She frowned, thinking, then nodded. "Hers was. Not much blood either, like it'd been done after she died."
My turn to nod. "Great."
"Great?" Larry asked.
"I think you've got a vampire on your hands, Sergeant Freemont."
They both frowned at me. "Look at the body parts that are missing. The legs of the one boy were cut off after he died. The femoral artery is in the thigh near the groin. I've seen vamps take blood from that in preference to the neck. Cut off the legs, and no fang marks."
"What about the other two?" Freemont asked.
"Maybe the smallest boy was bitten. His neck was sliced twice for no reason. Maybe it was just a little extra violence like the disfigurement of the face. I don't know. But a vamp can take blood from the wrist, the bend of the arm. All parts that are missing."
"One of their brains is missing," Freemont said.
Larry swayed gently beside me. He wiped a hand over his suddenly sweating face.
"You going to be alright?" I asked.
He nodded, not trusting his voice. Brave Larry.
"What better way to throw us off the track than to take something a vamp wouldn't be interested in?" I said.
"Okay, say it makes some sense. Why this way? This is..." She spread her hands wide, staring down at the carnage. She was the only one of the three of us still looking at it. "This is nuts. If it was human, I'd say we had a serial killer on our hands."
"We may have," I said softly.
Freemont stared at me. "What the hell do you mean?"
"A vampire was a person once. Just being dead doesn't cure you of any problems you had as a live human being. If you have a violent pathology before death, that won't change just because you're dead."
Freemont looked at me like I was the one who was crazy. I think it was the word "dead" that was bothering her. Once her suspects were dead, they weren't suspects anymore. I tried again. "Say Johnny is a serial killer. He becomes a vampire. Why should being a vampire make him suddenly less violent? Why not more violent?"
"Oh, my God," Larry said.
Freemont took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slow. "Okay, maybe you're right. I'm not saying you are. I've seen pictures of vampire victims and they don't look like this, but if you are, what do you need from me?"
"The pictures from the first crime scene. And a look at where it happened."
"I'll send the file to your hotel," she said.
"Where was the couple killed?"
"Just a few hundred yards from here."
"Let's go take a look."
"I'll have one of the troopers take you over," she said.
"This is a damn small geographic area. I assume you searched it."
"With a fine-tooth comb. But frankly, Ms. Blake, I wasn't sure what we were looking for. The leaves and the dry weather make it almost impossible to find tracks."
"Yeah," I said. "Tracks would help." I glanced back the way I'd come. The leaves were disturbed coming up the hill. "If it is a vampire..."
Freemont cut me off. "What do you mean, if?"
I met her suddenly accusing eyes. "Look, Sergeant, if it is a vampire it has more mind control than I've ever seen. I've never met a vampire, even a master vampire, that could hold three humans in thrall while he killed them. Until I saw this, I'd have said it couldn't be done."
"What else could it be?" Larry asked.
I shrugged. "I think it's a vamp, but if I said I was a hundred percent sure, I'd be lying. I try not to lie to the police. There may be no tracks up the hill even if the ground was soft, because the vampire could have flown in."
"Like a bat?" Freemont asked.
"No, they don't change shape into a bat, but they can..." I searched for a word and there wasn't one. "They can levitate, sort of fly. I've seen it. I can't explain it, but I've seen it."
"A serial killer vampire." She shook her head, the lines near her mouth deepening. "The Feds are going to be all over this."
"No joke," I said. "Did you find the missing body parts?"
"No, I thought maybe it had eaten them."
"If it ate that much, why not more? If it ate, why no teeth marks? If it ate, why not some scattered body parts, like crumbs?"
She clenched her hands into fists. "You've made your point. It was a vampire. Even a dumb cop knows they don't eat flesh." She turned her brown eyes to me, and there was a lot of anger in them. Not at me, exactly, but I might make a good target. I stared back at her, not flinching. She looked away first. Maybe I wouldn't make a good target.
