Chapter Thirty-Two: Vampire Crime Unit

Suleiman and Ebony returned in late afternoon with the results of their investigation. Vera heard them come in and thought to hide a weapon on her person, quickly discovering the downside of snug clothes: there was nowhere to hide anything. It didn't matter - for obvious reasons, there was no silver at Chapel House, so she was more dangerous with her bare hands anyway. She plodded out and prepared to either 1) defend herself against a bevy of inveterate vampires or 2) do a lot of explaining.

Suleiman glanced up the stairs, spotting Vera as she descended and offering an uncertain nod. She wondered whether that was a good sign or not. Moody had them assemble in the lower parlor, large and understated and, from a quick whiff, not somewhere that often hosted vampire orgies. Moody sat in a maroon high-backed chair, its woodwork dark and exquisite, sitting like a king upon his throne. He gestured that they should sit, and they all did so - all but Carrie. Lisa slid onto the divan next to Vera, relaxed and smelling of herbal soap and fresh blood... and, to be fair, Vera probably smelled of that, herself.

"Well?" Carrie said, crossing toned arms and glancing to Vera.

"We've examined the place from top to bottom," Suleiman said. "I'm afraid it looks bad."

"Define 'bad'," Moody said.

"We found evidence of a massive cleanup on the patio," Ebony said. "A very thorough cleanup, but with enough residue to test. It looks like there's at least some vampire blood up there. We didn't find anything elsewhere."

Ebony cleared her throat. "That's not quite true..."

"We found some verminous vagrants," Suleiman sighed. "They were in the basement, cooking with the bloody furnace and raising up an ungodly stink."

"I see," Moody said. "I trust you dealt with them?"

"They're dealt with," Ebony said. "They liked the furnace so much, I figured they could stay in it. Minus a few pints, of course. And when I was stuffing the poor fuckers in there, I found..." she pulled out a baggie with a tiny gleaming nugget in it. "Silver. Or so I surmise. It could have been used to hurt our friends or worse."

Vera was stunned. Firstly, because Ebony and Suleiman had been to the furnace and found no evidence of charred bodies. That was great news. And second, because what Ebony had found was very obviously a dental filling. Carlo's or Matt's, most likely. And if anybody bothered to pull up their old dental records, that would become obvious to an observant person. Fortunately, none of the other vampires had made the connection yet…

"That could be a dental filling," Moody stated. "Can you check them on your, uh, thingamadoodle?"

"My cell phone?" Ebony smirked. "Probably not - my dear missing chers are Youngbloods to you, but they aren't that young by human standards. Any medical records more than twenty years old aren't going to be digitized."

"Pity. Well, no matter. Pull up their records at Juvechrome when you can. I want to make sure those metal bits don't belong to one of our boys. Good work, you two."

Shit. They weren't fucked - not yet - but if that chunk of silver matched something from Matt's or Carlos's mouth, it might well lead them back to Vera and Lisa. But, more curious to her, was why they weren't fucked yet. Vampire bones were just about indestructible, or so everybody said. So why hadn't they been in the furnace for Suleiman and Ebony to find? Vera hoped she didn't look surprised… and couldn't help but notice that Lisa definitely didn't look perturbed. She took the little baggie with the silver filling and examined it thoughtfully, as if she had no idea how in the world it might have got in the (former) Brushland Presbyterian Church basement furnace.

Vera wandered out of the parlor, hoping it wasn't plainly obvious that she was out-of-sorts. She didn't even notice Lisa padding off upstairs without her, nor Suleiman by the big spiral staircase, waiting to pull her aside. He tugged on the sleeve of Vera's tee so gently she almost didn't notice it.

"Vera," he whispered.

She leapt like a startled cat and covered her mouth to hide her extruded fangs.

"What?" she said, her fangs gradually receding.

"You and your friend were the last to see Carlos and Matt... I'd like your considered opinion, Vera, absent the parlor's coterie."

