Case 20: Entry 5

I just got back from a full checkup. I have bruises on my everywhere, but for the most part I'm fine. As soon as I got home I sat down on my couch and started to pray. I don't mean as part of a ritual or to bless something or anything like that. It was just...prayer. And as soon as I started I realized it had been a long time since I last did it. I was ashamed, as if I were a gambling addict checking his bank accounts, but I needed to repent almost as much as I needed help.

I'm pretty sure that was my first real fight I've ever been in, and there's a reason for that. I'm a nerd, I've done some self defense training but it's only ever gotten me far enough to balance out my natural incompetence in that area. When I have to face something nasty in my work, I usually play to my strengths. I lay a trap, or bring along some trump card, or frame the struggle in terms that give me an advantage. I never just rush into a genuine, straightforward fight. And I'm pretty sure it was more than just outrage that pushed me into that course. There was more than vengeance and righteous fury, there was also...territoriality. There was a touch of some hero complex. There was pride. Vices and virtues aren't just some meaningless abstractions or words used by stuffy, repressed people to keep everyone else from having fun. Vices are toxic, they are weaknesses, they make us do stupid, hurtful things. And there is no vice as toxic as pride.

After I prayed I talked to the current guard (until the vampire is gone there's a full rotation of neighbors making sure my house is always ready to take in someone in need of shelter...and to make sure the vampire doesn't use some human pawn to blow it up or something), sat down in front of my desk, and let everything I know about the case just sort of shimmer up in there. Which brings this entry up to the present moment.

Really, the one major difference in the situation is that now the vampire knows I'm gunning for it. Which means he'll either leave town, or try coming straight at me. If he decides to come to me, I'll have a much easier time laying a trap. I'm beginning to get some ideas. I should probably start by scattering some of my cards around Rancho Cordova marked with something he'll pick up on easily enough. I suppose that's have to be blood. I'm partial to the idea of using it to scrawl Genesis 9:6 on the back. It's always been a favorite of vampire hunters.

Case 20: Entry 4

It's been three nights since my last entry, and I think things are finally moving forward. So far my intelligence work has been on three fronts: online rumors, on-the-ground investigation, and statistical analysis. The first night I got a giant mess of data, and it looked like I might not get anywhere. I wouldn't have been so worried about that (contrary to what you see on television, investigations like this take lots of time and monotonous labor to produce any results; the kinds of well-lit paths that can be followed in an hour long episode simply don't show up in real life) except that there was a good chance the vurdalak had already fled. It all came down to whether Esteban taking the fall had been a happy accident or if it had been the result of clever plan. If the vampire set him up, then chances are he's already grabbed a ride and is heading to some new hunting grounds a couple hundred miles away, and all I can do is send my data to the Agency and hope he sets off some red flags when he settles down again. Which meant I could be running on fumes taking readings all over the county, reading through hours of online posts (most of which are useless even if he hasn't fled), and (worst of all) doing figuring out which numbers to plug into which formulae. My expertise lies in literature, linguistics, and history. Math is not my specialty.

Fortunately, things started to narrow down on the second night. It could be a false trail, but I've been seeing some stronger arcane impressions around Rancho Cordova, and the math bit says there's only a few spots in that area he's likely to be prowling. Which means it's time to saddle up.

I've got a good handful of tools for killing vampires, and I expect I'll need every one of them. There's a flare designed to simulate sunlight on a much smaller scale, a pair of glove covered with silver studs and crosses, a bag of smoke bombs packed with herbs and other substances toxic to vampires, a knife made of blessed silver, another knife I used in a ritual to appease the Lord of the Wilds and which happens to be imbued with a bit of his power, anti-vamp spray, and a gun loaded with silver-tipped bullets. And a standard crucifix, obviously. I'm still feeling pretty underdressed.

Anyway, time to go hunting.

* * * * *

Well that was disastrously stupid. After a few hours stalking the hot spots in Rancho Cordova with the arcanometer, I finally found it. The thing looked...surprisingly average. I had a moment of a hesitation, which was bad considering the fact that we were both in a back alley that offered no safe position for me to observe from. The vampire looked me up and down, snarled, and ceased to look the least bit normal. The veins stood out, his eyes glowed yellow, his nails extended, and his lips pulled back to reveal thick, white fangs. At that point it might have occurred to me that my strategy didn't extend beyond "have lots of toys" but even if I had come up with a plan of attack it wouldn't have matter because that was when I panicked.

I got off three rounds before the vampire closed the distance. I think maybe one of them grazed its shoulder. It flinched as my crucifix glowed and the blessings of its victims began to rise up, but it already had a lot of momentum. It grabbed my shoulders as it slammed me to the ground, and when we had finished tumbling around it three me against a wall. Hard. It's kind of a miracle that nothing was broken. 

