by Steve Niles
Mitch peered into his water glass. “I’m sorry about that.”
“You couldn’t have known. And at the time, I couldn’t really explain.”
He directed those piercing blue eyes at Dane again. The hurt in them was palpable. “Explain what? What the fuck is going on here? I don’t even know your name, and you expect me to trust you with…with whatever this is.”
“You came to me. I’m Dane, by the way.”
“Just Dane?”
“That’s good enough. I could give you a Social Security number, but it’d be fake. They didn’t have those when I was born.”
“You’re not that old.”
“I’m older than I look,” Dane said, smiling ruefully. “A lot older.” This was always the hard part. Trying to convince someone who didn’t want to believe, especially someone who had suffered a loss.
Ideally it was a seduction, a step at a time, with lots of flirting and foreplay before the serious action started. But that took time Dane didn’t have. “Look, Mitch. You’re going to go through a bunch of stages of denial here. You’re going to think I’m full of it, that I’m scamming you somehow. I get all that. But what I’m going to tell you is the truth, and the sooner you can wrap your head around it, the quicker we can get after the guy who killed your friends.”
Mitch’s head bobbed. Maybe he thought Dane was going to tell him that he was a spy or a contract killer. Mitch would be quickly disabused of those notions, although he might not be any happier learning what he would.
Dane would be happier, though. Keeping his fangs retracted and his flesh looking healthy—by human standards—by warming his skin was wearisome. The longer he held it the worse it got, and of course every time he passed through the hotel lobby, he had to put up the illusion. He could have stayed with the vampire community in town, but then Mitch LaSalle (or whatever human ally Dane had ended up taking on, since he’d been pretty sure he would need one) wouldn’t have been able to find him.
“Okay…. I’m a vampire, Mitch,” Dane said. “Yes, I know. Just keep quiet for a minute or two; don’t bother telling me vampires aren’t real, because I’ve heard it all before.” He let his fangs extend, stopped forcing blood to the surface of his skin. As it cooled, his flesh paled. The fangs, each more than an inch long, sharp as miniature daggers, altered the appearance of his jaw line and filled in gaps between his somewhat sharper teeth left when he retracted them—gaps that had spawned many jokes about hillbillies and poor dental hygiene.
As Dane’s skin went white, Mitch’s did too. The cab driver’s bright blue eyes widened and his mouth opened and shut like a loose-hinged mailbox on a blustery day. A strangled little cry emerged from his throat.
“I know, this is a big shock for you,” Dane went on. The longer teeth and altered jaw changed his voice a little, giving it an echoing rumble that it didn’t have in his human disguise. To him it sounded natural, the human voice fraudulent. “I wouldn’t say that everything you’ve heard about vampires is true, but certainly some of it is. I also wouldn’t tell you about us if I had any choice. You know the old joke, then I’d have to kill you? Ordinarily…well, that’s the way it would be.”
Mitch didn’t respond for a moment. His outward appearance almost led Dane to believe he was suffering from a massive coronary that would settle the issue right then and there.
“Holy…This…this can’t be happening.”
“I don’t really care what you think,” Dane said. “This isn’t a movie, Mitch. This is real. As real as it gets, and I’m sure it’s going to get even more unpleasant. I need you, and you need me if you want to find the guy who killed your friends. After that, if you can’t live with all of this, believe me, we can come to an arrangement. I was only hoping I could trust you.”
He counted on Mitch’s years as a cop tempering the shock. Cops saw things every week that most people never did. They learned things—about people, about how they could treat each other—that made them believe in evil, in monsters, albeit of the human variety. Cab drivers saw a lot, too, at least if one could believe HBO. So while your average civilian would certainly have a hard time with this information, Dane hoped that Mitch was digesting it more easily.
To his credit, Mitch appeared to swallow back his fear…at least on the outside. Color returned to his face. “You…you can trust me,” he said. “I want that bastard.”
