Blood Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation (7 page)

“So, what, she just walked up and said, ‘Hi,
I’m a vampire’?”

“Not right away, or in those exact words, but
yeah, it was almost something like that. She brought it up while we
were chatting. She told me she was ‘out of the coffin’ and just
went from there.”

“Out of the…” Ben muttered and shook his head
as he scribbled. “Jeezus, you gotta be kiddin’ me.”

“That’s apparently what they call it,” Wendy
told him. “You know, like out of the closet.”

“Yeah, I get it,” he replied. “I just… never
mind… So she just up and told you she was a vampire?”

She continued, “Yeah. She called herself a
sang vamp
.”

“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.”

He shook his head. “For your sake I hope like
hell you’re right. But I gotta be honest, I sure as hell wouldn’t
put money on it.”

“Remember I just said you aren’t helping?” I
grumbled. “Well, you still aren’t.”

“Sorry, white man.” He grunted. “Just callin’
it like I see it, and from where I sit there’s a signpost up
ahead…”

CHAPTER 6:

By the time I arrived home, the pain was
screwing itself into my neck with a vengeance. It had gradually
escalated from sharp discomfort to a tortured sting that rose and
fell in intensity with each beat of my heart. Fortunately, although
my stomach was still off-kilter, the acidic queasiness that plagued
me earlier had subsided a bit, which was at least some small
consolation. Of course, my appetite certainly hadn’t made haste to
return, so the still untouched breakfast was in a Styrofoam to-go
box resting in the passenger seat of my truck.

I had no doubt that I was dealing with the
earthly manifestations of someone else’s ethereal torment. That
much was a given in my mind. In fact, despite my initial
objections, I was also more than willing to believe the victim in
Ben’s current investigation was the one assaulting me across the
veil between the worlds of the living and dead. Nonetheless, I was
clinging to my resolve and remained set on ignoring her no matter
how much it hurt. There was just one small problem. Everything my
friend had said about me earlier at the diner rang truer than I
cared to admit. Whenever the dead came to me for help, I always
ended up in trouble.
Always
. While I couldn’t really blame
him for pointing it out, just thinking about it made my mood as
sour as my stomach.

After parking my vehicle in the garage next
to Felicity’s Jeep, I let myself in the back door of the house. As
I came into the kitchen from the sunroom, both of our dogs met me
and began snuffling about before finally sitting and looking at me
expectantly. They immediately jumped up and followed along as I
skirted around the island then pulled open the refrigerator door
and started to make room on one of the shelves for the takeout
container I was carrying. After a moment our English setter snorted
a low sigh followed by something that wasn’t quite a bark but was
definitely meant to convey a message. I looked over and found both
of the canines sitting a few feet away, staring at me with
imploring eyes as they quivered in excited expectation.

“You ate this morning,” I told them. “It
isn’t dinnertime yet.”

The Australian cattle dog perked his ears and
let out a short yip. The English setter followed with a repeat of
his non-barking dog speak. I stared back at them and sighed.

All I really wanted to do at the moment was
put the carton away then down a couple of painkillers and relax for
a bit. But, I knew if I was going to insist on ignoring the
ethereal pokes and prods, then I was going to need to learn to
function around them as well. That meant, very simply, I couldn’t
use unexplainable aches and pains as an excuse to eschew my
responsibilities, even though I may want to do exactly that.

“Yeah, okay…” I mumbled in a tired drone,
abandoning my task and swinging the refrigerator door shut.

A minute or so later I had the canine’s
dishes up on the island and was still in the middle of dividing the
contents of the container between them when I was verbally
admonished from behind. This time, however, there was no need to
interpret because the scolding was spoken in perfectly
understandable English.

“You’re spoiling them, you know,” Felicity
said.

“And you don’t?” I replied without looking up
from my task.

“That’s not my point,” she returned, a smile
in her voice.

“Of course it isn’t,” I returned, trying not
to let my foul mood creep into my tone, which was no easy task
since physically I seemed to be entering a steep, downward spiral.
“Besides, Hon, they’re getting old. They’ve earned a few between
meal snacks.”

She was next to me now and inspecting the
contents of the bowls. “Snack? That looks more like a whole meal to
me.”

“It kind of is…” I replied. “I wasn’t
hungry.”

“You aren’t coming down with something, are
you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied with a weak
sigh.

The blatant lie might have worked had it not
been for the fact that I winced as I said it—not to mention the
fact that my free hand automatically went up to my neck.

“You sure aren’t acting like it, then,” she
said. “What’s wrong with your neck?”

“Nothing,” I told her. “I think I just slept
on it the wrong way or something.”

“Do you want me to give you a massage?” she
asked, reaching up to move my hand. Before she could pull my
fingers away, however, she let out a small gasp. “Rowan, you’re ice
cold!”

I could feel her pressing the back of her
hand against my neck and then my cheek as her maternal instincts
took over and she slipped into nurturing mode.

“I just came in a few minutes ago,” I told
her. “I haven’t warmed up yet.”