Vamp-Hire (11 page)

He decided to focus on her face, trying to
lose himself there. He could convince himself she was only
sleeping, that whatever had brought her to this place had been
peaceful.

That when she woke up, they would let her go
home.

Wait a minute. She did look familiar…? Was
she someone he knew from the Center or someone he had known from
before? Neither of those felt true. The more he studied the
contours of the face, the more certain he became. He had seen this
woman, and recently. His first thought was that she was someone he
might have passed by on the street somewhere. No, that wasn’t right
either. His acquaintance with her was more intimate, more… animal?
That was wrong and right at the same time.

Nick forced his hands onto the table, careful
not to let his fingers get within touching distance. He leaned in,
took a deep sniff. The acrid smell of her churned the oatmeal in
his stomach.

There was something… the smell of somebody
else. Also familiar.

He had no face to put with the smell and the
same sense of intimacy passed through him.

“Do I know this woman?” Nick asked. There
were two doctor-types who were standing on the other side of the
table. They looked at each other, said nothing. Nick looked at
Leonard. He couldn’t read anything off the man. He looked at Dolph
who was equally inscrutable.

Details swam to the surface of his mind in
pieces, like remembering a dream. Then Nick realized he had dreamt
this. It had been while he was staying at Lucky’s. Or rather, the
house where Lucky had been staying.

He was almost afraid to ask; it had to be the
reason Dolph had brought him here, though.

“I think I dreamed about her.” Nick stepped
away from the table and resisted the urge to wipe his hands off on
his pants.

“When?” Dolph growled.

“Two, maybe three nights ago?”

“Interesting,” Lieutenant Leonard said. He
placed a hand beneath his chin. “Go on.”

“I remember a guy in a panel truck. He called
out to her… with his mind, and she came.”

“What color?” Leonard said. “The truck?”

“White?” Nick wasn’t entirely sure.

“You sure, son?” Dolph fixed him with his
eyes.

“I think so. I mean, everything was through
his eyes. I don’t remember him looking behind him when he got
out.”

“Behind him…” one of the doctors said. Nick
turned to look and saw the woman with glasses writing furiously on
a clipboard.

“Alright, people.” Leonard clapped his hands
to indicate expediency. “Let’s get an APB out on a white panel
truck.”

“What are you doing?” Dolph stepped closer
and asked. “You know that truck is stolen.

“That’s right,” Leonard said loud enough for
the room to hear. “We’ll find all kinds of trace evidence and ID
this creep by his DNA. He’s a vamp, he’s been in a pen, and we got
a file on him. He’ll be locked back up in a pen by the end of the
week. Thanks for coming out, Adolphus,” Leonard said. “We’ll take
it from here.”

Adolphus? Nick thought. The name almost rang
a bell. He got a good look at Leonard and the man had a smug,
holier-than-thou look all over his face.

“Happy hunting.” Dolph nodded and they shook
hands. Nick hurried ahead of him, sweeping the black curtain aside.
Dolph’s face was a big angry knot and growing tighter by the
second. The guard was still waiting for them and he walked ahead of
them. Instead of taking them back the way they’d come, he took them
through what felt like a winding maze to a steel door marked
‘Exit’.

“You have a good day, sirs,” the guard said.
Dolph didn’t stop. Nick felt like he should say something.

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for having us.”

It felt wrong, incomplete somehow. He should
have said something more… official. Dolph was getting ahead of him
with those long legs and Nick had to hustle to catch up.

He could hardly believe it, but the man
looked even angrier in the daylight.

“Sanctimonious prick!” he said.

Nick only listened while he vented more
choice words, no doubt about Lieutenant Leonard. Nick had no idea
where they were. It seemed like they were going to have a long walk
ahead of them. Leonard had seemed a little jerk-ish, though not
enough for Dolph to be this angry.

He dared to ask.

“You don’t have any experience with
post-Conflict military from the inside,” Dolph replied. “‘Officers’
like that are the reason I retired.”

“I kinda don’t get it. What happened in
there?”

