Authors: C S Winchester
Frankie scanned the apartment for auras to see if anyone was inside before she approached the door, but it was empty. As she leaned down with her lock pick gun, she realised that the lock wasn't damaged. The pet-killer must have picked the lock as well, which would mean he had spent a reasonable amount of time touching the door.
She pulled a glove off and placed her right hand near the lock.
He had used a set of old fashioned lock picks, so had spent quite a few minutes kneeling there. She began to separate out the images he'd left behind and mentally review each one of them.
He was excited, he'd been looking for Dante for a while and could almost taste success. He wanted to use Dante's blood in a ritual. He was also feeling smug. She'd been right about the girl, Zoe, being drugged. He had mentally congratulated himself on his plan while he worked and Frankie finally had a name for him from the memories she was seeing. Pietro.
Pietro thought about the room he had prepared, about how perfect it was, how much preparation it had taken, but she still couldn't see where the room was. It was soundproofed, but that didn't help her any.
When she'd seen everything that she thought she could, she used her own lock pick gun on the door and retrieved the shattered remains of Dante's phone from the bedroom. As she rejoined Will in the car, she filled him in on what she'd discovered.
“
Does this help us at all?” he asked, quite reasonably.
“
Not directly, but we have a little more of the story to explain to Dante's friends, and we have a name for him. Though accurate, calling him the Pet Killer is now somewhat incomplete.”
“
Have you heard from your parents?” he asked as he began the drive back to his apartment.
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No, and I don't want to,” she snapped.
“
Okay, I was just asking.”
“
I'm sorry,” Frankie sighed. “I just have too much to worry about right now, I can't worry about them too. But I shouldn't have snapped at you, so I apologise.”
“
No offence taken,” he assured her.
Back at the apartment, Frankie sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen and began sifting through the phone parts, looking for the SIM card.
“
Why bring everything,” he asked, “Why not just bring the SIM card.”
“
Because if the SIM is damaged or his contacts aren't stored on there, I might be able to salvage some data from the chips and the memory card.”
Will looked at the shattered remains of the phone, impressed with the resources at her disposal.
She found the SIM card and inserted it in her own phone. The data was intact and she began to write a list of the American phone numbers.
She found an entry for Rosa Gibbs, the head of the vampire council and wrote it down, though she left a question mark next to the name. After her last experience with the council, she really wasn't sure how they would take this turn of events.
When she'd finished the list she had seven American telephone numbers to try. She checked her watch. “It's five am over there,” she said to Will, her expression asking if she should wait.
“
It's too early,” he said. “And it's even earlier on the west coast.
“
But I'm looking for another vampire and they won't be asleep.”
“
Why another vampire?”
“
Because vampires are very private. He's not likely to have told a human about events that happened before they were born.”
“
He told me about vampires,” Will countered.
“
Because he was trying to do something nice for me. And I still can't see him sitting you down to discuss what happened during the Great Depression, can you?”
Will conceded the point with a shrug so Frankie put her own SIM card back in her phone and began making calls, starting with Alice J.
As soon as the phone rang, she realised that she should have given some thought to what to say. She was about to hang up when the call was answered.
“
Hello?”
“
Can I speak to Alice, please?”
“
Speaking.”
“
Hi Alice, my name is Frankie. I'm a friend of Dante's and...” How did you ask if someone was a vampire without actually asking if they were a vampire, she wondered. “Are you... like him?” she cringed at the sloppy question.
“
In what way?” she sounded guarded.
“
Um, well are you... a night owl?”
“
I suppose.”
“
This isn't working,” Frankie sighed, resting her forehead in her palm as she thought. “Okay here's the situation. I work for the council, kind of anyway, and if you are like Dante you'll know what that means. Dante, who is my guardian, has been taken by someone from his past and I'm trying to find information on the man who took him. All I have is a first name, Pietro, so I'm going through Dante's phone and calling people in there. Has Dante ever spoken to you about someone called Pietro?”
“
No he hasn't,” her tone had switched from cautious to concerned. “How long has Dante been gone?”
“
He was taken last night,” Frankie checked her watch. “About six hours ago.”
“
Is this Pietro also like Dante?”
“
No, he's hu- He's just a regular guy.”
“
I see. I have friends here too, some of them know Dante so I'll see what I can find out for you.”
“
Thank you.”
“
Before I do though, I take it you are not like Dante and I?”
“
No, I'm not.”
“
How can I be sure what you tell me is true?”
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The head of the council over here, Rosa Gibbs, can vouch for me.”
“
Very good. Give me your number and I'll call if I discover any information.”
When Frankie hung up she filled Will in on the conversation and rang the next phone number, listed as Alice M. Frankie hung up the phone seconds later.
“
What?” Will frowned.
“
I woke her up. Definitely not a vampire.”
