Blood Games

by Lee Killough

  Garreth whispered in her ear. “Don’t invite us; just go in.”

  Without hesitation, she stepped back and looked past Garreth to Raven hauling herself out of the car. “And you’re...” She glanced at Garreth.

  “Tiffany.”

  She smiled. “I’m delighted to meet you, Tiffany. Garreth, I’m putting her in the guest room. You’ll have to rough it on the family room couch.” She stepped back into the house.

  Garreth collected the luggage and followed Lien inside.

  Raven started to, then close to the doorway stopped short. Her forehead furrowed above her dark glasses. She took another step forward and jumped back with a yelp of pain.

  “Now it’s okay,” Garreth murmured.

  Lien hurried back to the door. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Tiffany, please come in. It’ll be all right now.”

  Raven edged up to the door. After checking it she charged in, snarling, swinging her sling bag at Garreth’s head. “You fucking bastard! You did that on purpose!”

  “No, no...it’s my fault,” Lien said. “We welcomed Garreth so long ago I forgot you had to be invited in.” She picked up Raven’s bag. “You look exhausted. Let me take you upstairs.”

  Raven lost the frown to point at the sleeping bag with their pallets rolled up in it. “I need--”

  “I know.” Lien smiled. “So our guest room is accessorized for Garreth and his guests. You’ll find it quite comfortable.”

  The frown resumed, expression still accusing him of torture, but she followed Lien.

  When Lien came back down she found Garreth slumped on the couch. Her brows rose. “I thought you’d be stretched out under our tree in back.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t sleep right now. The albino’s fingerprints match a Cameron Dark who was arrested here three years ago. I need to check out the arrest and the life this Dark character led here. I’ve had a vision that I’ll catch up with the albino, but before that happens I need to know if he’s really a vampire, and if so, how old. Except, I don’t want to leave you alone with Raven. Her fangs will have finished growing by the next time she wakes and she’ll be ravenously thirsty.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Lien sat down beside him. The scent of her blood eddied around him. “In the first place, she went out cold the moment she lay down. I doubt she’ll stir before sunset. Secondly, I know how to protect myself. I have blood in the fridge and an atomizer loaded with garlic juice. If necessary, I’ll zap her with the atomizer and keep her dosed until you come back. You know how incapacitating that is. Nor can she sneak up on me. Because I suspected you might want security measures, the guest room has a vase of roses on the window sill and a rose spray, thorns intact, hanging on the door. Have you told her about the barrier properties of roses yet?”

  He shook his head.

  She smiled. “Good. So unless she tried to leave, she’ll think they’re just decorative and not feel imprisoned.”

  “I don’t care if she does.” When Lien’s brows rose he not only gave her the full story of the past several days, but poured out his frustrations in dealing with Raven. “She’s right; I don’t want to drag her around. I have to watch her every minute. When she opens her mouth she sounds like Lane. People are cattle. The consequences of her actions on others don’t matter.” He hunched his shoulders. “It almost makes me wonder if Lane’s soul was too strong to be destroyed and lived on in my blood, just waiting for a suitable host like this girl to come along. Now she’s alive again, ready to take up her blood hunt where she left off. Vision or not, I think I should have broken Raven’s--”

  “No!” Lien grabbed his arm. “You couldn’t murder her! Even illegitimate children are our children.”

  Of course Lien, with her love of children and sorrow over having none, would be against destroying any child. But the rest went too far. “Forget me ever thinking of her as my daughter!”

  “Oh?” Lien smiled. “From what I’ve observed, you already are.”

  What? “I’m her warden.” He grimaced. “Just ask her.”

  Lien ticked her tongue. “Father...warden...one and the same to an adolescent. But surely you don’t want to go on that way? Always treating her like a felon.”

  He frowned. “She is a felon.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So are you, my dear.”

  Garreth felt as though she slapped him. “I didn’t have any choice with Lane!”

  “I’m not saying you weren’t justified.” She laid a hand over his. “I’m just pointing out that by human law, you’re both equally guilty.”

