'I'm sorry, Sergeant,' the supervisor said, 'but we have no account listed under that address.'
'Has it been cancelled recently? Say, within the last hour or so?'
'No, sir. We have never had an account under that name. It simply doesn't exist.'
I hung up the phone and said to Karl, 'Fuck Vollman and the hearse he rode in on. I'm getting tired of that old bastard and the way he keeps jerking us around. It's time we started acting like goddamn detectives, for a change.'
'Sounds good to me,' Karl said. 'You got any particular kind of detecting in mind?'
'Yeah, I do. Sligo, or whoever the perp is, has offed two guys so far, right? Why those two? Were they picked at random, or-'
'Or is there a common factor?' Karl said. 'Some pattern he's following.'
'Exactly. Why don't you get on that, see if you can find anything about the vics that stands out.'
'Okay. What are you gonna be doing?'
'See if I can find out more about this forbidden book,' I told him. 'Vollman said there were only four copies in existence. Let's see if he was right.'
Karl went over to his own desk, and I turned back to my computer and brought up Google. I typed in Opus and Mago and clicked 'Search.'
A few seconds later I was looking at the first hundred of my 28,343 hits. A lot of them involved classical music, although several seemed to refer to some penguin in a comic strip.
Realizing where I went wrong, I went back to the search screen. This time, I put quotation marks around Opus Mago so the search engine would read it as a phrase.
Eight hits. That was more like it.
Seven of the references were duds. Five of them lumped the Opus Mago in with fictional works like the Necronomicon, the Lemegeton of Solomon, and the Grimorium Verum. Shows what they know. Two other hits brought me to bogus black magic sites, constructed by obvious wannabees who'd probably run screaming for their mothers if they ever got close to the real thing. It didn't take me long to figure out that these morons didn't know the Opus Mago from the Kama Sutra.
The one hit left was a news item saying that a prossor at Georgetown University had translated some fragments of the Opus Mago, which the article said was one of the oldest and most obscure works in the black arts. Dr Benjamin Prescott was described as 'one of the foremost authorities on the ancient grimoires.' Then I read that Prescott had refused to allow his translation to be published. Anywhere. Ever.
Georgetown University, I found out, is a big place – especially if you're trying to find your way around by using their website. I finally learned that Professor Prescott's office was located in the Department of Theosophy, and even persuaded a campus operator to connect me to his direct line.
That's where my luck ran out. I'd been hoping against hope that I'd find Prescott working late in his office, but all I got was an answering machine.
I left a message saying who I was, but not what I wanted. I asked him to call me back the next night, anytime after 9:00. Then I got his email address from the campus directory, and sent him the same message that way.
The professor could read the email at any time – whenever he felt like checking his account. And if he was one of those people who didn't do that regularly, he'd probably get my phone message tomorrow. Assuming he wasn't off on a research trip to Transylvania, or someplace.
The rest of the evening was typical of a night shift for the Supe Squad, if you'd want to call anything we deal with 'typical.'
A ghost was haunting one of the girls' dorms at Marywood University. Marywood's coed now, but it used to bill itself as the Largest Catholic Women's College in America. Some guys at the U (a Jesuit school that used to be all-male, back in the day) used to say 'Mary would if Mary could, but Mary goes to Marywood.'
I hear that Marywood girls are a little different, these days.
A haunting isn't necessarily a big deal, but the pesky spirit was hanging around the bathrooms and ogling the young lovelies as they stepped out of the shower. Some of the girls were terrified; others were downright offended, since the ghost liked to make comments about their attributes. Not all of his observations were kindly.
Turned out the spook was the spirit of an old guy who'd been a janitor at the school for years. He'd come back to live out some of his fantasies.
We sent for an exorcist. Several Jesuits at the U are qualified and on call. Father Martino compelled the old guy's ghost to depart the premises, and imposed a geas on him against returning. Before he was expelled, I suggested he start haunting one of the city's strip clubs, where nobody would much care how much skin he looked at. He seemed to think that was an idea with some merit.
Then we got a call that a female vamp was using Influence on some of the customers at Susie B's, our local lesbian bar. A lot of vampires have powers of fascination. That 'Look into my eyes' stuff you see on TV is real, although it's exaggerated – like everything else on TV. Despite what you hear, Influence can't take away somebody's free will – but a proficient vamp can weaken it quite a bit. And sometimes, that's all they need.
Karl and I dropped in at the bar and talked to the owner, Barbara Ann, who'd called in the complaint. She wasted no time pointing out the bloodsucker among her clientele. 'She's the one at the corner table sitting by herself – but she won't be alone for long,' Barbara Ann said.
We went to have a word with the young lady (who was probably neither very young nor much of a lady), ignoring the hostile glances from some of the other customers. Men aren't popular in Susie B's, and cops even less so.
The vamp said her name entsucretia. It might even have been true – she had an old-country Italian look about her: midnight black hair, with eyes to match, pale skin, and red, red lips. Nice tits, too – for a vamp.
I was surprised that she found it necessary to use Influence in order to get laid – here, or anyplace else. Of course, she was probably in the habit of using her beautiful mouth for more than cunnilingus. Most ladies who'll happily spend a few hours trading orgasms with another woman will draw the line when it comes to giving up a few pints of the red stuff.
Karl and I took turns explaining to Lucretia that the law prohibits the use of Influence to secure consent for any kind of transaction, whether sexual, commercial, or vampiric.
'I really don't know what you're talking about, officers,' she said, all wide-eyed innocence. 'I wouldn't do a thing like that. Now I think you should both leave.' Her words seemed to echo inside my head, and Lucretia looked right at me as she said them, those coal black eyes burning into mine irresistibly…
She must have been pretty old. Her Influence was strong. I actually felt my feet begin to move under my chair, before my will reasserted itself and made them stop. If I'd had any doubts that Miss Lucretia been using her power improperly, they'd just been staked, but good.
I smiled at her and shook my head. 'Nice try, Vampirella, but no sale.'
Our police training includes the use of deep hypnosis to make us pretty much immune to that kind of stuff, and we get boosters twice a year.
Then, mostly to see what would happen, I said, 'You know, I don't think Vollman would approve of you taking advantage of people this way. It doesn't exactly reflect well on your kind, does it?'
Her heart-breaker's face grew very still. 'You know Mr Vollman?' Lucretia asked, in a tight, quiet voice she hadn't used before.
'Sure,' Karl said, with a shrug. He'd picked up on what I was doing. 'We do favors for him sometimes – and vice versa.'
'You don't want us to ask him for a favor that has your name on it, do you, honey?' I said gently.
Lucretia shook her head stiffly. In a quick rush of words she said, 'No, I'm sorry, I won't do it anymore, I have to go now, g'night.'
She stood up and quickly walked out of the place, without once glancing back in our direction.
'Guess Vollman wasn't shitting us,' Karl said, as he watched the beautiful vamp's departure. Maybe he was checking her ass for clues.
'Nope,' I said, and pushed my chair back. 'Looks like he really is The Man.'
• • • •
I'd been on duty less than half an hour the next night when my desk phone rang.
'Supernatural Crimes. Sergeant Markowski.'
