Half Past Hell

by Jaye Roycraft

  She sighed and gave him a gentle push. “Go sit down. Everything should be ready. I’ll bring it out in five minutes.” She handed him a plate. “Here, use that for the bread. I don’t want crumbs all over my floor.”

  She let him eat in blessed silence for fifteen minutes. He knew it wouldn’t last, and it didn’t.

  “So tell me about this vampire case. It must be interesting, if nothing else. I mean, except for the weapons devised during Midnight Storm, I didn’t think there was anything that could kill a vampire. These vampires weren’t shot, were they?”

  He chewed on his last piece of beef roast, then reached for a second helping. “No. I don’t know. Some kind of new virus, maybe. Or maybe it’s something in the synthetic blood supply. So far all the victims are from Chicago. Maybe they were exposed to something during the war that’s just affecting them now.”

  She passed him the bowl of mashed potatoes, anticipating his desire for more of those, too. “Do the vampire cops have any ideas?”

  He snorted, his mouth full, and swallowed before answering her. “If they do, they’re keeping it to themselves.”

  Candy started clearing some of the dishes away. “Wouldn’t it be funny if it was a human who solved this case,” she said as she left the room.

  His fork, laden with potato, wavered halfway to his mouth, then fell back to the plate with a clink and a plop. Wouldn’t it indeed? It was the only sensible thing she’d said all evening. He really was a good detective. Candy called him stubborn, but that doggedness had served him well in the past. What if a human, namely one Detective John Kilpatrick, was the one to solve the case? It would put him in favor with his superiors. It might even give him some leverage to bargain for transfer back to day shift. And best of all, it would show everyone—especially the damned vampires who masqueraded as cops—that humans made, and would always make, better officers. As he showered and dressed for work later that evening, he thought about exactly how he would accomplish such a feat.

  And when he left the house to head downtown, he gave Candy a very long and deserving good-bye kiss.

  DUVALL WAS STILL feeling good. He’d slept well during the day, dreaming of leggy women all too willing to wrap their long limbs around him. And while he had slept, the system carrying the rain clouds had moved east over Lake Michigan, leaving cold, dry air in its wake. The night sky was like his dream, clear and perfect, yet fragile, as if it would cloud over if he gazed upon it too long.

  The first thing he did when he arrived downtown was to run the girl’s plate on the computer through the Department of Transportation. He almost laughed when he read the listing. Her name was Veronica Main, and she lived in Mequon. No wonder she’d looked familiar. She was the former Senator Main’s daughter and had been photographed many a time with her famous father. Lawrence Main had worked in the Office of Homeland Security, had been a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Night Person Affairs, and had been instrumental in the peace process which had closed the bloody chapter on Hell.

  Vall wondered what a little rich girl like Veronica had really been doing in Piggsville. Now that he knew who she was, it seemed even more out of character for her to be at Leon’s. If she’d been slumming, Leon’s was hardly the place to pick up either a vamp or a worthwhile mortal. Maybe she wasn’t worth pursuing after all. Still, she’d piqued his interest. He folded the printout and stuffed it into his memo book.

  Lt. Butler spotted him and crossed the assembly floor to join him. James Butler was over six feet tall, as dark as Duvall was pale, and wore his three-piece suit as impeccably as an account executive dressing to impress.

  “I know your shift hasn’t started yet, but step into my office.”

  Duvall followed him into the small office and automatically closed the door behind him. Private meetings were never good news.

  “Listen up. The media’s already reporting the vampire deaths. Officially, we’re ‘no-commenting’ except to say they’re under investigation. This is a potential powder keg, Duvall. Don’t fuel the fire. I don’t want you talking to anyone outside the department. No speculating, no details on what you’ve found, nothing. Understand? We don’t want to start a panic among the night people. I don’t have to tell you what that could mean.”

