Fright Night: Hellbound, page 5
“Who?”
“The mayor. The alderman. Police chief. They pretend not to know you, but your reputation precedes you, Professor. They’d rather you not get involved prematurely.”
“Prematurely? Horcoff, twelve is not a number that should be considered premature. Did all the bodies have…”
“I’m going to stop you right there so that I am not implicit. There’s politics involved, Haden. The offices would rather this ‘problem’ did not exist. And the concerned parties know that you do tend to charge quite the fees. If it’s just another killer, they have the police on it. And if it’s not, then God help us all. Because the election is due in another month, Mayor Shiloh is going to be re-elected. He cannot have a crisis on his hands before the elections,” Horcoff said. His eyes said something else. He was pointing at a file that was set apart from the rest of the unarranged stuff. He nodded at it again.
Haden nodded in understanding and took the file containing the pictures of the victims.
“We should have coffee sometime, eh, Haden? I like how you make it. Reminds me of MREs.”
“Be seeing you then, Horcoff.”
With the file tucked away in his coat and with more questions than answers, Haden walked out of the office, aware that there were eyes on him. The people standing around the press office were not just bystanders.
He took the longer way home and waited with bated breath till the foot traffic had thinned out below. After the most recent body was discovered, a curfew was imposed. In the meantime, Haden looked at the pictures of the bodies, finding the same puncture marks on the necks of all the victims. There was journalist shorthand written behind every picture, detailing what Horcoff had learned from the autopsy reports.
That each body was completely bloodless when it was discovered.
Haden was taller, even by Amsterdam standards, and despite the fact that he was middle-aged, he was well-built. That, combined with his felt hat and his trench coat, gave him an air of authority in every room he walked. His deep voice did the rest.
Aware that he was breaking about a dozen city laws as he walked into the police station after curfew hours, Haden barged through the door, noticing the haphazard state of the bullpen where young cops were scampering from desk to desk with files in their hands and panic on their faces.
Haden blinked and acknowledged the armory, where firearms were displayed in a blue cage. It was too easy to just jump over the counter and enter the armory, but that was neither here nor there. He ignored the police officer at the reception calling out to him, pushed past the two younger cops barging his way, and headed straight into the police chief’s office.
The police chief, Coenraad van Vliet, a white-browed man with a smooth face that made him look like a cognitively dissonant painter, had created a portrait of an overlarge baby. A baby with a bulging pot belly and pink skin.
He glared at Haden, who glared back as he strode into the office and slammed the door shut behind him.
“You got ten minutes,” Coenraad said in resentful acknowledgement of authority that surpassed borders and governments.
Haden took the file and slammed it on Coenraad’s desk.
“Do you mind telling me why I haven’t been made aware of this?” Haden snapped as Coenraad took the pictures out of the files.
“Horcoff gave you these? Son of a bitch will have what’s coming to him.”
“You will not touch a hair on his head,” Haden growled, putting his fist on the table and leaning closer to the police chief. “You should have been the one alerting me, not him.”
“The fact that you need alerting means one of two things, hunter. Either there’s nothing wrong or you’re growing old, slow.” Coenraad smirked, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his desk cabinet and lighting one up without offering it to Haden.
“This woman was found dead earlier today,” Haden said, pointing at the picture of Lisa Vicenza. “Today.”
“And my men are on it, as I am sure you saw.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Haden growled, scowling at Coenraad. Coenraad coughed, the smoke catching in his throat.
“I mean,” Coenraad said, his eyes watering. “These are whores, druggies, runaways, alcoholics. People die every day, Moore. And sure, maybe someone’s dumping their bodies in the canal, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s connected. Not everything is a conspiracy.”
“Only this wasn’t a whore or a junkie. She’s Lisa, a student of mine. She was a phenomenal student, not some druggie,” Haden said.
“Ah. So it’s personal?”
“No. It’s a warning. She’s not the first. And she’s not going to be the last, Coenraad. She was drained of blood. And the reports say that so, too, were the other bodies.”
Coenraad shrugged. “You’re far behind the times. I mean…wait until the autopsy report arrives tonight. It’ll just reveal that she was a drunkard, high on a cocktail of pills when she died.”
Haden gritted his teeth. Lisa was a good kid, someone who had grown up in a conservative household and had not turned away from that religiosity; instead, she’d chosen to pursue it at an academic level. Hardly her MO to be doing drugs or drinking away in Oudezijd.
