The Vampire Murders: 19/?
by Nan Smith
Previously:
"Good evening, Inspector Henderson," he said. "And my wishes for good fortune go with you. Please tell Miss Lane that I hope she will suffer no ill effects from her adventure last night."
"I'll do that," Henderson muttered. He glanced at the frosted glass of the bathroom window, from which the indirect light of the sun had almost disappeared. Somehow their host seemed more solid and intimidating than he had a few moments before. The man opened the bathroom door and gestured, inviting them to exit. Henderson nodded to him and did so, followed by Superman. Their host followed them, shutting the door behind him.
Henderson followed Superman as they made their way to the hallway. The room was only very dimly illuminated now, with the dying rays of the setting sun reflecting indirectly through the shaded window in the opposite wall.
There was the faintest fluttering sound behind him and he glanced back, wondering if a bird had been somehow trapped in the building, but now there was no one and nothing there. Lois's mysterious rescuer had vanished as if he had never existed.
**********
And now, Part 19:
Henderson was still puzzling over the disappearance of their "friend" as he had described himself, while Superman presumably scanned the area beyond the door of the duplex. There had been nowhere the man could go, and yet he had vanished as silently as the proverbial ghost. Perhaps, Henderson speculated, he had simply stepped back into the bathroom and not exited behind them as Henderson had assumed he had.
Superman had said nothing, and his expression, in the dimness of the room's interior, was difficult to read. Henderson continued to run the events, and the information imparted to them by their strange informant , through his mind.
"There's no one there," Superman said suddenly. "Let's go."
They slipped through the door into the chilly, dark outer air, and an instant later were rising rapidly into the darkening sky. The scenery blurred again, and cleared. Henderson found that they were high above the beach cottages, and then Wilson's Cove was sliding to their rear as Superman flew swiftly toward the Twelfth Precinct.
"Where did he go?" Henderson asked suddenly. Superman, with his acute super-senses would probably know, he figured.
Superman didn't answer at once. At last, he spoke, sounding, Henderson thought, a little reluctant.
"I'm not sure."
That left Henderson speechless for several seconds. By the time he spoke again, they were losing altitude, descending toward the narrow alley that ran beside the police station. "You don't *know*?"
Superman set him on his feet. "No. I was checking the area before I opened the door. He vanished while my attention was distracted."
Something in the Kryptonian's voice told Henderson that Superman was hedging. He looked the other man in the eyes. "What is it?"
Superman shrugged slightly. "I'm really not sure."
"The guy can't have vanished into thin air. I don't think you believe in ghosts or vampires any more than I do. What is he -- some kind of ninja warrior or something?"
Superman shook his head. "I don't know. I doubt it."
"I'm beginning to wonder," Henderson said.
"So am I. But, Bill --" Superman broke off in a pause so long that Henderson thought that he had decided against completing the sentence.
"But, what?"
"I checked that room -- the bathroom -- before I knocked." Another pause.
"And?" Henderson said finally.
"It was empty. Except for the weapons and the packages of drugs."
"Then where did he come from?"
"I don't know."
A faint, reluctant chill crept over Henderson's scalp, but he shook off the feeling. "He must have come from somewhere."
"Of course." Superman's reply was almost too quick. "What are you going to do with his information?"
Henderson blinked. "And I thought Lois could change the subject fast."
A slight grin quirked the Man of Steel's lips. "Sorry. Too much exposure to Lois, I suppose. But you haven't answered me."
"I'm going to find an excuse to withdraw my men tomorrow -- not too suddenly. And then we're going to watch and see what happens."
Superman nodded. "If I can help, just ask. I want to solve this case as much as you do."
"How do I get hold of you?"
"Well," Superman said, "I guess you could always yell 'Help, Superman', but it would probably be more dignified to call Kent at the Planet."
Henderson blinked at him for an instant, as he took off in a rush of chilly air. Had the Man of Steel actually *joked* with him?
As Superman vanished into the dark sky, Henderson stood looking after him. A tiny star winked at him, and was blotted out for a second as a body crossed between it and him. Then he shook his head and opened the side door into the Twelfth Precinct Police Station. He had a few things to arrange for tomorrow.
**********
Lois Lane saved her article and began to re-read her work. She had started proofing her writing more carefully recently. It was always a point of contention when Clark pointed out her typos and in the spirit of competition, she had grown more determined that he should not find misspellings and mistakes in her copy.
She glanced at the windows, noting that the sun was setting in a blaze of pink and gold beyond the buildings, and returned to her article. She corrected a minor error that turned a harmless word into an unprintable one, finished reading her piece and saved it again, and then LANned it to her editor.
