《23 Pangbourne Place》


 The Thirteenth – Chapter 1 - Dreaming of Billy

    I¡¯m dreaming of Billy. Billy in his last minutes. Billy as a duck, squawking and flailing about as his wings erupt into flames. I am back there again, in the college cafeteria watching Suzie, Sandra, Moshi, Gul and the others screaming and crying for help as they burn or bleed from their broken bodies. And there was nothing I can do. Because again, I have been blown back from the circle, bodily into a concrete pillar. I am laying on the floor watching them, with a leg broken in three places and a fractured hip. I can¡¯t help, but I can watch, watch in horror as they die. But Billy is the worst. It¡¯s bad enough to die, to burn to death. But to be transformed into a goddamned duck before you¡¯re roasted, that¡¯s just mean.


    I awoke from that horrific dream the way I always did, face mashed into a pillow, gasping for breath, covered in a cold sweat. And alone. And that¡¯s probably a good thing, because if anyone could wring out of me why I awoke like I did it was Toni. And I did not want her to.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a dream, it¡¯s just a dream, it¡¯s just a dream,¡¯ I repeated, chanting the imagery out of my mind. Yeah, it¡¯d been real, once. But that had been enough to give me nightmares still.


    I turned over in the dim light, the words gradually calming down my racing heart. I hated that dream, had hoped I¡¯d never have it again. How long had it been since I¡¯d had it last, shit, five years, six? How could I possibly be having it again after so long.


    At least my condition wasn¡¯t a repeat of that terrible night. I seemed otherwise fine. And when I glanced worriedly around my bedroom, there was nothing out of place. No alarm or phone was ringing, the air didn¡¯t smell at all of brimstone and burning human flesh.


    And then I remembered what was going on this November A.M.


    I looked over at my Android on its stand. 7:56 it glowed menacingly. Four minutes before I the alarm was set to go off. Not unprecedented, And even expected, all things considered.


    I had to get up, had to be in the office by nine, and so pulled my unwilling body out of bed, went through all my morning routine, still, knowing I was going to have to face again what forced that 2 AM wake up call. Damn it, the night had started so well. But Toni was long since gone. Her shift at St, Michael¡¯s starts too early for a sane human being to contemplate.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Three days past Halloween.


    It was cold for this time of year, the news said five degrees tops, but, in my flannel robe and armed with a hot cup of coffee, I ventured out onto my balcony, into the cold and crisp fall air to look down, and remind myself that this wasn¡¯t at all a good morning to be the building manager of 23 Pangbourne Place.


    Yes, the police cars were still there, in fact, they¡¯d multiplied. There were four of them now, and what looked like it could be a crime scene van. There was also a Pulse 24-7 news van as well. Great, we¡¯d be chatted about breezily all through the local the morning news, and virally online to who the hell knows where. That would certainly mean I¡¯d have to ready myself for a long reassuring call to Emily. And what was that among the marked vehicles. Something white and brown, a convertible helping to block the buildings entranceway. Looked like it was long enough to be some vintage 60s classic. For some reason just looking at the thing made the hairs on the back of my neck stand right up.


    I shook my head, went back inside and finished my Tarrazu dark roast.


    Maybe Teresa would know what kind of ancient muscle car that was. She¡¯d had more than one boyfriend who¡¯d been a car buff, or so she¡¯d claimed.


    Ah, Teresa. The moon was still in the sky, low on the horizon. Almost full, really.


    How do you tell what time of the month it is? Do you check your calendar, your alarm clock. Do you looked at the top of your newspaper, . Or is there a nice animated object on your computer screen that tells you when you are.


    I don¡¯t have to do that. Because I know exactly thirteen times year, where I am shown that there¡¯s going to be a full moon in the sky.


    You see, typically, my admin assistant, Teresa, tends to wear, clothes that show a fair bit of skin, albeit usually smooth and attractive olive tinged skin, whether it be a dressy tank top, skirt with a slit, I think you get the idea. Pretty much whatever she can get away with and still look like she works in an office and not a cocktail bar.


    Because, be fair, she could easily be described as hot, still a few years shy of thirty and relatively single.. Something that my girlfriend Toni has pointed out, almost jealously, more than once. Not almost at least once. Honestly, I do my best to be a gentleman and a good boss.


    So, I¡¯ve always told her not to worry. Why? Because I get a lesson of what Teresa is really like three days a month. And this Thursday, November Second, that lesson would begin repeated as it had over the six months since I hired her.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 2 – That Time Of The Month

    So, on this cold November morning, where a good dozen police officers were going sifting through evidence and taking copious pictures twelve floors below us, instead of her. typical, skin baring garb, that yes, she¡¯d be wearing at least until advent, she was in a turtleneck, with sleeves covering her skin, all the way down to her wrists. And instead of her. typical mid-thigh skirt, she was wearing a pair of slacks.


    This wasn¡¯t to say she still didn¡¯t look good. But I knew what she was hiding.


    You understand now, right? Teresa is a werewolf. And, despite what some people still think and occasionally fill the conservative airwaves with, it wasn¡¯t her fault. She just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And yeah, the guy who killed her is still in jail and will be for at least the next twenty years if we are all lucky. It¡¯s tough way to die, raped and stabbed to death, but she recovered well, all things considered. And then there were the reports of hate crimes targeting people like her on the news every day.


    And she aced the interview. I am lucky to have her on staff.


    So, when I got into the office that morning, I looked over at her desk, so what she was wearing, and we went through the monthly ritual.


    ¡°That time of the month again,¡± she almost growled.


    I¡¯m must have had my usual smirk on my face at that lament, because she offered me one of her patented glares. It didn¡¯t really fit my mood, more of an automatic reflex. .And then she told me off, pretty graphically.


    My mental reflexes seemed intact despite the apprehension that I could feel all the way to my bones.


    ¡°You know that¡¯s not anatomically possible,¡± I said despite myself.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    It¡¯s something we do. It cuts the tension and gets both of us through the day better, on days like these. But today it was for her benefit alone.


    ¡°When are you going down,¡± she asked back in sympathetic mode.


    Oh, bloody apartment 212? Or so that¡¯s how Arturo had described it while crossing himself several times when we met only a few hours ago.


    ¡°I¡¯m not,¡± I told her. ¡°You haven¡¯t been through a death like this in the building. I¡¯ve got to send out emails, texts, a press release. Emily¡¯s going to need to hear about this before she sees it splashed across the news. Vaclav too. I¡¯m going to have to compile a shitload of forms and waivers for him to look over.¡±


    Teresa stared at me. So? her eyes, the expression on her face told me.


    ¡°Fingers dropped by a few minutes back.¡± Teresa told me, looking confused at my desired plans. ¡°He told me he¡¯s expecting you. I thought¨C¡±


    ¡°You thought what,¡± I snapped, I couldn¡¯t help myself. ¡°That an apartment covered in the blood was something I need to see? That I had any reason to go down there? Oh sure, nothing says good morning like a bunch of cops pouring over the scene a suspicious death.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m¨C¡° she started a response, then stopped herself, clearly taken aback at the strength of my reaction. You know, I was too. That dream, it really wormed its way into my skull.


    ¡°He acted like you know all about it. He¡¯s a police detective,¡± she argued. "What was I supposed to do? Tell him to f-off?¡±


    Oh great, now I¡¯d made her pissed, for real. Just the way to start of a morning at the office, both of us on edge.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I told her, looked her in her angry and hurt brown eyes. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean that. You did okay, you didn¡¯t know. I¡¯ll handle it. All right.¡±


    She nodded, that sort of nod women give you when you will handle it.


    I turned the knob on my office door, looked back at her after I opened it.


    ¡°It¡¯s bad, isn¡¯t it?¡± she asked, I looked back to see her curling her upper lip, seeming kind of caught between dread and morbid curiosity. ¡°Arturo told me it was bad, in between all that Spanish.¡±


    ¡°Then you should believe him,¡± I told her. ¡°But if you don¡¯t, take a look outside and tell me what all those police vehicles can tell you. But shit happens, and we have to deal with it. Or at least, I have to.¡±


    She stared at me, as if expecting more. What more was there to say?


    ¡°We¡¯ll get through this,¡± I told her. ¡°It¡¯s happened before, it¡¯ll happen again.¡±


    But, as I was to find out, I was wrong. And in the worst way.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 3 – Impatient Aren’t You, Mr. Detective?

    I glanced over the messages that had sprouted up in my email, as well as those popping up on my phone. Nope, no one was going to give me a call, to say, ¡°hey, Mr. Smith I¡¯m really enjoying my apartment this month¡±, ¡°Its great all the elevators are working¡±, ¡°The toilets are working fine, the heat¡¯s great, my air conditioner didn¡¯t miss a beat this month¡±. In fact they tend to run around the exact opposite. And nobody praises their air conditioning in Toronto in November. At least not anyone with a heartbeat.


    This morning they ran to the worst, the petty and the repetitive. I forwarded the bulk of them to Teresa, worked on sending what I had to, to Emily. And I Let Vaclav know I was going to be seeing him real soon.


    The others I sent to Arturo. He was after all the superintendent, even if but he was kind of busy today. We were both going to be. Emily doesn¡¯t like it when complaints somehow reach all the way to her octogenarian eyes and ears, and she was even more unhappy when the building actually made the news, electronic or otherwise. Because, yeah, when it did, it was invariably bad.


    On the plus side, she doesn¡¯t do social networking.


    Unfortunately there was a reason why Arturo wasn¡¯t answering his phone or responding to my texts.


    My cell vibrated. Yeah, it was Fingers. Impatient this morning aren¡¯t you?


    Too bad. I had things to do. Things I could do to put off going down to the second floor as long as still humanly possible.


    Unfortunately, no such luck. Because just after ten Teresa knocked on my door, the expression on her face could best be described as aggravated.


    ¡°Is something wrong with your phone?¡± She wanted to know. ¡°Fingers said he¡¯s called you three times. You know he¡¯ll send a uniform to get you.¡±


    You¡¯d think he¡¯d at least let me finish my second coffee.


    ¡°Why don¡¯t you call him back,¡± I asked. ¡°And ask him to explain fully why he needs me down in 213 so damn urgently. It¡¯s not like anyone¡¯s going anywhere and I would just get in the way.¡±


    ¡°Maybe it¡¯s about the news van,¡± she told me, nodding at the window that looked out over the front of the building. ¡°Somebody sure got the scoop fast.¡±


    Did someone sneak in and take some selfies? I checked online, but it didn¡¯t seem so. Thank heavens for small mercies.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    I pointed at the window. She nodded. I got up from the desk and crossed the office, looked out, and down. It was pretty much as I¡¯d seen it earlier, although there were more people milling about. It looked like the media guys were prepping for a live broadcast and bloggers were maybe hoping for something juicy. As I watched, another van turned around the corner, from one of the national networks. Must have been a slow news cycle. As far as I could tell it wasn¡¯t even confirmed it was more than just a freakish suicide.


    I turned to look back at her.


    ¡°Domestic disturbance?¡± I asked hoping-against-hope. ¡°The Willingham¡¯s in 608 again. That would explain the CSI Van crammed in with the rest.


    She returned a serious look, looked like she wanted to cross her arms over her chest, but decided not to.


    ¡°I can only imagine how Mrs. Fennity is reacting,¡± she told me. I looked over her face, her expression was still serious. ¡°That¡¯s probably another apartment that¡¯s going to sit empty for a year. How many is that now?¡±


    ¡°Four, but maybe just maybe she¡¯ll understand that sometimes you can¡¯t manage full occupancy even in Toronto.¡±


    ¡°I sure hope it¡¯s not something you missed in the application?¡± she tried in a sympathetic if somewhat worried tone. ¡°That could get you in trouble, couldn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember anything odd about the guy,¡± I replied. ¡°But if you¡¯re still so interested, why don¡¯t you go down there instead of me. I¡¯d see that as a favor.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t think so,¡± she told me quickly. ¡°I think I¡¯ll stick to Twitter.¡±


    ¡°You do that,¡± I told her. ¡°And while you¡¯re watching their feed on your phone, why don¡¯t you print out the filed I sent to you. We do have work, you know.¡±


    ¡°Yes sir,¡± she replied sarcastically.


    She said it in a way that meant she was annoyed, offered that particular smile she did when she was supposed to accept being treated as a piece of furniture, showed off her two bright rows of white teeth. Her incisors were at least a half inch longer than they¡¯d been yesterday.  Here eyebrows had gotten a bit bushier as well.


    ¡°Oh, and apparently-,¡± she added, not leaving the doorway, put pausing in mid-sentence. ¡°-Detective Fingers, has requested that you to come down to apartment Two Thirteen at your earliest convenience. He says are some questions he needs to ask you, and he wants to show you something. He told me he wants you down there before Ten.¡±


    She looked at her smartwatch.


    ¡°That¡¯s now, in case you didn¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°He didn¡¯t suggest I call Vaclav?¡±


    She rolled her eyes.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re a suspect,¡± she told me. ¡°Apparently they¡¯ve been down there since Arturo called 911 last night. If they haven¡¯t come up here with handcuffs, I think your safe.¡±


    I sighed. I¡¯d fought it as long as I could.


    ¡°I¡¯ll leave it up to you to handle the live or mostly live tenants.¡±


    Teresa waved at me, before I left. And I turned back.


    ¡°Oh and boss, can I book off work early today,¡± she asked smiling sweetly, thickening eyebrows raised.


    ¡°Anything I should know?¡± I asked her trying to maintain some level of humor.


    ¡°Do you want to know?¡± she told me.


    I shook my head, and I pulled open the door that had only closed a few moments behind me, and said without looking back, ¡°No. No, I don¡¯t¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 4 – Happy Thoughts

    Needless to say, I was still in no hurry to go down to apartment Two Thirteen. My reasons were few, but they were important. And meaningful.


    You see, after a couple cups of coffee I was beginning to fully recall what I¡¯d seen after the 2 AM wake-up call from Arturo. And wake-up call like you wouldn¡¯t believe. Not so much the apartment, but him specifically.


    Yeah, I¡¯d come down then after he¡¯d called me and met him in the mezzanine. When the police show up in the middle of the night to check out a disturbance, I want to be informed. I like to think I can stay on top of my job. But after the brief hint I¡¯d gotten of what was covering the walls of the junior two bedroom, and how it had shaken my chubby Colombian-Canadian superintendent, I was happy to stay away, and not to mention empty the last three ounces of a bottle of single malt to make sure I got some sleep and didn¡¯t dream.


    We both know how that worked out.


    So when I stood in front of the elevator with my finger, wavering between the up button and the down button, I was filled with trepidation. You can understand my personal preference, was to head back up to my penthouse for another glass of Glenn.. well any of them, not down.


    However, my sense of responsibility was not completely overwhelmed by dread and I successfully down button. I had dreamed of the long past, not the dread present. My subconscious could have been just sympathizing.


    Now you might ask, who is this Detective Fingers. Well, his full name is actually Speaks With Fingers. For some reason he prefers the English translation to how his actual Potawaseet name sounds. I think he told me once about how badly we pronounce it or something. Too bad, I always thought his name sounded rather pretty in its native tongue. And yes, we know each other, have been friends of a sort for a few years. I¡¯ve even helped him out a couple times. I¡¯ll explain about that later on.


    I was hoping, he wanted me to come down for official reasons, maybe because I¡¯d actually been in the apartment since I¡¯d rented it, not to mention I¡¯d interviewed the former tenant. God, I hope it was just that.


    This one, Billingsly I think his name was, Mark Billingsly, unfortunately didn¡¯t give the standard sort of notice at all that he supposed to.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    And the specific reason why, I would know in a few minutes. For the moment, as the elevator hummed it¡¯s way down to the second floor, I just had some vague nasty impressions.


    Sadly, It¡¯s not the first time an somewhat shocking death has happened here at 23 Pangbourne, although I¡¯ll be quick to say it isn¡¯t a common occurrence. And hadn¡¯t happened since Emily had the gargoyle¡¯s installed. Although one of these days, I expect those ten pound dropping off there¡¯s is going to crush someone¡¯s skull, and from the number of near misses I¡¯ve ¡®enjoyed¡¯ that person could be me.


    I thought again over the 2AM wakeup call on the elevator down. I¡¯d gotten a call from Arturo, the building superintendent I mentioned, because the tenants in 211 said they heard something strange, going on next door, well actually they called 911 first, and then when the police got there , since I was dead to the world, metaphorically, they got Arturo up to go up and open the door. On the third call from him, so he told me, I finally answered the phone, pulled myself out of bed and went down myself, to my regret, I might add.


    Because unfortunately, the tenant wasn¡¯t answering the door, and these police officers, had a reasonable amount of respect, for private property. That was nice of them.


    I had had at least good reason to be totally zonked. An evening with my girlfriend Toni. Now my mother, always wanted me, to find a nice Catholic girl, settle down with. Unfortunately my tendency was for not so nice girl¡¯s, catholic or otherwise. So when my mother met Toni, she was more or less overjoyed. And hadn¡¯t gotten the chance to really know how much my girlfriend was lapsed. A crash just six weeks after that dinner on the 400 put her in the hospital coma where she spent the last eight months of her life.


    I suppose the only good thing about that was my mother didn¡¯t turn into the kind of thing you see shuffling along Queen West or flipping burgers at a McWillies.


    Although Mary Antonia , sweet, adorable, and a fan of thrash metal, though she was, was having her own problems and current preoccupations. Her grandfather was in the hospital, and didn¡¯t have much hope for recovery from a third heart attack. But that might not ultimately keep him down.


    Why I had all these things in my mind as a dropped down a dozen floors, I don¡¯t know? Death always upsets my well-ordered mind. Maybe I just wanted to prepare myself. Maybe I just wanted to keep in mind that it¡¯s not so strange and terrifying and often not even the end these days.


    And while I hadn¡¯t considered the consequences and probabilities, her family was going nuts about her grandfather¡¯s impending passing So she needed a night of release, you can read that as sex, and I was more than happy to provide what she needed this time around.


