Брайан Макклеллан - Blood Tally

It wasn’t exactly a castle. It was a two-story split level, kind of long and rambling with faded brown and green paint and a half-assed addition that seemed to collide with the hillside about thirty yards to my left. The roof was long overdue for replacement, most of the shingles covered in a thin layer of bright green moss. There was a patch of grass in front of the house, nicely manicured, but the rest of the yard was full of old junk – car parts, scrap metal, wood-ends from a sawmill. I took a guess that one of the thralls really wanted things to be neat and orderly, while the others, and probably Boris himself, didn’t give a shit.

There was a No Soliciting! sign on the front door. You getting anything else now that we’re closer? I asked Maggie.

Yeah. Like I said, no wards. Definitely a bunch of guns, but who knows if they’re loaded or if they’re antiques for his business. One of the thralls is downstairs watching cartoons. Another is off in a barn at the back of the property. The third is taking a nap. Nobody has noticed you yet.

I cleared my throat, straightened my shoulders, and pounded on the door.

Try again, Maggie told me after a minute. I followed her instructions. She said, Ah, napper has woken up. He’s heading down the stairs.

A split second later I heard footsteps, then saw a broad face peering through the window. It belonged to a man about my age, tall and heavy with a wispy beard. I tipped my hat and gave him a polite smile.

“No soliciting,” he replied through the glass.

“I’m not selling anything,” I told him. “Your master hired me to find your thrall-sibling. Just came by to ask you a few questions.”

He stared back at me with a mixture of dull kind of curiosity, one eye squinted at me like he couldn’t quite trust what I was saying. It made him look like he’d just shit himself. “I, uh …”

“It’ll just take a few minutes,” I assured him.

He kept that look on his face for several more seconds before he finally gave a resigned nod. I heard a couple of chains being removed, then a deadbolt sliding, and the door opened up. He was wearing a SpongeBob T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts with tall athletic socks, his hair slick with sweat. “Hi.”

“Alek Fitz,” I introduced myself, offering my hand.

He shook it, his own hand doughy and sweaty. “I’m Sam. Sam Baskin. Look, I’m not sure if you’re supposed to be here.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him, putting on my best put-upon-working-Joe face. “Your master didn’t tell you what I’m doing?”

“He said he hired someone to find Michael, but he didn’t say you wanted to talk to us …”

“Can I come in?” I asked. “Thanks.” I squeezed past him without waiting for an answer. The foyer was old slate tile, the walls covered in a floral paper pattern that looked original to the house. The inside seemed organized much like the outside – there was junk everywhere, furniture and boxes piled up against the walls, but with a neat little pathway carved out through the middle, vacuumed and tidy. A quick glance into the rest of the house told much the same story. The junk itself didn’t quite seem to be hoarder level – it was fairly organized, without visible trash piled up – but it had long ago exceeded collector status.

Sam gave a defeated sigh. “I … I suppose you can come into the living room.” He gave me a consternated look. “Am I supposed to offer you something to drink?”

Boris doesn’t entertain much, does he? I commented to Maggie.

No kidding. I’m getting a better sense of the place now that we’re inside and it is just … wow.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” I said to Sam, following him into the living room. There were a dozen cages hanging from the ceiling, filled with exotic birds. They all began to squawk and talk as we entered, and it took Sam a good minute of shushing before they settled down. While he was doing that, I took another surreptitious glance at the place. Considering the birds, it smelled better than I expected. A bit musty, but whoever cared for the creatures kept them clean. There was one big kennel in the corner, but it was obscured by an old desk. There were couches, but they were underneath piles of boxes – Star Wars toys, hardcover books, stuffed animals, and miscellaneous electronics, at a glance. “You guys have an eBay store to supplement the antiques business?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Sam replied, a nervous smile flitting across his face. “Boris handles all the antiques, of course. We do the buying and selling of all the other stuff.”

“Michael helped with all that?”

“Before he ran away, yeah.”

I took out a notebook and a pen, trying to look professional, and leaned against a dresser that took up much of the middle of the room.

“What kind of a guy is Michael?”

Sam looked around one more time, as if trying to find someone else to answer my questions, before sagging slightly. “He’s a good guy. Quiet. Careful with the pets. Helps keep things at least a little tidy around here.” He flinched when he said tidy , and I guessed that he was the one responsible for the little bit of care going into the look of the place.

I was beginning to feel a little uneasy myself. I’d dealt with hoarders and shut-ins and all sorts of people and places in my time. Some of the situations just didn’t sit well with me, and this was one of them. This isn’t a nice place, I told Maggie. I don’t see any way that Boris is breaking the law, but I can’t believe he makes people live like this.

Maggie made a sound of agreement.

“Did you know he was going to run away?”

Sam shook his head.

Gently, I said, “I’m not going to tell Boris if you did.”

“I didn’t, I promise. Look, we all know our contracts. Boris might yell a lot, and he’s dirty as hell, but he’s not too bad a master. I’ve heard of worse. Mike didn’t give any sign he was planning on leaving. We just woke up one day and he was gone. Left a note for me saying that he’d muddied the trail and not to follow him.”

“His handwriting?”

“Definitely.”

“What does muddied the trail mean?”

Sam shook his head.

I asked, “And what day was this?”

“Last Tuesday.”

“Boris went looking for him?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess. Boris is gone a lot, what with his work. He said Mike would come back on his own soon. Threatened us all if we tried to leave. Then went about like business as usual. I was honestly surprised that he bothered to hire someone at all. He didn’t seem to care all that much. Then on Friday he got blood-drunk and started ranting about how if he didn’t make an example of Mike, then we’d all leave him.” It took Sam a moment to realize what he’d said, then his face went white. “But like I said,” he added quickly, “Boris is a good master. Great, you know?”

“Of course, of course,” I assured him gently. On the other side of the room, in the kennel that was out of sight, I heard something move around. It sounded bigger than the birds. I ignored it and brought Boris’s file up on my phone. “There are two other thralls, right? JD Butler and Ed Czechowski. Do they know where Michael went?”

Sam shook his head. “JD is brand new, and Michael and Ed have always avoided each other. Can’t say I’ve heard them exchange more than a few sentences.”

I wasn’t going to waste my time, then. “If you don’t mind me asking, what made you want to become a thrall?”

For a moment I thought I’d made a major misstep. Sam turned visibly pale, cleared his throat, and looked over one shoulder. He glanced around the room at anything but me before muttering, “Wanna be a vampire, you know? Immortality. Play video games for the next few hundred years.”