Marty Phillips (Book 2): The Taste of Blood

by Kieran Double

  “No. I would never have hit my wife in any way, anyway at all,” I answered, trying to keep my voice even. Sharkey was really starting to piss me off.

  The rest of the day in court was wasted. By the time Sharkey was done with his ‘suitability examination’, there was little time for actually cross-examining of my testimony. I suspected it was merely a delaying tactic, one which would also undermine my suitability as an expert witness. The worrying thing was, if this was a delaying tactic, what were they waiting for? For Adam Lewis to skip bail? Did they need time to organize an escape plan? The trial had dragged on for long enough and Lewis had known we were on his track for weeks before that, so surely if he wanted to skip bail, he would have already organized it.

  The whole conundrum worried me. There were few things I hate, but being outsmarted is one of them. Especially when it has something to do with work. Profession pride and all that. I sat outside King County Courthouse, on one of the benches between the two wings of the building. It was there Ashley found me, gagging for a drink.

  “Are you alright, Marty?” she asked, sitting down with two cardboard cups of coffee in her hands. She gave one to me, which I accepted sullenly.

  “What does it look like?” I fumed, taking a big gulp of coffee. There was only one thing that could fix me up like a drink, and that was caffeine. “He tore chunks out of me. The whole case is resting on my testimony.”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve got pictures and evidence of everything. There’s no way Lewis is getting free,” said Ashley calmly, but she was using her lawyer voice, the one that said she mightn’t actually believe what she was saying.

  “That’s not even the point. He got to me, god damn it, Ashley. Sharkey got to me. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

  “And what exactly was that?”

  “Stalling. I don’t like it. They don’t have any reason to stall. If it was about getting Lewis extra time to skip bail, he’d already have done it. So what the hell are they planning?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it? How do you expect me to be able to do that?”

  Ashley put her hand on my shoulder. “Of course I don’t, I just think that’s what you should do.”

  “You always think you know what’s best for me, don’t you? I’m a thirty-two-year-old man, Ashley.”

  “And I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman, Marty. A year makes all the difference.” Ashley stood up. “You should probably get back to the apartment now. Susie’ll be waiting with dinner. D’you know what you’re having tonight?”

  “Steak and chips, with hot chocolate brownies and cream for dessert,” I answered, gloating slightly.

  “Jeez, she really is spoiling you. You know that right?”

  “Don’t I just,” I said, joining Ashley in standing up.

  Ashley embraced me. “Look after yourself, little bro. And remember, call if anything serious comes up. I’ll call if anything comes up, anyway, and I know you won’t, stubborn fool.”

  “That’s just me, Ashley. Deal with it.”

  Dinner was delicious. If there was one thing her parents had left Susie, it was culinary skills, but even that she seemed to have learned herself, out of necessity. I didn’t eat much of it, though. I played with my food like a little child. Still, I dived on the brownie, but I cannot avoid eating a chocolate brownie when confronted with one. Susie knew something was up. She had that look in her eye, I could tell.

  She stared at me after dinner. “What?”

  “What’s wrong, Marty?”

  “Nothing,” I answered softly. I’d found Susie had turned into something of a human – or Wolfmann, Wolffrau, whatever – diary. She was probably too young for that weight and if she had been any other child I wouldn’t have told her a thing, but she was… different. Always different. “Just the criminal defense lawyer for Lewis tore me apart, kept asking about Annie and why I quit being a cop. He even suggested that I was abusive towards my Annie. I reckon he’s delaying for some reason. Haven’t figured out why. It’s worrying.”

  “You’ll get through it, Marty. You always do,” Susie reassured me. It was nice, always having someone to take to, someone who wasn’t my overprotective sister. In some ways, it was like having my Annie back.

  “You don’t even know me two months.”

  “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

  I laughed bitterly at that.

  “What?” she said, all innocence. I wondered if Annie had told her. She hadn’t appeared since the business with Michael Merkel. Susie said she was fading.

  “That’s what Annie said on our first date.”

