Blood Work (7 page)

Behold the
hungry vampire. A tiger caged and repressed. My nasty kitten.

It was after
dawn and she was awake and very alert. Not a good sign. She should
have been flaked out, unable to be roused with anything smaller
than an A-bomb. But she was awake and prowling. My guts clenched
and I felt like puking.

She spun
toward me, hurling herself at the bars between us. Practice kept me
from flinching. I just waited out her attack, hating the way she
snarled at me, the way she thrust her arms through the bars,
fingers curled into claws driving for my throat. Her psychic power
hit me full on. Unlike last night, I didn’t have an open connection
to her to force it back on herself. But while I felt it, and winced
as it battered at my already sore head, it didn’t do much more than
make my ears ring.

The attack was
a long one, and I suffered through watching every moment of it. She
threw herself at the bars, tore at them till her hands bled, till
she ripped nails right out of her fingers. Bones broke on the
unyielding barrier, her throat tore to ribbons with her vicious
growls and snarls. She pulled hunks of hair from her head, knocked
over the bookcase and tossed the bed against the wall. And I just
sank down the wall to the floor, watching it all, hating myself and
wondering for the millionth time if I should just put her down.

It was worse
than watching her fight. Fighting was what she was built for. It
was the point of the altering mechanism that made one a vampire. A
weak human rebuilt into this—a manic monster consumed by its
hunger, insane with the need to destroy. They were a very real
threat to the stability of the world. A creature no one believed
in, that preyed solely on humans, that had the evolutionary
benefits equivalent to that of a great white shark, damn near
perfect and completely alien in terms of wants and needs.

Vampires were
animals. Worse than that. They were the unquantified mystery
science knew nothing about. The silent, unseen predator lurking in
the shadows. There were no institutions begging for funding so they
could find a cure for vampirism. There were no vaccination
programs. There were no anti-vampire forces ready to go into the
night to do battle. No one knew about them, no one understood them.
No one could defeat them.

I did my
darnedest, with Mercy and Roberts, but it wasn’t enough. Because
I’m such a believer in statistics, I did think there were others
out there fighting as well, but I hadn’t seen or met any of them.
And I doubted any of those hypothetical folk did it with something
like Mercy at their side.

She rammed the
bars one last time and crumpled to the floor, seemingly beaten,
exhausted. Little mewling noises came from her, between pants for
air. She was faking. Even broken bones wouldn’t stop her from
fighting when she got this hungry.

I grabbed the
broom handle I kept for just these times and used it to push the
bag of A positive blood into the cage beside her, nudged her hand
with it. She moved lightning fast, snatched up the bag and,
recognising it for what it was, shoved it to her mouth. Her
razor-sharp fangs punctured the plastic and she fed. Her natural
blood group was O pos. The A group would react adversely with her
natural blood type, they would tear each other apart and she would
weaken. It was sort of an induced coma. She’d survive the reaction,
and would heal, eventually, but she’d sleep through it.

I took the
other bag—the one that would have restored her to full strength—and
left.

Erin stopped outside Kirby’s. From
her research, Kirby’s had started life as a pub and graduated to
nightclub status when the owner installed a high tech music system
and began hiring halfway decent DJs. And now it was a boarded-up
store front with Lord knew how many years worth of grime coating
the windows. She leaned against the old glass-fronted sign
advertising some band with four girls in outfits approximating
private school uniforms.

If it hadn’t
been for Ivan’s over-socialised life, she would never have learned
the club from the video footage was Kirby’s. It was still listed in
the phone book so she’d tried calling, with no answer. And here she
was. Her first lead and a dead end. Not a particularly startling
occurrence, but it hit her hard.

She and Ivan
had stayed back late at the office the night before, nutting out a
plan of attack on this case. It had netted them the identification
of Kirby’s, a message left with one of Erin’s contacts in the local
police and no hits on Google. The incident in the club hadn’t
warranted news coverage, apparently. Finally getting home hadn’t
been a blessing. William was having a bad night and the neighbours
were having a loud party. Between nursing William through the pain
and trying to call the neighbours to ask them politely to turn the
music down, she hadn’t slept much.