    I decided it was best I hadn¡¯t troubled Toni with that wake up call. She didn¡¯t need to hear about it, and need her sleep given the shifts they¡¯ve been making her take.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 5 – A Reassuring, Hopeful Lie

    I know what you¡¯re thinking. It the 21<sup>st</sup> century, everyone is used to how death goes these days. There is a massive industry built up around ensuring it happens naturally, traditionally, and full of hope for those who weren¡¯t being cremated that they¡¯d stay dead. Not everyone, but some people are still traditionalists, Toni¡¯s folks in particular.


    In the dinner conversation, went from a talk of her next occasion, to help make sure, they didn¡¯t end up like her dad. You see her dad died a few years ago, but he didn¡¯t stay dead. Like many people his age, he ended up undead. Sorry, ¡®re-animated¡¯ A zombie, specifically. He¡¯s being moved to a home upstate. Toni, though, Especially, didn¡¯t want to go into that.


    So I was torn, commiserating with my girlfriend, over her excruciating decision to help the grandfather in making sure, that when he died he stayed dead. She had to talk at least four phone calls over dinner, not to mention a series of texts, the content of which could be read on her face each and every time.


    By the time we got back to my place she wanted to forget about it all.


    I wish I could. The elevator doors opened. Standing in hallway, the mezzanine overlooking the lobby, was a uniformed cop, a young crew cut blond man and standing beside him the more swarthy and portly and mustached Arturo.


    ¡°Morning constable,¡± I told the officer, looked over at my super. He looked distinctly unhappy, fingers at his sides clenching and unclenching..


    ¡°You OK?¡± I tried.


    He shook his head.


    ¡°Mr. Smith-¡± he started. Arturo is a very polite man. ¡°What happened in that apartment is very wrong. I only opened the door because the police were worried, I wish I hadn¡¯t. I am sorry, but I think it is going to take much work to make it ready for the next tenant.¡±


    ¡°I understand,¡± I told him, looked over at the cop who was waiting patiently.


    ¡°Do you need him for anything else.¡±Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The cop shook his head. Arturo was muttering under his breath. I couldn¡¯t make out much of what he was saying, but it sounded Spanish, and it sounded distinctly religious.


    ¡°We were just waiting for you, sir,¡± the officer offered neutrally. ¡°Mr. Vasquez has very helpful.¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°He always is,¡± I told him, turned back to Arturo. ¡°Whatever you saw, we can deal with later after the police go through what they have to do, huh?¡±


    I nodded, he replied in kind, if slowly..


    I moved over to him, put my hand around his shoulder.


    ¡°What you need to do,¡± I told him. ¡°Is go back to your apartment, and hug your wife and daughters. Don¡¯t worry about a thing. It¡¯ll all be fine.¡±


    Sure, I didn¡¯t believe that for a minute, but, you see when I hear people talk and they start using phrases like mother of God, Jesus protect us, those sort of things, I can¡¯t help but want to lie.


    So you can understand my trepidation, on what I was about to experience based on Arturo¡¯s horror of what he saw in apartment 213. Gruesome scenes haven¡¯t been my thing for a long time.


    I turned to look over the halls half wall down at the two police talking to a reporter and a cameraman down in the lobby. Turned to the blonde cop.


    ¡°Was it you guys who let them in.¡±


    The cop looked down at his fellow officers, shook his head.


    ¡°Want us to get them out of here.¡±


    I nodded.


    ¡°Just keep them out of the building,¡± I told the constable. ¡°I don¡¯t want them bothering the other tenants with this crap. Please. I don¡¯t think we need any selfies today.¡±


    He called down to the uniformed cops in the lobby. Followed up with a gesture.


    The reporter and the camera man looked up, spotting me on the mezzanine.


    ¡°Mr. Smith,¡± the reporter called up. I vaguely recognized her. Was she the one that always went over the top? ¡°Do you have a comment? Does this have anything to do with the Grappo killing?¡±


    God, more than hundred murders a year in this city, and she brings that single one here in the last five years.


    ¡°No comment.¡± I called down. ¡°Why don¡¯t you go cover a new bakery opening or something. People love muffins. Bagels too. Danishes even.¡±


    I turned to the cop, deciding no more mister nice guy.


    ¡°Get them out of here and keep them out.¡±


    At least the conversation put my mind in gear to get what I had to do.


    Because I like my job, and I like my boss, and I wanted to keep my job, I smiled as Arturo finally left, looking back worriedly at least once, and graciously allowed the policeman to follow me as I headed towards the apartment. And then turning left, and walk towards the group of men wearing clear plastic over their clothes, who were moving some bulky equipment, around the end of the hallway by the exit door.


    And I walked towards them, with a growing sense of dread, making every step I took, even harder and heavier, than the one before. Passed 207, then 209, 211. And finally, ahead of me loomed 213.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 6 – You spell your name differently?

    I slowed my pace, almost to a standstill.


    The newly vacated apartment. I¡¯ll admit it was as much my desired to turn around as it was to get a better feel of what I was approaching. I paused where another couple of officers in yellow coats were looking over their crime scene investigation equipment. Not really too different from the kind you see on TV surprisingly enough. But exactly what everything was there for, I couldn¡¯t tell, I don¡¯t watch those shows that much. I was more interested in how the cops themselves were dealing.


    Now it helps to judge a situation, based on the fact of what kind of expressions, the people have on their faces. You can tell various things, like you they enjoy their work, have they had a bad day, do they think they might want to rob you, or do they think they might want to have sex with you.


    Now the closest that these gentlemen had to those expressions on their faces, was that they were having a bad day of the inexplicable kind. You know when whole sides of peopled faces turn to expressions the other side ignores. Where people speak in hushed tones, or monosyllables or indecipherable shop talk where one person disagrees, but doesn¡¯t offer a rebuttal. None of this made me feel any better.


    But I still went up to the door, went back-to-the-wall to avoid a couple of men in hazmat suits, were pushing a squeaking gurney carrying a demonstrably man-sized bag. At least the shape in the body bag seemed intact. I took a breath, then approached the police officer standing there. He was almost a head taller than me, broader, older with a thick gut and a double chin his badge denoted him 6623. I¡¯m sure I¡¯d seen him before at 37 Division.


    In fact, I think I remember him from the time I helped Fingers find his niece Cindy. What was that now,? I wondered. A couple years. The girl had escaped the life of the reserve up north to the back alleys of the big city, and he was in desperate straits to find her. I still shake my head when I think about that. But hell, Fingers was my friend, even if he has a freaking crazy grandfather.


    And I don¡¯t have a whole lot of people that I can honestly tell anyone that they are friends. I¡¯ve tried to keep a low profile these past dozen years or so.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    That caused me to twist my mouth a little at the irony. Can¡¯t even get that right these days.


    I offered a smile, which the uniformed cop at the door did not return. I looked back at the officer that had brought me, then back at the door guard.


    ¡°Hello officer,¡± I tried in a moderate to light toned voice. ¡°My name is Mr. Smith, I am the building manager. Detective Fingers wanted to see me.¡±


    The men looked at me, in sort of the same way you might like in the dirty countertop, thinking, what, do I clean that clean now, or do I wait till later.


    ¡°Just a moment,¡± he told me and consulted his tablet. He brushed it for a while, then looked up at me.


    ¡°First name?¡±


    ¡°John.¡±


    ¡°Okay,¡± he replied and started tapping it¡¯s glowing surface.


    ¡°You don¡¯t need me to spell that for you,¡± I wanted to know, expecting the usual banter about my name which to most people wouldn¡¯t make the least bit of sense..


    He looked back up at me as though I¡¯d asked a stupid question and was deserving of a stupid answer..


    ¡°You spell your name differently from every other John Smith in the world?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± I started. I started having sinking feeling in my stomach. Another omen, and a bad one. It offered a strong hint of what I was going to find beyond the apartment door, but one I really didn¡¯t want to imagine. ¡°But¨C never mind.¡±


    He nodded, finished his entry, turned to the door, and shouted, ¡°Detective, the guy you wanted is here.¡±


    ¡°Who?¡± I heard the should from within.


    ¡°The building manager. John Smith.¡±


    There was a familiar sounding voice of shouted assent, from the apartment ahead. Yes, Detective Speaks With fingers. Although we generally socialized on a less professional level. This has been and will stay, even after what I was about to see, a decent apartment building, and in a good part of town to boot. The police don¡¯t show up very often here, certainly not like this.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah,¡± the voice called out in reply. ¡°Send him in. I¡¯m in the master bedroom.¡±


    The big officer looked past me for a moment at my chaperone, then he waved me in.


    ¡°Detective is in the master bedroom,¡± he told me.


    I nodded.


    ¡°Yeah, I heard that.¡± I told him. I didn¡¯t move. It seemed that my feet didn¡¯t really want to.


    I looked up at him and sort of motioned with my head, including a questioning expression, trying to get a response of what I could expect through the door.


    No such luck. Fine. How bad could it really be? I was about to find out.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 7 – A Good Thing? No

    The cop gave me a last once-over, then with a stony expression, shook his head three times. I sighed, He waved me in again, this time with a little more intended force.


    My feet were cooperating this time, it was the rest of me that resented the need to go into the place.


    I glanced back at the big cop, and then turned to the apartment door which was open a crack, enough for a line of light to delineate the threshold I was about to cross. I reached out reluctantly, felt the cold smooth off white surface on my fingertips added some pressure, and slowly pushed the door open and stepped through.


    Now one thing about, the apartments that we rent here. Generally if we¡¯ve had a tenants who¡¯ve occupied an apartment for a number of years, we¡¯ll send in contractors to give the place a look, provide a quote for repainting, wall plastering, new appliances, you know the drill..


    My mind started working on the number of figures redoing 213 would entail.. At least five, I thought, at least. Shit, I thought. It was going to be a lot more than even the extra we could pocket from Billingsly¡¯s security deposit.  Damn me.


    At least if we wanted to do more than wash down the appliances put a couple coats on the wall and replace the carpet.


    Emily was definitely going to chew me out.


    Now in the case of this particular apartment, before the current tenant moved in earlier in the year. May. The junior two bedroom apartment¡¯s previous tenant had been there for a good seven years, from before I even was hired. She had happily have found love on the Internet and had moved off to somewhere west, Seattle I think. And again not to disparage her but it¡¯d been a good seven years since the apartments have had professional work cleaning it up.


    So Arturo went over the place, had A&G come in. They repainted the walls, the nice HL white we have done to all our apartments, they replaced the stove and the fridge, laid down new carpets, changed a few of the fixtures, the general things you do if it matters. The place looked right, wiped, and clean. Virginal, you might say.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    And you figure, six months, how much could change?


    When I stepped over the threshold and looked into the apartments I was stopped dead cold. I really couldn¡¯t move another step.


    The place, the walls, ceiling wasn¡¯t dominated by eggshell white anymore. There was a new layer coating the place, it covered the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and it covered the furniture as well.


    Red. Blood Red, everywhere, floor, walls, ceiling, furniture, appliances.  A lot of work was put in here.


    I stopped and shut my eyes, but that wasn¡¯t much help. The light that managed to burn through my lids was red tinged. I took in a breath, twelve of one, half a dozen of the other.


    But, God, it wasn¡¯t a pretty sight what laid in front of me. Too much I involuntarily recognized. The broken patterns of the wall, ceiling and floor scrawling were bloody, fucking clear.


    And it wasn¡¯t a flat red block red the kind of raid you paint the whole wall with so that it¡¯s monochromatic. This wasn¡¯t any kind of acrylic overcoat that you roll or spray on. It all looked like it was brushed on, painted in a language that is usually kept in thick leather bound books that are the one¡¯s rumored to be bound in human skin. And not just characters or pictographs. There were circles, and pentagrams, and all the sorts of things that you¡¯re someone like me that you¡¯re really not eager to see painted in red in the building that you not only manage, but that you live in.


    By now you might have guessed that I know something of the occult. And I hope that you understand that isn¡¯t at all a good thing. A necessary thing, yes, a good thing, no. A lot of people do these days, or claim to, even if practice of it is unpredictable and often tragic, fatally tragic, I might add. But when your world is filled with zombies and werewolves and vampires and a whole variety of the walking dead that used to be called ¡®monsters under the bed¡¯ back before the 1980s rolled around, it¡¯s only natural that you¡¯d find this sort of crap in all sorts of places.


    Even splattered all over a junior two bedroom apartment.


    All the people who use this sort of thing have their reasons. Some for power, some for favors, some for sex. For the last decade and more, the most I¡¯ve used it is to stay quiet, stay hidden, stay as non-descript as I possibly could.


    I have my reasons. And things had worked pretty well until now.


    I felt a solid pressure from behind, turned back to the blonde constable who¡¯d offered the persuasive hand.


    ¡°All right, ¡° I told him. ¡°All right.¡±


    Then I stepped forwards. Into the hell that this tenant had created all around me, and very likely, I worried, as an invitation.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 8 – Astonishment, I Can Fake

    My footsteps crackled with each one I took. I looked down.


    Oh yes, they¡¯d laid down clear plastic over the floor, I assumed they¡¯d already taken plenty of shots of this place earlier in the morning to reach a point where they¡¯d invited civilian, regardless of whether or not he was the manager of the building into the place. Damn, Billingsly had done the tiles as well.


    Certainly, if there was anything dangerous about it, that would have been discovered a few hours before and removed.


    But I stepped gingerly, nonetheless.


    Fingers, as it turned out was not in the master bedroom anymore, he¡¯d moved on into the living room, his people around filling up the space more than expected. Maybe I took too long actually entering the apartment. While, I grant you, this was a fairly small apartment for 23 Pangbourne, certainly not comparable to the three-bedroom suites we have on higher floors, but it still was a pre-nineteen sixties layout, so the rooms were fairly large compared to the more modern closet spaces that are more common these days, certainly enough to accommodate what looked like half a division¡¯s worth of police officers. It should have still felt spacious, with only a few remaining crime scene people, a tall and broad shouldered detective, and very disturbed building manager.


    I could feel the walls closing in around me. Man, I hadn¡¯t felt this kind of claustrophobia in years. I decided to focus on Fingers. He wasn¡¯t part of this, and he was in motion., turning to talk to his officers, waving his hands with authority Life, clearly, not death. I felt a little better.


    Symbols for of Basilic magic surrounded me. Spells of concealing, hiding, and removing charms circled all of us. But they were cracked, twisted, broken. And they all held a particular magic number. One that I¡¯ve tried to avoid for, shit.


    Was it thirteen years now? I think it was. I knew it was. And the anniversary was coming up. Thirteen days past All Hallows Eve. Oh God.


    Fingers himself was discussing matters with a Crime Scene officer and a woman in a lab coat. And I could hear him speaking pretty distinctly even from entering the room.


    There was a trick I used to play on my friends, mimicking their voices, best with Fingers because to be perfectly fair use got a pretty distinctive voice, at least in this day and age. Man it annoyed him.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    I swear though, he¡¯s got a voice that¡¯s somewhere between Gregory Peck and Gary Cooper. Which in most circumstances and make his discussing of a police case fairly entertaining. I used to get such a kick out of going over mock police reports at the bar to our other friends.  As the lead detective at a crime scene, though, Detective Speaks-With-Fingers cut an imposing figure.  For one thing, compared to my rather average 5''10, the man seems as tall as a tree, looming over you in his blue police coat like a judge, jury and executioner, at least that''s how I imagined he did with perps and toyed with the idea of playing it that way myself, in a way that might distract me, in a possibly entertaining way from the horror surrounding us.


    I didn¡¯t expect I was going to be entertained for long, though. I¡¯d seen quite enough, and my stomach had gone from a sinking feeling to a definitely queasy one. It was another way to cope with long remembered terror. I think, If you have enough of these sorts of mechanisms, you can get through just about anything.


    ¡°Hey Johnny,¡± he said glancing in my direction, noticing me, ¡°Glad you could finally make it all the way down from your ivory tower.¡±


    He couldn¡¯t have really been looking at me. Or he¡¯d have seen my face, which must have really been white as a sheet. Or maybe not. Maybe I was still holding it together.


    ¡°I really didn¡¯t want to,¡± I told him. ¡°And now I know why.¡±


    He gave me a wry grin, then held up his hand, and said just a moment. And then he finished up with what he was saying to the other two. And I stood in the room a surrounded by fucked up occult symbols all around me that looked more and more like they had been drawn in real blood.


    There was a certain smell¡­


    It made me think that I really shouldn¡¯t have come in to work today, eleven floors on the elevator or not, or even had booked the day for a trip to Florida. Sure, I don¡¯t like Florida, not at all, but it would have been better than this.


    Finally, Fingers finished with his officers, turned to me, and tried a smile. I raise my eyebrows. I¡¯d had enough time, I guess, to put up a front. You know, casual disinterest coupled with disgust. Maybe even some of that misplaced irritation that tends to put an end to relationships.


    ¡°Well, I figured that a few hours of sleep would get you ready to see this, eh? That and a couple of cups of coffee.¡±


    ¡°You thought, did you?¡± I replied. ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s enough sleep or coffee, even Irish coffee in the world to prepare anyone for a mess like this.¡±


    Certainly not a full breakfast I thought to myself. Was I going to lose it? I hoped not.


    He glanced around at the surrounding symbology.


    ¡°Quite a piece of work,¡± he offered. ¡°See anything you recognize.¡±


    I gave him a hard glare of the best look of astonishment I could fake..


    Oh, I saw a lot of things I recognized, nothing I wanted to see, nothing I wanted to see ever again, and nothing I wanted to let anyone know at all that I recognized.


    ¡°What the hell are you talking about?¡± I protested instead.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 9 – Thirteen Years, Almost

    Let¡¯s stop here for a moment, I need a little breather an it¡¯s not like an apartment filled with an elaborately spelled out occult symbology, hell, practically a full unraveling codec, surrounding me.


    There are some questions I¡¯m sure you could ask right now. Like how I know so much about occult symbols, and about why I tend to avoid sharing that kind of education, that kind of information, and sharing that I know much more about occult symbols to associates, friends, people on the street, police officers and the like.


    All right.


    Now for number one, I am a child of the age. What''s can I say. We¡¯re exposed to all this from an early age, on television, on the radio, on the Internet. Even at school, although mostly as warnings about what not to touch, what not to draw what not to say.


