Blood Tally

Chapter 6

I spent the rest of the day researching genealogy. Or rather, researching how to research genealogy. While I knew about DNA matches from my own work, the whole genealogy thing was way out of my wheelhouse, and I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t just a passing hobby – it was a thriving business, with millions of people into the same kind of genetic matching sites I’d tried to use. Thousands of online forums were dedicated to people trying to find their ancestors in the great, jumbled dustpan of American history that was the European western migration.

Many of those forums were dedicated to the mystery of trying to reconcile mixed-blood DNA. Apparently this was a well-known problem in the field. Nobody had an answer. But the forums did tell me something important: this was especially a problem for victims and former victims of Paronskaft.

Paronskaft was the largest of the imp companies that used to buy and sell human babies. My old nemesis, Kappie Shuteye, sat on the board of Paronskaft back in the seventies and eighties. Studying up on these forums I’d found, it turned out that mixed-blood humans were especially valuable to Paronskaft and that there were thousands of freed slaves trying to find out who their parents were.

But that was freed slaves. People whose contracts had been found when OtherOps raided Paronskaft back in the eighties. As far as I could tell, the fact that I was still enslaved made me unique.

And didn’t give me any help with getting free.

I remunerated on this all night, and then I went by Mum’s Hearth and Yard just after opening the next morning. There was only one employee working – a woman in her sixties who identified herself as “Mum” and did not like my questions about either Michael Pavlovich or his girlfriend, Ava. I was met with a curt “Ms. Holmes isn’t in for a couple of days” and a “You leave Mikey alone, he’s a good boy.” She wasn’t the slightest bit impressed by my fake OtherOps jacket, and within a few minutes I found myself back in my truck, watching the entrance to the garden center with no small amount of irritation.

It didn’t help that Maggie found the whole thing hilarious.

I tried a search for an Ava Holmes in the Hinkley area. Nothing came up. I searched for the phone number I’d been given and had the same luck. I fumed for several minutes as I tried to figure out what to do with the brand-new lead I thought I had. Maggie chuckled in the back of my head. Once I’d cooled down, I dashed off an email to a friend of mine who worked for Verizon, asking her to get me an address connected with Ava’s phone number. In return, I got an out-of-office email. I was just about to give up and head home for a couple hours when my phone rang.

“Hey, Alek, it’s Zeke.” Zeke was not a subtle guy, and I could hear in his tone after four words that he was calling to sell me something.

“What is it?” I asked grumpily.

“You having a bad day, big guy? I might have something to cheer you up.” He didn’t wait for me to ask, rushing on with, “You know how you said you’re trying to track down a thrall?”

“Do you have a lead for me?”

“A small one, I think. I’ll hook you up for two hundred dollars.”

“You tell me what it is, and I’ll decide if it’s worth that much,” I retorted. It was the same old song and dance that we both knew well. Who won often depended on if I was getting desperate or if Zeke badly needed money. He must have had a loan shark breathing down his neck, because he took only a few seconds to think about it.

“Okay, okay. Listen to this: Bay Village police department got a quiet tip last night that someone’s been stealing stock from a little local clinic.”

“What, like drugs?” I asked. “That’s not useful.”

“Nope. Blood. Seems that the manager found them two pints short last night. Could be your missing thrall.”

I considered the information. Thralls weren’t exactly like vampires – they didn’t need blood to survive. But being connected to a vampire magically gave them a thirst. Usually their master would grace them with the table scraps, but a thrall on the run wouldn’t have access to those scraps. On the other hand, now that I knew about places like Sip’n’Bite, I wasn’t so sure a thrall would need to steal to survive anyways. I said as much to Zeke.

“Oh, come on. Someone is stealing that blood. Could be your runaway.”

“Or it might be that the manager counted wrong. Have the cops even opened a case, or was this just a tip?”

“Just a tip. These small clinics always try to handle things internally.”

I snorted and was ready to hang up on Zeke when Maggie suggested, He could be avoiding Sip’n’Bites, worried that someone like you is staking them out.

Good point. I guess it’s worth our own stakeout if we’ve got no other leads today. “That,” I told Zeke, “is worth no more than a hundred bucks. If you need it now, I’ll send it over immediately.”

Zeke grumbled a little but agreed. He gave me the address of the clinic. I hung up and sent the payment over digitally, then punched the address into my GPS and started driving. It was in a little strip mall tucked between two hair salons and behind a Walmart. I watched the front for a few minutes, trying to come up with the best course of action. This was a shaky lead at best, but I did have time on my side. For once. “You okay for a stakeout?” I asked Maggie.

