Blood of the Innocent

by Cheryel Hutton

  “I see.”

  He studied her for a moment. “Perhaps you are not clear on the role of the Guardians.”

  “You protect us.”

  “Yes, protect the vampire. We aren’t in the business of protecting humans, except as it concerns our own needs.”

  The icy feeling spread to her arms. “Humans aren’t important.”

  “Of course they are. We couldn’t survive without them.” With that, the Guardian turned and walked out her office door.

  An image of the handsome man lying discarded and bloody on the hard, cold, slippery rocks filled her mind. The human police had no hope of catching the killer, and even if they did, the Guardians would never let one of the vampire be prosecuted by humans. Bottom line: this human victim and his family would never see justice done.

  Shoving her feelings aside, she headed back to her workstation. Was it possible she had too much sympathy for an inferior species? Then again, maybe human and vampire were not as different as everyone thought.

  ****

  Joe’s lightweight jacket did little to protect him against the chilly evening breeze as he walked along the shoreline behind Ned’s Lobster Shack and the Seafood Market. The Coast Guard station was nearby, so he could watch as their boats pulled from the dock and headed out. He wondered if his brother had spent much time here. He hoped so, the sound of the waves against the rocks soothed and exhilarated at the same time.

  “Mr. Sullivan,” The female voice came through his cell. “I’m sorry to keep you on hold for so long, especially since we played phone tag all day. What can I do for you?”

  He tried to swallow back his trepidation. “Thank you for speaking with me, Dr. Hutchins. I was hoping you could tell me if you’ve performed the autopsy yet.”

  “We’ll be doing that first thing tomorrow. I should be able to release the body for burial before the end of the week.”

  It was horrible, the thought of burying his brother, but that wasn’t his main concern right now. “Did you find anything useful on your initial exam?”

  “Sir, I can’t discuss ongoing investigations.”

  Something in her voice sent a cold chill through him. “How long did my brother lay on that beach?”

  “Look, I’d like to help you, but—”

  “You can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”

  “I’m truly sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway.” He clicked off the phone and fought the urge to hurl it hard out over the rocks into the deep, cold, unyielding ocean. Maybe he’d been reading his brother’s conspiracy theories too long, but something didn’t feel right.

  “You must be Joe,” a voice said.

  He spun to confront the man standing within arm’s length of him. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t heard anybody approach. “Yeah, I’m Joe. Who are you?”

  “My name is Conner. I was a friend of your brother.” The man closed his eyes for a moment, while sheer agony crossed his face. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  Joe studied the man wearing jeans and a black jacket, his red hair a little ruffled in the cold breeze coming from the bay. He seemed honestly to be mourning his brother’s death, but was that for real? Was this C, or was this Justin’s murderer? Or were they one and the same? He decided to focus on the obvious. “How well did you know my brother?”

  Conner seemed to hesitate, looking away, then back. “We knew each other quite well.”

  He was a little younger than Joe’s thirty-two. Soft-spoken, and good looking, he was just the type of man his brother would fall for. “Did you know what he was looking into?”

  Conner’s gaze shot left, then right, then back to Joe. “The Alliance of True Humanity. Yes, I did.”

  “So you know about these inhuman beings?”

  Conner winced. “The vampires, yes.”

  Joe studied the man. Justin’s journal claimed C was one of the creatures, but there was nothing he could see that pointed to Conner being anything but human? Then again, would he be able to tell? Just how weird were these things?

  “Not that different. Not really.”

  Joe took a reflexive step back. “How did you know what I was thinking?”

  Conner swallowed, straightened his back slightly, and met Joe’s gaze. “Because you projected the thought, and we vampires have strong psychic ability.”

  “Well, shit.”

  ****

  The predator lurked in the pre-dawn darkness of Lobster Cove. There were plenty of places along the edges of this tiny town where the streetlights didn’t reach. He’d stumbled onto the perfect place to practice his trade. Dressed completely in black, with the hood of his jacket pulled down low, he blended with the shadows. His eyes, used to the dimness, easily caught sight of his prey.

  He smiled.

  The slim blonde moved with confidence through the dim light of a crescent moon, then all but vanished in the gloom of shadow. Again and again, like one of those old silent movies his last foster dad was so crazy about. That guy was one of the better dads, and living with the man and his sweet wife hadn’t been horrible or anything. He’d left because they were pretty strict about behavior, and he wanted to be free to do as he pleased.

  He moved closer, silently stalking his prey. Slipping from shadow to darker shadow, elation tingled through his chest at how easy this would be. No woman who didn’t belong in his world should be walking alone an hour before dawn.

  She must be a tourist. Probably had a wad of green in that shoulder bag that she wasn’t even trying to hold close to her. Smiling, sixteen-year-old Kevin Sanders moved in. Rushing at the woman, he grabbed for her bag.

  All he got was a fist full of nothing.

  Shaken, Kevin looked around for his target—who was watching him from about two feet to his left. Weird, but just a little glitch in his plan.

  He lunged toward his victim again, pulling out his knife as he went. “Just hand me the bag and nobody will get hurt.”

