by R. Lee Moore
The Preserve was a good place to fulfill that need. Unfortunately, there were a few too many options to choose from. There were vampire and shapeshifter brothels, and nightclubs everywhere. She hadn't the faintest idea of where to start. Tamina knew literally nothing of the victim outside her looks and her apparent sexual proclivities. Not a lot of useful information there. It made her realize that outside of getting into the Preserve to look around, she really hadn't planned this whole thing out. She didn't even know where to begin.
She bought herself a large cup of coffee from one of the street vendors and sipped it slowly while working things out in her mind. There were two ways she could go about this, she thought. She could focus on how the woman had died, which likely wasn't going to get her anywhere without more information on who she was in the first place. Or she could look at victim like she was junkie who was looking for a fix when she got killed, which probably wasn't far from the truth.
Narcotics and vampire bites were two different animals, so she really couldn't take the victim's well maintained physical appearance at face value. Outside of the blood loss, vampire bites didn't seem to have any detrimental effects as far as she knew. Maybe there was a slight chance of being turned into one of the damn things, but vampires were pretty careful with that sort of thing as far as she knew. Still, there was an addictive euphoria to the bite of a vampire. The kind of feeling that you'd do almost anything to experience again and again. It was how vampires kept their prey coming back.
Tamina let her eyes wander around her surroundings with a critical gaze as she thought of everything she knew. The cause of death had most definitely been the werewolf mauling, but even still, she was ruling out any of the shapeshifter specific establishments. The likelihood the mutt that tore the woman up had done so in the Preserve was almost nonexistent. There were safeties in place to make sure that sort of thing didn't happen. A maneater hunting in the Preserve wasn't likely to last long. The vampires would make sure it was dealt with in a swift and brutal fashion as an example. Wouldn't want to scare off the tourists after all.
Focusing on the werewolf aspect wasn't going to get her anywhere at the moment, Tamina thought to herself. The werewolf population in the city was far too immense to even think about dealing with without more information. She was going to have to narrow things down a bit before she went that route.
She had to concentrate on the bite marks on the woman's inner thigh. It was the only real lead she had on figuring out who the victim was and what she was into at the moment, so the vampire-centric clubs seemed to be the way to go. A person with as many bites as the victim had, almost had to be a regular somewhere in this place. Maybe even a few places. Someone had to know who she was around here, but where to start?
She decided she was probably going to have to go deeper into the Preserve to get what she wanted. Sure, there were enough vampire bars, dance clubs and brothels around her at the moment, but they were too close to the main gates. Tamina was betting that the victim was a local, and all the clubs near the gates were the type that catered to the out of town tourist element. The kind of place that advertised a certain level of risk and danger to tantalize and titillate without being too much for the senses and scaring the customers away. People who just wanted to rub shoulders with the supernatural and get a few thrills went to places like that. Serious people, the kind of people who had vampire induced bite scars would want something darker. Edgier. You could only find a place like that deeper into the interior where the vampires actually lived. That was where she was going to find answers.
As she wandered through the narrow crowd filled streets, Tamina let her gaze wander around her surroundings taking note of every little detail she could see. The deeper she got into the district, the less tourist oriented everything became. The sex and depravity of it all remained, but it was different. It all catered to a different crowd. The sight seers began to thin out leaving only those looking for that certain hardcore edge to satiate their needs.
Oddly enough, Tamina began noticing the shapeshifter performers that hung out along the edges became more diverse and subdued in the advertising of their wares. Most of them were probably werewolves, Tamina thought. Had to be with how populous that particular flavor of supernatural was. There were a few though that looked different enough from the rest that it was difficult for her to figure out what they were while they were in human form. There were all sorts of Therianthropes that beyond the walls of the Preserve were liable to be executed on sight just for existing. That was what probably made them so alluring, she thought. They were rare and exotic flesh for sale. Left to their own devices though, most of them were probably dangerous as all hell too. Least none of them were rats, she said to herself. That much she was thankfully certain about.
When she found herself in the middle of a small square, Tamina decided she was in the right place, but she was still lost as where to start. She was in a relatively quieter section of the district. An area slightly off the beaten track filled with smaller venues than at the entrance. She could hear the pulse of the music pouring out from opened doors all around her sounding almost like the beating of a heart. The people around her were definitely locals. They just had that look about them. They weren't looking all wide and starry eyed at everything around them like it was some new experience. There was a focus too them, like they knew what they wanted and exactly where to get it. This was the kind of place the dead woman likely frequented, she thought.
She picked a place to start just on the name alone. Chained Lust sounded about right to her. It sounded like a place a bite freak would frequent. Making sure to match the confidence and focus of the other patrons she'd seen entering the place, Tamina brushed past a large pair of women standing vigilant and watchful outside the door without even looking in their direction. She had to look as if she belonged, that was the key.
A pale crimson light lit up the interior. The kind of light that seemed to dance and flicker across the thin wisps of smoke that rose up from the floor. She thought she'd prepared herself for what she was going to see, but Tamina still found herself somewhat surprised and taken aback by it all.
