There was something strange, even wild, in Fabiana’s eyes when she saw Kenny, and Tim knew it. But he would not comment on it. Not now, not here. She was too tense, too frightened. Her eyes were riveted to the drawn, blue curtains of her window. She was perched on the edge of the tiny bed, her hands tightly clasped around her knees, tears rolling down her face. Tim slowly opened the curtain and Fabiana was swathed in blue, with a light blue sheet tucked under her chin to hide the ligature mark from a failed suicide attempt weeks before, when she tried to open her throat with a sharp piece of plastic. The nurses were still amazed that she could have broken the dinner tray with her bare hands to get it. That attempt had shaken Tim greatly.
Her wet hair was combed back, her eyes shut. She didn’t seem to breathe. Then Fabiana suddenly stared blankly ahead of her, without comprehension. She frowned.
“How are you feeling, Fabiana?” Tim asked her. But she gave no answer. Nothing more than the soft, slow nod of her head. With that, he sat down next to her. And she could feel a sudden sadness coming toward her, but not from Tim. No. The sadness was coming from Kenny, and that sudden realization woke her mind up a bit. But the sadness was not for her. The emotion was for Tim. Even though Kenny was not one to openly convey his feelings, Fabiana could see it in him. And if she could see it now, so could Tim.
“I’m worried, Tim. Something is not right.” Her soft voice was in his mind.
“What do you mean ‘something is not right’? Did something happen?”
They were in a silent conversation and Kenny closed his mind off to them in an attempt to give them some semblance of privacy, but it was not working.
“Yes… I had a dream…”
“What dream? Tell me.”
“I’ve been seeing things. Deaths. Deaths of people I know.”
“You mean vampires,” Kenny added to her tale and was back in the conversation. She looked up at him and nodded.
“Fuck. I knew it,” he stated out loud.
“Why haven’t you said anything before?” Tim asked and she knew he was upset. She could feel it in him. He had been mournful since she had been gone from him. And the guilt they both had over her suicide attempt hung over them like a heavy fog.
Her expression remained placid though she looked away. Her inner focus was gathering, that much Tim could still detect in her. Fabiana’s entire demeanor changed at his sadness. She moved closer to him. And Tim put an arm around her, kissing her quietly, and that kiss meant something to Tim. She knew it meant something because it meant something to her. Fabiana put her hand up to support her chin. A deep sigh came out of her. She remained turned to the side of her bed, her eyes closed, her arms folded across her body as though she pulled away from all she had sensed through the years. Tim wanted to unfold her and open her up to him, but he did nothing. He did not act in response to her pain, and he knew that he should. But what could he possibly do?
“Excuse me,” said a young man who was suited up in purple scrubs and carrying a handcart loaded with vials and labels. His blond hair was short and cut low to his scalp, and his kind eyes moved over them as he came into the room.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. But, Fabiana, I need to take some blood. I’ll only be a moment,” he said gently, indicating that he needed to take some more samples.
“Of course,” Tim said and got off the bed. Just at that moment, a man in a dark suit walked by her room and then was gone again. He looked fit and athletic and sported short, sculpted, dark red hair. His set jaw gave him a look of a stern authority. As he passed by, the man looked in at them. Tim was certain of that.
Then her voice was in his head.
“That man has been here a while. He keeps looking at me.”
“He’s been watching you?” Tim asked protectively.
“Yes”
“For how long? When was the first time you remember seeing him?”
With that, Kenny slipped out into the hallway, but the strange man was gone, nowhere to be seen. Kenny only saw the empty, white corridors and halls.
“Several days now.”
“What do you see when you look into his mind?”
“I haven’t been able to glean anything from him. Somehow he’s shut off to me.”
Then Kenny was back in the room and joined Tim in questioning her.
“Has there ever been someone you couldn’t read?” he asked as kindly, yet as forcefully as he could.
“Yes,” she told Kenny wearily. “If a person is strong-willed enough or trained, they can shut their thoughts off to me. There was a government agent back in the ’70s that I encountered in Japan. I remember that he was also closed off to me.”
“I’ve had the same experience. When I was questioned after Jack’s death, there was a man there. Some kind of agent. That man was completely closed off to me too. I couldn’t read him,” Tim said.
“So he might be FBI then?” Kenny asked.
By the time they had finished their little conversation in their minds, the young man in purple scrubs was cleaning up and was labeling the glass tubes of her blood, standing by the open door. There were three vials of blood sitting upright in his case as he produced a clean cotton ball out of a pocket and, after unwrapping it from its package, taped it to Fabiana’s arm. Kenny and Tim were still telepathically discussing the matter in the corner of the room, considering the possibility of FBI interest in Fabiana and what, if anything, they might have planned for her. Tim really didn’t like the possibilities.
Their backs were only turned for a moment when it happened. Then the young man spoke.
“What the…?” he gasped, looking down.
“What is it?” Tim questioned him, spinning around immediately and seeing confusion in the man’s eyes.
He pointed to the vials sticking out of his case and said, “I was sure I took three vials of blood, but there are only two here…”
Before he could get the rest of it out of his mouth, Kenny and Tim were running down the hall after the strange, suited man. Their hurried footfalls were loud in the empty halls and the only other sound was that of a slamming door around the upcoming corner.
