Agent of S.T.A.L.K. in New Orleans

He'd stumbled onto the murder five minutes after it happened.

He needed to give the tape to the cops, but knew he couldn't, even if the video exonerated him of any wrongdoing.

He'd removed vital evidence from the scene of a crime by stealing the videocam like a common thief.

He had to tell them no matter what, needed a story that disclosed all the facts but didn't associate him with incriminating video footage and stolen property. In the morning he'd go to the precinct house and tell the authorities he'd seen Alisa leaving the studio with two men, altering the exact time he saw her transform into the redheaded girl, substituting she changed into a different person on the sidewalk and referred to herself by a new name. Furthermore he'd inform the cops no one answered his knock on Enrique's door last night. None of his prints would be at the crime scene, the door swung open from his knuckle hitting it, he'd had his hands in his pockets while inside the studio, the only thing he touched was the videocam and he'd left the door open when he left. As far as the cops were concerned he'd gone home and returned in the morning. Tomorrow he'd claim he discovered the body if no one had found it yet.

Yeah, that lie should work! He'd relay the rest of the facts as he knew them concerning the culprit Alisa Dwyer/Stephanie Mercer. To rise above police suspicion he'd tell them about the white Firebird, the two companions, recommend they check the Skin & Blister to locate Alisa. The mere thought of her made him rewind the tape to watch the little slut in action again.

When the camera battery died he went to bed and masturbated.

~~~~~~~~~~

The last two times Clive Mercer flew to America, Nova Nobarro met him at an airport. This second time he looked just as good to her from a distance as the first, wearing a black suit and shirt again and lugging those big Halliburton suitcases of his like they weighed nothing. She wondered if he'd packed his black high top tennis shoes. His British accent and the way Mercer carried himself got her panties damp. She knew he knew, she made no secret of her attraction to him when they initially met, making this meeting awkward. For her anyway.

His no-nonsense manner put Nova at immediate ease, a pillar of confidence and strength. First off, he hugged her. "Sorry to hear about your brother, Nova. Hell of a Christmas."

"Thank you for flying in from Prague."

"I flew half the trip as last time. I'm back in England now, only a short hop from New Orleans, half a day closer than Los Angeles."

"But I interrupted your holiday plans."

"What plans?" he asked. "I had none to interrupt."

"You don't know how much your being here means to me, Clive. I got your email address from Molly; I hope you didn't mind."

"What we went through in California makes us old friends now."

"I wasn't sure you'd come after I said I couldn't afford S.T.A.L.K.'s large fees. Not on my salary."

"I told you not to worry about that when we talked on the phone. What good is having a friend who can't get you a discount where he works?"

"A ninety nine per cent discount seems awfully friendly."

"I'd wager the vampire responsible for your brother has a reward on her head somewhere S.T.A.L.K. can bilk out of somebody."

"Will they defray your expenses?"

He lifted his suitcases and they began to walk through the terminal. "I can afford it if they don't pay me a single bob, Nova. S.T.A.L.K. wrote me a check for half the bounty collected on the kill I made in Los Angeles in October; you remember how substantial that was."

"That doesn't decrease the amount of your own money you're spending on this trip. As far as the bounty's concerned, I saw what you did, Clive, it took balls. You earned every farthing or whatever they call pennies in England."

He shrugged off her compliment. "Will there be a funeral here, or in L.A.?"

"A cremation ceremony in L.A. once the New Orleans homicide division releases Enrique's body, if they ever. Today makes four days." She paused, "Since . . ."

"What's jamming everything up?"

"An ongoing murder investigation classified as paranormal makes for more details."

"Any leads on the identity of the killer?"

"All the police will tell me is the night of the murder a friend, a photographer like Enrique, saw a woman and two men leaving his place. This friend knows her name, where she hangs out, et cetera."

"What is her name?"

"They won't say more than it appears to be a vampire kill."

"And the bloke's a photographer, huh?" Mercer asked, sounding very interested. "Have the police talked to the woman?"

"They won't say."

"I guess there's no word on the two men either. Did the coppers lean on your brother's friend to get the information out of him?"

"No, he came forward on his own, but apparently the cops have zero faith in this guy after he delivered some crazy story to them. Something about her changing from one girl into another."

"Shapeshifter." Mercer perked up like he welcomed the news.

