Out of Time (21 page)

“Are you sure?”

“No. I…It was dark and it happened so fast.” She squinted at the picture. “I can’t tell. Maybe.”

Elizabeth read the lead of the article. “Drucker’s Butcher Shop had more than its usual fare hanging in the window this morning—side of beef, pig and Dutch O’Banion.”

She nervously rubbed her forehead just below the small cut at her hairline.

Simon felt his stomach clench. “Elizabeth?”

She startled and her eyes darted back and forth. “I think one of them called the one that grabbed me Dutch. I think.”

“Try to remember,” he said.

Her eyes flashed to his. “I am.”

Simon took a deep breath and nodded. Of course, she was trying. But if that man was one of those who attacked her, one of those who’d been butchered by this man or demon…they’d managed to become embroiled in something far greater than a mugging.

“I don’t know,” she said and looked at the photograph. “God, this is sick. Who would do something like that?”

Simon moved his chair next to hers. He squeezed her hand and gave her a smile he didn’t feel. “What does the article say?”

“In what looks to be the third in a trio of gangland slayings, a message has been sent. The bodies of Fish Brody and ‘Mustache’ Pete Arnold were found near the East River earlier in the day. Both had been seen frequenting clubs in the Lower East Side with none other than Dutch O’Banion.”

She leaned in closer to the paper. “I wish I could see his face more clearly. Or maybe it’s better I can’t.”

The photograph was blurry, but the gruesome details were clear enough. The gaunt man had been strung upside-down in the window like another side of beef. His mouth hung open, his blank eyes fixed and unseeing. A severed pig’s head rested beside him.

Simon didn’t know what to say to comfort her. He’d imagined the things he’d do if he ever came across the man who’d attacked Elizabeth, but this, this was inhuman.

“Father Cavanaugh of St. Patrick’s parish,” Elizabeth read, “found the body after returning from a late night call. O’Banion’s death follows the same macabre pattern of the murder of the Weasley twins and Johnny Granzino—throat torn out, blood drained. Some say the work of a demon.”

Simon’s hand clenched over hers. Inhuman, indeed. Could it possibly be?

Elizabeth kept reading. “In each case, the blood at the scene was minimal, leading police to believe the murders occurred elsewhere. The small puddle of blood doesn’t account for the shriveled, desiccated skin of the corpse.”

Elizabeth looked up at him, her eyes wide. “The vampire would then suck the blood of the living,” she recited, “so as to make the victim’s body fall away visibly to skin and bones.”

He stared at her intently, wishing the words away.

“In your lecture—”

He pushed himself up and away. “I know what I said.” His heart thrummed in his chest. He took a breath and turned back. “I’m sorry.”

“We ignored it before,” she said. “But now. What if it really is a demon? A vampire?”

“Don’t discount the level of horror one man, one human, can inflict upon another.” Lord knows, every ounce of pain he’d come across in his life had been man-made.

Elizabeth stood and walked over to him. She took his hands in hers. “Simon, you’ve spent your life looking for something like this. Imagine if this is tangible proof of the occult.”

“It’s probably nothing more than gangland savagery, which, by the way, is reason enough for us to leave it be.”

She looked at him curiously and he moved away again. He could feel her watching him.

“It might be,” she said. “But what if it’s not? What if this is why Sebastian was coming here?”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“You do, I know you do.”

He turned back to her. “I care about you.”

She moved across the room and touched his cheek. “I know you do. And I love you, too. And the man I love can’t just put aside who he’s been his entire life until now.”

That was before she’d been in his life, before he had something precious to lose.

“You’d be surprised how quickly I can do just that.”

Elizabeth looked at him with sympathy.

“Nothing is worth your life,” he said quietly.

“I’m pretty fond of my life, too,” she said with a smile that faded quickly. “And maybe that’s why we need to know what’s going on.”

He shook his head in confusion.

She looked up at him with a brave face, but he could see the fear in her eyes. “Whoever or whatever did this, I’m already mixed up in it, aren’t I? Wouldn’t it be better to know what that really means?”

He put his arms around her and felt ashamed. He’d been so afraid for her, he’d nearly forgotten how she must feel. “I just want to protect you.”

