London, 2.

Saturday

Someone has once said or written something along the lines that when you are bored with London, you are bored with life. It’s true, and I could feel the extraordinary power of the city the moment I put my foot onto its soil for the first time. It breathes and lives, a place of growth, birth and death. It’s always a pleasure to go there.

It certainly was a pleasure waking up to a cloudy Saturday from between two warm bodies. Both my willing victims were still sound asleep, and barely moved as I stretched my body from the tip of my toes to the tips of my fingers high above my head. No angry pulling of burned skin, no creaking in my joints, no aches in the back of my head. Only the languid warmth one can achieve with a night full of hunting and sex, and a belly full of strong blood. With two plates to eat from, I hadn’t had the need to taste too much from either, so they wouldn’t suffer any ill effects. Well, nothing more than drinking down half the bar would have. And that was no fault of mine. Not completely, anyway.

I had half a mind to stay in the warm bed, but a look at the small clock hanging on the hotel room wall informed me that it was close to noon already. Careful not to stir the sleepers, I crept out of bed and into the small bathroom for a long, hot shower. I stopped to admire my healed skin for a moment in the mirror, and gripe at my mess of hair. The short strands that had survived Kielo’s scissors hadn’t all made it through that damned sunny day, and even though I had gotten rid of the smell of burnt hair, the dark mop itself looked like a bird’s nest.

Nothing to ruin a perfectly good day than to be reminded of those who fucked you over. But the noises coming from outside the bathroom door quickly drew my attention away from moping too much.

My pillows had awaken.

They both looked a bit sheepish and a lot hung over as they crawled out of bed and into their clothes. Much attention was not spared to who put on whose shirt or pants, but they managed to look more or less representable as they gave me a small kiss each, a thank you for a good night, and lurked out of the room and towards their own hotel before their parents got worried.

Don’t give me that look. I already feel like a cradle robber no matter who I’m with.

After a big cup of coffee for breakfast –if you can call it breakfast at one in the afternoon- I got dressed and headed out. I had an hour before Heidi got off from work, so I started to head to the pub already. It was a nice day for a walk, and I hadn’t allowed my willing victims to drink down everything in the bar: I had wanted my share, so a few hairs of the dog that bit me would be appreciated.

The pub was almost as full as it had been yesterday, but from the hubbub of voices I could make out that there were a lot of tourists in today. Soho is a popular place for them. Hell, most of London is. For me it meant that I couldn’t get a window-seat, so I took the last available chair at the bar itself. The barman seemed to remember me from yesterday as he nodded a greeting and got me a pint of beer before rushing to the other side of the bar to serve some tourists.

The cool drink felt heavenly in my mouth and as it made its way into my stomach. The noises of the crowd faded into a murmur and I do believe there was a silly, dreamy smile on my face. At least it made Claudia hide her laughter behind her hand as she came over to say hello.

“You look like you had fun last night.” She said as she leaned against the bar and lifted one foot out of her shoe to rub at it.

“Oh yes, twice as much fun as I had anticipated.” I grinned wide enough to show her most of my teeth, which made her laugh again. She was flushed from running around the bar, and looked more than a little tired. Now that my senses were keener again from all that blood, I could sense that wrongness in her scent I’d noticed last time. Still, I couldn’t identify it. Quite baffling. “Do you always work Saturdays?”

“Pretty much, yeah. I need all the money I can get!” This time her laugh sounded a little forced, and she sat down happily when the seat next to mine was vacated. “Still, I wish I’d have a full weekend just to myself sometime. Or a week, even. I’d love to travel somewhere, and be pampered.” She looked over the full room and frowned. “Good to have dreams, I guess.”

“You’ll make it some day,” I assured her absent-mindedly, still trying to figure her out.

“God, I hope so!” Claudia laughed and stood up to get back to work. “Heidi should be here soon, so I guess I’ll see you later.” And with that, she was off, lost in the sea of patrons all vying for her attention. I gave my pint all of mine, and spent the next twenty minutes in a pleasant fog where nothing else existed. Not even the puzzle that little blond girl had presented me with.

