Thursday:

Elaine insisted that Shane drive Tom to school the next morning, and Chris would pick him up after school.

Tom smiled and accepted her fussing, desperate to keep her calm.  Hopefully the header he’d taken off his bike would distract her from the insane serial killer who was after him.

Tom had lain awake in his bed mulling over his conundrum, but none of it had made any sense beneath his pounding headache.

Mike and Jono greeted him with surprised expressions when Shane let him out at the front gate.

“Something wrong with your bike, mate?” Jono asked.

Tom rolled his eyes.  “Took a header off my bike yesterday and now Mum thinks I’m an incompetent rider, so she had Shane give me a lift.”

Mike nodded in sympathy.  His mother was vastly overprotective of him and his younger sisters.  “Need a life from my mum after school, then?”

“No thanks.  Chris is meant to collect me,” Tom said.

Jono grinned.  “Must be nice, having a car and a license.  Now hurry up - we have double history with Harrison.”

Tom groaned.  Mr. Harrison was decent enough for a form tutor, but his history classes were dreadfully boring.

Tom found himself drifting away from Mr. Harrison’s lecture and mulling over his predicament once more.  The facts of the murders as they stood were depressingly few.  They were probably serial killings, and the killer was obsessed with Tom as well as the vampire game.  Two murders in two days, and Tom had been blessedly relieved when there were no murders of Tom look-alikes in this morning’s paper.  Police speculated the killer wouldn’t come after him directly, and he’d been cautious, but two murders in two days was unnerving.  Tom’s mind drifted to Chris’s girlfriend and her friends.  They had recognized him too easily, taken to him too easily.  Genevieve was cheerful and sweet; she seemed innocent.  Elizabetta was fun and easy-going, but Tom would be a fool to underestimate her strength and power in a fight.  Lawrence was equally laid-back and undisturbed, but a feral danger glimmered beneath the surface of his calm.  And Meg...she was disturbing on so many levels.  Tom remembered the warning she’d whispered to him in the park.  Was that only three days ago?  The way she had clarified her warning later on hadn’t made sense; it hadn’t matched the intensity in her voice or the coldness of her presence.  The nonchalant way she regarded the scar from what must have been a near-fatal wound was disconcerting.  Death didn’t bother her.  And the way she crossed the boundaries between western culture and Japanese culture, as if she were truly from neither was - not quite canny.  She made Tom wary.  it must have been her.  If any of Chris’s new friends were part of this mad murder scheme, it was Meg.

Jono elbowed him hard, and Tom gave a start.

Mr. Harrison loomed over him.  “Mr. Phillips, surely you know who Oliver Cromwell’s son was.”

Time to think fast.  “Richard Cromwell, sir.”

Mr. Harrison arched one eyebrow but returned to the front of the classroom, still skeptical of Tom’s attention span.

“What’s the matter with you, mate?” Mike hissed.  “You were gathering enough wool to make a jumper!”

Tom shrugged one shoulder.  “Still have a bit of a headache,” he lied, and quilt sprang upon him instantly.  He wasn’t supposed to lie or act in front of his friends - he if did, who could he be honest with?

No one.  Not this time.  He had to keep his family and friends calm, and he had to appear innocent enough for Meg and the rest of the “masquerading vampires” to keep him close.

He didn’t want it to be Meg or the others, but the way the evidence ran it seemed as if they were the only possibilities.

Tom sighed and tried to take note.

That evening Shane was the only older boy home for supper - Chris was out with Genevieve and the others working on that history project.

Elaine had been relieved the night before, Shane confided to Tom while they did the dishes,w hen no murder had been reported in the news.  Tom nodded; he understood. The blessed relief he had felt when the front page headlines in the Daily Mail were a football scandal rather than the death of a Tom clone was indescribable.

“Up for a game of checkers?” Shane asked.

Tom set down the last plate and grinned.  “Is it just so I can hear you grovel for your pride after you lose?”

Shane swatted at him with a wet hand, and Tom dodged, laughing. 

“I’m a fine checkers player, thank you ever-so-much,” Shane huffed.  “I just want to pester you about Chris’s new girl.”

Tom grinned wickedly.  He, Mike, and Jono had sketched out preliminary plans for date-crashing.  “You’re on.  Mum’s just watching iTV.”

The two brothers retreated to the den where Elaine was indeed seated on the sofa watching the telly.  Shane fixed up the checkers board, and Tom began a slow annihilation of his elder brother.

