Kat was sure that was just a ploy to gain access to her home without a warrant. Kat stared him down for a moment, but could see that the man obviously had no intention of leaving any time soon.
“Fine.”
She stepped aside and the FBI agent walked into her home. He came to a stop just inside her foyer. His eyes were casually moving over the surrounding furnishings of the condo, taking in anything that might spark his attention. Then he noticed the two chairs in front of the fire. They were facing one another.
Slipping off his coat, he carefully draped it over his arm as he continued the tour of Kat’s unpleasant life.
“Been doing some entertaining, Detective?”
“What is all this about? Tell me and get out of my home.”
“Detective, I’ll get right to the point. You’re investigating several instances that occurred earlier today. I’m here to make sure that you don’t… jump to any conclusions that might… How can I put it? Jeopardize your standing with the Seattle police force.”
“Or the FBI’s deniability?”
“Detective, I can see that you’re a straightforward person. So let me be blunt. This was nothing more than gang violence. Is that clear?”
“What? Gang violence of that magnitude in Seattle? You really think anyone would believe that shit?”
“Official police reports are facts, Detective.”
He stopped for a moment and looked at her. “I know he was here.”
“You certainly had access to a lot without a warrant.”
“It’s in your best interest to be cooperative,” he replied coldly. “Good night.”
His meaning was plain and Kat froze, looking like a statue as he walked to her door.
“Right…” she muttered.
Kat watched as the agent—who she now recalled had not introduced himself—softly made his way out of her home. Kat’s heels were sharp and directed as she followed him to the doorway and through to the cold night air of the entry that had never been welcoming no matter how hard she had tried. No amount of tasteful plants or garden fixtures could disguise the terrible truths and loneliness at her door. She listened carefully for his disappearing steps on her walk and then he was gone. His visit was brief but had left a lasting effect on her.
Chapter 54
11:10 p.m., May 6
Searchlights swept a crisscross over the steel bracing at the top of the Ballard Bridge where police worked to talk a man out of jumping. He was a large man in his late-sixties according to the report that came across my old police radio just a moment ago. However the situation was not something we needed to concern ourselves with. We had more important things to worry about.
Kenny considered calling Detective O’Hara at her Fremont home, but after thinking it over we decided that the best course of action would simply be to go to her house and talk with her. I have known Kenny long enough to know that the uncomfortable silence that we were now suffering between us was because of his apprehension about his partner. Kenny had not treated her very well in recent months and the last few days had not been any better. He knew that and I knew that. We would not be well received, but things had to be talked about. Things had to be fixed. Kenny owed her that, and maybe I did too.
Sometimes Kenny was a hard man to be around and if he didn’t want to talk… well that made things that much more complicated. I had a bad feeling that my early retirement fucked a lot of things up, including Kenny’s new partnership. But really, I couldn’t afford to focus on details like that. Details I can’t affect or control. I took the early retirement to help Kenny, not hurt him, after all.
As my truck sped down Market Street I wondered if Fabiana had reached the demon tree yet. I would have thought there would have been some kind of contact from her by now. I hoped that I wasn’t asking too much of her. Her mind still seemed to be very weak. I hoped her will was strong enough to see us through what had to be done. I tried to feel outwardly with my mind. Maybe I could find her…
I didn’t know it then, but things had just gotten a lot worse for everyone involved. I felt nothing from Fabiana. Not even a numb presence.
She must be too far away, I thought, trying to reassure myself.
Minutes later I pulled my green Ford to a stop in front of what could have been a well-designed home if only Kat wasn’t a cop and was home for more than an hour a night. Maybe then she could keep up her lawn. But then I suppose my home when I was on active duty didn’t look exactly like a Martha Stewart masterpiece either.
A flight of thin stone steps led up to the brick entryway where Detective Katrina O’Hara sat nervously smoking a cigarette, her pistol sitting at her side where she could get at it fast. Her eyes fixed on the passenger side of my truck as Kenny climbed out, pushing his large body off the seat. Instant anger flashed over her face. She didn’t even bother getting to her feet when the two of us approached her. She stared up at Kenny with burning red eyes. I could tell she’d had one of those days that every cop goes through. The kind of day when she had really needed some backup. She needed her fucking partner, no matter how much of a dick he was to her. She needed him, but he wasn’t there.
“About fucking time you showed up here. You know how much crap has gone down here in the last few hours?”
“Listen, O’Hara, I can understand you most likely have been through some shit, but there’s serious crap going down and we need to talk,” Kenny told her tiredly.
“What? That’s it? No explanation? No apology? I’m so sick of your fuckin’ shit, Johnson. You know that?”
“Listen, Kat, I’m sorry…”
“Don’t call me ‘Kat’. Only my friends can call me ‘Kat’.”
And that was the reminder that she and Kenny were not friends. Not even close. Not the way we were friends. But these days even I wasn’t sure what we were.
“The Captain’s been up my ass about you. Asking where the fuck you are. And I’m done covering for you. You got that?”
“I’ll call the Captain later, but first we need to talk.”
