Blood Law

by Jeannie Holmes

  The TV screen flickered.

  “What did I do, or not do, this time?”

  The screen became a fuzzy field of black-and-white snow. It flashed twice, accompanied by a snippet of sound. Stake. Rest.

  He swiped a hand over his face. “All right, all right. I get it. Let me finish my sandwich and I’ll take care of it.”

  The screen flickered once and returned to normal.

  Darryl took two more bites of sandwich. The crumbs fell onto his navy jumpsuit and turned a pale pink before changing to dark red as they soaked up trace amounts of blood. He brushed the crumbs away, his gaze drifting back to Claire’s picture as it always did.

  The accusation was gone from her eyes, leaving only the silent adoration of a wife for her husband.

  Alex could feel Varik’s mind pressing against her own, searching for a way past the barriers she’d erected to block the blood-bond. She didn’t have time to deal with him. The window in which to find and recover Stephen safely was closing. After listening to Owen Gibson’s inane prattling and admission that the cook at Maggie’s Place had given him Human Separatist Movement literature, she wanted to have a little chat with said cook.

  She left the JPD in her mother’s rental car and drove across town to the diner, which was still cordoned off with yellow tape, but two cars were parked in the back. She had no way of knowing if one of them belonged to the cook. She’d just have to take her chances.

  She parked beside the cars and got out, leaving her cell phone behind but making certain her Glock was readily accessible beneath the denim jacket Varik had bought for her. Approaching the rear entrance cautiously, she could hear the rustling of papers coming from inside.

  The heavy metal security door was open. Alex stepped into the gloomy storeroom and skirted the wall in an effort to remain in the darkest shadows. More rustling of papers filtered through the open doorway of an office, along with the sound of struggling machinery.

  “Fucking piece of shit,” a man’s voice muttered from inside the office, followed by the slap of flesh striking hard plastic.

  Alex crept to the office door and peered around the corner. She instantly recognized both the smell and the girth of Tubby Jordan even though he was bent over, trying to free a stack of papers that had gotten jammed in a shredder.

  Arms grabbed her from behind, pinning her own arms and lifting her off the ground.

  She roared and kicked at the legs of the man holding her.

  Tubby Jordan appeared in front of her, his eyes wide. “What are you doing? Let her go!”

  Alex arched her back, driving her head into the face of the man behind her. She both felt and heard a sickening crunch and then smelled fresh blood as the man released her with an anguished yelp.

  “You bitch!” her assailant cried. “You broke my fucking nose!”

  She stepped out of either man’s reach and drew her Glock.

  The man with the broken nose rushed her. His momentum carried them to the floor. They rolled, each trying to gain the upper hand as well as control of the gun.

  Alex could hear Tubby shouting in the background. Instinct kicked in, and she sank her fangs into her assailant’s forearm.

  He screamed and jerked away.

  Blood filled her mouth. Memories that were not her own flooded her mind. A group of men sitting around a table. Stephen’s gold curls shining under the glow of a streetlamp as he fell to the ground, crying out in pain. Flames erupting from the shattered windows of Crimson Swan.

  The visions faded, and the world around her fell silent. Mr. Broken Nose was no longer on top of her. She blinked, looked around from her supine position on the floor, and her heart stopped.

  Varik stood nearby with Broken Nose, who cradled his bloody arm to his chest, firmly in hand. His golden eyes were fixed on her, his expression a carefully constructed mask of neutrality. Tubby Jordan cowered in the office doorway under the watchful glare of another Enforcer. Standing at her feet, glaring at her with barely contained rage, was Damian Alberez.

  Tasha left the Municipal Center’s main lobby, pulled a set of keys from her jacket pocket, and was greeted by a mob of reporters armed with microphones.

  “Lieutenant!” one shouted. “Is it true that the FBPI is replacing Enforcer Sabian?”

  “Have there been any ransom demands made for Stephen Sabian?” another asked.

  “Has the FBPI made any progress in finding the shooter of the Maggie’s Place massacre?” a third demanded.

