Hunter's Kiss

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘I’ve met a few Native Americans who believe they can take on the form of wolves, but it’s more spiritual than physical.’

  ‘How about, uh, astral projection?’ Leanne asked. ‘Didn’t the CIA do some experiments in that?’

  ‘Those are the rumours. Distant viewing, anyway. If they succeeded, they haven’t made it public, obviously. No incontrovertible evidence for psychic abilities, but physics doesn’t entirely deny the possibility, according to Winthrop.’

  Lisa’s eyes narrowed. ‘The chupacabra?’

  Dione chuckled. ‘That thing is just silly.’

  ‘The restroom,’ Leanne said.

  ‘Definitely exists.’

  ‘Good, because I need to freshen up. I’ll get some more drinks on the way back.’

  Mike stood up to let Leanne out, slipping back once she was gone. He looked at Lisa and said, ‘You didn’t ask about vampires.’

  ‘Well, no, I’m sitting beside one. It seemed crass.’

  Mike raised an eyebrow and Dione said, ‘Lisa knows, Mike. She’s a sensitive, like you.’

  Now Mike’s eyes widened. ‘That’s why you shivered when we walked in.’

  ‘Such a rush,’ Lisa said, grinning brightly. ‘All those vampires in one room.’ Her face straightened and she turned to Dione. ‘I thought I’d lose it when you just showed Leanne your fangs.’

  ‘I assumed, rightly, that she would be discouraged from believing the truth if I simply pointed it out. Like two sides of the same coin, rational and supernatural people both see what they expect to see. Believers see the weird in the perfectly normal just as the unbelievers will find a way to ignore what’s right in front of them.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. My heart skipped though. And don’t worry, I know it’s a secret, what you really do. You don’t think, maybe, I should discourage Leanne from coming here, do you?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s an option. She likes the place. I think she perceives it as outside her normal range of experience, but it feels safe. It’s a little dark, a little sexier than she normally goes for. It makes her feel like she’s doing something she shouldn’t and the lure of that is a strong one in most humans. And… Eventually, she’s going to find out and we’ll have to deal with that when it happens. Which is hopefully not now. She’s coming back.’

  ‘So what were you talking about while I was gone?’ Leanne asked as she slid back into her place.

  ‘You,’ Lisa replied immediately. ‘It’s a law.’

  ‘Section two seventy-three of the municipal code,’ Mike agreed. ‘“Discussion of persons missing from a drinking group.”’

  ‘Indeed,’ Dione said, ‘I was just saying that that dress really works for your ass too.’

  ‘Oh… You weren’t really.’ She dipped her eyes away and then looked up. ‘Does it?’

  29th November.

  Music announced a call on Dione’s phone: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Dione said ‘Damn’ and reached for her coat. She flicked her thumb over the smartphone’s screen and held it to her ear. ‘Hunter.’ There was a pause and then, ‘All right, twenty minutes.’ Then she hung up.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Leanne asked.

  ‘Red flag. Something’s come up requiring our attention. Mike, are you okay to do this?’

  Mike looked at the glass he was nursing. ‘After Wednesday, I was taking it really easy.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s one thirty and we’ll likely be up until first light.’ She gave Leanne a small grimace of sympathy. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I can manage,’ Mike said.

  ‘This is what I get for loving a cop,’ Leanne said, but she was not sounding too upset.

  ‘All right then,’ Dione went on. ‘This place is open until three. You girls stick around. Go sit at the bar with Pat, keep her company. I’ll arrange for Tony to walk you home.’

  ‘Tony?’

  ‘The bouncer on the front door,’ Mike supplied.

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to–’

  ‘Two attractive young women walking through Hell’s Kitchen at three a.m. is, at least, a mugging waiting to happen,’ Dione told her. ‘Wait for closing, enjoy yourselves, and Tony will walk you back. Anyone messing with him deserves what they get. I need to talk to Pat so you get to kiss Leanne goodnight, Mike.’

  ‘And I get to watch,’ Lisa said, grinning as she slipped out of the booth to let Dione out.

  At the bar, Dione leaned across and lowered her voice as Pat did the same. ‘Do you know a vampire named Peter Delvalle?’

