The Kindred

by L. L. Foster

  “I’m getting your number, too. I can share it with Bliss.” He opened a drawer and got a slip of paper, wrote the number on it, and put it on the front of his fridge with a magnet shaped like an apple. “Bliss will love being able to reach you.”

  Double fuck. The last thing Gaby wanted to do was indulge small talk on a phone. “Make it clear that the phone is only for emergencies.”

  “Got it.” Grinning, Mort went back to the food preparation. It occurred to Gaby that he was now a multitasking man, when he used to be pathetically ineffective at all he did. He was different, better, but still the Mort she knew and felt comfortable with.

  If Mort could change so easily, then maybe she could, too.

  But then again, Mort wasn’t a freak of nature.

  “So,” Gaby said, harking back to his earlier comment, “what’s special about today?”

  He glanced at her between layering meat and cheese on white bread. “I was talking about the investigation and everything.”

  “Some creepy shit, that’s for sure.” To a guy like Mort, the grisly murders had to be scary.

  He glanced up. “I know it’s routine for Ann and Luther, but aren’t you worried about tonight?”

  Trying to hide her ignorance, Gaby narrowed her eyes. She didn’t know about anything happening tonight.

  Hedging, she asked, “Is there some reason I should be?”

  He withdrew a butcher knife to slice the sandwich in half. “I forget that you don’t freak out about stuff the way the rest of us do. But let me tell you, I’m plenty spazzed about it. I looked it up on the Internet, and those underground raves are nothing but sex, addiction, and perversion. A lot of people go into those things and never come back out.”

  Raves?

  Mort handed her the sandwich, and before he could step away, Gaby caught him by the upper arm.

  Slowly, she reeled him down so that he bent at the waist, his nose almost touching hers. “Okay, Mort, one time, and one time only.”

  His brows went up. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s how many times I’m going to ask. Just once. Got it?”

  “Um . . . yeah.”

  It burned her ass to admit Luther had left her in the dark. But if she wanted details, and she did, she had no choice. “I don’t know shit about a rave, or about what Luther and Ann have planned for tonight. But you’re damn well going to explain it all, every detail, and you’re not going to make me ask twice. Understood?”

  Mort puckered. “Uh . . . Luther didn’t say anything to you?”

  Her hard stare proved answer enough.

  “Right.” Sighing, he pulled out a chair, sat down, and propped his head in his hands. “Ann told me, so I just assumed . . . ”

  The mention of Ann kindled Gaby’s smoky temper. “What? That Luther and I share the same kind of relationship? Get real, Mort.”

  Mort flopped back in his chair and gave in with enthusiasm. He seemed more than gleeful to share what he knew. “Ann said they’ve been keeping tabs on a few gang members with these weird tattoos. She said they have this vampire obsession that she’d always considered harmless, but now . . . ”

  “What kind of tattoos?”

  “Ann said that one of them has this huge, vicious bite mark tattooed on his shoulder, like maybe someone tried to take a chunk out of him. She said it looks totally real and is pretty sick. Another one is a set of perfect fang marks on a woman’s neck, with blood dripping all the way down over her chest.”

  “What does that have to do with this underground party you mentioned?”

  “It’s called a rave. According to Ann, all raves have two main ingredients—loud music and plenty of drugs. They keep breaking up the raves when they know about them because there’ve been so many rapes, and a lot of deaths.”

  “Yeah, sounds like a party to me.” Gaby rolled her eyes. “So people go there and get murdered?”

  “Not exactly. Someone takes a pill that someone else hands to them, and then later dies. Ann said it’s hard to trace back to the raves, but they know a lot of ecstasy gets passed around. Usually though, it’s that something was cut into the ecstasy and that’s what kills.”

  Having only a rudimentary understanding of drugs, Gaby frowned. “Someone tampers with them?”