She nodded. “I know. But if this is something more than human, wouldn’t it be better to know that?”

Simon sighed. She was right, of course. He could hardly protect her if he had no idea what he was protecting her from.

“We’ll have to be discreet,” he said finally. “The last thing we want is to draw more attention to ourselves.”

She nodded. “Right.”

“It’s likely simply revenge for the robbery rather than…something else,” he said, ignoring his niggling doubts.

She nodded again and patted his chest. “But if it is, there’s no one I’d rather have on my side than the foremost expert on…something else.”

He managed a weak smile at the compliment, but found strength in her words. Knowledge was power and it was time for him to wield both.

ELIZABETH DIDN’T FEEL LIKE a vampire hunter. She sure didn’t look like one. She’d always pictured them as grim men in long cloaks, stalking through the cemeteries of seventeenth century Europe. Her light floral pattern dress and ankle strap pumps were hardly de rigueur.

Simon, on the other hand, could have slipped back a few centuries and fit right in. Judging from his dour expression, he had grim down to a science.

They went to the crime scene first. No yellow tape cordoned off the butcher shop. No large crowd was held at bay by the police. Even the severed pig’s head still sat in its place. A closed sign in the window was the only hint that it wasn’t business as usual.

Simon looked from storefront to storefront trying to divine some clue in the location itself. He was as meticulous now as he was back home. It was one thing she envied about him. He could patiently work through endless stacks of materials, painstakingly sorting through them for that one kernel of evidence.

People were a different matter. It was as though all his patience was spent on inanimate objects, leaving none for the rest of the world. Only the most brave or naïve students dared to darken his door during office hours. She wasn’t sure which category she fit into. A little of both, perhaps.

In the end they complemented each other. They worked well together at home and here, she was sure, it would be no different. While he cautiously scoured the crime scene for some sort of physical evidence, she lingered on the periphery and people watched. That was what she did best.

The usual crowd was there, looky-loos and curious passersby. Some people would stop to gawk, to gossip about what they’d read in the papers. She drifted onto the periphery and scanned the nearby buildings. Maybe someone had seen something?

She walked across the street and was about to start knocking on doors when she noticed a little girl standing on the broad cement railing of the stoop of one of the tenements trying to see over the crowd. Elizabeth made her way toward her. The girl couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. Her dress was patched, but clean, and she held a cinnamon-colored teddy bear tightly to her chest as she held onto the side of the building and pushed herself up on tippy-toes.

She caught sight of Elizabeth and looked down shyly.

“Hi,” Elizabeth said. “Do you live here?”

The girl nodded and then tucked her chin down onto her chest.

“My name’s Elizabeth. What’s yours?”

The girl squatted down and put her bear down on the wide railing. “June.”

She played with bear’s crimped ear.

“And who’s this?” Elizabeth asked.

“Bernard,” she said. “He protects me.”

“He looks like he’s very good at that,” Elizabeth said.

June nodded and started to climb down. Elizabeth helped her off the railing and onto the stoop.

“What does he protect you from?”

“Monsters,” the girl said matter-of-factly.

Elizabeth was a little taken aback. It could have simply been the child’s imagination talking, but…

“There was a monster last night,” the girl continued, “and he scared him away.”

Elizabeth’s heart beat a little a little faster. “He did? Good old Bernard.” She moved a little closer. “What kind of monster was it?”

The girl chewed the inside of her lip and continued to look down at her bear. “His face was all bumpy and…” she shrugged in that exaggerated way small children do.

“Bumpy? How?”

June held her hands over her forehead. “Here and his eyes were all yellow.”

“Yellow—”

“Elizabeth!” Simon’s voice made them both jump. “What on earth were you—”

Elizabeth cut him off with a glare and turned back to June. “It’s all right. He’s my Bernard.”

June looked up at him, unsure.

“Simon, this is June,” she said slowly, her eyes flashing with frustration at his interruption. “She was just telling me about what she saw last night.”

“Oh,” he said. “Hello.”

She looked down at him, still a little frightened.

