“Come on, Ben… Even if I’m wrong, you aren’t seriously saying that you think a vampire killed this woman, are you?” I asked.
“Didn’t say that,” he replied. “But you’re the one holdin’ your neck.”
Out of reflex, I dropped my hand to my side, even though the pain had become sharper and more pronounced. “Dammit, Ben. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Just two and two, Row,” he said with a shrug. “That call was a status on the prelim from the medical examiner. I got an unidentified, very dead young woman with a hole in ‘er neck and most of ‘er blood gone, but no blood at the scene. Now I got the king of the friggin’ Twilight Zone -namely you-sittin’ across from me holdin’ onto his neck. Gimme a break… Do ya’ really think I’m not gonna at least ask?”
“Fine, but that really isn’t the point,” I replied. “Be serious. You know as well as I do vampires don’t exist. Metaphorical vampires, as in people who prey on others, yes… I’ll even give you psychic vampires because I’ve actually dealt with a couple of them myself… But, even then it’s still a metaphorical term. In the literal Count Dracula, undead, blood sucking sense of the word, they simply don’t exist.”
He held up his free hand and shook his index finger as he narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, but what about the wingnuts that think they’re vampires?”
“That’s a whole bizarre subculture in and of itself, and I really don’t know what to tell you there. It’s definitely not my thing.”
“Okay, just wonderin’. They touched on some stuff about ‘em in a seminar I was at last year. The brainiac givin’ the lecture said there was a crossover with Pagans and the occult and all that jazz, so I thought ya’ might know somethin’.”
“Paganism in general attracts all sorts of people, and it definitely gets its share of the Goth crowd, so it wouldn’t surprise me to get some of them as well. But as to the vampire types, I’m pretty sure the operative phrase there is think they are, Ben. Because that’s all it is. They aren’t really vampires.”
“You don’t want to say that to them,” a familiar voice offered.
We both looked up to see our waitress as she was sliding a plate of biscuits smothered in gravy onto the table next to me.
I shook my head and apologized, “Sorry, Wendy. I didn’t realize I was being that loud.”
“You weren’t. I’ve got really good hearing,” she said then pointed to the lunch counter a few feet away. “Besides, I was just right over there.”
Ben waved his fork absently. “So you actually know somethin’ about these freaks?”
“A little.” She shrugged. “Not a lot. I mean, it’s way too weird for me, but someone a friend of mine knows is heavily into the whole scene.”
“You serious?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod.
“So this person actually thinks…” he began as he settled the fork on his plate then reached over to his jacket and rummaged around for his notebook.
Reading the unspoken question in his hesitant pause, Wendy answered, “She.”
“Thanks… So she thinks she’s a vampire?” he finished.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “And, she’s pretty serious about it too. The first time I met her she was really offended that I thought she was joking.”
“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.