"Nuts, huh?" Benson said.
I couldn't argue with the sentiment. Something had whisked the dead lawyer from his ten-story apartment building in an explosion of glass and lifted him through the air for eight city blocks before dropping him to his death right above this considerably taller rooftop.
A nerve twinged in the back of my neck as my focus turned back toward the massive gargoyle figures guarding the rooftop—silent witnesses to the crime, unable to divulge their secret knowledge. What would they tell me if they could speak? I'd never know, but I did know one thing for certain: this was beginning to look more and more like my kind of case.
4
I don't know how Benson pulls this stuff off, but he somehow managed to get me to the dead lawyer's building in less than thirty minutes despite rush hour traffic. Having a screaming siren on your unmarked police cruiser never hurts.
Arriving at the vic's apartment building, an all-too-familiar scene greeted me. Reporters struggled to put together a story while the cops did their best to keep the newshounds at bay. A tall, smartly dressed detective addressed the crowd, promising to answer their questions in an orderly fashion as long as everyone calmed down and shut up.
We fought our way past the throng and caught the next elevator. Benson stabbed the up-button, and the elevator hummed to life. Trying to break the uncomfortable silence between us, I said, "Did I ever tell you I hate elevators?"
Benson merely looked at me.
I took his silence as an invitation to continue. "When I was five, I got stuck in one. Scariest thing. Took them like five hours to get me out. Had nightmares for weeks--"
"Did you shower today?" Benson said, interrupting my trip down memory lane. "You smell like old booze."
Talk about a conversation stopper. Fortunately, the elevator dinged and the doors parted.
Without exchanging another word, we headed for the dead lawyer's apartment. Cops and forensic techs had taken over the luxurious four-bedroom unit that occupied half the floor. A jagged maw of glass framed a far-off view of the tall skyscraper where the lawyer's broken remains had been dumped. Benson led me onto the unit's bustling balcony. Once again, a dizzying perspective greeted me. Gusts of wind whipped my face. At this rate, I might develop a fear of heights.
I shifted my gaze upward as a police helicopter screamed by overhead and then spotted the reason why Benson had wanted me to inspect the balcony. A row of broken windows extended across a series of floors above Davison's unit, the side of the building streaked with a long trail of blood. Whatever aerial beast had snatched Davison, it had dragged him up along the apartment building before taking to the skies. For a moment, I could picture the hapless lawyer as he was carried off, arms flailing, hard cement scraping skin.
I took in the surreal sight and stepped back into the apartment. I'd seen enough.
As I walked through the luxurious dwelling, my eyes combing the place for anything of supernatural significance, one question kept going through my mind: Why Ronald Davison? Had he become a random victim or was he targeted by some dark force?
I decided to look around a bit more, see if anything might jump out at me. Each room in the spacious penthouse apartment was elegantly decorated, projecting a refined sensibility honed by a lucrative law practice. The eclectic mix of designer furniture and expensive art pieces suggested that Davison was either a man of taste or was smart enough to hire a talented interior designer.
I perused the framed degrees and awards on one wall, searching for any clue that might shed some light on the crime. Clearly Davison reveled in his accomplishments. I had to push past the surface and not allow myself to be blinded by the shiny razzle dazzle and bling of my surroundings.
It took me about ten minutes before I received my first hint that something might be rotten in Denmark. It was a subtle detail that would easily go unnoticed during a cursory inspection of the place.
Picking up on my sudden interest, Benson shot me a curious glance. "What is it?"
"Look at the cross. What do you notice?"
I gestured to the wooden crucifix mounted in the lavishly appointed dining area. I had not taken the high-powered lawyer as a religious man, so the presence of the Christian symbol had immediately jumped out at me. The cross hung above a distressed, farmhouse-style dining table large enough to seat six guests.
Benson let out a low whistle, his eyes widening ever so slightly. "The cross is upside down," he noted.
