Chương 17: Chapter 16 - The Footprint

Everything about the footprint was wrong. It was round, and given how much it compressed the snow, whatever had left the track should have been enormous. But in spite of its weight, the outline was indistinct.

"Fur?" Darius muttered to himself. It was possible. The blurred edges could have been caused by a muss of hair interfering with the imprint, but Darius knew the tracks of most common animals, mundane and supernatural, hairy or otherwise, and none of them created that effect. He couldn't even tell which way the creature had been facing. He squatted down to get closer. There were three ridges, maybe four—they might have been something like toes—but they blended into the pad of the foot.

And the edges of the footprint… Darius had assumed it was a trick of the light or some fault of the camera when he'd seen it in the photo. Reluctantly, he removed his sunglasses. Wincing against the glare of the sun, he stared down at the edges of the print. There was a hazy red tinge around the entire rim of the print. The outside of the tinge glowed almost crimson, but toward the inside, it faded into a cold black. It wasn't blood. Darius knew that.

He would have been able to smell blood, and the only thing he could smell was a faint trace of some sickly sweet scent. He reached out to touch the hazy line of red. Before his fingers could make contact, he heard footsteps behind him.

"Rot in hell, Vasil." Darius put his sunglasses back on as he stood up and turned.

"Good morning, Deputy." Jaylen Crook was slightly shorter than average. She wasn't fat, but she was stocky. The browns and greens of her uniform didn't suit her, but Darius couldn't imagine her wearing anything else. Her dark hair was often in a ponytail, but that day, it was braided back and tucked under her hat. As usual, she was frowning. Darius wondered if she always frowned, or if it was because they usually met under less than pleasant circumstances. She advanced on him.

"Get away from the big city, they said. It'll be relaxing, they said. Low crime rate. Beautiful country. Friendly people. That help-wanted ad never said anything about this kind of bullshit."

"If I recall correctly," Darius said, "that particular ad recommended that applicants should have a good sense of humor."

"Everyone lies in their interviews, all right! I'm a good cop. I just want to do my job and serve my people. So why is it that, every other day, I run into some weirdness, and whenever I call the Sheriff, his only advice is to take it to you!" The count shrugged.

"Maybe Deen thinks I'm good at my job."

"And what exactly is your job, Vasil? And don't bother flashing your badge at me. I've seen it. I've also called the agency about you once or twice, to see if I could learn something."

"What did they tell you?"

"That you're a consulting agent in good standing. What the hell is a 'consulting agent?' Is that even a real position?"

"I hope so. If it isn't, I don't know what I'm going to write on my resume."

"Do you have an area of expertise that they call you in for when they need to consult with someone?"

"You could say that."

"So what is it?"

"Weirdness." Crook's eyes narrowed until they were nothing more than slits.

"So," Darius said, "were you eventually going to call me?"

"I was thinking about it. I have this line." The deputy slashed her hand in front of herself, about eyebrow level.

"I can stand this much crazy before I feel humble enough to call on someone who regularly wears an Armani suit." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"I didn't know your tolerance was that high."

"It's been growing. Living in this town will do that to you. This current collection of bullshit was pushing the limit, but it hadn't crossed the line." The count's hearing was much too good for him to miss the quaver in the word "hadn't."

"Who were the two people?" he said.

"Amy Levinar and Mario Russo."

"I don't know them."

"No, you wouldn't. That's my job." She stared past the square of yellow police tape to the impossible footprint.

"I know people in the town have been talking, but I know Amy. She wouldn't have run away. Not with Russo. He was only her latest project, and the girl already had presents wrapped under the tree. She wouldn't have left this close to Christmas."

"They were a couple?"

"He was nineteen. She was seventeen." Crook shrugged.

"That kind of an age gap wouldn't mean a thing if her father hadn't disapproved, but he did—he always does—so I've had to talk to both of them. Their best winter coats are gone. My guess is that they snuck out to spend some time together, then something happened to them."

"Could you follow their footprints?"

"No. All the sidewalks were swept and shoveled. I'm going to talk to her friends, to try to figure out where they might have gone. Maybe there'll be more evidence there."

