Deader Still

20

I was freezing by the time Haunts-General showed up twenty minutes later. They started going about the business of releasing Dr. Kolb’s spirit. Whatever that entailed, I really didn’t know. My last encounter with them had been over Irene’s spirit, and the paperwork for dealing with a spirit like hers sans body had been enough of an excuse for them to leave her case in Other Division hands. Haunts-General had simply walked away from it. Tonight, thankfully, we already had the body and now the spirit of the late Dr. Kolb. Hopefully they’d be able to send the poor guy off to wherever it was that spirits were supposed to go after death, and Dr. Kolb would be one less apparition running through the park.

As Haunts-General took over the scene, I described what had happened while Connor walked off for a bit. When I was done, I searched around for him, only to find him alone heading toward the nearest exit of the park.

“So, if it’s not vampires, then what is it?” I asked when I was by his side. Connor really didn’t look like he wanted to talk, and when he finally spoke he sounded pissed.

“Dammit, kid. You shouldn’t have reported it as vampires. You said it was vampires in the vision.”

“I know,” I said.

Connor stopped and turned to me. “Now the Enchancellors are probably going to come down on you for blowing the call. I’m sorry—come down on us. You were so quick to call it. Is that what they teach you F.O.G.gies? To make rash judgments? You know, for a secret society, you sure seem pretty keen on showboating.”

I gave up. Connor started walking again, and I followed him.

“So are you going to tell me what type of creature we’re dealing with or not?”

Connor sighed. “Well, from what our dear dead doctor had to tell us—red, hypnotic eyes, a doglike creature with pronounced spinal ridge—I’m guessing we’re looking for a chupacabra.”

I knew the name from the D.E.A.’s three-hour seminar entitled “Fee Fie Foes: A Refreshing Look at Cryptozoology from A to Z.” There had been handouts, but I was sure mine were lost somewhere in the paperwork scattered across my desk. What I did remember of the chupacabra was one key factor. It, too, was a bloodsucker.

“They’re from New Mexico,” I said. We were at the edge of the park now. Connor walked though the gate, moved to the edge of Fifth Avenue, and hailed a cab. “Why would there be one of those in New York City?”

A cab pulled over and Connor got in. He made no effort to move over, leaving me to stand, wet and freezing, on the curb.

“Maybe you’d better read up on them, then,” he said, sullen. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you fill out the paperwork for reporting the missing crab statues? Maybe next time you’ll think before causing a stir in the Department.”

He slammed the door shut and the cab sped off as the horror of more paperwork filled my head.

I stood there, soaking wet, wondering if I’d ever again be able to go a whole day with dry pants. The odds weren’t looking good.

By the time I got back to my apartment, I was shivering involuntarily, thanks to being soaked through. I barely had control of my hands as I went to unlock my door, but I finally managed to get it open on the third try.

Thankfully, Mina was already passed out in my guest bedroom, so I wouldn’t have to deal with her. I considered that my luckiest break in the whole of my night—well, morning. I hadn’t really thought about what I would have told her had she seen me coming in like this anyway. She never would have bought a made-up story about the old version of me getting mugged, but since she held the straight-and-narrow version of me in such low esteem, maybe she would have bought it. It was no matter—she was busy sleeping, something my body desperately wished it was doing.

I counted myself lucky that I wasn’t scheduled to be on the floor at the Javits Center until noon the next day, but I still wanted to get up early to take care of a few things over at the Lovecraft, like seeing if my phone had come in yet or if Godfrey had anything on Cleopatra’s Needle. I peeled myself out of my cold second skin of clothing and took the most scalding shower I could stand in an effort to raise my core temperature back to normal. I hoped it was enough to kill whatever ick I had been exposed to just from jumping into the lake.

The next morning I was up and out the door without having to interact with Mina, though I remembered to slip my lock picks in my coat pocket. The less I interacted with her, the quicker she would be gone when she got what she wanted out of me. When I hit East Eleventh, the front of the Lovecraft Café buzzed with activity, which was no surprise. At this time of day there was always a heavy mix of agents among the locals, which made what I was about to do slightly easier.

I hurried back through the theater, which, for once, wasn’t running a horror movie, paradoxically giving it an eerie feeling. The general bull pen area of the offices was mostly empty, to my relief. I looked up at the dry-erase board high on the wall. It currently read “It has been 2 days since our last vampire incursion.”