“That ‘bastard’ is a vampire, too,” Dane said. “That’s why I told you law enforcement would never find him. Because they think they’re looking for a man, and they’re not. That’s why you need me. I don’t know this city, and I don’t have the right connections here, and the local vampire community—yes, there is one—claims not to know who the Headsman is. That’s why I need you.”
As silence descended over the room, Dane opted to play his remaining hand. “Understand that I’m taking as much of a risk with you knowing about me. My kind and I don’t always see eye to eye on such things. It’s been…unpleasant sometimes, let’s say.”
Mitch said nothing, but looked like he wanted to throw up.
“Okay then…” Mitch finally said quietly. “Where do we start?”
“Can you get us into the place where your friends were killed?”
Mitch checked the cheap wristwatch on his left arm. “If the crime scene guys are done…yeah, maybe.”
“Good. Then let’s start there. You’re driving.”
“Sure, whatever, I’m driving,” Mitch said. He still looked pretty shell-shocked as he stood to go. “I gotta be dreaming all this…. You even got a license?”
5
ON THE RIDE OVER, Mitch asked a few more questions. He didn’t like all the answers he got—getting past the idea that Dane was some kind of legendary monster who killed to live would not be a cakewalk—but at least he seemed willing to let those things go. For now.
No, Dane did not, in fact, have a driver’s license, unless you counted the fake one. Motor vehicles offices tended to be open during daylight, and even the ones with night hours wanted more forms of ID than he was prepared to show.
Yes, he did kill people for blood when he had to, but he tried to focus his attentions on people who offered little to society. Of course, he made that determination himself, serving as judge, jury, and executioner, often with only a few moments of consideration.
Yes, sunlight could kill him, or beheading. He had no particular problem with garlic or crosses. Silver bullets were for werewolves. No, they didn’t exist, either.
Throughout his line of questioning, Mitch’s reaction to Dane’s revelation remained surprisingly low-key. Maybe he was still in shock from the deaths of his friends, keeping his emotions buried. That was fine—it would give Mitch more time to process the information before he got agitated about it and make him less likely to come at Dane with a wooden stake or do something equally stupid.
They reached the crime scene about an hour after Mitch had shown up in the hotel lobby.
Yellow police tape fluttered in a gentle breeze off the river. The press had left, and it was too late for casual onlookers. A uniformed officer sat on the house’s stoop, the lightbulb over the door shining down on him. He swatted at insects Dane couldn’t see until they had crossed the street. Then the uni stopped swatting and stood up.
“Hey, you have to stay on the other side of that tape!” he barked.
“Pat, it’s me,” Mitch said. “Mitch LaSalle.”
“Mitch…? Sorry, I didn’t recognize y’all there in the dark,” the officer said. “Who’s this?”
“Friend,” Mitch said. Not much more than a grunt. The uniformed cop nodded as if it meant something. Dane didn’t know Mitch well enough yet—maybe it did.
Most humans, in Dane’s experience, were small-minded, petty, greedy. They lied when they could, cheated when possible, stole even when they didn’t need to. Some, of course, were worse than others, and it was from this category that he chose to feed as often as possible. And vampires? They were just as bad. Wo
rse, in some ways, since murder slotted more easily into their list of personal failings. But, as with humans, there were decent ones…terrible ones…and the full range in between. If this cop could put confidence in Mitch’s monosyllabic claim that Dane was a friend—never mind the lie—that said something for Mitch.
“Mind if we go in for a second?” Mitch asked. “Something I need to see in there.”
“I can’t let y’all do that, Mitch,” the cop said. He tapped on a clipboard hanging from the doorknob by a string. “Everyone’s got to sign in. Law enforcement only.”
“I understand that, Pat,” Mitch said. “I know how it works. We just…Denny and Willard died in there, you know? I just wanted to see where, thought it might help me put my mind at rest about it.”
“That’s the thing, my friend. Two cops died in there. We got to be really careful about preservin’ the scene, right?”
