Chapter Text
Will was thirsty.
Thirst and hunger were facts of life he had become quite familiar with. Unfortunately getting something to eat and drink out of the city would mean going into a zone that was harshly controlled by the vampires. They didn´t like humans who weren´t put under control by one of the vampire governors who told you where to work, what to eat, who to marry and when to give blood. Avoiding the vampire guards who check that you were actually doing what you were supposed to be doing meant deceiving them into believing you were one of them.
The vampires had taken over the world when Will was seven. He and his father had mostly hid far away from the cities and lived off the land until he was sixteen and his father was killed. With seventeen he found out two facts about vampires: first they were nearly blind in the sunlight and navigated by smell and second they differentiated between human and vampires by pheromones. With eighteen he figured out that he could make his body produce vampire pheromones by using his Empathy Disorder to identify with them. With nineteen he noticed that vampires on a hunt produced more pheromones. The only problem was that nowadays most vampires didn´t need to hunt – unless, of course, they wanted to commit a murder.
Reluctantly Will got the old phone with the splintered glass out that he had managed to steal a few years ago. He disliked using it, both because he theoretically could be located by it and because he had only a limited amount of charge before he needed to find an electric socket again. At least the new vampire government had made internet access free for everyone.
“All thanks to our new overlords.” Will told the dog next to him. “No more homelessness or starving people and free internet for everyone. They only want a little bit of blood from us in exchange. Blood and our everlasting loyalty of course.”
Winston woofed as an answer. Will hadn´t talked to another human for a few weeks by now and the last time was probably just a quick greeting or excuse to not raise suspicion. Maybe it was a sign of insanity to only talk with dogs but Will had long ago accepted his bad mental state.
“You know I really hate Freddie Lounge.” Will told Winston while tipping on his phone. “But you have to admit that that human knows more about the last murder than most all-powerful vampires.”
He scrolled through TattleCrime.com until he finally found it: “There it is.” Will sighed in relief. “Only 5 miles away from here, lucky us, mhm?”
Beverly Katz hated mornings. She had hated mornings when she had been a human and she hated mornings even more since she became a vampire. Going out into the sunlight as a vampire was like giving yourself a migraine out of your own volition. Unfortunately there were certain jobs that needed to be done by vampires, especially since most humans still worked when the sun was up. Apparently the vampires tried to force humanity into their nocturnal day ryhtmn when first took over but it turned out that humans without regular sunlight turned depressed and - far more importantly - produced less blood so that decision was revised.
Beverly luckily wasn´t one of the unhappy souls who had to make sure the humans did what they were told and didn´t plan a revolution every day – but having to stay in the sun because of the latest in a series of vampire murders wasn´t much fun either. She downed her small cappuccino (another disadvantage of being a vampire: you could only eat and drink a little of the good human stuff) and rubbed her eyes under the sunglasses. Someone walked by the tent she was hiding from the sun in and Beverly took comfort in the fact that it was also a Vampire according to the smell and they were probably suffering just like her. She sighed and looked at the documents she had scattered all over the table in front of her in the hope she might find another clue.
The victim outside had been the fourth in a long line of murders who had all been drained of all their blood. Jack thought it might be the Chesapeake ripper but Jack always thought it was the Chesapeake ripper and the fact that there were no missing organs nor artful arrangements made Beverly doubt the idea. But who else drained a vampire of all their blood? Drinking vampire blood as a vampire was like one of the greatest vampire taboos. If the murderer slept with the corpse it would have probably been less controversial. But what else could vampire blood be used for? Unless… it might be an idea she could check the body for.
As she stepped out of the tent she saw the vampire she smelled before standing next to the bright yellow barriers around the crime scene. He had a small dog with him and looked intensely at the bloody body. She sighed and prayed it wasn´t another gawker or true crime fan.
“Hey buddy,” Beverly walked over to him. “Nothing to see here, you can…” She stopped talking and took a deep breath. Something was wrong with the guy. The smell of dog nearly covered it up but the man didn´t smell quite right as if…
“I´m sorry.” The guy said.
“What are you…?”
Then he held something metal and gleaming out of his pocket and pointed it at Beverly. The sun made it quite hard to recognize but there was the distinct smell of gun powder.
“Whoa!” Beverly raised her hands in surrender. “Keep it easy.”
He ignored her. “Give me your handcuffs.”
“Hey, we can talk about this.”
“NOW!” His stressed tone made it clear to Beverly she needed to take action now. Bullets could only kill a vampire if they hit the brain perfectly (nothing could survive without a brain) so Beverly did what they had trained her to do in the Academy when threatened with a gun: She rushed at her attacker. If it had been night she would have reached him long before the human could have even reacted. It wasn´t night.
Beverly went down with a bullet buried in her right shoulder. “Owww. Godamit!”
Somebody was patting her down and before she managed to recover from the sudden pain her left arm was pulled up and cold metal encased her wrist. It took a few deep breaths before she could focus on the man before her. He still smelled like Vampire but now an unmistakable human smell was mixing with it. It was quite disconcerting and was only making her migraine worse. She shook the metal chain of the handcuffs but it seemed to be fastened quite good to a… tree? It looked like that but to be fair that didn´t mean much in the sunlight.
