by Declan Finn
Next.
Marco’s omnipresent little smile flickered, widened for a split second, then he offered his hand. “Marco Catalano, prospective student.”
The redhead reached forward and took it. “I’m Yana Rosenburg.” She nodded to the taller blonde, and said, “This is Tara. And this is Buffy.”
Marco blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
The athletic blonde rolled her eyes, and looked to Marco. “Sarah Bell. They’re just being funny.”
Tara shrugged. “She complains when we call her the Chosen One,” she said in a soft, almost childlike whisper.
Sarah looked at her taller friend and said, “That’s because I am so much cooler than Keanu Reeves.”
“True,” Marco said, his voice deadpan, “but would that really be hard?”
Sarah gave him a look he was familiar with—sizing him up, trying to fit him for potential dating material. He couldn’t figure out what her conclusions were when she said, “Hope to see you around, should you come around, I mean.”
Marco shrugged. “Perhaps.”
* * *
Marco looked at the storefront for the Art of Kraft, the magic shop run by Merle Kraft. It was on the Embarcadero, the closest San Francisco had to a Rodeo Drive, or a Fifth Avenue.
Meh, I suppose it’ll do. He walked up to the front door, and hesitated. He knew it was good manners to at least talk to Merle Kraft. After all, the government employee and magician had paid for Marco’s trip out here, and had even offered to pay for the rest of his academic career, as long as he came to San Francisco. Politeness dictated that Marco at least stop by.
“The last thing I need is another problem,” Merle Kraft muttered as he shoved a box onto the shelf. He turned back to the front door, and stopped. “Damn it, of course you show up now.”
Marco arched a brow. “Well, if that’s your attitude about it, I’ll go back to New York.”
Merle Kraft sighed. “Come on in. Have a look around.” He waved a hand at the rest of the store layout.
Marco glanced around and shrugged. There wasn’t much to see. “Been there, done that. You sure the University of San Francisco even has a PA program?”
Merle smiled tiredly. “Yup. If it didn’t, I would have found somewhere else.”
He nodded, then looked over the shorter man. “You look like hell.”
Merle chuckled. “Gee, thanks.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve been training my own local task force.”
“Oh? With what? You have a SWAT team? A Delta unit? More Vatican Ninjas?”
Merle really laughed aloud this time. “Thanks, I needed that.” He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t even begin to try and convince the people I work for that vampires are a real threat. I’d be sent to the nearest funny farm. And then I’d have to escape.” He bent over and picked up another box. “So I’ve been stuck using local college kids, because they’ve already fallen into the whole routine. They’ve already taken to using call signs out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
A minor alarm bell went off in Marco’s head. “Yeah, you’re right, you’re in trouble.”
Merle’s mouth bunched up in one corner as he slid the box onto the counter. “Gee, thanks for letting me know. You’re such a mensch.”
He blinked, still not used to Merle throwing out the occasional Yiddish. “I’ve already met several of your Buffy crowd. You’re going to have an interesting training program.”
Merle opened the box with a boxcutter that Marco hadn’t seen a split-second before. It had come from nowhere. Literally nowhere. Marco searched his memory twice. It… appeared while Marco was somehow not paying attention. He filed this away for later in case he had to kill Merle at some point down the line.
“Well,” Marco said, “in some cases, I’m already ahead of the game with one of my kids. Though you may not have noticed her. Sarah Bell is already a professional-level martial artist.” He cut away the final bit of tape, and just like that, the boxcutter was gone again. “She’s good,” Merle continued, as though nothing interesting happened, “even by my standards, and I don’t even meet my own standards. The others make some good support staff, and some of them can even aim. But I need someone who can take all of them and form them into a coherent, cohesive fighting force. You made street gangs act like military units, and you can at least keep people alive. I need you. Heck, I’ll even take some of your street gangs out here.”
Marco chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose. The problem is manpower. I can keep your people alive, but for how long? I’ve got dozens at my command out in New York. How many do you have?”