“What about the puncture marks? Neat, precise, no tearing, no bruising? There was no struggle, from the signs of it. It seemed more like a ritual,” Haden said, looking at the picture again.
“Needle marks,” Coenraad said flatly. “A big enough needle hole will drain away quite a lot of blood, but then again, I’m not a doctor, just as you’re no police officer. Go talk to your colleagues, or write a letter to the Vatican. I hear they like stories, the kind you’re peddling.”
Haden picked his file up from the desk and pointed a warning finger at Coenraad, saying, “You’re going to believe me when the next one shows up. And the next one after that.”
“How can you be so sure? Are you, by any chance, committing these acts? Has the hunter become the very thing he once hunted?”
“Fuck you, Coenraad,” Haden said, turning heel to walk out of the office. “And don’t get in my way.”
He only heard Coenraad’s resigned sigh behind him.
Journalist shorthand was fine enough for perusal, but if Haden wanted to confirm his suspicions, he needed to get in touch with the coroner.
Haden walked out from the station in the empty streets just as the rain started to beat down, wiping away evidence, wiping away the city’s dust and its sorrow. He tucked the file deeper in his trench coat so it wouldn’t get wet. His felt hat got soaked, but for the most part kept his face dry. Haden was not a man who was afraid to get wet. He enjoyed the added weight of the rainwater on his clothes.
In the abandoned yet still-lit streets, he walked along the curving Warmoesstraat, appreciating the shimmery sheen of rainwater on the cobbled stone as it glowed golden in the lamplight. He ducked under the striped awning of Café de Toog, a corner place he’d favored since his move.
The owner knew him from years of serving, years of coffee and water, accompanied by scores of cigarettes. As Haden knocked at the window, the man nodded from behind the bar. Curfews did not matter to old men such as him or Haden, and if his old patron wanted a coffee, a coffee he would get.
Outside, Haden took one of the round iron tables, wiped it down with the back of his glove, and sat with his collar up against the chill. He lit a cigarette, the paper hissing briefly in the wet air, and when the waiter came, he didn’t need to ask for anything; the waiter already knew his order.
Inside his coat pocket, folded once and sealed in a plastic sleeve, was the name and number of the coroner who’d done the autopsy on Lisa.
He finished his cigarette in silence, his eyes tracing the street. He had pondered the times at the Vatican, Romania, and his traversing of Europe to track down the creatures that were sworn to the night. He had stared death in the face, but still had trouble believing himself that evil existed, for he wanted it not to.
He wanted to believe that the work of these creatures was simply madmen who would do anything to satisfy their sick minds.
He was deep in thought when the honk of a truck driving by broke his gaze. He realized that he’d finished his coffee and his cigarette had all but gone unsmoked, the ash holding onto the butt for dear life, like a building that was about to crumble.
He stood and walked into the cafe, where the scent of yeast and damp coats reminded him of home, and walked casually to the owner.
“May I use the phone?” he asked.
“Of course, Professor. Office in the back. You know the way.”
Inside, with the door closed and the rotary dial humming beneath his fingertips, he removed his jacket. It was still wet from his walk, and he did not want to drench the cafe owner's desk with water. He waited for the coroner to answer, and when the voice came through, gravelly and tired, Haden spoke simply:
“This is Professor Haden Moore. I need to meet you tonight,” he spoke into the phone. “I will need you to bring a certain file. And I shall need you to be at the cemetery gate tonight at eight sharp.”
The coroner responded with an affirmative after a minute of silence.
It was just past eight when Haden reached the edge of De Nieuwe Ooster. The cemetery gates were wrought iron and flanked by stone pillars gone soft at the corners with lichen. The rain had stopped, but it left a lingering smell in the air, iron mixed with mud. A cold and unappealing smell. Haden stood just outside the threshold, gloved hands in his pockets, the collar of his trench still turned up.
The coroner arrived a few minutes later, slower than Haden remembered, with a folder tucked under his coat and a plastic bag hanging from one wrist.
He didn’t speak immediately, for he was too concerned with scanning the horizon and looking behind him as if somebody had been following him the entire way.
He was a tall, slender man with jet black hair slicked to one side. He had an Aryan mercilessness etched into his face. The last thing a dead body would want to look up at.
