Marty Phillips (Book 2): The Taste of Blood Read online

  The Taste of Blood

  Novella 2 in the Marty Phillips series,

  a Tale of the Erde Cycle

  (A Worlds’ Mythos novella)

  By Kieran Double

  Foreword

  This is about vampires and a small bit of romance thrown in, but it isn’t damn ‘Twilight’. Don’t think about it like that. The vampires in this don’t stare at women longingly, instead of doing something. They’re not moody in an attractive way, they’re depressed in a real kind of way. They might fall in love, and they do live forever, unless someone kills them – which, let me tell you, practically always happens.

  And then, of course, there’s the fact that all of this actually happened to me and the other people involved. The same rules apply to this memoir as the first time. I’ll repeat them now, just to be safe.

  But know this, before you turn the next page, this book is to be guarded with your life. Losing your copy is a grave crime, and not reporting it will result in a death order. Do not show this to anyone you do not trust fully, even Grimms. When you die, make sure that this book is given to another Huntsman, preferably a child if you have any, or a Grimm.

  This may not, under any circumstances, fall into the hands of Ungefährlich Verstecktvolk and show it only to those Verstecktvolk that you trust most. The book may not be transcribed by any but a Huntsman or a Rotkäppchen, and cannot be posted on the internet. As such, this book, like all books written for a Versteckt world audience, may not be shown to ungifted humans.

  This is a law and was passed by the House of Speakers in November 2014. If anyone breaks this law, it is the responsibility of a Huntsmen to hunt them down and kill them, along with anyone who helped them in the breaking of the law. Novice Huntsmen and Rotkäppchen know this; all that you are about to read really did happen, and it might just happen to you! Beware!! And watch your back!!!

  Marty Phillips, PI and Huntsman

  P.S. The wording of the warning and the law bit is the House of Speakers, not mine. I would never be so melodramatic.

  1

  A Strangely Familiar Hunter

  “Give me your daughter to wife” The maiden laughed, and said “He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his golden hair that he was no gardener’s boy”

  (Iron Hans)

  December 18th, 2014:

  “Marty… There’s someone else here…” muttered Susie ominously. She, Ashley and I all carried machetes and wooden stakes. We’d been hunting a vampire. He now lay dead in the sitting room, decapitated, with a stake in his heart.

  “Where?” asked Ashley.

  “Outside… in the yard,” answered Susie, sniffing the air. I could see her face had turned wolf-like. I was used to it now. It had been nearly two months since I found out about the family business and the Verstecktvolk, straight out of fairy tales.

  Ashley and I followed her out the back and into the yard. I watched as Susie reached behind a bush and pulled out a vaguely Indian looking man about my age. He looked slightly familiar, as if I’d seen him in a dream before. The man wore a well-used leather jacket and tattered jeans.

  “Jesus, Ashley,” said the man coolly. There was an Eastern European lilt to his voice. “Mind not setting your pet Wolffrau on me?”

  “Do we know you?” I said

  “You do, Marty Phillips, and Ashley definitely does,” said the man confidently, “although when we last met you were blind.”

  “You’re a huntsman?” I continued, puzzled. Ashley said I’d met all the huntsmen in Washington.

  “He’s not a Huntsman, Marty. He’s just a Hunter,” said Ashley. “Put him down, Susie.” Susie just turned to look at me. “Susie!”

  “Marty’s my legal guardian, Ashley,” said Susie, pointing to me in mock innocence. “Let him decide what to do.”

  I sighed. This always happened, I got stuck in the middle of the two of them. Despite this, lately, I had been getting the distinct impression that there was less in their antagonism than I had first thought. They just seemed to be half-kidding each other all of the time. “Put him down.”

  She took me literally, dropping the man to floor roughly. I asked, “What’s your name?”

  The man stood up, dusting himself off. “Still don’t remember me, Marty? Nicolae Brasoveanu.”

