It scratched long claws against its thigh, lurking in the mouth of the alley. Pedestrians wandered by in twos and threes, but Travis clung to the shadows, a leech feeding off their concealment. It was still early in the night, but it needed to feed. The blood controlling it, gifting it with all this power, was insatiable. Not that there was a problem with that. It was power now.
Hell, yeah. I own the night, bitches, it thought.
All that came out was a low snarl. The Blood watched the street like a hawk. Likely prey was finally walking down the street. The man was alone, strolling toward Travis, and looking slightly dazed despite the early hour. Obviously he had started partying a lot earlier. He was wearing jeans and a faded t-shirt with a giant pot leaf on it and the words Mary Jane 420-ever scrawled across it.
Travis chuckled, though the blood just salivated in anticipation. As the man crossed the mouth of the alley Travis reached out casually and grabbed him by the back of his neck, quickly jerking him into the alley. With one motion Travis buried its fangs in the man’s throat.
It finished dinner quickly, tossing the leftovers into the Dumpster, then walked out of the alley and headed to the club.
***
Ian Stone
The hospital room smelled of antiseptic, and the low lighting in the room made the atmosphere gloomy. Ian shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable. The painkillers were just starting to kick in. He shifted through his personal belongings, spread out on the tray next to the bed, until he found the recorder. He hit “resume file” and started talking, haltingly, about the huge clusterfuck of a night he had had.…
***
I pulled into a parking space just a block away from The Viper’s Den. Again, I found parking nearby with the simple expedient of being willing to push someone out of the way who was double-parked until they were single parked. My joints cracked and popped as I slowly stretched my way out of the car.
My injuries complained quite loudly themselves. I know it sounds like I got the beat-down. One I knew would be coming. It feels like it, too. And while, yes, I did know I was going to be “talked” to, I didn’t know it would happen so soon after stirring up the hornet’s nest. Otherwise, I would have been on guard and wouldn’t have gotten into as bad of shape as I am.
Regardless though, it was worth it. Especially after a meaningful chat with Dr. M. He was a well-meaning sort, I suppose; but it was clear to me in the first five minutes that the ancient, skeletal Hippocratic oaf never saw a medical problem he couldn’t blow away with a pad and pen.
Not that I should be complaining … as I shake out another little helper. I pop it dry, no choice, the foot’s not letting up. Have to be careful; I didn’t want to be too loopy right now, but was sure that foot wouldn’t shut up otherwise.
And there might be some leg work here. Heh. Leg work. Having a starting point on Travis is better than anyone else in this town has managed to do. So, we know that he was accosted at The Viper’s Den. We know that there was a ton of blood outside in the alley. We know that the owner and staff of the club dumped ammonia all over it to cover it. Which is interesting. Ammonia doesn’t necessarily clean blood up all that well. But it does do an excellent job of rendering all genetic information useless.
What? Actually, no, I don’t know why. I’ll look it up later since, yeah, a P.I. should know that …
***
Stone paused the recording, and flipped open his laptop. The glow of the monitor reflected off his face as he quickly researched. A moment later, he closed the laptop again and settled back, resuming the recording.
***
And now I know. DNA is like the 95lb weakling, allergic-to-everything, kids with big athletic dreams of people’s biological stuff. You look at it angrily enough and it falls apart … so, if just licking DNA will screw it up, ammonia probably kills its whole family. Anyway, time to ruffle some feathers again. Into The Viper’s Den I go.
I came down here at about ten or so. Just late enough that the staff shouldn’t start a scene with me, since they were starting to get the first of the night’s “rush” and would be otherwise occupied, and still early enough to catch all the club kids, giving me a chance to watch the ebb and flow of foot traffic in the club.
What a sight. Just like the set of that movie, Underworld, two words dominated the scene. Black and Leather. My bones started vibrating with the thrums of the music, it was that loud. Add fog, speared by flashes of multicolored light, and I was in full sensory overload. Remember, I was on painkillers.
