Rajmund

by D. B. Reynolds

  Raj studied the young woman's picture, which was from her work photo ID. She seemed too young to be getting married. Her face was open and expressive, with a big smile and brown hair that was swept into a bouncy looking ponytail.

  "And then there's Dr. Estelle Edwards,” Scavetti continued. “She fits the time frame, disappearing about a week before Polk, and there's a vamp connection, but she's older than the others and travels in radically different circles. She's a research MD at the university."

  Raj moved down to Edward's profile, which was set apart from the rest. He leaned closer, straining to read someone's uneven handwriting. He frowned. Her husband said she'd gone out to meet a local vampire connection? What the hell was that about?

  He shifted his gaze once again to scan the pictures pinned across the top of the board. Scavetti was right. Estelle Edwards stood out. She was only in her late thirties, but with her carefully coiffed and highlighted blond hair, and her well-fleshed face, she appeared much older, almost matronly. Each of the three others was petite and dark-haired, with a youthful ripeness to them that Raj recognized as the kind of women who many vamps—including him—enjoyed feeding from. That ripeness gave them a special glow, softening their cheeks and plumping their lips into a pouty fullness that invited a vampire to crush them with his mouth and sip at the juice of life.

  He turned back to the image of Estelle Edwards. Everything about her said settled, married, matron. She was attractive enough, but she'd never have turned heads the way the other three did.

  "What kind of research?” Raj asked, interrupting Scavetti's flow.

  The detective looked over with a predictable scowl which transformed to quick interest when he saw the picture Raj was looking at. “I'm not sure. You remember, Dan?"

  "Yeah.” Felder was flipping through his notes. “Uh . . . hematology?"

  "Blood,” Raj said unhappily.

  "Her husband said she's been trying to get funding for a study of vampires,” Felder added. “Wants to figure out whatever it is that makes them—” He jerked a look at Raj, as if he'd forgotten for a moment there was a real vampire in the room with him. “That is, why you all live so long and everything."

  "A dangerous subject,” Raj said thoughtfully. “How did she plan to do it without a test subject?"

  "What do you mean?"

  He turned all the way around and looked between the two detectives, trying to decide how much to say. “I mean it's hard to study blood without a sample, and no vampire would have cooperated, not willingly anyway. Or unless he had a death wish."

  "Why not?"

  "We don't share,” Raj said flatly. “How do you know she's part of this case? Maybe she pressured a vampire who didn't want to cooperate and got killed for her efforts."

  "We're not sure she is, actually. Like Tony says, the timing fits, and there's a definite vamp connection, but for the rest of it . . .” Felder shrugged. “You might be right about some vamp getting pissed and taking her out, but her husband was pretty insistent that she'd made contact with someone in the vampire community. Someone who was willing to cooperate in her research. And he told us she'd already met whoever it was at least once before."

  "Did this supposed contact have a name?"

  Scavetti snorted a dismissive laugh. “I asked him the same thing. He says she's very secretive about her work. We took a hard fucking look at the husband, I'll tell you, but I don't think there's anything there. As in nothing's there. I got the impression they don't spend that much time together. No heat, if you know what I mean."

  "He's a doc at the University too,” Felder added. “Heads up a big psychiatric clinic or something. He seemed awfully certain his wife was going to get her samples, though. Says she had drug companies lining up to sponsor her. A lot of money, too."

  "How much money?” Raj asked curiously.

  "The good doctor almost choked on his own tongue trying to avoid answering that question, but I got him to admit we're talking well into the tens of millions."

  "Interesting,” Raj said, concealing his rising concern. “I'll check into that angle for you,” he said. “Someone may have been playing her along, either human or vampire, and if that's true, I'll find him. Or her. I'd like to talk to Edwards's husband,” he said. “And maybe visit her lab."

  "I'll set something—” Felder started to say, but Scavetti interrupted, ignoring his partner's look of surprise.

