Blood Crimes: Book One (23 page)

      Serena used her index finger to wave Zach closer to her, then placed both hands on his chest. She leaned forward and licked some of the dried blood off his face. The blood was from one of the cops they had massacred earlier and not from any of them so she had no problem digesting it.

      “Darling,” she whispered in his ear, “we’ll be fine for the night. And yes, he’s worth it. He is a very clever snoop and could come in handy when we try to find
Jim
again.”

      “We already found him once without his help.”

      “I know. But that was luck.
Jim
knows we’re here now. It’s not going to be so easy the next time.”

      “How do we know he hasn’t already taken off? That’s what I would do if I were him.”

      “But you’re not him, Zach, darling.
Jim
wouldn’t do that, at least not without his precious girlfriend. As long as he doesn’t find her over the next twenty-four hours,
M
r. Hayes could be very useful to us.” She leaned in closer to Zach and lowered her whisper so that only he could hear her. “And don’t be jealous, my sweetheart. No matter how many I add to our family, you’ll always be my favorite.”

      He grunted, tried to maintain his sullen frown, but was obviously pleased with himself. The door to the room opened and the third surviving member of Serena’s group walked in, a duffel bag swung over his shoulder, and his arms loaded with luggage and a cooler. His forehead was still blackened with gunpowder from when
Jim
had shot him. He set everything down, found a corkscrew by the mini bar, then sat on the couch and tried to pry out a bullet that had lodged between his gum and tooth.

      “I thought you were supposed to be some sort of hotshot martial arts sword guy,” Wilfred said to him. “
Jim
kicked the shit out of you.”

      The vampire shrugged, removed the corkscrew from his mouth so he could talk.

      “It wasn’t that asshole,” he said. “It was the sun. That’s what kicked the shit out of me. If I get another chance with him after the sun’s down, I’ll cut him to pieces.”

      “I only want you cutting off his legs and arms,” Serena warned him. “
Jim
is not to be killed.”

      The vampire nodded dully and went back to digging out the bullet. His body was swaying slightly from side to side—giving the impression that he was on a boat listing in a storm. He still looked woozy from the shots he took to the head.

      “So that’s it,” Wilfred said, waving a hand casually at Hayes. “We’re just going to wait here until he wakes up?”

      Serena shook her head.

      “There’s no need for that,” she said. “The sun’s mostly down. Stefan here has no further excuses. I’d like you two to clean up and see what you can find out about this gang, the Blood Dragons. If we can find them, then we can find
Jim
’s precious girlfriend, and I would have to think things would get easy after that.”

      “How about you and Zach?” Wilfred asked.

      “Oh, don’t worry, we have other chores,” Serena said, smiling thinly. “I remember us passing a sex shop. They should have the chains we need for
M
r. Hayes. After he’s been properly secured, Zach and I will do what we can to make this room tolerable since we could very well be spending from sunrise to sunset here tomorrow.” She turned her smile to Zach. “How about some satin sheets, goose down pillows, a comforter that hasn’t had hundreds of other people drooling and pissing and having sex on, among other niceties? We’ll see if we can make this sty a little bit more like home.”

      Wilfred nodded, left to the bathroom to strip off his torn and blood-stained clothes and clean up. While Stefan waited, he opened the duffel bag and went over each sword with a damp cloth.
M
inutes later Hayes started to moan louder. Serena smiled at him the way a mother might a newborn child. She took a pint bag of blood from the cooler and kneeled by him so she could feed him. The PI suckled on it blindly.

      “
M
etcalf is going to find out about what happened here,” Zach said. “I’m sure it’s already all over the news.”

      Serena pretended not to hear him. After a while she asked him to be a dear and turn on CNN to see what they were reporting. Zach turned it on and it wasn’t just the top story—it was the only story. They were dubbing it the ‘Cleveland
M
assacre’, and whether they were showing a video recording that had been made by a bystander with a cell phone, interviewing witnesses, talking to a police spokesman, or showing the bloody aftermath, it was all Cleveland twenty-four by seven.