  Human law. Mocking laughter in his head tied a knot in his gut. “Shit. I hate this. I don’t want Lane to be right. But I keep seeing this gulf between what I believe is right and how I seem to be forced to act...and it feels wider all the time, pushing me away from you and Harry, my parents, fellow law enforcement officers. From everyone. I’m scared one day I’ll look around and find--”

  “Garreth.” Lien put her arm around him and gave him a hug. The warm scent of her blood filled his nose. “I think that as long as you’re afraid of losing your ties to humanity, you won’t. Even if you have to break a law now and again. And even when the life forces you to give up friends and colleagues and jobs you like.”

  It did not surprise him that she guessed the wider extent of his unhappiness. “I really like Baumen. This life stinks,” he said bitterly. “But she thinks it’s the coolest thing since MTV. Perfect freedom...power without accountability.”

  Lien leaned back to look him in the eyes. “I’ve heard you and Harry talk about cases, and how you’ve won cooperation from suspects you despised. Are you so angry at this girl that you can’t put that aside to use some of those techniques on her? Maybe then you wouldn’t have to guard her so closely.”

  She had a point. He sighed. “I suppose it’s worth a try.”

  “Consider this in trying to relate to her: being a vampire and an adolescent are very much alike. You struggle to adapt to changed bodies and new emotions and physical needs, and feeling isolated in a world you feel condemns you for being what you are without even trying to understand you.”

  He stared at her. What amazing insights she had! He kissed her cheek. “Lien, next to Grandma Doyle, you have to be the wisest woman I know.”

  Her smile went inscrutable. “Maybe part of the wisdom is hers now. But...you to go do what you need to do so you can catch at least a little sleep before the wild child wakes up.”

  Garreth called Homicide first. Harry was still out of the office. Garreth drove downtown anyway, hoping Harry would be back by the time he arrived.

  Years ago, coming back to Bryant Street the first time after resigning from the SFPD had felt like a homecoming...walking familiar halls, seeing familiar faces. Today, though, even while old reflexes still took him straight up to Homicide, he realized he had become an outsider. The bustle in the halls; the flood of body and blood scents; the sounds of footsteps, voices, telephones, doors opening and closing, piled uncomfortably on each other. The unfamiliar faces, most of all, brought longing for the cozy intimacy of the Baumen department. In Homicide a stranger sat at the desk where Art Schneider wore the same rumpled suit, or endless copies of it, year after year, and more had the desks Earl Faye and Dean Centrello used, who in addition to being fine detectives had striven to keep alive and well the art of oral storytelling. Visible through the windows of the lieutenant’s office, someone huskier and blonder than the darkly dapper Lucas Serruto sat behind the desk.

  “Oh my god. I don’t believe it. Garreth Mikaelian!”

  He turned around to find a face he did know...Evelyn Kolb...unchanged except heavier, going gray, and wearing glasses.

  She grinned. “You’re looking pretty lively for being declared dead again--when was it?”

  “A week ago tomorrow.” It felt like a month. “Harry told you?”

  “Of course.” She set down a black binder crammed with reports. “So are you visiting him and Lien while you recuperate?”


  He shrugged. “Yes and no. Maybe Harry also told you that another officer in the car with me did die?”

  Kolb nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Maggie would have like Kolb, too. “The suspect who ran us off the road was arrested here three years ago on a drug charge. So I thought as long as I was out here I’d take a look at the case file and see if it’ll give me anything I can phone home to help them track down the bastard.”

  Her brows rose. “You’re not officially on the case then?”

  It would have been nice to say yes, but... “I’m a victim; I can’t be. But there’s no reason I can’t offer a little extracurricular help.” He paused. “Maggie was very special to me. Harry was going look up the file but since he’s not here, will you?” Surely he would have helped when asked.

  “Sure.” She sat down at her computer. “What’s the name?”

  “He called himself Cameron Dark.”

