Another evening, another cheating spouse to check out. It paid the bills.
The spouse in question, pudgy and bearded, was sitting at the back of a bar. I sat up front, but I could watch him (and snap some quick surreptitious photos) as he made out with a young, woman—busty, blond—between drinks. I sipped a beer. So far the night had been quiet and easy.
Then the trouble started.
The front door opened with a bang. About half of the customers—including me—looked up instinctively to see who was coming in. Someone we know? Someone hot? Someone looking for a fight?
A young guy in a leather jacket and sweaty gray hoodie pushed through the door. He stumbled across the hardwood floor and leaned against the bar near the cash register, two stools away from me. Dirty blond hair and two days’ worth of stubble. He drummed his fingers, waiting for the bartender.
The night was fairly busy, so five minutes passed before the cute blonde bartender, in a T-shirt and jeans, made her way to the end of the bar. “Hi!” She had to shout above the jukebox playing a rap tune. “I’m Jackie! What can I get you?”
He unzipped his jacket. “All the money.”
The handgun in his fist looked as big as my Honda.
Jackie froze. “Wh-what?”
The handgun roared. Maybe he hadn’t actually planned to pull the trigger, but the bullet shattered two bottles of very expensive vodka behind her.
Someone screamed.
“Okay, okay!” Jackie turned to the cash register, her arms shaking—along with the rest of her body. “Just a minute, just a min—”
The robber fired again, into the ceiling, shattering a light fixture. Half the bar went dark. “Come on! Faster!”
It wasn’t a panic—not yet. Some people froze, while others ducked beneath the bar or edged for the rear exit. A few held up their phones to take video. The jukebox kept blaring.
I stayed put, my hands on the bar, calmly debating my options. Well, no—actually I was too scared to move, and aside from the gun I focused most of my concentration on not soiling my pants. I’m a private detective, but not the hardboiled, trouble-is-my-business kind. More the “Holy cow, I’m going to get killed?” kind.
Jackie was yanking cash from the register and dumping it on the bar. “Here, take it, here—”
“Get me a bag, bitch!” The robber waved his handgun.
Hyperventilating, Jackie ducked down and came up with a plastic take-out bag with the bar’s logo on it. She started scraping bills into the bag. Half of the fluttered to the floor.
“All of it!” The robber’s face was red, and he was trembling almost as badly at Jackie.
“Okay, okay, just—” Jackie knelt, tears streaming down her face.
I wanted to do something. Like run. But before I could think of anything more coherent than throwing up—
A dark shape rose up behind the gunman.
A man in a long black coat. Had he just walked in? I wouldn’t have noticed the door opening and closing, but I hadn’t seen him before, and I’d been checking out everyone in the place before the trouble started.
Wherever he’d come from, he moved swiftly. Two hands clamped on the robber’s skull. The robber’s eyes opened wide. “Wha—”
The hands twisted.
The robber’s neck snapped. The handgun fell from his now-lifeless fingers.
The stranger caught him as he fell, sliding one hand under his arm and then easing him almost gently to the hardwood floor. He crouched down and pulled the robber’s head back.
Fangs jutted from the stranger’s jaws.
Oh, great. A vampire.
He bent his head down and went for the robber’s throat. I saw blood drip onto the collar of his hoodie and the front of his leather jacket. I couldn’t hear the usual sucking sound, but that was probably because the rap song was still blasting from the jukebox, and my own pounding heartbeat sounded like a freight train in my ears.
From the floor, Jackie reached for the phone next to the register and hit a button on speed dial. “Y-yes, there’s a robbery. Please!”
Now people started running. Two women almost knocked over my bar stool as they dashed for the front door. One of them glanced down at the robber, bleeding out on the floor. “Yuck.” Then her friend pulled her away.
I reached into my windbreaker for my phone. I wanted to call Rachel, my girlfriend. But I wanted another picture too.
The vampire looked up just as I took the photo. Blood dripped down his chin, and his eyes curled in anger.
He lurched up, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then turned.
Then he was gone. Not through the door. Just . . . gone.
Rachel walked into the kitchen at 9:30 the next morning as I was eating cereal and drinking coffee. “You okay?”
Rachel’s my girlfriend. She’s got short red hair, hazelnut eyes, and somewhat psychic powers. She was in gym shorts and a T-shirt, which meant she didn’t have any tight deadlines, so she she’d slept late and hadn’t taken a shower yet. I’m a detective. I detect things.
“I’m fine.” I looked at my phone. “Just waiting for Sharpe to call.”
She rubbed my shoulder. I’d told her everything, of course. She helps me with my cases, especially when they veer into supernatural territory. She’s seen her share of vampires. “Did you sleep?”
