by Sloan Archer
I tried getting the attention of an officer, who ignored me at first, dismissing me as one of the rubbernecking ghouls. After I explained who I was and why I was there, however, he was suddenly mighty interested in getting to know me.
The officer ducked under the caution tape, leading me away from the crime scene and over to a bench a few yards away. The bench’s thin metal slats, chilled from the costal air, bit painfully at my skin through my sweatpants as I took a seat. I was wishing that I’d dressed better, as if my disheveled appearance somehow implicated me of wrongdoing, which was absurd. I waited for the officer to start with the questions. Perhaps I was getting wiser with age, or maybe I’d witnessed enough crime that I knew the drill, but I realized that nervously yammering on and on would be the fastest way to incriminate myself.
2
I was also mindful of my former enemies.
Mathew had gotten himself mixed up with some pretty cutthroat vampires, the Vampire Globalist Organization specifically, so I had to watch what I said. Now that I was finally in the VGO’s good graces, I didn’t want to go pissing them off by ratting them out to the police.
I wasn’t entirely convinced, however, that the VGO had been the ones who’d committed the murder, since not murdering Mathew had been a condition of the deal I’d struck with them. But if not them, who?
My reaction may have seemed calmer than what would normally be expected from a person who’d just come across their ex lying in a pool of carnage, but that was because this type of scene wasn’t new to me. Sadly, in the short time that I’d been involved with immortals, I’d witnessed violence that would make your hair curl. I didn’t, of course, voice this depressing reality to the officer.
I lost hold on my composure, however, after I made the mistake of glancing over at the fountain. It was in the water that Mathew’s head was bobbing around like an apple in a Halloween carnival barrel. And it was at that precise moment that a crime scene analyst pulled Mathew’s head from the pink water and bagged it. Naturally, once I saw . . . what I saw, I reflexively looked to Mathew’s body, which had been decapitated with such precision that it looked like a laser had been used.
“Excuse me,” I said to the officer, and then I calmly leaned over the side of the bench and vomited into a bed of pansies. The officer fiddled with his phone until I finished, which made me eternally grateful. Really, there’s nothing worse than somebody watching you vomit, even if you have good reason to. I thought seeing my ex’s decapitated head pulled from a fountain was a pretty valid reason. The officer appeared to agree.
Once I was stable, the officer asked me a standard list of questions: What was my connection to Mathew? He’s my ex, officer. Why was I meeting him there? He was returning something to me that he still had after our breakup. What time had we planned on meeting? I faltered on this one a little, but I confessed to my lateness, since I had no reason to hide it. The officer seemed satisfied with the answers I’d given him. He was being fairly gentle with me, too. My vomiting on the flowers had probably implied that I wasn’t a diabolical assassin.
Then the officer asked a more difficult question, which caused me pause: “Do you know anybody who’d want to harm Mathew?”
Sure, about a dozen members of the VGO, my current boyfriend, my best friend and her husband, and the many women he’d spurned after we’d dated. Oh, and there was little old me—I hadn’t exactly made my animosity towards Mathew a secret. I hoped law enforcement wouldn’t gain access to Mathew’s emails, because I’d sent him some doozies. Yes, officer, I know of lots and lots of people who would have enjoyed seeing Mathew suffer. But whether or not they’d taken the next step and actually killed him is debatable.
Of course, I said none of this.
I sat back on the bench and pretended to reflect for a moment. When I felt that I’d been silent for a sufficient amount of time, I said, “In all honesty, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to murder Mathew.” Beat the living shit out of him was a different story.
The officer didn’t take the trouble to write it down. Apparently, he hadn’t really expected me to say yes. Still, he had to double-check. “You sure?”
Again, I pretended to mull this over. “Mathew wasn’t what you’d call an international man of mystery.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is that he wasn’t, like, a MI5 spy or a committer of corporate espionage. He worked in the sales department for a small business that specialized in commercial carpeting—office buildings and whatnot. He wasn’t the sort of person who would have enemies.”