  "That's not gonna happen, Gregor. We appreciate the cooperation and all, but I can't have you contaminating my case, going around talking to people, muddying up the investigation."

  Raj didn't bother arguing. It no longer mattered what the detective did or didn't want. Krystof had sent him here to cooperate with the police in their investigation and he'd done so. But Raj had assumed going in that there was no vampire involved in these crimes, that all of this cooperation was just for show. He'd learned enough tonight to make him doubt that assumption, and that meant any real cooperation with the authorities was now over. If vampires were involved, it was an internal matter and it would be handled accordingly. If Edwards's husband was right and a vampire was providing blood for this research—well, there was only one possible outcome for that vampire and any humans involved with him. And that outcome probably wouldn't be acceptable to the human authorities.

  Raj glanced once again at the board, memorizing the salient facts of all four missing women, before turning away to stroll around the table.

  "I guess we're done here, then?” He glanced at Scavetti, who seemed surprised by his quick capitulation even though he'd been the one insisting Raj get off the case and out of his life. “Excellent,” Raj said, when no one objected. He started for the door, but a sudden thought made him stop and turn. “If there is a vampire mixed up in any of this, I will find him and he will be dealt with. For your own safety, gentlemen, leave that part of the investigation to me. If I learn anything that might help your own efforts, I'll let you know. In the meantime . . .” He pulled a slim, gold case out of his inner jacket pocket. “My numbers,” he said, opening the case and dropping a few thick, white business cards on the table. “Call anytime, although night is always better,” he said with a quick grin.

  Scavetti was still growling when Raj walked through the lobby and out into the dark night to begin searching for answers.

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  Chapter Fifteen

  The temperature had dropped a few more degrees while Raj had been inside. Damn Buffalo and its weather. It reminded him of his hometown on the Baltic coast of Poland. The cold and wet had seemed to last forever there too, days passing one after the other without even a glimmer of honest sunshine. His father had been a dock worker and every once in a while, especially in winter, a crate of oranges from Italy or Spain would just happen to break open, spilling its cargo all over the dock. On those days, his father always brought home a few of the ripe, succulent globes wrapped in thin tissue paper like priceless treasures. The thick perfume of the citrus oil as his mother peeled away the skin, the sweetness of the juice as they savored each portion—a much younger Raj had dreamt of sun-drenched hillsides filled with beautiful women in skimpy dresses plucking the golden rounds into their aprons.

  A bus drove past on the street, spewing exhaust and crashing into his reverie. Raj sighed. It had been centuries since he'd seen the sun. On the other hand, there had been no shortage of beautiful women in skimpy dresses. He thought of Sarah Stratton and her red dress. Unfortunately, Sarah would have to wait until tomorrow. He had a vampire to talk to tonight.

  The drive to Krystof's was a short one, the streets mostly empty of traffic. It was late for mortals, but the middle of the workday for vampires. Raj pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through the stored numbers, finding the one he wanted.

  "Yeah,” Jozef answered.

  "We should meet,” Raj said.

  There was a moment of silence. “Give me a couple of hours."

  "I'll be outside.” Raj hung up. Two hours to
kill. The luscious Sarah Stratton came to mind once more, but she was probably tucked safely into her bed by now, all toasty and warm. Ah, well. Two hours. He might as well check out the house where Patricia Cowens was last seen.

  He made a quick U-turn and drove back to his lair, staying there just long enough to get rid of the suit and pull on his usual cold weather ensemble of sweater, jeans and leather jacket, all in black.

  Back in the BMW, he called up the address of the missing girl's last known location from memory and entered it into his dash GPS for directions. There was a time when these streets had been as familiar to him as the docks of Poland, and this part of the city hadn't changed much in the intervening years. But unlike the streets of his childhood, Buffalo had no nostalgic hold on his memories. He'd let them go as soon as he'd left. This was no longer his town, if it had ever been.

