I woke up to the sound of a car approaching my home. I felt around for a phone that I was sure was nearby, but then remembered I had left it in the bathroom. “Ugh… what now?” I stood up, I had been enjoying a dream of my old life, fighting barbarians from the back of a horse.

I blurred into the bathroom where I had left my phone and wallet. I snatched them up, putting them in their usual pockets before rushing down to the foyer to meet my guests. They hadn’t arrived at the steps up to the front door by time I got there. I checked my phone and paused for a moment, it was still daylight outside, it would sting a little, but I decided I could deal with it.

I opened the door just as the car came to a stop. The doors opened and revealed a slightly overweight and balding dark-haired man in a brown suit who stood at just a hair over six feet tall, the driver, and a man well known to me. Detective Johnathan Winter. The passenger, a woman, at five feet and a single inch if that, she was pretty enough to look at, soft strawberry-blonde hair tied in a ponytail, a small cute nose, though she looked like someone’s little sister who never grew up, though I guessed she was in her early to mid-twenties. Except for the serious look on her face, and the light gray suit one might think she was just that.

“Morning John, is today bring your daughter to work day?” I asked with a smirk, she was a stranger coming to my home, I did not like that.

“Afternoon Max.” He put an emphasis on the time of day, correcting my intentional mistake. “And no, this is my new part-.”

“Partner, Detective Catherine O’Connor. We are here because you were last seen with Laura Southers. She went missing three days ago.”

“Hmmm… come on inside, the light is making my headache worse.” I said, attempting to give the impression of a hangover. I could pass for a rich kid who spent his time partying, and I often used that guise in recent years.

“Alright Max. Got any of the fancy coffee still?” John asked as he walked up the steps, he was in the know, he knew what I was and what I did. Best way to keep the police off my back was the have one of them in my pocket, and Detective Winter was my insider.

“Of course, why don’t you take a bag home with you this time?”

“Excuse me. Are you trying to bribe my partner, Mister Gaius?” Miss O’Connor interjected, clearly, she was going to make this difficult.

“Not at all Miss-.”

“Detective.”

“O’Connor, I just know how hard you and yours work and like to give gifts to those that I meet if I have something to give. Nothing wrong with being appreciative is there?”

“Urgh… We cannot accept gifts from suspects.”

“I’m a suspect? Really? Should I get a lawyer then?”

“Do you think you need a lawyer?”

“Catherine, relax, Max is just being friendly, it’s what he does. Remember when Ol’ Luther’s car broke down and someone paid for his new car? That was Max here.” John said, his voice level and calm.

“Miss.”

“Detective.” She would just not give up on that.

“O’Connor, I entertained Miss Southers a couple days ago, and she left my home in one piece.” Not a whole lie, she had left the house in one piece and was now slowly rotting in hundreds of little pieces. All the better to clean up my dear. I waggled my eyebrows suggestively at her, my effort was repaid with a disgusted sigh.

We arrived in my kitchen and I set about making coffee, the very same coffee that John had asked about. I could eat and drink like a normal person, but it did not sate me. “Do you have any other questions for me?”

“Can you account for your whereabouts for the last few days?”

“I have not left my home since Miss Southers was here… Except to meet you on my porch. Been drinking myself into a stupor actually.” I waved at a handful of empty bottles laying in the recycle bin, vodka, whiskey, beer, the works.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Anyone able to confirm this?”

“I live alone with my nearest neighbor over fifteen minutes away if you walk. No, I have no way to confirm my story.”

“So, you have no alibi.”

“No, I don’t… Miss O’Connor, we have only just met but… Non sum similis tui.” I gave a heartbreaking smile, as if I was complimenting her. In truth I said: I do not like you. She didn’t need to know that, and I doubted greatly that she spoke Latin. “Always a pleasure to host the boys in blue though.”

“Cat…” John’s tone was one of warning.

“What? He’s obviously the one who did something to her!”

“I did many things to her actually. Do you want to hear about them?” This made her blush and sputter. I grabbed the coffee pot and two cups, pouring some for myself and John. She didn’t get any, she was rude. I never said I wasn’t petty; she was too good to accept gifts from a suspect anyway. “Here you go John.”

“Thanks Max.” He drank it black, the way it was meant to be had. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“I have it imported from Columbia. A guy I know brings it in when he comes back from his business trips.” A drug smuggler who used the coffee to hide the smell, but that was a detail that I didn’t need to mention.

