by C. J. Pinard
“Yeah?” I asked, turning around to stare at her in her garish green scrubs.
“There are about six bags in my fridge. Help yourself to a couple.”
I nodded and smiled, walking to the stainless steel medical fridge and pulling it open. I removed three thick plastic bags of what appeared to be O-positive blood and quickly loaded them into my purse.
“Thanks, Mo. I appreciate it.”
Without looking back at me, she pushed a button on the bone saw and it whirred to life. Lowering it slowly toward the top of the homeless girl’s now-bald head, she called out, “Anytime. But I want the bags back.”
I quickly exited the morgue and made my way to my car in the parking lot. Looking at my watch, I could see it at just gone past 7 p.m. and I realized I was starving. I was so glad I’d left before she’d cut open that poor girl’s head, or I’d have no appetite left.
I got in my car and closed the door, starting it up to get some heat in there. I made sure all my lights were off and then pulled out one of the blood bags and looked around. Closing my eyes, I concentrated hard and felt my fangs slowly rip from my gums where my eyeteeth were. Tearing open the bag carefully with one fang, I made sure the hole was small and wouldn’t make a horrific mess in my car. Looking around again, I closed my lips around the hole and began to suck hard. I squeezed it from the bottom as it emptied and soon finished the entire bag. A subtle green glow illuminated the interior of the car and I already knew my eyes were glowing in satisfaction.
Breathing out in relief, I opened the glove compartment of my little Mazda RX8 and pulled out a plastic grocery bag. I went to toss in the empty medical blood bag in and saw about a dozen empty ones in there. “Oops,” I said, letting out a small hiccup. Better return those to Mo soon.
I hated drinking blood. I mean, I really hated it. Okay I kinda loved it, too, only because I had to; it was a part of me. Thankfully I didn’t really need it ‘til I became a full-grown adult, but that was when it had really sucked for me. After the foster care system kicked me out, I wandered around doing odd jobs for a while, living in New York where I was raised, until that day I’d visited the psychic. My fangs had shown up in my mid-teens but I had never shown them to anyone or told a soul. When the blood hunger hit me, it wasn’t anything I knew how to control. I would eat human food until I was stuffed and miserable, but I would still feel hungry. Not in my belly, but other places in my body, almost if the hunger was coming from deep down in my soul.
One day, looking at my fangs in the mirror, I realized that maybe I needed blood. It grossed me out at first, but after my first feeding on a young man in a nightclub, I knew that I needed it. The rush of blood into my mouth satisfied everything I felt had been missing for a few years. I looked and felt better and thought clearer after a feeding. It took me years to realize how much blood I needed and how often, but I had it down to a science now. Just one blood bag a week – sometimes I could go two weeks – did the trick for me, but I still needed human food, too. Blood bags were the only way I got blood now. I didn’t like feeding on humans, and it wasn’t necessary.
After stopping for a couple of tacos at a drive-thru, I quickly made my way home. Swiftly scanning the area outside my apartment complex with my handy night vision, I didn’t see anything or anyone moving around, so I got out and briskly walked to my building’s front door. We had a doorman and he tipped his hat at me as I approached. “Ms. Smith, how are you tonight?”
I smiled at him. “Great, Adam, thanks for asking.”
He opened the door for me. I used the stairwell to reach my third floor apartment, scanning the hallway suspiciously before walking to my front door, opening it with the key I had ready in my hand, and closing it and locking it behind me.
I set my food on the counter, and put the two remaining blood bags in the fridge. After scarfing down both tacos, I stripped my clothes and weapons off. Then after a quick check of my window, I slogged into bed, too tired for a shower.
“Come to me, my darling daughter,” he whispers in my ear.
I whirl around but there’s nobody there. I turn my head back to the front and continue to walk through the fog, and I wonder why I’m wandering around this forest at night alone. I go to reach for my gun, but it’s not there. There’s nothing there but a long, white, ethereal flowing dress. My feet are bare but I have no fear of stepping on glass or anything else man-made. I never, ever wear dresses but for some reason, I don’t question why I’m wearing one now.
