Kate Serine: Along Came a Spider

I obediently moved toward the carriages with her. “Is it true?” I asked. “Have we been transplanted?”

“Afraid so,” she replied. “But don’t worry—we have people with the FMA who will help you settle in.”

“The FMA?”

“Fairytale Management Authority,” she explained. “I’ll tell you everything on the way to headquarters. By the way—I’m Tess Little. But everyone calls me Red.”

“Beatrice Muffet,” I replied, attempting a smile. “Everyone pretty much just calls me Beatrice. Or Ms. Muffet.” I chuckled a little. “Except my niece Mariella—she has trouble pronouncing my name.” My voice caught in my throat, the words lodging around the lump of sorrow that had rapidly developed at the thought of never seeing little Mari again. I coughed, forcing my emotions away, and blinked rapidly to clear the tears that pricked the corner of my eyes. “She calls me Trish.”

Tess motioned me toward the last remaining carriage. “Well, welcome to the Here and Now, Trish.”

I placed my foot on the step, but paused and turned to search for Nicky Blue, hoping that perhaps he had changed his mind and had decided to come with the rest of us after all. My heart sank when I didn’t see him. I sighed, a part of me already regretting that I hadn’t gone with him. But it was too late to change my mind. Nicky Blue had vanished, having faded deep into the shadows like a spider in the night.

I pulled on a pair of latex gloves, the no-nonsense snap as comforting as always. As the head of Forensics for the Fairytale Management Authority, I never quite knew what I might find at a crime scene, but as I strode toward the shadowy figure standing at the mouth of the narrow alley on Chicago’s South Side, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, mentally preparing myself for what always came next.

“What do we have, Grimm?”

Nate Grimm, the FMA’s lead detective and part-time Reaper, doffed his fedora and ran a hand through his dark hair, stirring the shadows that surrounded him. “It’s not good, Trish.”

I raised my brows, perplexed by the fact that he seemed a little distressed. The guy had been a Reaper for centuries. Seeing him rattled by death was enough to drop a cold stone of dread smack-dab in the middle of my stomach. “Is that why you called me personally instead of going through headquarters?”

He nodded. “I didn’t want Red to show up here.”

That stone of dread got a little heavier. If he was keeping something from his fiancée, who was six months pregnant with his child, this was going to be even worse than I’d thought. “She’ll be here eventually,” I told him. “I was in the lab when you called. My assistant knows I went out. Tess is probably already on her way, and she’s going to be seriously pissed when she finds out you were trying to keep this from her.”

Nate placed his fedora back on his head, pulling it down a little over his eyes. “Come take a look and you’ll know why.”

I followed him into the alley and felt the hair on my arms begin to rise even though I was bundled up against Chicago’s bone-numbing February winds. I’d been working for the FMA as a coroner and forensics investigator for going on a century, but that initial hit of negative energy surrounding a violent death still had the power to bring me to my knees if I let it get to me. And this one was particularly nasty, sending a chill of apprehension up and down my spine. I swallowed hard against the bile rising in my throat and focused on the details of the crime scene, making note of everything I saw and cataloging it in my head to include in the report I’d write later that night.

I glanced up as I walked, searching the network of fire escapes for anyone who might be lingering to watch as his deeds were discovered by the authorities, but the rusting ladders were deserted. And no one peeked out from behind the curtains of the dilapidated apartment building. Apparently, whatever had occurred had gone down quietly, not drawing the attention of any of the people living in the low-rent apartments.

Dumpsters heavy with trash that wouldn’t be picked up until morning lined the length of the alley in evenly spaced groups of two. It was just beyond one of these groupings in the darkest part of the alley that Nate paused and jerked his chin toward the shadows. “There.”

I peered into the darkness and gasped, my arm coming up reflexively so I could bury my nose in the sleeve of my FMA standard-issue wool pea coat. “Shit.”

I shook my head slightly, clearing away my emotional response, and ran the facts in my head. White male, medium build, sandy blond hair. Deceased. But the manner of his death was what got me. His throat had been ripped open. No, that wasn’t exactly true. It had been gnawed open. And his blood had been drained from his body so quickly, his skin had shriveled and sunken in upon itself.

Frowning, I pulled my small flashlight from my pocket, shining it on the ground, the wall, the dumpsters, but there were no blood splatters that I could see in the immediate area. He’d either been killed elsewhere and dumped here, or drained so swiftly no blood had even dripped from the wounds. Either way, not good. I’d seen wounds like this before and knew the kind of creature behind it.

“Vampire,” I announced, a wave of apprehension washing over me again as I uttered the word aloud. I heard Nate curse roundly under his breath. There was no shortage of vampires that had crossed over from the folklore of Make Believe—and even some who’d already been hanging out in the Here and Now long before we ever showed up—but their attacks rarely resulted in death. We made damned sure that our bloodsuckers were rehabilitated and taught how to control their cravings to keep them from showing up in the Ordinaries’ tabloid newspapers and blowing our cover among the humans.

Every once in a while one would lose it and we’d need to call in FMA’s Damage Control agents to spin some ridiculous story that was promptly debunked and then forgotten. But this particular attack—so savage and brutal—wasn’t like anything I’d seen in decades. Not since—

“Dracula,” Nate growled. “He’s back, isn’t he?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the Reaper, understanding the deadly edge in his voice. It’d been almost two years since the infamous vampire had gone to ground after being involved in a series of killings perpetrated by an enchantress named Sebille Fenwick. Nate had killed Sebille when she’d tried to add Red to her list of victims, but a radical group of Tales had tried to raise her from the dead a few months ago, believing she would lead them to a new day where Tales ruled supreme in our adopted world. I’d been around to witness that incident first-hand, having nearly become one of Sebille’s victims myself. But Lavender Seelie, Cinderella’s former fairy godmother and the reason why we’d been transplanted in the first place, had killed Sebille for good, making it impossible for her to ever return.

Knowing that Sebille and Dracula had been in league once before, I’d done a full investigation of the events at The Refuge, but had found no connection between Vlad Dracula and the plot to resurrect Sebille Fenwick. The findings were comforting in that he hadn’t been behind the plan, but had also left me with more questions.

Like what the hell Dracula had been up to since he’d disappeared.

There’d been murmurings of sightings now and then—but they always turned out to be unsubstantiated, Tales who’d been spooked and just blamed the ultimate villain at large. What was indisputable, however, were accounts of Ordinary women found dazed and confused with two puncture wounds in their skin. Unfortunately, even then we couldn’t confirm anything beyond that a Tale was to blame.