I wondered if they were watching us right now. I felt something different, some sense that we weren’t alone in those surprisingly cold, shadowy woods.
Chapter 36
5:55 p.m., May 6
“If this murder was a hit by an intelligence agency, then whoever was responsible wasn’t going to just leave the body for all to see. They wouldn’t want people to witness it by just wandering by.”
Dr. Marty Colleens made her point in the flat tone she used when talking to people she didn’t really like, but tolerated. It was an arid tone, a bland tone that reminded Kat of a desert as she walked through the hall of the morgue. As she approached she saw that Dr. Colleens had been talking with her new administrator, Isaiah. He was a young, opinionated man, and Kat could feel the irritation coming from the doctor.
Isaiah was the only member of Dr. Colleens’ staff who routinely got to the office earlier than the doc. He was lithe and attractive, with pretty features and shaggy dark hair. But no one could ever accuse him of being obsessive compulsive. He never ironed his shirts and always looked better in scrubs, which was sad for someone so attractive. His job was to run the morgue, and he did so with a by-the-book precision that had earned him the nickname “The Bookkeeper”.
“Doc, you said that you wanted to see me?” Kat said, announcing herself to the room.
“Detective O’Hara,” Marty said, at the same time dismissing her administrator. Marty picked up a file and the two began to walk, talking in hushed voices so the prying ears of those close by could not really hear.
“I found an additional clue to the time of death and the spinal disc contusions. There’s also extreme hemorrhaging on the c3 vertebra. Trauma confined to a limited space. This proves that if indeed a precise knife hand strike had been delivered to the c3, a blow to that region could have caused severe nerve damage, and or even death.”
“Only combatants are trained in such a move. Like Rangers, Special Forces, Navy Seals, and more unknown agencies run by our country,” Kat told her.
“That’s the last information we need in this place right now,” Marty stated to Kat bluntly while looking around for Isaiah’s listening ears.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“My new administrator… He’s a little obsessed with the FBI and the CIA and believes this case has revealed elements of some of their tactics. Everyone seems to be coming to the opinion that this man’s murder had something to do with death squads.”
“Wow. Death squads…?” Kat’s voice trailed off.
“You know, Kat. CIA assassins, Cleanup crews. That sort of thing.” Marty said.
“Oh no, no, no! We have got to squelch that right now, because that will totally shift the whole focus of this investigation.”
“You might not have noticed, but scientists are hard to ‘squelch’,” Marty told Kat a little defensively.
“Look, we need to keep this quiet. Can you do that for me?” Kat asked in a pleading tone.
“What do you mean?”
“I need you to keep this off the official record for just a little while.”
“How long do you need?” Marty held her gaze. It was an intense look.
“A few hours.”
Marty dipped her head low and thought about what was just asked of her. Kat had just requested her to risk everything that she had worked so hard for. Her family life and career were both in jeopardy already. If it got out that she had withheld evidence from the official records it could look very bad. She could even be discredited from testimony at trials. Kat knew what she was asking. Kat knew she had no right to ask it, but still she hoped the doctor would keep her silence.
“Fine. But one more thing, Detective,” Marty said as she reached for a file on her desk and opened it. “I got an analysis back from a piece of fabric at the scene. We did a micro-spectrophotometer scan that indicated that the fabric we found with the remains is lint-free, static resistant polyester which was designed for use in fire hazardous, oxygen enriched atmospheres. It’s US Navy issue.”
“You mean for submarine crews?”
“Yes. So you see, it may not be so easy to divert this ‘death squad’ line of thinking. But I’ll try.”
Chapter 37
6:00 p.m., May 6
“This is it. Cowlitz Ridge,” I said. “The hunting ground.”
Kenny and I walked a ways into the cool, damp forest. We managed to make our way deeper and deeper in the thickness of the trees, blazing our own path. Then I realized something.
“You hear that, Kenny?”
“Yeah, not even crickets any more.”