  “No, sir.” Duvall stared at Butler’s eyes and reached for the thoughts directly behind their brown depths. Most master vamps could read mortals, and Duvall, with his almost three hundred years of experience, was better than most. The lieutenant, with his command presence, military experience, and stoic exterior, was a surprisingly easy read. There was no evil in Butler’s thoughts, just the frustration of being caught between the rock of placating a community of both vamps and mortals and the hard place of uncovering the truth. Duvall sensed that truth would lose out. If, as Vall suspected, the bottled blood was to blame for the deaths, he had no doubt the upper ranks would attempt to cover up the truth. If the word got out that the synthetic blood supply was tainted, if the sucklings abandoned the Magma and Rush and Jiva in favor of the real thing, people would die. A backlash against the vampires could restart the war.

  “Don’t worry, boss,” he replied softly. “I won’t say a thing.”

  “I’m not singling you out, Duvall. I’m saying this to every vampire detective.”

  The phone rang, and Vall stood to leave.

  “Lieutenant Butler.” Cradling the receiver in the crook of his neck, he scribbled notes with one hand and motioned for Vall to wait with the other.

  With his heightened sense of hearing, Duvall could hear the voice on the other end of the line and knew that another vamp had died the true death. Butler hung up, jotted on another notepad, and handed Vall the slip of paper.

  “No briefing tonight, at least not now. There’s been another death. That’s the address. Head over there, and as soon as your partner gets here, I’ll send him. A couple of district squads are already there.”

  Vall nodded and left without a word. He signed out a radio and his car keys, and in ten minutes arrived at a scene that was becoming all too familiar. Red and blue light bars flashed silently, and yellow do-not-cross tape was strung like crepe paper between trees and fences and light poles, blocking off not only the house in question, but the surrounding half-block. A uniformed officer spotted Vall’s unmarked black car and strolled over.

  Vall powered down his window. Most, if not all, of the power shift officers assigned to the north side districts knew the vamp detectives by sight if not by name, and this one was no exception. The officer leaned forward to talk, but his eyes were on his surroundings, not Vall. Ever-moving, the cop’s eyes panned the target house and neighboring houses.

  “We have containment, but we haven’t been able to gain entry, so we’ve been talking through the door. There’s a vamp inside who says he’s dying and that his friend is already dead. He says he won’t open up for anyone but Gray Eyes.”

  So he’d been right. His reputation had spread among the sucklings. They hadn’t remembered his name, but his most distinguishing feature had found a home in their collective memory. He looked up at the officer.

  The cop finally met his gaze and snorted with dawning comprehension. “I guess that’s you, huh?”

  Vall nodded. “The vamp give you a name?”

  “Says his name is Luka.”

  Vall powered up the window, shut off the engine, and got out of the car. “My partner Kilpatrick should be here soon. When he gets here, have him join me.”

  “You got it.”

  No “yessir,” but the cop’s words were at least happily devoid of anti-vamp attitude. Vall took a moment to survey the houses on the block. They were all boarded up, giving the impression that the whole neighborhood was vacant and the buildings condemned. But they were far from vacant, and it was their occupants who were condemned, not the buildings. With no windows to peer through, curious resi
dents on the far side of the yellow tape came outside and stood quietly in the shadows. Some had jackets on, but most braved the cold air with just jeans and T-shirts. They were all young in appearance, sucklings trapped between life and death, with little hope for the future. Vall wondered how many of them would survive this new chapter of Hell.

  He walked up the front porch steps of the target house and rapped at the door. “Luka? This is Detective Duvall, Chi-No Police. I’m Gray Eyes, the vamp cop you wanted, so open up.”

  The door opened, and Vall stepped inside. The house was cold, unheated, and the bare wooden floors and sparse furnishings provided no warmth. But the vamp who opened the door looked worse than the house did. It was as if the shadow of death had literally cast itself over his face. His skin was patchy, tinged a bluish-gray, and his eyes were bloodshot. Though thin, the vamp looked soft, as though the strength of his kind had fled from his body.

  “You’re Luka?”

  The vamp nodded and cocked his head toward the back of the house. “Tina’s there. She’s dead.”

  “Show me.”

