Deadworld

by J N Duncan

  Tears fell, rolling down Laurel’s cheeks. “That’s good to know. Thank you. And you’re right. I should have trusted you would deal with it.”

  Silence followed, and Jackie let her foot off the brake and continued on toward downtown. Finally, she said, “No. You’re right. I’m a fuckup when it comes to relationships. If you’d told me, I’d have screwed things up between us somehow. Or, worse, gotten drunk and slept with you.”

  Laurel laughed at that. “The thought has crossed my mind a time or two.”

  The tension eased, and Jackie smiled at her friend. This was all good. They would figure it out and move on. Things would get back to normal. She would find someone to love who would feel the same way. “I wouldn’t even know if I should be top or bottom.”

  “Oh,” she replied with a knowing grin. “You’d be top, Jackie, believe me.”

  The laughter rolled out of her now. “True enough, I guess. This is just the weirdest conversation. Will I get to hear all the sordid details of your sexual escapades?”

  “Slut. You’re just as curious what a vampire will do in bed as I am.”

  “What? No! Christ, no. You and biker girl go have fun… after the case is over with.” Who was she kidding? She would want to know everything. “I’ll expect a lengthy and detailed report.”

  “You might regret that choice, Agent Rutledge.”

  Jackie grinned and shook her head. “Undoubtedly.”

  Back at headquarters, Jackie dropped off the sample of synthetic blood to be analyzed and found that Belgerman, for better or worse, was still in the office. He had likely read Hauser’s data by now and was waiting impatiently for an update. There would be a meeting of the violent-crimes task force in the morning, and he would want something clear and concise to give them.

  Yeah, good luck with that one. Jackie flopped down into her desk chair while Laurel seated herself in hers. “We need to let Belgerman know that all this crazy shit is real. He won’t be happy.”

  “The team needs to know what we’re dealing with,” Laurel said.

  “We don’t even know what we’re dealing with. Ms. Fontaine wasn’t exactly full of details on that end.”

  “I know. The next one will be an adult female though, according to what Shelby said.”

  “Thirty-one, brunette,” Jackie said. “That doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot. Likely a couple million of those in the Chicago area alone.”

  “Maybe that tarot card had more of a clue in it than just which family member this guy was going to kill next?”

  “Could be. Give it to Hauser and see what the geeks can come up with.” Jackie pushed away from her desk. “Let’s go fill Belgerman in.”

  They found him in the conference room, the case notes spread out across the large cherry tabletop. A map on the wall had several pushpins inserted, marking all relevant points of interest. Next to it, a dry-erase board highlighted the basic information discovered thus far.

  He motioned Jackie and Laurel to the chairs and then walked over and closed the door. “One of you want to clue me in on this?” He tapped Hauser’s report on the table. “I can see you’ve got something, and that means I like what I saw in these pages even less.”

  Jackie glanced over at Laurel. “You tell him. This is your area, not mine.”

  Laurel gave her a sardonic smile. “Thanks. Sir, in my opinion, we’re after something supernatural.”

  He plopped back down in his chair and rubbed a hand over his tired face. “Yeah, I suspected as much. Is it Nick Anderson?”

  Laurel shrugged. “Maybe, but if I were to guess, I’d say no. He hasn’t been very forthcoming on his side of things, but we got Shelby Fontaine to share some information with us that sheds some light on this case.”

  “If it’s true,” Jackie added.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a pretty big ‘if’ to swallow.”

  Belgerman motioned for her to continue. “No suspense, please. Just tell me, Laurel. I’ve heard this kind of stuff from you before, so as weird as it may be, I trust your opinion on anything that smacks of otherworldly.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, smiling. “But this is beyond even what I’ve encountered or know about. Our killer does indeed seem to be some sort of vampire who draws blood from his victims to sustain his life, and for what else, we have no idea. He is killing in retribution for the death of his wife and son at the hands of Nick Anderson.”

  “So, the stories Hauser dug up?”

  “We think they are true, sir.”

