Everyone who survived the fight was taken back to Glasshill. Syndrome was the site of another ‘cartel related incident’, which were becoming far too common in Longley these days. Amazingly, the police had little to no involvement with the shooting, and all of the bodies inside were removed and taken care of without so much as a question. Arthur wasn’t sure if he should be impressed, or scared that the Baron held that much influence. He still hadn’t met the man, but got the impression that he had very deep pockets, and even deeper connections in Longley in order to pull something like that off.
Most of the bodies were Soldados. Saint, and the woman who had stalked Arthur so long ago got away. Her counterpart, the man, had died. Eight of the bodies were Claudia’s hired guards. Some weren’t even vampires, just people she trusted to do their jobs. Now they were gone. Besides the guards, Lewis had gone out fighting. Arthur had the feeling that would’ve been what he wanted. What Arthur wasn’t so easily able to accept, was Benny had been killed too. The Soldados had scoured the whole club as soon as the fighting broke out and tried to take out anyone else who wasn’t on the main floor. Even those who weren’t fighters. Like Benny. They found his corpse still sitting in it’s chair, turned to face the door, with a bullet through the head and a stake in the heart. That stuck with Arthur. He’d actually shed a tear of blood when he saw him for the first time, and was angry that nobody else apparently cared enough to cry over them.
Benny was the one who hooked him up with multiple jobs while he was still a cop, and had more or less helped Arthur pay his rent, and survive. And through it all, Benny had never judged him, or ridiculed him, or looked down on him. He treated him fairly, and equally. Now Benny was gone, and Arthur couldn’t do anything about it. It didn’t take long for the sorrow to turn to rage. Rage, contempt, and hatred for the people who’d done this. Who had gunned down so many because of a misplaced sense of pride. Because according to them, they’d been wronged. Because of revenge. That’s all Arthur could think about, as he and the others holed up in Glasshill waiting for word from the Baron. Revenge.
Persephone apparently shared a lot of the same fury that Arthur was feeling, but had kept it contained while they cleaned up. Now, he could hear her yelling over the phone in her office multiple times throughout the day. But it never came across as the same personal anger stemming from her friends dying. In fact, when Arthur brought up Benny or Lewis, she barely seemed to register their deaths. All of her anger was focused on the fact that her professional reputation and her businesses under the Baron were being openly attacked. To Arthur it felt impersonal, and cold. It seemed like the same way Santiago would behave. But that’s who she was, he realized. She had been a vampire for a very long time, had seen all manner of friends and foe come and go, including the man who turned her. Her perspective on the world was completely different. Foreign.
Out of a misdirected display of anger, Arthur made a comment about it to her, insinuating she didn’t care. He realized that was a mistake very quickly, as she was fast to remind him his place, who he was, and more specifically who she was. An attack like this might have well been an attack on the Baron himself, and more or less meant all out war. The worst part being that it was war within the same group. Bartolome worked for the same people the Baron answered to, so no matter how this ended everyone was going to end up dirty. Her justification didn’t make him feel any better about her dispassion towards their deaths. They ended up screaming at each other too, and to no ones surprise it accomplished nothing as Arthur stormed out of her office.
So, instead he decided to spend his time waiting with Claudia. She was completely shaken up, still recovering from the night. It was almost comical to Arthur. Some vampires had seen fighting, killings, wars, bloodshed on a scale only visible usually to those involved in the dark, criminal underworld. But there were others like Claudia who were just trying to make something of themselves with their undead life. Who didn’t participate in those kinds of things. Who didn’t regularly witness killings and terrible things. Who didn’t expect to have scores of their friends gunned down in front of them. It was some kind of terrible irony, that someone like her and someone like Persephone could seemingly be so close.
Arthur tried to comfort her the best he could, but years of victim work at the department told him she needed space. So, he gave it when he could, and helped her when she asked, or when it was obvious she needed it. She was wrapped in a blanket huddled against the back of the couch. Arthur paced nearby, no means to express his anger without breaking something, when Persephone called him. He gave Claudia a glance as he stormed back to Persephone’s office. Claudia seemed lifeless, a complete opposite of her typical charm and confidence. It made him even more furious.
Arthur was getting ready to start yelling again, but Persephone was on the phone as she waved him into the office.
“Yes, he’s here. Arthur, the police all over this. Our usual contact in the department is apparently tied up with his higher ups and they’re not making it easy on us. They’re calling it gang violence, the second occurrence in Longley now. But we need to put a cap on this before they start really diving into it.”
Arthur sat across from her, “I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but I haven’t been a cop for a long while.”
