The next day Roy and Norma arrived very early at Dan's apartment. They would not give him time to leave his house, if he was there, and disappear again.
But this time Dan was there. He opened the door for them still in his pajamas. It was seven in the morning.
“I see that the law gets up early,” he told them, rubbing his eyes.
“We want to talk to you,” Roy said. “We'll wait for you to get dressed so you can go with us to the station.”
Dan looked at them contemptuously.
“Am I being arrested?”
“That depends on you,” Norma told him firmly, “on whether you come voluntarily with us or not.”
“Fine.” Dan stepped aside at the door, giving them way. “Although I didn't like your tone, I will go with you "voluntarily" so you have no excuse to arrest me. Maybe you have good news for me regarding my girlfriend.”
“We're waiting for you,&rdqu
Mark and Doris also arrived early in the morning at Dansk's house and rang the doorbell. They had obtained his name from the copy of the sales receipt from the Gucci store, and his address from the system. When they first went looking for it with Roy and Norma they didn't find it there, so now they hoped to.“I hope he is home this time,” Doris said. “It's the second time we come.”The door opened and a tall man with dark glasses came out to meet them. He was still in his pajamas. Mark immediately noticed that his face and hands were very pale. "Why is he wearing dark glasses inside his house?" he thought.“Can I help you?” Dansk asked.“We are Detective Mark Forney and this is my partner Doris Ventura from the NYPD. Are you Wladimir Dansk?”“Yes, I am. May I know the reason for your visit?”“We just want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Dansk,” Mark said. “Can we c
After the police let him go, Dan went straight to his uncle's house. He wanted to discuss with him an idea that he had to rescue Brooke from the clutches of the vampires.“What are you doing here Dan?” Christopher asked, puzzled. “What's going on?”“I want to talk to you, uncle. It's important.”“Come in.”Dan and Christopher walked in and sat on the living room furniture. Dan didn't look good.“What's going on Dan? You have a terrible face.”“The police already know about Brooke. They know she was kidnapped by vampires.”“I knew sooner or later they would find out,” Christopher said. “It was obvious from the trail of broken vampires you left behind. How did they link the girl to them?”“They found a trace of her blood in a tree near the site of the last confrontation, in addition to finding out that she had not returned from t
Dan went down to what looked like a small room under the floor and found a dark and damp place. The dim light that came from outside allowed him to barely glimpse that the walls were also made of wood. He looked around a bit and in one of the walls he saw a kind of gap or hole. He came closer to examine it and barely a slight breeze reached him with a mixture of the essence of flowers and mold, surely from the ground, since he realized that the hole communicated with a kind of tunnel.“Are these damned also moles?” He wondered in a low voice.He sharpened his eyes to see better inside and to his surprise he did. He saw everything clearly, despite the darkness, and he thought it must be because of his new hybrid condition. He decided to check out that tunnel and see where it led to, because he was sure that perhaps it had an exit somewhere else due to the brief breeze that came from inside.At times he could see absolutely nothing and kept groping his
Mark, Doris, and Captain Mulligan reached the clearing in the woods where Norma and Dan were waiting for them. They were accompanied by the emergency services and at least three other police patrol cars. She was sitting on the ground against a tree with her legs bent, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Dan was standing next to her; he had long since stopped comforting her when she broke into tears.The three of them approached where Roy's body was and saw him lying on his back, with a reddish-black stain on his chest. The gun next him. The captain put his hands on his waist like a mug and lowered his head, while Doris put a hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears. Mark walked over to Norma and crouched down next to her.“What happened?” He asked her softly.She lifted her head and just looked at him, tears streaming down her face.“They followed me to the abandoned cabin, where I found an underground cave that wa
“Have you lost your mind or what?” Christopher asked upon hearing Dan's request.“Please, uncle. I need to find Brooke.”The two of them were sitting on the furniture in the living room, and upon hearing that, Christopher got up annoyed and walked to one of the windows next to the door, looking outside through the half-open curtains. He thought about how desperate his nephew could be that he was not thinking things through.“You're definitely not thinking clearly, Dan,” he told him without turning to look at him. “Somehow your judgment has been clouded.”“I am on the verge of despair, Uncle Christopher! I need to find her!”Christopher closed his eyes and heaved a short sigh of disappointment before turning and facing him.“You know, the other night when you and your father went to see Zander, I had this strange feeling that it would all end right there. I thought: my nephew w
To try to get along, Dan asked Norma to go with him to revisit the cave and caverns found under the abandoned cabin. He knew that they would not find the vampires there because the leader had told him that they would leave the place, however he told her that he wanted to go check to see if they found any clues or traces that would lead them to Brooke.Deep down, he just wanted to earn her trust and dispel her suspicions about him, because he knew it would be difficult for them to find anything there.She accepted because she hadn't had time to check out the area due to Roy's death. Even though she knew that Captain Mulligan had swept the place from top to bottom with a special commission, she wanted to go do her own inspection of the place, not caring that this guy was meddling.The drive from the city to the cabin area was uncomfortable; neither of them wanted to talk the whole way. Only when they reached the cabin and entered the tunnel did Dan speak to her to
Mark and Doris met Norma that night at a discreet bar near Fifth Avenue. She had called them to discuss the case of the vampires and the disappearance of Brooke Daniels. She was waiting for them sitting at a table near a corner. She had a bottle of vodka in front of her, which was already half full.“We only came as a professional courtesy, Norma,” Mark told her. “You know we can't share any information about the case with you. Mulligan would kill us if he found out.”“Come on, guys! I owe it to Roy. I've also found out a few things for myself.” Despite everything she had taken, Norma was still not completely under the influence of alcohol.“Yes? What things?” Doris asked.Norma was silent; she had nothing until that moment and thought she could fool her companions. Maybe the alcohol was already taking effect.“I knew it,” Doris said at her silence.“Yes, it's okay, I accept i
Unlike Christopher, who had his lab at home, Dansk made the wise decision to have his lab elsewhere. That's how vampires differed from wolves, in the marked distrust they have of everyone. Dansk had his laboratory in the basement of another house just outside the city to have the greatest possible discretion. In addition, knowing how restless his clanmates were, he did not want to risk being seen when they went there for any reason or when he himself took them for some activity of scientific interest, such as the one in which he developed the compound on the skin to protect them from the sun and they were going from group to group to put it on each one.Leaving his home in the city was not a problem or concern for him. He had three more houses besides the one where he had his lab, and only the address of the one he left was on his driver's license, so he wasn't worried about the police looking for others he owned.He knew the police would find nothing in that house, si