Not one sound could be heard coming from those dark, blackened woods.
“I’m going to take a look around,” Kenny told me.
“You shouldn’t go off by yourself.”
“That’s sweet. You’re worried about me,” he smirked.
“You got your flashlight?” I ignored his snide tone.
“Yeah, I got my Glock pistol too,” Kenny said. I heard the slide get pulled back and then released just as quickly. He was chambering a 9-mm round and starting to crunch his way deeper into the woods.
Suddenly I had the urge to do the same. I reached back and felt the plastic grip of my Smith & Wesson. After a click of my slide, I wrapped my left hand around the grip while still holding a flashlight under the gun. The wide yellow beam of my light cut through the unnerving semi-darkness and my heart began to race. I looked around, making sure to keep my gun and light always pointed toward where I was looking. Kenny was nowhere to be found and I didn’t like how far away he had already gotten.
Walking through the impenetrable woods was a long, tense experience and the powerful beam of my light kept catching long branches that looked like hands reaching out for me. Then I heard Kenny yell out and I took off like a shot. Wet leaves and vines collided with my face as I raced to where I had heard his voice.
“Tim, over here!”
Thin tree branches stung my exposed skin as I pushed my way through a small path overgrown by thick, bumpy roots and sharp, tall grass. The long beam of my flashlight suddenly came to a stop on Kenny’s face before my eyes realized what it was he was yelling about. We had found the campground where Tommy and his friends had stayed. A ripped canvas tent sat destroyed before us and it did actually look like some beast had gotten to him.
“Oh my god…” I muttered as I stared down at the mess of fabric and tent poles.
“Yeah, looks like the spot,” Kenny said. And I didn’t like what I was seeing. It truly looked like a pack of wolves had actually ripped apart the campground. How could anyone have lived through something like that? I wondered. I was no longer optimistic about finding the Collins boy.
“The tent has been completely destroyed,” I said, pointing out the obvious.
“There’s no one here,” Kenny said as I began to look for clues. I walked to the far end of the site and found a track. Not so much a track, more like a drag mark in the dirt. My light pushed back the shadows and small bugs flew close to me as I followed the trail.
“Kenny!” I yelled for him and it was only a moment before he was next to me. He was always the track star. He started trying to work out the details.
“The bodies were dragged from the campsite. But here the tracks just vanish. It’s weird. I tell you what—it’s not coyotes. They really are hunting in these woods. What kind of abilities do you think they may still have?”
“Hard to say. Fabiana still possesses great powers. I mean, she did light that guy’s hair on fire at the hospital.”
“And we can still read minds. Who’s to say these human vampires, or whatever we want to call them, don’t still have a lot of power?”
“We need to be careful,” I told him, nodding in agreement.
I watched as Kenny took several steps away from me and stopped, the beam of his light fixed onto one spot on the ground.
“What is it?”
He leaned down and picked something up. It was a cell
phone. It was cracked and covered in blood and mud.
“It’s a phone. Must have belonged to one of the victims,” Kenny said.
“We don’t know that he’s dead,” I told him.
“These vampires are good hunters in the day and great hunters at night. We need to be careful, Tim. I want to be the hunters, not the hunted.”
“Deal,” I told him and slapped him on the shoulder. But I did not feel as confident as I looked.
“Tim,” He began and I could feel the sadness in his tone. “This isn’t supposed to be us. It’s not how our lives are supposed to be. I miss you, man. I miss the hunt, you and I working together.”
“Yeah, I miss it too,” I told him. Then Kenny’s light caught sight of something.
“Look, Tim! Do you see it?”
It was a stain of blood. Fresh blood on a rock. Then a few steps over—another drop of blood.
“Fan out, man. See if you see any more,” I told him.
It only took a second before I was yelling for Kenny again.
“What is it?”
“More blood. Look in the trees now.”
