Falling Into Place (16 page)

Jeff looked into the eyes of his friend and saw the same mixture of pain and anger he’d seen at the bar the other night. There was no sign of grief this time. He had the same eerie calmness to him that Yolanda did.

Kurt looked right through Mancini, “I told you I’d do anything to get Emily back, Jeff. Yolanda helped show me the way.”

“A way to do what? Dig up coffins in graveyards?” Jeff asked impatiently. “That’s not going to bring her back, Kurt. Nothing is. She’s gone, buddy.”

“Don’t say that.” Kurt said quietly. “She’s not gone. She’s just...different.”

“Wha –” was all Mancini got out before Yolanda interrupted him.

She put the barrel of her revolver against the back of his neck. “Enough talk, Kurt. He’ll never understand as we do. Now do what we talked about.”

Kurt Sheppard slowly picked up Jeff’s Beretta and walked to the open grave. He tossed it into the open coffin. Then he used the officer’s handcuffs to bind his hands in front of his body. When he’d completed his assigned tasks, Kurt took his place back under the oak tree. The whole time Mancini kept thinking to himself,
Where the hell is Crawley?

“Move over to the grave,” Yolanda said.

Jeff walked slowly over to the edge of the open grave. He looked down into the coffin, staring at the pink satin interior he remembered from Ava’s wake.

“If you’re going to kill me, you’ll never get away with it,” Mancini said.

“Kill you? Why would I kill you?” said a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “It took so long to get you here. Ever since I saw you at Ava’s funeral I knew an introduction was in order. After all this time, I am eager to meet the real Jeff Mancini.”

Jeff looked around trying to find the source of the voice. He looked everywhere, searching the darkness for a figure or silhouette. He looked past the headstone, to his left and right before craning his neck behind him. When he turned his gaze back to Ava’s headstone, there was a tall, thin, man standing behind it. He wore a simple black suit, black shirt and black tie. His face was covered with an executioner’s hood, with large eye holes cut out. Those eyes bore into Jeff as he stood there silently.
How the hell did he get there? He wasn’t there a few seconds ago,
the detective thought. Despite his confusion, Jeff understood beyond any doubt that this was Emily’s killer; the man responsible for all the insanity of the past few days.

“Who are you?” Mancini demanded.

The man tilted his head slightly to the left the way a dog would. He didn’t seem to move at all, seemingly not even to blink. Those eyes never looked away, laser focused on Mancini. He exuded a confidence and tranquility Jeff had never experienced before. “I am Mikhail, Detective Mancini,” the man said, slightly extending his hands in front of him.

Suddenly, Jeff became aware they weren’t alone. He peered into the darkness and saw dozens of figures moving closer, surrounding them.

“Don’t be alarmed, Detective.” Mikhail said. “It is simply my coterie, my flock, my children.”

“What do you want? What’s this all about?” Mancini said, trying that control his rising panic.

“What does any man want, my dear Jeff? To learn, to understand, to leave a lasting legacy, of course,” the hooded man replied.

“And where do I fit in?” Jeff asked, attempting to get him to reveal something.

“You are a man of lasting character, Jeff Mancini. A rare commodity in this age,” Mikhail said, with a slight bow as a gesture of praise. “Excuse me a moment, Detective.” He turned to the right and said, “You can come out now, Kevin. The time for subterfuge has passed.”

Crawley came walking out from behind the mausoleum with his gun still drawn. He was sweating profusely and his hands were shaking badly. “Where is she? Where’s Maggie?” he said slowly before shouting, “What have you done to her?”

“Calm yourself, Kevin Crawley. I promised Margaret would be yours and so she shall,” Mikhail stated. “Captain?”

Mancini felt the air leave his body as Captain Mulvaney appeared from behind a large Angel of Hope statue. He was holding Maggie Brelan in front of him, his service revolver pointed at her skull. “Try an’ keep it together, Kevin. There’s a good lad,” Mulvaney said. “You know, none of this would be necessary if you’d done your part from the get-go.”

