“What? I’m an experiment?”
Jason laughed softly and shook his head. “No. And yes.”
She felt herself growing agitated and tried to follow Ben’s example.
“I am experimenting, but not on you. I’m experimenting on the other type of vampires because I’m curious. But that’s not really important. I did what I did because I wanted to, and because I think certain types of beauty should be saved. Maggie, you will never grow old and you will never have to die as long as you are smart.”
“How do you fix it?”
“There’s nothing to fix, Maggie. It’s done. You are what you are from now until the end of your existence.”
Her ears were ringing. Ben was looking from her to Jason and he was looking very unhappy. She’d have to talk to him about that. Not to chastise him, but to make sure he was okay with everything. She needed him to be okay, much as that unsettled her.
“Now, listen carefully, because there’s a lot to say. Sunlight will not kill you, but it will make you weaker. It will kill the ones that are made from your bite—”
That one took her off guard and she jumped a bit. “Oh shit.”
“They have been taken care of.”
Ben was looking very puzzled. She couldn’t take the time to explain and she didn’t want to either.
“How often do I need to drink blood?”
“When you hunger for it,” Jason shrugged. “There has never been any rhyme or reason that I have discovered. Sometimes I don’t need to feed for a couple of weeks and other times I cannot get enough without going on a killing spree.”
“Do you have to kill them?”
“No. But it’s convenient.”
Ben was shaking his head from side to side very slowly.
“Why?”
“If you bleed them and do not kill them, you can create more like yourself. It might take a while but it will happen if you feed from the same ones too often.” He placed his hand under his chin and looked at her intently. “Sex can cause the same problem.”
“So why is that bad?”
“Because too many predators can cause harm.” He smiled and shook his head, the dark hair moving in a soft wave. “We can be bad for the human population.”
“If you don’t kill someone, they don’t come back as a vampire?”
“Not often, and not unless you share with them.”
Maggie’s mind kept focusing on the fact that she would never grow old. “What about children? Can I have children?”
The answer was not what she expected.
VIII
Brian Freemont thought he was safe at the hotel. He’d chosen one in the center of town and stayed there with the lights on and the TV playing drivel in the background. He slept peacefully for a few hours.
Then the pounding started at his door. The blows were loud enough to scare him into consciousness, gasping and clutching at his chest. In his dream, Angie had been giving him a blow job—something she seldom did—and her teeth had been tearing his flesh away. He was glad the nightmare was gone, but terrified by what might be on the other side of the door.
“Who’s there?”
“Housekeeping, numb nuts.” The voice belonged to Richard Boyd. “Open the door before I kick it down.”
Brian opened the door, almost glad to see the little bastard.
“What do you want now?” He was wearing jeans but had taken off his shirt. The chill from outside was like walking into a gigantic refrigerator.
Boyd walked into the room, his face set in a shit-eating grin that chilled Brian far worse than the cold did. “Brian Freemont, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, if you give up the right to remain silent anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law . . .” He kept reciting the Miranda while Holdstedter pulled out his cuffs and smiled a promise of lethal force if Brian even considered resisting.
Brian had the good sense not to resist. He wanted his shoes and his shirt. They wouldn’t let him have them.
“So what are you charging me with?”
“The rape and murder of Veronica Miller.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Evidence found inside the condom left at the scene places her DNA on the exterior of the condom and yours on the interior. Oh, yeah, and aggravated sodomy. Can’t forget that one, can we, Danny?”
Holdstedter looked murder at Brian. “No, Richie, I don’t think we can forget that, either.”
“Guys, I’ve been set up.” He knew how lame it sounded, but it was all he had.
“Hey, Richie.”
“Yeah, Danny?”
“Look, he resisted.” Holdstedter backhanded Brian with an open hand. He hit the ground and groaned, his entire face feeling like it had been slapped. Holdstedter had big hands.
“That was the only one, Danny Boy. We don’t want this dick walking on a technicality.”
