Claire Sawyer was not always one to follow the conventional methods of being a lawyer. It also helped that Claire Sawyer’s clientele was not all that conventional either. After being fired from a prominent law firm in Edmonton, Claire started up her own private practice specializing in case dealing with the city’s growing vampire population. It was not always an easy task defending the undead, whose movement was heavily monitored and controlled by the Vampire Registries Act – a government policy passed in 2001 and a policy that could very well be amended. Until that moment comes, Claire Sawyer’s actions were considered futile to those in power. It had not deterred Claire, an active member in a pro-vampire rights movement, and she had gained quite the following on both sides of this fight. Nicknamed “Sawyer the Vampire Lawyer”, all Claire needed was a case that could not only re-establish herself as a respected defense attorney; but a case that could finally help sway public opinion and influence the powers that be in making the amendments the pro-rights movement have been seeking. Now here she was, making a house call to a potential client – Grant Roberts.
Standing outside the door to Grant’s suite, Claire slightly adjusted her black business skirt before knocking on the door. On the other side of the door, Grant was about to open it until Seth showed up.
“Ya gotta let me at least say ‘hi’ to her!” Seth argued with Grant.
“Yeah, sure. Let’s freak out the only lawyer who is crazy enough to go along with this whole plan by introducing her to my ghost roommate,” Grant said sarcastically. “A classmate of hers from over a decade ago!”
“She makes a meager living legally defending vampires and liked to get poked surrounded by dead people. I highly doubt seeing a ghost is gonna frazzle her!” Seth protested.
Grant sighed and capitulated by saying “Okay, if she agrees to take on this case, I’ll consider letting you two get reacquainted. Now just make yourself scarce, okay?”
“Fine,” Seth said, humbly yet dejected. “And here I thought being a ghost rooming with a vampire and a werewolf would lead to comic hijinx!” Seth then just sort of faded out of the room as Grant opened to door to reveal Claire Sawyer, who looked as stunned to see Grant as Grant was stunned to see her.
“My gosh, look at this place.” Claire said as she slowly crossed over the plane of the doorway. “Other than the Stanfields, most of my clients made their homes in either rundown buildings downtown or various service tunnels on campus. This is… well, normal.”
“Thanks, though a lot of this is my roommate’s” Grant humbly acknowledge Claire’s insight.
“Hmmm, is your roommate by any chance, a fellow vamp or…” Claire paused, not sure how to approach questioning Grant, who then finished her thought “… No, she’s just a really good friend of mine I suppose. We have two very separate lives and no way connect at all in the traditional sense.”
“Good. That’s good to know”, said a relieved Claire, who was seen writing something down on a notepad. “I mean not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if we want to present you as, how you described yourself from our initial phone contact, an atypical vampire, I gotta ask these type of questions, okay?”
Grant hesitated for a moment. “I guess so.”
Clair sat down in a chair in the living room and placed her briefcase on the coffee table. She then opened the briefcase to take out a larger writing pad. Crossing her shapely, tanned legs, Claire took a pen out from a pocket in her mohair suit coat. “Now then, I just have a few more similar questions to ask that we haven’t gone over before. So, you do not feed off humans?”
Grant answered “No.”
“How do you obtain your supply of blood then?”
“Mostly stray animals. Used to obtain blood from local butcher shops or slaughterhouses.”
“Ever turned any of your friends or lovers into a vampire?”
“Not since the Depression.”
“Are you still connected with you sire or any other members of your clan?”
“It’s a complicated story. Long story short - I defied an order, I was kicked out and haven’t been allowed to go back since.”
“Okay. When were you turned?”
“During the Influenza Pandemic after the Great War.”
“Hmmm,” Clair said. “You’re pretty young then. No wonder you seem so eager for change.”
“I don’t follow,” Grant said while looking confused. Claire put down the pad on the table and went on to say “Well, let’s be a little realistic. Launching a class action suit against everyone who has done your species wrong from Rice to Whedon to Meyer and even Harris - even if they just settle out of court with the promise of signing a huge non-disclosure pact – it’s a fool’s errand.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Grant asked.
