Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 5

  “She is.” I shrugged. “But if it makes you feel better, then you can call me semi-retired for the time being.”

  “How ‘bout I call ya’ full’a shit,” he grunted. “So…is it workin’?”

  “You mean the salt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think so.”

  “Prob’ly ain’t all that great for your blood pressure,” he commented.

  “And the pot said to the kettle…” I replied, implying reference to the overabundance of salt he customarily doused on his meals.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “So, since you brought her up, is there any word on Annalise yet?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve still got some feelers out, but like I keep tellin’ ya’, you’re askin’ the impossible. Last thing I heard was she lawyered up with some kinda high-dollar dream team.”

  “What good will that do?” I asked. “I thought there was a ton of hard evidence against her.”

  “There is,” he replied. “But she still gets ‘er day in court, and she’s got more money than God, so there ya’ go… Might not get ‘er off, but they might be able ta’ skate on the needle if they play it right. All depends on how good they are. But what the hell, either way somebody’s makin’ a paycheck.”

  I rubbed my neck as the pain ebbed, then I let out a sigh. With a little luck, maybe things were finally starting to loosen up, and I wouldn’t have to deal with the nuisance the whole day.

  “Do you think you could get me some of their names?” I asked. “Maybe I could come at it that way.”

  “Yeah, I can get that no problem,” he said with a nod. “But I doubt it’s gonna do ya’ any good. You’re pretty much the enemy where she’s concerned. Why the hell would they let ya’ talk to ‘er?”

  “I don’t know, Ben, but it’s worth a try.”

  “Well, personally I think it’s a waste of time, but then it ain’t my time so whadda I care.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So lemme ask ya’ somethin’ anyway… Don’tcha figure you and Firehair are in the clear now? I mean it’s been like what? Better’n two months now without a peep?”

  “When I’m able to undo that spell, then I’ll figure we’re safe. Not before.”

  “Yeah, well I hope that works out for ya’.”

  “Just keep trying for me, okay?” I asked. “And if you can get me the names of her attorneys I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Yeah, okay. That I can do.”

  I switched the subject. “So, enough about that. How’s Constance? We haven’t talked to her in a week or so.”

  “Pissy,” he replied. “But other than that, good…” A low trill started and began escalating in volume. Ben reached over to his wadded up jacket and rummaged around in the pocket while adding, “She’s got cabin fever if ya’ know what I mean. They’re gonna let ‘er start physical therapy next week, so I’m hopin’ that oughta help ‘er mood a bit.”

  I nodded agreement as he flipped open his phone then pressed it to his ear and said, “Yeah, Storm.”

  Wendy appeared at almost the same instant, carrying plates and the carafe of coffee. Settling the hot globe on the table, she shuffled one of the oblong dishes out of the crook of her arm and slid it in front of Ben then placed the other in front of me. Reaching into a pouch on her apron, she pulled out a bottle of aspirin and set it on the table as she topped off our mugs.

  “I’ll be right back with your biscuits and gravy,” she told me quietly. “Oh, and by the way, Chuck said since you’ve got to put up with Storm, breakfast is on the house this morning.”

  “Tell him I said thanks,” I whispered with a smile.

  “…Okay, and you’re sure?” Ben was saying. “Yeah… Uh-huh… Yeah… I’m not so sure I wanna do that…” He glanced up at me for an instant then looked away. “Yeah… I know… But, who… Uh-huh… Okay… I’ll see what I can do, but I ain’t makin’ any guarantees… Yeah… Okay, so when is that? Yeah… Okay… No, I’m throwin’ down some breakfast over at Chuck’s… Yeah… Prob’ly half hour, maybe forty-five minutes… Yeah…okay, see ya’ then.”

  “Problem?” I asked as I watched him fold the phone and tuck it away.

  “No. Not really,” he replied.