“Mmmhmmm… good stuff. Maybe I will take a bag of it.”

“Go for it John, you’ve helped me a few times over the years.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he has helped me recover stolen possessions and the like, I live alone some ways away from anyone else. You don’t think I haven’t had burglars? Gods is she like this with everyone?”

“No, only the ones she wants to sleep with.” John laughed, giving me an obvious wink.

“Winter! That is not true!”

I laughed along with John for a few seconds before I looked at her. “So you wanna fuck?”

“That is sexual harassment!” She yelled at me, I stifled a laugh.

“No, it isn’t. I only asked you once, you can just say no. No means no… unless it means yes in some language I don’t know.”

“I… what?”

“Huh?”

“What is that?” The blackout curtain on one of the windows had gotten stuck, the issue with automatic curtains.

“Hmmm… My woodchipper? I use it to make mulch to fertilize my grounds.”

“Uh huh… convenient that you just happen to have one days after a woman goes missing after being seen with you.”

“What are you on about? I’ve owned that woodchipper for three years. Convenient, my fucking ass.” I growled, this woman was starting to annoy me. I could probably summon up some glamour and give her head a work over, but I did not like to, it made the person resistant to it in the long term. “Alright, that’s enough of this, I want you out of my home and off of my property Miss-.”

“DETECTIVE!”

“O’Connor.”

“Max, I haven’t finished my coffee yet.”

“Right, sorry, I’ll give you a few minutes, but I am done answering her questions without a lawyer.”

“Fair enough.”

“Excuse me.”

“Let it go Cat, you won’t win this one. The Gaius family is old money, try and lean on him and he’ll have your badge.”

“You wound me John, I thought we were friends.”

John gave a noncommittal grunt and continued to drink his coffee. I moved over to join him and turned the TV on in the corner. The news was on, same channel as my other TV, they were reporting that the containment had failed, and the virus had spread, having been transported by carriers on international airplanes it was all over the world. Reports in the US, China, Russia, India, South Africa, Brazil, and dozens of other countries. I hoped this wouldn’t be like the Black Plague in Europe, I had worried that I would die. Not the disease but because I couldn’t find any fresh blood. The reports of violence by the infected had risen in number.

“Damn shame. Hope they can get this under control soon.” John said next to me, sipping at his coffee slowly.

“Yeah. Looks grim.” I received a sideways glance. “A disease that makes you either violent or in a coma. And it is the same disease? Unbelievable.”

Miss O’Connor had been standing nearby with a look of disbelief on her face. Maybe she would get over it eventually, money talked, and I had over two thousand years of collecting it. Almost no other being alive or undead could claim the same.

We chatted for a few more minutes as we spoke about sports, the news reports, the going ons in the department, and his personal life. John had a wife and three kids, I was paying for his eldest to go to college. It wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart, it was to repay the debt incurred by having him cover up some of my sloppier crimes.

As he downed the last of his coffee he pushed off the counter we were leaning on. “Well Max, it seems we must be going. If we have any other questions I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, I’ll be here if I’m not in town, I don’t have much else on my plate for the next while.” I was letting him know that I was well fed and would not be making anymore missing women anytime soon.

“Alright, good.” They began to leave; Miss O’Connor began to hiss things at John when she thought she was out of earshot from me. Mostly it was about how suspicious I was and asking why he hadn’t backed her up when she was trying to pressure me.

I grabbed an unopened bag of coffee beans and caught up to them. “John, almost forgot this.” I placed it in his hand with a grin at Miss O’Connor.

“Oh, right, thanks Max.” He grabbed the bag and gave a smile. We shook hands and they left my house.

I closed the door, a smile on my lips until the clasp latched, a scowl quickly replacing it. “Nosy bitch.” I muttered and walked around my house to make certain there would be no evidence that they could use against me. A single drop of blood would make it so they could at least try to hold me.

I did not find anything in the main house, so I left and went to a storage shed in the back. I retrieved a pig carcass. ‘Last one, need to order some more pigs from that butcher.’ I thought while dragging it to the woodchipper and pushing it through. All the better to hide the human blood with. Again, I rinsed it off with a garden hose before I raked it all together once again, mixing pig bits with Laura bits.