No false sense of security for me. For all I knew, Ian had also been the recipient of strange metabolic experiments that let him drink like an Irish sailor.
But just in case I was holding an actual advantage, I pushed the conversation back to business. “So tell me, Ian. What do I need to know in order to get started with this case?”
“We’re not going to talk money first?”
“No. Money will depend on the circumstances. And I hate to make the comparison here, but think of me as one of those expensive boutiques. If you have to ask about the cost, you probably can’t afford me.”
He grinned, almost exactly the same way I do—no teeth showing, just a tight pinch of the cheeks. Oh yes. The wine was relaxing him. “I can afford you. I asked as a matter of curiosity, not concern.”
From underneath the table he produced a sealed manila envelope. He slid it across the table, and I took it with a question-lifted eyebrow.
“Do I open this now?”
“You can if you like. Or save it for later, whichever you prefer.”
I picked at the metal tabs and squeezed the envelope to make its opening gape. Within, there were smaller envelopes, documents with black bars all over them, and something with a CONFIDENTIAL stamp that had been stamped over yet again with a mark that read DECLASSIFIED. I didn’t pull any of it out to examine it then and there. He might have been comfortable with it, but I wasn’t.
He told me, “That’s everything I have, and it ought to be everything you need. The short version is this: A group of animal rights activists used the Freedom of Information Act to release a pile of paperwork that had nothing to do with animal experimentation.” He set his wine off to the left side and started using his hands to gesture in time with his statements. I thought it was kind of cute. He’d been so uptight and controlled when I first arrived, and here he was wiggling his fingers over the table.
Ian continued, “The military had been deliberately tweaking the documents to indicate that the subjects were apes and chimpanzees, though they had an internal shorthand that designates the falsehood.”
“What’s this shorthand look like?”
“For vampires?” He said the word in a normal speaking voice; I doubted we were overheard, but it still made me itchy. “It’s a nine-digit serial number that begins with six-three-six.”
“Okay.” I made a mental note of it and continued to gaze down into the shadow of the envelope. “That’s easy enough to remember.”
“And keep your eyes open for anything relating to Project Bloodshot,” he said.
“Keep my eyes open. Very funny.”
The look on his face told me he hadn’t noticed he’d made a joke, but when he caught up to me he laughed, giving me a flash of teeth. They were nice teeth—picket-fence-straight with good, uniform shapes and a milky blue-white color. I’m something of a connoisseur of teeth, I suppose. You can learn a lot about someone by his teeth. Or her teeth. Especially vampires. For some of us, hygiene goes out the window when our body temperature drops. We might not need much in the way of deodorant, but I swear—a little Listerine never hurt anybody.
I could appreciate the fact that he couldn’t see for shit, but he cared enough to keep himself presentable. That’s dedication, right there. Or maybe it’s vanity. I didn’t know him well enough to say.
“Project Bloodshot,” I mused as his wine-fueled mirth ran its course. “Tacky.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“So they pretended on paper that you were a chimp and tinkered with your eyes, and the animal rights people got hold of the news, and they were incensed on your behalf. Or they would’ve been, if you’d been a monkey. Do they know you’re not a monkey?”
“I hope not. I certainly don’t intend to set them straight. It horrifies me enough that the government knows we’re not a bedtime story; the last thing we need is for well-meaning hippies to declare us an endangered species.”
He was being funny. I liked it. The red wine brought a little color to his face and made him look softer, warmer, and more like an ordinary guy instead of a powerful creature who had been crippled.
“Good point,” I said. “We’re close enough to extinction as it is. But far be it from me to try and bring us back from the brink.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Once in a while I get the feeling that I’m the last of my kind, alone in a godless universe. And then I …” He was hunting for a word. “Detect someone. Or I learn of someone, like you. And I find myself speculating about mysterious characters in the news, thinking that perhaps I’m less alone than I think.”
He said it like it was a pleasant thing to consider. But then again, he was a little drunk.
We chatted that way for the better part of an hour while I waited for him to sober up, or for Cal to return. I didn’t know which would happen first and I didn’t want to leave him to his own devices. Ian Stott might not have been helpless by any stretch of the imagination, but it unsettled me, the way his eyes wouldn’t focus behind those lenses, and I worried for him.
My distress over his condition could’ve been as simple as plain old empathy. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see. It wasn’t his fault that he made me feel vulnerable, like if his sight could be taken from him, then mine could be stripped from me, too.
It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair—and as far as I know, neither is anyone’s afterlife. I hope I’m wrong and there’s a heaven or a hell, and that in the long run, everyone gets what’s coming. Then again, if we all get what’s coming to us, there won’t be anybody left to see the flash of light and the puff of smoke. So I guess I don’t really want to know. Sometimes I think I don’t want to live forever, or live however long a vampire can make it last, but then I wonder what happens next and I’m too chicken to die.
And then I see someone like Ian.
“Forever” loses a lot of its shine when you can’t see a damn thing.
