Blood Tally

Chapter 13

I waited until I was out of Chardon, heading south on Route 44, before I answered Jacques’s third call, looking sidelong at Olivia as I did, taking my hand off my steering wheel long enough to put a finger to my lips. She nodded in understanding.

“Alek Fitz.”

“Alek,” Jacques said, drawing the word out. “How are you?”

“Not great,” I told him.

Jacques sighed. “Yes, I understand that there has been an embarrassing crossing of purposes.”

I switched the phone from one hand to the other. “That’s a weird way of putting it. Apparently your boys have been following me and they just hired a witch to scry me.”

“Yes, well. That’s the embarrassing part on my end,” Jacques said warmly. He didn’t sound embarrassed at all. “I hope you understand that this job means more to my master and our organization than we first let on. Following you was simply a precaution. They lost your trail and decided to get that witch to scry you. I hope that you’re not too angry about the whole situation.”

“I would probably be less angry if you hadn’t told them to kill Olivia.”

“Who is Olivia?”

“The witch.”

“Ah, yes. She was an unfortunate bystander in all of this. Unlike you, she’s not a professional and you know how witches can be. We couldn’t trust her to stay quiet about us scrying a reaper agent. Can’t let that kind of information get out, can we? Lord Ruthven might be a Vampire Lord, but he still has quite a good reputation. It’s too bad about the witch. I trust we can remain friends, though?”

I chewed on the corner of my cheek and glanced at Olivia again. She couldn’t hear Jacques’s side of the conversation, but she could hear mine. “Now this is when I get embarrassed,” I told Jacques. “I get awfully twitchy when people I don’t know start drawing swords.”

“What happened?” Jacques asked, sounding concerned for the first time.

“Your guy Adrian is dead. So are his goons.”

There was a long, unbroken silence.

“I shot them,” I added. “Well, that’s not wholly true. I punched in the side of one’s head.”

Watch that cavalier tone, Maggie warned. Dhampir aren’t known for their sense of humor. Maggie was right. I was getting awfully flippant. Maybe it was my buttoned-up rage. Maybe it was the adrenaline. But I just couldn’t summon two fucks to give about Jacques anymore.

Jacques finally said, “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“And I wish you’d told me from the start what this job was about,” I snapped. “A bit of advice: don’t hire someone like me and then lie to them about the job. I’m a goddamn professional, and I will find out that you’re lying. I’ll also find out what’s so important about Boris Novak’s blood tally.”

“You know about the contracts?” Jacques asked, deadpan.

My adrenaline finally wore off enough for me to realize that I’d overplayed my hand. I swore to myself silently. “Yeah. I do. And don’t insult me by claiming that you just want to shut Boris down to protect the rest of vampirekind. You want his blood tally for power and contract language.”

“Of course I do.” He made a hmm sound. “This complicates things. The content of those contracts is invaluable, and so is the army that Boris has already begun to build. You’re going to have to talk really fast if you want to survive this.”

“Everybody has to die some time.” There was a sinking feeling in my belly, and it didn’t wholly belong to me. I could sense that Maggie did not like the turn this had taken. “Have you considered the fact that I might be recording this conversation?” I asked. “Or maybe that I have told, or can easily tell, any number of people about this whole thing? This is the twenty-first century. I could get off the phone and blog about it.”

“You will do no such thing,” Jacques said harshly, “or I will begin killing every friend and family member that you have in the world.”

I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I laughed really hard. “Yeah?”

Jacques was clearly taken aback. “Yes. I will. I am a thorough man.”

“Well good luck with that. You picked the wrong reaper. I don’t have any friends, and I definitely don’t have any family. Go fuck yourself. I’m gonna write a blog.” I hung up.

I took the next turn, heading toward home, and then tried calling Ada. No one answered. I left her a message telling her to get out of town, then dialed Nadine. She answered with a sweet hello.

“No time to explain,” I told her. “Go on lockdown. Tell Ted that I have a brood of vampires gunning for me and Valkyrie Collections might be collateral damage.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Nadine responded. “What the hell did you do?”

“Might have pissed off a client. I recommend not taking any calls from Lord Ruthven. And Nadine? Go stay with Lucy for a week or so. Not even Ruthven is going to fuck with her.”

I could hear Nadine’s fingers flying over her keyboard. She didn’t miss a beat. “Understood. What are you going to do?”

“I have a Vampire Lord hunting for me. I’m going to hide.”

“Good luck, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Nadine.”

It took me several minutes to realize that Olivia hadn’t stopped staring at me since getting off the phone with Jacques. I glanced sidelong at her. I cleared my throat, thought about what I could say, and came up with nothing. Mags?