I hoped my explanation sounded ditsy and convoluted enough to make the police scratch me off their list of potential suspects. Living with a vampire and having a standing contract with the VGO, an investigation into my life was the last thing I needed. I also worried for the officer, since the VGO were known to simply off a human if they became too much of a nuisance. If the police started sniffing around and asking questions about Mathew, the VGO might take it upon themselves “to end the investigation” (i.e. assassinate officers), even if they hadn’t killed Mathew.
“I see,” said the officer. He seemed to have another question on the tip of his tongue.
“Were there any witnesses at all?” I asked. “It’s odd that Mathew was murdered in such a public place—near all these people—but nobody saw a thing.”
The officer agreed. Yes, it was strange. But, no, there were no witnesses to speak off.
I wanted to ask about security cameras, but I didn’t want to press my luck.
Eventually, he asked, “You said that your ex had something of yours, right? That was the reason you were meeting him, correct?”
Uh-oh. I nodded. “Yes. That’s right.”
“What was it that he had? A sweater of yours or a CD or something?”
I couldn’t tell if the officer was trying to trick me by offering up suggestions. Maybe he assumed that I’d use his idea and say, Yep, you guessed it! It was an old sweater. Then he’d have me. The officer seemed pretty wily, so I figured being candid was the greatest course of action.
And I needed those fangs.
But how was I going to explain them? I was wishing that I could vomit at will, that way I could buy myself some time to think. But, no, the officer was staring at me expectantly. It was time to employ some acting skills.
I said, “This is embarrassing, and it’s going to sound weird . . .”
The officer shifted uncomfortably, like he thought I was going to start talking about a long-lost vibrator. “Okay,” he said with reservation.
“Back when Mathew and I were together, we took a tour along Route 66. You know, to buy turquoise souvenirs and visit Native American villages?” The part about Route 66 was true, but the only cultures Mathew had been interested in were the extraterrestrials he’d hoped to spot in the stars above Roswell, New Mexico.
“Okay.”
“It’s silly, I know, but we stopped at this tiny Apache village, where a man did an aura reading to find our spirit animals.”
The officer frowned. “Your what?”
“Our spirit animals,” I said, thinking, Where are you coming up with this? It was like I was possessed. I rarely lied, but when I did it seemed that I really went for it. “It’s the animal that represents you as a person inside an altered consciousness, like on a different plane.” That was right, wasn’t it? I had no idea. But it sounded good.
“Right,” the officer said, the subtext being: Okay, fruitcake.
And yet I powered on. “Anyway, my spirit animal was a—” quick, what had fangs? “—a . . . wolf.” I smiled a smile that was sweet but melancholy. Oh, the bittersweet memories of my made-up trip with my late ex to the made-up Apache village to see a made-up shaman.
“So, what, Mathew had a stuffed animal wolf?” I could tell that the officer wanted me to wrap it up. Fine by me. I’d rather be dismissed as a flake over a murderer.
“Close,” I said. “They were actual wolf fangs.” He
frowned at this, so I swiftly added, “But don’t worry, the fangs were cruelty free. They’d come off a mamma wolf who’d died while giving birth.”
Soon, I’d need a shovel, with all the bullshit I was scooping. I smiled sweetly again—me, the innocent ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Or a wolf. And especially not Mathew.
“Why are these wolf teeth so important to you?” the officer asked. “They must be, since you made a special trip here to get them.”
“That’s a good question,” I said. And hopefully I could come up with an equally good answer. “The fangs, well . . . It’s just . . . I suppose those fangs represent to me the last time Mathew and I had truly been happy as a couple. The split had been amicable, of course—” I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep myself from cackling madly at that one “—but I guess . . . the fangs represent a fond memory. And now Mathew is gone . . .”