“So I signed up for this strange game of Genevieve’s,” Tom said.  “I reckon Chris’ll be along at least the first few times to keep an eye on me, and no doubt post-game they’ll want some time alone.”  He smirked.  “I’m sure it wouldn’t be too unusual if my best friends and other brother also popped round to see how the game was going.”

Shane hummed thoughtfully, and winced when Tom kinged yet another piece.  “Right you are.  What sort of game is it?”

“It’s about vampires.”

“Hm.  Good fodder for teasing him about love bites.  And kinky - a girl who pretends to drink blood.”

Tom nodded his agreement, but he had to fight the blush that threatened to spread across his face at the memory of Meg and her mouth at his throat.  “On the girlfriend-slash-significant other note, how is Shelley?”

Shane smiled at his wife’s name.  “She and I are doing well.  I explained the situation to her, and she’s worried about you, but she understands I’m needed here for a while.  After all, my li’l bruver can’t even ride his own bike!”  He reached across the board and ruffled Tom’s hair and earned a scowl for his affection.  “What happened yesterday, Tom?  You were just  lying there, and you sort of looked -- dead.”

Tom sighed.  He glanced at his mother, then leaned in and lowered his voice.  “I’m scared, Shane.  All right?  Two dead boys in two days, both of whom look too much like me.”  He swallowed hard.  “I read the papers every morning, and I’m so scared that there’s going to be another killing.  People are dying because some madman is obsessed with me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Shane gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze.  “It’s not your fault, Tom.  You need to relax as best as you can, given the circumstances, all right?  Maybe that game tomorrow night will do you some good.”

Tom nodded.  “I suppose you’re right.”

Shane smiled, moved a piece, and said, “King me.”

The two boys continued playing quietly.  Shane hissed every time Tom jumped one of his pieces, but tom Smirked and just kept winning.

“Will I ever beat you?” Shane asked.

“Maybe.”  Tom shrugged.  “If you practice loads.”  He smiled.  “You should play with Shelley.  She gives me a run for my money every time.  That’s part of why I like her, you know?”

Suddenly the television was louder, and an anchor announced “breaking news.”  Both brothers turned their heads and they saw their mother sitting on the sofa, gaze riveted to the screen.  Her face was pale with fear.

“This just in,” an anchorwoman said.  “Birmingham police discovered a body of seventeen-year-old Kevin Jones in Aston.  He was reported missing after he didn’t come home from school earlier this afternoon.  This is the third teenaged boy to have been murdered this week, and Detective Chief Inspector Roland of the Birmingham Police has confirmed that there is, in fact, a serial killer on the loose.”

Tom felt his blood run cold when the picture of a boy who looked just like him was shown on the screen.  He moved to sit beside his mother, and she wrapped an arm around his shoulders, sobbing.  Tom held her, numb.

DCI Roland was on the screen, then.  “I wish to say that while there is a serial killer on the loose, the  public must remain calm.  Exercise caution, yes, but do not panic.  Our criminologists have complied a basic profile of the killer’s likely victims, and if you believe that you fit this profile then you ought to exercise additional caution and take extra care to travel in groups.  Possible victims are males aged fifteen to eighteen, from five-foot-six to six feet in height, from one-hundred and twenty to one-hundred and fifty pounds in weight, with dark blond or brown hair and light-colored eyes.”

“Do you have any clues or leads on the killer?” a reporter asked.

“We do have one significant lead that we are putting all the resources we can spare into following,” Roland said.  “We are also offering awards for anyone who has any information on White Wolf’s World of Darkness.”

Shane had come to stand beside his mother and brother.  He patted his mother’s shoulder comfortingly.

“Tom!” Elaine wailed.  She buried her face in his hair and sobbed.

“Everything will be all right, Mum,” he said.

Shane frowned.  “What’s this ‘world of darkness’ business?  Some sort of cult?”

Tom shook his head at his elder brother, telling him to let it go, but he knew.  Vampires came out of the World of Darkness.

“Tom, I don’t want to lose you,” Elaine whispered.

“You won’t, Mum,” Tom said.  He kept his voice low and soothing.  “It’ll be all right.  You’ll see.  Inspector Roland has everything under control.”

* * *

A third pin in the map. The boy had been strong of body, but easy to subdue with a bit of chemical persuasion.  His skin had parted just as sweetly beneath the knife, and his chest had been easily broad enough to hold the wild, fleeting symbol of Clan Gangrel.  The calm, neat hand added another date to the chart.  The murders were all planned in advance, by order of clan, along with clues to his identity.  At least, they were clues to those who could discover it.

Dice pool 8; 4 in intelligence, 4 in investigation.

Hopefully the police would not be too proud to seek the help of the four he’d chosen, for they could find him easily.