“Don’t hurt her, Cap,” Crawley said crying, tears running down his face. He turned to Mikhail. “Please, I did everything you asked! There is no way he would’ve ever connected the dots if it wasn’t for that fucking broken spring and that pain in the ass, Montgomery! It’s not my fault.” He fell to his knees sobbing. After a few moments he pointed at Jeff, “I got him here alone tonight, didn’t I? And I even told you about that bitch scientist from Gene-Tech!”

“Crawly, you bastard!” Mancini yelled, his anger rising at the never- ending betrayals unfolding before him. Mulvaney, Kurt, Yolanda and now Crawley apparently all part of some cult following this hooded madman? How was any of this possible?

The hooded man spoke again, “Please, Detective. Such outbursts do you a disservice.”

He walked to where Crawley was kneeling and said to him, “Once you complete your given task, Margaret will be yours, Kevin. All will be as I promised once you bring your erstwhile partner to my room.”

“Yes. I will, Mikhail. I will,” Kevin said, kissing the hooded man’s hand.

Mancini realized his chances of surviving this situation were getting worse by the second. He had no friends, no back-up, no one to depend on anymore, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. As soon as Mikhail had turned his attention to Crawley, Jeff fished the key to his handcuffs out of his belt. He was working on freeing his hands when he saw the hooded man looking at him. Jeff met his gaze with a steely, calm demeanor.

“I already feel a sense of resignation from you, Jeff Mancini. Acceptance is key. Perhaps you will understand what I have to offer sooner than most. I would expect nothing less from a man of your caliber. I look forward to our
conversation
,” Mikhail said before turning and walking slowly away. “Bring Margaret. Captain. Kevin will almost certainly need a continued amount of...motivation.” The dozens of others surrounding the gravesite, including Yolanda Vazquez and Kurt Sheppard, began to move almost imperceptibly in the same direction.

Crawley watched Mulvaney drag Maggie away before standing. He raised his Glock 22, turned and moved toward Mancini, “I’m sorry, partner. I really am, but you yourself said when you love someone, you do whatever it takes. That’s all I’m doing.” Despite his rationalization, Crawley was unable to look Jeff in the eye, which played into Mancini’s hand.

When his partner was close enough, Jeff unleashed a vicious uppercut to Crawley’s jaw, having freed his left hand from the cuffs. The Judas detective fell back, his weapon flying through the air. It landed 15 feet away as Crawley hit the ground hard, his head ringing from the blow. The surrounding figures turned at the sound and began to return to the gravesite. Mancini pressed the advantage and kicked Crawley in the ribs causing him to reflexively grab Jeff’s leg. Kevin twisted his partner’s leg until he fell, slamming his left side on the ground. Both men lay there breathing heavily and holding their heads.

“Damn it, Jeff!” Crawley yelled. “Look around you! Where do you think you’re going?”

Jeff could see the multitude of shadowy figures coming closer and it unnerved him. By sheer instinct, he kicked Kevin in the face, shattering his nose as blood spurted out in a stream. Crawley fell back in enormous pain, holding his face as Jeff scrambled to find the fallen Glock. After a few moments of panicked searching, he remembered Kurt had tossed his gun into the coffin. As quickly as possible, he crawled over to the open grave and dropped in. Mancini tried not to think of poor Ava as he frantically looked for his Beretta 9mm in her coffin. In his peripheral vision, he could see someone coming closer.

“Got it!” Jeff exclaimed as he raised his weapon and pointed it upward, out of the grave. What he saw shocked him so much that he dropped his arms to his sides, stunned. At the edge of the grave stood Ava Vazquez and Emily Sheppard looking down at him quizzically. “How?” Mancini asked in a quiet voice.

From between the two women appeared Kevin Crawley, Glock 22 in hand. He pointed it at Jeff Mancini’s head and pulled the trigger.

“Jeff!” Rebecca Miller screamed as she awoke from a nightmare.

Her body was soaked in sweat, her head pounding like jungle drums. She felt nauseated. Somehow she knew Jeff was dead, shot in the head by his own partner on the orders of a hooded psychopath. Her eyes began to tear up as her heart ached for him but how could she know this? How? It was as if she was at the scene, seeing through the eyes of another. It all felt so visceral, so real, as if she was actually standing in that graveyard. She could smell the trees; feel the cold of the night on her skin. Instinctually, she knew what she’d seen was real, that it all had actually just happened. Her lips quivered and her hands shook as she clutched herself tightly in the darkness, trying to will the image of Jeff being killed out of her mind.

