3. At Least the Neighbours Are Quiet.
As a child, Lil had liked cemeteries. They were always quiet and peaceful, where no one could hurt you. That was until one day, while playing with some other kids, a decomposing woman had come up from her grave and told them to keep the noise down, they could wake the dead with that racket. After that, cemeteries were, oddly enough, never the same.
The cemetery she went to now was quite well maintained. Lawns were trimmed, headstones polished, and litter carefully disposed of in bins, occasionally along with what remained of the person who littered in the first place.
She made her way along the rows of neat headstones until she reached a large mausoleum. It was a cute marble number with small pillars, and had a large steel door with a sliding peep hole in it. Without hesitation, Lil went up and knocked loudly.
After thirty seconds, she got impatient and knocked louder.
“Come on, Bill, I know you're in there!” she called. “I'm just going to keep pounding until you get up and answer the door.”
A group of mourners gave her a quizzical look as they made their way past.
“The dead are so lazy,” she explained. The group walked faster.
Finally, Lil heard the sounds of footsteps coming from inside the mausoleum. The peep hole slid open and a pair of angry yellow eyes glared outwards, blinking in the bright light.
“It’s the middle of the day,” a weedy voice complained. “What idiot wakes up a vampire at this time?”
“Boy, someone got up on the wrong side of the crypt today,” Lil replied cheerfully, knowing it would get on the vampire’s nerves. “Are you going to bitch, or are you going to invite me in?”
“What do you want, Lil? I need my beauty sleep.”
“No kidding. I want to talk about the Vampire Slayer.”
The peep hole slammed shut. A series of muffled clicks emanated through the door as many locks were undone. The door creaked open.
“Fine let's get this over with,” the voice said in a very put upon tone.
Lil pushed the door open and went in. The vampire stood a safe distance back. He was a short bald man, with yellow eyes and tall, pointed ears. He wore a dark red dressing gown. And fluffy pink slippers shaped like bats.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “Close the damn door behind you. And wipe your feet this time!”
Lil sighed. She wiped her feet on the neat little welcome mat, and followed her host. He led her through a short, dusty tunnel covered by spider webs, and then down a narrow flight of steps that spiralled into the earth. He pushed through another heavy, steel door and into his lair.
Unlike the dusty mausoleum above, the vampire’s lair was decorated with all of the most modern touches. It looked like the interior of a penthouse suite. A comfortably leather sofa was set up in the living room, in front of a mammoth flat-screen TV. Other doors led to the vampire’s bedroom, study, and even larger bathroom that, as Lil recalled, was bigger than her entire apartment.
“Take off your shoes,” the vampire ordered.
“I wiped them.”
“Sure, but this carpet cost $1000 per square metre. And I don't trust you.”
Lil sighed, and took off her shoes. She dumped them behind a conveniently placed plastic pot plant, so their presence would not offend her host.
“I suppose you want coffee,” the vampire went on.
“Sure thanks, Bill.”
The vampire, William Frederick Fitzgerald de Hood IV but called Bill by pretty much everyone, mumbled something inaudible and went to the kitchen. Lil followed, and sat on a stool at the counter. She waited in silence as Bill turned on the coffee maker, yawning and stretching.
He poured out two cups. Lil drank hers enthusiastically. Bill made excellent coffee.
“This is great,” she said.
“It should be. Fresh from Brazil. None of that GM crap.” He yawned again. “Alright, Lil. What exactly is it that you think I can help you with this time?”
“Just thought you might have some info that I could use.”
“You and everyone else. Already today I've had that little upstart from the FBI banging on my door. Yesterday it was that shite Evan.”
“The Prince’s minion?”
“The very same. You’ve met then?”
“He hired me,” Lil explained. “To find out whose been killing those vamps.”
“Really scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said Bill scathingly.
“I'm not that bad.”
“Not that bad? Between you and that whack-job Tome, I’m surprised no one’s committed you yet.”
“Who says that they haven’t?”
Bill snorted, and sipped his coffee.
“What did the others want?” Lil asked.
“Same as you probably. To know what I know about the vampires that were killed.”
“And that would be...?”
“Nothing. Would you believe Agent Ryan wanted to drag me down to ID the bodies? Like I would be able to tell one street vamp from another. Honestly,” Bill said in an irritated tone. “Why is it that everyone seems to think I'm some sort of vampiric godfather?”
