Vampire Zero (Laura Caxton, #3)(10)
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.”
Vampire Zero
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 living is a relative term. Vampires do live forever, if they aren’t killed, but contrary to what you’ve heard they do age, and not very gracefully.” That got a few chuckles from the audience. At least they were awake. “With every night that passes they need more blood to stay strong and active than they did the night before. After three hundred years Malvern can’t even sit up in her coffin. That doesn’t mean she’s harmless. A year ago she made four new vampires and good people died putting them down. She was also responsible for the army of vampires we fought back in October, at Gettysburg—and you all know how badly that could have gone. The last vampire she made was this guy.”
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 POI on the board. It stood for “person of interest,” meaning he was wanted for questioning but had so far not been named in direct connection with any crime. “We haven’t found any bodies we can link to him. We haven’t turned up any half-?deads he’s made—”
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…”