The Undead Detective Bites: Book 1

by Jennifer Hilt

  Apparently her night hadn’t been any easier than mine.

  Junior didn’t look any better. His hair was no longer jelled in a tidy topknot. Instead of his folded loin cloth, he wore some baggy fluorescent green gym shorts. No boots this time. His feet were bleeding on the rug.

  Ben was not going to be happy about that.

  I deposited Mr. Figgles back on his bed and then closed the counter that I’d left open. Everyone could stay on that side of the room tonight.

  Elsbeth motioned for Idris to pull up a chair to the counter.

  He did.

  She climbed up so that we were closer to eye level.

  It was ironic that Elsbeth looked like a child when she was the most bloodthirsty creature I’d ever met. But then again, we all have our personal challenges.

  Junior swung a bowling bag up on the counter, and it landed with a thud.

  I wrinkled my nose at the smell of death. Was this really what I thought it was?

  “Don’t worry,” she said confidentially. “It’s double bagged.” She spoke over her shoulder. “Junior, what do you have to say to your sister?”

  “Really not necessary.” I reached for the bag but Elsbeth wasn’t handing it over so easily.

  “Of course it is. Family doesn’t steal from one another.” Elsbeth jerked the leather lead, which I could see was attached to a silver collar. It wasn’t pure silver but enough to slowly eat away at the upper layers of skin. If it wasn’t removed, it would slowly and painfully sever his head from his neck.

  Damn. Elsbeth was not kidding around.

  Junior shuffled foreword. In addition to his disheveled appearance his eyes struggled to focus.

  “Silverthorne,” he mumbled through split lips. “I’m sorry.”

  I could only imagine the beatings that Elsbeth had delivered to get him in that state. He wasn’t going to be healing anytime soon. Judging from her attire, tracking him down had been no easy feat.

  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t feeling sorry for him. I was fresh out of sympathy for anyone but Fang and Ben.

  “Why’d you run away with the shifter’s head?” I asked.

  Junior raised his eyes to me. For a second, a flash of light ignited them and then it was gone.

  He shook his head but didn’t reply.

  “Now that I have it back you can all go. I’ll let you know what I find.” My voice was neutral even as I imagined filling this room with their blood.

  “Dear Silverthorne, that’s not going to work. Idris will assist you.” Elsbeth gave me some fang.

  Fuck. Well, it was worth a shot.

  “Give me five minutes.”

  “Let’s make it ten,” Elsbeth said. “I want to get cleaned up.”

  And yes, she took Griz’s head in the bowling bag with her when she left.

  “You’re not really taking them to the morgue with you?” Fang asked when I returned to him and Ben.

  “I don’t have a lot of choice. Elsbeth had Griz’s head and I need to take a look.”

  Fang’s face paled. He needed a shave but I liked his scruffy look. “It’s good to get more information. I just don’t like you there with them alone. I’ll come with you.”

  “You need more rest. They won’t hurt me when they need me.” I admit I was touched by his concern. There was a tie between us that ran deeper than anything I could ever hope to explain.

  “We’ll be fine,” Ben said. “After all, I have the silver chains. And we can use Griz’s truck if we need to. I found the keys.”

  Ben was settling in even if I felt more than a twinge of unease with the current events.

  “You two stay here and don’t do anything but watch paint dry until I get back ok?”

  Tonight’s surprises weren’t over yet. Out in front of the office, a brand-new minivan idled. Idris waited in the driver’s seat.

  “It suits you. You must have one back in London,” I opened the front seat passenger door.

  He turned to me, and his nose twitched. He did that a lot lately. “Do I look like I find this even remotely amusing?”

  “That’s what makes this even better.”

  “It’s Elsbeth’s preference.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” This vehicle had every gadget available.

  “I think she invited me along as the designated driver,” Idris said. “Get in, we’re picking them up.”

  The drive was only several casitas down. No sooner had he parked out in front that the door opened. Incredible. We were all staying at the same place. That couldn’t last much longer with the coven coming in.

