The Pardoner's Tale Read online

  "Hold on there, pal. I don't need to get pulled over for speeding and having a half-naked man in the back seat of the car. Not again. We're almost home."

  "Take my shoes off," I panted. I hoped he understood that I was going to do it and not that he should turn around and.... He turned around. "Drive, idiot!"

  Fast vampire reflexes kept us from careening into a telephone pole. We were almost home. I counted my heartbeats, just to focus on something other than the searing pain. Alex got out of the car and opened the door for me, then raced ahead to open the front door to the house. I ran after him in a low crouch, hitting the floor on all fours the moment I was in the living room.

  I ran for my bedroom and heard the sound of the deadbolt being slipped into place outside my door. Alex had locked me in. Vampire, two. Werewolf, zero.

  Several hours later the fog lifted and I found myself on the floor of my bedroom. I was naked, cold, and confused. I sat up and started to piece together what I could remember. Fire. Albert. Dead. Gasoline, bacon, and burnt wood. Everything gone.

  Someone was tapping on my door. Well, not someone. It was Alex, obviously. "Give me a sec." I struggled to my feet, every joint and muscle in my body screaming in protest, and dug through the tangle of bed sheets and clothes on the floor until I found my jeans. I pulled them on and shouted "clear" while I looked for any shirt that seemed remotely clean. Maybe I'd reconsider letting Alex into my room if I could convince him to do my laundry.

  "Cops are here," he said quietly. "I told them you were in shock and I wasn't sure if you could talk to them."

  "Nah, I'm fine." I shoved my fingers through my hair in a fruitless attempt to get it back into something like order and followed Alex back to the living room. One cop sat in Alex's chair. The other on the sofa. The one on the sofa rose to shake my hand.

  "We were just telling your boyfriend..." he started. Alex and I both protested. Loudly.

  "Alex is just a friend! He works with me sometimes. Does the driving and helps with the heavy lifting."

  "Uh-huh. Mind if I smoke? That one doesn't like it when I smoke in the car." He inclined his head toward his partner.

  "Please, go right ahead. Ashtray's right there."

  The cop sat back down and lit a cigarette. I sat down next to him. Alex disappeared into the kitchen. "Interesting collection of stuff," the cop said. Detective, I suppose. He was plainclothes, but his partner was in uniform.

  "Yeah, I sort of got into the habit working with Albert. He'd send me out to buy something or pick up something he'd bought and I'd end up finding something for myself." Breathe, Nick. He's a detective. You're a detective. Relax.

  "So what is it that you do, mister... Pardoner?"

  "Well, I do pickups and buys for Albert. I started working for him in college and he helped fund my education and helped me finance my own business, so I continue to work with him. I owe him a lot."

  "And your own business. What is that exactly?"

  "Private investigator. Nothing high-profile. Mostly surveillance of spouses and background checks on people. It's mostly paperwork. I'm not even licensed to carry a gun." When he raised his arm to bring his cigarette to his mouth I could see the butt of the detective's gun, barely concealed under his light jacket. I hoped to God mine was locked away.

  He grunted. "Know anyone that would want to hurt mister Tyson?"

  "No one. He was a kind man. I've known him for years and I don't remember him ever saying anything bad about anyone or hearing him mention any trouble. His niece works for the police department, you know. She might have more information than I would."

  "Ah. See, there's a small hitch. We found her body in the warehouse, too."

  The world slid sideways and for one long moment I thought I was about to barf all over the detective. I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth and swallowed hard. "Guh," I said.

  The detective nodded slowly and then offered me one of his cigarettes. I accepted it gratefully. "She was a good friend to me, too. Do you have any leads at all?"

  "That's why we're here mister ... Pardoner." Again the pause. I had the feeling he didn't believe it was really my name. It's not. Not by birth, but it's legally mine now. "We were hoping you could help us out."

  "I want to. You have no idea how much I want to, but I honestly don't know of anyone who would want to hurt him." Not that I could tell you about, at least. But if you're interested in tracking down any demons or vampires....

  The detective gave me a card. "Call me if you can think of anything. I'd ask you to go down to his store and see if anything's missing, but the inventory's pretty much destroyed. You might not be able to tell if anything was gone or not." We stood and shook hands. The detective and the officer let themselves out and I locked the door behind them.

  They hesitated on the front step for a moment, probably assuming I couldn't hear them.

  "Think he's got anything to do with it?" The officer asked.

  "He nearly puked when I told him about the girl. Unless he's got some sort of Jekyll and Hyde thing going on, it wasn't him."

  "Were they actually able to get an ID on the second body?" The officer again.

  "Nah. They haven't found enough parts of her yet."

  Alex leaned against the doorframe. "Everything cool?"

  I rubbed the back of my neck and nodded. I opened my mouth to tell him what I'd just heard and ended up barfing all over Alex.

  "Oh, dude! You just spewed all over my shirt!"

