My eyes focused on the doorway. A real bathroom. Luxury beyond compare.
I would do this.
My phone alarm woke me the next morning. That gave me about an hour before the nurse would come by with my medication. I sat up in the bed, moving a little easier. I looked down at the brace immobilizing my left wrist. A metal bar, curved to follow the inside of my wrist and palm held in place with heavy cloth and was secured with hook-and-loop tape. I pulled it loose and slipped the brace off my hand.
No visible swelling. I flexed my wrist. Only a hint of soreness. I placed my fingertips on the table next to the bed and pressed downward with my arm, letting my wrist bend backward. I then turned my hand over, resting the knuckles on the edge of the table and bending back the other way. No sharp pains indicating any significant injury, just the residual soreness of healing soft-tissue damage.
Much better, I thought as I put the brace back on. At need, I could at least use one hand. The bones in my other hand would take a bit longer.
I was just snugging up the straps on the brace when someone knocked on the room door.
"Come in," I said without thinking.
Detective Ware opened the door. I froze.
"Ms. Herzeg?"
"Detective," I said, my voice cold, "how may I help you."
"There's been a..." He looked back over his shoulder then back at me. "Could you come with me, please?"
I looked at him for a moment. "Am I under arrest?"
"Not at this time," he said, meaning I soon could be. "There is something I would like you to see."
I looked at him for a bit longer. I had asked for a lawyer last time I'd seen him and he and his partner had left. Standard police policy was not to ask anything after that without my lawyer present.
"I still can't answer any questions without my lawyer," I said.
He raised his hands. "I'm not taking you in for questioning. There's just something I'd like you to see."
I should have refused, I know that. But something in his eyes, and what Matei had said the night before, left me unnerved.
It took me a moment to recognize what I saw. Passion. Something had fired up Detective Ware, had pushed every button he had. I found myself curious as to what could affect him so deeply.
"I'm not sure if they'll let me out of here," I said.
He removed a badge holder from his hip pocket, flipped it open, and hung it from his breast pocket.
"If you don't raise a fuss, I don't think anyone else will."
I forced a smile. He returned the smile. His smile changed his whole face, like turning on a light in a room. I wondered how long he had worked homicide. He had seen a lot of death but somehow that smile spoke of a warm humanity that refused to be extinguished.
"They're due to bring my medicines here shortly," I said. "And..." I looked down at the hospital gown that mostly covered me replacing the scrubs that I'd worn for transport.
Ware nodded. "I'll wait outside so you can change. Do you need help? I can call..."
He trailed off. Yeah, I thought, I bet he'd like to call someone. I knew what I looked like. I owned mirrors. I kept my body in reasonably athletic shape. You had to in my line of work. My breasts were not particularly large, but neither were they particularly small. A good handful, as one ex-lover had put it. Ex-lover. That relationship had not lasted long. Reasonably symmetrical face. Blue eyes. What was it with guys and blue eyes? Deep auburn hair. The pixie cut was to keep it out of my way in a fight. That some men found it cute was beside the point.
I tilted my head toward the small wardrobe. "If you could hand me the clothes."
He opened the wardrobe. Inside hung a single set of blue scrubs, worn only for one van ride, from the hospital to here where they had made me switch back to one of those ridiculous hospital gowns.
Ware held the hangar out to me and I hooked it with the fingers of my left hand. Ware nodded and backed out the door, closing it behind him. I began the laborious task of changing with one hand in a brace, the other hand and one foot in a cast, and a limited range of motion because of a broken rib. I had just finished changing when the door opened. No knock this time.
"Hey!" I said.
"Time for your breakfast, dear," the elderly woman approaching my bed said. She held a tray in both hands
"You could knock," I said.
"Don't be silly, deary. It's time for your breakfast and your medicine." She set the tray on the bedside table and picked two small plastic cups from off it.
