Chapter 13

November Twenty-first

Mark leaned back from the computer keyboard with a grimace. In general, he liked being a Lieutenant. The extra padding in his paycheck was certainly nice. All of the additional administrative work, however, was a serious pain in the ass. He stretched his cramped fingers and cracked his knuckles. Back during his rookie days, he had taken a couple of bullets during a traffic stop gone bad. He had been injured twice fighting vampires. Now it was looking like the next job related injury on his record would be carpal tunnel syndrome.

"Fuck it," he announced sourly to no one in particular, "I'm getting a cuppa before I type so much as one more friggin' word."

A limp still evident in his stride, he ambled slowly over to the shiny new coffee maker that was enshrined on its own table against one of the walls,. The machine had arrived as an anonymous gift a few months earlier, sending the bomb squad into a right tizzy. Once it had been declared explosive free, he and the other desk jockeys in Homicide had lovingly reassembled it and placed it here, where they jealously guarded it from the avaricious hands of the other departments.

With great ceremony, they had carried its predecessor to the dumpster behind the station, hurling it in to the accompaniment of a fanfare of raspberries and cat calls. The only regret that had been voiced was speculation that many suspects had confessed rather than face another cup of the vile substance it had produced.

With a small grin, Mark mentally tipped his hat to the "anonymous" benefactor. At that moment his cell phone rang. He checked caller id, and answered, "Hey Tom, or should I say Howie, I was just thinking about you."

"Hi Mark," Tom replied. "Enjoying the coffee were you?"

"You know it. You're pretty damn generous for a dead guy."

"Hey now, 'Howard Lipcowicz' is very much alive and well, and I have the papers to prove it. Thanks again for that. I should warn you, though, that my wife 'Bertha' is still more than a little annoyed with you. You should probably be careful next time you come visit. Make sure to call her 'sugar plum' a lot. She likes that."

"I swear, those were the only identities my contact had that were ready to use," Mark protested innocently. He then ruined the perfectly good lie by breaking down into laughter. Taking another sip from his cup, he remarked, "Mmmm, your little present does make a damn fine cup of joe."

"A part of me can't help but wonder if you said that just to rub it in."

Mark winced, "Sorry, I keep forgetting that you can't drink the stuff anymore. By the way, are you sure about that? Have you tried?"

With a despondent sigh, Tom replied, "Yeah. It was ... unpleasant. I was sick as hell for almost an hour, and all I had was a sip."

"Hmm, maybe you should try feeding your rodents nothing but coffee beans; some of the flavor might soak through."

"Heh. I'm going to have to try something. Living with an emotionally unstable pregnant woman without coffee is nothing short of hell."

Mark snickered as he heard a voice in Tom's background yell out, "I heard that, lump!"

"Lump?" Mark asked with a chuckle.

"Something she picked up from Mia. Don't ask," Tom replied disgustedly.

"When's your little bundle of joy due again?"

Tom perked up immediately. "Middle of January," he replied enthusiastically. He then began to wax eloquently on the topics of name choices, the possible color schemes for the baby's room, and the toys, crib and clothes that they had found to fill it with.

Mark listened for a moment before holding the phone away from his ear. With a grin, he placed it on the desk and returned to his typing. Quite a few minutes later, when the drone from the earpiece abruptly ceased, he picked it back up. "What was that again?" he asked, "There was a burst of static, and I missed the last part."

"Huh? Oh. I asked if you would be free to come up for a visit tonight? There's something I need to talk to you about."

"Kinda short notice and, social butterfly that I am, I hate to give up a Saturday night on the town, but yeah, I think I can do that."

"Great! We'll even cook you dinner if you want. We have roast bunny, bunny ala mode, bunny flambe, fried bunny, bunny on a stick..."

Mark cut him off with a snort of laughter, "No thanks. I'm never going to eat one of your filthy rodents again. Last time I did, I got a chubby that lasted until the next day. It was the same night that we were babysitting my nieces. Jenny looked at me weird for weeks." After brief consideration, he amended, "Jenny and I did have a bit of fun with it later that evening, though."

After Tom got some control over his laughter, he sputtered, "Sorry about that. It happens sometimes when they're really fresh. How about we order in a pizza?"

"Sounds good. How are things going with Mia, by the way?"

"Things are going well," Tom replied. "I think we're past that bit of friction we had concerning the 'absolute obedience' part of the bond. She has been very careful to phrase anything that could be interpreted as an order in the form of a question. It has to be frustrating as hell for her, but she does it and I love her for it. How about you? Things going okay in the Burg?"

Mark sighed, "I wish like hell that you were back here working with us. We could use you. There's been some really weird stuff going on. In the past six months or so, we've had a baker's dozen of people just drop dead for no apparent reason. No marks on the bodies. Toxicology is always negative. Coroner can't find any major health problems. No connection with age, race, or gender. It's making a lot of people nervous."

"You don't think..."

"That it's one of your new relatives? Nah. All the blood is present and accounted for. Those vigilante killings on the other hand..."

"What vigilante killings?" Tom asked innocently.

"Oh, I think the media is calling him the Cain killer, because, like Cain, all the victims have been branded with their crime. Well, the crimes have been carved into the victims' foreheads, actually, but same difference, I suppose."

"What makes you think it's a vampire?"

"Well, all the blood's missing for one thing. Plus, the killer knows too much. The Cleveland PD had been investigating those missing girls for years and never had a clue that they had been killed or that Senator whatshisname was involved. I'm itching to call them up and tell them to start using IR gear on patrols, but the President issued that classified Executive Order that basically tells everyone who knows about vampires to keep their damn traps shut." Mark sighed again. "The world's a shitty place when you can't even give other cops a heads up."

"I hear you. There's been some nastiness up this way, too. Two hunters were found dead not more than a couple of miles from our house. There wasn't much evidence left: animals, including their own dogs, had chewed the bodies up pretty good, but they found one guy's truck almost on your backdoor."

The conversation continued for a few more minutes before they said their goodbyes. After Mark hung up, he spun around to look behind him. For the past few weeks, he had often been getting the oddest feeling that someone was staring over his shoulder, but there was never anyone there.

"Must be getting paranoid in my old age," he muttered to himself.

He returned his attention to the computer screen, and stared at it blankly for a few minutes. He then checked his watch. He was supposed to have gone off duty half an hour before, but it would take him at least a few more hours to finish off the reports he had backlogged. The amount of overtime required was another thing he didn't like about his new position. With a grunt he decided to procrastinate, the reports would still be there Monday morning. Besides, going to visit Tom and his harem gave him a great excuse to put off doing any more paper pushing tonight. Whistling a merry ditty, he punched out, and walked outside to catch the bus home.