Blood Work (6 page)

The phone
beeped and Ivan’s voice came through.

“You have a
call, Erin.”

She felt like
telling him to take a message. It was too late to be dealing with
anything else. Before she could say anything, Ivan continued.

“It’s
Sol.”

“Shit.” Erin
turned and hit the intercom button. “What does he want?”

“Ah, to talk
to you. You know I don’t bother him with silly little questions
about the details.” There was a blend of sarcasm and real
trepidation in Ivan’s tone. “Line one.”

Suppressing
several more grumbles, Erin picked up the phone, hit the flashing
line and said, “Hello, Sol. How nice to hear from you.”

“McRea.” His
thick Mediterranean accent moulded her name with new inflections,
none of them pleasant. “You didn’t take Heather Veilchen’s
case.”

Erin resisted
the urge to smack her head against the desk. “I don’t think the
case would be something Sol Investigations should become involved
with. She wasn’t willing to tell me everything, and won’t go to the
police, so it’s most likely not above board. Taking this case might
harm our professional integrity.”

There was a
heavy pause. Erin’s heart beat frantically, the usual response to
talking to her boss. It wasn’t often he called, less often he
visited. Despite the fact she’d worked for him for three years,
Erin was still nervous about dealing with Sol. She did her work and
she was good at it. He paid her wage, dispensed bonuses and kept
out of her way. Most of the time.

“And?”

And he somehow
always knew when she was holding something back.

“And I didn’t
like her attitude.”

Sol’s chuckle
was smooth, deep and chilling. “McRea, you know we don’t let
personal opinions get in the way of our client’s needs. Mrs
Veilchen has utilised Sol Investigations in the past, never with
any difficulty. I don’t see why she should be turned away this
time.”

A lump of
objection and fear lodged somewhere in Erin’s larynx, making it
impossible to produce further objections.

“You’re an
able investigator, McRea. I don’t think Mrs Veilchen’s missing
person case will take you too long.”

And that was
it. The case was on board.

“Yes, sir.
I’ll start first thing tomorrow morning.”

“No. Now.”

The door to
the outer office opened and a courier walked in. He handed Ivan a
package the size of a DVD disk. Ivan signed and the courier left.
Erin closed her eyes. It had been a while since she’d had the urge
to quit, but it was back with a vengeance. She liked her job but
when Sol got involved and made things like this happen, she wanted
nothing to do with it.

“How is
William?”

The question
would have sounded innocent coming from anyone else. From Sol, it
just sounded loaded.

“He’s fine,
for now.”

“Good to hear.
If you resolve this case successfully, there will be your usual
bonus at the end.”

And he hung
up.

Her strings
sufficiently pulled and tangled, Erin waved Ivan into her office.
He brought the package, already half unwrapped.

“Isn’t this
the same disk left with Mrs Snow Queen not five minutes ago?” Ivan
frowned at it.

“It would
appear so.” Erin took the disk and shoved it a little harder than
necessary into her computer. “Open a file, Ivan. Mrs Veilchen is
now a client.”

I came to in the back seat of my car.
Somehow I’d been accordioned in with little regard to my comfort.
Mercy then. Roberts would have at least made sure I had a clear
airway. All the abuse my body had taken in the fight was making
itself known and I really wanted to just go back to sleep, but I
slowly realised being awake wasn’t so bad, either. Waking up to the
sounds of tyres hissing over a rain-slicked road, the gentle patter
of said rain on the car and soft, hypnotic singing has a lot going
for it. They should bottle it.

I laid still,
trying to work out the song Mercy was singing. It was smooth and
gentle, lyrical and touching. One of Mercy’s favourites. One of
mine too. I hummed along.

Prying open my
eyes and letting them take their sweet time in focusing showed me
the passing sign for Ikea. I hadn’t been out for long. Cool.

Mercy stopped
singing and turned in her seat to look at me. She smiled. “Hi.”

I grumbled
something.

“Got your
money,” Roberts said. “I’m thinking, for a cut of the take, that I
should be a proper partner. I could handle the money side of
things, and the client care, of course, and Merce could do all the
fighting and you could do all the fainting like a girl bits.”