Nova wondered why, but asked, "Is there such a thing, can shape-changing actually be done?"

"'Fraid so. Fortunately it's not as widespread as you'd think. Many vampires, demons, werewolves and you-name-it have the ability. In essence that's all lycanthropes are: shapeshifters, but they're on the lowest rung of the ladder, humans becoming wolves during a full moon. Higher up the preternatural ladder shape-changing gets a lot more sophisticated than that."

"So a supernatural killer can commit a murder, shapeshift into a new person and walk away?"

"That's oversimplifying it, but often absolutely true. The F.B.I. profiles on those creatures enabled to change their shape indicate there's always one or two forms they grow attached to."

"Then sooner or later someone recognizes them?"

"In a lot of cases on record, yes, but unsolved paranormal murders far exceed the files closed. I want to talk to this crackpot who claims to have seen the female transform. Do you have any kind of address or number for him?"

"The parish cops grudgingly gave up a name, André Delaflote, goes by Andy. They wouldn't give out his address. I got that by having my guys in L.A. run a check on his name."

"Paid him a visit yet?"

"Nope. L.A. called me with his address on my way to the airport."

"Good. Let's get underway by chatting up this Monsieur Delaflote. Obviously he's the best lead in lieu of any other witnesses. You say the coppers believe it's a vampire kill yet they sent him packing because they didn't like his shapeshifter story?"

"Like I told you, they didn't say much, their lips were tight. Mostly they alluded to Andy's a bottom-feeding, run-of-the-mill lowlife."

"So many of the best leads are. Maybe his story scared them."

"It sounds as whack to me as it does to the cops."

"But you know better, Nova. It's similar to people's rationalizations about UFOs. They don't want to believe in ghosts and vampires and werewolves either. Unless they've ever encountered one in real life, they can write them off in their minds as not existing, like UFOs."

"Do you believe in UFOs, Clive?"

"Spent six years on Jupiter," he said with a straight face.

Nova laughed for the first time she recalled in days. "You liar, you did not."

"I'm exaggerating. Honestly, the little green men only detained me six months."

In the middle of New Orleans International Airport she stopped and kissed him because she couldn't help herself. Thank God he answered her cry for help. To Nova's surprise Mercer didn't break off the kiss quickly, the way he'd done her kisses when they met two months ago in Los Angeles. Had something changed him in the interim? Too early to tell. A romantic interlude would be nice, but played a back seat to finding and staking her brother's murderer. Nova hadn't traveled from L.A. to New Orleans for a white Christmas, she wanted a blood red one.

Mercer evidently thought similar thoughts. "And the local coppers wouldn't say they got a line on the girl in Andy's story?"

"They let me know they were developing the few leads they had and couldn't discuss it while under investigation. Enrique was my brother but being the deceased's sister doesn't cut any ice with these parish detectives even though I'm a cop too."

"Andy had a suspect's name, her description and where to find her. There may be other evidence they're not telling you about too, if they even know about it."

"What other evidence, Clive?"

"I misspoke. More rumor than solid evidence I should have said."

"Quit holding out on me. What rumor?"

"It's so fantastical I don't believe it. Best I keep it to myself, Nova, than raise false hopes in you."

"How do you know so much about my brother's death?"

"The moneyed tentacles of S.T.A.L.K. sometimes reach into high places."

Nova smacked at his arm playfully. She groused, "That's vague enough to qualify as avoiding my question, Clive."

"When it comes to S.T.A.L.K.'s ways and means I'm afraid I have to be. But surely the New Orleans police wouldn't sit on a mountain of information like that."

"I didn't say they were. Just because they won't share much with me doesn't mean they're dragging their feet."

"We're opening our own line of inquiry anyway, but it'd be helpful to have their input."

They reached Nova's rent car in the vast parking lot. He stowed his bags in the back seat. Once out of the airport and on the highway, Nova reopened the topic of the rumor.

"Clive, don't be so secretive about 'other evidence.' Tell me."

Mercer gave a roundabout answer. "I'm in New Orleans on my own accord but even so, S.T.A.L.K. has a vested interest in supernatural murders anywhere in the world. They're plugged into a lot of strange sources: paranormal, occult, not all of them reliable. They got hold of a rumor there's proof of the identity of the vampire who killed Enrique. A succubus."

