“Donald, darling,” she said, “please open your trunk. But I’d rather that you not see what I need to put in it. It is private.”
He didn’t like what she was asking but he also didn’t want to argue with her. A voice whispered loudly in his skull that it would not be smart to argue. He unlocked the trunk and walked back to the front of his car. A police cruiser sat several blocks away. He squinted hard and saw that it was empty. It didn’t seem to make any sense for it to be there. He heard other voices talking with Serena, and remembered her mentioning having companions with her. When they were done putting whatever it was in the trunk, he turned and caught a quick glance of the three men with her. They were like shadows the way they moved, and he had this sense that he didn’t want to look at any of them too closely, but was left with the impression that they all had the same similar odd-shaped cat-like features as Serena and Jim. He figured that they were all related, maybe some inbreeding going on. He noted that one of them was limping.
“Donald, Darling, are you going to leave us standing here?” Serena asked, laughing.
He got in the driver’s seat. Serena took the seat next to him and her three companions piled into the back. Normally it would be tight fitting three adults back there, but like Serena, they all had slender body types, and they fit without any trouble. Outside of one quick glance in the rear view mirror, he kept his stare focused straight ahead. He didn’t want to look at any of them. At least not directly.
“There have been more killings, Serena. I think Jim is behind them.”
“That is interesting, Donald.” From her tone it was clear that she wasn’t at all interested. “May I suggest we go back to your hotel room so we can talk in a more comfortable setting?”
Hayes nodded. His instincts told him now was not a good time to fill her in on anything, especially along this isolated stretch of the city. As much as he wanted to peek over and see why her lips had looked so large and red before, he kept his stare frozen straight ahead. The silence inside the car unnerved him, but he knew it would be better to just keep his mouth shut for the time being. Now was especially not the time to tell her that he had talked with the police about Jim.
He drove further up the street so he could pull into a driveway and turn around more easily, and saw what looked like red smudges on the door of the abandoned police car. He almost kept driving straight ahead so he could see one way or the other what was smeared over that door, but again, his instincts told him now was not the time for that, and he turned the car around as planned. Nervously, he tried making small talk with Serena, asking how her trip was. She casually dismissed him by telling him that she’d rather not talk right now—she was tired and would like to rest until they got to his hotel room. That got a chuckle from one of her companions as they sat in the back seat whispering back and forth. Hayes strained to make out what they were saying but couldn’t quite get it. He realized his hands and wrists were aching, and noticed how tightly he was clenching the wheel and how the veins were bulging from his arms. He sensed that Serena was noticing those veins also, and that sent a chill up his spine.
“You’re sweating, Donald,” she said with a laugh.
“I’ve had a tough day so far,” he muttered, more than anything not wanting to look at her, especially not wanting to see why her lips were the way they were.
When he arrived at the hotel he started to pull into a parking space in front so they’d have to walk through the lobby, but Serena pointed out the hotel’s parking garage.
“I think it would be better if you parked in there,” she said.
Reluctantly, Hayes pulled away from the curb and drove into the attached garage. After parking, he got out of the car and heard Serena and her companions get out also. More than ever he didn’t want to look at them. Something told him not to. Even louder, the same gut instinct was screaming at him to run.
“Do you need to get your things out of the trunk?” he asked.
“They’ll be fine where they are,” Serena said.
Hayes led the way to the elevator, then stood staring at his hands folded in front of him. He could tell Serena and her companions found it amusing that he couldn’t get himself to look directly at any of them. He led them to his room, and once inside, went straight to the minibar and poured himself a scotch and water.
“Would any of you like one?” he offered the rest of them.
“No thank you,” Serena said, again laughing that shrill, glass-crackling laugh. “Your hand is shaking, Donald.”
“It’s been a tough day.”
“Yes, I’ve heard already. You’re repeating yourself.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize for that—after all, you’ve had a tough day.” That brought sniggers from her companions. Serena continued, adding, “I certainly hope you haven’t been expensing those. Motel minibar drinks are ridiculously marked up.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t expense my food or drinks.”
“You’d be much better off buying a bottle at a liquor store.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Hayes drained his drink and poured himself another one. He could sense that all of them had moved closer to him.
“You mentioned something about more killings earlier…” Serena started.
It all clicked in place then. With a clarity of thought, Hayes knew what had happened with Jim. He knew why those killings happened, why none of the witnesses remembered seeing Jim’s girlfriend in that theatre.
“Yeah, I did mention something like that,” he said.
“You think my Jim was involved?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Donald, I am paying you quite a lot of money for your services.”
He nodded. His throat had tightened, and he knew he’d have trouble talking. He tilted his glass and finished off what was left of his second scotch. It helped.
“It looks like he killed two more people today,” he said. “Both members of a local Cleveland drug gang. The Blood Dragons.”
“What an adorable name,” Serena said. “Yes, I do like that name. Any guess why my Jim would do something like that.”
“I have a guess. I think he got in some trouble with them. Maybe he took something of theirs, and maybe they took something of his to get their stuff back.”