"I don't like having a civilian contractor in on a homicide investigation, but you spotted things down there that I missed. You're either very good, or you know something that you aren't telling me."
I could have just said I'm good at my job, but I didn't. Didn't want the police thinking I was holding out information when I wasn't. "I've got one advantage over a normal homicide detective, I expect it to be a monster. No one ever calls me in if it's just a stabbing, or a hit-and-run. I don't spend a lot of time trying to come up with nice, normal explanations. It means I get to ignore a lot of theories."
She nodded. "Alright, if you help me catch this thing, I don't care what you do for a living."
"Glad to hear it," I said.
"But no reporters, no media. I am in charge here. This is my investigation. I decide when we go public. Is that clear?"
"Sure."
She stared at me like she didn't believe me. "I mean it about the media, Ms. Blake."
"I don't have a problem with no media, Sergeant Freemont. I prefer it that way."
"For a person who doesn't want the media around, you get a lot of attention."
I shrugged. "I'm involved in only sensational cases, detective. Cases that make good press, good sound bites. I slay vampires, for God's sake; it makes great headlines."
"As long as we understand each other, Ms. Blake."
"No media; it's not a hard concept," I said.
She nodded. "I'll have someone walk you over to the first crime scene. I'll see you get the file at your hotel." She started to turn away.
"Sergeant Freemont?"
She turned back, but it was not a friendly look. "What is it now, Ms. Blake? You've done your job."
"You can't treat this like a human serial killer."
"I'm in charge of this investigation, Ms. Blake. I can do what I damn well please."
I stared up at her, met her hostile eyes. I wasn't feeling too friendly myself. "I am not trying to steal your thunder here. But vampires aren't just people with fangs. If the vamp could catch their minds and hold them while he slaughtered each of them in turn, he could capture your mind, anyone's mind. A vampire that talented could make you think black was white. Do you understand me?"
"It's daylight, Ms. Blake; if it's a vampire then we find it and stake it."
"You'll need a court order of execution."
"We'll get one."
"When you get it, I'll come back and finish the job."
"I think we can handle it."
"You ever stake a vampire?" I asked.
She just looked at me. "No, but I've shot a man. It can't be that much harder."
"It's not harder in the way you mean," I said. "But it's a hell of a lot more dangerous."
She shook her head. "Until the Feds get here, I'm in charge, and not you or anyone else is taking over. Is that clear, Ms. Blake?"
I nodded. "Crystal, Sergeant Freemont." I stared at the cross-shaped pin in the lapel of her suit jacket. Most plainclothesmen had a cross-shaped tie tack. Standard police issue across the country. "You do have silver ammo, right?"
"I'll take care of my men, Ms. Blake."
I raised my hands slightly. So much for girl talk. "Fine, we're leaving. You've got my beeper number. Use it if you need it, Detective Freemont."
"I won't need it."
I took a deep breath and swallowed a lot of words. Picking a fight with the cop in charge of a murder investigation was not
the way to get invited back to play. I walked past her without saying good-bye. If I opened my mouth, I wasn't sure what would come out. Nothing pleasant, and nothing useful.
8
People who don't camp much think darkness falls from the sky. It doesn't. Darkness slides from the trees and fills them first, then spreads outward to the open places. It was so dark under the trees that I wished for a flashlight. When we stumbled to the road, and our waiting Jeep, it was only dusk.
Larry looked up at the coming night, and said, "We can get back and walk the graveyard for Stirling."
"First let's eat," I said.
He looked at me. "You wanting to stop for food, that's a first. I usually have to beg for drive-up."
"I forgot to eat lunch," I said.
He grinned. "That I believe." The smile faded slowly from his face. "The first time you offer me food voluntarily, and I don't think I can eat." He stared at me. There was enough light left for me to see him search my face. "Could you really eat after what we just saw?"
I looked at him. I didn't know what to say. Not so long ago, the answer would have been no. "Well, I wouldn't want to face a plate of spaghetti, or steak tartare, but yeah, I could eat."
