by Lisa Jackson
Kristi did some quick mental calculations. She was scheduled to work the dinner shift, but she figured she could find someone to cover an extra hour for her. She wasn’t going to blow this. “Sure,” she said lightly, as if she had nothing more to ask him about than a particularly tough assignment. She thought about the dark van and wondered if Grotto might have been the driver. “I’ll be at your office at four.”
“I’ll see you then.”
He clicked off as Kristi cut the Honda’s engine. She couldn’t wait to talk face-to-face with Grotto; after all he was the last person thought to have seen Dionne Harmon alive.
After double-checking the parking lot to make certain no one was lurking between the cars or behind the hedge of crepe myrtle, she nervously headed into her unit. As far as she could tell everything was just as they’d left it. She didn’t think anyone had been inside.
She felt the urge to stick her tongue out at Jay’s camera, or do a little strip tease for him as a joke, but refrained. Just in case there was another camera they hadn’t found. All she managed was a wink at the camera over the sink.
Houdini came out from his hiding spot under the bed. “I wondered when you’d show your face again,” she said. “Did that big dog scare you? Trust me, Bruno wouldn’t hurt a flea.” She slid a hand over the cat’s back and he quivered and tried to slink away from her touch. He wasn’t as quick to disappear, however, so she poured cat food into his bowl and watched with some amusement as he sniffed disdainfully at it. “Hey, don’t forget your roots,” she said to him. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
The cat stared at her as if she were a complete moron before hopping onto the counter and slipping through the open window. “No good deed goes unpunished,” she called after him, then, in the bathroom, did a quick change into black pants and turtleneck. She threw on a jacket and grabbed her purse, complete with her cell phone and canister of mace, and was out the door.
The weather had let up a bit, though her defroster was still making visibility difficult. She had to use her hand to clear a spot in the windshield, but she saw no dark, malicious van idling in the alleys. Still, she was on alert as she took her car the short distance to campus, another means to make it appear that she wasn’t home tonight, though “inviting” the pervert into her home bothered her a little.
What little daylight there was quickly faded as Kristi parked behind Wagner House. The museum was set to close in ten minutes, but she wanted to check the place one more time.
The gate was unlocked and the front door swung open without a creak. Kristi stepped inside, where a gas fire was burning cheerily. Lights, with their colored Tiffany-style shades, glowed like jewels. Victorian settees, carved mahogany tables and club chairs were clustered in groupings, the dining table set with crystal and silver, as if a dinner party were planned for later in the evening.
Three fiftyish women were oohing and aahing over the furniture and knickknacks while a younger couple with a baby who was strapped to the father in some kind of sling were strolling through the lower rooms.
“Hello.” A slim woman, with an easy smile and streaked hair that swung to her chin, greeted Kristi. She was wearing a long skirt, boots, and a cowl-necked sweater. Her name tag read: Marilyn Katcher. “I’m Marilyn, the docent, and I was about to give a little tour of the house before we close. Would you like to join the others?”
Kristi looked around at all the expectant faces. “That would be great.”
After that, she followed along and listened as the docent, with more enthusiasm than Kristi would have believed possible, walked the small group through the lower floors, explaining the history of the family, making a big deal of old Ludwig Wagner and his heirs, telling how he’d donated this portion of his vast holdings around the Baton Rouge area to the church for the express purpose of starting a college. She led the way upward to the bedrooms, explaining about the children who had resided within and how the current Ludwig descendants had spent much of their own fortunes restoring the house to the way it had been when Ludwig and his children, including his wheelchair-bound daughter, had lived here. Some of the pieces were authentic, others used to add to the feel of the home, not all necessarily period-true.
Once they were downstairs again Mrs. Katcher checked her watch and attempted to usher everyone out. But Kristi hung back and asked about the basement.
“It was used by the staff, originally, of course, and I think it had some connecting tunnel or other way to access the carriage house, which is right next door and now houses the drama department. There was also egress to the stables and barns, but all of those passageways were deemed unsafe years ago, condemned by the parish, so they’ve been sealed. Today the basement is used for storage.” She held open the front door. “To be honest, I’ve never set foot downstairs. I don’t think anyone ever goes down there.”
Father Mathias does, Kristi thought. The priest and Georgia Clovis already knew Kristi had seen him appear through the basement door, and the fact that there were tunnels, condemned or not, beneath the building intrigued her. What if they still existed? What if Marnie Gage had gone downstairs and used them? But why?
Marilyn Katcher was nothing if not on a schedule. She managed to herd everyone outside and lock the gate behind them at five-thirty on the dot.
The wind had kicked up as they headed into the dark that had descended while they were inside. A shimmer of rain flashed by Kristi, and vapor lights glowed an eerie blue as she made her way to the student union. In the cafeteria-style restaurant she looked for some of the familiar faces in her English block of classes, but she didn’t see Trudie, Grace, Zena, or Ariel. She remembered then that Zena had said something about being cast in Father Mathias’s morality play.
Maybe she’d see the girl on stage.
