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Carpe Noctem Book Three
Never the Twain Chapter Two
by Lianne Burwell
May 2001
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Vic pulled to a stop in front of the Toronto headquarters of the 
Agency, just barely within the fifteen minute deadline he'd been 
given, then got out and opened the back door and hauled Fry out, 
then picked him up off the pavement when the man stumbled.

Other than the brief periods of silence after he deliberately 
cornered the car to throw the idiot around, Fry hadn't shut up 
the entire drive. Vic had gotten an earful about the man's taste 
for horror novels, fine dining, his new girlfriend -- who sounded 
about as intelligent as the last one -- and his latest 
incomprehensible research. Vic was about ready to shoot the man 
just to get him to stay quiet. He was certainly planning on 
investing on a really good gag for the glove compartment. Surely 
the Director would be able to tell him what kind would be best to 
buy.

Once the man was back on his feet, he shoved him in the direction 
of the door leading into the hillside, not bothering to take the 
cuffs off the man. There was nothing about the place that said 
"Headquarters of a Shadowy Government Agency." In fact, if you 
checked a city map you would find it listed as one of the water 
reservoirs that served the population.

Hell, for all he knew it *had* been a reservoir originally. All 
he really knew was that the place was huge. The Director had once 
sent LiAnn to the thirteenth floor to get some sort of report. 
Actually, they didn't have floors. The whole place was below 
ground, so sub-level might be a better term. And just because she 
was sent to the thirteenth floor didn't even necessarily mean 
that there *were* that many.

LiAnn had described the whole thing as a bureaucratic hell that 
seemed more like something out of a fever dream than real life. 
She'd spent hours in lineups, only to be told that she was in the 
wrong line. She spent days running from floor to floor, lineup to 
lineup until she'd finally pulled a gun and threatened extreme 
violence if they didn't giver her the information she was after, 
right there, right then.

The whole story seemed so implausible that Vic figured that it 
had all been staged for her benefit. LiAnn had a tendency to be a 
little too rule-bound. Vic wouldn't be surprised if the whole 
point of the exercise -- which had been a punishment to begin 
with -- had been designed to get her to move *outside* the rules.

Of course, he did wish that the Director had chosen a time when 
his, Mac's and Jackie's lived hadn't depended on that 
information. Still, he was surprised that LiAnn hadn't been able 
to figure it out for herself.

Fry stumbled and Vic grabbed him by the collar to keep him on his 
feet. The man squawked, but a gun barrel jammed behind one ear 
convinced him to keep his mouth shut for once.

"Ooooh, Bondage and s/m. Very kinky, Vic. I'll have to remember 
that."

Vic blinked in surprise at finding Mac waiting for him just 
inside the doors. "I thought you had the night off," he said. Mac 
had been very secretive about his plans, so Vic hadn't expected 
to see him before morning.

"So did I," Mac replied with a shrug. "Then I got beeped."

"Any idea what's going on?"

"Not a clue."

"Well, you'll *get* a clue if you get your butts into the 
conference room," Dobrinsky said, appearing from one of the side 
corridors that were almost invisible if you weren't looking 
straight at them. Vic jumped, not having heard the man coming.

"Jesus! Make a little noise, would you," Mac said, equally 
startled.

"Aw, what's the matter, Sport? Scare ya?" The black man didn't 
seem at all worried at the idea.

"Not in this lifetime," Mac blustered, even though they all knew 
that he was lying. Actually, Dobrinsky was pretty easy to get 
along with, as long as you stayed on his good side. 
Unfortunately, Mac had gotten on his *bad* side the day they'd 
met and that hadn't changed in the years since.

"If you say so," Dobrinsky said with a feral grin that showed too 
many teeth, making both Mac and Vic gulp. Discretely, of course. 
"In the meantime, I'll take the good doctor off your hands and 
put him in... storage. I suggest that the two of you get to the 
briefing before the boss gets peeved. You *know* how much she 
dislikes tardiness."

Vic didn't have to be told twice. He pushed Fry in Dobrinsky's 
direction, then grabbed Mac's elbow and hustled him down the 
hall. He ignored the thump and outraged squawk behind them as 
Dobrinsky did nothing to keep the man on his feet. Vic wasn't the 
only one who disliked the creep. In fact, other than the man's 
ex-wife, former girlfriend and supposed current girlfriend, Vic 
didn't know of anyone who *did* like the man. And since the wife 
was in a nuthouse, the first girlfriend was dead and the new one 
was just hearsay...

Of course, it was hard to like someone whose field of research 
was screwing with peoples' minds, both through drugs and 
mechanical means.

Vic breathed a small sigh of relief on finding the briefing room 
empty except for the petite blonde already sitting at the table. 
From the way Jackie was dressed -- flamboyant, tight and with 
even more skin showing than usual -- he had the feeling that 
she'd been pulled in from her night off too. That was not a good 
sign.