Men, women, and everything in between writhed with wanton abandon in chains and restraints that bound them to cages suspended from the ceiling like bondage Go-go dancers. There were stages all along the walls. Some had dancers locked within them gyrating lasciviously around poles, but most had beds with all sorts of restraints and implements dangling from them. It was hard to tell if the people on the beds were employees or customers. Probably both, Tamina thought. None of them seemed shy in the slightest. They were all just going at it right out in the open. She saw couples, threesomes, even what looked like all out orgies fully on display for everyone to see and enjoy.
Tamina found herself stunned in place and enthralled by everything going on around her. It was distraction enough that she only registered the barely clothed woman with honeyed skin and dark flowing hair sensuously gliding towards her when the woman was right up next to her. The woman glided out of the shadows and let her hands glide slowly up Tamina's hips with a soft intimate touch.
“You're new here aren't you my sweet?” the woman whispered in a sultry, sibilant voice. “Do you like what you see? What darkest desire do you seek to fulfill? Tell me and let us explore it together.”
The woman's eyes were like satin pools of black, and they seemed to draw Tamina into them. She found her breath catching in her throat, her skin heating, and her pulse racing through her veins. The woman's tongue flickered out from behind her full lips and traced ever so slowly down the curve of Tamina's neck causing a shudder to run through the length of her body. The woman gave a low throat filled pleasured laugh, and the tips of her fingers began dancing with an almost agonized slowness up beneath Tamina's shirt inching higher and higher across her flesh. Tamina felt as if her skin was burning with each teasing little touch making it hard to focus. Hard to concentrate.
“Tell me what you want my lov
e,” the woman purred in her soft sibilant voice. “And I'll give it to you. Every desire.”
The woman roamed her hands up Tamina's skin beneath the fabric exploring and touching at her body with slow intimate touches that made it hard for Tamina to breathe. Then all at once, the woman froze in place and a look of deep confusion slowly washed over her features. It was almost as if a spell had been broken. Tamina took a precious few seconds to break from her trance enough to realize that woman had just felt her way up to the body armor she wore beneath her shirt. It offered just enough of a pause in the other woman's seduction for Tamina to shake the clouds from her mind and come back to her senses enough to speak.
“There's a badge under there too,” she croaked out. It was the best she could do and first thing she thought of. “If you look hard enough maybe you'll find it.”
The woman jerked her hands away with a sharp hiss of breath that let the tip of her tongue flicker almost threateningly past the fullness of her lips. She looked as if she'd just gotten severely burned. Her eyes had shifted into something more resembling normal human eyes, and Tamina could swear there was a tiny little hint of fear running through them.
“You need to leave,” the woman commanded. The sibilance in her voice had become thick and heavy in the tones of her voice. “We don't want you here!“
Tamina smirked slightly. She could feel her senses returning, and she was able to again feel herself in control of her own body enough to tamp down on the unwelcome urges this place and this woman had caused her.
“Relax,” she said. “Not here for any trouble. Just looking to see if I can find someone who can help me ID someone.”
The woman let out a whispering hiss of breath, and began retreating back towards the flickering shadows she'd emerged from. Tamina called out to her, but the only response was A small device appearing seemingly from nowhere in the woman's hands. Whatever the would-be seductress had, she was furiously pressing it as if her life depended on it.
Within moments the two women from the doorway slid out from the smoke and shadows and surrounded Tamina. There was a dangerous near feral look flickering out through both sets of inhuman amber colored eyes staring straight into her.
Tamina held her hands up to ward the two women off, and started slowly backing away from the two women. They were werewolves. Both of them. Neither one of them looked overly pleased with the situation, and Tamina didn't doubt they were fully capable of taking out their displeasure on her. She'd be lucky if she was able to defend herself enough to keep them from killing her outright. Outside that, wasn't much of anything she could do that would even slow them down. Not unarmed.
“Look,” she said to the two women looming over her. She made sure both her voice and her stance were as nonthreatening as possible. “Just looking for some information on someone who might have hung around here. I got a picture on my phone here.”
The moment her hand began reaching down to her pocket, both of the women in front of her bared their teeth and began to give ominous low sounding growls from the back of their throats. Tamina jerked her hands away from her pockets leaving her phone where it was and held them palms out in front of her. She had to be very careful, she thought. This was very close to being a no win situation. At least for her. The odd thing about the whole situation, Tamina noticed, was that outside of her and the trio in front of her, no one else was paying any attention whatsoever. It was like they didn't even exist.
“No problem,” she said softly. “How about this. Looking for a blonde girl, probably local, maybe twenty or so years old and pretty enough to be real popular in a place like this. I know that doesn't really narrow it down much, but maybe someone seen someone like that around. Maybe you know someone like that who hasn't been around in a while? Maybe she left with someone one night, and you haven't seen her since?”
