Uneasy Alliance - Chapter 2

It didn’t take the police and scientific team very long to arrive. They deployed their equipment, took samples and photos. I wasn’t on the Force anymore, so I couldn’t help, but I knew their routine. In my mind, I could follow their actions.

After some time, Gerard stepped back in the hallway and looked at me.

“You okay?”

“I’m more worried than if I had found him dead.”

“I get it. So, what happened?”

My report was precise and quick; there wasn’t much to tell anyway. He was silent a moment, writing notes down. Then he looked up, tapping his pen on his notebook.

“Do you want in on the investigation? I can give you temporary deputy status.”

“I haven’t been part of the VPF for forty years, everything has changed.”

“Lethe, we’re vampires. Nothing changes for millennia.”

I had to laugh. He was right. The Codex Noctis that governed vampires was older than time, and still in use. Gerard went on.

“You were one of my best assets, Lethe. And since you know Arcturus and the people he socialized with, you could be a tremendous help. You have access to places I’d never set foot in.”

I hadn’t socialized with Arcturus for a while, and had no idea who were his current friends, but I was very worried by his disappearance and I wanted to help anyway I could. What Gerard didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

“All right, I’m in.”

“Great. You’re herby a temporary member of the Vampire Police Force in San Francisco. Do you have an idea where we should start?”

“His last companion is Circe. She lives one floor down.”

We left after a word to the team.

“I suppose you know her?”

“Yes. She hates me.”

That stopped him in his tracks.

“That’s a problem.”

“Not really. She’s just jealous I was turned three centuries before her. She wishes she was the only one Arcturus had ever turned. I never understood what he saw in her.”

“Can you tell me more about her?”

“We met in London in 1862 during the Season. She was the widow of a British count, and she had introduced her daughter... Olympia I think was her name, to the court at Queen Charlotte’s ball. She wanted to find fine husbands for both of them. She was funny, spiritual and she decided she would have Arcturus for herself the moment she saw him. I think he’d been lonely too long after he’d parted with Nuwa and let himself be seduced. I believe he thought she would run after revealing he was vampire, but she didn’t and he turned her to have a companion.”

“You weren’t his lover?”

“No. I’m more like a daughter to him.”

“So you’ve never been a couple?”

“Nope.”

We were in front of Circe’s door, and it was all I wanted to share of my life. When she opened, she was her usual self: gold curls, lots of makeup, revealing clothes, and a martini with two olives. She looked at me with disgust.

“What are you doing here? I'm heading to bed!”

“Can we come in? We need to talk to you.”

“We?”

Gerard showed up in the doorframe and she turned to him, ran her gaze up and down his body to seize him up and pursed her lips seductively.

“Hey, honey.”

Gerard didn’t flinch and showed her his VPF ID card. She looked annoyed, turned around and walked back in with a pout. She sat on the sofa, all charm gone now she knew it wasn’t a social call. We took the armchairs on the other side of the coffee table.

Her apartment looked like the inside of a chocolate box. She hadn’t let go of the Victorian style and had piled up furniture and trinkets everywhere. The accumulation of souvenirs at Arcturus’ place looked elegant and fancy, but here, there was no style, no charm, it was cluttered and smothering.

“What do you want?”

“When is the last time you went upstairs to Arcturus’ place?”

“Why do you care?”

Gerard clenched his jaw and I knew that was a bad sign. I cut in.

“Circe, play nice, please.”

“Has something happened?”

She looked worried and put her glass down. I let Gerard lead the conversation again.

“Jimmy’s dead and Arcturus is missing.”

Circe let out a whimper and cross her hands on her ample bosom. She might have been fake for a lot of things, but her distress was genuine.

“What? How?”

“For the moment, we need your answers. When did you last go upstairs?”

“Uh… two days ago, on Friday night. We had a meal here, spent the night together. I left Saturday morning.”

“Did you have guests? A prize?”

“No, we fed earlier in the week, so we just had lasagna, delivered from Guido’s on Battery.”

“Have you seen him since then?”

“No. I called him last night to see if he was free, but he said he had other things planned. So I had dinner out with a couple of friends.”

“When did you come back?”

“Around… 2AM, maybe two-thirty.”

“All right. I’ll need the names of these friends.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know if he had any enemies? People who wanted him gone?”

“No! He was a gentleman, and everyone loved him! We were at this big show at the MOMA last week, and everyone wanted a handshake.”

“Do you own any weapons?”

Circe looked sarcastic and showed us her fangs.

“You mean apart from these? No, I don’t need any.”

“At what time did you call him?”

“A little after seven, just after nightfall.”

“And how did he seem on the phone?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he anxious, tired, worried?”

“I don’t know.”

She frowned, thinking back.

“A bit preoccupied I suppose. He seemed to have something on his mind, but I didn’t pay attention. He never shared any of his thoughts with me.”

Her voice was hinting of regret.

“Can you tell me anything? What happened to Jimmy?”

Gerard took his phone and showed her a photo he had taken earlier.

“Have you ever seen anything like that?”

Circe studied the picture of the black scorch mark.

“No, I don’t think so. What is it?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Circe turned to me.

“Lethe, is there anything you can tell me?”

I knew her to be ferocious and merciless, but right now she was looking like a lost little girl and her makeup had started to smear under her damp eyes. For the first time in over a century, I realized her feelings for Arcturus were real.

