Crimson Death (3 page)

He sat down in the chair in front of the computer so he could type faster, and within a few minutes I was up and running. He didn't even have to ask for my password or username anymore, because he'd helped me too many times and had finally memorized it all. That probably wouldn't please the other officers if they knew, since he was a civilian, but I wouldn't tell if he didn't.

I called Edward back. He answered on the first ring. “Anita, are you online?” His voice was less Ted and more Edward, so I thought to ask, “Can you talk freely yet?”

“No.” Edward's one-word answer rather than the longer way around the mountain that he sometimes took as Ted.

“While we wait for the email to come through, you said something about how if you had your way I'd be seeing more than pictures, or something.”

“They don't like the fact that you're a necromancer.” His voice held some of Ted's happy undertones, but there was also Edward's cold emptiness. He was not happy that they wouldn't let me come play.

I heard voices in the background. Edward said, “Sorry, Anita. I've just been corrected”—with more of Ted's accent this time—“because it would be against their own laws to deny someone entry to their country on the basis of the type of magic they could perform.”

“I think of it as a psychic gift more than something mystical,” I said.

“Their laws actually don't acknowledge a difference between psychic gifts and magic, only between magic and Church-sanctioned miracles.”

“If they actually mention miracles in their laws, then that's a first outside of Rome that I'm aware of.”

“Then be aware, Anita, because this is the second,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice, but it didn't match the words, as if he were having trouble staying Ted in front of the other cops. What
had they done, or what had happened, between one phone call and the next to make him struggle with it?

“Are you okay, Ted?”

“I'm just dandy.”

I let it go, because he either wouldn't talk about it or couldn't with all the other officers in the room. My email pinged. Micah helped me open the attachment on it, and we were suddenly looking at a throat with two delicate fang marks on it. It was a really small bite radius. It could be a child or a woman with a smaller-than-average mouth. The second neck wound had considerably bigger holes; no one was going to mistake them for hypodermic needle marks. These were definitely a different vampire.

“I'm going to put you on speakerphone, Anita. Tell us what you see.” He didn't mean
tell us
; he meant
tell them
. I was pretty sure this was some kind of test. If I dazzled them, would they let me come play with Edward in Ireland? Did I want to go play in Ireland? I didn't want to do an international flight with my phobia of flying—that was for sure—but . . . I didn't like that they were all prejudiced against a psychic gift that I couldn't do anything about. Also, I was a wee bit competitive.

“Well, from the first two bite images you've got at least two different vampires. The first could be a child, or a grown woman with a small mouth, or a crowded one.”

“This is Superintendent Pearson, Marshal Blake. What do you mean,
crowded
?” His voice sounded like I'd expected. Irish in that way that movies convince you must be real. It made me smile that he actually sounded like movie Irish; so many accents didn't match what you expected.

“Fang marks are just like human bite marks in one way, Superintendent Pearson. It's not always the size of the mouth that dictates how a bite mark looks; sometimes it's how the teeth are placed. Someone who has too many teeth for the size of their mouth can sometimes have teeth that are sort of crowded together, which will make the space between their canines much smaller than you'd expect for an adult.”

Another man's voice said, “We don't care about canine teeth. We care about the fangs.” His accent didn't match as well, as if he were
from a different part of Ireland. It was the same idea as a Southern accent here, as compared to Northern, or Midwestern, though television and the Internet were erasing regional accents in a lot of places.

“The canine teeth are what become fangs after the person changes into a vampire,” I said.

“That's Inspector Logan. Please ignore him, Marshal Blake.”

I heard Logan make an unhappy noise, but he didn't make a second remark. Pearson outranked him, or someone else in the room did and had taken Pearson's side.

Edward said, in a much more cheerful version of Ted's voice, “Go to the next picture, Anita.”

I did what he asked. The fang marks seemed bigger still, but the holes weren't as neat and tidy, so . . . “The marks look even bigger than the last set, but they're also less neat, as if the vampire used more force to bite down, or jerked out more when it stopped feeding, so it could be the same vamp as bite number two.”

Pearson asked, “Do you think we can assume that vampire number two is an adult male?”

“With the spacing between fangs you'd probably be safe assuming that, but I've known a few women with exceptionally wide teeth spacing, so it's not a guarantee. The necks all look like women; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Inspector Logan here . . .”

“Address her by her title,” another voice said, and I thought it was a woman.

“Fine, Marshal Blake, this is Inspector Logan. The pictures don't show the Adam's apple; how did you know they were women?”

“I've spent a lot of years looking at fang marks on skin, Inspector Logan. After a while, you just know what you're looking at.”

Edward said, “Is there anything else that makes you think male or female, Anita?”

“A lot of vamps prefer to take blood according to their sexual preferences, so most males prefer to feed on women, and a lot of females feed on men, but some new vamps take any victim that they can, just like any other young predator on a learning curve.”

“Detective Logan here, Marshal Blake.” And there was something in the way he said my title and name that let me know he wasn't happy about it. Or maybe I was being overly sensitive.

Micah looked at me, and the look was enough; he thought the same thing about Logan. Maybe I wasn't being overly sensitive.

“Yes, Detective Logan?”

“Are you saying that gay vampires would feed on same-sex victims?”

“Possibly, but if you've never had vampires in Ireland before, then these may all be very new. So again, they're probably going after whatever victim is easiest. Some women feel safer feeding on other women, even though as a vampire they could beat the shit out of most human men. They never quite get rid of the idea that men are stronger and more dangerous than they are, so they feed almost exclusively on other women regardless of their sexual preference.”

“So basically, you don't know anything about these vampires just from the pictures?” Logan said, and he made sure that I heard the disdain.