"What's her name?"

"Which one do you want? She goes under various names, she's a shapeshifter."

"I hope you have something we can use. I don't have many leads to exhaust."

"S.T.A.L.K. furnished a few addresses, hangouts like coven groups and Satanic churches, if I fancy stirring up trouble."

"Are you feeling troublesome?"

"More than usual. A powerful succubus active anywhere on the globe has the likelihood of being Stephanie."

She took her eyes off the road to look at him. "Your daughter?"

"Right! I told you about her last time in Los Angeles."

"So the reason you flew to the States so fast and all attendant had nothing to do with my brother," asked Nova, "but because you suspect Stephanie might be the succubus-in-question?"

"I didn't even know Enrique Nobarro. I came because of you."

"Me and the possibility of the killer being your daughter?"

"The possibility of your brother and my daughter getting acquainted in New Orleans is rather remote, Nova! To put things in perspective: I am interested in every succubus operating worldwide. Any one of them has the potential to be Stephanie, simple as that."

Her silky black hair spilled in her face when she slowly nodded, "I understand." Mercer still wasn't telling her everything.

His voice softened. "At any rate are my reasons so important? I'm here like you want, aren't I?"

"I don't mean to be touchy," Nova said. She felt letdown now, he'd had an ulterior motive, an incentive without a damned thing to do with her. She hoped Mercer raced to her side out of . . . what? Certainly not love, but maybe a kind of British gallantry, except now she knew the truth. Mercer listened to her silence and made a clumsy effort to redirect the conversation only to hit another of Nova's sore spots.

Without much enthusiasm he asked, "What's your latest boyfriend's name?"

"I haven't been seeing anyone, Clive, not since Halloween."

"Men up and down the west coast must be rioting by now."

He was trying to cheer her up. She gave him a forced smile.

He gave her a bleak look. "It doesn't have anything to do with me. Does it?"

"No, it's got something to do with me. The night at the Kirkbride Hotel had an aftershock."

"Very sorry to hear that. In what way?"

"Not what you imagine," she said. At least she hoped he didn't think she filled her sex life with gangbangs.

"There are any number of possible traumatic after effects. What was I supposed to be imagining?"

"I'd acquired an appetite for multiple . . ." she stopped before she finished. Mercer would know what she meant.

He touched her shoulder gently. "I'd prayed the incident hadn't scarred you."

"Not so much scarring as questioning my life, my judgment."

His voice filled with concern. "How so?"

"I've been examining the woman I am and not liking her a bit."

"Are you feeling suicidal?"

Another forced grin. "Not hardly. But I need to change my way of thinking and the way I live."

"Don't let self-manufactured guilt force you into hasty decisions."

"Is guilt what it is?"

"You can't blame yourself, Nova. You were held spellbound by an incubus in California. Molly and I are the only ones who saw what happened and I didn't see much."

"You saw enough."

"You were under duress and I understood the circumstances. What you did in a trance and what kind of woman I know you are belong in different categories, completely unrelated."

"But they are related, Clive, don't say what I did with those men in that hotel suite was meaningless to you. You're the only person I care about what it means to."

"Maybe it's not meaningless to me, but I don't care what it means, if that makes sense. They're not the same."

What about his erection when it all took place, Nova asked herself bitterly. She said, "Thanks for saying that," trying not to feel letdown again. Absently she touched the diamond-studded crucifix on a silver necklace. Mercer had clasped it around her neck when he'd given it to her two months ago. She'd not taken it off since. Why call him into this at the first hint of vampires? She knew that question had two answers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mercer wanted to interview Delaflote before stopping by the hotel she'd registered them in. He didn't ask Nova if she booked separate rooms, adjoining rooms, or just one. No use causing any unnecessary drama, she moped about anyway, understandable under the conditions. He'd learn the domestic house rules soon enough. Two hours after Nova met Mercer for the first time, she sneaked into his connecting motel room naked except for a tiny pair of knickers. He rebuffed her variety of efforts to go to bed with him in Los Angeles. Could he still continue doing so in New Orleans? Would he resist her slinking into his arms now? He became aware he flattered himself, getting the cart before the horse; Nova might not even attempt any monkey business.

