“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.”
“But you had a reason for asking.”
“Yeah. I already told ya’ the reason. I’ve got a dead girl in a cold storage drawer over on Clark, and from the minute I arrived on scene this mornin’, my gut’s been tellin’ me somethin’s extra hinky about it. You and your neck just confirmed that for me.”
“You aren’t helping.”
“Look, white man, believe me, I’m not tryin’ ta’ drag you into it. Hell, I’m usually the one who’s tellin’ ya’ to stay outta the way and let us cops do our jobs, ain’t I?”
“Yeah, but that’s not exactly how it sounds to me at the moment,” I returned.
“Maybe it’s because I’ve been down this road with ya’ before, Row. You might not know it, but right now you got that look. It’s the one you get when the hocus-pocus is gonna take over and shit hits the fan. I’ve seen it a dozen times, and it always means you’re gonna be in the middle of it no matter what.”
“No. No I’m not.”