She drank a decaf cappuccino and tried to call Lucretia again. After all, her ex-roommate was the one who’d originally mentioned the “cult” before her abrupt turnabout. But, as with everyone these days, it seemed her call was sent directly to voice mail.
Kristi didn’t leave a message. Lucretia was avoiding her.
Powering down her phone, Kristi headed toward the auditorium. If she got there a little early, maybe she could poke around a bit. All of the missing girls had attended Father Mathias’s morality plays, so there had to be a connection between them and the vampire cult, right?
It was as good a place to find answers as anywhere else.
Deep in her underground spa, standing naked in front of a tall mirror, Elizabeth surveyed herself carefully.
She was irritated.
Antsy.
Obviously in need of more.
More what? her mind taunted, for she disdained saying that she needed blood, the blood of others.
It made her feel weak, or like an addict, and that wasn’t the case at all. She was strong. Powerful. Vital. But, truth to tell, she did crave more….
She wanted to feel that rush of rejuvenation again. But it was not to be, for the mirror highlighted every flaw, even the faintest. Located in the same area as her bath, it was lit by a few soft lights on a dimmer switch, which she could ramp up should she need to examine any imperfection in her skin.
On a purely intellectual level, she couldn’t believe that blood of younger women would actually retard aging or revitalize her skin, but then again, hadn’t she noticed the changes to her own body?
With a critical eye, she surveyed herself in the mirror, searching for the telltale signs of age: wrinkles around her lips; crinkling at the corners of her eyes; the beginning of a crease at the base of her neck; the sagging of her abdomen despite a regimen of crunches, sit-ups, weight lifting, and cardio workouts. There was a thin line between being fit and slim and just plain skinny. But none of her bones showed where they shouldn’t. Her musculature was perfect and her skin still creamy and taut, her nipples tight and dark. No strands of gray dared shoot through her lustrous black hair.
Yet.
But age, she knew, was a relentless e
nemy and though she’d used all kinds of creams along with her private regimen, she hadn’t gone so far as to seriously consider liposuction or dermabrasion or a laser peel.
For the moment, she’d refrained from doing anything so radical.
She hadn’t needed to.
Because her remedy was working. Now, studying her flawless, age-spot-free skin minutely, she found it near perfect. Youthful. Vanity caused her to smile. She hadn’t been born beautiful; in fact, she remembered her mother saying she’d been an “ugly” baby, her head misshapen, her eyes too large, her hair patchy, her body frail. But she’d blossomed from an awkward tot and gawky girl into a teenager who had made boys and men twist their stupid necks as she’d strolled by.
It was that feeling, that rush from the power of her beauty, that she refused to relinquish. And so she’d done her research and realized despite her genes, and the help of products, age would try to destroy her. Her eyes would sag and grow puffy and dark, her skin would lose its elasticity, her breasts would droop, and flabby little pockets would try to appear.
Except she had a way to fight back.
Her secret method, she thought, twisting in the mirror and looking over her shoulder at her reflection. Her buttocks were still tight and firm, her waist small. And, from the pictures she’d seen, she looked amazingly like her stunning namesake. Actually, she decided with a tilt of her head, she was even more beautiful.
She’d known about her ancestor, Elizabeth of Bathory, for as long as she could remember and had been fascinated with the countess, but only recently, when she’d realized that her age was beginning to show, had she assumed Elizabeth’s name and regimen.
The story was, loosely, that Elizabeth, obviously a bit of a nutcase, had worried about losing her legendary beauty. Also, the countess enjoyed torturing and tormenting others, and one day, slapped a servant so hard that the maiden’s blood spilled onto her arm. Elizabeth had been even more outraged and raving until she noticed that the area of her skin the blood had stained appeared more youthful and beautiful than the surrounding flesh. From that day forward, Elizabeth found ways of ever more increasing cruelty to drain the blood of others for her own personal use.
Now, obviously, the woman had been deranged. Mental case with a capital M. Sadist to the nth degree.
All that royal inbreeding.
No wonder.
Of course many of the stories or legends about the “blood countess” hadn’t been proven, including the bathing in blood. That she had committed atrocities on dozens of young girls was not in dispute, however, and she was eventually tried and convicted of murder and sent to live walled into her castle. Those who had assisted her weren’t so lucky.
But it was the legend, the folklore surrounding the baths drawn from the blood of peasant girls and her eventual nobility that intrigued this new Elizabeth.
Even if the legends had been embellished with the passing of decades, and despite the fact that some of the more bizarre cruelties ascribed to Elizabeth had no foundation in historical fact, the theory about the blood of younger women wasn’t just intriguing, it seemed to have merit.
Hadn’t she, herself, proven its validity?
Now, staring into the mirror, Elizabeth arched her neck, surveying every inch of her body as she slowly rotated in the light.
Hadn’t the first traces of cottage-cheese-like bumps beneath the skin of her thighs, the barest breath of cellulite, disappeared with her first blood-infused baths? And that little suggestion of spider web veins, near the back of her right knee? Hadn’t they faded after the first bath?
Of course they had. Now, the back of her knee was silken and smooth, not even the tiniest line of her veins visible.