He shook his head. "What the heck is steak tartare?"
"Raw beef, pretty much," I said.
He swallowed hard, looking just a little paler than he had a second ago. "How can you even think of stuff like that so soon after..." He let the words trail off. We'd both seen it; no words were needed.
I shrugged. "I've been going to murder scenes for nearly three years, Larry. You learn to survive. Which means you learn to eat after seeing cut-up bodies." I didn't add that I'd seen worse. I'd seen human bodies reduced to a roomful of blood and gobbets of unrecognizable flesh. Not enough left to fill a gallon-size baggie. I hadn't gone out for Big Macs after that one.
"Are you up to at least trying to eat?"
He was looking at me sort of suspiciously. "Where did you have in mind?"
I untied the Nikes and stepped carefully on the gravel road. Didn't want to snag the hose. I unzipped the coverall and stepped out of it. Larry did the same, but he tried to keep his shoes on. He managed to work his feet through, but it required some hopping on one leg.
I folded my coverall carefully so the blood wouldn't touch the Jeep's immaculate interior. I tossed the Nikes into the back floorboard and got the high heels out.
Larry was trying to brush wrinkles from his suit pants, but some things only a dry cleaner could fix.
"How would you like to go to Bloody Bones?" I asked.
He looked up at me, hands still patting at the wrinkles. He frowned. "Where?"
"It's the restaurant that Magnus Bouvier owns. Stirling mentioned it."
"Did he tell us where it was?" Larry said.
"No, but I asked one of the local cops for restaurants, and Bloody Bones isn't that far from here."
Larry squinted suspiciously at me. "Why do you want to go there?"
"I want to talk to Magnus Bouvier."
"Why?" he asked.
It was a good question. I wasn't sure I had a good answer. I shrugged and climbed into the Jeep. Larry had no choice but to join me, unless he didn't want to continue the conversation. When we were all settled in the Jeep, I still didn't have a really good answer.
"I don't like Stirling. I don't trust him."
"I got the impression you didn't like him," Larry said, his voice very dry. "But why not trust him?"
"Do you trust him?" I asked.
Larry frowned and thought about it. He shook his head. "Not as far as I could throw him."
"See?" I said.
"I guess so, but you think talking to Bouvier will help?"
"I hope so. I don't like raising the dead for people I don't trust. Especially something this big."
"Okay, so we go eat dinner at Bouvier's restaurant and talk to him; then what?"
"If we don't learn anything new, we go see Stirling and walk the graveyard for him."
Larry was looking at me like he wasn't sure he trusted me. "What are you up to?"
"Don't you want to know why Stirling had to have that mountain? Why the Bouviers' mountain and not someone else's?"
Larry looked at me. "You've been hanging around the police too long. You don't trust anybody."
"The cops didn't teach me that, Larry; it's natural talent." I put the Jeep in gear and off we went.
The trees made long, thin shadows. In the valleys between mountains, the shadows formed pools of coming night. We should have driven straight to the graveyard. Just walking the cemetery wouldn't hurt anything. But if I couldn't go vampire hunting, I could question Magnus Bouvier. That part of my job nobody could chase me out of.
I didn't really want to go vampire hunting. It was almost dark. Hunting vamps after dark was a good way to get killed. Especially one that could control minds like this one could. A vampire can cloud your mind and even hurt you, if its control is good enough, and you won't mind. But once its concentration is off you, onto someone else, and that person starts screaming, you'll wake up. You'll run. But the boys hadn't run. They hadn't woken up. They'd just died.
If this thing wasn't stopped, other people would die. I could almost guarantee it. Freemont should have let me stay. They needed a vampire expert with them on this one. They needed me. Okay, they really needed police with expertise in monsters, but they didn't have that. It had only been three years since Addison v. Clark made vampires legally alive. Three years ago Washington had made the bloodsuckers living citizens with rights. Nobody had thought what that meant for the police. Before the law changed, preternatural crime was handled by bounty hunters, vampire hunters. Those private citizens with enough experience to keep them alive. Most of us had some sort of preternatural power that helped give us an edge against the monsters. Most cops didn't.
