The morning light streaming into the window was hitting Xochitl right in the face, but that wasn’t what had awakened her.  It was an annoying buzz.  It took her almost a full minute to realize that it was her cell phone ringing.  It took her another minute to find it lying amid the bedclothes.  By then it had stopped ringing.  She pushed the call back button and put her head back on her pillow, rolling to the side to keep her eyes out of the sun.

“Zielinski.”

“You called?”

“I did.  I thought you might still be up,” he said.

“I’m getting ready to get up soon.  I’ve been asleep.”

“Really.”

“Did you call me to tell me how much you miss me?” she asked.  “Are you like a star-crossed lover now?”

“You mean starry-eyed lover, and no, I called to check in, and to make sure you’re alright.  A lot’s been happening there.  I guess the bureau picked the wrong time to call me in.”

“Or the exact right time,” she replied.  “Do you know what’s going on?”

“That’s what the meeting was all about.  It seems the vampires have been planning on supplanting the Chicago mob for some time.  The bureau has been following it.  They just didn’t know when it was going to happen.  Well, it happened.  Tony the Pipe is dead and it looks like just about everybody who was working for him is too.  Israel is running the show now.  He cut off the head and simply took over the organization.”

“That sounds awfully risky, even for a vampire,” said Xochitl.

“Maybe.  But he’s done it before.  He did it during prohibition, in the twenties, in Detroit.  He took over an entire organization smuggling booze into the U.S. from Canada.”

“That would be when those pictures you showed me were taken.”

“Right.  And one more thing… apparently Novelyne was right there with him.”

“She was Bonny to his Clyde?”

“Well, they had a relationship,” said Zielinski.  “My question is… Is she in on this with him now?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Xochitl.

“But you’re not sure.”

“No.  I’m not sure.”

I love my characters.  I guess that’s because they are my creations.  I like the heroes and villains both, but the characters I really like are broken in some way.  I had a lot of fun writing Dominic Zielinski, the former SEAL, FBI agent in my book Blood Trade.  He is one ass-kicking martial artist, but he’s also pretty wacky.  He’s got more than a touch of OCD.  He keeps his bills in order, first by denomination and then by serial number, and dutifully registers them on wheresgeorge.com.  When he takes the coins out of his pocket, he neatly stacks them on the dresser.  When he eats, he takes his bites in a particular order and has to have a drink of water after a certain number of bites.  He refuses to eat round food, though if he cuts up something cylindrical and the pieces are round, that’s okay.  Incidently, the name Zielinski came from someone I knew as a kid.  I don’t know where Dominic came from– just seemed to fit.

Even though she wasn’t hungry and had said that she wasn’t hungry, Xochitl did get a plate and like most buffet diners, piled it with far more food that she was actually capable of consuming.  She was already eating when Dominic returned to their table, balancing three plates.

“You know, you can make more than one trip,” she said.

“No need.”

He carefully set out the platters.  On the first, he had a Denver omelets and a piece of ham.  On the second was a waffle and two cheese blintzes, all covered in syrup.  The third plate had two pieces of buttered toast and a small pile of grits.  After sitting down, the FBI agent looked around expectantly.

“She’ll be around to get your drink order in a few minutes,” said Xochitl.  “We can go ahead and start eating.”

He frowned, but turned his attention to his food and began carefully cutting it into pieces.  The omelet, the ham, and the waffle were all transformed into small triangular bites.

“I got pancakes,” said Xochitl.  “I know I said I wasn’t hungry, but you can’t say no to pancakes.”

“I don’t really like pancakes,” he said.

“You’re kidding.  I’ve never actually met anyone who didn’t like pancakes before.  How about hotcakes?”

“That’s the same thing.”

“You have a waffle.  Don’t waffles taste pretty much just like a pancakes?”

“Waffles are airier,” he said.  “And pancakes are round.  I don’t really like round food.”

“Those blintzes are round.”