“I don't know,” replied Lil. “There is a slight resemblance to Marlon Brando. Plus that whole, killing people who piss you off thing.”
“I only did that once.”
“And the small, but somewhat note worthy fact that you own an awful lot of property in Chapter City, and control a somewhat sizable domain on which vampires tend to live and breed.”
“Listen, Lil,” Bill said defensively. “Just because I’m the most powerful vampire in Chapter City, doesn’t mean I'm interested in world domination. I am not some kind of coven leader, building up my undead forces so that I can overthrow the human government. Seriously, if I wanted that, I’d run for office. But why would I want to? I hate being in charge. All those whiny, cringing minions to beat. It gets old.”
“So what do you want?”
“To be left alone. Not to bugged every day and night by every vampire who thinks he’s in bloody Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don't care if you want territory to hunt. Hunt. Not my problem. You want to kill me and become the new lord of the night over my domain? What domain? I run a coffee shop for God’s sake.”
“Truly tragic,” said Lil.
“And even worse are these stupid humans like Ryan, convinced that just because I’m a member of the walking undead, I’m automatically up to no good. And because I have a little influence, I have a part in everything no good in this city. Like I’m some kind of bloody criminal mastermind. I don’t know every single vampire in this city, and I don’t know what they’re up to. So don’t ask.”
“Sure. Of course. That said, do you know a street vamp named Anton Philips?” Lil asked.
Bill opened his mouth to continue the tirade, then closed it again. “Okay, him I know,” he conceded. “Why?”
“He was the latest victim. Had his head taken off like a pez dispenser.”
“Yuck,” Bill groaned. “Don’t tell me crap like that, Lil. That’s disgusting.”
“Sorry. You did know him though?”
“Yeah, I knew him. Annoying little shite. Came bugging me about... what was it now? Something about a place to stay, if memory serves. I told the little freeloader to get a job. But, since he was so polite, reminding me of a little pug I once had, you know, with the pushed in faces?”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway, I think I might have mentioned something about a building he could temporarily stay in. An apartment block on Hilton Avenue, if I recall.”
“That’s where we found the bodies.”
“Damn. Murders always make the land values drop. I was going to sell that place. Someone wants to make a mini-mall there.”
“Cool. Think they’ll have a Starbucks?”
“Over my dead body. You go to Starbucks?” he asked in a hurt tone. “I’m starting to franchise now, you know. Getting my face out there.”
Lil rega
rded his pointed ears and yellow eyes with their slitted pupils. “That could be the problem. Anyway, when did you say you talked to Philips?”
“A few nights ago. Haven’t talked to him since.”
“And nobody else came asking about him?”
“No one. I mean, if some three ton vampire slayer came knocking on my door, I would have mentioned it.”
“How about the other two?” Lil asked. “I don’t suppose you know about them?”
“Like I told, Ryan: No.”
“So what did Mister Evan want?”
“Just interested to know about any street vamps living in dangerous areas. Please. Those areas are dangerous because the vampires live there. He was trying to make some kind of census of the Chapter City vamp living conditions, as part of the Prince's I-care-about-the-little-people policy. He's really eager to prove his worth to the vampires of this city.”
“Why?”
Bill Shrugged. “Who knows. Not because he cares. Trust me, I'm ex-royalty, and I never gave a crap about the little people. Respect is important to the old vampires, which is ironic really. Most of them only bother to acknowledge the lower classes when they look down to see what they’ve stepped in. But out here in Chapter City, I got to admit, it’s a little strange.”
“Yeah,” agreed Lil. “But why? Why is some stuck up, old blood, European prince here in Chapter city trying to impress the locals? What’s so important about the vampires here?”
Bill shrugged. “Nothing. But we’ve got the highest population of vampires anywhere in the world living in this city. Proper living, like out of the shadows. The old bloods, I guess they want to look progressive. Won’t matter anyway. This whole slayer thing is screwing things up for him. He can’t look good to the vampires of Chapter City unless he manages to stop them getting mangled. Which,” he fixed Lil with a steady look, “is where you come in. Don’t you find it odd that Von Drais would hire you of all people?”
“Not that odd,” Lil replied. She added, “Mike was out at the time. He couldn’t put him off.”
“What did he do, threaten you?”