  I wasn’t convinced, but then again, I knew better than to pressure him about that sort of thing. Odds are it was work related anyway, so I definitely didn’t need to hear it. Instead of pursuing the topic, I shrugged and reached for the peppershaker, but as I did, a sharp twinge erupted on the side of my neck once again. I pulled my hand back and reached up to massage it as I had done before.

  “Neck again?” my friend asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, wincing. “I must have really seriously pinched a nerve or something.”

  “Maybe you should have it looked at,” he said, while liberally salting the mound of food in front of him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Or then again, maybe it’s somethin’ else,” he suggested, a mildly cryptic tone in his voice.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, shooting him a puzzled look.

  He slid the saltshaker toward me then reached for the aspirin. “Ya’ might wanna salt your coffee again.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Sure you don’t wanna salt your coffee?”

  “Ben…”

  He shrugged. “Okay, don’t blame me, I tried… So I know you say you’re retired and all, but lemme ask ya’ somethin’. Whaddaya know about vampires?”

  CHAPTER 5:

  “I get it,” I replied, voice flat and clearly humorless. “My neck hurts. Vampires. Witches. Very funny for a Halloween joke. Too bad it’s March and not October.”

  Ben shrugged as he tossed back the aspirin. After taking a swig of his coffee, he picked up his fork and said, “Yeah, well tell that to the girl I watched the coroner stuff in a body bag a few hours ago.”

  I stared back at him without saying another word. He, however, now appeared to be ignoring me in favor of the “coronary on a plate” in front of him. Of course, what he appeared to be doing and what was actual fact weren’t always the same thing, and I knew that, so I waited in silence.

  After swallowing a bite, without looking up he repeated the preamble to his question, “Like I said, Kemosabe, don’t blame me. I handed ya’ the goddammed salt.”

  “So you think your homicide case is why my neck hurts?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe.”

  “It hurts because I slept on it wrong,” I replied with heavy emphasis on each word.

  Unfortunately, I had a feeling what I said was for my own benefit as much as his. There was a familiar peculiarity about the pain that I had been purposely ignoring since its onset, one that transcended the boundaries of the physical. Now, of all things, I had a gnawing bother erupting in the pit of my stomach that definitely wasn’t a mere attack of hunger pangs.

  “Whatever you say,” he grunted, not even bothering to try hiding the fact that he didn’t believe me.

  “Come on, Ben… Even if I’m wrong, you aren’t seriously saying that you think a vampire killed this woman, are you?” I asked.

  “Didn’t say that,” he replied. “But you’re the one holdin’ your neck.”

  Out of reflex, I dropped my hand to my side, even though the pain had become sharper and more pronounced. “Dammit, Ben. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Just two and two, Row,” he said with a shrug. “That call was a status on the prelim from the medical examiner. I got an unidentified, very dead young woman with a hole in ‘er neck and most of ‘er blood gone, but no blood at the scene. Now I got the king of the friggin’ Twilight Zone—namely you—sittin’ across from me holdin’ onto his neck. Gimme a break… Do ya’ really think I’m not gonna at least ask?”

  “Fine, but that really isn’t the point,” I replied. “Be serious. You know as well as I do vampires don’t exist. Metaphorical vampires, as in people who prey on others, yes�
�� I’ll even give you psychic vampires because I’ve actually dealt with a couple of them myself… But, even then it’s still a metaphorical term. In the literal Count Dracula, undead, blood sucking sense of the word, they simply don’t exist.”

  He held up his free hand and shook his index finger as he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but what about the wingnuts that think they’re vampires?”

  “That’s a whole bizarre subculture in and of itself, and I really don’t know what to tell you there. It’s definitely not my thing.”

  “Okay, just wonderin’. They touched on some stuff about ‘em in a seminar I was at last year. The brainiac givin’ the lecture said there was a crossover with Pagans and the occult and all that jazz, so I thought ya’ might know somethin’.”

  “Paganism in general attracts all sorts of people, and it definitely gets its share of the Goth crowd, so it wouldn’t surprise me to get some of them as well. But as to the vampire types, I’m pretty sure the operative phrase there is think they are, Ben. Because that’s all it is. They aren’t really vampires.”

