Daniel pointed towards the center of the bed. “Forensics already collected her dust, but they had no idea it was her remains. I already removed it from evidence and erased them from the records.” As Sterling’s ungloved hands approached the chains, Daniel warned, “Those chains are silver. Don’t touch them.”
Noticing Daniel’s burned hand, Sterling touched the bed frame and ran his hands along the sheets. His hands grew warm. They tingled as he closed his eyes. Visions of Lenora’s life, who she was, what her dreams were, they all appeared to him. Lenora was her real name, but not Miller. Stephen was her son, but she had another child who was already an adult. He touched the pillow where Lenora’s tears had fallen and the images Sterling saw in his mind grew darker.
The man had surprised her as she was about to drift off to sleep, and had snuck up to the bed before she had even detected his presence. His eyes were wild, and his long bangs had dipped well below his brow, which had given him the appearance of a madman. The chains were already put across her chest, burning her flesh, before she had even cried out to her attacker to spare her son’s life. Sterling watched through Lenora’s eyes as the knife was lifted and a phrase in Latin was uttered. He felt her fear, and it caused his body to shiver. She had known she would die right here today, in this bed, at this man’s hands.
Sterling read more about Lenora’s long life and guessed her age to be about 150 years. It was common for vampires to live among humans. It was rather easy to do. They would move to a new neighborhood and feed often to appear in their twenties. Overtime they would feed less often and age gracefully. A vampire could live in the same place for roughly seventy years at a time, adjusting their age accordingly. They would then fake their death and move on. Sterling could tell Lenora had done this often. She was slightly younger than Sterling himself.
“This knife was found in the center of the bed next to the chains.” Daniel held up a dagger stored in a protective plastic evidence bag. “The stain on the knife is not human blood.”
Sterling blinked a few times to remove the visions from his mind. He focused his eyes on the knife and the blackened stain. His skin itched as though bitten by dozens of fire ants, and he had only touched the bed sheets. He learned years ago not to scratch because that only made it worse. Instead of scratching, he took the bag from Daniel and studied it. The purple blood was from a vampire and it belonged to Lenora. She had been staked with this knife as she lay helpless on the bed, chained up like an animal with silver chains that surely had burned her skin. “The knife has writing on it,” Sterling noticed.
“Yes. But bugger if I could read it,” Daniel said.
“It’s Latin. It reads, ‘Instrument of the Lord’.” Sterling opened the plastic bag and touched the knife. His fingers instantly heated by the touch. Images, evil images, slammed into his head like a freight train crashing through a shopping mall. His breath caught and a tear escaped as he closed his eyes and watched the horrific images. He saw as the man stabbed Lenora, and he felt the man’s joy as she bled out and turned to dust. Sterling’s hand shook and he dropped the knife.
He blinked a few times and then cleared his throat. “The knife is one of dozens. It belongs to a group who called themselves, The Hands of God.” He placed the knife back in the bag and sealed it. “They believe that they perform the acts God needs them to do.”
Sterling could still feel the twisted mind of the religious zealot who plunged the dagger into another living being. The murderer had felt righteous in the killing and had felt no remorse. It wasn’t the first kill he had done, either. The images that had flooded Sterling’s mind now caused his headache to pound.
“These religious freaks know about vampires,” he cursed. “They took Stephen to save him.” Sterling turned to face at Daniel. “You said the boy is ten?”
“Right. About that age,” Daniel answered as he picked up the box of Lenora’s personal belongs. “We’ll have to check with your father about the family line, but I’m guessing the boy is about halfway to his Jahrling Year.” Daniel paused and then said in a hushed voice, “Unless, of course …”
Sterling’s eyebrow rose as he noticed the pause. “What?”
Daniel cleared his throat and then asked quietly, “Could the boy be a half–breed?”
Sterling hated when people walked on eggshells regarding the subject of half–breeds, saying it in whispers as humans would say ‘cancer’. “Lenora was a pure vampire,” Sterling assured him.
