Psalm of Vampires: Chapter 19
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“Well, look at the two lovebirds,” said Moreland as Daphne and I appeared again in the lab. My arms were draped around Daphne’s shoulders. I was getting pretty good at Moreland’s form of travel.
“All this hocus pocus is giving me a headache,” said Owens. “My partner says, ‘Hi.’”
“You talked to him?” I asked. “Did he tell you to sign up to CopJobs dot com?”
“Apparently,” said Owens, maybe or maybe not ignoring my jab, “the precinct captain has been fully aware of my activities since the helicopter was downed on the interstate. Those sons of bitches are now getting live feeds from body cams. Can you believe that shit? Straight from our vests to satellite to some asswipe’s cubicle.”
“About time,” said Daphne. She wasn’t yet a vampire, so she still had millennial blood. Defund the police and all that. Or whatever generation she was from. I never bothered keeping track of those labels.
“But you don’t wear a body cam, Owens,” I said.
“No,” he replied. “But all the uniforms do. And everything that happened on the interstate was recorded from several angles. Including the mauling that ended several officers’ lives.”
“So they just left you hangin’?” I asked. “Why not provide the support you need?”
“I do not know, man.”
“What’s Garrison thinking?” I asked.
“He’s thinking that Atlanta PD is a zoo right now. Nobody has a clue what to do. State cops, too. Feds, same. It’s all a clusterfuck.”
“What does he think about you being in Singapore?” I asked.
“I left out that bit,” said Owens with one of the slyer smiles from what I was learning to be a vast collection. “Anyway, the National Guard is fully involved. They’re not doing much to hide that they’re dealing with an emergency, but they’re not talking about flying mutant vampires, either.” I wanted to correct Owens and tell him that I didn’t consider Wurdulacs vampires, but it didn’t seem worth the argument it would have been a few days ago.
Daphne sat down and looked through her phone again. “They’re changing the narrative,” she said. She handed me her phone.
I was looking at a BBC news story. “Why always BBC?” I asked.
“Why not?” asked Daphne. “American news sites are all twisted with opinion.”
I read it aloud:
Mass Infection Event in Northern Georgia Puts State in Lockdown
Atlanta, GA
Authorities in Georgia have declared a full shelter-in-place order affecting the entire state, law enforcement officials said today. The order amounts to a curfew restricting movement in or out of residential homes except for emergency supplies.
County sheriff departments have been instructed to prohibit traffic on interstates, as well as state and county roads, a spokesman for the governor’s office said.
The action follows what authorities are calling a mass infection event in the small town of Jerrold Mountain, a rural community approximately 80 miles north of Atlanta. Authorities have released few details of the event, but unconfirmed reports have indicated that the entire population of the town of some 1,200 people has perished. State authorities have not yet released any information on the type of infection that is suspected to have swept through the town, or how quickly its inhabitants succumbed to the infection.
The President is expected to make a statement soon. This is a breaking story. We will provide live updates as they occur.
“Shit, Owens, did Garrison say nothing about this?” I handed the phone to him.
He looked at the story. “This story was released seconds ago. So, no.”
“But he had to have an inkling of what was happening.”
“Man, he said it was a zoo over there,” said Owens, sounding defensive.
I persisted. “Don’t they want you there?”
“They do. But I’m here and they don’t know that.”
“Moreland,” I said, “this must be your worst nightmare.” All her admonitions over my streaming activities seemed trite now.
“It’s everybody’s worst nightmare,” she said.
“We have much to offer the authorities,” said Dr. Chua. “But I prefer to keep a low profile. If I learned anything during my tenure with Médecins Sans Frontières, it was that we cannot trust governments to do what is best for all concerned. The longer we can keep this information out of their hands, the better the world will be.”
“So we act as if nothing has changed,” I said.
“Even though everything has,” said Dr. Chua.
“Owens?” I looked his way, but he was still scrolling through Daphne’s phone. “Dude. Your burner phone is a smartphone. You can give hers back.”
He gave me a snide look before sticking his arm out to hand the phone back to Daphne. He looked back at me. “Yeah. We play dumb. I play dumb. But I do need to get back to Atlanta.”
“How you gonna explain this?” I put my hand on the back of my neck.
“Knife fight?” he replied. He knew I was talking about his neck.
“Come on, Owens. They saw what happened on the interstate. And who knows what conclusions they’ll come to when they start sorting through the mess in Jerrold Mountain.”
