Blood Hunt

by Lucienne Diver

  Back in the locker room, I ran as quickly as possible through a shower that had only started to get warm by the time I shut off the water. I grabbed a new towel off a nearby shelf and finished up with that, sure I’d be finding mud later in my unmentionables, but too worried to care. I hustled to my locker, jumped into my cami and slacks, grabbed my jacket and bolted for the front desk.

  The perky girl from earlier now wore an expression of great gravity as she handed me a handwritten note on sage green paper.

  I might have thanked her. I might not. My only focus was on the door.

  Chapter Nine

  It took every ounce of willpower I had to stick with ten miles per hour above the speed limit rather than the twenty or fifty I wanted to go. I couldn’t risk getting stopped for speeding. Every light made me grit my teeth and every sudden braking in front of me from tourists who didn’t know where they were going threatened to crack those teeth I was clenching so hard.

  Finally I was able to break from the tourists, following the instructions left for me rather than the studio signs for the hoi polloi. I had one turn left to go. If I craned my neck, I could see the gate off to the side, two cars awaiting entrance, but yet another light—the final light, so help me—stopped me cold. I was looking left when my passenger door opened suddenly, and I whipped my head around to see Neith letting herself in. She didn’t bother with the seatbelt.

  “Go!” she said as the light turned green. As if she wasn’t the distraction that kept me sitting there staring.

  “The hell?” I asked.

  “You got a call, right? I need in. You’re going to take me.”

  “I should do that why?”

  “I think the deeper question is ‘why not?’”

  I chewed on that one. I had no reason not to bring her in, except that if she needed me for entrance, it meant she wasn’t on the list and there’d be a hold-up at the gate while they got clearance for her. Probably we’d be asked to move out of line. Minutes would tick by. Time I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on, who was hurt and how I could help.

  “There’s no time,” I said.

  “What if you need me? You’d lose time calling me in.”

  Short of a pry bar or maybe some Mace, I didn’t see how I was getting rid of her anyway, and the cars at the gate had cleared, one being turned back. We were going to be conspicuous very soon.

  I growled, but I turned the corner and drove forward, giving my name when we got up to the gate—not just a lift-bar, but an actual eight-foot or so steel mesh gate. I was assuming on the steel. Guarding it was one studio security guard and one uniformed officer, hand on his sidearm.

  The former checked my name against a list. The latter leaned down to look into my passenger seat. “Who’s she?” he asked.

  “Neith Sais,” she supplied, giving him a grim smile. “Insurance investigator.” She flashed a badge of sorts. “Detectives Reyes and Armani know me.”

  He gave me a look as though to see my reaction to her story, and when he didn’t get one, said, “I’ll have to check you out.”

  I huffed at the delay, but I’d expected as much. Luckily, a phone call seemed enough to get Neith through. I wondered if I was needed urgently enough to rubber stamp her or whether Nick—oh please let him be okay—or Reyes thought she could contribute. The officer gave us quick directions, but I didn’t think it would be a problem. I could see flashing lights even from the entrance. Between his directions and them as a beacon, I should be able to find my way.

  I was through the gates so quickly I scraped my passenger side mirror on them going through. I was too worried to care and Neith didn’t say a word. Smart woman.

  I wanted to ask her how she happened to be at the accident site. I wanted to ask her a whole bunch of things, but I didn’t, knowing I’d be out of the car before she could even answer.

  I had to pull sharply right to let an ambulance pass us, full lights and sirens blaring, but there was another where that came from, still waiting at the scene, blocking our view of what was happening. An officer stopped us as we got close to it, waving us down a side street and following to check our IDs again before letting us out of a car. We pulled over next to blank storefronts that looked vaguely familiar, probably seen in a million and one television shows and movies done over to look unique each time and mostly managing.

  “Who’s hurt?” I asked him. I didn’t ask about fatalities. I couldn’t face the answer.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I’m just here to escort you. I’m sure the detectives will fill you in.”