“What about Stephen’s father?” Daniel pressed.
Sterling shook his head. “The father couldn’t have been human. Must have been a purebred or turned vampire.”
“What about a half–breed father?”
Sterling shrugged. “Maybe. But, the boy would be a purebred regardless.”
Daniel surveyed around the room. “There’s nothing around that tells you anything about the lineage?”
Sterling’s jaw slackened and his eyes widened in disbelief. “It’s not like we half–breeds wear badges,” Sterling sternly said, now looking at Daniel. He took a few steps towards the door shaking his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say the boy is a purebred.” Sterling wanted to believe that, at least. He didn’t want to think other half–breeds had better luck with the female vamps than he had experienced.
Giving a nod to the staircase in the hallway, Sterling commented, “When I got here I walked the rooms downstairs. Kitchen cabinets are filled with food. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.” Sterling took a deep breath, “The boy is as weak as a human right now. An easy target. And the man who murdered his mother took him so God could save him.”
Daniel grimaced. “Then there’s no tellin’ if the lad is still alive?”
Sterling thought back to the blood on the floor downstairs. It wasn’t enough blood loss to kill a vampire, nor a human. The blood staining the floor was crimson and belonged to Stephen, suggesting the boy was most likely still alive since he had been dragged from his bed out the front door. “They stabbed the boy to confirm he was human by his red blood. They knew the blood would be purple if he had already transitioned.”
Sterling touched more objects in the room, in Stephen’s room, and around the house. He didn’t get much more information. His abilities side effect just grew more intense. Now even his feet itched. He hated that.
“Thanks for the help, Sterling. I’ll work with your father to contact the vampire family and let them know what happened. As you said, she has one more child and she’ll want to know what’s become of her mother and younger sibling.” He raked his hand through his gray hair. “Bloody, hell. Not the conversation you ever want to have, eh Sterling?”
When Sterling moaned and touched his temple, Daniel added, “Right then. Off with you. I’ll compel and clean up with the humans.”
Leave it to Daniel to be so thoughtful when it came to Sterling’s affliction. The vampire was too sticky sweet and nice for Sterling’s tastes.
Sterling nodded and left the house feeling, once again, bad for Daniel’s turn.
Sterling drove off in his Ferrari to find the remedy that would relieve the pain of his cursed skin. The sky was cloudless with no chance of rain, so he’d have to find female companionship. Other than rain, the touch of a woman caressing his skin was the only other cure to erase the itching. He just needed to find a woman that met a stringent criteria – her touch must be freely given, not forced by a lie or a compelling. He couldn’t pay her to touch him, and she had to be in a good frame of mind and of consenting age. Supermarkets, offices, homes … it was like the old saying, ‘water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’. He thought he’d hit up the university nearby to find a woman. Maybe he’d get lucky.
His headache worsened as he heard the thoughts of Lenora’s attacker repeating over and over in his mind. The bloody images tortured him as he mentally watched Lenora die her painful death. Sterling fought to stay focused and managed to drive over to the community college. He cruised down the two main stree
ts of the campus until he found the antidote for his curse.
She stood in front of a bookstore watching him as he drove up to the curb. Her long blond hair reflected in the sun and she was pure beauty bound in a size six, twenty–year–old body. She smiled at Sterling and revealed the flatness of her non–vampire teeth, which always reminded Sterling that he was settling. The thought saddened him, but he took a deep breath and smiled back, careful to hide his fangs.
“I love the car,” she said as she approached his convertible.
Of course she did. That’s why he drove such a decadent gas–guzzler. It was a snare to trap women, and it worked well. “You want a ride?” he asked.
She leaned into the car and showed him her cleavage, obviously her choice of lures. “Where to?”
He wasn’t interested in what she had, only in how she could cure him. “My apartment is nearby.”
