“So we met at Side Pocket to talk about your friend Miranda, not to talk about serial killers and opinions about half-blood vampires.”
We walked through the narrow alley we’d smoked in an hour before, hands stuffed in our pockets. Navigating the garbage strewn passage was like moving through a particularly foul-smelling obstacle course. We descended deeper into the shadows of nearby buildings, the less frequent streetlights surrounding us with deeper and more aggressive shadows.
“Have you checked the vampire circles at all? Poked around there a bit just in case she did end up turned?”
“I don’t really know the vampire circles.”
“I can help with that,” I replied, “though I might need you to do some of the footwork. They’re going to be more receptive to one of their own than an outsider.”
“I still can’t get my head around the fact that you’d be considered an outsider and I’d be considered one of their own. Up until a month ago I didn’t even know vampires existed. Now this whole new world is opened up— and frankly— sometimes I’d rather just go back to my existence of ignorance.”
“Vampires have a serious persecution complex. They’ve spent generations living in the shadows of the Caretakers, being treated like third-class citizens, which— trust me when I say— is treatment they have, by and large, deserved.”
“So even though I’m just a half-blood, you think they’d— what? Take me in? Share their secrets?”
“Tough to say. With Davit’s death many of them have scattered— the Wilds have a tendency to form their little nests and they’re barely coherent enough to make a determination one way or the other. But if you can get in touch with an Overseer or a Hunter— they may be a bit more helpful. They have more situational awareness, I guess you’d say. Wilds are driven by instinct and hunger and little else. Weapons that their masters turn in a certain direction and unleash. The Hunters and Overseers at least have a bit more capacity for independent thought. They may even invite you to be a part of their clan.”
“No thanks.”
“It might help lead you to your friend— if she’s mixed up in that world, anyway.”
“Let’s keep that as a last resort.”
We strode through the alley, then moved on to a narrow side street lined with run down brick buildings. A group of darkened silhouettes huddled around a barrel, a collection of empty Colt 45 cans resting aimlessly on the sidewalk at their feet.
“Where else would she be? Did she say anything at all to you while you were both in captivity? Was she lured from Seattle by the same promise of better things?”
Indigo nodded. “Same line they used for all of us dumb girls.”
“That’s not what I was saying.”
“I know. But— yeah. While I was content being a roadie, Miranda wanted to be a player, you know? She had some talent and I think Davit talked to her about a music school here.”
“Berklee?”
“I thought that was in California?”
“No, not Berkley. Berklee.” I spelled it out for her. “It’s a college of music here in Boston. One of the biggest contemporary music colleges in the world, actually.”
“Huh. Then, yeah— I’m guessing maybe that’s what Davit used as a lure for her. She was talented even without the education— given a chance— she could have done pretty incredible things.”
I turned and gave Indigo a sideways glance, hearing a certain tenor in her words as she spoke about her friend Miranda. I felt a little guilty for not having pressed the issue sooner. She’d mentioned her shortly after we’d first met, but the subject had drifted into the background with everything else going on, then had stayed there even after the Davit situation had settled.
“Sounds like that’s a good place to start, then. I’m not sure that’s a place we should look tonight, but I can start making a few calls. It’s in the city, right on Boylston, if I remember right, and, well— I’m not sure that’s a place for us at this time of night.”
“Bad part of town?”
“Just the opposite.”
Indigo nodded as we continued walking and I became keenly aware of a vehicle that had navigated a left-hand turn and was slowly creeping down the street to our left, moving a bit too slowly for my liking. I glanced in the windows of a closed-up storefront across the way, checking the reflection of the vehicle and my pulse quickened. It was a black SUV with tinted windows, a vehicle far too expensive for this part of town and I knew immediately who we were dealing with.
“Careful,” I warned, with a slight jerk of my head toward the street. “I think we’re about to have company.”
Indigo immediately twisted her head around.
“Don’t do that,” I hissed, knowing it was too late. The SUV eased to the sidewalk, the brakes squeaking quietly as the vehicle drew to a halt. The back door opened and a figure stepped out, broad-shouldered with close-cropped brown hair, the dark jacket she wore hanging low to her calves.
“Agent Fenric.” I turned toward her, making sure I placed myself between her and Indigo.
“Gus.” Her eyes moved to the young woman. “Ma’am.”
“Indigo,” I said quietly. “She works for me.”
“Oh, does she?” There was a false sense of interest in Fenric’s voice, an upwards lilt that told me far more than her actual words did. “Seems a bit late at night to be on the clock.”