“They’re cylindrical, though granted, when I cut them up the pieces will be round—bite-sized though.  I don’t mind so much it they’re bite-sized.”  He looked around again for the server.  It was not a woman who waited on them but an older black man in a white apron.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked as he approached.

“A glass of milk and an orange juice,” said Xochitl.

“Water,” Dominic said.

Xochitl was almost full before the waiter brought her drinks, though that didn’t cause her any discomfort, unlike Dominic.  He didn’t begin eating until he had his water, and by that time Xochitl thought that his food might well be cold, though he didn’t complain about it.  Just as she expected, he took a sip of his beverage after every three bites of his meal.  He ate his ham, then his omelet, then his waffle, blintzes, toast, and at last he started in on his grits.

“What is that?”

“Grits.”

“How can you eat that?  Nobody even knows what that is.”

“It’s grits.  It’s made of corn.”

“It doesn’t look like corn.”

“Of course it does,” he said.  “Look closely.  It’s very much like corn meal.  They shuck the corn, soak it in a weak lye solution, dry it, grind it, and reconstitute it with boiling water.  Some people eat it with sugar, but in the south we eat it with butter, salt, and pepper.”

“What are you talking about?  You’re not from the south.”

“I started eating grits when I was at Virginia Beach.”  He gave her a studied frown.  “If we’re done talking about my food, I’d like to know something about your case.”

When she had finished with her last article of clothing, her tie, she spotted the large manila envelope on the bed.  It was supposedly important enough for him to come back to the room for.  Opening it, she found half a dozen 8×10 reproductions of very old black and white photographs.  The first one featured a man standing next to an old time car.  Xochitl didn’t know anything about cars, but she recognized the man immediately.  It was Israel, the vampire.  He had shoulder length wavy hair and his trademark van dyke.

“When was this taken?”

“1926,” replied Dominic, standing up and walking over.  He pointed at the car.  “That’s a 1926 Pontiac Series 6.  And you see who that is?”

“Yes.  Israel, or Leopold Sansonne, as he was known then.”

“Wow,” said the FBI agent.  “How long have you known his name?  I just got that bit of information last night while you were asleep.”

Xochitl shrugged and flipped to the next picture.  It was a group shot.  It was three men she didn’t recognize along with the same vampire.  The next one was more of the same.  The fifth picture was Israel with an unknown dark-haired woman.  It was pointless looking at any more of the photos.  She didn’t know any of the people in them.  She started to shove them back in the envelope, but quickly scanned the last two anyway.  One of them stood out immediately and she grasped both edges, letting the rest of the 8x10s fall to the floor.  This picture was of Israel standing in front of a café of some sort with a short woman.  Wearing a knee length dress and a long string of pearls, she looked the part of a classic 1920s flapper.  Though her blond hair was cut into a cute little bob, she was easily recognizable—Novelyne.

“I knew she knew him,” said Xochitl.

“You might have given me either of those tidbits.”

“I don’t…”  She stopped and tugged on her lip ring with her tongue for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say.  She had almost said, “I don’t know you well enough to hand over that kind of information to you.”  But that made her sound like a slut, because she apparently did know him well enough to jump into bed with him.  “I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”

Xochitl walked up Second Street and crossed Clark, only a few blocks from home, when she heard it—the cry of the wolf.  No, no, no, no; that wasn’t right.  The last night of the full moon had been the previous night.  It couldn’t be a werewolf.  The howl came again.  It couldn’t have been more than two hundred yards away— just to the north and east of her.  Damn it all to hell.  She hadn’t brought any silver rounds with her.  Why would she?  She heard the wolf howl again.  It was subtly different.  It was hunting now.  It had found prey.

She sprinted a hundred yards to the front of the Catholic Church, where she stopped and stared.  Even in the light of the single street lamp and the sodium bulb attached to the building just below the large cross, she could see wave upon wave of yellow and purple flowers across the newly planted beds in front of the church.  Ranunculus: a mixture Buttercup and Monkshood.  What idiot gardener had planted them?  Normally landscapers in Vegas put out little flowering annuals right about now.  No sense spending a lot of money, because the plants would wither under the desert’s summer sun.  But Ranunculus were perennials, so while they would grow just fine in the springtime here, it was just wasteful to see them dry up and die in July.  And who would plant Monkshood in a churchyard?  Monkshood, also called Aconite, Devil’s Helmet, Blue Rocket, Leopard’s Bane, Women’s Bane… Wolfsbane.

