Update: urban fantasy short story 2/?

[flighty_dreams]

I know my last entry was about the Methos fic, but that ADD kicked in again and somehow lately I've found myself working on this urban fantasy pet project of mine again. (Sorry, Methos! I still love you really! I always will, don't worry.)

So yeah I finally got back to work on this. Mostly I've been revising and adding stuff here and there. But I finished the next chapter, which you can find below.

Also, for the uninitiated, Chapter One can be found here.

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Morgan Connolly wasn’t what I expected.

I paused outside the café, searching for him inside. He’d informed me that he’d be wearing an olive green sweater over blue jeans, so I found him quickly enough in the half-empty interior. Somehow I’d pictured a big, burly type, ready to ride to the rescue. That was the impression that he’d given me over the phone anyway, being so rabid about finding and protecting his sister.

In his early thirties, he had brown hair with reddish natural highlights brought out by the sheen of the overhead lights, and lightly freckled skin paler than my own artificially tanned flesh. He swirled the coffee cup in his hands as if he wished it were something stronger. Looking at the light smattering of freckles on his skin, I noted that his Irish roots definitely showed, even after who knows how much mixing of blood.

I stepped inside and headed to his table. The tiredness slid from his face as he looked up at me, hope tempered by wariness taking its place. “Morgan Connolly?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, standing up to shake my hand. He was well under six feet, not very tall for a man nowadays, but still much taller than me. Considering I was barely five feet tall, that wasn’t a difficult achievement. “Diana Bradford?” I nodded and he added, “Nice to meet you,” in that offhand, token way that was common nowadays.

I studied him cautiously for a moment before ending the handshake. Sitting down across from him, I brought the hand that had made contact with him against my face and inhaled casually. His scent carried a mixture of coffee, anxiety and strangely, the musty smell of old books. A scholar of some kind? I wondered, frowning.

“What is it?” he asked, catching my expression.

“What do you do, Mr. Connolly?”

“Oh.” He blinked in surprise, the question catching him off-balance. “I’m a college professor. I teach classical literature and history.”

“Ah,” was all I said. That explained the trace of old books in his smell.

“You don’t seem surprised. Almost like you were expecting an answer like that.”

An observant man. I was suddenly glad he already knew my secret, and I didn’t need to bother lying to him. “I could smell the must of old books on you. Your profession makes the reason for that clear.”

He shifted in his chair and looked away from me, the reminder of my otherness making him uncomfortable. Then I realized he hadn’t looked straight at me yet, most likely because he thought I’d bespell him with my gaze if we made eye contact. Little did he know he had nothing to fear there. I was terrible at hypnotism, worse than any other vampire I’d ever met.

I smiled wryly, also remembering that he’d used the slur “leech” when we spoke on the phone earlier. “You don’t like my kind very much, do you, Mr. Connolly?”

At first I thought his silence would be acknowledgment enough, but after a pause he replied, “Do people like the mosquitoes that feed off them? No, and your kind are much bigger and more threatening than that.”

I leaned back in my chair, stretching out like a lazy cat. “Point taken. But I would’ve thought the ’03 Revelation would at least arouse your interest. History-wise, that is.” My lips curved at the slight innuendo. Back in 2003, over ten years earlier, the existence of vampires, followed shortly by werewolves, had been revealed to the world.

He gave me a wry smile of his own. “It does some. I’d be more interested if there were vampires over a thousand years old still around. My area of interest is ancient civilizations, not the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. I’m not aching for firsthand accounts of serfdoms.” He paused, his tone changing. “But I am curious as to why there aren’t any vamps older than that.”

He’d leaned in closer to me, trying to charm the answers out of me. I laughed softly, and leaned in too, as if about to reveal something important. “Politics,” I stage whispered to him, before adding in a normal tone, “Power struggles. The ambitious replacing those in power.”

“That’s it? That theory’s already been put out there, for years now.” He sounded disappointed, and he should be. It disappointed me too.

“As time passes, the older ones latch onto power to have something to keep them going, something to work for and hang onto. Once they get it and enough years pass, they grow complacent in their position. Cocky, arrogant. And one day, someone younger—strong too and with more drive—comes along and replaces them.”

