God, a vampire kill. She hadn’t looked into one of those since Zacatecas. You took statements, nodded, maybe caught one, and then a couple more bodies popped up in another part of the city, like mushrooms after the rain. It never ended. It was a fact of life. That was what brought her to Mexico City. It was safer, and they were starting the new investigating units. Reforming the police system. She was going to have a chance to be a “real” detective.
Not that I’m anything “realer” now, she thought as she walked into her bedroom and peeled off her uniform. It was a dark blue, form-fitting suit woven with a nano-fiber worn under a standard-issue raincoat in the same color. It itched, and she often found herself scratching her neck.
Ana carefully folded her clothes and lay down on her bed. She lay on top of the covers and wondered if the examiner was going to get to the girl’s corpse that evening. Probably not. The girl was nobody of importance and Ana didn’t have much pull around the office. If the coroner looked at the girl and if he deigned to produce a report, it might be weeks later.
She didn’t think Castillo really expected this crime to be solved and the vampire, in all likelihood, was already out of the city.
She felt bad for the mother of the girl, who was probably hearing about her daughter’s murder right about now—she’d told the young, surly officer to see about that.
Ana wondered what she would do if Marisol did not show up one morning.
Don’t think that, she scolded herself.
Ana turned and looked at the corner where she kept a table with a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe on top of it, along with a plastic image of San Judas Tadeo and her mother’s rosary.
Mexico was going to hell. It was hell. If she’d had any money she’d have left the country. Somewhere nice and quiet, without vampires and drug dealers. But she didn’t.
Ana pressed a hand against her forehead and wondered what gang the vampire belonged to. The shark didn’t sound familiar. But the bite marks did. She could bet this was the work of a Necros. She’d seen bites like that in Zacatecas and had learned to recognize the telltale signs of several vampire species.
The Necros, with its strong mandibles and big, sharp teeth, was easy to identify. The Tlāhuihpochtli left fewer, smaller marks—smudges blooming on the neck and wrists. Only once had she come upon a Revenant and it had scared the hell out of her. The thing … it had … it was … And the victim. Like a mummy, the flesh shrunken and the body twisted. The devil’s work.
She rolled away from the shrine to the Virgin and closed her eyes, hoping for a restful sleep, but the image of the dead girl flickered behind her eyelids, superimposed like a negative.
*
Ana woke up far too tired. Vampires drained you one way or another. She rose from bed and found Marisol in the kitchen, frying an egg.
“Hey, are you back from school early?” she asked.
“No,” Marisol said. “You’re up late. You were supposed to cook dinner.”
“I’ll make dinner now.”
Ana extended her arm to open the refrigerator, but Marisol shook her head. Her mouth was doing that thing where she wasn’t quite smirking but it was damn close.
“There’s no vegetables. There’s nothing. You haven’t gone to the supermarket.”
“No, we went.”
Ana opened the refrigerator and stared at a solitary avocado, a bit of parsley, the wedge of cheese with a dab of mold on it.
“Told you,” Marisol said. A full smirk now.
Ana grabbed a can of diet soda and did not bother pouring it in a glass. It would only mean one more glass to clean. There was already a pile of dishes waiting in the sink. “I need to buy a new school uniform,” Marisol said as she flipped her egg with the plastic spatula.
“What’s wrong with your current uniform?” Ana asked.
“It’s not the official uniform.”
Ana sipped her soda, shaking her head. “It’s got green and blue squares on the skirt and a blue sweater. How is that not official?”
“You know very well the nuns want me to wear the one they sell at the school shop. Not a cheap copy,” Marisol said, sounding like Ana had sent her to school dressed in a paper bag instead of real clothes.
Ana put the soda can down on the kitchen counter. “Well, the nuns can go piss themselves, Marisol, the school manual doesn’t say it’s mandatory that we buy it there.”
“The other kids can tell it’s a knockoff.”