could find, and the very few scientific papers written on vampires. On top of the bookshelf sat a laptop that got spotty Wi-Fi reception down in the basement. They were still waiting for funding to get everything digitized and put into a searchable database. Most of the SSU’s funding went to keeping the tip line open and paying Caxton’s and Glauer’s meager salaries. Next to the bookshelf stood three enormous metal filing cabinets that were still mostly empty but were meant to hold transcripts from the tip line and Caxton’s own detailed reports.
At the far end of the room Glauer was there already, writing on the whiteboards.
He had bought a coffee box at Dunkin’ Donuts and had a sleeve of cups ready to go. He offered a cup to Caxton, but the trooper got her caffeine mostly from diet soda. There was a machine upstairs that sold it, but she didn’t have time to run up and get one. The meeting was just about to start.
She sat on the edge of a desk near the whiteboards and greeted each member of the SSU as they came in. Glauer was the only other full-time member of the unit, but there were a dozen or so other cops who attended the briefings and were always on call if she needed them. The SSU was a joint task force operation, encompassing multiple jurisdictions. Some of its members were state troopers like herself, members of the area response team (the PSP’s equivalent of a SWAT squad) or troopers from the Bureau of Investigation. They came in first—most likely they were in the headquarters building already, just killing time before lunch. Later came some local cops from various boroughs, a lot of them from Gettysburg. Some were survivors from the vampire massacre there. Other local cops came from as far afield as Pittsburgh, Philly, and even Erie. These were regular cops who were looking to log a little overtime and they served as her eyes and ears in those distant cities. They looked half distracted, as if they had better things to do elsewhere, but they came, and that was what mattered. The last person to enter the room was a man in a black suit with a red tie. He had a small badge affixed to his lapel—a star inside a circle. The first time she’d ever seen one of those had been the first night she met Arkeley.
“Deputy Marshal Fetlock,” he said, introducing himself to Glauer. He was maybe fifty years old, but he still had raven black hair swept back from a high forehead. His sideburns had gone gray, but they were cut so short that you could barely tell. “Just here for a backgrounder,” he said.
Caxton was not surprised to see him there, though she had not invited him. The man was a U.S. Marshal, just like Arkeley had once been. Long before he had become a vampire Arkeley had retired from that service, but she knew that Fetlock and his superiors were taking an active interest in her investigation. If Arkeley started tearing people up it would look bad for the Marshals, so they had good reason to help her if they could.
She got started once Fetlock sat down, a cup of lukewarm coffee untouched on the floor next to him.
She introduced herself to the new faces and thanked everyone for coming while they took out their PDAs and their spiral notebooks. Then she got right to business.
On the whiteboard Glauer had taped up a number of photographs and drawn lines connecting various actors in the investigation. “Those of you who have been here before will notice something new,” she said, using a dry erase marker to indicate a section of whiteboard labeled VAMPIRE PATTERN #2.
Underneath was a picture of Kenneth Rexroth. It looked like a mug shot. Next to his name Glauer had written IN CUSTODY. Below the picture were two crosses with names next to them that she didn’t recognize. She knew who they must be, though—the night watchman and the janitor that Rexroth had killed. She thought about the janitor’s severed arm for a second, then got control of herself and went on.
“Last night I investigated a report of vampire activity in a self-storage facility in Mechanicsburg. It turned out to be a waste of time. The subject, one Kenneth Rexroth, address unknown, other aliases unknown, turned out to be a normal human being made up to look like a vampire. A copycat. He’d had no exposure to vampires before except through the media. I took him in without much of a fight and I’m considering this pattern closed for now, but we wanted to make sure people were aware this sort of thing is happening. Dumb kids. Bored kids, who think vampires are cool. We’ve had reports of this before, but this one ended in two fatalities. I don’t want to see this anymore—frankly, I don’t have time for it.
Officer Glauer has suggested we get a task force together to hit the schools and try to educate these kids about what a dangerous game they’re playing. Not my department. I’ll let him talk on that idea later.”
She moved down the whiteboard to VAMPIRE PATTERN #1. The Arkeley investigation. “This is why we’re really here. It hasn’t gone away. For the benefit of the new faces in the crowd,” she said, looking specifically at Fetlock, “let me go over some of the details.”
Chapter 8.
Three photographs had been taped to the whiteboard. The first showed the face of what should have been a corpse. The skin was rotting away from the skull and one of the eyes was missing, leaving an empty socket. The mouth hung open, showing row after row of once-vicious teeth, some of which were missing, others of which had rotted down to black stumps. “This is Justinia Malvern,” Caxton said. “The oldest living vampire, though
She pointed out the second photograph on the whiteboard, and then the third. They showed Jameson Arkeley—as he had been in life, and as he had become, in death. The before photo showed an aging man with eyes so piercing she had trouble looking at them still. The after photo just showed one more vampire, as far as she was concerned. It was not an actual photograph but a computer-generated extrapolation of what Arkeley would look like as a vampire. She’d seen the real thing and knew the picture didn’t do him justice. It just wasn’t scary enough. “In the aftermath of Gettysburg, Arkeley here voluntarily accepted the curse. He did it to save lives, and I don’t know what would have happened without him being there.” She shook her head. “He promised me, at that time, that as soon as the last vampire was dead he would turn himself in. So I could kill him, and put an end to this. It’s been two months since then and so far he hasn’t shown himself.” Next to his vampire photo Glauer had written
At the back of the room Deputy Marshal Fetlock raised his hand.
She didn’t bother calling on him. “A half-dead is a vampire’s slave. Once a vampire drinks your blood, once they kill you, they have the ability to bring your corpse back to life. Your body doesn’t like it and your soul can’t stand it. You rot away at an accelerated rate, so most half-deads only last about a week before they just collapse in pieces. But while it lasts you do everything the vampire demands. Everything, including killing your best friend.”
Fetlock lowered his hand and nodded. She had answered his question.
“Jameson Arkeley was my partner,” she said, which was mostly true. That was how she’d thought of him, anyway, regardless of how he’d seen her. “He was a good friend. He asked me to kill him because he knew what happens to people who become vampires with the best of intentions. The first couple of nights they’re almost human. They can be noble, and good, and wise. But then they get thirsty. They start thinking about blood. They think about how it would taste, and how strong it could make them. How there are so many people out there just full of the stuff and how one or two of them could disappear and nobody would much mind. I’ve seen it again and again. No matter how strong their willpower might be—and Arkeley was one of the strongest men I’ve ever known—they always succumb. With each kill it becomes easier for them. It becomes more exciting. Their bodies start demanding more blood, always more…”
She turned and looked at the photos. At Arkeley’s eyes. She wondered, as she always did, about that last moment at Gettysburg, when he’d promised her he would come back. That he would let her shoot him right through the heart. He had believed, truly believed, that he could do that, that he could surrender to her like that. She’d believed it, too.
Yet somewhere between that moment and the dawn he’d changed his mind. He had run off into the shadows, to some place she couldn’t find him. What had he been thinking? Had he just been scared of dying? That wasn’t the man she’d known and respected. Had he thought he could control the bloodlust?
