by Unknown
‘Whatcha want, Rin-Tin-Tin?’ Subtle, see?
‘Pretty sure I know the vic.’
He waved me over, and I ducked under the tape to join him. The techs, red-faced and boiling in their white suits, made thumbs-ups, and Stevens squatted, knees cracking, to turn the body over. I wasn’t delighted to be proven right, even if the late hooker hadn’t exactly been my BFF.
She was a hooker I knew by sight as well as smell. Finding a dead ho; not so unusual. Finding one who was a vamp that’d had herself drained, now that’s something you don’t see every day. All that was missing was a neon sign saying ‘Weird Shit’.
‘Talk to me, Martinez.’
‘Name’s Cristina Palmieri. She’s Family.’
The sergeant looked up at me, startled. ‘You’re shittin’ me.’
‘Heard Guido gave her marching orders three months ago.’
‘And you know this how?’
I shrugged. ‘Wendy Lee in Organised Crime.’
‘What are you, gym buddies?’
No, we hunt fat jerks like you and chow down on ’em, you ass-hat. ‘She’s a Were’.
‘Jeez,’ Stevens hauled himself ponderously to his feet like an overweight alligator heaving itself out of a swamp. ‘You’re like a bunch a fucking Freemasons. Whaddya do, compare tasting notes?’
No way was I telling him that Wendy got that off of Marty Vincenzi in Vice. He wanted intel, let him get his own fucking grapevine. I resisted the urge to bite off his arm and beat him over the head with it, and said, ‘Word on the street, she was a bit of a rebel. Maybe someone got tired of cleaning up after her.’
‘Cleaning up?’ Stevens repeated. ‘As in – grrrr?’ He did that thing people do when they’re trying to mime ‘vamp’ showing his teeth and making his hands into claws. Dick. ‘Was she a fanger?’
‘Some people get off on it,’ I said. ‘Can’t hardly call the cops if the vamp sucks up more than they asked for.’
‘Hunh,’ he grunted, turning to greet the ME, who had just arrived. She nodded to me, then hunkered down by the body. Now she smelt nice. And not in the salivating kind of way at all.
‘Oh for—’ She got back to her feet and glared at Stevens. ‘Nobody thought to tell me the vic was a vamp? I can’t tell you jack here. This babe was cold before she died.’
‘Doc,’ I ventured. ‘I don’t see any bite marks.’
The ME looked at me. She had red hair, freckles, and a serious Factor-50 habit. ‘Oh, you’re a Were.’ I nodded. Not many people can tell. She smiled, and squatted down by the dead vamp again. ‘Smell anything?’
‘Just the crap in this alley,’ I said, and suddenly realised that was fucking ridiculous. ‘No vamps. No humans or Weres, except us chickens.’ What the hell?
‘Hmm.’ She pulled the corpse’s skirt up carefully. ‘Nada on the femorals. Have to get her back to the ranch to look for punctures. Any ideas, Officer—?’
‘Martinez,’ I supplied. ‘Taz.’
‘Taz. Okay. I’m Dr Riordan. Jules.
Stevens interrupted, probably pissed that the foxy ME was talking to the grunt and not to him. ‘Vamp blood’s on the streets now. That’s motive right there.’ As if someone jonesing for a fix would suck on a ho. Dumb fuck.
‘Have fun talking to the Mob, sergeant,’ said Riordan, shooting him a look that woulda stopped Mike Tyson in his tracks.
‘I’m still not smelling a perp,’ I pointed out.
‘Jeez.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Then what fucking good are you, Martinez?’
The doc got to her feet, going ‘Whoa, head rush.’
I moved towards her to steady her and at that precise moment my vision went crazy-ass for just a split second. The alley turned into a negative image, and in that flash I saw something crouched over Cristina’s body that burned into my mind like a brand.
There was a blur of fangs and talons and wings, all leaving sooty trails on the air, but it moved impossibly fast, and it scared the living crap out of me; something that doesn’t happen very often to a werewolf.
Then Jules Riordan was steadying me as much as I was hanging onto her and asking me if I was okay. She and Stevens were staring at me as if I’d grown horns and started dancing the can-can. I was panting like I’d just run a marathon.
‘What the cold holy fuck was that?’ I growled, my skin crawling with an un-seasonal need to change and run. Not after something tasty for dinner, but into some dark den and slam the door shut and bolt it after me.
