It was raining now, a cold, hard rain, and Fabiana turned down the side street that led to the waterfront. For a few minutes she stood with her fists clenched and her mind wiping blades of emotion away from her thoughts. She looked out at the uneven brick sidewalk that led to a large cascade of stairs and imagined the vampire standing there only a moment before. In her mind, she could see back to when the vampire had gathered the two humans together before he sent them on their way to take her life. The scent of them stood before her like a memory refusing to fade away in the sands of time.
What he had told them was less than he knew. He was afraid of this remorseless female vampire but would never divulge such information to lower beings like the two human males that he sent out into the light of the day. He was old and powerful, and his great abilities would mix well with her own talents. He might not have known that she was coming for him but he had to expect it at some point, otherwise he never would have made it that far in his existence as a collector. Most old vampires are tuned in with one another somehow; most can sense each other and tell when another immortal is close by.
She stood at the top of the stairs and watched the rain spatter the grass and run off around her. Then it was raining so hard all she could see was the steady, wet splashing of water around her feet. She descended the long staircase and became engulfed in the blackness of a confined space as she was faced with a red steel door.
Fabiana reached out with her thin delicate fingers, grabbed the metal door knob and gave it a turn. But it would not move—even her vampire strength could not turn it. A smile slipped across her face. She held her head down slightly, closed her eyes, and reached out with her mind. It was not difficult for her to do. She could feel the density of the metal, the solid weight of it. Then suddenly the door ripped off its hinges and was hurled through the doorway, coming to a crashing halt against a musty, old brick wall. The violent clattering echoed through a section of stone tunnels inked in black. Screams of fright erupted from deep within the darkness.
Fabiana looked around the room at the cold ashes and chunks of burned wood in a stone fireplace. She took in the plaid couch beneath the painted words Vampire Clan which were smeared across the doorways on either side of her. She could smell the sweat and blood of humans running for cover in the darkness and around every corner. This was no vampire clan that she had ever known. These humans only pretended to be vampires, another disservice to true blood collectors around the world. Their fear and misery was more than apparent to her, and as she stepped inside their home the weak humans continued to hide from the violence that had occurred only moments before.
A woman appeared before her and gave Fabiana a sidelong look that at first was curious, then disdainful, and finally aggressive as she displayed her fake vampire teeth to her. The woman had no idea that she stood before one of the oldest and most powerful vampires to ever walk this earth. Fabiana raised her hand and effortlessly sent the woman crashing into the ugly, molding couch. It slammed into the brick wall behind her and came to an abrupt stop. The woman lay on her back, her legs hanging over the arms of the couch. She was unconscious.
“They drink bleeding vodka and rum the way you and I drink blood,” a voice echoed from out of the blackness. The voice was male and reeked of confidence and power. He was one of the old ones—one of the first hundred—but only recently had he started to define himself as an artist. And the art was killing. Yes, he was an artist and an artist required no formal training. In fact, formal education in the art came from only one source, The Origin himself.
He was told that the formal education of the mind interfered with an artist’s ability to feel the zeitgeist, or the spirit of the time or age. So he had chosen to ride the waves of changing times and societies and to formulate his bloody response to them. To kill with style and skill. And what better city to place himself in but Seattle? This was most certainly one of the greatest artistic cities in America. For a while, he had traveled between Paris and Italy, but he soon wished for a life in The Colonies. He often just looked around the many art galleries that lined the streets of downtown Seattle and yearned for his art to really be recognized and appreciated. But it never would be—not by the living anyway.
“Candelas?”
“Yes. You must know that people are one thing to look at and another to taste.”
Then a man appeared holding a tumbler filled with dark, fresh blood. Candelas took it and held it up as if looking at the body and bouquet of a glass of wine, and then drank it down, with a satisfying swallow.
“These works of art provoked strong feelings,” he began. “I have great art in me, for my compositions of killing are well-crafted and creative. But you have no style, no art. Many collectors are disgusted by your work. They feel the same revulsion that I myself feel watching your clumsy slaughtering. You have no art in you, no passion for the death you bring. It’s like a cub being massacred by a jaguar on a beach in Costa Rica. There’s no challenge, no conflict, no resolution. Displaying the horrid perversion of nature, exhibiting repellent savagery, does not make one an artist. Why is it, Fabiana, that you won’t kill an innocent anymore? Are you above such practices?”
“If I am to kill, I will get something out of it.”
“I see. So you kill your own kind. You drink the blood of vampires for power then? Then of course, there is a reason to make art in you,” he went on again. “Not art for art’s sake, but rather, art to benefit the world. Not the world of the living but of our world. For it is our world that really matters. Art to help The Family. That was my goal, you see. For why are we here but to enjoy the fruits and beauty that this world provides for us?”
Fabiana remained silent.
“So you’re here to kill me then,” Candelas said as he stepped out of the darkness to face her.
“You called upon me. I got your messengers,” she told him.
“Yes, well, they were a means to an end.”
“It’s your end that I’m here to discuss, Candelas.”