“Is there something we can do for you?”
Fenric’s eyes remained fixed on Indigo’s and held there for a long, somewhat uncomfortable moment. Indigo and Fenric had both been in attendance during the skirmish with Davit Sivaslian, though I wasn’t sure Fenric recognized her as such.
“I’m going back to my apartment.” Indigo’s voice was apprehensive. “We can continue our conversation later.”
I turned toward Indigo, holding out a hand. “Hold up. Stick around. We weren’t done.”
“We’re done.” Indigo shot Fenric a suspicious glower, then stepped away, moving toward the end of the street. We were only a few blocks away from her new apartment, but I wasn’t all that enthusiastic to just let her go.
“You sure you should walk home by yourself in this part of town?” Fenric lifted her chin, then jerked her head toward the SUV. “Let one of my guys give you a ride.”
“I think I’m safer on my own.” Indigo’s voice was chilled, like the words were dipped in liquid nitrogen and she strode away, rounding the corner and disappeared.
“Was it something I said?” Fenric’s mouth tilted into a sardonic grin.
“You come rolling up on us in one of your armored ghost-busting machines and expect us to welcome you with open arms?”
“It’s just a Chevy.”
“What can I do for you, Fenric? Besides helping you up your budget by a few dozen percent.”
“Hey, I’ll be the first to admit that little adventure with Sivaslian was a nice bump in my career path. We’ve got a legitimate base of operations now, you know? Fort Warren has officially become the field headquarters for the PSRD.”
“The PSRD? You’ve got your own acronym?”
“Not widely known or dispersed, but yes. Paranormal Sciences Research Division. It’s a bit of a misnomer—”
“That’s a good way to put it. Makes it sound like NASA when really all I see are a bunch of jackboot thugs in body armor.” I cast my gaze toward the SUV and though I couldn’t see through the tinted windows, I imagined what I saw inside.
“Those jackboot thugs saved your ass on Georges Island, Gus. Before then, too, at the piers. I lost six good men and women in that little skirmish, so you know what? I take offense to your derision. It’s uncalled for and it takes away from the people who lost their lives.”
“No disrespect intended, agent, but I never asked for your help, and in fact, if I remember correctly, I specifically told you to stay away.”
“But when you needed a boat— who did you call then?”
I pressed my teeth together, knowing this was a battle I wasn’t going to win.
“Listen.” Fenric lifted her hands in mock surrender, clearly sensing the same underlying tension I was. In practical terms, we were on the same side, we just had wholly different approaches, and those approaches didn’t cleanly intersect. “We’ve made a ton of progress in the last month. A lot of great research and analytics. We’ve been able to track some of those vampire cells— even took a few out, under the radar.”
Somewhat surprisingly, I hadn’t heard about that. Either they’d successfully been truly “under the radar” or they’d been masked as something else— likely passing through the news cycle as drug busts or self-inflicted meth lab catastrophes. If you squinted hard enough and ignored the fangs and predatory eyes, Wild vampires could pass for deranged meth heads, given the right circumstances.
“Took a few out? That’s news to me.”
She smirked in a way that made me want to slap it right off her face. “Believe it or not, everything we do doesn’t pass by your desk.”
“Maybe it should.”
“I know you’ve got a lot more experience in this sort of thing than any of us do, Gus, but the fact remains, your concern is with telling the stories, and we let you do that, okay? My job is to try and keep mankind safe. Can I count on you to let me do mine?”
“You let me do my job? Is that what you said?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
Fenric closed her dark eyes and looked toward the sky, expelling a sharp gust of frustrated breath. “Does everything have to be a pissing contest with you?”
“You’re the one who rolled up here in your armored car and whipped your dick out, Fenric.”
“Wow. That was crass, even for you.”
I braced myself for an aggressive, vocal retort, but for once in my life I allowed my mental filter to engage. My lips parted, but no words uttered from within. My shoulders squared and fists clenched tight, I held the breath I was waiting to exhale, counted silently, then let my muscles relax.
“Sorry,” I said softly, spreading my fingers. “You’re right. Truce?”
“We are in this together, Gus. We don’t have to be enemies.”
“I know. You’re right. I just— I think we’re setting a dangerous precedent.”
“How so?”
“Mankind and— the other side— have co-existed for a very long time. Mostly because mankind is unaware of the supernatural world— or if they’re aware of it, they’re respectful enough to maintain some separation. I’m worried that if well-armed soldiers in armored vests and automatic weapons start a war against the mystical realm, you’re going to open a can of worms you can’t close.”