The sight of blood was getting more and more frequent and an unsettling feeling was starting to hover over me like a coming storm of despair. After several moments of following the blood, Kenny’s voice was in my mind.
“Tim, I’m thinking this is almost too easy to follow.”
“I was thinking the same thing. You think they’re drawing us in?”
But before Kenny could answer, the falling dusk began to come alive in movement. From all sides, figures hidden in shadows were running at us and gunshots were ringing out from Kenny’s Glock. It was hard for me to see what they looked like but I heard several voices and they sounded both male and female. They moved with the speed of the young. They were so fast that I couldn’t fix any of their features in my mind.
“Tim, run! There’s too many of them!”
They seemed to move with amazing speed. More speed than should have been possible for humans. And it seemed that they had never lost their vampire abilities at all. Their power was immense and their swift violence was incredible. Kenny had been screaming—his voice echoing around me—and then there was only silence. Nothing could be heard but my rapid-fire breathing and the thumping of my heart. My friend was gone. Only the faint odor of gunpowder hung in the last spot I had seen Kenny. He was truly gone. Taken from me by god knows what.
Chapter 38
6:20 p.m., May 6
Fabiana shook her head vigorously.
“No, no, no,” she uttered to herself. Fabiana was angry. She denied the beautiful places of light in her mind. The comfort of happy images could bring her closer to her old self, but she refused. Tim’s suffering was all that she focused on now. Fabiana couldn’t have denied that. She needed to stay fixed onto him. Again he cried out in pain.
Sometimes she went from an acceptable madness to a state in which she was alone with her mind. In moments such as these she almost preferred the madness. In her cell in the Seattle Mental Health Hospital, Fabiana shook her mind, trying to clear it. But the images of Tim continued to assault her.
Now she sat on her hands and knees, tears streaming down her face, terror flowing out of her. Before giving in completely and leaving her mind stranded in her old ways, she tried desperately to reach Tim. But her thoughts were a mix of emotional trauma and sorrow. Her human emotions were quickly taking over her composure. Once again she seemed unable to control the onslaught of visions that came at her like a tidal wave of sadness mixed with uncertainty.
Fabiana could no longer focus on one thing. She was beginning to shake as tears closed over her sight. Then his voice came to her. But Tim was not calling out to her. It was merely his thoughts. He was terrified and the power of his fear somehow allowed his thoughts to find her. She sensed that he was not in pain any longer and that gave her some comfort.
Suddenly Fabiana could see him again. Tim and Kenny were surrounded by vampires. It was somehow a memory that she could pluck from Tim’s mind and it played for her to see. Screams echoed in the darkness of her thoughts as figures attacked the two detectives. They had been overrun, unable to stop the incursion. Pain had found them in a flash and powerful fingers tore at them. And then into the blackness of the Toledo night, the horde of attacking vampires were gone just as quickly as they had come, taking Kenny with them. Tim’s mind was crying out for help. He was going to run after them. He was going to get himself killed.
“No!” Fabiana roared and jumped from her bed, landing on the cold floor of her small room. Her voice boomed around her and she could feel her power boiling inside of her. Images of Tim dying a gruesome death raced through her mind. She would not let him die! She could not let him die. She focused all her energy and watched in surprise as the iron bars flew off of her small window.
Then the heavy white door of her room swung open and in a fraction of a second her tiny space was filled with men in white coats running at her. Fabiana’s eyes were turning red as hands grabbed at her, attempting to restrain her great power. But no one could. Even as a human, Fabiana possessed amazing abilities. And it wasn’t until that very instant that she knew she could get to Tim.
Her mind awoke with great clarity as the weight of several large men holding her down became apparent to her. Then, with just the will of her thoughts, she was free of them. As if in slow motion, they were hurled backwards off of her. Limbs unable to find ground flailed before coming to a crashing halt on all four walls of her small room. Fabiana was on her feet now, her gown torn at her left shoulder, a proud grin on her face. She felt like her old self once more and the gratification that filled her seem like a drug. She could feel her abilities awakening, tingling throughout her skin.
