Something was up, and I could see it from the moment I walked into the police station. I didn’t like it very much. I had the feeling that the day was already starting out to be a difficult one. I was tense and more uptight than I usually let myself become. I didn’t like this crack of dawn shit any more than anyone else did, and now I could feel eyes on me. Suddenly the hum of the room was broken by a call from the Chief, and that man did not care for me one bit.
“Detective, get your ass in here!”
His words hit me like the first roar of a thunderstorm and I feared I didn’t have a raincoat this morning. I had no patience left to deal with this bully. I shook my head, frowning, and tried to roll the knots out of my shoulders and neck. Finally, I gritted my teeth and strolled across to his open office door.
Chief of Detectives Anthony Lipman was standing in his office, which in fact consisted of three connecting offices, including a conference room. The Lip Man, as he was called by his “admirers”, had on a tiresome grey suit, an over-starched white shirt, and a black necktie. His speckled hair was cut short and peppered over his scalp. On his walls were maps and charts featuring the crime statistics and newest printouts regarding the safety of our city. I met his gaze and waited for his hostility to sweep over me.
“Do you know why I wanted to see you, Detective? Do you have a clue?”
The Chief asked point-blank and it was more than clear that he wasn’t going to pull any punches that morning. No socializing or small talk from The Lip Man today.
“Of course you do, Detective. You’re the FBI’s new golden boy aren’t you? You and Johnson, you’re thick as thieves, the two of you are. Well, I’m fuckin’ sick and tired of this killer of yours getting headline news every morning. And you know what else? So is the FBI. I get a call every fuckin’ morning! I get a call every time the media mentions the phrase ‘vampire killings’ and we look like we don’t have a fuckin’ clue.”
Be cool, I told myself.
Don’t lose your temper. Don’t hit him. This man is not worth your job.
I did the thing he least expected me to do. I smiled at him and said, “I’m sorry, sir, if the higher-ups are breathing down your neck, but I have no control over the media.”
Fuck you, I thought. It’s your job to deal with shit like that, so deal, you fuckin’ piece of shit.
One of his hands was clenched into a tight fist as if he had heard every word that I had just thought about him. His fingers were as ridged as the long baseball bat that was leaning behind his desk. A new toy for his son, I suspected.
“You’re not fooling anyone with that shit, Anderson. Least of all me. Just stay out of the fuckin’ media, before I have you reassigned to traffic.”
I hated Lipman’s tone and what he was saying to me. But I learned one trick a long time ago and it is probably the most important thing to keep in mind when talking with men like Lipman. Power is everything. And if you don’t have it, act like you do, because pricks like him are just schoolyard bullies waiting for someone to call them out.
“I don’t think you really want to do that, sir. You see, the FBI wants me on this case. And you would have to have some pretty convincing reasons other than media attention to get me off of VICAP. Now, if that’s all, Chief, I have work to do.”
He didn’t want to hear it. He just shook his head.
“Just get out, Anderson.”
I gave him a slight nod as I walked past him and left his office. I could feel his hatred of me. He wanted to unload but not nearly as badly as I did. Hatred was like a destructive acid and it would eat you up inside if you let it. I knew that, but at times it feels good to access that demon inside yourself. Every now and then.
Just as I sat myself into my old creaky chair, I noticed a pink piece of paper on top of my desk. Missed call, it read. It was a message from my ex-wife, and I realized my cell phone had been on silent.
Detective Anderson,
Zakk has run off again. Your ex-wife is waiting for you to call her.
Zakk is an old police dog my partner gave to my daughter on her sixth birthday. Zakk is a black lab mix, not your typical police dog. He was a cadaver dog—a dog that was used to locate dead bodies. Dogs like Zakk were used at crime scenes to detect a body buried underground. Zakk could find a body wrapped in plastic and encased in concrete, even after several years. He had been Kenny’s personal canine companion on the force.
