The vampire at the door wore a tuxedo and a scowl. It’d been awhile since I’d seen short, dark, suspicious Leon Rossi. Last time was at the July beach “clothing optional” bonfire Old Rossi had thrown. Leon worked night shift lead at the cannery and had been living in Ordinary for over a century.
“Chief.” He stepped aside so I could enter. Rossi’s home could at best be described as eclectic and at worst Winchester Mansion crazy.
“Didn’t know you were pulling butler duty, Leon. Tux looks good.” I unzipped my coat and he took it, holding it at arm’s length so it didn’t drip on his fancy shoes.
“Was out of town at a midnight wedding. Got the call about Sven. Didn’t take time to change.”
“Everybody here?” I asked.
“Yes. This isn’t something that Old Rossi will take lightly.”
“He shouldn’t. Someone in his family is dead.”
His eyes flashed that odd blue unique to angry fangers. “It’s rare to happen. Not death, but the manner of it.”
“Gunshot and blood symbols?”
His lips pressed together and I could see the slight indentation of his fangs pressing into his bottom lip. Leon was angry, and more than that, uncomfortable.
“Gunshot,” he said.
All right. I don’t know why he didn’t want to acknowledge the blood symbols. Maybe it was a vampire thing.
“Were you close to him?” I asked.
“Never saw him outside of family gatherings. Didn’t talk to him much then. He was nice. Followed the family rules.”
The Rossis weren’t related. The clan was made up of individual vampires Rossi had approved and given his family name. They passed themselves off as cousins, in-laws, and distant relations. They didn’t make a big deal about it, and the mortals in town didn’t question it. Since Old Rossi presented himself as a man who would rather make love than war, people expected him to help out his family members, take them in, line up employment, and help get them on their feet.
What most mortals in town didn’t know was that Rossi carefully vetted every vampire who came into Ordinary and upheld a strict set of rules for vampire behavior. If a vampire stepped outside those bounds, Rossi took them down, quietly, and with no trace left behind.
That was another of Ordinary’s agreements: Rossi took care of vampire behavior and violence, and Granny Wolfe took care of werewolf behavior and violence. As the police in town, we could arrest either type of creature if they were breaking the law, but if they dissolved into gang war or racial violence, Rossi and Granny put an end to it by putting an end to them.
Leon gestured me toward the interior of the house, and I followed.
“Where was the wedding?”
“Spokane. One of my coworkers needed a date. It was her sister’s wedding. Since it was at night, it worked for me.”
One of the reasons so many vampires came to Ordinary was because of the living conditions. Not only was it a quiet little town, it was also one of the few places in the world where daylight didn’t harm vamps.
Vampires in town could go out in daylight, though they usually kept most of their skin covered and wore sunblock. I’d asked Old Rossi why daylight in Ordinary didn’t hurt vampires and had gotten a vague lecture on geology, meteorology, and I’m pretty sure the Bermuda Triangle.
It didn’t make sense then, and I hadn’t asked again.
Outside of Ordinary, vampires accepted by Rossi could also move in daylight for limited times. That had something to do with his claim as their prime, the connection between them and him, and him and Ordinary.
If not for that, vampires would be night creatures only just like in the legends and movies.
“Her sister was furious she had a date.”
“Sibling rivalry?”
He grinned wide enough to show fangs. “Had to break up a fight. Between the bridesmaids.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Open bar and a show. I enjoyed it.”
“By open bar you are talking alcohol, not jugular, right?”
“Sure, Chief.”
Vampire activity outside of Ordinary was beyond my jurisdiction. Over state lines it was definitely outside my jurisdiction.
“You tell me anymore, I’ll have to take you in, Leon.”
“I suppose you would.”
Well, now I was worried. Not that there was a lot I could do about it. If I found a dead body and told the cops a vampire drank them dry, I’d be laughed out of the station. Plus, there would be the problem of proof.
As in I had none.
Old Rossi kept some cutthroat lawyers on call for family members with legal problems. Lawyers who also happened to be vampires and would make sure I’d lose that sort of case.
Still, I’d do a quick check to make sure no one from Spokane had turned up dead after a wedding.
“I’m joking,” he said. “I drank alcohol, not blood.”
I tried not to let him see how glad I was to hear that. But he was a vampire. I’m sure he could tell my mood by my heart rate.
Voices grew louder as we neared a family room toward the back of the house that was the size of a hotel ballroom.
Leon wasn’t kidding all the Rossis were here. At last count, we had sixty-four vampires in town. Many of them were hermits on the outskirts of Ordinary whom I never saw. But I knew Rossi kept tabs on them, and their comings and goings. I scanned faces of the vamps I’d rarely seen, reacquainting myself with them. They, of course, hadn’t changed since I’d last seen them.
Long life had some advantages.
“He’s in his study.” Leon pointed to the door at my right.
“Who?”
“Old Rossi.”
“Did you tell him I was here?”
He smiled again. His eyes focused on my neck and did not budge. I knew he was messing with me. “He knows you are here. We all do.”
Right. If it wasn’t the scent of my blood that tipped them off, it was probably the whole vampire telepathy thing they all shared. I’m sure Leon had told Old Rossi I was at the door before I’d even rung the doorbell.
“Thanks.” Still, manners were manners. I knocked softly.
“Come in.”
I opened the dark wooden door and stepped into the room.
For a creature of the night, Old Rossi sure liked his pastels. The room was painted a soothing misty gray, the accents a soft white, the wood floor honey blond. Although this was his study, there were no books in this room and no desk. There was, instead, a curve of lush shell-blue couches, slender tables that seemed to have grown out of the honey flooring, and wall-to-wall white open-fronted cabinets with backlit glass shelves. All filled with carved eggshells.
Hundreds of eggshells, from huge ostrich eggs to tiny hummingbird eggs, all of them carved into impossible swirls, hollows and designs, perched on delicate glass pedestals that seemed too thin to for them to balance upon.
A few of the eggs were brushed with gilding or showed glints of diamonds and other precious gems and metals. A few were dyed so that the contrast in carved layers created landscapes and portraits. But most of them were simply soft shades of shell, carved into impossible twists and cages.
There was no carpeting on the floor. Every vibration of every movement in the house was telegraphed to the fragile sculptures. It said something about vampires that there could be dozens of them in this house and the shells weren’t even trembling.