  He held out his hand. I ignored it pointedly. I did remember a Nicolae Brasoveanu from High School and I didn’t remember him with any fondness. “Yes, I do remember you, Brasoveanu. You still a cheating bastard? My hands are just as good at punching as they were in High School.”

  “Ah, dude, that was years ago,” said Nicolae. “And Ashley doesn’t need you to protect her, or had you forgotten?”

  “No, I hadn’t,” I muttered, but it was probably inaudible to everyone else.

  “Anyway, what are you doing in Seattle?” demanded Ashley, crossing her arms.

  “Work. Until a bunch of pompous Huntsmen got in the way. Are you trying to cramp my style?” I was beginning to notice everything Nicolae said ended in a question.

  “This is our work, Brasoveanu,” I said.

  “No, it’s not. You’re supposed to police the Verstecktvolk and that kind of thing,” said Nicolae. “Vampires are my concern. Did you think it worked any other way?”

  “I didn’t,” said Ashley. “Where’s the Gran Torino?”

  “Round the block.”

  “Drive back to the Manor.”

  “If you say so, boss,” said Nicolae.

  “Just do what she says,” ordered Susie, as always sounding older than she was, “and drop the fucking attitude while you’re at it, Hunter.”

  “Drop the attitude…” Nicolae looked like he was going say a comeback, but, seeing the look on Susie's face, he kept silent.

  “Like the Bat Cave, Brasoveanu?” I asked, as we lounged in the comfortable sofa, cokes all around.

  “You call it the bat cave? Seriously,” exclaimed Nicolae incredulously.

  A wary smile flashed across my face. “I watch too many movies and TV shows. I mean my life has turned into a TV show lately. Ashley spends most of her days explaining Versteckt terms through TV references.”

  “You haven’t changed much have you?”

  “Have you?” I retorted.

  “God, man, can’t you just get over it?” said Nicolae, sounding properly annoyed. “It was fourteen years ago. Ashley forgave me a long time ago.”

  “People like you never change, Brasoveanu.”

  “‘People like me’?” said Nicolae, standing up. He wasn’t tall, but he was somehow… formidable. I knew just by looking at him. Sometimes, you just know.

  “Cheaters,” I said, standing up facing Nicolae. I looked him straight his dark brown eyes.

  “It was High School,” said Nicolae calmly, as if he realized this was nearly becoming a fight. “We only went out for a few months.”

  “For all of which you were sleeping with another girl,” I shouted back at him.

  “Boys! Now’s not the time to have an argument about me. It was all in the past. I’ve moved on,” said Ashley, arriving with a tray full of fresh homemade cookies. “Have you two? Have you grown up at all? You’re in your thirties for god sake. Not your teens. Grow a pair.”

  She sat down next to us. “Now, Nicolae, why are you really here?”

  Nicolae Brasoveanu just dived for the cookies, ignoring the question. After he shoved one down his throat, Ashley moved the tray away. “Answer my question.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. There was a vampire. You saw it with your own eyes,” said Nicolae, feigning innocence appallingly.

  “I did, but that’s jus
t an excuse. You have that look in your eyes. Something’s wrong. Tell me what it is,” demanded Ashley, frustrated. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is.”

  Nicolae took a deep breath before speaking. I recognized something in his dark eyes. He was grieving. I, of all people, knew a lot about grieving. It was like a weight was pulling you down, and the people around you could see it. For the first time, I looked at Nicolae properly. He didn’t look well at all. It seemed he hadn’t shaved in days, deep dark bags hung from his eyes.

  “It’s Tasaria. She dropped off the radar a few months ago,” answered Nicolae, his voice taut with pain. “All her phones are offline. No one’s heard a word from her for ages. I was just… wondering if you knew anything. I know she’s probably dead, but I haven’t heard any word of it yet.”

  “No, Nicolae,” said Ashley empathically. “I haven’t heard anything from her in months. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You can’t help it,” muttered Nicolae darkly.

  “Tasaria? Sorry to be so blunt, but who is she?” I asked Nicolae, afraid of annoying him.

