Blood Crimes: Book One (20 page)

      “Where are they keeping her?”

      
Jim
shook Pearce, but there was no recognition in the biker’s remaining eye. It was glazing over, becoming the eye of a corpse.

      “Where the fuck is she?”

      It was no use. Pearce was slipping away and death was already dropping over his face like a veil.
Jim
watched helplessly as his world seemed to be slipping away from him also. He needed the sonofabitch alive. He needed to know where Raze’s hideout was. Without any awareness of thought, he bent over the dying biker and sunk his teeth into Pearce’s already torn and bloody neck. A gush of blood poured down his throat. For a long moment the blood was all he was aware of, then he could feel the biker start to stir. He backed away, wiping the gore from his mouth. A blur of motion from out of the corner of his eye froze him. Then he was hit. Hard. Violently. The impact sent him flying.

      For the few seconds that he was airborne the world slowed down on him. The sky floated above, the sun a reddish ball off in the horizon hung suspended as if by a string, a plane crawled overhead as if it were barely moving. Thoughts also slowed in his head. He found himself wondering what it was that hit him. It was only a few seconds but it seemed an eternity before he went crashing through a plate glass window, his shoulders first, then his head. If he were normal he would’ve been sliced to ribbons. As it was, he felt like he’d been worked over with a baseball bat. He picked himself up and crawled through the shattered window. He rubbed the dust and broken glass particles from his eyes, blinked a few times, and saw that a white Lincoln Continental limousine had hit him. From the driver’s side, a skinny dark haired woman with a cat-like face grinned ferociously at him, her hands clenching the steering wheel, her body stretched through a torn opening that separated the passenger area from the driver’s compartment. He blinked and rubbed his eyes again so he could focus better. Serena.

      He took a couple of dazed steps towards the limo, still not believing what he saw. It didn’t make sense for her to be in Cleveland. Then he remembered the news story about Duane Posey. It must’ve been a national story. Somehow Serena made the connection.

      Fuck.

      He wanted to run, but the thought didn’t quite make it to his legs. He found himself still moving closer to the limo, still trying to convince himself that that wasn’t Serena. There was a body slumped over next to her wearing a chauffeur’s cap. She must’ve seen him feeding on Pearce, broke through the Plexiglas barrier, and either knocked out or killed the driver so she could take control of the wheel.

      It was Serena alright.

      Fuck.

      The sidewalk had been empty but bystanders poured out of several of the shops lining the street, also some cars pulled over, and a small crowd gathered. The people kept their distance, a low murmur coming from them.
Jim
looked away from them and saw the back doors of the limo open. He recognized Zach and Wilfred as they left the car, both of whom looked amused. Two more men got out also. These two he didn’t recognize. One was about his size, the other maybe half a foot shorter, and both were carrying three and a half foot long swords, the blades polished to where they gleamed. The two men moved fluidly, and from the way they held their swords it was clear they knew how to use them.

      
M
ore drivers were pulling over and the crowd was growing larger, maybe two dozen people. When they saw the two vampires moving on
Jim
with their swords, they started to back away. One of the bystanders took out a cell phone and pointed it at them. Again,
Jim
thought of running, but it wouldn’t do any good. He wouldn’t get far without one of the Harleys, and the limo and Serena’s gang stood between him and the bikes. He held his ground and waited for the two vampires brandishing swords to come closer. They were both grimacing, their movement becoming more sluggish with each step.
Jim
understood the reason for it. The sun was as poisonous to him as it was to them, but over the last three years he and Carol had moved around enough to where he had gotten used to it. He could deal with the pain. These two, along with the rest of Serena’s gang, had been living a sheltered life, probably going outside only after dark. The sun was now taking a toll on them.

      
Jim
was still holding the .45 he had taken off Zeke. He waved it towards the crowd causing them to scatter. He then shot several rounds at the shorter of the two vampires, aiming at the fingers wrapped around the sword handle. A small piece of the vampire’s finger blew off, and he dropped the sword and grasped his damaged hand.

      
Jim
leveled the gun at the vampire’s face and squeezed off three more rounds, hitting him squarely in the forehead and sending him flying backwards and bouncing off the Lincoln’s front grill. The other vampire attacked, aiming a blow towards
Jim
’s middle. He rolled under it and grabbed the sword the smaller vampire had dropped. A quick glance showed that Zach and Wilfred were no longer amused, their faces more pinched than anything else. They also looked green around the gills, not handling the fading sun well.

