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  He shriveled and died but not before turning Terri perhaps hours earlier.

  Darien guessed that Walter had turned the young woman when she lost him after he entered a restaurant in East Oakland.

  Now a vampiress courtesy of Walter Torrence, Terri sought to settle the score with a cheating boyfriend.

  It took only a few more Google searches to find out where the she lived.

  Darien parked outside Terri's apartment but waited until daybreak before approaching the door. A barred security fence surrounded Terri's complex, protecting twisted skeletons of leafless cypress trees. Darien easily scaled the fence and walked up to Terri's door on the second floor of the first building sitting on the west side.

  Another spiked gate surrounded a swimming pool directly beneath Terri's unit. Darien looked down as the waters gleamed like a mirror under the rising sun.

  Darien took no unnecessary risks when confronting a vampire. Like a hunter stalking deer, she wanted her prey at their most vulnerable.

  Then her cell phone rang.

  Answering the call, she looked annoyed. These guys were meddling too much in her affairs.

  “Yeah?”

  “He doesn't want you to kill her,” she recognized the voice at the other end. That harsh, nasal sound could be only one man.

  Guinness.

  “How do you know our new one is a 'she'?”

  “We know things. You know things. That's how this relationship works. And we don't want you to kill her.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a moral thing,” the voice said before coughing. “We don't know if she is what we think she is. If she is, we'll handle things together.”

  “Morality is just one of life's options,” Darien said. “Everyone has their own view of it. The more of it you have, the more traps you fall into.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I kill vampires,” Darien clicked off the phone and set it on silent. Her hands reflexively balled into fists. She had a job to do and those knuckleheads didn't understand.

  Looking behind herself to make sure she had no witnesses, she cracked open Terri's doorknob with one click of her 'handy dandy' as she liked to call it. A lock pick that she used to open any standard door or lock.

  She heard the click of the lock give and she opened the door.

  No bolt. No chain.

  Too easy.

  She entered the apartment on the balls of her feet, squinting her eyes in the darkness. A radio hissed in the rear of the apartment, probably from the kitchen.

  “Two bodies were found in Alameda’s Crown Memorial Beach,” the announcer stated, covering the murder scene that Darien had left.

  She noticed that the windows were covered with black cloth to keep the sun out.

  Darien had seen them do that too many times before.

  The tell-tale sign of the apartment of a vampire. The place had a stench of decay and death. The rookie vampires were like that. Covering the windows and barricading themselves in their place of residence. The more adventurous ones had mementos of their victims, like serial killers.

  On the walls, she saw creatures painted in acrylics. They looked as if someone cross-pollinated a demon with an octopus. Tentacles and sharp teeth, bulbous heads with six eyes gleaming with hate. She had some of the turned do that. Make artistic representations of the things they saw during their nightmares. Some drew pictures of family members and homes. Places where parts of them were buried. The parts that once mattered.

  On the shelf she saw numerous photos of Terri with her family. Her parents looked like the All-American type. Her father looked muscular, like a retired baseball player or lumberjack. Her mother looked happy and cheerful. Terri smiled wide in all of her photos.

  Darien then fixated on the prom photo with Terri and Glen. Glen had a dull, fixed glare at the camera. But Terri beamed with passion for life. She had a depth in her eyes that made Darien sad for a moment.

  Then she spotted the bloodied handprints that dotted the walls outside the bedroom door.

  Moving across the carpet without a sound, Darien continued on into the bedroom and slowly pushed the door open.

  The creaking sound made her cringe. No surprise party here anymore.

  But still no sign of life.

  Looking inside the bedroom, Darien squinted through the darkness and saw a figure on the bed completely covered by bedsheets.

  Her lips curled into a confident smile.

  The vampire sleeps.

  Pulling out her gun, she pointed it at the figure on the bed with a practiced grace.

  Darien fired once. Twice. Three times.

  The silencer on her gun muffled each hit. A look of remorse crept across Darien's face. Terri seemed different than the others in those photos. An innocent creature created by another monster.

  She listened for the groan of death that predictably came from the dying vampire. That low cry of a trapped animal who knows that death is only seconds away.

  But those cries never came.

  With no movement from the bed, Darien ripped the bedsheet off.

  Only to reveal a mannequin.

  The mannequin had been painted on. Carrion insects had been drawn onto the figure's arms and legs. A pentagram scrawled into the neck.

  Looking around the room, she sifted through Terri’s drawers hoping to find some kind of clue as to where she may have disappeared to. She found a gym membership card, half empty bottles of moisturizer and a pair of high heels.

  Then someone knocked at the open front door, entering the apartment.

  “Police!” the voice bellowed. “Anyone home? Berkeley PD!”

  Darien recognized the voice.

  Guinness.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Veronica parked in her usual spot in front of her complex as Guinness followed in an unmarked police car. She could hear church bells in the distance, coming from an old Baptist church about a half block over.

  Both she and Terri wanted housing inside the UC Berkeley campus but couldn't find any. Instead, they lived about a mile away from the school and a block away from the city's busiest commercial intersection. Veronica would often feel like a fly caught in a spider web as she tried to navigate Berkeley's busy streets during rush hour as hives of students hit Telegraph Avenue.

