My Vampire's Points System novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Out of Zone

He crossed a street for bread, she meets him in the rain under one umbrella, and the deputy director sees them walking.

On Friday night at nine-oh-five the portal pinged again, while I was in sweatpants on my couch.

NEW SELF-REPORT: MORVATH, CYRUS. Left registered zone by approx. 200 ft. 4 points. Visit required within 24 hours.

I stared at the ceiling and said a word my grandmother would not have liked.

Then I put on my parka and my sneakers, and I drove to Detroit Avenue in the rain.

His zone ended at Lorain Avenue, a street you could cross in nine steps.

The tracker on his ankle band showed a small blue dot on the far side of it, standing still.

I parked and got out.

He was in front of a bakery with its lights on, the only one open past nine on the whole west side.

He was holding a paper bag against his chest and getting very wet.

He had a long dark coat on, and no umbrella.

"Mr. Morvath," I said.

"Ms. Novak. Good evening."

"You're out of zone."

"I know. I counted the steps."

"And you did it on purpose."

"I did it for bread," he said, and held up the bag.

I looked inside.

It was a rye loaf, still warm, with caraway on the crust.

"You said the soup wanted rye," he said. "The market in my zone only sells white."

"I said that last night, for about three seconds."

"I listen to what you say."

My mouth went dry in the rain.

"You could have asked me to bring it," I said.

"I'm not allowed to ask you for things. You're my caseworker."

"That's not in the handbook either."

"No, but it's the sort of thing a person understands."

I took his bag and put it under my parka to keep it dry.

Then I held up my umbrella, a small purple one that I kept in the car.

It would only cover one person, and one and a half if they stood close.

"Under," I said. "Now. Before you get a cold."

"I can't get a cold."

"Then before I do."

He stepped under it.

His shoulder pressed along mine, and his coat was soaked and smelled like rain on stone.

He took the umbrella handle from me with his free hand, and held it higher, so it didn't touch my head.

We began to walk toward the line.

The street was empty and shining.

At the curb he stopped, because the zone ended at the curb.

"I can't cross back by myself," he said. "The band will keep counting."

"How many seconds out of zone?"

"Four hundred and eleven."

"That's not a lot."

"It's four points."

"I know it's four points, Cyrus. I wrote the form."

I had used his first name, and I heard it as I said it.

He turned his head, slowly.

"Say that again," he said.

"No."

"All right."

His mouth lifted at one corner.

I held up the bread and tucked it back under my arm.

"Walk," I said.

We crossed together, nine steps, with the rain loud on the purple umbrella.

His arm brushed my arm on every step.

Halfway over, I felt his hand come up near the small of my back, and hover there, an inch away, and not touch.

I wanted it to touch.

That was the problem, and I knew it was the problem, and I kept walking.

On the other side we stood on the sidewalk in front of his bank, under the lamp.

A set of headlights slowed on Detroit Avenue.

It was a gray county sedan, with a county plate, and it came to a stop right at the curb.

The driver's window slid down.

Alan Abercrombie looked out at me, and at the umbrella, and at the man under it.

He was the deputy director of the Night Office, forty-nine, with gelled hair and a tight smile.

He had a way of using my last name.

"Novak," he said.

"Mr. Abercrombie."

"Morvath."

He did not look at Cyrus's face. He looked at the ankle band.

"Out of zone at nine-oh-five. I saw the report cross my desk."

"It's four points, sir," I said. "I'm on my way to log it."

"On your way to log it, under one umbrella."

"It was raining."

"It was."

Abercrombie looked at me, and I felt the rain on my neck.

"I've read Morvath's file more times than you have, Novak. Seven years of it. You are very new."

"Yes, sir."

"A caseworker does not walk a case home."

He rolled the window up, and the sedan pulled away slowly.

Cyrus lowered the umbrella.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't see him."

"It's fine."

"It isn't. He will say something to Brenda."

"He's welcome to."

I handed him the bread.

He took it, and our fingers touched, and for a second neither of us pulled away.

"Go inside," I said. "Eat nothing. Hold the bread. Be a man who has a loaf of bread."

"Is that a procedure?"

"It's an order."

He smiled, a real one, crooked and young.

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

I stood on the sidewalk for a long time after he went in, and the rain ran down inside my collar.

Abercrombie's sedan had stopped at the corner, a block away, and its brake lights were still on.

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