Holdstedter picked him up, lifted him completely off the ground with frightening ease and set him on his feet. He smiled into Brian’s face. “He wouldn’t think of trying that sort of shit. He’s got to know I’ve got weapons of his with his greasy fingerprints all over them. I mean, it’d be easy to put one in his dead hand and say he tried to shoot first, if he did something really stupid like trying to weasel out on a technicality.”
Boyd walked over. “You got weapons of his, Danny? ’Cause I thought we’d confiscated his shotgun.”
“Yeah, we did. It’s in evidence lockup. One firearm.”
They let that sink in. They still had his pistols. Brian nodded his head to make clear that he understood.
“Let’s get this asshole to the lockup.”
Brian sat in the back of the car without saying a word, numb to any sort of thinking or actions.
Holdstedter yawned in the passenger’s seat.
“I need coffee, Richie.”
“I need food, Danny.”
“Diner?”
“Diner.”
“We dropping shithead off first?”
“Nope. He can sit and savor the sweet smell of freedom for a while.”
“More like the smell of your cigars.”
Boyd turned his head and blew a heavy cloud of cigar smoke into Brian’s face. “Whatever makes him happy. Gonna smell better than sitting in a lockup room with Dirk Lockley.”
“Richie, are we that lucky?”
“Oh, yeah. Dirk is in for the night. He tried to hit a convenience store and Coswell nabbed his stupid ass.”
“What is it Dirk is always saying he’d do to a cop if he ever had a chance?”
“Fuck ’im up the ass and make ’im lick his cock clean.”
Danny laughed. Brian closed his eyes and prayed he wouldn’t have to deal with Lockley. The man was a giant mountain of fat and muscle. His bowels seemed ready to leave his body any way they could.
The detectives pulled up in front of the Silver Dollar Diner. They made sure to lock the doors when they got out.
Brian watched them walk away until he saw the figures on the roof of the brick and chrome building. In the neon light, he saw Angela and five college girls that he knew intimately.
“Boyd! Boyd! Fuck’s sake! Boyd let me out of here!” He screamed as loudly as he could, trying to break the cuffs that held his wrists together in the small of his back. All he got for his trouble were a few lacerations.
Boyd and Holdstedter probably heard him, but they didn’t respond.
He looked up as the six women on the roof dropped down to the parking lot and walked his way. Every one of them was smiling, baring wickedly sharp teeth.
He was still screaming when they peeled the roof of the car away and reached for him.
Chapter 19
I
Boyd drew his weapon and ran for the door when he heard the sounds of metal bending and glass shattering. They were enough to get him to turn, but it was the bloody shriek that came out of Freemont that made him draw his pistol.
Sounds like that weren’t supposed to come out of people.
Danny was right behind him and as soon as he was out the door, Danny had his back covered and was shifting to the right.
“What the fuck?” Six women, some clothed and some naked, were pulling Brian Freemont out of what was left of the Crown Victoria. Freemont was screaming like there was no tomorrow. Maybe for him there wasn’t. In the glow of the parking lights, he recognized each and every one of the girls. One of them was Freemont’s wife. She was nude, her body glistening it was so pale, her belly distended with the unborn baby she was carrying.
The others were all younger, mostly pretty, and all of them had files on his desk. He’d dealt with the families and friends of all of them in the last few days. They were all among the missing persons he was investigating. He took all of that in instantly.
He also took in the fact that they were going to kill Brian Freemont if he didn’t do something about it.
“FREEZE!” He lowered the pistol to just over their heads.
Danny was already waiting for them to do something stupid.
Freemont’s wife looked over her shoulder at Boyd and shook her head. “He’s my husband, I’ll kill him if I want to.”
One of the others laughed: Danielle Hopkins, if he was remembering names as well as he usually did. She looked like she’d covered herself in white clay and let it dry and flake off. Her lips were blue and if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought a corpse was laughing at him. His skin suddenly felt too tight. Her face barely moved, even when she moved her mouth, like some of the muscles wouldn’t work. Her eyes were staring at him and he thought he could see something moving in her hair.