    Well, it was a Catholic school after all..


    How did it go?


    This was the world after the war, this is everything they came out of it, some early, most later, the monsters came out from under our beds the insides of our closets the Black Lagoon, Transylvania, Mt. Pleasant Cemetery. And if you know little something you are ignorant and happy but if you know too much things are definitely not so good for you.


    And to a kid, all these things hold a fascination that adults either avoid or exploit. It doesn¡¯t matter that the grand mass of esoteric knowledge and lore is unreliable, too put it kindly, that so called real magic doesn¡¯t ever work the same way twice, that it completely defies the principles of science and empirical study..


    You want something, someone says this is how you can get it. You try it. See exactly how bad things can go, because there are whispers that say maybe you can get away with it.


    So yeah I have experienced and knowledge of always hanging around and I had a bit of an idea about what was scrawled all over the walls of his apartment.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I tried something a long time ago. It didn¡¯t work the way me and a dozen college associates planned. And, terrified of the consequences, I tried a whole lot of things to make the results go away. Some of them worked, some didn¡¯t. Some of them worked in ways that were unpredictable, to say the least. Such as the fact that no one can spell my name, even if it was the simplest one in the book, a concealment.


    Oh, sorry. That one worked to perfection. Had worked to perfection, anyway. I was the only John Smith in the world people asked, ¡°how do you spell that?¡±


    Go figure.


    It¡¯s not as though I was really committed to bringing the devil into the world. Like any kid in high school who wasn¡¯t obsessed over pleasing my parents or getting into the most prestigious college or killing at the sport of your choice I was interested in fame and money and girls.


    And one in particular.


    Just so you know, I did score.


    And yeah, just so you know, things went really bad after that, 80s horror film bad. Remember that dream I described to you?


    I remembered very clearly the look on her face as things went, as far as I could remember, went to hell and hellfire.


    I remembered I needed to renew some of the protections I placed on my apartment that had been there the longest.


    After those events my subconscious reminded me this morning, I became what I wanted, at least popular anyways. Too popular. One of my new hot girlfriends got jealous and stabbed me. Yeah popular as hell, I was.


    And unfortunately a few coats of paint, to hell with bats, new drywall, new flooring, new kitchen, and God knows probably a new bedroom in the new bathroom as well, was not going to erase the things I saw in the symbology sprayed and scrawled all around me..


    This was one hell of a memory jogger. And I couldn¡¯t help but take it in. And understand what it all meant.


    They were referring to someone 13th. The number 13 was not a particularly happy number for me. Not a particularly safe number. Not a number I wanted to be associated with.


    Not at all. Not ever again.


    So yeah, I didn''t say anything about any of that to Fingers, I didn''t say anything to anybody else within shouting distance. I figured, it shouldn''t have anything to do with me, this just had to do with some crazy lunatic, who could interview well, but miss the full moon, by a good sixty hours.


    And hopefully this was a last I needed to see or know about anything that happened in apartment 213.


    But you can, of course guess that what I wanted didn¡¯t really figure in the equation. What was going to happen had been set in motion years ago, I could feel it.


    So maybe I had two weeks left, until whatever happened... happened.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 10 – Please Don’t Ask Me To Stay

    But did I answer Fingers questions. I did, honest. Evading all the while.


    Sort of like this?


    ¡°Someone''s been copying the graffiti on Dundas West?¡± I suggested. Unfortunately it wasn''t far of the mark..


    He looked at me, twisted his lips.


    ¡°Thought you¡¯d be like that. Captain is sending in an expert,¡± he told me. ¡°The man asked me to call in whoever interviewed the man. What can you tell me about the tenant, Billingsly wasn¡¯t it? West end artistic type?¡±


    Apparently Fingers wasn¡¯t so impressed by this kind of occult. Maybe dream catchers and peace pipes were more his style.


    It had been six months, I didn''t remember the man that well. I offered what I remembered.


    The guy had been quiet, dressed neat, his references worked out fine, yet a job downtown working for some investment firm. Preston and Galloway. Maybe he had green eyes?


    I couldn¡¯t even remember his name before looking it up again on the computer. Come on, there are twenty five floors here and twenty apartments a floor. You do the math. I either remember the ones who cause trouble, rusty wheels or the good looking woman tenants. I am a male and breathing human being after all.


    I was aware that Fingers was watching me closely as I replied. I shrugged, there wasn''t a whole lot else I actually knew for sure. Not offhand. I hadn''t really made an effort, to look things up.


    ¡°Every time an apartment opens up we get a couple hundred applicants,¡± I told him. ¡°This part of town is in demand you know. Half of them look the same. Twenty something hipsters looking to hang around the west end and spend Friday and Saturday night trolling the party district.


    It wasn''t like I''d been asked yet.


    ¡°I¡¯ll get Teresa to give you all the paperwork.,¡± I told him. ¡°But really, beyond five years of gainful employment and a less than memorable interview, I can¡¯t really tell you much about him. Didn¡¯t seem to be this kind of an artist, though. He had a job in financial services I think.¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    He nodded, and replied that will be helpful, but I could tell there was a glint in his eye. Ever since he invited his ancient grandfather up to my place he¡¯d been a little suspicious of me.


    ¡°Any complaints made by the neighbors before,¡± he asked


    I shook my head, the guy¡¯d pretty quiet as expected. Didn¡¯t even complain when one of the elevators was down a month for repairs.


    The two of us fell into a bit of silence, and I looked around listening to comments by the other police workers.


    ¡°This is quite a bit,¡± I commented. ¡°Isn¡¯t it.¡±


    ¡°Blood, floor to ceiling,¡± he nodded, ¡°and in every room.¡±


    ¡°Every room?¡± I asked some trepidation. ¡°That seems like a lot.¡±


    He nodded again.


    ¡°looks to be that way told me, You want to see the pictures of the body.¡±


    I glared at Fingers aghast.


    ¡°No, no, no,¡± I told him to make things clear. ¡°What the hell are you thinking.¡±


    He grinned down at me.


    ¡°Jesus, Johnny,¡± he told me. ¡°Relax. I was just kidding. It¡¯s not like nobody ever died in this building before.¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t like it then, either.¡± I replied. ¡°Yeah Fingers, we can chat about your cases in the comfort of the pub while they don¡¯t happen a few floors from where I live. This is a way too close to home.¡±


    ¡°Sorry.¡± He told me patted me on the back. ¡°We¡¯ll be through here soon.¡±


    He might be. I¡¯d have to handle the renovation. Well, Arturo would have to handle that. And the whole thing would probably take weeks.


    ¡°We''re going to want, if you don''t mind,¡± he started, ¡°copies of all the tapes from the lobby and the elevators from the last day or so.¡±


    I nodded, we''d been through the routine before, three years back. That actually, was the murderer a couple years ago where I met him.


    ¡°You think someone else was involved. That this was murder? You know we have gargoyles up top.¡±


    ¡°Did I say it did? There¡¯s no sign of forced entry,¡± Fingers noted. ¡°And the wounds appeared self-inflicted. No sign of struggle either, but still, I look at this and you think, could anyone have done this all this on his own?¡±


    I studious avoided looking at ¡®all this.¡¯


    ¡°Maybe he just snapped,¡± I offered. ¡°He did on Bay St.¡±


    Maybe.


    But I couldn''t help shake the feeling that fate was metaphysically pointing is very pointy finger at me.


    And by this point, even after just a couple minutes, I was really starting to feel caged. I wanted to get it out of the room, as soon as I could.


    ¡°Sure,¡± I told him. ¡°I¡¯ll get a copy made and put on a flash drive.¡±


    ¡°Great,¡± he told me, ¡°I¡¯ll send up a uniform to grab it in an hour or so.¡±


    ¡°Does that mean I can I go now,¡± I asked.


    He gave me a look of appraisal.


    ¡°Just hang on another couple minutes, he told me. ¡°At least until the expert we¡¯re getting shows. What do you say? Then you can go back the quiet life you say you lead.¡±


    I had the distinct feeling Fingers was enjoying my extreme discomfort.


    No, I wanted to reply, but I didn''t. I stayed. I actually stayed.


    I really shouldn¡¯t have.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 11 – This Seems Like A Lot Of Blood For Just One Person

    I looked around for some place to wait out the arrival Finger¡¯s mystery expert, but they didn''t seem to be any room that wasn''t painted red floor to ceiling, and this apartment didn¡¯t have a balcony.


    So I moved over to the kitchen counter. Leaning against the melamine, and watch the proceedings, thought about the forms I¡¯d be filling out.


    The one thing that caught my attention was that there was an awful lot of blood spread all over the apartment. I wondered if the police had thought about the volume as was well.


    So, suddenly curious, I decided to take a bit of a look around.


    If there was as much in the bathroom in the bedroom and in the closets and wherever the manner the spray can attach to his arteries could throw enough blood and looked like more than someone had in his body.


    So I thought, what the hell, it''s probably already been searched. Let''s take a look in the fridge. So I went around the column, moved over to the refrigerator.


    The fridge was also caked in its fair share of blood. I tried to spot a portion on the handle that wasn''t spattered.


    Tried to avoid messing up the crime scene, if it turned out to be one, I took a pen out of my pocket wedged between the handle and the surface, and popped it open.


    I was relieved to see that it was empty, and there was no sign of any blood inside. Then I looked up the freezer.


    There was a layer of frost over the contents, signs that there had been thing stacked in there. But I didn''t see any blood either.


    I decided to ask Fingers about my idea, and looked around. One of the crime scene guys told me he¡¯d gone to the second bedroom, where there were still some pictures being taken.


    ¡°You guys checked the fridge didn''t you.¡± I asked.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    He turned back to me, nodded.


    ¡°Yet he said the crime scene guys took everything first thing in the morning before I got here.


    ¡°It looks like the freezer was full of something.¡± I told him. ¡°They find anything in there.¡±


    He shrugged, ¡°I''ll check with them. Why do you ask?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I told him. ¡°This all seems an awful lot of blood for just one person.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re professional opinion?¡±


    I had seen what the blood of nearly a dozen people blood looked like splattered about, once, a long time ago.  But that had been strictly amateur, I had to admit.


    ¡°I guess it does look like more than just Billingsly could have done this.¡± I was deciding to be helpful. ¡°In fact, you probably might want to get the blood from different parts of the place tested.¡±


    Yeah, I know, I couldn¡¯t believe what was coming out of my mouth.


    But it had to have been more than one, from what I saw. It always was supposed to take more than one. Three maybe, seven, even thirteen once in a blue moon.


    I was wondering how careful Billingsly had actually been. Garbage pickup was today. But not for a few hours.


    The man who killed the Grappos had send their parts down the chute.


    I mentioned that to Fingers, said his guys had better check it out.


    He smiled.


    ¡°I knew bringing you down would be helpful.¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± I replied. ¡°Just don¡¯t tell anyone else, please.¡±


    ¡°Whatever you say.¡±


    He nodded then went back to talking with the police photographer.


    I went back to the kitchen, leaned against the counter again, berated myself.


    I should have told him this was none of my business and spent the day handling calls like I was paid to. Or, I should have said nothing. Instead I practically shouted I knew what this was about.


    And did I. Probably.


    While I stared at the activity still going on around me, I wondered, was this it really ? Was it time to get the hell out? I¡¯d thought about it three years ago, even though that killing turned out to be over a stupid coffee table.


    I¡¯d thought about it when Finger¡¯s had brought his crazy grandfather over and the old man went totally gaga over my house of cards.


    I¡¯d even thought about it when my boss Peter had that heart attack and Emily offered me the old man¡¯s job.


    ¡°You¡¯ve been here five years,¡± she¡¯d told me. ¡°You were Peter¡¯s assistant. You know the job, know the building, as well as anyone can. You don¡¯t need to go anywhere.¡±


    Damn if I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to set down roots. Think I had put everything behind me.


    I glanced back at the counter, and the blood that had been spread over it, followed the streaks. At the edges, the red spilled over between the cracks.


    Shit, I thought. It all was going to need to be ripped out, totally replaced. Damned Billingsly¡¯s bloody redecorating was just costing more and more.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 12 – British Accent, Flailing Arms, TV Celebrity Occultist

    As I was considering what the totals were going to reach, I heard a raised voice coming from out outside the apartment. I shook my head for a moment. The voice was a familiar one, although I couldn¡¯t immediately place it. I walked around the counter, that break between the kitchen and living room, and spied a glance back out to the door and saw police officer 6630 talking to a tall thin silver haired man in a charcoal grey trench coat whose familiar face and voice made me swear out loud.


    ¡°Look, do I have to wait out here while you go over every little detail,¡± Dr. Dave MacIntyre, former cable celebrity and all round expert on everything occult sounded just a little irritated as only an upper-class Englishman can. ¡°I was requested to assist on this case. I was, In fact by your very Captain. Shall we call her and discuss how you are obstructing me in my capacity?¡±


    ¡°Sir,¡± the police officer was replying. ¡°We have procedures to follow.¡±


    That was funny. Officer 6630 has let me right in on a ¡°yeah, yeah¡±.


    ¡°I was told to come here to meet Detective Speaks-With-Fingers and the property manager ¨C what¡¯s his name ¨C John Smith? I trust he¡¯s here as well?¡±


    ¡°Detective Fingers is here.¡± The cop confirmed. ¡°Just give me moment and I¡¯ll check with him.¡±


    God, British accent, flailing arms, Pop occultist. I shook my head. The morning was going from bad to worse.


    I hesitated for a moment, stopped and watched. He followed his mini-tirade by offering his credentials, showing a batch of some sort of papers. The police officer looked at it nodded, and pointed with his head towards me.


    I looked over at Fingers, who had come out of the bedroom, thinking, what the hell was I doing here? This was a possible crime scene. How was I even allowed in here?


    I was thinking I should call Vaclav right away. So I pulled out my phone.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    His number went to voice mail. I shouldn¡¯t have been surprised. Emily¡¯s go to lawyer didn¡¯t spend the daylight hours in the office.


    He was strictly a night owl, if you know what I mean.


    This whole situation seemed completely at odds with the reality I had become accustomed to.


    ¡°You can go in.¡± the uniformed officer finally said, ticking off his tablet. ¡°Detective Fingers is¡­ just over there.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± the good Doctor replied in a haughty tone. ¡°Thank you very much indeed, constable.¡±


    He then pulled his trench coat away from the man and turned in my direction.


    I quickly turned away, back into the kitchen, thinking hard about my place in this, as I made my way back to the relative safety of the kitchen counter. Maybe MacIntyre wouldn¡¯t notice me if I remained in be background.


    Still, the former king of reality exorcism? The metro police were scraping the bottom of the barrel. The man¡¯s face used to be everywhere, once upon a time. But I hadn¡¯t heard much about him lately.


    How long you been off the air, I wondered silently. five years was my immediate guess.. Of course he still appeared on other so called news shows, they would trot them out on CNN or Fox or occasionally even here in Canada when some ritual murder or live action role-playing group got out of hand.


    Was he the expert that Fingers have been talking about. And shook my head again. Did his captain want to figure out exactly what happened here, or just get on television and some cheap publicity at Emily¡¯s, and perhaps my expense.


    It made everything a bit clearer though. That must have been his car that I had seen earlier. Dr. David MacIntyre, Expert on the Occult, traveling the continent in his Cadillac Convertible. Yeah, he had driven around in a brown 68 Deville.


    Man he used to be big. There was even a whole episode where he met up with Dubya at the white house. When was that, 2003 maybe?


    And then, in 2008 and he¡¯d practically fallen off the radar. Show cancelled, no more billboards, or celebrity appearances.


    Just up and fucked off to God knew where.


    There was even that rumor a couple years ago that he was dead.


    No such luck. He seemed as lively as ever.


    Did he really want to talk to me? God, I hoped not. I surreptitiously turned to look across the counter to see him walk up to Fingers, introduce himself, turn around as he took in the whole scene dramatically, as though there were camera¡¯s still watching his every move..


    And then he was looking right at me. And his eyes narrowed. Was that recognition. He even started with a smile.


    How the hell could that be? The man didn¡¯t know me. We had never met. Still, his gaze held me for a moment powerfully, before I forced myself to look away.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 13 – I Do Believe He Said Luciferian

    Dr. Dave turned back to Fingers and began to start talking about how he had ended up being here. I was close enough to hear it clearly enough.


    ¡°It was quite fortunate, you know,¡± he said to Fingers, practically flailing his hands about like a madman at a file cabinet.¡± We were both at the city function at the AGW last night, and we were talking about how occult crime was on the rise in your city. I told her, I was more than happy to help out. And much to my surprise I get a call at seven this morning ¨C that what looked like an occult homicide had occurred just hours ago.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not quite a homicide yet,¡¯ Fingers was telling him ¡°At the moment it¡¯s only a suspicious death and possible suicide.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d say,¡± Dr. Dave offered in a knowing tone I remembered from his show. In fact, while I watched he was looking around at the working police, as though he was still performing for the screen, mugging for the non-existent audience.


    ¡°This is an exact example of a personal sacrifice to the lord of light, I mean look over at the sofa there, the spiked circle with the Basilic script. That is pure Luciferian.¡±


    He seemed quite excited really. So much so that Fingers had to stop him.


    ¡°Before you touch that, you should remember that this is a potential crime scene.¡±


    ¡°Oh yes, of course,¡± Dr. Dave replied and retracted his finger. Then he looked around the room. ¡°Where is that property manager I was told I could talk to?¡±


    I froze. Fingers turned, spotted me, pointed.


    ¡°Over there,¡¯ he told MacIntyre, nodded his head in my direction. Dr. Dave turned again to meet my reluctant gaze.


    ¡°Mr. Smith,¡± he said.


    I nodded.


    ¡°Well, man.¡± He waved a hand at me in invitation. ¡°Don¡¯t just stand there, come over here and join us.


    I sighed. Hopefully whatever was going to happen would be over quickly and painlessly.


    Fingers started the introductions.


    ¡°Johnny he began, this is Dr. Dave MacIntyre is coming to help us out here.¡±Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    Fingers did not sound as though he was happy about the situation. I wasn¡¯t sympathetic with his plight.


