The Undead Detective Bites: Book 1

by Jennifer Hilt

  I waited for Fang to remove his clothes. He didn’t, well only his overcoat. With his coat off, the outline of his hard cock in his jeans made me wiggle my hips in anticipation.

  “Easy, Hattie. I know what you like,” he murmured. Then he undid a ridiculous amount of buckles and straps on my costume including removing my leather shorts. When I was completely naked from the waist down, Fang wrapped each of my legs around his shoulders.

  Then he sank his face between my thighs.

  Clearly there are anatomical differences between the human versus humanoid paranormal tongue. I’ve never designed a study to examine this but anecdotally I find it’s all about the operator.

  I’ve had paranormal lovers with tongues that could put Olympic rowing teams to shame with their stroking. I’ve had human lovers who were all enthusiasm and no technique.

  Fang scored perfect tens with both.

  16

  The next evening I was back in the morgue within an hour of sunset. Tonight I came back to life faster than usual. It was either the residual effects of a FFF (fantastic fuck with Fang) or my eagerness to get some long overdue autopsies started.

  This time things were even more crowded than last time I was here. In addition to the two corpses waiting for me inside the morgue, Fang, Ben, Idris, Elsbeth and Wendy were lined up in the exterior hallway like errant kids waiting for the principal.

  “Why are you two here?” I asked Elsbeth and Idris without even bothering with a greeting. It was the height of rudeness but given the body count racking up in Nowhere I was past caring.

  “Silverthorne,” Elsbeth said. Her perfect features betrayed no anxiety. “We heard the shocking news about your Junior.”

  “Tell me where you both were last night.” I demanded.

  “Let’s discuss this inside where we’d all be more comfortable,” Elsbeth said.

  I jammed my key into the lock, opening the door. I went in first.

  If I had any more observers, I might need stadium seating.

  I gritted my teeth, giving everyone a hearty scowl before heading to my office to change. There, I suited up in scrubs. My hands shook. It wasn’t nerves exactly but it was a lot of drama packed into one room out there.

  If I had to do a “connect the dots” between all the observers and the corpses, it’d be ugly. It was like every loose thread unraveled in a tangled mess. Feeling incompetent was not an emotion I had much experience with.

  I was planning to autopsy Triana first. I’d advised Fang not to be here when we’d parted last night. Not surprising he hadn’t listened. He was a professional but I was about to perform an invasive exam on his ex-wife.

  Triana was first because I wanted to see if there were any similarities to Griz’s brain. Had Triana been using Glytr too?

  Idris followed me in the office to change his clothes too. I ignored him. Despite my good run into town just a short while ago I was cold now. On top of my scrubs, I slipped on the Mr. Rogers sweater than added a lab coat. If I could have gotten away with it, I’d have worn mittens.

  We went back out to the main room of the morgue where everyone else waited. We pulled Triana’s body from the refrigeration unit. Soon we were all set to begin.

  Idris stood across the exam table from me. His dark eyes above his mask sparkled. He loved this stuff. I couldn’t cast many stones though, because I was excited about what we’d find too even with all the unnecessary supervision.

  “Ben,” I slipped my mask up over my nose, “please grab the shoulders.” I reached for the electric saw off the instrument table.

  Everyone leaned in until the skull bone fragments startled flying. The burning smell from the saw was always unpleasant. However it was the most effective way to get to the brain. None of my spectators left though, maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

  We made two remarkable discoveries during Triana’s autopsy. She’d died by drug overdose. Judging from the lack of needle marks, I’d say pills. The lab tests had to be sent out, but I was fairly sure the pills depressed her breathing until she just stopped. The residue in her stomach was a chalky deposit I’d seen many times before.

  Also, her brain was covered in Glytr just like Griz’s.

  She’d either overdosed herself while high on Glytr or maybe someone else took advantage of her condition to administer the medication.

  Fang let out an audible ‘whoosh’ of pent-up breath at the sight of his ex wife’s drug-infested brain.