  “No comment,” Tasha answered, and repeated it several times as she tried to break out of the throng. She finally succeeded and hurried to reach her car before the reporters caught her again.

  Slipping into her unmarked cruiser, she gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. When she’d first agreed to work with Alex, she’d thought it was a perfect opportunity not only to conquer her fear of vampires but to show her hometown that human-vampire harmony was possible. Now she realized she’d been deluding herself.

  Tasha started the car’s engine and backed out of the space. She turned onto Jefferson Boulevard, her mind traveling in circles. She’d learned more about vampires in the past few days than she had in the six years she’d worked side by side with Alex. It was as though someone had taken the wool from over her eyes. She’d considered Alex a friend, but she realized she’d been used, not for blood but for resources. With more Enforcers in town and their subsequent assumption of investigative powers, she was being tossed aside like an empty Vlad’s Tears vial.

  She pulled into a reserved parking space close to the Nassau County morgue’s front entrance. Disgusted by her past behavior, she climbed out of the car and jammed her hands into her pockets. The rustling of crumpled paper made her pause halfway to the door.

  Tasha pulled out a wrinkled note bearing the logo for the Human Separatist Movement and recalled Owen Gibson’s statements to Varik. Vampires were demon-spawn sent to create discord among humans. They’d certainly managed to disrupt her life.

  She turned the note over and saw the same scrawling handwriting as had been on her foyer mirror: 3:00 today. We’ll be in touch.

  She hurriedly stuffed it back into her pocket. Someone was playing games with her. The question was who. It seemed that the only way she could find out would be to play along.

  Even though her original fear of vampires was turning darker, angrier, she couldn’t label it hatred. Not yet. She wasn’t willing to align herself with HSM and jeopardize her career, even though she knew some of Jefferson’s police force were already members. She should consider distancing herself from the Enforcers after this investigation was over. Maybe that would help her to refocus her life and bring the chaos to an end.

  She entered the morgue and nodded to Jeff, Doc Hancock’s assistant, seated at the front desk.

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Jeff said brightly. “I was just about to call you. Dr. Hancock’s got the results on those bodies from the high school.”

  “Did you say ‘bodies’?”

  He nodded. “Gary Lipscomb and Nichelle Adams.”

  “Who is Nichelle Adams?”

  “Security guard for the high school. She was found stuffed in an equipment locker after you left the scene. Weren’t you notified?”

  Tasha sighed. How many more people were going to die before this all ended? “No, I wasn’t. It’s the Bureau’s case, not mine.”

  Jeff motioned for her to follow him, and the two of them pushed through a pair of large steel doors marked RESTRICTED in red letters. “How’s Alex?” Jeff asked, as they entered the corridor outside the autopsy room.

  Tasha shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  Jeff glanced at her. “You two get in a fight or something?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  He gestured to the autopsy room’s double door. “Doc’s in there finishing up some notes.”

  Tasha nodded her thanks and entered the room, leaving Jeff in the hallway.

  Nassau Coun
ty’s coroner perched on a tall stool beside an empty steel table, pen poised over an open file folder. Doc Hancock’s owl-like eyes focused on her. “Lieutenant Lockwood,” he said, and set down his pen. “I’m glad you’re here. I was about to have Jeff fax over my reports on the latest victims.”

  She took a deep breath, inhaling the chemically clean scents of bleach and alcohol, and asked, “What can you tell me?”

  “Ran the prints of both victims through IAFIS and VIPER to confirm their identities. Lipscomb’s prints were on file from a DWI arrest in Natchez last year, and Nichelle Adams was a security guard for the school, so that explains hers being in the system.”

  Tasha accepted his handwritten reports. The tight scrawl resembled a foreign language, but years of reading bad handwriting helped her interpret the notes. “Lipscomb was shot and staked, like the others.”

  “Then decapitated. Definitely the work of the same killer.”

  She scanned the second report. “Adams was beaten?”