“I dunno, man, but I need to be eyes and ears for both sides. You and them. Can you trust me with that?”
“Shit, Owens, I don’t trust you to bring me a glass of potable water, but sure, I’ll have to, won’t I?” I replied.
“Thatta boy. You going to help me get back to Atlanta? Or you gonna make me fly there?”
“All flights in and out of Atlanta are canceled,” said Daphne. She looked up from her phone and batted her eyelids.
“I took you here. I can take you back,” I said to Owens.
News developments were cranking out of Daphne’s phone faster than we could plan, but the plan was this, anyway: Daphne and Moreland would stay behind with Dr. Chua while I transported Owens to Fang HQ, which had remained taped off under Garrison’s watch. Strangely, I wondered if Bennie and Philip’s new love interest passed their chemistry tests. Time was such a blur for me that I wondered if they had even taken it yet. My body was a wreck. I felt like I could sleep for a few dozen years.
Dr. Chua said he’d run tests on the DNA from the knife and compare it to mine. He was firm when he told me not to pester him for reports, saying that he’d let me know what he found when he found it.
I hated leaving Daphne again, but she was in better hands with Moreland than me. I also wasn’t crazy about the prospect of Dr. Chua editing her genes. When I hugged Owens extra hard, just for grins, and took him to Fang HQ, he gave me a withering look before bringing up the topic immediately. “You know that this Dr. Chua could be a complete quack, right?” he asked as we looked around the empty foyer of the estate. “Not could be, Mourning. Probably. Is. Havin’ him mess with your friend Daphne’s DNA, man, I dunno. You want her accidentally turned into an alpaca with a cute belly button and big fangs?”
I opened the front door saying, “I don’t know what to think, Owens. God.” I looked at him, noting the new bandage on his neck and the old bandage on his hand. “You’re going to belong in a mummy’s tomb pretty soon if we keep this up.”
Yellow police tape lined the exterior of the grounds. Three uniformed officers were conversing next to a large four-wheel drive patrol vehicle with darkened windows. A man in a suit was leaning into the vehicle. His butt seemed lodged inside the vehicle for some time before he finally emerged with a phone in his hands. The three men drew their weapons and approached the house less than a second after they saw me.
Owens hustled to my side. “They’ve probably got some electronic monitoring device in here to alert them when someone has entered,” he said. He stepped in front of me toward the approaching uniformed officers and held out his badge. The man in the suit was Garrison.
“Owens?” Garrison said. “Where the hell you been? There’s an APB out for you.”
“I figured. Come on inside. Leave Starsky, Hutch, and their girlfriend outside.” The uniformed cops were all men. I wondered which one Owens considered the girlfriend, but with Owens, it didn’t matter. I also wondered if they knew who Starsky and Hutch were. Or maybe all cops did — something they learned in the police academy.
Garrison nodded at the men and made his way toward the front. Owens and Garrison fist-bumped each other, but Garrison ignored me. “Good to see you too, detective,” I said as he walked inside. “Do make yourself at home. Would you like a cocktail?”
He continued to ignore me. I persisted. “Should I just leave? Text me when you’re done,” I said, as I made my way for the door.
“Shit, Mourning, sit your ass down in the piano room,” said Owens. Vampire hater again.
“Piano room! I’ve always wanted to give that room a better name,” I said. “Seeing as I don’t really live in it, living room is a dumb name.”
We sat down in the same places we sat during their first visit.
Finally, Garrison said something to me. “What’s your role in all this?” He looked at Owens. “Are you a captive, Standmoore? I guess you can’t say even if you are.” Garrison took in the living room with his eyes. “What is this place? Who are you people?”
“Most of them?” I said. “Dead.” I looked at Owens. Garrison did, too.
Owens nodded his head. Then he looked at me and nodded my way. “He ain’t the bad guy,” he said.
“You implied as much in our last conversation,” said Garrison. “But look. All indications are that an entire town has been wiped off the face of this here green earth. The fuckin’ president is set to go on national TV and tell folks some kind of story about a gawldamned infection. Current trending internet thing is zombie apocalypse. More sensible things are the plague and shit. There ain’t nobody knowing what happened up there. So I gotta know, Detective Owens. Do you know?” I hadn’t noticed it before, but I found his Georgia drawl irritating. Or maybe stress was bringing it out.
“If I told you what happened up there, you’d wrap my wrists in metal,” said Owens. ‘Sides, what if you did know what happened up there? This is no longer an Atlanta PD matter.”