Maybe it was my senses or just damn good timing that I snapped back to reality as the door opened and Heidi walked in. I turned to give her a wave and she headed straight for me. The seat beside me had been claimed again, so I turned away from the bar to greet her.

“So. Do you want to head out straight away?” she asked, scanning the place for Claudia. I shrugged and slid off the bar stool, ignoring the fact that it pulled my skirt up almost all the way. Sometimes it’s really annoying to be so short. I arranged my clothes and tried not to stare too obviously as the girls exchanged a kiss before we left.

Heidi was surprisingly quiet as we walked through the busy streets. Well, I didn’t really know her that well to say that the silence was odd, but I’d gotten the impression she wasn’t the quiet type. I also noticed that she was stealing glances at me when she thought I wouldn’t notice.

She spoke out before I could ask if something was wrong.

“Have you been drinking?”

I opened my mouth a few times before answering, wondering whether I still smelled like… well, like a still even after the long shower. “Yeah, I had a few too many last night.”

“No, not beer. I mean, drinking. You know.” She seemed somewhat awkward. I felt somewhat embarrassed.

“Yeah. That, too. You can tell?”

“It was either that or then you’re on some damn heavy period.” Heidi said with a grimace. I burst into laughter.

“Haven’t had one of those in decades!”

“Lucky you.” She said, smiling once again. Her expression however soon changed into that uncomfortable one again. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you do it often?”

“Does it bother you?”

“A little.”

“Don’t worry, then. I only drink if I really need to. As it is, I got my ass handed to me just before I came here, and needed some refreshment. I can assure you that both my victims walked out of my hotel room on their own feet not two hours ago. And they were not complaining.”

“I’m not trying to be your conscience or anything here, I know it’s natural to your kind. It’s just… icky.” Heidi hurried to explain. I assured her it was no problem. Still, we didn’t speak much for the next quarter of an hour or so, which it took to walk to the somewhat rundown apartment building where she led me.

Heidi dug out a cardboard box from a closet and brought it out to a living room slash bedroom slash kitchen slash dining room. The apartment was very small, everything except the bathroom and toilet were situated in the same space. There was only one window above a small table and three chairs, next to an American-style large fridge and other kitchen appliances. On one wall was a double bed, on the other a small sofa. More like a big easy chair, actually. A small table between the bed and the sofa was covered with magazines, books and a small TV.

Heidi dropped the box on top of the table with a loud gasp and motioned for me to sit on the sofa. I perched on the edge since it was mostly covered with magazines, clothes and blankets. Heidi herself plopped unceremoniously down on the floor, and opened the box.

“This is some of Frank’s stuff, the things I suppose you’ll need.” She made a gesture with her hand for me to take a look, and I obeyed.

The box was full of neatly packed empty passports and driver’s licenses for many countries, and different kinds of official forms and documents, seals of approval and stamps.

“There’s two more boxes of this same kind of stuff, plus a few cameras and other things. I don’t know what exactly to do with it all. I mean, Frank told me a lot, but I’ve never really done anything like this. You’ll be my first victim.” Heidi grinned at me, a bit nervous, most likely because she wasn’t sure how to help me. I gave her a reassuring smile.

“We’ll figure something out.” I said as I reached over to pick up a few empty passports. I had no idea how Frank had managed to get these things. They appeared to be the real things, lacking only the official information and photo of the carrier.

“You… show up in photos, right? ‘cause if you don’t, I think we have a problem.” She asked, scratching her head as she leafed through an empty passport.

“Yes, I do.” I managed after laughing a minute. ”I’m not even a full vampire, and those show up in photos, TV’s and whathaveyou. We’re real, but all the myths about us aren’t.”

“Again, lucky you. There ain’t no denying that I turn into a complete monster once a month.” Heidi grinned like a beast while I all but laughed myself down from the sofa. “You figure out what you need, I’ll get the rest of the stuff out.”

