Out of Time 01 - Out of Time

said with a quick glance at Simon, hoping he wouldn’t press the issue.
    “Good night to you,” the priest said with a nod, and hurriedly disappeared into the crowd.
    “Well,” Simon said, his eyes narrowing and following the priest as he disappeared behind the heavy wooden doors to the church. “That was... interesting.”
    “Yeah.” Interesting was one way to put it. Terribly unnerving was another.
    “He obviously knows more than he’s saying,” Simon said.
    “Maybe he can’t say more. Father-client privilege, or whatever it’s called.”
    “It could point to someone in the parish being involved.”
    “But what are we going to do? Pretend we’re census workers? Make sure you check the creature of the night box, should it apply.”
    “The library.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Have you forgotten everything I taught you?” he said, and then got that gleam in his eyes. The wheels in his head were spinning in overdrive. “If this is the work of a vampire, it would need to feed. Which means more victims. Just the sort of thing a sensationalistic paper would print, don’t you think?”
    They poured over newspapers at the library until it closed. Three similar cases were reported in the last few years. That would have seemed like a decent lead if it weren’t for the fact that there had been six murders with ice picks and four beheadings. Maybe the butcher shop murder was nothing more than a gangland signature killing.
    Simon wanted to talk to the reporter, but Elizabeth calmly pointed out the downside. Imagine the headline: Future Couple Seeks Vampires in Gotham.
    Their initial foray as vampire hunters had turned up bupkis. Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or frustrated.
    As the days passed, and the incident drifted further away, she fell into an easy routine. Simon took a bit longer to let go, but eventually he stopped asking questions. Stopped asking them out loud at any rate.
    * * *
    The limited avenues for research frustrated Simon. At least twice, he’d reached for a phone that wasn’t there to call contacts who weren’t born yet. Even if there were documents that might give him clues to the existence of vampires in the city, he couldn’t afford to find them. Aside from not having the credentials in this time to gain access to them, he couldn’t risk the inevitable questions that would follow. His logical mind told him to give up the ghost, but his instincts wouldn’t be silenced. There was more to the murder than a gangland killing, but without any more paths to follow, he was at a loss. Being so close to what he’d been searching for would have sent him into a tailspin if it hadn’t been for Elizabeth. He’d always thought that finding proof of the occult was the most important thing in his life. It had been the only thing in his life, until recently.
    She gave him things he didn’t know he needed. Now that he had them, he was sure he couldn’t live without them, without her. The days spent in their small apartment were a revelation to him, discovering her likes and dislikes. Her passion for American football confused him almost as much as her nearly pathological hatred of the innocent lima bean. His confession of a fondness for mushy peas made her face squish up in the most adorable way. Each discovery, from the ridiculous to the sublime, left him wanting more. She could make him laugh with a freedom he’d nearly forgotten, and melt his heart with a few gently whispered words.
    He could spend a lifetime trying to understand her and never tire of the challenge. Stories of her threadbare childhood left him wanting to give her the world. Not that she complained about it, to the contrary really, she had the gift to see what she had and not focus on the things she didn’t. He could envision her as a small child sitting in some poxy hotel room making jewelry out of gum wrappers. She’d faced the cards life had dealt her with the equanimity only a gambler’s child could. Even so, he could see the hollow spaces inside her, the missing pieces of her life he’d never been aware of before. But, as she said, Swiss cheese wouldn’t be any fun without the holes. He, on the other hand, had clung to the injustices and wore them like a protective cloak.
    It was overly dramatic to say he’d been reborn, but the truth of it was, that’s exactly how he felt. Like he’d stepped into the sunshine for the first time after a life spent underground.
    He found himself speaking freely of