  Cruising down the silent streets, he parked a couple of blocks away from the house where Patricia Cowens had attended the vamp-wannabe party. No one knew exactly where or when she'd disappeared. She'd left the house a little after eleven, telling her roommate she intended to catch the bus back to campus. But she'd never made it back to the dorm and the driver on the only bus running that night didn't remember picking her up. Of course, after awhile every passenger probably looked the same to those guys, but the police were going on the assumption she'd been taken between the house and the bus stop, probably before she ever reached the busy main street.

  The area was quiet when he climbed from his car and looked around. Nearby, a dog barked briefly but quickly gave up the effort as Raj moved down the street. The neighborhood was older, rows of modest houses on lots just big enough to give the illusion of privacy. They were well-kept for the most part, the driveways filled with minivans and mid-size cars. It was a work night, so all the good citizens were sound asleep, their houses locked up tight, with only the occasional gleam of a nightlight through a window or the rare porch light to chase away the dark.

  Raj walked right up to the house where the party had been held, climbing the stairs and turning around to stand on the porch and stare outward. There were street lights here, but plenty of trees, too. In the summer, the trees would block much of the light from the overhead lamps, but with winter only a couple of weeks gone, most of the trees were still bare, their branches casting twisted skeletons of shadow on the sidewalk and empty front yards.

  There'd been no sign of a struggle, he remembered from the report on Scavetti's board. No blood—not that the human police could find anyway—no torn bits of clothing or discarded possessions. More significantly, no one had heard anything at all. The dog down the street hadn't barked enough for the owner to notice and there'd been no screams, no shouts. But if William Cowens was right and his daughter's abductor was a vampire, she would have gone willingly. And if that vampire had hung around long enough, the dog would have grown used to him and stopped barking, just as he had for Raj tonight.

  He studied the silent street. Whoever had taken the girl had been waiting. Not for her specifically perhaps, but for someone from the party. And if Scavetti's working theory was correct, the abductor had done it at least twice before. So he'd have found someplace dark where no one would notice him, but with a clear view of the house so he could see people coming and going, waiting for a woman who left alone, a young woman like Patricia Cowens.

  Raj concentrated on the pattern of shadows and light, places where one of his own could have hidden. Three houses down and across the street, in between two older brick homes, was a space of roughly ten feet. The far house had a porch light burning, but none of that light made it to the dark canyon between the two houses.

  He scanned the neighborhood slowly and stepped off the porch, striding down the cracked walk and across the street. As he drew closer to the hide, his head came up and his already enhanced vampire senses snapped to attention. He drew a breath deep into his lungs, tasting the air as he moved closer, his boots nearly soundless on the dry grass.

  If a vampire was powerful enough, he could wrap himself in darkness and all but disappear, especially at night and with no direct light. In shadows as deep as these . . . There. Some sort of cologne. It was faint, but Raj's sense of smell was far stronger than a human's and, though it had been cold, there'd been no rain or snow since Trish had been kidnapped only a few days earlier. He inhaled again and wrinkled his nose in distaste. Too sweet. But mingled with the cologne was the old blood scent of Vampire. Damnit. He'd come here hoping to prove himself wrong, to find evidence that it was a human preying on his own, not some rogue who'd decided to break every rule of vampire society in the new age.

  He drew another breath, fixing the scent in his memory. It took power to hide in the shadows, to come upon the victim without her seeing anything. Other than Raj himself, Krystof didn't generally keep people around who were strong enough to do something like that. If anything, the vampire lord's newest minions were weaker than ever, probably because Krystof knew his control was weakening as well.

  Had an outsider sensed this vulnerability and moved in without Krystof's knowledge? Someone who was scouting the area in preparation for a takeover? If so, the intruder would have no choice but to hunt in order to feed. The human donors at the blood houses would be unavailable to an outsider, someone who wasn't supposed to be here and had to hide his presence. But why abduct the women? Why not simply find a willing companion and wipe her mind as Raj had done earlier?

