by Jon F. Merz
Letourneau helped himself to coffee while I came around to the long table Newby had set up and perused the things laid out there. He’d blown up a series of photographs that I recognized as being from the Luxe. “I take it you got what you needed?”
He looked up at me. “I got as much as I could get,” he said. “I’m not going to lie, in some places, the smearing had effectively ruined the symbols underneath. That’s the problem right now. I’ve got pieces, but not the whole thing. This is the next challenge.”
Letourneau sipped his coffee. “So, tell us what you’ve got.”
“Here,” said Newby. “This is Akkadian script. See how it looks like a bunch of arrows and lines? These are the basics of the language. It’s a syllabary, of sorts, using logographic symbols. We talked about this before when you first came to me, remember?”
“It was just the other day, dude,” said Letourneau. “Of course we remember.”
“Sorry,” said Newby. “Time tends to get weird when I’m engrossed in my work.” He pulled out a few photographs from the pile on the desk and spread them out. Each photograph had just one symbol in it. “I only have one symbol per shot because I want to be sure of what each one is. If I screw something up, I can move them around as needed in order to make better sense. I took other shots of the entire passage as it was written for checking and so on.”
Letourneau leaned closer. “And what did you find?”
“Here,” said Newby. “This is the first part of the invocation. I can’t quite make out the name of the demon she is trying to invoke, but it involves ritual sacrifice. This is where it gets a little disturbing.” He pointed at the symbols. “She calls someone a ‘guardian’ here and marks it as the first death.” He looked at us. “That mean anything to you?”
“Cousins was a cop,” I said. “That might be the most relatable word for it in Akkadian, I suppose.”
Newby nodded his head. “Good man, that’s what I was thinking too.” He pulled out another photo. “And here, she writes about a second sacrifice. This one is called a ‘milku,’ which means ‘counsel.’”
“Amalfi was a lawyer,” I said.
Newby smiled. “You see, it’s all here. She’s writing down what she’s doing as an appeasement for the demon she wishes to summon.”
Letourneau had stopped drinking his coffee. “And what else?”
Newby pointed at other photographs. “There will be one more.”
“One more what?”
“One more death,” said Newby. “One more killing by her hand in order to bring about the full power of the summoning.”
“When?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Newby. “I’m still working on it.”
“Does it say who it will be? Some sort of indicator that we can use to protect the person she intends to kill?”
“It might, but I haven’t seen anything relating to time yet. It’s possible it was written in the area I wasn’t able to uncover. It’s possible it’s not written here at all. I won’t know until I have more time with this material to see what I can uncover.”
Letourneau sighed. “Do you have anything that will give us a clue as to the identity of the killer? Anything at all?”
Newby held up his hand. “Calm down, I’ve got something. Not sure if it will mean anything, but you guys can go to town on it and let me know what you find out.”
“What is it?”
Newby pulled out another picture with a string of symbols on it. “This reads as, ‘I as named wife of Adam.’” He looked at us. “You guys good on your Biblical knowledge?”
“Eve?” Letourneau offered.
Newby nodded. “Apparently so.”
“So she goes by the name Eve?” I asked. “That’s her goddamned name?”
Newby smirked. “Hey man, I’m just telling you what it says here. If I was looking for a place to start my search for this chick, it would be there.”
Letourneau polished off his coffee and eyed me. “You have a database I assume that you can run that name through on your end.”
“And you on yours,” I said. “Meet in the middle?”
He nodded. “Hopefully with something concrete. I’ll call you.” He turned to Newby and clapped him on the back. “Keep working. Let me know what else you find, okay?”
“You know me, man. Once I get my teeth into something, I don’t want to let it go.”
I sat outside in the SUV on Memorial Drive talking to Niles on the phone while I watched Letourneau pull out and race off toward Boston Police Headquarters across the river.
“I’ve got a possible lead.”
I could almost hear the relief in Niles’ voice. “Well, that’s good news.”
“Wash the name ‘Eve’ through our databases, would you? According to this expert, this woman is calling herself that. Same parameters otherwise: knowledgable in ancient languages, and we’d have to assume some familiarity at least with surgical procedures needed to gut the two victims.”
“Yeah, I’d assume that would have to be true. So medical training at some point along the line.” He was scribbling down notes. “I’ll head over to the Ferrets and see what they can pull up on their systems. My computer’s on the fritz right now because we’re installing a new server.”
“Don’t they just happen to pick the best times to do those things?”
“Damn right,” said Niles. “It’s not like we’ve got anything important going on.” He chuckled and then collected himself. “Let me run this down and I’ll call you back.”
“Good.”
He hung up and I sat there watching the river flow past. Valentine’s Day was coming up and I usually made a point to spend it with Talya. But I hadn’t heard from her in over a month so I was assuming that she was away on business again. She’d reach out when she could, but for both of our safety, she wouldn’t do it on any sort of routine, however, because we didn’t know who might be keeping tabs on us.
