welcome to my Saturday.”
“Your Saturday looks messy.” She sat down next to me. The coffee table was now littered with. A mixing bowl sat on the other side. It had once been full of cereal, but I had demolished it pretty quickly.
“So, I, uh, had a pretty crazy night.” I started.
“Oh, really?” Amy arched an eyebrow. “Does it have anything to do with the gun on the kitchen table?”
“Yea, uh, it’s also a pretty long story.” I decided to just start with the lightest whammy of the previous evening. “I had drinks with Teresa.”
Amy crossed her arms across her chest. “Oh, now I know this is going to be good.”
“Okay, so, we got to drinks at Pax, and we started to have a nice time…and then she got a call.”
“A call.”
“Somebody had found Darius.”
Amy glared at me. “Tell me you did not. Tell me you did not engage him, you stupid, stupid witch.”
“Hey, ease up, okay?” I went on to the next little bombshell. “So, we went to his beach house, and we did a raid on the place.”
“Ease up?” Amy’s voice rose to a shout. “You went to assault a vampire’s house, and you want me to ease up?”
“I know who took Sam Coolidge.”
Amy stopped, then, considering a moment. “Okay. Suppose that I do not pulverize you for being an idiot. Who took her?”
“A master vampire named Lucien.”
She winced. “Oh, we are in trouble.” She knew, I guess, who Lucien was, or the “master vampire” part was descriptive enough.
I laughed a little. “Okay, we can’t even find the guy, and you’re worried?”
”Very worried. I am worried that you will find him.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out now. Oh, and, uh, we don't have to worry about Darius any more.”
She gave me a concerned look. “What happened?”
“Teresa killed Darius.”
“That does make things simpler.” She shook her head. “You're all right?”
“Yea.” I nodded. “So, after all the craziness, I had a dream.”
“A dream.” She echoed. Amy leaned forward, her interest now piqued. “And what was your dream?”
“I was sitting at the bar in Pax. Which was actually sort of weird, considering that I’d never been at the actual bar before. And…well, my mother was there.”
“Your mother?”
“Well, I guess it was my mother. I really don’t have a frame
of reference for how tall she was, or how she talked. But it wasn’t my mother. Whatever this was just, uh, took her image.”
“You are not making much sense.” She remarked.
“No, I’m not. It was some sort of…I don’t know, some message. She said that she was left for the people of my bloodline, that I got it because I was of age now.”
“And what did the message tell you?”
“That the answer to finding Sam was in these books. Amy, what can provide a closer bond to someone than their hair?”
“Your hair is a very integral part of you. Skin flakes, maybe…saliva?”
“What about blood?”
“Blood is very powerful, but tricky.”
“How so?” I asked.
“It is a very potent thing to use, but it requires a different sort of magic. Unlike with hairs, you do not have to use symbology and the like. Instead, you are trying to create a direct link. That is much harder. Besides, you would need her blood.”
“Right. But, something is in this book.” I said. “And I’ll have to figure out where.”
“I would recommend starting with the newer one. It is mostly Victoria's writing. Some of the older work was your grandmother's.”
I looked to her. “Were all the witches that came before me female?”
“No, they were not. There have been two men in the line, though the magic never was as strong in them. They were both soldiers, and never gave the same devotion that the women did to the craft.”
“Right.” I murmured, and then grabbed my mp3 player. “I’m going to zone out for a bit and read, all right?”
“Go for it. I am not able to read it.”
“You’re not able? Huh?” I furrowed my brow, confused. “How’s that work?”
“Spells that your mother laid on the book. Beings like I cannot open and read from it.”
“Oh.” I murmured. “Well, uh, I don’t have much here beyond my computer. If you want to use that, go ahead.”
“I would like that. I will leave you be.”
“Thanks.” I said, and looped both ear buds into my ears. I turned on some instrumentals, and let myself sink into the music as I opened the book.
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