Fright Night: Hellbound, page 24
She stopped short when she passed Eric’s Electrics, a squat technology store on the corner of Eighth and Madison. In the wide display window, a row of wood-paneled television sets glowed with the same grainy Channel 5 broadcast. Antennas jutted upward like insect feelers.
Inside the screen, a young anchorwoman with a bouffant and a shoulder-padded suit stared into the camera, her expression grave. In the upper left corner, a photo filled a box, yellow police tape and a smear of blood across the grimy tile of Chambers Street Station.
The headline beneath made Lilly’s stomach clench.
VAMPIRE KILLER?
She pressed her palms to the glass. Her eyes tracked each line of text as it scrolled across the bottom of the screens.
“…Police are still investigating the murder of a man found late Friday evening in Chambers Street Station. Witnesses say the victim’s throat had been, quote, ‘torn open,’ though no weapon has been recovered. Investigators believe the killing may be connected to an earlier attack in the Financial District, where two young men were found in an alleyway bearing similar puncture wounds. Both men were pronounced dead at the scene, their bodies completely drained of blood.
“Authorities are also looking into a string of other homicides across the city in the past month. In those cases, the victims were also drained of blood, though no puncture marks were found. Detectives say there is, at present, no evidence linking these murders to the so-called ‘torso killings,’ a series of dismemberment cases currently under separate investigation, but they are not ruling out the possibility of a wider pattern.”
The camera cut to a wide shot of the station entrance with uniformed officers standing stiff behind yellow tape. Then the screen split: on the right, the grainy still of a subway platform, two men walking toward the exit. One taller, broad-shouldered. The other leaner, his head turned as if speaking. Both dressed in dark clothing, their backs to the camera. The caption read: Persons of interest in Chambers Station homicide.
In the corner of the frame, barely noticeable, was a smear of red on the taller man’s sleeve. The image had been captured by a woman who had just bought a new camera, coincidentally taking pictures of the station, when she noticed two men arm in arm hobbling out of the train cart, one of them seeming to be injured.
The anchor’s lips kept moving as the subtitles chased her voice.
“The torso case, dating back to 1967, involves dismembered remains found along the Hudson and East Rivers. While the city has suffered an average of six homicides per day in recent years, authorities say the Torso Murders and the Vampire Killer each present their own distinct, serial patterns. The most recent torso discovery was made just last week, when a fisherman found a pair of severed legs wrapped in burlap.
“Police stress there is no evidence linking the two series, but investigators admit both have stirred public fear. Forensic experts say the lack of weapon marks, combined with the precision of the exsanguination in the so-called Vampire Killer case, is highly unusual. Tonight, the NYPD is seeking two men described as tall, well-built, and last seen exiting a southbound train at Chambers Street shortly before the latest killing…”
B-roll flickered on the screen and showed police hauling a black body bag from the water.
The screen then cut back to the anchor.
“Investigators urge anyone with information on either case to contact the NYPD. They remind the public not to approach the individuals in the photograph, as they may be armed and extremely dangerous.”
The news had spread through the city like wildfire, stoking a paranoia that even the most hardened criminals couldn’t shake. Whispers of two homicidal maniacs, dubbed the Vampire Killer and the Torso Killer, rippled through subway cars, pool halls, and late-night diners. It was said they were painting the town red in the most literal sense.
Muggers who once prowled the parks after dark now stuck to daylight hours. Dealers in Washington Square cut their business short at sundown. Even the pimps along Times Square walked their girls home early, their usual swagger replaced with watchful glances at the shadows.
Daylight robberies still plagued the streets, but once night fell, the city’s underbelly stayed indoors. Too many friends, too many co-criminals, had been found in dumpsters, headless, or pale as marble with every drop of blood gone. It was as if Jerry and Billy had solved Manhattan’s crime problem.
The air inside the precinct was a soup of cigarette smoke, stale coffee, and the faint tang of wet wool from a dozen coats drying on hooks by the door. Typewriters clacked, interrupted by the squawk of police radios and the occasional bark of a sergeant dressing down a patrolman.
Outside, Jacob Stein hesitated to walk in, clutching a shopping bag from his store like a lifeline. He hadn’t planned to come here. He’d walked past the precinct twice already that morning, the Vampire Killer headline still rattling around in his skull like a loose screw.
The closer he’d come to the building, the heavier his legs had felt. His brain kept saying you’re wasting your time, they’ll laugh you out of here. But every time he tried to go home, the image of those two men in his store, the taller one’s ice-water eyes, the shorter one’s shirtless torso and insistence on wearing that I New York tee, immediately yanked him back toward the station.
He told himself it was civic duty, but the truth was darker. Jacob was afraid. Afraid because the news anchor’s grainy crime scene photo had stirred up something he’d been trying to bury since that night. That strange hum in the air when they left the store. The way the taller one had smiled, like he knew something Jacob didn’t, and wouldn’t like once he found out. But more importantly, the way the smaller one didn’t cast a reflection in any of the store's mirrors.
Jacob’s bag had the I New York logo printed across it, looking suddenly absurd in a place like this. It was cheerful, cringy, and prompted a few laughs from the officers behind the desk.