“Any kind of victory in court against them will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.” Claire said. “It would be a small part of a bigger picture. Based on previous cases I have worked on, I have noticed vampires turned in the previous century or earlier are the ones mostly seeking for equality. The older ones not so much. But even some of these ones wanting change, well, they would scare the living crap out of anyone who fears them just based upon centuries of stereotypes and tropes. But you, Grant Roberts, you could help make the right changes.”
“Wait a minute, are you agreeing to take my case or trying to do something else here?” Grant asked.
“I guess this is my clumsy way of doing a bit of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. The pro-rights movement needs a poster vampire that could reach out to all sides and slowly begin the healing process. Someone who isn’t scary to the normal people. Someone who can show them that you are not all blood-thirsty, sexed-up, soulless demons. Someone like you, Grant Roberts,” Clair said, standing up, almost as if she was preaching to a choir. “Be an instrument of change.”
“Well,” Grant stammered and coughed nervously. “I’m not really accepted in among my people at all, remember?”
“Then reconnect with them, or at least connect with those who are like you – the outcasts looking for that one voice to speak for them. The ones who are afraid to speak out against the status quo.” Claire insisted to Grant. “You want to seek normalcy in your life? Only you can exact it.”
“So basically you’ll take my case if I become a spokes-vamp for a cause you’re championing?” Grant asked.
Claire smiled, her pearly white teeth almost blinding Grant. “Like I said earlier, your case is only a small part of the bigger picture. And only working together we can truly get what we all want in the end,” Claire said as she extended out her hand and arm as if to shake Grant’s own hand. Grant paused for a moment before returning the favor. “Guess I’m in,” he said. Claire smiled as the two of them shook hands in agreement, but then Claire’s brown eye nearly jumped out of their sockets as she saw Seth Rollins, standing behind Grant. “Oh. My. Gosh!” Claire exclaimed before fainting backwards into the chair behind her. Grant turned around to see what had caused Claire to faint and was not really surprised.
“I thought I said I would consider reuniting you two!” Grant said in a panic.
“Well she did agree to take the case, right?” Seth asked.
“Oh yeah, now we just got to wait for her to come to and explain this whole situation to her!”
“Well I got nothing but time,” Seth said as he sat on the couch with a bag of Bugles. “I’d call in sick if I were you,” he said to Grant, who just shook his head in disbelief.
Kaitlyn Russo and Simon Fererra both made their way up the stairs of a two-storey building in the proximity of Grant MacEwan University’s downtown campus. While the bottom part of this building used to be a Vietnamese noodle house, the top half had a more colorful tenant – one of the many massage parlors that have sprung up over the last few years. Despite this trend, this was going to be Kaitlyn’s first foray into the seedy side of Edmonton’s adult entertainment scene since her days as a beat cop. Mostly it was her investigating neighborhood complaints about the true nature of these places – a thinly-veiled brothel or bawdy house. Occasionally she was also called in to take away patrons who got too carried away and took too many liberties with the ladies working there. Now here Kaitlyn was, making an auspicious return, along with her partner to investigate a very peculiar crime. A crime that seemed to be different from the ones earlier in the week.
“You’re gonna be alright?” Simon asked his partner.
“Not you too,” Kaitlyn bemoaned. “Look, I talked things out with the force’s psychologist. He figured I just had some ‘phallo-centric patriarchal’ issues I need to work through. I got an appointment with my own therapist tomorrow which I’ll discuss with her.”
“Hey, I’m just looking out for ya. I have a feeling Joan’s got it out for you for some reason.”, Simon said with concern as he held the door open. A couple other uniform officers were already in the lobby/reception area, interviewing a couple of scantily-clad women. At the front desk, a couple familiar faces – Ryan Sullivan and Cameron Swift – were talking to the receptionist and who also appeared to be the owner of the establishment. “Thought you were taking it easy in the last week, Sully?” Kaitlyn asked to her longtime family friend.
“Wish it was, Kaitie” Sullivan said, showing signs of fatigue. “Just came to say goodbye to all the girls here and hand over the reigns to junior here”, he continued and glancing over at Swift, who was talking to the parlor’s owner – a short, older looking Asian woman who spoke in mostly broken English.
