Precinct 13 (15 page)

He chose that moment to ask, “What are you thinking?”

“I met a vampire today,” I said, because I
had
been thinking of Devon in a roundabout way.

“During the daylight? That’s unusual,” he remarked dryly, smoothing the frown lines from my forehead.

“He’s also a werewolf.”

“We should lock the door on Wednesday. It’s a full moon.”

His complete lack of shock made me realize that talking to Valentine had prepared me for Precinct 13 in a way. Following the advice of my therapist, I’d cast him as an “enabler,” but now I asked, “Have you met any vampires?”

“Russia is lousy with them,” he said.

Yesterday, I would have laughed at this point, sat up,
socked him in the arm, and told him how much I loved his sense of humor. We would have kissed, fallen back into bed, and I would have thought no more of it.

Now, when I pulled myself into a sitting position, I anxiously searched his face. “Are you shitting me?”

“No. They’re everywhere back home. One of the first recorded uses of the word ‘vampire’ was in a Russian book in the ninth century or thereabouts. Many people believed Rasputin was a vampire, as well.” He was very casual when he answered, very conversational, but my stomach began to knot.

“So, you’re saying you’ve met vampires before,” I said, and, though it was a statement, my words hung in the air like a question.

“There are a lot of bloodsuckers out there. Some people say they’re running the government.” There was a tiny bit of a mock in the smile that played on the edges of his lips.

Now I did sock him in the arm. I hated the way I always lost control of the conversation whenever I tried to talk to him about something important. I could never pin him down and get a straight answer from him. “God, you frustrate the hell out of me. I don’t want to play this game with you because you always win. Forget it. I don’t even know what we were talking about anymore.”

He leaned in and kissed my pouting lips. Then he got up and ordered pizza.

We’d eaten, finished what we’d started earlier, and were lying spooned in my bed when Valentine surprised me by saying, “I think this place is good for you.”

We’d heard Robert come in about an hour ago, and we’d had trouble keeping from giggling. It seemed we were destined
for interruptions tonight. I smiled and hugged Valentine’s arms encircling my waist. “Yeah, I like Robert’s house a lot. It’s very comfortable. He can be kind of a June Cleaver, but I’m really thankful he offered it to me when I suddenly…”

I had to stop or I’d have to find a way to apologize for running out on Valentine.

“I didn’t mean this house, I meant Pierre.”

“Oh?”

“It’s an unusual city. It seems just large enough. Or maybe just small enough that less is hidden.”

“You mean things like vampires and necromancers?”

“Yes.”

His breath was in my ear, soft and steady. I felt him drift easily to sleep in a moment. Meanwhile, I lay awake for a long time. He’d
told
me, after all. He’d answered the question I’d been so desperately trying to ask earlier, even though I hadn’t figured out quite how to formulate it. With that simple idea that there were things hiding in plain sight, extraordinary bits that people might pass by, unthinking, in a larger city, he told me everything I needed to know.

Valentine
understood
magic.

He had known the truth all along.

A phone call woke me up at five fifty-six the next morning. I fumbled around until I managed to get the receiver in proximity of my face. “Mmm?”

The sharp, succinct voice on the other end could only be Jones. “Jack is picking you up. We’ve had a new development out at Jerry Olson’s ranch.”

“Nnnn?” I asked, but Jones had already hung up.

I pulled my feet over the side of the bed and sat there for
a long moment, working up the energy to find some clothes. I considered the pile at the end of the bed. It was a mix of mine and Valentine’s, but I was pretty sure my underwear was still somewhere in the living room. I should probably wear fresh, at any rate. Luckily, the closet was less than a step away. I pulled something on in the dark, and stumbled out of the room, careful not to wake Valentine.

In the kitchen, I started the coffee as quietly as my morning clumsiness allowed. While that brewed, I scrawled a note on the Post-it pad on the fridge. “At work. Explain later.”

Looking at it, I wasn’t sure who the note was even intended for—was I planning on explaining Valentine to Robert, or Precinct 13 to Valentine?

I decided it worked either way and left it.

The loudness of the knock at the door made me jump. Thank God Jack hadn’t thought to ring the bell. I ran to open it. It was still dark outside, but the corner streetlight illuminated his broad smile. The Yoda ear hat flopped as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. “Crop circles,” he said without preamble. “Cow mutilations.”