"Matei," I whispered. "If you don't get me out of here, I swear I am going to kill you. Stake right through the heart, and a nice hot fire with plenty of wood, and lots of kerosene."
"What was that, deary?"
"Nothing." I tugged the hem of the scrubs shirt down.
"Here you go, dear." The woman held out the two cups, one containing three pills, the other containing water.
I dumped the pills into my mouth and washed them down with water.
"Thank you," I said.
"You're very welcome, dear." She patted me on the hand. "You just eat your breakfast. I'll be back in a little bit to collect the tray. If you need anything, just buzz."
A moment later she was gone. I looked down at the unappetizing glop on the plate. I needed food if I was going to recover properly not this...whatever it was.
A throat clearing drew my attention. I looked in the direction of the doorway. Ware peeked in the open door.
"Is it safe?"
I leaned over and stretched to grab the handle of my wheelchair. I hauled it next to me.
"Is it safe," I grumbled. "Get me out of here. Can I go to jail instead?"
CHAPTER FOUR
Ware had clearly dealt with the wheelchair-bound before. He got me into the front seat of his car—a white Crown Victoria that just screamed "unmarked police car"—and the chair folded and in the back with a minimum of fuss.
He handed me the bag of my personal effects included my wallet and my credit cards.
I held up my wallet when he got into the driver's seat. "Can we stop somewhere to grab some food? A drive through maybe"
He looked at me, his face blank.
I set the wallet down. "That bad?"
"Worse."
I sighed. I did not know what he had in mind, but I could make some guesses.
After a moment, I shrugged. "I need food, but I also need it to stay down. If you think it's likely to be that bad, I'll wait."
Ware pulled out of the parking lot then cast a glance in my direction. "Smart girl."
We hit the highway and, at first, I thought we were headed downtown but we veered off, passing first north of downtown, passing to the west of it, then an exit that put us on a road heading south. Another turn to the east.
He turned into a parking lot.
"Oh, God." I looked up at the sign. Most of it seemed far away but three words jumped out at me.
"Hospital for Children."
"Oh God," I said again.
"Yeah," Ware said.
I clamped my lips tight. Children.
He pulled up to one of the entrances. Police tape marked it as a crime scene. A uniformed officer stood guard.
Ware shut off the car and got out. In a moment, he had the wheelchair out and locked open and my door open.
"Do you need a hand?" he asked.
I released the seatbelt and turned so I could put my good foot on the ground.
"I think so," I said.
He held out a hand to me then hesitated between the bandage on my right arm and the cast on the hand.
"Where?"
"Elbow," I said.
He grasped my elbow and applied a steady pull that allowed me to stand. With his continued support steadying me I was able to turn and sit in the wheelchair.
He shut the car door behind him and a squawk indicated his use of the fob to lock it. He wheeled me to the hospital door.
"Sir?" the uniformed officer said.
"Morning, Johnson. Could
you get the door for us?"
"The woman, sir?"
"Witness on a possibly related incident," Ware said. "I need to see if she recognizes any...if she can tell us anything."
Johnson looked down at me and then back over his shoulder. "Are you sure, sir? That's..."
"Just open the damn door, Johnson." Ware's voice hovered somewhere around the temperature of liquid nitrogen.
"Yes, sir." He pulled free a strip of the tape and pushed open the door. Someone had disabled the automatic opener.
Ware wheeled me into a deserted lobby. He stopped in front of double doors and left me to pull off another strip of crime scene tape. He came back to the wheelchair and turned me so that he could back through the doors, pulling me after him.
The smell hit me before I had cleared the doorway enough to see, the smell of blood, not quite fresh but no more than several hours old.
I resisted the urge to shut my eyes as we cleared the doorway and Ware began to turn the wheelchair. I knew it would be bad, but my worst imaginings failed to prepare me.
Bodies, at least a dozen bodies. It was hard to get an exact count because they were all in pieces, not cut but torn apart. A rosette of torsos. Arms outside that. Then legs. And in the center, a pyramid of heads, faces frozen in expressions of horror.
