A Little Undead (9 page)

There was something bugging me
though, something I'd missed from our conversation. “He said
Queenie
didn't
have a name.”
Past tense. As in either deposed, or well and truly dead. It had
sounded like vampire hunters had ceased their hunt as well. If they
were anywhere near as gung ho as Van Helsing that would only have
happened if all the vampires were... no longer walking around. Was
it possible that they hated vampires so much as to hunt them (us?) to
extinction? '
Of course they do.'
I
saw it in Alex's eyes when he pressed the crucifix to my forehead,
hoping to watch me burn.

An
ember of disgust and disappointment lit in my chest. If I was in
fact a vampire, was it possible all the stories were wrong? Maybe
people weren't made into vampires, but born as them. I'd lived
eleven years in Haven and caused considerably less mayhem than most
of the other children. To suddenly be denied my right to exist
simply because of this affliction was galling. I was sure that if I
could just find another vampire they could teach me how to curb my
thirst for blood. I was
not
a parasite. I had a good job that helped the community, and there
was no way a stupid werewolf or a pair of fangs would keep me from
doing it.
The walk symbol on the crosswalk chose that
moment to blink out and with it my courage.

A short while later I regrouped,
now with a giant cup of hot chocolate in hand from the corner café.
It tasted a little different than normal, but not “bad”
different, exactly. Regardless, with this little pick-me-up I was
ready to face anything. Anything, I realized as I finally entered the
double doors, hopefully included the always-watchful Fred. “Officer
Fisher, you're late,” he said, his tone slightly biting.
'Does he have eyes in the back of his head?'
Stepping over to the
side of his desk revealed the secret.
'Oh, he's in charge of the
cameras. Not a wizard then, though these days maybe I can't be too
sure.'

“
Sorry, some issues came
up with the landlord and I ran late.” I kept my lips as tightly
together as possible as I spoke, wary of showing my teeth. My
fingers tapped at his desk nervously as he continued to stare at the
computer screen. Eyes widening at my mistake I quickly pulled them
back into my pockets, thankful he hadn't seen their black, pointed
tips.
'I haven't lied this much since I got caught stealing
apples.'
Lying to a cop, even if I was one myself, was doing
nothing good for my already rattled nerves.

Tapping his pen twice he
presented me with a small stack of papers. “Let's get this over
with so I can get out of here.”
'Alright, not the warmest
greeting but he does look like death warmed over.'
“I've
hardly made it home since this damned case started. Twelve murders
and it's only been a week. You'd think we lived in Old Chicago or
something.”
'Well that explains his appearance – wait,
twelve! My home town only had one confirmed murder in the past decade
and they've had twelve in a week?'
Plenty
of deaths, of course, but thanks to the Animator virus murders were
harder than ever to prove.

“
Are all twelve of them
related to this Chains person?” Twelve in a week seemed a bit
high, whether it was a serial killer or a vampire – though
maybe not if it were both combined. My bottom lip curled inwards as I
mused on the situation. Out of habit I started to bite at it before
my fangs made themselves known.
'Owe!'
My lips squeezed
close just in time as Fred turned towards me.

He slapped a pen down on top of
the stack. “Focus on the signing.”

“
Uh, right. Will do.”
A few calls came in while I filled out the forms, but nothing too
serious. Something which, now that I was about to start working cases
rather than reading about them, I should wish for. For the forms, on
the other hand, I sincerely dreamed of something a little spicier. My
final task before officially becoming a servant of the Republic was
proving to be at least ninety percent redundant. One page echoed
another which itself asked for information I'd already given months
ago to presumably the same department.
'Maybe I should have become
a secret agent. I bet they don't have to fill out paperwork. They
probably even get to shoot the fax machine if it gets too many paper
jams.'

Three
quarters of the way through the stack I remembered I was overdue for
my check in with Mom. She was a little excitable and the last thing
I needed was for her to call the captain to check up on me. “I'll
be right back,” I said in a rush as Fred shot me a hateful
glare.
'I really need a cell phone. Then at least I could have a
semi-legitimate excuse for skipping out on the paperwork,'
I
mused. It was a shame I wasn't still dating Alex. He actually owned
his own car so a cell phone was probably chump change. It would've
been a nice gift for our one week dating anniversary.

A telephone booth was right on
the corner. It seemed bigger than the one's I'd seen in movies, but
given that I was four inches shy of five feet that tended to be true
of a lot of things. Stepping inside the box I slid the latch shut,
marveling at the weight of it. The phone booth wasn't a leftover
from the twentieth century, but a newly-built public safety device.
The walls were double-reinforced glass and held in a steel frame as
thick as my wrist. They might not last long against a concerted
attack by a mob of undead, but with a little luck they'd stay up
until help arrived. It made me feel a little bit better about
standing out here so late in the day, but I kept a hand on the glass
to remind myself the transparent material was still there. Sunset
wasn't until after seven these days but the shadows had already grown
long enough to hint at things unseen.

What was I thinking? I was a
police officer now, and this was no time to waste watching shadows.
I popped in a couple credits and waited as the call routed into
Haven. The voice that answered was one very familiar to me. “How
are you doing baby? I hadn't heard from you so I was about to call.
You settling in alright?”

“
I'm fine, Mom. But this
really isn't a good time to talk, could I call you back later?”

My mother is like a tank in
conversations. There's really no stopping her until she runs out of
gas. “You're not getting mixed up in that serial killer case,
are you? He was on the national news last night. Oh and before I
forget, Holly wanted to ask you for a fake id.”

'
Yay
for my little sister roping Mom into her jokes.'
“I'm just
the rookie, no chasing after serial killers for me, I swear.”
I'd let thoughts of paperwork slide away by now, idly pacing inside
the glass booth. “No fake id making, either,” I added. I
turned away from the street at the end of my circuit, my eyes
catching Bruce's as he opened the station doors to walk inside. His
lips curled ever so slightly as he left me alone on the curb.

