by C. J. Pinard
Malina walked over to her kitchen cabinets, bent down, and carefully pulled out what looked like a rack of glass test tubes from the lower cabinet, the kind you would find in a high school science lab. She set them carefully on the counter and turned around and looked at Pascal. “How much do you want?” she asked.
Pascal eyed the half a dozen tubes sitting in the rack and then looked at Malina, eyes wide. “How much can you make right now?”
“It depends on how much blood you’d like to sacrifice, vampire,” she said the last word like it was poison in her mouth.
“Again, you’ve lost me, love. Are you meaning to tell me you’ve got to have my blood to make this Enchantment of yours?” He cocked his head to the side, genuinely curious.
“Well, not your blood, any vampire will do.” She shot a look at Angel.
“All right then, six tubes will do just fine,” he answered, looping a strand of dark curls behind his ear.
“Open your wrist and fill the vials halfway only, and make it quick before it coagulates,” Malina ordered. “And don’t make a mess,” she added.
Pascal used his teeth to open up his wrist and then did as he was told. The ripped flesh was disgusting as it dripped the thick, red life force into the glass tubes. When all the vials were half full, he then put his wrist up to Angel’s mouth for her healing saliva to help close the wound. She enjoyed it a little too much. Lillian rolled her eyes.
Malina snatched an annoying glance at the vampire blood that had dripped onto her immaculately clean white kitchen floors. She had to tell herself to let it go. She had bigger problems at the moment. She took a deep breath and kept about her work.
You could hear a pin drop in the room. The two vampires and one Immortal watched on as Malina grabbed a steak knife from the cutting block and pricked the tip of her left index finger.
Pascal’s and Angel’s senses went into overdrive. Lillian could see that they were frantically trying to fight their inner urges to not kill Malina once the blood hit their nostrils.
I could have both the sylph and the Immortal dead within seconds, Angel rationalized inside her own head.
Keep it together, Pascal, just a few more minutes and we’ll have what we came for, he told himself.
Both vampires fidgeted nervously, taking deep breaths.
The group watched on as Malina squeezed three drops of her own blood into each tube. As soon as the first drop would hit, the blood would start swirling madly inside and then turn colors. Everyone in the room was mesmerized, aqua-colored Enchantment swirling in their pupils.
Surprisingly, it was Lillian who broke the silence. “That’s it? That’s how it’s made?”
Malina ran her finger under the tap to stop the bleeding and fished around in the kitchen drawers for a Band-Aid.
“I can help you with that, Sylph,” Pascal said, slightly panting, reaching for her finger, intent on licking it.
“No, vampire. Do not touch me,” she said, snatching her hand away. She turned to Lillian and let out a heavy sigh. “Yes, Lilly, for the most part. But it’s not as if you could just get a willing sylph and vampire together and make it yourself. There’s magic involved, and even with that gun pointed at me,” she slid her eyes to Angel, “I will not reveal that aspect of it.”
“It’s fine, we got what we came for, and I will be true to my word and leave you be,” Pascal said. “However, if I get this back to my place and find out you’ve pulled a fast one, and these are just a tubes of rubbish, I will be back for you. And I won’t be so cordial, either. I know how you sylphs can be practical jokers.”
He replaced the red rubber stoppers onto the test tubes and carefully wrapped them in one of Malina’s dish towels. He cradled the towel like an infant in a football hold and made for the door, Angel behind him, walking backward, gun pointed at them, a wicked smile on her lips. As soon as Pascal opened the door, he cursed as he saw that Jonathan was standing on the stoop, blocking his way.
And he looked very pissed off.
∞∞∞
San Francisco – 1947
“The Bureau of WHAT?” Joseph asked, laughing and shaking his head.
“I think you heard me,” Adam Swift answered. “Please come with me to our San Francisco headquarters. We need to debrief you on what happened at the pier tonight.”
