Authors: Lina Gardiner
"Damn it,” she rammed her hand into the dash in protest. “Unusual enough for a vampire kill his victims and leave them in a public place once, but three times? This is crazy. Especially if this victim has been turned, too. We've got to find this vampire and soon."
"I thought turning a person into a vampire was a really difficult thing to do?"
"Like I said, never underestimate vampires. And even though vampires have to drain almost all the victim's blood, leaving just the right amount so their VNA can mix into the body through saliva to begin the process, regenerating the dead cells is like any other talent, some vampires don't have to learn how to do it. It's instinctive.” She gave him her most serious look. “It takes nearly twenty-four hours for the change to complete. And when the vampire regains life, they have to go through the pain you saw earlier. You know how painful it can be if a limb goes to sleep. Imagine how it would feel if every cell in your body had died, then regenerated. The pain is more excruciating than you can imagine."
His mouth tightened. She had the feeling he wanted to ask her about her own experience. Thank God, he didn't, because she was feeling even more out of control right now. And remembering that horrible night that she'd been turned, always flipped on her feral instincts. If she'd been tougher as a cop back then, she might've been able to save herself. Her insides squirmed like she might be sick. But that was impossible. Didn't happen to vampires.
They reached the park and strode across the dewy grass. Like the night they found Beverley, a crowd had gathered and the regular forces were keeping them back. Yellow police tape in a hexagonal shape covered an even wider area than the last time.
Sampson was already on his knees beside the victim. His bald head reflected light from the spotlights that had been set up.
Jess hung back to let Britt take the lead.
"Sampson, anything to report, yet?” he asked in a serious tone.
"Not yet. Except that this case is way too similar to the last vics, I'm afraid. Highly unusual for this type of killer to display his prey like this.” He didn't say vampire in case someone in the growing crowd overheard. Or even worse—the media.
"Yeah.” Britt ran a hand through his hair.
Jess visually searched the surrounding shrubbery ensconced in darkness. Was someone watching from the sidelines? Serial killers often did that. Maybe this vampire had more in common with serial killers than they thought. She still had the feeling she was being watched. Worse, she couldn't hone in on where it was coming from.
Britt stared at the victim. “She looks a lot like our last victim,” he noted. “Dark hair, trim figure. Well dressed. Not poor by any means. Look at those diamonds.” He leaned down and scrutinized her right hand.
"I noticed that, too. Seems this attacker has a penchant for well-to-do brunettes."
Jess remained silent, trying to figure out where that weird being-watched feeling was coming from. Maybe her bad dream not only meant she'd regained a little more humanity, but she'd lost some of her vampire special abilities! At this point, that would be a very bad thing.
The cold dead eyes of the victim stared up at the night sky. There was something familiar about this woman, but Jess couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Finally she realized Britt and Sampson were staring at her. “What?"
"You were a million miles away, Jess,” Sampson said. That apparently surprised him.
A look passed between the two men that she chose to ignore.
"Where do you want this body to be taken? Our forensic lab, or the police's?"
"Ours, of course."
"If it's like the last time, she won't be there long. I'll begin the autopsy the minute we get her there. That'll give us some samples to work with, just in case."
"How many samples do you have in the VNA bank?” Britt asked. “Is it likely you'll be able to find a match?"
Sampson shrugged. “I only have around 200 samples. Hard to say how many of those came from the vampire horde that you two destroyed, though. Was there ever a body count on that one?"
"I've got some figures in the office. I'll get someone to do a tally and come up with a count. Problem is a lot of them burned up in the Shoe Factory fire,” Jess said. “I have a blood sample from victim number two, now."
Sampson's eyebrows rose. “Really? How?"
"Best not to ask.” She looked at the new victim.
"Right. Back to this victim. She had no identification. Not even a purse. Our first task will be to figure out who she is,” Sampson pushed up from one knee, and brushed off his white coveralls.
A flash broke in the semi darkness. Jess glared in the direction of the light, expecting the person to be media. She saw no one. “Where did that camera flash come from?” she asked.