“Good, because we still have unsolved murders to deal with,” said Garrison.
“More since the Jerrold Mountain incident?” asked Owens.
“None reported, but like I said, the place is a zoo right now. Nobody knows up from down.”
Owens tried to tell Garrison the story. All of it. From the moment he confronted me in my library, to our just concluded return trip to Singapore. When Garrison refused to believe it, I took him to Singapore, introduced him to Dr. Chua, and returned within a few minutes. Even after that, he proved difficult to convince. I couldn’t blame him. It ran up against everything he knew to be true.
That’s why a sudden, unexpected visit from Charly was a welcome development.
He appeared on the floor in front of us, rolling in pain, covered in mud and detritus from what must have been a nasty fight. He was wearing nothing but cargo pants and untied red tennis shoes. A massive gash on his shoulder was bleeding out but also healing in front of us. “He’s going to need to feed soon,” I said.
“They followed me, man,” Charly said, out of breath.
“What do you mean, they followed you?” I asked. “And how the hell did you find us?”
“Didn’t know what else to try. Never been to Singapore. Guessed you were there,” His breathing was heavy. “Or here. I was on the mountain, fighting those suckers, worried sick for Daphne. Man, Jade, she was holding her own. Shoulda seen her. Then I saw Moreland, then three of them are nearly on top of me so I tried your trick, thinking, no way, cuz, you know, I never tried it before. Found myself at a joint on Ursulines Avenue. There was a blues guy there blaring his trumpet, but it wasn’t the place I thought it was or remembered. Then I look up, and these three Wurdufucks are there, too. Jade, how did that happen?”
Charly was speaking so fast I had a difficult time understanding him. He said, “I had your knife with me. The one you tossed because you liked the one Owens gave you? Got one in the throat. I got a new trick. I imagined myself behind it and got it from behind before it could heal. Then I did the same trick on the other two. Did you know we can do that?”
“I didn’t until a few hours ago,” I said., thinking about that same trick when I faced off against Longtooth. “But how did they follow you? The Wurdulac that attacked you are dead?”
“They’re dead, but that club is a mess. I don’t know how they followed me. I was asking you.”
I looked over at Owens and Garrison, who were both looking at their phones. Owens pointed his phone screen at Charly. “This you?” A large TMZ headline covered most of his phone’s screen: “Bizarre Grisly Scene in NOLA.”
“TMZ?” I asked. “Seriously?”
Charly, still sitting on the floor, crawled over to Owens and snatched his phone. “That was fast,” he said. “I just came from there.”
“Citizen journalism,” grumbled Garrison.
“Believe us now?” asked Owens.
Garrison replied, “Man, I dunno. It’s way too far off mama’s farm to get my arms around.”
“Why do you think he’s so blue?” asked Owens.
Garrison shrugged. “Been a tough couple days, Owens. Gimme a minute.”
“A minute is more than we got. Mourning, slice something off that beautiful blue body of yours and let Garrison here watch some magic happen.”
“You’re acting like that shit doesn’t hurt,” I said to Owens.
“I know it hurts, but so does watching people die all around us. Just, you know, a slice off your fingertip or something.” He said this as Charly’s shoulder was almost completing the healing process in front of us. That seemed proof enough to me.
I looked at Charly. “Umm, Charly’s shoulder? Hello? That doesn’t say it all?”
“Just, you know, humor me,” said Owens. A wry smile from his collection creased his face.
I retrieved a sharp knife out of the kitchen and sliced off the tip of my finger. It hurt like hell, and I reacted accordingly, then tossed the fresh pellet of meat to Garrison. I held out my finger for Garrison and Owens to see. It healed a lot more quickly than I thought, considering that my last feeding was a couple of brief slurps at the coffee shop in Jerrold Mountain. “Wow, the wife beater had a better nutrient profile than I would have expected,” I said, thinking about the ice cream shop feeding. Either that, I thought, or one of those two kids at the coffee shop drank a lot of power smoothies.
“Huh?” said Garrison, but Charly laughed. Garrison said, “Alright, enough. That’s disgusting.” He set the piece of finger on a glass table next to him.
“Not as disgusting as a Wurdulac carting you off and dissolving your ass inside its stomach while it’s taking in an aerial view of your mama’s farm,” said Owens.
“Okay,” said Garrison. “Let’s say I have full buy-in on your story.”