At half past one, Cal returned. He didn’t come inside to interrupt; I saw him through the window, milling around in the cold. He stomped his feet and tugged an oversized scarf tighter around his neck, and I would’ve felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been too hip to wear a coat.
I could hear him, too—or sense him, or feel him, or whatever. He was sending out a psychic inquiry, the details of which I couldn’t discern. But I got the gist. He was asking if all was well and if it was time for him to escort his boss home. I don’t know if it was a school night or what, but Ian took the hint and signaled for the check.
I let him get it. He’d done most of the drinking, anyway.
2
Ian and I said our good-byes, and I said I’d give him a status update and a cost estimate within a few days. He agreed to this because—as he’d made clear—he was a man with reasonable expectations.
He knew better than to think I could fix his problem tonight. I’d need to pin down locations, study security systems, confirm specifics, and decide what equipment I might need to acquire. I own quite a selection of useful devices and helpful tools, but sometimes I have to order online just like everybody else.
There are faster ways to steal things, but none of those ways are very conducive to flying under any mortal radars.
Sloppy thieving leads to broken or damaged loot. Broken or damaged loot leads to a poor reputation; a poor reputation leads to fewer jobs; fewer jobs lead to lower rates; and lower rates lead to less money and eventual homelessness, starvation, et cetera.
Sure, I’m enlarging the problem to show detail, but you see how I think.
I could sit here and complain about it—the way I live in permanent consideration of how every slight slipup could set into motion a chain of events that will lead to my death, disrepute, and ruin—but I’ll restrain myself. I can’t really complain about it, since that obsessive instinct has kept me alive and fed for all these years.
It’s all my father’s fault, anyway. Isn’t that how it goes? We get to blame the things we don’t lik
e on our parents?
My dad’s been dead now for longer than he was alive, but he taught me how successful being crazy can make you. He was a detective, see. He worked with the Pinkerton agency in California, back when I was a kid, and he was one of the best damn detectives you ever heard of. They still talk about him out there, and there are still pictures of him on the walls, in the boardrooms, and in the offices. I’ve always had it in the back of my head someplace that Dash Hammett based Sam Spade on my dad, Larry Pendle, but that’s probably wishful thinking on my part.
I met Dash once or twice when I was little. He was a thin, handsome guy who was probably too smart for the room, but he didn’t try to lord it over anybody. I don’t remember much about him, except for him telling me once that my daddy was a great gumshoe, and I didn’t know what a gumshoe was. I wound up with a weird and deeply incorrect idea of what my father did for a living.
Anyway, I liked Dash. And when I sneak myself one of his books, every now and again, before bedtime at sunrise, I hear my father’s voice when I read along to Spade.
If it sounds like I’m digressing, that’s probably fair; but it’s not a pure digression, I assure you. I’m wending my way around to the fact that it was more than plain old money that made me take Ian’s case.
It was the mystery.
He’d told me that he needed to know the how, and that was fine. But I wanted to know the why. I wanted an answer at least as badly as Ian did, and I wasn’t even the victim of anything. It could be that’s half of what motivated me: the thought that if I didn’t understand it, I could fall prey to it, too.
But the other half of my motivation came from farther back in my brain, in the curious part that I inherited. It came from the spot in my skull that feels the burning need to unravel puzzles, finish crosswords, indulge in Internet games, and read all the mystery books I can get my grubby little paws on.
Like it or not, need it or not, and want it or not, I can’t leave a good mystery alone.
And Ian’s case was a mighty good mystery. There were so many questions lurking under the crust of that pie. How did Uncle Sam find out about us? What did the military want with Ian? Now that the army knows we’re a fact, what do they intend to do about us?
I had other questions, too, but they had the kinds of answers I could probably pry out of Ian if I really felt the need. Among other things, I wondered how he’d gotten caught in the first place, and how he’d escaped. The longer I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d let him out of the wine bar too full of unshared information.
It might be useful to me, knowing how he was captured and what happened to him while he was in custody. Then again, it might not.
I stuffed the envelope into my bag and began the walk back home.
All of it was uphill, but that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. And it was cold, but it wasn’t wet outside. I was feeling pretty spry about the whole thing. I had an interesting case—
Well, no I didn’t. Not really. I’m not in the business of solving mysteries. I’m in the business of making mysteries. But something must be hard-coded into my genes because I really loved the idea of solving this one. Or maybe I loved the idea of solving Ian Stott.
It’d been a long time since I’d hung around any vampires (by my own choice), and I didn’t miss them much. Even so, once in a while it’s nice to sit down for a beverage with someone who doesn’t require any explanations. I could’ve said things like, “Christ, the other night I came this close to snacking on a trust-fund gothling, just because I loved what she was wearing. That’s wrong of me, isn’t it?” And then my vampire friend could say, “Oh no, sweetheart, I’ve been there!”
Granted, Ian couldn’t have said any such thing. And this thought led directly into another, more personal one: How on earth did he feed? Did he operate by smell, or by hearing, or did the lovely and talented Cal bring him bags of O-negative on a platter? Come to think of it, Cal himself might make a friendly meat-sack. Did they even have that kind of relationship?