  For a second, I thought she was going to laugh at me. Then she did the thing I had expected the least. She said, nearly patronizingly, “That’s so cute!” She added, more in her usual sarcastic tone, “and so cheesy…”

  “Yeah… well…” I muttered, embarrassed, and probably blushing too. “It was actually the first date of the second time we started dating…”

  I had a lot of cases to do. Secretly, I thought might need a bit of extra help. Susie had insisted on helping quite a few times and her pocket money consisted of salary for secretary work. The problem – if there was one – was that she was too good at it and she was a child, after all. This case was a standard adultery one – with a prenuptial agreement involved – and the pay-out would be good.

  Parking outside the wife’s house in the Jag, I waited. After about half an hour, the wife left the house. Her husband, my employer, said that she was making a lot of excuses about going out with friends, and was getting very secretive. All the warning signs. I followed her to an expensive restaurant downtown. A few minutes later, the man she was having an affair with arrived. He was a younger, more athletic, version of the husband. What a surprise! Some people really did have types.

  My phone rang. I ignored it. I always did when I was on a job. Work was addictive to me. I took a few pictures of them, but nothing that was exclusive proof. My phone rang again. Then again. Eventually, on the fourth call, I answered it, if anything just to tell the person to go away.

  A familiar Eastern Europe accent greeted me. “Marlowe, my friend, I think I have some information. Get here now…” He gave me the address.

  “Nicolae, I can’t go now,” I answered.

  “Why not?”

  “Work.”

  “The PI business doing well then?” Nicolae said.

  “Better than it has been. I’ll probably just be a few minutes. I have to wait for this couple to make out, so I can take a photo of it.”

  “It is always that sleazy?”

  “Depends what kind of PI you are. Me, I just do this when there’s a prenuptial involved. Means the other spouse will pay me well,” I answered, despite my supposed dislike for Nicolae. He seemed to be a hard man not to like. “Normally, I just take cases that I find interesting, which, honestly, adultery things rarely are.”

  “See yeah later, Marlowe. You snap those pictures, and we’ll see what mood you’ll be in then, ha?” said Nicolae. He hung up.

  I looked back out the Jag’s window, just in time to see the wife and the man she was having an affair with make-out across the table. As I snapped a few pictures, they stood up, holding hands. My finger was now fixed on the button of my Nikon, taking a stream of pictures. The couple, looking back at each other lovingly every few seconds, left the restaurant. The man paid the bill.

  I snapped as they climbed into a black SUV. Taking one last picture of the license plate, I got out of the E-Type. I went into the restaurant. The man had left the receipt, I noticed as I sat down across from their table, taking a cursory glance at the menu. I stood up, grabbed the receipt and walked out of the restaurant.

  “So, Brasoveanu, what did you call me here for? It’s just a house.” In front of us was a big suburban house on Medina, Seattle, sprawled out in its lush garden. We were sitting in Nicolae’s 1972 green and black, four-seat hardtop sedan, Gran Torino – lik
e Clint Eastwood’s in the movie.

  “Of course, it’s just a house. It’s what’s happening inside that’s important, and who is about to be in the house,” answered Nicolae.

  “How long do we have to wait?”

  “Too long,” he said. “But you’ll realize why we’re here pretty soon.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. Despite some vague memories of her, I asked him curiously “What is Tasaria like?”

  “The word ‘is’ is dangerous in this profession, Marty. You don’t seem to realize that. We hunters, we’re not like you Huntsmen. We don’t have homes, or haunts like Huntsmen. She probably dead already…”

  “You don’t know that, not like I did. Until you see a body, you won’t really believe she is dead, Nicolae,” I answered. “If you don’t know she’s dead, just assume she isn’t, because, if you’re wrong, and she’s alive, you’ll have put yourself through a world of useless pain. And even after that, you’ll be in shock for months.”

  Nicolae paused again. “She was – is – wild. She never really fit in with the rest of the Brasoveanus. Eight children, and she was the only daughter. There are rumors about her. That she is lesbian or bisexual, or whatever.”