“Survival of the fittest.”

“It’s the way of the world,” I told him jadedly.

His eyes grew shadowed, and he drew away from me, leaning back against his chair. “The strong taking advantage of those weaker than them, like my sister.”

Ah, and now on to business. “Yes,” I agreed softly. “Tell me what happened.”

He sighed, his expression worried and despondent. “Her name is Rachel.” He pulled a photo out of his pocket and pushed it across the table towards me. I picked it up, staring at the happy girl in the picture.

On the way here I’d thought about what drew a vampire strongly enough these days to abduct a human despite the risks. Since vampires had come out of the closet, not upsetting humans had become an even higher priority than before. Humans were more than eager to make us into convenient scapegoats for their issues, and most of us weren’t keen to give them any reasons to do so. Our parasitic dependence on them, as well as our supernatural abilities were enough to make them distrustful or hostile towards us. We didn’t need vampire killings on top of that. Very few vampires were stupid enough to ignore common sense and kill as they pleased these days; those that did weren’t the type that lasted very long. The ruling body of the vampires, the Vespertine Council, was rigorous in its punishment of offenders, its key goal being self-preservation of the vampire race.

So I’d expected her to be beautiful, but there had to be something more than that for a vampire to risk the harsh punishment of the Council. And this case was no exception, because Rachel Connolly was one of those people that sparkled with life. There was a light in her that would draw an undead irresistibly like a vulture to a fresh kill. Vamps weren’t much different from humans in that respect; we always wanted what we didn’t have.

She looked a lot like her brother, sharing the same color hair and similar facial features, though with a feminine cast. I glanced up at Morgan again, confirming that he had gray eyes, unlike his sister’s green ones.

“She just graduated from high school in Philadelphia, and is going to U Penn in the fall. She’s always been responsible, working hard and getting good grades. My folks are real proud of her. Not at all the type to run off.”

“Then why do the cops think she did?” I asked when he paused for a moment.

Grimacing, he replied, “There was a note. My parents found it in her room.” Taking a folded paper out of his pocket, he flattened it out and passed it to me. It was a copy of the note she’d left behind, addressed to her parents.

“Sorry, I have to go with him. I’ve never felt this way before and I can’t live without him,” I read aloud, frowning. “What melodramatic rubbish.” Glancing up quickly to gauge his reaction, I added, “No offense.”

He laughed, but it was harsh and brittle. “None taken. If you knew my sister, you’d realize that she’s the last teenager in the world that would write something like that. She hates those emo kids at school. She’s many things, but you’d never call her overly emotional.”

I couldn’t help smiling some. “Good, she’s not so likely to panic and lose her head then.” Passing the paper back to him I sobered and asked, “This is her handwriting?” When he nodded, I added hesitantly, “She could’ve been pressured into writing the note.”

His sad eyes rested on me for a moment before he looked away again, towards the register. “That’s what I was thinking. If he threatened to hurt our folks, she would’ve done it.”

“What makes you think a vampire took her?” Nothing he’d given me yet pointed towards my kind.

That was when he launched into the bulk of the story. The last two times he’d spoken to Rachel, she mentioned a young man she had met recently. The first time she gushed about him, describing him as someone from another high school who was so charming and thoughtful. During the second call she seemed much more down, and when he’d asked her about it, she had finally told him that she’d learned the ‘boy’ was actually a vampire. Unhappy that he’d lied to her and uncertain about getting involved with a leech—his word, not mine—she’d broken things off with him. Two days later, she disappeared.

“The police think she’s in love with him and ran off to join him. Apparently it happens often enough,” he told me, frustration bubbling up to the surface.

I shook my head sadly. “Most teenage girls are idiots. Totally tricked by the ultimate older man with the eternally handsome face and a wicked, charming tongue.”

“Speaking from experience?” he asked me with irony in his eyes, meeting my gaze solidly for the first time.

“Yes.” I smiled wistfully, remembering my foolish, younger self. “I was a stupid teenager once.” I changed the subject, swinging this conversation back away from me. “You said you had a description of him. Do you have a name to go along with it?”