  “So, Nick Anderson and Shelby Fontaine?”

  Laurel winced at her own reply. “Vampires, too, sir.”

  “Lovely. Can we keep this out of the papers? It’ll be a fucking circus if it gets out that we’re after a real vampire.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jackie said. “I have every intention of doing just that.”

  “Good,” he said, standing up and patting her on the shoulder. “’Cause if it leaks, you are the spokesperson on this one.”

  “You’re too kind,” Jackie said. “We’ll keep it quiet. I just hope the rest of the team can, once this comes up.”

  “They have no choice,” Belgerman said. “See if Anderson will come in tomorrow, and let’s see what he has to say. The rumors flying around this case are giving me a migraine. I want everyone informed.”

  “Sir, he wants us as far away from him as possible.”

  “Then find a way to convince him, Jack. You’re good at that sort of thing.” He got up and walked to the door. “We need a way to track this thing down. Right now we’re just driving in circles waiting for him to kill someone again.”

  “We realize, sir.” He was clearly frustrated. John Belgerman didn’t take to being clueless very well. “I’ll convince him to come in, one way or another.”

  “We’ll change the task-force meeting until after lunch, two PM. Gives you a little more time. If you have to, bring Anderson in on suspicion. I don’t care how weak it is.” Belgerman gave them a curt nod and closed the door.

  Jackie cleared her throat. “Well, that went fairly well, all things considered.”

  “Think you can actually get Nick to come in?”

  She shrugged. “If not, we’ll get Fontaine down here. She likes to talk. I’m not sure Anderson will say much if I force him to come down here.”

  “I’ll talk to her in the morning and let her know,” Laurel said, sounding more cavalier than she needed to.

  Jackie bit off her reply. “Get that card down to Hauser, and let’s go get food. Any luck, maybe Nick and Shelby will find that damn light in the fog, and we can get some traction on this psycho.”

  Burgers and chili fries were the highlight of the evening. Jackie was watching the White Sox lose, and Nick did not answer his phone, so she could only leave a message. If he refused to call back, she would ring him first thing in the morning. Shelby thankfully agreed to come around whether Nick did or not, and agreed in such a way as to make Laurel blush.

  Jackie dragged the last of her fries through the dregs of chili in the basket. “This is going to be a lot of fun, you know.”

  “Shut up.” Laurel reached for her soda and nearly knocked it over. “I deserve a break.”

  “You do,” Jackie agreed with a grin. “Still going to be fun as hell. I never get to give you shit over anything.”

  “And there’s nothing to give me shit over.” She took a long gulp from her glass. “Not yet.”

  Jackie laughed. “Will be if Shelby has anything to say on it. I don’t think she’s the sort to have patience when it comes to something she wants.” Jackie pointed her half-chewed fry at Laurel. “And did you see that bed? Right out of a fucking movie.”

  The pink in Laurel’s cheeks turned crimson. “Fuck you. I hate you.”

  Jackie popped the last fry into her mouth and giggled. “So much fun.”

  A phone-call update from Gamble indicated nothing new. Nick and Shelby were still combing the same general area of town, but with no leads of their
own, all the FBI could do was follow. The geeks apparently had come up with nothing recent on Drake.

  “So what do we do now?” Laurel wondered.

  “Wait,” Jackie replied. “Drake needs to make a move. We’re just grasping at straws.”

  “It’s almost nine now.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll take you home. I’m going to go through everything for the task-force meeting tomorrow. Maybe someone will have a brilliant idea.”

  “He might take someone tonight.”

  Jackie grabbed her leather coat. “And unless we hear from our local vampires, there won’t be a damn thing we can do about it.”

  Chapter 24

  In the dark hours of the morning, Jackie’s phone brought her out of a bathtub full of blood, where two boys continuously dipped their hands into the thick liquid and insisted she drink.

  “Do you want to live forever?” they asked in droning unison over and over.

  In the doorway, her mother stared in blank-eyed silence, slashed wrists dripping into a dark red stain at her feet.