  Pat frowned. ‘Doesn’t use the Candle. Why?’

  ‘He got himself ended. I have to go look the scene over with Mike. I told the girls to stay until closing. They’ll probably join you up here. Could you get Tony to walk them home after? It’s a couple of blocks.’

  ‘Sure, I can do that. What do you think of Lisa?’

  ‘She seems like she could be a good one. And there’s the security implications… I might take her out of the pool. Want to share?’

  ‘If she’s amenable.’ Pat took in the look Dione gave her and giggled. ‘Okay. I guess we’ll see on Thursday, but yes.’

  ‘Okay. Time for murder.’

  ‘You have the best job.’

  ~~~

  Peter Delvalle lived in a very nicely appointed corner penthouse right beside Gramercy Park. Dione’s nose wrinkled as she showed her ID to the uniform guarding the door, but even Mike could smell it: the aroma of copper and raw meat combined with the acrid tang of urine.

  ‘What do you have, Roscoe?’ Dione asked as soon as she had identified the man who appeared to be in charge, a rumpled-looking detective with close-cropped, brown hair and tired eyes.

  ‘Hunter, nice outfit for a crime scene,’ Roscoe said.

  ‘You could have me here fast or properly dressed.’

  ‘Fair enough. Who’s the kid?’

  ‘My new partner, Mike Williams, and less of the “kid.”’

  ‘Williams…’ Roscoe mused. ‘Right. You took down that Harlem freak. Might be tough enough for this. Basically, we have three homicides and I’d just write them up and start digging, but two came disassembled and regs say we call you when that happens. ME isn’t here yet. We’ve got one vic in the kitchen; the headless ones are in the master bedroom. A discerning eye might suspect the possibility of sexual activity prior to death.’

  Dione sniffed, frowned, and then turned right. ‘Let’s go see the kitchen.’

  ‘How did you know the kitchen was that way?’ Roscoe asked.

  ‘Because there’s less blood in this direction, but there is a door.’

  The body was naked, female, and lying on the floor as though she had been placed there carefully. Blood had pooled around the corpse and Dione and Mike stood at the door, looking in. There were glasses on the counter above her, a bottle of vodka. The girl had been pouring drinks when she died.

  ‘Mike? Anything?’ Dione asked.

  Mike took a second to consider. ‘Wound in her back, but that doesn’t look like where most of the blood has come from. Long-bladed knife, maybe. Stabbed in the back.’ He looked back over his shoulder to where Roscoe was standing, watching them, and in the direction of the bedroom. ‘So she was killed first, quietly. Hand over her mouth and run through. Then she was lowered to the floor to bleed out. The killer didn’t want the other two knowing he was here.’

  ‘Good working hypothesis. Let’s check the bedroom.’

  ‘Hope you’ve got a strong stomach,’ Roscoe said.

  ‘Detective Roscoe has a point. I know you’ve been called out to homicides before, but this is likely to be nasty. If you feel like throwing up, do it in the hall.’

  ‘I’ll be okay,’ Mike stated, and regretted it as soon as he saw the room, but his stomach did little in the way of rebellion, despite what he was thinking.

  There was another naked woman lying between the door and the California king bed. Her head was nowhere to be seen, but from the angle of the body, the missing part might have
rolled under the bed. There was blood spatter, lots of it, over the walls near her and a lot more blood soaking into the thick carpet beside her severed neck.

  Delvalle was also naked, lying on the bed in a wide spread-eagle, and held down with thick, nylon ropes. He had not been the most heavily built of men, actually quite thin, but he might have been handsome. That was difficult to tell. His head was resting between his legs, in a lot of blood which was soaking into the Egyptian cotton sheets. The killer, one presumed, had emasculated him and Delvalle’s mouth was wrapped around his own penis, testicles hanging obscenely in front of his chin.

  ‘Shit,’ Mike said.

  ‘Mostly urine,’ Dione replied. ‘Any more cogent thoughts?’

  ‘Uh… He was the target. Whoever it was who did this, they treated him differently from the female victims. I’d say she was killed first. Get her out of the way, scare the shit out of the guy. Maybe he was knocked out and tied down, or maybe they were playing bondage games when the killer came in. Either way… His penis was taken off before his head. I think there’s too much blood there. Tortured, maybe? Then he was beheaded and this sick scene set up. What’s up with his chest?’

  There was a roughly oval shape in blood across most of Delvalle’s chest between his nipples. Whatever had been done there was obscured by the blood, but it seemed likely that the fluid had run from cuts in the skin.

  ‘It might be just marks from torture,’ Dione said, ‘or it might be something more significant.’ She turned around. ‘Okay, Roscoe, I’ll leave the recording up to you guys. When the ME gets here, tell him SCU will handle the corpses, usual protocols.’ She got a nod in reply. ‘What do we know about the victims?’

  ‘About the females,’ Roscoe replied, ‘nothing as of yet. No IDs anywhere we can find. Delvalle was an accountant. Apparently a pretty successful one. How much do you think a place like this’d set you back?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. Let’s see if my partner and I are in sync. Mike, plan for going forward?’

  ‘If he was an accountant and he was murdered in what I can only describe as an unduly messy manner, then he did something to piss someone off. Follow the money?’

  ‘Not just a pretty face, is he?’ Roscoe commented.

  ‘No, he’s not. I’ll get our tech on the accounts. You follow through on the women. I’m guessing you’ll find they’re escorts.’

  ‘I believe you may be right. Probably need to run fingerprints.’

  ‘If that doesn’t pan out, give me a call. I might have an idea which agency they belonged to. Otherwise it’ll be waiting for them to be reported missing. Mike, we’ll go back to the office and start the paperwork.’

  ‘Hey, Hunter,’ Roscoe called as they started for the door, ‘if you want to come down to the precinct in that outfit, no one’s going to complain.’

  ‘Bite me, Roscoe,’ Dione called over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m not sure how you put up with cops like that,’ Mike said once they were in the elevator and going down.

  ‘That last comment? Water off a duck’s back. I suppose I have different standards from most women. Most American women. Oh, you still see sexism, quite obviously, and the police force is still something of a bastion of it, but compared to what I’ve lived through… Believe me, Roscoe is a complete gentleman in comparison. In Rome, women were called “the wife of” whoever had married them. Athens was a nightmare for any woman who wasn’t a high-class prostitute. Voting for women, I would point out, is a recent invention. So I give back what I get and, hopefully, in another century or so, you males will get over your infatuation with mammaries.’

  ‘Not sure that’s ever going to quite happen, but I guess I see your point. We’re going to need a warrant for those accounts.’

  ‘Not a problem. I know a judge who’s always happy to sign off for me.’

  ‘Huh. Oh, the women, were they vampires?’

  ‘Just Delvalle. That’s why I think I know which agency they came from.’

  Mike came to the immediate, obvious, conclusion. ‘There’s an escort agency that supplies supplicants?’

  Dione smiled at him as the elevator doors opened. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you?’