There was a scream!  It was right around the corner.  Xochitl raced as fast as she could around the building.  Her pistol was in her hand even before her mind registered that a werewolf was standing in front of her.  It was not in its wolf form, nor in its human form.  It was in that half humanoid, crouched shape that made it seem like a refugee from a B movie.  With horribly misshapen limbs and patchy fur, it gave impression of disease or… a curse.  Its long snout dripped saliva down upon the body of a woman lying below it.  

Skidding to a stop on grass still wet from the night time sprinkler, she emptied all seven rounds into the werewolf.  Glocks were great for shooting at convenience store robbers, but when you wanted stopping power, nothing beat a .45.  The wolf staggered back three steps.  He took one step forward again as Xochitl dropped the clip to the ground and slammed another into place.  Seven more shots right into its body.  The creature fell to the ground.  It looked at her and roared, not very wolf-like but scary as shit.  Then as the Goth detective shoved her last clip in and pressed the slide stop with her thumb, the beast jumped to its feet and turning, loped away, up Bridger Avenue.

Xochitl watched it go as she walked over to the woman lying prone.  She kept an eye on it until it turned off into an alley and out of view.  Then she reached down and rolled the woman onto her back.  She was a pretty woman about Xochitl’s age—probably a tourist who had wandered too far away from the lights of downtown.   She had several deep scratches across her face and probably on her body, if her torn clothes were any indication, but when Xochitl checked, she had a strong pulse.  Pulling her phone from her pocket, she called 911 and asked for an ambulance.

“I can take care of both those jobs this evening,” suggested Novelyne.  “That is, if you have other things to do.  I really, really like the Lanks.  I think they’re really, really nice—both of them.”

“You don’t really, really like them.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“You can’t like them,” said Xochitl turning around.  “You can’t like, love, admire, or care about anyone.  You don’t have it in you.  You’re heart doesn’t beat.  You’re a damned, dead thing.  The only thing you feel is that certain attraction that a predator has for its prey.  You play with your food like a cat plays with a mouse, like a shark plays with a seal, tossing it in the air, and having fun with it, and then tearing it apart.  You vampires beguile your victims with grotesque little pantomimes as lovers or even friends.  You become fascinated with them, but only until you suck the last of their lives away.”

“You don’t know anything about it.”  

“I know too much about it,” hissed Xochitl.

“You see what you want to see!” shouted Novelyne, her face masked in anger, but staying in its human form.  “You don’t know what I feel.  I’m still me.  I’m me!  You don’t know what I feel.  … The predator’s fascination with its prey…  At least that’s a feeling!  At least I feel something!  You don’t feel anything at all!”

She turned on her heel and started down the stairs.

“I’m leaving.”

“The sun hasn’t gone down yet.”

“It’s dark enough for me!”

The slamming door announced that Novelyne was no longer in the office.

The Lank home looked just as Xochitl had left it.  She paid the little cab driver with the unpronounceable name, including his big tip, and watched the vehicle drive away before approaching the house.  Rather than go to the front door, she opened the side gate and stepped quietly up to a kitchen window.  Looking inside, she didn’t see Novelyne or either of the Lanks, but nothing seemed out of place.  She continued on.  The Lanks had a beautifully landscaped back yard, with a large pool fed by a waterfall.  Just as Xochitl was rounding the back corner of the house, she heard a noise from across the yard.  She dropped to her knees.

At the back edge of the yard was a garden shed, and right beside that was a metal gate in the cinder block wall that surrounded the property.  As she watched, the gate opened just wide enough to admit a person, and one after the other, three passed through.  The last closed the gate behind him.  They crossed toward the house, stepping past the waterfall and into the light streaming out from the large double-paned windows.  All three men appeared to be in their late twenties or early thirties.  All three had pistols, two still had them in their belt holsters; one carried his in his left hand.  This meant they wouldn’t be vampires.  Vampires didn’t need to carry firearms.