"Hi guys," Jackie said brightly as they came in. "Wow, must be 
big if she's calling in all of the big guns. Any ideas yet?"

"Nope," Mac said. Vic just shrugged. There was no point in 
speculating before they had anything to speculate about.

They took their seats and immediately, as if on cue, the Director 
came down the stairs from what they assumed was her private 
office. In fact, she had probably been waited up there for just 
the right moment to make her entrance. The Director was 
definitely the theatrical type.

"Good morning, children," she said, sitting down at the head of 
the table and picking up a handheld control. She set down a pile 
of depressingly thick file folders. Vic to resist the urge to 
reply with 'Good morning, Miss,' as if he was back in grade 
school.

She pressed a button and the large screen on the wall came to 
life with the picture of a young woman in her twenties. "Corinne 
Hamilton." Click. "Marco Escobar." Click. "Sara Green." Click. 
"Jack Murphy." Click. "Mandy Li." Click. The screen changed to 
show all five faces, side by side.

Vic considered the faces. They showed a variety of ethnic 
backgrounds and personality types. Mandy was a Goth girl in every 
way, from her black dyed hair to her black lace gloves. Black 
makeup and black nail polish. In fact, she looked a lot like 
LiAnn had during the Melnick case. Marco looked like your typical 
young bravo. Jack was a fresh-faced kid whose freckles said he 
should have had red hair, only it was dyed a riot of colors, as 
if he couldn't make up his mind. Sara and Corinne looked like any 
university students from the U of T. The only obvious thing they 
had in common was that they were all in their early- to mid-
twenties.

"I assume they're all dead," Vic said a little sourly. He hated 
murder investigations.

"You assume correctly."

"This isn't like that thing with the Russians, is it?" Mac asked 
suspiciously. Vic shuddered, remembering being forced to work 
with Nikki, the daughter of one of the Director's old friends.

"No, they are not washing up on foreign shores," the Director 
said in a slightly tired tone. "And there is no doubt that they 
are who their IDs say they are."

"So why are we interested in them?"

"Because it appears that we have a serial killer in town. All 
five have been killed in nearly identical ways over the last 
month."

"The cops--"

"Have no leads at this time," she cut him off.

"So why are we interested in a current police investigation?" The 
Agency usually stuck to cases that they police either did not 
know about or did not have to resources to deal with.

"Because I said so." She glared at him, then relented slightly. 
"Because of *how* they died."

She clicked the control again and the image of the five young, 
smiling -- except for Goth girl -- faces was replaced by a crime 
scene photo. An alley, starkly lit by floodlights. The body was 
sprawled on the grimy pavement next to an overflowing dumpster. 
Several used condoms and a needle could be seen clearly.

The body was male, so it was either Escobar or Murphy. The dark 
hair suggested Escobar as the victim. His leather pants were down 
around his knees and his silver mesh shirt was bunched up at his 
armpits. A kid out for a wild night, capped by some semi-public 
sex.

Of course, if that was what he'd been looking for, he'd made a 
big mistake in his choice of partners. His throat had been torn 
out, right down to the bone, and that was just the beginning. His 
chest had been ripped open and his ribs gleamed almost while 
where they emerged at unnatural angles from the flesh. From the 
photo, Vic couldn't tell if any of the organs were missing except 
for the obvious one.

"Oh my god," Mac said with a gulp next to him, squeezing his 
knees together. Vic was having pretty much the same reaction. 
Where the kid's cock and balls had once been, all that remained 
was a mess of torn flesh. Vic just prayed that the kid had 
already been dead by the time that had been done.

"The photos from the other crime scenes are pretty much the 
same," the Director said coolly, mercifully turning the projector 
off. "The police are doing their best to keep the more... 
sensational details out of the papers, but it's just a matter of 
time before there's a leak."

"I'm surprised that there hasn't been one already," Vic said, 
remembering his cop days. There were few things that a cop liked 
to do better than gossip, and while they would not deliberately 
leak information, they didn't always check to see who might be 
listening. And that didn't even take into consideration the 
witnesses.

The Director smiled. "Let's just say we've... plugged a few 
leaks." Based on her expression, Vic didn't want to ask how.

She slid three thick file folders towards them. "Here's what the 
police have come up with so far. I want the three of you to start 
examining the angles that they haven't considered."

"So you think the killer isn't, like... normal," Jackie said, 
flipping her folder open and shuffling through the pages inside. 
She stopped on one and frowned.

The Director raised one eyebrow. "Human killers don't usually use 
their bare hands, and they don't take the heart and liver with 
them."

"Unless they're Dahlmer," Mac muttered to himself. The Director 
just looked at him. "You mean... Never mind, I don't want to 
know." He was looking a little green.

