"Nice to meet you, finally." he brought the silence.
Callista frowned. "Finally? Do I have to know you?"
He laughed in a low voice. "I don´t know. Maybe you heard of me. But, in fact, I searched for you so long, Callista DiAsturien."
"I´m sorry. My Name is not DiAsturien, it´s Petersen. Callista Petersen." she corrected him.
"Yes, I know. Petersen, the Fuck. You´re name is DiAsturien. But I guessed that they didn´t told you." he signed.
"You must be mistaken. I don´t know of whom or what you talking about."
He stood up. "I will tell you, but not now. If I did, you wouldn´t believe me. Perhaps you wouldn´t even listen to me at all. But I know you have the best equipment for research. For your own safety: Do it alone."
"For what should I search for?" she asked completely confused.
"Your parents. Or the couple you think that they are your parents. And about you."
Callista came home at midnight. Everybody in the storage house was awake and in action. They adapted their daily routine to the vampires. Awake by night, sleeping at daytime.
On her way back home, Calli thought about the mysterious guy. He must be insane. She would search about it, of course, but she didn´t think she would find anything.
"How was your tour?" Chen asked looking up from his computer screen.
"Fine. Yup. But... I will go to bed now. I´m exhausted. Blade´s still on the hunt?"
"Yeah, he is. It´s sobering. People are dying, but we can´t find anything. It looks like someone laid the bodies there just for us."
"Why?"
"Hmm, look... if there would be a mess of vampires, we would find them, sooner or later. But there is nothing. And if there´s only a few vampires, they are either fucking dumb or they wanted us to come here."
Calli thought about that for a while. "You mean they didn´t even try to obfuscate their activities."
"Right. Look, New Orleans is a big city. With great swamps. Why don´t they dispose the bodies?" Chen explained.
"Why should they want us to be here? Suicide vampires?" Callista laughed.
"I fear not." he signed.
Calli turned to go. "Good night."
"Sleep well, Calli." Chens eyes went back to the screen.
Callista couldn´t sleep. All these riddles. The careless vampires. The crazy guy. Her parents. There must be a link, but she couldn´t get it. It seems the answer was already in her mind, but every time the answer was near, there was this fuzzy grey cloud.
She heard Blade coming home, the sound of the dying engine. It dawns, silence fell over the place. When Calli was sure everybody was asleep, she stood up in silence and tiptoed to the computer desk. It was full of technical equipment, four monitors, all in sleeping mode.
Callista brought one of them to life, opened an internet searching platform.
She wrote: Petersen, Linda Michael.
3.660.000 results.
She wrote: Petersen, Linda Michael, 04/06/1956, 07/14/1947.
677.000 results.
She wrote: Petersen, Linda Michael, 04/06/1956, 07/14/1947, car accident.
121 results.
Callista clicked one of the links.
Fatal car accident in New York city
In a car crash this afternoon Michael Petersen and his wife, Linda lost their life.
While driving home from a working appointment, a drunken driver crashed frontal in their car. Both died at the scene of the accident. The man
that drove the other car was brought in the local hospital. Michael Petersen was a known lawyer. Linda Petersen was chief editor of the
magazine Female Ambition. Their sixteen year old daughter disappeared by the message of her parents death.
For information call 555 123 456 or the police 911.
Tears burned in Callistas eyes. It seemed so long ago, but in fact, it was just four years ago. She missed them so much. Six month before her parents died, her beloved grandpa had died, too, and her parents were her supportive. Her whole world seemed to deflate in one blink of an eye.
She sniffed. No, she wasn´t here to mourn. She clicked other links, but no new aspect about her parents or herself. Two hours later her eyes burned from the staring on the screen. Nothing, less then nothing. He had said: "... the couple you think that they are your parents. And about you." What the fuck did he mean. If Michael and Linda weren´t her parents, whose daughter was she? There must be a birth certificate. At the register office of her home town. She didn´t know if the documents where on microfilm, but it was her last chance. With the help of Chens hacking program it was easy to get inside the main computer of the department.
She found the documents: Birth certificate of her parents, certificate of marriage, land registry and...
Callista couldn´t believe her eyes..
""Certificate of adoption.
On 29th December 1994
Michael Petersen and
Linda Petersen, née Smulders,
adopted Callista Callinda, born 31th December 1990""
The rest became blurred. She was adopted? She was almost four years old, when she came to her parents? Why couldn´t she remember the four years with her real parents? At the age of four mustn´t you have some memories?
Callista sat on the desk for hours, starring at the screen. Finally she calmed down and began to think logical again. She printed the document. The printer was hidden under slathers of paper. When Callista tried to move them a little bit to get her document, the whole load began to slip and crashed on the floor. Callista tried to rearrange the stuff when she saw the photo. It was the guy at the café.
And the headline was: Deacon Frost.
