Shreiber and Tome: Unlucky Vamps

  4. That is a Nice Dress.

  “What’s this half-demon like?”

  Tome thought carefully before answering. “Well, let’s just say that even by our standards, he’s a little odd.”

  He knocked on the door. A high pitched voice called out in sing-song, “Coming! Just a moment, lovey!”

  Lil gave Tome a look. He gave her a weak grin back.

  The door of the apartment swung open dramatically. To say that Lil was unprepared for what waited within was like saying the Donner party were a tad incautious about food supplies and weather. The creature that opened the door was male, but clad in the most garish blue sequinned gown that she had ever seen. His face was covered in make up, including lip stick. Two horns protruded from the top of his head, through holes cut into a hideous blond wig.

  A cross dressing demon, Lil thought. Now I’ve seen everything, and more than I ever wanted.

  Delios had opened the door with a dramatic flourish. The smile on his made up face vanished when he spotted Tome.

  “You,” the Half demon said, his feminine voice giving way to a deep growl. “What do you want?”

  “What?” Tome asked innocently. “Can’t a friend drop by to say hello? Nice dress.”

  With his usual tact, Tome pushed past and went in uninvited.

  “Wow, you’ve done good for yourself,” Tome noted as he looked about the neat apartment.

  “No thanks to you!” Delios snapped. Lil just had time to jump inside before he slammed the door shut. Why did she let Tome do the talking?

  “You’re not still angry about that thing with puppies,” Tome asked in bored tone.

  “Puppies?” Lil asked before she could stop herself.

  “Possessed puppies,” Delios corrected. “Of course, you didn’t mention that they were possessed. Or stolen. They were projectile vomiting everywhere. It was ghastly. Then the Guild show up to confiscate everything. I just.... Ooooo...” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t need this today. In with love, out with anger. In with love, out with anger...” he chanted.

  “Look,” Tome said, in what he thought was a reasonable tone of voice. “This all happened ages ago, let’s let bygones be bygones, okay?”

  “A long time ago?” Delios glared. “It was last week.”

  It was Lil’s turn to glare. “Last week?” she asked. “That was your important business? You left me hanging out in the sewers alone looking Freda Jenkins prized rat collection while you peddled demonic puppies?”

  “Well...” said Tome. “If you say it like that, anything can sound bad.”

  “You are the most...” Lil started.

  “Just a selfish little...” joined in Delios.

  “Irritating...”

  “Oh, fine,” Tome threw up his hands in defeat. “Let’s all blame Michael Tome. Why not? Everyone else does.”

  “He is such a jerk,” Lil said to Delios.

  “Oh, don’t get me started, girlfriend,” Delios replied. “You know this one time...”

  The two of them went off to the bedroom complaining. Tome rolled his eyes and followed.

  “So what do you two want?” Delios asked shortly. He opened his enormous walk-in wardrobe and was shorting through what looked like the entire stock of a large shoe shop.

  “Well, Delios...”

  “No, not Delios,” the half demon said, switching back to his female voice. “Today... I am Delia.”

  “Right...” Lil said slowly. “Well... Delia. We were wondering if you could help us with an investigation. I’m sure you’ve heard about the whole Vampire Slayer killings...”

  “Oh, yes. The whole thing is simply ghastly. I don’t like vampires. Vile things. But to end up like that.” He shuddered.

  “Well, we think it’s possible a Lower Being was involved. Possibly something that crossed over illegally...”

  “Oh, I see,” Delios/Delia interrupted. “And you think that just because I’m a half-demon with criminal links, you think I have something to do with it?”

  “When was the last time you crossed over yourself?” Tome asked bluntly.

  “I’ll have you know, Michael Tome, that I have been on the straight and narrow for the past six months,” Delios replied in a hurt tone. “All that foul business is in the past. I am an entertainer now, with a glorious singing career, and a rapidly growing fan base. You may have seen my face on posters.” He smiled and stared off into space.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Lil with recognition. “The Devil in a Blue Dress. Hey, you're pretty good.”