"I don't know,” Britt raised a hand and beckoned one of their team. He leaned over and whispered in the officer's ear.
This time Jess heard every word. She nodded. “And hurry, before he's gone,” she said.
"What did you find out?” Drago pushed out of his chair and stalked to his assistant, Mannie.
Mannie shrank back from him.
Ridiculous! Drago had never taken out his anger on Mannie. It always irked Drago that Mannie pretended otherwise. Besides, Drago had learned to control his darkest anger and used it to his advantage for the most part. He needed that inner dark strength when it came to mind control.
In fact, even if he said so himself, he was a genius when it came to entrepreneurial ventures. When he'd learned about vampires and how they existed in the underworld of illicit gambling, drugs, and gangs, he knew he'd have a huge niche market if he could do something to help elevate their status in the human world.
It didn't take long for him to learn that very rich master vampires had everything they wanted except powerful women to slake their thirst. They had to stay low key and could only divest themselves of the lower class women, whose disappearances wouldn't make headlines.
That's when Drago began researching his latent mind control abilities. Since finding a rare drug in a Mayan archeological dig over thirty years ago, he'd become quite good at controlling those around him. All he had to do was touch them enough times to get enough of the Mayan paste's properties circulating through their bodies and he was in control.
By providing powerful women to these vampires, even for a couple of days, he was on the road to becoming richer than he ever dreamed. And the women couldn't remember a thing when they got home. He still wasn't sure if it would work on Jess, a vampire, but the reward was too lucrative to ignore.
The fact that someone had killed one of the women he'd been manipulating made things a lot more difficult for him. The vampire members of his club all knew what was at stake. They could have their victim for forty-eight hours as long as they didn't kill her. They could take their pleasure however they preferred and she wouldn't remember a thing when it was over. But they had to return her alive.
What were the odds that some random street vampire had killed her? It had to have been one of his vampires, maybe even one of the vampires at the table a few hours earlier had broken their pact. If so, the idiot was pulling a hell of a firestorm down on himself. Kellerman had been a favorite of several of his top customers. So popular, he had to pace them. He couldn't provide her to them every week since he could only wipe her memory once a month. That made things more difficult to figure out because any one of them could have gotten greedy and gone after her for themselves.
"The last vampire to entertain Kellerman was Boris Klaufman.” Mannie said, stating the obvious. “If he killed her, however, it had to have been after the fact since she'd gone home and contacted the police telling them she couldn't remember anything, and she thought she'd been roofied, the slang term for the date-rate-drug, Rohypnol ."
Drago scowled. That was bad enough. “Damn it. In essence, she was roofied. Only with a very powerful mind-control roofie.” He let out a long, hot breath, and slammed his hand against the wall in front of him. “Now the cops know she'd reported being drugged before her death. This thing is not going to blow over easily."
"Probably not,” Mannie agreed.
"Make sure nothing points to us. Break into her office and steal all the invitations to the club. Make sure the cabbies who brought her here are duly warned not to talk, or else.” He got into Mannie's face. “And don't fuck this up, or you'll be fish food yourself."
One eyebrow rose, and Mannie, who'd pretended to cower a moment ago, stared blackly into Drago's eyes. He didn't like threats. He didn't mind pretending, but when Drago really got in his face, Mannie's true persona pushed through.
Drago turned and slammed through the leather padded door into his inner sanctum. No one ever came in here but him. No one knew what he kept back here.
Not the vampires who trusted him with their secrets. Not even Mannie.
On the way to Sampson's lab, Britt tried to figure out what it was that had been bothering him about the three victims. Even Jess had been perplexed. He'd seen her expression when she looked at the recent Jane Doe.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he took the final turn into the parking lot.
It finally hit him!
They all looked like Jess.
Not as beautiful, but overall they had very similar features. Dread pooled in his gut. Was it coincidence? Somehow he didn't think so.