  She typed it in with Garreth peering over her shoulder. “Just the one arrest it looks like. There’s the address he gave. No listed associates except Candy Bratton, the drug dealer he was arrested with. Let’s see if there’s anything helpful there.” She typed in the dealer’s name. “Oops...I guess not.”

  Seven months ago Bratton had made his last drug sale, which culminated in death by gunshot.

  “How about the names of the arresting officers?” Garreth asked.

  She brought the Dark file back. “They were Enrique Aguilar and Philip Cho.”

  He wrote down the names, then using Kolb’s phone, called Narcotics. He caught Aguilar in and while introducing himself crossed his fingers that the officer would remember the case.

  After being given details of the arrest and the albino’s description, Aguilar said, “Oh, yeah, now I remember. Phil and I were after Bratton. I was supposed to approach him for a buy but this skinny dude strolls up from the bus stop and starts negotiations so we looked at each other and said work with what you got and busted them.” He snorted. “What a son of a bitch.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well,” Aguilar said in disgust, “the minute we appear this schmuck starts toward us and in front of Bratton with his hands up screaming don’t shoot, don’t shoot, he isn’t armed, and then he trips and falls flat and clutches at his face howling he’s broken his nose. Bratton bugs out and Phil takes off after him. When I finally get Weeping Willie spread-eagled on the ground and search him, the pill bottle with the crack we both saw Bratton give him isn’t on him. He’s managed to toss it away during all the sniveling. Which stops, by the way, the minute I have him cuffed and in the unit. I grab a flashlight and hunt around the area until I find the bottle...for all the good it does me as far as Dark goes. Later when he has his Public Defender demand we print the bottle, the only ones on it are smudges and a few partials of Bratton’s.”

  So the arrest had come at night. That might or might not be significant. “He just let you cuff him? Didn’t try to, oh...stare you in the eye?”

  “What? I don’t know. He was wearing shades. But he just smiled when I cuffed him.” Aguilar’s voice went disgusted again. “I found out why when he handed the fucking things to me at the station, smirking, like the whole thing was some kind of game. It pissed him off that we didn’t find it cute.”

  It might well have been a game. “Any idea how he got them off?”

  “A pick he had hidden on him and I didn’t catch patting him down, I expect.”

  Unless Ice just passed through them.

  Aguilar growled, “When he made bail he waltzed around shaking everyone’s hand, thanking us for treating him so considerately. Arrogant son of a bitch. I’ll bet he sings a different tune when he loses. He’s just the kind to turn nasty then.”

  “He came by bus you said? He didn’t own a car?”

  “Not one registered in California or any other state in the western U.S. We checked that after he jumped bail. Which was a stupid move on his part, you know, because if he’d stuck around, I don’t think the DA would have prosecuted on the basis of the evidence we had.”

  Not stupidity, maybe but contempt or indifference for mere human law by someone playing at humanity until it no longer amused him. “Ah...this may sound like a strange question, do you remember what Dark ate while he was in custody?”

  Silence stretched out at the other end of the phone. While Aguilar stared at the receiver? Finally he said, “You’re right; that’s a weird question...and I don’t know the answer.”

  “And one more question. Who was the bail bondsman?”

  “Silverman, I think.”

  As Garreth hung up, Kolb asked, “Why do you want to know what he ate?”

  Garreth concentrated on writing Dark’s listed address in his notebook. “To see if he has dietary restrictions that’ve been mentioned to me.” He looked up the Silverman number and address in Kolb’s phone book and added them to his notebook. “Thanks, Evelyn. When you see Harry, tell him I’m sorry I missed him. He can call me if he wants. Otherwise I’ll see him at the house.”

  He stopped at Silverman’s office, but learned only that the bail bondsman had no luck tracing Dark after he left San Francisco. “It was like he dropped off the face of the earth,” the clerk said, reading through their file.

  Next he visited Dark’s address. It lay in the Haight-Ashbury district. Like himself, the Haight seemed to stand outside of time, its radical bookstores, cafes, used clothing boutiques, and record stores making it still echo eerily of the sixties. As with many of the Victorians of the area, the one at Dark’s address had been subdivided into small flats. He found a tenant home who gave him the landlord’s number.