  "No, I didn't," I croaked. "That's my shirt. Get it off and put it in the wash. And do the rest of my laundry while you're at it."

  ***

  Alex and I sat in the car, watching the remains of Albert's property. The arson investigators and crime scene team were still sorting through rubble. I tried not to think about the fact that they were looking for bits of Linda. I was certain they weren't going to find anything that would help them find out who did this. Now that the smell of the fire had dissipated, the smell of demons was almost overwhelming.

  People from the neighborhood came up to see what was going on. A uniformed officer shooed them away. As it got later, the cops set up lights and kept working. Eventually it started to rain. Alex and I watched the crews pack up and go.

  The crime scene tape pulled and jerked in the wind, reflecting the streetlights. An unattached end waved at us as we approached. I waved back without thinking about it, and Alex nudged my shoulder.

  "Sure you want to do this?"

  I shrugged. "It doesn't matter, does it? No one else is going to be able to catch whoever did this."

  We carefully made our way to the middle of the rubble, slipping and rolling on broken stone and wet and crumbling wood. Alex nearly fell twice but caught himself before going down. It was cold and we were already soaked to the skin.

  "Jesus." Alex stopped suddenly and shuddered. "What's that smell?"

  "Death. Burnt human flesh. Gasoline. Destroyed antiques. Probably paint, varnish, and all sorts of molds and fungi in the air. That's why the investigators were wearing masks."

  Alex covered his mouth and nose with his hands.

  "You didn't have to come with me, you know." I knelt down and sifted some rocks and ash through my fingers.

  "I'm here for moral support." Alex looked around, scanning the street. "And because I can keep people from seeing us."

  "Don't suppose you can shield us from the rain." It was streaming down from my hair and into my eyes. I took a pinch of the silt I'd gathered and put it in my mouth.

  "Oh, dude. You didn't."

  I nodded and kept the sample on my tongue a little longer. I spat it out and stood up slowly. "Xyj'Ru."

  "Zidge Roo?"

  "Xyj'Ru. It's a demon."

  "Obviously," Alex said dryly.

  I glared. "I wasn't finished. Remember you asked me what I'd do if I came across a demon that wasn't bound by iron?"

  "Xyj'Ru isn't."

  "He most certainly is not and we are now in very deep trouble.
Xyj'Ru is one of the oldest demons around. He's not particularly powerful, but because he's nearly impossible to contain, he's gotten to be sort of..." I cast around for the right way to describe him. "If the Mafia were demons, he'd be the Godfather."

  "And Albert did something to piss him off."

  I nodded and toed a rock. "Might have caught him. Caught him off-guard, you know? Just long enough to bring him into the warehouse, and then the first chance he got, Xyj'Ru got even." I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to warm them up. "Maybe Albert caught one of Xyj'Ru's children. Might be why he went after Linda, too. Maybe he started with Linda and Albert died trying to save her."

  "So they really are both..." Alex swallowed hard.

  "Yes."

  "How do you know?"

  "I can smell her. What used to be her. I can smell her and Albert." I paused. "Let's go home."

  I changed into dry clothes and joined Alex on the couch. We sat side-by-side for a while, staring at the blank screen of the television. Neither of us moved, save for smoking, and neither of us spoke. In the months I'd known Alex I had never seen him so still or so quiet. I wondered what was going through his mind.

  "I need to tell you something." Alex said. "I think this is my fault."

  "It can't be your fault. It would either be me or Albert who brought him into the store because we're the only ones who do the retrievals. Anyhow, you've never been closer than a block away from the store until today."

  Alex studied his shoes. "I know. But I've met Xyj'Ru before. He helped me out after I was turned."

  I turned to face Alex and he flinched as if he expected me to hit him. Maybe he thought I was finally going to kill him. Believe me, I was thinking about it. I should have known better than to make friends with a vampire. Albert was right. You couldn't trust any of them. "Keep talking," I said as I lit another cigarette.

  He drew a deep breath and let it out again in a long sigh. "So, ten years ago, I was a senior in college. It was almost the end of the fall semester and there was a massive party. I mean it was a big fucking blowout. It was the end of my last semester ever, and I figured what the hell. I'd hook up with someone, have a little fun, then never have to see them again. One last bout of stupidity before graduating.

  "So, I met this guy. Attractive. Funny. Little bit of an accent. And I invited him back to my place."

  "Did he... you know. Talk you into it?" I put air quotes around "talk you into it".

  "You mean charm me? I don't think he would have had to. I've always shopped in both departments, so I couldn't tell you if I was tricked into it or if it was just hormones. I mean, this guy was hot.

  "Anyhow, we went to my apartment and he started biting me. I remember thinking 'well that's a fairly small kink,' and then there's a gap in my memory. The next thing I knew it was two days later, I was still in my apartment, I'd missed two finals, and there was a copy of the book Dracula on the bed and stuck to the cover was a drawing of a smiley face with fangs.

