“Most recent sighting?” She blinked at the screen, her mind not quite digesting what she was seeing. “Ninety-two?”
Below the graphic, with its piercing eyes and pale skin, were more choices: Known Kills, Known Associates, Known Havens, Full Bio.
“What in the name of God is this shit?” She hit the back button, clicked on another name in the list, and again was brought to a screen with an image of the person, this one an actual photograph labeled “taken before transformation” and a brief bio.
Josephina Devon. Born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1962. Transformed in the summer of her 30th year, June 1992. Sire: R-532 aka Rhiannon. The vampire
“Vampire? “
was captured by DPI researchers in December of the same year. Held at DPI Headquarters in White Plains, NY, USA. Expired in captivity, 1995.
Again, the same choices were offered for further information, this time with one notable addition: “Tests Performed on the Subject & Results of Same.”
This was not real.
This could not be real.
When she clicked on “full bio” she found a document more than a hundred pages long. With details that made her mind spin with the impossibility of it all. When she opened the file that referred to tests performed, she thought she was going to be ill. This person, this woman, had been a lab rat. Held and experimented upon in that very building. In her own town.
But no. It hadn’t happened, because it wasn’t real.
There were no such things as vampires. Much less a covert government agency devoted to researching them.
And yet, here was the proof that there were.
There were.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
The next day, she still hadn’t decided, when the doorbell rang and she answered it to find no one there. Just an unmarked manila envelope on the doorstep. Her mother was already at work. Most days she left before Max was even out of bed. The odd delivery made Maxine curious, particularly after last night. She looked up and down the street. No strangers lurked anywhere. No suspicious vehicles with tinted windows slid past. The neighborhood was stirring to life. People opening their doors, picking up their morning papers.
Maxine picked up the envelope, looked at it, turned it over. Nothing. Not one word, not a label, not a stamp.
Frowning, she went back inside, closing and locking the door behind her. She took the envelope to the kitchen table, opening it as she walked, and she tipped it, dumping the contents out beside her bowl of corn flakes. Photos. What the hell? She frowned. Polaroids. Three of them. Then she blinked and snatched them up. That was Jason, sound asleep in his bed! She moved it to the back of the pile. The next shot was of Stormy, from the neck up, in her own shower. Maxine swore and looked at the third one. It was a shot of her mother, getting out of her car in the parking garage of the hospital where she worked as an R.N.
The telephone rang, and she damn near jumped out of her skin. Maxine clenched her teeth, dropped the photos on the table and went to pick up the phone.
“Do you like the photos, Maxine?”
The voice was a whisper so cold it sent a chill down her spine. “Who the hell is this?” Maxine reached for the answering machine on the table, jabbed the record button with her forefinger.
“Those shots were all taken in the past twelve hours, you know.”
“Why?” Her hand was clenching the telephone so hard her knuckles were white. She wished it was this son of a bitch’s neck. How dare he? God, he’d been in Jason’s bedroom. In Storm’s bathroom. And in that dark parking garage, alone with her mother.
“To show you how easy it is for me to learn everything about you, and how quickly and effortlessly I can get to the people you love. To shoot them. With a camera, this time, but—”
“You fuck with my family or my friends and you die. Do you understand me?”
“That’s quite the threat, coming from a girl barely out of high school.” He laughed, a deep, low sound that changed into a racking cough.
Max held the phone away from her ear, looking at it as realization dawned. It was him. The burned guy she’d seen at the fire. He must have seen her after all. He stopped coughing, and she put the phone back to her ear. “Why are you calling me? What do you want from me, anyway?”
“I want you to forget everything you saw last night. Pretend you were never there. Tell no one.”
“Fine. I’ll be glad to. If you’ll tell me what happened there last night.”
“I’m not making a bargain with you, Maxine. You’ll do as I say. Forget you ever saw me.”
“But—”
“Listen to me, you nosy little bitch!” She jerked in reaction to the anger in his voice. “If you so much as mention anything about seeing me at that fire to anyone, the next thing you find on your doorstep will be a body. Or a part of one. I’ll just shuffle those photos and pick one at random. Are you following me now?”
“Yes!” She paused, took a breath, her outrage completely smothered by her fear. He would hurt her mother, her friends. “Yes, I … look, I don’t know anything. I’m no threat to you. And I’m the only one that saw you. I didn’t tell them. I didn’t tell anyone. They don’t know anything.” She was shaking. She pressed a hand to the wall because her legs felt so unsteady.
“That’s good. See that it stays that way. I’ll be watching you, Maxine. And rest assured, I know how. I’m going to hear everything you say and see everything you do. Don’t test me.”
“I won’t.”
He hung up the phone.
Maxine wanted to sink to the floor. She looked around her, feeling exposed, vulnerable. She depressed the cutoff, then lifted it again. With a trembling forefinger, she punched the star key, then the six and the nine. Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe he wasn’t kidding and would know she had tried.
“The last number that called this line was,” the computer-generated voice said. Then it paused as its components worked. “We’re sorry. That number is not available.” It clicked off.
Swallowing hard, Maxine hung up the phone.
What the hell was she supposed to do now? Was he watching her? Could he see her even now? Were there bugs or hidden cameras in her own house? She searched her mind and mentally wondered what Oliver Stone would do.
She told herself to use her head. To think.
Okay. The guy had been in a fire last night. Wounded, burned. Suffering from smoke inhalation, too, by the sounds of his cough. He must have spotted her leaving, maybe even followed her home, and then followed Jason and Storm. He learned where they lived, went and got a camera, sneaked back and took the shots. Then he returned to Max’s home and watched the place. He’d followed her mom to work in the wee hours of this morning and taken that shot of her. Then he’d come back here and dropped the envelope and made the phone call. Not from the pay phone, because that would have been traceable. A cell phone, maybe. She leaned over the answering machine, hit rewind and then play. As the tape played back, she heard traffic sounds in the background and some telltale static.
She stopped the machine, popped the microcassette out. He was on the road, on the move. He would have to be. He would be watching her, yes. If he were CIA, he would know how to plant bugs and cameras. But she didn’t think he’d had the time to do those things yet. He probably figured he could scare her enough to keep her on the straight and narrow until he had all his ducks in a row.
Fine.
She