He smiled kindly. “You saw something?”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“She said it had yellow eyes,” Elizabeth offered.

June nodded again.

Simon’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Yellow? Did they sort of…glow?”

She nodded. “And he was—”

“June!” a woman’s voice inside the building called.

The girl’s eyes went wide.

“You have five seconds to show yourself!” the woman’s voice said again, louder than before.

June grabbed her bear and dashed for the door.

Elizabeth wanted frantically to ask her more questions, but the girl disappeared inside. She could hear the mother scolding her for being outside alone. She wanted to knock and explain, help the girl, but she doubted the mother would find much comfort in her having talked to strangers.

Simon held out his hand. “She’ll be all right.”

With one last look at the door, Elizabeth made her way down the steps.

“Glowing yellow eyes,” she said once she was at Simon’s side. “That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Simon made a sour face, but sighed in resignation.

“What now?” Elizabeth asked.

He looked down at her, his jaw set with determination. “We have one more place to go.”

She quirked her head to the side in question.

“I think it’s time we went to church.”

The sun had finally set, but instead of providing relief from the stifling heat, it merely cloaked it in darkness. The sharp spires of old St. Patrick’s rose in the distance like a fist full of daggers. Gothic architecture had never bothered her before, but now it seemed too jagged, too oppressive. The dark gray façade loomed over the small street, and a cold shiver ran down her back.

As they walked up the steps of the cathedral, Elizabeth saw a familiar face. “Dix!”

Happy to have any distraction from her increasingly uneasy thoughts, she walked over to the other woman. “What’re you doing here?”

“Just sayin’ hello to the father,” Dix said, nodding her head in the direction of the large double doors where Father Cavanaugh stood talking to a young family. “Not that I’m religious or anything. Just droppin’ in, ya know?”

Elizabeth recognized protesting too much when she saw it, but wasn’t about to pry. “We were doing the same,” Elizabeth said. “He offered some help a while back. We wanted to let him know we were doing okay.”

Dix nodded, and her eyes darted to Simon and then back to Elizabeth. “Glad to hear it,” she said with a smile.

Elizabeth could see the sadness tugging a bit too much at the corners of her mouth. Oh, Dix was happy for them, but her eyes had the look of a woman who wanted the happiness she saw and didn’t think she’d ever find it. Unrequited love was an albatross Elizabeth knew too well.

They stood awkwardly for a moment, having run out of small talk and neither wanting to discuss why they were really there.

“Well,” Simon said, breaking the stalemate. “We should say hello to the father before it gets too late.”

“Yeah. I gotta be goin’ too.”

“See you tomorrow, Dix,” Elizabeth said, as Simon led her away. She was about to say something to Simon about Dix when he called out to the priest.

Father Cavanaugh said his goodbyes to the young family and waved them over. “Ah, good to see you two again. Elizabeth was it?”

“Simon and Elizabeth Cross,” Simon said.

A girl could get used to that.

“Of course,” the father said with a broad grin. “What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping to ask you about yesterday. I understand,” Simon continued, “you found the body in the butcher shop.”

“Oh, yes. Terrible, terrible business.”

“Did you get a good look at the body by any chance?”

Father Cavanaugh was surprised at the question, but he hid it quickly. Curiosity and a tinge of concern colored his face. “And why would you be wantin’ to know about such things?”

Not accustomed to having to explain himself, Simon stumbled for a reason.

“He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes,” Elizabeth added. “Trust me, it’s better to humor him.”

“Ah, likes to play detective, does he?” the father said with a wink.

Elizabeth thought of all sorts of replies to that, but managed to merely smile.

Simon ignored the byplay. “Can you describe the body? The wounds to the neck were unusual.”

Elizabeth could have sworn a flash of fear passed over the priest’s placid face.

“I’m afraid people are always findin’ new ways to do each other harm,” he said noncommittally.

“Yes,” Simon persisted, “but the flesh was torn away. Almost like an animal bite.”

There it was again, a brief glimmer of alarm. His eyes shifted from side to side, trying surreptitiously to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “An animal,” he said with a laugh. “No, it was as the paper said, a sad example of the darkness some men find themselves driven to these days.”