“Oh yeah? Who the fuck is this?” Kat nodded in my direction and she gave me her eyes. And they weren’t friendly eyes either. I caught a glimmer of hate in them. I tried not to take it personally. I was very aware of what it must have been like for her. Being Kenny’s partner after me and all. I know she’d heard of me. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what had been said.
“This is Tim Anderson, my old partner.”
“Nice to meet you, Detective O’Hara,” I said with a kind look on my face. I think I melted her resentful disposition a bit. She gave me a reluctant smile and, just like that, I had broken through her defenses. I was always good at that. I could tell when something was wrong with almost anyone—and what they needed to hear—almost at first glance. I had that gift from childhood. It was probably a result of growing up with my cold, angry parents. I learned to read people and situations very quickly.
“Detective, I really would like to hear about this case of yours,” I said as I sat down next to her on the steps. Smoke drifted and danced its ballet over my head as a short, tense silence broke out between us. I hated the smell of cigarette smoke, but still I did not move from my seat next to Kat.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Anderson...”
There it was—that ‘Mister’ part I hated to hear so much. Why did I have to retire? I hadn’t been happy since I left.
“…but I can’t reveal details from an ongoing investigation.”
Kenny decided to speak up for me.
“Detective O’Hara, I promise the information won’t go any farther than Tim. I have reason to believe we are on the same case. You see, tonight when we got back to Tim’s house, we discovered a B&E situation as his home had been ransacked. Nothing was stolen, if that’s your first thought. No, someone was looking for something.”
B&E was a police acronym for breaking and entering into a home, and Kat perked up a bit at hearing the old police jargon from her partner.
“Why? What makes you
think that?”
“Just after you were assigned to work with me, I was warned that the FBI was watching me.”
I said nothing and just let Kenny talk.
“I know. Dr. Colleens told me. But why would the feds be watching you?”
“Because of our last case together,” Kenny said as he pointed to me. “Tim was forced into retirement to save any blame from falling onto the Seattle PD about the death of an FBI agent that occurred in that last case. And I was warned to never speak of what led up to those events.”
“Why? What did happen? Really?”
At that point I took over for Kenny. I could see from the look on his face that we were entering a subject that was still too hard for him to talk about.
“An FBI agent and a friend lost his life trying to save Kenny. But unfortunately he failed, and they killed him. Then Kenny was taken hostage.”
“Hostage? By whom? Who is ‘they’?” Kat asked exasperatedly.
“Do you remember the spree of murders last winter, Detective?” I asked calmly.
“Yeah… Let me guess. This is the part where you tell me it was a vampire that was doing the killing. Right, Mr. Anderson?”
I looked over at Kenny for a moment and he was the one that answered the question.
“Yes, O’Hara it was. It was one of the craziest times of our lives. And the mass murderer turned out to be a vampire. Not any vampire, I must add, but a two thousand-year-old vampire bent on destroying her own race. A group of vamps attacked FBI Agent Jack Mitchell and myself. I was taken and…”
He could not finish. Kenny turned from us as he worked to hold it together.
“Kenny was made into one of them,” I said bluntly.
“What? A vampire? Give me a break.”
“It’s true, Detective!”
The stranger’s deep voice rang out in the distance and as his footsteps grew louder, I reached for my weapon. That is, until I felt a hand on my wrist. It wasn’t a gesture of violence, but a gentle grasp from Kat telling me there was no immediate danger. As the man entered the light of Kat’s doorway I saw his face. Kenny jerked his pistol from its holster and started yelling at the man to stay back.
I was dumbfounded for an instant. Then it hit me. It was him. The man from the hospital. The man that stole the blood from Fabiana’s room. The man I chased into the depths of the hospital and lost in that maintenance tunnel.
“What the fuck is this?” I muttered. But Kenny’s voice was quickly drowning me out.
“Hands! Hands up and get on your knees!”
“Wait!” Kat yelled and ran over to the scene. “Kenny, put your gun down!”
“What? You’re fucking crazy, O’Hara.”
Kenny tightened his grip and narrowed his eyes. “It’s him—the asshole from the hospital.”
“Good to see you again, Detective,” the man said, and I almost thought Kenny was going to shoot him just out of spite.
“Who the fuck are you? You started all this! Who are you!?”
“My name is Agent Joe Tango, CIA,” the red-haired, tall man told him from a kneeling position.
“What? CIA?”
“Yes, Kenny, he’s CIA. I already went through all of this with him about an hour ago. Now will you put that gun down so Joe can talk?” Kat asked him in an irritated tone.
Kenny just turned and looked at her. I could tell he didn’t know what to do. But he trusted her judgment. That much I could see in him. Slowly his weapon began to lower and Joe’s eyes drifted over to Detective O’Hara. A grateful smile slipped onto his face for a few seconds.
“Joe, please get up before my neighbors see you,” Kat said through a sigh.
“Like I was saying, Detective, your new partner was indeed turned into a vampire,” Joe said quietly.
“But what does the CIA know about it?” I inquired.
“More than I can say here. But you see, Detective O’Hara, this femme fatale was killing her own kind and leaving the bodies for the Seattle PD to find,” Joe added.
“I know,” Kat began. “Well, I don’t know anything for certain, but Dr. Colleens told me a little of what she knew about the case.”