A drunk slouched on the bench to his left, mumbling about his goddamn constitutional rights, while two uniforms hauled a cuffed man toward the holding cells in back.
The desk officer glanced up, his expression somewhere between curiosity and irritation.
“Help you with something, fella?”
Jacob stepped forward, his voice low. “I think I saw those guys. From the news. The Vampire Killer thing.”
That was enough to make heads turn. The officer up front told him to wait for a second as he picked up his phone and dialed the detective who sat in a room to the left of the waiting area.
Jacob peered through the square window in the door. The detective lifted his head, spotted him, then turned toward the officer who had made the call.
Detective Leonard Calloway had seen whack jobs wander into the precinct before, many with tall tales, some even confessing to murders they didn’t commit just to feel important for a day.
Twenty years on the force meant there was very little left in the human condition that could surprise him, and the last decade in Manhattan alone had been enough to season him with a cynicism that stuck to his bones. Bank robberies gone wrong, mob hits disguised as accidents, the occasional domestic turned slaughterhouse. If it bled, Leonard had stepped in it.
He’d started as a beat cop in the Bronx in the late 50s and learned fast that the badge didn’t make you invincible, it just made you a more visible target. But Leonard wasn’t built like the others. He earned his stripes by walking into the kinds of crime scenes that made rookies puke and quit.
He could smell the body of a deceased without needing any nose balm to hide the smell. He could stare at a throat that had been ripped from its neck without flinching.
And while he didn’t believe in ghosts, or anything that couldn’t be explained by a switchblade or a bad decision, Leonard had been around long enough to know there were gaps. Gaps in cases, in human behavior, in the moments between one heartbeat and the next, where something happened that you couldn’t put on paper.
It was those gaps that kept him awake.
Yet, at the end of the day, he would go home, kiss his daughters on the forehead, and make love to his wife with ease. And while the images stuck, he remained true to form. He had zero emotional sentiment about it; he knew this job wasn’t about saving the world, it was about keeping the wolves from devouring the whole damn flock in one night. And if he had a knack for anything, it was smelling when trouble was more than it seemed.
Stein sat in one of the molded blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor, facing the front desk like a student waiting outside the principal’s office. He looked like he’d been lifted straight out of a high school yearbook, the kind of math club kid who spent lunch in the library.
His beige polyester pants were ironed into submission, the center seam sharp enough to cut paper. The cuffs were neatly turned up, revealing stark white socks above scuffed brown loafers, and between his knees, held tight as if it were a life preserver, sat the I NY bag—the cheap kind with stiff handles and glossy plastic that crackled when it moved.
He kept one hand clamped over the top, not because anything valuable was inside, but because the act of holding it grounded him.
Every so often, his eyes flicked toward the heavy glass entrance to the precinct, half-expecting, half-dreading that one of them might walk through. He told himself over and over that coming here had been the right decision. That the unease in his stomach was just nerves, not a warning. But the truth was, a sliver of him wished he’d kept his mouth shut and stayed behind his counter, selling souvenirs to tourists who’d never hurt him.
The detective in a wrinkled gray suit pushed back from his desk, stood upright, and pulled up his baggy pants by the brown leather belt around his waist. His tie was loose, and his shirt was yellowed at the collar from too many days on the job, but his eyes were sharp. He didn’t say a word, other than motioning Jacob through the window and over to him.
The officer at the front desk walked around slowly toward the double doors, beckoning Stein over as he unlocked the door.
“Okay, you’re up. Head down to that desk there,” he grunted, cocking a thumb, letting Jacob wander through.
He walked slowly as he glanced around the room. The chaos of other officers, smoking and talking loudly. Some grouped together at one desk shooting the shit about the night before or some “broad” that happened to come across one of their paths.
They looked at Jacob as if he was a serial killer, his demeanor giving off a similar type of energy. It was this energy that Leonard knew to look for; it was the energy that separated a whack job from the saner of citizens, an energy that said, I don’t want to be here, but I am choosing to be.
“Take a seat, Mister…?”
“Stein… Stein, Jacob Stein.”
“Very good, Mr. Stein. Whaddaya know about the murders?”
Jacob told him about the two men who’d come into his store. “Mustache, the taller one had a mustache… I never trust men with mustaches, screams crazy to me,” he said as he bent forward toward the desk, his bag still at his chest.
“They were after a shirt, something touristy. Ended up with the I NY tee, same as on my bag here, see? Normally…” he stumbled, “normally people haggle with me. Everyone does. But not those two. They paid without a word and started talking about hitting a club uptown, like nothing in the world could touch them.”
The detective cut in. “So two guys buy a t-shirt in your shop? Fascinating.” Leonard’s tone was dry enough to crack. “They give names? Say anything useful about that night?”
Jacob shook his head, then leaned forward. “They said they’d just moved to town. Something about a penthouse downtown. Had accents, but you could tell they were forcing the American sound.” He hesitated. “And one of ’em didn’t even have a shirt under his coat. He acted like it was life-or-death to get a new one. Asked me to dump the tag right there.”
The detective’s pen moved faster. “All right, thanks for coming in. If you think of anything else, give me a call.” To Leonard, it sounded more like loneliness than evidence. Two men buying a tee didn’t scream homicide.