    ¡°A just the man I wanted to see,¡± Dr. Dave held out his hand for me to shake. ¡°Property manager, John Smith, I¡¯ve been told you inspected the premises, what, a month ago.¡±


    I nodded, and a little reluctantly accepted MacIntyre preferred hand, and found it was cold and clammy. About what I''d expected.


    ¡°Not exactly,¡± I told him. ¡°But I did get a chance to look around.¡±


    ¡°Quite a bit different from the last time you were here then?¡±


    It took a moment for me to register that question.


    ¡°Yeah, for one thing, it was before the tenant decided to do some unauthorized redecorating.


    I turned to Fingers,


    ¡°I do know who he is, if that makes you happy,¡± I told the detective. Look back at the good Doctor, or the evil Doctor it really depends on your point of you and choice of religion.


    ¡°Helping out the police now,¡± I ask them, trying to press a little inappropriate familiarity, that was mostly because I was a little annoyed at the whole situation and little appalled that a TV hack like him now pass as an expert in the occult. Had been basically the Dr. Oz of Satanism. Hopefully he¡¯d get upset with my impertinence and tell me to get lost.


    I wish.


    ¡°Well Mr. Smith, I do like to go where help is needed. And I happen to be in town, This whole situation is a quite extraordinary case of serendipity. It does happen from time to time. Quite amazing really, how the fates draw our threads together.¡±


    He turned to take in the room again, looking at an audience only he could see perhaps? I¡¯m pretty sure the detective groaned.


    I turned to Fingers, ¡°How exactly did he get in to your Rolodex.¡±


    Fingers gave me a pained look, nodded his head towards Doctor Dave.


    ¡°Apparently the Captain is a big fan of his, and she¡¯s rather concerned at how the force is dealing with occult crime. Thought it would be good to get an expert opinion.¡±


    ¡°Was she drinking a lot at that function last night?¡±


    Fingers shrugged, but I was sure he got the message.


    ¡°Of course,¡± Dr. Dave was suddenly engaged with the two of us, he gestured at Fingers, ¡°he said it''s only a little about you. Other than you, apparently, had been in the apartment only last month. I suspect it may be invaluable in determining if there is something that has changed in the meantime.¡±


    I glared at Fingers then back at Dr. Dave..


    ¡°It not at all what you thinking,¡± I told him hastily. ¡°I hope he hasn''t told you I''m an ax murderer, or the head of coven local 647 witches union. There¡¯s nothing more to it. I¡¯m the property manager. I filled in for my super that week to talk about replacing the plumbing. He was complaining about banging in the pipes.¡±


    Doctor Dave cocked his head.


    ¡°So Doctor, did you bring your Ouija board to tell us if the ghost of the departed is still hanging around,¡± I added


    He laughed at that, but I have to say that Fingers didn''t look like he found the suggestion very funny.


    ¡°Not at all,¡± Dr. Dave replied after he finished chortling at my little joke. ¡°I suspect the man¡¯s spirit is far, far from here. But I will be talking with the coroner at the morgue later this afternoon regarding his body. It is possible that he might just sit up and be available for an interview.¡±


    It was my turn to groan.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 14 – The Theater of Dr. David MacIntyre

    After the brief enjoyment of the pleasantly awkward introductions Dr. Dave decided that what was mostly needed, to reduce the tension was to start expounding on the display of occult madness surrounding the three of us.


    He didn''t use the word madness, of course, that¡¯s my interpretation. In fact, my recollections might be a bit harsh.


    ¡°Now this is the sort of thing that you don''t see every day,¡± he started, ¡°this is a clear blood sacrifice, intended not to invoke, but to actually revoke a very powerful conjuration.¡±


    ¡°I rather glad at that, Doctor MacIntyre,¡± I replied in the driest tone I could manage. , ¡°you see sort of things made it difficult to rent apartments in anything close to the going rate.¡±


    He turned back to us, switching his gaze between me and Fingers.


    ¡°What sort of impressions to either you get from this,¡± he started again. ¡°How does it make you feel?¡±


    ¡°Disgusted,¡± I offered, ¡°and I do feel like throwing up a bit. Sort of the same way any other sane human being would feel I guess.¡±


    I looked over at fingers, he looked back at me not the least bit of disapproval in his glance, maybe finally even a bit of sympathy.


    ¡°I feel something,¡± he said to the doctor, ¡°It feels like there''s something broken here. And that something is entering through the break.¡±


    Dr. Dave pointed a finger at fingers and smiled.


    ¡°That''s exactly it,¡± he told them, ¡°Oh, you must be a sensitive man, Detective Fingers.¡±


    He turned around, held out his hands as if he was testing the air but this mythical presence but he said he detected.


    ¡°Yes¡± he said there is a bit of it still remaining, ¡°The Luciferian magic used here was intended to break a past spell that blocked out some kind of power from manifesting on earth.¡±


    He turned back to us,


    ¡°Mr. Smith,¡± he addressed me. ¡°Have you ever seen the any of the symbols around the building before say in another apartment in any of your property¡¯s public spaces before today.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    I was about to say no, automatically, as it seemed ridiculous. Half the city had graffiti which could match bits and pieces of anything we saw here. Toronto had never been short of the odd Satanist as long as I¡¯d lived here.


    But I didn''t, because there were some things that I have seen about building. Arturo and show me a couple of pieces, , one scrawled on the sidewalk outside in chalk a couple months back. Did they mean anything? I don''t know. Would telling Dr. Dave about them get him off my back, I didn''t know that either.


    ¡°Yes,¡± I told him and I told him where and I told him walked and it suggested that he might want to talk to Arturo to see if the super had noticed anything else. At least that''s my guess the doctor to target someone else to bother.


    It might not get me in Arturo''s good books, but I''d been holding back on the bonus that Emily has suggested he deserved. After this, he might start looking for work elsewhere.


    The doctor however nodded at my remarks and began looking around and commenting about the arrangement of circles on the ceiling overhead. I turned to Fingers.


    ¡°Are you enjoying the theatre of Dr. David MacIntyre now?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I¡¯ve already learned a few things here,¡± Fingers told me. ¡°Some of what the Doctor has mentioned could be useful.¡±


    I shook my head.


    ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s anything rational to glean out of what Billingsly left here.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll see,¡± Fingers offered.


    ¡°Can I get out of the circus now?¡± I asked.


    He gave me an irritated glance.


    ¡°Are you planning on leaving town?¡± he asked.


    I wasn''t sure if he was serious, thought.


    ¡°Well, I think I''ve got to go up to Vaclav¡¯s place to drop off some papers tonight.¡± I told him. ¡°Does Richmond Hill count as town?¡±


    He nodded, still seeming serious. I¡¯d had enough.


    ¡°Am I a fucking suspect? Just because I happened to have been in this apartment a month ago?¡±


    He sighed, looked back over to the Doctor, who appeared to be offering some advice to a couple crime techs.


    ¡°Just in case we find something that might have something to do with any of your other tenants,¡± he told me. ¡°It was your idea that others were involved.¡±


    ¡°I''ll be back by ten, probably¡± I told him. ¡°You know how Vaclav likes to turn in early.


    He looked at me, eyes narrowed.


    ¡°Can¡¯t you get a courier to take care of that,¡± he suggested.


    ¡°Late-night couriers are expensive,¡± I told them. ¡°And besides, personal delivery of legal documents are in my contract. And I think I need a break after all this. Don¡¯t you?¡±


    ¡°Make sure you get back,¡± he told me. ¡°With luck we¡¯ll have a preliminary determination by tomorrow. I wouldn¡¯t want to post a BOLO.¡±


    ¡°Really, that quickly? Aren¡¯t there plenty of more dead people for your coroners to look at?¡±


    ¡°As a matter of fact, no. It¡¯s been a couple weeks since our last murder. We live in a very safe city.¡±


    ¡°Lucky all of us then,¡± I offered.


    ¡°And remember Johnny,¡± Fingers added, ¡°that Vaclav likes to reminisce.¡±


    ¡°I promise to lay off his Napoleon Brandy,¡± I lied.


    He at least smiled at that.


    ¡°Then Can I go now,¡± I told him , ¡°I''ve got a werewolf chained upstairs, I better let her go before she calls 911.¡±


    That did get a smile out of him. You see, I am actually an accomplished people person, When I¡¯m pushed far enough.


    ¡°Oh, wait. I probably shouldn¡¯t have told you that."

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 15 – A Little Triskaidekaphilia

    Fingers finished his chuckle with a smirk, they cocked his head so he could rub one of his eyebrows. I''d seen him do that before. It¡¯s a certain thing he does when he''s amused at something that''s not politically correct. Yeah, even he¡¯s got his personality ticks.


    ¡°I warned you to hire the psych grad, Johnny,¡± he told me and tapped his nose, ¡°You keep giving work to the dead, and I''m gonna be investigating your ripped up body someday.¡±


    Ordinarily, I find that sort of thing amusing, and he knew that, so I fought down expressing my actual crushing sensation of utter dread, and forced a smile back.


    ¡°You know Fingers,¡± I replied back snappily, ¡°that''s what she''s always telling me. You two have been talking, have you? Planning. Drawing up flow charts, graphs? I know you¡¯re both good at that.¡±


    He laughed again. Yes I was on a roll.


    I was just about to turn and go, when Dr. Dave came back and made an observation that I really wish I hadn''t heard spoken out loud.


    ¡°Now I have found something in common here, with several sites I have been lucky enough to have run across before.¡±


    ¡°You call that lucky?¡± I said.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Fingers replied to Dr. Dave.


    ¡°Most of this symbology,¡± the man added, then paused for dramatic effect, ¡°is very direct. I¡¯ll need to go over the photographs of course in due time. But there is a flow that always ultimately leads to a sought out conclusion.¡±


    ¡°So there is more to this than merely revoking a magic spell¡± Fingers asked. ¡°What more?¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    ¡°That¡¯s the interesting thing,¡± Dr. Dave told us. ¡°It is and it isn¡¯t. Most of the positions of the symbology is oddly flipped and layered. As if there is a third or even possibly fourth power behind this.¡±


    ¡°What the hell does that mean?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I will have to do some research. However, there is a telling repetition in forms laid out from room to room. And they all refer directly to the number thirteen,¡± he told us.


    ¡°Thirteen,¡± Fingers echoed.


    The doctor nodded vigorously began went to the pointing of his finger. You know I think that was what annoyed me the most about his TV show, his relentless finger wagging.  I had the sudden urge to bit it right off his hand as it briefly turned towards me.  I just had to lean a bit forwards...


    I had to smile at that. It appeared that right not he was the tail that was wagging fingers. It was a reach of a pun, I¡¯ll admit, but I was desperate.


    ¡°Exactly,¡± Dave stated, look from finger to me then back to finger as If he somehow had read my intentions, silly though they were. ¡°I''m going to want all the pictures of these. I''m guessing a little bit on this, but I want to see how it all fits together. I don''t think we¡¯re at the end of what was started here.¡±


    ¡°Really,¡± I replied. ¡°You think someone else in town is going to spread their blood all over their rented apartment. Think I should warn the Landlord¡¯s Association. It¡¯s going to be a bloodbath.¡±


    He raised his finger again, then realized I¡¯d made a joke.


    Fingers nodded at me.


    ¡°Johnny here thinks,¡± he started, ¡°that this guy was storing up a lot of blood in his fridge.¡±


    Dr. Dave nodded.


    ¡°That makes sense¡± he replied. ¡°When you''re performing this sort of ritual, it''s very important to have enough blood on hand, and enough blood of the person within the channeling is going through, if you know what I mean. And it is possible that multiples might be involved if the spell required that much more power. Maybe three, seven or even, yes, perhaps even thirteen.¡±


    He was looking at me.  I really felt like punching him now.


    ¡°Whatever the hell you say,¡± I said instead. ¡®I¡¯m not the occult expert here. In fact I have no idea what I¡¯m doing here. In fact, I was just leaving. Thanks for a brilliant morning.¡±


    And I turned to leave.


    ¡°Is your friend always like that,¡¯ I could hear the Doctor asking Fingers as I headed towards the door.


    ¡°No,¡± I heard Fingers say. ¡°Sometimes he says what he really feels.¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 16 – Not Quite My Style

    I stopped. Something was holding me back from storming off. I wasn¡¯t sure what.


    When I turned back Fingers was nodding to Doctor Dave.


    ¡°Alternatively, it is still entirely possible that this Billingsly character was working on his own. And that Mr. Smith is not exactly right. You might find that this man was probably drawing his own blood for months,¡± he continued, ¡°from the day he moved in here ¨C that this particular location was somehow vital for him to work his magic.¡±


    He sighed.


    ¡°There are a lot of ways that this could turn out, just so you know.¡±


    ¡°So his actions could have something to do with this building, this particular apartment?¡± Fingers was clearly listening to what MacIntyre was telling him.


    ¡°Well yes and no,¡± The now ambiguous Doctor decided to straddle both sides of the fence. ¡°But there is some sort of placement, some sort of issues at the references I¡¯ve seen here again, to this thirteenth.¡±


    So, so brilliant, I thought. I turned back, thought I¡¯d offer some overlooked wisdom.


    ¡°This is apartment 213,¡± I offered.


    The doctor looked at me, nodded slowly looked like he was thinking about something hard. But obviously not too hard. I couldn¡¯t smell any wood smoke..


    ¡°I¡¯m going to go back to my office,¡± I told Fingers, ¡°And get to that paperwork you wanted, and get copies of the surveillance discs. You know, and the footage from the lobby and the stairwell cameras.¡±


    He nodded.


    ¡°Yes,¡± Doctor Dave replied. ¡°I''d like to take a look at that as well, and also if you have any other complaints or notices from other tenants about this man''s activity in the apartment building that you have on record that would be handy as well. Even a casual remark might be important.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t a condo building, Dr. Dave,¡± I told him. ¡°We don¡¯t have regular meetings to talk about whether or not to redecorate the lobby in marble. Or complaints, about whose neighbor has the most tacky balcony furniture.¡±A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°Oh, I can see that. ¡± he told me condescendingly ¡°There is something to be said for updating the d¨¦cor every decade, Mr. Smith.¡±


    ¡°Thanks, but this isn¡¯t quite my style,¡± I offered.


    Man, I thought to myself, why aren¡¯t I leaving? Was some perverse part of me enjoying this?


    I looked at the both of them, then I nodded in reply.


    ¡°I''ll see what I can dig up,¡± I told them. And I hoped whatever mundane paperwork Teresa and I found, would keep them busy for a while, and maybe even help them decide whatever happened here had absolutely nothing to do with me or anything I did in the studiously forgotten past, not to mention having nothing to do with the actual occult.


    ¡°Thank you very much,¡± Macintyre said to me, held out his hand for more clammy handshaking. I took my punishment like a man.


    ¡°It''s good meeting you Mr. Smith,¡± he told me, ¡°And I really do mean to help resolve what happened here so you and your tenants can go on with their regular lives with the calm understanding that they won¡¯t be troubled by this sort of thing again.¡±


    ¡°I hope so too,¡± I replied, and then I got the hell out of there.


    I didn''t look back, I headed straight for the elevator punched up and waited nervously until the number three elevator opened its doors. Looking down at the lobby I was happy to see only a couple tenants heading out and not more of the media lurking for some sort of imagined rating¡¯s winning scoop.


    Thankfully the elevator was empty, and I could relax.


    I leaned against the wall of the elevator, felt its comforting hum as it pulled me back up to the fourteenth floor, hoping it would provide at least some support, as I was sure at this point my legs had only been holding me up out of respect that we''ve been together for thirty-two years. They certainly shouldn¡¯t have been interested in holding me up otherwise.


    God, I hadn¡¯t heard the number thirteen thrown about so much, in, well, thirteen years. I didn''t like hearing it even at the best of times, in the same way that most people don''t like hearing about time that they did something stupid and painful and life-altering, you know, in a bad, horrible, nightmare inducing kind of way.


    I''ve been a thirteenth once upon a time. And that had it worked only slightly better then for the late tenant of apartment 213.


    As I mentioned, I recognized enough of what I¡¯d seen in the apartment to start seriously worrying about my future. I was now certain my dream of Billy and the rest hadn¡¯t blown in out of the blue. It was a warning. A message A reminder. I considered the size of my bank account, the value of my investments. Could I liquidate them without it costing me an arm and a leg in penalties?


    Could I just drop everything I had here?


    Could I find someplace to disappear again? Could I find what I needed to re-invoke the anonymity I that had now possibly been completely torn asunder?


    that would be rather suspicious of me, though, wouldn¡¯t it?


    I did not know what to do. And I did not know anyone I could trust with the truth, or at least what I believed might be the truth.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 17 – Most likely to re-animate

    There are a number of things that an apartment building manager has to be concerned about in this day and age. And this goes beyond the general duties of the job.


    For one thing it''s not really easy to determine how good tenants are going to be. Whether they''re going to get shot by an angry ex-boyfriend. Whether they''re going to collect all their blood and painted all over their walls.


    At least with those particular things, the level of common runs pretty short. Because there a lot of other issues. For instance one has to make sure that tenants are going to get along with each other across the hall as well as they do across the streets.


    It¡¯s growing harder to figure out who you can safely let into your building, as a neighbor, as a tenant. Especially with the kinds of inclusive laws that our well-meaning governments are eager to pass. It also helps to remember that the dead tend to vote at least as much as the living, and in ways that will benefit them, just as the living do.


    You have concern yourself with the kind of neighbors that people wouldn''t put up with, not to mention the general cost of maintaining a place in the world must not quite as simple as it used to be.


    For those of you who was sitting in the bathroom of an apartment that''s been occupied by a zombie or two or three or four have an idea what I mean. The howling of a werewolf two or three nights a month gets on the nerves of some people especially in a city where were all live in close and crowded quarters.


    More than once I had to evict a ghoul because, to be perfectly fair, the stench of rotting meat and other of the required foodstuffs their condition requires them to eat tends to bother people who are just a few layers of drywall and an air conditioner away.