  “And do you think she is?” I hated being so nosey, but I had always been too curious for my own good. It was part of the reason I had become a detective in the first place.

  “I know she is. All my brothers are far older than us, so we’re close. We shared everything growing up. She never hid that from me, but my parents… they’re very religious, Orthodox, and that, the way they interpret it, makes homosexuality wrong. She never liked being Romani, because, traditionally at least, women in our culture are expected to marry young and stay at home with their children – the more the better.”

  “She didn’t, though. Did she?” I said, smirking.

  I could see Nicolae was remembering something from a long time ago, something happy, but tinged with sadness. “Actually, she married the man our parents wanted her to. It’s just… they never had any children – which was greatly frowned on. He’s dead now anyway. He was Turned by some vampires in New York.”

  “Turned? Like Bella in ‘Twilight’?” I mused.

  “Dude, what have you been doing for the past few years? ‘Twilight’! Jeez, you Huntsmen need to get out more. What the hell is wrong with you?” exploded Nicolae, half-laughing as he changed the subject. His excitement seemed explosive. He sobered up, then continued “You’re right, though. It was like that I suppose. Then she had to kill him.”

  “She killed her husband?” I said. It was hard to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “Because she had no other choice,” answered Nicolae. A hardness that I hadn’t known before entered his voice. These Hunters were harder than Huntsmen. They had no rules, no regulations, at least I thought that then, but the Brasovneaus never fitted in with the Hunter system at large. They had a code.

  “I know… that wasn’t what I meant. The amount of… courage it must have taken to do something like that. I would never have been able to do that to my Annie,” I said, my throat dry. I had a sudden urge for alcohol, so I swallowed my saliva instead. “Even a part of her would have been enough for me.”

  “Don’t you remember her from High School?” continued Nicolae “Like you remember me.”

  “I do, just… I never got to know her properly. She was so quiet and shy. Everyone mocked her, because of her heritage. The Gypsie, used to call her. I think Annie and I were the only ones who didn’t mock her. We… dated for a while, but it never worked out.”

  “It never does, with men like us.”

  “I’m not like you, Nicolae. I moved on before I started on the next woman. It’s not right, but it’s better than nothing.”

  “Thanks, Marlowe,” muttered Nicolae. He perked up. “Look.”

  I looked out the window. A car had pulled up in front of us. I watched curiously as Roger Sharkey got out of the car and pulled a twenty-something woman after him. “Are we here just to channel your voyeuristic tendencies into someone I know?”

  “We don’t have time for your wit, Phillips,” said Nicolae, the hardness entering his voice again. “He’s a vampire.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said incredulously. “Sharkey’s a dick. I get that, but that doesn’t make him a vampire.”

  “No, but what he’s about to do to that woman does. We don’t have much time.” Nicolae pulled out two stakes and two machetes. Handing me one of both, he continued, “Here take these. You’ll need them.”

  We got out of the Gran Torino and followed Sharkey into the house. Vaguely, I was aware that this was exactly the kind of situation Ashley would want me to call her for. “And remember, if anything comes up, call me” But I never followed my sister’s advice, well-meaning and wise though it might have been, ever.

  “Poor chick,” Nicolae muttered, as we stalked across the lawn. “Came here looking for a good time with a man, and she’ll probably end up dead.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

  3

  My Very Own Van Helsing

  (or Dean Winchester, I’m not sure which)

  ‘My thoughts be bloody from this point forth

  Or they be nothing worth.

  (William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene IV)

  We could see into the modern kitchen from the backyard, as it was framed by large glass walls. Everything seemed to happen very quickly after that. Sharkey grabbed the woman, holding her still, despite her struggles, and, sure enough, fangs appeared from his canines. I tensed, ready to pounce out from our hiding spot, but Nicolae held me back.