Persephone glared at him, “I told you once, keep it to yourself, or keep your mouth shut. Got it?”
Arthur just stared.
“We need to get something to the chief of police, but it has to come from one of his people. Is there anyone at the department you know you could still get in touch with?”
Arthur shrugged, “I haven’t spoken to any of them since that night. I don’t even have their contacts in my new phone. They probably think I ran away, or died.” Which, wouldn’t be too far from the truth.
“No one at all? It’s imperative this happens. Otherwise it’ll be impossible to move around the city at all. We need to close shut this whole thing with the club otherwise it’ll blow up to something we can’t control.”
Arthur narrowed his eyes, “Are you talking federal?” She nodded. “Shit. Fine. There might be someone, but I need to know what I’m giving her. She isn’t the type to just take shit. In fact, it’s a long shot she’ll even talk to me face to face at this point.”
Persephone repeated what Arthur just told him into the phone, presumably to the Baron, and then nodded back at him. “It’s a subpoena. The FBI has an agent trying to brute force his way into the case. We need his nosy ass out of here. This subpoena recalls him out of the city to appear for an old case that just got reopened. If you need a reason, just make something up. Tell your guy that you’re a process server, or work for the court, or whatever the hell you want to make up.”
“Why does it need to go through them? Why can’t I give it straight to the Chief?”
“Because we want you involved as little as possible. Given your past, you suddenly showing up when all this goes down will look strange. The less they know the better.”
“Ok. Fine. Tell me what I need to do.”
Persephone nodded, “Good. We’ll have the document signed and sealed tomorrow, then you’ll deliver it as soon as possible. However you want to get it done, but it needs to be as soon as possible. The longer this festers, the worse it gets.”
Arthur nodded, but didn’t get up from the chair. He was staring out the window, hand on his chin. It took Persephone a few moments to realize he was still in the office. She raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to speak.
“What are we going to do?” Arthur asked.
“That’s for us to figure out and you to execute, if need be. We aren’t going to be hasty, if anything,” Persephone said, like she was chiding him.
“That’s fine and all. And I know we might be looking at this from different perspectives, but the fact is they just slaughtered our people. One of them was my friend. One of my only friends. They destroyed the club. I don’t know if you’ve seen Claudia, but she’s fucked up,” Arthur said lowering his voice.
“I don’t know why you think I need a reminder,” Persephone said slowly.
Arthur shook his head, “Like you said before, being this brazen, this bold to go around gunning down anyone you don’t like? It’s barbaric. Completely fucking insane, and they can’t get away with it. So, I’ll ask again. What the fuck are we going to do about it?”
Persephone’s stony expression slowly morphed into a thin, wicked smile. The same kind of nasty smile that told him Persephone had already been thinking about this, and probably was glad Arthur finally had that same sort of fire in him.
She looked at him. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re going to kill them all.”
-
It was eight at night, and the sun had just gone down. Arthur was sitting outside one of the many coffee shops that he used to frequent when he was on the force. Fortunately for him, none of the employees inside recognized him, and he didn’t recognize any of them either. It made sense. Being a coffee barista wasn’t a long term goal for most people. Nevertheless, the coffee still tasted about the same.Making his taste buds work temporarily was an easy, quick thing to do, and the caffeine even had a small affect on his blood, no matter how negligible. It was one of the few things he was willing to spend blood in order to enjoy again. He’d seen others make themselves appear human by using the blood to temporarily restore function to their skin, eyes, and other parts. Usually, he didn’t feel the need for that. Nobody paid close enough attention to strangers to warrant it. But this time somebody would be sitting directly across from him, conversing with him.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
So, right now his skin didn’t look pallid, it looked healthy. His eyes didn’t have a strange orange glint, they were back to their usual color. And he was able to enjoy coffee again. It even gave him a little caffeine kick, though much less noticeable now. It wasn’t anything like drinking coffee before, and was definitely nothing like drinking blood. Nothing really compared to drinking blood. But he still enjoyed the coffee, though the more he sat alone, and thought, the harder that became. Partly on account of the fact of recent events, and partly because this was the first time he was going to see Dot in over a year. Specifically, after going completely radio silent on her.
He’d always felt bad about that, but it was better for both of them if he didn’t try to involve her in his new life. But now, he needed her, and her number was the only one he’d memorized out of the entire precinct. So, it was a complete surprise when she not only responded to his texts, but also agreed to actually meet up. The only problem was that it was all but guaranteed she’d start asking questions about what happened. And sitting here, Arthur was still struggling to come up with good answers for most of those questions.