  “The dealer, I guess.” Mort shrugged. “I’m not an expert, but I read that said ecstasy could be mixed with anything from caffeine to cocaine. Some sickos are passing off an ingredient in cough syrup as ecstasy. Sounds harmless, right? But mix that in with all the wild dancing and sweating, the alcohol and other drugs, and . . . ” He shrugged. “Kids die with heatstroke or something.”

  Gaby crumbled a potato chip. “Fucking idiots, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll say. But young people sometimes do really dumb things that they shouldn’t. It’s all part of growing up, I guess.”

  For her, growing up had meant suffering the agonizing pain, struggling with supernatural powers unknown to the rest of society, and coming to grips with a devout calling against evil too wicked to continue to exist.

  She hadn’t had time for drugs, much less stupid parties.

  Gaby studied Mort. “Did you do that kind of shit when you were younger?”

  “God, no.” Mort stared down at his hands. “I was never popular enough to be invited to parties. But even if I had been, no way would I have randomly taken drugs. I was always a coward, always afraid of getting caught or hurt.” His smile went crooked. “That’s partly why it’s so fun being around you. You’re the most fearless person I’ve ever met.”

  “Oh, I dunno about that,” Gaby told him. “I’ve seen you be pretty damned fearless yourself.” Not that long ago, Mort had been brave enough to let her escape capture by the police, and for a time, she’d been left thinking he had died for his efforts.

  Nothing had ever hurt so badly or cut so deeply as that.

  Finding him alive had been the happiest moment she’d ever known.

  “Maybe you inspire me,” he told her with a laugh. “But more likely it’s that I always figure you’ll find a way to keep me safe.”

  “Don’t get mushy on me, Mort, or I won’t be able to eat.” She picked up her sandwich. “So what’s the connection between this rave and the tattooed idiots?”

  “Word on the street is that they’re the ones setting it up.” He shrugged. “It’s been organized underground, off the radar, so police aren’t supposed to know about it. Ann had a snitch tell her about it in exchange for dropping a solicitation charge.”

  Ann again. “Good old Ann keeps herself busy, doesn’t she?”

  Mort missed the sarcasm. “She’s a really good cop. She said a lot of college kids, especially girls, were invited. I guess she and Luther hope to find a lead there. At the very least, they’ll be able to check on the group with the vampire fixation, right?”

  “If Ann’s such a stellar cop, then why are you worried?”

  “From what I could figure out, the music at raves is so loud you can’t talk. Laser and strobe lights, and even fake smoke, make it really hard to see. Everyone is drugging everyone else, so people are really messed up and not thinking straight. And . . . ” He blanched, looking away.

  “Don’t hold back now, Mort.”

  Color tinged his face. “Well, Ann said this particular group is known for throwing . . . orgies.”

  “What’s an orgy?”

  His eyes bulged and his color deepened to crimson. Lowering his voice, he said, “You know. Where everyone is . . . having sex with everyone else.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  He shook his head. “Ann could get taken from Luther and by the time he found her again, God only knows what might’ve happened.”

  “I could take a good guess.” Suffering her own turbulent thoughts, Gaby peeled the crust from a piece of bread. “I’d say you have reason to worry.”

  Gaby could have stayed home with Luther today, but he’d had his hands full. Though he said that he’d planne
d to take some time off with her, he was instead organizing the newest task force against a monster so reprehensible that he made women faint and men nauseous.

  Gaby knew that eventually she’d have to annihilate the fiend.

  But Luther and Ann hoped to locate him at this stupid rave first. Fools.

  The atmosphere Mort described would make it difficult for Luther to establish himself as an officer of the law. For that reason alone, he should have asked her along.

  Ann had confided in Mort, but Luther had left her out in the cold.

  Her stomach grumbled, as much from hunger as discontent, so she started to eat. Mort watched her with due caution and finally, after several minutes of silence, he cleared his throat.

  Gaby glanced up at him. “Now what are you squirming about?”

  He shifted again in his seat. “It makes me nervous when you’re so quiet.”

  “Yeah?” She downed the rest of her cola and caught him in her most implacable stare. “Tell you what then. You can fill in the silence.”

  “I don’t have anything else to talk about.”