“Look, man, I’ve already been debriefed by my sergeant, so you can get my statement from him. I’m very tired and my wife is waiting for me to get home,” he said, his voice heavy due to his exhaustion. He shoved the man away from his car door.
As Joseph went to unlock the door and get in, Adam said, “Your son, he is still missing. Is that correct?”
That stopped Joseph dead in his tracks. “What’s my son got to do with this?” he quizzed without turning around to face Swift.
“A lot more than you may think, Mr. O’Malley. Come with me, and we’ll tell you what we know.”
Joseph didn’t need to be asked again. He walked with the man across the parking lot to his brand new shiny white government-issued sedan and got in.
The drive was quiet. Adam Swift wouldn’t discuss anything in the car. Joseph gave up asking questions and watched out the window, intent on finding out where he was being taken so he could find his way back if he had to. Detective 101.
Adam pulled up to a small brick building on Bush Street. He veered into a designated parking spot, put the car in park, and simply said, “Let’s go inside.”
“Wow, this is your San Francisco headquarters? Why did I expect it to be much bigger?” Joseph mused.
Adam smiled. “We’re a relatively new government agency so we don’t have all our numbers yet. But we are planning on leasing a floor of that large building on Hyde Street soon,” he finished.
Hmm interesting. They’ll be in the same building with that shady cat, Murphy, he thought. He decided to keep that little nugget of information to himself for now, though.
Joseph followed Adam Swift inside and was led to a small room which contained nothing but an oblong table, four chairs, and a large window on one wall. He wondered how many other agents were lurking behind the two-way glass.
Another man was standing in the room when they walked in.
“Detective O’Malley, this is Special Agent Tony Bianchi, my partner,” Adam said.
Agent Bianchi simply nodded at Joseph
“Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything? Cigarette?” Adam asked, lighting one up himself.
Joseph sat down in one of the clunky chairs and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, thanks. What is this all about? What kind of government agency did you say you fellas worked for? Supernatural what?”
It was Bianchi who answered. “The Bureau of Supernatural Investigations, or BSI. It’s a branch of the Department of Justice. Nobody knows much about us, and nobody is supposed to.” Bianchi paused before continuing. “Mr. O’Malley, we need you to tell us exactly what happened tonight. Start at the beginning, and don’t leave out any details, no matter how small… or strange. Okay?”
Tony Bianchi had a way about him. He was tall with black hair and kind black eyes framed with long eyelashes. He was Italian, young, and good-looking. His suit was impeccable and he had a smooth, calming manner about him. His words flowed out of his mouth like hot caramel, an accent just barely there.
Joseph did as he was told and recounted the story about the stakeout, starting from when they got there to when he saw the boat pull up, to when Johnson got out to get the truck’s plate number, to the attack by the animals. His speech became a little softer and less confident when he told the agents about the men turning into animals. To his surprise, the agents didn’t even bat an eye; they just continued scribbling furiously in their notepads.
These must be some bad dudes, he thought.
Or they’re just crazy.
“Is that it, Detective O’Malley? You can’t remember anything else?” Adam Swift asked.
“Isn’t that enough? My God, I just told you that
I watched grown men literally turn into animals right in front of me, and you don’t even laugh at me or lock me in the looney bin? I thought you were going to call the paddy wagon to come get me when I told you all that,” Joseph finished with a shake of his head.
“Detective O’Malley, we told you, we investigate the supernatural. What you dealt with tonight are what we call ‘shapeshifters’ – they are men who possess some kind of mutated gene that allows them to shift from human form into animal form. As far as we know, they can only shift into animals, not other humans. Although, we would be hard-pressed to figure that one out unless we followed them around all day and night,” Agent Bianchi said.
Joseph sat still for a moment, and then he asked what he’d been wondering since the day he saw those odd photographs Johnson had shown him. “Did these creatures have something to do with my son’s disappearance?”
Agent Swift fired a glance at Bianchi and then went around and sat at the table with Joseph. He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped an ash into the ashtray on the table, where he set it down to smolder.