“Stories,” I corrected.
“Stories,” acknowledged Garrison. “What am I supposed to do with this information? You know the captain,” he said to Owens. “Most by the book guy we ever have seen in that post. And besides, like I said, this case has seen a serious change in jurisdictional control.”
“My proposal is simple. We act as if this shit was not even going on. Like you said. We’ve still got a crime to solve. That’s real. We get all gung-ho with the captain. Captain sir,” Owens said in a mocking voice. “While vampires are destroying humanity, we still got a crime to solve here. We cannot be negligent in our duty!” Owens was quiet, as was Garrison. “Something like that.”
Garrison remained silent. It was a lot to absorb.
“Most of us will be sidelined anyway when it comes to Jerrold Mountain,” Owens continued.
“Sure, if you ignore the seven hundred AHOD notices we’re getting on our phones over the last few hours,” Garrison said.
“What’s AHOD?” I asked.
“All hands on deck,” said Owens. To Garrison, he asked, “But that’s for the uniforms and beat cops, not detectives. Right?”
“Hard to know, Owens. Like I said, right now, up is down everywhere in the department.” Garrison thought for a moment. “Okay. So we focus on the murders. If we can. What does that even mean? Available resources will be next to zero with everything else that is happening.”
“It means we pinpoint who the killer is and nail his ass,” said Owens.
“Longtooth?” asked Garrison.
“Bingo.”
“How sure are we he’s the killer?”
“Sure enough that you guessed it after I told you my story.”
“Stories,” I corrected. “No offense,” I added, looking at Garrison, “but Detective Garrison would be most helpful just deflecting the Atlanta PD away from our activities.”
Garrison responded by answering his phone. “They say they’re what? Team Fang?” He looked at me. “And they’re here to do what? Serve and protect? Hold on.” It looked like he tapped his mute button. Then he said to me, “There’s six Asian guys out there saying they’re with Team Fang. They’ve come to help.” He shook his head. “Do you know who they are, Mourning?”
That would have been my League of Legends teammates. I wasn’t going to let any more humans get involved. It was bad enough that Owens was toying with the idea of getting Garrison involved. So, I said, “No idea. Tell them to go home and that this place is sealed off. You don’t know where I am.”
“Mourning’s fanboys are persistent,” said Owens. “Tell them he’s dead. Funeral is in a week. Tell ‘em to come back then. And to bring a mummy coffin.” Inside joke.
Instead, Garrison unmuted his phone and told his colleague I was in Singapore.
“Question. You said that you both ended up in some Victorian-style house when Detective Owens was attacked by this Longtooth fella,” said Garrison. “What doesn’t add up is that I’m under the impression that even if you don’t quite always understand how you get somewhere, Mourning, you generally at least know the where of it. But you don’t seem to know where this Victorian house was.”
“Good observation,” I said.
Garrison added, “That makes me wonder if you can not only travel to a place but to a person. Mind you, I still find this all — well, impossible to believe.”
“What else do you need to believe it, Gare?” asked Owens.
“Show him your book, Standmoore,” I said, wondering if Owens would react to my using his first name.
He didn’t. “Well, I can’t do that.”
“Up you go,” I said, looking at Owens, then Garrison, as I stood up. “Come on, now, both of you.”
They looked at each other questioningly, then slowly stood up. Owens’ eyes rolled nearly to the back of his head. I stood in between the two men and put my arms around their shoulders. Charly snuck in from behind and wrapped his massive arms around all of us.
“This is all new to me, too, Detective Garrison. So, we’re gonna try something. Owens, think of that book of yours. Think about how it’s the most important thing you’ve ever seen in the feeble history of your species.” I had been wanting to use the word feeble in reference to Owens for some time. This would do.
I’ll just follow this up by saying that somebody in Owens’ house truly loves their cologne. It’s not Owens, because I’ve never smelled it on him. But his house smelled like it could have provided enough cheap cologne to stock up seven shelves at your nearest local dollar store.
“Whoa,” said Garrison.
Charly said, “Whoowee!”
“I told you, I’m just now getting the hang of this,” I said as we all stared at our new surroundings. “I still don’t have any idea what I’m doing. Or why Owens thinking of this while I’m holding on to him gets us here.”
“No, I’m talking about the rank smell,” said Garrison. “Owens, what is that?”
Charly guffawed.
“That’s Uncle Charlie,” Owens replied. “Must have a date tonight.”