She shrugged and tried to project a composure she didn't feel. "Everybody who cares to can hear us."

"I suppose that's true. We'll talk in your room, and only a very impertinent vampire would bother to listen in. Will you humor me?"

"Of course," Vera said with a pleasant smile.

They slipped into the suite Vera and Lisa were occupying - where was Lisa, anyway? Vera couldn't smell her, nor hear any noises throughout the house that were obviously hers. Though, with as many people as there were about the place during the daytime, it was hard to tell which noises belonged to anybody. Vera approached the window and peered at the farmland beyond. It was approaching five o'clock and the farmhands were finishing up for the day, hauling packs of cotton and tobacco away, hosing down the machines, and milling about in front of the mechanical sheds. She looked over her shoulder and back to Suleiman - dark eyes, tawny skin (he'd fed recently - she could smell the blood on him), exquisitely androgynous in his features and wrapped up like a present in his gray three-piece suit.

"Well?"

He removed a felt-tipped pen from the breast pocket of his jacket and sat at the little writing desk. He moved the little Chapel House watermarked notepad in front of himself and wrote in amazingly-neat cursive:

S: <I found something at the church yesterday. I wonder whether you recognize it?

He produced a scrap of something dark and leather, something that had been torn off a larger item. An intricate pattern in slightly-darker leather cast a sheen in the light. It was a scrap of Carlos's jacket. He looked Vera in the eyes and smiled.

"Don't tell me you didn't feel it, Vera. Last night in the parlor… there was a connection between us. I can't be the only one who felt it…"

Vera eased over to Suleiman and leaned down to write on the notepad. He took in her scent, his eyes flitting away from the scintilla of cleavage visible through the v-neck of her lululemon tee. Even if he was saying it for show, Suleiman was clearly interested. Vera wasn't sure how to feel about that. She wrote in less-exemplary print:

V: <That's Carlos's jacket. A piece of it. Why didn't you tell Erasmus about it?

"I don't know what I felt, Suleiman," Vera said. "I hardly remember it - Master Moody dosed me with crimson venom because he thought I had something to do with all… this nonsense. And, I'm happy to say, I didn't and now he knows I didn't."

S: <I didn't tell him because I'll let him know what I want him to know and when I want him to know it.

Suleiman used the pen to indicate fingernail marks on the jacket. Fingernails that were strong enough to tear sturdy leather apart. Vampire fingernails.

"Well… I find that the crimson venom is a nuanced instrument, don't you?" Suleiman said. He ran his hand along Vera's forearm and gently placed the pen back in her hand. "It'll only give you answers to what you ask, but I have no reason to suspect you at the moment. Should I?"

"No, of course not," Vera said. She pulled her hand free from his grip and scribbled as she spoke. "In fact, I hope you get to the bottom of it so Carrie stops giving me the stinkeye whenever we're in the same room."

V: <Carlos is a lot bigger than me. But if I had done something to him, why would I take him to the furnace? I don't know a thing about disposing of a body, but that would be really stupid.  Though, at the time, it hadn't seemed like such a bad idea.

"We'll get to the bottom of it," Suleiman agreed. "And, I feel I must come clean: mostly, I just wanted to be alone with you, to see if I could recapture that magic from last night… perhaps not, but I have high hopes that we'll soon be very good friends, and maybe more." He looked her in the eye, flashed an enigmatic smile, and wrote:

S: <I never said we found it near the furnace.

Well, fuck. That was a hell of an unforced error. "I'm… I'm happy with Lisa. Thank you for being so forthright, Suleiman, but I'm not looking for anything beyond that."

"I am," he said. "But perhaps it won't be you… we shall see. Happy trails, fair Vera." Suleiman folded the piece of notepaper and slid it into his pocket along with the scrap of Carlos's jacket. Then he stood, kissed her cheek, and ambled from the room.

Vera stared out the window, out at the workers retiring for the day and the acres and acres of peaceful countryside, and wondered what the hell she'd just gotten herself into this time.