So as he waited, he considered how exactly he was going to explain himself. He had to lie, obviously. But he knew that keeping the lie close to the truth was the easiest way to lie in the first place. So he decided to just use his history as a basis. He was given another opportunity. He decided to take it, and that opportunity sometimes involves the federal government. He wouldn’t say he lives in Longley more. Which was technically true, as he had no place of his own now. He just works here every so often. Also true. He’d tell her it paid a lot more, considering his nice new clothes, and the reason for leaving. That wasn’t technically true, though. In fact he hadn’t been paid anything since being brought back as a vampire. But it would get brought up, almost certainly. And lastly, the reason he’d disappeared without a trace.
That one was harder to explain. As he was thinking of an answer, he heard a voice behind him.
“Jesus, look at you,” Dot said, coming around his front. She looked him up and down, a mixture of delight and disgust across her face. This was going to be rocky.
“Hey…yeah,” Arthur said standing. “Thanks for coming. I know I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
Dot narrowed her eyes, then rolled them, sighing and sitting down. “It’s just good to know you’re actually fuckin’ alive after dropping off the face of the planet. Thanks for that, by the way. Could have saved me a lot of ass pain if you’d just told me. Oh, thanks for responding to all my texts and calls, too. I thought you died.”
Athur had to stop himself from grinning. “Yeah. I know. I didn’t mean for it to go that way. A lot of things happened that were out of my control and I sort of just had to ride the wave,” the words were just pouring from Arthur. But, they were all true. “I didn’t mean to leave you out to dry. In fact, I didn’t even have plans to leave the precinct. But with everything else going on I had to.”
Dot grabbed his coffee from his side of the table, peering at it then making a face, pushing it back. “No shit. Must’ve been pretty fuckin’ rough, whatever happened.”
Arthur laughed, “You have no idea. I can’t even explain the half of it.”
Dot studied him, “What the hell does that mean? Is this some kind of illegal shit? Because I still am a cop, even if you decided to throw down the badge.”
That stung. “Hey, I didn’t throw it down. Come on, it’s nothing like that. It’s just that I’m trying to move past what happened. It’s no use bringing it up now.” Arthur couldn’t think of anything that would actually appease her, so he sighed. “I am sorry, you know.”
She was quiet for a little while, only speaking to flag down a waiter and order her own drink. But eventually, she turned back to him.
“The fucked up thing is I actually believe that. All right. Fine, at least you’re ok. I’m not accepting your apology, by the way. You know we all thought you were fuckin’ dead right? That you’d end up as another case file across my desk with deceased written in huge red letters?” She shook her head. “Then time went on, and people forgot, maybe just stopped caring. And the whole time all I could think about was how this asshole is making me choose yet another partner. You know who they set me up with?”
Arthur couldn’t gauge exactly how much of this was real anger and how much of it was just venting, so he answered slowly, “Uh, no, someone shitty?”
“That’s fucking right. Avery. Fucking Avery! From the north district! They transferred his stupid ass down here and stuck him with me! He’s too young, too handsome, and too fucking smart,” Dot said with a big sigh. She shook her head, exasperated. “Things were better, before, you know?”
Arthur didn’t answer. He couldn’t bring himself to agree, especially on account of the fact all the illegal side dealing he’d been doing as a cop. To him, most of that time now just felt like a haze. Although, right now things didn’t feel that much better either. So instead he just shrugged.
“I take it that means you aren’t coming back?” Dot asked.
Arthur shook his head. “I’ve got a new job actually. A good one, with good people. Not that there weren’t good ones at the precinct-”
“Nah I know what you mean. It pays well, looks like,” she commented.
Arthur chuckled, “Actually, the job is part of why I’m here. That, and to tell you I’m sorry, of course. But mostly the job,” he said with a grin.
Dot didn’t find that funny, just narrowed her eyes again, “Remember, I’m still a cop.”
“Jesus Dot. It’s not like that, I told you. I have something for Chief H-,” Arthur caught himself. It felt wrong to call Harry that anymore. “I have something for the Captain. But, I’d rather not have to face him down myself. I know it’s cowardly, but like you said, everyone else already forgot.” It felt like a lie, but true at the same time. He’d rather just let them move on with their lives. “But, it is important it gets to him. Very important.” Arthur reached into his coat and removed an envelope. Across it was the address of the precinct, and the letterhead of the Texas Supreme Court.
Dot took the letter, “Woah. High paying job indeed.”
Arthur waved a hand, “It’s not that serious. I just deliver stuff sometimes. Among other things. But like I said, this needs to go to Harry. He’s not being served or anything, just like I said. I’d rather not have to explain myself twice.”
