Chapter V

“If you want to curse at me, do it in a language I understand.” I snapped at him, but I didn’t turn around, I kept my eyes on the young man in front of me. He lifted his hand and explained: “Actually, he didn’t curse at you. He just told you that he will rip you into pieces.” I heard the fullblood sigh behind me and answered slightly annoyed “Quante volte ti ho detto che non devi tradurre per me?”

The young doctor smiled apologetically and answered: “I know, I know, but I didn’t want them to misunderstand you.” The fullblood sighed again and continued answering in his own language: “Lo apprezzo molto, ma non è necessario.” He sounded soft.

The doctor nodded.

I started to lose my patience and pressed my nails in his skin, so that blood started to slowly drip down his throat. He had a pained expression on his face; the fullblood behind me lost it. “Let him go!” He screamed.

“First, I want answers, because I’m done being left in the dark. I want to know what’s happening.” I let all of my anger out. The anger of the unknown, the anger that started to grow as soon as I realized how scared I was.

“We don’t know.” Answered the doctor quietly, which made me angrier. “Don’t fuck with me! The fullblood appeared with both corpses, as if he knew what he was looking for. I overheard him say something about a pattern. I don’t like being taken for a fool. So just tell me what you know, or I will paint these white walls with your blood.” I knew that I was over doing it, but I did try it nicely.

“We will tell you everything, I promise, but not here, not now.” The young man said. He looked into my eyes. I saw something in him, which told me that I could trust him, that he would keep his promise. I took a step back and let go of his throat.

I went to Kalma. As soon as I was far away enough, the fullblood sped past me, towards the doctor. He took a hold of his face and started to whisper in his language. Their smell melted into each other, as if they were one. Then I understood. Then I understood the fear of the fullblood. They were vigors.

However, the doctor looked like a human. He could have been a mixed, but a high-ranking fullblood would have never settled for a mixed.

I felt Kalma pulling softly at my arm. He said: “We should go.” He was right, but before I left, I turned to the other two and said: “I will wait for you tonight on the playground. If you don’t show up, I’ll let you know that I know your smell and that I can find you everywhere. I will hunt you down, and when I catch you, you’ll wish that you’d listened to me.”

We were brought back to the station, after we were dragged out of the morgue. It looked like we took too long and our gentle driver had other things to do. When we arrived, we were kicked out of the car and damned back in our cells. That was fine with me, because I needed silence to think. The engravings wouldn’t let me go. ’Matthew 6:14’. What did it mean? Was it a code? Who was Matthew? And why did it feel familiar?

I grabbed a notebook from my drawer and started to write down everything that came to mind. Those numbers, was that the time of the murder? I could ask when Derrick got found, then I could calculate if the time was right. If I could have just seen the engravings of the first corpse, then maybe it could have helped me understand. I wrote down what Kalma found out about the fangs.

Operated, not pulled.

The murderer knew how to stitch. But that could mean a lot.I sighed and leaned against the chair. I told myself that I would not get myself involved, for my own health. If a vampire was far away from his vigor, they would become a ticking time bomb. In addition, none of this was helping me cool down the growing anger I was feeling. However, here I was, thinking about two corpses, one of which was a vampire I knew, and the knowledge of not knowing.

The closer the time of our meeting was coming, the more restless I became. A lot was going through my head, and to be, maybe, able to get some answers, made me antsy. I looked outside my window and watched as the sun started to set, so that the moon could take it's place.

I walked to the door and used my strong sense of smell to see how many officers were still in the station. I closed my eyes and was able to see some silhouettes appearing. I smelled the young officer who was walking towards the door and then stopping, seemingly waiting for someone.

Then I saw the devil’s silhouette walking towards him. They then left the building together. As soon as the young officer closed the door, I opened my eyes. I carefully opened my door. Kalma came out of his cell at the same moment. He waved at me when he saw me. He looked like he had no energy left in him, his eyes were full of sadness, but he still smiled at me.

I nodded and walked towards the cafeteria, to climb out of the same window as yesterday, but I heard steps that followed me quickly. I halted and turned to him. He looked at me with big eyes, but smiled. “Why are you following me?” I asked him. His answer was simple, but not what I wanted to hear. “You are going to meet up with those two vampires, right? I’m coming with you.”

That was problematic. I didn’t know what would await me, I didn’t know those two, I couldn’t risk putting him into danger.

“You can’t.” I answered as sternly as I could and turned to the window, but Kalma grabbed my arm to turn me back to him. His yellow eyes looked angry. “I’m not going to let you tell me what I can do and what not. This is not about you, it’s about the lives of others, it’s about Derrick.”

I looked at him, silent.

“Okay” I simply said and turned towards the window. “’okay’? That’s it? You are not going to prod?” Kalma asked, baffled. I nodded and opened the window, just like he did last night. As the cold air caressed my face, I couldn’t help but shudder a little. I climbed over the window frame and offered Kalma my hand to help him out. He took it with a shy smile on his lips as I helped him out.

