“A panel van, like all good serial killers?” Pravesh said with a smirk.

  “Make fun if you like, but something with a closed back so people passing by couldn’t see the bloody clothes would be important. Whoever this asshole is, he’s covered in blood and gore. He’d have to have a vehicle he could wash out, or a change of clothes and someplace to stash his messy stuff.”

  “I’ll have the techs go up there and check the side of the road. Maybe they can pull a tire track.” That was a pretty good idea. Maybe this agent wouldn’t be a total waste of space after all.

  Lena looked up from her conversation when we walked up. “Anything?”

  “Nothing solid,” I said. I turned to the tech. “You guys should haul ass and see if he left any trace when he was running along the beach. The tide is coming in, and anything still there will be gone in a couple of hours.”

  The tech, a skinny black guy with close-cropped hair and an earring, gave me a tight smile. “Thanks. We’ll jump right on the suggestion from the civilian from a couple thousand miles away. Let me drop everything I’m doing at the actual crime scene to go see how badly you fucked up any evidence that might have ever been over there.”

  “When you’re done with that, check the side of the road past the Cliff House for tire tracks. We think the killer parked up there.” She completely ignored the guy’s sarcasm, and I decided that even with as tired and grumpy as I was, breaking his nose was a bad idea. The tech gave me another grumpy look and walked off muttering to himself about assholes from back East.

  “You look like you’ve got something,” Lena said to Pravesh.

  “The coven leader here has had run-ins over the past few months with a local vampire group. We’re heading over to have a chat with them. You in?”

  Lena’s face was pale in the LED lights from the crime scene crew. “Vampires? Do you have a name for the guy they had beef with?”

  Pravesh pulled out her phone and tapped the screen. “Yeah, I do. The vampire in question is Doctor Joseph Scolari. According to our records, he’s been in California for at least a century, since before the Division existed.”

  “Oh yeah, Dr. Joe has been here since the gold rush days. He came out right after the Mexican-American War looking to make his mark as the region’s first doctor, got turned sometime around the beginning of the rush, and never left.”

  “Sounds like you know the guy,” I observed.

  “Oh yeah, I know him. Faye did business with him. Until about a month ago when they had a big falling out. Seems he’s been making new vampires, and she didn’t like how he was recruiting. He was in the shop a couple weeks ago, and they had a big argument. Scolari said he’d make her regret she ever laid eyes on him. She called up water out of the air and doused him right in the middle of her store, with his top lieutenants watching. Told him to cool off. He was furious.”

  “Mad enough to kill?” I asked.

  “Dude, I don’t know,” Lena replied. “All the normal rules go out the window when you’re trying to read vampires. You can’t get shit off them as far as getting flushed, and their nostrils don’t have to flare when they don’t need to breathe. If he was human, I’d say sure, he was mad as hell. But a vamp? I don’t know how long they stay mad about stuff. I’d think grudges would seem petty when you basically live forever, but who knows?”

  I did. I knew exactly how long vampires could hold a grudge, having seen Luke’s original Renfield try to kill him more than a century after they last saw each other. Vampires don’t let shit go, ever. And loss of face is the gravest insult one of the undead can suffer. Dr. Joseph Scolari just went to the top of our suspect list. Admittedly, he was the only one on the list so far, but that’s all I had to work with.

  “Let’s go talk to a vampire about a murder or five,” I said. “Maybe we stop for Italian takeout on the way. I could go with some garlic bread.”

  “That’s not real is it?” Lena asked.

  “Nah, I’m messing with you. But it’s been a while since dinner. I could go for a bite for real.”

  “After this?” Pravesh gestured toward the crime scene. “Harker, you’re disgusting.”

  “Agent Pravesh, when you’ve seen the shit I’ve seen, four dead people aren’t nearly enough to put you off your feed.”

  “Then I sincerely hope I never see all the shit you’ve seen,” she said, turning to head up the trail back to the Suburban.

  “Amen, sister,” Lena agreed, following her.