My feet felt heavy as I climbed the ladder. When I reached the top I wiped away the 2, recalculated the number, and wrote in 738. I slid back down the ladder before anyone could notice and headed for my desk, but there was the sound of someone clearing his throat nearby and I turned to look.

Godfrey Candella had just come in through the movie theater into the offices, a notebook in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. His suit, as always, was impeccable, his tie knot perfect.

“Good morning,” I said. “Anything about Cleopatra’s Needle yet? Translate the hieroglyphics?”

Godfrey shook his head, then cocked it to the side, looking up at the dry-erase board.

Damn. I had hoped to distract him from what I had just done.

“Sorry, not yet. Too soon,” he said. “I wasn’t aware that there were any changes in the alert.” His voice was more curious than accusatory. Had there been any accusation in it, I might have just turned and walked away as fast as I could, but instead I stepped closer.

“Yeah,” I said with a whisper and a sheepish grin. “My bad. There’s probably going to be a lot of paperwork involved in retracting that, but I just thought I’d get it off the board first.”

“A lot of paperwork?” Godfrey said, his eyes bulging. “Please. That’s the least of it. I already have the Gauntlet updating all the archives in preparation for documenting the antivampire operation. I even had overtime approved by the Enchancellors, and that never happens.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I truly was. I didn’t want to create more work for anyone. I sat down heavily on the edge of a nearby desk and rubbed my eyes. “I just thought it would impress the Order if I had something big like that under my wing, you know? And when I saw all those dead people on the boat, I was almost chomping at the bit to call ‘vampires’ on it all.”

Godfrey seemed to process that for a minute before speaking up. “So, if it’s not vampires, what is it, then? Do you have any other guesses?”

“Connor said it’s probably a chupacabra. I hoped to get a little research in before I have to head up to the convention center. I need to grab some reference materials on them.”

“You don’t need books,” Godfrey said. “Chupacabra, eh?” Behind his glasses, his eyes rolled up and to the right as his brain accessed some little referential nook or cranny. He smiled. “What would you like to know?”

I pulled out my still-wet notebook. I read through the few notes I had made.

“So they’re bloodsuckers, yes? Piercing fangs and red eyes?”

Godfrey nodded. “They can hypnotize with those eyes as well.”

I flipped through my notes to where I had written down the description that the booze cruise employee Maggie had given me of the strange creature she had encountered on Pier 84.

“Could this thing be mistaken for a dog?”

Godfrey thought a moment, then nodded. “I could see that,” he said. “Yes. Some have been noted to have these spiny ridges or thick fur all over them. I’ve only seen a few National Enquirer-level photos of them. A dead one was supposedly found in Nicaragua. But from some of what I’ve seen, they could probably pass for, or at least be mistaken for, a dog.”

“Good,” I said, making a few new notes.

“Does that help?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. It confirms a lot of what Connor was thinking.”

Godfrey smiled, pleased. It made my own shame over calling “vampires” on the case by mistake easier to bear.

After Godfrey left, I was a lot more knowledgeable than I had been several minutes earlier, but still wondering why a chupacabra was now in New York City.

I pulled out the photo blowups of the Dr. Kolb crime scene. I had been sure that Cleopatra’s Needle figured in to this. Maybe I had watched Nosferatu one too many times, but I had already imagined a lone vampiric figure skulking around the base of the monolith, finding secret meaning in the ancient hieroglyphs chiseled there. I found it hard to believe there was nothing arcane about it, except now I imagined this doglike creature piddling on the base of it before moving along. If there was any significance to the needle, it was beyond me. I gave the pictures another look, this time checking out everything the camera had captured, ignoring the monument.

In the photos, there were trees, lots of them. Then there were shots of the crime scene itself. It wasn’t terribly gruesome as far as crime scenes went, except for the bloody bite marks on the victim’s neck. Other than that, there was very little blood left, which was what foolishly led me to think vampires in the first place. Several photos showed the police officers who were blocking off the crime scene, many of whom I recognized. And then I saw one more face that I recognized as well, off in the distance and just barely visible through the trees. I leapt from my desk, folded the picture, and stuffed it into my jacket pocket as I headed for the streets. I needed to get over to the Javits Center right away.

I needed to know why Illinois gypsies had also been in that area of Central Park that day.