    But all these former people, undead, re-animated or whatever you call them a have their own lobby groups, their choice for city council or even president or prime minister of the entire country. A friend of mine even suggested that this country will elect a prime minister without a heartbeat before it elects a woman. Sure, with the kind of world we live in, I guess even that¡¯s possible.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Hell, they¡¯ve even have had their million dead march a few years back, and wasn¡¯t that a mess to clean up afterwards.


    This may sound harsh, but believe me, I¡¯m a moderate where the undead are concerned. I do my best to treat each and every one of them on a case by case basis. I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep my job, or many of my friends, living or not, I wasn¡¯t or didn¡¯t.


    And to be perfectly honest, we had our fair share of advocates saying that we have no right to deny people whether they''re traditionally of the living variety or not the right to a place to inhabit.


    But of course all of that I can deal with, I dealt with it before and will deal with it again. In fact I much preferred to think about what was going to happen the next time one of these folks was applied for an apartment lease than anything to do with the reoccurrence of the number thirteen in my life.


    I¡¯m not triskaidecaphobic, exactly, and never have been. My fear isn¡¯t irrational. I know what that number has done to people. I¡¯ve seen it. I don¡¯t want to see it happen again.


    So I dutifully planned to get Fingers all the information that he asked for so that, hopefully the bloody little incident could disappear along with the drywall the carpets and whatever else we had to get out of 213. And I further hoped that the thirteenth anniversary coming up would pass painlessly and boringly.


    Part of me even hoped that the tenant might re-animate in a few hours and explain that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, maybe even a joke. But the rest of me said, ¡°Fat chance.¡±


    I¡¯d have to ask Vaclav about the man¡¯s chances. Death by exsanguination most likely will cause the victim re-animate as a vampire, as I proceeded to check online..


    But the odds, and I searched for a lot of second opinions, were pretty low. If re-animation was at all likely overall, we¡¯d be awash in werewolves re-animated from violent deaths, ghouls re-animated from food poisoning and the like, zombies from our legions of couch potatoes and wage slaves.


    And that doesn¡¯t even cover gargoyles, a completely different story, and who supposedly served as the security of this building. If they¡¯d allowed a murder on the premises, what good were they other than for giving me heart attacks on a weekly basis when their brickwork cracks the sidewalk when I¡¯m coming or going. I didn¡¯t really know what they were, or what their place in this crazy word really was. There didn¡¯t seem a lot of accounts online, even if Emily had demanded they be hired after the Grappo murder.


    And did gargoyles even vote? Hmm.. they did have a union according to the contracts.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 18 – In a daze

    I watched the lights in the elevator blink on and off with growing relief as it lifted me high above the headache below. When I reached the fourteenth I was almost feeling myself again. I stepped out of the elevator, smiled as I heard the doors slide closed behind me. I prayed that I wasn¡¯t going to be called down again. God knew what more stunts Dr. Dave was likely to pull.  He still had a big online following as far as I was aware, and who knew what he might leak for the publicity. That worry was still on my mind when I got back to the office, Teresa reacted with automatic sympathy when she saw how it was expressed on my face.


    ¡°That bad?¡± she asked, eyes wide. ¡°Want me to put on the vanilla mocha?¡±


    I was in a daze, really, almost passed by her desk, didn¡¯t really want to look at anything, still having the visions of the bloody signs and symbols filling my vision. but then I stopped and turned. Looked into her concerned face. Her eyebrows had certainly thickened since I¡¯d left, hadn¡¯t they?. No, I told myself on a further glance, just my imagination.


    I offered a heavy breath out.


    ¡°You have no idea,¡± I told her. ¡°And that would be perfect.¡±


    Well, a fifth of scotch would have been more perfect, even something to turn that mocha Irish, but I had work to do.


    Teresa rose from her desk and headed over to the coffee maker.


    ¡°I could give you an idea of what it was like down there, if you really want,¡± I tried.


    She turned and raised those thickening eyebrows.


    ¡°On second thought, I''d rather you didn''t,¡± she decided. And you know hearing that from a person who is likely to be slicing up some raw meat for dinner in a few hours, that said something. Or at least I thought so.


    ¡°I¡¯m really sorry, then.¡± she replied, turning back to the coffee maker. ¡°If I¡¯d known¡­¡±


    ¡°Forget it,¡± I told her, warmed though by the thought. ¡°What¡¯s done is done.¡±


    ¡°The white folder on the desk is for you,¡± she continued. ¡°The papers are ready for Vaclav. At least that was easy. Your ¡®unanticipated tenant death¡¯ directory was pretty complete where it comes to ¡®unanticipated¡¯.¡±


    I nodded. Picked up a folder, rifled through the contents. Looked like everything was there.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°He had a firm draw up new ones when the Phoenix act was pushed through,¡± I told her. ¡°Actually it makes things a lot easier for all of us.¡±


    The coffee machine sputtered and coughed. In moments Teresa turned around smiling, with a steaming mocha in her hand.


    ¡°I can''t see, what we can¡¯t just email or fax these to him,¡± she offered, ¡°or even send a courier up to the house with the primary copies. It would be a lot less work for you. And it couldn¡¯t cost Emily that much.¡±


    ¡°Well, I told her, you were at his place for the Christmas Party, you know how old-fashioned Vaclav is, I doubt he''s got anything post-1960 running in his house. I mean he might have a telex machine.¡±


    I took the cup. The smelled perfect.


    ¡°And nothing like this,¡± I pointed out.


    She smiled.


    ¡°I¡¯d never seen a real rotary dialed telephone before,¡± she admitted.


    ¡°Jeez you¡¯re young,¡± I told her.


    ¡°Shut up,¡± she replied, still smiling. ¡°Your only eight years older than I am!¡±


    ¡°Hey, I can still remember when only living people could get elected to government,¡± I pointed out.


    ¡°Lucky that¡¯s changed,¡± she shot back. ¡°I might want to run this city someday.¡±


    ¡°Be careful what you wish for,¡± I told her. ¡°I wanted to be rich and famous and popular, and look where I ended up.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t so bad,¡¯ Teresa offered.


    ¡°On a good day,¡± I finished, turned to go back in my office.


    ¡°Well if he wants to be a lawyer for much longer, ¡°she continued, ¡°he''s really do have to move into the 21st century.¡±


    I nodded, took a sip, yes, that was better. I turned when I reached my door.


    ¡°And speaking of the 21st century,¡± I told her, ¡°they''re going to need to get everything we have on the former tenants of apartment two thirteen and have that ready to send off to fingers so they can have that further investigation. As well as footage from all the cameras on a thumb drive for Fingers.¡±


    ¡°Who should I call, for cleaning up,¡± she wanted to know. ¡°Maxworth or The Big Shebang?¡±


    I thought about that remembered what I saw.


    ¡°I''m probably going have to talk to Emily about that,¡± I told her. ¡°We may need to tear out the walls. I really doubt anyone''s going to want to live there only after a simple repainting or new carpet.¡±


    ¡°That should be a fun conversation,¡± Teresa replied, now back at her desk.


    ¡°I¡¯m sure it won¡¯t be.¡±


    And I left her to her work.


    I crossed over to the window, moved the blinds to look down at the building¡¯s small carport Thankfully there weren¡¯t any more vehicles blocking it up. That was something at least, It meant that the death was only, at best, still local news.


    I put the papers on the desk and turned to my computer, checked the online city news sites. The morning¡¯s videos were still up, the death at 23 Pangbourne included.. And there was even a piece on Dr. Dave and him selflessly turning his talents to aiding the police. Jesus Christ, he was a grandstander. On the plus side there was no mention of my name, at least in the video the man had made. His responses were more about promoting himself than anyone else. Thank heaven for small mercies and rampant narcissism.


    I took another sip of the vanilla mocha, and that was it, time for me to get back to my own work and try and forget what I¡¯d seen..


    I picked up the phone and hit speed dial number four.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 19 – Be careful what you wish for

    Thankfully, Emily was out. Her assistant Philipa answered the phone instead saving both me and my boss an awkward conversation at the very least.


    ¡°Hello Johnny,¡± she offered in her polite and educated tones. ¡°How are you this morning?¡±


    ¡°I could be better. Philipa,¡± I told her, then got to business. ¡°However, we¡¯ve had a suspicious death here this morning. I¡¯m handling everything here, but I thought I¡¯d give Emily a heads up.¡±


    ¡°Suspicious,¡± she replied growing a lot more interested. ¡°A murder?¡±


    ¡°Police aren¡¯t ruling that out,¡± I told her. ¡°It¡¯s local news right now, but I can¡¯t tell right now if it¡¯s going to end up like the Grappo circus or not. I¡¯ll send you what I have right now if you like.¡±


    ¡°Thank you Johnny,¡± she offered after a moment. ¡°I trust you will keep on top of it.¡±


    ¡°Oh yes,¡± I told her. ¡°I¡¯ll be heading up to Vaclav¡¯s later tonight and¡­ since my friend, Detective Fingers is the lead investigator, we¡¯ll probably get a chance to hear what they come up with before the media does.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± she replied. ¡°What do we know about the tenant? Had he been trouble?¡±


    ¡°Not that I remember,¡± I told her. ¡°New though. And we may have to raid the contingency fund. Could mean a full teardown of the apartment.¡±


    I heard and intake of breath.


    ¡°I¡¯ll let Emily know,¡± she told me. ¡°I trust then the tenant wasn¡¯t one of the undead, or hasn¡¯t re-animated?¡±


    ¡°No and not from what the police told me,¡± I replied. ¡°I think the window for that will close in an hour or two. Cross your fingers.¡±


    ¡°Sounds like you have things well in hand,¡± she told me. ¡°Emily is at the spa this week, she won¡¯t be getting back until Monday. I¡¯ll have her contact you then if she needs to. If anything important comes up let me know.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    ¡°I will,¡± I told her. then offered what sounded to me like a half-hearted, ¡°have a good weekend.¡±


    ¡°And you as well, Johnny.¡±


    I took a breath and let it out. It wasn¡¯t looking so good so far. I turned back to my computer, started putting together a package for Emily. Before I knew it, there was a knock on the door, then Teresa entered.


    ¡°What¡¯s up.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m heading out for lunch,¡± she told me. ¡°Want me to get you anything?¡±


    ¡°Weren''t you going to be heading out early today?¡±


    ¡°It''s only 12:30¡± she told me. ¡°As long as I get home by four I should be fine. If you needed me...¡±


    She noticed that I was instead staring at her. Yes her eyebrows had gotten thicker, and her skin tone had darkened a lot.


    ¡°It¡¯s happening already, isn¡¯t it?¡± she wanted to know, lifting her hand to her face. ¡°Damn it, I hate it when it starts early. I¡¯ll get stared at all the way home on the streetcar.¡±


    ¡°Call a taxi,¡± I told her. ¡°No need having both of us traumatized today. Use the credit card.¡±


    She smiled. Teeth were coming in to. She did have the nicest incisors, sharpest too, I thought.  To me, they were more impressive than frightening.


    ¡°Oh, thanks Johnny,¡± she told me. ¡°I¡¯ve got the thumb drive for the police done and the papers Detective Fingers wanted.¡±


    I smiled back. She was nothing if not a motivated worker. Always making me glad I hired her. At this rate, she¡¯d have my job before I knew it.


    Be careful what you wish for.


    ¡°All right, why don''t you get that down to the police and call the taxi once you¡¯re ready to go.¡± I told her, getting up and grabbing for my coat. ¡°I think I¡¯ll take the rest of the afternoon off myself.¡±


    I opened the door to my office ushered her out, and then pulled my wool coat on.  Temperatures outside were hovering a little over zero and threatened snow.  Not too great for the warm blooded.


    ¡°And ask Arturo what he thinks about how far the reno should go,¡± I added, ¡°I''m sure he''ll be pleased, and you might learn a few more Spanish words that¡¯ll make your friends who know the language blush.¡±


    That made her smirk a little, as I knew it would.


    I close the door behind me, stepped over to the window in the outer office, brushed aside the drapes and a look outside. It looked like a pretty bleak day out there, grey clouds overhead, gray streets below. Me and my grey coat would fit right in.


    And where was I headed off to? MacGuffin''s of course, and enough draft to keep me happy the rest of the afternoon. I didn''t have to drive up to Vaclav''s until six or seven. There was no point in heading up earlier anyway. he wouldn¡¯t be up until sunset, so a few hours at the bar would provide me three or four drinks with enough time for them clear my system before having to get behind the wheel. And with rush-hour traffic and all, it wasn''t going to be a fast drive up there anyway.


    I waited until Teresa was ready, then I joined her at the elevator. I smiled to myself. Has to be a really bad day when you feel the most comfortable with a turning werewolf at your side.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 20 – I’m done

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you give me the drive,¡± I asked Teresa after we¡¯d got into the elevator.¡±


    ¡°You sure you don''t want me to take this over to the cops,¡± she asked, a little surprised. ¡°You asked-¡±


    ¡°It''s probably not so bad,¡± I told her, maybe she just wanted to see men in uniform. A look back up at her. ¡°If you really want to.¡±


    But when the doors opened at the second floor, I could see her nose twitch, nostrils flare, and her expression change for the worse. Her response grew more pronounced once we stepped out onto the carpeted mezzanine.


    ¡°Are you okay?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°No, I¡¯m fine¡± she told me. ¡°It¡¯s nothing like that. At least nothing I can¡¯t control. At least at this point.¡±


    But I could see the look of worry on Teresa¡¯s face before she turned away from me to look down the


    A lone cop was standing guard, yes, Officer 6623, still at his post. Had to admire his dedication.


    ¡°That¡¯s pretty strong,¡± she admitted. ¡°I didn¡¯t expect to smell the blood from all the way down here.


    ¡°Let me take it,¡± I offered again, taking the gentlemanly route.


    She nodded,


    ¡°Probably a good idea¡± she told me, handing me the drive. ¡°Don¡¯t to end up getting arrested, especially during a full moon. ¡°If this is going to be one of those nights, I¡¯d not tempt my other half.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I nodded.


    ¡°Say hi to Vaclav for me,¡± she said, and headed towards the opposite exit.


    I stood there in the mezzanine for a moment, stared out of the lobby windows. It was getting darker even though it was still early afternoon. Well, The weather forecast was for maybe sleet. Storm was moving in. Might even turn to snow or freezing rain north of the city.


    Officer 6623 glanced my way as I approached, looking bored out of his skull. I envied him.


    ¡°Want to go in again?¡± he asked when I reached his bailiwick.


    ¡°No,¡± I told him shaking my head. ¡°Is Fingers still in there?¡±


    ¡°No, just the Crime Scene guys finishing up.¡±


    ¡°I have something for them,¡± I told him and offered up my gift. ¡°These are our files on the Tenant and the copies of the building¡¯s surveillance footage that Finger¡¯s requested.¡±


    He stared at me.


    ¡°Take it,¡± I told him. ¡°I¡¯m done for the day.¡±


    Seemingly reluctantly he took the drive. I couldn¡¯t get myself out of the vicinity fast enough. Moments later, I was outside, enjoying the cold icy air and the walk across the lawn to Boscoe street.


    A glance over behind the building looked to me as if MZC had actually showed up to do its job as I¡¯d called them to do yesterday, which now seemed a month ago. But, good news.  The trio who¡¯d been trying to get into the dumpster were nowhere to be seen. At least that was done. I felt a touch of cold and wet on my face, looked up into the graying gloom, not being able to tell if it was rain or snow.


    Should have brought my umbrella, I realized, then headed over to the spot in the ironwork fence where I wouldn¡¯t have to climb over.


    As it turned out, Metro Zombie Control clearly hadn¡¯t actually shown up yet. The three zombies hadn¡¯t gone far. They were standing around the bus stop at the corner. Or maybe it was a different trio. I couldn¡¯t; tell. A clutch of rotting zombies pretty much looks the same as any other, if I¡¯m being brutally honest. I looked out, waited for a car to go by before I crossed to the other side, well away from the walking dead.


    No sense I join them before my time, after all. But, you know what? There are worse things than ending up as a zombie. Sure, vampires, werewolves, revenants and ghouls all get to keep their brains - relatively I suppose, but they the only way to end up as one of them is to have die pretty horribly. Doesn¡¯t take much to re-animate as a bottom feeder, even if you don¡¯t get to keep much personality or memories, which in some cases, is probably a blessing.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 21 – A vampire on the loose?

    It was windy outside, but not that cold yet, but then it was only early November, there was plenty of time for true winter to set in, and my coat had a pretty warm lining.


    I walked down to Queen Street and was ready to try another bit of jay walking when I saw that something was missing off the corner of Boscoe and Queen. And I smiled. Not sure what happened to him, but it really seemed like that zombie panhandler who had occupied the since the spring had finally disappeared. And along with the skin and bones dog he¡¯s been using to gain sympathy from the street crowd.


    Maybe my complaints to the city had finally born fruit. Although I couldn¡¯t have been the only one to bitch about the thing. The begging dead had even gotten worse over the summer as his decay got a bit, shall we say malodorous? Nah, Let¡¯s just say putrid. Sure, that kind of reanimation was practically anaerobic according to science, which is why things like him now dominated the cheap labor market, but that didn¡¯t stop the weeks of thirty degree heat and general environmental odors from sinking into him, not to mention starting to melt what was left of him off his corpse.


    And no, it had not a pretty sight.


    Well, the city works slow but it finally gets to where it¡¯s needed.


    The early afternoon traffic was stop and go, so I was able to sidle between a couple of imports and make my way to my favorite bar, MacGuffin¡¯s. Sure, Irish franchise pub fare isn¡¯t the best in the city, but this place was the shortest distance between my office and draft imported beer. I wasn¡¯t going to complain about how generic the place was franchise why.


    When I stepped inside, I wasn''t surprised to see that there weren¡¯t very many patrons in the place this time of day. A couple guys at the bar, more closer to the back and a trio playing pool. About as you¡¯d expect for a Thursday afternoon.


    LCDs, oddly enough was set to local news. A change of pace. Bruce usually has one of the national networks on. I sidled up to the bar and ordered a Pastornicky, then I quickly ordered a second one. Figured the math and the general health of my liver and thought, the quicker I do this, maybe have a couple more and let my system do its work, I should be fine by the time I need to hit the road.