  I hope neither of you do, either, I thought, knowing deep in my gut that they were going to see a lot worse shit than was on the beach behind me before we got to the end of this case.

  7

  The deserted pre-dawn streets made the drive from Cliff House to the Pacific Heights neighborhood where Dr. Scolari kept his main home uneventful. I got my Italian takeout, after a fashion. Pravesh decreed that there was no way in hell I was eating chicken marsala in her Suburban, so I had to make do with a footlong meatball sub from a 24-hour Subway. It was mediocre, but filling, and I took solace in wiping my hands on the upholstery. What can I say? I’m petty.

  We passed Scolari’s address and turned onto a side street. I balled the sub wrapper up and tossed it into the floor, then opened the door.

  “You planning to leave that in my car, Harker?” Pravesh said.

  “Yep.”

  “Get your trash,” Pravesh ordered.

  I turned to her. “Look, lady. I don’t want you tagging along with me, but I can’t kill you. I’ve killed a DHS agent before, and it made life very difficult for someone close to me. So, you live. That doesn’t mean I can’t be a passive-aggressive prick and do everything I can do to make you want to leave of your own volition. If that means leaving garbage in your ride and making it smell like marinara, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Not the first time I’m hearing that.”

  She glared at me for another moment, then turned and fished the wrapper out of the car. She pitched it into a wastebasket on the street and shot me another dirty look. I remained unimpressed. I’ve gotten dirty looks from Dracula. Maybe in a few centuries, Pravesh will be close to Luke’s level, but I doubt it. He’s got a pretty significant head start.

  The three of us walked up the sidewalk to the house, Pravesh and Lena whipping their heads this way and that at the slightest sound. After the third time one of them jumped in half a block, I couldn’t hold my laughter inside any longer. “What the hell is wrong with you two? You look like a pair of guilty teenagers sneaking in after curfew.”

  “In case you missed it, we’re trying to get the drop on a nest of vampires, Harker,” Pravesh grumbled.

  “Oh, you are? Then we should have either waited for six hours until the sentries are asleep, or maybe not driven a vehicle with government plates right past the front door. I guarantee that Scolari’s security, if they’re worth any fraction of what he’s paying them, have already logged your plate, found out who the vehicle was signed out by, researched you and everyone you’ve ever known, and identified me and Detective Meneses using facial recognition software or some other tech mojo. We’ve been in the line of a camera ever since we got within two blocks of the house, and it would be naïve to assume the badass head vampire wouldn’t have access to all the feeds.”

  “What would you suggest, since you’re the expert?” Pravesh asked in a tone that clearly showed she thought whatever I suggested would be stupid.

  “Well, I suppose where vampires are concerned, I am the expert, given my bloodline. So I was going to walk up to the front door and knock.” Then I left them standing in the middle of the sidewalk, covered the last twenty yards to the door, and did just that.

  The door to the well-appointed house swung open almost immediately, and a woman in jeans and a pressed shirt greeted me. “Mr. Harker, a pleasure to meet you. I am Jacqueline, Dr. Scolari’s current Renfield. Please come in. Will your companions be joining us, or would they prefer to stay outside?”

  I couldn’t answer her for a second. It took me back a little, her casual use of the term “Renfield” as a vampire’s personal assistant. I knew the original Renfield, helped kill him, as a matter of fact, but that wasn’t the thing that choked me up a little. No, that was the memory of Uncle Luke’s last Renfield, a man named Sylvester Thomas Efor IV, who died a year ago.

  He was killed by the half-demon asshole that set all my current problems in motion, a Homeland Security agent named John Smith. That Renfield had been my friend, and Luke and I both swore after his passing that no one else would ever bear the title. I guess the rest of the world either didn’t get the memo or didn’t care what we thought.

  More likely the latter, as the short, brown-haired woman continued to stare up at me with her kind eyes and friendly smile. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think they’ll be joining us, but Agent Pravesh is having a rectal issue at the moment.”

