Private Demon

"John Keller, my resident counselor," he told the cops. "John, the police would like to know if we have any information or leads on three kids who were knifed to death downtown last night. I was just telling them that we aren't missing any of our gangsters."

One of the detective took out a notepad. "Keller, John. Any middle name?"

"Patrick."

He nodded and scribbled that down. "Where were you between the hours of ten and eleven P.M. last night?"

"I was sleeping in my room. It's in the back of the kitchen." The room Hurley had allocated for John was roughly the same size as his quarters at the rectory at St. Luke's, but it was clean and the kids hadn't yet figured out how to pick the new lock that John had installed on the door.

"Alone?" the other detective asked, his expression bored.

"Yes, alone." John frowned. "May I ask to what these questions pertain?"

"Doesn't he talk beautiful?" Hurley asked one of the cops. "He can do it all fucking day, too."

"We're trying to establish where everyone was that night, Mr. Keller." The first cop nodded toward Hurley. "Your boss was also sleeping, alone, in his room."

"It was nighttime," Hurley said. "People do sleep at night."

The questions continued, with the detectives asking for information on known gang members staying at the Haven. Hurley joked and shrugged when they asked for names. John didn't know the residents well enough to contribute any useful information.

The bored detective caught a yawn with his hand. "You're sure you have no records on Roland Riegler, Gary O'Donnell, or Lawrence Kunde?"

"I'll check my files again, Officer," Hurley offered, "but they still won't be there."

"Call us if they materialize unexpectedly," the first cop said, handing Hurley a business card. He glanced up at John. "Have you anything to add?"

John shook his head.

After the detectives left, Hurley dropped the cop's card into his trash can. "Assholes."

"Why did they come here?" John went over to help himself to Hurley's coffee while it was still in liquid form. After the questioning, he felt he deserved it.

"Sandy didn't tell all?" Hurley clucked his tongue. "The kids who got stabbed are members of my old street gang, the Bones."

John turned around. "You were a skinhead? Before or after you became a priest?"

"Before." The shelter manager laughed. "Man, I couldn't wait to be a skinhead. Anything to give me an excuse to shave this shit off." He shook back his dreadlocks with the practiced aplomb of a bombshell blonde. "I'm not saying it was a good choice. I had the usual shitty childhood. My mom took off, and my dad took it out on me. I started living wherever I could, and fell in with the Bones. They didn't care about my hair or clothes, and they made me proud to be poof, white, and stupid. Took a couple of years of ducking drive-bys, getting Nazi tattoos and marching with the tri-Ks, but I outgrew the Bones and the movement. Same thing with the priesthood. I'm more into Pilates now."

"I can't imagine you as a priest, but I have no problem picturing you as a white supremacist," John said blandly. "I don't know why. Perhaps it's the holdover vocabulary."

Hurley's grin faded. "I take in little shits like the Bones seven days a week, Oreo, but in case you haven't noticed, I take the rest of the rainbow too. Sure, I used to Sieg Heil with the best of them, but I got over it."

"You still don't think the races should mix," John pointed out. "And you're very forthright with your attitude."

"That's because the mixed kids are the ones who suffer. They don't know what they are; they don't belong anywhere, and no one wants them. So yeah, I don't think we should fuck around with Nature's palette. I thought the Catholics would understand, but they didn't. That doesn't make me a Nazi, you know, and at least I can sleep at night."

John stiffened. "Meaning?"

"How long you been passing yourself off as lily white, man? Not going out in the sun so you don't get too dark, am I right? Keep your hair short so no one spots the kink? Talking like you eat Shakespeare and shit Susanna Clarke?" Hurley made a disgusted sound. "You might think you're better than me because you keep your prejudice inside, but we're the same." He produced a nasty smile. "The only difference is, I'm white on both sides, in and out."

John started composing resignation number fourteen as he left Hurley's office. To Whom It May Concern. A racist Irishman has just made me aware that I am as bigoted as he is. Please excuse me from working with people of different skin colors until I can achieve an attitude adjustment. I do not wish to be a Nazi.

"Entschuldigen Sie."

John looked up at into the dark eyes of the man who had come to the shelter with Cyprien. He backed up slowly.

