“Yep, everything’s going good. Worked out perfect, actually.” I’ve been here a couple of weeks now and things are strangely going smoothly.
He shrugs. “I honestly had my doubts just a little prick of the finger would do anything, but he reacted almost immediately.”
“Thanks again for putting yourself in that position.” The man hadn’t even hesitated when I’d asked.
Johnson shrugs again. “There was an entire team of older vampires surrounding me; I knew they’d stop him before he reached me. He didn’t even touch me. And I have front row tickets to the game,” he says with a grin. Clearly, his game is more important. “Let me know if there are any other vampires you need me to bleed in front of.”
“I think I’m good for a while, but if I think of anything, I’ll let you know,” I say.
He gives me a pat on the back and heads out to the car as I look up at the department I’d conned my way into. But… was it really cheating? I knew the vampire they hired was too young the moment I saw him a few weeks before I started. It was only a matter of time before he slipped up. I just sped things up when I knew it would work best for me.
Okay, I feel a little bad about doing it, but he got transferred to a department where they deal with research and it’s better for him until he’s older, anyway.
I walk in and set my stuff down, but before I even have a chance to sit, Bitey McBiterson shows up. “Meeting in ten.”
“Good morning to you too!”
“My god, what happened to your face?” Marcus asks, but he says it in a way that isn’t really bursting with concern.
“Yes, it is a fine morning. Thanks for the greeting!” I say as I give him a huge smile. He continues to frown at me.
“Your face. It looks like a baboon’s ass.”
My smile quickly turns into a glare. “How have you made it so many years without someone just offing you because of your rude behavior?”
He points at himself. “Me? I feel like I was showing nothing but pure concern over your baboon-assed face. So?”
“I fell.”
“On your face?”
“Yes.”
He looks highly amused by this. “Like… your feet just gave up and you just splat right onto the ground?” He even pulls out hand motions for this to emphasize the splatting.
“That’s pretty much what happened.”
“Wow, I definitely want someone with that level of agility as my partner. Please, teach me your secrets.”
“You know what? You’re evil,” I say as I jab a finger at him. “I marred my perfect face, and you’re enjoying it.”
He snickers. “It’s kind of cute. You know, like when the little baby gazelle is just born and it’s all wobbly, but in this case, it’ll be like the little baby gazelle is just born and a lion is waiting for it to drop so it can eat it.”
I give him a look of horror. “Are you planning on eating me again? Brooks! Church is trying to eat me again, and this time I didn’t even do anything but be perfect!” I call out.
Karsyn spins around in his chair. “Did I hear someone say we’re eating the human? Count me in.”
“Please don’t fight over me, boys. I’m a one-man kind of guy,” I say. “Now where is this meeting?”
Marcus heads off without a word, so I follow after him and Karsyn joins us at a distance, like being too close to me could hurt him.
“I like your dog,” I tell Marcus.
“Well, he doesn’t like you.”
“You met Church’s dog?” Briar asks as she swoops in on the conversation. “He’s so cute, but he’s so stuck up. Won’t even let me get close to him.”
“Oh?” I ask with what is no doubt a gleeful look on my face.
Marcus’s eyes narrow. “He hates you. He told me that.”
I feel like I need to explain to everyone what happened. “Church locked his keys in his car, and I had to drive him home. Hilarious, isn’t it? And then when we got there, his dog just loved me. He let me scratch him all over.”
“Really?” Briar asks in surprise. “He’s brought him into work before and that dog just ignored everyone and tried his hardest to dodge any incoming pats. I even gave him half my sandwich and he still hated me.”
I don’t know why it makes me feel strangely happy that Marcus’s dog likes me and no one else; maybe because it annoys Marcus so much. Marcus hurries ahead into the room like he can avoid this conversation, but I take a seat next to him.
“They say dogs can sense perfect people,” I say.
“They don’t say that.”
“That they know who is good in the world and deserves their love.” I have no idea why he’s so adamant about the dog not liking me, but I kind of love it. “Next time I’ll bring him his favorite snack. What does he prefer?”
“There won’t be a next time.”
DeGray and Briar go to the front of the room and put up a picture on the projector. Briar points at the headshots of six males. “So after the statement Church and Hayes received from Travis, Peterson’s roommate, we looked into her classes. We cross-examined who was a participant in her classes with who was a part of her human/vampire alliance club. There were fifteen different matches, but once we removed the females, we had six matches. We ran the names by Travis who said that a few sounded familiar, but she talked about her students a lot. Two of the six had alibis for that night and three claimed to be in their dorm rooms. We are looking into the security tapes now, but we might have our match. The final person is Patrick Grady, a senior who belonged to both her classes and her club. We have been unable to contact or locate him. While he attended classes the day after her death, he was absent yesterday.”
“Did word get out that you guys were looking for him?” I ask.
“There’s a possibility that someone we talked to knows him. Obviously, we never told anyone exactly who we’re looking for, but if they knew he was connected to it, they could have given him a heads up,” DeGray says.
“We’ve received permission to search his dorm room. Church, Hayes, can you two handle that?” Briar asks.
“Yeah, we’ll head over now,” Marcus says.
The door opens and we turn to look as Brooks walks in while holding some papers. “We have an interesting dilemma,” he says. “Are you guys done?”
Church nods. “Yes, we were getting ready to head over to the campus.”
“I have some news about the homicide you guys were called out to… I’ve received some results from the blood that was in the bucket. When they ran DNA testing on it to identify whose blood it was, they noticed the blood was diluted with something interesting. Something we haven’t seen before. But as they were examining it, a vampire who wasn’t part of the team came in and attacked an analyst that was near the door even though they too were a vampire.”
“There was something in the blood,” I realize. “That’d explain why Marcus attacked me, right? I mean, he’s old as dirt, some blood shouldn’t have bothered him.”
Brooks nods. “That’s what we’re thinking. We don’t know what it is yet, but we do know that it’s a concern. They’re running tests to see if they can figure out what it is.”