by D. R. Perry
“Um.” I’m not blinking from surprise. My eyelids are trying to hold back a bloody deluge. Grandpa Fitzpatrick might be blind, but his insight’s keen as a razor, and he cut right to the heart of my matter. I walk around every night with a vague sense of moral danger, like a brushfire off in the distance. Fergus just pointed out something I should have known already. Even slow burns consume when left unchecked too long.
“Si— Uh, Fergus.” Frankie steps forward. “Tino’s not alone. He’ll have help with his family and everything else besides.”
“Vampire debt won’t do a thing on these fronts, Frankie. They’re matters of the heart, not something to resolve with the payback for a vampire’s favors.”
“No. I’m telling you that I’ll help him with it. Not because I owe him since there's no debt. Because he’s my friend. You have my word, for whatever that’s worth.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You. You will?” Frankie blinks. “My family says my word means nothing.”
“Your family isn’t typical for Theophiles. And you’re not the first to rise above the Pickering family this way either, though according to our tales, it was ages ago. But that’s another matter I’ve promised not to mention outside my clan. You’ll have to stumble across it on your own.”
“That’s fine by me.” Frankie actually grins. “I’m pretty good at stumbling.”
“Now this meeting’s over. Shoo. Scram. Get outta here!” Fergus brandishes the stout wooden walking stick in sham menace.
I head through the gazebo’s door, Frankie in tow. The sensation of being watched, even listened to, persists the entire way through the yard, out the gate, and down the path to the street. We go back to my car so I can move it and get the stuff we need to give to Maury, since Esther’s tracking powder is practically useless. Scott’s banned from helping me until we fix Frankie’s problem. And that’s when I get a bright idea.
“Hey, Frankie?”
“Yeah?”
“How do you feel about Alchemy?”
“Esther used to let me help her with all her gear after she got home to recover from the Iraq War. I’m cool with it.”
“She gave me this stuff.” I shake the envelope. “It’s to track someone down, maybe a missing kid. But magicians and vampires can’t use it, and Fergus said Scott—”
“I know what you’re going to ask. And I’ll help you, but only if I’m not going to have to fight anything. I suck at that.”
“There shouldn’t be any fighting, no. Just the tracking is enough. If it comes to blows and you want to bug out, I don’t mind.”
“Cool.”
Once we get out of the car, I get the side door open, and we head into my mom’s kitchen. The only light comes from the fixture over the stoop. So once we're inside, I flip the light switch.
It’s never Better Homes and Gardens in Ma’s kitchen. She’s got one side of the sink piled with a pair of plates, forks, knives, and glasses. The dishwasher magnet is set to empty. A box of pastry from Solitro’s Bakery sits on the counter, red and white strings slack and untied, a dusting of powdered sugar beside it. God, I miss their bismarcks. Best in Cranston. Have one sometime and think of me while you do.
I move the box away from the sink, setting it in front of Frankie, who eats everything left inside it. Can’t blame the kid for being hungry. And I get to smell the pastries, which is what I’ve always imagined as heaven’s fragrance. My parents will notice they’re missing, but they’ll think I deserved them in exchange for tidying while I dropped by.
I brush the sugar away from the formica surface, then start rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher. I want the sink clear so I can mix up the tracking powder for Frankie. It’s quick work, washing up after a meal for two people with vamp speed. I also realize it’s truly an endless chore, like laundry. Vampires still drink and wear clothes, after all.
The envelope has instructions written on it. Fortunately, I know where Ma keeps the measuring cups, and there’s plenty of water. I get a glass down and set a spoon beside it. Once the red and green granules are sitting at the bottom, I stuff the envelope in my pocket since the last thing I want to do is leave supernatural info in plain sight on Ma’s counter.
I measure exactly seven ounces of water like the instructions say and then stir until the concoction looks exactly like the iced tea Maury and I used to make from a Lipton canned drink at our sleepovers.