"Einen moment, bitte." The man drew a knife and let John see it. Then he pointed toward the front of the building. "Come with me. To the car. Now, please, and quiet."

John couldn't risk having the man chase him or cut him up inside the building. Not in front of the children. Once he was on the street he could run, lure him away from the Haven.

"Yes." He walked like a robot toward his imminent death.

The vampire didn't turn to ash when they walked outside into the bright sunlight, but he did don a pair of trendy sunglasses. He sheathed his knife and pointed to a long, dark limousine waiting at the end of the street. "Go to the car."

"Go to hell." John took off in the opposite direction.

He'd always been a good runner. Carrying things up and down the Haven's stairs had toned his legs, and fear provided excellent impetus. John hadn't hit his top speed, though, when a big hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and spun him around.

"The car is this way," the vampire said through clenched teeth. "You will go now, please."

John went, marched to the limousine by the bigger man as if he were a truant child. The vampire didn't let go of him even when he opened the door to the back of the limo.

Alexandra Keller, her left arm in a sling, leaned out. "It's me, big brother. Get in."

The vampire helped John with the latter, a little too forcefully, and he ended up sprawled facedown on the leather seat opposite Alex.

"Thank you, Falco," she said to the vampire before he closed the door and went to the driver's seat. "Sorry about that. He's, um, enthusiastic."

John pushed himself up and looked at his sister. "Why didn't you just call?"

"I tried. The line's always busy. I didn't think you wanted me to show up asking for you at your job."

There were definite changes in the six months since he'd last spoken to her. Alexandra's hair, a curly mane of dark brown, was pulled up and away from her face and twisted in an elegant style. She wore a dress, something he couldn't remember her doing since high school, and the understated burgundy silk made the solid gold chain around her throat gleam. No makeup, not that Alexandra had ever needed any. She looked better, happier.

John let the indignation and pleasure over what he saw fight inside him until she said, "You look like shit, John. What's with this beard?"

He touched the short hair covering the lower half of his face before he remembered that he and his sister weren't on the same side any longer. They weren't even the same species. "What's with sending the Terminator to abduct me?" he countered.

"This isn't an abduction. We use drugs when we kidnap people." She used one hand to fasten her seat belt. "This is just a ride around the block and a chat."

"Cyprien told me that you'd been hurt." He nodded toward her shoulder. "Why is your arm in a sling? I thought you healed instantly."

"That's the reason for the chat." She gave her sling a wry look. "All things dark and spooky aren't exactly going according to plan. My mutation is different than theirs was."

"Your mutation." John knew his sister had read a lot of comic books when she was younger, but he never expected to hear her talking as if she were part of one. "Did Professor X tell you that, or Batman?"

Alexandra laughed. "Good one, Johnny." She leaned over and pressed an intercom button. "Park it somewhere, will you, Falco? Thanks."

She waited until the vampire had stopped the limousine on a side street by an abandoned building before she picked up her medical case from the floor. "The main reason I came to see you, John, was to ask for a favor."

He eyed the case. He had never understood his sister's calling any more than she had understood his. "What is it?"

"I need a little blood from you."

He flinched, revolted. "You couldn't get it from someone else?"

She frowned and then it dawned on her. "I'm not going to drink it, John. For God's sake. You're my brother." She made it sound as if he'd asked her to have sex with him. "I need a blood sample to run some tests."

"Ask someone else."

"I'm researching the cause of the Kyn's condition, and since I'm the only one who's survived the contagion in five centuries, my blood is integral," she said. "I don't have any samples of my own prior to infection, so yours is the next best thing."

He imagined his sister turning other humans into vampires. "Is this so you can infect other people? Do you expect me to help you?"

"No. I'm going to find a cure. You can help with that."

"A cure. For vampirism."

"The Darkyn are vampires only in the sense that they have fangs, are nocturnal, and live on human blood," she told him. "They heal faster. They're stronger." She started to say something else, and then changed her mind. "That's about it."

He rolled a hand over the sore spot on the back of his neck where Falco had grabbed it. "That is the textbook definition of a vampire, Alexandra." ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">