  She stood there, not moving, not running. The best he could tell in the dim light, she didn’t even look scared. Maybe she had something wrong with her. That should make life even easier for him.

  He walked right up to her, waving the knife a little, just to show her who was boss. “Hand over your money.”

  The blonde smiled and he got an odd feeling in his gut, a feeling that something was off, but he ignored the warning. How could something this simple go wrong?

  “You need to go home,” she said.

  He laughed. This idiot was probably one of those crusaders who seemed to think all they had to do was throw money around and be nice to the “poor, misguided kids.” He’d show her who was misguided. “Hand it over, bitch, or I’ll make you wish you had.”

  “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She looked into his eyes, and his gut twisted. The bitch had eyes like nothing he’d ever seen, eyes of a color that couldn’t be natural on human or animal, eyes that pulled him in.

  Eyes of a predator.

  Her hand touched his shoulder. When had she got close enough to touch him? Go, his head insisted. His feet refused.

  His sleeve was shoved up, and a sharp pain shot through his left forearm, sort of like the stab when the doctor takes blood. His reflex was to jerk away from the pain, but he couldn’t make his body cooperate. He tried to turn his head to see, but found he couldn’t. He strained his eyes to the side. Damn, he had to know what was happening to him.

  Finally, he managed to catch a glimpse of golden hair draped over his arm. It took him a minute to figure out she sucked on his wrist.

  She looked up at him and smiled. A drop of blood ran out one side of her mouth and she stuck out her tongue to pull it back in. His mind refused to believe what his eyes told him, that the crazy blonde was drinking his blood like a freaking vampire.

  This wasn’t happening. No freaking way. But he could feel the pull of her mouth on his arm. Shit! This was like a damn horror novel, or a nightmare like the ones he used to have when
he was little.

  Yeah that was it. Nightmare. That made a lot of sense.

  He closed his eyes and waited. He could still feel the suction of the bitch’s mouth on his arm. Something about what she was doing sent spikes of desire through him, which was seriously freaky. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was escaping from this lunatic.

  He tried again to pull away, but couldn’t make anything move except his eyes. He couldn’t even open his mouth to scream. For the first time in his life, he would love to see a stupid cop. Then again, he wasn’t sure even a gun would stop this bitch.

  Crazy Blonde licked his arm where she’d sucked on him. His stomach lurched, and he swallowed hard. He told himself he was a man, and men didn’t puke on women, even crazy ones.

  Then her gaze caught his. Her eyes looked almost black, and he could have sworn she was poking around in his brain. That was crazy, right?

  “You are going home,” she said. “You will feel a need to do something more with your life. You want to go to school and get a job and show everybody that you are important. You’ll stop stealing for a living, and you won’t remember any of this.” She smiled as she turned and strolled away.

  Slowly his body once again became his own, and he headed toward home. One thing he knew, he’d never forget tonight.

  ****

  Veronica was almost to her apartment when she allowed herself to let go of the lingering annoyance from the episode with that would-be criminal. The human was still a child, and she was rather sorry for him. She hoped the fear she’d made sure he’d experienced and the desire for a better life she’d planted would push him toward doing something more with his life than running around in the middle of the night looking for people to steal from. Most vampires thought of humans as nothing more than a source of the blood her kind needed to survive, but she couldn’t keep from seeing them as cousins.

  From that thought came one of irritation with the Guardians for their uncaring attitude toward humans. Maybe the difference was that she was a biochemist specializing in genetic differences in species, and understanding the difference between the two species was a long-time interest of hers. She knew and understood the physiological and genetic gulf between vampire and human, and it wasn’t nearly as wide as her kind would like to believe.

  Before she had time to think about it anymore, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Hello, Pat. You’re up early.”

  “And you’re up late,”

  “I’m just getting off work, and I wanted to check in with you.”

  “I take it you want to know about the murder,” Pat said. “Name is Justin Sullivan. He was killed by exsanguination due to having his throat cut—like that wasn’t obvious from the scene. What you probably don’t know is that the crime scene techs tested the soil and the rocks, and they can’t account for the amount of blood that was lost from the victim. We found no evidence that the body was moved, however.”

  Veronica sighed. “Anything that might indicate who the murderer was?”

  “No, but you knew that was a long shot.”

  “Sometimes long shots do pay off.”

  “Not this time. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  “I’d appreciate it, Pat.”

  “No problem. I’d really like to see the creep who did this pay, and I have a pretty good idea you’re the best hope of that happening.”

  “Thanks for having faith in me.”

  “You understand what happened, I only have guidelines to follow, and a vague idea of why I’m supposed to call you.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but you understand I’m just a glorified crime scene tech, Right?”

  “Nonetheless, you’re in the loop, and I’m not.”

  Veronica winced. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  They hung up, and Veronica went to her apartment considering that if she was the best hope of bringing the culprit to justice, there wasn’t much hope at all.

  ****

  Joe sauntered into the Bar Harbor Sheriff’s Office trying hard to look like he belonged. A young man in uniform sat at the front desk, typing two-fingered on a computer keyboard. He looked up and his eyes widened. “Holy crap!”