‘What did you see?’ the doc asked.
Stevens made a noise between a howl and a groan. We turned to see a stream of blood fountain out of his neck, and he crashed to the ground into exactly the same spot where Cristina had been lying. Everyone jumped out of the way cursing except for the doc, who went onto her knees and slapped a dressing onto him. There was utter chaos for about five minutes with people yelling ‘Officer down!’ and ‘What happened to the fucking DB?’ Then paramedics rushing around and everyone getting under everyone else’s feet.
I’ve never changed outside of moontime but the fight-or-flight was zapping adrenaline and wolf-hormones round me like the Road Runner on steroids. It drained away so fast that the next thing I knew was I was leaning against a dumpster feeling crusty with sweat and Jules Riordan was holding fingers up for me to count.
‘Officer?’ said a tentative voice. I looked up, still a little groggy to see one of the CSIs peering at me owlishly. He was wearing big specs and looked about thirteen years old. Mac Taylor, he wasn’t.
‘Yeah?’ I wasn’t feeling very sociable yet.
‘I’m Mike Nkembe.’ He stuck out a hand. I took it and he hauled me to my feet. ‘Did I hear you say you saw something back there?’
‘Yeah.’ You and every other breathing body here. Laughing their asses off.
‘I did too. I was a ways down the alley with the UV light, and I…’ his voice trailed off. ‘There was trace, but it was black.’
I had one of those light bulb moments, and glanced over to the meat wagon. They were just getting Stevens onboard. ‘Mike, do me a favour. Catch that meat wagon and run your UV over the sarge before they fuck off into the sunset.’
As he trotted off I saw the LT’s car pull up at the end of the alleyway, and exhaled in relief. Whatever the hell it was that had punctured Stevens it had done me one favour at least. And hey, Sarge, that is the kind of shit the werewolf is good for.
*
Lieutenant Romescu, Tom to his friends and LT to rooks like me, was one of the smartest and nicest guys I ever knew. Also one of the ugliest. If you said he looked like a Neanderthal, you’d be insulting the cavemen. He was also the only person I didn’t mind calling me by my given name.
‘Teresa, update me.’ His voice was like gravel with a bit of honey in it. I made with the update. ‘Why do you think this critter took the body?’
This being a no-brainer, he was testing me. Hell, I was learning from the best, so I answered the questions like a good little werewolf. ‘Didn’t want it autopsied.’
‘Why?’
‘Thought Jules here might find something?’
He slurped from his mug. The man was a tea-drinker, for fuck’s sake. ‘So, something that feeds on vamps, but doesn’t leave any obvious bite marks. Dr Riordan, input?’
‘Might have been too small to see without a magnifier. The body was seriously desiccated.’
‘How is Sergeant Stevens?’
‘Stable,’ the ME answered. ‘Single puncture to the jugular.’
‘Any theories?’
She shook her head. ‘You’re the detective.’ I hid a smile, which promptly bit me in the ass. The LT swung his massive head around to fix me with an inquiring glare.
‘Martinez?’
Fuck! I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. ‘Not Family business, sir.’
‘Talk me through it.’
‘Okay,’ I said slowly, trying to get my thoughts in order. Shit! My first major crime scene, and I screwed up.
‘Our vic is Christina Palmieri. Kicked out by her Family and murdered by person or un-person unknown. Perp is not a vamp, but he – it – sucked her dry.’
‘The sergeant’s wound was made by a single claw or fang,’ Jules put in.
‘And this perp is visible under UV,’ said the LT. ‘But you saw it as well.’
‘Only for a moment. It kinda messed me up.’
Mike the tech chose that moment to interrupt. ‘Lieutenant Romescu, sir.’ He looked sideways at me with a sort-of grin. ‘The sarge’s shirt was covered in that black trace stuff.’
Jules’s cell also decided to give off a tinny version of the Indiana Jones theme, and she hauled it out of her pocket. ‘Riordan.’ A frown. ‘Damn it!’ An explosive sigh. ‘I’m on my way.’ She closed the phone, turned to us, and spat out, ‘Sergeant Stevens just died.’
Helluva way to get the fat fucker off my case.
‘Well, Doc,’ said the LT, ‘looks like you get to do an autopsy after all. And Teresa, you get to observe.’
