Dark Whispers 16

Nice Guys Finish Where?

Morgan placed his fingers together forming a peak. A nice power play sort of pose, coupled with his deep blue eyes staring over his hands while looking directly at Kirk seated before him. Still not saying anything since his "How nice," comment to me after being formally introduced by Kirk, he began to tap his fingertips against each other slowly. The tapping was measured to nearly a precise beat. The beat was echoed by Kirk's heart. He was mesmerizing Kirk with his stare and the tapping. Harry and I watched, still standing behind Kirk.

The desk Morgan was seated behind was fairly large, befitting a successful attorney. Like the reception area, there wasn't any paperwork cluttering the polished surface. The window behind Morgan could have had some fantastic view, but since the Venetian blinds were closed we could only guess at what was in the distance. The office was lit with a few carefully placed spotlights and recessed lighting, making the room seem much smaller than it actually in fact was. This had been the office of the 'nice' attorney in the practice.

Morgan had picked his spot well. Kirk was visibly relaxing when he should have been fearful. I missed that scent of fear.

Finally Morgan started to speak. "Kirk Grady, what am I to do with you?"

I barely refrained from laughing and applauding. That was not something Kirk was expecting to be asked. The fear began to rise slowly as it dawned on him that Morgan had begun to get a bit toothier. Harry and I moved a bit closer and were now flanking each side of Kirk's chair. I had to hand it to Kirk -- he didn't scream, just sat up straighter.

"Morgan, that's not funny," he decided to doubt his vision and thought Morgan was teasing him. He was being teased, but not the way he thought. We so liked to play with our food when time permitted. Morgan was no exception.

"Kirk, you found me and asked my help with your problem. I didn't seek you out, or try to find you." That explained something that had been bugging Harry and me. Morgan had been pulled into my corner of the globe by Kirk. My luck was not good some nights. Morgan continued, "You wanted help with your problem with your boss. You thought he was involved in something dark and mysterious."

By now Kirk was trembling slightly. Oh, goodie, more fear for me to lap up. His head, puppet-like, began to nod up and down in agreement with Morgan's comment. He was starting to grasp that he may have picked the wrong person to help him with what he thought was a problem. Somehow by agreeing with Morgan, he was hoping to curry favor with the strong vampire seated in front of him. The human part of his brain had begun to process that he might be in more trouble now than when he had started.

I sniffed deeply of the bouquet of fear layering the air. I was nearly giddy. I don't think I could have contained myself long enough to savor the flavors of this past hand tool of Harry's.

"Enough!" Harry roared and yanked Kirk's head back in a sinuous motion. Once the veins in Kirk's neck were visibly popped out Harry fanged in without a thought to the consequences. Morgan caught my eye and smiled. He didn't mind Harry taking the initiative. Lithely he glided from behind the desk and joined Harry in the feast of Kirk.

I stood back. Somehow with Kirk's legs drumming spasmodically against the front of the desk and Morgan lunching on the left while Harry was slurping down on the right it didn't seem like there was much room for me.

I probably should have been upset that I hadn't got to end Kirk's time on this lovely planet, but seeing Harry and Morgan getting along was well worth it. Morgan and Harry pulled up at the same time. I could see Kirk was dead but not completely empty.

"You care for a taste?" Morgan offered while dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief. He let Harry prop up the corpse while walking around the desk to get a bag of tools of our trade.

"No, thanks, I will grab a hot meal later. Need help?" I knew what sorts of toys were in the plastic lined canvas bag; we all had variations of the same tools for proper disposal of our victims.

Wordlessly we began to dispose of the late Kirk. The spare pint of blood was carefully siphoned off to prevent leakage while we plastic wrapped and duct taped the body quickly.

We took the time to empty Kirk's pockets. It only takes one time of forgetting for the consequences to keep that little tidbit firmly in your brain. Two-day-old corpses are pretty disgusting. And if you forget to get such things like keys and wallets before you plant them, it never fails you have to dig them back up. We all fell into a comfortable rhythm like we had done this before.

Finally the body was ready for disposal. Morgan began to talk to us, "Now, he hid the tape where?" Little late to ask if we hadn't found where the tape was, but that was a flaw with us vampires. Our impulse control pretty much sucked.

I laughed, "In the trunk of his car under the spare tire. Pretty original, huh?" I grinned at Morgan feeling the glow of energy just being around such a strong executioner vampire.

Morgan met my gaze and said, "I really am happy to finally work with you both." Warmth flooded me and I felt content to have his attention. Wow, he was a strong vampire.

