So I’ll be telling myself it wasn’t all that great. And I’ll do my best to convince myself while I head for home. And you know what? I’ll make it work because if I don’t, if I can’t handle the desire for more, I could find myself in Chicago again. Anna wasn’t kidding about her offer. She’d let me work with her. All I’d have to do is feed like her and the rest would be easy.

There’s only one problem with that idea, really. Monster-face or not, I still have to look myself in the mirror every day.

"THE BALLAD OF BIG CHARLIE" PT.3

Keith R.A. DeCandido

— 21 —

Mia was surprised to see Detective Trujillo calling her. She never figured to hear from the detective again after he helped her out with the senator’s murder.

“Hello, Detec —”

“Look, Fitzsimmons, we never had this conversation, okay?”

She frowned. “Uh, okay. What conver —”

“I caught the Jaffe murder, okay? And it’s seriously fucked up. We’re talkin’ the exact same thing that happened to Kapsis.”

Mia recalled that the borough president’s apartment wasn’t far from that of the senator — and both in the 24th Precinct. So it wasn’t a surprise that the same detective caught both. “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that this time we got footage. Jaffe had video surveillance on her place. Everywhere but the bathroom and bedroom’s covered, and this was a fuckin’ wolf.”

Her heart leapt into her throat. “Big Charlie?”

“Nah, he’s alibi’d. After that ad she ran? He was second on our list after her ex. But nah, he was in his office all night. Got footage’a that too. God bless security cameras, right?”

“So why’re you —”

“ ’Cause somethin’ ain’t right. Look, Kapsis is closed, and it’s stayin’ closed. You don’t reopen a senator’s murder case if you wanna keep your job, so fuck that shit, but you? You ain’t got nothin’ to lose, and this ain’t sittin’ right with me. Come by the two-four when you get a chance — I got a DVD’a Jaffe’s security footage for ya. Maybe you can use it.”

Mia smiled. “I guess I owe you one now, huh, Detective?”

“Damn fuckin’ right.”

With that, he ended the call, and Mia’s smile fell. If it was a wolf-like creature who killed both Senator Kapsis — who’d just criticized Big Charlie on the air — and President Jaffe — who’d just started a nasty ad campaign against Big Charlie — then things did not look particularly good for the Bronx D.A.

The next morning, first thing, she took the bus to the #2 train, taking that to 96th Street in Manhattan, from which it was a short walk to the 24th Precinct. Sure enough, a padded envelope with a rewritable DVD was waiting for her at the sergeant’s desk. Not wanting to wait, she went to a Dunkin’ Donuts on Broadway and opened up her laptop, putting the DVD in the tray.

Then she pulled out her phone and called her editor.

“Bart, I may have something. And I need to run it by you to make sure I’m not crazy.”

“Okay,” Bart said nonchalantly. He’d had reporters do this to him all the time.

“I got my hands on the security footage of Emma Jaffe’s apartment.”

“What?” Bart was less nonchalant now. “How’d you —”

“Never mind. The point is, I’m looking at what attacked her. It’s a wolf.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, and it gets better. Big Charlie isn’t the only vampire out there who changes shape. You’ve got other loup garou, you’ve got tlahuelpuchi, vârcolac, abchanchu —”

“Get to the point,” Bart said impatiently.

“Sorry.” She’d been doing a lot of research lately, and she sometimes forgot that most people didn’t care as much as she did. “Anyhow, the one thing that’s constant with all the shapechangers is that they keep the same mass.”

“Meaning?”

“Big Charlie is about 275 pounds. When he turns into a wolf, he’s still 275 pounds. The wolf I’m looking at on this DVD is less than 200 pounds.”

“You sure?” Before Mia could answer, Bart said, “Of course you’re sure, you’re quoting Eastern European vampire names at me off the top of your head.”

“Actually, only the vârcolac is Eastern European. The others are —”

“I could give a shit. Look, Mia, where you goin’ with this?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know yet. But it isn’t Big Charlie killing these people.”

“What?” Bart’s voice got distant.

“Bart?”

“Oh, fuck. All right, get Castro over there.” His voice grew louder again. “Gotta go, Mia. And so do you — your guy’s house just got torched.”

