“There’s nothing to go on. No prints, nothing left behind, and the water is doing a number on any evidence that might have been left on the bodies. They brought in a profiler, who believes we’re looking for a man in his mid to late twenties, maybe early thirties, someone with feelings of inadequacy, and a menial day job. May or may not have a wife at home. Everyone is baffled by his ability to decapitate his victims and hide the heads, although it’s likely they’re in the Mississippi, as well—it can be merciless. Everyone agrees it will be a major breakthrough if we can discover where the crimes are taking place. They’re looking for something like an abandoned slaughterhouse, since the victims have been practically bloodless.”
“Did you make any suggestions?” Mark asked him.
“Of course. I suggested we were looking for a vampire.”
Mark arched a brow. “And you’re still employed.”
Sean smiled ruefully. “I’ve spent many years now knowing that what we’re up against doesn’t always fit the normal expectations. Sorting out the crazed human from the crazed in human. Since we’ve had cultist activity here before, sometimes people listen to me. I’ve told them that I’m personally convinced we’re up against a cult, and that they should think as if they were up against real vampires, because that’s what this group thinks they are.”
“Good call,” Mark said. “What about your own men?”
Sean shrugged, his smile deepening. “The non-believers have thought for years that I’m a little bit crazy—worse, they believe I can think like a deranged killer. But they’ve seen things come to a satisfactory conclusion before by thinking my way, so…The men I put in the hospital to watch over Deanna…they’ve been on similar duty before. They believe.”
“What’s your take on Jonas?” Mark asked him.
“Like I said before, seems like he’s on the right side. But I don’t personally know him.”
“Neither do I.”
“Truthfully, I don’t know you, either,” Sean said.
Mark almost said, Your wife knew me, but he refrained. She had really only known of him, and that had been a long time ago.
“Stephan is holed up somewhere. The problem is, I don’t think it’s in your jurisdiction. He’s got to be out of the Quarter somewhere, maybe even out of the city and the parish. I was thinking of taking a closer look down Plantation Row, out past your place. I already took a quick ride out that way, and I didn’t see anything that looked empty—that looked like some cultist group was sneaking in and out of it.”
“Maybe it won’t look empty,” Sean suggested. “Maybe Stephan made a few contacts before he came here. Maybe, by day, it looks like any other house.”
“Have your guys keep their eyes and ears open, huh?”
Sean just stared at him.
“They’re already doing that, huh?” Mark said.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Mark assured him, rising.
“By the way, we’ve got IDs on all the girls. They all have records for prostitution. One from Baton Rouge, one of them from Lafayette, and one from Poughkeepsie.”
“Poughkeepsie?”
“New York state. Maybe she was relocating. She didn’t have a known address down here, anyway.”
Mark shrugged. “Working girls will always go off alone with a man,” he said. “It makes sense.”
“Yes,” Sean said simply, then drew a deep breath. “I’ve got men watching the bars and strip clubs. But I don’t think you’ll find Stephan that way. He’s more subtle. If he’s committing the murders himself, I think he’s having the women brought to him.”
Mark nodded. “Makes sense. I found one of his minions in a bar when I first arrived. I followed him when he took a woman to a cemetery and killed him.”
“I guess he found someone who thought that doing it in a graveyard would be exciting.”
“Even young vampires can be seductive,” Mark said.
Sean nodded. “We’re on the alert for anything unusual. I’ll call you, right away if I hear anything at all.”
Mark thanked him and left the police station.
Stephan and his followers were targeting easy prey, he thought. Women who were ready to be seduced—for a price. They just didn’t know that they were the ones who would be paying.
Well, he’d hit the bars, and he had found one of Stephan’s lackeys, though the young woman he’d gone after had been just a tourist.
But Stephan had an untold number of followers. They could be anywhere. Not one of them, so far, seemed to have acquired the kind of strength and power Stephan had learned over the years, though. By day most of them were probably resting. But maybe not all of the.