  “Pretty good? Darling, I am positively transcendent.” He turned back to Tome. “Now why would I need to do anything illegal with my growing fame and fortune?”

  “Because you, like me, have one foot in the dark side,” Tome replied. “And once in, it doesn’t come out.”

  Something happened. For a brief moment, Delios's features changed. Under the hideous makeup, his face shifted from that of a man, into something more bestial. Lil shuddered and took an involuntary step back.

  Delios smiled. It was cold and cruel. “Oh, of course,” he said, still with his falsely high voice. It only added to his hidden menace. “You know more about the Darkness than I do, don’t you Michael? Tell me, sweety,” he turned to Lil. “Has Mike ever told you about his trip down below?”

  Lil nodded. Tome had told her all about that. He was the only person she knew who had travelled through the Lower Realms and come back unharmed. Not just to Hell. Hell was in the mid range of the Lower realms, and often visited by many. You could get frequent flyer miles. Where Tome went had been far worse. He had gone past Hell, deeper into the Lower Realms than most other Descended Beings had ever gone, or dared to go. He had gone to the Lowest Realm, at the bottom of the universe, where there was nothing but darkness.

  The Eternal Darkness, the antithesis of creation. If you could truly have an opposite to God, then that was it. What it’s exact nature was, Lil didn't think she wanted to know.

  Of course the exact reason why Tome had gone there in the first place was a mystery. The one time she pressed, Tome had cited “employment opportunities”.

  “No one goes down that deep without being changed, do they Michael?” the demon purred. “They say you take the Darkness back with you and carry it where ever you go. Is it true?

  Tome stared back blankly. Then he grinned. Not even the demon had any defence against that.

  “Sure,” Tome said cheerfully. “I have the darkness in my soul. You know, what little soul I still have left. But on the bright side, at least I don’t have a fat arse.”

  Lil would have expected a normal demon to have jumped up and ripped a person apart for insulting them. That is, if demons responded to remarks about their rear ends. Delios looked as though he had been slapped.

  “How dare you?” he cried shrilly. “There is nothing wrong with my posterior, thank you! Get out!”

  “First you talk. You’ve been to the Lower Realms lately, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything, now get out this instant!” He pointed in the direction of the door. “I'm warning you, Michael Tome, if you don’t leave right now I’ll...”

  Plop.

  With that audible sound, Delios’ arm fell off. One second it was attached, held outstretched with one finger pointing for them to leave, and the next it was lying prone on the floor. The demon stared at it in shock. His gaze slowly rose to meet Tome’s smug grin.

  “Okay,” he said in his real voice. “I can explain this...”

  “Let me guess,” Lil put in. “That was the Body Plop.”

  “Astute as always, Lil,” said Tome. “Our friend Delia here is lying. She has been to the Lower Realms. And she’s been playing with the livestock.” Before anyone could stop him, he stooped down and picked up the arm. He made a careful examination of the stump. “No blood. Everything’s sealed up. But these are fresh wounds wouldn’t you say?” He held it out to Lil, who backed away quickly.

&
nbsp; “Keep that thing away from me,” she said looking just a little bit freaked out.

  “Oh, don’t be such a drama queen. You’d think you'd never seen someone’s arm fall off before.” He pointed to small scars around the edges of the stump. “Sutures. She’s sewn this arm on before. You’ve had CBP for at least two weeks now, haven’t you?” he asked Delios.

  Delios glared. “I got it from a crate of dresses,” he said unconvincingly. “There was a rat inside. A big one.”

  “The only rat here is you, you ugly, fat arsed, demonic transvestite. Spill.”

  Delios exhaled sharply. “Well, give back my arm then. I need to sew it back on before the show.”

  Tome handed it back. Delios snatched back his arm and went to the dresser. In one of the drawers, there was large stockpile of surgical thread and needles.

  “Alright, I admit it, I went to the lower realms,” Delios said. “Once. Three weeks ago. I needed the cash, so I took back a few of the locals who were looking for employment.”

  “What kind of locals?”