The officer regarded me evenly, perhaps deciding if I was full of it. But the story I’d spun was so farfetched that it was nearly impossible not to believe. I hoped.
“So, if I could have the fangs, I’d really appreciate it,” I said. “They’re just so small; I’d hate to have them get lost in the mix.”
The officer considered my request. “We’ll have to hold the fangs as evidence for the time being, but I don’t see why you won’t be able to get them back after everything’s processed.”
I noted that the officer had used a less offensive term like after everything’s processed. It showed that he had made an effort to be tactful by not saying instead: after the body is cleared. This indicated that he was concerned about not upsetting me, which most likely meant that I’d succeeded in fooling him with my outrageous story. I doubted the police went out of their way make murder suspects feel comfortable.
“Did you see the fangs?” I asked, uneasy about how their treatment could possibly harm Robert. I had no idea how the whole fang thing worked and was nervous that they’d have an effect over him like a voodoo doll—that if somebody stepped on the fangs Robert would feel as if he were being crushed. When dealing with matters of the supernatural, nothing was certain.
“I don’t know,” the officer said, getting to his feet.
I blinked up at him. “It would break my heart—” and maybe Robert’s body “—if they were damaged.”
“Wait here, please.”
I could tell that the news was bad before the officer returned. I’d watched him searching and searching around the crime scene, but he’d come up empty.
Robert’s fangs were gone.
When I got home, I realized that Robert’s fangs weren’t the only thing missing. The rest of Robert was gone, too. This surprised me. I’d assumed that he would have wanted to quiz me about my meeting with Mathew, or at least offer up commiseration after I’d been forced to deal with his insanity.
I’d tried calling Robert on the way home to fill him in about Mathew’s murder and the missing fangs. The calls switched over to voicemail every single time I’d called, which gave me an icky feeling deep in my gut.
Unfortunately, my bad gut feelings were usually right.
I went into the kitchen and set my purse on the dining room table, which hardly got used, as Robert didn’t eat. I then realized why my calls had gone unanswered. Robert’s cell phone was sitting on top of the table, beeping like crazy with message notifications. This concerned me some, because Robert never went anywhere without his cell phone. When you ran your own corporation, like he did, being constantly available was simply a way of life.
I went into the garage to see if his car was gone. It wasn’t. I went through the entire house, starting at the back, and called Robert’s name. I became increasingly frightened as I ran out of rooms to search. Finally, I found the signs of struggle I was looking for, in the nook to the left of the front door. It wasn’t much—just an overturned lamp and an askew cushion on the lounge chair—but it was enough to persuade me.
I set the house alarm, in case the prowler decided to return, and then ran to get my cell. I’d tapped in 9 and 1, but then stopped before hitting the final 1.
Did I actually want to involve the law?
If I had been dealing strictly with human foul play, there would have been no hesitation on my part. I would have already been down at the police station, hollering for somebody to come help me find my man. But I wasn’t dealing with a human disappearance. And, although in my heart I knew that it was ludicrous to even consider such a possibility, there was still the slight chance that Robert had in some way been involved in Mathew’s demise.
But it just didn’t make sense. It wouldn’t be Robert’s style to murder Mathew, especially in such a public way, and then come home to stage a struggle. Okay, so then what had really happened?
I was particularly conflicted because Robert was—please forgive the pretention here—a Person of Importance. Anyone with a vague knowledge of finance (and the Sunday tabloids) knew that Robert was both wealthy and connected. Perhaps his disappearance had nothing to do with the fact that he was vampire . . . Could Robert have been kidnapped for ransom?
Again, I found myself doubting my theory. No human would have been able to overpower Robert, not even if they’d had help. A mob of ten bodybuilders on steroids wouldn’t have been able to take him down, not unless they’d come through the font door in a tank. Obviously they hadn’t. So that would mean, then, that a vampire was the kidnapper, which didn’t add up. Most vampires tend to have money. They may not have as much money as Robert, but kidnapping a fellow vampire who lived in the spotlight amongst humans wouldn’t be worth the risk. Most notably, Robert was now an ally of the VGO. No vampire in their right mind would have messed with Robert, not unless they were suicidal.