I grumbled
something else. Mercy checked my pulse.

“Sorry, but
you’re alive.”

“Want to hit a
drive-thru on the way home?” Roberts asked.

No grumbling
this time. Too busy keeping my stomach on the inside.

“Fine. I’ll
eat at your place then. Just hope you’ve got something other than
blood.”

Nausea
settling down, I drifted off again. Not completely, though. Passing
street lights streaked overhead and I numbly counted the number of
cars that passed us on the freeway. There weren’t too many. Roberts
believed speed limits were a personal challenge. Mercy reached back
and put a steadying hand on my chest when Roberts spun us off the
freeway and onto the Gateway Motorway. There was more traffic here
and he actually slowed a fraction, but still, we beeped through the
bridge toll in short order.

After that, it
wasn’t long before we were cruising across the Hornibrook Bridge to
the ’Cliffe. Redcliffe peninsula, that is. A nice, quiet little
extreme outer northern suburb of Brisbane. There are folk who live
in Redcliffe that think a trip into the city requires a passport.
For me, charging between the ’Cliffe and the Gold Coast, some
hundred clicks down the highway, is nothing. All part of the
job.

By sheer luck
or divine intervention, I’d managed to swing myself a pad in the
swanky ’burb of Newport. ’Course, the sales brochures don’t tell
you canal living not only gives you unlimited and easy access to
the water, but that it comes part and parcel with seasonal swarms
of mosquitoes and sandflies. And while my neighbours all had speed
boats and the like in their back yards, I just had a dock with
folding chairs and stained spot where the esky of beer always sat.
Still, my house matched theirs for size and compensation
tendencies, even if I only used the ground floor. I hadn’t been
upstairs in a while. It’s quite possible there were dust bunnies
the size of velociraptors up there.

Why had I
bought it? Well, let’s just say that at the time, I’d had a lot of
cash to spare and a few inadequacy issues. Same deal with the car,
but that I don’t regret at all.

Roberts eased
into the drive and opened the garage remotely. He pulled in beside
my Moto Guzzi 1200 Sport (yeah, okay, big issues) and stopped the
car. Mercy got me out of the back seat without too many whimpers
(mine, not hers) and we headed inside.

I was,
somewhat negligently I felt, plopped on my bed, fed several little
pills and left alone. After lying there for a while, I struggled up
and wrestled with my boots.

What
happened?

I nearly
jumped off the bed. Roberts’ sounded like he was sitting beside me,
but I was alone in the room.

I killed
the bad vampires,
Mercy replied.

Ah. That
freaking link. Open and channelling.

No, to Matt. I
know he went berserk, but he’s never crashed like that before.

Mercy took her
time to respond. There was a faint pop of a beer being opened,
followed by thirsty guzzling. Mmm, beer. Could I get Merce to bring
me one?

I… I tried to
whammy him.

This time it
was Roberts who took his time. From the sounds of it, he pulled
down the last of the beer in one go.

Shit,
he muttered.

I didn’t mean
to.

You never
do.

There was a
rustle and the fridge opened and closed.

What are
you doing?
Roberts asked, a tremor in his voice.

Matt wants a
beer.

Roberts
muttered something under his breath.
Well, he doesn’t need one.
Come on, time to get you to bed.

Things
dwindled into white noise after that. I let it put me to sleep.
When I woke up, I had an absolute mother of a headache, a back that
felt about a hundred years old and a distinct odour of stale sweat
about me. The time between falling out of bed and leaning against
the cold tiles of the shower of the en suite with scalding water
beating about my shoulders is best left in the depths of denial.
Very little of it was worthy of a vampire killer.

When I was
more alive than dead, I wandered from my bedroom and found Roberts
on the couch. The TV was on and some morning news announcer
mentioned a gas leak had caused the evacuation of Surf Wars on the
Gold Coast the night before. All of the kids playing laser
tag—where the leak had been centred—had recovered but a couple
remained in hospital due to a few minor injuries. Thankfully, there
was no mention of fang-wielding, melting bullies, or the crazy-eyed
man chasing them down. Either the kids had been convinced it was a
hallucination, or the media didn’t believe them. I’d be more
inclined to go with the latter.