— 22 —

Partial transcript of Special Primary Day Coverage on Channel 12

CHANNEL 12: With ninety percent of the precincts now reporting in statewide, it appears that the race for senator is in a dead heat between Mickey Solano and the late Manhattan Borough President Emma Jaffe. The tremendous support for Jaffe coming after her brutal murder only a few nights ago is impressive. Even more impressive is that the less than one percent of the vote received so far by Bronx District Attorney Hugues Charles. Indeed, some reports are that Big Charlie — a self-confessed vampire — has received less than a hundred votes statewide, a historically low number. Quite a turnaround from his landslide victory in the Bronx D.A. race lasts year.

Speaking of Big Charlie, we have a breaking story in the Bronx. Nishanda Henry is on the scene. Nishanda?

NISHANDA HENRY: I’m at the home of Bronx District Attorney Hugues Charles — or, at least, what’s left of it. The house, located on De Reimer Avenue in the Bronx, caught fire an hour ago. Firefighters have gotten the blaze under control. Although several members of the press and dozens of protestors have been present at Big Charlie’s house fairly consistently since Manhattan Borough President Emma Jaffe’s murder last week, no injuries have been reported yet.

I have to emphasize that “yet,” because so far there are three people missing, and two of them are Big Charlie and his mother, Marie Charles. The third is Jack Kearns, a former NYPD detective who has been serving as the head of Big Charlie’s security detail during the primary race. The lead firefighter on the scene, Lieutenant Eamon Mahony, had this to say.

LIEUTENANT EAMON MAHONY: We been through the entirety’a the wreckage’a the house, and we not only haven’t found any bodies, we haven’t found any evidence’a bodies. No blood, nothing. This was a slow burn, not the kinda thing that burns bodies so badly there’s nothin’ left. We responded in more’n sufficient time. It’s a preliminary judgment, but I’d say that nobody was home when the fire was set.

HENRY: According to NYPD spokeswoman Jane Amundson, police have put out an all-points for all three missing occupants of the house, saying that they are wanted for questioning in the presumed arson. While NYPD has categorically stated that Big Charlie was not a suspect in the murder of Emma Jaffe, protestors have remained camped outside his house since that murder, with the threat of violence always there. It is unknown if one of them started the fire or not.

For Channel 12, I’m Nishanda Henry.

— 23 —

Judy Alejo sat in her office staring into space, biting the right side of her lip.

She had turned her phone off, and couldn’t bear to look at her e-mail. Her laptop was open to news stories about the late Emma Jaffe’s victory and the disappearance of Big Charlie following the firebombing of his house.

Someone knocked on her door. Probably her assistant. She ignored it.

“Judy, I’m sorry, but Mia Fitzsimmons is here to see you?”

She sighed. Had it been anyone other than her former high school classmate, she would have called security.

“Come on in,” Judy said after a long sigh.

“You look like crap,” Mia said without preamble.

That prompted a bark of laughter. “Yeah, well, the next time I walk out of this courthouse will prob’ly be the last. Ain’t no way I’m keepin’ my job. My boss has gone missing, and even if he didn’t actually kill nobody, everyone thinks he did.” She glanced over at her laptop. “Every op-ed in the city’s about how innocent people don’t run, and even if he didn’t kill Jaffe and Kapsis, he prob’ly got one of his loup garou buddies to do it for him.” She shook her head. “Christ, he didn’t even know any other loup garou!”

“Well, he knew one.” Mia sat down in Judy’s guest chair.

Judy frowned. “Excuse me? I knew everyone he knew, and —”

“You knew her, too.” Mia took a deep breath. “Okay, I don’t have much by way of actual proof of this, but — did you ever see Charlie transform?”

“Well —” Judy hesitated. It was funny, with everything they’d discussed, both among themselves and with the press and other politicians and lawyers, she hadn’t even realized that she never saw the transformation. She’d been calling her boss a loup garou for over a year now without any empirical proof. “No, I didn’t. But so what, he —”

“I don’t think he actually has I1V1.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Remember when he announced that he had it?” Mia was flipping through a note pad now. “He said he would provide records of his doctor visit.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Judy, I never got those health records. Nobody did. We all kinda forgot about it in the mess of the race, and besides, it wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, why would anyone lie about something like that, right?”

“He didn’t lie!” Judy stood up, pacing her small office. “Jesus, Mia, do you really think he’d do something that crazy? Charlie’s the sanest person I know, and he’d never open himself up to all that bullshit —”