I nodded gravely. Some people believed the inverted cross to be demonic. Others referred to it as St. Peter's cross. The saint had been nailed to an upside-down cross, not believing himself worthy to be crucified in the same manner as Christ was. The scar on my chest—a souvenir of my encounter with the demon Morgal twenty years earlier—burned slightly as I leaned closer, confirming that the inverted cross held a whiff of demonic energy.
"What do you make of it?" Benson asked.
Good question. Had Davison's attacker inverted the cross as a signature of some sort, or was something else going here? My curiosity piqued, my gaze continued to roam the apartment. I retraced my steps, returning to all the other rooms I'd passed through earlier, willing myself to look at them with fresh eyes. Had I missed anything else?
My thoughts broke off as my searching gaze landed on the plush Persian carpet which decorated the hardwood living room floor. Intricate patterns adorned the rug, the abstract imagery of color and form pleasing to the eye. The mark of Morgal ached again, suggesting that something might be amiss. I kneeled down, my gaze following the carpet's decorative lines...
And that's when the image hidden within the intricate weave revealed itself to me. A muscular human torso became recognizable, wings sprouting from powerful shoulders. A horned goat's head dominated the rippling physique. Someone had woven the lines of a demon into the carpet's pattern, visible when viewed from just the right angle.
Following a sudden hunch, I pulled the corner of the rug up, and my worst suspicions were confirmed. Occult glyphs and runes were etched in the wooden floor.
A stunned Benson sidled up to me and traced the strange symbols with his fingers. A bead of perspiration pearled on his forehead, inspiring me to wipe the sweat from my own brow. It suddenly felt like someone had turned up the heat in the penthouse apartment.
"You think the killer did this?"
I shook my head. I could accept the killer leaving one signature behind, but not three. Besides, the carpet had to have been custom-made by the victim, which only left one possibility to my mind.
"I think Davison was a devil worshipper."
5
Lawyers had a reputation of being soulless bloodsuckers, but I'd never come across one who actually prayed at the altar of evil. Then again, most occultists didn't advertise their ties to the dark side. Robert Davison had been targeted by a paranormal entity of some kind, most likely a demon. Considering his involvement with the dark arts, it added up. Dabbling with the occult often backfired on the user. Who knows what had driven Davison toward the darkness—greed was my best guess—but it had cost him dearly.
The big question was whether we were dealing with an isolated incident here—one demon turning on his would-be master—or if something bigger was brewing on the horizon. Time would tell. My churning gut and burning scar suggested this was far from over.
I promised Benson to stay in touch and made my way back to the loft. I needed to run the case by Skulick and see what he would make of it. As always, I'd taken extensive pictures of the demonic paraphernalia at Davison's apartment. I hoped my partner might be able to put his encyclopedic knowledge of the occult to good use. Beyond identifying the demonic symbols, I couldn't make heads or tails out of the strange markings in the dead lawyer's apartment. Compared to Skulick, I was but a rank amateur when it came to this stuff.
As I stepped into our loft, I sensed something was wrong. Skulick didn't greet me, merely grunted and waved me over to his bank of computer monitors.
"What is it?" I aske
d, trepidation in my voice. I was starting to get a bad feeling about my partner’s somber mood.
"There's been a development. We have an Archer sighting."
For a beat, the room tilted and blood rushed to my ears. Had Archer finally taken a life?
"What happened?" I said, my voice an emotionless whisper.
"You need to see this for yourself."
I nodded and eased up to Skulick's desk. His face was a grave mask, and it didn't bode well for what he was about to show me. I shoved the rooftop murder case to the back of my mind, my full attention fixed on my partner and the bad news he was about to dump on me.
To my surprise, he pulled up YouTube and clicked on a channel dedicated to myths and urban legends. Some of this stuff had been debunked decades ago. Bigfoot, Loch Ness, and UFO sightings dominated the channel.
Skulick selected a video titled "Real Vampires."