I made a mental list while she brought out two more boxes and a laptop computer. Guess I’d manage for now with the bare necessities: a passport and maybe a driver’s license. Birth certificates and a history for my new identity could wait. I wasn’t going to get a job or an apartment in the next few days or weeks anyway. Not until I’d figure out what I wanted to do.

Hell, if I decided to head back to Finland as soon as possible and get me some good revenge, I wouldn’t need any of that unless I survived it all. Me against the night time. No matter how damn good I am at what I do, it had been made obvious just a week ago that I could get my ass kicked. I might have to go against Alby’s friends as well. Through them before I got to him, and Kielo.

Heidi dropped the last box onto the floor and picked up a camera from it. “All right, try to look all serious and shit.”

I ran a hand through my hair and looked straight at the camera. Its flash blinded me for a second, and when I could see properly again, Heidi was giving the photo a judging look through the camera’s small screen.

“I think it’s all right. So what do you need?”

I gave her the same explanation I’d ran through my head, omitting all talk about revenge, though. She wouldn’t need that information for what she needed to do.

“That makes it easier for me. So for now we just need to come up with a name and a birth date and place for you.” She picked up a paper pad and a pen and looked up at me, expecting me to come up with something. I just blinked at her. There was a reason I’d always let Frank handle all this stuff.

“Well… I told the barman at Frank’s that my name’s Dorothy. Might as well go with it.”

Heidi nodded and wrote the name down, the tip of her tongue peeking out from through her lips. “Surname?”

“I don’t know. Jones. That’s common enough.”

“Right. When were you born, Dorothy Jones?”

I threw my hands up. “Don’t know. How old do I look?”

Heidi raised an eyebrow at me. “Something between twenty-five and two hundred.”

“That’s not really helpful.”

Eventually we decided on twenty-six, and that I was from London. Heidi also wanted me to tell what kind of schools I might have gone to, so that she could do some research and start on my history already.

“I might as well learn to do this now, when I have such a patient client.” She said with a forlorn look at the boxes. “At least Frank left me some manuals in the computer.”

“You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. There are other people who do this stuff. Frank’s bound to have some information on them somewhere, so if someone else comes knocking, you can send them on. Most people won’t do what I do and pop up when they need a new identity now. It’s considered bad form, knowing how much time it takes to create a whole new life.”

Heidi nodded, thoughtful “It’s a pain in the ass to learn everything, but I don’t know. It’s kind of cool. Besides, I can make some serious money with this. That would be great, Claudia and me could get a proper place to live in, instead of this.” She waved a hand around the small apartment. “Besides, she can be a bit high maintenance.”

I had to laugh, and Heidi smirked. “I’m envious. She’s very cute.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” Her smirk turned feral, and I thought it best not to question too far.

“Have you two been together long?”

“Six months or so. She could probably tell you how many days exactly. But we’ve known each other for like, two years. I’ve been working at the music shop ever since I moved to London, and we met the day she started to work at the pub.”

“That’s sweet. You both live here?”

“Yeah, she moved in a few months ago. So we can save more money, paying only one rent instead of two. Of course it’s nice, since we love each other and all.”

“That is nice.” Uncalled but still there, Kielo’s laughter ringing in my head at the mention of love, sunlight through the curtains dancing on her curls.

“Don’t do that. You look like I just kicked your puppy.” Heidi said and lifted a hand to my knee, still holding the camera in her other hand. “Why so sad?”

“Some bad stuff happened in Helsinki before I came over here.”

“The same shit that made you drink blood last night?”

“Exactly.” She didn’t question further and I wasn’t keen on telling more, so we fell quiet. She had a very open, honest face, so I could tell she thought she’d crossed a line with her question. I wanted to tell her she hadn’t, but as good as I am at reading the emotions of others, expressing my own is something I don’t really excel at.

“So,” I eventually broke the heavy silence, “do you need any more information?”

Heidi let out a long breath. “There was actually something I wanted to run by you. I mean, you knew Frank. Better than I did, and for far longer.” She said quietly, staring at the camera in her hands, clicking a button to run through the pictures saved within.

