Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

  Once again, she was looking beyond him, not at him. She probably thought the big cop with black hair and blue eyes was good looking, especially compared to his own lean physique and wolf-gray eyes.

  “I’m fine. Go on. Do what you have to do.”

  He waited a few seconds more, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Finally, he turned, straightened his coat, combed his fingers through his still-damp hair, and joined his new partner.

  All in all it was turning out to be a good night. A human partner notwithstanding, he’d beaten the crap out of a couple of deserving mortals, met a girl who hadn’t spit in his face, and was finally getting the opportunity to join the investigation into the vampire murders. A step behind Kilpatrick, he finally allowed himself a smile. It was a beautiful night indeed.

  Four

  AS THEY LEFT LEON’S, Kil slowed his step and waited for Duvall to come up beside him. It gave him the creeps to have a walking shadow behind him, unseen and unheard.

  “We have almost an hour before the briefing. I’m gonna stop for something to eat. You go ahead if you want.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll follow you. Don’t worry—I’ll wait in my car. I won’t impose on you for small talk.”

  Kil wasn’t sure why Duvall wanted to tag after him, but it didn’t matter. He rolled a shoulder. “Suit yourself.”

  He drove a half mile east to a small diner that was open until midnight. It was almost impossible nowadays to find a place open twenty-four hours. Years ago, ten o’clock at night used to be curfew time for juveniles. Now it was the unofficial time when the maggots came out of the woodwork, and decent human beings locked themselves in their homes for the night. The taverns and clubs aside, not enough humans ventured forth at night to make it profitable for restaurants to stay open late. But the Real Deal had a reputation not only for convenient hours, but good food and being cop-friendly.

  Two blocks from the Real Deal, Kil passed a night person stand, an eyesore of a structure, one of dozens that had sprouted like warts on the urban landscape during the past few years. This one was like a Plexiglas bus shelter, but contained a vending machine and automatic teller in addition to a cozy metal bench. A thirsty squid could insert his night person registration card, drain his bank account as well as the vending machine and curl up on the bench to suck on a plastic bottle of synthetic blood. During the summer, the city had tried to beautify the stands, placing large pots of flowers to either side, but it was like trying to put eye shadow and powder on an ugly woman. It just didn’t help. Now, several weeks after the first frost, the dead plants in the pots made the stands look that much worse.

  This particular stand was empty as Kil drove past. He glanced into his rearview mirror to see if Duvall would stop at the stand, but he didn’t. Kil wasn’t sure if it was a point in his new partner’s favor or not.

  Kil pulled up in front of the Real Deal and went in, hoping Duvall wouldn’t follow him inside. He didn’t. That was definitely a point in Duvall’s favor. Kil sat at the far end of the counter, a position that gave him a view of not only the front door, but everyone else in the small diner. It wasn’t much of a crowd—one elderly man at the counter, a man and woman in one booth, and a couple of teenaged boys in another. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and most people, including the university students, were either still traveling or home enjoying the last of their holiday weekend.

  Kil ordered a large coffee, a second coffee to go, and the Real Deal special, an inch-thick burger topped with thick slabs of onion, tomato, and a hot sauce that was the specialty of the house.

  “How’s it going tonight?” asked the man behind the counter when he slid the burger plate toward Kil.

  “Just another day in the mines, friend.”

  The man nodded, and Kil felt a silent understanding pass between them. They were both men braving the night to do their jobs. Kil took his time with his meal before pulling out his cell phone to call his wife. She answered on the second ring, a sign in itself that he was in trouble.

  “Hey, Candy, it’s me.”

  “Where have you been? I thought you were done an hour and a half ago.” The voice was definitely not as sweet as her name.

  “I got transferred to late power, effective immediately. I’m working a double shift, so I won’t be off until five.”

  “Five? Five in the morning?”

  “It’s the vamp shift, babe. Seven to five.” It was a harsh shift to be on during the winter. Hours on the floating shift were only ten to four during the summer months, but summer was too far away to get excited about.