I continue to walk aimlessly, nothing in my vision but trees and fog. I don’t know where I’m walking to, but that doesn’t seem to concern me. I’m heading toward a voice that is beckoning me. Enticing me.
“Come to me,” the voice repeats, except this time, it’s far-off in the distance and I long to go toward it.
The birthmark on my neck tingles, and I reach up and place two fingertips on it. I rub it gently but it just tingles even more. The closer I get to the voice, the more it prickles.
“Where are you?” I call to the voice.
“Come closer,” the male voice says. “My beautiful daughter, I’ve been waiting for you.”
I nod as if the invisible voice can see me, but I get the feeling he can. The voice I’m heading toward both frightens and excites me.
I never met my parents. Know nothing of them. The thought of meeting just one of them, even a vampire, sends a thrill of excitement up my spine. But a small part of me, the part that holds logic, reason, and police intuition is a frightened, too. Terrified, in fact. Something deep down in my gut, and in that logical part in my brain is telling me to turn and run as fast as I can in the other direction. But my heart is urging me on.
“Just a little bit closer,” the voice says. “My Lotus, my youngest. My beautiful faery.”
So he knows what I am, I think. Somehow, that drives me further. Maybe he knows who my mother is. Maybe he can help me find her…
My body floats magically through the forest. There is no pain or feeling at all as my feet pass over the felled leaves of the woods. The fog is dense but only swirling around my feet and legs.
Off in the distance I see a figure standing perfectly still. The fog is stagnant around him and he’s standing with his feet shoulder-width apart, his hands down by his side. He’s wearing dark clothing, and as I get closer, I can see he’s got a cape around his throat, flowing down his back.
As I move closer still, his left hand moves up to beckon me closer with two fingers.
I’m so close now I can make out his face. It’s serious and somber until I get close enough to touch. At that moment, he smiles, fangs poking out and touching his bottom lip. The smile isn’t friendly, nor is it warm or welcoming. It’s sinister and terrifying, and that’s when I notice the body lying prone and still next to his feet. It is a blonde, female faery wearing the same dress I am. She’s beautiful but looks as if she’s asleep – or perhaps, dead. She doesn’t have wings, but something deep down in my soul knows she’s a faery, one of my kind. I look up into his eyes, which are black without any whites at all, and he laughs. Blood I hadn’t noticed before is dribbling from his fangs.
I scream so loud, it could wake the dead.
Bolting upright in my bed, I gasped, wondering if I’d screamed in real time.
My heartbeat thudded in double time and I clutched my chest to make sure my heart wasn’t going to explode right out of it.
What in the hell kind of dream was that? I thought, as I slowly lay back down. A quick glance at the clock told me it was 3:05 a.m. and not even close to the time I usually get up to start my day.
Then I remembered it was a Friday – well technically Saturday now, and slammed my head back down onto my pillow. I tried to force myself back to sleep but that odd dream kept floating through my brain.
I rarely remembered my dreams, and that is no exaggeration. I couldn’t tell you any of them I’d had, except maybe a handful over my long life. But this one was clear as day. A vampire had been calling to
me, wanting me to come to him. Had it been my father? My actual biological father, calling me his daughter over and over?
My fingers went involuntarily to the birthmark on my neck. I remember the almost painful tingle of it, as the vampire had been calling to me. The dream had disturbed me on a level I had never known in my life. My eyes stared up at the white ceiling of my apartment, wondering if I could decipher the dream. As I went over and over it in my head, not wanting to forget it, I wondered if the dead faery had been my mother.
So many mysteries, so many questions, and so few answers. I sighed in resignation and closed my eyes, hoping another dream would overtake me and that it would be happy so I could live in peace for a few short hours.