“A little.” Maybe three hours. Even after all these years of dealing with vampires, demons, shape-shifters, more demons, and the occasional alien, I’m still not hard-bitten enough to drop into dreamland after witnessing a murder.
She poured herself some coffee and refilled my mug. “Can you get paid extra for that?”
I chuckled. I’d already written my report and emailed it to my client, complete with the pictures of her husband canoodling with the blonde. I didn’t mention the end of the evening.
My phone buzzed. “Oops. Better take this?”
“Jurgen? Are you all right?” Detective Anita Sharpe, Chicago Police. My partner on the CPD’s vampire squad.
“Uh, fine, thanks.” Usually Sharpe—and most other cops—opened with “Jurgen? What the hell?” This was a nice change of pace. I put the phone on speaker. “I’m a little shaken up. Otherwise fine. Have you got anything? Rachel’s listening.”
“Hi, Rachel. Look, I only read the preliminaries about last night. Here’s the thing—this is the third case of a vamp coming out of nowhere and killing a crook in the last two weeks.”
Rachel and I looked at each other. “That’s . . . interesting.”
“Yeah. I want you to get on the horn with your vampire friends and ask if they know anything.”
Ever since the Vampire Wars a few years ago, I’ve been the official liaison to two vamps who’d split the city between them. It was part of a truce that meant blood distribution centers for vampires in exchange for the king and queen doing their best to control vamp hunting and killing in the city. And cops not just staking them on sight.
I looked through the kitchen window. The morning sun shone bright. “They won’t get back to me before tonight.” Vampires have cell phones and email like the rest of us, but they still sleep all day.
“Just do it and get back to me.” She hesitated. “Glad you’re all right.”
“Me too. I’ll be in touch.”
After we hung up I sat back. “Sounds like Anita’s getting soft in her old age.”
“Lots of people don’t want to see you get killed.” Rachel punched my arm. “Jerk.”
I grinned. “Love you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to take a shower. Too bad you’re already dressed.” She finished her coffee and headed for the bedroom.
I left my cereal on the table. I could always stand another quick shower.
“Tom . . .” Anemone purred. “It’s always nice to hear from you.”
Anemone was the vampire queen, responsible for half of Chicago’s vamp population. I wasn’t sure how old she was—100 years? More?—but she had the body of a porn star and a twisted mind to match. “Thanks for calling me back.”
It was a half hour after sundown. She’d be going out to hunt soon. She didn’t kill people, just fed a little, and sometimes she showed up at the blood clinics, mostly to demonstrate her support for the truce. It had held for years, so that helped.
“I need your help about a vamp who’s killing criminals. Have you heard anything about that?”
“Well, I will answer questions for you. But I think you owe me something.”
My spine stiffened. “Uh . . . what do you mean?”
“We’ve never been on a date.” She giggled
What the hell? I was glad Rachel was in the kitchen making salad. “You, uh, you know I have a girlfriend.”
“We’ve met. But I haven’t been on a date in 50 years. A girl likes to get out sometimes.” She sighed—a long, sexy sigh. “Don’t worry, Tom. I don’t try to steal you away. Just dinner. You don’t even have to kiss me good night. Unless you want to.”
Oh my god. “Okay. Dinner. Anyplace you want. Movie? You pick? Kiss? I can’t promise anything.”
“It’s a deal. I’ll be in touch, lover.” She giggled.
So I told Rachel over dinner.
“A date?” She speared her salad. “She knows about me, right?”
“Just one dinner. No kiss.” Maybe. I was nervous. Anemone was a vampire, but Rachel’s pretty tough when she gets mad. On one hand, the idea of two hot women fighting over me kind of turned me on. On the other, Rachel might not be able to kill Anemone, but she could definitely beat me up. “I’m not going to kiss her. Or anything. It’s just to get information on that vampire the other night.”
Rachel sipped some water. “Okay.”
Okay? Was this a trick? “So it’s . . . okay?”
“I guess.” She set her fork down and crossed her arms. “Just one date. Don’t do anything stupid. She’s a vamp, remember?”
“I got that.” I set my fork down too. I wasn’t hungry. “You could come too. I mean—”
“What kind of date would that be?” She kicked me under the table. “You can kiss her. If you have to. Just don’t tell me any of the gory details.”
Without any psychic powers of my own, I got what Rachel was trying to say. She’d admitted cheating on me last year. We got past that, eventually. Maybe this was her way of . . .
I shook my head. “Not going to happen. No way.”
“No problem.” She grinned. “So where do you take a vampire on a date?”
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