On the street, we walked silently next to each other. It was a pleasant silence. That type of silence that was needed sometimes. We arrived rather quickly, but I could smell that we weren’t the first ones.

The strong smell of burning hurt my nose. I wrinkled it and walked faster, until we could see them. The young man with the red locks was sitting on the swing wearing a coat, very similar to the one the fullblood wore. It was probably his, because the sleeves looked too long. The fullblood was standing in front of him, he was wearing a black turtleneck and ripped jeans. It still baffled me that those two were vigors. How could such a high-ranking vampire end up with a mixed?

His head turned towards us as we stepped closer, his white eyes seemed to glow in the night. “There you are. You took your sweet time.” The fullblood bitched about. The red-haired boy softly pushed him and said: “Don’t be so mean, Vale.” The fullblood looked down to him to silently pinch his cheek, in an affectionate way.

“Let’s get to the point. I hope what you have to tell me is worth our trip here, or else you will pay for the time you have made me waste.” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I could see the distaste the fullblood felt towards me, but I didn’t care.

“Firstly, you should feel honored that we even showed up. Secondly, you wanted us to come, because YOU want something from US.”

With each word, he was moving closer to me, until he stopped in front of me to look deeply into my eyes. I realized in that moment that, in a worst-case scenario, we would make a horrible team. His vigor stepped in between, put a hand upon the fullbloods chest und slightly pushed him back. “Forgive him, he’s always like this when meeting new people.” He explained and smiled softly. I could see his braces but no fangs, which was normal for mixed.

“We will not take too much of your time, we would only like some answers.” Interjected Kalma. “I know that there is something you would like to keep hidden, but the vampire that was killed, was someone very dear to me. I would like to know what happened.”

he explained to the two men in front of us.

“Sadly, we can’t tell you much. Everything started a couple of weeks ago, when Valerio found the first corpse. She had engravings on her chest and her fangs removed. We didn’t know what had happened. Then we found the second corpse. It was a young vampire girl, still underage. Same pattern. Then there was the third one, the one you found.” He pointed at me and I nodded. The corpses seemed to have the same pattern, but what connected them?

“Then there was the one you call Derrick. We started taking the corpses with us, to examine them, that’s why you’ve met me in the morgue. There are four corpses by now, and the only thing we could find out was, that they were halfbloods.”

I nodded again. Did that mean that the murderer only went after halfbloods? But why?

“That’s all we have, I’m sorry.” Said the young man apologetically, smiling sadly at us.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said to him and he nodded.

“Why are you doing this? Are you some kind of vampire police or detectives?” I got to hear the fullblood’s loud laugh in response. His vigor frowned and pinched his side. “She asked a serious question Valerio, don’t be so mean.” The fullblood gradually calmed down and stroked his vigor’s cheek. “Scusa, scusa. Ma finora nessuno ce lo ha chiesto in modo così stupido.” His vigor was still frowning, so I assumed that whatever he had said he didn’t like.

“We do it because no one else does. No one cares about a few dead vampires, but we do.” His voice didn’t show a bit of doubt in his words and somehow they warmed my frozen heart enough to do something I might regret later.

“I want to help you.”

There was a long, long silence. The fullblood, apparently named Valerio, stood speechless, looking at me in bewilderment. Slowly a beautiful smile grew on the mixed’s face and he said delightedly, “That would be great, the more people the better.” I didn’t expect an immediate response, well, from the mixed I kind of expected it, he looked like that kind of person. But the fullblood had the reaction I expected from him, maybe a little worse. He grabbed his vigor by the arm and pulled him further away, probably to talk in private. Kalma did the same to me.

“Can I ask you how you imagined it? I mean, I think it’s great, really, but I don’t think we can be helpful in any way.” He said, then tapped his collar. “We can’t get off the station, and we certainly can’t catch a killer.” I glanced at the others. The fullblood was talking all over the young mixed.

“What are they saying?” I asked Kalma, who replied a little annoyed, “Did you just ignore everything I said?” I shook my head slightly and said, “You don’t think we can be helpful. What are they saying?” I asked again and Kalma sighed, “Valerio doesn’t think he should decide this on his own because they don’t work alone.” I frowned as Kalma repeated their conversation. So they were not alone, there were more people.

“Now the boy says that we could gather information though.” I nodded.

They then rejoined us, the mixed with a lovely smile, the fullblood with a scowl.

“We are very grateful to you for wanting to help us.” Said the young mixed, reaching into the deep pockets of his coat and pulling out a small piece of paper which he held out to us. An address was written on it.

“If you find out anything, you will find us here.” He then added. I put the piece of paper in my pocket and nodded to him. “If everything is settled then, we can go.” Said the fullblood clearly pissed. Without waiting for an answer, he took the young mixed by the hand. The young man was still able to wave quickly, and already his vigor was dragging him away. I then turn to Kalma. “We should go too.” He nodded and we headed back to our personal prison.