“Coffee,” I said continuing the list of random words beginning with “c.”

I was turning back toward the kitchen when he stopped me with, “No, your coat. Get it. We’ve got to go now while the readings are fresh.”

I did as he asked with a grumble. As I jammed my boots onto my feet, I wondered, “Can’t we at least drive through some place?”

Jack, it turned out, was a tea drinker, and he told me all about his favorite “monkey picked” oolong tea while I
ordered a super-duper venti mocha to go. The barista seemed as bleary-eyed and annoyed by Jack’s chipperness as I was. Though I had to admit I was happy not to have to carry much of the conversation. I just let his monologue roll over me as we got back into his car.

A dusting of snow covered everything. The highway was almost invisible, just pale tracks of the wheels of whatever vehicles had come this way before. The air was hazy, causing halos around the lights ahead. I held the coffee in my gloved hands, close to my face, to keep warm. Jack’s car was a bright yellow VW bug, one of the old ones from the sixties. It had flower decals all over it, a peace sign on the door, and no heater.

“I hate you,” I said.

Jack had been telling me something about winter mornings in Beverley, East Yorkshire. “What?”

“Why am I up at this ungodly hour again?” which was really what I’d meant to say the first time, but hadn’t ingested nearly enough caffeine to be civil.

“Didn’t Jones tell you?”

“I was sleeping.”

“Right, well, this rancher, Jerry Olson, called downtown this morning in a state of hysteria. He’s got crop circles and dead cows.”

I nodded, but I still felt I was missing something. “Who died?”

“About six cows,” Jack repeated.

“But no people?”

“Right,” he said.

“Take me home,” I said. When he shot me a confused look, I explained. “Cows and humans are completely different species. I think they have six stomachs. I’m not a veterinarian.”

Jack shrugged and didn’t turn the wheel even the slightest. “You’re all we’ve got.”

I had intended to make my case to Jones the moment we pulled into the ranch. Instead, I found myself standing in a frosty field staring down at a mauled animal. It was hard to even tell what it had been. My boots scrunched on the stiff clover as I bent closer to examine the haunch. “Looks like something chewed on it, here.” I gestured with the lip of the coffee cup.

The rancher, Jerry Olson, a beefy guy in a cowboy hat and parka, nodded. “Coyotes. I had to chase them off with my shotgun.”

I could still see the pale moon hanging in the morning sky overhead. It was nearly full. I exchanged a look with Jones, because I’d noticed Devon’s conspicuous absence. Jones shook his head slightly, and I took that to mean that Devon’s alibi for last night was solid. So,
real
wolf-type animals, not the were-vamp kind.

I returned to my examination.

Underneath my coat, I felt the tattoo constrict suddenly and I looked down at it. I glanced up just in time to see the mangled head of the cow lift off the frozen ground.

The meat of its skinless flesh steamed in the cold. Its exposed, lidless eyeball hung loosely in its socket, but somehow seemed to look directly at me. It lowed pitifully. Then it dropped its head with a wet, sticky sound.

“Holy shit!” I fell back on my ass in shock. The remains of my coffee spilled on my shoes. I scrambled to my feet and pointed frantically. “It…it…it…” I was about to tell them that the cow was clearly not dead and needed to be shot in the head, when I looked again.

The light in its eye had gone out.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked. He bent to pick up the coffee container and brushed the grit from the side. He handed it to me. There was a little mocha left inside. I took it and tried to communicate with my eyes that we needed to talk somewhere without Olson.

“Sorry,” I said. “I slipped. I guess it just freaked me out
a bit.” My excuse sounded stupid even to my own ears. I hid my face as I brushed the snow from the butt of my coat.

“Why don’t you show Alex the other thing?” Jones suggested.

Jack led me through the pasture. We threaded along the uneven ground, careful to avoid the lumps of icy cow pies. It was the third time, or maybe fourth if I counted the necromancer, that something dead had spoken to me. My stomach shivered and threatened to revolt.

Once we’d gotten to the far side of the stables, Jack asked, “What happened?”

“You didn’t see?”