“Yep. Threatened to pay me a crapload of cash if I find out who the slayer is. I reluctantly accepted.”
“Idiot,” Bill said sharply. He finished his coffee and rinsed the cup, returning it to the right spot in his cupboard. “You’d have to be insane to take work from a Von Drais. They’d kill you before paying you. It’s family tradition.”
“And I suppose you’ve never taken the easy way out of paying someone?” Lil asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Never. Well, once. Maybe twice. But that guy deserved it, trying to shaft me on the cleaning bill...”
Lil figured she was going to learn all she could, and possible more than she actually wanted to know about the eccentric vampire. “Well, this has been fun. Great coffee,” she said again, downing the last bit in her cup. “If you by any chance remember anything of importance...”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the first person I'll call,” Bill replied in a bored tone.
“Need my card?”
“No. I have you on speed dial, under: Irritating pest I wouldn’t bite to save my mother.”
“That you have me there at all means worlds to me,” Lil said with a smile.
“Yeah. Sure. Now, if we’re done, I need to get another four hours sleep, otherwise, I’ll be cranky for my meeting tonight. You know the way out.” With that, Bill turned and stormed back into his bedroom.
As Lil put her shoes back on, a gruff voice called, “And close the damn door behind you!”
By two, Lil was ravenously hungry. She stopped by the small diner located a few doors down from her office, and slipped into her favourite booth. She had already finished off a burger and extra fries, and was starting her second when Tome slid into the opposite seat.
“You know, your boyfriend Ryan is really uptight,” he said. “Nagged me the whole time, like an old woman. Don’t put your feet on the dash board. Don’t play the radio too loud. Don’t put that Anasasi snake charm in my glove compartment. On and on and on.” He emphasised this by flapping his hand like a talking mouth.
“Not that I’m taking sides, but that snake charm is just freaky,” Lil replied.
“You’ll thank me for having it if we ever run into any descended death cobras.”
“So what did you find?”
Tome pulled out his notepad and flipped to the right page, the one after a rough doodle of an Agent Ryan shaped figure getting its head pulled off by a demon. Lil thought the expression was a pretty good likeness.
“We were right,” he said. “There were the same designs at the crime scene. Written on the wall of the cellar the first victim was found in, and on the ground at the parking lot where the second was.”
He dropped the pad onto the table to show Lil. He'd drawn a quite good picture off the design, but left of a few sections so the circles were incomplete. Tome knew better than to write out a symbol of power, especially one you didn’t know the function of.
“The first was intact,” he went on. “The victim was Angela Smith. The second circle was broken up and worn away. I think it must be written in some sort of inter-dimensional ink, not visible to the human spectrum. Oh, and it turns out the second victim was a street vamp. Did you know that?”
Lil looked up. “He wasn’t pureblood?”
“Nope. Just an everyday git who happened to be a vampire named Jack Olsen. He was a night watchman at some shopping mall. He was murdered in the parking lot. The symbol was drawn in his parking space.”
“So, the killer does watch them. Odd,” Lil said. She shook her head. “So where’s Hugh?”
“He went back to the FBI to try and find a link between the victims, since we know the name of the second now.” He grinned suddenly. “He's also going to try and find out if there's anything in the FBI database about illegal fairy dust trafficking.”
“Um, why?”
“I told him the symbols were drawn in fairy dust.”
“Fairies don’t exist.”
“He doesn't seem to know that,” Tome said with a laugh. “Seriously, could they have picked a bigger git to run the DSC?” He reached across and helped himself to her fries.
“Give him a break, Mike. It’s like you’re picking on the special needs kid.”
“I know. It’s hilarious.”
She sighed. “So, what do we know about this?” she asked, holding up the notebook.
“Squat minus sod all,” Tome replied with his mouth full.
“It’s odd,” Lil went on. “It’s definitely not a summoning circle?”
“Not big enough. And why would you summon something on a wall? Besides, look at that writing.”
Lil examined the flowing script closely. Tome was right. “Not demonic. It’s too... graceful.”
“Yep. Far too neat for a Descended Being. Demons are barely literate as it is. And the symbol in the middle doesn’t look like anything from the Lower Realms.”
“But you can't actually read it, can you?” Lil asked.
Tome gave her a sheepish look. “Inter-realm iconography was never my strongest subject,” he explained. “In school, my iconography classes were with Heather Reilly. She sat two seats down from me. Suffice to say, my attention was elsewhere.”