Every part of Fabiana knew she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand it! She couldn’t observe and experience Tim’s fear any longer. He was paralyzed. But fear and pain, those weren’t the issues. She knew he was strong. Fabiana simply couldn’t endure the thought of him dying. She stared at him in the image in her mind. She witnessed his pained face, his soft and fearful eyes, and the mud clinging to the edge of his chin. His dark blond hair was tattered and caked with dirt.
“No, I can’t do it. I can’t leave him there!”
Fabiana’s thoughts were calculating now with great speed. And just as she knew she could, she watched with great joy as the cold linoleum floor drifted away from her bare feet and she was levitating. The feeling was fantastic. The window of her room erupted into fragmented shards of glass that rained outward. Wind and rain entered the room with mighty gusts as Fabiana rocketed out into the evening sky.
Chapter 39
6:25 p.m., May 6
At first I blamed my racing heart and shakiness and twitching on the adrenalin, but if I’m to be honest here, honest with myself, I was scared. I was more scared than I had ever been about anything. Kenny was gone. Not just gone, he was taken by those… creatures. And now it was up to me to get him back. Why is it always Kenny that gets taken every time?
Suddenly as I walked, tracing the heavy steps left in the mud, I realized that something else was happening here. They didn’t just take Kenny at random. No, they took Kenny either because he was one of them or to hurt me somehow. Now I was confident the remaining vampires from this clan had known about us, or at least about our investigation. Again I felt eyes on me, eyes watching my every step. I began to wonder how they were able to move in on us with such strength and speed.
I thought back to when I was first turned into a blood drinker myself and became more agitated and out of sorts. I wished that I could regain a few more skills that I had obtained through that experience. Had they? Had those vampires regained what they had lost when they became human again? Or was the answer simpler? Had they never really lost them? What if they possessed those mental abilities for so long that becoming human wasn’t enough to completely lose their skills as hunters? What if their minds were opened forever? What chance did
I really have against beings like that? How could I ever have a hope of defeating them?
A few moments later I came across an old, rundown barn deep in the thick of the woods, just at the end of a large field. I could just make out the outline of the barn through the miserable weather. The barn was large and at least two stories tall. It was leaning to the side slightly and I thought that it might come down any time. It had been painted red at one point but the color had faded to almost nothing now. There were no windows for me to see inside and that complicated things.
The cold dusk was giving up its bruised blush to a murky darkness. But I was grateful that the fading light could pick up nothing—not even the faintest hint of me as I moved closer and closer to the edge of the road. Life could not be more abnormal than right now and I didn’t need one more thing to go wrong.
I walked with sure steps through a sudden relentless downpour, which was coming down in heavy drops. Making my way toward the dilapidated barn, I grunted as thick, black mud sucked at my boots, slowing me down. I could hear and see my breathing because I was not like most people. I was connected on a physical level. I did not slip as I walked, even though I was certain others would have. I swallowed my fear down into a dark place, and beneath the bill of my black baseball cap my eyes kept scanning for Kenny and those monsters.
From my spot in the woods I found the opening of a doorway into the barn. I squatted down, moving my jacket back and readying my weapon. I pulled out a small scope Kenny had given me and the darkness was illuminated inside the small, round glass. I held the tiny device steady in my hands, which were cold. They were impossibly cold. But I didn’t like gloves unless they were leather, which was not really warm either unless it was high-quality hide. I heaved a sigh of relief as I spotted Kenny in the glass eye of the scope. It was good to see that he was still alive as I watched him through the open doorway. He was raging at the men and women inside the barn but he wasn’t moving too much. It seemed he was restrained by something. I couldn’t get a clear view of how many of them there were inside, but from what I could tell there were at least ten targets.
The Blood Born Tales (Book 2): Blood Dream Page 19
