Deader Still

I nodded and rolled to my knees. The sugar replenished itself in my body, and I eventually stopped shaking. By the time I was on my feet, Co

“This,” Davidson said, “is Maggie, the woman who called in the missing boat last night.”

“Our condolences,” Co

She pursed her lips and shook her head, on the verge of tears. “Thank you.”

“Is there anything you can tell us?” Co

Maggie thought a moment. “It was very late,” she said, “and when they towed the ship back to dock, there was a heavy fog. When it pulled in, I could hear some of the stray dogs we get down here on the dock going wild. I just assumed they sensed death or whatever . . . whatever had happened to all those people. Then they went silent and when I caught sight of them, there was a strange one I had never seen before, just standing there menacing the whole crowd of them until they all shied away. Then it ran off toward the city. And then I realized everyone on the boat was dead. Who could have done something like this?”

The woman burst into hysterical sobs. There was nothing I could say. Davidson put an arm around her. I gave Co

“Are we talking werewolves here?” I asked. I had read at least three of our pamphlets on lycanthropy, and thanks to one Five O’ Clock Shadow or Something More? I knew how rare they were in an urban environment.

Co

“Not much,” I said, “but enough to freak me out—that’s for sure. Everybody was panicking, so it was hard to focus on just what the hell was going on. I caught a glimpse of what killed the DJ, though. Red eyes, fangs, went straight for his throat. Drained him almost completely. This gives us enough to call it in, right?”

“As long as you’re sure, kid.”

I nodded. “When we get back to the office, we’ll call it in as a vampire.”

“A vampire?” Co

I nodded, just a little excited by the prospect, despite the tragedy I had witnessed. Being part of Other Division, you had to get off a little on the extraordinary things you ended up dealing with. Vampires were certainly high on the list.

Davidson walked off with Maggie, escorting her back to the boating company’s office.

“Are they going to do anything for her?” I asked.

“For her?”

“I think she might be a little traumatized by all this,” I said. “I know I am.”

“It’s New York City,” Co

I stared at him. “That’s it? We’re just going to leave her mental stability to chance?”

Co

“Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll put a Shadower team on her. If there’s any signs she’s flipping out, we’ll bring her in and put her through counseling. Happy?”

I nodded. Davidson returned from the offices alone.

“She’s okay,” Davidson said, his smile returning as he joined us. “I was testing out some of the spin I’m going to have to use with the media on this one. She seemed to be buying the ‘bad shrimp’ story I was pla

“Deadly shrimp-poisoning?” I said. “People are going to buy that?”

Davidson nodded. “It seems a lot easier to buy than, say, vampires, doesn’t it?”

He had a point.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “That’s for the Office of Plausible Deniability to contend with. Besides, on the plus side of this case, at least we got lucky in one respect . . .”

I felt my anger twitch in. “What the hell’s lucky about a boatload of people dying?” I asked.

“It could have been worse, gentlemen,” he said. “This could have been far more tragic. Luckily, the cruise was booked as an office party for a bunch of litigators. Mostly legal counsel for oil companies.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “We’ve got a boatful of dead lawyers?”

Co

“Exactly,” Davidson said.

The three of us started back up the dock. All things considered, I suddenly didn’t feel as bad as I had. Still, whoever or whatever had done this had to be stopped. Co

4

The cab dropped us off in the East Village on Eleventh Street in front of the Lovecraft Café.

Up front was our cover operation—a coffee shop, its exposed brick walls covered with a variety of old movie posters. The furniture was a mishmash that ranged from hideous to vomitous, but there was a soothing charm to the room. A mix of regular customers and Departmental agents filled the room, and, as usual, Mrs. Teasley was reading someone’s fortune using a soggy pile of coffee grounds.

“You okay, kid?” Co

“I guess not,” I said. “I’m guess I’m still bothered by what I saw.”

“Good,” Co

“Good?” I said. “What the hell is good about that?”

He put his arm around my shoulder conspiratorially and steered me toward the coffee bar that ran along the entire right side of the room.

“It’s good,” he said, lowering his voice, “because the second you see something like what we saw on that boat and it doesn’t affect you, it’s time to get out of this business. You remember that.”

“You don’t look so spooked,” I countered.

“I’ve got years of practice at hiding it, kid. Believe me, there’s nothing I saw there that doesn’t have me shaking on the inside.”

Co

Co

I say “improvised” because in reality it was just two desks pushed together so we could face each other. It seemed to help out when we were bouncing ideas off each other on a case. We dropped our stuff off at our desks, and I slipped my bat off of its holster and slid it into my top-left desk drawer.

I looked over at Co