Realizing that sleep wasn’t in the cards for me, I decided to get up and do a perimeter check of my apartment. I tossed on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and shoved my pistol into my waistband at the small of my back. Unlocking and opening the window, I looked both ways and then down toward the ground. The night was quiet and cool, and the stars were glittering above me with no clouds in sight. The moon was full and gave me light I really didn’t need as I slowly perched on the windowsill and then turned myself around, placing a foot on the brick ledge that surrounded the top bank of windows of the third floor. I crept slowly along the ledge, listening for sounds. If my vampire peeping tom was around, I was hoping to catch him off guard and maybe take him out. I had no intentions whatsoever in bringing him into police custody. He’d be a pile of ash before he could even scream.
I found my way to the next window and was surprised to see the light on. Moving as quietly as I could, I slunk past the window, but of course could not resist looking in since the blinds were open. I gasped involuntarily as I saw a very naked Drew doing pull-ups from a bar set between a doorway in his kitchen. His back was to me and I stood frozen in lustful fascination as he continued to do chin-up after chin-up on the bar, every muscle in his back and arms flexing and glowing with a slight sheen of sweat. His ass was composed of perfect muscles that led to long tanned legs. I watched as Drew let go of the bar and dropped to the ground. He began to turn around and I scrambled to move out of the window so he wouldn’t see me.
Losing my balance, I began to fall backwards off the ledge and thankfully semi-recovered, twirling around in mid-air to land on my feet in the grass below, then falling into a roll. I took a deep breath, brushed the grass off my jeans, shook my head at my idiocy, and took a look around. I then peered up, intent on jumping back up to my window and climbing back through when I saw Drew’s head pop out of his window. He now had a shirt on.
“Lotus?” he asked, looking down in confusion at me.
I was sure he hadn’t seen me fall so I said, “Oh, hi.”
“What are you doing down there?”
“Uh, just couldn’t sleep, went for a walk.”
He looked both ways, scanning the area and the woods, then back at me. “You shouldn’t be out here alone at night, box girl.”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling and shook my head, walking back toward the front door of the building to get back into my apartment the old-fashioned way. Realizing there was no doorman at 3 a.m., and obviously not having a key, I looked up to see Drew still peering down at me.
“Buzz me in?” I asked sheepishly.
He nodded and chuckled, disappearing from view.
As I went up the stairs and to the third floor, I was a little surprised to not see him standing outside his door. Guess he thought I was stupider than I did.
Chapter 4
I sort of had a love-hate relationship with the weekends. I was glad I had a nine-to-five job (well, that’s what I told myself, even though I didn’t get home ‘til after 7 most nights), but the weekends were sometimes hard. I didn’t have anyone spend my spare time with, which was why I spent so much time at work. So I do what any bored, single female does. I run.
I pulled on my shiny black running pants, teal sports bra, and brand new pink running shoes I’d just bought. I strapped the iPod holder around my bicep, set the iPod to shuffle, and shoved it in the holder. I grabbed the house key I kept on a little elastic ring and slid it around my wrist. I had no place for my phone, so I left it inside.
Closing and locking my door, I headed toward the stairwell, and once I reached the bottom, I almost got knocked over by Drew.
“Well, hello, box girl,” he said, leering down at me. He was again shirtless, not looking too dissimilar to me with an MP3 player strapped around a very impressive tanned bicep, wearing shorts and tennis shoes. He was sweaty.
“Uh, hi,” I mumbled, continuing into the lobby so I could get to the park and go jog.
“Wish I would have known you ran,” he said to my back. “I’d love a running partner. But keep in mind, I don’t do it in the middle of the night, just F.Y.I.”
I turned around, chancing a glance at my hot neighbor. I smiled at him, as he smirked back, and not sure what else to do or say, so I turned back around and sprinted out the front door.
I was way too damn old to be this awkward around men. My problem was I was so inexperienced with them on a romantic level. I could deal with other cops, my boss, suspects, criminals, and every other kind of man. But ones who flirted made me freeze up. What was wrong with me?
I finally reached the city park and began at a slow jog, turning up the volume on my iPod and trying to forget everyone and everything, including my creepy dream.
