Mortal Agent of a Vampire - Chapter 10

I woke up with a splitting headache.
A low-wattage incandescent light hung above my head in my shaky vision, illuminating the few feet of concrete in front of me; the rest of the room was as black as hell. I realized I was tied to a chair.
The smell of blood and mold was in my nose, I ached all over, but the most unbearable part was my forehead, it felt as if it had swollen up, twice its usual size, it was throbbing, it must have cracked, sticky blood was running down into my eyes, it was the clots that had just blocked my vision, I j□j out.
I need to think about how I got here. Here’s the thing, Vince dropped me off at home and went out to forage for food, and I got a phone call saying there was an updated lead on a story I had covered.
Why not take a chance? I figured I’d be home anyway, so I went to the bar I’d agreed to in the phone call. I didn’t find the so-called informant. A prank. I walked out and around a corner, “Bump!”
Maybe it’s time to get a gun ……
“Are you awake?” A voice said in the darkness, sounding like a fairly young man.
“Are you going to tell me this is a nightmare?” I sucked in a cold breath as the words tugged at the wound on my forehead.
“Don’t fuck with me!” The other man yelled.
I remembered my situation, being knocked out and locked up in who knows where, with my body tied up, this really wasn’t the time for jokes.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Silence. I was nervous, worried that he wouldn’t come right out with a murder weapon and split me up.
But luckily, after a while, he started talking again, “No, I’m the one who’s sorry ……” He paused for a moment and seemed to be sobbing lowly, “I shouldn’t have knocked you out …… but I really… …I really didn’t have a choice …… I was going to kidnap a cop …… but they have guns …… and it’s a felony……”
According to him, it seems like kidnapping a reporter would be no big deal. I can think of some people, crazy people, who feel deep guilt but still have trouble controlling to hurt others. I pray he’s not one of those people.
“Can …… you talk about it?” I whispered tentatively, trying not to irritate him. Damn, this tape is tight, I can feel my phone in my pants pocket if I can manage to get to it …… but I can’t even move a finger.
“Liz didn’t kill herself, you know?”He was on the verge of sobbing, “She couldn’t have ……”
“Liz?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before.
Three days ago ……” he said, sniffling, “you reported it ……”
I suddenly remembered, yes, three days ago I ran a field trip for a colleague, a tip came from a pay phone that a woman’s body had been found, and by the time I got there, the police had already pulled up the yellow line, and I managed to get a hold of a woman’s body. yellow lines. I managed to get a photo of the scene. The dead woman, the young woman, was called Liz.
“But I wasn’t the only reporter.” I said.
“Yes, yes ……” he said, a little impatient, “There were three media outlets that covered the story, but ……” he sank his voice violently, “you were the only one that didn’t mention the suicide ……”
So that’s the source of my bad luck? There was no mention of suicide in the story. Ugh, I really should have written it in. The victim died by slitting her wrists, her arms full of needle marks, probably injecting some kind of illicit drug from time to time. A desperate drug addict. I didn’t write suicide just because, well, I wanted to be rigorous, and with the forensic test still pending, I didn’t want to get in trouble with the police.
“I just thought,” I said honestly, “that this was up to the police.”
“The police!” He suddenly screamed hysterically, the way witches probably do when they’re burned, and my heart stopped as I tried to curl up into a ball.
“They’re all pigs! I told them Liz couldn’t have killed herself! But not one of them! Not one of them listened to me!”
It was like a game of minesweeper, you didn’t know where to dig a shovel and it would blow up.
“Well, yeah, the cops are losers ……” I said as I went along with him, “So, what do you want?”
“Prove it.” Maybe it was the outburst earlier, his voice became tired and raspy, “Prove that Liz was the victim.”
“I’m not sure ……” This is what detectives do, and I’m just a coder, see the difference?
“If you can’t ……” footsteps, a silhouette protruded from the darkness, and I felt a wave of dizziness as I saw the barrel of the ghostly black gun slide through the air to point at me.
But it didn’t linger, the silhouette folded over its arm and pointed the gun at its head, “I’ll kill myself.”
I was released. For seven days, I had to prove that Liz’s death was a murder. This made my head hurt even more.
It was two in the morning and I was limping down the road, the kidnappers must have been very careless in carrying me. There wasn’t a single car on the road, it was clean enough for a party. I pulled out my cell phone and with one last charge, I called Vince.
“What a way to time it, I just finished dinner.”