"Lois," Jimmy said from behind her, making her start slightly. The gofer was presenting her with a sheaf of paper. "I found that information you wanted."
"Great," Lois said, accepting the offering. "So who rented the cabin last summer?"
Jimmy looked worried. "Bill Church Jr. I guess that was while Bill Church Senior was scouting locations for the Cost Mart stores. They bought out the Lex Save chain last summer, you know -- I guess Lex Corp was unloading a lot of its holdings about then. The Cost Mart store nearby is an old Lex Save." Jimmy didn't need to add that this must have been the month after Lois's disastrous almost-wedding to Lex Luthor. That had been a period of frantic activity for Lex Corp, while the Board of Trustees battled to save at least part of the Lex Corp empire. It figured that Intergang had seized the opportunity to get a toe hold in Metropolis, Lois thought. Now. if she and Clark could only prove that Bill Church was actually involved ….
"Bill Church Junior?" she repeated.
"Yeah," Jimmy said. "He and his wife signed the lease."
"Bill Church Junior is actually married?" Lois said, incredulously. From the little she knew of the man, his lifestyle included multiple females of easy virtue, and it was a little difficult to grasp the concept of a married Bill Church. What woman would be crazy enough to marry him?"
"Yeah, he is," Jimmy said. "I almost didn't believe it, either, until I checked the New Troy Bureau of Vital Statistics. There's a marriage certificate, all right."
"Incredible," Lois murmured, under her breath. "Okay. So the Churches are connected to Wilson's Cove. Why am I not surprised?"
"Good luck tying them to whatever's going on," Jimmy said. "The rest of that stuff is about the indigenous people that lived in New Troy when the colonists came, and their legends. Some of them are really weird."
"Good," Lois said. "That may be just what I need."
"What's it all about?" Jimmy inquired.
"Clark and I think somebody might be running a scam based on one of these old legends," Lois said, scanning the papers quickly. "Ah! I think this might be it. 'The Legend of the Blood Spirits.'"
"It's creepy," Jimmy told her. "I didn't think Native Americans had things like vampire legends."
Lois looked up quickly. "Vampires?"
"Well, not exactly," Jimmy said. "But pretty close. Say," he said, "this wouldn't have anything to do with those 'vampire murders' in the park, and the Cost Mart manager, would it?"
"Maybe," Lois said. "It's one angle we're following."
"Cool," Jimmy said. "It sounds like that vampire hunter movie they showed on Halloween. It figures you and CK would get to hunt vampires You always get to do cool stuff nobody else does."
"Jimmy, I doubt there's any real vampires involved," Lois told him.
Jimmy looked crestfallen. "No, probably not." He started to turn, and swung back, giving her a startled look. "Why are you wearing a crucifix pendant, then?"
"This?" Lois touched the silver chain, trying her best to sound disinterested. The little silver cross had worked its way from under its concealment and lay exposed, a little crookedly, on the material of her blouse. "My grandmother gave it to me."
"Recently?"
"No. It was when I was going to college. I just -- felt like wearing it."
"Oh," Jimmy said. "Well, I guess better safe than sorry."
Lois decided that arguing with him about her wearing a crucifix would only serve to make her look silly. She picked up her shoulder bag, slipped the sheaf of paper into it and swung it to her shoulder. "I'm going home. I'll read this later."
"Okay. I guess I'll see you tomorrow," Jimmy said. "Maybe after you read that stuff you can tell me what a blood spirit is."
"Didn't it say?" Lois paused in the act of putting on her coat to stare at him.
"Nope. They sound like Dracula or something."
"What did they do?"
"The stuff I found says they were supernatural creatures that lured the young warriors and maidens away from their camps at night with promises and songs and then feasted on their blood. That's why I called them vampires. There was this one shaman, Night Eagle, or something, that went up against them and beat them with his power, destroyed them, but he paid a price. He was only corporeal by night, afterwards, and was sometimes overcome by the blood thirst, but apparently he confined himself to various malefactors and the good-for-nothings in the tribe."
Lois resolutely ignored the slight crawling sensation on her scalp. "I heard that part of the story before," she said. "Did they say what happened to him?"
"Kind of," Jimmy said. "He was supposed to have gone to sleep in a hidden place, but he promised his tribe that if he was ever needed again, he would return to defend the people of his land. Kind of sad, really." He glanced at the main window. "Look, you'd better hurry up. It's almost dark."
"Yeah," Lois said. "I guess I'll see you in the morning."
"Okay," Jimmy said, but she could have sworn that he looked at her with just a touch of awe before he turned away.
