By the time Connor and I hit the middle of the Great Lawn, I was a mess, winded and already aching in my calf muscles. I must have run through at least seven different picnic setups, angering the people trying to have a pleasant afternoon in the park.

“Why couldn’t he have been some big old fat guy?” I shouted ahead to Connor, who was still sprinting like the dickens after our jogger. My foot came down in a wicker picnic basket and I heard a plastic crunch.

“Sorry!”

“Don’t let it get away, kid,” Connor shouted back to me, and poured on the steam. I wasn’t about to be shown up, and despite my aches and pains, I started running to catch up, gaining on Connor little by little. We were just about at the crosstown road that connected Eighty-sixth Street on both sides of the park when I overtook him. I was wheezing by this point, but I kept pushing myself. The jogger dashed down the embankment and out onto the two-lane road without a glance either way, and although the cars passing by almost hit him, not one of them sounded a horn or moved to swerve. They clearly didn’t see him, and I remembered that I hadn’t seen him either, until Connor had pointed him out to me.

I slid down the embankment and tried to keep my pace while I crossed the road with caution. Horns blared, but I was almost all the way across when I felt a tug on my jacket that spun me around like a top. I heard the sound of it tearing. My coattail must have caught on a passing car because the speed at which I spun reminded me of the old Wonder Woman quick-change on TV. I was no superhero, though, and although my coat luckily tore free from whatever car had snagged it, I was dizzy and stumbled around as I regained my footing.

Connor came down the hill and across the street at a slower pace, and by the time he reached me, I was ready to fall back into pursuit mode. The jogger was already halfway down the next embankment, headed toward the reservoir. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go without having to circle the reservoir. My blood was up and I was pissed about almost dying, not to mention the tear in my jacket. I charged down the second hill after our elusive dead athlete.

The jogger still didn’t seem to notice that he was being chased, but he was quite fast for a dead science nerd.

“Don’t make me drown you,” I shouted after him, hoping to get his attention. He was almost at the reservoir now. I pulled my bat free from the holster on my belt and flicked off its safety before telescoping it to full length. I wasn’t sure what the jogger would do once cornered at water’s edge—or what damage my bat could do to a ghost—but I wanted to be prepared for anything. I slid the rest of the way down the embankment with Connor right behind me.

“Be careful, kid,” he shouted. I came in swinging low, hoping to take the jogger right below his knees. I didn’t, however, expect him to just keep on running—not into the water but along the top of it. Without breaking stride, the jogger continued his pace across the top of the reservoir.

Connor slid into position next to me. “Well, that was a bit biblical.”

In my frustration, I made one last attempt to stop the jogger by chucking my bat at him. I couldn’t help myself. My aim was perfect, but unfortunately the bat sailed through the jogger’s body and fell into the water with a splash.

“Simon—” Connor started, but I interrupted him.

“Right,” I said, slapping my forehead. “Ghost.”

We watched the jogger disappear off into the distance. Even if we made our way around the reservoir, he’d be long gone by then.

“That,” Connor said, huffing and puffing from the run like he was going to die, “ends that. Let’s head back to the scene, kid.”

I sat down at the edge of the water and pulled my shoes off.

“Kid?”

“It’s already killing me that I’m waiting for a replacement phone from Supply,” I said, rolling up my pants above the knee. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait on a new telescopic bat. It’ll take months, because even after I churn through all the paperwork, they’ll still have to have it custom-made. If I have to wait on it, I’ll be long dead before the order ever comes through.”

“Suit yourself,” Connor said, starting up the embankment, showering me with little bits of dirt and pebbles as he climbed. “I’ll be waiting up by the road.”

I stepped into the freezing water. My foot hit the slime-coated reservoir bed and I fought back the urge to throw up. Was being a do-gooder really a better life than the one of crime that I had left behind—a world of Mina’s and other assorted psychotics? As something slithered its way over my toes, I really wasn’t sure.

13

My luck held true to form and my bat was much deeper in the water than I’d expected. By the time I got it, I was soaked through to the middle of my thighs. On the bright side, being wet was a step up from being covered in liquefied rats.

The chase had taken a lot out of us, and as Connor and I hobbled back to the crime scene, I asked, “You think our vampires did this?”

Connor shrugged as he limped.

“The cause of death seems to be the same as the one for the people on the boat,” he said.

“Do you think the vampires knew the jogger? Or was it something random?”

Connor shrugged again. “Maybe they simply hated bad science jokes.”

“Eh?”

“The jogger’s shirt,” Connor reminded me. “ ‘Sherlock Ohms.’ If I were of the evil persuasion, I might kill some guy just for wearing that shirt.”

“That doesn’t seem very likely,” I said.

“Always consider the unlikely, kid,” Connor said. “We’re Other Division. Unlikely is our bread and butter.”

When we returned to the little park surrounding the spire, the Metropolitan Museum of Art rose into sight through the trees like a scenic backdrop, and in the foreground I could make out the figure of David Davidson pacing near the body. Connor and I headed straight for him.

“What was that all about?” Davidson asked when we were within earshot. He shooed away several of the cops meandering near the crime scene.

“Nothing,” Connor said.

“That chase was for nothing?” Davidson raised his eyebrows.

“Did you see anything?” Connor asked, sounding a little sharper this time.

Davidson shook his head.

“Okay, then,” Connor continued. “Well, that’s that, and until I have something more concrete to say on the matter, keep considering it nothing. I don’t want you reporting guesswork back to the people downtown.”

“Just have them push through the paperwork on the you know what,” I added.

The cops were still lingering too close for my liking.

“Vampire?” Davidson whispered under his breath.

I nodded as I checked to make sure no one had heard us.

“Easy there,” Connor said. “I don’t know if this is the same thing, kid. Look at the body. There’re an awful lot of tears in the jogger’s shirt. Those could be claw marks.”

“I’d try clawing, too, if someone sank their teeth into my neck,” I said. “Unless we’re talking about Jane, of course.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “You want to take a reading off him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t do the dead. Well, not off the body, anyway. At least the DJ had equipment with him on the boat. Remember?” Connor nodded. “But let’s see what he has on him. Maybe I can read that.”

As I reached for the body, Connor stopped my hand. “Don’t bother. With jogging short-shorts like those, he’s not hiding anything.”

“Besides, we already checked,” Davidson added. “No keys. No wallet. Nothing. The only way we ID’d him was because he matched the description of a missing-person call that came in.”

I stepped away from the body, frustrated. “Jesus. You’d think he’d at least be wearing an iPod or something.” I turned to the spire at the center of our little park. “What is this thing anyway?”