I actually kind of liked the place. Too bad a kid went missing here. Despite the fog, I’m paid to have a keen eye. Good thing, too. Even though he looked different from his photos, I spotted none other than Travis himself walk in.
I started to get up to go talk to him. I really did. But some impulse made me stay seated, sipping my Caucasian—that’s a White Russian for those you who aren’t fans of the Big Lebowski. I just watched him instead. Good thing, too.
Through the fog, I got to watch the dance of the bouncer, an elaborate game in which the staff at the Viper’s Den slowly and carefully positioned themselves in a circular formation around Travis, until he was completely surrounded. What the hell? I rate two goons showing up at my office yet I can casually stroll in and this kid gets a ring of six bouncers around him?
I felt kind of slighted I mean, I’m a hard boiled P.I. I just took on and beat a professional goon earlier today. So a kid rating three times the manpower didn’t bode well. Something really messed up had happened here.
As it turns out six muscle-bound men who resembled tractors more than humans weren’t enough to take on the kid. Travis, the little club kid, snarled. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, he caught the first bouncer’s hand as the man reached forward to subdue him. I heard the crunch of bone snapping, even over the ear-shattering music. That had to hurt.
For once, it’s not me taking the damage. I could learn to enjoy this. Nice change of pace, even if I do feel a certain empathy for the bouncers. Did I use the plural there? Of course I did. Destroying the first bouncer’s wrist was hardly a stopping point for our freakishly strong young missing person. I almost felt that I should do something to help.
Which would be an extraordinarily Bad Idea. First, Dr. M’s helpers, the OxyContin, have me on the mat. Second, bouncers are bouncing everywhere thanks to this guy; I’ll stick to the floorshow.
After dealing with the first threat, Tiny—I was trying out a new nickname for Travis—spun around and grabbed the second bouncer by the throat, picked him up, and slammed him into the third one.
Can you say ouch? That’s a straight trip to Pain City, with no stops in the suburbs for good medication.
The other three bouncers had the good sense to back off, and Travis bolted for the door, gracing the standing men with a snarl. Here is where the keen eye comes in. I’m pretty sure he was wearing a set of fangs. So … really, really strong, really fast, a good fighter, and a wannabe vampire freak. I chose to follow him at a distance. A healthy distance.
Travis is a junkie. He shows up looking all kinds of strung out and dirty. He takes down three guys in under two seconds—three of the same group that it took me about ten minutes to deal with just one of.
At this point it seems a pretty safe assumption to say that trying to engage him in conversation would get me dead fast, or at least beat to hell. And since I don’t want worms playing pinochle in my snout.…Yeah, I’ll just follow him to whatever little hidey-hole he’s ducking his head into, carefully note where it is.
His walking pace was fast though. Too fast. Of course. I have a broken foot, and despite the painkiller’s best efforts, tailing Travis was a painful experience. So I limped after him. Block after excruciating block. About the time I was reduced unflattering, red-face grimacing, he just vanished. I hobbled to a stop and looked around. What the Hell? We seemed to have one Houdini and one very perplexed detective.
And then something slammed into me from behind. I w
ent tumbling down the sidewalk, ass over teakettle. Seriously, I think I did a pretty good impression of a soccer ball shooting straight into a goal. In this case, though, the goal was a lamppost.
Ouch. Pretty sure that broke a couple of ribs. Since today I am the picture of perfect health, I got more good news in the form of a broken wrist. I landed right on it as I fell down to the ground from the light pole.
So, I shakily picked myself up from the ground and dusted myself off, favoring the bad wrist. And the bad foot. Standing not twenty feet from me was Travis. Only he didn’t look much like his pictures. His face was twisted into a snarl, baring fangs instead of teeth. His fingers were semi-clenched and looked like claws.
I don’t know what he was on, but I’ve never heard of anything that gives a human the strength this kid had. I mean, come on, the freaking guy swatted me thirty feet. Because that’s normal, yeah.
I dug the soles of my shoes into the ground and pushed down on the balls of my feet, finding my balance point. With a deep breath I stretched out my hand, the good one, and mimicked the pose of thousands of martial arts heroes, beckoning him to the fight. “Bring it on, little man.”