“Freeze,” said Xochitl from her kneeling position.

The man with the gun raised it and fired.  The bullet whizzed by close enough to her head that it brushed her hair.  She shot him twice in the chest.  Without pause, she shot the second man twice above his right eye.  He hadn’t quite reached the hand grip of his weapon.  The third man had.  He managed to raise it halfway before she shot him twice, one bullet hitting lower than intended, a gut shot, but the second right through the heart.  

Xochitl stood up before she realized that the first man was still standing.  He had two bullet holes through his chest, but he raised his gun again.  She shot him twice in the face and then emptied her clip into his body.  Though he staggered backwards, he still didn’t go down.  A growl brought her attention to his face.  It had a grotesque hole in the forehead, but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about it.  It had shifted to the face of the blood-sucking fiend, with long fangs and yellow eyes.  Alright, so don’t make generalizations.  Vampires might carry guns after all.

The vampire fired his pistol twice more and Xochitl felt a burning pain shoot through her right side.  Casting the gun aside, he leapt at her.  She darted forward spinning into a flying back kick, making contact with his face, and sending a stream of blood and brains from the hole in his head in an arc across the back yard.  He hardly seemed to notice.  Grabbing her foot from the air, he threw her down, knocking the wind from her lungs.

Xochitl stood in front of the bathroom mirror, with Novelyne behind her, and painted a thick coating of Goth white makeup over her face and breasts.  Then she took out her eyebrow stencils and painted dark upswept anime brows punctuated by tiny stars.  She had replaced her combat boots with black seven and a half inch fetish knee-highs.  Her fishnets didn’t quite reach the bottom of her black leather pleated mini skirt, revealing the two tattooed names written in script across her right thigh.  The black lamb skin corset was laced up tight in the back, squeezing her waist to six inches smaller than her natural form and pressing her pale breasts up over the top.  She had already arranged the dread falls in her hair.

“I’m not sure what you’re supposed to be,” said Novelyne.

“A Gothic slut.”

“Oh, well, mission accomplished then.”

Making her way down the alley, Xochitl entered the back door of Robot Slut Tattoo to find Sid’s friend Terry had turned the back room into a photo studio.  He was no slouch either, with a big Hasselblad set up on a tripod, surrounded by flash umbrellas.  His white backdrop was arranged against the wall, and just in front of that, a large white wing back chair.

Terry was a tall and very skinny man in his early thirties, with short cropped hair just going grey and a John Waters mustache.  For the next two hours he used his sweaty hands to place Xochitl in a variety poses draped across the white chair.  Halfway through, the miniskirt was discarded, leaving her in a vinyl microbikini, and several minutes later the corset followed the skirt, leaving her naked above the waist except for two pieces of electrical tape forming an X over each nipple.

“You are awesome,” said Terry as he snapped away.  “We could make some serious scratch from fetish magazines, if you’re into that.”

“The pictures are for Sid.”  

“It’s not like nobody’s going to see them.  You know he’s putting them on his sign… probably a billboard too.”

“That’s Sid’s business.”

As Xochitl was shimmying back into her skirt, the tattoo artist came back from the front of the store where he had been etching a fairy and mushroom on a redhead’s left breast in between games of Angry Birds on his laptop.

“Are feeling alright, Xochitl?  I can see your ribs.”

“You’re not looking at my ribs.”

“When did you last eat something?” he asked.

“I honestly don’t remember.” She slipped the corset around her and zipped it up the front.  “Why don’t you take me out to lunch?”

“Really?”  

She laughed at his eagerness.  “Sure.”

“Do you want to go change?”

“No.  Come on.  We can hit Food Factory.”

“Hell no.  If I’m taking somebody that looks like you to lunch, then it’s going to be someplace nice and hopefully someplace where a lot of people see me.”