More curious than anything else, she asked, “What would they take of his?”
“His girlfriend.”
One of her companions snorted out a loud laugh.
“That reminds me, Donald, you never did fax me that girl’s drawing.”
Hayes nodded, fished a copy of the drawing out from a folder and handed it to Serena. It was purely reflex, he couldn’t help it, but he turned to look at her and found himself staring at Serena’s mouth. He understood why it had looked so big and red before. It had been smeared with blood, so much so that it looked caked on. He then looked from her to the others. Their clothing was bullet-riddled, splotches of blood covered both it and their skin. One of them had a four-leaf clover-like pattern of gunpowder burns in the middle of his forehead. Hayes thought he had smelled gunpowder earlier when he was in the car with them.
“I think I could use another drink,” Hayes said.
“I think you’ve had enough, Donald. I’m afraid I might get a bit tipsy if I allow you to have another.”
All of it made sense then. Those bodies missing all that blood, Serena and her companions splattered with it. Their freakish looks…being able to rip a man’s arm off…tearing another man’s head from its body…It was insane but it all made sense.
Hayes made a move for the door. Serena showed an amazing quickness and stepped in front of him, grabbing both his arms. It was like being held by steel bands. He couldn’t move.
“Donald, I have been very impressed with your work, otherwise I wouldn’t be having you join our little family. I know you may not think so right now, but you should feel quite honored.”
“You must be satiated from before,” o
ne of the others was telling her. “If you’d like I could take care of him. That wouldn’t be too gay, would it?”
She laughed at that. “I don’t think so, but Donald and I have developed a very special bond. He’s been aching for my touch for so long now that it would only be right if I did the honors.”
She looked hard into Hayes’ eye. All he could see were two empty dark holes.
“Please…” he said.
“You’re quite welcome,” she told him.
She picked him up and swung him to the floor, then bent over him. Her lips touched his throat. They were like ice. With some shame he realized he was both terrified and excited. He was unable to move, unable to breath, his heart pounding as he waited. It seemed a long time before she bit his throat, her teeth sinking deep into his flesh. He knew she had severed his jugular. It hurt, but not as much as he would’ve thought. He closed his eyes and waited to die. Death didn’t come, though. Instead it started hurting. Bad. And it only got worse. Like he was on fire. Like he would go out of his mind. The world disappeared on him, leaving him nothing but pain. Before too long he wished he were dead already.
* * * * *
Zach bound Hayes’s wrist and ankles using strips that he had ripped from a spare bed sheet taken from the hotel room’s closet. The PI moaned softly, but mostly lay still on the floor. Zach pulled on the strips and tightened his knot. He stood up, faced Serena and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled bad cheese.
“That sheet is some sort of polyester-cotton blend. We’d be lucky if it were even a hundred thread count.”
“I know, darling.”
Zach’s head pivoted slowly in a half circle as he took in the room, his disgust showing plainly on his face. “Unbelievably tacky,” he said.
“Think of it as roughing it for a night, darling. Like we were camping.”
Zach nodded sullenly. Wilfred had joined him so he could prod Hayes in the back with the toe of his boot. The PI stirred slightly, but not much more than that.
“Do you think that’s going to hold him?” Wilfred asked.
“For a few hours maybe,” Zach said. “But after that I don’t think so. We could use some chains.” He shifted his gaze to Serena. “Is he worth this annoyance? If we got rid of him we could find someplace nice to spend the night. Why stay cooped up in this dump?”
Serena used her index finger to wave Zach closer to her, then placed both hands on his chest. She leaned forward and licked some of the dried blood off his face. The blood was from one of the cops they had massacred earlier and not from any of them so she had no problem digesting it.
“Darling,” she whispered in his ear, “we’ll be fine for the night. And yes, he’s worth it. He is a very clever snoop and could come in handy when we try to find Jim again.”
“We already found him once without his help.”
“I know. But that was luck. Jim knows we’re here now. It’s not going to be so easy the next time.”
“How do we know he hasn’t already taken off? That’s what I would do if I were him.”
“But you’re not him, Zach, darling. Jim wouldn’t do that, at least not without his precious girlfriend. As long as he doesn’t find her over the next twenty-four hours, Mr. Hayes could be very useful to us.” She leaned in closer to Zach and lowered her whisper so that only he could hear her. “And don’t be jealous, my sweetheart. No matter how many I add to our family, you’ll always be my favorite.”
He grunted, tried to maintain his sullen frown, but was obviously pleased with himself. The door to the room opened and the third surviving member of Serena’s group walked in, a duffel bag swung over his shoulder, and his arms loaded with luggage and a cooler. His forehead was still blackened with gunpowder from when Jim had shot him. He set everything down, found a corkscrew by the mini bar, then sat on the couch and tried to pry out a bullet that had lodged between his gum and tooth.
“I thought you were supposed to be some sort of hotshot martial arts sword guy,” Wilfred said to him. “Jim kicked the shit out of you.”