Merle looked into the box, and reached in, coming out with boxes of flash paper. “Seven, if you count me.”
Marco growled to himself. “Of course I don’t. You said you needed people to hold the fort while you’re out of town. I can’t count you. Is six the best you can do?”
Merle yawned, then shook his head. “Listen, it’s not like I came prepared with a small army in my back pocket. Nor do I have a lot of people in the area who are interested in fighting vampires—assuming they’re even aware. If this were LA, we would at least have the Crips or the Bloods as a recruiting pool.” He shoved the flash paper onto the shelf behind the counter. Each box thumped as he rammed it in. “But this is San Francisco, where everyone stays in their nice, neat little communities, and no one bothers anyone else, because several of these communities spend their time getting high and screwing their brains out. Except for the homeless, who aren't mentally ill, they want to be out on the street and what they do is less pan-handling, and more extortion.”
Marco arched an eyebrow. “Don’t be shy,” he muttered, “tell me what you really think.”
“And,” Merle continued, as though Marco hadn’t spoken, “then when someone gets eaten, no one sees anything… again, because they’re busy getting high and screwing their brains out.”
Marco rolled his eyes and leaned against the counter. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. I can just imagine some poor vampire biting one of your hippies. He’s be stoned out of his mind after the first sip, and then an addict within a week. I’d start to feel sorry for the vampires.”
“Yeah, well, don’t bet on it,” Merle said, turning back. “Would that be the case. We’re not that lucky. But we’ve got two heavy hitters, three shooters, and someone to do a lot of screaming and waving a cross around. And there’s me. And the lycanthrope.”
Marco shook his head to clear it. He knew he had the advantage with the time difference, but he felt like he had fallen asleep. “Did you say lycanthrope? As in werewolf?”
Merle waved him off. “He’s more like a weredog. Wolfhound, in fact.”
Marco opened his mouth, paused, thought a moment, raised a finger, and paused again, looking like a Daffy Duck cartoon. “Wait. Hold it. You’ve got a weredog problem?”
Merle chuckled. “Not a problem. George is nice enough, and makes for a good pet. He’s well trained as a wolfhound, and he remembers enough afterward that he’s cognizant of what’s going on when he’s a dog.”
Marco rubbed his temple, feeling a headache coming on. “Okay, lemme get this straight. You’ve got vampires, and one of your people is a werepuppy. Great. Does he have a pack?”
“Not that we know of.” Merle took the empty box off of the counter, dropping it on the ground.
Marco looked at the box, then back to the shelves. “How did you do that?”
Merle blinked. “Do what?”
“Stock the shelf fully? I swear you put three boxes there, but the package is too big for it, and the shelf is full.”
Merle shook his head and sighed. “Jet lag. Oh well. As for the lycanthrope thing, it’s not a problem. George got bitten by his ex-girlfriend, and she’s some kind of cat, so, lycanthropy has a few more variables than most original stories would imply.”
Marco sighed, closed his eyes, and said nothing for a moment. “Does George at least have something like a superpower?”
“He’s v
ery laid back, and he’s good as a shooter. We haven’t really tried him at hand-to-hand combat, but we know he cut off someone’s head.”
“That’s something. How bad is the vampire problem, though?” Marco asked. “Seriously. Are we talking full scale Armageddon, or merely a few roaming packs of street gangs?”
A shrug. “We can’t tell yet. The major problem is San Francisco itself. During the spring to summer months, the fog around here is so thick, the sun can’t shine through for half of daylight hours. Basically, it’s a vampire playground. Not to mention that you can’t even pick out the ones who are pale and pasty because they’re dead, and tell them apart from the ones who look that way due to a lifestyle choice. Unless, of course, they’ve read too many books about vampires.”
Marco growled. “Yeah, well, someone should tell them that real vampires don’t sparkle.”
“Speaking of which, how is Amanda?”
Marco smiled. “She’s okay. Still breathing.”
“So to speak.”