The growls of the two women were increasing in both tone and violent intent. Neither one of them was listening to a word she was saying. That was alright, Tamina thought to herself. They weren't who she was talking to anyways. The two amazons were pretty much little more than hired goons when it came down to it. They wouldn't be much of a help. The other woman though, the one who had just spent the last few minutes feeling Tamina up and giving her thoughts and feelings she wasn't wanting to deal with, she was different. She was paying attention.
“Look, this girl had to be a regular,” Tamina continued. “Either here or someplace similar. She had bite marks all up and down her inner thighs, so she was into the sorts of things that I'm guessing go on around here. A lot. You know what I'm talking about.”
“You gonna leave?” one of the amazons demanded. “Or are we going to get to make you leave?”
Tamina flicked her gaze between the two angry women in front of her, and the woman behind them who suddenly had a look of concern flashing through her. She knew something, Tamina decided, but the chances of Tamina getting anything out of her with the two barbarian women threatening to tear her to pieces was slim to none.
“Fine, I'm leaving,” she said disarmingly. “Just trying to figure out who she was is all. No need for you to do anything I'm going to regret. Trust me.”
She was careful not to put up even the slightest hint of resistance when the two women seized her by the arms and drug her out of the club and tossed her back out onto the street. Badge or not, she had no authority in the Preserve, and they weren't shy in making sure she knew it. The two women could have done whatever they wanted to her and the most the Department would do was send a delegation to apologize to the Viceroy for the trouble. There might have been a chance they'd ask for whatever was left of her back to give her a proper burial, but that depended on the two women not eating her first. That was always a possibility.
“Thanks for all the help ladies,” Tamina called out after them the moment they turned on their heels and went back inside.
That had gotten her nowhere, she thought bitterly. Someone in there had to know something. She'd seen the look in the woman's eyes. That had to have meant something. Worst still, she'd just pretty much outed herself as Supernatural Affairs. There was a high probability that one or both of the amazons who'd just tossed her to the curb were already busily reporting her to the vampires and their security forces. It meant that before long, if not already, she was going to find herself being shadowed and watched everywhere she went now. Even those few that might have talked to her knowing who she was would avoid her now. They wouldn't give her the time of day. Not when the locals were breathing down her neck and hanging around in her shadow. That was going to make things difficult as all hell, she grumbled to herself.
She wasn't going to give up, though. Maybe she could get out ahead of the vampires and their minions if she was fast enough. It was a long shot considering who she was dealing with, but it was still worth a try.
“Hey!” a voice called out from behind her.
She was just about to move on to the next club when she stopped in her tracks and slowly turned her attention back to the club she was just thrown out of. The woman who'd tried to seduce her was there, standing out in front of the door with her arms crossed tightly around her ample chest. She looked nervous and worried, but she was still there trying to get Tamina's attention.
“Why did you say was?” she demanded.
Tamina tilted her head curiously as she tried to work through what the woman was talking about. The woman's voice had changed. The seduction had been replaced by a determined concern within the sibilant way she spoke.
“What?” Tamina replied. She was honestly having a difficult time figuring out what she was being asked.
“Why did you say you wanted to find out who she was?” the woman repeated. “You used the past tense. Why?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tamina regarded the woman standing before her with a thoughtful and critical gaze. Just moments ago this very same woman had wanted nothing to do with her, and had in fact made a point of getting her kicked out of the club. So why t
he sudden change of heart, she wondered to herself. There had been a flicker of interest and concern in the woman's eyes when Tamina had tried to explain why she was there, but that didn't seem to make a difference at the time. So why the change? Why did she all of a sudden feel the need to seek her out before she'd gotten to far away? Something had changed the woman's mind. Was it a trap, or was something else going on?
“Murder investigation,” Tamina said with more than a bit of caution. She wasn't sure what the deal with this woman was, best to be careful. “The person I'm looking for information on is dead. Werewolf kill it looks like.”
The woman's eyes twitched ever so slightly. It was subtle, but still noticeable if you knew what to look for. Her arms tightened around her chest and her hands began to grasp and fidget at her shoulders. She kept shifting her weight from foot to foot, side to side. Her lips parted, and she took a breath as if she was about to say something, but she remained silent all the same. There was definitely something there, Tamina decided.
“You said you had pictures,” the woman said breaking her silence.
Her voice was soft and controlled, but there was a shaky little thread there that told Tamina the woman was holding something back.
“I do,” Tamina replied.
She reached her hand down to her back pocket for her phone, pulled it out and then froze in place. Now that she was thinking about it, the pictures she had of the victim probably weren't the best things to be going around showing people. Not just for the graphic nature of the wounds they showed, though that was part of it. It made her look into the other woman's eyes and hesitate.
“Show me,” the woman demanded.
Tamina shook her head slowly but firmly. This wasn't a good idea, she decided. If this woman did know who the victim was, it could make it more difficult to get any information out of her. Seeing someone you knew all tore up had a definite effect on people.