Ordinarily human beings didn't fare well against the monsters. There have always been a few of us who had a talent for taking out the beasties. We've done a good job, but suddenly the cops are expected to take over. No extra training, no extra manpower, nothing. Hell, most police departments wouldn't even spring for the silver ammunition.
It had taken this long for Washington, D.C., to realize they might have been hasty. That maybe, just maybe, the monsters were really monsters and the police needed some extra training. It would take years to train the cops, so they were going to short-circuit the process, just make cops out of all the vampire hunters and monster slayers. For myself, personally, it might work. I would've loved to have a badge to shove in Freemont's face. She couldn't have chased me off then, not if it was federal. But for most vampire hunters, it was going to be a mess. You needed more than preternatural expertise to work a homicide case. You sure as hell needed more than vampire expertise to carry a badge.
There were no easy answers. But out there in the coming darkness were a bunch of police hunting a vampire that could do things I never thought they could do. If I had a badge, I could be with them. I wasn't an automatic safety zone, but I knew a damn sight more than a state cop who had "seen" pictures of vampire victims. Freemont had never seen the real thing. Here was hoping she survived her first encounter.
9
Bloody Bones bar and grill lay up a red gravel road. Someone had butchered the trees back to either side, so the Jeep climbed upward towards a black blanket of sky, sprinkled with a million stars. The shine of stars was the only light in sight.
"It is really dark out here," Larry said.
"No streetlights," I said.
"Shouldn't we see the lights from the restaurant by now?"
"I don't know." I was staring at the broken trees. The trunks gleamed white and ragged. It had been done recently, as if someone had gone mad with an axe, or maybe a sword, or something big had ripped off the trunks.
I slowed down, scanning the darkness. Was I wrong? Was it trolls? Was there a Greater Ozark Mountain Troll left in these mountains? One that would use a sword? I was a big believ
er in a first time for everything.
I brought the Jeep almost to a stop.
"What's wrong?" Larry asked.
I hit the emergency flashers. The road was narrow, barely two cars wide, but it was going uphill. Anybody coming down wouldn't see the Jeep right away. The lights helped, but if someone was speeding... Hell, I was going to do it; why quibble? I put the Jeep in park and got out.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm wondering if a troll ripped the trees apart."
Larry started to get out on his side. I stopped him. "Slide over on my side if you want to get out."
"Why?"
"You're not armed." I got the Browning out. It was a solid, comforting weight, but truthfully, against something the size of one of the great mountain trolls, it wasn't too useful. Maybe with exploding bullets, but short of that a 9mm wasn't the gun for hunting something the size of a small elephant.
Larry closed his door and slid across. "You really think there's a troll out here?"
I stared off into the darkness. Nothing moved. "I don't know." I moved to a dry gully that cut the edge of the road. I stepped very carefully into it. The heels sank in the dry, sandy soil. I grabbed a handful of weeds with my left hand and levered myself up the slope. I had to grab one of the butchered trunks to keep from sliding backwards in the loose leaves and pine needles.
My hand came up against thick sap. I fought the urge to jerk away, forcing myself to keep hold of the sticky bark.
Larry scrambled up the bank, slick-soled dress shoes sliding in the dry leaves. I didn't have a free hand to offer him. He caught himself in a sort of half pushup, and used the weeds to move up beside me. "Damn dress shoes."
"At least you're not in heels," I said.
"And don't think I'm not grateful," he said. "I'd break my neck."
Nothing moved in the dark, dark night except us. There was the sound of spring peepers close by, musical, but nothing bigger. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. I pulled myself up to more solid footing and looked at the trees.
"What are we looking for?" Larry asked.
"An axe makes a wide, smooth stroke. If a troll snapped the trunks, they'll be ragged and full of jagged points of wood."
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