  I hadn’t realized they were staying here too. Ben failed to mention that, probably because he’d known I’d object. And with good reason, since they’d tried to kill him. I didn’t care how good Elsbeth’s credit rating was.

  “You’re going to want to get in back,” Idris said. “That’s your Maker’s seat.”

  I climbed into a seat in the second row.

  Junior slid the passenger door open, grunted at me and climbed into the back row. Elsbeth was cleaned up and wearing a fur coat that was not going to be popular if we ran into any locals.

  She nodded at me from her front seat where she clutched her bowling bag holding Griz’s head.

  10

  Idris drove us back to the morgue as the built-in van DVD system played Elsbeth’s favorite show “Let’s Make A Deal.” Despite her bloodthirsty nature, my maker was a TV game shows nut. Judging from his laughter, Junior was also a fan.

  I was ready to rip the screens out if only to kill the canned laughter responses. After ten minutes my brain cells were screaming in agony. Who cared how much a trash compactor cost? And why didn’t any of these humans have anything better do than scream and jump around? Idris had listened to this for hours on the drive from San Francisco.

  For the first time ever, I pitied him.

  We pulled up outside the clinic. It was dark but parking wasn’t a problem in Nowhere. The morgue was located in the basement level of the clinic. Hard to believe it was just last evening we’d rolled in here with Fang severely injured and Idris in rabbit form.

  I wondered if he’d told Elsbeth about his stint as a harmless mammal. I was willing to bet good money he had not.

  I was looking forward to the routine of morgue work, just not the company I was keeping tonight. I sighed, extracting Fang’s borrowed keys from my pocket. I unlocked the door and the three vampires trooped in with me.

  Inside the metal morgue doors, I inhaled. Refrigeration kept any decomposition at bay so the predominant scent was the reassuring aroma of chemical solutions. To me, it was the most wonderful smell in the world because it meant order. Tonight though, my Zen was marred by my three visitors.

  I let myself in the office. The rituals here soothed me, and I reached for the old button-down cardigan hung on the back of the office door. Ahh, the Mr. Rogers sweater. Every morgue had one. It was an all-purpose item for those of us who didn’t deal with the supercooled environments. I removed my coat, waiting for one of them to speak as I pulled the cardigan on over my black cashmere sweater and wondered at the provenance of this garment. Had its wearer been a guest at the morgue or some absent minded forensic examiner?

  Taking calm in the routine, I buttoned my sweater all the way up, added a lab coat, and then tucked my long hair under a net. Feeling better armed for what lay ahead, I exited the office where the three vamps waited by the stainless-steel table.

  “You’re not changing, Idris? This work will be hell on your wardrobe.”

  He glanced at Elsbeth, who nodded at him. He disappeared into the office to suit up.

  I walked over to the refrigerated wall unit where the corpses waited on slabs. I pulled open the locker that held Griz’s body. Now that we had his head, I could begin.

  While we waited for Idris to dress, Elsbeth sniffed the air. “Your human smells divine.”

  Ben’s scent still lingered from coming here earlier to leave me a message. To me he smel
led like clean laundry and butterscotch and all the reasons why I wanted to keep him human. To her, he smelled like dinner.

  “Don’t both trying to glamour him, Elsbeth. He’s mine.”

  “Silverthorne, you are finally grooming someone for the Bite again. I couldn’t be happier,” Elsbeth said.

  “I’m not making him a vampire. The last time was a disaster. My work keeps me plenty occupied. I’ll leave the new creations to you.”

  Was Idris purposefully taking the longest time to get ready?

  Everyone knows vampires are created by biting. Anyone around for two centuries has baggage. Since I’ve worked to control my sadistic impulses, I only drain enough to sate my hunger. I never kill anyone who doesn’t have it coming anymore. That’s a big improvement for me.

  Most of my kind, though, will drain their victim dry or leave them to bleed out of indifference. Making a vampire requires more than draining, the victim must ingest a significant infusion of vampire blood.