“All papers legit!” she protested to Swift. “They all legal to work here. I run a clean place here.”
“Yeah, you’re Mother freakin’ Teresa here!” Simon said directly to her. She then rattled off what could probably be best described as colorful expletives in her native tongue. He and Kaitlyn made their way down the hall and into a room for their true purpose. Sprawled out on a bed was a fully naked dark-skinned woman.
“Huh, someone sure got their happy ending.” Simon dryly noted. Also in the room to the surprise of both detectives was Sergei Koloff, who was seen conversing with a heavier-set woman, wearing a robe to cover up the fact she may not have much underneath there. Both were conversing in Ukrainian. The woman and Sergei exchanged their farewells as she walked passed Kaitlyn and Simon, not even making eye contact with them. “Ah, Fererra and Russo, glad to see you again,” Sergei said to them.
“Yeah. Too bad these dead bodies keep getting in the way of having a more sociable meeting,” Simon said to Sergei. “Besides, shouldn’t you be hunting some werewolf in the River Valley?”
“Nyet,” Sergei answered. “Went for a ride-along with your friends as vice. Came to this scene to do my own investigation.”
“So now you’re doing our jobs for us?” Kaitlyn defensively asked.
“Look for yourself and let me know what you think,” Sergei replied back, motioning for Kaitlyn to approach the body. The purple bed sheets were soaked in blood, which Kaitlyn did her best not to let it get to her. Obviously a fresh kill. Maybe a few hours ago. No! Focus on the wound! She thought to herself. Then Kaitlyn looked at the young woman’s slender neck and noticed it had been violently slashed. Or so it seemed. Kaitlyn then placed on a pair of latex gloves to examine the neck closer. Trying to avoid as much blood as possible, Kaitlyn discovered a couple puncture wounds around the jugular vein.
“Vampire? A vampire did this?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Think so, but then this death makes no sense,” Sergei went on to further explain. “This seems too sloppy of a kill for any vampire. It is as almost they tried too hard to make it look like a vampire did it. Plus the entry wound seems not natural.”
“So we got some pervert out there with prosthetic fangs and got carried away?” Simon asked.
“Perhaps,” Sergei addressed Simon. “But why go to such lengths to make it look like a vampire kill?” Kaitlyn then noticed a piece of paper sticking out from underneath the backside of the woman. Kaitlyn gently removed the paper and looked at it. In disgust, she handed it to Simon and said “Give you three guesses whose responsible.” Simon studied the paper, noticing the big bold lettered message ‘FANGS DIE, GOD LAUGHS”. He also noticed a footnote at the bottom of the paper and read out loud “Leviticus 20:6? Don’t suppose any of you have a pocket bible on you?” he asked to both Sergei and Kaitlyn. Much to his surprise, Simon noticed Sergei pull out a bible from inside his trench coat. Sergei then proceeded to turn the pages to the particular passage and read it aloud: “’If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.’”
“Shall we call the Leduc detachment and get them to round up the usual suspects?” Kaitlyn asked. At this time, Cameron Swift appeared in the doorway, hearing part of the conversation and answered Kaitlyn’s question: “Probably no need to do so yet. Just heard a patrol unit got someone. Apparently he got kicked out of a Wendy’s and raised a bit of a stink there.”
“Yeah, makes sense. Fake being a vampire, kill a working girl, and then go for a Big Classic.” Simon noted as he, Kaitlyn and Sergei walked out of the room. Kaitlyn commented to Sergei. “So you just carry a bible around for kicks? Color me surprised.”
Smiling and slyly Sergei replied “I am full of many surprises, as I am sure you are too,” as he looked over Kaitlyn – who did her best to hide a smile from her rather stoic face.
“Un-fucking-believable.” Simon quietly commented to Cameron aside. “You’d figure he would try hitting on her not during an investigation.”
“What do you care?” Cameron plainly asked.
“With some of the baggage she carries, just don’t want to be the one to pick it all up if they drop is all.” Simon answered back, just with a hint of concern for his partner’s apparent fragile psyche.
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