“Fucking
luck,” Roberts muttered as I dropped into a recliner. “By all
rights your little rampage should have made headlines, but no.
Somehow no one ever remembers seeing the vampires or trolls or
whatever freak you manage to bag in full view.”

“It’s simple.
No one ever wants to acknowledge the weird. If you do, chances are
no one will believe you anyway.”

“Nah, that’s
not it. Must be dumb luck. Yeah, just dumb fucking luck.”

“Nice towel,”
was my entire response.

Roberts had
obviously made use of the upstairs bathroom. I kept towels there in
case I ever had guests. In the ongoing battle to see me ‘settle
down’, my mum had given them to me with the hopes they would be
used by a female guest with more class than to use any towel I
might have actually bought for myself. They were yellow with pink
flowers embroidered on them. And they weren’t made to go around a
man’s waist with room to spare.

“Yeah, well, I
wasn’t touching those rags you have in your en suite. You do have a
laundry in this white elephant, don’t you?”

I
shrugged.

The tickertape
thing at the bottom of the screen announced it was nearly nine a.m.
If I’d had any energy I would have panicked. As it was, all I could
manage was a half-hearted grunt.

Roberts, it’s
sad to say, knew me pretty well. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m going to
miss a meeting with my therapist.”

“Aren’t you
done with the head shrinking yet?”

“The first
lot, yeah. This is the second. Court ordered. For some reason, I
just keep losing my temper in public places. It usually ends in all
sorts of trouble, like destruction of public property, threatening
behaviour, indecent exposure. Cops and judges like to attribute
that sort of thing to a lack of control and think it can be fixed
with learned talk.”

Roberts
laughed so hard he nearly lost his towel. “Indecent exposure. I
didn’t hear that story. I hope it’s a good one.”

“Female ghoul.
Thought I was coming on to her.”

Wiping a tear
from the corner of his eye, Roberts settled himself down. “Where
was Merce while you were romancing the ghoul?”

I glared at
him. “In about the same position you are now. Picking herself up
from an amusement induced fit.”

Roberts got
up, modestly clutching the towel to his groin. He patted me on the
shoulder as he went past. “And you say she’s not human. I’m going
to find something in your closet I would be seen dead in, then
you’re driving me home.” His chortling echoed around the room after
he left.

There was
nothing much else of interest on the TV. I turned it off before the
inhumanly wide and bright smiles of the breakfast crew could blind
me. Stomach rumbling, I went to the kitchen and began the great
quest for nutrition. Even Indiana Jones would have found it tough
going. In my dozy state, I opened the cupboard that hid the blood
fridge instead of the one that upon occasion had cereal.

Crap. Roberts
put Mercy to bed, but I bet he didn’t think to feed her first. I
grabbed out a couple of bags, one O positive and one A positive.
Both were just over their expiry date, but that didn’t bother Mercy
and it was the easiest way to keep her supplied with food. The Red
Cross didn’t take back stock from the laboratories that performed
blood banking and I had a couple of contacts still in the game who
smuggled me out the stock about to expire.

Bags of blood
in hand, I went to see Mercy.

Her room was
in the middle of the house. On the original plans, the room was
supposed to be a home cinema. I’d opted out of that and turned it
into a haven from sunlight for the vampire.

I’d reinforced
the walls with steel bars as thick as my wrist and partitioned off
the front of the room with more bars. Yeah, I kept her in a cage,
but it was the best-outfitted cage you’ve ever seen. A double bed,
a La-Z-Boy, a little plasma screen and DVD player, bookshelf with
all sorts of books (mostly unread), a shower and a closet for the
scraps of material she and various names-on-labels generously
called clothes. She lived better than me. I didn’t have a
plasma.

Mercy wasn’t
snuggled up in bed like all good and not-so-good vampires should
have been. She was pacing back and forth, dragging in heaps of air
like a pearl diver getting ready for a long descent. Her shoulders
rolled and her hands opened and clenched spasmodically. In the dim
light cast from the open door behind me, her eyes flashed silver.
Her pink tongue flicked over her fangs.