I’m game, just park closer.

It wasn’t a big place, so I found a shady spot as close as I could get to the clinic itself. “This work?” I asked Maggie.

Oh yeah, this is perfect. No wards, no magical anything. The place is an open book. I’ll take the first watch. If I get bored, I’ll wake you up.

“Thanks.” I turned up the radio, pulled my hat down over my head, and dozed off to the sound of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever.”

Stakeouts are by far the most boring part of my job. They are twelve hours of nothing, with as little as a three second window of excitement when you realize it’s all been worth it – and sometimes not even that, when you’ve got the wrong building or are following the wrong guy. Maggie made things infinitely better because she enjoyed people-watching with her jinn senses. We’d play word games, chat about the inanity of life, and sometimes listen to an audiobook.

The day crawled by slowly. I caught up on sleep, pondered the Kimberly Donavon situation, and spent hours reading genealogy forums. I even had a pleasant little daydream about Olivia Martin, though I doubted I’d ever see her again. I’d just gotten back from grabbing coffee from a local shop when a thought struck me. “Hey. You never told me how you know Sting.”

Maggie didn’t respond immediately. When she did, her tone was more coy than usual. I changed my mind.

“Oh, come on, we made a deal.”

It’s embarrassing!

“I told you a secret about Ada. You tell me a secret about yourself. You back out now and you’re no better than her.”

That was a low blow.

I spread my hands. “I’m waiting.”

What if I tell you something else?

“If that something else is as good as how you know Sting.”

I dated Vlad Dracula.

I almost spit my coffee all over my dashboard. Fortunately, I caught myself, managed to swallow and put the cup down before staring at myself in the rearview mirror. “You did not date Dracula.”

Well. What amounted to dating in those days. More like a torrid love affair, I guess you’d call it. It was a few decades before I got trapped in the ring. A few decades after he became a vampire. Funny enough, I was the cougar in that relationship.

I gagged comically.

Oh, pretend like you wouldn’t shack up with someone as famous as that?

“Famous for impaling his enemies on spikes!”

Vladdie was a very conflicted man. And he saved Wallachia from Ottoman incursion.

I laughed out loud at “Vladdie.” The idea of the most famous of the Vampire Lords falling for the wiles of a desert spirit – who would have been a couple hundred years old at the time – was pretty dang funny. “So what was Vladdie like as a little vampire kid?”

Oh, you know. Humans that gain immortality always go through phases – manic, then stupidly reckless, then mopey, then downright depressed. Then they either figure out how to kill themselves or get a hobby. I met Vladdie in Spain right at the end of his reckless phase. I went back to the Carpathian Mountains with him and watched him enter his mopey phase. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Oh?”

Don’t get me wrong. He was dynamite in the sack. He just started crying a lot near the end. I don’t have the temperament for that.

“And I don’t think I needed to know that Dracula is a good lay.”

Knowing is half the battle.

“I’m not sure you’re using that in the right context, G.I. Jane.”

I chuckled to myself and adjusted in my seat to get comfortable, reaching down to slide the bench backward a little bit. What I touched instead of the adjustment lever was silky soft. For a split second I thought that I’d grabbed a T-shirt, but when I closed my fingers and gave it a tug, a muffled “Ow!” came from beneath my seat. I felt my heart lurch into my throat and I suddenly felt wildly vulnerable, like someone out for a swim that feels something touch their leg in the murky depths. “Maggie there’s something under my seat.”

I don’t sense anything, I …

I heard something slide around underneath me, the sound raising all of the hair on the back of my neck. Without warning, a little figure popped out from between my legs, hopped onto one knee, and deposited itself on the passenger seat. It happened faster than I could react, and I found myself eye-to-eye with the sphinx from Boris’s house.

“Please don’t tug my tail,” he said, sounding distinctly put out.

“I, uh … please don’t hide under my seat?”

“Deal.” He began aggressively grooming his shoulder.

I pushed myself against the door, thinking about sphinxes eating unwary travelers. “What are you doing in my truck?” I asked him.

“I needed transportation after I escaped from Boris.”

“You mean after I let you out?”

The sphinx stopped grooming long enough to shoot me a withering look, as if I had insulted him with the very idea that he might need help.

I continued, “You have wings.”