“Yes:  Jay. Not sure if it’s his real name though. A look through the Vamp Registry didn’t turn up any Jay matching his description.” His mouth twisted for a second, and his gaze focused on me. “Which reminds me, why are you using an assumed name? Preston mentioned it was an alias.”

I scowled at him, not feeling he was in any position to question me, but I needed to make this clear anyway. “I will help you find your sister, but you’ve got to promise me that you won’t stir up any investigation of my life.”

“Why? I don’t have a problem doing it, but I just want to know the reason.”

I could be as stubborn as he. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because it will tell me something about you, and I want to know what type of person I’m dealing with,” he told me honestly.

It was a valid reason, unfortunately. I sighed and then reluctantly replied, “Because I have someone of my own to protect. I took in a young boy several years ago, adopting him as my own. If my identity as a vampire were revealed, between the deception and the still in-process legalities regarding vamps, he’d get taken away from me. He’s 17 now. I’d rather just wait things out than have to go through all that. So I don’t give out my real name to anyone who knows I’m a vampire. I don’t want the connection between the two made.”

I paused for a moment and then added, “Preston knows, since as a cop he can easily trace my phone number, which he got when I gave him info on a case a while back. But I gave him an alias to use when speaking to me, the same name he gave you.” The look I sent him now was unhappy. “Preston promised me that he wouldn’t give my name out to anyone else.”

He smiled, an apology in his expression. “I was pretty persistent. I wore him down eventually, asking him if there was anything else, anyone else I could try. And finally he mentioned you.”

“I figured as much,” I nodded in acknowledgment. “So, was my answer enough?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Give me that description then,” I told him.

One of Rachel’s friends had seen the vamp, and told police he was tall, over six feet, and skinny, with short blond hair. Dark eyes peeking out from between his bangs, and skin that was pale but not screaming undead white.

I frowned, my thoughts swirling. The murder case I’d helped Preston with back in Pennsylvania had involved one of the lieutenants of Tyler Jackson, the Source of the Philadelphia area. While assisting with the case, I’d met several of Jackson’s vampires, and one of them fit the description Connolly had just given me. When I’d talked to Jackson back then, he’d been arrogant and unrepentant, not caring about his underling stepping out of line, and totally unimpressed by me and my warnings to him. And now it seemed he’d permitted another one of his vampires to abduct this missing girl. Strike two, Jackson, strike two.

But I needed confirmation that Jackson and that unknown minion of his were involved. After all, Jay wasn’t that uncommon a name or nickname, and that vampire of Jackson’s wasn’t the only blond vamp around. But he was the only vamp matching that description in the Philadelphia area.

Only among fledglings was being over six feet tall not unusual; the average height of older vampires tended to be shorter than modern day people, a reflection of the changing times. And fledglings were usually kept on short leashes by their sires, lest they do something stupid—like kidnap a girl that would be missed like this. Maybe the vamp I’d seen among Jackson’s people was a fledgling; there had been two many vampires in the room at once for me to note each one’s power and age. I hoped he wasn’t a fledgling though, because their lack of control wouldn’t bode well for Rachel Connolly.

“I’ll make a couple calls, see what I can find out,” I told Morgan. The photograph of Rachel still sat in front of me, and I gave it one last look, memorizing her features before handing it back to him. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

We both stood up from the wooden table, and his intense eyes met my dark brown ones. “You’ll call me as soon as you find out anything?”

“Of course.”

He nodded and swallowed, his gaze shifting away from me now. “Thank you,” he said thickly, “I appreciate this.” He looked back at me and held out his hand.

I took it, shaking it again. “You’re welcome.”

It was only as I walked back to my car that I marveled at how easily I’d let myself get involved.

 

Comments

[tuawahine.livejournal.com]

Wow, vampire detective story. Intriguing.
You should definitely go back to this one day!

[flighty-dreams.livejournal.com]

Yeah, one day I will. Recently I've come up with some interesting changes for it that have excited me about the story again. It's only lack of time holding me back! Sigh.

Thanks for reading what I've got though. Glad you liked it. :)

[sa-tsl.livejournal.com]

hey , i just read this , and i totally want to read more ! i know it was written a few years ago , but if you do have time , please continue ! * innocent kitty eyes *

* hugs and cookies *