Sammy’s youth held him down in the shadows. At least, age was the excuse Sammy had in mind when he refused to get up out of his hiding spot and make himself known. Which was good—it most likely saved his life on that night.
The three men suddenly disappeared around the corner and into the darkness. Sammy got out of his hiding spot and attempted to follow the mysterious stranger and his two whimpering lackeys, but then he just came to an open area just outside the market. No one was around. A small glass streetlight hung over a brick entryway, throwing a flood of light onto a flight of stone steps just in front of the doorway. Sammy looked right, then left, but could find no sign of the three men.
The door was one of the most unwelcoming sights he had ever seen. It stood shut, looking back at him with its red peeling paint. It was constructed of wood and metal and old-looking hinges. Sammy was sure it would give him away with an unbearable screech if he was ever so inclined to try to open that door.
252
Chapter 19
1:30 p.m., November 24
In an area of Capital Hill lined with proud old brick homes and small graceful trees, Kenny managed to find the young woman that had called him on his cell phone from a payphone a few moments before. Scared and shaking, she hid herself, huddled in the darkness.
She had always been a somewhat reliable source of information in the past. Kenny had been using her for years—ever since he almost busted her for prostitution about three years ago. It turned out that she had had information on a predator that happened to be in the Seattle area at the time and Kenny made a deal with her. Now she worked for him. He paid her well and usually bought her a hot meal, but on that day it wouldn’t be possible.
He walked next to a painted, orange apartment building with ugly precast mud and plastic lawn chairs on a seeping balcony with green ivy. Across from this was a rundown pawn shop that must have been there since the fifties—one of those old buildings that the city seemed to hold onto with a feeling of love. No matter how rundown it might get, it was here to stay.
Trixie leaned against a dumpster smoking a menthol cigarette and carefully watched as Kenny made his way down the narrow alleyway which was camouflaged in black. Her hands shook with every step, knowing that he was getting closer and closer. A tear welled up in her eyes as she watched the light of the morning sun slowly reveal his face to her. She almost never sounded flustered or sharp but when she had called him just a few moments ago she sounded just that and more. She was scared. She never was a smart ass, and she sure as hell had a right to sound any way that she wanted after what she had been through. After years of street life and being an eye for Kenny Johnson. But she was having a hard time with what she had to say to him this time. It didn’t make sense to her. Nothing did any more.
“Detective, is that you?” she asked reluctantly.
“I’m here, Trixie.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“You got something for me, Trixie? A lead?”
“Yeah, I got summin’ for yah,” she said, revealing her street upbringing.
“Tell me.”
Her street experience never showed unless displayed as a weapon. Trixie had still been in high school when she began boxing with her brothers. She began hoping to protect herself in the streets as a young black girl. Her home life was not what she wished it would be. Her father seemed to have had more plans for her young body than she did. He eventually ended up in prison, but not before taking her innocence forever. Now she walked the street doing only what she knew how to do, selling herself for money and, from time to time, giving information to Kenny. He was silent as Trixie told her story.
“I had been out all night. My feet hurt real bad. Every step killed me, but that was never somethin’ new. It was dark and cold as shit, and the rain hurt. All I wanted was to get home.
“I stopped and saw this dude standing on a rooftop of a shitty, rundown building. He must have been five stories up when he jumped. And I mean the fucker jumped! I thought he was a goner for sure, man. I watch him fall to the street without making a fuckin’ sound—not a thump, nothing. It was like one of those action movies, you know? Like when Superman landed on the street and everything exploded around him? It was like that. Well, the dude didn’t even stop. He ran across the street into the community college. I was like, ‘No fuckin’ shit, man!’ And like that, he was gone.
“So I booked up the street and around the corner into the campus. You won’t even believe what I saw. One person was dead on the ground, blood comin’ from her neck while the fucker held some dude in his arms. He was biting his neck! I mean, fuckin’ sick, right? I mean, I seen some shit out here, but nuttin’ like the shit I saw on that night. He looked right at me and blood was all over his face. He dropped the dead man to the ground like a rag doll and took one step closer to me. I thought I was dead for sure.
“Now this dude was tall and looked like some G.I. Joe-looking guy, with black hair and green eyes. A face so white it glowed behind the red blood. I really freaked out, man! I was cryin’ so hard and I prayed to God that he would not kill me. When I opened my eyes he was gone. So I ran as fast as I could and I ain’t been back there, not once.”
In the Seattle Central Community College, Kenny looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past 3 p.m. Kenny knelt down on the very spot Trixie had just described to him. There was a small smudge of blood on the ground. It wasn’t often that Kenny found himself near the school—usually just to have lunch by the campus—and he certainly didn’t have the luxury that afternoon. It made sense why Trixie had been hesitant to call. It had taken days for her to gather her courage. But what Kenny was confused by was why the killer had left her alive at all? If this man was the killer and not the woman that he and Tim suspected, why leave a witness to the crime?
It seemed more plausible that he was cruising and spotted a victim, just like any killer, and that Trixie, in her stoned and drugged state, saw more than she really had. Then another thought popped into Kenny’s head. What if she was the killer and only told the story to confuse Kenny? But no crime had been reported in that area, no bodies had been found. Kenny shook his head. Trixie, while she was out that night, possibly walking or standing late in the dark, could have seen anything and not really been able to recall it correctly later. She was not always reliable, but most of the time she was.