"The video I'm about to play was posted late last night and has been spreading like wildfire online."
Skulick wasn't kidding. The video already had tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
Before I could say anything else, Skulick tapped the play button. On-screen, the point of view of a moving, GoPro-style camera filled the screen. The camera swayed back and forth as the person carrying it rapidly advanced toward a looming structure. It appeared to be an abandoned factory building of some kind, pale sunlight dappling the worn exterior.
As the video drew closer to the dilapidated building, an arm appeared in the frame, gun in hand. The cameraman was hunting. All of a sudden, it felt like I was following the action in a first-person shooter.
The moving camera paused abruptly, turning toward a uniformed police officer who also sported a drawn firearm.
I was looking at police body cam footage taken by the first officer. As soon as I made the connection, the police officer with the body cam resumed his approach. The feed continued to sway wildly as he ran, the majestic skyline of the Cursed City bleakly outlined behind the industrial stretch of warehouses.
I watched, my gut churning with sick anticipation, as the officer and his partner entered the decaying factory building. Debris littered the ground, the walls bleeding graffiti. Gangs, taggers, and homeless had claimed the old factory as their own.
The cops tried to stay calm, but I could almost hear their hammering hearts, the tension and adrenaline evident through the shaky camera in their erratic movements and clipped verbal exchanges. The two officers expected trouble.
The nausea-inducing camera ride continued. The two men entered a cavernous chamber. Rusting steel rafters dangled from the ceiling, shadows bathed a catwalk of pipes, ventilation ducts, and old electrical cables. A tangle of rotting machinery dominated the floor. This had to be the factory's main floor.
The camera swept the space in a smooth pan, the officer's pace slower and more cautious now. A shadowy silhouette loomed before the cops.
As the man with the body cam drew closer, details became visible. The figure was wearing a pair of torn, ragged jeans and a black hoodie, a shadow come to spooky life. He was sitting Indian style at the center of the dust-caked factory floor. Only when the hooded figure peered up and the inhumanly pale features grew visible did I realize that I was staring at a vampire.
It wasn't Archer.
"Freeze! Do Not move!" the cop bellowed.
Naturally, the grinning bastard rose to his feet. Unkempt strands of hair poked from the hood, his alabaster skin forming a sharp contrast against the hoodie's black material.
A sick smile flitted over the vampire’s face, and his eyes took on a dark tinge. These cops had no idea what they were up against, and a part of me wished I could avert my gaze, knowing all too well what was in store for the two officers. But I couldn't look away.
"I SAID FREEZE!"
The hooded figure's eyes narrowed into pinpoints of red, and I caught my first glimpse of the razor-sharp fangs. A beat later, the figure leapt toward the second cop, the one who wasn't wearing the body cam, and the world turned into a mad carousel ride from hell. Bestial sounds echoed, gunshots reverberated, panicked shouts rang through the factory.
The spooky figure tore into the hapless officer, knocking his pistol aside before burying his razor-sharp fangs into the man's throat.
Blood sprayed as the cop let out a series of gurgling sounds.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God..."
The cop with the body camera seemed to be having a meltdown, the angle low to the floor as if he'd dropped to his knees, his voice little more than a terrified whisper.
The vampire fed for a beat before he tossed the first officer aside. The creature's full attention now riveted to the officer sporting the cam, exposed fangs dripping scarlet. There was no doubt as to what the creature would do next.
I braced myself for the attack as the officer with the cam lost his cool for good. He unleashed a wild fusillade of bullets as the vampire pounced, murder in its inhuman gaze.
Everybody knows that bullets can't harm a vampire.
But dumb luck favored the cop.
A few of the stray bullets punched through a grime-encrusted window and blazing sunlight shafted into the factory. The beams of pale sunlight engulfed the fast approaching vamp, and the ivory complexion beneath the black hoodie erupted in smoke. Albino flesh welted and turned black, the sound of sizzling skin drowned out by the monstrous roar of agony coming from the vampire.