“I told you that Anita would be more useful in person, Logan,” Edward said, holding on to the cheerful Ted voice with effort. Logan had already been a pain in the ass for his voice to struggle like that.

“I don't think we need to fly your girlfriend in, Forrester.”

“Logan!” And now I was sure it was a woman.

“That's enough, Luke, and I mean it this time,” Pearson said.

“Everyone knows . . .”

“No,” Pearson said, and the Irish accent held anger just fine, “everyone does not know, and before you start spreading rumors about a fellow officer, you might want to make certain you know what you're talking about.”

“That's how a lot of the rumors get started,” I said.

“What, Marshal Blake?”

“One person says something that isn't true, but it's too scandalous not to repeat, and then the rumors feed on each other, and before you know it, everyone knows the truth, even when it's a lie.”

“Well said. I'm Inspector Sheridan, Rachel Sheridan.” The woman's voice again.

“Glad to almost meet you, Inspector Sheridan,” I said.

“You would take her side,” Logan said in his sour voice.

“Who got your panties in a twist about me? We've never even met,” I said.

“It's me he's mad at,” Edward said in a voice that was far more cheerful than the words warranted.

“Why in blazes would I be mad at you?” Logan asked.

“Because you're jealous,” Edward said.

“Why would I be jealous of you, Forrester?”

“For the same reason you're going to be jealous of Marshal Anita Blake.”

“And why is that?”

“Anita, look at the next picture.”

I hesitated for a second, then thought,
Why the hell do I care if some cop in Ireland doesn't like me?
I moved to the next image and it was another set of fang marks like the last ones, bigger fangs, and this time rough enough that the wounds were jagged around the edges. It made me have to swallow hard and fight off an urge to rub at the scars over my collarbone at the bend of my left arm where the same vampire had worried at me like a dog with a bone. It had almost cost me the use of my arm, but serious physical therapy and devotion to the weight room in the gym had left me better than I had been even before the injury.

“A vampire tried to rip a little and wiggled its fangs in the flesh, deciding if it was going to try to take a bigger bite out of the neck. It looks like a man's neck this time, or a larger woman's.”

“It's a different vampire,” Logan said, his voice demanding that I believe him.

“Maybe, but I doubt it.”

“It's a different style of attack,” he said.

“A different style of biting doesn't mean a different vamp, Inspector. The vampire is experimenting, deciding what he prefers. This one was either hungrier with this kill, or he's beginning to like the potential violence of it.”

“Potential violence, my arse. He's sinking teeth into their necks. How much more violent can it get?”

“A lot more,” I said.

“Go to the next picture,” Edward said. His voice was very still with that edge of coldness that was usually close to the surface for him.

I did what he asked, and this time the holes in the side of the neck were huge. I didn't even think fang marks, just holes, as if someone had taken an ice pick, or something like it, and just driven it into the neck as far as it would go.

Micah made a small exhale of breath and reached for my arm. I realized that he might never have seen a vampire attack this violent. He was always so strong, so certain, and dealt with the violence in his life and mine so calmly that sometimes I forgot he hadn't seen everything I had, or vice versa. I was pretty sure there were things happening on his out-of-town trips for the Coalition that would have scared the shit out of me, even if it was just me being scared because of the danger to him and other people I cared about.

I took Micah's hand in mine while I asked the next question. “Who figured out this was a vampire attack and not just a murder with something sharp and pointy?”

“We didn't think vampire, because Ireland doesn't have them,” Pearson said.

“Exactly, but someone figured it out.”

Edward said, “I did.”

“This kind of damage isn't typical for vampires. A lot of police—even here where we know it's a possibility—might have missed this,” I said.

“You don't have to be nice to us, Blake.”

“I'm being nice to everyone else, Logan. You're just collateral kindness.”

“What?”

“Let me just apologize for Logan for the rest of the conversation. It will save time,” Sheridan said.

“I don't need you to apologize for me, Rachel.”

“Oh, you're going to apologize for yourself. Good man, go ahead,” she said, and I could hear the almost-laughter in her voice. Some people rubbed everyone the wrong way, and apparently Logan was one of
those, because no one in the room seemed to like him. It made me feel better that he wasn't picking on Edward and me special; he just picked at everybody.

“Keep going through the pictures,” Edward said, as if the others weren't really there. Ted played well with others; Edward didn't.

The next picture was worse, as if someone had torn the throat out but didn't quite know what they were doing, so there was a fang mark left to one side of the meat that had been someone's throat.

“The vamp is figuring out how strong they are, and what that strength can do to a human body,” I said.

“He's getting a taste for it,” Edward said.

“Was that supposed to be a pun?” Logan asked, his voice accusatory.

“No,” Edward said, “just accurate. You should try it sometime.”

“Try what?”

“Accuracy.” That one word was low and cold with anger. What the hell had Logan done to earn that level of anger from Edward?

“Who the hell are you to come into our city and tell us that we aren't accurate enough for you?”

“I didn't say that everyone was inaccurate, Logan, just you.”

“You bastard!”

“Please, pretty please,” Edward said in a serious voice. He wanted Logan to take a swing at him. What the hell had happened in Ireland to make Edward as Ted fish that hard for a fight? It wasn't like him to mess around on the job like that. I was the one who usually mouthed off.

I did the only thing I could think of to help; I swiped to the next picture he'd sent me. There was another dainty bite on a neck, but on the opposite side of the same neck was the bigger set of bite marks, not the one that was messy, but the first one that I'd thought had degraded in the tearing-out of throats.

“Does this next victim have two bite marks on it from both of our first vampires?” I asked. No one answered me, so I raised my voice. “Ted, talk to me!”