  “You don’t want to say that to them,” a familiar voice offered.

  We both looked up to see our waitress as she was sliding a plate of biscuits smothered in gravy onto the table next to me.

  I shook my head and apologized, “Sorry, Wendy. I didn’t realize I was being that loud.”

  “You weren’t. I’ve got really good hearing,” she said then pointed to the lunch counter a few feet away. “Besides, I was just right over there.”

  Ben waved his fork absently. “So you actually know somethin’ about these freaks?”

  “A little.” She shrugged. “Not a lot. I mean, it’s way too weird for me, but someone a friend of mine knows is heavily into the whole scene.”

  “You serious?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a nod.

  “So this person actually thinks…” he began as he settled the fork on his plate then reached over to his jacket and rummaged around for his notebook.

  Reading the unspoken question in his hesitant pause, Wendy answered, “She.”

  “Thanks… So she thinks she’s a vampire?” he finished.

  “Yeah,” she said with a nod. “And, she’s pretty serious about it too. The first time I met her she was really offended that I thought she was joking.”

  “So, what, she just walked up and said, ‘Hi, I’m a vampire’?”

  “Not right away, or in those exact words, but yeah, it was almost something like that. She brought it up while we were chatting. She told me she was ‘out of the coffin’ and just went from there.”

  “Out of the…” Ben muttered and shook his head as he scribbled. “Jeezus, you gotta be kiddin’ me.”

  “That’s apparently what they call it,” Wendy told him. “You know, like out of the closet.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he replied. “I just… never mind… So she just up and told you she was a vampire?”

  She continued, “Yeah. She called herself a sang vamp.”

  “So she’s what,” he chuckled. “A singin’ vampire?”

  She gave him a half shrug. “Actually, I guess so. She does sing with an all-girl industrial metal band. But the way I understood her explanation, the sang has something to do with blood.”

  “It’s probably verbal shorthand for the word sanguine, then,” I offered. “Bloody, or having to do with blood is one of its definitions.”

  Ben glanced at me and nodded then turned back to the waitress. “Hell, Wendy, sounds like you shoulda been givin’ that lecture… So are ya’ sure it ain’t just all part of her act for the band or somethin’?”

  Wendy shrugged again. “I don’t know. I guess it could be. She definitely dresses the part. You know, the heavy-duty Goth chick look. But, she claimed she actually drinks blood.”

  He harrumphed. “Not exactly shy about this crap, is she?”

  “Well, I’ll admit, after she said she was a vampire, I asked,” she replied. “Morbid curiosity I guess. But, I’ve never actually seen her do it myself, thankfully.”

  “Yeah, no shit… So, she happen ta’ say where she gets this blood?” he pressed.

  “Her girlfriend, I think.”

  “Is that your friend?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Mary Ann just tends bar at the club where the band has a regular gig. Desiree is the singer—she’s the vampire… I don’t remember her girlfriend’s name. She might have mentioned it, but she wasn’t there, so we were never actually introduced or anything.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  The sharp tone of a counter bell rang, and Wendy shot a quick glance over her shoulder. Turning back to us she said, “I’ve got an order up.”

  “Okay,” Ben said with a nod but didn’t let up. “So what’s this Desiree do? Go around bitin’ ‘er girlfriend on the neck or somethin’?”

  “I really don’t know, it was all just kind of implied,” she replied with a visible shudder. “And believe me, I don’t want to know either. The whole thing pretty much creeps me out. I only talked to her a couple of times, and these days I try to avoid going to visit Mary Ann at the club whenever they’re playing because they tend to attract a whole crowd of them if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, a bumper crop of freaks…” he answered with a nod. “Jeezus, that’s some fucked up shit.”

  “I really need to…” she started.

  “Wendy!” a gruff male voice called out from the area of the grill, cutting her off.

  “…go,” she finished. “Like I said, I’ve got orders up.”

  “Just a sec,” Ben said, holding up his hand to delay her departure.