  “She’s my little sister, Marty. My responsibility. She was in the same grade as you in school,” answered Nicolae. He gestured to his can of coke “You wouldn’t have anything stronger would you?”

  “Not down here,” answered Ashley. “Marty has a bit of an…”

  “…addict is the word you’re looking for, big sis,” I supplied.

  “If you know there’s a problem, why won’t you try to fix it? Annie’s not going to come back, and it won’t get better. You seem to have accepted that, but you still drink.”

  “Not as much as I used to,” I said. “With you and Susie always telling me off, I’ve gotten better in the last two months.”

  “You think that helps? We’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  “Better than giving into it,” I commented.

  “But that’s just it, you are giving into it,” persisted Ashley. She sighed deeply, then added. “I think we should all get an early night. We’ve got court in the morning, remember? That money laundering case?”

  “I hadn’t forgotten. Why am I needed anyway? All I did was take a few photos.”

  “You’re the most important piece of evidence. The only person we could trust to put onto it,” Ashely answered. “Whenever the Lewis gang are involved things just seem to leak out of Seattle PD. And besides, you’re a father now, you’ve got a daughter to look after, and children need sleep.”

  “I’m a Wolffrau, Ashley,” Susie reminded her, as if she needed to be told after two months.

  “And still a child. You’ve got school in the morning.”

  Susie just shrugged. “Marty looks after me better than either of my parents ever did. Don’t start giving out to him for being a bad parent.”

  “I wasn’t…” began Ashley, then just huffed into silence.

  “Ms. Merkel might have a point, Ashley,” agreed Nicolae, wincing as he knew the probable reaction.

  “Thank you for that intelligent input into our conversation, Nicolae,” said Ashley. “What would we do without you?”

  “It’s not Miss Merkel. It’s Miss Phillips. Don’t you forget it,” Susie said, chastising Nicolae.

  “Phillips?” Nicolae turned to Ashley. “And you’re okay with a Wolffrau taking the family name, are you?”

  Ashley frowned. “The concept is… startling, but Susie’s… most of the time you wouldn’t realize what she is, and the rude manners are, I have to admit, because of the way she was raised, not the person she is. And, anyway, Phillips isn’t a Huntsman name, Bergman is.”

  “That’s beside the point anyway,” said Susie lightly. “It happens I agree with your sister, Marlowe. Lead the way. I want to get some sleep.”

  Before we left, I turned back to Nicolae Brasoveanu. “How did you get into this stuff anyway? Can your family see the Verstecktvolk and all that?”

  Nicolae laughed. If he hadn’t cheated on my sister, I would have liked him. Perhaps I did anyway. Admitting it was just hard. “I wish. We can’t see shit. We deal with more… modern problems. Demons, vampires, werewolves, ghosts… that kind of thing. We Brasovneaus have been doing it for centuries, even back in Romania.”

  “You’re Romanian?”

  “Kind of. My parents always considered us Romani, not Romanian.”

  “So, you’re like gypsies, or something?”

  “Not gypsies. That’s insulting. Roma or Romani, nothing else. The term gypsies was based on the fact people thought we were from Egypt, which we’re not. We’re historically from India, or that general region. No one’s really sure.”

  “Interesting,” I said, nodding. “See you tomorrow.”

  “You too, Marlowe,” said Nicolae, smiling.

  “And remember, Ashley’s already taken.”

  “She is?” Nicolae looked honestly surprised. “Do I know the new boyfriend?”

  “Name Wilhelm Muller ring a bell?”

  “A very loud one, Marlowe. A very loud bell. Knew him back in the 90’s. A damn bookworm…”

  2

  A New Partner

  “Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers’ den; your betrothed does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterward cook and eat you”

  (The Robber Bridegroom)

  I’d been in King County Courthouse numerous times as part of being in the Police Department. But after setting up my PI business, I had pointedly tried to avoid it, a way of avoiding Ashley and what she’d say out of love. Things had changed, though. Ashley had gotten far less overprotective than she had been. Maybe it was because I had Susie now. She was looking after me, like Annie had. I wondered if that meant Ashley trusted my daughter. Somehow, I doubted it. That would take a long time.