    The pair I joined at the bar nodded at me as I took a stool, which wasn''t too surprising as I recognize both of them. They were regulars, one of them was even a tenant, seventeenth floor I remembered, at 23 Pangbourne, and had been there long before I had. Like, decades.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    ¡°Hey Frank, hey Bill,¡± I greeted them, ¡°How are things?¡±


    Frank smiled and Bill waved, Frank said hello, and Bill grumbled something and only spared me a quick glance, he was more interested in the big screen above the bar.


    Bruce dropped a couple napkins on the bar, placed my two first pints on them, gave me a quick smile as he did.


    I smiled back, turned to Frank and Bill.


    ¡°So what''s going on guys,¡± I asked, downing a good gulp of the Pastornicky. Hopefully, he didn¡¯t have 23 on heavy rotation above us.


    ¡°How¡¯s the thing with all those cops,¡± Bill asked as he shook his head at my questions.. ¡°Tried to find out what the big deal was, but there pretty tight lipped. What was it? a drug deal gone bad? A vampire on the loose?¡±


    I took a long drink from my first pint.


    ¡°Sorry, can¡¯t really talk about it either,¡± I told him. ¡°But it looks like it wasn¡¯t anything you guys have to worry about.¡±


    At least I hoped it wasn¡¯t.


    ¡°Suicide then¡± Frank decided.


    ¡°Cops haven¡¯t made a decision on that either.¡± I told them. ¡°Just think it¡¯s suspicious.¡±


    And that it was.


    I took another drink. Almost finished, called for Bruce to get me another.


    ¡°Three beer suspicious?¡± Bill wondered with pair of raised white eyebrows.


    I was starting to get a buzz. Good stuff this was.


    ¡°It¡¯s always a headache when a tenant dies,¡± I told him. ¡°I can tell you that he wasn¡¯t exactly keeping his flat up to specs. That¡¯s as far as I can go.¡±


    Bill nodded.


    ¡°So what is the big deal Frank,¡± I asked. ¡°What¡¯s got you glued to the TV?¡±


    ¡°Oh, he¡¯s all into the city elections¡± offered Bill. ¡°Election season. Shit.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± I tried.


    ¡°Moron¡¯s are gonna vote for Worthington, they are gonna vote for the dead guy,¡± Bill announced to the rest of the bar. ¡°The dead are gonna be running the city soon.  So much for Toronto the good.¡±


    I nodded, they''re talking about the election. Local city stuff, how much do care about really? Except for the fact that the leading candidate in our neck of the woods wasn''t among the living, mostly. Although I have to point out that his debating style was significantly more animate than his opponents.


    I took another drink.


    ¡°What does it matter,¡± said Frank, ¡°They''re all politicians, dead or alive. And at least the dead guy is thinking about what happens to us after we''re gone. Or not so gone...¡±


    ¡°Or maybe you''re going to be still here, and get to be one of his walking dead constituents¡± offered Bill. ¡°And I ain''t coming back. No siree. I ain''t gonna be shuffling around the rest of eternity as one of the freaking things like that.¡±


    He pointed at the street. There was a zombie standing there looking in. Another shiver spiked up my shine.  Was the thing looking at me?


    ¡°You spend all day and night watching that reality shit,¡± Frank replied to Bill as he nursed his own half-drunk beer. ¡®How do you know you¡¯re not one of them already?¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 22 – Death warmed over

    ¡°Cause I still can¡¯t dance,¡± Bill countered. I finished off my first beer. Yeah, Bill indeed likes watching reality shows, especially anything of the dancing/singing/circus sort. I am convinced he used to be a roadie of something like that in a past life. But for some reason he doesn¡¯t talk about what he did before retiring, even gets quite angry when asked about it. And that is something I can respect.


    ¡°Who¡¯s to say that you¡¯ll even have a chance,¡± Frank offered, ¡°You might come back as a ghoul considering what you like to eat. or maybe even a bloodsucker.¡±


    He laughed and turned back to me.


    ¡°Hey Johnny, your lawyer¡¯s a bloodsucker isn''t he?¡±


    I started on my second beer, as Bruce quietly replaced the empty with a full. I nodded to him, and then back at Bill. I was feeling decently lightheaded at that point.


    ¡°Yes he is,¡± I admitted. ¡°Although I''m sure he''s a better lawyer than he is a bloodsucker. Seeing him tonight in fact. Because, you know¡­¡±


    ¡°Guess he doesn¡¯t do bankers hours,¡± Bill grumbled over the drink cupped in his hands. I haven''t seen the either of the old men taken drink since I got to the bar. I wonder how many hours they¡¯d been nursing them.


    Bruce was a good sport for letting them stay out of the cold. And even though he doesn¡¯t really get into the conversations I did catch a smirk from him every once in a while. I guess we all get our entertainment where we can. Midday bartending can be a lonely business I remembered from one of my own past lives.


    ¡°World changing Bill,¡± Frank replied, ¡°Gotta keep up with that. Don''t you agree Johnny?¡±


    I had now worked my way through a drink and a third, and was quite happy with the buzz I was entertaining. I''ll be honest I''m not a big drinker but sometimes the stress gets to me you know. Today was about the worst I¡¯d had in at least a few years. But I¡¯m not an angry drunk, more of the sleepy kind, thank God.


    ¡°I think it makes sense to keep up with things¡± I told the guys. ¡°You never know what can get dropped in your lap. This city if full of things that can get to you.¡±


    ¡°Like that chiquita in apartment 414,¡± Bill smiled a wide grin. ¡°When are you going to get me her rental papers, Johnny. I want to know if she¡¯s still single.¡±


    I shook my head. That ¡®chiquita¡¯ had to be young enough to be his granddaughter. And she had enough trouble taking care of her disabled daughter to deal with any kind of lecherous octogenarian. Although I figured that she could easily kick either of these guys asses.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°I think you should stick to women at least half you age Bill,¡± I told him. ¡°Ones who don¡¯t mind that you take your teeth out a night and can make room for your walker.¡±


    ¡°You going to see your vampire,¡± Bruce wanted to know showing an odd bit of curiosity as he drifted into the conversation from his side of the mahogany.


    ¡°Yes I am, I told him, ¡°and that by you to remember that he''s a lawyer. Now as long as everyone''s clear here all lawyers are vampires but not all vampires her lawyer''s.¡±


    Never fails to get a chuckle from this kind of crowd. And I didn¡¯t mind spreading the joke. First time I ever heard it was from Vaclav himself.


    ¡°He may be dead, but he¡¯s certainly confident,¡± Frank noted, staring back up at the TV. ¡°Our would be mayor is talking about needing two terms to clean up hog town once and for all.¡±


    I looked up at the screen. Sure enough Gavin Worthington was going on about how much time it would take to get T.O. back on track. He had that kind of hypnotizing stare you know, that distracted one from the desiccated skin of his face, solid makeup job notwithstanding. A revenant. Pancreatic cancer had done him ten years back, but he took it in stride. Still, he¡¯d been in council, for what now, thirty years? Of course, it helped his cause, that he¡¯d spent the first twenty alive.


    As I pointed out, he¡¯s what is called a revenant, one of the more acceptable of the re-animated, at least according to the polls. All that happens to them is they get more dried out looking as the years go by. Not a lot of people will vote for a vampire or a werewolf, I am sorry to say Teresa. Sure revenants look like death warmed over but they won¡¯t drink your blood or go wild animal three days a month, nor are they as nearly as physically repugnant as a ghoul or a zombie.


    Even I had to admire the guy¡¯s work ethic. Five weeks in the hospital on his death bed, and was back to work the day after he rose.


    ¡°Ever a vote for the dead guy Johnny,¡± Bill wanted to know.


    I shrugged.


    ¡°I don''t know yet. Depends. What does he think about the death tax.¡±


    That elicited another laugh.


    ¡°They never should have given the dead to vote,¡± Frank offered. ¡°They should stay where they belong. In the ground, no matter what.¡±


    That elicited a frown from Bruce. But, hey, like Teresa, he was on the short side of thirty, he¡¯d been living in a re-animated world just about his whole life. I was more on the bubble, and had my own personal biases, so it was easier to take the old guys¡¯ bigotry, echo it a little, understand it.


    Bill and Frank, they grew up in the days when the undead were monsters you had to kill. Full stop. They were old enough to have remembered the aftermath of WWII, and the changes that came afterwards. The kind of stuff that we grew up with didn''t happen till they was practically middle-aged and set in their ways. It was all still wrong for them for the world to be the way it was, just for the living.


    So while you and I are pretty familiar with equal rights for the re-animated, the walking dead, vampires werewolves, even the as yet not quite fully explained gargoyles. Although to be perfectly fair with you I could do without the concrete crappers I had to hire to protect 23 Pangbourne. Again, personal biases not to mention fear of a crushed skull.


    The stuff that we read in the history books those two lived through and even if what they say isn¡¯t really acceptable in our enlightened and politically correct society of today. I do like to be reminded, at least on occasion that the world wasn''t always like this. And who know, might get back there someday too, if I lived that long.


    Does that mean it was better? Well, go back and read your history books and think about it. It¡¯s a tougher question than it you probably imagine.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 23 – A decidedly sexy turn

    It was about then that my cell rang. And from the particular ring tone, I instantly who it was, since Toni¡¯d programmed it in herself. Man did that she like her classical music. I''d been thinking of changing it, but I just have to figure out how to explain why Wagner wasn¡¯t really my style. You know, she even liked to play it during sex. Yeah, a bit weird, but, as I¡¯d noted, she is pretty hot in bed, so it¡¯s not all bad.


    ¡°It''s the girlfriend,¡± I told the guys, ¡°Back with you later. Let me know if the city¡¯s next mayor has anything earth shattering to tell us.¡±


    Bill made a noise.


    ¡°In his dreams,¡± he shot back.


    Do the dead really dream? The experts didn¡¯t think so. Teresa never said whether she dreamed or not and I¡¯d never asked her. Could lead to some uncomfortable confessions on my part.


    I took another drink, turned away from the pair and I tapped my phone, brought it up to my ear.


    ¡°Hey sweetie,¡± I started, I was good to hear her voice, after the day I''ve had. ¡°How are things at the church?¡±


    ¡°I''m okay lover, ¡°she told me in a playful tone that had an edge of suspicion in it. She was damn good with vocal cues and for some reason calling the hospital a place of worship tickled her pink. ¡°I had a very good night. How about you?¡±


    ¡±I''m doing well,¡± I told her, pleased I¡¯d made the decision a few hours ago that I had, for both our sakes. ¡°Considering the kind of crappy day it¡¯s been. Thinking of you has helped, though.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she replied, concern in her tone. She had to be the best RN ever, the best bedside and in bed manner. ¡°What happened baby?¡±


    Now, I had the feeling that she¡¯s heard the news,. My only question was how much she already knew and where she¡¯d heard it from. Although Toni expressed at least a little jealousy of my secretary, she and Teresa had engaged in a lot of communication over the past few months, now that she¡¯d gotten a little over initial impressions. And I guess she wanted confirmation that Teresa only wanted my job, not my body.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    Which I will admit was kind of weird, maybe, because in some ways Toni had more in common with my two friends at the bar. Her family was pretty old school religious too, pre-Vatican II Catholics. So when the three of us were together there always seemed some degree of tension. And not in the more preferable sexual kind.


    As I hinted earlier, she had been jealous, although I didn¡¯t share that for a few weeks after she found out Teresa was a werewolf Toni had been so mad she¡¯d almost dumped me. I think she¡¯s gotten mostly over the fear my admin assistant could attack at any moment, me or her. And maybe even more than that. Now, I was sure there was something going on between the two of them.


    ¡°Had to deal with a death of a tenant, baby, happened in one of the apartments late last night,¡± I told her.


    I heard her intake of breath.


    ¡°Jesus Johnny, was it bad?¡± she wanted to know. ¡°But you didn¡¯t say anything this morning.¡±


    Was I in trouble? Hard to tell yet.


    ¡°No, it was after you left,¡± I told her ¡°No rest for the wicked.¡±


    I took in a deep breath. Damn it was still affecting me. I had another drink. Shit, I looked at my hand, it was shaking. What was that all about?


    ¡°Wow,¡± I heard her say over the phone¡± ¡°Want me to come over?¡±


    ¡°Oh, more than anything,¡± that sound of her concern made everything better. She¡¯d gone into that mode. ¡°There¡¯s nothing more than I would like than that, but got to head out in a couple hours to see Vaclav, you know, Emily¡¯s lawyer, I can¡¯t see that I¡¯ll be back before 10.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re going to drive? They say it¡¯s going to snow up north tonight.¡±


    I have to say that I rarely loved her more than I did right now.


    ¡°I¡¯ll take it slow,¡± I told her. ¡°Better that this is done sooner than later.¡±


    ¡°I understand,¡± she told me. ¡°I¡¯ll tell you what I¡¯ll do. I¡¯ll do a shift this afternoon and meet you when you get back, and neither of us will have to get up early tomorrow.¡±


    I thought about that for a moment, that could be pretty good. I decided to say yes. It wouldn¡¯t be easy for her change her shift at the last moment. I didn¡¯t want to say no to that offer.


    ¡°And tell you what,¡± she told me, her tone taking a decidedly sexy turn. ¡°I''ll bring over something that will completely take your mind off of anything you saw today.¡±


    ¡°Really?¡± I asked. ¡°And what exactly will that be?¡±


    ¡°It''ll be a surprise,¡± she offered cryptically.


    ¡°I can''t wait,¡± I told her.


    At least one part of my life was going well. Maybe the rest would follow.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 24 – Respect the living

    I heard Bill joking with Frank when I got back to the bar and my beers.


    ¡°From the looks of things the kid¡¯s going to get lucky tonight,¡± he said to his old friend. Frank laughed.


    ¡°Good to know one of us is.¡±


    I shook my head.


    I actually was still on the phone, and thankfully not speakerphone.


    ¡°Oh honey,¡± Toni was saying, ¡°could you please do one thing for me?¡±


    ¡°Sure¡± I told her, ¡°anything.¡±


    ¡°I know you¡¯re a bit upset about what you saw, you¡¯d have to be,¡± she told me, ¡°but could you please not go down to that bar.¡±


    And by that bar, she was talking about the bar I was in right this moment working on my second beer. I decided not to tell her that I was already in the place. or that I was on my second beer.


    ¡°Of course,¡± I told her, ¡°See you tonight, sexy nurse.¡±


    ¡°See tonight, sexy apartment building manager¡± she told me, ¡°love you.¡±


    ¡°I love you to,¡± I told her and hung up the phone.


    Sexy nurse sounds a lot better, but I¡¯d never be able to pull that off.


    Then I turned back to the two old lechers.


    ¡°You know guys,¡± I told him, ¡°My girlfriend doesn''t seem to like you at all.¡±


    ¡°Well of course she doesn''t,¡± Frank offered, ¡°That''s because she''s young, has a brain and isn¡¯t blind. And she doesn¡¯t like how my friend here looks at her.¡±


    Bill chortled about that one.


    ¡°Now if she was 20 years older,¡± Frank continued, ¡°She wouldn''t be able to keep her hands off me. Well, maybe 40.¡±


    ¡°I had to laugh at that, because I was buzzed and it was funny. And I finished my second pint.


    I looked back up at the screen, and saw the clip of the three mayoral candidates for our ward talking about local issues. The MZC issue came up. Worthington¡¯s opponents seemed to think he¡¯d be light-handed with the city¡¯s growing street zombie problem.


    Remembering, I looked back at the window. That same zombie was staring in. At me? I wondered. Shit.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°Hey, Bruce,¡± I waved a hand to get the bartender¡¯s attention. ¡°How often do you get that.¡±


    He looked over. I pointed at the Z.


    ¡°Every once in a while,¡± he told me, then reached down and pulled up his electric zombie prodder. ¡°He bothering you? I could get the bat.¡±


    I shook my head.


    ¡°No, never mind.¡± I told him. Then I had an idea, and grabbed a napkin and a pen from my pocket.


    Confirmation. I needed to know, to plan. And it was easier to ask when I was drunk.


    ¡°Bruce,¡± I pushed the pen and napkin across the bar. ¡°Can you spell my name.¡±


    He cocked his head as though I¡¯d mouthed nonsense.


    ¡°Humor me,¡± I told him. He nodded, picked up the pen started scrawling.


    ¡°It¡¯s Smith, right,¡± he asked. I nodded. In a moment he was done, and he passed the napkin back to me. He¡¯s spelled my name perfectly. Without any prompting at all. I glanced back out at the zombie.


    Could the spell, all that blood, have worked? After two drinks and a promised booty call from my girlfriend, what I¡¯d seen hadn¡¯t seemed so real. But people weren¡¯t supposed to be able to spell my name. They weren¡¯t. Not if it hadn¡¯t been broken in pieces.


    I shivered in the warm pub. I hadn¡¯t felt so exposed in years. And maybe that Z was part of it.


    ¡°Hey Johnny,¡± Frank was shaking my shoulder. ¡°Look, the building¡¯s on the news again.¡±


    I turned to see that Asian Pulse247 reporter from this morning on the screen.


    ¡°¡­the police are being quiet on this one,¡± the reporter was saying. ¡°But they are calling it a suspicious death. Building manager, Johnny Smith offered no comment.¡±


    ¡°What the hell,¡± I couldn¡¯t believe what I was seeing. They were using my name! Even during the Grappo murder they hadn¡¯t mentioned me.


    Fuck. I took another gulp.


    ¡°No comment eh?¡± Frank asked me.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t talk to anybody.¡± I stared at the TV. ¡°How could they put that on the air?¡±


    ¡°I guess that¡¯s where the whole, no comment comes in,¡± Frank offered. ¡°Still kind of odd that they mentioned your name specifically. What did you have to do with it?¡±


    Could Dr. Dave have possibly been right in his assertions? Could it have been a real sacrificial spell cast using that man¡¯s blood? And all to do with me? The dream. The thirteenth. The blood. I looked down and stared at the dark wood of the bar. I did not want to believe it was happening. It couldn¡¯t have been possible. There was no way it was possible that anyone would know who I was, what I¡¯d done. I took another few gulps from my pint and the alcohol helped convince me that it was all just something that happened. It would go away. It would always go away. It had to.