  Jacqueline blanched, then stammered, “A-a rectal problem?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Her head is currently lodged too far up her ass for her to find the door.” I raised my voice a little and beckoned the others to follow. “Come on up here, you two. I told you they had spotters.”

  Pravesh and Meneses covered the distance to the door, the federal agent scowling the whole way while Lena tried unsuccessfully to smother a grin. We entered the foyer of the house, and Jacqueline locked the door behind us. The deadbolt gave a solid thunk when she locked it, and I knew that nothing was getting through that door without an invitation, or a tank.

  “Steel frame?” I asked.

  “Reinforced, welded into the floor and ramset into the concrete slab. That door can withstand a bazooka,” she replied, stepping past us to lead us into the house.

  “What about the wall beside the door?” Lena asked.

  Jacqueline froze in mid-stride, then turned slowly to look at the cop. “What?”

  “The walls are just drywall and studs, right? The door might stand up to a bazooka, but if the wall isn’t made of the same stuff, it’s worthless. Any breaching team worth their salt will test the door, but after that they’ll blow a hole in the wall.”

  “You’ve done that kind of thing before, haven’t you?” Jacqueline asked.

  “I’m a Marine. We’re the first ones through the door. If there’s not a door, we make one.”

  “I think I may have to re-evaluate our security measures.” The slightly less confident Renfield motioned for us to precede her through an open door into a well-appointed study. “Please wait here. Dr. Scolari will be with you momentarily. He was having a snack when you drove up.”

  “He needn’t stop on our account,” Pravesh said. “We can speak with him in the dining room.”

  Jacqueline looked at me, and I gave the slightest shake of my head. I turned to Pravesh. “I’m pretty sure that Dr. Scolari’s dinner date would prefer to be dined on in privacy.”

  The agent looked confused for a moment, then a slight blush crept across her dark cheeks. “Oh! I…um…”

  “It takes a little getting used to,” I said, then nodded at Jacqueline. “We’ll wait here.” Of course, it didn’t take any getting used to for me, but my upbringing was a little unusual, to say the least.

  Jacqueline nodded and walked out, closing the door behind her. I, of course, took the opportunity to snoop around the room. The study was laid out with a couple of small sitting areas around coffee tables, and one large armchair with an ottoman in a corner by the fireplace. Guessing that this was the doctor’s favorite chair, based on the wear of the arms of the chair and the stack of books on the side table, I walked over for a closer look.

  The armchair was a rich brown leather, plush with a spot in the seat worn smooth from years of use. The stack of books ranged from a couple of Jonathan Maberry novels, to a Walter Cronkite biography, to a history book on Japanese tea ceremonies.

  “What are you doing, Harker?” Pravesh asked once she had recovered herself a little.

  “I’m doing exactly what I was brought here to do. I’m snooping.”

  “I did not bring you here to snoop. I brought you here to help me question a suspect in a string of murders and to cover my back if he tries anything hinky.”

  “I know that. You weren’t who I was talking about. The doc could have left us cooling our heels in the foyer, or brought us someplace with coffee, but he stuck us in this room. Why? There’s something here that he wants us to know about, and I—”

  “This,” Lena interrupted from the other side of the room. While I’d been explaining my snooping, she had continued with her own scan of the room. Now she stood in front of a wall covered in framed photographs. “He wanted us, me, to see this.”

  I walked over, Pravesh in tow, to see what she was pointing at. It was a photograph of a tall man with hair slicked straight back from his forehead in a tuxedo, grinning at the camera with a woman on his arm. The woman was in profile, laughing at something the man said, but she was unmistakable. It was Faye Spataro, her dark hair slipping loose from its bun and curling around her ear like it always did after she had a couple drinks.

  “They knew each other. Well. I mean, I knew that much. But this picture, it…” Lena’s voice trailed off.

  “This looks like a couple of good friends having a good time at some formal function,” I said. “Nothing more.”

