The Heist (28 page)

Taking out a melon baller
she had found in the kitchen, Alicia went over to the still
spasming corpse, and scooped out both of his eyeballs, dropping
them into a baggie and putting them in her back pocket.

After composing herself
quickly she spun around on her boots mumbling she was going to get
towels and that Xavier could help himself to a shower as she headed
up the stairs the led from the basement to the kitchen.

Hearing
Xavier switching the shower on, Alicia flashed away to the local
shopping mall. He needed fresh clothes and there was no way in hell
she was allowing him to sit in just a towel until she took them
back to the compound in France. Grabbing various extra-large
sized hoodies, sweat pants and boxer briefs before stealing some
already packed groceries from a mortal outside the mall, her
shopping spree was done, which he should be grateful for! Shopping
was right up there with lying as one of the things Alicia detested
most.

Xavier was
still in the shower when Alicia returned, so she dumped the bags
outside the shower room door and headed to the kitchen to make
herself a cup of tea. She was famished for blood since Commander
Prick placed her on a blood drinking ban down in the basement, but
she would have to feed again soon…
maybe he
does want to be my donor
?

Alicia was
roused from her musing by the
glorious
smell of soap, freshness
and all
man
. He
was standing in front of her and her eyes about done the loop de
loop. Xavier Raige looked more relaxed than she had ever seen him
in all the time they had spent together, which was a lot! The
stolen items of clothing were a perfect fit on him, the hoodie
would drown her and them some but she made a mental note to steal
it when he was sleeping.

What the fuck
Ali?

“
Let me get
you a coffee, take a seat.”

Alicia almost
flew off the seat as if it was on fire beneath her ass. Taking a
brand new mug from the cupboard and the unopened coffee jar, she
pierced the foil with her fang and with a teaspoon levelled four
heaps of coffee along with four sugars. She had noticed that
Commander Prick liked his coffee strong, sweet and black.
Placing the steaming mug down on the table for
him, she had to take a few deep breaths.

With an
arched brow, Xavier enquired, “You alright there
Sweetcheeks?”

Nodding her
head slightly, the feeling of nausea having passed. “My Madre’s
cutlery is that damn old it makes me feel like I’m going to hurl
every time I use it. I tend to use plastic spoons, but since I have
a guest….”

Alicia winked playfully
at Xavier as she grabbed her own cup of tea and sat in the chair
opposite him, sitting on her left leg as the right one swung slowly
she took a sip of her tea.  Things had changed between them in
the last hours, she was finally respecting Commander Raige and for
some absurd reason she knew this male would do anything to protect
her.

Xavier’s
stomach rumbled loudly, and as he grinned over to Alicia he
shrugged.

“
What can I
say — a male has needs, yeah? I’ve built up quite an appetite,
Sweetcheeks.  Why don’t you show off your culinary skills for
me? It’s some fucking kitchen you’ve got here.”

Alicia’s third sip of
earl grey then landed all over Xavier’s face in a spray.

“
Cook? Oh my
fucking gods Xav you are hilarious! I can’t cook!”

Shuggie woke
from his death sleep just as the sun was setting outside. Grabbing
a bag of blood on his way to the comms room, he realised that he
was alone in the abandoned hotel. Xavier must have taken the
youngling out for some fresh air, which meant he had some peace and
quiet for a change.

Planting his ass on the
chair, he started to play catch up on the surveillance cameras and
emails from his foot soldiers during the day. Scrunching up
the now empty blood bag and tossing it in the waste bin, Shuggie
leaned forward staring at the monitors.

“
Fuck.”

As his
fingers deftly worked the zoom function of the cameras he replayed
the images repeatedly.

“
Fuck!”

Slamming his
fist on the desk making everything jump.  He stood up, kicking
the chair behind him. Before he could think things through he had
flashed out of the base, heading towards the Police headquarters in
town.  He had to get to the morgue. He had to see for
himself, with his own eyes.

Shuggie
masked himself from the view of the humans as they went about their
business. It was a handy skill he had mastered down the Centuries,
and enabled him to be undetected by mortal eyesight. Also, with him
being vampire, he couldn’t be picked up on their electronic
monitoring equipment either so it gave him the freedom to move
around without being stopped or questioned. A skill that was
particularly useful considering the line of work he was
in.

The door to
the morgue was already open, and he stood watching as the autopsy
of the latest cadaver was starting. The Medical Examiner was
talking to the detective as the technicians prepared the room and
equipment. The body was covered by a white sheet, and the sterile
environment of the autopsy room was harsh and unforgiving. There
were no flowers, no messages of love or heartache here. Nothing to
indicate that a human being lay under the sheet. Just a piece of
meat on a butcher's slab, ready for dissection. He turned his
attention to the conversation between the detective, who was called
Jose, and the M.E. They were looking at a file filled with reports
and photographs from the crime scene.

Before
Shuggie had chance to move closer to get a better look, they both
walked past him and towards the body. The technician pulled back
the sheet, and Shuggie almost slumped against the wall behind him.
He recognised her, even through the mangled mess of her face. He
knew her from the lap dancing club owned by Belcastro. He had
witnessed the terror of her as she danced for Belcastro and his
gimps, but instead of helping her, he chose to keep to his
mission.

He had made a
mistake.

Looking at
what had been done to her, she had paid dearly for his error. He
had a chance to save her and he didn’t. What kind of monster did
that make him? Was he starting to lose his moral and ethical
compass now after all this time? He had heard that it was
inevitable in vampires once they reached a certain point in their
immortality, but he really thought it would never happen to
him.