“He power-played me. We weren’t in there two
seconds before they were showing us the door, and the idiot is
chasing a dead end. Of course the panel truck is stolen. The
likelihood this guy is on any kind of registry is probably fifty
percent at best.”

“This guy—the killer— is like me, right? I
mean, he had to come from the Center too, right? Or the Pens?”

“Remember that one percent we talked
about?”

“Yeah. You said it’s a rough estimate.”

“Right. But the exact number of vamps—sorry,
I don’t know if that word offends you—who have been processed is
known.”

A light came on in Nick’s head.

“He may never have been at either place.”

They rounded the building and were greeted by
several aisles of cars. The big Hummer was farther back right where
they’d left it.

“The guy’s a killer, though. He probably has
a juvenile record or something, right?”

“Possible. With the knots the legal system is
in that’s anyone’s guess.” Dolph seemed to be calming down. “It’s a
good lead, but it’s just that: a lead. That idiot Leonard seems
like he’s hanging his hat on what you told him.”

“I didn’t think I’d given him a lot to go on.
I mean, for all they know I could be the killer.”

He expected Dolph to at least chuckle, maybe
the man was physiologically incapable. He gave Nick a very sober
look.

“You better not be.”

There were a lot of words Nick felt could
have come after those four that he left hanging in the air between
them. They made it to the Hummer and climbed in.

“A guy like Leonard will never catch this
killer,” Dolph said, starting the mighty diesel engine. “He can’t
deviate from his playbook. He has no vision. No guts to trust.”

Dolph was getting upset again. Nick knew just
the thing to head this off.

“Adolphus?”

“Dammit!” He slammed the side of his fist
into the steering wheel. “Anyone who knows that name, knows I hate
it. That bastard researched me.”

“Is that such a bad thing? That he looked you
up?”

“I don’t expect you to understand. It’s an
old guard, new guard thing. The rivalries between the armed forces
are more of a ‘mine is better than yours’ kind of thing. There was
still fraternity between us. There was always still cooperation
across the board, at least most times. These post-Conflict types
more often than not want their way to be the only way. He probably
got the word from on high to reach out to me and decided to do it
in a way to humiliate me to keep me out of it.”

Nick decided not to press any further. He
could understand a person not liking being called by his given
name; Dolph's reaction was on the extreme end of dislike. And there
was something more to it than simply disrespect.

They rode a while in silence, Nick
remembering the occasional landmark for reasons other than them
passing the other way a short while ago. There was so much of him
that was either gone or simply had never been there, like he wasn’t
a complete human being. Or human whatever he was. Nick had heard
the genus and phylum for vampires, homo vescus, but he didn’t know
if a new one had been determined for people with his condition.

He longed for the family he couldn’t
remember. Brief snatches of a mother sitting with him, reading to
him, stroking his hair. And a father, a single image of him sitting
at the breakfast table, a big cigar in his mouth. Nick could recall
no interaction with the man. He only assumed he had loved him. He
certainly missed them both. Nick wondered what had happened to
them. Had they died? Did they contract the same disease as him or
been part of the collateral damage of the Conflict?

“Where can I drop you?” Dolph asked. Nick was
jarred from his thoughts.

“What?”

“Your home. Where do you live?”

“I… the Pig. You can drop me at the Big
Pig.”

Dolph grunted. Whether it was in
disappointment or how the man laughed, Nick couldn’t tell.

They pulled into the parking lot of the Big
Pig a few minutes later. Before Nick climbed out of the Hummer,
Dolph turned to him, pulling something out of his pocket.

“You did good work yesterday. I can’t pay you
for that consulting debacle, though. It didn’t go the way I wanted
and I’m going to have to pursue this a different way.”

“So you’re still going to help out on
this?”

Dolph nodded. “There’s a killer out there.
And so far, only a gaggle of idiots have been looking for him.”

“Gaggle. Nice word.”

“You like that, huh?” Dolph looked out to the
street then back to him.