The corner of the Director's mouth quirked up, making Vic wonder 
just how serious she was about that implication. She had a sense 
of humor, but it was a weird one, often showing up at the 
strangest moments. He didn't say anything though, since he wasn't 
sure he wanted to know whether or not the sicko had been Kindred 
any more than Mac did. Instead, he turned his attention to the 
files. Front and center were the crime scene photos and autopsy 
reports. He swallowed hard, feeling a little green himself. They 
didn't paint a pretty picture.

The scrape of the Director's chair as she stood up was unexpected 
and echoingly loud in the large room. "Dawn is coming," she said. 
"Take the files home and review them. I expect you to get working 
as soon as the sun goes down. File a report by this time 
tomorrow. I want this stopped quickly, by any means necessarily, 
*before* the papers start screaming "Cannibal Killer" on their 
front pages. Is that understood?"

Mac and Vic chorused their agreement, but Jackie was strangely 
silent. All three got to their feet and headed for the door. Vic 
stretched as he walked, feeling the vertebrae in his spine pop. 
Three nights in a car on stakeout did bad things to his back. He 
wanted a hot shower, something to eat and a good night's -- or 
day's in his case -- sleep before he started to plan.

The walk to the main entrance was a little disturbing. Mac was 
silent -- unusual for him, but not unheard of. But Jackie hadn't 
said a word since opening her folder. Vic couldn't remember the 
blonde *ever* being this quiet.

She stopped when they reached the door, tapping her foot in what 
looked like a nervous tic. "Guys, I'm going to hit the clubs 
tonight. All our vics were taken while clubbing and dumped 
nearby, so maybe someone saw them with the killer."

"The police will have done that," Vic pointed out.

Jackie gave him a 'duh' expression. "You think that they're going 
to tell the police anything?"

Vic shrugged. "Good point," he said, then fixed her with his best 
imitation of the Director's glare. "But that's all you do. No 
setting yourself up as bait, got it?"

"We might need to do that."

"Maybe, but not yet. And certainly not without wires, tracers and 
backup."

Jackie looked like she was going to argue, then nodded, turned 
and left. Vic watched her go, wondering what the hell was up with 
her. There was definitely something off about Jackie's behavior. 
For a moment he wanted to go after her and demand an explanation, 
but he knew from long experience that it wouldn't do him any 
good. She was getting more and more like Director every day.

Finally, he turned back to Mac. "Come on, we better get going."

They both had their cars with them, so Vic nodded to his lover as 
they separated, heading for their individual vehicles. He did 
steal a kiss first, though. Nothing too intense. Just a promise 
for later.

>>>~~~<<<

Jackie tossed her folder on the coffee table and headed for her 
bedroom without looking back. She stripped off her clothes and 
tossed them in the hamper. They smelled of stale smoke and human 
sweat. They certainly needed to be dry-cleaned before she'd be 
willing to wear them again.

Naked now, she headed for the all-white bathroom. The same smells 
were also stuck in her hair and, it seemed to her, her skin. 
There was no way that she was going to be able to be able to 
sleep, dawn or not, until she washed the stink out.

She would have liked to have had a long soak in a bubble bath 
before bed, but she didn't really have the time for that. 
Instead, she set the shower for pulsating spray and as hot as she 
could stand. She stepped in and reached for the shampoo first. A 
light, flowery scent replaced the smoky smell in her hair. Her 
favorite body wash did the same for her body as the stress she'd 
felt since opening the file folder started to drain away.

It wasn't the brutality of the crime, she thought to her self as 
she pulled on a dark red terrycloth robe and headed back into the 
living room, toweling her hair dry. No, it *was* worse than 
anything she'd seen since her recruitment by the Agency and the 
Embrace that had come soon after, but she was a big girl. She 
could handle it.

No, it wasn't the crime that had caught her off-guard, gruesome 
as it was. It was the victims. Or more to the point, one of the 
victims. She flipped the folder open again and pulled out the 
picture.

Jack Murphy. Young and eager in the picture that the boss had 
shown them. Anything but in this one. The autopsy photo showed 
every detail of what he'd ended up like in full color, brightly 
lit by fluorescent lights. Every detain including his hairdo.

"A wicked new do. Purple with silver tips." That was what the guy 
she'd been talking to tonight had said. "Jack... something or 
other."

Jack Murphy. He was the boy who'd been seen with LiAnn Tsei. 
LiAnn, who wasn't supposed to even be in the country. LiAnn, who 
seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth.

What the hell did it mean?

>>>~~~<<<

Vic actually managed to get home before Mac did, which was 
amazing considering the way that the younger man drove. Sometimes 
it seemed like Mac thought he was on the Grand Prix circuit or 
something.

