"I found toilet paper!" I dropped the shopping bags, locked the door, and took off my Snoopy facemask and yellow dishwashing gloves.
"My hero!" Rachel ran from our office. "How'd you do it?"
"I'm a detective, remember?" I headed to the bathroom to scrub my hands while Rachel stacked the packs of TP on an ever-growing pile next to the toilet. Then we carried the groceries into the kitchen. Rachel ran to restock the bathroom, even though we already had enough TP for months as far as I was concerned. But I'd learned not to argue with her about it.
Chicago had been on lockdown and social distancing status because of COVID-19 for weeks. Two weeks? Three? I didn't know how many. I barely knew what day it was.
Fortunately, as a private detective, I can do a lot of work from home online or on the phone. If I had to do a surveillance, I could stay in my car. I just wasn't meeting clients in cafes or questioning people in bars anymore, because they were all closed.
Rachel, my girlfriend—red hair, hazelnut eyes, slightly psychic powers—is a graphic designer who usually works from our shared office anyway.
So we were safe, with me going out every few days for supplies.
The entire city was tense. Death counts from the coronavirus were rising every day, people were clamoring for tests along with TP, and the president's tweets and daily press conferences only made things worse.
In the meantime, Rachel and I were grouchy with each other, arguing more than usual as we worried about our friends and relatives. My mom was still okay in the suburbs, along with my brother in California and his family. Rachel's mother was sharing conspiracy theories and quack cures on Facebook, and probably ignoring social distancing guidelines. They didn't have the best relationship, but she was still Rachel's mom. So she worried.
It was my turn to make dinner, although I'd started pinto beans and brown rice in the crock pot a few hours earlier, but Rachel helped, chopping vegetables and adding spicese. Then we opened beers and sat in front of the TV watching Andy Griffith. It was better than the president's press conferences.
Then my phone buzzed. Anita Sharpe, Chicago PD.
"Good afternoon, detective! How can I help you?"
"Vampire attacks are up." Her voice was low and hoarse. "We need you to contact your pals and do something about it."
Oh, hell.
I'm not a regular P.I. My cases frequently involve supernatural creatures and activities—like vampires. A few years ago, a quiet war had broken out between vampires and the cops. Sharpe and I had worked together as part of special team of cops to fight the vamps. A lot of people got killed—including a good cop friend of mine. Elena Dudovich—before a shaky truce had been drawn up.
Unfortunately, I was the mediator of that truce—the liaison between two vamps who administered two sections of Chicago, Clifton Page and a female vampire named Anemone.
I got along well enough with both of them, but interacting with vamps always made me nervous.
"The problem is that the city closed down the blood distribution centers." Sharpe sighed. "We told them not to do it, but the mayor's office didn't listen. So the vamps don't have anywhere to go."
Part of the truce was establishing sites where vamps could get blood so they wouldn't have to feed off humans. But if the centers were closed . . . "That is a problem."
"Yeah. Your problem."
"Great." I groaned. "Okay, so I'll do what I can."
"What's up?" Rachel nudged me when I hung up.
"Vampire trouble." I stood up. "Can you help me set up a Zoom session?"
So I left some voicemail messages, and after dinner Rachel helped me set up the Zoom session on my laptop. At 8:30, a few hours after sundown, I logged on and waited. Rachel sat behind me for technical support. And to make sure I didn't say something stupid.
At 8:32 Anemone appeared on the screen. "Hi, Tom." She smirked. Short black hair, dark glasses, and the body of woman in her early thirties—whatever age she'd been when she was turned, years ago—in a loose black T-shirt that dangled to show a magenta bra strap on one shoulder. "Good to see you. What's up?"
"Let's wait for—oh, hello, Mr. Page."
Clifton Page, the other leader of the Chicago vampire community—at least as far as anyone could be in charge of a bunch of blood-hungry vamps. He looked in his distinguished sixties, although he was close to 100 years undead. He was generally sympathetic to humans. He even had a human girlfriend. "Tom. What can I do for you?" Candles glowed behind him.
"The cops are telling me there's an uptick in vampire attacks."
"Well, you closed the distribution centers," Anemone snapped. "With what little blood they gave us. What do you expect us to do?"
"Social distancing makes it easier to attack and escape," Page pointed out. "I don't kill anyone or make any new vamps, but—"
"Same here," Anemone said. "But that means we have to attack more people to stay undead. This whole pandemic is making it hard for everyone."
Even vampires. That was irony for you.
"Is there any way you can communicate with your people? Tell them to back off a little?"