She was so convinced of the rejuvenation of her skin, the restorative powers of the blood, she’d almost agreed to dip into a pool injected with some of the blood of Vlad’s lessers.
But no!
She watched her reflection visibly cringe at the thought. It was one thing to cover her body in the blood of smart, young girls. Elizabeth didn’t kid herself into thinking they were “virgins” or “pure” or any of that rot, but at least they hadn’t pole danced for ogling, drooling, fat-assed men. Or, so she told herself. What, actually, did she know of those she’d helped Vlad choose?
Just that they were intelligent, seeking higher education. Something that escaped Vlad.
She grimaced.
Vlad.
Or so he insisted on being called, though, of course she knew his true identity.
He’d given himself the name of Vlad the Impaler, though he had enough names already. But, fine, if he wanted to be Vlad, she’d go along with it. She had taken Elizabeth’s name, assumed her identity, so he, too, had felt compelled to become someone else.
Always a follower, was Vlad.
But she needed him, just as the original Countess Elizabeth had required the help of others who had been as sadistic as she.
Twisting her dark hair onto her head, she admired her profile, then adjusted a few curls to fall loosely at her nape, to play into his fantasy.
That was the difference between them. She was a practical woman who was only trying to extend her life and her beauty, to keep turning heads and feeling vital. And yes, there was a little sadism involved, but all for a purpose.
Vlad, on the other hand, was into the sensual feel of the killing, the bloodletting, the sex of it all.
Which was fine.
She could get as turned on as anyone, she supposed, frowning a bit as one tendril refused to curl seductively. She caught a glimpse of herself and forced her face muscles to relax. She didn’t need to test her own theory and start new lines from forming, marring her perfectly smooth brow. So far, the blood was working, although Vlad had intimated the blood supply was running low.
What kind of a moron allowed that to happen?
He was afraid, that was it. Balking at ramping up the killings of the good ones, always talking of his “lessers.” For the love of God, he just didn’t get it. But then he couldn’t. As intelligent as he was supposed to be, honestly, sometimes Elizabeth wondered. But he was her partner and devoted and she could twist him around her perfect little finger. All he asked was to have sex with the women before and after death. Yes, it was a tad odd, but as long as he pumped the blood from their bodies, so be it. And he adored her. Was faithful in his heart and head, if not his dick.
Who cared?
The only thing she needed to ensure herself was that there would be enough. And so she’d suggested that she accompany him on the next killing. Because he was getting nervous. Jumpy. Concerned that the police would take notice. It was a problem, but the answer was obvious: take more than one. Kill several at once. Then start hunting somewhere else. Somewhere less obvious.
But always hunt for smart, supple, clever women who were young enough to still have vitality. And never a mother, like that last lesser Vlad had tried to palm off on her. Come on! Didn’t he know that childbirth robbed a woman of her vitality? That once a mother had given her lifeblood to another, a babe in the womb, and then bled for days or weeks afterward, she was never the same?
Elizabeth finally managed to force the wayward tendril of dark hair into place. Gazing raptly at her own reflection, she decided it was time to tell him. She reached for her cell phone to convey the happy news. Tonight she not only wanted to watch him kill. Tonight she would help and ensure that there would be more than one victim.
Several coeds’ images came to mind.
The clearest belonged to Kristi Bentz.
CHAPTER 23
Jay was just walking out the door for the meeting with Dr. Hollister and wondering how to cut it short when his cell phone chirped.
Sonny Crawley’s name appeared on the small screen.
“What’s up?” Jay asked, hauling his briefcase and laptop outside, where the rain was beating on the overhang of the porch and dripping over the edge of the sagging gutters.
“I thought you’d like a heads-up ab
out those missing girls.”
Every nerve in Jay’s body tightened. “You found something?”
“Maybe, maybe not, but I thought you’d like to know.”
Bruno slipped through the door and Jay pulled it shut. Together they dashed across the wet yard. “Tell me.”
“Well, it all started with a poacher findin’ a damned woman’s arm in a gator’s belly, and we’re thinkin’ it might belong to one of those missing coeds, but we haven’t been able to find the rest of the body.”
Sonny recounted the whole story as Jay loaded his things and Bruno into the cab of his truck. He slid behind the wheel without turning on the ignition, staring out the windshield as he learned the poacher had called the Sheriff’s Department, which had taken the alligator with its stomach contents to the morgue, that tests were being run on the severed female arm, and the police were trying like hell to get fingerprints from the partially decomposed and consumed limb. Search teams were still looking for the body or bodies and the theory was that this arm could have belonged to one of the missing girls. So far, they’d had no luck.
“One of the oddest things about it was that there was no blood in that arm. Not a drop,” Sonny confided. “You’d think there would be something. You cut off a finger, ya got blood. You cut off a guy’s dick, ya got blood. I’m no doctor, no sir, but I figure there should be some blood in those veins and arteries.”
You and me both, Jay thought, finally starting the engine of his truck, his mind turning to all the talk of vampires. “So the arm is at the morgue, and the other evidence, like anything under the fingernails, chips of the polish, for instance—that’s at the lab?”