      “At least we put this godforsaken city on the map,” Serena said.

* * * * *

      Rolfe kept trying to get Noah off his Lazyboy recliner, but the man who would dwarf most NFL linemen was content in just taking long tokes from a joint the size of a
M
acanudo.

      “Come on, man, this is big,” Rolfe implored.

      Noah made a face as if Rolfe were full of shit. “Just chill, okay? I’m getting sick of hearing that. Whatever it is it can wait. Here, take a hit. This will calm you down, bro.”

      Rolfe shook his head. “Fuck that, man, this is too important. I need your help now. Besides, you probably laced that sucker with crack.”

      Noah smiled. “Guilty as charged.”

      “Fuck, man, you need to let me show you this. It can’t wait, okay?”

      Noah took a long drag on his cigar-sized joint and held the smoke in for a good twenty seconds before slowly releasing it.

      “If this is so important, just tell me what it is, okay, bro?”

      “Can’t do that, man, you need to see this to believe it. So get your ass out of that seat ’cause we’re talking real cash here. Fucking thing just fell right out of the sky and into my lap. And it gives us a sweet way to screw those Dragon bitches.”

      Noah gave him a hard eye as he struggled to get out of his chair. Puffing somewhat, he told Rolfe to show him what he had. “This better be good or I’m kicking your bony ass for messin’ with my evening,” he said.

      “I’m not worried, man, my bony ass is safe. This is that good.”

      Rolfe led Noah through the one-level ranch style house to an attached garage where his van was parked. He opened up the back of the van so Noah could get a good look at the man inside moaning and writhing on the floor. Even though the man’s tattoos were obscured with blood and dirt, enough of them were visible to show that he was a member of the Blood Dragons.

      “Fuck me,” Noah said. He shifted his gaze to Rolfe. “You do this?”

      “Not me. I’d like to take credit for it, but no, that boy was in some kind of accident, and some real freaky shit went down afterwards. Acid trippin’-type shit, shit you wouldn’t believe if you saw it.”

      Noah squeezed the area around his mouth, his fingers working into his flesh as if they were kneading dough.

      “What’s the point?” he said. “He’s not much more than road kill.”

      “He’s still breathing.”

      “Not for much longer.”

      Rolfe scratched his head, then behind his ears. “I don’t know. If we can keep him alive, we can make him talk when he wakes up. Anyway, he keeps mumbling shit.
M
aybe he’ll spill something about where the rest of those Blood Dragon bitches keep their stash.
M
aybe with a little coaxing he’ll say something like that out loud. Even if he don’t, we could take some pictures of him and get us a ransom.”

      Noah kneaded his fingers deeper into his flesh considering this. “It would really piss that asshole Raze off, wouldn’t it?” he said, chuckling lightly, his hard flesh shaking. “But fuck, if he dies on us…”

      “Not if, when. And don’t worry, I’ll get rid of the body like I always do.”

      Noah was nodding, a brightness cutting through his stoner’s eyes.

      “You know who this asshole is?”

      “Hard to tell with half his face gone.”

      “That fucker Pearce.”

      “No shit.”

      “No shit. Get a sheet from the basement—I don’t want him bleeding on my carpeting. We’ll lay him down there. That Russian we used last time…”

      “Yuri.”

      “Whatever the fuck is name is. Get him over here. Let’s see if we can keep this asshole alive for a while.”

      Rolfe went into the house. Noah climbed into the back of the van. The physical exertion left him out of breath, and he stood bent over with his hands on his knees. After his breathing had slowed he gave Pearce a hard look. The skin was gone from half the biker’s face, his clothes torn and what showed underneath looked like hamburger meat. Noah got a closer look. One of the eyes had been torn out and nothing but bone showed in the empty socket. He was amazed the guy was still alive and doubted whether they’d keep him breathing much longer, or for that matter, get anything useful out of him. But maybe with some photos, a finger cut off, and a few teeth pulled, they could squeeze a ransom payment out of Raze. It would be worth it to piss off that crazy bastard. And he knew Raze would pay what he had to to get Pearce back.