The evidence S.T.A.L.K. had collected interested him more than any romantic angle between Nova and him. His daughter Stephanie was turned into a vampire believed to be a succubus eight years ago. He hunted constantly for her as an agent of Supernatural Terminators And Lycanthrope Killers and she'd eluded him. The chance to find her weighed as much on his mind as Nova's brother did on hers, he didn't know if he could bring himself to kill Stephanie should he ever come face to face with her. He glanced over at Nova clenching the steering wheel, eyes peering through her glasses straight ahead, her lips tight. Even when mad she looked gorgeous, a tiny girl blessed with splendid breasts and an ass like two slightly under-inflated soccer balls mashed together. She wore a smart gray frockcoat over a tight blue sweater and tighter jeans, little white Reeboks on her feet. His mind detoured and his loins stirred to life to the extent he shifted in the car seat for comfort and concealment. Now he'd done it, thinking about romance again. Better than ruminating about his daughter. More important to focus on the job at hand.

He mentally rehearsed what to ask the man holding the key to the rumor's validity: Andy Delaflote. In addition to S.T.A.L.K.'s evidence they had information Enrique preyed on young girls using the guise of photography. Delaflote may be of the same stripe as Nova's brother. Mercer might go easy on Delaflote when they met, yet not hesitate getting rough, depending on how the chap reacted. When it came to obstacles hindering locating Stephanie, he played a mean, nasty game indeed---as Delaflote would soon learn if he objected to cooperating.

Nova's mood improved the closer they got to Delaflote's. As they pulled onto the photographer's street Mercer said, "I think it best you introduce yourself as Detective Nobarro when we meet this character but I'm afraid he'll associate the name with his friend, your brother."

"I'll pronounce it Novarro, which is what most people think it is anyway."

"Get the shapeshifter girl's name out of him first. Be nice to him, let him know you're in his corner. I'll act as your enforcer."

"Good cop, bad cop?"

"Quite right. I ask the hard questions and you disapprove of my methods, which will probably not require much acting."

"Introducing myself as a detective is misuse of my shield I want you to know."

"I didn't say flash your badge. Identifying yourself as a detective is mere use your title, it's not an untruth."

Nova harangued him. "You're so full of shit, misuse is what it is and lying's what it's called," she said, adding: "I intended to anyway."

They drove past Delaflote's address once to get a feel for the layout, a nondescript rectangle of an apartment building facing the street. Mercer noted eight doors, four on each story, the cheap unpainted stairs and rundown cars parked out front. Nova circled around the block and he requested she park up the street out of view of the apartment, but with the building in sight from the car.

"As our pretty, petite, harmless good cop I want you to knock and say the stuff American cops say. I'll stand to one side so he doesn't get a glimpse of our bad cop through the peephole."

Tree roots grew under the concrete sections of the sidewalk, tilting them enough to make walking difficult. Mercer stepped into the street to walk with Nova beside him. A man lifted the bonnet of a truck in the apartment parking lot as they trudged up the stairs. Nova's persistent knocking didn't bring a response. They came downstairs disappointed until the bloke tinkering under the bonnet called out to her.

"Andy ain't there, ma'am."

Mercer lagged behind as Nova took the lead and strode up to the man's truck. "Did he move? He promised to take some pictures of me this afternoon." The ease with which the lie rolled off her tongue made Mercer proud.

The man ogled her up and down. "I ain't supposed to say nothing. Since you're one of his models, that's different. Last couple a days he's been staying over at his aunt's."

"Where is that, do you have directions?"

The mechanic happily provided them. Nova thanked him. Then Mercer and she scarpered.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Delaflote heard a car door slam he peered past his aunt's Christmas tree through the open curtains to peek outside. Some hot Latin chick had parked across the street and approached his aunt's house. A dude exited the car, big guy dressed in black with the stony features of a wise and weary cop. It hadn't taken the law long to find him. The more he looked at the chick the more she looked like a cop to him too. This was fucked up. What did they want, had they found out about the videocam? That must be the reason. He'd brought it with him over here, afraid to leave it at his apartment. They'd figured out he'd lied; surely they'd arrived to haul him off to jail. He'd spend Christmas behind bars eating shitty chicken pot pies and getting the crap kicked out of him, or worse, by gang members.

He started not to answer; but after a polite ring of the doorbell an insistent knocking began. Maybe they'd spotted him watching through the window. Reluctantly he opened the front door.