“That was risky of her,” Joe told us. “The FBI has been watching her very closely since Mr. Anderson made an appearance at the morgue the other day.”
“Why me?” I questioned him. “What do they think I know?”
“It’s not you they care about, Anderson. It’s your new vampire friend. They want what she knows. And truth be told, they want her. But I don’t think they’re ready to take it that far yet.”
“Good. Because then there would be a lot of dead agents to cover up.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t even bat an eye.
“What the fuck do they think she knows?” I asked desperately.
“Don’t any of you get it yet? Don’t you watch movies? They want her mind. Fabiana is one of only a few humans who possess that kind of mental power. She can fly, for Christ’s sake! With just a thought! With just her mind. What do you think that would be worth?”
“So the CIA wants to study her?” Kenny asked, confused.
“No, not the CIA. The CIA is just my cover. I work for a group of businessmen called the Overseers.”
“Who the fuck are the Overseers?” I demanded, wondering how much more complicated this could get. Joe remained silent.
“Oh, don’t even bother, Anderson. He won’t tell you. I’ve done that dance once with him already.”
I could see that Kat shared at least some of my frustration.
“I can’t handle this right now. I need to cook something. You guys hungry?”
“Great,” I told her, realizing that my stomach was growling.
The moon was huge and low in a cloudy, dark sky. We put on jackets and came in from the porch. We drank some green tea while Kat cooked. She had started before Tango had showed up and now had returned to her kitchen. She made baked potatoes first, and they were taking a while, so Kenny and I talked quietly about the weather.
Over recent years, our relationship had become less real. It felt like we just used more words to fill up uncomfortable silences. First we were acquaintances and then evolved into colleagues, and then we became friends. But now I had no true idea what we were to one another. The transition was not an easy one, for often he taught me much like a father would, instead of a friend. Once again though, it was my fault for putting him in that role in my head. I felt oddly lost, no longer certain of my function in his life. Would he miss me if I was gone?
Joe stood silently in a darkened corner of the kitchen, his eyes cautiously working over everyone’s faces. And it suddenly occurred to me that I could get nothing from him. His mind was closed off to me.
I looked at Joe and began to really wonder about him. Why was this man—this undercover agent—even standing here at all? With the kind of resources he had at his disposal, he wouldn’t need us one bit. So why risk the exposure? Why tell us anything?
My mind was suddenly filled with Kat’s thoughts. I knew it was a violation of her privacy but I couldn’t help myself. I really didn’t even mean to do it. Flashes of the crime scenes were coming to me now. I saw the aftermath of the shootout and then the dead agent a few blocks away. Her conversation with Marty over the silencer on the gun and then the story of her strange witness played in my head.
“They’re after you. Aren’t they?” I suddenly blurted out at Joe. “I mean, you messed up at the hospital and now they’re after you. Right?”
“That’s affirmative.”
“Okay, okay. Hold on just one second. I need to back up a bit. So you really were a vampire?” Kat asked Kenny, suddenly turning around in her kitchen to face us. But he wouldn’t answer her.
“But there are no more vampires now? They’re all dead or what? Human?”
Kenny just pursed his lips.
“No more vamps. Anderson’s girl made sure of that,” Joe replied almost casually. “You see, she killed the fi
rst vampire in that underground house out in Golden Gardens. And apparently that turned all the vampires back to their human forms.”
“Which is a good thing, right?” Kat asked.
“Well, at first we thought so. But now, no one is really sure.”
“Why? Just look at Anderson and Johnson. They’re fine, right?”
“They’re fine because they only spent a few moments as vampires. As for the others, we’re talking centuries. Some even lived as vampires for thousands of years. They developed great powers of the mind. Now they are still alive, but most just went crazy and wander around lost, not knowing which direction to go. That’s a dangerous thing for humans that possess such powers.”
“You think they’re a threat to the world still, don’t you?” I asked.
“Personally, I’m not really sure. But the Overseers are scared. Frightened by what might happen if these ex-vampires come together. You see, individually they’re not very dangerous. But if the Origin of Blood rises together… who knows what might happen.”
Chapter 55
11:40 p.m., May 6
If Fabiana had ever thought her transformation into a human meant the end of her edge on the others like her, she was wrong. But the willful and powerful mind of Bedros was far too strong for her in this weakened state. The strong male grips of her kidnappers were hurting her flesh and her thoughts were having trouble focusing on little else.
His name was Bedros. In the ancient language of the city of Troy it had been Bedrosies. But when he was taken by the Origin of Blood, his name was shortened to Bedros by none other than Cerci, the High Priest to Cognatus. Seeing him now in this deep, dank blackness only made her miss Cerci even more. Once, after her exile from the Order, Cerci had saved her from the wrath of Bedros. Now he was nowhere to help her. No one could help her now and she finally knew it. Not even Timothy.
“I hate this place. You know that, Fabiana? I will never forgive you for calling the Order to you in this godforsaken city. I miss the warmth of home. Do you remember Greece? Or has the transformation taken more from your mind than you would like to let on?”
“I remember Greece.”
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 26