  Idris and I discussed some possible theories about how a shifter metabolized the drug differently from a human, but it was all speculation. My mind kept circling back to how did shifters get the same effect from the drug? Or was it different for everyone who used it?

  “Why would Triana contact you if she was using Glytr?” I asked Idris. I removed my mask and replaced it with another. I disliked how the mask interior grew moist with use.

  “We spoke on the phone. She said she co-owned the casino here and had evidence of Glytr. But she wanted to speak in person.” Idris spoke easily.

  I checked over each word looking for any sign of a lie.

  “Why didn’t she come to me?” Fang asked.

  We all pretended we didn’t hear Fang. Or at least I did. The answer seemed very obvious to me. Right now it was only conjecture. I needed more information.

  After collecting all the samples from Triana which we could send away, it was time for Junior.

  With Triana, I’d felt a need for some level of decorum. She was Fang’s ex-wife. I would have been respectful only for that. But now, Triana was my patient. Her death elevated her to an interest level for me which she could never have obtained while living.

  There was no need for delicate feelings involving Junior. I was glad he was dead. I was curious what killed him. And I was more than a little pissed off that someone had beaten me to showing him out of this world.

  I pulled the massive vampire’s body out of the freezer with the stake still sticking out of his chest. “Let’s take a look.”

  I hadn’t autopsied a vampire in at least a decade largely because they rarely remain intact for this stage. This was exciting stuff.

  “It’s hard to believe that a small female, even a shifter, was able to stake him. Could she have done that?” Idris asked. He peered closely at Junior’s body from every angle.

  I had the same question and many more. I’d been patient but now was the time for some answers. But before I could open my mouth, someone else beat me to it.

  “Elsbeth,” Fang said. “Tell us what happened last night.”

  My maker frowned probably because she wasn’t used to anyone telling her what to do.

  Elsbeth raised up on her tiptoes to examine Junior. He was completely naked. His size was his overwhelming trait but now I could see how young he had been before becoming vampire. His face was unlined with the suppleness only the young have to their skin and will miss when it’s gone.

  “Let’s back up a bit. Where’d you find him before the Bite?” I couldn’t help but asking. Over my years I’d thought I’d seen every type of vampire. Until their arrival, I’d never met a Sumo wrestling vampire.

  “San Francisco.” Elsbeth replied. “As of late my children have been so career-oriented, I thought to try someone more traditionally minded.” She studied the dead vamp dispassionately with her small hands folded behind her back. “Originally, I had a Buddhist monk in mind. I liked the tension between a life dedicated to non-violence and an afterlife dedicated to the opposite. But then I came across Junior. It was like falling in love with a big puppy. There was something so charming about him at first.” An almost wistful smile crossed her face. Her dark eyes hardened as she studied him from head to toe from her perch on the pulled-up chair. “But soon, it was only puddles and slobber.”

  Ben turned his head and coughed into his fist. He appeared to be fighting a snort of laughter. He excused himself out into the corridor.

  “And last night?” Fang prompted. Under the bright task lighti
ng, his color looked almost back to normal. I had the fleeting thought that perhaps the activities at the end of the night didn’t do him any harm and hopefully some good.

  “He disappeared shortly after we rose. When he didn’t return, Idris and I went hunting. Halloween is one of my favorite nights to hunt. I wasn’t going to miss it because Junior was off sulking.” She rotated a bit on her chair, tracking Ben. Her ruffled skirt flounced with the movement.

  “So you and Idris were together.” Fang prompted her attention away from Ben and back to him. “Anyone see you?”

  Elsbeth smiled, revealing her fangs. She’d never developed adult teeth so in her delicate face her fangs appeared even larger than other vampires’. They were the same size—it was the scale that was off. “No one that will remember it.”

  Dr. Wendy retrieved Ben from the corridor. She hit a wall switch, starting an ancient circulating fan, and it was like being in a wind tunnel. I didn’t object because I hoped it would disperse our scents. I didn’t like the way Elsbeth kept glancing over at Ben.