What? Came her peevish response.

You have any thoughts on this whole situation?

I do, but none of them are helpful.

Gotcha.

I looked back at Olivia again. She’d finally turned away and was lying against the passenger-side door, leaning out the open window, her hair streaming in the wind. It would have been a pleasant sight if not for the circumstance. “Sorry for bringing you into this.”

She pulled herself away from the window. “I kind of expected you to do your best to defuse the situation. Not, you know, declare war on a Vampire Lord. I’m not sure whether to be horrified, impressed, or a little turned on.”

It was obviously a joke. I managed to choke out a laugh. “You should probably be horrified.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the direction I’m going.” She let out a sigh. “I guess I’m in it now. Are you going to tell me what’s so important about those contracts you were talking about?” I didn’t see why not. So I gave her the short version. She nodded along with the explanation. I finished up and she continued to nod. “Okay, well. I see why you’re doing this.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Look, you and I are the generation who has to deal with global warming. I think we have a better concept of the consequences of predictable long-term disaster models than the rest of the world.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. “My boss would call you a goddamn hippie.”

“And she’d make my point. Speaking of which … is your boss on board?”

“That was her I left a message for earlier. I’m not sure I have a job anymore,” I lied. I couldn’t quit, of course, and I don’t think Ada would fire me, even for this. But my employment was almost certainly going to be terminated after a vampire murdered me.

Olivia winced. “Sorry to hear that.”

“As you said: oh well.” I toyed with my options, half hoping that Maggie would pop into my head with some brilliant idea that could help me solve all of this. Instead, I got the very existential impression that she was packing her things and trying to figure out what to do once I’d been eaten by a brood of vampires. Not that she could do anything. She was at the mercy of whoever took the ring off my dead body.

“I have a weird request,” I suddenly said.

“Yeah?”

I waved my hand at Olivia. “If you survive this whole thing and I don’t? Take my ring.”

What the fuck are you doing? Maggie suddenly demanded.

Making contingency plans.

Don’t you dare. I’m not going to move in with a witch.

She’s better than a Vampire Lord, isn’t she?

Maggie didn’t seem equipped to argue the point, falling into a sullen silence. Olivia gazed at the ring for a few minutes. I could have sworn she muttered something under her breath and made a few discrete gestures, but Maggie didn’t warn me about any magic taking place, so I didn’t make a point of it. Finally, Olivia gave a nod. “I don’t think it’ll fit me, but sure. What do you want me to do with it?”

“Just … keep it safe. Thanks.” An idea was finally coming together in the back of my head. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was the best I had, so at the next stop sign I picked up my phone and dialed a number, praying that the call would be answered.

“Hey, bud,” Justin answered, “you know, my boss is pretty pissed about the Nick the Necromancer stuff. You might not want to call the office for a few weeks.”

“This is more important,” I said.

Justin must have heard something in my voice, because his tone immediately became concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Lord Ruthven might try to kill you.”

“Excuse me?”

I launched into an explanation, giving Justin a much longer and more thorough briefing than I’d given to Olivia. She was still sitting beside me, listening intently, but I didn’t see any reason to hold back. Unfortunately, the longer I talked the more insane I sounded – at least to myself. I began to wonder if maybe I was overreacting. If maybe there wasn’t nearly as much danger in this whole thing as I’d thought. I got to the end and realized I’d been repeating myself, and finally fell silent. I was answered with silence on the other end of the line. “You still there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Justin said. He did not sound happy.

“Look, I didn’t mean to put you in danger. I …”

He cut me off, “Alek, I know you’re a reaper agent. I know you’re a professional and you get into dangerous situations a lot more often than I do. But Lord Ruthven certainly isn’t going to get involved in this whole thing himself, and I’ve had more dangerous things try to kill me than a dhampir. So don’t worry about me. Look, I’ll have to call you back. Keep your phone on you.” And he hung up.

Getting that warning off to Justin took a little of the burden off of my shoulders, and I went through a list in my head wondering if there was anyone else whose safety I was worried about. I had lied to Jacques, of course. I didn’t have family, but I did have friends, and I didn’t want anything to happen to any of them. Besides, Justin was OtherOps. If there was any organization who could put a stop to this insanity, it was going to be them. But that required Justin’s boss to believe that the threat I was screeching about was real.

We soon arrived at the little servant’s house in Gates Mills that I called home. I was half expecting Jacques himself to be waiting for us, but Maggie gave me the go-ahead and I parked in the driveway and headed inside. I’d done my best to take care of my friends and coworkers. Now it was time for me to stay alive and come up with a real plan. I ran inside, grabbed a duffel bag from beneath my bed, and began to pack.