I wondered what Lilith would be doing for Valentine’s Day. Manny didn’t strike me as the type of husband to take his wife out for a fancy dinner and extensive love-making session. He might send a bouquet of flowers and give her some chocolates, but that was probably about it. Most of the guys like Manny operated on the ‘bare minimum’ theory of doing just enough to keep themselves elevated beyond being yelled at.
What a way to go through life. I shook my head without thinking. No thanks.
I thought about what I’d do if I was taking Lilith out. Her eyes swam into my head then and I took a deep breath, closed my own eyes and thought about undressing her, watching her clothes come off as I took in every curve on her body, every secret place that I would have enjoyed exploring. I’d listen to her breathing, coming in slow at first and then quicker and more shallow as we progressed. Her moans would stoke my fires, I decided. Her voice seemed to have that musky quality about it that drove me crazy.
But it was her eyes that would kill me. Those damned eyes. I loved the way they bore into my soul as if they were seeking to uncover every last one of my secrets, constantly probing, questing, and with an intensity that would not be denied. How amazing it would be to lose myself in those icy depths for hours at a time while we stayed glued to each other, moving in time to our own rhythm.
I opened my eyes and took another breath. Keep up that sort of daydreaming and I was going to need a cold shower pretty soon. I glanced at my watch and wondered what was keeping Niles. Should I call him back?
Nah. It hadn’t even been a half hour yet. No doubt he was busy pestering the Ferrets to comb through their databases and come up with dossiers on any and all potential killers with the name of ‘Eve.’ It was strange to me that she would take such a chance and let her name be known like that. After all this time of being so careful, it didn’t make sense that she would put it out there like that.
Unless she simply assumed that no one would be able to understand the language she was writing in. But that was a bad assumption. The experienced field op
erative in me didn’t like it. But I’d have to wait and see what the Ferrets could dig up on this woman. I felt sure Niles would want immediate action on it. And therein lay another problem: what the hell was I going to tell Letourneau? He was busy pulling up possible suspects in his database. I wondered how many he would be able to come up with. How many people in Massachusetts might know anything about the Akkadian language? I was guessing not a whole helluva lot.
Still, if I burned him on anything that Niles came up with, he was going to be pissed. And if he happened upon something that I needed to know and held out on me, I was out of luck in a bad way.
I was getting ahead of myself. Niles hadn’t even called me back yet and in all likelihood, the clue Newby had given us might be nothing but a dead end.
Maybe.
If it turned out we had something concrete we could move on, then we’d have to be quick. The prospect of a third death didn’t do anything for my eternal sense of optimism. We’d need to move fast in order to stop her from carrying out her killing.
If we could find her.
When I saw my iPhone light up a few seconds later, I grabbed at it and punched the accept button. “What do you have?”
“We’ve got two possibles,” said Niles.
“Which one is the more certain?”
“The first,” he said.
“Are they both our people?”
“Actually, no,” said Niles. “One is.”
Problem solved. “Give me both names and I’ll pass the human on to the cop I’m working with. I’ll run down the vampire.”
“You sure?”
“It’s the best way to split the work up. If there’s going to be a third killing then we need to find this woman as soon as possible and stop her.”
“All right,” said Niles. “I’ll text you the information. Call me as soon as you have something, okay?”
“Definitely.”
30
I called Letourneau immediately after hanging up with Niles. “Got something for you.”
“Yeah?”
I gave him the name and address for one Eve Stalling, who lived in Charlestown. She was the right age and had no family. With a background in archaeology and a double major in Ancient Greek and Latin, she might well have had the credentials to pull it off, even though I doubted it was actually her. Experience had taught me that if there was a vampire death involved, then the killer was also usually a vampire. But I had to give Letourneau something and fortunately, one of the suspects was human. So he could run it down.
He sounded grateful. “What about you?”
“I’ve got something else clamoring for my attention.”
“Another possible?”
“Possibly,” I said with a chuckle. “But I’m under orders to handle this without any external assistance, if you get my drift.”
Letourneau sighed. “I don’t like it. If you’re planning a take down on my turf-“
“She’s not in Boston,” I said quickly. “There, you feel better?”
“Not really, but I suppose I understand. I’ll run down this lead and you do whatever it is you’re going to do. We’ll meet back up and compare notes, okay?”
“How long before you can check that out?”
“Well, since we don’t have the luxury of just barging in in the interests of national security or some bullshit like that, and have to actually petition a judge for a search warrant, a few hours at least. Why? You want some company on yours?”
“Wishful thinking, pal. I can’t bring you along but if I could have any cranky Boston cop along on the ride with me, it’d be you.”
“Aww, that makes me feel almost a little better.” He paused. “Good hunting.”
“Likewise.”
I hung up and drove down Sorrow Drive until I reached the entrance to the Turnpike. They’d gotten rid of the toll booths late last year and it was still weird simply cruising through them. I had a transponder high up on my windshield that the Council dumped money into so I could fly through without so much as pausing where the old booths used to be. Further down, a camera and sensor array would look at all the cars going through, check for accounts, and subtract the necessary tolls that way. If you didn’t have a transponder, they sent you a ticket in the mail to pay with a check.