Not to be cynical, but cops tend not to pay a lot of attention to hooker-killers. Even a weird case like this. So I get to see Stevens, fat as shit, buck naked, and dead, being sliced and diced. The day just sucked harder by the minute.
On the plus side, I got to hang with the hot ME.
*
‘You ever witnessed an autopsy, Taz?’
I shook my head. ‘Seen my share of DBs, doc.’
‘Yeah, well, don’t try to tough it out. If you need to toss your cookies, try not to get it on me. And keep your eyes peeled for that black… stuff.’
It looked like it really hurt her to use a vague word like that. I smirked. ‘You need to come up with a name for it, doc.’
‘Jules.’
‘Jules. Call it something sciencey.’
‘Sciencey,’ she repeated. ‘Like what?’
‘I dunno, charcoalium? It looks like a charcoal drawing, powdery, ya know?’
‘Hmm.’ She rolled her eyes a bit. ‘I am not calling it charcoalium. “Black powder” will have to do.’
Sergeant Stevens, minus a lot of blood, was the colour of wax. Man, he was one hairy dude. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy with a pelt.
‘Crap, I only get that furry at full moon,’ I remarked.
‘Subject is a Caucasian male, forty-six years old, morbidly obese,’ Jules said into her mic, then looked over at me. ‘Can you see the black powder?’
‘Yeah, lots of it round the wound. Cuts off right where his collar was.’
She ran a UV over the area and nodded. ‘You wanna see if you can scrape some off?’ I gloved up and complied. The stuff flaked off easily.
‘Weird.’ I put my tongue gingerly to a bit of residue on my finger.
‘Taz! What the hell are you doing?’
‘I’m not getting anything off of it, Jules. No smell, no taste, nada. It’s like it cancels everything out.’
‘That makes no sense.’
‘I know.’
Slice and dice time. I looked away, not out of squeamishness, but hey, cut the dude some slack. I pretty much hated his guts, but believe me, I didn’t need to see them.
Turned out I was gonna miss out on that treat, anyhow. But fuck me if the alternative wasn’t worse. Jules had hardly gotten out ‘Making the Y incision’ when somebody started banging on the door. Hard, like they really had a beef with that sucker. ‘Let ’em in, Taz,’ she said without missing a beat, so I had a silly smile stuck on my face when the door opened.
Bad idea. Earned me a barked ‘Fuck you grinning at, rook?’ Detective Jorgensen. Blond, fireplug build, aggressive. Shit, I could not catch a break that day.
‘Nothing, Detective.’
‘Then wipe it off and come with.’
‘Where to, boss?’
He sucked his teeth, as if he thought the question was the dumbest thing he’d heard all day. ‘Upstate,’ he finally growled. ‘Your dead ho vamp has a twin, and the hicks in Hicksville even managed to hang onto the body. You’re my driver, so hustle.’
‘Detective!’ Jules interrupted. He sighed a Darth Vader sigh. Dick.
‘What’s up, doc?’ I rolled my eyes at her behind his back. Like an ME hasn’t heard that before.
‘Officer Martinez can see some black powdery trace around the wound. Can you tell me if you can, as well?’
‘Listen, Doc, just because Martinez has some kind of weird asshole x-ray vision doesn’t mean I do too.’
‘Detective,’ Jules said patiently, ‘it’s not racist to assume that another Were might have the same ability. Just tell me, yes or no?’
Jorgensen stomped to the autopsy table and peered at the late Sergeant Pillsbury. ‘How about that?’ He gave me a scowl, as if he suspected me of having infected him with weird asshole x-ray vision. ‘You were right, doc.’ Then he spun on his heel and headed for the door.
Jules nodded. ‘Thank you, Detective. Interesting to know.’
‘See you later, Jules?’ I said as I hurried after the retreating Jorgensen back. She nodded, I grinned, and two not-very-friendly Weres snagged a car and headed off into the rush-hour traffic, air-con on full blast. At least a detective could pull enough rank to score a decent SUV out of the motor pool and not the kind of rust-bucket that bottom-feeders like me have to put up with.
‘Upstate’ in Jorgensen-talk turned out to be so far up-goddam-state that I thought we were going to end up in Canada. Asshole didn’t even offer to share the driving, so I was cranky as all hell and seriously jonesing for java by the time we got there. He left me to park, muttering ‘Let’s go make nice to the rednecks’ as if he was expecting the soundtrack to blast out the Duelling Banjos from Deliverance. Still as I was expecting something more like Fargo without the snow, I was hardly any better.