I’m about halfway back to the table where Frankie is waiting to bring him the magic beverage, when there’s a knock at the door. I can already tell it’s Maury by how he smells, which is of illness and chemicals. He doesn’t wait, just walks in. Decades of familiarity will do that.
“Tino! You’re a mensch! How did you know I’d be thirsty?”
Before I can speak up, Maury Weintraub chugs every last drop of the beverage, which is definitely not iced tea. That's right. He accidentally drinks the tracking potion it took Esther all day to make. Because, of course, he does.
When he’s done, he sets the glass on the table and heads straight for the evidence bags on the kitchen table. He pauses, one hand over them, and lets out a long, gurgling belch.
“Excuse me.” Maury grins benignly at Frankie. “Hi, I’m Detective Weintraub. Tino might have told you that I’m his PD contact. You remind me of someone. Do you have a cousin who’s an Enby, by any chance?”
It’s like watching a train wreck. I can’t look away or even move, but my brain’s not frozen. The Enby Maury mentions is Raven, who apparently had a connection to Edwin Tierney, who worked with the dead partner whose funeral Maury and I attended last month. Along with Scott. And a mystery person in a long, black veil. Who was kid-sized. Oh, shit. Could it have been Leora? Was that why she decided to hire me? But I’ve got no time to skip down that mental path.
“Uh—” Frankie’s watching Maury like a hawk. I don’t blame him since that’s what I’m doing too. We’re both waiting for the tracking potion to have some kind of visible effect.
I flare my nostrils, a sense of foreboding setting in. Maury must have been at a chemotherapy appointment earlier that day. He’s got lung cancer, which he’s fighting, and he had better beat it, or I’ll kill him. But if the chemo drugs in his system cancel out or otherwise alter that tracking powder, Leora might end up suffering for it.
And the worst part is, I can’t say word one on the subject. Maury’s not in the know, and I pledged to King DeCampo at my Trial that I wouldn’t tell humans about the supernatural. But my best friend Maury has serious investigative instincts, and our staring at him has them going off like fire alarms.
“What?” He puts his hands on his hips and gives me the same glare he used in our high school musical review Les Mis number when he sang Javert to my Valjean.
He’s all hollowed out now, but it’s still the same. I’ll never forget it even if he dies. No, not if, when.
Because he will. And I won’t. That’s what Fergus meant about coming to terms about my folks. I close my eyes, stricken with preemptive grief, unable to answer. If I open my mouth, all of it might come pouring out like Valjean’s eventual admission of guilt.
“It’s just, um, Mr. Weintraub?” And it’s Frankie for the Hail Mary.
“Yeah, kid?”
“That wasn’t just tea in there.”
“No?”
“No, it’s also medicine. That drink was for me. See, Mr. Crispo was helping me out. I haven’t been eating right after everything that happened, not enough fluids. I’m blocked up.”
“Oh. Well, shit.”
“Um.” I open my eyes. “Yeah. You might feel like, maybe a sense of urgency. Like you’ve got to be somewhere else. It’s a side-effect.”
“That doesn’t sound like Ex-Lax.”
“It’s not. It’s a prescription from the kid’s doctor. Has some of his other meds in it too. Right, Frankie?”
“Right!”
“Oy vey. Well, before it kicks in, tell me about this evidence.”
&nbs
p; I explain that one bag contains the clothes Frankie wore during the assault. The other one has my shirt since I think evidence got on it, maybe. That’s good enough for Maury. He scoops up the bags and heads out the still-open door. We follow, and I burn some blood to lock up quickly while my old friend’s back is turned.
Once Maury puts the evidence in his car, he gets into the driver’s seat. I can see something on the passenger side, another evidence sample sitting inside an unzipped cooler. It’s blood, and I can read the name Kupala on the label.
I open the passenger side and start getting in. It’s the natural thing to do, what with Maury unwittingly tracking Leora’s mysterious guardian while under the influence of an alchemist’s potion. Also, I want a taste of that blood. Sure I’ll puke my guts out, but maybe a couple of my zillion questions will finally have an answer.