  Kil’s stomach rumbled from the raw onions and hot sauce, but there was only silence in his ear. When she did answer, there was enough acid in her words to digest the Real Deal Rock in his stomach.

  “Vamp shift? You must have really pissed somebody off this time, John, and I know how they feel.”

  He called on the patience he summoned when dealing with a difficult witness. “I didn’t do anything. You think I wanted this? Three more squids turned up dead tonight.”

  “So? What does that have to do with you?”

  “It’s politics. They want to beef up the night shift so it looks like the city cares.”

  “So I’m going to be home alone every night just so the city can look good on the ten o’clock news?”

  He sighed, not really caring if Candy heard it. She hadn’t always been this selfish. Just a couple of years ago she would have been more worried about him working at night and who his new partner might be. “Don’t you care who I’ll be working with?”

  She was quiet for a few seconds, and he could almost hear the gears grinding in her pretty head. “Well, they wouldn’t partner you up with a vampire, would they? Knowing how you feel?”

  He snorted. “Since when does the department care how I feel? I’ve met him already. His name is Duvall, and yeah, he’s a squid.”

  He waited once again while she digested this new information, and Kil got the impression it was finally sinking in that his transfer meant more than just the fact she’d be sleeping alone from now on.

  “You’ve met him already? What does he look like?”

  Kil heard a tapping on the window and looked up. Duvall was outside, pointing at his watch. Kil ignored him.

  “What else? He’s got long hair and looks like he’s spent his whole life under a rock. Look, babe, I gotta go. There’s a briefing downtown in ten minutes. I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “John . . .”

  He snapped his phone shut and left the diner. Duvall was leaning against the hood of his squad with both arms folded across his chest and his booted feet crossed at the ankles. Arched brows were the extent of expression on the otherwise bland face. Kil strode by him and resisted giving him the finger, parading his nastiest smile instead, the smile he reserved for slugs and dirtballs. “The wife says ‘hi.’ She can’t waaait to meet you.” He got into his squad and slammed the door as hard as he could.

  DUVALL AND KILPATRICK walked into the assembly five minutes late. Vall sat down quietly at the end of one table, next to the other two vampires present. Kilpatrick, as Vall expected, sat at the other end of the table next to the two human detectives. Lieutenant of Detectives Butler stopped in mid-sentence and gave them each a pointed look. The others slid their gazes to the newcomers as well.

  Butler seemed to read his mind. “You’re late, Duvall. Don’t let it happen again. You owe me. You’re Squad 131 now. For those of you who don’t know him, Duvall’s new partner is John Kilpatrick.”

  Partners for less than two hours, and the ignorant meatball already has us in trouble. Vall didn’t care, except that it meant he now owed, and he disliked owing a mortal superior. It was a long standing cop tradition for supervisors to demand payment in the form of favors from officers who either broke a minor rule or regulation or just pla
in screwed something up on a case. Sometimes the favor was to run an errand, but most of the time it was just food. Vall idly wondered what the payment would be this time—pizza or fried chicken. Human supervisors seemed to take perverse pleasure in having vamps lower in rank bring them dinner. It was preferable to a formal rap that went into his file or resulted in suspension without pay, and it could be humiliating, but Duvall had long ago learned how to swallow humiliation on a nightly basis.

  Butler continued. “As I was saying, the six of you will work these cases until they’re resolved. We’ll have a briefing here every night at the start of the shift.” The lieutenant walked over and dropped two packets in front of Duvall. “There have been three deaths prior to tonight. You should have all read these MOSs from the previous incidents, but study them again.”

  Vall glanced down at the pages. He’d read them, and the Major Offense Summaries weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. They’d been written by humans, the lead detective assigned to each case. They contained names, dates, addresses, and the facts of each case as pieced together by witness statements, but nothing that would further the investigation.

  Butler droned on. “The autopsy reports on the first victims were inconclusive. As you know, vampire corpses deteriorate so quickly it’s impossible to perform conventional procedures. We’re making arrangements with the Crime Lab in Madison for further tests.”

