Known Devil

by Matthew Hughes

  I sucked in a breath. We hadn’t planned for this, either. Franks must’ve figured out that Karl was a vampire, even though it was common knowledge that no member of the undead could possibly be up and about this long after sunrise. I guessed that I wasn’t the only Sherlock Holmes fan in the room, because Franks had clearly adopted one of the Great Detective’s core principles: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  Quite a few of the cops were milling around in the aisle now, asking each other variations on the “What the fuck?” question. I shoved my way through them, in a hurry to get to Karl so I could do something about that cross Slattery’s bodyguard was using to threaten my partner. Brody was still standing in his Van Helsing pose, even though the tactic had already served its purpose: Slattery and the other three had slipped out behind him and were probably halfway to the front door by now. I didn’t know what Brody intended to do – maybe the big man wasn’t sure himself. I just knew I wanted to get that cross away from him before the situation went from bad to worse. But this seemed to be my day for surprises.

  Karl had flinched from the crucifix at first, turning away and using his arm to shield his face, just like movie vampires have been doing since Bela Lugosi – the real ones have probably been doing it a lot longer. But then something strange happened.

  Karl slowly turned back toward Brody and looked right at the cross that the bodyguard was pointing at him like a pistol. I couldn’t see his face then, but Karl’s body was tight with tension as he reached out his left hand and grabbed Brody’s wrist.

  I’d made enough progress through the press of bodies in the aisle that I was close enough to hear my vampire partner say, “That’s a nice piece of religious art you’ve got there, Brody. Mind if I take a look?”

  Karl must have tightened his grip as he spoke. Brody was big and tough, but his muscles and pain threshold were no match for vampire strength. After a couple of seconds, his hand opened involuntarily, letting the cross drop from his grasp. It was falling toward the floor when Karl reached out his other hand and caught it.

  I stopped pushing my way through the crowd then and just stood still, watching. I don’t think my jaw dropped, but it might’ve. The conversations in the room, which had been fading as more people saw what was going on, went completely silent, as if the talk had been coming from a TV that somebody had just turned off

  Karl let go of Brody’s wrist then, glanced down at the crucifix in his palm and said, “So, where’d you get it – Vlad-Mart?” Brody didn’t say anything. He was staring at Karl as if a three-headed alien from the Planet Mongo had just beamed down in front of him and asked directions to the White House.

  Karl looked down at the cross again. “It’s nice work,” he said. “Not too elaborate. I always thought less is more, myself.” I think he was trying for a casual tone, but to me, at least, the strain in his voice was unmistakable. “I bet you had it blessed by a priest, too, didn’t you? Maybe even the bishop himself.”

  Brody took a step back, stared at Karl a few seconds longer, then turned on his heel and walked rapidly out the door. In the silence, I could hear his footsteps in the hall outside, receding rapidly. He was not quite running.

  The buzz of talk came back all at once, twice as loud as it had been before. I shook off the paralysis caused by amazement and made my way over to Karl. Now that I could see his face, the strain of what he’d just done was obvious.

  He tried for a smile but it barely displayed the points of his fangs. Handing the little crucifix to me, he said, “Just as well it’s not made of silver. That would’ve made things… difficult.”

  “Difficult,” I said, and grinned at him. “Yeah, absolutely.”

  Karl’s smile broadened into something more genuine. “Guess Doc Watson had it right, after all,” he said.

  I was about to say something clever involving a pun on “elementary”, but I never got the chance – because suddenly Karl’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. I knelt to check his pulse before realizing just what a futile exercise that would be.

  “Rachel?”

  “Ummpf.”

  She’d gone home around 8.30, pleading exhaustion. I could hardly have blamed her. But this call was absolutely necessary.

  “It’s Stan. Stan Markowski.”

  “Whaa? Stan who?”

  “Rachel, Karl’s dead.”

  There was silence on the line for three or four seconds, and when Rachel’s voice came back there was no sleepiness in it at all.

  “You don’t mean undead, but dead for real?” she asked.

  “That’s the problem – I don’t fuckin’ know.”

  “What happened?”

  I ran it down for her, starting with the arrival of the Patriot Party crowd and ending with Karl’s swan dive to the floor of the media room.

  “Karl handled a crucifix?” Her voice was as dubious as mine would have been, if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  “Bet your ass he did,” I said.

  “Without any burns on his hand, or any other ill effects?”

  “Nope, none at all – unless you count what happened there at the end.”

  “Handling holy objects,” she said, as if to herself. Then, a little louder: “There’s nothing in the spell that should have given him that kind of power. Although, I grant you, it’s still experimental, so who knows?”

  “I don’t think it was the spell that did it.” I briefly explained the sessions that Karl had been having with Doc Watson to see if his aversion to holy objects was only psychological.

  “That’s fascinating,” Rachel said when I’d finished.

  “Yeah, fascinating,” I said. “But it doesn’t do anything about the fact that right now, my partner’s doing a pretty good imitation of something that you’d pull out of a drawer at the county morgue.”

  More silence from the other end. “Rachel? You still there?” I shouldn’t have raised my voice to her like that – but it had been kind of a stressful morning. I decided to start acting like a grown-up. Better late than never.