Trixie’s nervousness bothered him and the tale she had just spun was unnerving to say the least. The killer was male? That didn’t add up unless there were two killers. That could mean a couple working together or maybe there was a copycat killer.
Whatever it meant, he needed to get back to Tim. Pulling out his cell phone he flagged down a taxi and then dialed Tim as he climbed into the smelly yellow cab.
“Pike Place,” he told the driver and waited for Tim to answer his phone.
“Where are you?” Tim asked anxiously as he answered.
“Just left Capitol Hill.”
“What the fuck you doing in Capitol Hill?”
“Got a lead on our killer, but it doesn’t make much sense,” Kenny said.
Tim took a few steps away from Sammy, switched his phone to the other ear and tried to cover his voice.
“I’ve got a lead too. A kid out here says our victims met up with a strange guy who took them somewhere under the market, but I can’t find it. I was hoping we could convince the kid to take us.”
“Good. I’ll be there soon.”
The cab sped down out of Capitol Hill and within a few moments, after several stoplights and crosswalks crowded with pedestrians, the sign of Pike Place came into view. Kenny was in the middle of a conversation with Jack Mitchell on his cell phone.
“Any of the employees set off your serial-killer alarm?” Kenny was asking.
“No. No, they displayed a fairly calm mix of social awkwardness, narcissism, and inappropriate fantasies. All within normal range.”
“Even the father?”
“Well, like most over-achievers, he
displayed a slight case of parental alienation, but beyond that, no,” Jack told him.
“Alright, Agent Mitchell. Detective Anderson and I are meeting up to check out one of the victim’s holds. We’ll contact you later.”
Tim was standing at a large newsstand on the corner across from a huge strip club. Its flashing lights and bouncing sexy legs danced animatedly over 1 Avenue like the “soft glow of electric sex” that the adult Ralphie mentions in A Christmas Story. Crowds of men tried to meander by casually, hoping for a peek inside.
252
Chapter 20
5:00 p.m., November 24
The moon was a white globe peaking through gaps in the trees as Fabiana moved through a quiet neighborhood called Blue Ridge. Lush branches were moving in shadowed shapes along the roadside and the sandy pavement was speckled under a streetlight. The air was clear and cool, perfect for a walk or to hunt. A lone dog barked in the distance, but she was not quite certain where. Its bark was thunderous and unwavering as it filled the night sky behind the vampire.
This was the very sort of evening she would have found enchanting in the past but now it was unsettling in her mind. Something was not right to her. Isolation was always the cruelest of punishments, and it had never occurred to her that even here, in this place, so many years later, the bastard that took her would still have so much power over her. It had been hundreds of years since then, but she could still feel the cave in Hispania, the place of rebirth, in her mind. Her experience had not been the metamorphosis of wonder that she was supposed to feel that it was. She was living a nightmare, the same waking nightmare she had endured since that fateful evening so long ago.
* * *
Fabiana was born in Hispania during the reign of Emperor Nero, 54years after the death of Christ. She was one of the oldest of her kind. She was not the most ancient, but one of a very few left.
Nero had been emperor for only a few years and it was a not marvelous era outside of the city of Rome. Rome controlled most of the land surrounding Hispania, as well as any trade to and from her land. It had been a hard life for Fabiana. As a young woman who had already been violated several times, the Roman soldiers patrolling the land did little to help her. She struggled from day to day to see the beauty of her land, the rolling hills and cozy villages that she had enjoyed so much as a child.
Unlike Rome, in Hispania women had no freedom. And her father was a poor ex-Roman soldier who had become a mere blacksmith. Fabiana grew up motherless but was adored by her father; he would have done anything to keep her safe. He was a good man, one of few skills outside of the army, but his love for her was great. He only wanted one thing for his child—to love and be loved. He had no desire to marry her off for land or property. He wanted her to be free of that kind of slavery—the kind that he had felt under Roman rule. He wished for her to find love one day on her own, but he was doing more harm than good to her, for he was offering no dowry to entice the men of the village to marry her. He wanted her to find her own way in life but, at the same time, his romantic ideas of love were handicapping her.
One faithful night, one that would never leave her mind, Fabiana could not sleep. Her mind wouldn’t shut down and she tossed miserably between unsettling images and savage dreams. She was not yet the vampire she was to become. She was merely a young woman twisting and turning in a bed of straw, trying to relax. Her dreams were of herself transformed into a hideous monster. In the nightmare, she was standing in her village, blood dripping from her face and mouth. The blood tasted good. It was refreshing. A body lay crumpled at her feet. She looked down to it. Large hulking shoulders covered in streams of blood stared eyelessly up at her. She kneeled down to it, put her hand on the man at her feet and rolled him over. She gasped as she stared down in horror at the lifeless face of her father.
Fabiana’s eyes flew open in the dark. Her heart felt squeezed, as if by a cold hand of some unknown force. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had ever felt more disconnected or lonely as she had at that moment. Suddenly, a voice called out to her. It did not yell or even speak, but somehow she heard it echoing in her mind. She got up, curious to the point of torture, and ventured out into the streets of her village.