“Of course, I know. We wouldn’t do anything to threaten the integrity of the scene. I want a solid conviction more than you’ll ever know.”
Pat shook his head—turning Mitch down obviously gave him no personal pleasure at all.
Dane shouldered past Mitch, impatient.
Mitch tried to grab his arm. “Hey, don’t—”
Dane shook him off and leaned close to Pat’s face. He locked eyes with the young cop, not bothering to hide his true nature. Not that the cop would remember any of this in a few minutes. “We’re going in there,” Dane said, his voice low, so soft that someone standing a few feet away wouldn’t have heard more than a vague rumble. “We won’t be long, we won’t touch anything, and after we leave, you’ll forget we were ever here.”
Pat stepped back as if Dane had pushed him. His mouth slacked open and his eyes had taken on a glazed expression.
Dane turned back to Mitch. “The part about vampires and hypnosis? Also true, sometimes—if the subject is particularly susceptible. This one is.”
“So he’s…?”
“He won’t give us any trouble.” Dane passed him and opened the door. Mitch followed.
The place smelled like a butcher shop. To Dane, it was like a candy store.
Hunger filled him like water flooding into a shallow. He gave an involuntary snarl and glanced at Mitch. He could smell Mitch’s blood, hear it rush through his veins. A thick green vein throbbed in his neck.
Dane could tear into that in the space of a single heartbeat, could fill his mouth with the precious stuff.
No one could stop him. No one would know.
Mitch caught him staring, looked back anxiously. Dane swallowed the hunger, barely suppressing it. It was just the blood…all the blood in here. He couldn’t help his response. But he could control his own actions, and he would make every effort to do so—he’d come a long way since first being turned.
“This isn’t like the other scenes,” Dane finally said. They stood in a tiled foyer, dark wainscoting on walls that were plastered and painted a soft green above. Blood had stained everything, as if there had been a water balloon fight in the foyer, only the balloons were filled with blood. “There was hardly any blood at those, according to the reports.”
“Two cops didn’t walk in on the perp while he was still at the scene at those,” Mitch reminded him. “All this blood is probably from…Mulroy and Creech.”
“Yeah,” Dane said, hoarse. His throat was dry.
Mitch’s face was screwed into an expression of extreme distaste. As much as the place smelled like fine dining to Dane, Mitch was revolted at being here. “You need to see anything else?”
“Maybe.”
“Have we seen anything yet?”
“Enough.” Dane sniffed the air. “It isn’t really about seeing, it’s about smelling.”
“What’s that mean?”
Dane couldn’t explain fully. One had to be a vampire—and it helped to have been turned by someone willing to take the time to really teach—to understand how each person’s blood had its own individual tang. Even more complex was how he could pick up each one in a scene like this, as if the scents were strings on the floor and he could just grasp one in his fingers and follow it.
“It’s the smells,” he said, hoping that would be enough. “The Headsman injured one of his victims—a woman—but didn’t kill her. She’s bleeding. He took her. We’re going to follow.”
Mitch ran the palm of his hand across his forehead, wiping sweat away from his eyes. “Follow…?”
“You drive,” Dane said. “I smell.”
“How…?”
“Never mind how. I can. Surely this isn’t the most unbelievable thing you’ve heard tonight.”
“Maybe it’s just one unbelievable thing after another piling up like so much bullshit.”
“If you want to just give me the keys…”
“No. I’m in this now. Doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Understood,” Dane said. “I’m not that fond of it either. Can we get going? The longer we wait…”
“Yeah, I know. The farther away he gets.”
“I was going to say the harder it is to separate the smell of her blood from all the other smells of the city, but whatever.”
Outside, Pat didn’t even seem to notice them leaving. Dane assured Mitch again that the cop wouldn’t remember a thing, but he would do his job and protect the scene from anyone else.
As Mitch drove Savannah’s dark streets, Dane kept his window open, sniffing the air like a dog on a scent.
Not far off the mark.