  “Shut up – I’m thinking. Or trying to.”

  After a few seconds, she said, “Where’s Karl now?”

  “In the trunk of my car, zipped up in a plastic body bag.”

  “What’re you going to do with him?”

  “I was kinda hoping to get some advice from you on that question.”

  I heard her breath go out in a long sigh. “My Goddess, Stan, we’re dealing with stuff here that nobody else has ever had to think about, as far as I know.”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s time somebody started,” I said. “I nominate you for the honor.”

  “My cup runneth under,” she said. “Alright, let’s try to think this through. There’s nothing unusual about a vampire appearing to be a corpse during daylight hours, because he is a corpse – until sunset.”

  “When were you planning to tell me something that I don’t already know?”

  “Stan,” she said tiredly, “stop. I know you’re worried about Karl, and so am I. But please, just… stop.”

  I made myself take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, alright. Sorry.”

  “Forget it.”

  “But what happened, Rachel? This was the day that Karl wasn’t supposed to be a corpse, remember? He was supposed to be alive and kicking, all day long. What went wrong?”

  “Any answer I might give to that is pure speculation at this point. Maybe the spell doesn’t affect every vampire the same way. The one that Annabelle worked with was conscious and functioning the whole day, she said – but it’s always a mistake to generalize from a sample of one. That’s true in both science and magic.”

  I’d been about to say, “If you didn’t know whether it was safe, then why did you do it?” when the truth stood up and hit me right in the mouth. She did it because you and Karl asked her to, smart guy. Asked her – shit, you both practically begged
her.

  So, instead of making a complete ass out of myself, I just said, “Uh-huh.”

  “Or maybe having to deal with that jerk holding the cross caused more stress than Karl’s system could handle, considering the strain he was already under.”

  “Yeah, the cross was something none of us had counted on,” I said. “But, Rachel, you should have seen him – taking hold of that goon’s wrist, then catching the cross when it fell. I was so proud of him…”

  “Yes,” she said, “as well you should be.”

  I had to swallow a couple of times before I went on. Keeping most of what I was feeling out of my voice, I said, “It’d be nice if I get the chance to tell him that sometime. You think I will?”

  “The simplest answer to that is also the most difficult,” she said, “because it involves waiting. Make sure you’re with Karl at sunset. Not to be blunt about it, but either he’ll rise or he won’t. Then we’ll know.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “That’s the best you’ve got?” The promise I’d made myself to remain calm hadn’t lasted very long.

  “Well, there is one other method,” she said, sounding like someone whose patience had just been used up. “The advantage of this one is you can do it right now, as soon as you get out to your car. But it does have something of a downside, as well.”

  “What?” I practically yelled. “What is it?”

  “If Karl is still among the undead, then he still possesses all of a vampire’s vulnerabilities. The sun’s shining nice and strong today – from my window, I can hardly see a cloud in the sky.”

  I thought I could see where this was going, and I didn’t like it.

  “So what you do,” Rachel said, “is open the trunk, unzip that body bag, and take hold of Karl’s arm. Pull it out of the bag until the sun is shining on it. If it bursts into flame, you’ll know that Karl’s OK – apart from his arm, of course. I imagine it’ll heal, eventually. Are you willing to do that to your partner, Stan? To your friend?”

  “The fuck I am,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t think so.” We were both quiet for a bit, being pissed off at each other, but when Rachel finally spoke, the anger had drained out of her voice. “I knew you couldn’t,” she said. “I couldn’t do it, either. So, I guess that means we wait, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said dully. “Shit.”

  “And if you think the hours between now and sunset are going to be one tiny bit easier on me than they’ll be for you, Stan…”

  “I know, Rachel. I know.”

  “You’ll be with Karl then. Come sundown.”

  “Fuckin’ A right I will be.”

  “Then when you, uh, know for sure, call me, OK? No matter… no matter what.”

  “Count on it.”

  I sat in McGuire’s office, sipping from a cup of his excellent coffee and telling him what Rachel’d said about Karl. The coffee’s rich taste aside, I was just grateful for the caffeine. I felt more tired than I had in a long time, and only part of it came from being short on sleep.

  “Fine,” he said when I was done, slapping a palm on his desk. “Just great. One of my detectives may or may not be deceased, and I won’t even know until” – he glanced at his watch – “something like five fucking hours from now.”

  “We won’t know,” I said. I might’ve said that with a little more emphasis than I usually use with the boss, but like I said, I was tired.

  McGuire stared at me for a second, as if he was wondering how I’d look with a shiny new asshole, but then blew out a breath between his lips and slowly sat back in his chair. “Yeah, alright. I know. It’s not all about me.”

  “No, I’d say it was mostly about Karl.”

  He nodded tiredly. “Well, while we’re waiting for the sunset to resolve that particular issue, there’s no shortage of other ones to think about.”

  “Like what Karl got out of Slattery, there at the end.”

  “That’d be pretty high on my list, yeah,” he said. “Helter fucking-skelter. Jesus. Never thought I’d hear that again, except maybe on some TV documentary about the Sixties or something.”