The wailing creature turned away from the cop, survival instincts overcoming the creature's raging bloodlust. As the vamp darted out of the path of the searing sunlight, seeking cover behind the factory machinery, the officer continued his rapid retreat. Who knows what the cops had expected to find in the desolate factory, but it sure as hell hadn't been an undead bloodsucker.
Panicked breathing rasped hauntingly over the cam's audio as the officer cut a hasty retreat, prey desperately trying to outrun a superior predator.
He surged down the garbage-strewn corridor, the shaking cam creating the illusion that the footage had been recorded on a skipper at high tide.
I held my breath, utterly engrossed in the terrifying drama unfolding before my very eyes.
For a moment, it seemed like the cop would make it out of the factory alive, and I couldn't help but cross my fingers for the guy. He had almost reached the exit when a figure peeled from the deep shadows and blocked his escape.
I gasped, my blood turning to ice. Skulick shot me a concerned look.
The figure visible in the grainy body cam shot was intimately familiar to me. Archer was staring back at the cop, hair wild, skin white as marble, her eyes gleaming dangerously. She stepped into the dim light and the officer backed away from this second monster. Archer's lips sprouted fangs, and the officer's prayers turned into desperate pleas for his life.
"Please, nooo..."
Archer surged toward him with the ferocity of the inhuman predator she'd become, and the cam became a blur of bloody imagery punctuated by the man's screams.
Mercifully, the screen went black.
My hands knotted into fists, nails digging into my sweaty palms. I had clung to the childish notion that Archer might've found a way to resist the dark curse, that all this time she hadn't allowed the black blood pumping through her veins to corrupt her. The video shattered all such foolish delusions. The Archer I'd fallen in love with was gone. A terrible beast had taken her place. It was up to me to hunt her down. And put an end to her for good.
6
I entered the abandoned factory featured in the YouTube vampire video, hand resting on Hellseeker, my senses alert. Broken glass crunched under my feet as I eased deeper into the ghostly maze of rotting machinery. The shadows around me seemed to move, my imagination getting the best of me.
Two hours had passed since I first watched the vampire video.
Two hours since my life had been turned upside-down again.
Locating the factory from the video had not proven to be too difficult. As soon
as we'd finished watching the disturbing piece of reality TV, Skulick had proceeded to put his detective skills to good use.
Within an hour of surfing the web and making a few phone calls with his contacts at the force, he'd produced the names of the two cops from the online horror show.
Officers John Palmbrook and Darryl Johnson were the two unfortunate souls who'd become the latest statistics in the ongoing battle with the forces of darkness. Their bodies were being examined at the coroner's office, and I was willing to bet the official cause of death would be "wild animal attack."
Both officers had decided to check out the old factory the other night after being tipped off by one their contacts. Word on the street was that the old factory had become a hotbed for drug activity. Well, someone had gotten that part wrong. The poor officers had walked into a nightmare beyond their realm of experience.
Before his death, Officer Johnson had managed to call for back-up. By the time the cavalry showed up on the scene, the vampires were long gone.
As the bodies of the two officers arrived in the morgue, the forensic team quickly realized that the body cam was missing. Nobody gave it too much thought until a few hours later when the video ended up trending online. While the force's cyber forensics team was hard at work identifying the original IP address from which the video had been uploaded, mirror sights continued to pop up online at an alarming rate.
There was no doubt in my mind that the vampires must've uploaded the body cam video video, but that raised an interesting question. Why would they want to draw attention to themselves like that? Vampires had spent centuries convincing the world that they were myths, so why reveal themselves now and risk a direct confrontation with humanity? The more I racked my brain over it, the more I became convinced that I was missing an important piece of the puzzle.
My burning need for answers ultimately led me to the scene of the crime. I wasn't sure what I hoped to find here. Archer and the other vampire would be long gone, but I had to start somewhere.
Blood Rain: A Shadow Detective Novel Page 3