  Joe walked over to the officer and held out his hand. “Hello, I’m Joe Sullivan.”

  The officer slowly reached out to shake his hand. “You look just like—” His Adam’s apple moved up and down, and he shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry.”

  Joe nodded. “Justin was my twin. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I’m hoping to find out how the investigation is going.”

  “I’m sorry. the sheriff isn’t in right now.”

  “That’s too bad. I’d hoped to talk to him.” Joe had waited to go in until the sheriff went to lunch. Luckily, when the sheriff left, so did several of the staff. He figured he might have a better chance of getting information from someone other than the head lawman, and the fewer people around the better.

  “I’m sorry,” the officer repeated.

  He sighed. “I’m sure he stays busy.”

  “Yeah, he does.”

  “You know, I just realized, you probably don’t have a lot of murders around here. I’ll bet your sheriff is pretty stressed out about now.”

  “Yes, he is.” The officer narrowed his eyes. “But he’ll get the guy. He always does.”

  “I’m sure he will. In fact, I’ll bet he already has a bunch of clues.”

  The officer, the name on his uniform was Woods, looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Well, I’m not exactly involved in the murder investigation.”

  “Damn, I really would like to know something. It’s rough to lose a brother, especially a twin brother.” Joe let his sadness and frustration show. “You understand, don’t you, Officer Woods?”

  Woods nodded. “I’m sure it’s hard.”

  “Just knowing something’s being done would help. I just want to know the sheriff is making some headway toward catching my twin’s murderer.”

  “The sheriff’s a good man, as are the detectives and state police working the case.”

  Joe sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “Mom’s a basket case. If I could just assure her the authorities have some lead. Anything.”

  The young officer shifted in his chair. “I do hear things.” He looked around as if making sure no one was listening before leaning across the desk toward Joe. “I’ve heard they didn’t find any useful evidence at the site. No footprints, no drag marks, not even enough blood.” He winced. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

  Joe’s stomach turned, but he made himself smile. “It’s okay, I’m a scientist.” Biology teacher at a small college actually, but this guy didn’t need to know that. “I know it sounds kinda weird, it being my brother and all, but I can’t help being curious. What do you mean not enough blood?”

  “Are you sure, Mr. Sullivan? It doesn’t seem appropriate.”

  “Call me Joe, please. Now you’ve got me wondering. Do me a favor and don’t make me lay awake at night worrying.”

  The young man swallowed hard. “That wouldn’t be right. Especially since it was me who screwed up.” He glanced around again, then leaned toward Joe. “There was more blood missing from him than could be accounted for at the scene. He must have been moved, but the crime scene folks didn’t find any evidence to suggest how that had been done.”

  “Thank you, Officer. I appreciate your help.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Thank you.” He stood and shook the young man’s hand. Then headed for the door before he got the nice officer in trouble.

  Once outside, reality smacked him in the head. So the police knew very little. Figures. Would a tourist town’s sheriff’s department have the means to solve a crime like this one? Even if the state police was involved, they still had only the evidence to work with—and apparently they hadn’t found much of that.

  What about the FBI? What was a Federal “consultant” doing at a local crime scene? A
scientist, of all things. What was that about?

  Then there was the big question, did Justin’s death have anything to do with his conspiracy theory? Up until now, Joe had been able to convince himself his brother’s investigation and death were not related.

  Even if a conspiracy of some sort did exist, it was likely a loose organization headed by a couple of people with grandiose delusions. It was hard to believe that any group of the magnitude Justin feared could be real.

  Like the non-human people. This Conner didn’t seem like some weird creature. Maybe he was ill and his delusions had spread to Justin. Maybe he hadn’t “read his mind”. Maybe he’d guessed what Joe was thinking.

  Then again, something he’d seen in Justin’s journal kept pushing into his mind. About how the not-quite-humans needed to drink human blood to survive. That couldn’t be what happened to the rest of Justin’s blood. Could it?

  ****

  “All right, girl. Are you going to tell me what’s got you all twitchy, or do I have to beat it out of you?” Tim acted out the “twitchy” part with a wiggle straight from one of his drag queen acts.

  Veronica eyed her friend. “Twitchy, huh?”

  “Very much twitchy.” He sat on her couch and patted the seat beside him. “Come here and tell momma all about it.”

  “You’re a creepy man, you know that?”

  “Why thank you, dear. How sweet you are to point that out.”

  She sat with one foot under her, facing Tim. “I love your way with sarcasm.”

  “Just one of the many services I offer.”

  “You got that from a T-shirt.”

  “No, the T-shirt got it from me.”

  Laughing, she put her hand on his arm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  The humor dropped from his expression. “Even if I am human?”

  Tears unexpectedly filled her eyes, and she looked away so Tim wouldn’t see. “You’re my closest friend. That’s all that matters.”

  “Hey.” He slid closer and stroked her hair. “I’m here for you, girlfriend, even if you are a bloodsucker.”