      Rolfe came back carrying an old sheet bunched under an arm. They spread it out next to Pearce and rolled him onto it.

      “Sonofabitch,” Noah yelped. He pulled back a hand and pressed it against his mouth.

      “Are you okay?”

      “Fuck, no, this asshole bit me.” Noah sucked on his hand for a long moment, then kicked Pearce hard enough in the side to crack ribs. The biker seemed oblivious to it. “This fucker doesn’t even know what’s up or down, and he still has to bite me. He better not have rabies or nothing. Fuck, I’m bleeding. Goddamn do I hate these fucking Blood Dragons.”

      “We’ll get him conscious. You’ll get your chance with him.”

      Noah shook his head angrily and gave Pearce another hard kick to the ribs. Together he and Rolfe lifted Pearce off the van and into the house. After they laid him out on a large piece of plastic, Noah went back to the garage to get a pair of pliers and a hatchet. In theory trying to get Pearce to reveal where the Blood Dragons kept their drugs stashed was a good idea, but he wasn’t going to wait for the biker to regain consciousness, not when there were more satisfying ways to squeeze money from that gang. 
 

Chapter 10
 

      
M
etcalf had maintained his lotus position for hours, his back straight, his eyes closed and his finger tips touching lightly as his hands rested on his knees. He ignored the sounds of Dr. Ravi Panjubar moaning and rustling about on the floor—they couldn’t be helped, it was all part of the infection process. Bronson’s fidgeting and periodic heavy sighs and comments to himself made loudly enough for
M
etcalf to hear about how unbearably hot and stuffy it was in the van were a different matter. It grated on him, but he didn’t let it show. To any outside observer he would’ve been the picture of tranquility. Inside, though, he was fuming because of the other vampire’s restlessness and lack of discipline. But he knew if he let himself move he’d rip Bronson apart, and now was not a good time for that. Later, when they returned back to the compound, but not now.

      Yeah, it was hot and stuffy back there, with the temperature reaching over ninety degrees, but it didn’t bother
M
etcalf. Instead, it brought back his pre-infection days when he was a field agent for the CIA. Back then he spent countless hours in the back of vans like this one in countries throughout Europe and the
M
iddle East, at times the temperature baking the inside of his van to well over a hundred and twenty degrees. He’d sit quietly for hours to get the job done, sometimes eavesdropping, sometimes peering through the scope of a sniper rifle waiting for his target to show, but never letting the temperature or anything else affect him. Early on the CIA realized what they had—a pure sociopathic personality with a high intellect— and they put him on the dirtiest work they had.
M
etcalf flourished with it. What helped was he didn’t suffer from the other psychological defects that most other sociopaths tend to exhibit—he had no sexual deviancies, no sadistic tendencies, and took no pleasure from his killings. He didn’t enjoy it, but it didn’t bother him either. To him it was no different than flipping a light switch. He was good at what he did, one of the best the CIA had.

      After ten years as a top assassin, he was unofficially brought back to New York and very quietly introduced to the wife of a dot-com billionaire. Her husband had supposedly fallen under the spell of some Eurotrash whore, and had transferred most of his wealth to this woman, leaving the wife only the fifty million she was allowed under the prenup she signed. The husband had since dropped out of the real world to live in this whore’s converted hotel that was located in the Union Square area of downtown
M
anhattan. The wife met alone with
M
etcalf, telling him how she wanted this bitch killed, figuring that that would break the spell and send her husband back to her, and she was prepared to transfer two million dollars to an offshore account for
M
etcalf to get the job done. He agreed to do it. Two million dollars would more than adequately pay for his retirement, and the job had a wink-nod sanction from his boss who was an acquaintance of the wife’s family. Anyway, it didn’t matter to him what light switches he flipped as long as he was compensated properly for it.