“Put him down and back away, ladies. I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
Brian was making all sorts of noises, but none of them were coherent. Danny was as still as a statue, his eyes looked half-glazed, but Boyd knew it was just how he got ready to fire a weapon.
“No, I don’t think so.” Freemont’s wife shook her head. “We have unfinished business with Brian.”
“I’m not kidding here, lady. Put him down.”
He took the time to aim at her shoulder. He didn’t want to shoot a pregnant woman, but if he had to, he would.
“You can have him when we’re done.” She rose straight up into the air, and the other women followed her example. Boyd forgot all about the pistol in his hand as they rose higher and higher, taking a screaming Brian Freemont into the air with them. Boyd just kept watching until they were almost gone.
He put his piece away.
“This is one of those Red Lady moments, Richie.”
Boyd looked over at Danny and nodded. “Yeah. I’m gonna have to give a big ten-four on that.”
“You get to call it in.”
“Call what in?”
“The disappearance of Brian Freemont and the wrecking of the car.”
“This wasn’t a disappearance.”
“No?”
“Fuck no. This was kidnapping.”
“Were they wearing Halloween makeup?”
“I hope so. I really fucken hope so.”
Several people had come out of the diner and were looking at the remains of the car. Boyd shot one of them a murderous look when he started walking over to investigate. “Get the hell away from there!” The kid backed up fast, his eyes wide. “Do you really need the fucken yellow crime scene tape, bright boy? Go back inside and eat your food. All of you!” A few comments came from the crowd, but they listened.
Danny shook his head. “You gotta worry about some of these assholes.”
“I gotta worry about filling out the fucken reports. You worry about the assholes.” He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing. “I’m calling Whalen and Longwood. We can’t do a damned thing until we get gloves.”
“What do you think they’re gonna do to him?”
“Same thing we were hoping Lockley was gonna do.”
“That’s not gonna be pretty.”
“Neither was he.”
“Should I feel bad for him, Richie?”
Boyd shook his head and grinned as Whalen answered her phone. “Nancy? Hi, Boyd here. We got a situation you might want to know about.”
“Boyd? What are you doing calling my house at . . . twelve-fifteen at night?”
Somewhere in the background he heard the grumbling noises of Nancy’s husband. “I’m calling you to an investigation.”
“You know, you have crappy timing.”
“What? You were about to get lucky?”
“No, asshole, I was getting lucky.”
“Yeah? I’ll send your husband a dozen roses and an apology note.” He supposed it was wrong to be happy about interfering in their love lives, but he took his petty little victories where he could.
“Better get to the store, Boyd. He says he’s coming with me.”
He was glad she was only teasing. “Would he take donuts instead?”
“If it’s got a hole he can fuck, probably.”
Boyd laughed out loud until his face was red. When he was calmer and Nancy was done calling him names on the phone, he told her where they were and explained a little about the situation.
She told him she’d be there in twenty minutes.
“You live five minutes away.”
“Can’t leave the poor bastard suffering, Boyd.”
“I was gonna give him donuts . . .”
“There would be that waiting time. He isn’t really a patient soul.”
“Okay, I don’t need to think about what you’re doing to make him groan, so I’m getting off the phone, Whalen.” That was true. She frustrated him enough without extra help.
“You sure? I was gonna let you listen. It’s kind of kinky that way.”
He hung up the phone, not one hundred percent sure she was joking and very bothered by that notion.
Danny was looking at him and grinning like a chimpanzee again.
“Not a fucken word, Danny.”
“Who, me?” He managed the innocent look for all of two seconds before he cracked up.
Boyd shook his head and tried to get the idea of Nancy Whalen naked out of his skull. He threw the phone to Danny. “You call Longwood, dickhead.”
He was still trying to figure out how to explain the flying-away part of the kidnapping when the other detectives showed up. Nancy was wearing tight jeans. He hated her a little for that. The worst part was, she knew it and reveled in his discomfort.