I could also imagine the PR nightmare it would create for Robert’s company if I involved human law enforcement agencies. There were a select few at Bramson Enterprises who were in the know about Robert’s vampirism. And those who were in the know may have panicked if they knew Robert was missing. And when people (or vampires) panicked, they tended to act impulsively. What if they did something rash in Robert’s absence, like sell off his options or fire board members? The reality was that I had absolutely no idea how corporations like Robert’s were run, but in the movies it always seemed like a CEO got screwed when they were left in a vulnerable position.
There was also something else I had to consider, which was that maybe Robert wasn’t even missing. The lamp had been tipped over, but what if Robert had done that unintentionally while running out of the house in a hurry? Other than the lamp and the cushion, I really had no proof that anything fishy had happened. There was no blood or broken glass—no signs of forced entry whatsoever. Though it was strange that he would have left on foot and without a cell phone, police would still insist that I wait twenty-four hours before filing a report. For all I knew, Robert could have run out the door to help a neighbor catch a runaway cat, however unlikely that was. I doubted Robert even knew the neighbor’s name.
I regarded the phone, and for an instant—a very, very brief instant—I considered calling Robert’s maker, Leopold. I shook my head and set the phone down. No way that was happening.
Both Robert and I were still pissed at Leopold for all the trouble he’d caused us when he’d gone behind my back and used my blood to create a serum for his own monetary gain. My blood, for whatever reason, contained a special enzyme or protein or something that made vampires turn back into humans temporarily. Leopold had manipulated my blood to make his serum, which he’d touted as a ‘cure’ for vampirism. That serum was what had landed me in hot water with the VGO, and their initial solution was to simply murder me for all the anxiety my blood had caused them.
The VGO had worried that, in the wrong hands, Leopold’s serum would be a danger to the vampire race. The effect of Leopold’s serum, unlike my blood, was not short-term. It would permanently zap the immortality right out of the recipient, making it impossible for them to ever return to being va
mpire.
It seemed outlandish to me that any vampire would actually want to give up their immortality. But some vampires, like my friend Jerry, had grown weary after roaming the earth for centuries. I’d given Jerry my blood back when I’d wrongly believed that the change it brought about was permanent, which of course I later learned wasn’t the case. The amount of time my blood took to alter a vampire, as well as how long they stayed human, depended on their age. Older vampires became human faster, but they remained human for less time. It was vice versa for younger vampires.
The only way I’d been able to avoid being massacred by the VGO was by entering into a deal with them. I would, for a timespan that had yet to be determined by their chairman, give them my blood in exchange for their protection (though, paradoxically, the VGO were the only ones I needed protecting against). Now that the VGO were no longer out to murder me, I could appreciate their concerns about Leopold’s serum—it was dangerous. How Leopold had for one second thought that developing it was a good idea was beyond both Robert and me. Robert’s take on the whole thing was that sometimes Leopold did things simply because he could. Bored, rich vampires could be very volatile beings.
What would become of Leopold, I didn’t know. Though he’d destroyed the serum and its formula, he was still on the VGO’s shit list. There was a reason why vampires the world over feared the organization, and that reason was that the VGO weren’t forgiving types.
But I had bigger issues to ponder than Leopold’s foolishness, the most pressing being my missing boyfriend. I would have to deal with locating Robert’s fangs later, and then try to learn who’d murdered Mathew. I had a sinking suspicion that the two events were related.
Between Mathew’s murder and Robert’s inexplicable vanishing, my nerves were electrified. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. I settled into the sofa and then reconsidered, returning to the kitchen to grab the whole bottle. As jittery as I was, I figured I’d probably end up drinking the whole thing, so why not save myself the trip?