“You shot me!” She growled. If she were a human she´d be worried about bleeding out. She wasn´t.
“I apologized.” The man actually did sound like he was sorry. “You didn´t leave me any choice, you would have brought me to the classification borough.”
“I don´t even know if you´re truly human.” Beverly argued. “You don´t smell like it!”
“That´s by design,” he answered. “Now please be silent.”
“Hey, you don´t get to tell me what to do!”
“I still have the gun.” The man answered. “And quite good aim.”
Beverly couldn´t really disagree with that so she fell silent. She was pretty sure that the guy was moving to the corpse but couldn´t make out more. For a few seconds there was only the sound of the wind blowing through leaves. And then the man started to talk:
“I subdued my victim far away from here.” The human sounded strange - kind of dream-like. “I strangled him to death. It took me awhile but even Vampires need to breath at some point before their brain stops working. I needed to kill him without letting anything intrude into his body. This is my design! I need it unmarked, I need…” Beverly heard the guy fall to his knees next to the corpse and groan. “I need it to save me!”
She couldn´t just let this random human contaminate her crime scene. “HEY, what the hell are you doing?”
For a second the man didn´t react then he sprung up, stumbled away from the corpse and fell on his back. His dog ran over to him and started whining.
“I´m okay.” The man muttered. “I´m okay, I´m okay, I´m okay…”
Beverly was starting to seriously doubt that but the human had managed to intrigue her. “What the hell was that?”
“I…” The man seemed to have completely lost his composure. “I don´t…”
“Did you just make a profile of the killer?”
“I… He… needed his blood.”
“Why?” Beverly urged. “Why did he need his blood? Vampires don´t drink each other´s blood, it´s one of our greatest taboos!”
“He´s sick.” He mumbled. “I don´t know what illness a vampire can have but he thinks bathing in vampire blood will help him.”
“Are you sure?”
A hysteric laugh escaped the human. “I´m not even sure who I am half of the time.” Then he groaned. “I´m soooo thirsty. How do you manage being so thirsty all the time?”
“What are you talking about? What would you know about a vampire´s thirst?” But then Beverly smelled it. The man had stopped smelling like human and was giving up an overpowering stench of vampire. “You… how did you…?”
The man huffed. “At least I know it worked, I guess.” He slowly got back up to his feet. “I´m sorry but I fear I can´t open the cuffs for you, you´ll have to stay there until someone finds you.”
“Hey, you can´t just go like that.” Beverly protested. “If you know who the killer is you need to help us find him!”
“What do I care about dead vampires?” He scoffed. “And I already told you everything I know anyway.”
“At least tell me your name!” Beverly said. “You cuffed me to a tree and went through some kind of strange ritual in front of me that turned you vampire or something and I don´t even know what to call you! I´m Beverly Katz.”
For a moment Beverly thought he wouldn´t answer. He had turned around and started walking before she heard a quiet. “I´m Will.” And then he was gone
Beverly´s job wasn´t usually the active detective work of questioning people and following leads but in hard times she could make do.
Will´s insane ramblings had not only helped her – they had lead her more or less directly to the killer. Illnesses in vampires were quite rare so there were only few suspects. Beverly invented a piece of cloth on the corpse that supposedly came from the only vampire hospital in their environment and a few hours later they caught their murderer.
Unfortunately Beverly knew Jack wouldn´t believe her if she told him that they only found their murderer because a weird vampire-smelling human had told her where to find him which was the reason why she was sitting in front of Freddie Lounge in a musky motel room.
“Agent Katz, how strange for you to search me out on your own.” Freddie smiled at her pleasantly. “So, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I´m searching for a human.”
“There are quite a lot of us.” Freddie pointed out. “Quite a lot more than of you vampires.”
“He probably has the tendency to hang around exactly the kind of crime scene that you frequently visit.” Beverly explained keeping a close look at Freddie´s expression. Luckily it was after dusk so no pesky sunlight was disturbing her sight. “He also smells a lot like vampire once he leaves them.”
It was barely something but Beverly saw Freddie´s eyes widen slightly in surprise. Then it was gone and she just shrugged. “Doesn´t ring any bells.”
“I think you´re lying.”
“Why would I do that?” Freddie asked. “In the end it´s only the benevolence of you vampires that lets me keep my website going.”
Most vampires would never admit to reading such tripe as TattleCrime. Of course after vehemently denying reading it they would then turn around and eat up whatever dribble Freddie was selling. Vampires loved gossip just as much as any human and that was what held Freddie in her position of relative power. She even managed to fake a certificate that excluded her from giving blood because of her “anemia”. Freddie Lounds was the perfect example for the human adaptability to every situation.
But Beverly wouldn´t be dissuaded as easy as that. “I think this human is giving you information about the crimes before you can get them from anywhere else.”
“Oh?” Freddie raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “And if that was true why would I give away such a valuable informant?”
Beverly smiled. “I don´t want you too.”
“No?” Freddie frowned. “So what DO you want?”