During the day, the city was quieter than it was by night. Most people spent their time checking out the historic district, the museums, the restaurants and the shops. Parents took children for carriage rides. The aquarium and the zoo drew crowds.
But the bars were open.
And so were the strip clubs.
He wandered in and out of a few of the bars, catching snatches of live music along the way. At one place, the group was so good that he wanted to forget his quest and stay to listen, but he resisted the urge. Everywhere he went, he sensed nothing, saw nothing. Everything was quiet.
He decided to try a few of the strip clubs. At the Bottomless Pit he found worn carpets, cheap patrons and tired strippers. No one appeared the least bit menacing. In fact, performers and audience alike seemed to be asleep.
He moved on and found a neon sign that promised Bare, Bare, Bare!
A hawker with bad teeth was out front, trying to lure people in. Mark decided to pay the cover charge and take a look.
It was quiet.
There were a few scattered patrons, including a heavyset man in the front row, with a prime location right next to the pole. As Mark entered, a weary announcer was trying to make his voice excited as he raved about Nefertiti, goddess among women.
She appeared on the walkway, and on contrast to the rather cheesy atmosphere of the place, the ennui of the announcer and the shabby appearance of most of the patrons, she was good-looking to the point of beautiful. Tall, golden skinned, with long, sleek dark hair. She made her way to the pole and eyed the heavyset man who had taken up the catbird seat.
She twisted and writhed. She started out wearing spangly harem pants and a jeweled bra, with finely meshed material connecting the skimpy bits. The mesh went quickly, then the top, and before long, just as promised, she was bare, bare, bare, and everything was gone.
She elicited a fair amount of applause for her act, considering the room wasn’t particularly well populated.
Then Nefertiti stepped down, and the announcer called out the next girl, Annie Oakley, with a faux hearty “Ride’em, cowboy.
Annie Oakley had clearly been around a while. Her breasts were definitely silicone, and gravity was establishing dominance.
Few people were watching her.
Nefertiti had gotten dressed, though she wasn’t exactly ready for church, and gone over to the man in front, offering him a lap dance. Mark kept one eye on the stage and the other on Nefertiti. It was the usual stuff, but the heavy-set man was evidently enamored.
Mark’s phone rang. Still watching Nefertiti negotiate, he answered with a soft, “Yes?”
“I’ve got something.” Sean’s voice.
But Mark barely heard him; he swore and snapped the phone shut, staring at Nefertiti. Her hair was a good foil, but not good enough to hide the fact that she was just about to take a bite out of the beefy flesh and pulsing jugular of her heavyset client.
Heidi did seem more like Heidi, Lauren thought. She seemed confused by her own actions, though, almost as if she didn’t really remember a thing about the day before.
“Hey,” Lauren said, giving her a hug when she found her downstairs at the breakfast table.
“Hey,” Heidi echoed, then asked anxiously, “Do you think Deanna is going to be all right? I can’t…I can’t see
m to make much sense of yesterday. I guess I was coming down with something. And you’re not going to believe this. It’s awful”
“What?” Lauren asked, her heart thumping.
“I can’t find my engagement ring. How in God’s name did I lose my engagement ring?”
“It might show up,” Lauren said.
“Barry will kill me,” Heidi said.
“No, he won’t. And…you’re still going to marry him?”
Heidi frowned. “Of course I’m going to marry him.”
“I’m glad.”
“When did I say I wasn’t going to marry him?” Heidi pressed.
Stacey, coming to the table with fresh coffee, answered flatly, “Yesterday.”
“Never!” Heidi protested.
Lauren looked at Stacey and then at Heidi. “Uh, yes,” she murmured.
“Tell her. You have to tell her the truth,” Stacey insisted.
Lauren stared at Stacey again. Just what “ truth” was Heidi going to believe?
“You were bitten by a vampire,” Stacey said. “You have to know all this, and you have to get with the program.”
Heidi’s jaw fell. She looked at Lauren accusingly, as if Lauren had forced them to move to a crazy house.