  Vall followed Luka to a bathroom where a dead vampire lay crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood. Her arms were marred by deep cuts, but her face, unbloodied, displayed the same gray cast as Luka’s. Her eyes were open, and like an animal, her lips were curled back in death, displaying her fangs. “What happened to her?”

  The vamp started crying. “She was in so much pain. She pleaded with me to help her, but I didn’t know what to do. She slit her wrists. She wanted to die. I told her she couldn’t bleed to death, but she died anyway, and I’m going to die, too. My whole insides are on fire, like I’m being eaten from the inside out. Help me, please.”

  Vall ran his hand down Tina’s face, closing her eyes, and swiveled his radio from its belt clip. “Squad 131. Send an ambulance to my location. Vampire, male, signs of severe cyanosis to the face and hands.”

  “Ten-four, 131,” acknowledged dispatch.

  “No! I don’t want an ambulance. I don’t want mortal help. I want to join her. Tina. Kill me, please.”

  “Duvall? Where are you?” Kilpatrick’s voice rang out from the front hallway.

  “Back here. Bathroom, on your left,” Vall answered, then addressed Luka again. “Listen to me. Have both of you been drinking synthetic blood?”

  “Of course. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Isn’t that what the mortals want? For us to drink their poison and die?” Luka was crying harder now, silver tears from red eyes down a gray face. He started to slump to the floor next to Tina, but Vall grabbed his arm and pulled him back to his feet. “Show me the bottles you and she drank from. Now!”

  “Holy shit! What happened to her?”

  The cavalry had arrived. Kilpatrick stood at Vall’s shoulder and stared at the bloody corpse. Vall turned to him. “If you want to do something useful, call the lieut and request the M.E. I have an ambulance on the way for this one.” Kilpatrick didn’t squabble, and while he was occupied on the phone, Vall dragged Luka into the kitchen.

  “What did you do with the empty bottles?”

  Luka pointed to the garbage can in the corner. “There.”

  Vall stepped over to the can and pulled out three empty bottles of Magma from the top of the heap. The bottles were of dark glass, but Vall had no doubt that traces of the synthetic blood remained.

  “You’re going to kill me whether you want to or not.”

  Vall turned to Luka and swore under his breath. He’d made the mistake of turning his back on the vamp. Luka, clutching his guts with one hand, held a semiautomatic in the other, and it was pointed right at Kilpatrick’s back.

  There was no time for reasoning, not even time for a warning. Kilpatrick was still on his cell phone, his back to the kitchen. Vall launched himself at Luka, and his momentum slammed them both against the wall. The gun went off, and with the shot still ringing in his ear, Vall tried to grab the wrist of the hand that held the gun, but Luka, in his rage, had surprising strength.

  “Damn them, and damn you for what you’ve done to us!” cried Luka, and the gun went off again. Vall felt the bullet tear through his shoulder. There was no pain, though. He’d been shot before. The pain would come later, when his body’s shock faded.

  “Duvall, get away from him! Give me a clear shot.”

  Kilpatrick’s commanding voice cut through Luka’s blubbering and his own anger. Vall released Luka and pivoted away from him. Four shots rang out, and blood and visceral material splattered onto Vall. The vamp-killing Black Claw rounds were indeed nasty.

  Vall turned to the body, and Kilpatrick joined him. The vamp was good and dead. Kilpatrick had delivered a head shot, heart shot, gut shot, and one to the throat that had nearly decapitated the vamp. The Claws had done their job, severing the spinal column at the base of the neck, not to mention the collateral damage to surrounding body tissue. Bits of blood and brains and gore speckled the wall, and an ever-widening blood pool encased the body.

  “Well, his hell is over,” said Vall.

  “You’re welcome,” answered Kilpatrick.

  Vall turned to his partner. “In case you don’t realize what just happened here, meatball, I saved your life. Before he shot me, he was aiming at your backside.”

  “You’re shot?”

  Vall knew the lilt to Kilpatrick’s voice was surprise, not concern. With so much of Luka’s blood on his jacket, it was impossible to know that some was his own. “It’s nothing. It’ll be healed by tomorrow.”