  ~~~

  ‘You know,’ Mary said, ‘this will not go any faster just because you hang over my shoulder and will it to happen.’

  ‘I’m aware of this,’ Dione replied. She leaned back, but did not leave the room.

  Mary decided that was the best she was going to get and went on. She had been running strike missions in Bravo Nine Kilo when the call had come in and knew she was running on fumes now, but Dione had a theory and it had both of them a little worried. ‘He had three accounts, private accounts, which have received large payments over the past nine months,’ Mary said. ‘They were all emptied into accounts in Switzerland this morning at one o’clock. I’m attempting to backtrack the source of the funds.’

  ‘Right.’ Dione had driven Mike to Leanne’s apartment just after three when they had finished putting the corpses away in drawers. Mike had objected, but Dione said there was nothing to do until the autopsies were carried out and Mary had worked her magic, and she would not be waking Winthrop up in the middle of the night for patients who were not in a hurry. If she felt he was needed, she would call him in. Otherwise, he was to get some rest because he might need it.

  Vampires needed about half as much sleep as humans, but they did need it. Dione checked the time: almost ten a.m. and neither of them had taken any time to sleep. Winthrop was working on the bodies… ‘This will wait until you’ve had some sleep. I’m going to lie down for a few hours. You can pick this up this afternoon.’