  “Mostly imps. A couple of lower demons, and a troll. Nothing serious. Nothing like what you’re after.” He threaded a needle, but had trouble keeping his arm in place. “Can I get a hand here?”

  Tome went over to help. Lil looked away, regretting the huge lunch she had eaten as Delios started sewing his own arm back on.

  “Uh, what happened to all of those creatures,” she asked.

  “Sold them. The Troll works for Microsoft now, would you believe.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No.” There was something about his tone that Lil didn't like. He was lying.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m- OW!” Tome jerked the arm around sharply, pulling at the stitches. “Hold that still!”

  “Are you sure?” Lil repeated.

  Delios rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright. There was something else. But don’t ask me what it was. It looked pretty, and it was a steal at such a low price. And you could tell that the Descended Being who had it was desperate to be rid of it...”

  “What was it?”

  “Just a stone,” Delios said innocently. “Like a crystal, about so big,” he held his thumb and forefinger apart a few inches. “It could glow in the dark. It was so bright I had to keep it in a locked drawer. Sometimes it would vibrate so hard I thought it would explode. I figured it would have made a great finale to my show.”

  “Did you sell it?”

  “A guy made me an offer I could not refuse.”

  “What did he look like?” Lil asked sharply.

  “He was a vampire,” Delios said. Lil’s interest peaked. “Pale skin, big teeth.”

  “Could you be a little more specific?”

  “No, I can’t,” Delios snapped. “They all look the same to me.”

  “When did you sell it?”

  “About, oh, two weeks ago. Monday I think.”

  “A day before the first killing,” Lil noted. She looked at Tome, who nodded.

  “Now, if there’s nothing else,” Delios snapped. He finished reattaching his arm and flexed it experimentally. “I do have a show to prepare for. So if you don’t mind.” He waved them away.

  Tome took one of their business cards out of his pocket. “If anything else comes to your devilish little mind,” he dropped the card down the front of Delios’ dress. “Give us a call.”

  “Pig.”

  The two of them left. The sound of Delios exercising his vocal cords echoed down the hall as they waited for the elevator.

  “You will wash your hands before you touch anything right?” Lil asked. She was keeping a safe distance back from him. “You don’t want to catch CBP.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been having my shots. I have to after my last summoning mishap.”

  “What, that thing with the rabbits?”

  Tome shuddered. “I thought we were never going to speak of that again.”

  “Sorry. You think Delia’s crystal has something to do with this case?” Lil asked.

  “Maybe. I think I have an idea about our summoning circle. It’s written in just ink, nothing magical, just outside of human vision, right. So, it probably has to signal our killer, somehow. What did that crystal sound like to you?”

  “What?”

  “A soulstone. I bet that’s what the summoner uses. He makes ink out of the soul stone. All you would need was a bit. Whoever, or whatever, has its soul in there, is called by his own power written at the crime scene.”

  “But then, he might not be killing these vamps under his own control,” Lil realised. “Whoever has the soulstone would be able to control him. Either blackmail, threats, or just plain domination. The summoning circle calls him, and demands that he kill the vamp whose name is written in his own soul. Freaky. It probably would explain why no one noticed the killer crossing over. Would he have gotten dragged along with the soulstone?”

  “Probably. A soul can't be in the different realm from the body. And a vampire has it,” Tome remembered. “What do you think about that?”

  “Nothing new about vamps killing vamps. What we still lack is a motive. And we still have no clue what this creature is. We should call Hugh Ryan. See if he found anything, and to tell him what we have.”

  “You know, Lil,” Tome said in complete seriousness. “The only reason I bailed out on the rat hunt last week was because I trying to get money for your birthday present.”

  “What?” she asked in amusement. “The cookbook?”

  “Well, how much do you think I'm going to get for selling possessed German Shepherds?”

  “Forget it. Sorry I called you a jerk.”

  “Hey, I've been called worse today.”