  “Yo, Storm,” the male voice barked again from behind the counter, this time much closer and louder. “Ya’ think I can have my waitress back? I got customers wantin’ their food ya’know.”

  “Just a minute, Chuck,” Ben called back to him without looking. “This is cop business.”

  “Yeah, it’s always cop business,” he replied, voice not quite angry but definitely carrying an annoyed tone. “Ya’ got two seconds.”

  “Desiree…” Ben mumbled as he pressed his pen against the page. “How’s she spell that? S or a Z?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure the band is called Lilith’s Daughters though.”

  Ben jotted down the information then flipped his notebook shut. “Thanks, I ‘preciate it, Wendy. Guess I’d better let ya’ get back ta’ work before Chuck has a hemorrhage or somethin’.”

  “No problem,” she replied as she hurried off.

  My friend had placed his notebook off to the side and was now resuming his full frontal assault on the dubious delicacy known as a “kitchen sink omelet.” I watched him for a moment and then picked up my own fork. A handful of minutes dragged by as I pushed the food around on my plate, never actually taking a bite. It wasn’t that anything was wrong with my order, but the rumble in my stomach had officially morphed into a bitter churn of nausea in the wake of all the talk about drinking blood. Given everything I had experienced and seen over the years, why the conversation did this to me I couldn’t say. All I knew is that I was definitely hungry before the banter on that subject, now my appetite was beyond non-existent.

  “You goin’ soft on me?” Ben asked without looking up.

  “Maybe I’m just returning to normal,” I replied, pushing my plate to the side and cradling my mug of coffee.

  “Yeah, well, you know what I have to say about that.”

  “I know, Ben,” I said with a nod. “According to you, I ‘ain’t normal.’”

  “So, whaddaya got planned for the rest of the day?” he asked, sharply veering the conversation onto a different course before shoveling more food into his mouth.

  “Not much. I’ve got a potential new client who needs a quote on a custom database, but that’s about it,” I told him then embraced a sudden tickle of suspicion at the back of my skull and asked, “Why?”

  He shrugged, swallowed, and
then answered, “Just makin’ conversation.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “‘Cause you’re paranoid, I guess.”

  “When it comes to you I have good reason.”

  “Bullshit,” he huffed. “You know better’n that.”

  “Who’s shoveling it now?”

  “Truth? From what I can tell, both of us.”

  I contorted my face as I shook my head. “What did I do?”

  “Fed me a line of crap about bein’ retired.”

  “That wasn’t crap, Ben. I’m serious.”

  He gave his head a quick nod in my direction. “Yeah, well the way it looks ta’ me I think maybe your mouth is writin’ some bad checks, Row.”

  Upon hearing the words I shot him another confused look, but before I could ask what he meant I noticed that my hand had returned to my neck of its own accord. How long I had been massaging the area again I didn’t know, but it seemed my friend was at least partially correct—someone on the other side of the veil wanted my attention.

  In all honesty, I had expected something of this sort to happen eventually and because of that had already resigned myself to dealing with it. I just hadn’t been expecting the annoyance quite this soon.

  This certainly wasn’t the first time I had tried to renounce this curse of communicating with the dead. This go around, however, my resolve was driven by a deep fear. My unwanted ability had been bringing the horror closer and closer to home, and most recently the nastiness had literally set up shop inside my wife. While Felicity was able to find a thousand reasons why it wasn’t my fault, I could only see the one that laid the blame directly on me.

  I hoped that if I ignored the chatter inside my head for long enough, the disembodied voices would move on to some other unfortunate sucker. It wasn’t that I really wanted to wish it on anyone else. I simply felt like my luck was running out, so I was trying to heed what I perceived to be a wakeup call and get out while I still had some shred of sanity.

  “No, Ben,” I said as I started shaking my head. “I can’t do this. Not anymore…”

  “Didn’t ask ya’ to,” he replied. “All I did was ask if ya’ knew about vampires. You don’t, so no harm, no foul.”