I know, I know. None of my business. But you can’t blame a girl for wondering.
At the bottom of my bag, my cell phone buzzed and tootled. I paused in front of a darkened shop window and retrieved it, saw the number, and answered it fast.
Without any fanfare I demanded, “What?”
A thin, whispery voice on the other end said, “I think someone’s trying to get inside.” The voice sounded scared and girlish, because let’s be fair—it came from a frightened little girl.
“Son of a bitch,” I swore. “Listen, I’m out and about, and I don’t have my car with me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“What do I do?”
“Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know,” she breathed. “He went out. What do I do?”
“Hide,” I told her. “Stay put. I’m on my way.”
I flipped the phone shut, threw it back into my bag, and started to run.
I suppose I should make a few things clear before I tell too much of this part. First of all, I wasn’t running out to save some scared little girl. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the little girl in question; she’s a perfectly nice little girl, so far as small people go. Her big brother is a bit of a dick, but he’s fourteen, so that’s to be expected.
I admit, to the casual observer it might appear that I’m a touch fond of them. But what I said earlier, about no pet people? That goes for kids, too. No pet kids. They’re not my ghouls. They’re my security system.
See, I own this old building down on the fringes of Pioneer Square. I think it used to be a factory that manufactured rubber products a century or two ago, but I’m not sure and I don’t really care. At present, this building’s job is to store my stuff.
Okay, so most of it’s my stuff.
Or at least some of it’s my stuff, and the things that aren’t my personal stuff are things that I personally have stolen, and that counts, right? Sometimes it takes a while for payment and paperwork to go through over some items. And every now and again a client will die or go to jail—leaving me holding the bag, or the diamonds, or the family heirloom, or the absurdly valuable painting, or whatever.
Anyway, this old factory serves as my personal, private storage unit for all the in-transit or in-process items that I would prefer not to keep around the house. Sure, it’s a bit of overkill. The place has four floors and eighteen-foot ceilings, and it occupies about a third of a city block in an old industrial neighborhood.
But nobody wants the old place, and as long as I don’t try to fix it up too nice, no one will even wonder about it. It looks abandoned, and I like it that way.
Hell, it is abandoned. Mostly.
Except for the kids.
And now one of them had called the number that she damn well knew was only for emergencies, and someone was trying to get inside.
If it’d been the police, Pepper would’ve said so. She fears and loathes the police like only a child who’s been minced through bad social service programs can. I’ve tried to explain to her that, at least hypothetically, the police are there to help—unless they’re looking too closely at my building. She’s tried to explain to me how she only ever sees cops when things are really terrible, and they only make things louder and scarier or worse. I maintain that we both have a point, but there’s only so much arguing you can do with a second-grader whose arm is covered in cigarette burn scars.
Her brother Domino is even worse. If I don’t keep an eye on him, he’ll deliberately antagonize the cops. One of these days that poor little asshole is going to end up dead or in jail for life.
And then who’ll look after his sister?
Not me.
No pet people. Even if they’re cute and slightly fey, and smart and somewhat needy. Absolutely not. It’s the cute ones you can’t get rid of. Just ask anyone who’s ever “kept an eye on” a stray puppy for a couple of days. You know what I’m talking about.
Also, forget everything I said be
fore about not being a rooftop-to-rooftop kind of jogger, because I needed to get some real speed going—and I couldn’t do it there on the street, in front of God and everybody. The best way to preserve my anonymity was to take to the higher path, and I don’t mean Zen. I grabbed a fire escape and climbed that sucker like a scratching post.
Once I made it to the roof I was home free, for all practical values of the expression.
From my starting point I was maybe a mile from the factory building. For the millionth time I wished that everything you hear about vampires is true. I wished I could fly, or turn into a bat, or do any one of a hundred useful things that would move me faster through space.
But I had to settle for the old-fashioned Run Like Hell.
Above the crowds, or at least the trickling late-night party-goers, I could go as fast as I’m capable—which, if I do say so myself, is pretty damn fast. I can manage a really good clip if the cityscape is even enough.
In the old part of town, most of the roofs are more or less the same height, give or take a story or two.
I took the longest strides I could, and I made the farthest, stretching leaps that I dared manage. I pitied anyone who might’ve been indoors. All the grace in the world isn’t church-mouse-quiet when it’s flinging itself fifteen or twenty yards at a time. I’m not very heavy—though I’m not sure how much I weigh, but let’s say 140 pounds. Still, drop something that weighs 140 pounds onto your roof from a great height and terrific speed, and you can bet it’s going to make an impact.
It was even colder on the rooftops than it was down on the street, though that might’ve been my imagination, or the fact that I was moving much faster. Above me, the moon spun low across the sky and a few watery clouds hung from the stars like cobwebs. In my ears there was only the rush of the frigid air, and the pumping and thudding of my feet and my heart.
I slowed down a block away from my destination.
No sense in announcing myself.
I scanned the area with every jump, straining to see the streets and sidewalks that surrounded my building. They were empty as far as I could tell, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.