  “Nice place,” Guinness said, stepping out of his vehicle and into a puddle of slimy rainwater. “You're so lucky to be in college. I remember being a college student laying on the lawn at Berkeley. Hanging out in cafes. Going to the ball games. Man, I loved it out here.”

  “You were a student?”

  “Well, I had a girlfriend that was out here. I never made it past JC. What's your major?” Guinness as they reached the stairs.

  “I wanted to go into law enforcement,” Veronica said. “But now I'm focused on maybe becoming a teacher.”

  “That's cool,” Guinness said.

  “I major in history. Maybe I can find a job where I can sit around all day and remember stuff.”

  Veronica didn't answer truthfully. She never did. What she really wanted to do was write paranormal romance novels. But the goal still embarrassed her.

  “You have the key?” he asked, placing his thumb and forefinger together as he rotated his wrist.

  His gaze scanned around the complex like a paranoid would. His voice sounded pleasant, but his tense body language suggested otherwise.

  Veronica appreciated the detective's effort in trying to sound as if nothing was wrong. She played along but everything felt surreal. Someone she knew had been murdered. Someone very close to her closest friend.

  Outside Terri's door, two cats scurried out. One white, one black.

  “Those your cats?”

  “Those are Terri's. Nigel and Ilsa. She never lets them out though.”

  “She always leave the door open?” Guinness lowered his voice.

  Veronica shook her head.

  Guinness held up his head for Veronica to st
ay back.

  Nigel and Ilsa ran back into the apartment.

  The officer knocked on the door and identified himself as a policeman before entering.

  Veronica watched as the officer nudged the door open further before stepping inside.

  “Lights are on the right-hand side,” she offered before realizing she should have whispered.

  Veronica stood near the railing, watching as Guinness disappeared into the darkness. She could hear the squeak of the bathroom door opening then the bedroom.

  Moments of silence went by with no movement inside.

  “Officer?

  Veronica stepped inside, tiptoeing across the carpet. The couch, table and television all looked untouched. The bookshelf, all filled with books on art and acting, remained as Veronica remembered.

  Going into the kitchen, however, she gasped as she saw all of the horrific drawings on the wall.

  Bloody footprints on the linoleum led to bloody palm prints on the bedroom door.

  “Officer?”

  Guinness poked his head out of the bedroom. His face looked ashen.

  “I don't know if you should see this,” he said.

  Veronica entered Terri's bedroom. She gasped as she looked at the wall. A woman biting into a man's neck. A group of men and women whose bodies were intertwined in a blood orgy. A woman holding up a newborn, biting into its stomach. Her eyes wild and demented.

  “Jesus,” Veronica said, looking horrified.

  “Did you know she was doing all this?” Guinness' eyes remained on the paintings like a magnet. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost.

  “Yes,” Veronica said. “I mean no. She was an artist, but I had no idea she was painting the damn wall with all this stuff. It’s been awhile since I've been in here.”

  Guinness took his attention away from the painted walls and pointed at the bed. The painted mannequin laid on the sheets with multiple bullet holes.

  “What's this all about?” he asked.

  Veronica fed Nigel and Isla. She could only watch as numerous forensic members arrived on scene to dust Terri's apartment.

  She racked her brain and thought about places that Terri could have gone. Ruling out a kidnapping, she had faith that Terri would be feisty and savvy enough to fend off an attacker.

  She remembered the places they would go as kids. There was the old tree swing down by Clipper Cove in Alameda. Terri would go there after she would fight with her Dad or Mom or the boyfriend of the month. They would meet there and just talk.

  Stepping out onto the terrace, she tried calling Terri again on her cell phone.

  “Hey,” Veronica said. “Haven't heard from you and hope you're okay. I know you're in some kind of trouble and there are tons of cops here. We can meet at our old meeting place. You know the one in Alameda. By the old tree swing. Meet me there if you get this. Maybe you're there already.”

  Satisfied that Guinness was no longer watching her, she skipped downstairs to her car and sped out of the complex.

  The temperature had dipped below fifty and Veronica turned on the heat in the car. The sky turned from sunny to a lumpy gray. The color fit Veronica's mood to perfection.

  She arrived finding the leafy cove exactly as she remembered. A large redwood tree stood in front of the pond but the long branch where they had hung their tire swing had broken off. A bike trail twisted just beyond the tree, a path where she and Terri used to ride their bicycles for hours at a time.

  “No hands, bitches!” Terri would whoop and holler as she’d put her hands behind her back and pedal faster than anyone.

  Veronica would often remark that Terri would not live past the age of twenty. She now hoped she was wrong.

  The “V+B” sign remained etched into the stump of the tree. She remembered how once upon a time she had a crush on a boy named Bobby and marked her wish into the tree. Terri did the same although she couldn't find where she cut her own name into the tree.

  “Why do something that is just going to fade away?” Terri said at the time.

  Veronica paced back and forth on the grass, looking out onto the pond to think.