I’d left the door open behind me and heard Olivia wander in. “Hey,” she said, “we have the same duffel. And you have a cat! Hey, sweetie, what’s your name?”

“Can it, lady. Alek, did you bring me tuna?”

“I … uh, Alek! Your cat is talking to me.”

“Not now, Eddie,” I shouted over my shoulder at him as I rummaged through my drawers, wishing I’d done laundry in the last week. “We have to go. Get in the truck.”

“I am not a cat,” the conversation went on. “I am the last Prince of the Nile, the Herald of Sekhmet! This is my temple. You may make offerings of tuna or scritches. If you touch my belly, I will kill you.”

I finished grabbing clothes and began to gather weaponry; brass knuckles, ammunition of a dozen different varieties, a nightstick with a silver bulb at one end, a couple extra stepping mirrors. I found Olivia in my living room, scratching Eddie behind the ears. She shot me a curious look.

“He’s a sphinx,” I explained. “His name is Eddie, and he seems to have adopted me recently. Eddie, we have to go.”

“I don’t want to leave my temple,” Eddie purred at me.

“Your temple is no longer safe, buddy.” I tossed my bag of weapons into the bed of my truck and came back in through the open door and scooped up Eddie with two hands. He gave an indignant little meow and shifted in my arms, revealing his wings. Olivia gasped.

Eddie said, “If my temple is no longer safe, I must be here to guard it.”

“Have you ever stood toe-to-toe with the servants of a Vampire Lord?”

“My ancestors fought vampires and worse to protect our goddess.”

“Sekhmet is dead,” I said, plopping him onto the passenger seat. “I don’t think she’s going to be lending you much power. I promise I’ll get you some albacore tonight.” I ran back into the house, past Olivia, and gave the whole place a once over. I was in a hurry, but that didn’t stop me from feeling a pang of sadness. I’d lived in this place since I moved out of Ada’s house in my late teens. It wasn’t much, but it was home. I had no idea if I’d ever see it again. I wondered if Olivia had felt the same thing as she rushed around her own house less than an hour ago.

We were back on the road quickly, driving in silence. I went over checklists in my head, wondering just how paranoid I should be about Jacques finding me. According to the movies, I should discard my phone and ditch my truck and do go completely off the grid. That didn’t seem realistic, not when I didn’t really believe that I was just going to hide for an indefinite amount of time.

I was still going to ruin Jacques’s week. I just didn’t know how yet.

Olivia found us an AirBnB in Glenwillow. It was a quick drive to the highway and less than an hour from anywhere I’d want to be in the Cleveland area. But it was also a relatively small town – a good place to lie low in the downstairs in-law apartment of an old couple who owned a house way too big for their age. The old couple was on vacation in Europe, so I parked around back and typed in the code they gave me for the AirBnB, and we let ourselves in.

I carried in our bags and left Olivia to wash the vampire blood out of her hair while me and Eddie ran to the closest supermarket to grab some food and a litter box. We were soon back, Eddie happily munching on a smelly can of tuna in the corner while I collapsed on the couch. I was more exhausted than I expected and, as there was just one bed, I expected this was where I was going to sleep. And boy, did I want to sleep.

Olivia came out of the bedroom wearing the same outfit as when I’d first met her – yoga pants and a tank top. She hovered around the groceries I’d brought back. For a few moments I let myself daydream that I was on a little date holiday with a girlfriend, rather than on the run with a witch I barely knew. The jarring difference between fantasy and reality grew too painful too quickly and I let it go. Olivia didn’t talk to me, making herself busy in the kitchen. I tried to meditate on what the hell I was going to do about all this, but was interrupted by the ringing of my phone. It was Justin.

“You’ve stumbled into quite the shitstorm,” he said when I answered.

“I figured that out myself.”

“I’m not joking. You’re in a genuine shitstorm. I got ahold of my boss’s boss’s boss. He’s in DC, and he really hates vampires so I knew that he wouldn’t sell you out to Lord Ruthven. Turns out he runs a little thinktank meant to come up with worst-case scenarios regarding the Other so that OtherOps can make contingencies against them, and this exact thing is one of their scenarios. He called it a Level Four, whatever the hell that means. He says that you’re absolutely right – that this is an end-of-the-world-as-we-know it kind of threat, but it also isn’t immediate, so the government doesn’t give a shit.”

“That … doesn’t sound helpful.”

“It’s certainly less helpful than I’d hoped,” Justin admitted. “The best he can offer is to put you and your witch friend in witness protection while he puts together a taskforce that will spend the next couple of years convincing an OtherOps judge to create new Rules to specifically eliminate this loophole that Boris is taking advantage of.”