  “Why were you hired by Seattle Police Department, Mr. Phillips?” said Roger Sharkey, criminal defense lawyer for the defendants. He looked sharp in an expensive suit, clean-shaven, and his blonde hair greased back.

  “Information had been leaking from the case for months. As much as I hate to admit it, it seems that there was a mole in the Narcotics Unit. I have a working relationship with the Police Department,” I answered. Standing in front of Sharkey, I felt inadequate in my battered suit. It was the only suite I owned, the one I had been married in. “And, as I’m sure you know, I used to be a detective.”

  “Used to be a detective. Tell me, why did you leave your job as a homicide detective, Mr. Phillips?” said Sharkey, marching up and down in front of the jury.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t see how that’s… relevant,” I said, my voice cracking.

  Sharkey looked at the Judge. He nodded for the lawyer to continue. “I will repeat the question. Why did you leave your job as a homicide detective, Mr. Phillips?”

  “My wife had just been murdered. I wasn’t a good place, and I wasn’t working properly.”

  “And you are working properly now?”

  “I am now, Mr. Sharkey,” I answered stiffly.

  “Why weren’t you in a good place?” prodded Sharkey.

  “Because,” I said, frustrated. “I came home and found my wife in a pool of blood, dead.”

  “Yes, but why couldn’t you work through your grief?” continued Sharkey. “I hear that it helps, if you’re in the mind for it.”

  “Work through my grief?” I said, my voice cracking again. I was about to lose my temper. Ashley glanced up at me, shaking her head. Somehow, I kept it together. “There just didn’t seem to be a point. I needed time to think, to process my grief properly, not bury it underneath a pile of work.”

  “It wasn’t because you were a chronic alcoholic, and couldn’t function properly?” Sharkey was smiling. His bright, pale, blue eyes were glittering. He knew which buttons to press and when to press them.

  I paused. “Yes. I started drinking too much in a failed attempt to forget my grief. I’ve recovered.”

  “Have you?”

  “I beli
eve so, Mr. Sharkey,” I answered stiffly. Trying not to blurt out something I might regret, I bit my lip. Sharkey didn’t fail to notice that.

  “You believe so? Are you sure?” Sharkey was doing his external conscience thing again, still pacing back and forth.

  “Yes. I do believe so, and I am sure,” I answered.

  “So tell us, Mr. Phillips, how would you describe your relationship with your wife?” said Sharkey, looking me straight in the eye.

  He’d barely finished speaking when Ashley jumped out of her seat. “Objection, your honor. I don’t see how my bro– Mr. Phillips’ – personal life has anything to do with the case. The defense is timewasting.”

  “Objection overruled,” said the Judge. “The Defence will get to their point quickly.”

  “Thank you, your honor,” said Sharkey politely. He turned to me again. I steeled myself for his next verbal attack. “Mr. Phillips, how would you describe your relationship with your wife?”

  “It was loving. I mean, we had our arguments, as all couples do, but we always resolved them,” I answered, struggling to keep my voice even. “As the Assistant Prosecutor just pointed out, I can’t see how any of this is relevant to the case, Mr. Sharkey.”

  “I am merely examining your suitability as an expert witness, Mr. Phillips,” said Sharkey coolly. “Can you characterize the nature of these arguments?”

  I hesitated, then sighed. “There were normally about my work, I was – probably still am, to a certain degree – a workaholic. Annie’s job, a first-grade teacher, was nine to five, but my work is the opposite. Obviously, that wasn’t good for our relationship, or my relationships with anyone else.”

  “These arguments. Were they ever… violent?”

  “Violent?” I said, puzzled. The idea of getting violent with Annie had never crossed my mind. It isn’t in my nature to do such a horrible thing, and the love I felt – still feel, even though she is dead – would not have allowed me to anyway.

  “Oh, you know, just a little slap every now and again during an argument? Nothing too serious”