And he charged.
He moved fast. Really fast. Not faster than a speeding bullet or anything, but he reminded me of a pouncing lion. Lucky for me I was expecting the speed and I started my movement way early. As he sped at me, I rolled to the right and came up in a sprinter’s crouch. Ignore the broken foot, Ian. It will only hinder you. I heard a loud clang behind me as Travis impacted the light pole I had been backed up against.
That was my starting gun. The streets were empty along Thirteenth, and I needed to get to where there was more foot traffic if I was going to walk away from this. So I sprinted. Wincing with every step, I did my best to put as much distance as I could between us.
I made it about half a block from Colfax, where I would have run into cops and other warm and fuzzy parts of civilization. Then I got yanked backwards by my collar. My back slammed into the ground and it knocked all the air out of my lungs. Lucky for me, the bruised ribs were making it hard to breathe so I didn’t have much air in them to knock out.
Before I could get oriented and make the world stop spinning, a hand seized my tie and up I went, into the air. I swore I would buy a clip-on if I survived this.
His other hand grabbed my neck and he snarled in my face. Wow. This guy has great conversational skills. Very eloquent. After shaking me for a moment by my neck, (maybe to see if any loose change fell out?), he tossed me into a wall.
I collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. He just wouldn’t ease up long enough for me to catch my breath. So there I was, collapsed against the ground, laying against a wall, telling my body to stand the hell up. It wasn’t listening.
The kid snarled and charged me again. Then the damndest thing happened. A teenage boy, maybe fifteen, stepped out of the alley next to my handy wall, and interposed himself between me and the charging maniac.
Travis, the taller of the two by five inches, smashed into the boy, and the kid didn’t budge an inch. He just grabbed Travis’s clawed hands and began pushing him back.
Travis snarled and jumped back, taking stock of his smaller opponent. As he did so, the boy pulled a sword out form his overcoat. A freaking sword. I know. The wicked looking blade was glowing, like there was a fire burning inside the steel.
Travis turned and ran.
I blinked.
What the hell had just happened?
The boy ran a hand through his hair and turned around to face me. He had an unruly mop of black hair and a fire shinning in his eyes. Not figuratively. There was definitely a spark behind his pupils that mirrored the sword.
He spoke with a clipped British accent. “Oi. Mate. Shove off. This doesn’t concern you, and you need to be in a hospital anyway.”
“Thanks. Will do.” I nodded sagely, promptly passing out.
***
I woke up in the hospital, with Haskins sitting in the chair next to me, making notes in a mystery puzzle book. I groaned by way of hello.
Haskins looked over at me and scratched his moustache. “Well. Looks like you should have just come to the hospital the first time, Ian. Wanna tell me what happened?”
I nodded, then took a second to collect my thoughts. “I found the kid at the club. Something weird happened to him though. Super strong, super fast. Was wearing fangs, like he thinks he’s a vampire. He kicked my ass, Rick. Grab my recorder out of my coat please.”
“So, the fearsome Ian Stone got beat up on by a vampire groupie? Don’t worry buddy, I got it from here. Just fill me in on any details you can.”
I pointed weakly at my coat. “Yeah. That’s why I asked you to grab my recorder.”
He chuckled and walked over to my coat, hanging from a hook in the corner of the room. “Alright. Tell you what. Get some rest.” He turned around with my digital recorder, as well as the rest of the contents of my pockets, and placed them on my bed table. “I’ll come back tomorrow and pick this up.”
“Thanks Rick. You know … I don’t know if he was a groupie. It felt like he was the real deal. Either way, I can tell you this. Vampires suck.” And with those wonderful words of wisdom imparted I fell asleep, knowing that the matter was out of my hands now.
***
The Wolf Pack
The storm drain overflow was well hidden by cattails, long summer grass, and the shadow of the overpass. Despite being a six-foot wide pipe, few people realized it was there. A glint of movement, the barest whisper of a shadow in the darkness, stirred, watching the pedestrian area in the reservoir.