  “Sure you do.” She put her elbows on the table and leaned in closer. “You can start by telling me where this rave is, and what I have to do to get in.”

  Chapter 10

  Dressed in jeans and a faded T-shirt that read “I have a license to kill,” and his most worn leather jacket, Luther escorted Ann into the vacated department store. At the street level, the windows were boarded shut and the doors locked. But around back, through the alley entrance, rough-looking men gave directions to the basement.

  In case anyone watched, they said nothing as they crossed the open spaces and located the stairwell that led to the underground area. Halfway down the stairs, they could hear the repetitive music and the buzz of a large crowd.

  Girding himself, Luther put a hand to Ann’s back and stepped into the rave. The second the door shut behind them, suffocating darkness crowded in. Loud, computer-generated music set his eardrums to vibrating. Artificial fog floated in and out of shadows, highlighted by flashing laser lights.

  Luther held Ann’s arm until he got his bearings. He could smell weed, alcohol, and sweat. At thirty-two, he’d be one of the older partiers, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw kids in their early teens and adults old enough to know better.

  Near Ann’s ear, he said, “Remember to stay alert. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Blonde hair loose and makeup overdone, Ann nodded. “Yes, my instincts are kicking up a fuss big-time.” She smiled at him, looking like a very sexy knockout. Mort was a lucky guy. “I won’t take any unnecessary chances, believe me.”

  What kind of chance did she consider “necessary”?

  Luther made a noncommittal sound. The sweater Ann had chosen showed more cleavage than he’d realized she possessed, and her jeans were so tight they fit her like her skin. She’d be drawing attention, no doubt about it. Already several freaks sent her scurrilous glances filled with lascivious intent.

  His hand on her arm tightened. “If anyone tries to give you anything—”

  “Oh please.” The music blared and the strobe-light effect disoriented. “You don’t have to warn me about accepting drinks, Luther. I’m not an idiot.”

  Damn it, he didn’t like this. But Ann was as competent a police detective as he’d ever met. Only her smaller stature and femaleness made her less capable in physical confrontations.

  She turned to him. “We should separate.”

  “No way.”

  “We’ll find out more if we’re on our own.” She nodded toward a willowy woman with breasts showing through a net bra, and long legs in leather pants. The woman licked her lips at Luther. “We’ll each have our flirts and find out what we can. I’ll meet you back at the entrance in an hour. If anything goes down, you’ll hear gunshots, trust me.”

  He caught her by the nape of the neck. “Your gunshots. Not anyone else’s.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Knowing she was right, that they would accomplish more apart, Luther finally relented. “Fine. But I mean it, Ann. Take no chances.”

  “Sure thing, Daddy.” She touched his face, then faded into the gyrating crowd, swallowed by bodies and smoke and menacing jeopardy.

  Luther saw a woman accept a pill from a man, knocking it back with a shot of liquor. Another man danced with two women, one at his front and one at his back, both of them groping him. A woman climbed atop a table and began stripping.

  It was the most outlandish display of decadent immorality he’d ever seen. The majority of young people were already stoned out of their heads.

  A mostly naked breast brushed his arm, and Luther geared himself for the role he needed to play. It wouldn’t be easy, because for the first time in his life, guilt attacked him during the job.

  He had to do this, but he knew how Gaby would feel about it, and damn it, that nicked his conscience.

  Doing his best to tune out thoughts of Gaby, he faced the Goth chick with the decorated naked chest. He said nothing, just stared at her.

  His scowl must’ve heightened her interest. She leaned into him, licked his ear, and purred, “Hey stud, you wanna dance with me?”

  “Not really.” Luther stepped closer, his gaze as direct as he could make it in the alternating psychedelic light and obscure darkness.

  When the lights flashed, he saw her smile and her dark eyes, dazed from drugs or alcohol, or both.

  She took his hand and led him across the floor and around a distant corner where he could at least hear himself think. Several people gyrated together, their hips grinding in a semblance of dance.