  He whispered softly into my ear. “It’s not worth it. Wait…”

  I waited. For some reason, I trusted Nicolae. He didn’t treat me like Ashley did, like a child, just as slightly overeager. And I had always been the overeager police officer. A shadow emerged from the corner. The darkness fell away and Adam Lewis stood in front of us. He had an unhealthy white pallor to his skin, which, come to think of it, Sharkey had too, to a lesser degree.

  Lewis walked over to his defense lawyer with what seemed, from our distance, to be an air of command. He grabbed the woman’s neck and bit her, blood exploding everywhere. Once again, I prepared to jump out of our hiding place. Nicolae held me back.

  “What?” I demanded, trying to keep my voice low. “They’ll kill her”

  “No. They won’t. I’ve done this before, Marty,” muttered Nicolae urgently. “You haven’t. You need to learn how to hunt vampires properly.”

  I sat in silence, every second torture, but Lewis’ blood feast only lasted about thirty seconds. The woman was still breathing. Nothing significant seemed to have changed at all. I wondered why. Surely she should have been Turned. If she was Turned, I didn’t see it.

  Lewis pushed the woman back to Sharkey, who drank some of the woman’s blood and left the kitchen, presumably to leave the house. I felt the urge to follow him, but, for some reason, I held back. It was like any other investigation; I had to take it bit by bit and only go for the guilty party after all other routes had been followed up first. That meant I had to stay. That we had to talk to Roger Sharkey.

  “Now we can go.” Nicolae led me around to the front door. He swore, pushing down on the front door handle, frustrated. “Damn. It’s locked. I don’t have my lockpick.”

  “Out of the way, Brasoveanu.” I took a hook-pick out of my bomber jacket and began working on the lock. Thirty seconds later, it clicked open.

  Nicolae looked pleasantly surprised, but we continued in silently. The woman lay sprawled out on a couch, in the kitchen-living room. I held my index finger up to my mouth. She pointed soundlessly away from the room. I followed her finger. She was pointing down a corridor that led away from the kitchen-living room. At the end, a door was slightly open, allowing a stream of light into the corridor.

  I led the way. Nicolae, for once, was content to follow me. I pushed open the door. Sharkey
was reclining in a leather chair, behind a writing desk, brandy in hand. A look of surprise flashed across his face, but it quickly faded. I looked around the office. Most of the wall space was taken up by bookshelves, filled with old-looking books.

  “Mr. Phillips, may I ask what you’re doing here?” he asked, still in his lawyer voice. “I was just enjoying a drink. Care to join me?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “Mind you, I think you’d rather enjoy a quiet drink of blood than brandy. Don’t you?”

  I lunged towards Roger Sharkey, without any plan. Sharkey moved faster than any human ought to because he wasn’t human. In only a few seconds, he zipped around from his desk and appeared behind me, next to Nicolae. Nicolae swung at him with his machete. Sharkey deflected it, a long line of blood streaming down his white shirt. When Nicolae looked up, I saw that he’d split open his scalp. Blood was dripping down his forehead

  With the sight of blood, Sharkey paused, grabbing Nicolae by the throat. His fangs appeared, more like needles than teeth. I didn’t wait to see what he did next. I swung my machete. Sharkey’s head landed on the floor, blood spilling everywhere. Nicolae recovered quickly. He stabbed Sharkey’s decapitated body in the heart. We had to be sure Sharkey would stay dead.

  “Will we bring the girl back to the Manor?” I asked Nicolae. In addition to a few infirmary beds, the Den housed a few cells and bedrooms. Ashley normally used them for keeping ungifted people – people who weren’t able to see – who had somehow gotten involved in the Versteckt world.

  “Don’t have much choice do we?” answered Nicolae, as always with a question. He ran his hand over the cut on his scalp. It stopped bleeding.

  “Nicolae? You need to teach me how to do that.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh, come on. Why not? Healing. That’s a great skill.”

  “I can’t teach you how to do this, because you need to inherit it. Magic runs within bloodlines. All Brasovneaus have some ability. Mine is… limited. Some of my brothers are too, but Tasaria is strong.”