  Vall glanced down the length of the table. The vamps wore their usual inscrutable expressions. Jean Crevant, with his long, slender neck and long nose, always reminded Vall of what his former doyen used to call a bustard—a Canadian goose. Crevant’s dark eyes, high forehead, and long black hair only added to the image. Vall had never liked him. Maybe it was because he was French, or maybe it was just the nasally voice that irritated him.

  Valentin DeMora was the other vamp cop present. He was a formidable physical specimen, over two hundred pounds and built like Kilpatrick, but unfortunately he also had Kilpatrick’s useless muscle between his ears. How DeMora had ever passed the detective exam was beyond Vall.

  But while the vamps sat with their sphinx-like faces, the humans looked like students bored with the teacher and dreaming about recess. Harmond Wallace, DeMora’s partner, leaned back with his arms crossed. Kreil, Crevant’s partner, had his head cocked so far to the side Duvall thought it would fall off, and Kilpatrick was concentrating more on his fingernails than the lieutenant.

  Crevant spoke up quietly. “What about the bottles they were drinking from? What did the tests on the Magma show?”

  Butler didn’t bat an eye. “We’re still waiting to get the tests back.”

  Duvall slid his gaze toward his partner, who was still examining his nails. If you’re looking for dirt, meatball, look no further than your new boss. Butler was shoveling shit at them as if it were spoonfuls of sugar. Evidence tests on homicides didn’t take a week, and they all knew it. Crevant didn’t say anything more. No doubt he knew he was up against a stone wall. And the humans just didn’t give a shit.

  “For tonight, you’re going to do interviews. Somebody out there knows something. Listen up for your assignments. Squad 131, take Vine. 133, Brown, and 135 has Lloyd. Start at 17th Street and work west. That’s it. Get out there. And Duvall, if I catch you not answering your radio, you owe me double.”

  “Yessir.” Duvall didn’t particularly like calling a human “sir,” but it was, after all, only a word. Just as deceitful words directed his way didn’t faze him, it didn’t bother him to speak words that weren’t sincere. Lies to humans were a vampire’s stock in trade. After five years of being on the job, “yessir” and “nosir” were so well greased that they slid from his lips with the greatest of ease.

  Duvall brushed against DeMora as he rose and spoke so low he knew none of the mortals would hear. “Butler’s lying through his teeth about the Magma.”

  DeMora, two inches taller than Duvall, neither nodded nor smiled. “I know. I felt it, too. Think any of these mortals know it?”

  Vall bent his head as he adjusted his radio on his belt. “You kidding? Even if they had the brains to figure it out, they don’t care.”

  The big vamp nodded and took his time putting his coat on. “Be prepared to do all the work tonight.”

  “That was a given the moment we walked into this room. Later, my friend.” Vall slipped his coat on and left the assembly with long, easy strides. His new partner hadn’t waited for him.

  In the end Kilpatrick had insisted they take Duvall’s car. Apparently the meatball had decided that sitting in a vampire’s car for a few hours was preferable to having such a creature foul the sanctity of his own vehicle.

  Vall pulled up at the corner of 17th and Vine. This was part of what he knew the humans called “Little Transylvania,” a neighborhood almost entirely populated by vamps. Vamps. The word was bitter in his mind. These were hardly vamps, but creatures who garnered little respect from either the doyens or masters like himself. These were sucklings, newly created vampires yet to wean themselves from their constant need for blood. There were no porch lights on, and no light from the interior escaped the double barricade of inside window shades and outside boards or shutters. City street lights still burned, but their bulbs emitted a weak spray of light that didn’t quite reach the ground.

  “Look, these . . . people aren’t gonna talk to me. Why don’t I just stay out here?” They were the first words Kilpatrick had spoken since they left downtown. It was nothing more than what Vall had expected, but he was damned if he was going to do all the work while the meatball caught forty winks in the car.

  “Believe it or not, they don’t trust a vamp wearing a badge much more than they trust a mortal. Come inside with me. When they get a look at your ugly mug, they’ll be more than happy to talk to me.”

  “Ugly? Have you looked in a mirror lately? Or is that something you guys don’t do?”