I met Kenny years ago when I served in the Army. We became good friends and both decided to enroll in the police academy together. We’ve been partners ever since. I had never known a more dedicated and loyal person in my whole life. We’ve been friends for over half my life and I trust him completely. I would die to protect him. On several occasions I almost had, and he had done the same for me.
I sat back, rubbed my hands over my face as people do when tired and stressed, and I took a deep breath. Then the smell of coffee hit me once more and my stomach ached for it. My favorite mug, filled with coffee, appeared on my desk. It was a slightly oversized mug that my daughter had made for me in an art class. It looked like some abstract painting, or as Kenny had put it once, it looked like Picasso had thrown up on it. I stared at it for a moment before looking up to see the massive man before me blocking out the morning sun.
Kenny was a large muscular man. In the Army, we called him The Tank. He was a good man to have on your side, especially when things got rough.
“You already been down to the hell this morning?” he asked, referring to the crime scene and plopping his heavy frame down in his chair.
“Yeah, thought I’d see you there.” I said.
“I was on the phone with Aaron, the assistant M.E. He had some interesting things to say,” Kenny said. “Remember the Jane Doe, second victim out on Sand Point Naval Station?”
“Yeah, what about her?” I asked, taking a sip of my steaming coffee.
“Well, he said he’s going to email me the file but the shit he told me over the phone was really weird.”
“Like what?” I asked, with a hint of a laugh under my breath.
He pulled himself closer to me, trying to speak in a soft voice, which was rather difficult for him to do. His voice was very loud and booming. A good quality in a cop, but in times such as these it did not serve him well.
“Okay, man. Aaron said that during the autopsy they had found some fucked up shit. On one of the back ribs, an old slug of some kind was found.”
“Really? That doesn’t fit.”
“That’s not the half of it. There was no flesh damage. The bullet would have normally torn through the chest and gone through the vital organs. But they were clean. Not one mark.”
“How is that possible?” I asked, sitting up straighter now.
“Dude, that’s not even the fucked up part. Aaron said the bullet was old, had been there for years but there was no other evidence of the victim ever being shot. There’s other stuff too—evidence on the joints of hanging by her feet at some point and the ribcage had a strange shape to it, not found in most people. It should all be in the file later today.”
“Even after all that, we can’t ID the girl?” I asked.
“Not so far.”
“Have we heard from Agent Mitchell yet?”
“Not since before I called you this morning.”
“So how’s your uncle?”
I changed the subject.
“He moved in yet?”
His uncle was living in a nursing home but he really hated it, so Kenny took him in. A good thing for him to do, and Kenny knew it. In his mind he had no choice. Family was very important to him.
“Yeah, yesterday.”
“Do you think you can handle him? You know he must have been in a nursing home for a reason.”
“Well, the old man had triple bypass surgery about, say… three months ago. He doesn’t want to be on his own now. Hey, if he wants to be with me now, that’s cool,” Kenny told me.
“What if he wants to make it permanent
?”
“He’s family, Tim. Nothing trumps family. That’s one thing I learned from my folks. There’s nothing like family.”
“Right, I couldn’t agree more, Kenny. Come on, let’s go work the scene. It’s a busy place, even at night. Somebody must have seen something.”
Kenny got up, checked his Glock 19 and tucked it into his waistband. He never liked using a gun holster like most cops did. He liked the look of the street. Kenny was an adopted child of half-black and half-Latino descent. Most of that was a guess on his part—he really had no idea—but he loved to play music and had buckets of soul, so I guess he just might have been right.
Chapter 5
9:00 a.m., November 23
Fabiana sat in the top floor of the Warwick Hotel on 5 Avenue downtown. She had her eyes closed and listened to the thoughts of the humans around her. Her mouth curled up at the corners as a group of girls watched a movie about vampires on the television two floors below hers. They argued about some boys called Edward and Jacob. She enjoyed their sense of fantasy and love for these characters. The innocence of youth was something that she wished she could have hung onto all those years ago when she was turned into the creature that she was now. Fabiana could see it all as if she was in the room with them.
