Bitten/Drained: The Lauren Westlake Chronicles Volume 1

by Dan O'Brien

  The SFPD detective nodded. “A transient was killed near Golden Gate Park.”

  Lauren nodded, digging her hands into her pockets. “I would like to see the reports, and the body, if that’s alright with you, Detective Lawrence.”

  “Whatever time is convenient for you, agent.”

  “First, I would like to have a discussion with my colleague here about the specifics of the case from the Bureau’s perspective,” she continued.

  Lawrence hesitated, but nodded all the same. “You can meet me at the morgue. I’ll bring along the case file. How long will you and the other Agent Westlake be?”

  Billy smiled again, compassion and empathy abandoned. “Don’t get up in arms, Shaft. I’m not going to abduct her. You can still spend plenty of time following her around.”

  The detective glared at him evenly.

  Lauren looked aghast. “Billy….”

  Lawrence waved away her mortified surprise. “I believe you have misjudged the situation. Agent Westlake is not exactly my type.”

  “You don’t like beautiful women,” challenged Billy, a sudden need to defend his sister’s honor bubbling to the surface.

  Lawrence stood up straight, taking a step closer to Billy. The size difference was pronounced. “I can appreciate beautiful women. However, women are not exactly what revs my engine.”

  Billy stared for a moment. Blinking his eyes several times, he started to speak and then stopped. Pointing at Lawrence, he spoke again. “You don’t like women?”

  The detective pressed his hands into his hips and looked at Billy.

  Billy stammered. “Then you like…men?”

  Lawrence smiled. “You are quite the detective.”

  Lauren stepped in as Billy continued to stare like an idiot.

  “We’ll come by in an hour. Could you text me the address?”

  Lawrence nodded, then pushed through the door, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

  Her eyes wide, Lauren turned, the irritation that would seep into her voice evident on her face.

  She gave Billy a push. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I didn’t mean to insult him….”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “I think I like him. He’s got a certain je ne sais quoi that makes me wonder.” Billy looked at her and pointed out the open door. “Did you have any idea?”

  “I had an inclination.”

  CHLOE RICHARDS LOOKED at her editor, Raymond Thomas, with a wry grin.

  Even though she wasn’t the most senior reporter at the SF Weekly, he knew that she would not give up on a story––no matter how mundane it might be. He looked over the notes that Chloe had placed in front of him. He already heard the news of Ken Marlowe’s death and knew that NeuroTech was getting a lot of press attention, both locally and around the globe. In particular, its aggressive negotiations for Chinese and South Korean software contracts had dominated the financial blogosphere, as well as the traditional brick-and-mortar news outlets.

  “What am I looking at exactly?” he asked, sitting back and sipping from a plain, pearl-colored coffee mug. “What’s the story here?”

  “That’s just it: I’m not sure where it goes yet.”

  He leaned forward with a jerky movement, spilling some of his coffee on the pile of uneven sheets of paper scattered across his desk. “You know how this goes, Richards. You come to me with something printable, or at least actionable, and I’ll give you some rope––even some per diem if the story calls for it.” He gestured to the pile of notes. “But a few pages of notes and uncertainty about the viability of a story gets you exactly dick in terms of leeway.”

  Chloe reached forward and grabbed her papers.

  She would not be deterred that easily.

  “Just because I don’t know where it’s going, doesn’t mean I don’t have some idea of where it has been. Over the last six months or so, NeuroTech has been purchasing property all along the bay and gobbling up small landholding agencies and investment firms. Something is going on.”

  Mr. Thomas placed his cup down and pointed a pen at Chloe and then spread his hands wide. “Maybe, but you said you had no idea where this was going. What exactly do you want here?”

  Chloe sifted through the notes, selected a specific page, and placed it in front of Mr. Thomas. She pointed to a single name: Lauren Westlake. “See this name here?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Lauren Westlake is not a local officer. She came in on a flight from Minnesota by way of a federal institution we’re both familiar with. Why would the SFPD call in a fed for a corporate murder?”

  “Insider trading? Corporate espionage? There are a million reasons why the feds get involved. What’s your point?”

  “I think the murder of a NeuroTech employee and NeuroTech’s unusual real estate purchases and business acquisitions, not to mention the presence of a federal agent, warrant a little more digging––and, possibly, a first-page lead.”

  Mr. Thomas huffed and took another sip of his coffee. “Don’t even have a story yet and you’re already dreaming of a front-page byline.”

  Chloe waited while he contemplated what he would do.

  “Alright, I’ll give you 72 hours to put together a preliminary story. If it warrants a first-page byline, then I’ll give it to you; otherwise, I’m burying it with advertorials and sex ads. You got me?”

  Chloe nodded, collected her papers, and hurried out of the room with a broad smile on her face. She didn’t want to linger and jinx the ever-changing mood of the perpetually gloomy editor-in-chief. As she walked through the newsroom’s bullpen, her smile morphed into a look of deep concentration.

  There was work afoot.