  Jackie sat up in bed, kicking at the covers, and Bickerstaff complained with a disgruntled meow, jumping down to floor with a thud. The glowing numbers on her bedside clock read 4:12 AM.

  “Jesus fucking…” Jackie grabbed the phone off its stand. The readout told her it was Laurel. “Hey.”

  “Sorry, Jackie,” she said in a hushed voice. “I’ve got a little visitor here right now.”

  She sat bolt upright, panic gripping her gut. “What? You okay?”

  “Shhh. It’s okay. It’s the good sort,” Laurel said.

  Sleep was depriving Jackie’s brain of coherent thought. “Good sort of what? What are you talking about?”

  “There’s a presence here in my room. Right now.”

  Presence. Goddamn ghosts. “Why are you calling me at this horrid hour then?”

  “You remember the tarot card I gave to Hauser before we left last night?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “It’s sitting here on my desk.” Her voice was filled with quiet awe and something darker. Fear?

  Jackie thought of the mysterious, vanishing penny. “You sure it’s the same one?”

  “Of course!” She was irritated. “It turned up in my tarot deck.”

  The fog still shrouded Jackie’s brain. “You’re losing me.”

  “I was doing a reading for myself,” she replied. “I couldn’t sleep. I shuffled my deck, and it was the first card I turned up.”

  Okay. Weird, but given what had been going on, Jackie no longer found it out of the ordinary. “This couldn’t wait until morning?”

  “It keeps turning up as the top card, Jackie. The inverted empress. I’ve shuffled this deck a dozen times now, and it’s the first card every time. Always inverted.”

  “Why is that important?”

  “It can mean impending danger, possible death.”

  Some things Jackie could just give no credence to, and tarot reading was one of them. “Give me the punch line, Laur. I’m too tired to think.”

  “It’s a message, Jackie. Someone is trying to tell me we’re in serious trouble.”

  Jackie rubbed at her face with her free hand. Was she really up at four AM for this? “We’re always in danger with cases like this. For Christ’s sake, we’re chasing after vampires.”

  “I know, but this is serious,” she said, adamant. “The dead don’t talk like this unless it’s very important.”

  “Who would be sending us this kind of message?”

  “I don’t know. She’s desperate though, and…”

  There was silence, long enough that Jackie began to worry. “Laur?”

  “Shit. It’s gone now. She’s gone.”

  Thank God. “So we need to be extra careful now, I take it?”

  Laurel sighed. “Jackie, this is bad. Bad, bad, bad. You need to stop chasing this guy. Nick was right.”

  Had she heard that right? What the fuck? “Are you on crack? Did you just hear what you said?”

  “I know Goddess-be-damned well what I just said, you stubborn girl!” Anger raged in Jackie’s ear. “We need to turn this case over. Give it to someone else. You can’t keep chasing this guy, Jackie. Please.”

  Holy shit. She was totally serious. “Laur… It’s just… It’s a tarot card, for crying out loud. I can’t bail on a case over a bad tarot reading.”

  The voice on the other end was teary. “It’s real, damn you. This is serious.”

  “Okay, it’s serious.” Jackie tried to be soothing. She knew Laurel’s sense for this stuff could not be discounted. If there was trouble coming, she was probably right. “I can’t just blow this off to someone else though. He’s killing kids. He has to be stopped.”

  “I know that! Let someone else stop him. He’s going to kill you!”

  Jackie pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it in disbelief. What had gotten into Laurel? “I’ll be extra careful, okay? Are you all right? You want me to come over?”

  There was a pause and then a sigh on the other end. “No. I’m fine, Jackie. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “I’ll be careful, Laurel. I’m not blowing this off. I know it’s serious,” she said.

  “I know. Get some rest. I’m sorry I freaked.”

  “I understand. You get some rest-”

  “Night, Jackie.”