      There was another attack where the larger vampire tried a flying drop kick while he swung a blow at
Jim
’s head. The vampire didn’t elevate as much as he expected to, not accounting for the effect the sun was having on his muscles. Coming in as low as he did,
Jim
was able to step aside and take a clean swing at him. He hit the blow solidly, the blade sinking several inches into the vampire’s neck. The vampire dropped his own sword as he frantically tried to grab at the blade digging into his neck, but
Jim
swept his feet out from under him and kicked down on the sword until the vampire’s head was cut off and rolling away from the body.

      Police sirens could be heard in the distance.
Jim
looked up. Zach and Wilfred were gone, both probably retreating into the safety of the limo and out of the late afternoon sun. The smaller vampire
Jim
had shot in the face looked unsteady as he struggled to get back to his feet.
Jim
couldn’t help showing a grim smile. Hopefully those three .45 slugs to the forehead scrambled the vampire’s brains a little, or at least gave him a wicked migraine.
Jim
thought about finishing the job with him, but the sirens were getting louder. He couldn’t afford anything sidetracking him from finding Carol. He needed to just grab Pearce and get out of there. He looked over to where he had left Pearce and saw that the biker was gone. He looked around to see where the biker might’ve crawled off to, but he was nowhere. It didn’t make any sense…

      
Oomph
.

      Someone had jumped on his back.
Jim
nearly fell to the pavement, but somehow kept his balance. Long thin legs wrapped around his waist, legs that he recognized. Sharp nails scraped his face and inched their way to his eyes. He was still holding the sword and used it to try to poke Serena off him, but she kept ducking.

      “Surprised to see us,
James
?” Serena whispered in his ear, then bit down hard trying to tear off the fleshy lower part of his earlobe.
Jim
poked again with the sword and she let go of her grip on his ear. His ear stung, but it still felt intact.

      “It’s been a long time,” she said, her breath frigid against his skin.

      ‘Not long enough,” he grunted.

      Zach and Wilfred emerged from the back of the limo, both brandishing swords. The vampire who had taken the .45 slugs point blank in the face looked woozy but had recovered the sword that the dead vampire had dropped and was inching closer towards
Jim
. The police sirens were getting louder. The cell phone
Jim
had taken off Ash started ringing.

      “Aren’t you going to answer that,
James
?” Serena asked, her claws again digging towards his eyes.

      “The cops are going to be here in seconds,”
Jim
grunted as he tried to use the edge of the sword to move her away from his eyes.

      She laughed, dodging his thrusts. “Let them,” she said. “Just means fresh blood for tonight.”

      “Don’t you think
M
etcalf is going to be unhappy with you?”

      “I couldn’t care less about
M
etcalf, Darling. You’re my only concern right now.”

      “But I think you should care, Serena, Darling,”
Jim
said. “This spectacle you’ve created isn’t exactly the type of flying under the radar activity that
M
etcalf always used to demand. He’s going to be very unhappy with you.”

      Her nails dug harder into his flesh.

      “And what about you? Feeding out in the open where anyone could see you. Very careless of you,
James
.”

      “But there’s a difference, Serena.
M
etcalf’s not my master.”

      She let loose an angry string of profanities. The other three vampires had moved within striking distance, all with their swords raised. Serena bit hard against the side of
Jim
’s neck, trying to sever his jugular. Fuck, it hurt. He jumped forward, swinging out his blade in an arc hoping to catch one or more their legs. One of their blades went for his chest. He spun quickly and heard a sickening thud and then a high-pitched wail. In his mind’s eye he could see the blade sinking into Serena’s back. Her grip loosened and she fell away from him. He knew her injury wouldn’t be fatal—whatever internal organ had been damaged would regenerate, but he hoped it hurt like hell. He spun around again and caught Zach in the thigh, the blade sinking in halfway. The vampire howled like a wolf at the moon.
Jim
yanked the blade out and ran until he got to Ash’s bike. The vampire he had shot in the face was right behind him.
Jim
turned and raised Zeke’s .45. The vampire stopped in his tracks.

      “Don’t,” he pleaded, his eyes looking sick.

      “Sorry,”
Jim
said.

