Once I reached the neighborhood, the scene of the discovery wasn’t hard to find. Police tape cordoned off the area and news trucks had been parked by the edge of the block while curious onlookers formed a wall of people I had to muscle my way through in order to get where I wanted to be. Lifting my press badge for the officer standing guard, he gave me a wary look in return and shook his head. “Sorry kid, it’s not happening,” he said. “Forensics doesn’t want press poking around here just yet.”

“I was told to ask for Luis Alejandro,” I said, summoning some inner gumption in the process. Somehow, the directive came out sounding a lot surer than even I thought myself capable. “Tell him John Fitzpatrick sent me.”

The officer narrowed his eyes, but he nodded, walking away from the tape and leaving me alone.

Part of me wanted to walk underneath it anyway. Him abandoning his post seemed to be clearance enough, but self-preservation won out and I remained standing there until he found a man clad like Columbo, beige trench coat, disheveled appearance and all. Detective Alejandro looked up as the man said his name, and although I couldn’t hear their exchange, I knew enough when I was evoked as the officer cocked a thumb in my direction and the detective shot a glance at me.

Somehow, I resisted the urge to lift a hand and wave. Though not from a lack of desire.

He sighed and nodded at the officer, prompting him to wave me through. I nodded, and lifted the crime scene tape enough to duck underneath it, headed over to the detective and paying little mind to the officer as we crossed paths. “Fitzy sent you?” He posed the question before I was even in earshot, though I thanked whatever gods were listening that I had still managed to hear it.

I raced to make up the difference and stopped two feet shy of where he was crouched. “Yes, he did,” I said. “Andy Lane. I’m one of his reporters.”

“Well, I’m glad he sent a reporter and not the tooth fairy.” The comment came out sounding tired, though whether or not it was intended as snide remained a mystery. Dusting off his hands, he rose to his feet and revealed himself to be only a couple of inches shorter than me. Off in the distance, a gurney toted off a black body bag and loaded it into a forensics truck. My gaze shot back to the detective as he issued forth another sigh. “I called Fitzy myself because we’re about to have a media shitstorm and I’d rather control some of the fallout. Fitzy and I have done each other favors in the past.”

I nodded. “Well, either way, I’m fairly levelheaded and not in a hurry to piss off my editor.”

“You’re barely out of the bullpen, kid.” He reached to touch my shoulder and used the brief moment of contact to pull me in the opposite direction of the crowd. I followed, obediently, casting only one quick glance over my shoulder and frowning as I focused my eyes straight ahead again. “We’re taking a walk,” he explained. “Too many microphones and cell phone cameras these days. Plus, I’m dying for a cigarette.”

“A cigarette sounds really good,” I responded. Granted, I hadn’t smoked since I was a college sophomore, but the way my stomach turned gave me warning I might need at least one to get me through whatever was about to happen.

“I’ll give you a smoke. You run and get me a coffee when we’re done talking, and I’ll consider us even.” He nodded, the matter resolved, and fell silent as we continued walking, past the forensics truck and a slew of other people all talking among themselves.

Before us lay the Schuylkill River, the boundary separating West Philadelphia from the rest of the city. The temperature had dropped and given a chill to the air as the sun threatened to dip in the horizon at an obscenely early hour. I dug my hands in my coat pockets, feeling for my notepad and pencil, but also using the opportunity to warm my hands as we got closer to the water. One of the bridges spanning the river ran over us, with cars zipping past and the Interstate running parallel in the distance. As we paused by a drainage area, we stopped shy of where the water lapped up against the shore.

I frowned, freeing a hand to point at the spot. “Is this where the body was discovered?” I asked.

Detective Alejandro nodded. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped two out, handing one over to me and popping the second one between his lips. The flame from his Zippo lighter bent and twisted with the wind, but held steady long enough for us to both light the ends. He pocketed it first before he responded with words. “Yeah, discovered by one of the joggers who run along Kelly Drive. Their dog was apparently barking up a storm and ran free of their leash. Led them up here.”

We lingered in silence and I tried hard not to choke as I pulled from the cigarette and inhaled. Smoke sputtered past my lips when I exhaled, the action not seamless, but concealed enough for the detective not to issue commentary. “So a dog found a dead body? What about that is going to cause a media shitstorm? Was it anyone important?”

“Not unless they fell on hard times and wound up on the street. The body had suffered some decomposition, but it was still pretty obvious what side of the tracks he was from.” The detective shook his head mournfully. He drew from his cigarette and flicked ash from the end. “No, I’ve got two problems on my hand. For one, the media have been foaming at the mouth for a story like this, but secondly, my people are only so reliable when it comes to keeping their mouths shut.”

He followed another brief silence with a glance in my direction. “We might have our first confirmed vampire kill,” he finally confessed.

I brought the cigarette back to my mouth, but paused with it at my lips. Raising an eyebrow, I studied the detective, weighing him for a moment before I finally drew inward and exhaled. This time, the action was more seamless. “How do you know for sure it was a vampire kill?” I asked.

Alejandro cleared his throat. His unencumbered hand lifted, motioning at his neck. “Large pinpricks right there. The coroner is going to do an autopsy, but he was pretty sure the body had suffered partial exsanguination. Not enough lividity with the blood or something like that. Honestly what it looked like is our guy got cornered by a vampire, bitten, and decided a swim beat certain death.” He pointed upward, prompting me to turn and crane my neck in the direction of the bridge.