**********
The bright colors of sunset had just about faded from the western sky by the time that Lois pulled Harvey Brown's battered pickup out of the Planet's parking lot and out into the street.
It would have been nice, she found herself thinking, if Clark had returned in time to accompany her home. Not, of course, because she might want him to walk with her through the halls of her apartment house, or be there when she opened her door.
No, it was simply that she would have liked to discuss the case with him, and, of course, to hear if he had managed to locate Superman, and if he had learned what had happened.
She maneuvered her way through the late rush hour traffic and at last turned off the main drag onto one of the quiet side streets, and five minutes later was pulling the pickup into the small lot behind her apartment building, reserved for its occupants.
One of the lights that illuminated the lot was out again, she noted unhappily. There was a large stretch of shadow between the parking space she had chosen and the sidewalk that gave passage to the front of the apartment house and its steps leading up to the main doors that opened on the dingy hallway of the first floor. Lois told herself again that there was no reason for her heart to be beating light and fast in her throat. It was just that the past couple of days had had a definite creep factor attached to them.
Well, the quicker she got over to the sidewalk, the quicker she would be inside. She sternly suppressed the little tingle of nervousness that tried to lift the hair on her scalp.
Carefully, she peered around but could see no motion anywhere. Except for the several vehicles parked in such a way that made it impossible for her to park any closer to the building, the lot was deserted.
With a quick motion, before she could change her mind, Lois opened the door of the truck and got out, pushing the locking button on the door and slamming it behind her. With long, swift strides, she headed directly toward the sidewalk and the pool of light from the lamp perched on the corner of the building, ducking quickly through the patch of shadows.
And, as she reached it, the front doors of the car parked almost entirely concealed by the thick band of shadow, opened and almost simultaneously a man emerged from each door. The dim moonlight gleamed off the dark metal of the handgun gripped firmly by the closer man as he pointed it directly at her.
"Get in the car, Ms Lane." The voice was a deep rumble in his throat. The second man said nothing, although he, too, displayed a weapon.
At least this was the kind of danger that she could understand, Lois thought half-humorously. Kidnapping attempts might be irritating and inconvenient, but at least kidnappers were human. She stopped, stock-still, evaluating the situation.
Not good. Tae Kwon Do against handguns wasn't what she would consider favorable odds.
The bigger thug brandished his weapon. "Get in the car," he repeated. "You got an appointment with a vampire."
Lois kicked him in the crotch. As he doubled forward, she followed the kick with another, this one to his gun hand and had the satisfaction of seeing the weapon flying through the air to land with a clatter and a splash somewhere to her left. In the next split-instant, she dived sideways as the second man's weapon spoke.
She could have sworn the bullet twitched a lock of her hair as it zinged past her cheek. Lois rolled to her feet, ready to follow up the attack -- and froze.
Something dark, a shadow the size and general shape of a man, swooped suddenly out of the night from above her. The man who retained his gun fired at it, but the shadow didn't even slow down. Lois caught a second look at it for a frozen split instant before she turned to flee.
Definitely not Superman. The thought crossed her mind as she ran for the sidewalk, and the path between the apartment house and the structure beside it. Behind her were more gunshots.
Looking back over her shoulder for an instant, she could see the gunman firing at something, a darker spot of black in the darkness. The gunfire stopped abruptly with two distinctive clicks.
Running, while looking back over one's shoulder, she discovered an instant later, was probably not a good idea. Her toe snagged on the curb and she fell flat, the breath knocked completely out of her.
The gunman screamed.
The first scream was followed by a second, which cut off in the middle with a kind of gurgling sound. Lois struggled to her feet, gasping for air, and caught a last, confused glimpse of the situation before she stumbled around the corner of the apartment house, sucking air desperately into her lungs.
Something, the man-shaped blackness, half-obscured the gunman and his partner. Lois didn't wait to see more. She ran toward the street as fast as her wobbling legs could carry her, toward light, and the noise of passing traffic, and safety.
As she rounded the corner at the front of the building, she almost collided with a familiar figure: a short, dark man wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket. She skidded to a stop so suddenly that she almost fell over.
The man who had rescued her the previous night caught her arm and helped her regain her balance.
"Miss Lane," he said by way of greeting. "Are you all right?"
Numbly, she nodded, telling her heart to slow down. "I need to call the police," she half-gasped. "Two men tried to kidnap me in the parking lot."
Her rescuer looked serious. "Then you must at once summon the police," he said. "I will accompany you until an officer of the law arrives."
"There's a phone in the lobby," Lois said, still struggling a little to recover her breath. "Come on."
**********
tbc