  Mary nodded. ‘I’ll just put down some markers and–’

  ‘Ladies, you may wish to see this.’ Winthrop’s voice came over the intercom from the autopsy room.

  ‘Be with you in a second,’ Mary said as she tapped at keys.

  Dione went through to the morgue. She had been in twice before, assisting Winthrop with the bodies. At this point, Delvalle and one of the Jane Does were laid out on the tables. She was covered to the neck in a sheet and, since her head was attached, she was the one who had died in the kitchen. Delvalle’s body was covered too, his head forming an obscenely misshapen lump at the top.

  ‘Mary’s coming,’ Dione said as she walked in.

  ‘I’ll get started,’ Winthrop replied. ‘The big reveal will come later anyway. The headless female victim was killed instantly, no defensive wounds. She was taken by surprise, a single cut severed her neck. You can read the details if you wish; I won’t bore you and they are not especially informative. Both women show signs of recent sexual activity. The headless one had been bitten around thirty minutes to an hour prior to death.’

  ‘Any indication of what did the cutting?’

  ‘I would imagine it was the same weapon as the one used on this young lady.’ Stepping over, Winthrop put his hand on the bench beside the girl’s head. ‘A single thrust passing clean through the body and piercing the heart. The blade was long, significantly over ten inches, and curved.’

  ‘A sabre?’

  ‘That would fit.’

  Dione gave a grunt and then turned to see Mary entering. A girl who looked like a fourteen-year-old should not be used to seeing dead bodies, but Mary showed no sign of discomfort at being in their presence.

  ‘Excellent. Good morning, Mary, now we can get on to the main event. Mister Delvalle was ended by a chopping blow to the neck. No big surprise there. He underwent some torment before his unlife was terminated, however. Aside from the severe genital trauma, I found burn marks on his chest and stomach, probably from a cigarette.’

  ‘He was tortured,’ Dione said.

  ‘He was, and then there is this…’ Winthrop pulled the sheet down to Delvalle’s waist and the cuts on his chest became visible.

  Mary looked over his face briefly, registering no emotion, and then focused, with Dione, on the design which had been carve
d into Delvalle’s chest. It was a dragon or serpent curled into a roughly elliptical shape with the end of its tail wrapped around its long neck. ‘Societas,’ Mary said. ‘You were right.’

  ‘More than that,’ Dione replied. ‘It’s Elizabeth.’

  ‘It could be another–’

  ‘She can’t leave without carving that in her victim and the weapon was a sabre. It was her. Get an APB out for her, extreme caution advised, and run all her known aliases against entry and exit data.’

  ‘She’ll have a new ID.’

  ‘I know, but do it anyway.’ Dione frowned. ‘Get the APB out and start the searches, and then get some rest. We’ll both be more use with some sleep under our belts.’

  ~~~

  Dione tracked Mike down in a lingerie shop in the East Village. He was sitting on a chair outside the changing rooms looking mildly embarrassed. That changed to mortified as he saw his partner sweeping towards him.

  ‘How did you find me?’ he asked.

  ‘Mary tracked your phone. Leanne’s in there?’ Dione indicated the curtained cubicles through the archway.

  Mike nodded. ‘She decided that a little shopping would get us out of the apartment. We’re heading back to my place once she’s had me escort her around a few more places. Unless you need me on the job?’ He looked almost hopeful.

  ‘There’s not a lot you, or I, can do at this point. I just thought I’d come and tell you personally. I’m quite sure I know who the killer is, but finding the bitch is going to be difficult. I’m going to run out a few feelers, and Mary is still working on Delvalle’s accounts. There’s one person I know of that might know something, but pinning him down can be troublesome. If nothing else comes up, we’ll go out tomorrow night, after dark, and see if we can find him.’

  ‘Who’s the killer?’

  ‘Her name is Elizabeth Brandt, born in nineteen nineteen, converted in nineteen thirty-nine. She’s a thug. I’ll brief you on her and the people she works for tomorrow. For now, enjoy your break and try to get some sleep.’

  As if on cue, Leanne’s voice came from the changing rooms. ‘Mike? Can you come tell me if this fits okay?’