“He must be responsible for a lot of dating app cancellations,” said Garrison.
“We could just bottle up this shit and weaponize it,” said Charly. “No more Wurdulacs. Tell my namesake thanks.”
“His Tinder dates are pretty catastrophic,” said Owens without emotion. We were in a home office. The desk, which I assumed belonged to Owens, was Ikea, along with the rest of the office, with a small dollop of Pottery Barn thrown in for good measure. One wall was comprised of inlaid shelves.
“I need to take a dump,” Owens grumbled. He left the room. A door slammed. The words, “mother fucker,” their clarity flattened by the closed door, trickled faintly out of the hallway. I couldn’t begin to wonder what was troubling him, and I wasn’t willing to ask.
Garrison and Charly were laughing as we checked out the room. The middle shelves were tall and deep. Several tall old leather books with no engraving on the binding leaned conspicuously against smaller books beside them. “That’s the scrapbooks, I’ll bet,” I said, pointing to them.
Garrison took one off the shelf and spread it open on the particle board desk. It was the one Owens had shown me in my library. I was pretty sure the added weight of the book would send the desk crashing down.
I gave a Garrison a brief overview of Rondell Owens’ activities as an activist minister in Chicago doing double duty as a vampire hunter. I reached down to turn the pages of the scrapbook to my photograph as the sound of a muffled flush from the toilet led to one of my few moments of concern for Owens. He had been in there a while.
“Well,” said Garrison, “I see the resemblance, but that’s about it. I mean, this could be anybody,” he said as Owens emerged from the bathroom. I looked for a limp out of the corner of my eye.
“Garrison,” I said, “I literally just flashed your ass to Singapore, then Owens’ home, and you’re still saying, ‘no, none of this is happening?’ Some twelve hundred people are dead in a small Georgia town and you’re goin’ ‘nope!’ This is a dereliction of duty. I’d like to complain to the police board.” I looked at Owens. “Does Atlanta have a police board?”
Owens shrugged, fidgeting with his belt. “Haven’t a clue.”
Garrison pulled a black, wheeled office chair away from Owens’ Ikea desk and sat down while Charly sniffed around the place with his nose leading him around as if it was a poorly trained dog pulling its owner on a leash.
Then, Charly laughed and said to Owens, “Whatever you did to fix that cologne smell is workin’, but now it’s somethin’ worse.”
Garrison’s deep sigh sounded like a kid who can’t get his mom’s attention. His hands threw themselves into the air and slapped his pants as he said, “It’s like one day you go outside and there are six moons in the sky, okay? That’s how weird this shit is. You’re used to it. It’s your world,” he said to me. “But this world? It’s hidden from me, from my ancestors, and it makes no sense.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But now it’s not. And here we are.”
Garrison looked at the shelf. “This ain’t the only book, is it?”
“Nope,” said Owens. “There’s five of ‘em. Surprised you mother fuckas didn’t just help yourselves to all of ‘em.” He pulled one off the shelf and handed it to Garrison, who slid the first book aside. “This is the first one,” he said.
Garrison closed his eyes tightly and breathed deeply, then laid the book on the desk and flipped it to the beginning. “Did your grandfather add these photos and newspaper clippings in chronological order?” The book was constructed like the first one, spiral-bound. I could envision its creator opening and closing the spirals to add and subtract pages.
“Uh-huh,” answered Owens. “Oldest in front. Oldest in terms of my grandfather’s encounters, I should say.”
The first photo was a mug shot of a suspected serial killer named Shelby Givens. Under his photo was a set of two press clippings from the early 1960s describing his escape from a state penitentiary after being convicted of stealing cigarettes from a gas station and killing its owner.
According to the press clippings, Givens, who was seven feet tall, was considered the prime suspect in nearly thirty killings in Alabama after his escape. Glued under the clippings was a crudely fashioned arrow cut from notebook paper that pointed to the right. The word “MORE” was written on the notebook paper. Garrison turned the page to reveal handwritten notes that were difficult to read because of poor penmanship and age.
A Polaroid photo of a bluish man whose eye socket was blown out by a bullet was affixed under the notes. There were more notes under the Polaroid. “Givens sawed off his long teeth,” it said. “Two of them. Teeth not just overly huge incisors. They are like a sabertoothed tiger’s teeth.” On the next page was a photo of a man holding open the dead guy’s mouth to reveal the stub of a jagged tooth in the front of his mouth. The tooth was thicker at the carved bottom than any human molar, even though it was in the front of the mouth. At the very bottom of the page was a broken, curved tooth the length of a dinner spoon. The tooth was glued to the page like it was part of some kid’s school project.