The darkened streets of Olisipo seemed very quiet. The air on her face felt good and wet on that night. The moon stood high in the sky and appeared like a shining marble as it glowed above. The pools and puddles on the roadside seem to shimmer in the moonlight, as if they were made of delicate glass. Fabiana walked on a dirt road covered with large stones, intended to stop mudflow. The road led her all the way down to the waterfront, but it was far from the city and seemed very dark. She could not see the ocean but she could hear it very clearly as heavy waves thundered down onto the rocks below. The water seemed to mist around her in wisps of moisture. Fog found her and rolled off of her again, caressing her bare shoulders.
She turned around and faced the shadow of her village under the stars. Then the voice in her mind again drew her farther and farther away from home. It was as if some character from a dream, a loyal figure that had always been a part of her life, was speaking directly to her. She trusted him totally. She was overcome with a feeling of love and compassion as she moved quietly into the darkness. She walked on for several minutes and came to a tree line hidden in the depths of the deep countryside. The light of the moon shined near the sinister, arthritic shape of an old cypress tree. A wolf’s eyes flashed and vanished into the shadows. The air simmered with the ominous sound of mosquitoes as Fabiana drifted into the inky gloom between the trees.
She walked slowly and carefully up a small, thin path, well aware of the cascading cliff just to the right of her. The woods were blindingly dark and the sounds of nocturnal animals filled her ears. She walked deeper and deeper as the blackness of the night engulfed her, her mind slowly pulling her forward and away from all the comforts she had known. She walked unhurriedly to let her eyes adjust. At one point, she needed to put her hands up to feel her way through the forest. It had become so gloomy and dismal.
She had walked through the night for close to an hour, the voice calling to her, when she came to an opening in the path. And in the light of the moon, she could see a figure standing in the tree line. The faint sound of conversation drifted towards her as she neared the edge of the woods. She wondered, bizarrely, if it was someone she knew. He was naked as he stared at her. It was not a longing stare, but one of somebody watching and waiting patiently for an arrival. Fabiana paused for a moment, calculating what she should do next. He was older than her by a great many years—that was plain to see. Twice over, perhaps. Lines of age dressed over his skin like a shirt.
He watched her for a moment and then he side-stepped away from her, as if granting her passage. The voice in her head was now overpowering her. She was unable to control her movements as she came in sight of a small cave entrance hidden by the woods. The trees and other vegetation had shielded the mouth of the cave from the sun for at least several decades, maybe centuries. A deer slowly crept by on the edge of the path where she stood and the wind swept across the cover of the night, cooling her face.
As Fabiana approached the entrance, she began to watch a woman walk out of the cave, moving in her direction with a kind of purpose. She was tall, with a graceful but strong stride. Long, silky legs carried her as she seemed to float, more than walk, by Fabiana. She was lovely in her nakedness under the moonlight. The woman turned in Fabiana’s direction and when the woman looked up, her eyes went straight to Fabiana’s. They held her for a piercing instant before drifting away. She had smooth, dark brown hair, which was long and draped down the slope of her back. Fabiana guessed that she was in her late twenties. Her smooth skin, dark eyes, and clearly sculpted features gave her face a Roman beauty both remarkable and alluring.
The glowing flame of a distant fire danced fading images on the stone walls of the cave as Fabiana was compelled to trudge deeper and deeper inside. Her eyes darted right to left as her
feet slowly pulled her into the cave.
She came to a stone staircase that descended into a glowing abyss of yellow light. Fabiana put her weight down onto the first step and it moved slightly under her foot. It was very old and worn by the ravages of time. Moss and grass fought for control over the stone. Fabiana felt the woman next to her. The seductive stranger’s naked breast rubbed against Fabiana’s shoulder as she guided her down the staircase.
They walked without speaking past stone arches with rows of golden silhouetted pillars eternally standing at attention. Beyond them at the base of the stairs, a large fire burned in a stone pit. Fabiana’s mind would not stay still as images and questions screamed through her. Who where these people, and what did they want from her? What was the force that drove her from her bed on this night and brought her to this place?
Just at that moment she turned around and noticed something in the shadows next to her. She lost her breath as she saw a woman hanging from her ankles, her arms draped down with her wrists barely touching the dirt of the ground.
Her body was so pale it was almost grey, with greenish discoloration in the arms and legs. Her fingertips were dry and cracked, the skin receding from the nails, and she was most undoubtedly dead as she hung upside down.
Fabiana struggled for composure. The floor was covered with the same green moss as the steps. The heavy stones were the color of roses and stained with blood.
She cleared her throat. “What is this place?”
Several people appeared before her. They grabbed hold of her by her arms and held her for a moment. Strangely, to Fabiana, she did not struggle under the grip of these nude strangers. One, a man on her right, stared into her eyes without blinking. He was a small but strong man with striking blue eyes, a great shock of blond hair, and a face amazingly compassionate given the circumstances. Words filled her mind. The man was speaking to her through his thoughts.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 1): Blood Collector Page 9