Nick opened the door and slid out. For some
reason he felt hurt. He had expected to go back home with Dolph for
some reason. To his home. Then he remembered Dolph didn’t know he
lived there and wasn’t supposed to. He would have to call Phoebe to
find out when this whole thing was going to be over.

“One other thing,” Dolph said before he
closed the door. “People like Leonard are famous for taking other
people’s ideas. I found you, but I don’t have a single doubt that
now that he has discarded me that he won’t come back for you. Be on
the lookout. And whatever you do, don’t go with him.”

Nick nodded. “Why?”

“You’re a disposable asset,” Dolph said. “We
used vampires, actual vampires, during the Conflict. People who had
been infected against their will who still had loyalty to humanity.
These new guard types would pump them for information and stake
them.”

The idea chilled Nick on top of the cool air.
He wanted to say that kind of thing wouldn’t happen, that he was
human even if his genus and phylum were still indeterminate. Dolph
wasn’t the one who had slept through the Conflict, though. Nick had
a pretty good education of the things that had happened during and
after, however had no firsthand knowledge.

“Take out your cell, I’m going to give you my
number.” Nick took it out of his pocket and turned it on. He’d made
a habit of turning it off when he went to bed so his sleep wasn’t
disturbed, but usually forgot to turn it back on. Dolph recited his
number and Nick saved it. “You see Leonard or even suspect somebody
in army fatigues is following you, you call.”

They shook and Nick shut the door. Dolph’s
Hummer roared off, heading in the direction of home. Nick’s
home.

He realized he was as frustrated as he was
afraid. He couldn’t go home because… why? Because Phoebe’s Pop-Pop
might throw a fit? If that had been all it was, he might go home
anyway and tell him to deal with it. However, Dolph was ex-military
and this morning had been enough to show Nick that, however
tenuous, he still had connections inside. Could he pick up a phone
and have Nick taken back to the Pens? Would he do that?

Nick couldn’t kid himself on that last one.
The man had been pretty solid on being protective of his
granddaughter. Even if for no other reason, he could be sure Dolph
would get rid of him to minimize the risk he exposed to her and
Randy. It wouldn’t matter that they’d been cohabiting for the last
three months or that Dolph liked him. Well, that part was just a
guess.

His cell phone chimed as he made his way into
the Big Pig. Nick checked it and saw he had a message from Lucky.
It was just in that moment, even though he was here to see him,
that he realized Lucky must have been waiting to hear from him.

Now that he had his phone in his hand, Nick
realized he had the perfect opportunity to get in touch with Phoebe
without having Dolph looking over his shoulder.

He called her and the line rang four times
before she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Oh, my God. Are you still with my
grandfather?”

“No, he just dropped me off at the Pig.”

“The Big Pig? Why are you…?” And then, as if
she had answered her own question internally, she said, “Oh.”

That’s right, ‘Oh’. Because I can’t tell him
to take me to my own house.

“When is he leaving, Phoebe? Funds are a
little tight right now, you know.”

Nick knew he was coming off as short,
however, it couldn’t be helped. He was being inconvenienced for her
sake, which had turned into his sake if he wanted to maintain his
freedom. He had to push to get Dolph out of his house so he could
move back in and stop risking himself on a nightly basis.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Where have you been? I
keep pushing, but my Pop-Po—grandfather—is stubborn. He’s convinced
I’m all alone and in danger out here. He just wants to see me
safe.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” He’d been
wanting to ask that for a while and risked the segue.

“Kansas.”

Nick had no idea why southeastern Michigan
had called to her, maybe it had something to do with her
grandfather being from this area. He didn’t press.

“You need to get him to go back to Kansas,
Phoebe. I can’t keep hanging around out here. And your
grandfather’s ex-military. With connections. That’s only trouble
for me.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can
do. Maybe I can give you some money. I’ll talk to him tonight.

“Okay, good.” The thought of taking money
from Phoebe agitated him. “I don’t need any money, I’m fine.” Then
he remembered what he had seen last night at the dinner table. He
wasn’t exactly comfortable asking, but the question had to be
thrown out there. “I need to ask you something else, Phoebe. Is
Randy like me?”