But Maury’s having none of it. “Tino, what the hell are you doing?”
“Uh, bringing Frankie down to—”
“No. What you’re doing is getting the hell out of my car. I’ll call you when I hear something, as usual. For now, I’ve got the feeling I have to be somewhere. Like, yesterday. Thanks for that, by the way.” He rolls his eyes.
And just like that, I have to let him go. Trying to get in was a gamble, but if I push the issue, Maury will start poking his nose into supernatural business I’ll only have to stop him from getting involved in. I don’t even wait for Maury to get out of the driveway before dashing toward my own car, dragging Frankie along with me. We get in.
“Follow that car!”
“You’re the one driving!”
“Yeah. Okay. I knew that.” I crank the ignition and throw it in reverse.
My nervous excitement at the prospect of a high-speed chase vanishes when I realize Maury’s driving like Grandma Moses. Which makes sense because if he’s on a tracking potion, he doesn’t exactly know the way as much as he has to sense it. At least, that’s what Esther’s instructions said.
I’ll have to trust them for now and take it on faith that the stuff actually worked.
Chapter Nine
In the car, my phone rings. Like an idiot, I never set the Bluetooth up when I got in, and Rhode Island’s hands-free driving law just went into effect last month. Well, I was in an unmerited rush, okay? I don’t dare pick it up because then Maury could just pull me over, chew me out, and write me a ticket. The potion in his system might stop him from doing that, although I don’t want to take any chances.
But Frankie steps in again. He’s picked the phone up, put it on the charger, tapped the button to answer the call, and put it on speaker. The kid’s a freaking hero. What’s up with these younger adults and their awesomeness? Well, they’ll save the world someday, I bet.
“It’s Maury,” Frankie whispers.
“Heya, Maur.” I grin and keep my eyes on the slow-moving bumper in front of me. Not to keep up, but so I don’t step on the brake too late and hit it.
“Tino, I don’t feel so good.” He stifles a small burp. “More than usual, I mean.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” And I am. The last thing I want is to make my oldest and best friend feel worse.
“Look, I was gonna tell you to stop following me, but now I think I’ll let you.” He snorts. “Got a hunch I should.”
“Where are you headed?” I’m hoping maybe he’s been to wherever this potion leads before and knows the answer to this question.
“I dunno what to tell you, man. Just I’ve got to be there. It’s the weirdest freaking thing.”
“I hear you.”
“And I have this enormous headache coming on.” Yeah, that’s one of Esther’s listed possible side-effects.
“Oh, man, Maury.”
He’s been driving down Park Avenue, heading east toward the coast. We pass Roger Williams Park, where he slows down, and I breathe a sigh of relief when he doesn’t stop there. I bet who or whatever we’re tracking has been in the park recently, though. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from my office. But I know next to nothing about the Kupalas or Baba Yaga. For all I know, the legendary old hag hangs around in parks.
And this is where I kick myself because I finally ask myself the question you must have had on your mind for half this story. Why didn’t I look Baba Yaga up online when an article about her was right there on Sasquatch’s cryptid site? Because I’m a scatterbrain who forgets almost everything I don’t write a to-do list for, that’s why. And I read about the stupid Russian house-elves instead. Nobody’s perfect, okay?
We get to the end of Park Avenue and bang a right on Broad Street, heading south down the coast. There’s no view because buildings block it, but we pass Rhodes on the Pawtuxet and then all the awesome restaurants I can’t eat at anymore. Go have a crepe at Schastea in my honor or something if you’re ever in that neighborhood.
And there we are, crossing the border with Warwick. Maury pulls into the parking lot at Pawtuxet Park, spitting distance from Cranston. He gets out, leaving all his evidence in the car. And the door open.
As he walks toward the water, I pull on my gloves and grab the bag with the blood in it. I can’t just take the vial I'm holding, so I open it instead. Now is a bad time to have a gulp, puke to the point of starvation, and trance out into one of my vision things. I look around in Maury’s messy car for another option.