That evening, Candelas was a deliberately menacing mixture of evil, dressed in black slacks and a white dress shirt, fancy black boots, and a velvet vest. He stood tall with short black hair and a long black cloak hanging off of his shoulders. Candelas was a very impressive vampire from the Pictii settlement in the British Isles. Obvious to Fabiana was his determination to look like a tough, big city vampire, full of power that commanded respect. He represented pure evil. He had killed and tortured the American colonies for over two hundred years. But that was all about to come to an end. His art show was over and the curtain of his life was being pulled closed.
Candelas ran at Fabiana with great speed and in a flash he was on top of her, pinning her body under his.
“You see? I am an artist.”
She screamed out as he crushed her ribs with his knees. She looked up into his eyes; they were full of rage and hate. He smiled down at her as if to mock her, his long white fangs proudly displayed. Just as he was about to sink his teeth into her flesh, he was thrown back by an invisible force. The power of her mind was enormous now, and she climbed to her feet with ease.
“You’ve grabbed a brush, I see,” he muttered.
Fabiana looked at his body and was silent for a moment. She could almost hear him thinking, plotting and planning his next attack. Slowly, Fabiana began to feel an invincible rage building up inside of her. Her mind was on fire. It felt as if her skin would burst into flames and she began to scream out.
“What is happening to me?” she moaned.
Candelas lifted his head and looked at her. She was back on her knees in agony. He was almost laughing as he got to his feet. Then she opened her bloodshot, burning eyes and all her rage and fervent pain exploded from her mind. A burst of fire thundered across the room in a mighty blaze of heat and flames. Candelas’ body suddenly erupted in an inferno and his body burned right before her eyes. Fabiana ran at the flaming vampire and grabbed him up as he burned. She sank her teeth into his alm
ost molten flesh and drank his power, his life, his blood. The feminine immortal felt no pain as she held the burning vampire in her arms. A brilliant glow of orange and yellow fire danced its destruction before her and around her. Fabiana had never known she was capable of such power and devastation. When she was finished with Candelas, she turned and walked out of the underground tunnel as flames consumed the room with a blistering heat.
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Chapter 14
7:00 a.m., November 24
Dawn was peering over the ocean and the start of an orange glow could be seen on the dusty blue horizon. It was very cold inside the police station and I had given up on trying to get the homicide room warmer. I fixed a cup of coffee and debated the wisdom of driving to the OCME. On the verge of scrapping my plans, I called Devin down at the FTA office and learned that there was definitely something on that video after all.
He had managed to reveal a face at the edge of the tape. I had to give the boy credit—he was good at what he did. And I was sure he’d be grateful that my big, menacing partner would not be accompanying me on that morning. Kenny had said he had some things to take care of regarding his uncle and had some other errands he did not go into.
I found Devin where I had seen him last, inside his small room which was as white as heaven. He was hunched over a stainless steel table cluttered with charts bearing video results and images. Wearing his thick glasses, Devin was sitting behind his desk talking on the phone. I stood silently behind him and waited for him to finish his call with, I assumed, his mother.
“Good morning,” I said as he closed his cell phone.
He turned around from his intimidating console of digital imaging, the technology that built images out of pixels instead of lines on video. Devin seemed a little more on edge this morning than the last time I’d seen him. I guess that was true of everyone at that moment.
“Good morning, Detective,” he said as he placed an imaging disc in one of the many drives that sat next to his left side.
“Did you have any trouble?” I asked shutting the door behind me.
“No, it was more or less straightforward.”
“Walk me through it then.”
“I washed the video with an isopropyl alcohol propionate solution and ran the tape through a digital imaging program. I was able to isolate a frame and pull out the face.”
Devin rolled his chair across the floor and came to a stop on the other side of the room, saddling up to his keyboard. He clicked several buttons and an image lit up on his screen. It was a single frame from the video. My eyes widened as I leaned closer to the monitor and stared at the first photo of who I suspected was the killer. She was a young woman, younger than I would have thought. Black hair, white skin, and very thin. I was struck by how delicate she looked. How could this woman have ever have caused some of the injuries that I had seen in these victims? The damage done to the victims displayed great violence and strength. There was no way she could have done the things that I had documented in my files. She looked more like a woman of high society than a mass murderer capable of great rage and destruction.
He clicked several more keys and a printer in the back of the room roared to life. I spun around and almost reached for my weapon as a piece of paper was sucked into the mouth of the machine. Devin got to his feet, walked over and pulled the printed paper from its jaws and handed it to me. It was a print-out of my killer’s face. Then he handed me a computer disc.
“This is a digital copy of the video and the segment I enhanced.” I gave him a nod and turned to take my leave.
“Thank you for rushing this, Devin. You do good work,” I said as I left. But he was already onto his next task of blowing up images of a crime scene for the District Attorney’s office.
As I walked down the familiar hall I looked at the print-out of the suspect. She was beautiful, more so then I ever would have imagined and I still could not believe she was capable of the killings. How could she be?