“Wait. There’s more.” Jacob’s voice sharpened.
Leonard dragged the word out. “Go onnnn.”
“I saw blood. On the short one’s skin. Mouth. Neck. Hard to explain, but I’ve had blood on my hands before. Tried to wash it off. It never comes clean. That’s what it looked like.”
This perked Leonard up and suddenly the dots came together. Two men, needing a new shirt, with blood stains on their skin. That changed everything.
“Would you recognize these guys again?”
“In my sleep.” Jacob sat up rapt.
“I’d like you to meet with our sketch artist. Would you be available for that?”
“Yes, yes, of course. But listen, Detective, there’s one other thing. And I want ya to know I’m not crazy, okay?” Jacob stuttered more, and he looked around, before leaning forward again.
“And what’s this other thing?” the detective asked, raising an eyebrow.
“This guy, he didn’t cast a reflection in any of my store mirrors. I thought it was odd at first and that I was tired, it was late after all, but the taller man, he was just fine. It was the shorter one. I pretended not to notice, but…”
Leonard’s breath paused, as if the wind had been taken out from him.
“Okay, thank you, Mr. Stein. Listen, do you have time to hang around and I’ll see if our sketch artist is available now?”
“Yes…yes, of course, whatever you need.”
It felt like hours before Leonard returned with the sketch artist, but in reality it was a mere twenty minutes.
“Can I get you any coffee, Mr. Stein?”
“No, no, I’m quite all right, thank you.”
“Mr. Stein, this is Paul, our sketch artist. He’ll take notes, put a face together, and you just tell us if it matches what you saw. Sound good?”
Paul was a quiet man, thin as a broom handle, with a face as neutral as the blank sheet on his clipboard. Sketch artists, Jacob realized, were part detective and part confessor. They didn’t just draw what you said; they coaxed it out of you, shaping the memory until it matched the ghost in your head.
Every stroke of his pencil was fast and focused, as if Paul had done this a hundred times before. Of course, he had. The first scribbles drew curiosity from Jacob, and he tilted his head, leaning over the desk subtly as he was trying to see what Paul was drawing.
“Mr. Stein, it will be much faster if you just sit back, relax, and let the artist do his work. Just answer briefly when questioned,” Leonard interrupted.
First came the outline, a jaw that could have been carved from marble, the high cheekbones, the straight Roman nose.
Then the eyes. Paul lingered there, glancing up at Jacob as if measuring how much cold could be packed into an iris before it stopped looking human. Shadows deepened under the brow, a slight narrowing of the gaze, until the page itself seemed too tense.
The hair came next, thick and styled like someone out of a Californian beach commercial. The mouth was last, drawn with a kind of patience that felt unnerving; a subtle curl to the lips, the faintest hint of a smirk that made the whole face look like it knew something you didn’t.
By the time Paul leaned back and set down the pencil, the man in the sketch wasn’t just a picture. He was sitting there on the desk, staring at Jacob with those same unblinking eyes.
He slid the sketch toward Jacob. The noise of the paper shifting across the wooden desk made him feel uneasy, as if the secrets he’d been hiding from the store had finally come to fruition.
He stared at it for a long moment. It was him. Not “close enough” him, not “looks sort of like” him.
It was him.
Those eyes, so exact they might as well have been cut from his own memory and pasted to the page, stared back at him with that faint, knowing smirk.
Jacob’s gaze drifted toward the precinct window, if only to break the spell. And that’s when he saw him. Standing across the street, on the sidewalk, staring at Jacob. The denim flared jeans and black platforms, with the I NY tee tucked tightly. His gaze didn’t waver as people walked behind, in front, and all around him. For half a heartbeat, the world went silent. Just the static hum of his own thoughts.
Then, as a truck roared past, Jerry was gone.
Jacob blinked, hard, and looked down at the sketch again. Those same eyes met his; he was looking at the vampire.
“Man… A vampire, a witch, the audacity of this bitch,” Lilly said, her tone a mix of disbelief and humor as she read the ransom note Jerry handed her. She pursed her lips to one side, eyes scanning the lined paper like she could will some secret to surface. “I can’t sense anything from this at all. And usually I can.”
Jerry’s voice was ice. “When I find her, I’ll rip her fucking throat out.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna disagree with you on this one.” Lilly’s gaze didn’t leave the note. “She was here.”
Jerry’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. She was here. In this room. She’s already transformed. I didn’t think it would be this quick.”
They stood in the penthouse’s great room, the view behind them a glittering panorama of Manhattan at dusk. Ferries cut across the river, their wakes catching the last blush of daylight. Skyscrapers lit up in staggered patterns, a thousand watchful eyes peering down at 200 Water Street.
The fire in the hearth roared like it knew a storm was coming. There was no trace of Leon, the brute, or the pentagram. Jerry had cleaned it all away with the precision of a man who’d erased scenes like this for centuries.
“You saw the news,” she continued. “They’re going to come here. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But they will.”
“Let them come,” Jerry said with a sharp smile. “I’ve handled this before.”
“And where did that land you?” Lilly shot back.
