Keen's Turn: Descent & Depravation

Chapter 5: Vampire Vigil and Tea (first quarter)

✶✞ Happy moon. Here's the first half of the first half of Chapter 5. Only way I'm stopping this before it's done is if I'm dead, so if you don't hear from me in a while, please contact my neighbors to check up on me. ✶✞

A wail of sirens broke the night, drawing nearer and nearer, until the squad car pulled up in front of his apartment building. Jared grimaced at the window. A half cup of black tea later and the fuzz of fatigue had retreated from his head.

The last thing I need is more fuzz. What'd I call them for?

After he had explicitly determined not to get them involved.

What am I gonna say?

He could say it was a mistake. A prank.

No. Stokes might come over to gripe at them. But I can leave out the details. They won't be able to find him any better than I can.

The sense of fatigue had gone, but its effects hadn't. He needed to sleep. And he couldn't. Feeling suddenly cold in the warm apartment, he took another sip of tea. The morning's resolve seemed a year in the past.

There's no getting outta this.

When he had returned to his room from the lobby, something off about it had struck him. There were holes in the ceiling. Dozens of holes. Surely—surely, those hadn't been there before? No, he'd realized, ice in his spine, because they were very regular, grouped in two rough lines, leading from the wall in the corner up to and over the bed. As if a spider of nightmarish size had labored across the ceiling, piercing the drywall where each of its too many legs had struck it.

What in the hell!

Taking another swig of tea, he scratched at the bandages he'd reapplied to the cut in his side, which had torn when he'd hurled himself off the bed. On the other side of the wall, the elevator dinged, and the sound of footsteps started up, moving briskly down the hall. He snatched for the Seal where it lay on the desk. There was a sharp knock at the door. Jared leaped to his feet as it shifted inward at the pressure, the broken latch losing its hold in the frame.

"Police!" Nicolette Beauregard stood in the doorway, her partner a pace behind her.

Right. She works the night shift around here.

"Jared...?"

Holy shit, she remembers me.

He kicked himself. It was a stupid thought—of course she'd remember him. They'd seen enough of each other at school. Or was it just that he'd seen a lot of her? No, she must have seen him with Rose dozens of times. But she was all grown up now, and dressed like a cop.

"Hi Nikki—uh, Nicolette?"

She looked at him, and he felt about thirteen again.

"Nik," she corrected, breezing past. "You called about a break-in...?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks for coming."

"Of course."

Nicolette Beauregard was even less to be trifled with than Rose, with her flashing eyes and commanding presence. She was taller than him, which wasn't uncommon, but for Nicolette, looking down on Jared was a matter of course. Her little cousin's little friend had always been beneath her.

She cast an appraising eye around the apartment. "Run me through what happened."

They went through the procedures, getting Jared's story, inspecting the damaged door. As her partner dusted for prints, Nik pulled him aside.