We met up with a large motherly sheriff who looked a bit like Kathy Bates. Her nametag read Bellini and her accent was straight out of the Bronx, so screw us city cops for making assumptions. Somehow, she looked cool and clean. Shit, I wished I knew her secret. I’d started sweating the instant I got out of the car, and my hair felt like a swamp.
‘Coffee, detectives?’
My tongue was hanging out, so I gave her my politest ‘Yes please’ while Jorgenson was fucking around with the one-upmanship by informing her that I wasn’t a detective. What was his problem? Guess the jerk just plain didn’t like me. There’s no law saying Weres have to stick together, despite the pack instinct, or even like each other. And I’m lovable. No? So it must be him.
*
‘Case of the curious corpse.’ Bellini was obviously a crime fiction fan. I get too much of real thing, but hey, whatever floats your boat. She hauled out a drawer containing Hooker #2. ‘Meet Lillian Lane, detectives.’
‘Do your thing, Martinez,’ drawled Jorgensen, pretending not to care. Fuck knows why. His eyes were sending out a different message. I wished we had Jules along. Okay, not entirely for her medical skills. Down, girl! ‘What did your ME come up with?’
Lillian was only a Christina-lookalike in the sucked-out vamp line. Her hair was blonde with mousy brown roots. And no sign of black trace on her.
‘Not a mark on her,’ said Bellini. ‘Not even a puncture wound. Tox screen came back negative. No obvious cause of death.’
Except for having all her blood drained away.
‘Where was she found?’ Jorgensen asked.
‘In a dumpster.’
‘Any blood at the scene?’ The sheriff shook her head. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well yeah. She’d had sexual intercourse just before she died.’
Jorgensen opened his mouth, then closed it again.
‘DNA?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And that’s where it gets weird.’
By that time I would’ve strangled her, never mind Detective Jorgensen, who looked like he was about to burst. ‘What?’
‘To quote the doc, there was something “funky” about the DNA. And this is a guy who’s a
lways down with the scientific gabble.’
Crap, we had to get Jules up here. She had to be better than whatever superannuated old dinosaur they had for an ME.
Behind us, the door opened, and I jumped. Jorgensen snickered. I gave him the evil eye, since giving him the finger wasn’t an option.
‘Sheriff.’ It was a young dude, white as white bread. Seriously, I woulda took him for a vamp if I couldn’t smell the humanity on him. Albino pale, light grey eyes, straw-coloured hair fine as silk. ‘Hi. You must be the NYPD. I’m the ME here – Derek Finn.’
Hand-shaking ensued. I revised my picture of the doc in this burg.
‘Define ‘funky’, doc,’ said Jorgensen.
‘Excuse me?’
‘As in ‘funky’ DNA.’
Finn smiled. ‘Off. Freaky. Weird. I only got the samples back from the lab this morning. They get backed up.’
‘Seriously?’ I thought it, Jorgensen said it. ‘You guys spend your time testing crap from inbred mountain men?’ I felt like doing a facepalm. Way to piss off the locals, Jorgensen. I settled for glaring at his back.
‘Lab’s like, a coupla part-timers, every cop in the county sends stuff to them. It’s not exactly CSI.’
‘What was funky about the DNA?’ I asked. Jeez, now I’m being Responsible Cop.
‘Whoo. What wasn’t. I’m not an expert on vamp DNA, but the whole thing just seems loony-tunes to me.’
Jorgensen was looking like he was about to erupt. I was getting pretty antsy about the thesaurusing, too. ‘Doc, just spit it out.’
The doc sighed. ‘Are you cool with weird shit?’
‘Give us some weird shit and we’ll tell you,’ I suggested.
‘There’s evidence that our vic had rather rough sex before she died.’
‘Right,’ Jorgensen interrupted. ‘Two vamps fucking, why should that be weird?’
‘What’s weird is there was no semen. The sample we sent was off of some kinda powdery stuff that you can only see under UV. It’s vamp DNA all right, but the lab said there was something at the chromosomal level that they’d never seen before.’
‘So you think…?’
‘There’s this local legend,’ Doc Finn began apologetically.