    The coverage went back to the municipals and talks about how a dead candidate showed how the re-animated were being normalized in society, could be productive, a value.


    ¡°They are no different than the rest of us,¡± the advocate was saying. ¡°They need a roof over their heads, and they need a purpose in their existence. To know that they are an accepted part of the community. I think if we elect a re-animated mayor that this will show that the city is moving into the future and not part of the past.¡±


    ¡°But what about the living, shouldn¡¯t the focus be on them?¡±


    ¡°The living are all going to be dead eventually. If we don¡¯t start planning for how societal demographics are changing we are going to be left behind. Look at how they are handling it in Europe, South America. There the re-animated are already leading members of society.¡±


    ¡°And Europe has one of the most stagnant economies on the planet. Do we really want to emulate that?¡±


    ¡°At least they respect their dead. Can you really say that about us on this side of the Atlantic? What does that say about how we respect the living?¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 25 – Unending horror

    If you can forgive me right now, I''ll talk a little bit about how our world and all of us got to where we are today. Not the specific how, because only God really knows what''s happened to the world in the last half-century. And based on anything I''ve ever heard, he still isn''t taking interviews. Except of course, by the kooks.


    Now if you''re anything like I was when I was in school you really didn''t give a damn about history and are more interested in your SAT marks, being popular or trying to get laid.


    In my case that meant trying to get into the kind of crowd they didn''t initiate about God and was more interested with the other guy. And getting laid and, well that worked out okay for some not so well for others. But that''s another story.


    Now Frank was pretty upset about the coming election, because he knew based on the polls that it was pretty likely that for next city Council were to have a re-animated mayor. In fact across the country those guys are popping up and making themselves be heard. His world was officially going bye-bye.


    In fact to be honest they started popping about sixty years ago, with increasing numbers every year since then. Go check the census if you don¡¯t believe me.


    They even say that the dead are going to make up half the population by 2050. What does that mean? More and more services devoted to supporting the re-animated lifestyles. An expansion of a blood supply needed to support the growing population of vampires. More and more wolf parks that allow the freedom of werewolves to roam on full moons. Whole new industries to ensure a rancid food supply for ghouls. And let''s not talk about the shortage of brain matter to service the growing needs of the urban zombie population.


    Now there''s little disagreement between pundits, philosophers, priests and madmen about what the exact cause of this whole thing is. But the fact is. where once the monster is confined themselves to fantasy, under your bed, in your closets, graveyards and hidden castles in Transylvania sixty or so years ago, they started coming out of the woodwork.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Once the big war was over, before when people died, mostly, like before, they stayed dead, sometimes they didn''t. Sometimes they came back as zombies, sometimes ghouls, occasionally even a vampire. People freaked, thought the things were contagious. Some still do.


    Now as I said before I''m not really against people living there afterlives. Anything that comes up is usually due to my job. After all Vaclav is probably one of the most interesting people I''ve ever talked to. The man is fascinating to a fault. Now he has dreadful taste in women, But nobody''s perfect. And Teresa, who could ask for a better admin assistant. Although to be perfectly fair I wish she hadn¡¯t started talking with Toni so much.


    A guy has got a have some secrets he can keep to the workplace, eh?


    So yeah, they used to be monsters, used to be the undead. But since the turn of the century demographics have shifted to a tipping point. There¡¯s a growing rift in the population. We hear about the culture of death, protests and marches.


    You remember the Million Dead march don¡¯t you? Roger and Frank are part of a declining demographic who might someday be playing for the other team, so to speak. If they are unlucky, I guess, from their point of view.


    Me, I just don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve never wanted to be a part of it. But more and more I have no choice. The dead surround us, and we are all going to have to deal with it. And it¡¯s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, if the numbers are any indication.


    But that, I can, for the most part, deal with.


    My bigger problems were much closer to home. And I did not want to think about them.


    So I got myself drawn into the whole live-dead debate and the time flew by. The beers helped.


    We have to make room. That¡¯s what it¡¯s all about. Accepting that death surrounds us, works around us and might even replace us all some day. You can¡¯t escape it, but you can take advantage of it. And that¡¯s what this is all about, really. Taking advantage. Death¡¯s no more contagious than it¡¯s ever been, not really.


    And that¡¯s what the human race has always been good at doing. Adapting to the unthinkable. Make it familiar, normalize it and carry on. Why? Because it¡¯s a better choice than the alternative.


    War. Atrocity. Unending horror.


    There were places in the world where such a thing was still commonplace. We here in the so-called civilized world have to be better than that. Don¡¯t we?


    --

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 26 – Stupid me

    After my third beer I was feeling much better, I was feeling decently buzzed, and I palled around with Bill and Frank while I continued ordering, Dr. peppers and various pub food off the menu and let the alcohol slowly get leeched out of my bloodstream. Add to that a big cheddar cheese melt burger, and chatting about politics with the old guys got me out of my funk.


    This is one of the advantages of having a bar that you can go to unwind even if your girlfriend forbids it. But hey, that is a big part of the allure, isn¡¯t it?


    Before I knew it, it was six o''clock in time to go. I went to the restroom, bade goodbye to the geezers. By now the place was starting to fill up. Too bad, I would have liked to have stayed.


    I¡¯d entire forgotten about my worries and fears, and actually looking forwards to the drive out to the boonies.


    As expected, it was dark and a mix of rain and sleet was pelting down, but by that point I didn''t mind. I got in my car and started on the trip up to Vaclav¡¯s


    And as I was driving, I could let the slow and steady pace relax me further.


    If you live in a big city that is anything like T.O. you know that around six o''clock things are pretty much at a standstill. But that didn''t bother me much tonight, I turned on the satellite radio and listen to the public news channel while I slowly inched out of the city on my way to the suburbs and the surrounding forested greenbelt, and there, 23 Pangbourne Place¡¯s vampire lawyer.


    Yeah, I could have listened to some music channel, but I knew not having something to think about would lead me back to what I was trying to avoid thinking about? So it was reassuring to think about the financial mess the city was in, or how our sport¡¯s teams keep disappointing their fans. And after that, I listened avidly about what was going on in the Middle East. Yeah, not relaxing, but certainly diverting.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    So yes, while I watched carefully the cars ahead, all of us making our way out of town, it was good to think about countries where one group¡¯s zombie soldiers were being used against our zombie soldiers to blow each other into tiny bits.


    And after that, of course, a compelling documentary on the rates of how many of the dead were immediately sent back into combat, to be blown up, and then sewn back together to be sent back to do it all over again.


    I wonder what that Vaclav would have to say about that. It sounded pretty depressing to me, how the war was being handled. They had this woman on who was talking about her husband and wondering how many bits of him would ever get to come back after the army had finished using them all up. Unfortunately for me, the story finally made its way on his teenaged decision to become a soldier, and how he was unprepared for the war he was ultimately compelled to fight.


    Yeah, stupid teenaged decisions. No matter what you listen to...


    But still, I was making a tempest in a teapot, wasn¡¯t I? Even if there was some fallout with my own protections from my tenant¡¯s stupid cracking spell, I could fix things. I¡¯d fixed them before and I could do it now.


    Come on, does any magic last forever? Nah, I told myself as the traffic finally began to break up and open out, leaving a clear lane in front of me to step on the gas. Nothing last forever, I was sure, not even the re-animated.


    And who¡¯s to say anything is even about me!


    Maybe the nut in 213 had cast a spell to try and do something that had nothing to do with me, and the magic I had somehow lost was a case of wrong place, wrong time. And maybe the dream was a wakeup call, and not a stupid omen like I¡¯d thought it¡¯d been a few hours ago.


    I knew what I had to do. Tomorrow I¡¯d dig up the old manuscripts I¡¯d kept from when I had worked on the anonymizing magic. I¡¯d just do the whole thing over again. Tweak it a bit of course, I didn¡¯t want my friends to forget who I was again, but I could clean the slate and just keep going as I had been.


    By the time I reached Vaclav¡¯s I had a plan, I was ready. There are no problems, only solutions as the first zombie Beatle once sang. I could deal.


    I pulled the car off the highway, and down the tree-lined road that led to Vaclav¡¯s, I was upbeat again and looking forward to the future.


    Stupid me.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 27 – And she led me on

    So, yeah, I wouldn¡¯t have to give up my job. I wouldn¡¯t have to give up Toni. I wouldn¡¯t have to give up my Fridays with the Random Restaurant Rangers. Things would be fine. No, they would be great.


    By the time I¡¯d reached the turn off, I was feeling good, actually looking forward to seeing Vaclav. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.


    There¡¯s something to be said to driving through the forested country north of the city. Just calming, really. I could understand why Vaclav preferred it up here.


    Treed blew by, beyond them the dim lights of houses set well back from the road. People out here were free, really, private, able to disconnect. I should really get a place up here, I thought to myself. A home away from home. A better home. I should talk to Vaclav about that. At least give it a try. He should know something about the cost of real estate out here.


    Before I knew it, I¡¯d reached the end of the road, and turned off onto his lane, spotting the old house at the end of it.


    Hmmm... I thought to myself. There was a car in the driveway. Did he have a visitor? I wondered if I was interrupting anything. He hadn¡¯t called back with any issues with me coming up. Well, even if he wasn¡¯t available, I could leave the papers for him to look over. Although to not have a chance to chat with the only hundred-year-old or so vampire I knew would be a small disappointment.


    The car I pulled up behind was a little black hatchback, complete with reflective window tinting. I got out, walked around it. There was a parking sticker on the windshield from the local school district.


    It seemed that old Vaclav had gotten himself a new girlfriend. And I wondered to myself, what kind of vampire he¡¯d found this time. Well, too late to go back. And after all, I didn¡¯t have to stay if she was on the lower end of his scale.


    I walked up the flagstones, to the big door, and, as Vaclav didn''t think much of doorbells, I lifted the big brass knocker and banged it three timesIf you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Then I waited, turned to watch the flakes of snow drift down through the dark lit up by the house¡¯s halogens. Pretty, really. I decided to definitely ask him about the local real estate


    No answer.


    After a couple minutes, I knocked again. Took a look at the mailbox by the door. It was empty and there was more than enough room to put in the papers if I had to.


    I was just about to drop them in when the light came on behind the frosted glass of the front door. I straightened and stood waiting for it to open.


    I was not surprised, when the door was opened, to see a curvy woman in black, long and straight black hair, long black dress, low cut of course, ample cleavage and full of black lipstick lips.


    Totally hot.


    She smiled, of course revealing that she was totally a vampire.


    ¡°Yes?¡± she asked with a smile and flash of sharp white teeth..


    Another step down, I suspected. I smiled back, but inside I was shaking my head.


    ¡°Hi,¡± I started. ¡°Is Vaclav in?¡±


    She narrowed her gaze, scrutinizing me.


    ¡°Does he know you?¡± Her voice had that low sexy tone, easily enough to send a shiver up my spine, or anyone else¡¯s really, male or female.


    ¡°He should.¡± I decided to keep to business. ¡°He¡¯s the lawyer for the apartment building I manage.¡±


    ¡°Oh,¡± she told me. ¡°He said something about that.¡±


    ¡°Yes,¡± I told her. ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to invite me in. It is a bit nippy out here.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes, of course,¡± she told me, stepped back and waved. ¡°Please come in.¡±


    ¡°Thanks,¡± I told her, and entered, brushed my shoes free of snow as she closed the door behind me.


    ¡°Let me take your coat,¡± she offered.


    Before I knew it she was very close, her quick and confident hands easily separating me from my winter coat. While her breath was cold and there was something as chilly about her as the weather, I did feel my heart quicken involuntarily in such close proximity.


    Yes, regardless of Vaclav¡¯s taste, his girlfriends never ceased to have that effect.


    That¡¯s what vampires will do to you, eh? In this world they probably have it easiest in many ways more than most of the re-animated.


    ¡°How was the drive up from the city,¡± she asked as she took my coat and hung it on the nearby coat rack.


    ¡°Actually relaxing,¡± I told her. ¡°There¡¯s something about getting out of the city that really eases the mind.¡±


    ¡°I know what you mean,¡± she told me. ¡°I used to love it amongst the hustle and bustle when I lived south of Bloor, but since I- since I started my new life, I find it much more comfortable out here. It¡¯s so very restful.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure,¡± I told her.


    ¡°He¡¯s this way,¡± she told me, pointed into the darkened house.


    ¡°Thanks,¡± I said, and took in a deep breath.


    And she led me on.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 28 – You’ve been expected

    ¡°You must be Johnny Smith then,¡± the vampiress said. ¡°You''ve been expected.¡±


    Her voice continued to cause shivers to run down my spine.


    Wow, I thought. He just gets worse.


    She opened the ornate wooden doors wide, and gestured for me to enter the foyer of Tchiklvec Manor as I jokingly called it.


    ¡°How long have you known Vaclav? ¡° I asked her as I followed her towards the rear of the house.


    ¡°Oh, we¡¯ve been seeing each other for a few weeks,¡± she told me. ¡°He¡¯s one of the most fascinating men I¡®ve ever met really. So much history¡­


    She smiled and glanced back at me, batted her thick eyelashes.


    ¡°Well, you probably know that.¡±


    ¡°Oh, yes,¡± I replied. ¡°He certainly does have his stories.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s mentioned you a couple times.¡±


    ¡°Has he?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yes,¡± she confessed. ¡°I was expecting... I don¡¯t know. Someone less distinguished. You have an aura about you. I don¡¯t know what it is, but-¡±


    ¡°Really,¡± I asked.


    ¡°Yes.¡± she told me breathily. ¡°You¡¯re much more than I expected.¡±


    ¡°Thank you,¡± I told her, starting to grow a bit on edge. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to interrupt things. There was a situation at the building. One of those things that had to be dealt with ASAP.¡±


    I realized that she hadn¡¯t told me her name.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Stephanie,¡± the woman told me smiling again, although this time she didn¡¯t show off her impressive set of incisors.


    ¡°Just Stephanie,¡± I asked.


    She closed her lips still smiling, offered me a bedroom glance.


    ¡°Just Stephanie,¡± she confirmed.


    The atmosphere between us was getting a bit claustrophobic. And I could feel my temperature rising.


    For a moment our gazes locked, and I couldn¡¯t look away from her dark brown eyes. There was something about them, hypnotizing, alluring. I forgot everything for a moment, before I managed to shake it off.


    ¡°Oh,¡¯ she smiled again. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry about that. I¡¯m not completely used to this. I only died a short while ago.


    It was odd to receive such a confession.


    ¡°You haven¡¯t been-¡± I started.


    ¡°It will be six months next week,¡± she told me frankly, her mysterious allure shedding slightly. ¡°This all, takes a kind of adjustment. You know what I mean?¡±


    ¡°I know a bit,¡± I told her. ¡°I hired my assistant not long after she-¡±


    I stopped. We hand been standing in the hallway for what seemed like a long time.


    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t we continue on?¡± I asked her.


    ¡°Continue¡­?¡± she replied, seeming a little confused.


    ¡°Vaclav?¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve come to see him about the legal issues for 23 Pangbourne.¡±


    I raised the file folder.


    ¡°Oh, yes,¡± she nodded, almost laughing, her voice getting a bit tinkly. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, he¡¯s just through here, in the study.¡±


    Her smile turned to a pout od disappointment. She sighed, and motioned me to follow her. On the plus side, I suddenly had a deep appreciation for Toni. I figured, after tonight with her I¡¯d wake up with the same amount of blood that I went to sleep with. And that was a good thing. Thinking of that would keep me on the straight and narrow most definitely.


    I had to chuckle to myself though. She probably drew more blood in the space of a month than any vampire ever did.


    Vaclav was ensconced in his usual haunt, his personal study. Although for some people a study is a small room with a few books a comfy chair or two, not so for our vampire lawyer. Vaclav¡¯s study was the centerpiece of his house. It had stories to it, it had ladders to help reach the higher levels of his bookshelves. It had a roaring fireplace. And from what I remembered, one that an actually featured real wood.


    I did notice it spitting sparks onto the floor in front of it tonight.


    Man, the room was warm.


    And, as I had expected, seated behind a large wooden desk, which did not and would not have a computer on it, was the tall gaunt figure of Emily¡¯s real estate lawyer, Vaclav. When Stephanie entered and I followed, he was leaning back, reading a book, a fairly hefty tome, a leather-bound hardcover.


    When he saw me, his face brightened, and he slapped the book shut.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 29 – What a strange feeling

    ¡°Well hello Johnny,¡± he greeted me in that ageless central European accent of his. ¡°How are you doing my boy?¡±


    Vaclav put down the book gently, and stood up, revealing his height and inhumanly slender frame. He was a good eight inches taller than me and probably twenty pounds lighter.


    And I''m no heavyweight.


    He was of course wearing his typical, even clich¨¦ Edwardian smoking jacket and other antique paraphernalia. He made his way around his desk and walked right up to me, giving me a gentle hug. I didn¡¯t flinch, not anymore. It was just the way he was, not threat intended.


    When he pulled back, he nodded towards his new girlfriend.


    ¡°I see that you''ve met dear Stephanie,¡± he said.


    I turned to look back at her.


    She smiled in a way that I found supremely creepy. I tried to smile back to Vaclav.


    ¡°She seems very nice,¡± I replied.


    Vaclav nodded, glanced over at his desk and then back at her.


    ¡°My dear, it seems that the room had gotten is rather dry, could you go and get something for us to partake in.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± she told him. ¡°what would you like?¡±


    ¡°The scotch,¡± he told her, then tossed a questioning glance back at me. ¡°Fine with you?¡±


    ¡°I could take a finger or two. Not more than that. I need to drive back.¡±Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    ¡°Of course.¡±


    Vaclav had quite the collection. Some of it, or so he told me was nearly as old has he was.


    Stephanie turned and left the study. It felt suddenly empty, almost gnawingly so. What a strange feeling. I turned back to Vaclav.