The girls sat in a long curving room and the sun washing into the space was like liquid sloshing against colorless walls. The teenagers in long t-shirts sat at the edge of a bed, a television shining away in front of them. Half-eaten food sat all around them as they twirled their hair and giggled over the movie every time some boy would walk into focus. Fabiana could not see the appeal. No real vampire would look like that, and if you ever saw one, you would most likely be dead a moment later. Even over the millennia she never really understood why humans coveted the vampires so. It was like a mouse coveting a cat—in the end, the mouse was still going to die.
Her powers had begun to increase since her kill the night before. She had always had impressive abilities since the time she had spent in Hispania and Rome with a group of vampires called The Origin of Blood. She had gained the talent long ago of reading others’ thoughts and moving objects with her mind was never difficult. She had the sense that she might be able to levitate now; she would test herself tonight.
A gold-painted frame in front of her soft bed held a beautiful mirror. She stared into it as if she was a blossoming child admiring herself for the first time. It was a misconception that vampires had no reflection. Only in the movies do such tales of vampires become a reality. Most vampires enjoy remembering how beautiful and handsome they are. They like to reflect on the time when they were still human and could walk freely under the sun. A time when life was easier and carefree.
Large, thick blankets hung in heavy ruffles over the windows, blocking out the morning sunrise by the request of the guest. The hotel was only too happy to oblige her, for she was a well-funded and valued visitor. The terrifying effect of the sun was one of the things the movies had gotten at least partially right, but it would only destroy the lives of the young and weak. In fact, the rays of the sun helped the ancient vampire to go unnoticed in public from time to time. It would only burn for a brief moment, then her skin would turn to a light tan. But most vampires did not wish to test that fact, including Fabiana. She was an elder vampire but her first few years as an immortal taught her some valuable lessons. The fables and rules told by the earliest blood collectors were not to be trusted, as very little of the folklore ended up being true.
Fabiana looked over to the night table that sat next to her bed. Next to the bronze base of the lamp sat her driver’s license and the credit cards she had recently acquired downtown. They were fake, of course—made to look like the real thing. Only an expert could actually tell the difference. The price was high but the quality was worth the currency she had to pay for them. Of course the young woman who sold them to her had no idea who or what Fabiana really was when she took the job, but that mattered little to Fabiana. Even if she did have a clue about Fabiana’s background, the vampire could wipe her thoughts clean in an instant. Even the elegant black and red silk dress from Saks Fifth Avenue that she wore was worth the money, if she felt human in such things. The IDs, credit cards, and distinguished clothes were a necessity for the modern vampire in the age of electronic currency, and most blood collectors knew it.
Fabiana lay back, shut her eyes, and drifted off to sleep for the day. She would monitor the thoughts of the humans throughout the day, and she would know if someone approached her room far before she was in danger. As she slumbered, in her mind’s eye, she watched the sun rise up over the hills of Seattle like a shining bronze penny. It sat on the horizon, fighting the strength and determination of the slowly relenting fog. A car horn broke through the morning like the sudden cry of a rooster and the sounds of the city filled her mind.
* * *
After hours of slumber, Fabiana’s eyes opened suddenly. The faint sound of footsteps on the back corridor rang in her ears. Someone was coming for her. She reached out with her mind and invaded the thoughts of the two men running towards her.
They were murderers taken off the street by a vampire named Candelas, a two hundred-year-old vampire from the British Isles. The men are the daylight assassins of the undead who were promised immortality in return for their servitude.
Fabiana jumped off her queen-sized bed and landed in the middle of the room, waiting for the inexperienced slayers to enter. She stood in front of the door, fangs out and her mind ready to strike. No human could ever sneak up on her; she could sense them from a mile away, with their clumsy thoughts of violence and their stench radiating towards her.
The amateur assassins seemed hasty as they noisily made their way to her. They might as well have been screaming, Here we come, ready or not. Their scent was strong and overpowering—the smell of sea and fish assaulted her long before they even got to her floor. The minds of the humans were full of images of murder and immortality. They were doing this for the blood. Some humans wished to be blood collectors but most that were promised immortality just ended up being slaves for vampires and then ended up as food. The gift of immortality was not to be given out to just anyone. One had to be chosen; one had to be spectacular in some way.