“What is it?”

”I think he might have been killed. Murdered.”

“Shit. By who?” The thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all. But damn, it made me forget my own worries like nothing else.

”That I don’t know. But I was the one who found him, at the backroom of his pub. They say it was a heart attack, or maybe a stroke. They didn’t look into it too carefully since he was so old, and because there was nothing in the room to suggest anything but a natural death. But as far as I know, he was unbelievably healthy for someone his age.”

“Because of the werewolf-thing. He could have had years, maybe decades more.” I muttered.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I think he didn’t just drop dead like that. And also…” she hesitated for a while, pursing her lips and frowning as she thought. “When I found him… there was something in the room that made me think there was someone else there when he died.”

“What?” I sat up straight, eyeing her. “What was it? Did you tell the police?”

Heidi looked a little sheepish, not to mention frustrated. “No, I didn’t. I took it. Frank used to tell me how important it was to keep what he did a secret, since so many people’s lives depended on it. And what was there, it would have made the police suspicious. They would have investigated further, and people would not have been happy. Not to mention that the thing I found was… well, you have a look at it.”

She put the camera down and rummaged underneath the sofa, pulling out dust bunnies, discarded socks and hair ties, and finally a small cardboard box. After one more moment of hesitation she shoved the box at me. “Take a look.”

Somewhat worried that the box might jump up and bite me, I gingerly took it from Heidi’s outstretched hand and put it down on my lap. Swallowing my silly fear, I took a hold of the lid and pulled the thing open.

“What the hell…” was all I managed to say when I saw what was within.

“Told you.” Heidi said quietly and picked up the camera again. “What do you make of it?”

“It’s… it’s not his, is it?”

“Hell no! He had all of his where they belonged. Take a close look on the inside.”

“I’m looking.”

“So you thinking what I’m thinking?”

I pushed down shivers of disgust and picked up the… thing. It was covered with dried blood, but still felt smooth, cool and almost slippery in my dry fingers. “Vampires, vampires everywhere…” I muttered as I stared at the human dentures in my hand. They were for the upper jaw, for the front teeth, from eyetooth to eyetooth, a bit yellow, completely normal looking. Except for the fact that on the inside, there was room for a full set of teeth. And looking at the holes left for the eyeteeth, it was obvious there was room enough for a pair of sharp and long vampire teeth.

Cosmetic teeth to hide the fact that whoever wore them was really a bloodsucker.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Heidi said with a morbid chuckle as she stared, fixated, at the teeth in my hand. “They were in his hand, so I figured they had to be important. So I cleaned the blood from his hands, and everywhere else, took those and called the ambulance so they’d come and pronounce him dead.”

“Shit…” I muttered, turning the teeth around and around, careful not to disturb the blood.

“So… can you, I don’t know…” she twirled her fingers in the air, “do some vampire magic and find out who those belong to?”

“Frankly…” I started and stopped to curse my choice of words, “I’ve never tried. In theory, I should be able to tell. I can’t hunt anyone down from just this, but if I pass them in the street, I might be able to tell. The blood is dry, so that might be a problem.”

“Can you try?”

“For Frank, hell yes. And only for him. You might want to look away.” I grimaced at the mere thought of what I was about to do. But there was no other way. This was our only lead to who had been there when Frank had died, and if there was a chance to find that person, I would do anything.

Even stick those used, bloody dentures into my mouth and suckle on them.

Heidi had not looked away.

“Oh my god!” She screamed and covered her eyes with her hands. “Sick! I’m gonna throw up!”

When they were clean, I spat the dentures back into the box. “You’re going to throw up? Do me a favour and get me a beer. Or juice. Or a stiff drink. Anything. Now. Please.”

Heidi didn’t hesitate for one heartbeat: she was at the fridge before I finished my request, and within another five beats she dropped a can of beer into my lap and opened another for herself. Those disappeared quite fast, and she was faster in getting both of us another ones.

“So…” she eventually started, pointedly looking at anything besides the open box in my lap, “did that do any good?”