“A vampire?” Heidi demanded. Stacey was quiet. Heidi picked up her coffee cup, and her fingers were shaking. “A vampire,” she repeated tonelessly.
“Yes, actually,” Lauren told her.
“Who’s the vampire?”
“We think you were bitten by a vampire named Stephan,” Lauren told her.
Stacey took a seat at the table and leaned toward Heidi. “Think about it. When you were at the hospital, you let him in. Thankfully, he went after you and didn’t suck the remaining life out of Deanna.”
Again Heidi’s jaw dropped. “You are all stark raving mad,” she said, and started to rise.
Stacey set a hand on Heidi’s arm. “Think hard. Make yourself remember yesterday. Remember Bobby and I coming in. Remember Lauren! Think about going to dinner with Mark and then coming back to the hospital. None of it was a dream. None of it was in your imagination. It was all real.”
Heidi looked pale and uneasy. “All right, yesterday was strange. I’m sure I had a fever. Maybe a bit of whatever made Deanna so sick.”
Lauren started to reply, but she didn’t get a chance to. Stacey had decided there was going to be nothing gentle about getting Heidi to see the real picture and kept going.
“You bet it’s the same thing. Deanna would have died if she hadn’t gotten to the hospital when she did. And she could have died again when you let that monster into her room. Fortunately he decided he would try poisoning you, as well. But luckily Mark recognized your symptoms right away, and we were able to get you back here before anything worse happened. But he’s still out there, and you’re weak—”
”I am not weak!” Heidi flared.
“Wait!” Lauren spoke at last. “Stacey, this…man is extremely powerful, and Heidi had no idea what she was up against. Stephan has hypnotic powers. I was almost frozen myself when I came across him, and I was armed and knew what I was up against.”
“You were armed?” Heidi demanded.
“Water pistol,” Lauren told Heidi. “Holy water.”
“Forget that for now,” Stacey interjected. “It’s incredibly important that you think back and remember everything,” Stacey said to Heidi. “Vampires really do exist, and Deanna and you have both been tainted. He has a gateway to you now, unless you really understand the danger and fight against him,” Stacey said firmly.
Again Heidi just stared.
“I do remember going to dinner with Mark. He wouldn’t let me eat my hamburger,” she said thoughtfully.
“He knew, once he was with you, that you’d been tainted,” Lauren told her gently.
Heidi shook her head. “You guys have all had a few too many. I know something is very wrong, but vampires?”
Before either of them could answer, Heidi’s cell phone began ringing. It was Barry, Lauren knew. She recognized the ring tone.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Heidi began.
Both Lauren and Stacey could hear the anger in Barry’s voice, though they couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“No!” Heidi said. “I didn’t! It must have been someone’s idea of a practical joke. I would never—”
The phone went dead in Heidi’s hand. Tears were apparent in her eyes as she stared at the other two women.
“He…he says I called him yesterday and said that it was off, that I was sorry, but I wanted to sleep with other men. And then I hung up on him!”
“I’ll call him,” Lauren said quickly. “I’ll think of something to say. I mean, we all know how much you love him. And how much he loves you.”
“He hates me!” Heidi said, distressed. “I didn’t call him, I would never have said those awful things.”
“You did call him. And that’s the problem. He’s your fiancé—he knows your voice.”
Heidi burst into tears.
“It’s going to be all right,” Lauren said, the words hollow in her own ears, but they were the only ones that seemed appropriate at the moment.
Stacey was harder and firmer. “You need to start out by being glad you’re alive, and then you need tostart believing what we’re saying. You are going to do every single thing I tell you to do, and then, when we’ve all survived this, we’ll work on getting your fiancé back.”
“I’ll call Barry today,” Lauren told Heidi, handing her a napkin to dry her eyes. “Don’t cry, Heidi. It won’t help any.”
“Don’t cry?” Heidi exploded suddenly. “You’re telling me I was bitten by a vampire—because I ‘m weak—and that I called my fiancé and trashed the prospect of my marriage. And you don’t want me to cry?”