  As she tossed her head, glimmering lights shone in her inky hair. Close to his ear, she asked, “You with that other chick?”

  “Does that really matter to you?”

  She gave an insincere laugh and shook her head. “I guess not.”

  “Our relationship is an open one.” He looked down at her breasts. She had an impressive rack, he’d give her that. As a man, he appreciated the sight. As a responsible person, pity for her dulled the enjoyment. “She’s off doing her own thing . . . and I plan to do mine.”

  “Your thing being . . . ?”

  His gaze moved over her, and dismissed her near-nudity as unappealing. “You’ll have to find that out on your own.”

  She looked to be in her early twenties, and was too foolhardy to survive long. Using her didn’t suit him. He’d rather arrest her and get her someplace safe—but he couldn’t. Not yet.

  She pouted. “You’re far too steady to have any fun. You want to take some ecstasy or speed with me?”

  As if she wasn’t already flying? “Depends.” Luther put a hand to her bare waist. His skin was clammy, too warm. “Here . . . or someplace more private?”

  “Private, silly.” Laughing, she started off on a winding path through the crowd of sweaty bodies.

  Luther followed, making note along the way of things that should never occur in a public place.

  At the back of the room, she went on tiptoe to kiss a hulk in a purple G-string. Ornate tattoos covered his whole body, delineating bulging muscles and even trailing into his very brief underwear.

  The man accepted her kiss stony-faced, without inflection of any kind, and then he opened a heavy door for them to pass through. Once inside, low-burning red lights replaced the lasers and strobes, making it easier to make out their surroundings.

  Another young lady fell into him, laughing hysterically, unsteady in every way. She twisted both hands in Luther’s shirt and held on. “Oh my God. This is off the hook, isn’t it?”

  Luther pried her loose and relinquished her to a rubbery-legged young man who chortled with her. Red-faced and bleary-eyed, they stumbled off to the side and into a bean-bag chair.

  At his sardonic best, Luther commented, “Very private.”

  “It’s for special guests only.” She held Luther’s hand and walked backward, giggling at him.

  “And I’m s
pecial?”

  “Tonight, for me, you are.” She looked down at his crotch. “I’m Desiree, by the way.”

  In the corner, on a decorated twin bed, two people fucked for a small but appreciative audience. Ahead of him, a woman perched on her knees as a man, holding a leash attached to a collar around her neck, spanked her with a leather paddle.

  As crude public displays went, that was distasteful enough. But to top it all, behind a parted curtain, Luther saw a man piercing a woman’s nipple with a long, thin needle. A thin trickle of blood dripped down her chest. She moaned and squirmed and appeared to love it as the man leisurely licked away the blood.

  Luther never paused as he stepped away from the repulsive act.

  He’d expected a grisly scene of drugs and alcohol and possibly rape, but he hadn’t expected this orgy of depravity.

  The malodor of stale sweat, musky sex, and drugged excitement hung thick in the air, assaulting his nostrils and violating his lungs. The red lights cast a carmine hue over everything, making shadows shift like liquid puddles of blood.

  Luther’s stomach curdled.

  So much wickedness.

  Thank God he hadn’t broken down and brought Gaby along. He wanted to be honest, to share everything with her and build a partnership where they worked together . . .

  But he couldn’t imagine her reaction to all of this.

  Heads would roll—and then she’d bombard him with endless uncomfortable questions pertaining to sexual perversions.

  Luther no sooner had that thought than he felt the forceful stare of someone watching him. The short hairs on his neck stood on end, but he didn’t dare look behind him.

  He heard no disruption; bodies weren’t flying and people weren’t screaming. It couldn’t be Gaby.

  Anyone other than her, he could handle.

  Desiree said something to him that he missed, and then she stopped before a small, cloth-covered table that displayed an arrangement of colored pills, a few drinks, and a line of cocaine already cut on a mirror.

  A tall, thin man with long dark hair and very pale blue eyes awaited them. Given the faint creases in his face and the cynicism in his gaze, Luther put him in his late forties, early fifties.