He considered taking a shower, then decided that there wasn't 
really time for that. He had a lot of reading to do, a lot of 
planning. Shower could wait until evening. Instead, he stuck a 
mug of blood into the microwave to warm up, then started 
spreading the material they'd been given out on the dining table. 
He also grabbed a map of downtown Toronto from the bookcase next 
to the stereo and opened it too.

The victims had each been traced to a different nightclub, but 
they were all clustered together in the downtown core. There'd 
been no deaths in the areas surrounding Toronto. That meant that 
the killer had a preferred hunting ground, which made him 
predictable.

However, the cops were smart enough to have picked up on that 
too. The police presence in the area had increased dramatically, 
but that hadn't done any good. Two more kids had been killed 
since then with no one the wiser until the bodies had been 
stumbled across in alleys in the same area. Even the usual 
homeless squatters and horny kids who normally haunted those 
alleys claimed that they hadn't seen or heard a thing.

Vic was beginning to agree with the Director. Between that and 
the autopsy reports, no way the killer was human. Unfortunately, 
that still left a lot of possibilities. Sometimes he wished that 
he could go back in time. The world had been so much simpler 
before San Francisco. Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and all 
the other things that went bump in the night had only existed in 
movies and horror novels for him back then.

On the other hand, not knowing about them didn't make them any 
less real. Hiding your head in the sand didn't work, no matter 
what the ostriches might think. As well, knowing the full truth 
could mean the difference between life and death. *True* death.

No, he was better off knowing.

The sound of the elevator down the hall from the apartment he 
shared with Mac brought him out of his reverie and he was 
surprised to realize that it had been nearly half an hour since 
he'd gotten home, and here was Mac, just arriving.

"Get lost?" he quipped as the young man carefully hung up his 
jacket, trying to cover his worry. He turned his chair so that he 
was facing Mac.

"Hmm?" Mac said, looking a little distracted. "Nah, just needed 
to think. I do that better while driving."

It might have been Vic's imagination, but Mac looked a little 
guilty. "If you say so," he said with a snort, trying to lighten 
the mood. "Might explain a few things."

"Hey! And what is that supposed to mean?" Mac shot back, the 
familiar bantering tone back in his voice.

"Oh, nothing." He waited for Mac to glare at him. "Just 
remembering a few stakeouts where you decided to jump the perps 
because you were bored."

"I only did that once!" Vic just looked at him. "Okay, a couple 
of times. I got bored."

Vic snorted. "Just as long as you don't get bored with me," he 
said, then immediately wished that he could take the words back.

Mac's brow scrunched up for a moment, then he smiled. He moved 
over to where Vic was sitting and slowly, deliberately straddled 
his lap and sat down. Vic wrapped his arms around the younger 
man's waist and opened up eagerly to the kiss planted on his 
lips.

Mac plundered his mouth for several minutes, getting a lot of use 
out of the fact that vampires didn't really need to breathe, then 
pulled back. "Trust me," he said hoarsely, his eyes dilated with 
desire. "I don't think I'm *ever* going to get bored of you."

Then he jumped off with a saucy grin. "Besides, with our jobs, 
who's got time to be bored?"

"Stakeouts."

"Okay, except on stakeouts. And now I've got you to keep me from 
being bored on them."

Vic laughed softly. "Tease."

"And you love it," Mac shot back, heading for the kitchen.

Vic turned back to the files, but his concentration had been 
broken. Checking his watch showed that it was nearly dawn anyway. 
Time for bed. In the kitchen, he could hear the ping of the 
microwave.

"So," he said casually, pushing away from the table and getting 
to his feet. "Did you enjoy yourself tonight?" He stretched a bit 
and stifled a yawn.

Mac emerged from the kitchen, wiping his mouth on the back of his 
hand. "Well, it was informative," he said.

"Oh? How so?"

Mac shrugged and disappeared into the bathroom.

Vic found the evasion more than a little disturbing. He gave the 
files one last look, then headed for the bedroom. He stripped 
down to his skin, then went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, 
all the while wondering what it meant.

They went through their usual pre-bed ritual in a silence that 
felt a little off. Even though he tried not to, Vic felt a little 
worried and a little hurt that Mac didn't seem to want him to 
know what he'd been doing that night.

But once they were in bed, Mac cuddled close like he always did. 
Vic pushed aside the sting of doubts and let himself enjoy the 
feeling of being so completely entwined with another person.

Mac snuggled a little closer until his nose was practically in 
Vic's ear. "I'll tell you about it tonight," he barely whispered, 
then looked up at the light fixture above the bed in a very 
deliberate way.

Vic breathed a small sigh of relief at that. It wasn't that Mac 
didn't want to tell him about it, he just didn't want to tell the 
*Director* about it, and saying anything in an Agency apartment 
was doing just that.

Of course, there was still the question about what "it" was, 
which was a worry in itself.

Still, he felt a lot better as the sun came up and he fell 
asleep.

END CHAPTER TWO