I ran over the details in my head of my suspect. She was named Eva Harris and lived in Dedham, which was right over the city line from Boston to the southwest. She was forty-four in human years, lived alone in a giant house on the tonier side of Dedham, and had worked in the foreign service extensively across the Middle East with languages up the ass. As a vampire, she would have had a natural inclination to them anyway - most of us speak more than a half dozen - but Eva had made herself irreplaceable to the Americans as she translated for them and interpreted obscure texts from the region. She’d been a petty good source of intel for my people as well, which gave her both a tidy fortune and an esteemed reputation among the Ferrets and beyond. Prior to her foreign service career, she’d been pre-med but dropped out for some reason.
And I was going to go pay her a visit now.
Niles had stressed the need for delicacy. Eva was connected; she knew a lot of folks on the Council, including my favorite person under the sun: Ava. The similarity in their names didn’t escape me and I hoped that Eva wasn’t some long-lost sister of hers. That would suck.
I wasn’t going to be able to just kick the door in and demand information; I as going to have to play this with kid gloves and see what I could find out. If it turned out that Eva was dirty or incriminated herself during our conversation, I’d present my findings to the Council and wait for them to authorize a sanction.
So, I actually think Letourneau had the better option than I did. But there you go.
By the time I pulled into the circular driveway in front of the elegant brick mansion, it was just after one o’clock. I parked the Acura and got out, casually glancing at the building before me. It looked as though it had been built in the late 1800s, but I saw nothing to indicate any sort of surveillance system in effect, which was good in case I had to come back later and do a sneak-and-peek.
I walked up the steps and rang the bell, patted the right back hip where I had my pistol, and waited for the door to open.
When it did, I was pleasantly surprised. Eva was quite a looker, with deep brunette tresses that came down to her shoulders and chestnut eyes that were wide and gleaming and smiled as she greeted me. “You must be Lawson.”
Niles had told me he’d pave the way with a phone call asking for Eva’s help with a case we were working on that was in her field of expertise. “I am,” I said holding out my hand. “Pleasure to meet you Miss Harris.”
“It’s Eva, please,” she said holding my hand. Her grip was warm and friendly and I found myself smiling in spite of everything. She stepped back, “Won’t you please come in?”
I walked inside the foyer and saw a series of beautiful paintings on the wall. Eva clearly had extensive taste in art that ran from French impressionists to modern design. “You’ve got quite the collection of artwork here,” I said.
“It’s a hobby of mine,” she said. “One must do something with one’s time, after all. And I’m afraid that since I left the foreign service, I’ve been spending the majority of my time and money traveling to collect pieces to add to my collection.” She winked at me. “It’s better than spending it on shoes, right?”
I laughed. “I suppose so.”
She led me out of the foyer into the sitting room where a small fire smoldered in the hearth. She gestured to one of two chairs set up nearby. “Please have a seat and tell me how I can be of assistance to you.”
I took a chair and leaned back. “I was told that you were one of our primary sources of intelligence in the Middle East.”
She nodded. “When I started working for the Americans in the embassies and consulates, it struck me that I could help my own people as well.”
This wasn’t anything new; w
e had vampires working in every part of human society with the express purpose of keeping tabs on them, what they knew about us, and any sort of information that we could use to further our own existence.
“You weren’t worried about being caught?”
She smiled. “Who would have suspected a scholar like me passing coded messages? It was easy enough to arrange information drops written in coded Taluk. No one would be able to crack it even if they tried.”
Also true. We had a seriously complex cryptography system in place that used ancient Taluk with some insanely long bit key to produce, well, it looked like garbage quite frankly. But the damned things were virtually unbreakable. Although, if I had to guess, my new hacker friend Megan could probably figure out a way to do it. I’d have to remember that in the future.
“Mr. Niles tells me that you’re working on a case right now that I might be able to assist you with?” She rubbed her hands together. “I have to admit I was thrilled to get his call. The prospect of helping my people again has me all excited.”
“Why’d you retire from the foreign service?”
“It was time,” she said. “The new presidential administration had an awful lot of people concerned about where our future was going. And frankly, with a man like that in charge, a lot of people felt that we would be courting danger by staying. I don’t mean to be political, but it was already hard enough working in such austere environments without being held responsible for the social media actions of a buffoon.”
“I understand.” I leaned forward. Eva’s smile was quite intoxicating and I found myself smiling despite my discipline. Could this really be the killer? I needed to drill down and find out what made her tick. “Well, the case Niles mentioned to you involves some ancient scripts that we’re having a hard time deciphering.”
“And the Elders can’t help you? I thought that was their exclusive purview.”
I nodded. “It’s supposed to be, but in this case, the scripts aren’t anything to do with our people. At least as near as we can tell.”
“Well, show me and let me see what I can do.”