  Lena looked up at me, a grateful look on her face. “I knew Faye was bi from the moment we met. It wasn’t a big deal to me. I knew she’d had boyfriends before we met, and other girlfriends, too. I didn’t know…”

  “That one of them wasn’t completely human?” I kept my voice mild, but it stung a little more than I wanted it to.

  “Yeah, I guess. We didn’t talk about our exes, either of us. That was something we agreed to early on. But still…”

  “I guess it explains why they got in such a big argument about the doc’s recruitment methods,” I said. “If they were close, then it would have been a bone of contention in the past, too.”

  I opened my mouth to say something else, but the door opened to admit the same trim man from the picture into the study. Obviously, he hadn’t aged a day, since he was dead more than a hundred years before the photo was taken, but it still made for a second of cognitive dissonance, even for me, and I live with Luke.

  “In fact, that was the reason Faye left me,” Dr. Scolari said, walking over to where we stood. “That very night, as a matter of fact. Ten years ago. That was the San Francisco Opera’s annual fundraising gala, and I had Golden Circle tickets. I am a significant patron of the arts, as was Faye. You must be Arlena. I am terribly sorry for your loss.” He held out a hand, and Lena took it. “If there is anything I can do to help you in your time of grief, please let me know. I loved Faye, and even as strained as our relationship was, losing her takes much of the light out of my world.”

  He looked sincere, but that was the tough part about vampires, they didn’t give off the little clues that humans do. Their micro-expressions are very different, and like Pravesh said earlier, they don’t show the variations in breathing or coloring that normal people do when they lie. But there are ways to tell when a vampire is lying to you, if you know what to look for.

  “Dr. Scolari, I’m Quincy Harker,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “I know you, young man. I know your uncle, as well. A good man, if a little archaic in some of his beliefs.”

  “Like?”

  “His view that we need to remain hidden from the humans. It’s silly. We could easily learn to live alongside humans, if we manage the reveal in the right way.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Because humans do such a good job of living alongside themselves.”

  “That is a valid point,” Scolari agreed. “But please, sit. Would you like a drink?”

  “No sir,” Pravesh said. “We need to talk to you about Faye Spataro’s death, and the murder of a group of witches out at the Sutro Baths tonight.”

  Scolari blanched, and if he could have gone pale, he would have. “The Baths? A coven was murdered tonight?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pravesh replied. “Do you know something about this?”

  But Scolari was already on his feet, heading for the door to the study. “Renfield!” he shouted, and Jacqueline came running.

  I caught up to him in the foyer as he was slipping on a jacket. The look on his face was one of pure murder. I grabbed him by the arm and turned him to face me. He resisted, but I’m a lot stronger than I look.

  “Let go of me, Mr. Harker. This does not concern you.”

  “The fuck it doesn’t,” I growled. “This has something to do with Faye’s death, and you have an idea what’s going on. That makes it concern the fuck out of me.”

  “Why? What do you care about a California water witch?”

  “Faye was my friend,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of those, and I take it personally when somebody hurts one. Now tell me what you know.”

  “Let go of me, or I will have to hurt you.” His eyes were inching closer and closer to the full black of a raging vampire, but I held on to him.

  “You want to step it down a notch and remember who you’re talking to, pal. You might be King Shit of Turd Mountain out here, but I learned to fight by having Dracula himself kick my ass, and I’ve got magic to back up my haymakers. Now, we can stand here all night measuring our dicks, or you can tell me what you think is going on, and why you suddenly went from grieving friend to avenging fucking angel.” I let enough power leak through to make my eyes glow red, and I felt Scolari try to draw back.

  He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and let it out in a whoosh. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You and your friends may prove helpful, and Mrs. Meneses certainly has a right to be with me when I confront the bastard responsible for this.”

  “Responsible for what, Scolari?” I asked. “Loop me in, man. What the fuck do you think is going on?”

  “It’s a turf war. It’s a stupid, petty, magical turf war, and it’s gotten out of hand. It was silly and funny when it was vandalism and spell slinging, but now people are getting killed, and I’m the only one who can put a stop to it.”

 

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