  Any other time I might have taken exception to being ma’am-ed, but for now I power-walked toward all the action, Neith right beside me. Her strides were shorter but faster, as though we were in competition to see who could get there first.

  Beyond the ambulance, beyond the crime scene tape, the first thing I saw was a blue car plowed into the side of one of the storefronts, this one all done up like a florist. Flowers lay like bodies all around. The driver’s side door, which had crumpled with the front of the car, had been pried open, and blood left behind. Stage blood or…

  From the frantic call, I assumed it was the or.

  “Action flick?” I asked the officer.

  “Romantic comedy,” he answered.

  “I think they got it wrong.”

  Comedies didn’t usually involve buckets of blood or…was that a hank of hair left behind in the car or part of a wig?

  The real activity was centered around the other car on the scene. It…I had to look away, but not before I saw what looked like a mannequin trapped under it. Only I knew it wasn’t a mannequin.

  Detective Reyes spotted us and left the crime scene photographer snapping pictures of the body to come over, giving pools of blood, broken glass and twisted metal a wide berth. My heart sank into my stomach. Where was Nick?

  I looked over to Neith, who seemed to be scanning for him as well, her eyes pinched and worried, a furrow in her forehead you could plant crops in.

  Reyes was nearly to us when something sharp rang out from the ambulance beside us, along with a howl of rage. Neith and I whirled for it, but I was a step closer and a shade faster, so I was the one in the way when the doors exploded open and Nick came flying out.

  A cry wrung out of me as I leapt into position to catch him and ended up getting hit with the full brunt of his weight and momentum. It knocked me back a step, and if Neith hadn’t been there to steady me, we might both have gone over. Nick’s face was overrun with blood, which he brushed away quickly to clear his eyes.

  “Run!” he said, bucking himself free and preparing to get back in there. He reached for his gun, but Neith was in his way.

  As soon as I was steady, she’d dodged around us and now leapt for the back of the ambulance where Viktor Ramone stood with arms raised like he was King Kong, wrists trailing broken leather restraints. He roared like Kong too, as he swung both fists straight at Neith to keep her from getting close. Quick as lightning, she kicked off the bumper, changed her trajectory for one of the open ambulance doors and grabbed on to the top of it. Her weight made it swing inward, and she twisted to ride it in, kicking out with both legs to help the momentum and catch Viktor dead center of his chest with both heels. He went flying deeper into the ambulance, quicker than any of the cops who’d come running, Reyes included, could get a bead on him.

  Neith dropped into the back before her hands could get smashed by the doors closing. Viktor instantly recovered and grabbed her up in a monstrous grip, as though he might squeeze her to death. Her arms were trapped against her sides, but she was kicking frantically. I raced to help her, dodging Nick’s hand as he reached to hold me back.

  Viktor was so intent on squeezing the life out of Neith he didn’t notice me until I jumped him, arms wrapped around his thick neck to choke off his air, make him let go of Neith to deal with the new threat.
I nearly inhaled his mullet-hair and had to cough it out.

  Instead of letting Neith go, Viktor fell back, letting me smash back-first into the equipment behind me. Pain flared, but I held on, and he rammed forward, trying the same thing on Neith. There were cabinets behind her at head height and she hit with a horrible crack.

  She started to go limp, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to fell him in time to save her. I changed my tactics, dropped off his back, releasing his neck and hollering his name.

  I waited for his crazed eyes to meet mine before I yelled “Freeze!”

  But at that same moment, Neith came alive again…or maybe she’d just been playing possum…and gained enough space to bring her knee up right into his balls. The pain doubled him over, breaking our contact or short-circuiting it because of the pain.

  But it didn’t last. Angrier than ever, Viktor roared up from his collapse, fists first, and caught Neith right under the chin, knocking her head back like a losing Rock’em Sock’em Robot. She reeled, eyes rolled up in their sockets. The back of her legs hit a gurney and she went down on top of it.