I started scrambling for anything, and I dropped three smoke bombs on the ground. And I do mean I dropped them. There was a very tiny pause that felt like a very long one before it occurred to me to stomp on them. When I did a cloud of glowing, blue mist (I infused the mix with zauberstaub to enhance the arcane qualities of the substances) rose from beneath my shoe. He backed away, his skin covered in blisters, and went to grab a rather heavy dumpster. I honestly don't remember what happened after that, only that it ended with my silver knife in its forearm, my nose broken, my right arm dislocated, and many, many bruises. After that the vampire ran.

I also scrammed, seeing as the fight had started with three gunshots.

Have I mentioned how stupid that was? The only reason I survived was because the vampire is basically an infant. He's got plenty of raw power, but he still doesn't know how to wield it properly. And he's never run into anyone even remotely threatening. Chances are he was just as panicked as I was, which is (and I cannot stress this enough) the only reason I'm still alive.

I need to figure something out. Fast.

Case 20: Entry 3

It's three in the afternoon right now, and as soon as I finish this entry I'm going to hit the sack for five hours or so. I've been running on caffeine and adderall ever since I got the case yesterday (mostly adderall; I'm going to run out at least a week early this month if I keep this up) and I need to be at least a little rested if I'm going to survive this.

Anyway, I spent most of last night visiting sites of the attacks. Before I left I gave Pablo (Lucia's brother) instructions on how to search social media, news websites, and specific online forums for relevant data. I also made audio recordings of all the data I have so far on the attacks, and when I headed out I played it together with some of my audio files on vampires on a loop. When I actually got to the sites I took pictures with both a normal, digital camera and the one I rigged for supernatural impressions. I also took readings on the arcanometer (why did I ever think that was a good name?) and wrote down all my results. At the end of each visit I took a few samples, and if there was a shrine or anything for the victims I'd take some small sample from it as well.

I finished visiting the sites around three in the morning, and when I got back home I put all my raw data and a few notes into a single document and emailed it to all my friends in the supernatural community, so basically the people from weekly game night and bimonthly (twice a month, not once every two months) roleplaying games. I also sent it to a private investigator I worked with once who has some awareness of the supernatural community even though he rarely involves himself in it. I'm not expecting any of them go off on a crusade, but it'd definitely be nice to have a few capable folks on alert. Oh, and based on all the data I collected it looks like I'm dealing with a particularly young vampire of the vurdalak bloodline. It's one of the two dozen or so vampiric bloodlines that can pass for human, they are burned by sunlight but do not need to sleep during the day (meaning that wherever he holes up during that time he's still able to defend himself), and they can't sire new vampires until they're at least a few decades old.

The first rule of fighting vampires is to not fight vampires. Depending on how old it is and what bloodline it belongs to and probably a handful of other unknown factors, a vampire can be anywhere between two and six times as strong as it was when it was human, so unless you've got a magic weapon or special powers or something you're pretty much guaranteed to lose a fair fight. The second rule is that if you can't arrange a nice explosion or some other trap, you should protect yourself with plenty of distance and anything that harms the vampire in question. Basically, if you're not some kind of epic hero, you'd better be an expert in the art of cheating.

Which brings me to the events surrounding sunrise.

Around four thirty or so I drove down to a grove of oak trees just southeast of Elk Grove, bringing with me the samples from the shrines as well as Nox and a handful of other items. There are places that are rich with arcane energy. Sometimes it's because of a relic or something that happened there way back when, but sometimes the place is just special. That's what this grove is like; faeries regularly party out here and whenever there are waves being made in the supernatural world something shows up to spend the night there. Not that I make a habit of hanging out there at night. You can tell by how I'm still in one piece. Anyway, I placed a bowl in the middle of the circle, took out a bag of items relating to each known victim, and called up Tina to assist in the ritual.

When a vampire feeds on someone it's not just a matter of nutrients; it's an act of spiritual predation. As such, even when the victims don't rise again as newborn vampires or ghouls, they are still unable to find rest. A lot of old journals and rare books of lore refer to a ritual in which the spirits of a vampire's victims are summoned and laid to rest after giving a blessing to the hunter. Reconstructing that ritual was one of my first jobs for the Agency.

