Fallen
Part 2
The technician at the crime lab gives me that look, the one that says ‘You’re not a real cop, are you?’ as he takes the evidence from me, and bags it up for testing.
I just know that it’ll go right to the bottom of the pile, and I’ll be lucky to see the results before next week.
I figure that I’ll give Catherine a call later, and ask her if she can push it through a little faster for me.
There are times when I wonder why I do this job, when I could still be earning a good living as a mercenary in the states where the vampire bill isn’t yet legal, but then I remember that last job I did…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a freezing cold day, and my breath billowed before me like smoke from a tailpipe. I’d received word that there was a vamp nest in an old house on Madison Avenue, in Queens. The pay was good, so I decided to go clear it out myself; why share the booty with some jerk who’d probably stand outside and watch you risk your ass, when you can do the job yourself, and keep the reward?
I forced the back door open; it was already open just enough for someone to slip in and out of, but I didn’t like the idea of squeezing through a door if I was running for the daylight with twenty vamps on my tail.
I had a ‘daylight’ flashlight, which stung like hell when shone onto vampires in the dark, and I picked my way through the trash and accumulated shit on the ground floor.
The house must have a basement; vamps tended to like to go to ground where there were no windows you could break to let the sunshine in as they slept.
I found the basement door, and eased it open. Gun in hand I took the stairs one at a time, shining the flashlight ahead of me. I carried the gun with modified bullets of silver and titanium, covering an inner chamber of holy water, it disables the vamps, not kills them. The only way to actually kill them is by decapitation, or the old fashioned way of a wooden stake through the heart. It has to be wood, plastic just won’t do!
I suddenly heard rustling, like rats scuttling from a trashcan. I swung my flashlight around, and there they were, crouched in the beam, hissing like vipers. I shot, and the screams echoed through the building. One of them lunged at me, and I fired at it at close range, it spun backwards, hitting the wall, and falling to the ground, writhing and cursing. I took out a stake, and plunged it into the chest of the creature. Almost in slow motion it fell away, and began to claw at the stake, until it simply faded into death, the light in its eyes snuffed out, leaving them wide and staring, but so utterly empty.
This is the time I always wish it was like the movies, where vamps disappear tidily into dust.
The noise from the corner made me jump; I swung the light around, and captured the others in the beam. I shot again, and hit the one at the front of the group. It struggled towards me, desperately hissing and growling, but I simply took it out with another stake. They must be young vamps; they’re pretty easy to kill. Older animals get sneaky and fast.
I moved across the room, to finish off the others who are hiding under an old piece of sackcloth. I swung the cover back, and aimed…
…In front of me cowered two children; a little girl around nine years old, her eyes yellow and piercing in the dark, fangs flashing, daring me to touch the other child, a boy around four years old.
I stood there, shocked and dismayed at what I saw; babies about the same age as my own kids, huddling in the dark. The others must have been their parents; some vamp obviously walked in one night and turned the whole fucking family.
I just stared at the child, hissing at me, her yellow hair plastered against her face, tiny hands shielding the whimpering boy.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered to myself, because I just didn’t know what to do.
In an instant, she flew at me. Her fangs sinking into my arm, and I yelled with pain. I flung her backwards against the wall, and grasped the wound in my bicep. Vampire bites bleed like hell, because they contain an anti clotting agent, and I could feel the warm, sticky life-blood seeping onto the ground.
She attacked again, and this time she tore at my face with her claws, mouth snapping at me, barely missing my eyes.
Desperately I pushed her away, but she kept coming, and I was forced to raise my gun, and shoot her. She dropped back against the wall, still growling, but obviously in pain.
I could barely see through the tears welling in my eyes, when I pushed the stake into her tiny, fragile body.
As her slender form slipped elegantly into death, I fell back, sobbing, against the cold basement wall.
It didn’t feel like I whacked a vamp, it felt like I murdered a child. I kept telling myself that the fucking animal that turned her really murdered her, but it didn’t ease my conscience much.
After I pulled myself together, I realized that the boy was still cowering against the wall. As I turned towards him, he whimpered and pushed himself into the corner.
“It’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” I whispered, and then I realized how stupid that must sound. He’d just watched me kill his parents and his sister, now I’m trying to convince him that I’m the good guy?
I tried to decide what the hell to do; he’s a vampire, and I should kill him. What kind of an existence will he have, forever a helpless child, with the desperate blood hunger of a vampire if I let him live? I realized that I was bleeding out on the floor in a big way, so I reached down and scooped the boy up into my arms, he thrashed and squealed, but he was too small to do any real damage.
I know a nun who runs a mission over on Lexington; I’ll take him there. It’s for vampire victims, and let’s face it; no one was more of a victim than that kid.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just remembering that day makes me want to reach for a bottle. I have a problem with alcohol; the problem is that I never seem to have enough. When the going gets tough, good old Toby gets drunk.
I decide to go check in at the office, and do a little research while I’m waiting for daylight to interview those witnesses.