Marco gave Merle a glare that caused him to shiver. “Anyway,” Marco continued, “Amanda is doing quite well, thank you, and she is currently negotiating our current arrangement between our various factions.”
Merle arched a brow, wondering what sort of arrangement could be brokered between Vatican Ninjas, mafiosi, and the NYPD. “How’s that going?”
Marco chuckled. “Why do you think I chose this week to come out to San Francisco?”
Merle flinched, obviously surprised. “You abandoned her to deal with politics?”
Marco’s gaze went back to daggers. “I did not abandon her. She wanted me out of the neighborhood so I wouldn’t screw anything up.”
“How did she figure you would do that?”
Marco cocked his head. “Setting people on fire doesn’t help anything.”
“I thought that fire was a great way to kill vampires.”
“Who said anything about vampires?”
“Oh, yeah, that’d do it. I wonder how she’s getting along without you.”
Marco shrugged. “Perfectly well, I imagine. She’s quite charming. There’s a reason she’s over a hundred years old without turning evil.”
* * *
New York City
Amanda Colt was thirty seconds away from becoming allergic to any crosses, churches, or synagogues. That’s the sort of thing that happened after a vampire committed mass murder.
And she was so very, very close to doing that just now.
The fragile alliance that she and Marco had put together only weeks ago, was already starting to fall apart. These people had no problem slaughtering vampires together, but the issue became very different when they had to sit down and deal with each other face to face.
Officer Donald “Duck” Tolbert of the New York City Police Department, was next to her, in full-dress uniform. He was a tall, light-skinned officer of Jamaican heritage, two generations back. And he looked ready to draw his sidearm.
Yet another reasons why Amanda refused to let anyone have guns in the room.
On the other side of him was the Mafia wiseguy known only as “Enrico.” He was tall, but more elegant than the standard thug. When Amanda first met him, he was relaxing at Doctor Catalano’s desk like he was there for a business meeting, instead of holding Marco’s father hostage. He was of medium build, with thick cheekbones, and an easy, conman smile... when he wasn’t threatening to kill someone.
In between the two of them was a generally colorless man named Robert Hendershot, Vatican Ninja. Hendershot was definitely Germanic in background, and he talked with a light German accent; he said he was Swiss, and one of the Guards. He was blond and blue-eyed, and his expression was so neutral, he might as well have been a block of cheese. He also had quick muscle, not gym muscle… though Hendershot usually had enough heavy weapons on him that it had to have added a hundred pounds.
And the fourth person in the room was the host for this evening - Monsignor Rodgers, the black, Roman Catholic pastor of Greenpoint’s Church of Saints Anthony-Alphonsus.
When one considered that a major issue with vampires going over to the dark side bore with it a penalty of all the things that hurt Dracula, including religious items, Amanda’s thoughts of hurting these people only showed her just how much they were wearing on her patience.
She briefly wondered if the church had to be reconsecrated if there was a murder in the rectory.
“Enrico,” Amanda said, slowly, keeping her fangs in, “you cannot ask for total police immunity. You are not bringing your entire Mafia into fighting the vampires, and we can’t even bring in the entire police department. This is a demand that is impossible to enforce, you know that. If you prefer, we can let your people be eaten, and leave you out entirely.”
The priest cleared his throat. “Before we get carried away, we should stick to the main point. Now that we have stopped the creation of more vampires—we hope—how do we break down the areas protected by each group?”
Enrico sighed. “Fine. How about this - we will take up most of the areas around our fields of influence, and you know where those are, we all do. And we’ll add another half-mile.”
Tolbert sighed and nodded. “We’ll be happy to let you do that, and we’ll see about putting as many of our guys on the borders of your areas as is possible, so your people don’t get pulled over for carrying lots of sharp pointy sticks.”
Enrico scoffed. “To heck with that. We carry Mac-10s with incendiary rounds.”
And the yelling started again.
I so miss Marco.