The door swung open and two men barged into the dark room. Their dirty and dusty clothes reeked of their humanity, their fear and uncertainty. They seemed to progress with slowed movements past an elaborate French painting of a garden scene and the sophisticated, hand-carved end tables by the door. Fabiana rushed at them, grabbing them by the face and knocking them to the ground.
“Weak humans, you make horrible vampire hunters,” she said, as she stood over them. They were huddled under her on the floor. Her powerful grip crushed one of them, sending surges of pain reeling throughout his weak frame. Bones cracked and shattered under her might. The other man looked at her with horror as he watched what was about to happen to him.
“I haven’t taken a human life in a hundred years.”
Then she leaned forward, bit into their necks with razor sharp teeth, and fed on both of them, one and then the other. Their tan, dirty skin turned white. In only a few moments, they were dead at her feet. She stood up, wiped a drop of blood from her lips, and slowly closed the door to her room. The outside light that bled its brightness into the room faded as the door clicked shut, and with that, the men were dead.
Chapter 6
9:30 a.m., November 23
It had been unusually wet and rainy lately, even for Seattle, and there was a river of water flowing into the drain at the end of the walk. Leaves and cigarette butts floated down and then out of sight as Kenny and I walked slowly down Pike Street, just behind the back side of the West Lake Center shopping mall. There were two days left until Thanksgiving weekend and the crowds were out in full force. The two of us slipped in and around the frantic holiday shoppers, each one seeming as frenzied and bloodthirsty as any killer.
Yellow tape held back a hoard of s
hoppers wanting to get closer to the scene, yearning for an eyeful of some horrible sight. We had our cell phones out and were taking snapshots of the area, looking for anything that could give us a break. The victims were found just feet from the spot where we stood and we were hoping to find some kind of evidence that would help us. A hair or a small piece of fiber could be the single clue that could send a case rushing to a conclusion.
Then the aroma hit me. My nose picked up the scent and the smell was as intoxicating and alluring as any perfume. Coffee. I smelled its wisps of brewing joy from half a block away. It was at that moment that I spotted the Seattle’s Best coffeehouse on the corner. It was a long metal building that looked like it had been erected solely out of glass and steel. The whole structure was more or less just huge panes of glass held in place by a thin steel frame.
“Hey, Kenny. Over there at the coffeehouse. What d’you think?”
“It’s worth a shot,” he said. “Most places have surveillance cameras.”
Kenny smirked and looked at his watch. He made a big production of lifting his thick wrist to see what time it was, as if it didn’t bother him that the hours were slipping away faster each second and that soon Jack would be there to take over.
“Let’s check it out.”
The coffeehouse was bursting with life on that cold morning. People stood crammed into the doorway hoping to stay out of the icy wind long enough to get their double mocha or chai latte or whatever they might wish to knock back on such a chilled day. Eyes shot back at us and then forward again, uninterested in who we were, assuming that the two men entering the back doors were just another two customers taking their places in line. They took it for granted that we would wait our turn for our drinks like everyone else, but Kenny and I had no intention of waiting for anything on that day.
Kenny and I forced our way to the front of the line and heard several insulting comments as we pushed forward. I had an apologetic look about me until a middle-aged man shoved me into Kenny and called me an “ass fuck”. Kenny’s large mass wouldn’t even budge as I collided into him and my brow made contact with the fur of his jacket. He turned and gave me an expectant look, like he was waiting for me to kill someone. I turned around to face this rude man. He was in his mid-forties, overweight and unshaven. He stiffened his jaw and gave me a cold stare. I was not a small man; I had broad shoulders with a muscular physique and weighed 225 pounds. I could certainly handle myself, more than enough to take this asshole down to the ground. I pulled my police badge out of my pocket and put it in the man’s face. His eyes fixed on it and at once his proud demeanor soured a bit.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 1): Blood Collector Page 3