Okay, I will admit that just talking to him made me suck in my gut and try to see what he really meant by happy to finally work with us.

Harry was happy that his little problem was gone and he wasn't in any trouble. He just smiled with his eyes and said, "Honored to work with you. So how did Kirk find you?"

Pretty smooth, considering a mere hour or two ago we thought Morgan was going to be having us for lunch. But then Harry was pretty good at all those little games. I was more along the lines of kill them all and let God sort them out. Ironic, I know, but hey ... it was my nature. Not like nice guys ever finished first, witness the chilling corpse at our feet.

We looked around the plush law office as it dawned on us where exactly we were. A chuckle started from Morgan first as he looked at the bundled body. Harry and I joined in as the notion of blood-sucking attorneys and our career paths having crossed so nicely in the suite amused us. Shaking his head Morgan said, "Well, it's not like blood hasn't been drawn here before now."

Smiling I said, "Do you think the billable hours are the same in jail as what they charged here?" The scent of defeat was mixed into the air of this office, and I had vague memories of the local news stories in which some of the attorneys had been jailed for their foray into money mismanagement.

"I don't know and don't care to find out, Cassandra." Morgan was gracious in his tone. "To answer your question, Harry, your little human found me because he was worried that you were helping the evil Goth kids travel under the radar. They have been running around this town playing games in plain sight, slaying vampires and vampire wannabes on occasion. You did cover up one or two of those deaths, but he misinterpreted that to mean you were involved with them. He never even thought that vampires could exist."

Here we all looked down and smirked. I toed the cold homeland cop just to make sure there was no leakage. Yeah, right, I was kicking him, if I was really honest with myself, for thinking we didn't exist. But humanity's absolute arrogance about themselves was our best disguise. We hid in plain sight, at least up until this latest go round with Lani and her Goth crew. Morgan's help would be appreciated, and since we were still standing, it looked like he was here to assist.

"I assume he parked next to the elevator as I had requested?" Morgan asked while going to a dark oak door in the suite. The door was partially hidden behind a large partially dying plant, and he opened what was a rather large closet with hangers and some stray boxes. Must have been where the attorney kept a change of clothes.

A dolly was pulled out and we loaded Kirk onto it with a minimum of motion. Morgan tossed me a cleaning rag from his bag that had been coated with some chemicals. We all had our various mixtures but I could smell something different on it than mine.

I arched an eyebrow and held it up questioningly to Morgan.

"Oh, I like to add a bit of spearmint oil for the labs to keep them busy trying to figure out why," he replied while I began to rub down the surfaces of the room. I used lemon oil myself since most cleaning products have that scent. The spearmint oil was a nice touch. After years of practice I could dust an entire house in less than a half hour. The room took a few minutes. Anything that didn't move, I rubbed with the cloth. Morgan put his kit on top of the corpse and we headed out.

"You touch anything in here?" I asked as we went through the reception area.

"No. I had a crew in earlier so there shouldn't be any traces left." Morgan was efficient.

Harry used his knuckle to hit the elevator button. I swiped the pad anyway with the cloth. I pushed the garage key with the fabric while rubbing off any prints on the button. Looking at the mirrors I recalled my earlier thought.

"Cameras?" I said while pointing to the mirrored surfaces.

Indicating his duffle bag Morgan replied, "I pulled the tapes and left the machine empty and off when you exited the elevator."

Harry had been very quiet during the past half hour as he was processing all we had seen. I could tell he wanted to open the bag and grab out the tapes. We really had had enough tapes lately in our lives. He was quietly appraising the situation when Morgan volunteered, "Of course, you can take it with you when you head out after we get rid of this."

'This' being Kirk.

Rarely do they show in films how vampires actually get rid of their drained victims. I could whip out excuses like trade secrets or some such mysterious devices, but honestly, it just was boring. What we do is make the bodies go away. There are tons of methods, some of which are pretty obvious, and others not so obvious. For Kirk, we elected to have a tragic car accident with fire involved. I rubbed out our fingerprints from the dash and the seats. We retrieved the tape from under the spare mini tire in the trunk. That was popped into my handbag. We then took Kirk's corpse and laid it in the backseat. It was decided that Harry would drive the car with winter gloves on his hands. I went with Morgan.

I was thrilled to see Morgan's car was one of those huge, unnecessary suburban assault vehicles. The black sports utility vehicle with heavily tinted windows was wicked looking -- fitting the man to a T. Waving Harry off, I joined Morgan inside the luxury car. Deep into the night we headed out from the underground parking garage. The evening was just beginning in so many ways.