  IV

  Billy insisted on barbeque. Lauren acquiesced given her lack of real hunger. She wanted nothing more than to be curled up with Dominic again. It might seem silly to people who knew her, especially given her track record with men.

  But she missed him.

  Her brother snapped his fingers a few times to get her attention.

  “Where’d you go, Lo?”

  She glared at him, frustration permeating her tone. “What are you doing here, Billy?”

  William Theodore Westlake was exactly one year younger than his sister. If you were being really technical, it was not quite a year; it was three hundred and sixty-three days and fourteen hours to be exact. However, this did not impede Lauren from acting the part of a wiser, older sibling.

  Billy frowned at her tone. “Well, what’re you doing here?”

  She smirked. “I asked you first.”

  “Setting down the schoolyard rules. I like it, big sis.”

  Lauren could not help but let her smirk grow into a smile. The last time they had spoken to each other was at their parents’ funeral, a dark day punctuated by a smoldering summer storm that ruined the somber affair.

  “The last I heard of you, you were involved in a real estate scam in Vegas.”

  Billy pretended to look hurt. “I’m on a different path now.”

  “Different how?”

  He took a bite from a rack of ribs and then wiped his face with a napkin, which quickly became gummed-up with grease and barbeque sauce. “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “Given the situation, I think you should give it a try.”

  He sighed and threw down his napkin.

  “You’re not going to believe me.”

  She motioned for him to continue.

  Seriousness overtook his demeanor. “It all started in Vegas. Nine years ago. I was working an angle with another conman I knew, Brown Gareth. It wasn’t a real estate scam as much as it was…”

  Lauren interrupted him. “Let’s pretend for a moment that one of us is a federal officer and leave out the implicating details of past crimes.”

  “Right, right. The con fell through and I ended up in a bad way with some worse people. It turned out Gareth had a side operation working. He was using
the money we scammed in a kind of money-laundering scheme for some tweakers in north Vegas.”

  He paused.

  “I’m guessing it didn’t end well.”

  Billy shook his head. “No, it really didn’t. They found him a few days later and set him on fire in the desert. But that was after they figured out that I had been working with him on another scam. So they offered me the same deal they’d offered Gareth. I declined.”

  A waitress came by, a water pitcher in her hand.

  The siblings shook their heads.

  Billy sighed and then continued. “They didn’t take no for an answer. Turns out they weren’t exactly…human.”

  Lauren felt her stomach tighten––not from hunger, but from anticipation. Had Billy been the one who sent her the package? Was he tied to this somehow?

  “What do you mean?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “What I’m going to say will sound…strange.”

  Lauren looked at him expectantly.

  Billy looked around. “They were warlocks.”

  A beat passed, and then another. She simply stared forward, uncertain how to proceed. “You mean witches?”

  Billy shook his head. “I meant what I said.”

  “And what exactly is a warlock?”

  He sighed. “Contrary to popular belief, warlocks are not simply male witches. Male witches are still called witches. Warlocks are…it’s difficult to explain.”

  “Try anyway.”

  He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “This world I’m talking about isn’t populated by those goofy witches from Hocus Pocus. I’m talking serious people with some serious power. Witches are generally peaceful. They live in tune with the earth. They’re hippies and tree-huggers for the most part. You get the occasional rogue witch, a malum unus, who goes off the reservation and uses their Spidey powers for evil.”

  Lauren’s thoughts drifted to Locke, to Dominic.

  But she didn’t want to talk about those things with Billy.

  And yet he was blabbering away about his foray into the supernatural.

  “And a warlock?”

  The younger sibling picked at something in his teeth. “Most are humans just like you and me, but they’ve started down a path of no return. Their power is borrowed from an idol of considerable power. Because their moral compass starts out spinning in every direction, they’re kind of like thugs for hire in the supernatural world.”

  “Supernatural world?”

  Billy made circles with his hands, trying to find a way to explain it. “There’s the world of the blind, the world that humans inhabit. Then there’s another world that exists just behind this one. Anyways, these particular warlocks were avatars of something quite frightening.”

  “And?”

  “They worked me over pretty good. Had it not been for Seventeen, I might not be telling this story….”

  “Seventeen? Was he a Borg?”

  Billy laughed. “No, she is a soldier of an order older than time.”

  “Doesn’t she have a real name?” Lauren paused. “Was this one of your ladies of the night?”

  “No, they give up their names when they join the Order. Most are born into it and never have given names.” He paused, a small smile on his face. “Some do have stripper names.”

  “So what happened? Are you part of this Order now?”

  Billy shook his head. “Not really. I’m more of a freelancer.”

  “Meaning what?”

  He leaned forward and pressed his hands into the table.

  “I was sent here to find someone.”

  “Who?”

  The nervous look returned to his face as he took a deep breath.

  “He is called the Stranger. It’s complicated.”

  Lauren smirked irritably. “Sounds very ominous. Alright then, Rockford, why San Francisco?”

  “What do you mean: why San Francisco?”

  “What does the Stranger have to do with this city? With my investigation?”

  Billy quieted.

  “Did you send the package?” Lauren asked

  “Package? What package?”