I closed the box and gave it to her. She shoved it back underneath the sofa very quickly.

“Some of the blood was Frank’s. Most of it not.”

“Can you tell whose it was?”

“I don’t know. I won’t know if it worked at all until, and if, I come across whoever it was. Then, if I get this… feeling, I can tell it was that person.”

Heidi stared at me for a long while, processing the information. “Damn. Respect to you, girl.”

“Thanks.”

She’d been flicking through the photos in the camera again, and now gave me the camera and pointed at the small screen. Squinting a little, I immediately recognized Frank from the image, smiling as he looked towards the camera. He was far older than the last time we saw each other, but still the same. Nothing, not even so many years, could alter that grin. I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed hard before tears accompanied it.

“Could you… if you ever print some of these, could you make me a copy of this?”

“Of course.” Heidi said softly as she took the camera back. “Should make one for myself. I miss him, much more than I thought I would. Never knew him as a kid, and now… feels like I got to have him for such a short time, you know?”

I laughed a little. “Yeah, I know, even though I knew him for over eighty years.”

“My parents are alive and well, but dad’s always been in denial of what Frank was. What he himself is, and me, too. Dad’s barely like, half a werewolf, I just have these teeth and kick-ass senses, but to him, even that’s too much to handle. So he’s always looked at me a bit funny, especially after I got in touch with Frank. Mom doesn’t know of all this, just that dad and Frank never got along. I’m not much in the way of a werewolf, but I always felt that with Frank, I didn’t have to hide even that. He’s always accepted me.” Heidi’s eyes were nailed on the camera while she spoke. I shook my head a little when I realized I’d learned more about her in one conversation than I knew about Kielo at all.

Ugh. Get out of my mind, blondie, I’ve got other things to worry about now.

“He was always special.” I managed to say once I got my thoughts in order. Heidi looked up at me and smiled, even though her yellowish eyes were sad.

“Could you tell me more about him sometime?”

“Get me another beer and I’ll tell you now.” I suggested with a grin, and Heidi complied.

We sat talking for the better part of three hours. I did most of the speaking, telling her how Frank and I had met, and about our adventures together through the 1920’s. She seemed thrilled to hear all of it, to learn how he had saved my life and how he’d ended up doing what he’d done. And it was good to relive those memories. A proper wake for Frank, something he’d have appreciated. Two of his favourite women talking about him, and not cursing him to the lower levels of hell.

Heidi was so grateful that she didn’t even think to object when I asked whether I could have a look through Frank’s black book where he had kept all the basic information on his clients and other people he’d worked with. I couldn’t find Iggy, not with his original name anyway. Nor with the one Frank had given him after the war. And after that, I knew nothing of him.

What I did find was the name and phone number of someone else, someone who could lend me a hand in getting what I needed. After what happened in Helsinki I had decided that I wouldn’t be caught unarmed again. I let myself get too comfortable back there. I won’t make the same mistake again.

It is illegal to carry firearms in the United Kingdom but that doesn’t mean they can’t be found and bought, when you know where to go. I was also looking to buy some knives. Can’t beat a good knife, unless it’s with a sword. There’s just something so classy about them. Guns are efficient, fast, and good when you can’t or don’t want to get too close to your opponent. But they lack the grace of a good sword. That’s what I think anyway. They’re also good for sharpening stakes. Useful things, swords. But since I was looking for an easily concealable weapon, I would have to make do with a gun.

I jotted down the name and number, and returned the book to Heidi’s safekeeping. I told her to take good care of the book since it most likely held some information on Frank’s killer as well. She promised to start working on my id’s as soon as she was sober again: for now, she’d head down to the pub and wait there until Claudia got off. She invited me to join her, but I declined again. I had a gun to buy.

There was a slight drizzle when we finally got out. Heidi headed towards Soho, and as soon as she was out of hearing range, I called the number I’d copied from Frank’s book. A man soon answered, and after a brief conversation I knew who to look for and where to find him. It was no surprise that I would have to go to the seedier part of the city, East End. Didn’t mind, though, I’m pretty good at taking care of myself. Barring the chance of a pretty blonde leading me around like a lovesick fool, of course.