Six figures were gathered there. Four were in a circle, playing Hackey Sack: two younger men, a middle aged man, and a young woman. Sitting in the grass by them were two women, one young and the other looked young, but had hair starting to go silver.
The watcher in the drain smiled—barely visible in the black was the glint of fangs. Half a block away the police were investigating a murder. The watcher knew that the six people were there for the same reason. It had taken them too long to catch up, but their time was finally at hand.
A teen boy, rocking out to his iPod, strolled by the drain cover. He paused, watching the Hackey circle, smiled, and kept walking down the reservoir. Once he had passed by, the shadow in the drain had vanished.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Josh flicked the Hackey Sack easily from foot to foot, not really paying attention to it. Between hundreds of hours spent playing Hackey Sack, and the far superior reflexes a werewolf had, keeping the little bead-filled sack in the air was a thoughtless activity. With a deft flick of his ankle he sent it sailing over to Jenna, who was munching on a bagel while playing.
None of the Pack were here for the Hackey Sack. It was just a convenient cover for them. Something to do while they all listened to what was happening almost half a block away. Werewolves have very good hearing.
It was a hot and muggy summer day, especially down here by the Cherry Creek Reservoir, and all of them would have rather been in air conditioning or swimming in a lake somewhere … which was where most people with an iota of common sense were. No one liked being a human dartboard for well-aimed mosquitoes.
But duty had called, and there isn’t an answering machine to catch the call when a bloodsucking fiend is randomly ripping out throats of innocent bystanders in your city. Josh slapped down, squishing a mosquito. The little buggers got everywhere.
“It’s the third one this month.” Came a man's voice as the conversation down the road started back up again.
Another, slightly deeper voice replied. “So, Haskins, it looks like we have a serial killer on our hands. I was hoping they were just unrelated violence.” The speaker sighed so audibly that the Pack could almost hear his shoulders slumping and his head shaking. “I hate cases dealing with twisted pieces of work like this. What are you thinking, Rick? FBI time?”
“I’m thinking we better catch this guy fast. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to the poin
t that we have to call in federal help. How long do you think we have before the media catches wind of this, Jack?”
Josh watched the hack get passed from Jenna to Drew. The leaner werewolf, in his early forties, was grimacing, his head tilted to one side. He had been in enough scraps and taken enough damage to his body that he had to focus a little harder to catch what was happening up the street.
A nasty looking scar ran down his right ear and halfway across his cheek, which had guaranteed that he would always have to focus to hear as well as others.
The deeper voiced detective up by the police cars spoke again. “I hope they don't. Of course, that would be too good to be true. They always find out too fast, and I'm sure someone somewhere is already getting a few bucks for tipping off someone else. Way of the world. They're vultures. I’ve been keeping the channels clear on this but haven’t actually red filed it yet. Hopefully it’ll slip through the cracks between all the other high profile cases.”
Haskins chuckled grimly. “Smart move. Let’s see if it works. Lemme know on that. Here comes Angela.”
A third voice, female, contributed to the conversation. “Sergeant, Detective. Enjoying the sun, boys? I have some of the preliminary results back. Cause of death is suffocation. Ribcage was partially crushed and both lungs collapsed. Victim was dead of asphyxiation before blood loss. Corpse was definitely moved; that one is based on the low volume of blood here at the scene. Whatever took her throat out did it post mortem, splatter patterns under the jaw indicate that it was a close second though …”
The woman shuffled through her notes. “Lesse here.…It’s an odd one, for sure. Looks like an animal wound, but no dentition marks to speak of found in the wound.…Dentition, if that’s what it is, is more human than anything else. Same weapon as the other two, whatever it is. I'll have to get her in the lab and on the slab though, if you want anything more than that.”
“All right, thanks, Jones. Haskins, I'll call you when I hear something. Thanks for coming out. Jones, bag the DOA. Coroner is on the way for transport. Let me know the second you come up with anything.”
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