  And that’s where the tricky part comes in. Being cold-blooded, vampires have much less blood volume than humans. Plus the longer we’re around the less blood vampires require to ingest. Our bodies look the same as they did before the Bite but inside chemistry is still working its magic. So the blood volume of an older vampire is significantly less than a middle-aged one.

  Can you guess the problem, science lovers?

  Yep, vampires hit a kind of menopause. It takes a very long time but nonetheless it happens. When vampires are very old, their smaller blood volume makes it much less likely for a successful conversion from the Bite. Even though their own strength may be considerable like Elsbeth, successfully creating more progeny is tricky. Just a look at Junior told me something had gone very wrong there.

  Apparently most vampires eventually have the urge but that’s not one particular itch I want to scratch. But it makes Elsbeth seriously annoyed that I haven’t created a vampire.

  Maybe because she loves creating new vampires. She’s very fertile. Perhaps because her body was young the chemistry works slightly differently than in adults. There are not many child-sized vampires around. It’s frowned upon these days with a more enlightened view about children in the human population.

  Gone are the days when Elsbeth could hang out in a bar glamouring humans. Now she has to glamour significant portions of the child welfare system. I’m pretty sure she missed the good old Victorian days when children were seen and not heard.

  I’ve never been so glad to see Idris when he returned dressed in scrubs. Elsbeth had pulled up a chair to stand on again so that she could observe the autopsy. Junior stood farther back but I still kept him in my line of sight.

  I didn’t want that fucker behind me.

  Idris held Griz’s head while I sawed into his skull. I could tell he chafed at me running the autopsy but Elsbeth requested my services first.

  I lifted the anterior part of Griz’s skull aside, peered inside and sucked in my breath. The interior of his brain was coated with blood and Glytr.

  “That’s it?” Elsbeth leaned over the table. “It looks like spilled glitter.”

  Idris touched a gloved hand lightly to the exposed membrane. His glove came away with blue Glytr stuck to the fingertip. “Sticky.”

  “If you two are done playing around, I’d like to begin?” It aggrieved me to have them here.

  Not surprisingly they had no respect for the dead.

  It was difficult to believe the facts before me.

  Why would Griz be using Glytr? He’d been around a long time. He’d seen all kinds of addictions but successfully avoided them.

  I wished Ben was here. Someone to listen while I thought this through. I knew that it was impossible with Fang given his relationship with Griz.

  Instead I had three bloodsucking vampires breathing down my neck. Literally. “Junior, please come and stand where I can see you,” I said. He’d moved out of my line of sight and that unnerved me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Elsbeth motioned for Junior to do as I asked.

  “For starters, we need to know about his recent behavior, what led him to Glytr and what the effect was on him,” I said.

  “That’s easy,” Elsbeth said. “Ask your shifter.”

  With a scalpel in my hand, I prepared to cut into the top layer of Griz’s brain. For a split second I considered plunging the scalpel into Elsbeth’s right eye. It wasn’t a wooden stake, but it’d slow her down considerably.

  Of course, Junior would be a problem.

  And then there was Idris.

  He watched me under the hot overhead light. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes but then again, I probably didn’t want to.

  Instead, I sliced a paper-thin brain sample. Idris swooped in with tweezers to add it to the preserving solution. It would be tedious process making slides out of all these tissues. Back in LA, I had skilled staff members who did all this lab work for me. But in Nowhere I was on my own unless I wanted to trust Idris.

  He had his own problems. The academic medicine world is small enough by specialty, but add in a handful of vampire physicians and it shrinks even more so. Idris had funding problems for his lab. The British Government faced serious cutbacks that impacted even paranormals. Soon he’d be applying for tenure also.

  We both had reasons for wanting to figure out Glytr and to be the one with the honors of doing it.