  "I didn't know what to do. I hid in my room. I didn't know if I could eat. I didn't know if I could drink. I didn't know if I could go out in the sun. I didn't even move to take a piss. I stayed like that for three days. Finally I realized I was dying. I was dehydrated, hungry, and filthy because I'd been laying there pissing myself. I pulled up the window shade and I watched the sun rise and I waited for it. I waited to burst into flames or turn into ash or explode or whatever would happen. When nothing happened I just started..." He looked away from me and picked at his thumbnail. "I started crying. Begged for someone to find me and kill me."

  "Instead you got Xyj'Ru."

  "I should've just gone out into the hallway and pissed off some jock. Gotten my neck broken or been tossed off the roof of the building. Hindsight's twenty-twenty, right?" He laughed humorlessly. "Godfather demon is really accurate, by the way. We made a deal. He'd take care of me. Teach me to survive. Then I'd work for him. Kill on command. Instead, once I'd gotten strong enough and figured some things out on my own, I took off."

  "You think he's been after you for ten years?"

  "Someone like him? He'd have found me in days if he'd been looking. He... well, he did find me pretty fast. I only got away from him just before I met you."

  "Why go after Albert and Linda, though? Why would he think they had any connection to you?"

  Alex mumbled something.

  "What did you just say?"

  "I stole something from him. I stole a key. It looked like a plain old skeleton key, and it was made of wood and... I just stuck it in my pocket and left. He probably thought I gave it to Albert and was looking for it. That night in the alley -- the first night we met -- I thought you were working for Xyj'Ru and you were coming to get the key back. That's why I went to your home. That's why I asked you why you were trying to kill me. I was hoping that if he'd sent you, I could just give you the key to give back to him."

  Alex looked miserable. His hair was still damp from the rain, there were shadows under his eyes, and he was chewing his lower lip. I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him this probably wasn't his fault. That maybe Xyj'Ru had no idea about him and just went after Albert because it was likely that Albert had the key. I wanted to tell him I wasn't angry with him. Instead I said "Ganushko."

  "Gesundheit."

  "No, that was his name. Ganushko is the vampire that turned you." I handed my cigarette to Alex. "I killed your sire."

  Alex shrugged and took a drag. "We were never close. Not even a card at Christmas." He handed the cigarette back. "I thought that if you killed the head vampire then all the other vampires would be cured."

  "Vampirism is a virus. If you get the flu and kill the person who gave it to you, are you suddenly cured?"

  "No, but I bet I'd still feel better. How do you know it was him?"

  "The book and the note. That was actually one of the easiest kills I've ever done. It only took a little leg work to find out who'd been buying copies of Dracula in bulk."

  "Did you really have to kill him?"

  "He had this scheme to take over the world. He wanted to turn as many people into vampires as he could. He even kept some of his victims as recruits. Sent them out to make even more vampires."

  "And they'll turn two friends, and they'll turn two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on."

  "Exactly. Hey, are you okay?"

  Alex shook his hair out of his eyes and smiled. "Just wondered why I wasn't good enough to be a recruit."

  "Be glad you weren't. I cleaned out a nest of his underlings about a week after I took out Ganushko. You'd be dead now."

  "And Albert and Linda wouldn't be dead."

  We lapsed back into silence until the sound of a fire truck going down the street made me jump. "Get packed. We're getting the hell out of Dodge."

  "You can't be serious."

  "Alex, I realize that as far as being a vampire goes, ten years is barely out of infancy. But something you should have learned by now is that sometimes you just have to leave to protect yourself and the people around you." Then I grinned. "And you're a lie ahead of me now."

  Alex blinked, confused.

  "You told me you didn't believe in demons."

  Chapter Three

  We threw everything we could into bags and packed them in the trunk of my car. It was almost sunrise by the time we left my place. Our first stop was my office. I grabbed my computer and my second gun. It would be useless against Xyj'Ru and I had no idea if Alex could handle it, but it wasn't something I wanted left behind. It was unregistered and I didn't have a permit for it.

  See, the detective didn't give me the line about "don't leave town" but I had a feeling if he had questions and couldn't find me, my office would be tossed. Disappearing after the brutal murder of two close friends was one thing. Illegal weapons were something else entirely.

  Once I was certain there was nothing incriminating left, we hit the road.

  We kept it casual and drove through the morning and into the evening
, stopping only for gas and very brief bathroom breaks. By the time the sun set I was starting to feel pretty good. Around midnight I was humming to myself, tapping out rhythms on the steering wheel while Alex stared through the window, half-dozing.

  When it got closer to dawn, I scanned the road ahead looking for the first sign pointing to some sort of motel. Five miles to the exit. I sped up a little. The idea that we could be caught and killed at any moment was the furthest thing from my thoughts and I sang a little bit louder.