CHAPTER 6:
I AM COMING HOME
New York City
Amanda Colt looked at Marco as he got off the plane, and her undead heart stopped for a few seconds too long. As a vampire, she could regulate her own bodily functions, and much like a “real person,” had most of their organs operate without too much thought (she had yet to meet the human being who gave large amounts of thought to how many times they had to blink… though, come to think of it, Marco just might. He was that sort of scary-smart).
In Amanda’s case, her heart seemed to completely reset when she saw Marco. She didn’t know why, exactly. Certainly, she had feelings for him, and it occasionally caused her some problems when she thought too hard about them, or him. But why it would have a direct effect on her cardiovascular regulation, that was beyond her.
Marco hadn’t even gotten off of the escalator of LaGuardia Airport’s arrivals area when she spotted him, and he saw her as soon as the moving stairs sank low enough.
“Hey there, beautiful,” he whispered, knowing she would hear it. “Have fun with the league of extraordinary cops and criminals?”
Amanda smiled, and shook her head slightly from side to side–he couldn’t hear her from there, and shouting like a madwoman across an airport in a post-9/11 universe was a really, really bad idea.
Marco merely sighed, and waited until he got off the escalator with his travel bag. He had packed for a four-day excursion, and a briefcase was more than enough to handle everything he needed. The novels he packed took up most of the room.
Marco stepped off and walked over to her, and she gave him a bear hug that would have lifted most people off the ground. But someone would have noticed if she was the one who picked him off the ground. It was a nice, comforting sensation. He was so refreshingly… solid, a firm hold on the reality her life sorely needed for decades.
“So, how was your stay?” she asked, holding in her trepidation.
On the one hand, she wanted Marco to stay… she also just wanted him. On the other hand, she wanted Marco as far away from her as possible. Ignoring the “just friends,” disclaimer, there were other issues. Namely all of the usual complications of being immortal, and saw human beings as a daily meal.
Having Marco away in San Francisco would be a Godsend, leading her from temptation, and delivering him from her urges.
On the other hand, it felt like someone was already pulling her heart out
through her sternum, and he hadn’t even told her if he was going to stay in San Francisco.
Marco shrugged. “Meh. I’ve had worse. I’ve also had better.” His ever-present smile flickered just a bit wider. “I’ve had nights in Central Park with you.”
Amanda’s heart warmed… and she hoped it wasn’t literally, otherwise she would start glowing any minute. “Well, it could have been worse. You could have had my days.”
Marco nodded. “Let’s get in the car, and you can tell me all about it.”
“Your father drove me.”
“Really? Dad drove?”
Amanda couldn’t help but smile. “Of course. I live in Manhattan; I do not need a car. How else could I come in and get you?”
He grinned. “Gotcha.”
* * *
Marco settled into the passenger seat of his car, and gave his father a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Dad, how was life?”
Robert Catalano, a tall, slender man with salt-and-pepper hair, gave a little shrug that Marco utilized so often. “Not bad. No drive-bys, no major traumas. Overall, a slow week. It’s like the vampires have taken vacation, and your gangs have actually learned to protect themselves.”
Marco laughed. “Well, they better have learned something by now. I can’t keep saving them forever.”
Amanda smiled. It was nice to see someone who got along well with family. And the two Catalano men were very much alike. She tried to remember her family, and didn’t succeed very well. Between becoming a vampire, and then the Soviet Union turned Imperial Russia into a vast police state she couldn’t recognize, she had spent more time penetrating the Soviet Union’s political and military hierarchy than she had visiting her parents…
So Marco and his father were quite refreshing.
“So, Amanda,” Marco said, “tell me what the problem was with the Mafia?”
Amanda rolled her amber eyes. “What is not problem?” she replied, her accent thickening, her speech patterns slipping into what Marco called “Boris and Natasha.” “They are pain in backside. They want full immunity from every police officer. Even when we can accommodate them, they must take more. It is at point where we will even have trouble getting them to acknowledge our own limits. I suspect they will want City Hall next.”