  What was left of Griz’s brain was corroded beyond recognition. I wondered how long he was able to function. Most likely he wasn’t much use in fending off any attacks

  “Why bother with anything below the head?” Elsbeth asked. “I thought you said Glytr was only found in the brain.”

  “Yes, in humans but I still need to do the full exam. There may be some other factor involved. He’s the first paranormal I’ve examined who used Glytr. Most likely it impacts the paranormal body differently.”

  “What do you think, Idris?” Elsbeth asked.

  “Silverthorne is right. We don’t take shortcuts.”

  “You don’t have to be here. We’ll fill you in on what we find,” I said, hoping to get rid of her and at least Junior. “Good science is slow work.”

  “Boring too.” Elsbeth sounded like a petulant school-aged child. “Junior and I will take a look around town. Come on.” She motioned to her creation to follow her.

  I breathed a sigh of relief to have them gone. That pull in my blood to please Elsbeth exhausted me, and I needed to feed soon. Being stronger would help me resist her.

  Glancing at the wall clock, I noted the night was half gone. If we got this exam finished, I might yet have time to feed from Ben before the sun rose.

  “You have no one but yourself to blame Silverthorne,” Idris said.

  “Don’t be a prick.”

  “You really think she’s forgotten what you did?” he pressed.

  Sticks and stones…

  “You owe her everything for making you vampire. How do you repay her? By falling in love with a shifter?” His disdain dripped off his words. “She could stake you at any time for the shame you brought on her,” he said.

  “We both know that’s not going to happen right now. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You’ve always had it too easy. My maker was a racist who loved young African cock.”

  “I’m out of tissues so save your sob story,” I said mildly. “Just out of curiosity though, what do you think Elsbeth is getting out of you being here? Besides the chauffeuring of course.”

  Idris snarled. “You bitch.”

  “Focus. The sooner we finish the sooner we can part company.” I smiled behind my mask. Goading him did make me feel better.

  “Watch yourself, Silverthorne. You are so impressed with yourself that you’re missing what is going on right under your nose.”

  “Thanks for your concern. I’m ready for another slide.”

  The rest of Griz’s exam was unremarkable. Except for the fact his head had been severed from his body, he was in ex
cellent shape. I had nothing to compare his results with. It seemed logical he was a relatively new Glytr user based on the damage I’d seen in the human population. But it was really just an educated guess.

  By the time we finished, there was no time for a feeding. The only good news was no morgue for me tonight—I would have just enough time to reach my crypt.

  “Care for some company?” Idris asked as we stripped off our masks, gloves and gowns.

  “You’re only tolerable in rabbit form. Goodnight.”

  11

  I left Nowhere and headed, on foot, deeper into the mountains for a resting place until the sun went down again. I had time to make it before sunrise. I needed the exercise to keep me warm and the seven-mile run outside Nowhere would do just that.

  I felt a curious fluttering feeling inside as I ran. Usually exercise calmed me. Tonight it felt as though my nerves were on fire, tingling at the bright moon overhead. It cast the mountains into shadows. I admired the starkness, but I preferred the manicured life I’d tamed in LA.

  As usual I passed no humanoid but plenty of jackrabbits scattered from my path. This land of scrub brush was desolate for humanoids. Only the small creatures thrived here. When I reached the rock wall cliff that rose out of the flatland, I started climbing.

  I was dressed for this with warm gloves, my jacket and some thermals under my jeans. My leather boots weren’t ideal but I was skilled enough I could manage the climb with them.

  My destination was a decent-sized hole in the cliff with a boulder blocking the entrance. The added bonus was that it was several other feet off the ground guarded by a sheer rock wall. Having reached the top, I rolled the boulder aside. Then I inspected my old haunt.

  Still cool and dry but not cold. I’d discovered this place years ago. I was pleased the entrance was still unmarred by human graffiti and trash, which meant my secret was still hidden.

  A hot spring vented deep within this cave. The place reeked of sulfur but it also had a stable temperature of around fifty degrees. No sign of dampness either since the desert air was dry.