The office is basically a room in the basement at the precinct. Our boss is Captain Leo Glynn, a seasoned officer with the NYPD who pissed someone off badly enough to get assigned this shit duty. He’s not a bad guy to work for, he just doesn’t really get the whole vampire thing. His second in command is Officer Murphy, Sean Murphy, another ex-NYPD cop, but Sean chose this assignment. He’s married to a vampire, one of the first legal human/vampire weddings in the state, so that makes him more than qualified to understand some of the problems we face.
I sit down at my desk, and check the time, it’s two am, and I haven’t even started on the paperwork yet.
There’s something bugging me about this case already but I just can’t put my finger on what it is? This vamp, Keller, he bothers me big time, and on several levels. It’s obvious that he’s hiding something, that he knows more than he’s telling this dumb old human, but I also get the feeling that he’s…for want of a better word, scared. And when vampires get scared, you just know that there’s a whole lot of shit brewing somewhere.
Suddenly, the clock beeps the hour, it’s now almost four a.m. and I’ve written the word ‘The’ on my report. I’m saved by the sound of the telephone, and I grab the receiver with a sense of relief.
That doesn’t last long.
It’s someone from ‘The Choirboy’, there’s been another attack, and this time there have been deaths.
With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I grab my jacket and head out, not knowing what the hell to expect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are flashing lights and ambulances everywhere when I reach the club. I flash my badge, but no one seems to care much who the fuck I am, and they just let me through. Suddenly, I see why; the doorman with the low brow from earlier is lying in the doorway. I know it’s him only by the uniform, and the name badge lying in a pool of blood. He’s been torn apart, literally. There’s little recognizable left of his torso, only the legs are intact, but the arms have been torn off at the shoulder, and they lie strewn across the sidewalk.
Gingerly, I step over his body, and enter the club. The thudding sound of the music has stopped, and all you can hear is the sound of fear whimpering in the dark.
A uniformed cop stands against the wall, trying hard not to puke all over the scene, and I flash my badge at him, hoping he can enlighten me on what happened here, and how a two hundred pound vamp was torn apart like a rag doll.
“We got a call about thirty minutes ago, saying that a fight had broken out here, when we got here, we found that,” he nods towards the door, “But there’s worse inside. A big guy with a bad attitude told me to contact you, so I sent out the call.”
I clap my hand on his shoulder, “Okay, why don’t you go get some air, huh? When C.S.I get here, send them in.”
We have our own C.S.I not-so-affectionately-known as the ‘bug squad’.
I make my way down the corridor, which has been trashed and torn. Claw marks score the walls, and there’s no doubt that there was a hell of a fight.
I can hear voices, raised voices, and I head for the sound. I step over another body, a man, torn apart, and left scattered like trash. I can’t tell if he’s human or vamp, but he’s a hell of a mess.
I pass another couple of cops who are helping medics get customers from the club. Some are injured, but most seem to be just in shock. Ahead of me are the stairs down to Keller’s office, and I know that’s where the action will be. I pick my way down the badly lit stairs until I see the door ahead of me.
In the doorway, there’s another body. As I get closer, I realize that it’s a woman. Long slender legs peek out beneath a micro mini, but that’s all that’s really recognizable, the rest of the body has been torn apart. It’s the pretty little thing from earlier, the young vampire with the bouncing breasts and the legs that went on forever.
Tentatively, I knock at the door to announce my entrance. In seconds, vampires; bleeding anger and resentment, making the air heavy and difficult to breathe in, surround me.
“Mr Keller?” I manage to croak.
“Let him in!” the familiar voice barks out the order, and the vampire’s part, reluctantly, to let me enter the room.
I move across the room to the desk, where Keller sits, shirtless and bleeding. Another male vampire tends his wounds, licking back the pumping blood, and I try not to grimace at the sight. I know why he’s doing it; vampire saliva has a slight anesthetic effect and it’s taking away the pain, but it still makes my stomach heave. The male vampire uses a flesh stapler to fix the gash, which would have been fatal to any human, then tenderly places a dressing across Keller’s chest. I know from experience that the wound will heal completely in a matter of hours.
“What happened?” I ask.
“What the fuck does it look like happened?” Keller snarls.
“I’m sorry about your people,” I look away, because he’s staring at me with cold contempt, and those eyes are cutting through me.
“The fuck you are!” he snaps, pushing himself up, out of the chair.
I glance around, and notice that the group of vampires who greeted me at the door are closing in again.
“Do ‘we’ have a problem here, Mr Keller?” I ask, gesturing to the crowd.
“We’re angry and upset, Officer Beecher, too many of our young are dead tonight,” he replies.
“And I’m here to help you find out who did it. I’d appreciate it if you explained that to your…’friends’.”
The anger in his face pales slightly, and he lifts up his head, nodding at the door.
All but one vampire begins to move; a young man, in human terms around twenty years old, stands firm, snarling under his breath.
In a blur of movement, Keller is beside him, the boy’s throat in his hand, “You got a fucking problem with my orders?” he snarls in the young mans face.
Still growling, the young vampire tries to look away, but doesn’t speak, or back down.
Suddenly Keller hurls him across the room, sending him thudding against the wall with a sickening crunch of bone.