  I couldn’t see much point in Fang’s line of questioning either. What motive would Elsbeth have to kill Junior or even Triana for that matter? It was difficult work to make a vampire—staking was a sign of failure. Plus she’d arrived in Nowhere after Triana had gone missing.

  “When did you suspect Junior began using Glytr?” I pulled on fresh gloves before skimming my fingers along Junior’s corpse. Outside of being staked through the heart, he was in great shape.

  “Over the last several months, he’d disappear for no reason. It was brief at the beginning, I ignored it. You know how hungry the young can get. Midnight snacking, that sort of thing.” Elsbeth paused. She drew a breath. “But then I discovered he had lied to me.” She shook her head. Her curls bounced charmingly. “I beat him senseless but it did absolutely no good. He did it again. I’d heard about Glytr and your concern for humans using it. Something clicked that Junior had gotten involved in that. I’ve never had a creation act like that before.”

  I remembered Elsbeth’s beatings. Victorian fashion wasn’t the only thing she was fond of from that age. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” was her credo in all things.

  “Why would someone stake him?” Ben asked, inching his way closer to the table. “He’d never been here before, right? Outside of trying to kill me, he seemed harmless enough.”

  I had to have a talk with Ben when we got back to LA. His standards for personal safety were seriously skewed.

  Had Junior come to the casino looking to score some of the drug? It was my working hypothesis. He’d been in town so briefly. How had he known to come to the casino for it?

  Maybe that was a lucky guess. There wasn’t much else in town but a few bars and shops along Main Street. It was difficult to imagine someone selling Glytr there under the sheriff’s nose, especially his ex-wife. The casino was an obvious choice.

  I was not surprised that Junior’s brain was covered in the same blue sticky substance as Griz and Triana’s.

  “That’s Glytr!” Elsbeth clasped her hands together, peering over him. She was so close she almost touched him. “I knew it.”

  I’d never thought about it before but now having recognized it, I could see that such behavior went a long way in others finding vampires ‘creepy.’

  Naturally it was not the same case with me. I was a trained scientist. Elsbeth was just a titillated onlooker.

  Though to be fair, Fang and Ben’s expressions were mesmerized too.

  It was curious to me that humans and vampires should react the same way to foreign matter introduced in the body.

  Glytr was similar to heroin, or even worse like the trade drug Fentanyl. Both were highly addictive and deadly. All three had in common that they were not standardized in preparation. That was part of the problem and part of the draw, depending on your prospective. The cooks added to their recipes but the commonly agreed on base components were rat poison, narcotics, amphetamines (or Speed), motor oil and the true chefs titrated in some cat urine for an extra hallucinogenic kick.

  The human users consumed it in any way possible and sometimes in more than one form at a time because they wanted the paranormal experience of enhanced abilities.

  But Griz, Triana and Junior had all those qualities. By now, I’d taken tweezers and was peering under the sticky substance to better examine the brain.

  “Well?” Elsbeth demanded. “What do you think?”

  I glanced at Idris. He too was mesmerized by the patient before us.

  “It’s the first vampire I’ve seen like this. The amount of Glytr here is much more than the shifter’s. That could be from him using more of the drug or some particular vampire way of metabolizing the drug. When did you say he started?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “Is there a way you can develop a vaccine from what you’ve learned?” Her eyes followed my work.

  “It’s a novel idea but I can’t see how a vaccine can protect Glytr users. The biggest issue is that Glytr isn’t formalized and concentrations are always changing. Beyond that, humans and paranormals are fundamentally different, I can’t imagine how a vaccine would work for everyone.”

  Still I had to admit being impressed. I’d never had any inkling that Elsbeth was even slightly interested in helping others, human or vamp.

  A slap to the back of my head knocked me forward. I recovered soon enough but not before I hissed at Elsbeth.

  Across the table, Fang growled.

  Ben pulled back in horror.

  Smart boy.

  “What the fuck!” I set down my tools, glaring at her.