CHAPTER THREE
Sterling arrived on time at the penitentiary so the warden could show him into the interrogation cell. The two walked down a hallway filled with ‘hats and bats’, which is what the prisoners referred to as fully protected guards. The cells in this section were the highest security, and it had the locked doors and the cameras to prove it.
Standing in the doorway to one of the cells, Sterling watched as two federal agents were questioning a third man in the room. The two seemed standard–issue, from the suits they wore, to the coffee cups they held – right down to the haircuts they sported. They were in the middle of the classic ‘good cop, bad cop’ scenario and it wasn’t working. But, it rarely did work when interrogating a serial killer.
The prisoner sat across from the agents. He looked indifferent as he stared past the detectives, not making eye contact as they spoke to him, as if he were too important to care about their questions and idle threats. The man was well above average height and size, with greasy hair and a foul human body odor. He looked like any other thug that had sat at this table, with the one exception of a scar that ran down his face. He swore at the detectives and refused to talk about the new crimes that were now being linked back to him.
Sterling had played out this scene so many times over the past decades, each prisoner the same as the last. They were all arrogant, disrespectful lowlifes who were the worst humanity had to offer. Sterling hated spending any time with them, but the information he gathered from the lowlifes were vital in the cases he worked.
He entered the room, leaving the warden in the hallway. The two detectives stopped their song and dance routine, which obviously wasn’t getting them anywhere, and asked who Sterling was. Noting the cell camera was recording every move in the room, and every word, he simply said, “Detectives, leave.” The humans’ eyes grew dim and their skin paled. They both got up and retreated from the room, leaving Sterling alone with the uncooperative man.
Sterling closed the door and stared at the man who sat in the metal chair wearing handcuffs, leg irons and waist chains, plus security boxes to cover the restraints’ keyholes. The man tested the restraints as Sterling took a seat across from him. Sterling made sure not to face the camera full on.
The case file with the name Max Watson sat on the table. Sterling held it up and coldly said, “You’re going for a stainless steel ride, my man.”
The man looked past Sterling. “Unless you’re here to release me, get the fuck out.”
“You murdered six women. And we know of at least five more.” When the man glanced up and made brief eye contact, Sterling added, “Oh yes. We found where you hid the …,” he opened the file and read, “… hammer, shovel … even a knife and souvenirs from your victims.” He chuckled as he set the opened folder down, “Boy, you really are a dumbass to store it all in one place for us to find.”
The man sneered. “I doubt you’ll find any evidence pointing back to me. I’m just a misunderstood individual who is wrongly incarcerated.”
“I wouldn’t care even if you had the evidence floating in a vat of bleach, we’ll still nail your ass to the wall on this.” Sterling glanced down at the opened file. “You took great pride in your treasures. You preserved them very well.” All evidence had been stored in a footlocker, nice and tidy. “You probably even folded the clothes you kept.”
The human’s eyes narrowed in on Sterling. “I’m not afraid of death.”
“Maybe not by lethal injection,” Sterling corrected. He leaned in and pointed to the man’s orange jumpsuit. “But I know I could get you shitting in those peels and begging for death.”
“Fuck you!”
Sterling winked at the man. “Save the sweet talk for your cell mate.”
The human’s jaw grew tight and again he tested the chains. Before he could reply, Sterling added, “They never found the bodies of your victims. That’s the only thing keeping you alive. But, before I leave today, you will tell me everything.”
Sterling stared at the man, enough so that he looked up and locked his eyes on Sterling’s. Making sure he didn’t face the camera, Sterling compelled the man. “You’ll tell me the locations of your victims’ bodies and you will answer all of our questions. Now be quiet while I catch up on your case.”
The man’s expression paled and he sat motionless in his chair.
All in all, the man was a serial killer, already convicted of six murders. But this folder contained new evidence. It had a picture of five more women the FBI suspected that he had murdered, and the authorities suspected there were even more. Sterling flipped through the case file which contained a much more detailed account of what the man had stored as souvenirs.
