by Gaja J. Kos
“Our supplier delivers it bottled,” he said in a strained voice. Kramberger clearly wasn’t enthusiastic about sharing with the police, but the alternative must have struck him as an even greater evil. “Our staff serves them capped, opens them in front of the patrons.”
Kramberger had just corroborated the story that Barle’s schoolmates and the waitress gave.
Tomo straightened up, exhaling. “Have you served any more blood from that batch?”
The manager feverishly shook his head, the color draining from his cheeks. Evelin wondered if it was only now that the youth grasped the actual threat of what could have happened if the police hadn’t intervened.
“You do realize we must confiscate that shipment of blood,” Tomo added in a voice that left no room for arguments. “And I would advise you to cease serving your vampiric customers until we can say with certainty that the rest of the blood is clear.”
In another wave of nods, Kramberger managed to find his voice. “Take everything.”
“Thank you,” Tomo and Evelin voiced at the same time.
The manager began rummaging through the top drawer of his desk for the keys to the storage. The unmistakable, slightly nervous rattle announced that he had managed to locate them.
Evelin smirked.
No claws necessary.
“One final thing,” Tomo said when Kramberger headed towards the door, keys in hand. “I’ll need the name of your supplier.”
Chapter 10
Rose couldn’t stop going over Veles's words as she made her way towards Pri Sojenicah. Nathaniel had called the pack, asking them to meet with him, which meant Rose had had to cut her date with the dark-haired god short.
One night wasn’t enough.
Questions rumbled inside her, too many to cover them all in the sparse time they had.
Veles, the accidental creator of vampires, the god had joked. But his words held a bitter undertone, revealing what lay under the seemingly calm façade. It didn’t sit right with Rose that she had to part from Veles's side, not after what he had told her. But the urgent tone with which Nathaniel had conveyed his request left her with no other option.
If vampires continued to die at the rate the killer had set, the pack needed to get on top of the situation. Fast. And Nathaniel’s finds would undoubtedly provide a solid step in that direction.
The winter chill crept up her skin like a caress as Rose crossed the city center. If it weren’t for the proximity of the Ljubljanica river, upping the humidity, the morning could have been beautiful. She crossed the Prešeren square and stopped on the bridge, a cigarette between her lips. Her gaze trailed the houses that snaked along the riverbank. Fine mists curled around their rooftops, giving the view an eerie feel.
She took it all in, her mind growing clearer.
Yet the ancient pain she had seen in Veles’s eyes stayed. And even the sight of a slumbering town couldn’t erase the memory of remorse the god’s confession carried.
Once she got back home, she intended to wrap Veles in the safety of her arms, and keep him tucked next to her under the covers until the next day. Without interruptions.
The thought made her speed up, propelling her across the bridge. The faster she got there, the faster they could begin.
Pri Sojenicah emitted a soft glow, its porch decorated with tri-color light bulbs. Rose noticed Frank’s broad-shouldered figure leaning next to the heavy wooden door before she even crossed the street. The bright red flickering of his burning cigarette swung from left to right as he waved his hand in salutation.
Rose chuckled.
Frank’s arms were already stretched out wide to the sides as she walked up to him, a gleeful expression turning his blue eyes into uplifted slits. Rose squeezed into Frank’s embrace, glad to see her friend in a good mood.
“They’re already inside,” the werewolf said, motioning to the low building behind him.
“Thanks.” Rose pulled him into another short hug. “I’ll have a glass of Refošk when you get the chance...”
Frank nodded, not questioning her choice of wine in the morning. He dragged on his cigarette and opened the door with his other hand. Instinctively, Rose turned left when the familiar smell of Pri Sojenicah filled her senses.
The pack sat at their usual table in the corner between the rustically painted wall and the heavy wooden counter.
It was a cozy spot, but more importantly, it fit their need to have their backs shielded. Although it would be difficult for a threat to sneak into Pri Sojenicah, the impulse for control was coded inside the weres too fundamentally to be ignored.