“I’m sorry Circe, I just got back on the team, and for the moment we don’t really know what happened. Just that we found Jimmy decapitated and Arcturus missing.”

She shuddered and emptied her martini.

“Have you had any contact with Nuwa recently?”

“Not in a long time. Five, six years maybe.”

“Any idea on how we can contact her?”

“I must have her email address somewhere. I have no idea where she lives. Maybe Arc…”

She had a sob and wiped a tear.

“Maybe you can find something upstairs. I don’t know.”

“Okay. Can you send the email to me as soon as you find it?”

“Sure.”

“You socialized with him a lot?”

“Yes, all the time. We don’t live together, but we’re still a couple. Were. Are.”

She got up, grabbed a tissue and sat back on the sofa with the box.

“Could you make a list of his friends, acquaintances, business partners? Going back from the last persons you saw.”

“That’s gonna take days.”

“Just put some names together. Take your time.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll keep in touch, let you know when we have news.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you want me to call someone for you?”

“No, thanks, I’ll do it.”

She was obviously heartbroken, and I was worried to leave her like that. Out of nowhere, a wave of pity washed over me and I took her into my arms. Our hug was awkward, coming after so many years of mistrust and contempt, but she answered it and I felt some of the tension leave her body.

We went back upstairs to supervise the departure of the scientific team, and to check Arcturus’ possessions. When we arrived, Gerard turned to me.

“You mentioned Nuwa twice. Who is she?”

“Arcturus’ previous lover. Azita was his Sire, and she was still alive when I was turned. She died at the siege of Vienna in 1680-something. I wasn’t there, but he was. He contacted me and we both left for Asia soon after. He was devastated at her loss. She had turned him at the end of the eleventh century and they had been together all this time. When we arrived in China, it took us some time to learn the language, and get accepted. We trained in martial arts, and Arcturus fell in love with our sensei’s daughter. He turned her, she took the name Nuwa, and he stayed there, creating a small community. They were together for about a hundred years, and then she stayed behind when he decided to go to America. I’ll send her an email when Circe delivers.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Late nineteen twenties. She was very excited about the new Chinese republic. I hate politics, so I left her to it and went to Japan.”

Diving into Arcturus’ study was arduous and endless work. He had lived for over a thousand years, and he had kept a lot of papers in his archives. Everything would remain here until his fate was known. I searched his desk, hoping to find an address book, but no luck. And as with most older vampires, there was no computer in sight.

We found a Book of Hours, written and beautifully illuminated in the Middle-Ages, some drawings of the Classical era that looked like they were made by Da Vinci himself, a bunch of books in original editions that he probably got directly from the authors, including my own, and about five hundred volumes of his journal. When you opened them, you could see the evolution of the language, the penmanship. He had used gothic writing from the start, like the monks had taught him when he was a boy, son of the Head of the Merchant’s Guild during the Middle-Ages, and he’d kept using this script even after it was disused. It would have been undecipherable if he hadn’t taught me Ancient French during the countless years I spent in his company. And beside scholars versed in medieval manuscripts, I was probably the only one able to read his prose. 

We jumped at the sound of the blinds opening at sunset. We had been so immersed in our work we hadn’t felt the evening coming. We had spent hours trying to find a clue about what had happened to him, and we realized we would need a team of archivists, not two detectives, to finish the work. And without rest or food, we wouldn’t be able to keep functioning properly for very long. Gerard made a call to set in motion the nerd team and we left, agreeing to meet on Tuesday night. Both of us would have time to reach out to our contacts and poke around a little. I decided to take the journals home to study them and Gerard agreed.

As for Jimmy, someone would ask the Vampire Council to find out if he had left a will.

Back at my apartment, I poured a drink and settled in my sofa, the piles of unread journals stacked around me, looking at the last shadows of red in the dark sky. Despite living in the same city, I hadn’t seen Arcturus for a while, and I regretted it. He’d been a strong support of my intellectual endeavors at the time when women were considered inferior and brainless, and I had always enjoyed his conversation, even if, or rather, because, we had different opinions on many subjects. He was a well of knowledge, able to discuss any and all topics. I hoped he wasn’t dead, because I would absolutely miss him. I raised my glass and looked up at the God I had once vowed my life to, asking Him to protect my friend, wherever he was.

I started thinking again about my work in progress, a novel about a young woman looking for her brother during the American revolution, and finding love as well, but I wasn’t really in the mood. When my phone pinged with a text from Circe, I responded and sent right away an email to Nuwa. Unlike Circe and I, she had never left her home country, living from one emperor to the next, into the republics, inserting herself into the shadow of every government, gaining power and wealth without being on anyone’s radar. She was a master spy, smart and cunning, with ears everywhere, and there was a good chance she could find something.

I was in a weird mood. I kept pacing from my living room to my balcony, restless, unable to settle long enough to work, read, watch a movie or even listen to music, but not in the mood to go out, see friends or do something that could be called productive. And in such a state of nerves, I didn't think I could concentrate enough to do my usual dusk yoga routine. The whole case was turning in my head, ideas flying in all directions, and I needed to sort everything. So I took out a notebook from my stash, a nice, ornate one of fine vellum and gold edges, one I could have used to write a novel in, the opposite of the ones I used in my VPF days, and started writing down the details that seemed important and the theories that were plausible. Like I had told Gerard, I hadn’t done this in over forty years. I had to exercise my memory.