There were other people in the room. Men—or maybe women it was hard to tell—in Tyvek suits, squatted among the bodies collecting samples and making measurements. Others, on the outside of the horrible flower snapped pictures.
Unable to continue fooling myself any longer, I noted the sizes of some of the body parts, smaller than the others.
"Dear God."
Ware crouched in front of me, grabbing the arms of the wheelchair. "You know something. I don't know how, but you do. Those things you fought, they're connected somehow. Tell me. Help me...help me stop this."
I closed my eyes. We had to preserve the secret or the vampires would...only they were doing it.
One of Ware's words jumped out at me as I thought about what to tell him. Did he say "things"? Matei was going to kill me.
I wanted to tell him. I wanted to. Anything to stop this. But...
Before I could decide what to tell Ware my phone rang. It was Matei's ring tone. Speak of the devil.
Ware stood upright. "Answer your phone."
I shrugged and answered the phone. "Herzeg."
"Dani," Matei said. "I'll need to keep this short. You know why." I did. It took immense effort for him to remain awake after sunrise.
"I have just spoken with the Indianapolis mayor and police chief. They have agreed to take you as a consultant on this cult murder case. We're thinking it might be the same cult we encountered back in Del Rio."
"I'm not licensed for Indiana."
"There's a local company we've worked with before, Henderson and Company. They'll take you as a temporary hire and you'll operate on their corporate license. The paperwork's in process and in the meantime we'll proceed assuming good faith. I have...arranged things."
"I'm trusting you, Boss." I knew what Matei could do with Push. I had not known he could do it over the phone. That just added another level to the creep-out factor.
"Understood," he said.
"It's too bad you were attacked before you were able to talk to the police about our suspicions," he said. I had to think about that for a moment. Oh. He was giving me my cover for why I was up here. Mostly we tried to avoid dealing with police, but we had standard stories for when it was necessary.
Matei was continuing. "Any idea what happened to the files?"
"I lost them when I was running. Sorry."
"I'll have more prepared. In the meantime, cooperate. Everything we know about the cult."
"Do they still...?" I left the question open, hoping for a hint to just what I could say.
"Yes, this ritual is still supposed to somehow grant them immortality. What is it with people thinking they can extend their own lives through the blood and death of others?"
"Understood, Boss."
His voice softened, not emotionally, just a reduction in volume. "I know you need backup, but this is the best I can do."
"Understood," I said again.
Matei's machinations were not to get me to help the police catch their killer. No, they were to put me in a position to have access to police information so that I could track down, and kill, the vampires.
Wheels within wheels was Matei's style. He'd had centuries to develop his scheming.
The table at the diner had the little blue wheelchair logo on it. How cute. I supposed I couldn't complain since I was in a wheelchair.
"You sure you can eat?" Ware asked as he took his seat.
"I won't say I've seen worse," I said, "but I've seen...bad. Start with coffee maybe and see where it goes."
He glanced down at the wheelchair. "Are you sure it's okay?"
I sighed. "I'm injured. I'm not sick. I'm not old. There's nothing wrong with my digestive system. I need calories to heal."
The waitress arrived. "Are you ready to order or do you need a few?"
"Just coffee for now," I said, "but I may order food later. Do you have cream, or the little creamer cups?"
"We've got real cream for you, hon." She turned to Ware. "And you?"
"Same."
The waitress jotted a note on her pad. "Two coffees. Cream. Sugar's on the table."
"Thanks," Ware said.
As the waitress scurried away, Ware drummed his fingers on the table.
"So. Talk to me."
"Where should I start?" I picked up a spoon and fiddled with it in my left hand trying to find a comfortable way to use it. I switched it to my right. The cast left my thumb and forefinger free. After some gyrations, I found it easiest to curve my finger and press the handle of the spoon to it with my thumb. Ware sat through my manipulations before answering.