  “Watch your language.” She stared back at me. Thanks to standing on the chair, she was at my height now. “I don’t give a flying fig what happens to the humans. Vampires are my concern.”

  “Fang, will you give Ben a ride back to the motel?” I asked. “We’ll wrap this up. I imagine you and Leon will want to make burial arrangements.”

  Fang glanced uneasily at Elsbeth and Idris but Ben was exhausted. His eyelids had flickered a few times during the last few minutes. Dr. Wendy left with them both. I wasn’t sure why she’d come to the autopsies. I’d track her down to ask later. Besides me and Idris, she was the only other qualified medical staff. Still she’d already told me that the dead were not of particular interest to her. I made a mental note to ask her about Triana away from Fang.

  I picked up my tweezers just as the morgue was only populated by vampires again. Elsbeth was not letting this go. “Concern is not the word I’d use. Control is what you want. Ever since you missed investing in computers years ago, you’ve been trying to snag the next big thing. Trust me, no one has a vaccine for this. The best vaccine is to run the other way from Glytr.”

  “Don’t let your dislike of Junior cloud your judgment,” Elsbeth said.

  “That’s not the problem. Him trying to drain my human sealed my hatred. He was probably my least favorite of your creations.”

  “What about Peter?” she asked.

  “Peter?” My mouth twisted with a remembered bitter taste. He was another of Elsbeth’s children. “His salon franchise! What kind of vampire owns a string of tanning salons? His skin was always that horrible orangey color.” I shuddered at the remembrance.

  Elsbeth nodded. “The real genius was all the customers diagnosed with skin cancer. There was a pretty good pool of Bite potentials there.”

  “If you didn’t mind a diet of burnt toast,” I said.

  “More like charred hot dog.” She giggled.

  I started slicing cross sections of the brain just as we’d done for Triana. “Forget about vaccines. Find someone who isn’t likely to experiment with drugs. You’ll create a new vampire soon. You probably already have your eye on someone, right?”

  She looked up at me from under her lashes. “Actually I do.”

  Heaven help him or her.

  Idris and I returned to slicing and sampling the cross sections of Junior’s brain. We nee
ded to find a place to get all the samples tested but that we both had access to for the results.

  Our own institutions were out. I favored Stanford. He lobbied for Glasgow.

  “New York,” Elsbeth said. “Have the samples sent there. You’ll have access and it’s equidistant for you both.”

  It wasn’t my first choice but I could live with that. It was time for me to move on. “With Triana being the drug mule/murderer plus having a place to store the samples, I’m ready to return to LA.”

  “What?” Elsbeth blinked.

  It was hard to tell when she was truly surprised or feigning it.

  “With her gone no one will be supplying Glytr here. And the sheriff will know to keep an eye out now.” I needed to leave before something worse happened to Ben or before I made some stupid decisions about Fang. If I could leave tonight I would.

  “You don’t honestly believe something so simplistic right? Some other drug mule will move in and pick up the resupply.” Elsbeth’s small fists sat on her waist.

  “I’m not sure that’s true,” I said. “Triana was motivated by revenge. I don’t think there’s a big shifter market here. And the casino patrons are only passing through. If Fang starts to see pattern he can call me. And Idris,” I added. “We could reassess later. But right now, there’s no epidemic. I need to get back to my regular work. I’m up for tenure in the spring and the paperwork is a beast.”

  “I agree with Silverthorne.” Idris carefully transferred the last of the brain tissue to the preservative solution.

  “What about the cases here?” Elsbeth asked.

  “We’ve found three cases so far. That’s not enough for reliant data,” I said.

  “Why not?” Elsbeth demanded. “I thought that’s what you wanted, a small sample?”

  I glanced at Idris. She was really getting worked up about this.

  His slim shoulders shrugged. “We need a small sample, but we also need a controlled environment to study them. As much as I hate to admit it, Silverthorne is right. One vampire and two shifters doesn’t give us any significant data. There’s not much of a control here when our study is passing through a casino,” he said.