  Doc Hancock bobbed his head. “Severely, but there were no signs of sexual assault. Mostly blunt-force trauma, but I did find a few stab wounds. Judging from the damage to the surrounding tissue, I’d say you’re looking for a slender but heavy instrument with some kind of pronged, wedge-shaped tip.”

  “Did you find anything that might lead us to this guy? Prints? Skin under the fingernails?”

  Doc Hancock shook his head. “The rain washed away any trace of physical evidence left on Lipscomb’s body.” He pulled a plastic zip-top bag sealed with red tape from the bottom of the stack of reports and handed it to her. “However, when we went to examine Adams, we found this in the folds of her clothing.”

  Tasha examined the blood-stained block. “A pack of gum?”

  “It may or may not belong to the vic, but I thought the Bureau’s forensic tech may be able to lift a print from it.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Anything else?”

  “One more thing.” He handed her another report. “Report on some Taser confetti found at the Crimson Swan scene. It was sent to me by mistake.”

  Tasha took the paper and scanned over it.

  “I think you’ll find it traced back to an interesting source.”

  Taser confetti consisted of small paper dots imprinted with a tracking number that scattered over the area where the probes were initially fired. The number could be traced back to a particular weapon and to whom it was sold. She checked the report a second time before looking to Doc Hancock. “Is this correct?”

  “Verified it over the phone.”

  “Mind if I hang on to this?”

  “Don’t see why not. Like I said, it came to me by mistake.”

  Her hands shook as she folded the paper and slipped it into her pocket.

  “You want to take copies of my reports back to the Enforcers?”

  “No, I have to follow up on this Taser thing. Just fax everything else to Enforcer Baudelaire at the precinct.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Tasha said, and turned on her heel. She exited the autopsy room and headed for her car.

  And to have a little chat with Harvey Manser.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Damian’s deep voice rose with each word.

  Alex shrank into the couch in the hotel suite she shared with her mother. Varik and Damian had escorted her back to the hotel while Tubby Jordan and Martin Evans, the man whose nose she’d broken, had been taken into custody by the Enforcers for questioning after it was discovered they were in the diner shredding HSM documents.

  The question most concerning Alex now was her own fate. She’d bitten a non-donor human and ingested his blood. She’d broken the most sacred of laws, the Blood Law: “Never take by force from one what is freely offered by others.” It was a crime punishable by death under vampiric law. Her only shot at avoiding a capital charge was to plead her case and hope Damian took pity on her.

  “Of all the stupid shit you could’ve pulled,” Damian railed, “you had to go and bite a human!”

  “It was just a little bite,” she said. “In self-defense.”

  “Excuse me?” Damian whirled on her. “Did you say something? I sure as hell hope not, because I don’t remember giving you permission to speak yet, Enforcer Sabian.”

  Alex clenched her teeth to keep from telling him to piss off.

  Varik stepped between them. “Ease up, Damian,” he said calmly. “She knows what she did was wrong.”

  “Does she? For that matter, I ought to ship the both of you off to Alaska for screwing up a murder investigation!”

  “Varik didn’t—” Alex’s voice faded away as Varik talked over her.

  “If that’s what you really want to do, then by all means, go right ahead.” Varik shrugged. “I could spend my weekends ice fishing.”

  “I’m warning you, Baudelaire. I’m in no mood for your shit.”

  “And I’m in no mood for yours.”

  “Stop it.” Emily finally spoke and struck the window-side table with her open palm. “All of you, just stop it. This bickering isn’t going to accomplish anything useful, and it certainly isn’t going to help any of you find Stephen.”

  Alex met Varik’s gaze and then looked away. Her mother was right, as usual. Stephen should be their primary focus. According to the note Alex had been given, the kidnappers wanted all vampires out of Jefferson by midnight or they’d kill Stephen. She felt a fresh stab of guilt pierce her chest. If only she’d gotten to him sooner …

  Damian jabbed a finger at her, but his voice was calmer when he spoke. “You had no business going anywhere near that diner.”