He shook his head. I wasn’t surprised, but I was still disappointed. Despite everything that I knew about magic now, it still bothered me when I experienced things that no one else did. I had a hard time trusting what was real.

Bits of hay covered the gravel near the entrance to a long, brick building. Inside, the few remaining cattle huddled near the grain bin. Their glossy black hides tensed and shivered, as their brush-tipped tails flicked like an irritated cat’s. Waves of heat from their bodies were visible in the chill.

“ ‘I see dead cows’ is the dumbest superpower ever,” I said. I took a swig from the mocha before I remembered I’d dropped it. The drink was cold and slightly crunchy.

“It tried to communicate with you?” Jack asked, shoving his hands deeply into the pockets of his wool trench coat. “What did it say?”

“ ‘Moo,’ ” I explained.

“Oh. Right,” he said, looking at the clump of cows. They stomped their hooves and bellowed lowly amongst themselves. After a moment, he asked, “Do you suppose that’s a sign it was killed by magic?”

I looked around for a place to dispose of my cup while I considered. Not all the dead things that had talked to me thus far were killed by magical means. Though both the necromancer and the severed head were clearly under some spell, I wasn’t so sure about Mrs. Finnegan. From all accounts, she’d died quite naturally. I spotted a metal garbage can just inside the door. “I don’t know what it means,” I admitted, tossing the cup and putting the circular cover back in place. “I wish it would stop, though.”

He gave me a sympathetic nod. “The crop circle is over here.”

I followed Jack around the side of the barn. Rolls of hay, taller than our heads, dotted the field. Nubby remains of the harvest threatened to trip my clumsy feet. I tried to walk, tightrope style, along the narrow tire treads. The sun broke on the horizon, throwing pink and orange onto the cloud cover.

Under my coat, I could feel my tattoo shift and squirm the closer we got to the circle.

Given that the hay had all been baled last season, I wondered how the circle had been formed. I was about to ask Jack, when the answer became obvious. Just ahead I could see green tendrils of plants, growing up from the frost-sheathed ground. Knee-high, they stood out in sharp relief to the mowed field.

My tattoo buzzed angrily.

“Wow,” I said, because it was strangely beautiful, with the sun glinting off the straight, stiff stalks. Though there were no visible seed heads or blossoms, I swore I could smell a spring freshness coming from the circle. I edged as close as my arm would allow. “So aliens are real, too?”

“What? No,” Jack said. He was kneeling in front of the grass, his hand brushing the tips. He withdrew his fingers quickly and rubbed them together, as if checking for residue of some kind. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh,” I said, shoving my gloved hands into the pockets of my coat. The tattoo ached so much that it felt like someone was twisting my skin. “It’s just that I heard something on the police radio yesterday about an unidentified flying object. Or maybe it had been a plane that hadn’t registered a flight plan?”

“That’s something else entirely,” Jack said. He stood up and took a digital camera from the inside of his coat and started taking pictures. “We’re tracking that.”

Was it morning grogginess, or did Jack seem a little distant and snappish suddenly? Could he feel my tattoo’s response to the green circle? Did it remind him that I might be one of the unnatural ones? Maybe that accidental “I hate you” hurt his feelings?

I shook my head and let my gaze drift toward the windbreak of trees on the horizon. The sun’s light made the frost on the long expanse of mowed field sparkle—blue, white, and pink.

“So if it’s not aliens, what makes crop circles?” I wondered aloud.

“Zombies,” he said, walking along the edge of the green, snapping images from all angles. “That’s why we wanted you out here. Zombies could be related to the necromancer.”

I nodded, wishing I had more coffee. Zombies made crop circles.
Of course.
How many magical things happened in this town, anyway? Maybe Valentine was wrong. Pierre seemed almost too small this morning, because
too much
was visible. I could see my breath and my cheeks stung in the
wind. “Do zombies usually make things sprout like that? That seems kind of”—I rubbed my aching arm—“natural, doesn’t it?”

Jack paused to scratch the whiskers on his unshaved chin. “It does,” he agreed. He shoved the camera deep into the pocket of his coat and shook his head. He glanced in the direction of the pasture just beyond the barn. “Spenser is going to be pissed off.”

I thought that defined Jones’s usual disposition, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I asked, “Why?”