“We have looked into Thomas’s disappearance, Mr. O’Malley. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of evidence. A few drops of blood, an abandoned bike, and some more blood against a building in the alley. We have some fairly advanced equipment at our labs in L.A. and we had the blood tested. Since you and your wife volunteered blood samples after he went missing, we obtained those and determined the blood type on the concrete near the bike was indeed young Thomas’s. It wasn’t enough, though, for us to think him dead. The blood on the building in the alley belonged to a vampire,” he finished. He picked up his cigarette and took a drag on it, looking Joseph in the eye, gauging his reaction.
“A vampire? Are you pullin’ my leg, man?” He ran fingers through his hair and blew out an exasperated breath. “I feel like I’ve fallen asleep and woken up on another planet.”
“And yet, you still sit here, sane as can be. Do you believe us? Do you now believe there are things of this world which cannot be explained? We here at the BSI don’t give a damn about some illegal bourbon shipment. We wanted information on the shifters who were moving it.” Adam paused for a minute. “We’ve been watching you since your son’s disappearance, O’Malley, and we’ve got a proposition for you.”
Joseph elevated a single eyebrow at Agent Swift’s words. “Oh yeah, and what is that?” he asked.
“We would like to know if you would consider leaving the SFPD and joining the BSI.”
Chapter 10
∞∞∞
Portland, Oregon – Present Day
“Do you have anything to get these handcuffs off?” Lillian asked Malina as they were standing in the kitchen.
Malina just shook her head.
“Crap.”
Lillian wandered to the bathroom to find a bobby pin. She knew she would have to try to teach Malina how to pick a cuff lock with it. Only, Malina was still handcuffed from the front. This could get interesting, she thought. Then she remembered her cell was still sitting on the sofa in the front room. After locating a hairpin, she went to the front room to get her phone. As she was fishing it out from between the couch cushions, with her hands still cuffed behind her back, she heard voices on the front porch.
The minute Jonathan and the others saw Pascal exiting Malina’s house, they all simultaneously drew weapons with a clacking noise. However, Angel quickly raised hers, too.
“Jonathan, old pal. How you been?” Pascal asked, surprised to see Jonathan, but trying not to show it.
“What in the hell are you doing here, Pascal? Drop the package and get your ass on the ground. And you, Blondie – lay that gun down slowly.” Jonathan had his weapon aimed on Pascal. It was loaded with UV bullets, and he knew Pascal knew it. Thomas also had his gun on the vampires. But he also had his UV flashlight in the other hand, flipped on, aimed at the ground.
There was a long pause. Pascal was frantically trying to think of a way out of this. He knew Thomas had the UV flashlight, and while it would hurt, it wouldn’t kill. He knew the same about the guns he had aimed at him. He knew if caught, there would be no way he could get away with the Enchantment. In a voice too low for the Immortals to hear, or so he hoped, he ordered Angel to run and not stop until she reached the water.
In a flash, the vampires were gone. Jonathan, Thomas, and Kathryn fired about a dozen shots in their direction. Serina covered her ears with her hands.
Vampires – two.
Immortals – zero.
“This is starting to get just downright embarrassing,” Kathryn said with a groan, re-holstering her gun.
Just then, the front door flew open. Malina and Lillian stumbled out, both handcuffed.
“Jonathan!” Lillian screamed. She would have hugged him if she could have.
“Thomas!” Malina walked quickly to him and looped her arms around his neck and sank into his chest and cried. Thomas was somewhat surprised by this, but welcomed it all the same by wrapping one arm around her.
Jonathan grabbed Lillian’s handcuffs and broke them off with his bare hands and tossed them onto the ground. He walked over and did the same to Malina. Both ladies rubbed their sore wrists.
Kathryn smiled to herself as she listened in on Malina’s thoughts about Thomas.