"You can start by telling me what makes you so important that the department hired a damn PI as a consultant."
I sighed. "Matei can be persuasive. Truth is, he's an utter bastard with a cash vault for a heart."
"If he's such a bastard, why do you work for him?"
For this, I could tell him the truth, just not all of it.
"I was raised in an abusive home." Mommy Dearest, training me to keep her safe during the day and to help her find blood meals that wouldn't be missed at night. Abusive was the word all right. "Matei got me out. I went into foster care and, well, that meant I stayed with him. He helped me find my job in East Ridge and then left me alone. I think he wanted me to prove myself, to myself. He wanted me to know that I could stand on my own. Earlier this year, though, he crooked his finger and I came running."
"To work for an utter bastard with a cash vault for a heart?"
"Well, most of the work is crap. Get pictures of the cheating spouse. Find the missing debtor. Bring back the drunk driver who skipped bail. But once in a while we get to do something important." Like kill monsters.
"So why are you important enough for us to pay money for?"
Our coffee arrived. Ware dismissed the waitress politely with the explanation that we still weren't ready to order food.
I am not a coffee lover, but caffeine is caffeine. I poured a healthy dose of cream and fumbled in three spoons of sugar. That was enough to make something drinkable. I picked up the cup left handed and sipped. This gave me a moment to think. I would have to expand on the standard story, but I trusted Matei to back me.
"What do you know of Elizabeth Bathory?" I asked.
Ware shook his head with a blank expression.
"Is she a suspect?"
I chuckled. "Oh no. She died more than 400 years ago."
"Then what does she have to do with..."
"Elizabeth, or Erzsebet in Hungarian, was a noblewoman born in Hungary. According to the story, a maidservant was brushing her hair when the brush caught and pulled. Elizabeth snatched the brush away and struck the maidservant so hard that blood flew and s
pattered Elizabeth's hand.
"One of her other maids, as they wiped the blood away, noted that where the blood had landed, the skin seemed clearer and more youthful." I set down the cup and looked at Ware, who was staring in rapt horror as though he knew what came next. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he had heard the story before and had forgotten.
"Elizabeth took those words to heart," I continued. "She had peasant girls brought in, young virgins. Over the course of time, things...developed. She had the girls tortured, killed, and the blood drained from their bodies. She bathed in the blood, literally, believing it would restore her youth. No one knows how many young women she tortured to death, how much blood filled the bathtubs in Castle Cachtice. But in time she made a mistake. Peasants weren't good enough. She sought noble blood. And the nobility, which could turn a blind eye to the deaths of peasants, could not ignore the murder of their own. She was caught, condemned, and confined to a set of rooms with the doors and windows bricked in. They left only small slots for ventilation and to allow them to push food in to her. I presume there was also an opening through which she could empty the chamberpot, otherwise it would have gotten quite messy during the four years between her imprisonment and her death."
I shook my head. "I'll tell you; this makes most horror movies look tame. Freddy and Jason have nothing on Elizabeth Bathory."
I took another drink of coffee. "This idea of using the blood of others to restore ones youth has persisted over the years. Robert Heinlein even made use of it at the end of his story Methuselah's Children, transfusions of 'young blood' was the first age rejuvenation technique developed. In the story they used synthetic blood, but the concept remained. There's even some science that suggests that transfusions of blood from young people can reduce some of the effects of aging."
"Damn," Ware said.
I nodded. "From time to time, we get cults that believe they can use the blood of others to extend their own lives or to grant themselves extra strength and power. Like those cannibals who eat the hearts of strong enemies in the hope of gaining the enemy's strength.
"We've encountered these before. Usually the cults are really quiet, taking victims that won't be missed or remarked. We've just had the luck—call it good or bad as you wish—of somebody we were trying to trace being a victim and that led us right into the mess."
The Unmasking (Dhampyre the Hunter Book 1) Page 3