Lil made a face. “Did you really drop out of the Academy?” she asked. “Or did they throw you out?”
He gave her a smug look. “I stand by my record. 182 consecutive breaches of policy, and not a single suspension.” His face clouded over. “Rather a lot of detentions though,” he added. “Which, reminds me. When I was at the Academy I had a friend...”
“You had friends?” Lil asked incredulously.
Tome considered this. “Well,” he admitted. “People who hated me least. Anyway, there was this one guy, a total nerd who always ended up being top of the class. A real over-achieving little pillock. You’d have liked him. Anyway, he had a real hard on for iconography. When he graduated, he
got a job in the Hall of Records. He does advisory work for the Regulatory Guild occasionally. The bastard. So, I figured if anyone could decipher this mess,” he held up the drawing, “it would be him. What do you think?”
Lil shrugged. “I guess it’s worth a try,” she said. “Since you've turned out to be next to useless.”
Tome made a rude noise as he stuffed another handful of fries into his mouth.
“In the meantime, where do we stand?” Lil asked.
“Well,” Tome said, spitting food. “I figure there are two alternatives with our killer. Either it’s some creature from our Plane of Existence that’s being called on the psychic hotline, or some inter-dimensional being that’s already been brought here previously.”
“Yeah, but neither seems likely,” noted Lil. “I mean how many Earthborn creatures can be summoned like this?”
“Not many, granted. Which brings me to my next point,” said Tome, pouring a whole heap of ketchup onto Lil’s lunch. “If you recall, after I made my premature departure from the Academy, I took part in a few ventures of rather, shall we say, a somewhat nefarious nature.”
“If that’s your way of saying you were a petty crook, I know already.”
“I wasn’t petty,” Tome replied innocently. “Well, during a quieter period, some of us stumbled upon a rather brilliant and simple money making scheme. You see, it turns out that the supposedly pure and sinless Ascended Beings have a rich market for certain substances of a somewhat illicit nature. Substance that can only be manufactured in places warm and dark.”
“Wait,” Lil interrupted. “Are you telling me that you ran drugs into Heaven?”
“Of course not. That would be illegal. We were just the middlemen. We had a guy down below who took the stuff, and passed it up over the border to us. We just kept the stuff safe up here, where it was more or less useless, before we passed it on to our, ahem, retailer upstairs. It was cheaper than just zapping it straight up to the Higher Realms, and people rarely noticed. But they had to transport it across each realm the long way. Hence us. But since the stuff was only dangerous to Ascended Beings, and since most of it wasn’t outlawed on this plane, the Regulatory Guild couldn’t touch us.”
“Clever,” Lil had to admit, though the idea of an Ascended Being like an angel being a junkie made her stomach turn. “So, what went wrong?”
“Usual. Someone got sloppy. There was a crackdown upstairs. Certain individuals were captured. A few were cast out. Our dealer disappeared. I think he’s haunting an out-house in Wales now. He left us hanging in the wind with a batch of worthless drugs that no one up here could market.”
“Aw. Sad story. And the moral is?”
“Never trust angels, demons, or people named Gerald. But my point is, to get the stuff out of the Lower Realms, we used a summoner. A low rent half-demon named Delios. He lived on our side. After things fell through, he turned to other business ventures. His latest is transporting illegal creatures from the Lower Realms up to our plane for sell on the black market.”
“What kinds of creatures?” Lil said with interest.
“Small stuff. Imps, wraiths, the usual minions,” Tome said with a shrug. “Nothing you’d really want as a pet. Imps are impossible to house train. My point is, Delios is continually making the trip back and forth across the dimensional barrier. No easy feat.”
“You think your friend may have taken the killer across the border?” Lil asked.
“Maybe. Or at least noticed something coming over. If our psycho of interest is from the Lower Realms, he would have made a big hole coming through.”
Lil considered this. She shrugged. “I guess we don’t really have anything else to go on. It’s worth a shot.”
Tome grinned. “Let's go then.” He made to leave.
“Hey,” Lil snapped.
“What?”
“You’re paying for my fries, you freeloader.”
“Sure,” Tome said, sidling to the door. “My wallet’s in the car.” He bolted.
Lil sighed, and made a mental note to take the price of lunch out of his share of the reward.