Even when the bar was somewhat more crammed, and one or two ended up sitting with the entrance behind them, the location offered ample surveillance. With more than five pairs of eyes monitoring it, two blind spots were only a minor setback.
“Where’s Evelin?” Rose asked when she approached the table and noticed the werewolf’s absence.
Mark looked up, a small hint of dissatisfaction lurking in the otherwise warm brown color of his eyes. “She’s playing cop.”
“It’s six thirty in the morning!” Rose scrunched her nose.
A murderous sheen rolled over Mark’s eyes. “Exactly.”
Zarja snorted and clicked her tongue at the older were. “Mark’s pissed because Evelin got invited to check out the place where Barle had his last meal. They went there last night. And I guess the inspection and confiscation of Metulj’s goods took longer than Mark’s comfortable with.
“Oh, not to mention that the man in uniform accompanying her is supposedly more charming than the twins over here at their best.”
Sounds of outrage and disagreement boomed from the Double J team, but Zarja held up her hand. “You know men aren’t exactly on the top of my list, but even I can’t deny that older men have a certain allure you young ones can’t even dream of reaching. Not until you grow a few decades, at least.”
Rose snickered, and Zarja flashed her a wide grin in return. “You have every right to laugh. That lovergod of yours is basically the ultimate older man jackpot.”
Even Jens and Jürgen couldn’t keep their outraged expressions up any longer. The healthy rumble of werewolf laughter filled the space.
Only Mark remained sullen, sitting with his back to the wall.
Rose placed an arm on the werewolf’s shoulder, tightening her grip. “Don’t let the idiots get to you. Not everybody falls for the mind-blowing allure of seasoned gentlemen...”
Avoiding a playful punch from Mark, Rose threw herself in the chair next to him. She turned her attention towards Nathaniel, whose shoulders were still shaking from his effort to contain his laughter. The human pushed his glasses farther up his nose, his features regaining some seriousness.
“I have successfully muscled my way into the investigation,” Nathaniel began, winking at Tim. The were shook his head in response, but a smile framed his lips nonetheless. “Well, at least the third body was mine to examine... The primary assigned to the first two wasn’t too pleased about my actions, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that I had found something in less than twelve hours while he failed to determine even the cause of death… And he’s had the bodies for days!”
Nathaniel paused, rummaging through his pack. Frank maneuvered to the werewolves’ table, Rose’s wine in hand. She thanked him and eagerly took a sip of the full-bodied flavor only Refošk had the right to boast, reveling in the taste.
The rustle of paper announced the human had found what he had been looking for just as Frank made his retreat.
Rose peered over her wineglass; printouts were laid across the center of the table, all of them carrying spreadsheets with codes and percentages written next to them. Frowning at the cryptic language that made perfect sense to Nathaniel but meant nothing more than doodles to her, Rose looked around to find that the pack shared her sentiment.
Tim’s face carried a sour expression. It could have been the faint smell of disinfectant coating the paper. But Rose fi
gured having a genius for a sibling must be taxing at times.
Not that Tim was far off the mark… He was the only one in the pack with a PhD. However, that meant little when Nathaniel exploded into one of his moments of brilliance.
But that also meant he would go into one of his overly excited states about scientific finds.
The werewolves looked at each other, the bond between them whizzing; as usual, they would wait calmly for Tim’s brother to finish. Despite the urgent need to obtain the information as soon as possible, neither member of the pack wanted to rain on Nathaniel’s parade. Even Tim. The human was family as much as the rest of them were.
“I haven’t dealt with many vampires before, so I needed to do a little digging to determine what exactly are normal values in their blood. Low levels of serotonin, high levels of iron... It took some time to get the numbers right, but I managed.” The human sighed, a mix of content and annoyance crossing his face as he stared at the papers laid out in front of him.