Garrison, cautiously treating the scrapbook like it was five thousand years old, turned the page to more notes. He read aloud: “The broken tooth has a tiny tunnel inside from end to end. Showed it to Drs Smith and Ellis. Not human, they say, so showed it to veterinarian in Pullman. Not any species of animal he can think of. Did not tell either where it comes from.”
“Grandpops told me later that was his first kill,” said Owens.
“A pastor did all this,” laughed Garrison. “Man, Owens, this does explain a lot about you,” he said, shaking his head.
“Ain’t no ‘splainin’ Owens,” mumbled Charly from across the room.
“He called it a Battue,” said Owens. “I didn’t know what that meant, and neither did he, I don’t think.”
“Very nasty bunch,” I said. “They make Longtooth look Buddhist in comparison.”
“Yep,” said Owens. “Grandpops told me the story. Lake Michigan. But you know more about it than he did.”
Garrison was meticulous. He went through each page in the book, each killing, each suspected vampire that wasn’t killed, looking for clues, I guess.
“This is the first book?” he asked when he was done.
“Yeah,” said Owens.
“Let’s look at the last. Let’s see how this ends for your grandfather if you don’t mind,” said Garrison as Charly ambled over, wiping sweat from his flooded forehead with a handkerchief.
“He died of old age, I’m glad to say,” said Owens. “Just nodded off. Glass of Hennessey in his hands. Didn’t spill a drop. Mama — she said, ‘smartest he ever looked was on that day,’ and she meant it. She loved that man, though, better than anything I can imagine lovin’ anything myself.”
Did I see a touch of raw emotion claw at Owens’ throat? I believe I did. He reached onto the shelf for another book. “Last one,” he said. We were skipping the three middle books, but I didn’t think it mattered. Charly put his hand gently on Owen’s shoulder.
Garrison opened it. “Man,” he said, “when I handle these things it feels like more than history, you know? These pages and bindings. They feel so fragile.”
“They are fragile, Gare, but you are doing just fine,” said Owens, resting his palm on Garrison’s shoulder. The Owens onion continued to peel. And we were running out of shoulders.
Garrison carefully turned one page after another of vampire assassinations courtesy of Rondell Owens, pastor of the Englewood Emmanuel Community Baptist Church, Chicago Illinois.
Garrison spun around on his chair to look at me.
“A lot of these here Polaroids are in color. A lot of blue people. How come it ain’t never talked about in the press? Or somewhere? A magazine, maybe. Life Magazine, at least.”
“Have you ever seen a blue-skinned person before me?”
“No,” said Garrison.
“What did you think when you saw me the first time?” I asked him.
“Didn’t think much of it, truth be told. Thought maybe you were ill.”
“Right. We are so rare, Garrison. Not many people see us. Those who do just don’t know what to make of it. A game? A charade? Costume? Illness? That’s the stuff that comes to mind.”
“Did you know any of these here that Owens’ daddy killed?” he asked me.
“Granddad. And, strangely enough, no,” I said. “Charly?”
Charly shook his head. “Don’t recognize nobody.”
Garrison directed his next question at Owens. “Battue, you say.”
“Sorry?” asked Owens.
“Look here,” said Garrison. “Damn this is hard to read. Why did your grandpa write in such small lettering? This would be hard to read normal size. But here, it ain’t cursive text. It’s tiny lettering, all caps, well, actually… what in the typography business is known as small caps. Which is all caps, but with letters that would normally be capitalized in a larger font than its surrounding characters. Hard to read, though, still. You got a magnifying glass?”
“Yeah, I find myself needing one all the time cuzza this shit,” said Owens, reaching into a desk drawer. He pulled out a small magnifying glass attached to a leather key chain without keys and handed it to Garrison. Owens looked at me. “This is why I drag Garrison places with me.” He winked. “Attention to detail like a mother fucker.”
Garrison read aloud slowly because he had trouble deciphering the text. “Battue holding several other sabretooth vampires captive somewhere in Eastern Europe. Can’t get there. Too much political bullshit. Battue maybe somehow changing biology of the sabretooth?”
Garrison looked up at Owens. “And that, my friend, is your grandfather’s last entry.”
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