  Viktor turned immediately for me, a predatory gleam in his eyes and, I noticed, red-stained teeth. I didn’t want to think “blood”, but my brain went there without me.

  The ambulance dipped, and I knew Nick had stepped up next to me, the better to get a bead on Viktor.

  “Freeze!” he said. It was my line, but in his case, he backed it up with his service weapon.

  Viktor didn’t so much as pause. With an inhuman sound, he launched forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Nick’s gun level. I had a millisecond to decide what to do. Foil the shot and the fight would go on. Someone might get hurt. Don’t, and Viktor would be hurt for sure. Maybe killed. And…before I knew I’d made a decision, I chopped down on Nick’s hand, screwing up his aim and sending his shot into the floor. I stepped in front of Nick to prevent another shot and right into Viktor’s charge. He hit like a battering ram and knocked me into Nick, blasting us both backward through the ambulance’s loading doors.

  The freefall was nothing compared to the impact. I heard Nick’s gasp of pain as he skidded along the pavement, Viktor and I falling practically on top of him. My own body screamed at the injustice, especially my already abused back. I twisted as quickly as the pain allowed and tried to get a grip on Viktor, to hold him down. But he recovered the fastest of us all and pulled a meaty hand back to deliver a blow I could see in his eyes would put my lights out.

  “Freeze!” I yelled, at the same time I heard a shot go off, and Viktor collapsed on top of me…dead weight. I didn’t know whether it was from the gorgon glare or the gunshot, but all I could feel at that moment was relief.

  An EMT rushed up. Cops closed in.

  Nick was calling my name, pushing at me, trying to get me to respond. It took me a second or so to actually hear him, my ears ringing from the gunshot. Or maybe shock.

  It took an officer pulling Viktor off for me to shake out of it. Viktor wasn’t so lucky. He rose like a mannequin, stiff and frozen…and bleeding from the thigh. The blood ran sluggishly, as though it too obeyed the order to freeze, but that was good, I thought. He wouldn’t lose too much blood before the medics could patch him up.

  Nick rose behind me, putting a hand to my back to comfort or steady me. Maybe I’d swayed, the adrenaline of near-death starting to wear off, leaving me feeling a little shaky.

  The EMT took charge of Viktor while his partner tried to get a look at Nick’s head wound, but he waved him off and sent him to Neith.

  Reyes, gun now down at her side, asked, “What the hell was that? I’ve seen guys hopped up on drugs before, but never so…feral.”

  “New stuff coming on the market all the time,” Nick ventured, meeting my gaze as if to tell me to roll with it. Like I was going to argue.

  “Or the Roland brothers could have given him a concussion when they knocked him out,” I added helpfully. “Maybe there was some kind of damage? Or…a psychotic break.”

  “And what were you thinking—you and your friend jumping into the action?” Reyes asked. “Maybe you didn’t notice the police all around?”

  “What I noticed was the detective who came flying at me. You know, the one I caught,” I said, shooting Nick an apologetic look. “Then I saw a woman getting the anaconda treatment and the cops with no clear shot.”

  She couldn’t argue that, though I could see she wanted to. Instead, she bit down her response, which seemed to taste bitter if her expression was any indication. She gave up on me and turned to Nick, studying the blood trails on his face. “You good?” she asked. “I mean really?”

  “It’s worse than it looks,” he said. “I promise.” He grabbed a handkerchief out of his pocket and did his best to wipe the blood away, wincing as he touched his forehead. He managed to get some of the blood up. The rest he just smeared around. He was going to need soap and water…at the very least.

  “Fine then, you stay here. Finish up at the scene,” she ordered. “Get her statement and…whatever else you brought her here for. I’ll ride with the perp.”

  I wondered whether she outranked him, but since Nick agreed, it wasn’t my place to argue.

  “Touch me again and you draw back a bloody stump,” we heard loudly from the ambulance.