      He squeezed off two more rounds hitting the vampire directly in the mouth. This time the vampire went down hard and stayed down.
Jim
thought about slicing off his head, but he could see police cruisers off in the distance and coming fast. He jumped on the Harley, gunned the engine and drove in the opposite direction going the wrong way down a one-way street. He turned down an alleyway that was too narrow for the limo, then down a staircase until he reached another alleyway. He pulled the Harley over so he could think. Off in the distance he could hear orders being shouted, followed by gunfire, and then awful blood-curdling screams—the kind that only truly frightened men could make. It became eerily quiet. He imagined what had happened—two or more police cruisers descending on Serena, the cops pulling out their guns and firing as Serena and her crew disregarded their orders and instead approached them. He pictured the massacre that followed, knowing that they would all want fresh blood after their exposure to the sun. He wondered how Serena planned to get rid of the limo and all those dead bodies, both human and otherwise…

      Ash’s cell phone started ringing again.

      
Jim
flipped the phone open.

      “Ash, what the fuck is going on?” It was Raze’s voice. “How come you didn’t answer before? And why ain’t Pearce and
Chuck
answering their phones? What the fuck’s going on?”

      “Ash is dead,”
Jim
said. “All of them are dead. That was a stupid stunt you tried pulling.”

      “Is that so,” Raze said after a while.

      “Yeah, that’s so. Four of your men are dead. For nine thousand dollars. You should be proud of yourself. All you had to do was give me Carol back and you would’ve had your money, and your men would still be alive.”

      Another long pause, then, “You still have my money?”

      
Jim
remembered that he had given the money to Pearce and hadn’t thought of taking it off the dying body. Wherever Pearce was that was where the money was.

      “It’s gone,” he said.

      “That’s too bad.”

      “For you. Because you’re going to give me Carol back or I’m going to find you and make you suffer worse than you could ever imagine.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “You don’t think I could find you?”

      “Nah, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, at least not before your girl has hemorrhaged from taking a pool cue up the butthole. You want that to happen?”

      
Jim
didn’t say anything. He stood trembling.

      “If you weren’t such an asshole, you’d know I couldn’t make a deal with you.” Raze paused for a long moment before going on. “After you ripping me off? I’d be finished in my business if I did, especially after you killing one my men. You want your girl back in one piece you got to pay for her, and a hell of a lot more than what you took from me.”

      “How much more?”

      “You ain’t fucking with me about killing my other three men?”

      “They’re all dead.”

      
Jim
listened intently for a response, heard nothing, and after a while asked, “Are you still there?”

      “Yeah, I’m still here. You killed four of my men. That’s going to cost you. Let’s say a million dollars.”

      It got very quiet, so quiet that
Jim
could hear the blood pounding in his skull. “How am I supposed to get that kind of money?” he asked.

      “If you’re resourceful enough to kill four of my men, then you’re resourceful enough to come up with that money. I’m giving you twenty-four hours. After that your girl’s gone, but only after we have our fun with her.”

      “I could’ve killed you and your two bodyguards in that bathroom last night,”
Jim
said. “But I didn’t.”

      “Your mistake, asshole.”

      “You really don’t think I’ll be coming after you?”

      “I’ll take my chances. And don’t bother calling me on this phone again. Think of it as already tossed away. I’ll be watching the news the next twenty-four hours. As long as I hear about an armored car heist or a bank job, I’ll be calling you back on Ash’s phone so we can work out a trade. If I don’t hear anything like that, we’re done. Wait a minute. For some extra incentive.”

      Raze disappeared.
Jim
stood frozen, pressing the cell phone hard against his ear trying to hear anything that could give him a clue where Raze was. He heard some voices off in the distance, then the creaking of footsteps on a hardwood floor, a door being opened, and Raze’s voice telling someone that her boyfriend was on the phone.

      “Hon?” It was Carol. Her voice was weak.
Jim
had the sense that she’d been crying, but was trying hard not to let him know that.

      “I’m here,”
Jim
said. A freezing coldness slid over him, numbing him. “Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”

      “I wouldn’t tell them anything,” she said, her voice breaking. He knew she was trying hard to keep from sobbing, and knowing that made the tears well up in his own eyes, made him swallow hard to keep from sobbing also.

      “Have they hurt you?”

      Very softly he heard her say yes. The connection was cut off. He stood frozen as he listened to the dead silence. After a minute or so he was able to move. He tried redialing Raze’s number that showed in the Caller Id, but no one answered. Again, he stood frozen, his muscles tensing. He tried to think of how he was going to get Carol back, but his mind just wouldn’t work. All he knew was he had to get moving. A homeless man wandered into the alleyway pushing a shopping cart. The man spotted
Jim
sitting on the Harley, still holding a samurai sword in one hand and a .45 in the other. The homeless man turned his shopping cart around.
Jim
’s mind started working. At least he had an idea of what he was going to do next. He gunned the Harley’s engine and drove away.