“We didn’t start this war, Gus.”
“I know— but you can be damn sure you won’t be able to finish it, either. There are things out there you don’t even know about.”
Fenric looked as though she was about to respond but decided to let her retort fall silent. “Believe it or not,” she continued, gathering some of her limited composure, “there was a reason I was out looking for you. We tried your office first, but not finding you there, checked out that diner you love so much.”
“Okay? What are you after?”
“We’re not after anything. I was trying to show you a courtesy.”
“A courtesy?”
“A professional courtesy, I suppose you’d say.”
I studied her for a moment, leaning against a lamp post with a bulb that had last worked at some point during the mid to late twentieth century. “So are we just going to do this dance, or are you going to just tell me what’s on your mind?”
“You know the state of things— how they’ve been since the incident with Davit on George’s Island. Vampire Wilds scattering into the streets, rustling up trouble.”
“Yeah. I’m aware. We’ve been fielding the phone calls.”
“Well while you’ve been writing blog posts and fostering social media engagement, my teams have been hitting the pavement. Trying to contain the incidents.”
I opened my mouth to retort but once again decided to let her continue.
“Well, others have noticed, too. Other— less scrupulous individuals.”
“I’m not following you.”
“You know the guys. The ones who failed their classes at legitimate business school, but when it comes to crime or the drug trade, they’ve got field-issue PHDs. They see a gap in the market and they rush to fill it.”
“And that gap is—?”
“Blood.”
I blinked at her.
“You see— the vamps— they go after the lowest common denominator. In many ways their targets and the targets for local drug dealers intersect. Every meth head or fentanyl addict that a vamp takes off the streets is a reduced revenue stream for the drug market.”
I was starting to see the picture form in my head, and it was an unsettling image.
“They’ve made some disturbing strides in the synthetic blood market, even since we talked about it the last time. It’s actually started hitting the streets. It’s been hitting the vamps hard, targeting the cell leaders— the Overseers, not the Wilds themselves, finding a way to use it to keep them in check. It helps control the Wilds and keeps them off the neck of the dealers’ target market.”
“There were those rumors of synthetic blood a while ago— but that was mostly in Big Pharma, not the criminal enterprise.”
“The criminals have a lot less red tape to claw through before doing human trials. From what we can tell, it’s in active circulation right now. Some groups are even lacing the synthetic blood with stuff like fentanyl in order to get the cells hooked on it, to force the cell leaders to go back to the same well and buy more. It’s a pretty sinister concept, all things considered.”
“So why are you telling me this? What sort of professional courtesy are we dealing with here?”
“I know you claim to be an unbiased observer, Gus— but I also know you end up tangled in this world more often than you’d prefer. And I need you to know that as dangerous as the streets have been— they’ve only gotten more so. While it seems like a good idea initially— distracting the vamps with synthetic blood so they stop killing— I’m not sure it’s sustainable long term. A few of the cells who have gotten hooked on it are starting to get more aggressive. Searching for another stash of the synthetics. There are a few low key gang wars breaking out. Skirmishes back and forth. It’s not really safe time for girls like her to be walking two blocks back to her apartment.”
I turned and looked in the direction that Indigo had walked off, then spun back toward Fenric. “Could you have shared that with me before she left?” I had an edge to my voice.
“This is highly classified stuff, Savage. I shouldn’t even be sharing with you, much less share it with your glorified administrative assistant.”
“You know, Fenric, just when I think that maybe you’ve got a decent bone in your body—”
“So next time you’d just prefer I don’t say anything at all. Got it.” She nodded curtly and ran a tongue over her teeth, already taking a step back toward her SUV. She stood by the opened door, one of her uniformed thugs standing next to it, wearing midnight black BDU’s, not bothering to conceal the holster strapped to his thigh, nearly bulging with the bulk of an over-compensating sidearm. She paused and looked back at me. “We don’t have to be on opposite sides.”
“I didn’t think we were.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, nodding gently. “Good. I’m glad you see it that way. We need each other, Gus, whether you want to admit it or not. And if things keep escalating, you may need me more than you think.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Please do.” Then she slipped into the back of the SUV, her militarized partner sneering malevolently at me before he tucked in after her and slammed the door closed. A moment later the darkened vehicle was melting into the surrounding shadows, leaving me alone in the alley, wondering, not for the first time, just what Agent Fenric’s end game was.