  The phone clicked off before she could reply. Jackie held the phone for a long moment before setting it back in its stand. No point in sleeping now. Her nerves were sufficiently frazzled. A shower and a pot of coffee were in order so she could go over the case notes for the task-force meeting later in the day and maybe figure out how in hell to get Nick Anderson to come in to talk.

  If there was any doubt over Laurel’s annoyance, Jackie found herself driving into headquarters by herself. She decided to make peace by stopping at Annabelle’s and getting Laurel’s favorite custard-filled, chocolate-covered doughnut. Jackie got her usual chocolate croissant and latte with two extra shots.

  She found Laurel at her desk going over the case file. “I brought you a doughnut.”

  Laurel took the bag and peeked inside. “Yum! Thanks.”

  “Any more ghostly visits?”

  “Nope,” she said. “I gave the card back to Hauser this morning.”

  Jackie nodded. “Okay. I’ll be extra careful, Laur. I mean it.”

  Laurel looked up at her and smiled. “I know. You better. I know you can’t bail on a case, Jackie. I’m sorry I mentioned it. The whole thing stressed me out.”

  “You’ve never been wrong with this shit before. I’ll keep my guard up.” She meant it, too. Laurel’s intuitions and spiritual connections had never panned out false. The FBI hadn’t hired her without cause, so Jackie knew better than to just brush it off. If Laurel said shit was going to hit the fan, they were due for something.

  “Thank you,” Laurel said. She took out the doughnut and sank her teeth into it. “Mmmm. Perfect. Think you can get Nick to come in today?”

  Jackie sat down in her chair. “I will. Somehow. I wonder if Shelby has told him she spilled the beans yet?”

  “Think that will help? He’ll probably be pissed.” She waved Jackie off, the half-eaten doughnut in her hand. “No, not pissed. More like mildly annoyed. I don’t think that man gets pissed.”

  “I don’t think he cares enough anymore to get pissed about anything,” Jackie said.

  “No, he cares. I think he cares a lot actually. Remember what Shelby said though. You’re dealing with a man who believes he has lost already.”

  Jackie sipped at her coffee. “After a century of this shit, I think I would, too.”

  “You’d have gotten yourself killed by now,” Laurel stated.

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  She laughed. “Both.”

  Jackie took out her phone and looked up Nick’s number. “Might as well get this over with now.”

  “Have fun w
ith that,” Laurel said.

  She stuck out her tongue while the phone rang.

  “Good morning, Agent Rutledge. How can I help you this morning?” The dark timbre of his voice was smooth and calm.

  No need for pleasantries. “You can help me by coming in this afternoon to talk to our task force about this case and what we’re actually up against.”

  The silence lasted so long Jackie thought the connection had been lost.

  “You spoke with Shelby last night.”

  “Yes, and, fortunately for us, she was far more forthcoming than you’ve been, Mr. Anderson.” Jackie forced her tone to remain neutral. “We need the story, Nick. We need to know everything that’s going on. We need to know exactly how we can confront this… thing.”

  His sigh whispered in her ear. “You don’t know what you’re getting into, Agent Rutledge. Even if you do, it won’t help.”

  Jackie bit her lip and shook her fist at the phone. She took a deep breath. “Just let us do our jobs. We need your help as much you need ours, Nick. Help us get this guy.”

  Again he was silent. “What time is this meeting?”

  Yes! Thank God. “Two PM today at our headquarters. You know-”

  “I know where it is,” he said. “I want to talk with you beforehand first.”

  “We’re talking now, Mr. Anderson.”

  “No. In person, away from the office.”

  Jackie hesitated. “Why?”

  “I want to show you something so you will more fully understand everything before I say anything to the rest of your agents.”

  Jackie didn’t like the sound of that. Laurel, who had been listening intently, picked up her ringing phone.

  “Is that really necessary, Nick? You can’t just do that here?”

  “No,” he said. “How about we meet for lunch? It won’t take very long.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes. This wasn’t going to go her way. “Fine. Where and when?”

  “Do you know Ernesto’s? Italian place out by-”

  “No, but I’ll find it. What time?”

  “Noon will work?”