    ¡°Have a seat over here by the fire Johnny,¡± he invited, motioned me to sit¡±


    The fires was pleasantly warm, and I forgot about that hollowing hunger I had just felt. He sat opposite to me.


    ¡°How long do you expect your visit to be?¡±


    ¡°Well, Not that long,¡± I began. I should be back around 10, so probably only for an hour at the most.¡± By then I was beginning to suspect I would be in a hurry to get home.


    ¡°Then one shot should be all right,¡± he decided.


    ¡°Just as long as she doesn''t mix up the glasses.¡±


    ¡°Oh, you''ll find she never does that,¡± Vaclav replied, a bit of a predatory smile on his lips. ¡°She¡¯s young, in her new life, that is, but she¡¯s adjusted quickly. Quite impressive, really.¡±


    I had glanced at Vaclav as she watched her leave, the unmistakable look of lust in his eyes. Perhaps I wasn¡¯t the only one in the room to feel Stephanie¡¯s absence so strongly.


    ¡°I thought you were seeing, what, that conservative pundit wasn¡¯t it? Nan Carothers.¡±


    I¡¯d heard she¡¯d produced another book assailing the so-called ¡®Liberal Elite¡¯ and their coddling of the re-animated. Pretty strange considering she was a vampire herself. Had to be a certain sense of self-loathing there.


    He nodded.


    ¡°She decided that she needed to get out into the world again,¡± he said in a bit of a distant tone.


    ¡°Seriously?¡±


    ¡°We both needed a change,¡± he told me. ¡°I needed someone a little less rigid, in her beliefs I mean, a little more fresh, again, beliefs. I¡¯m sure you understand.¡±


    ¡°What have you found this time?¡± I asked him. ¡°Another conservative? Defense lawyer, tow truck driver?¡±


    He narrowed his gaze at me as if he was trying to figure if I was joking or not.


    ¡°Not so troubling as that,¡± he offered.


    ¡°What then?¡± I asked.


    ¡°School Trustee. Catholic school board,¡± he replied a bit of a smirk on his lips.


    I smirked back.


    ¡°Good for you,¡± I told him. I began to change my opinion. And he thought that she was going to be less rigid than Caruthers. A Catholic school vampire. My mind reeled.


    Stephanie had to be a real treat. As if on cue I heard the sound of clicking stilettos.


    I turned my head, and there Stephanie was. she had returned effortlessly carrying a tray holding a dusty bottle and three tumblers.


    Only one drink, I told myself.

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 30 – A penchant for wearing bellbottoms

    I made a mental note, to make sure that Stephanie and Toni would never be in the same room together. That probably wasn''t an impossibility. Vaclav¡¯s affair¡¯s didn''t seem to usually last more than a few months based on my limited experience. On the other hand, Emily¡¯s Christmas party was only maybe five weeks away.


    Fireworks might definitely fly. After all, they were likely from two separate branches of Catholicism, which weren¡¯t coming back together anytime soon. And Stephanie was a vampire. And she seemed to revel in the kind of seductiveness her new existence had given her.


    I handed the folder over to Vaclav and said none of that.


    Stephanie lowered the tray onto the coffee table by our sides, leaned over to pour the scotch into the three glasses.


    Vaclav smiled at her and picked up one of the glasses. And then he nodded at her and she held the glass to me to pick up.


    ¡°Well go ahead,¡± he invited me drink. ¡°It''s a fifty-year-old. To¡­ new arrangements,¡± he toasted.


    We lifted our glasses, I glanced at the vampires then sipped from mine. It was far smoother than I¡¯d expected. Whether it was from last century or maybe the one before, it was pretty good.


    So we drank our scotch, and when we were done Vaclav nodded at Stephanie and she withdrew to one of the couches on the other side of his large fireplace to pick up a tablet laying there and begin swiping.


    And then he looked at me.


    ¡°I think they''re going to be some changes in our arrangement after this situation is dealt with,¡± he told me. ¡°I have already broached this with Emily, although I can tell you she is not entirely happy about it.¡±Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    I looked at him, puzzled.


    ¡°What kind of changes?¡±


    I put down my glass.


    ¡°Well you see Johnny,¡± he told me still holding his tumbler. ¡°I''ve been a lawyer a long time, you know that. A very long time.¡±


    That was true, he''d shown me old documents going back to the nineteen twenties. I couldn¡¯t read them, of course, as they¡¯d been written in either Czech or German.


    He was inordinately proud of his personal history. And clearly glad to share some of it with someone. Whether it be a business partner or someone more intimate.


    Although I wondered how truly interested Stephanie was in that kind of ancient history.


    He took another sip from his scotch,


    ¡°You see I had been in property law for almost thirty years now, ever since I left Sudetenland,¡± he told me. ¡°In fact as long as I''ve been on this continent property law has been my primary field of work. But as you know things have been changing dramatically on a national, even global scale.¡±


    I nodded, although I wasn''t exactly sure how he met the term recently. Vaclav often referred to the disco era as ¡®recent¡¯. And that well explained his penchant for wearing bellbottoms when he threw a party.


    I was about to find out.


    ¡°You know Johnny ever since the world became so much more liberal in the last couple of decades, I¡¯ve seen an opening to embark on a new adventure within my chosen profession.¡±


    ¡°I''ve been thinking of moving on from property law,¡± he confessed, opening up his palms. ¡°To something I think will be something more challenging and new and perhaps exciting. To be honest, I haven¡¯t felt such verve since I became what I am.¡±


    He finished by turning his long white fingers at his chest.


    ¡°Really,¡± I replied, growing interested and curious myself. ¡°Exactly what you''re looking into?¡±


    ¡°Well I think that the real growth area in law has to be none other than estate law,¡± he told me. ¡°You are familiar with the changes brought on by the Phoenix act, are you not?¡±


    ¡°Estate law,¡± I replied. ¡°Yes I can see that.¡±


    There would be plenty of fireworks in that area as the relationship between the living and re-animated were ironed out by the courts. Many newly risen wanted to keep what they had in life, which wasn¡¯t a surprise.


    He smiled widely at me.


    ¡°I can¡¯t remember when I¡¯ve felt so excited.¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 31 – Jesus’s undead army

    I picked up my tumbler, took another sip of the scotch, then considered adding another layer to my next meeting with Emily. Vaclav had been her lawyer, for what? thirty years as far as I knew. She was absolutely devoted to him.


    How much change was she willing to accept in her life. After all, she was pushing eighty. At least I thought that was how old she was. Emily was very careful about revealing her exact age, at least to me.


    ¡°So how long,¡± I ask him, ¡°do you think it''ll take for you to make a move?¡±


    He gave me an appraising look, shifted some of the muscles on his face as he thought. Perhaps this wasn''t a serious as he led on.


    ¡°Oh, I''ve been thinking some time within the next five years or so,¡± he suggested. ¡°It''s a significant move, and there are of course others who perhaps have decades more experience in the field.¡±


    He smiled that broad smile again.


    ¡°I may have to go back to university!¡±


    ¡°I''m sure you''ll do fine,¡± I told him. ¡°You''ve been a pretty effective lawyer as far as I can say. And I doubt there¡¯s many lawyers around who have your total years of experience.¡±


    ¡°Thank you for the vote of confidence,¡± he replied, then shook his head. ¡°Now how long has it been since you''ve had a chance to sit down with me and chat. This has been wonderful. You should come by again, when it¡¯s not about business.¡±


    I wondered about that. It had been at least two or three months since I actually had time to sit down for a social visit.


    ¡°It''s been a while,¡± I admitted.


    ¡°Well then,¡± he stood up and motioned for me to join him with Stephanie over at the room''s couches. ¡°Let¡¯s relax for a few minutes and catch up on things.¡±


    I check my cellphone. Yes, I still had around forty-five minutes before I had to leave and I always looked forward to the chance to hear Vaclav¡¯s opinions on what was going on in the world. Although to start off with he had a question for me.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    ¡°You know I can''t help but notice that the time this meeting on the eve of a full moon,¡± he said to me. ¡°Now as I remember last year you hired a new admin assistant.¡±


    ¡°Ah yes,¡± he wanted to talk again about my werewolf. I remember that he hinted on inviting her to one of his parties. But so far he hadn''t.


    ¡°You mean Teresa,¡± I said to him.


    ¡°Yes,¡± he replied, ¡°How are you getting on with her? I can tell you, I¡¯ve had some interesting experiences with werewolves, both of the male and female variety. They have the most fascinatingly fractured souls.¡±


    This certainly piqued Stephanie¡¯s curiosity, and she slid somewhat closer to Vaclav, gaze moving smoothly from him to me and then back.


    Whenever I go to visit Vaclav I always get a feeling like I''ve entered a kind of different world, one that almost wholly existed before I was born. And he comes across less of how vampires are generally portrayed in the media, and far more of a man out of time. And that got me thinking about the difference between now and when he lived his human life. And how we think about souls now.


    There are numerous theories about souls these days. And what they have to do with the re-animation of modern dead.


    It was an interesting choice, for instance, the new pope trying to welcome back into the church what he called lost souls, those who survive on afterlife. Of course, there¡¯s also the whole idea from of revelations and Jesus¡¯s undead army, but that¡¯s a different story completely.


    Now, unfortunately, there has been no scientific definite proving of the existence of souls. Scientists these days seem to point towards the electromagnetic nature of humanity and how that affects whether we walk around, or whether we fall down and stay there.


    Of course, the religious amongst us believed that all along since the beginning of time. But some of our more established religions have been seriously affected by the events around what is happened over the last fifty years or so.


    There was the significant schism in the Catholic Church for its willingness to admit the re-animated under its umbrella, at least a couple varieties of them. With their idea that any soul can be saved, as long as whatever you happen to be has a soul then you can be part of the current Vatican.


    And certainly I don''t think it''s hardly worse to have a vampire or such leading a congregation than the other kinds of men in the past. And then, there¡¯s the whole drinking of blood which is as old as Catholicism itself.


    Teresa and I get into some pretty intense discussions over that, I can assure you.


    Of course just because her branch of Catholicism will have nothing of that it makes me wonder exactly how long-term our relationship is going to work. After all, the church has been around a documented seventeen hundred years or so. Vampires, werewolves have only been officially documented for fifty. Who knows what will happen over the next fifty let alone a few centuries?

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 32 – Look out boy, she’ll chew you up

    I suddenly heard something that I¡¯d never expected to hear in Vaclav¡¯s house. It was the sound of a telephone, but not the ring of his old rotary dial. It was the musical ring of a cell phone.


    ¡°Oh,¡± he stopped and rose to his feet. And sure he enough, he picked up a mobile receiver and answered it.


    I looked over to Stephanie and raised my eyebrows.


    She just smiled.


    ¡°Hello?¡± Vaclav was saying. ¡°Oh yes, yes of course, one moment.¡±


    I looked up at him. He seemed out of sorts for a moment, then straightened up


    ¡°I apologize, Johnny, Stephanie, I have to take this in private,¡± he told us. ¡°You know how it is, confidentiality and all that. You two feel free to carry on without me while I attend to this business.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡¯ Stephanie replied. And we both watched as he exited the room.


    I turned back to her and we shared a silent moment that grew little awkward as it stretched on.


    ¡°I-¡±


    ¡°The-¡±


    We both started talking at the same time. And then she laughed a bell like laugh.


    ¡°How are you handling you¡¯re new-¡°


    ¡°Life.¡±


    ¡°I guess that¡¯s a good description as any.¡±


    She offered me another look. Then she got up. And turned away.


    ¡°It¡¯s really very different,¡± she told me, then turned back. ¡°Everything, every sense I have is different, some more intense, others I have lost much of, and miss a great deal.¡±You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    She wandered over closer to the book case near the fireplace, put her finger on a book. Then looked back at me.


    ¡°Could you come over here,¡± she asked.


    Although I found her brief confession a bit odd, she didn¡¯t seem dangerous. And what would she attempt in Vaclav¡¯s house, his study? I got up, walked over to her. She turned around and regarded me.


    ¡°When I look at people, they appear very different than when I was human,¡± she told me :¡±It¡¯s hard to explain. I¡¯ve done research of course. I¡¯m going to be like this for, I guess it could be a very long time¡­¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what I hear.¡±


    ¡°But tell me about you,¡± she said to me. ¡°You¡¯re different as well, you¡¯re not like a normal living person. Or one of the re-animated.¡±


    I stopped, raised a hand.


    ¡°No, there¡¯s nothing special about me.¡±


    Her eyes widened. She looked over at the fireplace, then back at me.


    ¡°Oh now,¡± she replied almost breathlessly. ¡°There¡¯s something about you that is so different. You¡¯re part of something that is so important.¡±


    Before I knew it she was right in front of me, and the cool touch of her hand ran down my cheek. My gaze was locked on hers. I couldn¡¯t look away.


    ¡°No,¡± she told me. ¡°There¡¯s something special about you. Something very very warm.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s probably the fire that your feeling,¡± I tried.


    ¡°Oh I¡¯m feeling a fire. But it¡¯s inside you, Mr. Johnny Smith.¡±


    I tried to move away, but she grabbed my arms, held me fast.


    ¡°So tell me,¡± she demanded, her face, her body now very close to mine, her deep brown eyes looking straight into ¨C no through ¨C mine. ¡°Why are you so hot?¡±


    ¡°I think I¡¯ve had enough of this.¡±


    I tried to pull away. No, that wasn¡¯t happening.


    ¡°No, tell me, I have to know. Tell me. You can tell me what is going to happen to me. I know it.¡±


    I tried to twist away again. She pulled me closer instead. Her soft if cool body pressed up against mine, our faces were almost touching, or would have if I wasn¡¯t trying as hard as I could to prevent it.


    ¡°You don¡¯t smell like anyone else,¡± she told me as she breathed in what I breathed out..


    It felt like I was in the grip of steel. I could feel the heat from behind me. We had somehow moved much closer to the fireplace..


    ¡°You smell of blood that is not your own,¡± she told me. ¡°So much blood!¡±


    ¡°Let me go,¡± I told her. ¡°Stephanie, this isn¡¯t a good idea.¡±


    I was beginning to get frantic.


    ¡°Vaclav!¡± I called out.


    ¡°Shush,¡± she told me, held me close, tight, hard. ¡°Tell me about the blood and the fire. Mostly the fire. I want to know what it is?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know anything. It doesn¡¯t have anything to do with me.¡±


    I tried again to break free. Frantically, I managed to pull one arm from her grip. But only for a moment.


    She pulled me back to face her, and look into those dark dark eyes again.


    ¡°Oh, it has to,¡± she told me, voice now cracking with emotion. ¡°You¡¯ve seen what it looks like. Where it leads. Is there no way I can avoid it?.¡±


    ¡°I-¡±

 The Thirteenth – Chapter 33 – Perhaps some Hall and Oates?

    Stephanie, Johnny,¡± I heard Vaclav¡¯s voice call out. Our connection broke and The vampiress released me. Stepped back, she looked over at Vaclav, a look of embarrassment and shame on her face.


    ¡°Is everything all right,¡± he asked.


    ¡°I-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    Stephanie looked back to me, something akin to fear in her eyes, then retreated back to Vaclav, turned to him.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she told him. ¡°I have a very busy day tomorrow. School meetings, you know. I must leave, darling, I am sorry.¡±


    Stephanie looked back at me, something roiling under the surface of her face, emotions way out of whack.


    ¡°I should go,¡± she said. ¡°It was very¡­ nice to meet you Mr. Smith. Good night dear.¡±


    And before I knew it there was only a rather surprised Vaclav, not to mention me standing in his study. Well, and a still burning fire in the fireplace.


    ¡°What exactly were you and Stephanie talking about?¡± he wanted to know.


    ¡°I have no idea,¡± I told him, feeling quite shaky, I fell back onto the cough.. ¡°She seemed to get very bothered at how hot I am.¡±


    ¡°How hot?¡¯Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    ¡°I think she was talking about temperature.¡±


    ¡°How very odd,¡± he noted. ¡°But it does take some time to adjust to a new life. Perhaps she was just going through part of her conversion tonight.¡±


    ¡°She was going through something.¡±


    ¡°There is something different about you tonight as well,¡± he told me. ¡°What exactly did go on at the apartment building. You seem¡­ ¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I told him. ¡°Just some tenant who went off the deep end. That¡¯s all I know. Fingers called me down to the apartment. And I was stupid enough to go and see it.¡±


    ¡°What was it like?¡±


    ¡°There was a lot of blood.¡±


    ¡°Ah¡± he said. ¡°Don¡¯t¡¯ worry about it. When we are first, turned, as it were, we¡¯re very sensitive to the smell. It can linger. If I had known I might have told you to have a shower before you drove up.¡±


    I took a few more breaths, in fact I think I was starting to hyperventilate..


    ¡°Just that,¡± I replied. ¡°Some sensitivity then.¡±


    ¡°Sure Johnny,¡±: he replied. ¡°What else could it be.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I told him, ¡°she seemed pretty freaky ¨C freaked out.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll talk to her later,¡± he replied. ¡°But relax, she wasn¡¯t going to do anything, we had a full meal before you arrived. I made sure of that.¡±


    I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.


    ¡°Perhaps I should put on some music,¡± he offered. ¡°To help you calm down before your drive back to the city.¡±


    I nodded


    ¡°Sure.¡±


    He turned to his shelves, started pulling out some compact discs. Then turned back.


    ¡°Stravinsky?¡± he suggested. ¡°Mendelssohn.¡±


    ¡°No classical music, please,¡± I begged.


    ¡°Oh, yes, you are younger,¡± he reached into his collection again. ¡°Perhaps some Hall and Oates? I have their Rock and Soul, Volume One.¡±


    I nodded. Classic Rock, sure, why not. Then I remembered the title of one of their hits.


    ¡°Okay,¡± I told him. ¡°But you can maybe skip Maneater?¡±


    He started up his CD player. I could barely concentrate on the music. First thing tomorrow morning, I told myself. I would get all I needed. I had to stop this before it got worse. Part of her conversion, my ass. I had experienced something like that before, a long time ago. I had to stop it before it got any worse. Before I got myself killed. Or worse. A lot worse.