It was such a relief to hear a familiar voice, I sighed in relief and smiled, causing a throbbing pain in my forehead wound, “Hey, I just wanted to say that I’m going to be home for a couple of days, you know …… there’s some family business.” God, family affairs, what a messed up word, it sounded like a cryptic reference to an affair. I didn’t want Vince involved in this because I was afraid he would do something drastic. Maybe my concerns were redundant, why would Vince be mad at me for getting his ass kicked?
He was silent for a while and it seemed like I could see him frowning, “Where are you?”
“I’m almost home.”
“Don’t lie Lyle, you’re not good at it.” Vince’s voice got serious.
“It’s true.” I said, “You can try to read me.” I knew he couldn’t do it over the phone.
Vince sneered, “I’m sick of reading. You know what? Every time you’ve got something going on, you say it in advance, whims aren’t your style – now tell me, where the hell are you?”
That’s sharp, I give up, “But the truth is ……” I look around, “I don’t know where this is.”
“Wait.” He said and hung up.
An hour later, a racy Lamborghini came roaring down the far side of the highway. Vince stopped in front of me, “Who did this?” He glanced at my forehead.
“I wish I knew.” I fell back into the seat, “How did you find me?”
“Tracked your scent.” He turned the car around and drove back.
I pictured him sniffing his way along the base of the wall, and if my forehead didn’t hurt so much, I would have laughed out loud.
When I got home, I cleaned my wounds briefly, the kidnappers were ruthless, my face was covered in blood, my forehead was swollen up in a big bag, I looked like a living dead man who crawled out of the walking dead.
I told Vince the whole story and finally sank into the couch and said, “She looks like she killed herself and the police think she did, tell me how I can disprove it. If I had it in me, I’d have taken the FBI test a long time ago.”
“Let him die.” Vince said indifferently, “This has nothing to do with us.” He handed me an ice pack and I put it on my forehead, the burning sensation was instantly subdued, it was soothing.
“But it was a life ……” The burden of watching someone die was too heavy.
“So you’ve decided?”
“Decide what?”
“To investigate.
“Do I have a choice?” I said.
Vince looked at me and nodded solemnly, “I know, you’re not the type to sit back and do nothing, but you need to think about it.”
“It’s not something to think about, no one in their right mind would sit back and do nothing.” I don’t think I’m in the same world as him.
“No, my silly Lyle, a normal person would call the police and get the hell out of dodge.” Vince sighed and leaned down to me, removing the ice pack from my forehead.
“What are you doing?” I watched him get closer and closer.
“Shut up.” He said, and then I felt it, his lips land on my wound, and it tickled a little. But it was a comforting kind of tickle, not someone tickling the heart of your foot.
“Are you going to give me a goodnight kiss, Daddy?” Feeling him linger too long, I smiled and reached out to push him away, but he grabbed my wrist.
“It’ll make you feel better faster.” Vince explained softly, “I don’t want you to use your injury to avoid work.”
The warm light from the floor lamp enveloped us both, I closed my eyes and didn’t resist any more as he carefully licked my wound, leaving a coolness in his wake, and before I knew it, my defenses were down, my whole body relaxed, and sleep came over me, gently drowning me. ……
That day, I had a few sporadic dreams; I wasn’t sure if they were dreams or Vince’s memories, to be precise. memories, assuming there was such a thing as a possibility of his consciousness as he touched me.
I saw him holding his head and kneeling on the marble floor where a dead woman lay, blood staining her dress, Vince’s expression twisted with pain ……
When I woke up, I was sprawled out on my bed, a sparrow singing joyfully on the windowsill. Vince must have moved me in, I sat up, my forehead didn’t hurt anymore, I tried to touch it, the wound was surprisingly healed. A vampire’s kiss? That was magical.
“Knock, knock, knock,” there was a sharp knock on the door and Vince walked in, “Get up.”
I had a bad feeling, “What for?”
“We have a case waiting for us, Danno.”
I started to pull my clothes on, “Don’t be like the Honolulu Rangers, okay? Besides, I’ll take care of it myself, I don’t need you getting involved.”
“I’m not here to help you, okay?” Vince said condescendingly, “I just thought it would be a nice diversion.” I know he means well, but he’s already helped me enough, I can’t give him any more trouble.
“First of all, I wouldn’t call it a pastime when one person dies and another threatens to kill himself.” I pulled on my jeans and stepped into my shoes, “And secondly, even if it was, it’s my pastime.” I emphasized the ‘mine’ and stood up from the edge of the bed, looking straight into his eyes.
We faced off for a few moments before he gave in, “Keep in touch.”
“Thanks for asking.” I patted him on the shoulder (a bold move) and walked out.

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