“Years?” I asked incredulously. Olivia had moved from the kitchen and was now fiddling with something behind the TV. Her head popped out briefly, and she eyeballed me. I tried to ignore her.

“It might be quicker,” Justin said, “But it might not.”

“And in the meantime, what will you do about Boris and Lord Ruthven?”

“Lord Ruthven has powerful friends in OtherOps. If it was Dracula or someone else, we could probably get together a team to jump in and confiscate Boris’s blood tally. But not Ruthven. Our hands are tied.”

I considered this for a few moments, feeling ill. “I have an idea. Can you fake an investigation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, let’s say that the OtherOps Cleveland office has had their eye on Boris for a while. They knew he was up to something shady but they couldn’t prove it – until they found those redacted contracts in the Cuyahoga County courthouse.”

“You want me to confiscate those contracts and create a paper trail that proves we’ve been investigating Boris?”

“Yup.”

“To what end?”

“To keep Lord Ruthven from killing me. Here’s what’s going to happen: I call Jacques and agree to finish the job. I bargain for my life or whatever. Then I finish tracking down Michael, but when I go to return him to Boris, an OtherOps team steps in and relieves me of the blood tally. Lord Ruthven’s name is never mentioned in your records. He has nothing to do with this.”

“How is this going to save your life?”

“Because then you can file a report to the Vampire Lords, with a straight face, that you’ve completed an investigation against Boris Novak. You hand the blood tally over to your boss’s boss’s boss, who makes it disappear. Jacques might still try to kill me and Olivia – but it’s more likely that he’ll back off once he knows that OtherOps is involved. Vampires don’t like the attention, after all. And no one is ever going to believe that a reaper agent went crying to OtherOps. Shit, I’m the one saying this to you, and I don’t believe that I’m running crying to OtherOps.”

Justin was quiet for a few moments. “Okay, hold tight. I’ll call you back in five.”

I did just that, sitting up on the couch and putting my head between my knees, wondering if Olivia was still in shock. She sure didn’t seem in shock. She’d successfully connected her Nintendo Switch to the flat-screen of the AirBnB and was now flipping through games. “You hear that?” I asked her.

“I got the gist,” she replied, setting her controller aside and turning toward me. “You really think it will work?”

“Maybe. Do you want to go into witness protection for a few years?”

“Fuck that.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Mags?

It’s … not a great plan. But it’s not your worse plan either. If it works.

Every plan is a good plan if it works.

You’d be surprised. What are you going to tell Nick the Necromancer? If everything worked out, he’ll be out of prison in a few days.

And if this plan works, this whole thing will be done by the end of next week. Besides, hanging out with a powerful necromancer might be another good reason for Jacques to leave me alone after OtherOps steals his glory.

Fair enough.

“Where do you go?” Olivia suddenly asked.

“Huh?”

“When you cock your head like that? It’s like you’re on the phone, but there’s no phone.”

I felt a chill go down my spine. People had called me out on my conversations with Maggie before, but everyone always seemed to chock it up to me being a little bit off. No one had ever described it as an actual conversation before. “Just thinking,” I answered as nonchalantly as possible.

She’s very perceptive, Maggie grunted.

Still have a crush on her?

Absolutely.

I was relieved when my phone rang. It was Justin. “Yeah?” I answered.

“You’re on. It’ll take us until Monday to get everything together and do it quietly enough that none of Lord Ruthven’s spies in OtherOps gets a whiff of it. Can you stay hidden that long?”

Five days. That was a long time to sit still while a Vampire Lord’s henchmen were looking for you. Boris – who still had no idea any of this was happening – was going to start asking questions before that much time passed. And then there was Michael. Would he still be alive in five days? “I think we can do that,” I said.

“Good. Hang in there. We can do this.”

I hung up the phone and let out a deep sigh. It was interrupted by Olivia dropping onto the couch next to me. “Okay,” I told her. “I think we might actually live through this. My friend at OtherOps is on it. But it’s going to be dicey, and there’s a chance Lord Ruthven might still try to kill one or both of us afterwards.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? That’s it? You should be pretty furious at me.” Looking into Olivia’s eyes, I could see she was still in a little bit of shock. But she also looked tired and determined. I had to remind myself that this was a woman who’d told the Cleveland Coven to fuck off. There aren’t a lot of independent witches out there, because most of them couldn’t survive in the wild by themselves. I needed to stop underestimating her.

She shrugged. “I’m a bit pissed, but I don’t really see it as your fault. Blame is useless. Besides, I figure if we live through this, I can milk this whole thing pretty good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re going to finish painting my kitchen.” She thrust a remote into my hand. “Now, let’s see how good you get at Mario Kart over the next five days.”