For some reason, Malina just now noticed Serina standing feebly next to Thomas. She embraced her tightly. “Oh my! Sweetie, you’re okay! Oh thank heavens you’re okay. I’ve been worried sick! Thomas, please get her inside immediately!”
Thomas nodded and picked her up, carrying her into the house.
Soon the sylphs and Immortals were gathered in Malina’s house, except Serina, who was already standing under a hot shower.
Jonathan stood in the center of the living room. “Would someone like to tell me just what in the hell went on here?”
“First we’d like to know how you knew we were in trouble? I never got a chance to send my text,” Lillian said, thrusting the phone at Jonathan to show him.
“We didn’t. We were simply coming here to drop off Serina before going to look for you. We were terrified when we got back to the apartment and saw the door blown off and you two were gone,” Thomas answered, looking at Malina, whose hand he was holding on the sofa. She was still shaking.
“Well that creep Pascal kidnapped us from the apartment. He knocked on the door as we were playing cards, but he needn’t have. I had barely gotten up after hearing the knock when he busted down the door, and that blonde bitch had that huge gun pointed at us. He quickly put handcuffs on us and ordered Malina to open a portal and bring us here,” Lillian said.
Thomas said, “I’d like to know how he figured out where we live. This is going to be a problem.”
“Did he hurt you guys?” Kathryn asked.
“Not really,” Malina answered. “He came for something specific,” she said sheepishly.
A long pause engulfed the room.
“And would someone like to tell us what he wanted?” Jonathan asked, his patience and nerves teetering on the edge.
“He wanted some Enchantment.” Lillian got up and walked to the kitchen. She returned with the empty tube rack. “And he left with six vials of it,” she said, holding up the empty rack on her flat palm like a party tray, then setting it on Malina’s coffee table.
It was Kathryn who spoke, “You keep that stuff in here, in your house?”
“No. I had to create it. Not easy with a hungry vampire pointing a gun at me, I might add,” Malina said.
Jonathan cocked his head to the side like a terrier puppy, looking at Malina. “You made it? Here?”
“What on Earth does a vampire want with Enchantment?” Thomas asked, confused.
“We don’t know, we couldn’t figure it out. We even asked, but he told us to mind our own business,” Lillian said, rolling her eyes.
Jonathan’s wheels were turning at this point. He knew Lillian had to have seen how the Enchantment was made and now he was dying to
find out himself.
Literally reading Jonathan’s mind, Kathryn was thinking the exact same thing.
∞∞∞
San Francisco – 1947
Joseph let out another laugh, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Ya know, boys, I’m gonna have to get back with you on that one. I think I’ve had enough information to digest for the evening. Why don’t you come see me at the station in a week, and I’ll have my answer for you then.”
He knew he would never leave the SFPD to spend his life dealing with this crazy business of shapeshifters, vampires, and God knows whatever else was out there, but he was in no mood to plead that case at the moment. He let out a small shake, then simply finished by saying, “Now please take me back to my car, I need to get home to Nell.”
Bianchi said, “I will take you back.”
Adam put his hand out and Joseph accepted it. “Thank you for coming in to talk to us, Mr. O’Malley. We know the past year has not been easy for you, and we understand that the things we have told you here tonight are a bit overwhelming – even frightening. But please understand that you are not to share this information with anybody. No one at all, Detective. Not your wife, not your partner, not even your aging parents back in Cork, Ireland. Do you understand? This is of the highest importance.”
Joseph let out another humorless laugh. “Not to worry, Mr. Swift. I’d rather not sound any crazier than people already think I am.”
“Have a nice evening, Detective,” Adam simply said, picking up his smoldering cigarette from the ashtray. He took a long drag from it.
“Let’s go,” Bianchi said.
Two days later, Joseph was sitting at his desk, looking again with fresh eyes at the photos of the shapeshifter in the alley where his son had disappeared. Police Chief Sam Brown’s loud voice broke him out of his concentration.