  After three tries and three busy signals, he finally caught the landlord. Who drew a blank on the name. “Cameron Dark? Do you know how fast some of these kids come and go? And I don’t usually see them except when they sign the lease or come by for their deposit when they leave. Three years might as well be a lifetime ago.”

  “He was very tall and thin...white skin, white hair.”

  The voice on the other end paused. “Oh, him. He’s one I do remember. He had a studio. Painting is against the rules but he painted his walls dark red, which I didn’t find out until I went around to collect rent two weeks overdue and found the place empty. He forfeited his deposit, though, so I came out ahead even with having to repaint the place.”

  Information that helped little except to further demonstrate Ice’s attitude toward rules.

  Carrying his photocopy of Dark’s mug shot, Garreth trudged around the shops and cafes in the area. Wishing for one of San Francisco’s fogs...the thicker the better.

  Few people remembered the albino. A bookstore clerk just recognized the face, no more. He had better luck with a clerk in a clothing boutique. “He came in a few times, always with a girl that he’d buy a sexy top or pants for. Mostly I used to see him pass here in the evening, headed up the street that direction. Like maybe he was going to work.”

  Garreth supposed that even with no need to work, Ice might have found a job amusing. Working his way “that direction”, Garreth visited a record store, Vintage Vinyl, that gave its hours as noon to midnight.

  “The night people deserve somewhere to shop, too, man,” the shop owner said. He looked in his early sixties, old enough to have been part of the hippie influx. Judging by his waist-length pony tail, tie-dyed shirt, and jeans decorated with flowers and peace symbols, he remained stuck in the era. He peered at Dark’s mug shot. “Yeah, I think I remember a guy like that working in the video store across the street.”

  Garreth thanked him and turned to leave...then noticed a poster for the soundtrack CD of Midnight In the Garden Of Good and Evil. It made him think of Raven’s tapes. “Do you have Cenotaph’s Night Gardens?”

  The owner raised his brows. “Now that’s a group I’d never expect a kid your age to even know about. But, yeah, I think I’ve got it.” He headed down the tables of albums and tapes.

  “What about anything by Blue Steel Pe
rdition?”

  A search turned up the Cenotaph record, and one Blue Steel Perdition tape, Steel and Stone. Garreth bought both. Harry and Lien had a stereo/tape player. He could do what Raven had done before, record the Night Garden album on tape.

  Paying for the albums, he left his card with his cell phone number written on the back. “Just in case you think of anything to do with this dude...or come across the Perdition Bound tape.”

  Across the street in the video store, when Garreth explained the purpose of his visit, the clerk there dialed the owner and handed over the phone.

  “Dark?” the owner said. “Sure I remember the freak.”

  Freak. Garreth took a deep breath. Was he close to proof about Ice? “A freak how?”

  “Well first was the way he looked, dead pale but always dressing in black, and he wore dark glasses even at night. We run movies on TV sets all around the store, recent arrivals to push rentals of them. But Dark ran vampire movies instead. The Lost Boys was a big favorite of his, I remember, and movies like Bonnie and Clyde or Badlands. And he had this group of--well, I wouldn’t call them exactly friends...more hangers-on. They all looked pretty freaky themselves... street kids, stoned or crack heads. Mostly teen-age girls. They’d sit on the sidewalk outside or wander around the store...disappearing the minute I walked in, but if I passed again a while later, back they’d be back. They made me think of a wolf pack lying around waiting for the alpha male to make a move so they could follow. I always wondered if Dark was pimping for the girls, though I never saw any proof of it. But when he didn’t show up for work one night and the police came around I wasn’t surprised.” The voice on the other end paused, then added, “Something that did surprise me, though, was how many other people came looking for him.”

  Garreth’s brows rose. “You mean more than the police and bail bondsman?”

  “Yeah. A few weeks later this private detective showed up asking questions.”

  The hair lifted on Garreth’s neck. Who would hire a private detective to find Ice? “Did he or she say why?”