“And flying cats attract attention in North America.”

“Okay, that’s fair. Have you been here the whole time?”

“I have.”

Can he still hear me? Maggie whispered.

“Yes, I can hear you.” The sphinx stopped grooming himself and looked at me with what came across as deep disapproval. “I suppose you’ll do. The two of you seem interesting, and I gather that you work a lot, which is ideal.”

“I’ll do for what?” I asked.

“For my new home. I need a place to bed down. If you live in an apartment, I’ll need a litterbox – changed daily, of course – but if you’re in the country you can just leave a window cracked for me to get in and out.”

“Wait, what?”

He continued over me. “I’ll need four cans of tuna daily. Albacore in water, not that garbage they put on sale every other weekend.”

I held up a finger. “Whoa, whoa. You are not coming to live with me. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

He drew himself up, his tail wrapping around his feet and his wings fluttering slightly. “I am the last Prince of the Nile, the Herald of Sekhmet! You will address me with the respect I am due, as well as offerings of albacore tuna.”

Sekhmet has been dead since before I was born, Maggie said skeptically.

That seemed to deflate the sphinx a little. “Yes, well. Being the Herald Prince of a dead god isn’t as illustrious as it sounds. Why do you think I’m in Ohio rather than Egypt?”

Weirdly, that made me feel a little sad. Almost by instinct, I reached out and scratched the sphinx behind the ears. He stiffened momentarily, then leaned against my hand. “That is an acceptable offering.”

I could feel myself melting on the inside. I like animals, but I hadn’t had a pet for over a decade. I just couldn’t justify it with how much time I spent on the road. “What’s your name?”

“I don’t believe I have one. Boris spent a lot of time calling me his four-legged investment.”

“That’s not a name. How about King Tut?”

“My ancestors knew Tutankhamun, and I think that’s wildly disrespectful,” he sniffed. “Don’t stop scratching!”

We could call him Oedipus, Maggie suggested.

“Oedipus is a Greek legend. He also had sex with his mother, which doesn’t reflect well on me. You, nice genie lady, need to remember that I can hear you.”

Sorry. Maggie sounded a little sheepish.

“How about Eddie? It’s like Oedipus, but … not.”

The sphinx purred loudly, leaning harder into my scratching. “That’s acceptable,” he muttered, suddenly collapsing on the bench next to me and cuddling up against my leg. “Now take me to my new temple.”

“You mean my home?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t go home yet,” I told him. “Still have lots of work to do.”

“Then keep scratching.”

I hate to interrupt all those scratchings, but I have something, Alek.

Eddie’s sudden appearance almost made me forget we were on a stakeout. I turned my attention back to the task at hand. “What am I looking for?”

Hold on. A good minute passed, then another, then another. I was just about to ask Maggie what I was holding on for when she finally said, See that lady right there?

A middle-aged woman with an ask-to-see-the-manager haircut and dye job entered my field of vision, walking across the parking lot and getting into her Prius parked underneath a tree on the far end of the strip mall. “I see her.”

That woman just came out of the clinic. Her nametag says S. Montgomery. That bag she’s carrying has two pints of blood in it. I’m pretty sure it’s against protocol to take those home at the end of the day.

I took my hand away from its scratching duties, eliciting a soft meow from Eddie, and snapped a couple of photos of the lady and her car with my camera phone. “Well, that’s definitely not Michael. But it could be an accomplice.” I looked down, struck with a thought. “Hey, Eddie, what do you know about Michael Pavlovich. Eddie?”

Soft snores answered me. I poked him gently. He didn’t budge.

“Real helpful,” I muttered. I checked the clock – it was just after seven in the evening – and wiped the sweat from my brow as S. Montgomery pulled out of her parking spot and headed toward the road. I waited a few moments, letting her get into traffic, before following at a distance.

I really don’t like that I can’t sense Eddie, Maggie whispered. Or that he can hear me.

I glanced down at him. I could hear his snoring above the sound of the truck. I whispered back mentally, I guess we have a cat now.

Careful with that. Like he said before, he’s not a pet. He’s a sphinx. Very intelligent.

Very catlike, I shot back.

Don’t let that trick you. I’ve only ever seen sphinxes at a distance, but I’ve read that they can be terrifying.

He seems a bit … small to be terrifying? Does he have magical powers or something?

They were the heralds of Sekhmet for a reason. But hell if I know what he’s actually capable of.