There’s a Dunks iced coffee cold cup nestled inside a hot cup. I separate them and put the cold cup back in the holder, then tip the blood sample sideways over the empty styrofoam container. About a third goes in, and that’s plenty. I cap the vial, put it away, and head back to my car with the ill-gotten evidence.
Frankie’s already headed out to follow Maury, so that’s where I go next. We find him standing at a wall that holds the water back at high tide, right at the border between the two towns. Maury turns and walks along that barrier toward a tree. Under it is a bill, smeared with red. He reaches down and grabs it, peering intently.
“Is this blood?”
“Raspberry jam.”
“What?” Maury blinks, then levels his gaze at me. “If I didn’t have the biggest headache in the history of cranial pain, I’d be on your case forever, asking how the hell you know.”
He peers at the serial number, and I can practically see the wheels in his head turning. Unlike me, Maury’s got a brilliant memory. And I know exactly what he’s doing. Checking that number against the ones I gave him over the phone from the cash Leora paid me.
“It’s sequential, Tino,” he says, finally. “The kid’s either complicit, or whoever gave her the cash for your fee is. I’m not sure which.” Maury closes his eyes and rubs his temple. “Don’t know how CSI missed it. Probably because Raph wasn’t on shift last night.”
The tide’s in, but around five in the morning, it wasn’t. I realize I can’t get at the actual crime scene now because it’s underwater.
“Wait, is that the crime scene?” I point down at where the sea covers the edge of the Cranston side.
“Yeah, Tino. This was where we found the kid’s mom. Down there.” He jerks his chin at the water. “Barely inside our jurisdiction in front of a Cranston Water overflow pipe.” That rings a bell but not loudly enough.
“Hey, guys,” Frankie’s standing completely still, pointing one finger at the grass by the corner of the barrier. It’s on a little hill, beside a spot where the park planners left space for people to be at the edge of the water, chosen because the tide won’t flood it out except during a hurricane.
I power-walk over there. Even as a human, I was faster than Maury, and I blow him out of the water now, of course. It always amazes me how complimentary our skills still are even now. It’s what made us good partners as beat cops. And we were supposed to continue that as detectives, too, until the supernatural world sank its fangs into me and divided us.
But the item Frankie’s pointing at banishes all that wistful nostalgia from my mind. The thing he’s found strikes me to my knees in fear. Because there’s no way he sh
ould have been able to see it. And it shouldn’t have been discarded by the water in the first place.
I’m talking about the amulet all vampires ever tested and recognized by a vampire king wear every night of their unlives. This is a Lazakhar, the red vampire jewel, and it’s set in a familiar Greek key-embossed frame. This amulet should be around my sire Stephanie McQueen’s undead little neck.
Unless it’s been severed from her body, that is.
No. I fucking refuse to stop hoping because I’m a Rhode Islander. We might be misfits, but we never give up. There’s one more reason Steph’s Lazakhar would be here. She left it on purpose, so any vampire who sees it would know she’s gone missing and where it happened. My gut tells me I’m on the right mental track. Something’s familiar about this place, too, but I’m not sure why just yet. I have faith it’ll come to me.
I scoop the amulet up in my hand, then stow it in the front pocket of my jeans. I’m going to the Blood Moot later, so I can bring this directly to King DeCampo. But there’s still one piece of information I don’t know what to do with.
“Frankie, how did you find this?”
“Uh, I saw it?”
“Hmm.” I glance at Maury because I can’t talk openly about this in front of him. What I see makes me dash to his side.
Maury’s knees are buckling, and he’s holding his head with both hands. His face is pale as a sheet, too. I catch him as he topples over and find that his center of gravity is all messed up. Like Frankie’s was last night, only to a lesser degree. There's something slimy on his shoe.
“Maur, you okay?”
“Gotta sleep it off.” The end of the last word resolves itself into a snore. I try not to end up on the ground while reaching for Esther’s can of levitating powder. Frankie snags it from my pocket and sprinkles some on Maury’s head.