  “Patton Wilson,” I said. “He’s back. Has to be.”

  “I heard that bastard was hiding out in Australia someplace.”

  “Maybe he was,” I said. “Or that could’ve been a rumor he started himself, to throw the feds off his trail. Anyway, I’m betting he’s in Scranton now. Or someplace close by.”

  “Close by,” McGuire said with a slow nod. “That’s right – he never was much for delegating, was he?”

  “No, he wasn’t,” I said. “He’s a very hands-on terrorist, is Mister Wilson.”

  “Terrorist?”

  “I don’t know what else to call the bastard. He wants to wipe out all the supes by starting a ‘race war’ between them and humans. If that’s not terrorism, I guess it’ll do until the real thing comes along.”

  “Yeah you got a point there. Last time, he just used that bunch of religious whackos he controlled–”

  “The Church of the True Cross,” I said.

  “Yeah, them. But this time, he’s doing what the military calls ‘fighting on multiple fronts’.”

  “Multiple is right,” I said as I rubbed my forehead. “It makes my brain hurt just trying to get a handle on it all.”

  “The Patriot Party’s the easy one,” McGuire said. “We got that straight from the horse’s mouth not an hour ago.”

  “Wilson’s gotta be behind the Delatassos, too,” I said. “Delatasso Junior, anyway.”

  “The bombings, you mean?”

  “That’s one part,” I said. “Those bombs have got the people scared shitless, and I don’t blame them. And since the bombing’s all part of the gang war, supes get the blame, with the fucking Patriot Party right there to fan the flames. Just like the Nazis and the Reichstag fire.”

  McGuire’s a World War Two buff, so I didn’t have to explain to him what I meant. “For them, it was the Jews,” he said slowly. “And for the PP, it’s supes.”

  “With a similar result in mind,” I said.

  “You said the bombings were only one part of it,” McGuire said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I am, if you’re thinking about Slide,” I said. “Drug-addicted supes are gonna commit crimes to get money. And every time they do, the PP gets something else to be outraged about.”

  “And if the Patriot Party wins the election…”

  “Wilson gets a city government that’s gonna do whatever he tells it to. Same thing if the Delatassos wipe out the Calabrese family and take over local organized crime. Then Wilson controls both the cops and the crooks.”

  “But the Delatassos are supes, too,” McGuire said. “They’re vamps, for God’s sake.”

  “I figure Wilson’s willing to overlook that – for a while,” I told him. “Shit, the Nazis had an alliance with Japan, remember? And the Japanese weren’t exactly what Hitler and his crew considered members of the fucking master race.”

  “Alright, fine,” he said. “But let’s put the history lesson aside. The important thing–”

  “Wait! Wait a second – something just occurred to me.”

  He raised an eyebrow in my direction. “I don’t suppose it’s a miraculous solution to all our problems.”

  “Sorry, no. In fact, it’s another problem – or it is if I’ve got things figured right.”

  “Then let’s hope you’re wrong,” McGuire said. “But you better tell me anyway.”

  “I just remembered something Christine was telling me the other night. Now that Victor Castle’s dead, that leaves a power vacuum in the supe community.”

  “You needed your daughter to tell you that? You must be slipping, Markowski.”

  “No, I figured that part out for myself. But what I didn’t know is that there’s a guy – a vamp – who’s angling for the job. And it sounds like he’s pushing pretty hard.”

  “Pushing how?”

  “The us
ual combination of carrot and stick. The stick is what you might expect – he’s known as a bad guy to cross, you should pardon the expression. Any supe who’s against him runs into a world of hurt.”

  McGuire leaned back in his chair. “If that’s the way he does business, I’m surprised we haven’t encountered him before now. Or maybe we have – what’s his name?”

  “Dimitri Kaspar.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “The guy doesn’t have a sheet, at least not locally. I asked the Staties to check their database, see if he’s been busted anyplace else in Pennsylvania. But you know how that works.”

  He nodded. “They’re going to get back to you – any day now.”

  “Yeah, that’s about it,” I said.

  “Still, this Kaspar just sounds like a run-of-the mill punk, whether he’s got fangs on him or not.”

  “I’d agree with you,” I said, “except for the size of the carrot he’s offering to those who go along with him.”

  “What kind of carrot are we talking about?”

  “The usual kind – money. Apparently he’s been spreading a lot of it around. But here’s the thing, boss – this guy works at the Post Office, sorting mail. He should barely be able to make the rent every month, let alone throw cash around like he’s been doing. Unless he’s hit the lottery, there’s only one explanation I can think of.”

  McGuire stared at me for three or four seconds. “You know, under other circumstances, I’d be inclined to say you were batshit paranoid.”

  “Yeah, but just cause we’re paranoid doesn’t mean that Patton Wilson isn’t really out to get us.”

  McGuire let out his breath in a long sigh. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  “The bastard’s thorough,” I said. “You gotta give him that.”

  “Alright,” McGuire said. “Whether you’re right about this vamp Kaspar or not, it’s pretty damn clear that Wilson is back, and he’s up to the same shit as last time – but on a much bigger scale. Question is: what the fuck are we gonna do about it?”