"If they took their coats, they probably went somewhere outside."

"If it was that cold, they probably went somewhere inside, but brought their coats because they had to walk since Daddy would be listening for a car." Darius nodded to the snowy impression behind the police tape.

"What do you make of this?"

"Weird shit."

"Huh. It looked more like an animal track to me, but I trust your scatological expertise—""You're hilarious, Vasil. It is some kind of an animal track. I tried to find others." The deputy pointed toward the town.

"There were some more back there. It's almost a perfectly straight line. They disappear for a while, then they come back."

"Have you marked the others?" Crook hesitated, then shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I don't like them, and I don't know what to make of them." She raised her head, but she didn't seem to be able to meet his eyes. Her gaze hovered near his shoulder.

"My grandfather was a hunter. He taught me everything he knew about tracking animals."

"I thought you were from California."

"There's more to California than L. A. and Disneyland, dimwit. My great-great-grandfather was a goddamn Native American. We're from the Sierra Mountains." Darius held up his hands.

"I apologize. Did you learn anything from the tracks?"

"If I tell you, you're either going to think I'm incompetent or insane."

"Deputy Crook, I promise you that will not happen." Crook glared at him, but it was a considering glare. She turned and started back toward town.

"Follow me." Darius trailed behind her. She explained as they walked.

"The creature, or whatever the hell it was, appears to walk on two legs. I found mirrored tracks for a right and left foot, but no indication of front feet touching the ground."

"And the mirrored footprint—it looked like the one back there?"

"For the most part. There were minor differences, but that's how I knew they were from different feet."

"What's the stride length?"

"I can't tell."

"You can't tell?" Crook stopped and turned to face him.

"It changes. It grows longer with every step." There was a brief silence, then Darius said, "Are you sure?" The deputy pointed at his face.

"There! There it is! Which do you think it is, Vasil? To me, that sounded like you think I'm incompetent, but maybe you skipped right over that and landed on 'she's crazy.'""Crook, I'm sorry. I'm trying to process the facts."

"Uh-huh."

"Are you going to tell me you didn't have to look at everything twice to make sure you weren't insane?" The deputy turned around and continued down the street.

"I looked at them three times. On my break, all I did was stare at the pictures. I'm not wrong, Vasil. I don't know what it means or what made those marks—maybe some punk kid? An artist type? Is this the new generation of crop circles?"

"I doubt it," Darius said.

"If the prints were forged by a person, we would have found their tracks as well, or some sign that their tracks had been erased. Did you find anything like that?" Crook trudged on for several steps before she said, "No." She turned her head enough to glare at him over her shoulder.

"I liked that theory."

"Then I'll let you look into it." She faced forward again. After a second, she went on, "When a creature's running, the stride normally gets longer, but this is…something else. You know that footprint you were looking at? The one Mrs. Park found?"

"Yeah."

"You know why it's the only one in the area?" Darius had a strange feeling he wasn't going to like the answer, but he felt compelled to follow the script.

"Why?"

"Because, if my calculations are correct, the next closest print would have been ten feet back." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

"On that clear patch of asphalt we passed." This time, the count kept his mouth shut as he processed that idea and all its implications.

"Are we talking about something with wings?" he asked.

"Sure. All right. Wings. That's what I thought. Never mind the feet. Maybe it flies." Crook stopped beside a telephone pole and pointed at a massive set of gouges in the wood.

"But then, what are those?" There were three of them, two longer and one shorter. They were almost six feet off the ground. Splinters were sticking up all along the marks, but most of them were gathered at the end, pointing back the way Darius and the deputy had come—presumably in the direction the creature had been going. Darius took a step forward.

"Those look like…"

"Claw marks?" The vampire turned. Crook was standing with her arms folded. She tilted her head to the side.

"Yeah," she said.

"That's what I thought too. This is some hard-core weirdness, and I need your expertise. So tell me, Agent Vasil, what walks on two round feet, has claws on their hands, but also seems to be able to fly?" Darius stared at the damaged pole.

"I may have to get back to you on that one, Deputy."