  They went back to the office to organise their thoughts. Tome emailed his old “friend” from the Academy and sent him a copy of the strange diagrams they had uncovered. He spent the next hour restudying the art of summoning circles on one of the online magical databases which contained most of the documented knowledge on the supernatural world.

  Meanwhile, Lil was arranging all that they had known into a neat (to her) flow chart on the whiteboard mounted in their office. In the end, it hardly amounted to much. They knew that someone, probably a vampire, had purchased what was most likely a soulstone from Delios the cross-dressing half-demon, AKA Delia, the Devil in a Blue Dress. This vampire most likely knew the victims, had watched them, and learned their routines well enough to be able to plant summoning circles into areas they frequented.

  Exactly why the victims had been chosen was still a mystery. Ryan’s phone line had been busy when they tried to contact him. Lil doubted he would discover any obvious connection between the three targets. If there was one, it probably wasn’t something conventional.

  Around five, Amy their secretary came in with coffee, and to complain about overtime. She looked over them in surprise.

  “Jeez, you guys are really working hard on this one,” she said in shock. “You look almost professional.”

  “We are professional,” Lil said shortly. “Is this decaff?” she asked about the coffee. “Because if I don’t get caffeinated I’m gonna be grumpy all night.”

  “You’ve been caffeinated all bloody day,” Tome complained. “You were like a hummingbird in the car trip. Buzz buzz buzz.”

  She stuck out her tongue. “What have you found?”

  “Not much we didn’t already know,” Tome replied. “The kind of summoning circle used was rather archaic. But the spell itself is pretty simple. Like we thought, being written in the creature’s soul calls to it. The emblem in the centre is its symbol, like its name. The name of the victim needs to be complete to be effective. Complete birth name, including all middle names.”

  “So the summoner would have needed to know the victims’ whole names, even if they changed it. Who could have access to that kind of info?”

  “Anybody. You just have to ask the right people. Hell, you could just introduce yourself and mo
st buggers would give you their full name. That’s why I never give out my real name. Never know what someone could do with it.”

  “What real name?” asked Amy. “Michael Sinclair Anthony Saint-Tome?”

  They looked at her.

  “How the hell do you know that?” Tome asked angrily.

  “How do you think? I’ve been answering your calls for the past year. You know how often your mother calls you? She has issues. I think talking to her alone deserves hazard pay.”

  He opened his mouth to retort, but Lil cut him off.

  “Wait a sec. We’re missing something,” she said. “Exactly how long would the circle need to be there before it takes affect?”

  “It should take affect the second it’s finished, if it’s done right. Its power wanes as time passes, since the circle would slowly get worn away.” Tome slowly cracked a grin. “Hey, good thinking, blondie. If the summoner wants to properly signal his creature, he needs to draw the circle just before the victim arrives. He might do it just before the crime takes place.”

  “But no witnesses ever saw anybody leaving the crime scenes,” interjected Amy. “They said so in the paper.”

  “Yeah. No one saw the killer coming or going,” replied Lil. “This wouldn’t have been the killer. It could have been, what, one or two hours before?”

  “Something like that,” agreed Tome.

  “We should get Ryan to reinterview the witnesses. How many were there?”

  “One guy, found the body of the second victim in the car park. And the one who found the last...”

  The phone rang, interrupting their train of thought.

  “If that’s my mother,” Tome told Amy as she went to answer. “I’m not in. In fact I died a week ago.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Shreiber and Tome Investigations... Hang on.” She held the phone out to Lil. “I think it’s that FBI guy who hates you.”

  Lil took the phone, “Hugh?”

  “Lil,” Ryan's voice came over. “There's been another murder.”

  “What? When?”

  “Just now, a few moments ago at a Seven-Eleven. I’m almost there now, I just thought you might like to take a look. You can bring Harry Potter if you really have to.” He gave her the address.

  “Hey, thanks, Hugh. Be right there. We’ve found out-”

  “Tell me later,” Ryan said curtly, and hung up.

  “That Hughbert?” asked Tome.

  “There’s been another,” Lil replied making for the door.

  Tome sighed. “Yay. See how fast I go.”