"It's not like we can control them much anyway, you know?" Anemone shrugged. "Make suggestions? Maybe. But us vamps don't follow orders very well. Get the centers open again. Then maybe they'll listen. Maybe."
"All right." I nodded. "I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, can you try to ask them to lie low?"
Anemone grimaced. Page looked at his ceiling for a moment.
"I'll help." He leaned forward, his eyes taking over the screen. "In exchange."
Uh-oh. "What?"
"Jillian . . . she has the virus."
Jillian Donovan. Page's human girlfriend. Oh hell.
"I'm so sorry." Rachel leaned over my shoulder. "Is she—how is she?"
"She's at Northwestern Hospital. She can still breathe on her own. We talk every night, and as much as I can during the day. But she's getting worse." He sat back and reached for his wine. "That's my price. Get her released from the hospital. So I can save her."
Save her. Turn her into a vampire? Even if I could manage to get Jillian released . . . "I'm not sure if I can do that."
"Do it. Or I'll go to the hospital and do it myself." Page crossed his arms. "I won't lie low while my lover is dying because the humans can't cure her."
I hesitated. "I won't just turn her over to you. Even if I can work it out with the hospital. It has to be her choice."
Page scowled. "Fine. Just let me talk to her. Face to face."
What if she refused? I couldn't take Page in a fight, even with the biggest stake I could find and a shotgun filled with silver bullets. But I needed his help. "I'll—have to see what I can do. But if works, will you help us?"
Page's nod was curt. "What I can." He vanished from the screen.
"Well . . ." Anemone smirked. "That's what happens when you get involved with humans. You're cute and all, Tom, but most of you are too much trouble." She sat back. "Call me when you've got this worked out. We can talk."
The screen went blank.
"Great." I picked up my phone.
Rachel punched my shoulder. "I'm going to watch TV." She headed for the living room.
I gripped my nerves and called Sharpe. "Are they on board?" she barked.
"Not entirely." I took a deep breath. "Page wants a patient released from Northwestern. His girlfriend. He wants to, uh, save her from the coronavirus."
She groaned. "You mean . . ."
She'd once been tempted to let Anemone turn her into a vampire, to end the first vampire war. She'd backed out, and that's partly how I ended up as the vampire ambassador. But she had an idea of what being turned would be like. Agony and thirst, at least right away, then learning to control the instinct to hunt for blood.
"Yeah." I sighed. "I don't like it either. But I don't know what our other options are if we want to shut this down before it explodes again. We need his support, and that's want he wants. And the centers have to open up again. That's the deal."
"Yeah." She sounded like she was chewing her lip. "Okay. Not my call. I'll have to move it up the chain. Thanks, Jurgen. Stay close to your phone."
I opened beers as Rachel tried to find something to watch on TV. One channel, another . . . AMC was actually showing the Bela Lugosi Dracula. I was ready get my laptop to surf the internet when Rachel's finger paused. "Hey, look at this!" Rachel laughed. "A new show! Real Housewives of the Coronavirus!"
"It was only a matter of time." I sat back. Every other show and movie reminded us of the outbreak anyway.
Fifteen minutes in, my phone buzzed. Unknown number. I picked up.
"Mr. Jurgen? This is the mayor."
What? The mayor of Chicago? Calling me? What did I do? I waved Rachel to turn the show off. "Uh, yes, madame mayor. What can I do for you?"
Rachel's eyebrows rose in alarm. I put the phone on speaker. "I have my, uh, associate here, Rachel, if that's all right."
"Tell me about this demand from your vampire friend."
I described the situation. "We need the city to reopen the centers. So we need both of them in on this. And he sounds ready to just attack the hospital and carry Donovan away. Which would be harder to cover up, and could get people killed."
"He wants to kill her to save her life? By making her a vampire? I'm supposed to sacrifice a citizen to a vampire who wants to kill her?"
"It'll be her choice. That's what he said. Then we can talk about reopening the centers."
The mayor groaned. "All right, let me get back to you."
We hung up. I picked up my beer. "The mayor has my number."
"Just so long as she doesn't end up drunk-dialing you in the middle of the night." Rachel picked up the remote.
My phone buzzed again. Rachel glared at me. "Why don't you go into the other room if I can't watch my show?"
"All right, all right!" Like I said, we were getting grouchy with each other. "Tom Jurgen here."
Sharpe. "Jurgen? You're on. The mayor's working it out. Northwestern Hospital, 30 minutes."
Oh boy. "Right. I'll be there."
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