“Mmmmfff?” came a voice from nearby, startling her. She jumped up and searched for a light, suddenly aware that she wasn’t in her own home, in her own bed. She found the light switch and turned it on, quickly closing her eyes from the sudden light. She held her hands up and blinked rapidly to adjust to the illumination.

“Oh...my.” Rebecca said, as she opened her eyes completely.

She was in a high end hotel suite, with two double beds, a hot tub, and full kitchen. She felt weak in the knees so she absentmindedly sat on the edge of the bed where she’d apparently been sleeping. On the other bed was a very attractive, muscular and obviously very excited nude male lying spread eagle, gagged with a red handkerchief and tied to the bed frame by his wrists and ankles. His chest was caked with congealed candle wax and his upper arms and thighs were covered in scratch marks. The man tried to speak again, his attempts coming out as grunts and incomprehensible noises. He looked at Rebecca with desire and she had to turn away, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror atop the dresser across from her bed. She looked like a total stranger to herself: her hair wild and untamed, her eyes dark and foreboding while her skin was white as new fallen snow. Rebecca stood once more to look at herself in the full-length mirrors that doubled as the closet doors, gasping when she saw her attire. She wore a leather bustier with round silver studs adorning it, thigh-high fishnet stockings attached to the bustier with garters, a tiny leather thong, arm length black latex gloves and a large studded neck collar. Near the other bed, she saw knee-high black leather boots with stiletto heels, a whip, paddle and various other bondage toys.

The room began to spin; she felt faint. Somehow she made it to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Thankfully, there were no surprises in this room. It was just an ordinary bathroom except for the reflection staring back at her. She splashed water on her face in an attempt to remember how she got here, what she’d done.

Suddenly, the shaken hematologist remembered being in her lab, working on the samples of the foreign catalyst she’d isolated in the Emily Sheppard blood sample. Without a second sample yet, she decided to use her own blood as a baseline for comparison, hoping the differences would enable her to determine the biological markers of the catalyst. However, when she analyzed her own blood sample she discovered something incredibly disturbing, something absolutely impossible. The catalyst was already in her blood. She remembered her realization that it could only mean one thing. She’d been a victim of the hooded madman as well!

It all started coming back to her. The way he’d entered her lab under cover of night. The way he mesmerized her into doing his bidding. She knew he was the cause of the strange metamorphosis she was going through. Without a doubt, in some strange way, she was Mikhail’s latest victim.

“What is happening to me?” Rebecca pleaded into the mirror, suddenly feeling choked by the collar around her neck.

With shaking hands, she began to remove it, but fear gripped her heart. She was paralyzed with terror for a moment, but then she thought of Jeff. She focused on his kindness, his courage, and his caring; he gave her the strength to continue. Once she took off the collar, her mouth went dry, the room began to spin even faster and the world seemed to fall away. Everything became clear. Everything made sense now. As fantastic as it was, as ludicrous as it seemed to her scientific sensibilities, she could no longer deny the reality of it all when she saw the puncture marks in her neck.

“Mikhail is a vampire!”

THE END

“What’s that all over your clothes, Sidney? Is that blood?”

Sidney Rosenthal stood dazed and silent in the doorway of the cozy, two-bedroom, Forest Hills, New York, apartment he had shared with his wife, Helen, for the last 14 years.

He nervously ran his fingers over the dog-eared copy of
The Invisible Man
, by H.G. Wells, in his right hand, fanning the pages repeatedly with his thumb. He could feel the congealed blood on the cover as he moved his index finger across the title, completely unaware of what his wife had just asked him. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to focus before looking down at his clothing and the briefcase in his left hand, all covered with red splatters. It seemed like he’d walked right out of some kind of psychotic Jackson Pollock painting.

“Will you get in here before the neighbors think I’m married to some kind of serial killer?” Helen Rosenthal shouted, visibly annoyed as she pulled her husband into the apartment, quickly scanning the hallway outside for anyone who might have seen him. “That’s the last thing I need.”