I was still so high on all that beer and blood that I decided to walk. Just a mile or three. I wanted to see some of the sights and the area I used to live in decades ago, but resolved to leave all that until I had my matters in order. I would have to do a lot of walking anyway, if I wanted any kind of a real chance of finding the vampire whose fake teeth I could still feel in my mouth.

The cover of clouds above hadn’t shown any signs of parting by the time I found myself in parts of London one might want to avoid, at least in the night. I turned away from the busier main streets, and soon enough my surroundings started to look less than inviting. Despite the slight rain, there were groups of people here and there, young and old, looking suspicious and looking suspiciously at me.

“Hey sister!” someone hollered from behind, and I turned to look in the direction I had come from. A man who had been sitting on the side of the street had stood up and taken a few steps in my direction, away from his surly looking friends. His long reddish-brown hair was on a ponytail at the back of his head, leaving his round and amused face for the world to see. His grin was wide as he waved at me and walked closer. “Somethin’ I can help you with?”

“Perhaps.” I said, looking him up and down. His clothes were baggy, good for carrying around concealed weapons and other pleasantries. “Are you T.T.?” I had no idea what the letters stood for, nothing else had been written on the page to clarify.

“That I am. You must be Frank’s friend, may he rest in peace.”

“That I am.” I said and nodded. The man grinned, the solemn look mentioning Frank had brought on disappearing as fast as it had appeared.

“So what can I do for a pretty lady such as yourself?”

“I’m looking for some protection.”

“Oh, what a happy coincidence this is, then! For I do offer that very thing. Now,” he looked around, “what kind of protection are you looking for, precisely?”

“A gun.” I told him, and managed not to roll my eyes too much.

“Something small for the little lady…” he said like any market place seller would, and shoved his hand into his jacket. “Might I suggest a Ruger GP-100? Small, easy to handle, yet packs a nice kick. Not a tiny pocket gun as those tend to suck. A classic. Also, looks pretty. Ladies like the pretty things, eh?”

I took the gun from him with a chuckle and inspected it. My familiarity with it seemed to impress him. “You have bullets as well?” I asked, liking the weight of the thing in my hand.

“Of course.”

It was hard to fight down laughter as he pulled out a small, bunched up plastic bag from his pocket and dropped in a few boxes of bullets ‘For starters,’ as he put it. The gun went in there as well, and I then buried the package into my bag. The price was higher than I had imagined, but as I soon learned he was keen to haggle, and eventually let me have the bullets for almost free.

“Don’t want the customer to go away with a bad taste in ‘er little mouth, do I?”

I wanted to tell him he was far too late for that, but since I didn’t particularly want to explain the denture thing I just nodded and shoved my wallet back into my bag.

”Just one more thing…” he said as I got ready to thank him and leave. “Could I see some ID, miss?” he asked, grinning. My hand was halfway to my wallet again before the absurdity of the situation stopped it.

“You’re about to sell me an illegal gun, and you want to see my ID?” Yep, it still sounded silly when I said it out loud.

He barked with laughter and slapped my shoulder playfully. “People always fall for that!”

“Yeah, very funny, Giggles.”

“Call me T.T., sister.”

”What’s it short for?”

“You have to guess.”

“…Tea for two?” He stared at me for two seconds before bursting into laugher again and draping an arm around my shoulders.

“Well, if you insist, darling. But you’re buying.”

“No.” I lifted his arm off and started walking. Two blocks away I could still hear him laughing.

Soon I was back on one of the busier main streets, wondering what to do next. It was half past six on a Saturday evening, and I had nothing planned. I stood there, people walking past me in the still light early summer’s evening, despite the clouds that kept the sun away from the streets. I thought about Helsinki, about Frank’s death, about Heidi and Claudia, and decided to do the only sensible thing.

The closest pub is usually only across the street.