Vampire, Hunter. Maria Arnt
"Met me for coffee. We discussed her current project and what I should expect to see. Come to think of it, she said she'd probably be done with it by now..."
Bradley pinched the bridge of his nose. Shiro was something of a kid genius, but he was definitely the absentminded type. But when looking for fellow vampire-aware cops, beggars could not be choosers. "Has she contacted you within the last ten days?"
"Hang on, let me check," his voice became distant, and Bradley could hear him thumbing through his phone. "Nope. Last text was twelve days ago, on the third."
"Her father just contacted me because they hadn't heard from her either," He said darkly.
"So she hasn't made contact with anyone in over a week?" all the enthusiasm drained out of Shiro's voice.
"No. Do you have her current number?" Tanya's habit of frequently switching phones often made it difficult to track her down.
"Sure," he read off the number, and Bradley copied it down quickly on the corner of a newspaper.
"I might be able to get her to respond to a text, but let me know if she contacts you first," he instructed.
"Yes sir," Shiro ended the conversation formally.
As soon as the call was over, Bradley tapped in the new number and sent out a text:
It was vague enough that if someone else read it, they wouldn't know what was up, but strongly worded so if Tanya got it, she would have to respond. He put the phone away, expecting that if there was going to be a response, it wouldn't be for some time.
To his surprise, it vibrated in his pocket not three minutes later.
Bradley frowned. What happened that would she need to go undercover, and how would she manage such a thing?
It struck him how serious the situation must be if she was driven to actually using proper punctuation.
There was no response, which he expected. He gave Mr. Cooper a call back.
"That was quick," Mr. Cooper said hopefully when he answered.
"Yes. It seems that Tanya is deep undercover. She said you know what she's really involved in, so I'm sure you can understand why it's important that she stay under the radar for a while," he explained.
Tanya's father let out a long breath. "Yeah. She mentioned that her last... job... didn't turn out like she expected.”
"How so?"
"Well... she said that her lead turned out to be... nothing special," he said.
Bradley realized that Mr. Cooper must not be somewhere he could speak freely, but he could read between the lines. The vampire she had been hunting hadn't been a vampire after all. He wondered if she had killed the poor schmuck. It would be her first collateral damage, and he knew from experience how hard it was to take that.
"She's safe for now, though. I'll let you know if I get any updates, but if she's able she'll probably contact you first," he said, using his reassure-the-family voice.
"Okay. Is there anything else we should do? Like go turn on the lights in her apartment or something?" he asked.
"No," Bradley said quickly. "It's possible her place is being watched. It's best if you just... Carry on, business as usual, you know?"
Mr. Cooper gave a pathetic chuckle. "Easier said than done."
"For what it's worth, I know how you feel. Hang in there. She's a tough one, she'll find her way out. I'm sure of it," he lied.
"Alright. Thank you so much for all your help, Detective Bradley."
"No problem." He hung up, and stared again at the photo of his daughter. Losing Lexie had all but ruined his life. His marriage had fallen apart, and he'd nearly lost his job when he tried to push an investigation into the existence of vampires. Worst of all was the gaping hole in his heart that his daughter had taken into her early grave, leaving nothing but the nagging suspicion that there was surely something he could have done to protect her.
He would do whatever he could to make sure that Tanya's story would have a far different ending.
Tanya floated in a black void with nothing around her, not even her body. She wasn't even sure if she existed. She could have easily floated away into nothing, but every so often something drifted down into that abyss to call her back.
A touch on her shoulder.
The sound of a rich tenor voice, almost singing. Sometimes she recognized the words, but couldn't string them together to make any sense of them.
The texture of a cool, wet washcloth on her forehead.
A comb being pulled gently, carefully through her hair.
And always that voice, rumbling on like distant thunder, soft and oddly familiar and comforting.
If this is being dead, Tanya thought distantly, it's really, really weird.
Other times, the sensations were not so pleasant. She ached all over, and she was so tired, but wasn't she asleep already? Tanya wasn't sure. She thought for a while she was burning, and then, later, freezing.
And she was always thirsty, desperately so. She could feel her cracked lips, her sticky throat. All she wanted was water. Instead, some other liquid, hot and thick and coppery, filled her mouth. It was nasty. She spat it out.
She had no sense of time passing, but the thirst grew stronger. Eventually, she drank the awful liquid. After a while, she learned to tolerate the cloying taste, and then like it, crave it. It became her whole world, waiting for that taste, gulping it down as fast as she could, feeling it drizzle down her chin.
The voice sounded pleased.
Tanya could feel herself pulling together, each tiny piece dragging her back into something that made sense. She was still very tired, could not even think of opening her eyes. But she could feel her body once more.
She awoke slowly, like on a lazy Saturday morning. Distantly she wondered what she had eaten to give her such weird dreams. She made to turn over and burrow under the covers, but something pulling on her arm kept her from moving.
Then she realized that she was upright, not laying down in her bed. She opened her eyes, then screwed them shut again at the bright light that stabbed into her head. Groaning, she tried again to open them just a crack.
"Tatiana?" the familiar voice said, and with understanding came recognition: Seth. "Are you awake?" he sounded strangely ecstatic. She heard his quick footsteps heading away, and then the light in the room dimmed considerably, so she pried her eyes open.
She felt oddly light, and hyper-aware of everything around her. Seth came into crystal-clear focus as he walked back towards her. "You are awake. At last." He pushed a few strands of hair out of her face and smiled like she was the most beautiful, incredible thing he had ever seen.
That was enough to distract her for a moment, until she realized why she was vertical: her arms had been tied to a horizontal pole, effectively keeping her upright even while she was unconscious. She tugged at the bindings, panicking, and then froze at the wash of sensation, at the feel of the fabric