As my adrenaline began to pump, I began to run faster, my blonde ponytail swishing behind me and gently bouncing against my shoulders. My feet pounded the pavement of the trail and I breathed evenly in through my nose and mouth. Truth be told, I wouldn’t really break into a sweat due to my strange and jacked-up DNA, and I wasn’t quite sure the exercise did much for my physique or health, as I’d gone years without exercise and my body never changed, but it still felt good. The sun was out and the trail of the park smelled earthly and fresh. There was a slight breeze blowing and I smiled into the sun.
I just wished I knew more about my history, my parents. I felt like I just knew nothing about myself at all. If I was half vampire, how come the sun didn’t bother me at all? I’d seen real vampires catch fire from one finger being exposed to the sun. If the psychic all those years ago had been right, I was half faery and maybe whatever magic that half of me possessed helped me feel half normal. If being immortal was the definition of normal, that is.
Still pounding along, I ran down the twisting trail of the park I’d already committed to memory. I’d lived in Denver for about five years, moving here after having to leave Texas, where I’d been for about 15 years. Not aging raises questions of those around you, so I just got new papers every few years, and moved to a different city. It was a pretty lonely existence but I didn’t see how I had any other choice. I was enjoying the dry and sunny climate of Denver, and the snow reminded me of home – New York – where hopefully I could move back to in a few decades once everyone who ever knew me would be long dead.
I was lost in my musings when a very familiar scent knocked me out of my thoughts. A young man was passing me on the trail wearing headphones, and his cologne was leaking out of his pores due to his exercising. The cologne was the exact one my vampire suspect wore and I stopped dead in my tracks and watched as he continued to jog in the opposite direction. I was pissed off at myself for not even noticing him coming toward me since I had been daydreaming, but now I knew I had to catch up to him.
Turning around, I ran in his direction. I easily reached him, not afraid of him at all since I knew he was clearly human and very obviously not a vampire since the sun was high in the sky with not a cloud in sight. I tapped him on the shoulder and he startled, slowing his run and spinning around to look at me.
He yanked the earbuds from his ears, breathing heavily, and with an annoyed look, said, “What?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I began, watching myself look stupid and awkward in the reflection of is aviator sunglasses, “but can yo
u tell me what cologne you’re wearing?”
He looked puzzled, then smiled a bit, probably thinking I was trying to hit on him or pick him up. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and waited for his reply.
“It’s Killjoy, why?”
I cocked my head to the side and had to remind myself to sound as out of breath as he was, even though I wasn’t. “Killjoy? Where do you buy that, at a department store or what?”
He shook his head, reaching into a small case he wore strapped to his waist and pulled out a water bottle. He took his time unscrewing the cap and it wasn’t until after he’d taken a large swig did he answer me. “No, you can only get it in Vegas at the Killjoy shop there on the strip.”
“Are you fucking with me?” I asked, totally out of patience.
He chuckled. “No, seriously. I don’t know why they don’t sell it on the Internet or whatever, but it’s the only place, I swear. You can Google it.”
I nodded. “Thanks, I will.”
I turned around and jogged in the opposite direction. I could feel the guy’s eyes on me. I couldn’t wait to get home and get online now.
I sprinted up my steps and made a beeline for my front door and quickly let myself inside. I didn’t even bother to shower first. I went straight for my laptop and opened the lid excitedly. Waiting for the stupid thing to boot up, I grabbed a towel from the kitchen drawer and wet it under the faucet. Rubbing it on my neck and face to cool off, I went back to my laptop and pulled up the search bar, typing “Killjoy Vegas” into the search.
Sure enough, a fancy website with pictures of the store and cologne and perfume bottles came up.
Killjoy scents for ladies and men are only sold exclusively in our Las Vegas, Nevada, store. The caption was clear and I tried to see if I could buy a bottle on the website, but it wasn’t happening.
I then did a few more searches on places like Amazon and some larger online discount perfume and cologne retailers and didn’t find any. I found one half used bottle on eBay going for a very high price. Satisfied the flirty jogger was telling the truth, I smiled in satisfaction. For whatever reason, my vampire serial killer was either from Vegas or had visited there recently. It wasn’t a great lead, but it was something. I sort of knew what this guy looked like so it appeared I was going to be taking a trip to Sin City soon.