As she continued through the list, Will called the station for an update then began going through his notes again. He noticed that Frankie's gaze kept going to the wall clock. He didn't really understand why she was so attached to the vampires but it was also Will's job to find Pietro, so even though he had no desire to rescue the vampire, they did have a common interest.
Frankie's next call went to voicemail, the next two turned out to be human and the sixth number was another vampire, Marcus.
Just the sound of Marcus's voice made Frankie's skin crawl, but she told him what she had told Alice. He didn't have any information and he didn't offer her his help. Frankie hung up and tried the final phone number, getting voicemail again.
She sighed. They seemed to be at an impasse.
“
Coffee?” she asked Will.
He looked up from his notes. “Please.”
She handed him his mug and sat down with her own, then she pulled her pad out of her handbag.
“
So what do we know about Pietro?” she asked Will.
Will took the pad from her. “I don't know anything. You tell me what you know about him while I write.”
“
Okay,” Frankie nodded. “Well he's from Dante's past, maybe 80 or more years ago.”
“
How can you tell?”
“
The clothes. Some of the men in his memories wore high neck collars and cravats, but I don't know enough about men's fashion to say any more.”
“
What could you see about where he intended to take your friend?”
“
I saw a room. It's meticulously planned out, a silver framed bed, medical looking tubes. The room is soundproofed. He's put a lot of time and effort into this operation.”
“
How big was the room?” Will asked.
“
Pretty big actually. And the lights were those long, industrial tube type ones, what do you call them?”
“
Fluorescents?”
“
Yeah, there were two massive fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling.”
“
So probably not a private home then,” Will surmised. “Did you see any furniture or equipment we might be able to trace? You said medical equipment, what about a heart monitor or anything he might have stolen?”
Frankie closed her eyes to examine the memory. “I don't think so. There's a couple of syringes, lots of clear piping, like you might find if someone was on a drip but I don't think it's specialist. He may even be improvising. We can check hospitals for thefts I suppose. Can you do it from work, because I can't access my computer right now?”
Will nodded and jotted it down on the pad. He considered suggesting she try and make peace with her mother so she could use her computer for the investigation, but he decided to stay on topic for now.
“
So this guy's human, right?”
“
Yes.”
“
Does he look old?”
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He's fairly young looking. Maybe forty absolute maximum, but Zoe literally only glimpsed him for a second so it's hard to be sure.”
“
Okay. What else?”
“
He's foreign.”
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Could you tell anything more about the language?”
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No. In fact I wouldn't bet that it was even Eastern European any more.”
“
Okay, anything else?”
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He worships Hades and kills small pet animals.”
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Why does he worship Hades?”
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Because he wants longevity.”
“
And the animals?”
“
They're not a spell, I think they're more a sacrificial offering to Hades.”
“
Do you think that could be what he wants with Dante?”
Frankie shrugged. “I guess so, maybe. I wish I knew for certain.”
“
Okay, anything we've missed?”
“
The poison he gave the girl. Dante gave me a vial of it once and I've tried to find a recipe for the potion myself, but I couldn't find anything. Whatever it is, it's obviously a very well kept secret.”
“
So what does that mean?” Will asked.
“
Um,” Frankie chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. “It's hard to find, which I guess means the vampires don't want people knowing about it.”
“
So how does he know?”
“
Well it must still exist somewhere. All it really means is that his knowledge or resources are greater than mine.”
“
So maybe our next step is to research Hades. Maybe then we'll find out what he wants with your friend.”
Frankie shook her head. “I think there's too much fiction in that myth to be able to weed out the truth. If there even is any truth. Magic isn't a gift from the gods, it just... is. Maybe people invented gods to try and explain it?”
“
Is there any way to find out?”
Frankie shook her head. “No.”
“
Okay, scratch that, what about some kind of finding spell? Could we find your friend that way and by extension, Pietro?”
Frankie shook her head. “No. Vampires are only alive because of powerful magic and that interferes with other sorts of magic.”
“
I don't understand.”
“
Well, it's like if magic was a compass you could use to find the magnetic poles. Adding a vampire into the mix is like having a powerful electromagnet in the room, which just makes the compass spin.”
Will leaned back in his seat and Frankie buried her head in her gloved hands as they both considered what to do next.
“
Longevity,” Will said.
“
What?” Frankie raised her head.
“
Longevity,” he repeated. “Isn't there a hippie commune near here who are... I don't know but they're into something similar.”
“
Why haven't I heard of them?” Frankie frowned.
“
I'm not even sure I have, it's just something I vaguely remember, but I could be getting my wires crossed.”
“
Okay,” Frankie now became the questioner. “Does it feel like something you heard professionally?”
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No.”
“
An urban legend perhaps?”
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About a hippie community that doesn't do anything but mind their own business?”