+++++

Vera tracked Lisa down to the far end of Chapel House, down an enclosed hallway and into the eastern annex of the estate. She was in a soundproofed room with the door cracked open, and Vera hadn't been able to hear any of the conversation until something approaching normal human distance. But she did smell orange blossom from across the house and simply let her nose guide her, following the gradient, thwarted by several false leads, and eventually wandering past a trio of servants with the worried look of people who knew Vera probably shouldn't be transgressing in this part of the house but who hadn't been given explicit instructions along those lines. So Vera shot them her best don't fuck with the vampire look and picked up her pace to a purposeful stride.

"No, no… turn around. Turn around properly," Erasmus Moody chuckled.

Then Lisa giggled and Vera heard flimsy fabric shifting through the air. She swung the soundproofed door open and stormed in, not quite sure what was going on, nor what she was going to do if it was anything untoward. She frowned, took in the room, and tried to hide her vexation when Erasmus Moody turned around with the shit-eating grin of a child caught with his thumb in the chocolate pie.

"Why, Miss Vera, what a pleasant surprise!" He said. "Our Lisa was just treating me to a little fashion show… but maybe we can add another headliner to the marquee. What do you think, my dear?"

Lisa bit her lip and shot Vera an apologetic look - caught red-handed. She sported a purple and maroon go go dress that, while quite fetching on her perfectly-proportioned frame, probably hadn't been high fashion for fifty years. Between the slightly too-tight top straining against her breasts, the airy fabric swishing against her svelte legs, and the lavender knee-high boots, though, Lisa looked like a ravishing seductress out of the 1960s. She tugged on the sleeve of Vera's tee… that was familiar.

"Erasmus has all kinds of awesome vintage clothes," she said. "He says we can have whatever we like!"

Moody raised his finger for an addendum: "Provided you model it for me." He slicked his mustache. "After all, my dear, I wouldn't want my reputation sullied allowing ill-fitting nonsense to be paraded out of my humble chateau. Pick anything that strikes your fancy, Miss Vera. Anything at all - I'll even call in the hairdresser if you want to see it in a bouffant."

Vera was not going to model for Erasmus Moody. Beyond being vaguely creepy, she didn't even need new clothes. She wasn't even sure what her fashion sense was yet - she hadn't settled on a personal style yet. Though that purple velvet romper would go perfectly with Lisa's dress… no. She frowned at Moody.

"I'm not stripping down in front of you," she said, her resolve wavering. There were hundreds of outfits in there, and some of them were comfortable and practical and really, really cute. No.

"Heaven forbid! The ignominy! We've got a modesty screen just yonder so you may keep your reputation intact."

Vera noted that there was no orange blossom smell coming from that direction. Lisa hadn't used the privacy screen. Not even once. Well… Vera would use it, and then she'd do some strutting and a few turns for Lisa (not Moody), and then the outfit would be hers. She felt the fabric - it was so soft. She grabbed the outfit and had taken exactly two steps toward the screen when a group of familiars saw themselves into the room. In black tactical gear and carrying serious guns… they weren't household servants. Charles Barrett rushed in after them, pushing through the bulkier men and, gasping for breath, made a cursory bow before Moody.

"Master Moody, we've found them," he said.

"Them?"

"Them," Charles said. "I tried to call, but…"

Erasmus waved the complaint off. "I didn't have my thingamadoodle on me. Let's skip the song and dance." He turned to Lisa and Vera. "I think we'd all better see this, don't you?"

Whether Vera wanted to see 'this' or not was moot - she was coming. She brought up the rear, following after Lisa and Charles as they all filed down the hallway into the main house and into the airy expanse of the entry hall. A dozen servants were gathered along the upper gallery looking down in mixed fascination and horror. And, already, Vera smelled something familiar… something charred and sooty. And she suspected she knew what was there, hidden underneath the big green tarp the familiars had dragged into the middle of the room.