And now here
she was, stalled before she’d even started.

Maybe Ivan had
discovered the owner by now. She was about to call him when the
phone rang.

“Sol
Investigations, Erin McRea speaking.”

“Hey,
Sergeant, long time no talk. How’s tricks?”

“Gavin, it’s
been a while hasn’t it.” She couldn’t stop the happy smile his
voice induced. “Did you pass your sergeant’s exam yet?”

Gavin laughed.
“Still trying. Don’t have wonder woman around to coach me anymore.
How’s the private dick stuff going anyway?”

“Some days I
wonder what my reason was for taking this job. Most days, I just
look at the pay cheque and I’m happy.”

“Really? It’s
that good? Need an assistant?”

“Sorry, got
one. If he leaves to pursue his acting career I’ll give you a
call.”

“You better. I
got your message. You need something?”

Erin walked
back to her car. It was only ten o’clock and there were very few
people on the streets. In a couple of hours, the footpaths would be
packed with people going on lunch. “I’m working a missing persons
case. All I’ve got is some footage from a security tape from a club
called Kirby’s.”

“That place
shut years ago.”

“So I’ve
discovered. Listen, the footage is from about six years ago, and
shows an incident between a man and a young woman. He’s got a
pretty bad limp, walks with a cane, but it didn’t stop him from
laying into this girl with extreme prejudice. Know anything about
it?”

There was a
rustle as Gavin moved around. “Not off the top of my head. Let me
do a search and get back to you. This number good?”

“Yeah, this
number’s great. Let me give you my fax as well.” She rattled off
the number. “Thanks, Gav. You’re really saving me a lot of
frustration with this.”

“If I find
anything, sure. So, Kate’s been at me to call you. How’s Bill
doing?”

Taking a
couple of deep breaths to steel her resolve, Erin said, “He’s doing
really well. I’ll tell him you and Kate asked after him.”

“Hey, you guys
should come over for dinner one night. Kate’s been practicing this
Vietnamese cooking and I don’t think I should be the only person to
suffer.”

Reaching her
car, Erin leaned against it. “Ah, I don’t think that would be a
good idea. William’s still a bit touchy with what he eats. Chemo
and all.”

“No problem.
We don’t have to do the Asian. I do a mean charcoal grill. Nothing
blander than my cooking.”

She began to
make negative noises again.

“Come on,
Erin. It’s been so long since Kate’s seen you. Since we’ve had a
real chance to talk. You can’t tell me you’re getting out much,
what with this job and Bill being the way he is.”

“No, Gavin.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone so hard the case creaked.
“It’s not a good time, okay. William’s fine, I’m fine, just leave
it at that.”

There was a
pause long enough that Erin considered hanging up, but eventually
she heard Gavin sigh.

“Hey, I’m
sorry. Didn’t mean to push. We’re just worried about you, that’s
all.”

Some of the
tension left Erin’s shoulders. “I’m sorry too. Truthfully, William
had bad night and I didn’t get much sleep.”

“I understand.
Is there anything me or Kate can do?”

“No. Not
really. Thanks for the offer, though. If I need anything in future,
I’ll ask. So, you’ll see what you can find about that night at
Kirby’s?”

“Of course.
I’ll try to get back to you this arvie, okay?”

“That’s great.
Thank you.”

They exchanged
slightly awkward goodbyes and hung up. Erin got into her car and
was about pull out when she got a text message. It was from Ivan,
giving her the address of the owner of Kirby’s. It was in New Farm,
not far from Fortitude Valley, were she currently was. Erin plugged
the address into her nav system and set out.

Not long
later, Erin pulled up outside an old Queenslander behind a tall,
wooden fence. She got out, straightened her skirt and went to the
gate. Loud barking greeted her, soon followed by an even louder,
“Shut the hell up, Godzilla.”

A screen door
banged and the dog growled some more.

“If you’re
selling something, go away. If you’re pushing God, piss off!”

Erin cocked an
eyebrow. “Um, I’m not selling or pushing anything. I’m looking for
Carl Leuwenoski.”