Several minutes later I was sitting at my computer table. Sunlight seeped wanly through a dusty window above a rust-stained drinking fountain. Ever since I had arrived fifteen minutes ago, I had been working on uploading the computer disc to our system and sending it to the FBI. Almost before I knew it, the face had been beamed to every law enforcement agency in the United States. My first big break in the case. I needed to tell Kenny but he was at Trace, and he never answered his phone when he was at Trace.
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Chapter 15
9:00 a.m., November 24
A clock gonged off-key from the empty white wall of the lab. Then there was only thick silence, the passing vacant moments of time measured by water thunking into a sink at the Trace Evidence Lab. Forensic scientist Frank Glass’ balding head gleamed as a flickering fluorescent light struggled overhead. He stared into a powerful Scanning Electron Microscope, or SEM, and began to talk to himself.
“Trace evidence on the body includes fibers and microscopic debris under the fingernails and traces of ethylene oxide and polymer residue.”
“What does that mean?”
The words startled him as they were spoken. Frank spun around in his chair to find Detective Kenny Johnson standing behind him. Frank was an older man who preferred to be left alone. Antisocial was the term he had heard most often associated with him. He had been invited many times to the neighborhood tavern for a drink but had always had to decline. His fear of large groups had always won over his desire to be social with colleagues.
“Detective, I’m sorry. You gave me quite a fright. Well ethylene oxide and polymer residues are found in Polygenex gloves used by people who handle toxic substances.”
“This evidence is from the two bodies at the hotel last night?”
“Yes,” Frank said as he reached for a file folder and opened it. “A preliminary lab analysis indicates most of the trace evidence is consistent with carpet and cotton fibers, however, a thermo setting silicone adhesive with a glass cloth backing was found.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Kenny asked, irritated. He always hated all the technical jargon that scientists used around him, as if they were better than he was. It reminded him that they were smarter, or at least had more schooling, and that he, for lack of a better word, was dumber than they were. But he knew it was just their way of processing information and that Frank meant nothing by it.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just a little on edge. Could you break down the terminology for me?” Kenny asked with a sigh.
“The silicone adhesive I’m talking about is just a tape used for electricians and industrial applications, like at airports to secure cargo holds.” Frank turned the page on the file and kept reading out loud to Kenny. “DMV photos confirm the first victim’s identification as Mike Florida, and the second victim is one Travis Macavity.”
Kenny stood stunned for an instant. He didn’t know if he had heard Frank right, but he had.
“Wait, what? We have ID?” Kenny’s face lit up like a Christmas tree through a frosty window. He snatched the file from Frank’s hand and kept reading.
“Wait. It says here that Travis Macavity’s address is 1501 Pike Place,” Kenny stated more or less to himself. It didn’t make any sense to him that he knew that address. He had been called there many times, but where was it? Then it came to him.
“That’s the market. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know, Detective. However, I did find one more piece of good news. I did a search and both the men are registered electricians for Boeing.” Kenny almost laughed as he looked down at Frank, a smile painted across his face.
“Good work, man. I owe you a beer my friend,” he said as he ran from the lab grabbing up his cell phone at the same time. Frank gave a nod and felt satisfied. He turned back around to face his microscope and knew the cop would never buy him a beer, nor would he accept Kenny’s offer.
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Chapter 16
10:30 a.m., November 24
A heating u
nit rattled inside a dusty stream of warmth, the morning colder than usual for November. Jack Mitchell made his way into the maintenance building of Boeing. His FBI credentials got him past all types of security check points. The information on the two victims had reached his FBI cell phone just minutes before his arrival at the airport in Washington State. He had also received another cryptic message from User319. Maybe it would all make sense some day.
Jack walked through the northwest corner of Building 34, past the huge tools which were used for wing assembly. Crisscrossed red steel scaffolding stood twenty feet above the ground. Up on the platform, under a belly of an airframe, dozens of people were walking around, wiring and soldering. He knew what he had to look for. All of the information from Trace had been sent to his phone and Frank Glass at the Trace Evidence Lab in Seattle had also copied his findings to him, as per his request from the FBI that morning.
Jack tugged at the lapels of his suit and straightened his tie as he walked down the echoing hanger. He wasn’t used to the darkness and the smells of air hangers, though he walked with confidence that morning as if nothing bothered him. Right now Jack was following his man, following the trail like a good FBI bloodhound. He headed right for the main room of the hanger, and worked this like any other investigation, even though he knew it was anything but normal.
Scanning the area, Jack noticed a figure in a shirt and tie, long sleeves rolled up, standing among a group of men. He took the man to be someone he could talk to, someone in charge. The man’s name tag read Don Richmond, Maintenance President. Jack stood before the man, pulled out his FBI identification, and gave him a kind smile, one that was respectful and open. Jack knew how to address people. His years as a profiler and his psychology background had left him well prepared. He understood that men such as Don Richmond, men that climbed to power in a vastly expanding company, were the last people that would be forthcoming about the personal lives of their employees. They treated professionalism like a religion.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 1): Blood Collector Page 7
