A Fang in the Sass

18

Emma sat back in her metal folding chair. “I was thinking something that showed a difference between time ranges or parts of town. Like if one part had a higher or lower missing persons’ percentage, or higher than other cities. Or if there were more reports of strange creatures in the area. I’m not really sure what else. This sounded much better in my head on the way over.”

Aria laughed. “It’s fine. I hear being preggers makes you kinda of crazy.”

“I remembered Karla got emotional all the time. I thought I was going to scream every time she burst into tears for no reason other than her shoe came untied. I told Mason I’m wearing flip-flops the entire pregnancy. Oh, hey. Look at this.”

Aria scooted her chair closer to her friend’s. “This is an old article, seventy-five years old, with city stats. Which is what I was hoping to find.” She scanned the image. “It says the west side of the city had much lower crime than the east side, despite that it was the richer side.”

She was quiet as she read further. “This says the economically depressed parts of town had more missing persons than other places, and the city overall had a higher missing persons than anywhere else at the time. It goes into employment stats, but I don’t see how those help.”

Aria put forth her interpretation. “So the rich were safe and the poor went missing in the olden days. What does that mean?”

Emma scrubbed a hand over her face. “I don’t know. Nothing? That the poor people who normally stole from the rich were taken by vamps before they could rob them?” Poor Emma looked exasperated.

She sighed and slumped in her chair. “s**t, Emma. That could be it.”

Her friend looked at her with surprise. “What do you mean? It’s right?”

“That’s one of the things my grandfather and parents always made sure of. The clan needs to stay small enough or spread out enough so trends like this aren’t noticed in the local areas. When we had the clan meeting the other day, I remember thinking it was way too big. With this many vamps in one area, someone would eventually see a pattern and investigate.”

“Let’s see if there’s anything for a follow-up.” She watched as Emma scrolled from image to image. “Doesn’t look like there’s—this is cool.”

“What?” Aria leaned closer.

Emma zoomed in on the image which was barely more than a scrap. “Something about a second Roanoke Island mystery where all the people disappeared. Except it was a settlement west of here. And the whole place burned to the ground with no trace of the people.” She continued reeling through.

A pang of guilt struck her. That had to be Trevan’s pack. The people her grandfather killed. Emma whipped her head around. “Aria, what wrong? You smell devastated.” She shook her head and turned away.

“Let’s go to the police station. I’ve had enough of history for a while.”

“Sure,” Emma said. “Do you mind if we stop for ice cream on the way? Soft serve sounds yummy. With strawberries so it’s healthy.”

Emma noisily slurped the dregs of her strawberry shake as they entered the west side branch of the city police. The older lady in uniform behind the front desk frowned. Emma jerked the straw from between her lips. “Sorry.”

Aria understood Emma’s reason for being slightly embarrassed. Most police stations were loud and hectic with tons of people here and there, some in handcuffs, others yelling to be heard over others. But it was quiet and peaceful here. Almost enjoyable.

She asked the lady, “Is it always like this here?”

The woman smiled. “I’ve been here thirty years. And yes, it’s usually like this. We have the occasional domestic violence, but we don’t get many arrests from those.”

Aria saw Emma looking at a wall of faces—photos, drawings, even sepia-toned. “Are these missing people?”

“Yes,” the woman started, “also in my thirty years, I’ve posted more missing person images than I care to count. But Betty south of town has had a lot more than me gone missing. Of course, those who live with the less-than-desired home life often run away and never come back. She’s had a lot over the years.”

Emma looked at Aria and said, “The trend continues. Good enough for me.”

“Hold on a second.” Aria went to the woman’s desk. “May I ask a question?”

“Sure, honey. Anything Marge can do to help, I surely will.” Marge smiled. Aria thought this woman was really bored if she talked about herself in third person. But she was willing, so who cared if she was a bit eccentric?

“Marge, in your years here, have there been a lot of reports about seeing strange things at night?”

“Strange like vampires and werewolves strange?”

Aria was taken aback with such a straightforward answer. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“Our district seems to be the hotspot for smoking crack. We get more phone calls and reports about the supernatural than anything else around here. I’ve heard some doozies. Sometimes I wonder what they’re smokin’ ‘cause I want some.” She slapped her desk and let out laugh. “I got some great stories if y’all got time. Let me tell you.”

Seemed the friendlier Marge got, the more of her southern upbringing came through. “We’d love to, Marge, but we got to get going. It’s great meeting you.”

Aria grabbed Emma’s arm and they hurried out. In the car, Emma let out a deep breath. “That was weird.”

Aria agreed. “It seems the situation with missing persons and vampire stories has remained bad.”

“Unfortunately, that’s what we needed to hear,” Emma said. “They’ve gotten so used to how things have been, they don’t question it anymore. Sad.”

“How many people do you think have vanished over the years?” Aria asked.

“What do vampires do after they…do what they do?”

Aria grinned. “You mean drink them dry?”

“Yeah, something like that. What happens to the body?”

She thought about it. “I’d don’t know. I’ve never dealt with that problem. Bury them?”

“I thought that, too, but that would mean thousands of bodies over hundreds of years, right? Somebody should be uncovering tons of bones in the area. Human bones take a long time to totally dissolve. Where are the vamps hiding the bodies?”