“What
for?”

Peering
through the slats of the fence revealed an untamed garden, a pair
of hairy legs halfway down a set of stairs and a slobbering German
Shepherd poised just opposite her. The dog’s lips peeled back from
yellow teeth and it rumbled threateningly.

“I’m with a
private investigation company. I need to talk to you about an
incident in your club. Can we talk?”

Grumbling all
the way, Carl trundled down the stairs. “Back off, ya mongrel.” He
opened the gate enough to put his gut through and glare at her.
“What incident?”

“It was about
six years ago. A man, with a limp and cane, attacked a young woman,
seemingly without provocation. Do you remember it?”

Carl scratched
his three day growth and frowned in thought. He was somewhere
between fifty and eighty, with a face red from a lack of
blood-pressure medication. Steel-wool hair covered his head and
sprouted from his nose and ears. There was a faint scent of wood
smoke about him. By his knee, Godzilla stuck his nose out of the
gate and sniffed in Erin’s direction. After a moment, the dog’s
mouth opened and his tongue lolled out in a happy grin.

“Yeah, I
remember. Not an easy thing to forget.”

“Can you
describe what happened?”

“Not much more
to it than what you said. Fella gets up and starts pummelling the
girl. Really messed her up before the bouncers stopped him. I hear
the girl pressed charges and he was put away for a while. Not long
though. There were circumstances, ’parently.”

“Circumstances? What could warrant that sort of assault?”

Massive
shoulders rolling in a shrug, Carl nudged Godzilla back behind the
fence. “Dunno. I didn’t really follow it. The incident didn’t do
much good for the popularity of the pub. Business went real bad and
I had to do some fix up work pretty fast.” He scratched his gut.
“Didn’t work. Went under about eighteen months later. Had to shut
up shop. Can’t even get anyone to buy the place off me.” Eyeing her
up and down, he asked, “Wanna buy a pub?”

“Thank you,
but no. You don’t remember the man’s name? Or the girl’s?”

“Nah. The
fella was a regular for a bit before though. Had issues, I guess.
Used to come in every afternoon round five and stayed until it got
too crowded.”

Erin frowned.
“He was a regular and you didn’t know his name?”

“Paid in cash,
kept to himself. Drank scotch straight up, didn’t chat.”

“I thought
bartenders were the poor man’s therapists. If he had issues,
wouldn’t he have talked about them?”

“I didn’t run
Cheers, darl. If someone wanted to talk, fine. If they didn’t, even
better. I only say he had issues cause few people could do that
sort of drinking day after day if they weren’t trying to fill some
sort of hole.”

He made sense.
“Remember anything that might help me ID him?”

“Not really.
Good lookin’ fella, I suppose. Nothing special about him, ’cept
that limp. And his temper.”

Erin thanked
him and said goodbye to Carl and Godzilla, who insisted on shoving
his nose in her skirt before she got out of range.

Ivan was on
the phone when she walked into the office and he waved her toward
the fax. There were several pages on the machine which she snatched
up and took into her office, leaving the door open so Ivan knew to
come in when he was done with the call.

The top page
was a hand-written note from Gavin. He apologised again for
upsetting her, apologised for the lack of information he’d found
and asked her and William around for dinner again. She set it aside
and settled down to read.

Gavin had
found the arresting officer’s report. It listed the loner as
Matthew Hawkins, aged twenty-six at the time of the incident. He
was arrested for assault and the victim, Jessica Harrington,
indicated she would press charges. The next page was a court
summary. Hawkins was found guilty of provoked assault and sentenced
to a stint in a low security facility for two years with parole in
ten months. The final page was a medical report on the injures
Harrington had suffered.

Hawkins had
broken her nose, fractured her right cheek, dislocated her jaw and
cracked three teeth.

“Dear
God.”

“Bad news?”
Ivan asked, coming in. He sat opposite her. Today his dark hair was
gelled up into frost-tipped spikes, his jeans were respectable and
his T-shirt showed a piñata and the slogan ‘I’d hit that’. Pretty
tame by his usual standards.

She handed him
the medical report. He paled as he read it.