  Neith. Nick and I exchanged looks.

  “I think I’d better go save our medic friend,” he said.

  He went with Reyes to the ambulance and came back with Neith. I noticed right away that she hadn’t made him draw back a bloody stump. In fact, Nick had an arm wrapped around her waist and she had one around his shoulders, using him as a crutch to help her walk. I wondered whether it was strictly necessary or whether the goddess of strategy just wanted an excuse to get up close and personal.

  As soon as they were on the ground, the ambulance doors swung shut behind them and latched. A second after that, the ambulance took off, slowly at first and then gaining speed.

  Nick dropped his arm as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, though really he had the right to wrap himself around anyone he wanted…and I had the right to remain silent on the matter.

  I noticed it took Neith a very telling second longer to withdraw her own arm.

  “What did you want me here for?” I asked when the silence was in danger of stretching on. “Not that I would have missed this for the world. Murder, mayhem, blood and guts…”

  As usual around Nick, my mouth ran away with me.

  Nick looked from me to Neith, and I realized he wasn’t sure she could be trusted. He didn’t know who she was. I hadn’t told him.

  “It’s all right,” I said reluctantly. “She’s one of us.”

  “Us?” Nick and Neith asked in unison.

  I gave them each a look, one at a time. “Us as in…” Okay, jury was still out on what exactly I was becoming. More gorgon than god, certainly. I gave it up. “Nick, meet Neith. Otherwise known as Athena, Minerva and whoever the hells else she might have been at one time or another.”

  “So then, not an insurance investigator?”

  “That too,” she said.

  “Well then, you might be the person I really need.”

  It wasn’t meant as a sucker punch, and I didn’t take it as such. Really.

  “This way,” he said. At least he included me in the invitation.

  We followed him under the crime scene tape and off to the right toward a tall, skinny guy whose tufts of blond hair made him look a little like a cartoon clown…or Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street. He was holding a shoulder-mounted camera and watching footage.

  Nick skipped introductions, except to shrug in my general direction and say, “This is the one I told you about. Show her.”

  Mr. Noodle, for lack of any other name, looked at me and then at Neith, eyes widening at the sight of her and a “Whoa!” escaping h
is mouth.

  She gave him a smile that seemed a little bit deadly and he swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed like Ernie’s rubber ducky in the bath. What was it about me and Sesame Street right now? I was in the middle of one of the bloodiest crime scenes I’d ever encountered, and… Maybe that was the whole thing. Maybe my brain was trying to protect me by throwing in innocent images to counteract the horror.

  “Um, well, here you go,” the tech guy said, hitting some buttons and scrolling back footage.

  Neith and I leaned in until we would have been breathing each others’ air had we been breathing at all.

  The scene that unfurled as Mr. Noodle pressed play was standard enough at first, at least in Hollywood. Traditional chase scene. Cars racing toward the cameraman, one ahead, then the other, swerving, weaving, cutting each other off. Someone—the driver of the boring blue car—was hanging half out the window, shouting at the driver of the hot red sportster, which had half a wedding dress hanging out of it, flapping in the breeze. It was amusing enough…until the face of the driver—Viktor, I realized now—suddenly changed. His head popped back into the car and in the next instant, he was ramming the red roadster, shooting the red car forward, straight toward the fake storefronts.

  People screamed. The director hollered.

  As if Viktor heard him, the blue car left off ramming the red and veered sharply, right for the camera and everyone behind it. The camera dropped to the ground, but landed at an upward angle, catching running feet and falling bodies. Screams, cries and curses…and above it all, someone yelling as though toward the heavens. Viktor, I realized. It sounded like gibberish to me, but Neith’s head cocked, and I knew she understood.

  “It’s…Egyptian,” she said in wonder. “A prayer. One he couldn’t possibly know.”

  Nick and Mr. Noodle were both watching Neith as if every word that fell from her lips was pure gold.

  “What’s he saying?” Nick asked.