Dot nodded, tapping the envelope against the table, before taking a sip of her newly arrived coffee. “Yeah fine. Easy enough. But you have to tell me one thing.”
Arthur felt apprehension well up, but just raised an eyebrow at her.
“Who the hell dressed you up, because it sure as shit wasn’t you with your shitty sense of style.”
The apprehension faded into laughter. Arthur spent the next hour or two sitting at the cafe shooting the shit with Dot. He explained to her as much as he could about what had happened, while being very careful to avoid all the details of his new livelihood. He mentioned some of the people he met without dropping any obvious names, talked about some of the ‘office politics’ he’d taken part of. Despite half of what he was saying being completely different scenarios than what actually happened, it still felt good to talk to somebody normal and get everything off his chest. He mentioned that his previous employer screwed him over, but his new employer had saved his ass. He mentioned that he’d seen some moves in the ‘office’ go very wrong and a lot of people get hurt.
He talked about the new people he’d met, their personalities, and how some of them ‘quit’ before he’d really gotten a chance to know them. For a moment, he thought he was gushing too much and oversharing what had happened, but Dot seemed actually interested in what he was saying. She asked some questions, tried to prod here and there, but overall proved to Arthur once again why he’d considered her such a good partner in the first place. Such a good friend. She was more than willing to let him blab on when he needed and also more than willing to keep her own mouth shut when needed. It was a relationship he missed. It was give and take, but they understood each other.
She even went as far as pushing him about Claudia, which made Arthur realize the way he was talking about her must have come across as some sort of attraction to her.
When he made it clear it was just professional, all Dot asked was, “Is it?”
Arthur went to respond, but realized that he didn’t really have a good answer for that anymore. She was attractive, and he did feel somewhat protective of her, and they got along well. Maybe it was something more. By the end of it, Arthur had gotten a lot off his chest, and by the end of it that big, festering ball of rage had quietly shrunk to a small, hardened ball of rage in his gut. It felt good to have someone to talk to. But, just like old times, as soon as Arthur was done gushing, Dot began to tell him everything that had happened since he’d left. Dot was still working at the precinct and had received the Sergeant position since Arthur left. Everything was functioning more or less the same at the precinct. There were some dead end cases Dot ended up solving, in her own words ‘out of frustration’ on account of Arthur leaving and her Avery showing up to take his place.
She even softened up the longer she talked about him, which made Arthur grin After her own promotion, he spent a lot of time in the field himself and did a pretty good job apparently. Furthermore, Dot had even found a girlfriend, which to Arthur’s knowledge was the first time she’d dated anyone in as long as he’d known her. Arthur couldn’t help but smile stupidly as she was going on about all this. Deep down, he was happy to know that Dot had gotten along fine without him and had improved herself and her life in many ways. He realized, for the first time in a while, he was actually feeling a raw, positive emotion for someone else, despite having no part in it and gaining nothing from it. All that time thinking about if he was evil, if he was doing the wrong or right thing, if his participation in the killings had eroded him was suddenly brought into perspective by the fact that no matter everything that had happened up until this point; he was still human. Or close enough.
Arthur’s smile began to fade as he considered all this. Quiet fell between them, and Arthur felt content to sit there and just think about everything that had happened recently. Until, his most recent interaction came to mind. And what Persephone had told him. We’re going to kill them all.
Dot obviously noticed his attention fading elsewhere. “Something up?”
“No. Sorry, I just thought of something important…” Arthur trailed off.
Dot looked down at her watch, “Holy shit we’ve been here two hours. I need to bug out. I’ll get this to the Chief. And Arthur, you don’t have to just disappear again man. It’s wouldn’t kill you to talk to me every once in a while.”
Arthur laughed, “Sorry, sorry. You have my number again. I’ll be better about that.”
Dot stood, but before she could leave Arthur stopped her.
“Hey, one last question. What if someone you know is about to do something drastic. Something a little over the top. Something that you probably can’t change their mind about?”
Dot raised an eyebrow. “That’s kinda vague. But if you’re completely certain they can’t be talked out of it, well. I’d lie to them.”
“Lie?”
She nodded, turning to walk away. “Feed em’ some bullshit that sounds like they’re getting what they want, but not really. Easy when someone’s got the stubborn blinders on.”
As Dot left down the street, Arthur leaned back into his chair and looked up into the sky, the full moon shining pale light down around Longley. It was half past ten now, and he still had plenty of time to get around and do things before he had to retire for the night to avoid the sun. But all he could think about was the upcoming fight that was inevitably going to happen with Santiago. How many more people might get killed as a result of it, whether or not they deserved it.
There had to be another way.
