I run my hand over my face, maybe trying to wipe away the expression that I knew was stamped there. Then I have a thought. "So he snuck in, night after night, like in Drac ula. He kept attacking her in her sleep until she-"
"Stan, that book was written before we knew very much about vampires. Stoker got a lot of it right, but there were quite a few things he got wrong."
"Like what?"
"Vampires can't sneak into a house like cat burglars, Stan. Nobody knows why, but they have to be invited in."
A few days later, I apply for the transfer. It works its way through the system, and a week later I get approval. So I go through the special training, then start work as a detec tive in Supernatural Crimes. And in my time away from the job, I hunt the bloodsucker who had seduced and killed my wife.
It takes me eight months. Eight long months of research, cultivating informants, reading old arrest reports, trading favors with other cops, intimidating and cajoling and brib ing members of the local vamp community.
Eight months. And then I find him.
But it isn't that simple anymore, because by then, I've got a bigger problem to deal with. My need for revenge is now mixed with fear – fear for my daughter, Christine.
Anton Kinski's got a job. Most vamps do, I'd learned. Since the undead had made themselves known, along with the rest of the supes, they were able to stop living in graveyards and the basements of abandoned houses. But rent and decent clothes cost money, so Anton has found work (night shift, of course) as a pleater at a small gar ment factory.
He's a good worker, is Anton. Puts in his time, rarely misses a night (vamps don't call in sick) and pretty much keeps to himself. When he's not off seducing and murdering women, he's got a pretty boring life, or whatever it is that vamps have.
Until the day he wakes up at sunset to find me leaning over him, the sharp point of my wooden stake resting lightly against his chest. My other hand is holding a mallet, and I make sure he sees that, too, along with the silver crucifix hanging on a chain around my neck.
"You don't know how much I want to pound this stake clear through your body, Anton," I tell him, my voice thick and tight. "And if you so much as twitch, that's exactly what I'm gonna do."
Nothing moves but his eyes, which search my face and see there the truth of what I'd just told him.
His lips barely move when he finally speaks, and his voice is barely loud enough to hear. "Who – who are you?"
"I'm the husband of Rita Markowski, the woman you killed last fall. Remember, Anton? There can't have been so many of them since then that you don't remember Rita."
He closes his eyes for a few secs. Then he opens them and says, "I don't suppose it will matter if I tell you it was an accident – carelessness, really, on my part."
"No difference, Anton. None at all."
His head moves about an eighth of an inch in a nod. "So, why are we talking? You want to gloat a while before you stake me?"
"No, Anton. It tears my guts out to say it, but I need you."
He looks a question at me.
"You didn't turn Rita – didn't make her… one of you."
"Like I said – accident. Got… carried away."
"But you know how to do it."
"Sure, of course," Anton says. "I've done it before."
"Is it true, what I've heard? You have to exchange blood with the victim before she dies? Is that how it's done?"
"Yeah, pretty much." He swallows. "That it? You want… me to turn you?"
He winces as the stake's point presses harder into his chest. "Don't push your fucking luck, Anton. I'd no more become one of you leeches than I'd volunteer to work in a concentration camp."
"What, then?"
"My daughter. I want… I want you to turn my daughter."
Christine's admitted to me that she'd been concealing the symptoms – the weakness, night sweats, joint pain – for as long as she could. She didn't want to be a bother, she said – meaning, I guess, that she saw I was half-crazy with grief and she didn't want to push me the rest of the way. And I guess she also thought that some of it was just her body's way of dealing with the shock of Rita's death.
But when the lumps appeared in her armpits, she'd re alized that something more serious was going on. By then, of course, it was too late.
The docs did everything the book says – radiation, chemo, even some experimental medicines. Then one day her pri mary physician took me into that little room they have at the hospital, just off the intensive care unit. As soon as I sat down, I figured this was the room where doctors give you the Bad News. I was right, too.
I'd suspended my off-hours search for Rita's killer when Christine was hospitalized. But the night they gave me the Bad News, I went back to it. If possible, I pushed even harder than before – and it paid off.
That's how I find myself kneeling over a vampire and telling him that he's going to buy continued existence by making my only child a bloodsucking leech just like him.
I bring Christine home a few days later, promising the hospital people that I'll arrange for twenty-four-hour nurs ing care. I tell them that I'll make sure she gets everything she needs.
And then, one night, when the painkillers have pushed her to edge of unconsciousness, I tell the night nurse she can go home early. Then I get in touch with Anton Kinski again.
He doesn't have to ask my permission to enter the house. He's been there before.
Even now, I'm not sure if what happened next was the right thing to do, or the worst idea I ever had.
Pittston's only about twenty minutes' drive from Scranton, so I gave Karl the short version of the story, but it contained all the essentials.
When I was done, he turned in his seat and looked at me. "Stan – Jeez – I'm sorry, man, I didn't-"
"Forget it, Karl," I said. "You didn't know and now you do, and there's nothing else to say about it. Besides, it's time to go to work."
We had reached the crime scene.
Pittston's a town of about nine thousand, midway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. It's got more hills than any other town I've ever seen. I hear San Francisco's worse, but I've got no desire to find out – they can keep their vamp mayor, as far as I'm concerned.
The city's in Luzerne County, not Lackawanna, which explains why Lacey Brennan got the call from the State Police and I didn't. Besides, Lacey's got a much cuter ass than I do.
• • • •
We parked behind a Pittston PD cruiser that looked like it had a lot of miles on it. I could see yellow crime scene tape fencing off a white duplex with green trim. The place had seen better days. A couple of shingles were gone from the roof, and the paint was peeling in several places. As soon as we were out of the car, Lacey came strolling over, a notebook in her hand and a frown on her heartshaped face.
"Good evening, as Bela Lugosi used to say," she said to me, then nodded at my partner. "Karl."
"Whatever chance this had of being a good evening went down the tubes hours ago," I said. "You wanna fill us in?"
"I might be able to do better than that, and get you inside for a look," she said. "The Crime Lab guys have been and gone."
As we walked toward the house Lacey said, "Family's name is Dwyer. They've got the upstairs."
"Who's ROS?" I asked her. I wanted to know who the Ranking Officer on Scene was because I wasn't going in that house without permission. Lacey couldn't give it, because this wasn't her case, or her jurisdiction. The last thing I wanted was some Statie calling McGuire to complain that I'd violated procedure.
"Twardzik," she said flatly.
There was silence for three or four paces.
"Of course it is," I said. "Why should God start taking pity on me now?"
I followed her through the small crowd of milling cops and technicians to where the Ranking Officer on Scene was chewing on a couple of guys in plain clothes. Even from the rear, Lieutenant Michael Twardzik was easy to spot. He was the only one around in a State Police uniform who barely topped 5'5". That's the minimum height requirement, and I swear the little bastard must've worn lifts in his shoes when he applied for the academy. His case of short man complex isn't much worse than, say, Napoleon's.