“The primary didn’t even bother to put down the basic values. He treated the victims like they were regular Homo sapiens, with the small exception of drinking blood. The jerk bluntly ignored that that exact disparity in feeding means we are dealing with a different biology. And if that hag Novak worked on Barle… Shit, he’d probably contaminate the body before getting anything of use out of the poor kid.”
Rose sipped her wine, waiting for Nathaniel to vent his frustrations.
It couldn’t have been easy for someone as brilliant as Tim’s brother to work in an environment filled with lethargic, dispassionate people. It was what made Rose quit college. And she knew she wasn’t nearly as brilliant as Nathaniel, nor had the situation been nearly as extreme. Yet she had found herself contemplating more often than not just how many of the egotistical bastards she could sink her teeth into and get away with it.
With a long sigh, Nathaniel returned to the matter at hand. “I ran numerous tests on Vito Barle, comparing every component to those that should be basic values in a vampire’s body. I found the COD, but also something else. And if it wasn’t for Zarja’s recollection about what the parents told her and the twins, I just might have missed it.”
Zarja managed a smile, but her face was hard, filled with anticipation of Nathaniel’s discovery.
“Vito Barle was poisoned with Crataegus Monogyna,” the human finally said. “Hawthorn.”
Mark shuffled in his seat. He ran his hand absentmindedly through the thick brown strands of his hair, his brows coming together. “I’ve heard of hawthorn stakes being used, but you’re saying the kid was poisoned with it?”
“Crataegus Monogyna is a very strong plant when it comes to vampires.” Nathaniel nodded. “I found some notes on it in one of grandmother’s books that I keep locked in the lab. Luckily, our ancestors were interested in the less known aspects of supernatural beings and kept quite good record of it. After reading through the entry, it became clear that if someone crushed a branch—even without petals, although those are more potent—the amount they would need to mix into the blood in order to poison a vampire could be so terribly small that the person ingesting it wouldn’t even notice the change in taste.”
“Fuck,” the twins muttered simultaneously.
“But the thing that I can’t quite figure out,” Nathaniel continued, oblivious to the twins' remark, “is why the killer didn’t stop there. After running some additional digging, I found traces of copper and eleuthero in Barle’s system.”
“Isn’t eleuthero a Chinese herb?” Rose raised her eyebrows. “A sort of ginseng?”
“Zarja told me that Barle’s mother said she noticed symptoms similar to a panic attack,” Nathaniel explained, while Zarja and the twins nodded in unison. “Well, hawthorn alone couldn’t have caused them. Because the plant is so effective, the death should be clean once the hawthorn spreads through the system. That’s why I didn’t stop running my test once I found the poison responsible for Barle’s death.”
Nathaniel raised one of the papers containing the spreadsheets and placed it on top of the pile. Some numbers had been circled with a red marker, and those were the ones his eyes were now fixed upon.
“The first thing I noticed were raised levels of copper. Since Vito Barle was vampire born, not made, he couldn’t have had Wilson’s disease, and there truly shouldn’t have been any other, natural reason for copper accumulating in his body,” Nathaniel said, his gaze still focused on the chart. “And then I found the eleuthero...”
Rose took another sip of wine, her forehead tensing as she frowned. “Someone laced the blood Barle drank not only with hawthorn, but copper and eleuthero as well?”
The human nodded, his expression stern. “With what I learned from Zarja, I asked Tim to reach out to Dr. Xu.”
“He couldn’t have been pleased to be thrown out of bed in the middle of the night.” Rose chuckled.
The man had a strict I-need-to-sleep-so-I-can-work-properly policy. But he also couldn’t turn away a person in need of help, even if it came with a price attached to it. A price the Chinese doctor had to pay.
“You know how he is,” was all Tim needed to say to confirm Rose’s suspicions.
The Chinese man was too kind for his own good.