“He’s gone down the stairs!” Kenny yelled to Tim.
Kenny and Tim got around the corner and hurried toward the closed door marked STAIRWELL. Tim paused at the doorway and turned to Kenny.
“Stay with her, man. I’ll be alright.”
“You sure, Tim?”
“Yeah, go!”
Tim waited as long as he could, just enough to catch his breath, then he lowered himself slowly into the darkness. There were several steps, steep and tapered. Tim pointed his flashlight around. He could make out a dirt floor and corrugated walls. The ceiling bulbs had been broken, and recently too. They were still hot in his fingers as he touched them. A constricted hallway stretched out before him.
Tim couldn’t hear any sound up ahead so he began to make his way down the hall. He moved slowly and carefully with his Smith & Wesson in one hand and the flashlight in the other. He kept looking for the strange man but there was no sign of him. Then up ahead the long beam of his light caught something. It was a discarded glass vial.
Tim ran to it, the whole time the illumination of his light fixed onto the vial. He stopped just a few feet from it, the long, white beam of his flashlight cutting through the darkness. The circle of light found the left wall and then just as quickly painted itself onto the opposite wall. He was cautious, making sure it was not a trap for him.
Tim reached down with a plastic pen and threaded it into the empty vial, careful not to touch it. He then called out to Kenny mentally again.
“Kenny, I have a PERK in my truck. Can you go get it?”
A PERK is a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit.
“Yeah.”
“I’m at the end of the hallway. I have something,” Tim told him.
“Did you get him, Tim?”
“No, he’s gone.”
“I can’t leave Fabiana, Tim.”
&nb
sp; “She’s more powerful than you and I together, Kenny. She could wipe out this whole block if she wanted to. Please, just go.”
Chapter 8
8:35 p.m., May 5
Yellow bulldozers sat motionless, their paths of destruction clear. Hacked earth and stone sat in black piles under the night sky in a city block that had seen more misery and lost hopes than any other part of Seattle. Kenny and I slowed down in my Ford F150 and almost came to a stop. I was shaken by the words of Fabiana, words of people watching her. Words of strangers she had never known looking at her in the most uncomfortable way. I stared at the yellow machines of the construction site, feeling lost.
“Is Zakk going to be alright if we leave?” Kenny asked softly.
“My neighbor will let him out every day and feed him. I already talked with him about it.”
“Well, that’s good then, Tim.”
I fell silent and looked at the construction site as we drove by. My father was a contractor and I had always wanted to learn the skills it took to build things.
“I should have been in construction, not a cop,” I confessed to Kenny.
“Right… Well, now’s your chance,” he said half sarcastically.
The streets of Seattle were eerily empty. Normally, at that time of night the city would have been jumping with activity, but not tonight. I knew this scene all too well from my own experience. The streets were locked down with yellow tape and blockades lining the sidewalks from the construction crew. But things seemed to be coming to life around us. Flashing yellow signs began to call their warning to drivers and pedestrians, indicating the havoc that will impede their commute.
Normally there would not have been so much construction so late at night in the city, but at the early parts of the year the city always chose to use their budget. Nothing would compare to the end-of-the-year construction though. If Seattle still had a good chunk of their budget left from the year, all of a sudden streets all over the city would need to be redone, thus showing the need for a fat budget for the coming year. And we all know how the state likes a fat budget.
The rest of the city seemed intact enough at close to nine at night. I gave the hospital a final sideways glance through the darkened windows as my truck headed downhill and out of sight. Was she watching me leave? Did Fabiana care for me like I cared for her? I really didn’t know.
Cars were being turned away at the end of the hill and the usual collection of night-lifers was out. They suddenly seemed to appear out of thin air and made their way around the ‘closed sidewalk’ signs and the detour signs in the streets. Perhaps they were going to the bars downtown as part of their nightly drinking habits or to see the bands that always seemed to play in the taverns in Pioneer Square.
Several of them almost stumbled over one of the signs and I pondered if they were already drunk. Even though it was not yet even nine o’clock, some still kept that buzz coming from earlier on in the day, sometimes even from morning. And I wondered what Kenny was thinking as he watched them. Did he miss that taste? Did he miss that feeling of being drunk? Did my friend still miss the buzz that seemed indescribable unless you had actually felt it yourself?
I watched their faces, some of which turned to see us driving by before returning their gaze eastward, talking in raised, inebriated tones that seemed to echo off of the tall buildings around them. They pointed and shook their heads as they laughed and stumbled into one another. I could feel Kenny’s eyes on them and caught a smirk from his face in the reflection of his side window.
I grabbed the paddle shift of the truck and the engine kicked up a thousand RPMs with a roar as we took off down the road. Both of us kept up our constant scans, checking mirrors. There was nothing other than cars. We were aware of every corner and alleyway and building on the flat stretch of road in downtown. It was novel to drive so fast in Seattle, partly because we rarely had a chance to do it. Not very often were the streets cleared like they were on that night and I enjoyed the opportunity to test my truck’s speed.