  Where else could Terri be?

  Her cell phone buzzed.

  The landline showed on the caller ID.

  “Hello?”

  “Come home.”

  “Terri? Where are you?”

  “I'm in your place. Duh.”

  Click.

  Veronica noticed the black vehicle after turning a few corners. The car had tinted windows and looked like a late model Camaro. She sped up and turned left again without signaling.

  The car followed.

  She sped up again and this time the car didn’t accelerate to catch up with her. She squinted into her rearview mirror. Perhaps it could be another detective. Maybe he assigned someone to do the tail?

  Veronica slowed as she neared the lot of the apartment complex. Turning in, she saw no sight of the Camaro.

  The forensic team looked to have cleared out of Terri’s place. The door had been closed and the shades drawn as she walked past.

  “Veronica?”

  Spinning around the tall figure of Guinness cast a shadow down on her.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Hi.”

  “You mentioned that you both had a key to each other's place. I was wondering if I could have a look around. Maybe, you know, she's hiding out here.”

  “I checked already.”

  “Mind if took a look?”

  “My place is a mess,” she said.

  “That's all right.”

  “I mean, it smells. You know. Cat poop everywhere.”

  “I'll hold my nose,” Guinness said. “Do you mind? Just to be on the safe side. It will only take a second.”

  “Right,” Veronica said. “Right.”

  She opened the door and crossed her fingers.

  Guinness entered and made an exaggerated sniff of his nose. “Smells like Jasmine.”

  “I'll let my cat know,” Veronica said.

  She sighed deep as the officer walked into the bathroom without asking. “So, do you guys ever get together and talk about stuff? I mean, I'm sure you do but when she's in trouble like with drugs or alcohol?”

  “We're close,” Veronica said. “But we don’t hang out twenty-four-seven.”

  Guinness stepped out of the bathroom, eying Veronica again before turning his attention to some pictures on her mantelpiece. A photo of her and Terri stood out.

  “That you two?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Somewhere on Bayfarm, I think.”

  “My pops and I used to fish out there,” Guinness smiled with nostalgia. “Right on the bay. God, those were great memories. We never caught a damn thing. I just remember the sunlight on the water. And the rabbits on the trail.”

  “It’s nice out there,” Veronica sounded calm but her eyes remained anxious.

  “Do you mind if I looked in bedroom?” he asked as his gaze traveled across the room.

  Veronica shrugged her shoulder and waved her hands in the air. “Might as well.”

  Looking down, she noticed the droplets of dried blood that led to her bedroom.

  “Okay,” Guinness took a couple of steps and let out a long sight before stepping out. “Okay. If she calls you, I'm sure you realize that you're being a good friend by letting us know.”

  “Of course.”

  She led the detective to the door.

  “Thanks again for your help.”

  “No worries,” said as she slammed the door and ran into her bedroom.

  She checked under the bed then in her closet.

  Nothing.

  “I'm in here.”

  Running over to the kitchen, Veronica stepped in just in time to see Terri roll out from under the kitchen cabinet.

  “Tight squeeze there.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Dried blood stained Terri's jaw and lips but her body dripped with sweat. Her facial appearanc
e startled Veronica. Once beautiful, Terri's hair had a few gray strands on top of her head and more age lines under her eyes. But her face still had that look of reassurance and rebelliousness.

  “Your cat's been fed,” Terri said. “I wish I could say the same.”

  “What the hell happened, Terri?”

  “Close all your curtains. I need darkness.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Terri’s eyes fixated on the moth buzzing around the light above. Her eyes rolling over white, she took two stumbling steps backwards before she slumped against the kitchen wall, her eyes fluttering closed.

  “Terri!”

  Veronica shook her friend’s shoulders, her own mind racing as to what to do. If she called the ambulance, the police would take her in. If she didn’t, then her friend may well be dying in front of her.

  Veronica lightly smacked Terri across the face, trying to wake her up. Droplets of sweat rolled from her friend’s forehead and she wiped them away.

  “Terri?”

  “You said that already.”

  “What the fu-”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Terri tried to rise on legs that did a spaghetti dance for a moment before Veronica pulled her up. “Veronica, I’m in deep shit. The deepest, stinkiest fucking shit I’ve ever been in my life.”

  “That’s saying a lot,” Veronica sat her down on the couch.

  She went to the kitchen and ran some water over a towel. Returning, she began cleaning up Terri's face, wiping away the dried blood.

  Until Terri leaned away as if the water hurt her.

  “What's wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Terri rolled away from Veronica. Sweat formed on her temple again as she stared at the wall. “Just stings a little that's all.”

  Sighing, Veronica got up and opened the curtain.

  “Don't!”

  “Dammit, Terri, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “If I told you?” Terri shook her head. “You wouldn't believe me. Just please close the curtain.”

  Veronica complied then sat down next to her friend.

  “You're going to have to try me anyway.”

  “Remember when we were kids and we went with Helen Johns to that church revival? We all laughed when the preacher started talking about a new satanic age that was coming. Do you remember that?”