  A siren’s wail sounded in the distance at the same time a voice shouted from the doorway. “Kilpatrick! You okay?”

  Shit! It was the uniformed officers, drawn by the gunshots. That the officer hadn’t voiced Duvall’s name wasn’t lost on him, but his profanity was due to time running out, not the officer’s lack of concern for a vamp cop.

  “Go reassure the uniforms that we are all right,” whispered Vall to Kilpatrick. “Tell them to make sure the crowd stays behind the tape, then get back in here on the double. We’re almost out of time.”

  Thankfully the meatball didn’t argue, but went to the front door to talk to the officers. The siren was louder now. They had to somehow get the empty Magma bottles away from here before the photo and tech guys descended on the scene. Kilpatrick returned to the kitchen.

  Vall pressed his car keys into Kilpatrick’s hand. “Take those bottles, hide them inside your coat, and put them in the trunk of my squad.”

  Kilpatrick stared at him. “Are you fuckin’ nuts? I’m not putting those filthy things in my coat pockets. Besides, that’s evidence.”

  Vall returned the stare with all the compelling power he could muster. “You owe me, meatball. Now do it. I’ll try to explain it to that idiot brain of yours later.”

  Kilpatrick grumbled, but he pulled his leather gloves on, slipped the bottles into the inside pockets of his trench coat, and left the house just as the ambulance turned off its sirens. Vall stood at the front door, watched as the uniformed squad that had been blocking the street moved to let the ambulance through, and pulled out his cell phone to call the lieut and report the officer-involved shooting.

  It was a long night. The ambulance left after doing no more for Vall than helping him clean up and filing a report on his injury. The bullet wound was already healing and required no medical attention.

  Lt. Butler arrived, the Night Inspector arrived, and so did a photo car, ID technicians, a woman from the Medical Examiner’s office, and the transfer company to haul the bodies away. Even the Chief made an appearance, looking somber and concerned. Most likely the man is annoyed at having to work such a late hour all because of a dead vamp, thought Vall with a touch of bitterness. The Chief had given a slap on the back and an “atta boy” speech to Kilpatrick, but didn’t so much as ask Vall if he was okay. Vall shrugged off the slight. I
t was no more or less than he expected from his superiors. He was indestructible. An immortal. And no better than a maggot to any of them.

  The Chief spent the rest of his time on the scene giving brief statements to various television reporters. Luka’s gun as well as Kilpatrick’s gun were taken for examination, and the two bullets fired from Luka’s gun, including the one that took a detour through Vall’s shoulder, were dug out of the walls for evidence. Vall and Kilpatrick went downtown to be interviewed separately and in detail, and the remaining early morning hours were spent writing up their reports.

  With dawn only an hour away, Vall wrapped up his last report and rose to go home.

  “Hey, uh, Duvall.” Kilpatrick looked up at him. There were tired lines around his blue eyes, and a slick strand of the impeccable Elvis-hair hung over one eye. He smoothed it back. “Thanks, man.”

  Vall was silent. The words from his partner were a surprise, and Vall wasn’t often surprised. “You’re welcome. Let’s not make it a habit, though, okay?”

  Kilpatrick smiled. “Sure.”

  Vall went down to the garage, cleaned out his squad, put the empty blood bottles in a duffel bag, and transferred the bag to the trunk of his private car, a 1964 Lincoln Continental he’d had restored several years ago. He was dirty and tired, but it was with satisfaction that he drove home. His partner had seemed to take an interest in the case at last, working as hard as Vall had on the reports. And he’d thanked him for saving the meatball’s life.

  Vall had the next two nights off. He’d pay his doyen, Nestor, a visit, find a vamp-friendly lab to test the bottles for poison, and maybe even see Veronica again. If he could only forget the images of Luka and Tina, he’d call it a good night.

  KILPATRICK HAD CALLED Candy as soon after the shooting as he could to let her know he was okay. He didn’t want her hearing about the incident on the news before she heard it from him, or there’d be hell to pay. As it was, when he got home at nine in the morning, she gave him heaven, launching herself at him as soon as he walked in the door.