“You seem to spend a lot of time watching me, you know that?” I asked, noticing that she was wearing a wedding band. The other times I had seen her it had been missing, but a lot of police officers took off rings when working. They don’t always mix well with the street.
“Actually, you are right. You are my pet project, per the Commissioner’s orders. He feels that you’re too valuable and your abilities are not well understood, so I’m your handler for want of a better term,” she said. “But back to my question. When did you see Briana?”
“She ambushed me this morning and insisted on giving me a ride to work.”
Gina just nodded so I continued.
“She is aware of my demon banishing abilities, at least the exorcism ones. She also knows I had a hand in the Hancer lab debacle, but didn’t elaborate. She never mentioned the Demidovas or Plasma, the Hellbourne or anything about weres.”
“Knowing Briana, she would most likely say something if she had that information. What about your physical speed, strength or senses? Or your rapid healing and excessive metabolism?” she asked.
I just stared at her. To my knowledge I had never divulged any of that. After a moment she smiled.
“Bingo! We’re not stupid, Chris. Brian told me you were holding back during his evaluation, a lot. We all saw you save Jacobella from falling. I’ve seen you with cuts and minor wounds on several occasions, that were gone hours later. In the pit, you ran down two flights of stairs in the pitch darkness, without night vision goggles, avoided all the cops down there and located the Damnedthing and the demon. Most of what I said was an educated guess, but your responses tell me I’m right.”
She smiled again, but it wasn’t a smug smile.
“I can understand your reluctance to talk about this with anyone. But I have to ask you, are you becoming a vampire?”
I was still stunned by her perception, but I managed a head shake. She frowned.
“A were?” She asked.
I shook my head again, then managed to find words. “We don’t know what I am.”
She frowned at the word ‘we’ asking a silent question.
“The vampires have their own doctor. He’s the one who recognized the base origin of the Hance molecule. Anyway, he has a theory that I inherited a mutated version of the viruses that cause both vampirism and lycanthropy. When I was exposed to the virus in Tanya’s blood, my own mutated again, leaving me with attributes of both vamps and weres. It’s all very complicated and I don’t have the science to understand much of it, but it seems to fit. My demon abilities are all tied to it as well.”
I waited for her to push for additional information, but she changed directions.
“Chris, has the Damnedthing left or have you encountered it since?”
I sighed, figuring lying wasn’t worth the effort.
“He’s still around. I think he’s kind of adopted me. He’s a bit….protective.”
Her eyes got big as she wrestled with the idea of an ancient elemental animal spirit with godlike powers following me around.
“I don’t think he will cause trouble. He doesn’t seem to eat anything that I can figure out. He won’t attack my friends,” I assured her.
She looked a little dubious.
“You’re not going to tell me that he’s not dangerous are you?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, he’s incredibly dangerous. He’s the one who killed Fedor. Crushed him like a caterpillar. But he is intelligent, hates demons and has declared himself to be my friend.”
She picked up a pencil and tapped it on her desk top.
“You know, I used to think this was an interesting job. Then you showed up and I’m only just starting to find out the meaning of the word interesting.”
She shook herself a little, then pinned me with a look. “Now what did Briana offer you?”
“Well, I can pretty much expect the sun, moon and stars, plus I’ll have the daily privilege of basking in her glory and wisdom. Did you know that if Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet, Briana Duclair would have?” I asked, with a straight face.
She laughed, reassured that I wasn’t jumping ship immediately.
After that my life started to settle into a pattern of sorts. By day I worked for the Special Situations group, keeping hours as I saw fit. By night, I helped, dated, hung around with and generally continued my fall into love with the future queen of the vampires. And she insisted that I begin training with her, learning the vampire way of combat. I needed every bit of accelerated healing I could get, as she was by far the toughest instructor I ever met. But she made up for it in ways none of my old instructors could have, not that I would ever want them to.
Thanksgiving was fast approaching (which Gramps was coming down for) and the skies stayed mostly gunmetal gray. I was helping Chet with setting up a new piece of equipment that was supposed to measure neutrinos. He was working on particle physics, a direction first hinted at by Dr. Singh,
Olivia appeared in the doorway, excited and bearing news.
“The Inspector just called. He and Fran have confirmed a demonic haunting in the Bronx.”
She handed me a slip of paper with the address on it, then stepped back a little breathless. It took me a second to realize that she was watching me for a reaction. I turned to Chet and he was doing the same thing.
“What? It’s just a demon,” I said.
Chet snorted. “Just a demon he says. You hear that ‘Liv, ‘just a demon’? Dude, this is our first chance to see you in action.”
“Whoa there cowboy. No one is going in with me. It doesn’t work that way,” I said.
“Yeah, but you can wear that new Chris Cam I put together. And I can send my little robot in to measure EMF, radiation, and all kinda stuff!”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
Sooner than I anticipated we were at the scene. The entire team was assembled and as Chet wired me up for video and sound, Fran and Roma gave me the run down.
“Family just moved in,” he pointed to a black couple holding two kids. “Landlord offered them a hell of a deal on rent. They were no sooner in, when all hell broke loose. Both kids scratched, bedroom doors shutting themselves and resisting all efforts to open them, you know, that kinda thing.”
Roma was almost as excited as Chet, who was now sending his little tracked remote controlled robot in with a complete sensor suite.
“Fran, tell him what you sensed.”
“It’s mean, maybe a six on the scale,” her voice dropped to a whisper. “And I think it knows you are here.”
“Good. Makes things easier. Did you get a name?” I asked, in a normal voice.
She nodded and handed me a slip of paper with the word magottus on it. I grimaced at the name.
“What’s the matter, is it a bad one?” Fran asked.
“Nah, its name sounds like squished maggots! Can’t these things every sound normal?” I smiled to let her see I was joking. “Alright, let me chat with the kids a minute and let’s get this party started!”
The boys were four and six, and quick to jump in with names for the mountain lion fetish I pulled from my rollout bag. The four-year old was in favor of ‘Big Kitty’ but the six-year old
was heavily lobbying for ‘Alex’ after the lion character in Madagascar. I tried for a compromise.
“How about ‘Big Alex’?” I asked.
Something in my voice must have conveyed my diminishing patience, because the both agreed.
“All right. I’m heading in. Don’t get too comfortable, this shouldn’t take long.”
As I climbed the steps I could feel a chill emanating from the house, a chill that had nothing to do with the deepening gloom of the November evening. A hostile presence awaited me within. Suddenly, I felt another presence arriving behind me, to the high pitched howl of a German motorcycle, and turning, I looked at the lithe form riding it. She pulled off her helmet and her electric blue eyes sparked in the darkness. From the corner of my eye, I could see the team looking at her in surprise. But her gaze never strayed from mine. I smiled and winked, then spoke softly, knowing she would hear me above the noises of the city.