Ten minutes later, we left the parking garage of the Seattle PD. I had stayed out of sight in my truck as Kenny dropped off the PERK at the labs. I remembered the building well. I had spent many years inside those walls. Walls that meant something to me. Being a detective meant something too. It was part of who I was and now part of me was changed. Part of me was gone. It was taken from me too early in my life. It was an unfair and an unjust punishment for circumstances that took Special Agent Jack Mitchell’s life. And to this day, I still have never heard from Kenny what brought Jack to that bar. He has never seen fit to tell me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know.
I do know, as a matter of fact. I read it in Kenny’s mind the moment he bit into me after he had been turned into a vampire and tried to kill me. And it was a sad thing that Jack had endured all those years ago. I can understand his motivation—the drive that had led him to seek out that vampire—and I wished I had had a chance to tell Jack that myself. Maybe he had been born to be a vampire hunter.
Kenny was only inside for a few moments and then we were on the freeway heading south, out of the city. It was cool that evening and the trees were finally beginning to look like spring. But I could feel my lack of sleep weighing on me. My eyes burned, my head was dull as we drove from Seattle, and I was unsettled by what Fabiana had said before. What did the FBI want with her? If, in fact, it even was the FBI? Why her blood? They had stopped their surveillance on me, or so I thought. But what if they never had? What if they had been watching me this whole time? What if they had been watching her? Why? What kind of plan could they actually have for her now? She was human. Anyone one could see that. Unless they somehow wanted to use her… Or her powers. And that was a scary thought.
Kenny had drifted off to sleep and I suddenly felt jealous of my friend, but it did not last long. It was only a moment before I realized that it was not a simple little dream he was having. I could feel the fear that was building up inside of him. I could feel his terror and it simply wasn’t just a nightmare. What I was sensing in him was something far worse.
I only glimpsed his unconscious thoughts for an instant but it was long enough to know that he was terrified about something. He was moaning and his head began to twitch from side to side. His chest was heaving up and down, and I almost took his pulse as I drove. All of a sudden he jolted awake, his eyes wide open. His mouth was contorted into a gasp but almost no sound came out. His eyes were clearly shaken and were frantically searching for something. But what? And then they found me.
“You okay?” I asked as I drove.
“Yeah… I’m fine.”
Kenny sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands and wouldn’t look at me. He was trying to look composed. But he was anything but composed, and he knew I could see it all over him.
“A nightmare?” I asked, hoping that he would talk about it. Of course I knew he wouldn’t.
“You want to drive for a while?”
He stared at me in disbelief for a moment.
“Tim, throughout our whole friendship, not once have you ever asked me to drive your truck.”
“I just thought you might want to… never mind.”
“Look, man. You’re worried about me. I get it. Thank you, but I’m perfectly okay. Alright, where are we?” he asked sitting up and looking around.
“Just outside of Centralia, Washington.”
He did not have to tell me what he was thinking about this new adventure of ours. I had a feeling I knew. We drove south on I-5, and his mood darkened like a storm about to strike. Kenny was still not really talking to me and seemed to be studying the dash of my truck whenever he would speak.
“This town we’re going to…”
“What about it?” I asked.
“There’s nothing there. It’s only about five blocks long,” he said, pulling up a map on his iPhone. “Why are we going to the middle of nowhere, again?”
“Following the evidence. You remember that. The reason yo
u called me into all this to begin with?” I told him.
“So what’s there to see in this so-called ‘town’?”
“Well, Toledo is pretty remote, cut off by a river. Rough terrain and dense woods and open fields all over the place. Oh, and cows. Lots of cows,” I told him.
“Did I ever tell you that I hate the country?” he came back at me, and I could tell his mood had not improved much, but a smile had somehow found its way onto his face.
Kenny and I drove on. Soon we had lightened up and were speaking freely to each other and laughing often. The evening passed quickly and happily and I was glad for the change. Although the air turned chilly as the sky darkened to a stiff black, we drove on in better moods.
At last I turned off the freeway around ten o’clock, finding our exit, and I felt quite cold suddenly. I paused at a stop sign before turning onto Highway 12 and passed several gas stations with ridiculous prices. Kenny commented on how high the price of gas was out there as we drove by.
The drive should have taken two hours, but I have kind of a lead foot. Weak lights flashed white on the underside of long trailer trucks parked by rows of corn and pasture land made up of farms and gardens. Fields showed off their ruffled green blades of grass and long stalks swaying under the night sky. Cows and horses slept unrestrained in the yards and open fields of tired homes. Sad, rusted cars and farming equipment sat in graves of overgrown blackberries and ivy pooling in front yards. A haggard, disheveled dog tried to commit suicide by running out in front of me, but I was too quick for him and he was in my rearview mirror barking obscenities at us.
I turned on a small little country road, passing tiny wooden homes and trailers with pickup trucks and dogs with no collars who were more apt to get hit than protect their homes. Billboards advertised the Toledo Indians (a baseball team, I guessed) and the local high school. I bumped over dirt roads and red dust billowed up like smoke from the tires. Ahead, night birds pecked at flattened animals on the side of a road. Those unfortunate creatures must have been slower than the ones I had seen so far.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 5