“No, don’t cry, get mad,” Stacey said. “You need to be angry. Take a good hard look at what the creature trying to seduce you made you do. Wake up!”
“I am awake. Believe me, I’m awake,” Heidi retorted angrily. She wiped her face and stared at the other women. “If this is some kind of practical joke…”
“I wish it were,” Lauren said softly, reaching across the table to gently touching her friend’s hand. “I’ll call Barry. We’ll convince him your phone was stolen by someone who overheard you talking about him and decided to be cruel.”
“Will he believe it?” Heidi asked.
“Will he believe it if you tell him you were under the influence of a vampire?” Stacey asked curtly.
“You will call him? You’ll convince him?” Heidi said to Lauren.
“Of course. You love him, and he loves you. He’s just angry right now—but he loves you.”
Heidi was quiet for a minute. “So…what now?”
“I have to get back over to the hospital,” Lauren said.
“Yes, of course, we need to go back,” Heidi said.
“Not you,” Stacey told her firmly.
“What?” Heidi protested.
“You’re with me. You need another day to replenish what you lost—and you need to learn the ropes,” Stacey told her.
“What ropes?” Heidi asked.
“Vampire killing ropes,” Stacey said in a tone that left no room for argument.
Mark leapt up, knocking a table over in his haste to reach “Nefertiti” before she could sink her fangs into the man.
“Stop!” he shouted, and threw himself at the woman.
She went flying down to the stage beneath him. Her eyes—a deep brown with a hint of the light that gave her away seething fire—met his.
Then the heavyset man had him by the arm and was dragging him up.
“He’s a psycho!” Nefertiti shrieked.
“Bastard! Pay for your own entertainment,” her big client bellowed.
“Call the cops,” Nefertiti said.
“I’ll handle this asshole better than the cops,” the man said, drawing back his massive fist.
Mark easily dodged the
blow. “She’s diseased!” he shouted as he ducked. The other man had put so much weight into his attempted attack that it carried him down to the floor with an oomph.
“Diseased?” he said. “Oh, God!”
Nefertiti took that moment to race, naked, backstage. Mark leapt over the big man on the ground and followed her.
A half-dozen not-so-hot looking showgirls in various stages of undress shrieked as he went flying through the dressing room in pursuit.
Nefertiti grabbed a silk robe and kept running, heading for the back door.
She pushed through it; Mark was right behind her.
The door led to a long hallway.
She reached the door to the street just a split second before he did. She burst outside, and he followed, catching her by the arm.
She spun around, fangs bared, ready to shape-shift. By then he’d drawn a small little squirt gun from his pocket. He fired and hit her squarely between the breasts.
She screamed.
People stared.
“Cops! Somebody call the cops!” came a cry.
“He’s got a gun!” someone else roared.
“It’s a frigging water pistol!” a third person chimed in.
One way or the other, Mark couldn’t afford to stick around. They made a pretty ridiculous picture, the stripper in her heavy make-up and robe, him with a water pistol shoved against her side, a wave of smoke rising from her chest.
He had to move, and quickly. He didn’t want to lose his hostage, but he also didn’t want to destroy her.
He wanted answers from her.
“Come with me—now. And quietly. You know what I have here. You can die for real, or you help me. The choice is yours,” he said.
“I’m hurt,” she said pathetically.
“You’ll be more than hurt in two seconds if you don’t shut up and do what I tell you,” he assured her.
She slipped an arm around his shoulders, pretending to be with him. Onlookers would probably just assume they’d had a lovers’ quarrel, he thought.
“I’m nearly…gone.”
“Nearly, but not quite.”
“You need to show some mercy,” she whined.
“Like you were about to?” he suggested.
“I wasn’t going to kill him.”
“We’ll never know, will we? Just shut up and come with me, or the cops will be here. And then I’ll have to kill you, because I can’t let you go,” he promised her swiftly. “Let’s go.”
Blood Red Page 20