  Lauren rubbed her temples and looked around the restaurant.

  Watching a man and woman sit silently at a table, she noted that their interpersonal distance was all wrong, that each had a depression on their ring fingers, and that there was bright women’s underwear peeking above the man’s waistline. She deduced that they were a married couple and that he had started an illicit relationship with a transvestite.

  She looked away and cursed herself. She was always doing that, picking up on the smallest details and creating a story, a narrative to describe the world around her.

  “You asked why I’m here,” began Lauren. She leaned back and laced her hands behind her head and chewed on her lip. “Have you ever seen a werewolf?”

  Billy’s eyebrows lifted. “Have you?”

  “I came here because of a package sent to me while I was in Locke, Minnesota.”

  “Minnesota?”

  Lauren nodded. “I was investigating a string of murders that were eerily similar to another cold case that had crossed my desk. At the time, I didn’t think too much about how the file got to me….”

  “But?”

  With a weary sigh she slouched her shoulders and continued. “Now, I can’t be certain of anything. What I saw up there was…impossible. Well, it felt impossible for a while.”

  Billy was listening intently.

  “What hunted that little town was a monster. Well, not exactly a monster, but something frightening born from the…supernatural.”

  “So, you’re saying you saw a werewolf?”

  Lauren nodded.

  They sat silently for a moment, lost in their own thoughts.

  Billy took a sip from his water and looked absently out the window as he spoke. “What do you think killed Ken Marlowe?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” She paused as she recalled the contents of the package. “But the package had crime scene photos from unsolved murders. And whoever sent it had identified the wounds as appearing vampiric in nature.”

  “Vampires,” mused Billy.

  “What do you know about them?”

  Billy looked nervous. “Nothing much really. A tribal species by nature, pretty reclusive. I’m not really a PhD in all things spooky and odd, Lo.”

  Not sure how to proceed, Lauren reached into her coat, took out the journal, and placed it on the table between them. Billy did not recognize it, which was neither a good nor a bad omen. “Do you know what this is?”

  He shook his head. “Do you?”

  “Nope, but I think it might have something to do with what’s going on here.”

  “Here in SF?”

  “I think it can explain why I was put on this trail in the first place. From the moment that cold case touched my desk, I’ve had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was coming.”

  The restaurant quieted around the siblings, creating the sensation that everyone was suddenly listening in on their conversation. No one looked in their direction, yet they found it difficult to shake the feeling.

  “Have you read it?” asked Billy.

  “Kind of. I flipped through, but a lot of it was gibberish. There were a few entries that made sense….” She drifted off as she recalled the short passage whose handwriting she had recognized.

  It was his handwriting.

  Billy picked up the book and opened it. He ran his fingers across the first page, his lips moving without sound. He flipped through the pages and touched entries here and there. “This is one of the seven books.”

  Lauren looked at him expectantly.

  He searched for the words.

  “The Order created seven books that chronicled the second darkness and the creatures that were born from it.”

  “Second darkness?”

  “Patience, Lo. The second darkness is what t
he Order calls the breaking of the gods and the emergence and proliferation of creatures, both light and dark. Humankind, as well as supernatural beings, populated the earth and the ancient ones were exiled.”

  “Exiled by whom?”

  Billy shrugged. “It’s mythology, who knows….” He paused, and then placed his hands on the book. “All I know is this book is one of those seven.”

  Lauren leaned back and tapped her fingers against her cheek. “The return address on the package led me to a residence on Union Street. It looked like there had been a struggle, but there was no body. This book was under a rug in the office on the second floor. Why would it be there? What does this have to do with the Marlowe murder? Or Locke?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lauren sighed and crossed her arms.

  “Something is coming, Lo. If there truly are vampires in the city, then this is no mere coincidence. The book was put in your path for a reason.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  LAUREN STOOD NEXT TO A TABLE where the body of Ken Marlowe was partly uncovered and looked around a sterile and dimly lit room. Her life revolved around death, yet she felt an unusual sense of comfort around the macabre even after all the time she had spent at crime scenes and morgues.

  Lawrence and Billy were chatting quietly a few steps away.

  Her brother had a knack for contrition.

  The medical examiner stood at the end of the table. He was a frighteningly thin fellow, whose voice was soft and scratchy. “Ken Marlowe had a heart attack.”

  “Heart attack?” parroted Lauren as Lawrence and Billy joined her beside the table. They seemed to have been sharing a joke, for the serious demeanor of the detective had cracked into a smile.

  The M.E. nodded and continued. “The victim has wounds all over his body at the joints. It also appears the bone marrow was forcibly removed. And there are several broken bones that were the result of pressure post-mortem.”

  Lawrence moved closer to the body.

  “Are we thinking medical-waste thieves? Is there some kind of black market for bone marrow?”

  The medical examiner frowned, seemingly unwilling to speculate. “There are several countries around the world that use organs and bone tissue for non-traditional supplements. However, the marrow was removed after death, which is very unusual. Organ harvesting, for medical treatment or some other nefarious black market purpose, generally requires extraction of the materials before death.”