Sterling placed the pictures of the five women across the table. “If you killed these five women, you will confess and tell the authorities where they are buried.”
The suspect stared right at Sterling and said. “Ten more women total. I will tell them where nine are buried.”
Sterling could not have heard that correctly. “What do you mean ‘ten women’?”
“I killed ten more women, you only know about five. Nine are buried at construction sites in Maryland. Plopped right down in wet concrete.”
As bad as the cement coffins sounded, Sterling was more interested in the tenth victim. Could there possibly be a survivor out there? Some poor woman barely clinging onto life? “What happened to the tenth woman?” he demanded.
The man shook his head. “Not sure. She was the last one I killed and she disappeared when I stabbed her. Poof!” He made a gesture with his hands.
Sterling’s eyes grew wide. He knew the camera had caught the remark, but he pressed on anyway. “What do you mean ‘she disappeared’?”
“She was feisty. Her eyes were black and she made a growling noise just before I stabbed her with my knife in that alley. She was so pretty. She died before I could play with her body.”
Sterling eyebrows rose in surprise as he pieced the scenario together in his mind. This asshole captured a female vamp and murdered her in cold blood. It puzzled Sterling how a female vamp could be overpowered by a weak human. Perhaps she was asleep, like Lenora Miller had been, and unable to defend herself. This man who sat in front of Sterling with an evil sneer on his face was six foot tall and roughly 240 pounds. Surely even a weak female vampire could easily defend herself against him if she were conscious and unsurprised by the attack. Even a half–breed female could take him down.
Sterling decided he needed to see the knife. “You will tell the detectives when they return about all the killings and exactly where they are buried.” He leaned in and whispered, “You will tell them nothing about the disappearing woman. That was a dream.”
He left and headed towards the evidence room.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Wake up.” Kekoa said as he gently shook the younger boy’s arm. “You’re okay. Open your eyes and look at me.”
The kidnapped boy’s eyebrows fluttered sluggishly and he let out a moan. The drugged sound reminded Kekoa of his own ordeal from five years ago. He worried about the boy, for he had been uncon
scious far too long. “You need to wake up. Please.” Again, he shook the young boy.
Stephen fought to regain consciousness as his eyes, once again, peaked through his thick, sandy, blond hair. Jerking himself awake, he sat up. His pudgy frame lost its balance by the quick movement. He glanced around the unfamiliar room with his brown, puffy eyes, and began screaming.
Quickly Kekoa covered the boy’s mouth. “You’re okay,” he assured him. “Shhhh. He’ll hear you.” He gently stroked the young boy’s hair once he stopped screaming. “You’ve been drugged and things are going to be fuzzy in your head right now.” Kekoa watched as the boy’s eyes tried to focus on what must be a spinning room from inside his head. The powerful drugs incapacitated the boy, and Kekoa had had firsthand experience with them in his own system. Either the captors had been giving Kekoa less, or he was becoming less affected by them. He gradually became more aware of his surroundings and was clearheaded enough to do more than just obey their orders.
“My name is Kekoa, and I’m a friend.” Stephen franticly tried to stand while Kekoa held him down.
He watched as Stephen struggled for balance on a sleeping bag on the floor in the unfamiliar room. Clothes and sacks of takeout food littered the floor of the large, dirty bedroom. Stephen scooted away from Kekoa, knocking into trash on the floor, in an effort to gain some distance. “Where am I?” he asked, stumbling on the words. His eyes widened with fright.
In a reassuring voice, Kekoa continued, “That’s a good question. I’m sure you have many them. I’ll answer everything, but first I need to know how you feel. Are you in any pain?”
Stephen looked down at his jeans. His mouth gaped open as he noticed bloodstains, a rip in the pants from his thigh to his ankles, and a bandage on his leg. His hand quickly found its way to the bandage. “Huh? What happened to me?” he asked, his voice cracking in fright.
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