'Did he hear me from where he
was?'
Even if he had smirked for some other reason, the brief
hint of bloodlust I'd felt rise inside me even from twenty feet left
me wary. If he was human he might not have the strength to throw me
off like Alex did when I'd started feeding. Being a foot shorter than
him wouldn't count for much if my fangs were in his neck with my
super strength engaged. And, as disturbing as the thought was, I
suspected I wouldn't be able to bring myself to stop if he tasted as
delicious as Alex had. If he was a werewolf, well, that was no good
either. I hardly needed a second wolf-man out to kill me.

“
... meet any nice boys?”
I ground my heel into my toes just hard enough to be painful.
'Why
is it so hard to focus?'
I'd
always been a bit overly energetic at night, but during the day I was
normally focused and meticulous, even if I never did feel quite
awake.

“
Listen, Mom, this really
isn't a good time. I promise I'll call you back, alright? Bye.”
I tried to say goodbye cheerfully but I'm not sure I quite pulled it
off. She wouldn't be happy with me blowing her off, and in truth I
didn't feel right about it myself, but it had to be done. The world
was changing and far too quickly, but for the moment all I could do
was forge ahead as best I could.

I gave a quick check through the
glass for Bruce before heading back inside to take up my place once
more in front of forms. Fred seemed to have finished whatever
busywork he had left to do at the end of a who knows how many hours
long shift and seemed content to just stare at me. My left hand was
curled into a loose fist to hide my talons, arm across the page to
hide my right hand as I wrote but my confidence in the deception was
far from high.

My patience snapped. “So
what are those for?” I said, nodding my head towards a stack of
red-marked papers. I didn't like asking questions. People always
talked down to me if I did, and I was generally pretty good about
finding out answers on my own anyways. Well, whatever, it wasn't as
if we had great opinions of each other to start with. Besides, short
of saying Elvis was standing behind him I couldn't think of anything
else to divert his attention from me.

“
Ongoing missing persons
cases. Keep signing. I'd like to get out of here before sunset.”

I read through and signed
another page before I had to ask, “Is that number of cases
normal? It looks like an awful lot of people have gone missing.”

Apparently deciding he couldn't
trust my attention span he tapped
the
papers square and filed them into his desk. “Most are probably
just getting out of town. If you've forgotten, we've got a
serial
killer
on our hands, and we don't have enough resources to find every dumb
kid nursing a hangover at a friend's place.”

“
But
what if--”

“
If
what?” Fred cut me off, more annoyed than curious.

“
What
if there's a second serial killer?”
“Fine.” He
slipped a manilla file folder out of the desk and shoved it into my
hands. “You can go investigate that on your own time, not
mine. Now get back to work.”

Twenty
minutes later I was nearly finished. I pushed my hair back into
place and rubbed at where the sunglasses rested on my nose, leaning
back into my seat as I flipped to the final page.

“
What's up with the
shades?” asked Fred. My pen stilled immediately, hands growing
damp as I avoided meeting his gaze.

“
Nothing, they're just
comfortable.”

“
Why don't you take them
off for a moment while you finish reading the forms.” He seemed
suspicious now, and it didn't sound like a question anymore.
'Did
he catch a glimpse of my eyes?'
If
this sort of thing kept happening I'd have to invest in some
oversized sunglasses or maybe some colored contacts.

“
I can see just fine with
them on. These halogen lights always light up a room as clear as
daylight.” Brighter, really, considering how sensitive my eyes
were now.

“
Listen,” he said,
voice stern and thoroughly out of patience. “If you don't show
me your eyes, I'll have to recommend you for a drug test, and frankly
I'd rather go to sleep than fill out another request to the main
office. So how about you be reasonable?”

'Oh. So that's why he's being
so insistent. I wonder if entirely purple eyes with no sclera or
pupils was covered in the pupil dilation section of the drug effects
seminar.'
I felt unreasonably guilty, but as my tongue retested
the surface of my fangs I knew I had no choice but to keep him from
seeing my eyes. I stayed silent, miserably silent as I signed the
last page under his heavy glare. “Done.”

“
Great. Now get out.”

I felt my stomach twist inside
of me. “I'm not fired, am I?” My composure was suffering
but I managed to continue hiding my fangs.

“
...No.” He tapped
the stack against his deck, squaring the papers. “But even a
rookie like you should know that this sort of thing doesn't look good
on your record, regardless of how the test turns out.”

I wanted to cry at the
unfairness of it but I couldn't bring myself to hate him for just
doing his job, no matter how much I wanted to. I settled for deeply
resentful instead. “I understand.” My walk was not a
lively one as I left the station, though my pulse certainly quickened
as that self-observation hit me. My hand flew to my heart to take
comfort in its beats.
'At the very least, I'm a monster with a
beating heart, rather than some undead monstrosity. I can still have
a life if I learn to control this.'
I just wished I had something
better to work off of than obviously flawed movie trivia.

The street was lonely and cold,
and I was loathe to leave the protection of the station's light. Cars
still drove past with reasonable frequency but even this early at
night there were no pedestrians, no evening joggers, no feeling of
life. As armed as I was it was probably foolish but I couldn't help
feel a tinge of anxiety and fear. Though new to the police force, I
still had seen and read about enough tragedies to know that humans
weren't always the nicest creatures on the planet, even if zombies
were a rarity in Boston. More to the point, if my suspicions about
the supernatural were right then a normal human mugger might be the
least I had to worry about. Besides, being armed only went so far
without someone to cover your back.
'Okay, taxi it is.'
Making
a quick call from the station phone to the cab company I settled in
to wait.