Plowing through four cans of tuna a day, apparently. I can’t afford that shit. I don’t even spend that much money on my own food when I’m not using the company credit card. I glanced down at Eddie once more, sighed, and turned my attention back to our quarry.

S. Montgomery had plenty of errands to run. We went to the grocery store, pharmacy, Chick-fil-A, and then finally to a little subdivision in Westlake. I watched her pull into the driveway of a little house with a neatly mown lawn and nice flower bed, then parked myself somewhat down the road from it. She unloaded her groceries, carrying them inside.

“What now?” I asked aloud.

Nothing exciting about her, Maggie reported. As far as I can tell, she’s a complete civilian. No connection with the Other.

Which meant that we might have misread the entire thing. “Well, that’s a day wasted.” I wrote down the address in my notebook just in case.

Maybe not, Maggie said. She’s coming back out. And the blood is still in her car.

S. Montgomery returned to her car and, to my surprise, backed out of the driveway. I slid down in my seat, pulling my hat down over my face as she drove by. Once she’d gone, I turned around and followed. “Okay. Guess we’ll see where this goes.”

She led me back toward Cleveland, pulling off at the same exit as the zoo and driving up into an older neighborhood filled with those ancient three-story homes that have long since gone to shit. It was not the kind of neighborhood where I would expect to find a middle-aged white woman in a Prius. She pulled up in front of one of the houses, walked up to the door, and left a bag on the front step without knocking.

That’s the blood she stole from the center, Maggie told me. And that house definitely has wards. Lots of them, some I don’t even recognize.

That was very odd. I let S. Montgomery depart without following and watched the house for well over an hour. It got dark and no lights came on in the house. Neighbors were starting to eyeball me, so I wrote down the address and headed home. On the way, I called Jacques.

The dhampir answered after a single ring. “What do you have for me today?”

“Not a lot. Been taking it slow like you said. I did go by Boris’s house yesterday and met one of his thralls.”

There was a moment of silence. “You just walked up to a vampire’s lair without permission?”

“Yes?”

I could practically feel Jacques raising an eyebrow at me. “That was either very stupid or very brave.”

“No security. Nothing interesting going on. His thrall was kind of a putz.” When Jacques didn’t respond, I continued, “I’m certain that Michael is still alive. I’m also fairly certain that while Boris is a shitty master, he isn’t actually breaking the Rules.”

Jacques made a hmm sound. “I’ll be the one to determine that. Did you take pictures of his compound?”

“Should I have?”

“I did ask you to gather information about him.”

I honestly felt a little stupid. “Right. Well if I end up back there, I’ll be sure to do so.”

“You probably won’t get another chance. Once Boris finds out you snooped around, he’ll be very angry. Watch your back.”

“He’s my client,” I said flatly.

“Boris is unpredictable,” Jacques responded firmly. “I’m warning you for your own safety. Whatever lack of evidence you have of his crimes, he is dangerous, and he does break the Rules. Continue your task. Continue your reports.” Jacques hung up.

I considered this for a few minutes as I drove down the darkened highway. Finally, I asked Maggie, “Does he sound super annoyed that I haven’t discovered evidence of Boris breaking the Rules?”

A bit, yeah. But I guess that’s understandable. He’s pretty convinced that Boris is a liability, and he’s probably paying Ada a lot of money to dig up some dirt.

“Man, I don’t want to get involved in a vampire spat.”

Seems a bit late for that.

“No kidding. Something isn’t right with this whole thing. Jacques is still holding back information. I’m basically being ordered to dick around. I still have no idea what Jacques has on Ada to get us to double-cross a client. All I’ve got is that place our S. Montgomery dropped off the blood and a borderline-hoarder vampire that our client wants to prove is guilty of … something.” I zoned out, letting my subconscious work on these puzzles while I drove with one hand, “The Weight” by the Band playing softly on the radio and Eddie snoring on the bench next to me.

I got off the highway in Wickliffe, hoping that Nadine had checked my mail for the last week and left anything important on my desk. As we neared the office, I could feel my head begin to nod with exhaustion. Even with the nap this afternoon and orders to stretch things out, I had slept even less than normal. I didn’t think this would be a problem until I felt a distinct sting on my left hand, pain lancing up my arm through the bones and jerking me awake.

“Maggie, what was that for?”

She cut me off as I turned into the office parking lot. Wake up, troll boy. Boris is waiting for you, and he’s really fucking pissed.