  Varik backed off and leaned against the wall, arms folded over his chest and one foot crossed in front of the other. His stance was one of indifference, but his eyes were bright gold and remained locked on Damian like twin lasers.

  “I know that,” Alex said through clenched teeth. “But Owen Gibson said the cook at the diner had given him HSM material. I don’t know why, but I got it in my head that that son of a bitch knows where Stephen is.”

  “Bill Jenkins wasn’t even at the diner.”

  “I know that now, but I also know the two who were there and HSM are involved.”

  “Yes, but Jordan and Evans both claim not to know anything about the kidnapping, the fire, the murders, or the shooting.”

  “Evans is lying,” Alex muttered.

  “You would know, wouldn’t you?” Damian asked, glaring at her.

  She couldn’t meet his gaze. The coppery bite of Evans’s blood still lingered in her mouth and increased her guilt.

  Damian swiped a hand over his face and sat down across from her. “Biting Evans is the least of your problems, anyway.”

  Her head snapped up. “What does that mean?”

  Damian produced a small zip-top bag containing an amber vial from his jacket pocket. “This was found in the center console of your Jeep.” He dropped it on the coffee table in front of her. “Care to explain it?”

  Alex frowned and used a corner of her shirt to cover her thumb and index finger as she picked up the bag. Dark liquid sloshed within the vial, and a teardrop superimposed over a crescent moon adorned the cap. “It’s Midnight.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Damian retorted. “What’s it doing in your vehicle?”

  “I’ve never seen this before.” She handed the bag to Varik, who’d joined her on the couch. “You can’t possibly think it’s mine?”

  “No, I don’t,” Damian said, and pulled another bag containing a wad of cloth from his pocket. “We also found this.”

  “That looks like a man’s handkerchief.”

  “It is.”

  “Where did it come from?” Emily asked, moving from the window table to stand beside Damian.

  “One of JPD’s forensic techs saw Harvey Manser near your vehicle yesterday.”

  “The sheriff?” Varik asked.

  Damian nodded. “Any ideas why he’d want to set you up, Enforcer Sabian?”

>   “Other than my being a vampire and his hatred of all vampires? No, can’t think of a single reason.”

  “Don’t get cute. This is a serious situation. If one branch of human law enforcement is actively trying to set you up for a fall, then we have to assume metro police may be in on the conspiracy as well.”

  Alex gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m very serious.” He picked up the bag containing the vial of Midnight. “As of this moment, all communication between our people and the local agencies is severed. Until we can get this mess under control, neither of you”—he pointed to Alex and Varik—“are to breathe a word of this or anything else related to an ongoing investigation to Lieutenant Lockwood, Sheriff Manser, or any of their officers. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Alex and Varik answered simultaneously, followed by Varik asking, “What about the kidnappers’ demands?”

  “We’re working on a plan to bus vampires out of town and to a temporary shelter in the country. It’s just a precaution in the event we can’t find Stephen before the midnight deadline,” Damian answered.

  The trilling notes of a futuristic ringtone filled the room. Damian unclipped his phone from his belt and answered it as he walked into one of the adjoining bedrooms.

  Alex’s mind spun. She couldn’t believe Damian was organizing a vampire exodus and had severed ties with the JPD and the sheriff’s department. Even though he’d brought more Enforcers to Jefferson as well as set up a mobile lab, the Bureau needed cooperation from the locals to find Stephen as well as remove a large vampire population from their homes. Without it, she feared all investigations, especially that of Stephen’s disappearance, would grind to a halt.

  She glanced at her mother, standing beside Varik, as the Enforcer seemed to slip something into her mother’s hand. Frowning, she opened her mouth to speak, but Damian returned with a spring in his step, blocking Alex’s opportunity.

  Emily thrust her hand into her pocket, and Varik stepped away.

  “Baudelaire,” Damian called, directing his path toward the exit. “We need to get over to the lab. Reyes found something on the cross-stakes.”

  Varik fell into step with Damian.