"Go on, lift it up," Moody said. "I promise I won't faint."

One of the familiars complied, revealing two charred corpses, the flesh curled and shriveled, much of it ashen and flaking off, and quite a bit of skeleton visible. It didn't take too much guesswork to figure out who those poor souls were - the torn, ashen remains of Carlos's leather jacket could be seen on the larger corpse and the smaller one sported several pieces of Matt's intricate jewelry. Somebody grabbed Vera's wrist and squeezed and, for a moment, she thought somebody was about to apprehend her as the culprit. But it was Lisa, her expression uncertain, fearful, looking to Vera and then back to the bodies.

Moody crouched in front of the bodies, fished something out of a baggie, and fiddled about with the mouth of Carlos's corpse. "Vampire teeth," he observed. "And… yup. The filling fits. These are our boys, all right, and it looks like they were done in by one of our own."

Carrie strode over next to him, not quite managing to hold back her tears. She hissed, her fangs extruding like a great, sharpened chisel, and trembled with rage. "How can you tell?" she asked.

"Puncture marks by something very sharp," Moody said. "This one went right into the chest, which only a few mighty mortals might accomplish. And this latter one… well, it went right through his rib. Even a bullet can't do that…"

"Through his rib?" Carrie asked, incredulous. "I thought our bones were indestructible."

"Virtually indestructible, Miss Carrie, but yes. Your point is sound. So far as I know, it takes industrial mining tools to do it, and even we vampires aren't so strong…"

"The ribs there aren't bone, though," Ebony cut in. "Where they connect to the sternum, they're cartilage. And our cartilage is plenty strong, but an uncommonly strong vampire might have done it with the right weapon. Where did you find their bodies?"

The leader of the familiars stepped forward, eyes darting about and perspiration beading across his brow. There was always a bit of danger around vampires, Vera supposed, and doubly so when you were bearing bad tidings they were vexed. And none of the trio of vampires brooding over the pair of bodies were pleased to have found them.

"Um… out in the pine swamps, Master Moody… about a mile south-southwest of… of the, um… the temple?"

"In the swamps a mile from our temple? From our bastion? I want the familiars of our departed brothers brought here by midnight, all of them. And they'll tell me everything they know, and if I'm not satisfied with the answers, I swear I'll empty their veins to the last drop. I shall take this grave matter up with our Lady, and wrongs will be made right, justice shall be served, and we shall taste revenge." Moody made a dismissive gesture. "Now go. Go before my vexation falls upon you, too. And one of you document everything here and send the pictures to Charles's whatsit."

As the assembled group dispersed, some of them to get familiars, some of them to brood, and others to get equipment for recording the evidence, Carrie stalked over to Vera, with Lisa still clinging to her arm.

"You swear you had no part in this?" she asked. Purple tears streaked down both her cheeks.

"I swear it to Abaddon," Vera said solemnly. She had more than a little part in all this, but she was so thoroughly confused by what had just transpired that the lie came easily. After all, she legitimately had no idea who might have dumped the bodies back in the pine swamps, nor how the tactical squad of familiars might have found them.

"Good. Because if I find out that one of our people had anything to do with this, I'll have them despoiled to a realm of pure misery. And anybody else I'll tear limb from limb and make sure they're alive to feel the last sinew snapping. You two help however you can… and if you can't, then stay the fuck out of the way. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Carrie," Lisa said in small voice. And, though Lisa was putting on a good face, Vera knew enough about her to know that she knew something about what was going on. That fearful grip around her arm was practically an admission… but an admission of what?

OvidLemma

Thanks for reading, and make sure you follow me here to catch my latest releases! Chapters for Transfusion will be posted daily through the end of the novel. If you liked this story, don't forget to check out my many other stories Scribble Hub, Patreon, or Amazon (free with Kindle Unlimited)!

https://www.patreon.com/OvidLemma
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3AOvid+Lemma