“Don’t challenge me Andrew, and never, ever, fucking growl in my face again. Now get out!”
Beaten, the young vampire crawls towards the door and scuttles out.
I look back at Keller, and he’s still almost vibrating with anger. He’s pretty beaten up, other than the gash on his chest, which runs from his right shoulder down across his chest and belly. He has a vicious cut across his face, and claw marks up both arms.
For a vampire of his strength and importance to get this beaten up, the assailant must have been strong, and fast.
“Tell me what happened,” I ask again, “Don’t leave out any details.”
“I was on the main floor, introducing the guests for the night, when I heard a noise. Nico, the doorman was shouting at someone, so I headed for the door. By the time I got there, he was dead, torn apart, and there was a trail of blood leading down here. I called for Ronnie and Peter to follow me, and we followed the blood until we reached the office door. Stacey was still dying when we got here, she was in pieces, but she was still fighting,” he draws a breath, “We came into the office to find the creature tearing the place up.”
“What was it?” I ask, wondering what the hell could tear apart vampires like paper dolls.
Keller shakes his head, “I don’t know for sure, it looks human, but the strength…it has strength like I’ve never encountered before. We attacked, all three of us, and it tossed us around like children.”
“But you managed to drive it off in the end?”
He looks up at me, and gives a cold smile, “No, Officer Beecher, we didn’t. It suddenly stopped, and ran out, just before it tore me to pieces.”
Blood is seeping through the dressing on his chest and I find my eyes drawn to it.
“Do you need to get that looked at?” I ask.
His smile warms, “You worried about me, Officer Beecher?” he says softly.
I feel my face flush, and immediately I’m angry at myself. “Hey, you’re one of the few live witnesses I still have, I need you mobile,” I growl, trying so hard for ‘macho and uncaring’ and failing dismally.
Keller moves around the desk until he’s standing in my personal space. “But I’m not ‘alive’ not in the clinical sense,” he smirks.
I give a derisive sniff, “Well, you’re still mobile, I guess I’ll have to settle for that?” I say, as he moves even closer, almost touching me. I don’t want to step back, and look afraid, but my skin is tingling, and the hair on the back of my neck is raised.
“I guess you will,” he replies.
I’m trying hard not to look into his eyes, but that means either looking at the floor, or at his naked chest. Neither of these options make for a comfortable Toby.
“Is there anything else you can tell me, Mr Keller?” I stutter eventually.
“Why don’t you call me ‘Chris’ since we’re going to be working so ‘closely’ together?” he asks.
My mind dizzies; the guy is standing here, among the bloody remains of his people, and he’s coming on to me?
“I think we should keep this business, don’t you, Mr Keller?” I clear my throat, and take out my notebook, just for something to do.
“I wasn’t suggesting we indulge in anything *but* business, Officer. I was just being friendly,” he grins, and I can’t help feeling that I’ve seen that grin before: on National Geographic during shark week.
“I’ll make some notes and wait for C.S.I,” I try for ‘totally business-like’ “I’m sure you have a lot of arrangements to make, and you probably need some rest.”
Keller stands so still, but he’s watching me, I can feel his eyes on my flesh, “Always have my best interests at heart, eh, Officer Beecher?”
He manages to make the words ‘Officer Beecher’ sound like dirty talk.
I try on the cocky smile I know I can usually pull off with lawyers and judges, “That’s why I’m a public servant, Mr Keller!” I smile, and as I look towards him, I feel a rush of…something. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s like the rush of adrenaline that comes with orgasm, it hits like an express train then subsides slowly, slipping away and leaving behind a warm and fuzzy feeling.
I shake my head suddenly and look up and Keller, his eyes are flashing with mischief and excitement.
Fucker!
I suddenly need to get out of there, and fast. The sensation is still clouding my mind, and when you work around vamps, you need to keep your senses sharp at all times.
They might be legal now, but they sure as all hell ain’t domesticated yet.
I head for the door, trying to remain cool, but I know I must be radiating fear and confusion.
I’ve worked around vamps for a while now, but I’ve never had this reaction to one before. Fear, sure, but not this thrill of…something that Keller manages to instill in me.
With the smell of blood thick in the air, I pick my way across the bodies and gratefully reach the street, gulping in the air.
At that moment my cell trills in my pocket. I flip it open, “Yeah?”
“Beecher, it’s Catherine,” the voice says. Catherine is the senior examiner at the lab, and a good friend who I bullied into pushing through the specimen.
“What is it, Catherine?”
“That sample you sent through to us, where the hell did it come from?”
“A crime scene; There was a break in at a local vamp club, why?”
Her voice is hesitant and pretty damned odd, “Toby, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s dead material, but it’s not vampire. Yet, when we exposed it to certain levels of electrical current, the cells attached to the hair fragments began to divide. I’ve never seen this before, not with dead material.”
“So, what do you think it is?” I ask, now intrigued.
“I have no idea, Toby this is way out of my league. I’ll put everything I know into a report; you can collect it later. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“Thanks for letting me know, and thanks for rushing this through. I owe you.” I click the phone off, and realize that I’m even more damned confused than I was before.