Poor Tommy. He was there all right. Alive and mercilessly aware. She tried to reach him until she could bear the weight of her own hunger and panic no longer. “Abby, if I ever get out of here, your narrow ass is mine,” she thought before fading to mist and blissful escape.

It wasn’t a homicide, strictly speaking, because there was no body, but there was a traffic enforcement officer missing in action, and it had involved the Emperor and a certain block of light industry buildings and artist lofts south of Market Street that Rivera had flagged for notice if anything happened there. And something had definitely happened here, but what?

He lifted the collar of the empty traffic officer’s uniform with the tip of his pen to confirm that the fine gray ash was not on the sidewalk underneath, and it wasn’t. Inside the uniform, on the sidewalk at the cuffs and collar of the uniform, yes, but not on the sidewalk under the uniform.

“I don’t see a crime,” said Nick Cavuto, Rivera’s partner, who, if he’d been a flavor of ice cream, would have been Gay Linebacker Crunch. “Sure, something happened here, but it could have just been kids. The Emperor is clearly nuts. Totally unreliable.”

Rivera stood up and looked around at the blood-soaked street, the ashes, the still-flashing light on the parking cart, and then at the Emperor and his dogs, who had their noses pressed to the back window of their brown, unmarked Ford sedan. Rivera’s flavor was Low-fat Spanish Cynic in an Armani cone. “He said cats did this.”

“Well there you go, an Animal Control issue. I’ll call them.” Cavuto made a great show of flipping open his mobile and punching at the numbers with his thick sausage fingers.

Rivera shook his head and crouched over the empty uniform again. He knew what the powder was, and Cavuto knew what the powder was. Sure, it had taken them a couple of months, and a lot of unsolved murders, and watching the old vampire take enough gunfire to kill a platoon of men, only to survive to kill a half-dozen more people, but they had finally caught on.

“It wasn’t cats,” Rivera said.

“They promised to leave,” Cavuto said, pausing in his display of percussive dialing. “The creepy girl said they left town.” They, meaning Jody and Tommy, who had promised to leave town and never return. “The Emperor said he saw the old vampire get on a ship-a whole bunch of them sail away.”

“But he’s totally unreliable,” Rivera said.

“Most of the time. This is not-”

Rivera held up a finger to stop him. They had agreed never to use the v-word when others were around. “We have to go see the spooky kid.”

“Noooo,” Cavuto wailed, then caught himself, realizing that for a man of his size, appearance, and occupation, that whining over having to confront a skinny teenage girl was, well-he was being a huge wuss-that’s what.

“Man up, Nick, we’ll tell her not only does she have a right to remain silent, it’s an obligation. Besides, I called in backup.”

“I should probably stay in the car with the Emperor. See if he remembers anything else.”

Just then there was a commotion at the crime scene tape and a uniformed officer said, “Inspector, this woman wants through. She says she has to see her daughter, who lives in that apartment.” The officer pointed to the fire door of the loft where the spooky kid lived with her boyfriend.

An attractive blond woman in her late thirties wearing paisley medical scrubs was trying to push past the officer.

“Let her through,” Rivera said. “Look, Nick, an angel come to protect you.”

“Oh God save me from fucking neo-hippies,” said Gay Linebacker Crunch.

’Kayso, who is outside my door but Baroness Buzzkill herself, the Motherbot, accompanied by those most crapacious homicide cops, Rivera and Cavuto.

So I’m all, “Oh joy, does this caffeine fresh clusterfuck come with donuts?” Which it turned out, it didn’t, so really, WTF is the point of bringing cops?

And the Mombot is all, “You can’t do this, and who is this boy, and where have you been, and you have no right, and blah, blah, blah, responsibility, worried sick, you’re a horrible, horrible person and you ruined my life with your platform boots and your piercings.”

Okay, those weren’t her exact words, but the subtext was there. And in retrospect, I may have erred in using the “I’m sleeping over at Lily’s house” gambit for two months running, when I was, in fact, living in my own très cool love lair with a mysterious love ninja. So I decided to turn the tables on her by asking questions, before she got in the rhythm of grilling me and heaping me with mom guilt.

So I’m all, “How did you find me?”

And the dark, Hispano cop steps up, and he’s all, “I called her.”

So I rolled up in his grill. Well, up in the knot of his tie, because he’s taller than me. And I’m all, “I can’t believe you ratted me out. You traitorous fuck!”

And the cop gets all chilly and he’s all, “I’m not a traitor because I’m not on your side, Allison.” Using my day-slave name, just to fuck with me.

So I’m all thinking, Okay, cop, I can see that you believe that your shit cannot be shaken, and you are totally trying to come off all sly and badass in front of the Mombot so she might do you a good long time? I know-mating rituals of the ancient and crusty-makes you barf in your mouth a little, huh?

So I go over to the big gay cop, and I’m all soft-spoken little-girl voice, “I thought we were on the same side because-well-because we know about the nosferatu, and all that money you got from his art collection. We’re not? I’m crushed.” Totally hand to forehead, fake-heartbreak fainting. I was going to cry a little, but my mascara was lined up like the spikes on the gates of hell, and I didn’t want it to go raccoon on me so early in the day, so only a sniffle. I wiped my nose on the big gay cop’s sleeve.

And the Momster is all, “What? What? Nosferatu? What? Money? What?”

And Rivera is all, “Excuse us a moment, Mrs. Green, we need to have a word with Allison.”

So the Mombot starts to go into the bedroom and I’m all, “Oh I don’t think so. You can wait outside,” or something like that, because it turns out I didn’t want her to see the inner sanctum of our love nest, because she’s a nurse and seeing the dog collars, test tubes, centrifuge, and whatnot might give her the wrong idea. (Foo and I like to get our mad scientist freak on in the privacy of the boudoir.)

So Mom steps outside.

And Foo is all, “Owned, bitches!” And he did a pathetic imitation of my own superb booty dance of ownage, and I was, at once, touched by his support, yet embarrassed by his tragic lack of rhythm and booticuity.

And Rivera is all, “Allison, how did you know about the money and the old vampyre and the yacht and you have no proof and blah, blah, I so can’t decide whether I’m the good cop or the bad cop, or if I’m going to still pretend to be badass or totally crap my pants from the verbal death grip you just put on my man sac, blah, blah.”

And I’m all, “I know it all, cop,” popping the p in cop because it makes both of them flinch a little. “You need to exit and take the Mombot home or I will be forced to expose your evil shit to your masters, and not in the fun way.”

And the Hispano cop was all chill, nodding and smiling, which harshed my confidence somewhat. And he’s all, “That so, Allison? Well, Mr. Wong here is twenty-one, and you are still a minor, so among other things, we can take him in for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, kidnapping, and statutory rape.” And he folds his arms all, “Take that, bee-atch.” Hip-hop superior.

So I’m like, “You’re right, he is totally taking advantage of my innocence. Foo, you ginormous perve!” Then I slapped him, but for the drama, not because he might think I was a slut. “I should have known when you had me shave my va-jay-jay into the shape of a beaver!”