Solving the Vampire Murders

one

They say the human brain has thirteen thoughts per minute. Well, Torren would have killed for that kind of quiet.

Especially now.

He felt...weird. Different than he had an hour before.

A paramedic snapped an oximeter onto his left forefinger and readjusted his oxygen mask.

"Hold still, my guy," said a cheeky voice. "You passed out. Hard. Hit the ground like it did you dirty."

A memory of his ride back from Ann Arbor took shape in the haze before a strange, popping sensation had hit him in the chest. What was that?

It was just anxiety.

"Have you ever had an experience like that before?"

The paramedic's voice helped quiet the storm of thoughts.

"I pass out sometimes. Panic attacks."

His own voice rang foreign from behind the oxygen mask. Muffled and raw.

"Well, good work falling into the grass. You must be an old pro at this."

Torren smiled, grateful for her humor. He couldn't stand pity, even now. Craning his neck, Torren noticed the old brick house.

His new home. Or at least that's what it should have been.

He had the impression something terrible had happened. Suddenly, the front door swung open, and an officer appeared on the crumbling cement porch. The cop looked like he might be sick. Nose scrunched, lip curled. He ducked under a line of fresh police tape and joined the group of beat cops conferring in the overgrown yard.

Dread dropped in Torren's stomach. Waving the paramedic back over, Torren slid the oxygen mask over his tangle of short, red-brown hair.

"Can I take this thing off? I'm feeling better."
The paramedic eyed him warily while checking the oximeter. "Alright, but I'd like you to stay on the gurney for a little while longer with your feet elevated. I'm not keen on lifting you up on this thing twice."

"Can you tell me what's going on?" Torren searched her face for tells or micro-reactions he could analyze. It was a tactic he learned this summer during his internship at Chambers & Hansen, a law firm in Ann Arbor. He had spent countless hours practicing with the other intern from Eastern Michigan University--Mazia Khoury.

Filing paperwork and other mundane office tasks took on a new light when they worked side-by-side. Mazia was fascinating, and he had so rarely felt fascinated by anyone.

Pulling tight medical gloves off her thick hands, the paramedic studied the matted grass.

"Well, there's been a suspected homicide at your residence. Detective Wittier wants to ask you a few questions once you're up to it."

Torren stared back at her in disbelief, humidity clinging to his skin. "Homicide? But—but that means somebody's dead."

"Yes, thank you, Agent Obvious. That's exactly what homicide means." She set one hand on the curve of her waist and rubbed her forehead with the other. Torren felt the hair on his arms rise, like the air pressure around him had dropped.

Like a storm was brewing.

A swirl of ghostly air rustled the bushes and whistled down the empty street. Still, Torren's attention shifted back to the house. It looked broken. Despondent, even. Not just because it was run-down and crooked—which it was—but because the home had let something so horrific happen inside its walls.

Broken not because of any superficial shortcoming, but from its inability to provide that fundamental purpose of a house—protection.

"I was just wondering—"