  Vall shook his head but didn’t answer. Kilpatrick’s ignorance was astounding, especially for someone whose job it was to interact with all segments of the city’s population. But the ploy worked. Kilpatrick got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. From what Duvall had seen, it seemed to be his favorite method of expression.

  Vall knocked on the door of the lower flat while Kilpatrick waited at the bottom of the porch stairs. It was an old house, as were all in the neighborhood. If not for the difference in the color of the flaking paint trim on the porch and gutters, it would be difficult to tell one from another.

  A male vampire answered the door, and when Vall introduced them and showed his badge, the vamp let them in. He was bone-slender, with long stringy hair, and Vall could easily tell he was young not only in appearance, but in years, for the vamp’s eyes were like mirrors—wide, shining, and reflecting altogether too much. He pulled a wallet as thin as he was out of a back pocket, drew out his night person registration card, and handed it politely to Duvall. It identified him as Roman Shostavich. A grand name for a scrawny suckling. Still, Duvall felt an unaccustomed pang of pity for one so young who was trying so hard not only to survive, but to do what the doyens had deemed “the right thing”—to fit into mortal society.

  “Where are you from, Roman?”

  “Chicago. The Ukrainian Village.”

  Duvall nodded. It was an old ethnic neighborhood on Chicago’s west side. The first vampires to be exposed as “real” to the outside world had lived in Chicago, and most of the violence and killing that had taken place in the Midwest had happened in Chicago. Not so long ago, Duvall would have felt nothing but scorn for a vampire as weak as Roman was. It was because of too many vamps like him—young, inexperienced and afraid—that Hell had been . . . well, hell. But this suckling had somehow survived, and there was no greater badge of courage than that. At least he’s survived so far, Duvall amended.

  Vall could hear small noises coming from the adjoining room
s. He supposed it could have been mice, but his senses registered the scent of both vampire and human. “How many are here with you, Roman?”

  “Three more.”

  “Have them all come in here.”

  Roman turned his head and raised his voice. “Come on in, everyone. It’s all right.”

  Two more vamps, both males, and a mortal girl glided quietly into the room. Like Roman, they were all young, and Hell shone in all their eyes, bright as a fever.

  Kilpatrick took a step toward the mortal and spoke for the first time. “That one’s not a vampire. I’ll talk to her.”

  Vall swung his head in Kilpatrick’s direction. “No!”

  A brittle silence descended until the human bull shattered it, grabbing Duvall’s arm. “Excuse us a minute, folks. My partner and I have something to discuss outside.”

  Vall shook off the offending hand. “Outside, then.”

  As soon as the night air closed around them, Kilpatrick erupted. “Listen, squid. I don’t take orders from you. I have twice as much time on the job as you do. That girl doesn’t belong here, and I’m gonna make sure she gets out.”

  Vall spoke through his eyes, putting all his years, power, and passion into the look he gave Kilpatrick. “You listen to me, meatball. First of all, you came to my shift, my squad. That makes me senior partner, not you. We do things my way. Secondly, these are my people, even that girl you’re so concerned about. She’s here because she wants to be here. So if she wishes to stay, she stays. I’ll do the interviewing. All you have to do is keep your ignorant mouth shut.”

  Kilpatrick’s eyes burned brightly with a hell of their own, even in the dim light, and Duvall expected to see smoke waft from his ears. But after a moment he sighed and glanced away. “All right. We do it your way this time. What do I care?”

  “Exactly. What do you care?”

  They went back inside, and while Kilpatrick stood and glared at the walls, Vall conducted his interviews. He started with the mortal. Most blood donors were revered and well-treated by their vampire partners, contrary to the perception most mortals held. Donors performed a service, without which, vamps had to resort to whores, breaking the law, or the odious synthetic bottled blood that tasted like rusty nails and no more supplied the user with life than sucking on a rock. So donors were precious, a thing to be treasured and cared for. But, just as in human society, there were those in the vampire community who used and abused. Duvall wanted to make sure the girl was of age and here of her own accord.