Beverly leaned in closer. “Tell Will that I would like to consult him on my newest case. If he agrees to it I´m ready to cater to any precautionary measure he would like to take and I offer him whatever he wants and is in my power to get him in exchange.”
“Interesting.” Freddie drummed her long fingernails on the table. “I will relay your message.”
Beverly felt quite silly sitting next to a corpse in the bright daylight with her arm chained to a metal banister. It was an hour after the time Freddie had told her Will would come by and she started to think she might have been stood up and would have to explain to Jack how she ended up chained to a random object again.
“This is a bad idea.”
Beverly jerked her head up and was met by the vague figure of the human against the bright sunlight. She blinked in surprise. “You smell like human again.”
Will sighed. “The last guy wasn´t a good predator. The better hunter they are when they kill their prey the longer their pheromones last.”
“Oh. Do you have a favorite hunter?” Beverly asked.
“The Chesapeake ripper.” Will answered. “The ultimate apex predator.”
“Also a serial killer.” Beverly pointed out.
“Your kind barely cares about human lives outside of us doing the work you don’t want to do and giving our blood.” Will pointed out. “Why would I care about yours?”
“But you do.” Beverly said. “You didn´t kill me even though it would have made your life easier.”
Will let out a cold laugh. “A human who kills a vampire? I prefer to die in my sleep not get tortured to death.”
“They wouldn´t have caught you.”
“First thing you need to know while being on the run: They´ll always catch you, it´s only a matter of when and if you want to live while it happens.” Will swallowed hard. “That´s what my dad always liked to say.”
Beverly took a shot in the dark. “And did he want to live when he got caught?”
“No.”
“I´m sorry.”
“It´s none of your business.” Will scoffed. “So isn´t there a reason you asked for me?”
Beverly sighed. “Corpse is over there.” She nodded towards it. “It´s one of five missing members of a family. You can find all the information we have on the case in the tent together with the food, water and new phone. Have fun.”
Will nodded and walked into the tent.
Will knew what he was doing was a very bad idea. He had already made a pact with the devil in making arrangements with Freddie Lounds but at least she was human. Whatever he was doing with Beverly Katz would sooner or later get him caught. On the other hand he rarely got the indulgence of warm food and whatever he wanted to drink. Once he let his guard down a bit Beverly even managed to give him access to regular showers, first by giving him money so he could wash up in one of those gas stations with showers made for truckers and lately he even had been in her flat. His empathy made it pretty clear she preferred him free so he slowly started trusting her more and more.
He really should have put the line at the regular text messages she sent him. At first they were about cases but then slowly they had become more and more personal and by now most of them were questions of his well-being, cute dog photos and memes. Will felt himself soak in the attention like a sponge that had touched water for the first time in years. Soon she wasn´t a vampire to him anymore but Beverly and that was a dangerous idea he needed to get rid of as fast as he could.
“You should meet the rest of the team.” Beverly had told him one day as he was scarfing down on a hot dog while looking through case files and feeding sausages to Winston. “They could protect you far better than me.”
Will gave a humorless laugh. “They could detain me and bring me to the classification borough so they can give me to one of the vampire overseers and put me to work. No thank you.”
“Jack wouldn’t care that you’re human. Jimmy and Brian both are and they have been part of the team forever. As long as you get the job done he wouldn´t care if you were a lizard. And as a commanding officer…”
“No!”
“You wouldn´t be the only consultant we have.”
“Oh?” That was news to Will. “You have someone else who buries himself into the minds of killer on their own free will?”
“He seems to enjoy studying the psychiatry of killers.” Beverly responded sounding thoughtful. “But I guess Hannibal Lecter was always a bit weird.”
Will choked on the sip of water he had been taking as Beverly spoke and started desperately struggling for air. It took a few seconds until he got out: “LECTER? You want to sell me to one of the Vampire Nobles?”
“He´s not like the rest of them.”
“How exactly is the guy living in a mansion, having regular dinner parties with human blood slaves and dressing like the literal cliché of a noble vampire not like the rest of them?”
“Blood slaves is a terrible name for them.” Beverly disagreed. “The humans volunteer!”
“They volunteer in the same way a prostitute volunteers her body. They rarely really have that much of a choice as people like to claim. And you didn´t answer my question!”
“He works a normal job for one thing.” Beverly answered. “He talks with the humans in our team just as politely as with the vampires. He even has a fable for cooking human food.”
“Human food is a delicatessen for vampires. Most pampered Nobles enjoy regular human food.”
“Yes but they don´t cook it themselves, do they? It´s beneath them. Plus he turned a human without permission of the council.”
That got Will´s attention. “Seriously? Isn´t that some kind of major crime?”
“It is.” Beverly nodded. “If every vampire turned whoever they wanted we would soon run out of humans to feed us, especially since we took over the world and lost most natural predators. But I guess somehow Hannibal got away with it.”
“Oh.” Will didn´t know what to think about that.
“You´re curious about him.” Beveley said delightedly. “You know if you want to meet the man…”
“I am NOT meeting Hannibal fucking Lecter!”
It turned out Will got to meet Hannibal Lecter just a week later.