The vampire shrugged, removed the corkscrew from his mouth so he could talk.
“It wasn’t that asshole,” he said. “It was the sun. That’s what kicked the shit out of me. If I get another chance with him after the sun’s down, I’ll cut him to pieces.”
“I only want you cutting off his legs and arms,” Serena warned him. “Jim is not to be killed.”
The vampire nodded dully and went back to digging out the bullet. His body was swaying slightly from side to side—giving the impression that he was on a boat listing in a storm. He still looked woozy from the shots he took to the head.
“So that’s it,” Wilfred said, waving a hand casually at Hayes. “We’re just going to wait here until he wakes up?”
Serena shook her head.
“There’s no need for that,” she said. “The sun’s mostly down. Stefan here has no further excuses. I’d like you two to clean up and see what you can find out about this gang, the Blood Dragons. If we can find them, then we can find Jim’s precious girlfriend, and I would have to think things would get easy after that.”
“How about you and Zach?” Wilfred asked.
“Oh, don’t worry, we have other chores,” Serena said, smiling thinly. “I remember us passing a sex shop. They should have the chains we need for Mr. Hayes. After he’s been properly secured, Zach and I will do what we can to make this room tolerable since we could very well be spending from sunrise to sunset here tomorrow.” She turned her smile to Zach. “How about some satin sheets, goose down pillows, a comforter that hasn’t had hundreds of other people drooling and pissing and having sex on, among other niceties? We’ll see if we can make this sty a little bit more like home.”
Wilfred nodded, left to the bathroom to strip off his torn and blood-stained clothes and clean up. While Stefan waited, he opened the duffel bag and went over each sword with a damp cloth. Minutes later Hayes started to moan louder. Serena smiled at him the way a mother might a newborn child. She took a pint bag of blood from the cooler and kneeled by him so she could feed him. The PI suckled on it blindly.
“Metcalf is going to find out about what happened here,” Zach said. “I’m sure it’s already all over the news.”
Serena pretended not to hear him. After a while she asked him to be a dear and turn on CNN to see what they were reporting. Zach turned it on and it wasn’t just the top story—it was the only story. They were dubbing it the ‘Cleveland Massacre’, and whether they were showing a video recording that had been made by a bystander with a cell phone, interviewing witnesses, talking to a police spokesman, or showing the bloody aftermath, it was all Cleveland twenty-four by seven.
“At least we put this godforsaken city on the map,” Serena said.
* * * * *
Rolfe kept trying to get Noah off his Lazyboy recliner, but the man who would dwarf most NFL linemen was content in just taking long tokes from a joint the size of a Macanudo.
“Come on, man, this is big,” Rolfe implored.
Noah made a face as if Rolfe were full of shit. “Just chill, okay? I’m getting sick of hearing that. Whatever it is it can wait. Here, take a hit. This will calm you down, bro.”
Rolfe shook his head. “Fuck that, man, this is too important. I need your help now. Besides, you probably laced that sucker with crack.”
Noah smiled. “Guilty as charged.”
“Fuck, man, you need to let me show you this. It can’t wait, okay?”
Noah took a long drag on his cigar-sized joint and held the smoke in for a good twenty seconds before slowly releasing it.
“If this is so important, just tell me what it is, okay, bro?”
“Can’t do that, man, you need to see this to believe it. So get your ass out of that seat ’cause we’re talking real cash here. Fucking thing just fell right out of the sky and into my lap. And it gives us a sweet way to screw those Dragon bitches.”
Noah gave him a hard eye as he struggled to
get out of his chair. Puffing somewhat, he told Rolfe to show him what he had. “This better be good or I’m kicking your bony ass for messin’ with my evening,” he said.
“I’m not worried, man, my bony ass is safe. This is that good.”
Rolfe led Noah through the one-level ranch style house to an attached garage where his van was parked. He opened up the back of the van so Noah could get a good look at the man inside moaning and writhing on the floor. Even though the man’s tattoos were obscured with blood and dirt, enough of them were visible to show that he was a member of the Blood Dragons.
“Fuck me,” Noah said. He shifted his gaze to Rolfe. “You do this?”
“Not me. I’d like to take credit for it, but no, that boy was in some kind of accident, and some real freaky shit went down afterwards. Acid trippin’-type shit, shit you wouldn’t believe if you saw it.”
Noah squeezed the area around his mouth, his fingers working into his flesh as if they were kneading dough.
“What’s the point?” he said. “He’s not much more than road kill.”
“He’s still breathing.”
“Not for much longer.”
Rolfe scratched his head, then behind his ears. “I don’t know. If we can keep him alive, we can make him talk when he wakes up. Anyway, he keeps mumbling shit. Maybe he’ll spill something about where the rest of those Blood Dragon bitches keep their stash. Maybe with a little coaxing he’ll say something like that out loud. Even if he don’t, we could take some pictures of him and get us a ransom.”
Blood Crimes Page 16