The woman (young, he decided, no older than twenty-five) had something unusual about her scent that he couldn’t identify, but it made her easier to track.
The Headsman had driven a roundabout route, almost as if trying to throw off any pursuit. From the crime scene they went south down Skidaway, then made a right on Derenne Avenue, just to the Harry Truman Parkway where they cut north again. Traffic on the parkway, even at this hour, wouldn’t let Mitch drive as slow as Dane wanted him to. Dane worried that he’d lose the scent at high speed, but the odd quality of the woman’s smell kept him locked on. They missed a turn at Anderson Street but Dane realized it immediately, so they left the parkway at Henry and backtracked the block. West again, this time to Montgomery, to Louisville, to West Lathrop.
“Slow down,” Dane said. They cruised through a warehouse district, not far from the river. The big buildings—windows shot out or shattered with rocks, bare bulbs over the doors or floodlights mounted high on plain walls and protected by steel cages—were mostly deserted. Tall chain-link fences with grass growing up around them surrounded parking lots of gravel or cracked, weed-strewn tarmac.
“You still got it?” Mitch asked.
“It’s fresh,” Dane said. “She’s either been here recently or she’s still here.”
“Right here?”
“No. Close by, keep going. But slow.”
They hadn’t seen another car in motion for several minutes. A few truck cabs without trailers had parked beside the fences, as had a couple of dark cars that might have been abandoned or might have contained people who had brought hookers or secret lovers here for a few moments of privacy, but nothing moved, no signs of life presented themselves. “Should I turn the lights off?” Mitch asked.
“I doubt it’ll make any difference,” Dane said. “If he sees us, he’ll see us, lights or no. We can see pretty well in the dark.”
“I hate this,” Mitch said. “I really hate this.”
“What?”
“You. All this. Maybe…I can’t deny what you’ve shown me, but I can’t just say, okay, sure, this kind of stuff exists, you know?”
“I understand.”
“So I’m just somewhere in the middle and I hate it. I’m a cop—I was, but you know what I mean. I like there to be answers.”
Dane nodded, sniffing the air. “Slower.”
Mitch brought the car down to a steady crawl. Every rock in the road, every bit of uneven pavement, jounced them.
Other smells ass
ailed his nostrils, confusing the hunt. These were new and unmistakable.
It only took a minute before he saw one, crouching at the edge of a rooftop. Watching the taxi creep down the road.
Another stood in the shadowed depths between a warehouse and a trailer used as an office.
A third squatted in the tall grass of an empty lot.
“What?” Mitch asked, noting Dane’s sudden tension. “What are you looking at?”
“Vampires,” Dane answered. “We aren’t alone here after all.”
6
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
“You’re doubting me? I’ve seen three so far,” Dane said. “Where you can see three, you have to assume there are nine. Maybe more. The undead are very good at staying hidden. The fact that I’ve seen three probably means they want me to see them. Maybe they don’t know yet what I am, and they’re hoping to scare us away.”
“I get the feeling you don’t scare easy.”
“No, I don’t. Doesn’t mean I go looking for trouble.”
“I thought that was exactly why we came here.”
“We did. I’m just saying.”
“They going to attack us or something?” Mitch sounded anxious about the prospect, but not afraid. Maybe he still hadn’t recovered from earlier, although as the hours wore on that seemed less likely. Dane thought the truth was probably overwhelming, more than he bargained for, rather than getting used to the facts Dane had thrown at him. As the shock wore off, the new reality Mitch had to face took hold.
“I don’t know,” Dane said. “Maybe.”
Mitch shifted forward in the seat, reaching behind himself. From beneath his untucked gray T-shirt he drew a 9mm Smith & Wesson, which he set down on his lap.
“If you have to use that,” Dane stated, “aim for their heads. If you can destroy the brain, you can stop the vampire. Anything else will just piss him off.” He held up his left hand, flexed the fingers. “This hand was blown off by explosives a couple years ago. I got a transplant. Works pretty good now. We tend to be fast healers.”