  He took a step out of the shadows between the two houses but retreated quickly when he heard a car approaching from down the block, moving slowly, as if searching for an address. He watched as the driver almost stopped in front of the party house, but then kept going to park in front of the neighbor's instead. The engine was turned off and the interior light came on as the driver got out and closed the door, her eyes glued to the house where Trish Cowens had been seen last.

  Raj grinned, not at all surprised that the driver was Sarah Stratton. If anything, it gave him a moment of personal satisfaction. He'd been right about her. She was involved in this case somehow, and in a way she didn't want anyone to know.

  Wrapping the darkness around himself, just as the abductor must have done, Raj crossed the street, no more than the shadow of a cloud passing over the waning moon as it slid through the night. He approached her in perfect silence, until he was standing only a few feet away, beneath the bare branches of an elm. She was close enough that he could hear her every breath, hear her heart beating rapidly with nervousness or perhaps fear.

  Not so bold as Raj, she walked only halfway up the uneven walk toward the house, muttering softly under her breath the whole way. What little he could make out of her words made no sense to him. She stopped and stared at the dark porch and then turned and headed quickly back toward her car, seeming suddenly eager to leave. Still unaware of him standing there, she hurried down the sidewalk, her stiletto heels clicking sharply on the cement. She passed right by him, arms crossed tightly, holding herself in a way that suggested the chill was coming from something other than the weather.

  Raj stepped out behind her and pulled her back against his chest, holding her there with one hand over her mouth to catch her scream.

  "I thought you'd be safe in your bed by now, little one,” he murmured close to her ear. He gentled his hold without letting her go, exquisitely aware of her body against his, the thud of her heart against his arm where he held her tightly, and the fading shivers of fear as she realized who it was holding her. She was tiny compared to him. He could have lifted her bodily and carried her away easily, even as Trish Cowens had been carried away only days before. But he wasn't some rogue vampire, and this wasn't Trish Cowens.

  "If I take my hand away, will you promise not to scream?"

  She jerked her head downward in what he took for assent. He dropped his hand from her mouth, resting it on the swell of her hip instead, still holding her in place. She drew in a long breath, but didn't try to break free. She relaxed in his arms briefly, letting
her head fall back against his chest.

  "You're trembling,” he said quietly.

  She stiffened in outrage. “You scared me half to death!"

  Raj chuckled, shifting his grip and turning it into a caress, enjoying the feel of her soft curves beneath his hands, the warm weight of her breasts against his arms. “What are you doing here, Sarah?"

  She made a move then, but he only held her more securely. “I was just curious,” she insisted. “And, I'm worried about Trish—"

  "Sarah, Sarah,” he chided. “You're lying again."

  He let go of her as she spun around to glare at him. “What are you doing here?"

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “I'm cooperating in an active police investigation. You, on the other hand, were told your services were not required. And yet, here you are."

  He felt more than saw the heat of her blush. “At least I wasn't sneaking around in the shadows, spying on people,” she muttered, refusing to meet his gaze.

  Raj gestured at the wide open space. “I was hardly sneaking. You simply didn't notice me, for which I am deeply wounded."

  He expected a smile, but instead she looked up at him with eyes filled with fear. “She didn't see him either,” she whispered. “He was just . . . there."

  "Who?” Raj asked suddenly intent. He stifled a sudden irritating urge to reach out to her, to pull her close and reassure her that nothing could harm her as long as he was with her. He wanted answers. “What do you know, Sarah?"

  She stared at him with haunted eyes, searching his face, looking for . . . What? Raj wondered.

  "Nothing,” she whispered. “Nightmares. They don't mean anything.” Her voice caught on the final words.

  He did reach out for her then, but she beat him to it, taking hold of the front of his jacket with both hands and gripping the leather like a lifeline. She was trembling again and he wrapped his arms around her in confusion.