The ritual was actually fairly simple after the timing and setup. Once I had Tina to help guide the restless spirits I recited with the forty-fourth psalm and began to call up the victims. I called upon each one three times, first lamenting their death, then calling them as one in need of rest, then asking that they lay the burden of their worry and vengeance upon me. Then I tossed the item relating to that victim into the bowl, in which I had lit a fire. When I had finished I did one last invocation for the unknown victims and completed the ritual with the forty-fourth psalm again. There weren't many visible manifestations, but that's normal for this kind of thing.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the time between then and now annoying the three Agency consultants who specialize in statistical analysis and studying the available. I'm trying to figure out the ideal hunting grounds for the vampire. Tonight I begin the hunt in earnest. 

Now I need to sleep before my eyes start to bleed.

Case 20: Entry 2

Well I went to check out the supernatural paraphernalia and it was...lame. As far as I can tell it was some kind of Mexican folk magic, except that it was pretty amateur. Mind you, most folk magic is pretty amateur by definition. But one thing I can be sure of is that the prosecution is going to be very angry at me. Everything I saw suggests that he was trying to use protective magic. Of course, that doesn't actually prove he's innocent. It could be he's insane and he believes that an evil spirit is forcing him to kill people. Although I don't think this is the right stuff for warding off spirits.

I'll finish this entry later today after I've finished the hardest part of any job: talking to other people.

* * * * *

I started by seeing my contacts on the force. Actually, all but one of them are more Agency contacts than my contacts. They're the ones who have run into the supernatural on the job at some point or other and as a result have developed a special relationship with the agents who occasionally come specifically to deal with those problems. One of them actually has one of those cylindrical cameras you use to scan documents (I should ask him where he got that) and he makes a point of having his own backups for any data on weird crimes, especially murders. 

Anyway, most of the victims have died of blood loss. Some were cut with a knife, while others appear to have been mauled. Most of the victims appear to have been killed in the same place their body was found, usually someplace quiet and isolated. The locations are scattered across the greater Sacramento area, suggesting that this isn't the work of a ghost or any other creature bound to a particular place. As far as the police can tell, the only thing the victims have in common is that they were all unfortunate enough to catch the killer's attention. Additionally, workers at various homeless shelters have reported missing homeless people, although by definition there's never any place the police can go to check on them. Oh, and many of the victims were grabbed in the middle of some routine or other such as a nightly run, suggesting that the murderer studied them before making his or her move. 

After that I met with the suspect, Esteban Ramirez, and found that he had come to the same conclusion I had. He believed that the killer was a vampire, and he set out to track it down using the stories his aunt (supposedly he's part of a withered offshoot of a long line of monster hunters) told him. He used some techniques based in folk magic, and at some point it seems he did well enough for the vampire to notice. The thing toyed with him and led him on just enough for him to be seen around the crime scenes before the police got there. It's possible he really is the killer and he's just lying to me, but I doubt it. Esteban works full time at a local supermarket. He doesn't exactly have the leisure or resources to be a really effective serial killer.

Next, I called up the Agency. Cases like this are basically the whole reason they exist, but I still wasn't too surprised when the Director told me that he can't spare anyone. The Progenitor is dead, but it still left behind a huge mess of nasties back east for them to deal with. Not to mention that there's also an abundance of cases just like mine on the waiting list. Given that I did a lot of the work analyzing those cases, I kind of knew that answer was coming. Still, I was hoping I could get help sometimes sooner than a week or two, which is how long the Director said I should expect it to take if everything went perfectly. At least he said he might be able to send some cleaners in a few days to get Esteban off the hook. He advised me not to take on the vampire myself.

I might even take that advice except for one thing. See, apparently one of the victims...I'm actually having a hard time writing this. Well, one of the victims was an old client of mine named Lucia Alvarez. My clients from my first eight cases were all below the poverty line, and most of them were Latino. I still go to the neighborhoods at least once a month for some routine checks and whatnot. Well, actually it's been a few months since something hasn't come up at the same time. Still, I should have known she was dead. I'm sure the media skimmed over her on account of the fact that she isn't some upper class cheer leader. 

I called up Lucia's family and some of my other old clients. I made sure they knew to stay inside after dark, not to invite anyone into their home whom they don't know, and to keep crucifixes on at all times. I also invited her brother to stay at my house. I'll be out and about for the most part until this is done, so I want him here to make sure anyone who needs sanctuary gets it. That's another part of the new safety protocol. My house is in the middle of downtown Sac, so I told everyone to put out word that anyone in my neighborhood who thinks they're being followed can head there for sanctuary. I'd be worried, but I have a reputation for helping people. Also, I have a reputation for being able to hex people. Plus my home is a supernatural fortress, so if the vampire tries to play the victim it'll find that getting in is easy part. Seriously, there are wards and circles every five feet, and every room is a potential panic room.

I'm not some huntsman or knight, but I have a few tricks. And, more importantly, I have connections. 

I am going to kill this leech.