“Once he came to his senses, Xu told me the herb is used to boost one’s Qi and has an overall healing effect on the body. It reduces stress, offers higher resistance to diseases, and helps with yang deficiency in the kidney or spleen... A good herb, in his opinion,” Tim explained, before he sank back into his chair, his eyes already on his brother as he continued. “However, one of the possible side effects of eleuthero, especially used in higher doses, is anxiety...”
Nathaniel shifted forward, his index and middle finger marking two numbers on the spreadsheet. “And then it dawned upon me: copper supplements are known to produce the same side effect on humans...”
“The killer wanted to induce an anxiety attack?” Mark leaned over the table, the brown of his eyes darkening.
“I don’t know why, but yes. And went to great lengths for it, too…” Nathaniel sighed. “Since vampiric blood and organisms are different than a regular human’s, they could quite possibly dismiss small values of either substance. The mixture of copper and eleuthero was chosen because of its potency. Used together, they left zero chances for the intended victim to elude an anxiety attack, even with the somewhat different wiring of a vampire’s system.”
“The fucker not only wanted the kid to die, but wanted him to suffer as well?” Jens growled, his teeth becoming slightly elongated.
“Was it the same with the other two victims?” his twin added, an identical growl vibrating from his lips.
Nathaniel breathed out a long sigh, his jaw clenched as he began to speak. “I don’t have access to the first two victims. I urged the primary to check for hawthorn, copper, and eleuthero values, but right now there is nothing more that I can do. The man is a stubborn sonovabitch with good enough connections to get me suspended from work if I continue to pressure him.”
A feral smile played across Zarja’s features, each word a slow, chilling growl as she asked, “What if we pressure him?”
Nathaniel smiled at the werewolf, but shook his head. “Don’t risk your fragile reputation as The Dark Ones because of some ignorant jerk. I’ll find a way to deal with him eventually.”
Chapter 11
Fog hung above the buildings as morning dawned over Ljubljana. Rose listened to the slow rhythm of Veles’s breaths as the god slept, locked in the safety of her arms. He had waited for her the previous day, lounging in her dining room and dipping into her stash of cigarettes. Rose hadn’t been gone for more than three hours, but the overflowing ashtray spoke volumes of just how difficult that gap had been for Veles.
As far as she knew, the god only smoked when the accumulation of emotional stress spilled across the threshold and into the red zone. Since the death of the wolf-man, no such situations had arisen. Until now.
&n
bsp; Returning home to the sight of Veles sitting in the dim light with the curtains drawn was painful to say the least. And as she observed him staring distantly through the dense smoke of cigarettes, Rose hated the fact that she had been forced to leave Veles by himself even more heatedly. Yet at the same time, she couldn’t deny that Nathaniel’s input was anything short of invaluable.
Not only were they closer to preventing the killer from adding to his body count, but as the case progressed, Rose was closer to spending her days as she wished once again. Which mostly meant devoting her time to the sleepy figure of the man she loved, who still rested tucked into her embrace.
Dark strands of hair flowed through her fingers, the sensation silken. As he lay curled up next to her, Veles’s features lost some of their usual sharpness—and although he had calmed down substantially during the day, the god seemed vulnerable.
Rose’s chest tightened.
You carry some of his energy within you. And two beings of the same power can’t be together for long, not without destroying one another or becoming a force that destroys everything else.
She hadn’t forgotten her mother’s warning.
If her time with Veles truly was limited, the werewolves needed to get ahead of this investigation soon. Being one of The Dark Ones, Rose couldn’t leave the pack, couldn’t favor her personal life over their duties. As much as she wanted to turn away from her responsibilities, pack matters took precedence. It was the way werewolves were wired, and it made juggling personal life all the more difficult. Particularly in cases where the partner hadn’t been subjected to were-upbringing.
Rose closed her eyes, her fingers brushing against Veles’s temple. As long as the killer was loose, she wouldn’t be free. But being a fighter, not a detective, made contributing to the case somewhat more strenuous.