“Except the fall probably did him in anyway,” I said, frowning as I studied it. My gaze remained fixed on it for another moment, imagining the picture the detective was painting in my mind and scrutinizing it as I did. I furrowed my brow at the traffic, subconsciously smoking my cigarette while doing so. “Would have had to be in the middle of the night, though. Were there any witnesses?”

“None that have come forward, but here’s the catch-22,” he said. “For us to get any to, we need to publicize this.”

“Network news is going to blow it out of proportion.”

“I’m trying to find the best way of painting it that doesn’t send the public into a fit. I mean –” I looked back in time to see him shake his head. “I know vampires feed on people. You know it; the Pope knows it. Everyone knows it, but as long as it’s not staring us in the eyes, we about our day-to-day lives and recognize that if they really do kill people, they clean up after themselves pretty well.”

My other hand scratched at my neck, over the raised scars near my throat. “We have a court system in place especially geared toward prosecuting rogue vampires.”

“The ones who get caught. It’s a good enough system. I’m sorry, but at my age, you learn to read the shades of gray in the way the world works. We’ve been turning blind eyes since the days of the mob.” He shook his head. “This is right in the open and at the best, it’s going to be a public relations nightmare.”

“At the worst, a lit match near a powderkeg.” A frown tugged at the corners of my mouth as I cast another glance up at the bridge. What the hell was Fitzy thinking sending me out here? “So, you need people to come forward and yet, if you had your say, you would be letting the courts handle this privately?”

Detective Alejandro snorted. “Are you writing an article or my Christmas list for Santa?”

“A little of both, or so I hope.” I squinted up at the bridge, wondering why my sixth sense had begun to tingle. “There’ll be a story on the website by tomorrow, at the latest. It might take another day before it’s in the paper. That’ll get you the Inquirer, but not Action News.”

“I’ll put off Action News as much as I can. Details of the investigation pending and all that, but this is going to attract the wrong sort of attention at some point or another eventually.”

“If a vampire actually did it.” I drew from the cigarette one last time before deciding I had abused my lungs enough for one day. Flicking away the remnant, I brushed my hands off on my pants and dug in my pockets for my pencil and notepad. “How do you take your coffee, Detective?” I asked while I began jotting down notes.

“Two creams, three sugars,” he said. “A shot of whiskey optional.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Glancing up from the notepad, I flashed him a quick smile before copying down a few extra details. He huffed a chuckle at me and turned to walk away, leaving me alone to my thoughts until I had penned everything that stuck out at me from the river bank. He had his coffee delivered and my business card in his pocket before he had to address the public. I didn’t bother answering him when he asked where I had gotten the whiskey.

Something inside of me felt compelled to return home, to work on the first draft of the article, but as I took out my cell phone, I stopped in my tracks. I pivoted to face the bridge once more and as I found myself staring at it, I saw the movie playing out in my mind again, what Luis Alejandro had posited happened to the victim.

My wandering led me up to the pedestrian walkway running alongside the overpass before I could stop myself.

I had not asked Detective Alejandro for the victim’s race or age, and the lack of name provided meant that the transient man didn’t carry any identification on him. As such, the role my imagination filled in bore the appearance of a Caucasian man, perhaps in his late forties and maybe even the stereotypical image of a war veteran who had fallen on hard times. As I stood on the bridge, wind kicking around the bottom of my coat, I squinted to see darkness. To see a vampire approaching him as he stumbled his way from one side to the other.

My hand found the side of my neck as I did so.

I might have had the memory of my encounter stripped from me, but I always saw the vampire who attacked me as being a cleverer, more calculating sort of predator. The type who undoubtedly lured me somewhere on the basis of my curiosity and left me go confused. Any vampire who would risk feeding in the middle of such an open area, with so many vantage points where they could be observed, wouldn’t hold up in this brave new world of openness and they had to know it as a collective. Allen Hughes’s behavior the day before only led credence to the level of caution being asked of them now.

Granted, he could’ve been a rogue vampire. Maybe one without complete control of their senses. I couldn’t rule that out and I tried not to let my prejudices influence me as I continued with the mental movie. Fangs in the dirty, smelly homeless man’s neck – because hell, who would miss one of those? – and him still having some fight in him. Bucking against it. Pushing the vampire away just long enough to vault over the side of the bridge and into the frigid water below.

Stepping closer to the edge, I peered over and gaged the distance down to the water. The chances of him making it bore odds even I couldn’t fathom and neither would I be able to without a lot more than my intuition leading me. Still, he might have been able to swim to the shore. Maybe he got knocked unconscious by something down below. “Not enough information,” I murmured, but I pulled out my notepad and scrawled the rest of my thoughts in it before tucking it away. The hour was getting late and my stomach gnawing at me, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten enough that day.

Finally dialing numbers, I placed my first call to Fitzy, letting him know to check his email in a couple of hours. To him, I promised I would be in the office first thing in the morning.

To Scott, I left an entirely different message.

‘Sorry to cancel the date. I think I might have landed on something big, though. I’ll tell you more later.’