Detective
Jose was in charge of investigating this and the murders of the
other woman who had been found at the dockside. He was asking the
M.E. if she thought this body could be part of that group too, as
there was nothing to identify her, and she looked Eastern European.
The M.E. nodded as she put the shield down over her face and spoke
into the recording machine

“
Female, white, approximately eighteen to twenty years of age,
sixty kilos, and blonde hair. Eastern European features, blue eyes,
manicured nails...”
As the M.E.
continued treading through the debris of this girl’s life, Shuggie
was watching the detective.  He looked to be in his late
forties, heavy built but probably from years of playing amateur
sports as opposed to years of doughnuts to thank for his size. He
didn’t seem to be much of a talker. Rather, he looked like he had
been worn down by life and circumstance, but Shuggie thought all in
all he was one of the good guys, based on the way he was studying
the file on the Jane Doe, a haunted, sorrowful look in his
eyes.

When Jose put
the file down to return to the autopsy table, Shuggie took his
chance to look at it. The photographs of the crime scene would have
made even the most hardened motherfucker sick to their stomach, and
Shuggie wasn’t immune.  The body had been found in a rundown
apartment not far from the club. Neighbours had told the police
they thought it had been used as a brothel, but weren’t stupid
enough to give the Belcastro’s name in connection to it. That would
be signing their own death warrant, and he couldn’t blame them for
safeguarding their own families.

As Shuggie
looked through the photographs, he seen the blood and entrails
evident on the floor, walls, mirrors and the ceiling. The
accompanying police report detailed how a neighbour had heard
screaming, just prior to the lights in the whole building complex
shorting out everything suddenly going eerily quiet.

It was the elderly
neighbour that had found the body an hour later.

Shuggie
looked up when he heard the list of injuries exacted onto the girl
prior to death. The M.E. was speaking as though she were dictating
the contents of her shopping list, but then again, she did this
every day. It was just another murder to her, after all.

The victim
had been mutilated — sliced tendons, in the ankles and wrists, left
to bleed out.  She suspected that she had been raped by
multiple perpetrators, but her genitals had acid poured on them, so
it wasn’t possible to get any DNA evidence. All major bones
had been broken, including her neck and that along with the severe
blood loss was the most likely cause of death.

‘
Petra
’,
the name suddenly appearing in Shuggie’s mind - her name was Petra.
 He had heard one of the other girls call her that as she left
the stage that night.  She wasn’t a body. She had once been a
vibrant, alive, beautiful human who had ended up in the hands of
that sick bastard Belcastro.  And all that was left of her was
her ruined body, and the sickly sweet stench of death.

Shuggie
flashed back to their base to wait for the Commander to return with
the youngling, so that he could bring them up to speed with
everything that had been happening. And for the first time in
recent memory, he didn’t want to make a phone call to the Doc. He
couldn’t bring himself to admit to her that he failed Petra that he
could have saved her and had chosen not to.

It was a burden he would
carry alone from now until eternity.

Wiping the
spit off his face, Xavier arched a brow and leaned closer to
Alicia.

“
If you wanted
to swap saliva, there are better ways of going about it
Sweetcheeks, yeah?”

Giving her a
salacious grin before standing up and dragging her by the elbow
towards the cooker. “And what the fuck do you mean you can’t cook?
You have a first class kitchen that any Michelin Chef would give
his right arm for. Are you trying to hustle me?” Trapping her small
frame between himself and the cooker, Xavier leaned over and took a
frying pan down from the butcher hooks that were installed above
the units. “I want bacon, and eggs over…” whispering into her ear,
“...easy,” as he stepped back to give her room to
manoeuvre.

Alicia took the frying
pan from Xavier’s hold and with a serious look on her face just
stood and stared at the foreign object then proceeded to swing it
like a tennis racket.

“
Now is not
the time for games Xav! I honestly can’t cook! I have a nice
kitchen because that’s what the book on modern living showed.”
Alicia started to twirl around as she threw the pan like she was
about to serve at Wimbledon.

Unblinking, Xavier
watched in astonishment as Alicia handled the frying pan as though
it was an alien item.

He was no
chauvinist, but damn, she really didn’t have the first clue about
cooking at all!

“
When you were
human, did you never learn how to cook and feed
yourself?”

Without
giving her time to answer he grabbed the pan from her
hold.

“
Tell me you bought bacon and eggs when you went out for my
clothes, Sweetcheeks?” Alicia bit her lip and nodded, before going
to the fridge and coming back with the food. “At least you know
what a fucking fridge is, yeah?” As she was about to return to the
seats, he then gave her a surprised look. “You’re not going
anywhere Sweetcheeks. You
will
be making my bacon and eggs.
 I’ll show you how.”

Putting the
pan on the hob, and turning up the heat, Xavier spun Alicia around
until she was back between him and the cooker. This time, he wasn’t
giving her any wriggle room, he quite liked towering over her,
especially when he was in control — which wasn’t very often with
this female.

“
You want the
heat to rise, Sweetcheeks, then put the bacon onto the pan and
listen for the sizzle.” Xavier hadn’t really considered the art of
‘food porn’ up until now, but it seemed that whenever he was in
close proximity to Alicia, his mind hooked up with his cock and it
brought out the sex-crazed beast in him.  Alicia focused on
the pan in front of her, she could feel Xavier’s breath tickling
her neck as he gave her a cooking lesson but it was sending shivers
down her spine and she was thankful at this time he was mortal…so
that he couldn’t read her mind, and see just how much he was
affecting her.

“
You do know I was raised in the 1800s, soldier boy? We had a
cook that prepared our meals, and if Alessandro and I were out I
stole our dinner.” Alicia suddenly gave out a scream as the fat in
the pan sparked and sizzled.
“What
the fuck is it doing?”