Now the fact that Jess felt as if she was being watched made a whole lot more sense. And what the hell could he do about it?
The minute he got out of his vehicle, he noticed Regent's SUV. That meant Jess was at the Special Ops morgue, too. Good. He wanted to talk to her.
He'd barely made it inside when he heard the shouting. He keyed in his security code and entered the lab. Jess and Sampson were facing off against two burley men from the Coroner's office.
"You can't have the body. I'm the lead coroner on this case,” Sampson said, his hands fisted in balls at his sides.
"We have our orders. Chief says no more autopsies will be done outside the City's purview."
"The Chief said that? I don't believe it,” Jess said, whipping her cell phone out and dialing immediately.
Britt decided to hang back. This wasn't his arena, but he'd stick around in case Sampson or Jess needed backup. It really looked as if Sampson wasn't going to give up this victim.
Jess moved away from the men yelling at each other, so the Chief would be able to hear her when she got him on the line. “Chief Brown. This is Captain Vandermire. I'm phoning from the Special Ops Morgue. There are two men here from the Coroner's office demanding to take our latest victim. What the hell's going on—sir?” She added as an afterthought.
"Surely this isn't a surprise to you, Vandermire. You must know the second victim was taken from the morgue?"
"Yes, I knew the other victim was removed, but I've been too busy to phone you to find out why. Actually, there are some things I have to tell you about that case, but not over the phone.” She realized she was holding the phone so tight that with her strength she could break it. She loosened her grip.
Chief Brown cleared his throat, obviously irritated. Whether irritated by her questions, or whatever else was going on, Jess wasn't sure.
"Get your ass in here as soon as you can. And release that woman's body right away."
"Chief,” Jess said. “That's a really bad idea. You know why we use this morgue for our special cases. Surely you understand the serious implications that could arise if this victim is autopsied outside of this lab?” What was wrong with the man? Had he lost his mind? They couldn't release another vamped woman and wait for her to go into hyper drive and kill the innocents working in the morgue. They'd have no idea how to handle themselves. Even if they were able to get over the shock of a dead person coming to life in time to put up a fight.
"Let her go, Vandermire. That's an order."
Jess held the phone out and looked at it with incredulity, then pressed it back against her ear. “Under protest. I'll be writing up a formal complaint when I get back to the office."
"You do that!” He hung up in her ear.
Jess could feel her VNA saturated blood beginning to boil and her teeth threatening to break through. An angry growl was forming in the pit of her stomach.
"Jess. Everything's okay. Don't worry, we'll get a handle on whatever's going on. Let's not let this situation get totally out of hand.” Britt placed a firm hand on her shoulder. Only he would dare take the chance of touching her right now. No one else would even think of touching her in this heightened state of emotion.
The two men in uniform, obviously tired of the waiting game, forced their way past Sampson who was still doing everything he could to stop them. He'd even thrown himself in front of the body on the gurney. They just pulled him off and roughly shoved him aside.
Sampson was middle-aged, and balding. A loveable, slightly overweight science geek. They knew he'd be no match for them, and she hated the casual way they shoved him aside. Like he wasn't the most amazing brain on the planet. They had no idea who they were manhandling.
One of them cursed under his breath when he looked at the Jane Doe in full rigor mortis, and who looked very much worse for wear.
Jess's VNA neared the boiling point again, and she closed her eyes to repress the urges that could come upon her quickly. She
could
kick their asses, and send them running. They'd be more scared of her than that bluish corpse staring at them from the gurney .
Britt stepped in front of Jess, blocking her view of the men. She nearly shoved him aside, but one look at his caring eyes made her stop. Cool her jets. Recite a silent prayer to keep her dark urges at bay.
"You've got guts, Brittain. You do realize what you just did could be dangerous. Even to you?” She slammed her arms across her chest, exposing a little more of her cleavage than usual. He didn't dare look. Smart man. “Even Regent would be cautious about approaching me in this state,” she said, enhancing her voice to make it vibrate through him. To make him realize he shouldn't mess with her.