“You said bring the file,” he muttered and handed over the file. “Why are we at a cemetery? Please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
Haden took it with a nod, flipping through the autopsy photos quickly, not to study them, just to show that he already knew what he was looking for. He had already seen the puncture marks in the photograph that he showed the police, but he wanted to ensure there were no other marks on the body.
The hallowed ground confirmation provided a moment of relief for the coroner, but it would be short-lived, as the confirmation of needing hallowed ground only meant one thing: monsters had made their way to Amsterdam.
“She had no blood,” the coroner said; he looked scared and desperate, and said it as if it needed repeating. “Not just exsanguination. The veins were dry. Entirely collapsed. Like her body had been drained through pressure rather than injury.”
“No defense wounds?”
“None. Nails clean. No bruising on the wrists or face. No semen. No struggle. There is an indication that she had sex, but that could be anyone's guess.”
“And the bite?”
“It was too clean, Professor. Two unbelievably precise punctures, you see?” he said, pointing at the photograph. “No tearing or anything around it, and look at this…” He pulled something from the plastic bag and handed it over. It was the woman’s blouse.
“It’s ripped,” he added, showing Haden the claw marks in the blouse. “She was wearing it. Whatever this was wasn’t…human.”
Haden studied the small blouse, bunched it up, and then tucked it into his coat.
“The police got in touch with me, telling me they’re going to close this case hush-hush, a suicide, if you can believe it,” the coroner said, clicking his tongue.
“But the bite marks and the shirt,” Haden insisted.
“I didn’t say it made sense,” the coroner said, his voice lowering as he looked around. “But there’s already pressure. City council, tourism board. It’s not good optics, having corpses bobbing up near the Jordaan. With the blasted election a month away, the police won’t do a thing about it.”
They stood in silence, and somewhere beyond the gate, a crow gave a single, drawn-out caw. Crows cawing in the night were never a good omen, especially not when the linger of murder was still heavy in the air.
“Five more cases came across my table this week,” the coroner added. “All with similar signs. You think I’m crazy for meeting you out here?”
“I think you’re smart,” Haden said. “And I think we’re running out of time. I am meeting with some other professors and a Vatican archivist who has joined me on other expeditions before. Come, let us talk in the church.”
The two men walked slowly toward the church doors, which were open, as they always were. Ready to accept anyone who wanted to bring God into their life. The crows were dancing and singing in the background. They paused outside the doorway, under the archway where the stone saints looked down on them.
“I often wondered who crafts these statues; they always look more evil than good.” Haden chuckled as the two looked up at the cherubs staring at them. He turned to the coroner, his voice lower now.
“I’ve seen a village in northern Italy where an entire generation vanished. Twenty-seven people, gone. Only a priest was left behind, mumbling numbers that didn’t make sense until we realized they were dates. Feast days and breeding cycles.”
The air between them became more palpable with tension. Haden wanted to trust this man, and in coming here with the file, the coroner had proven that he could be trusted. But there were secrets that Haden knew that would put the fear of God in the man who dealt with dead bodies for a living. A man who, in his own mind, had seen it all. And yet, Haden had enough to tell him that would make him reconsider that stance.
“In Medjugorje,” Haden continued, deciding that trust was a two-way street and that he should at least attempt to build it before assuming otherwise. “I saw a child aged overnight. Skin like parchment, eyes black from the inside. She spoke five languages, none of them spoken on Earth. Her mother tried to drown her twice. They said the Devil had come to claim her soul because the Virgin Mary was planning a visit.”
“You’re not talking about who I think you’re talking about,” the coroner spoke, his face perplexed.
“I’m talking about things that existed long before anyone called them vampires.” Haden’s eyes held the coroner in grave regard. “And this, whatever is happening here, feels worse. Vampires leave bodies around. These ones are cleaning up. That takes organization. I’m sensing that a family has moved to town, but that means a leader is with them, someone older than water.”
The church bell above them rang once, low and off-tempo.
“We should go inside,” Haden said, looking over his shoulder. “They might not be gods, but they have spent enough time among us humans to imitate us.”
The coroner blinked at him, unsure if he should respond as they both walked inside. Inside, the church was quiet but not empty. A nun passed them without a glance, her rosary beads clinking softly at her side. Toward the back, they settled into one of the pews beneath a fading fresco of Saint Michael casting out the devil.
“They don’t just kill to feed,” Haden said. “They kill to erase and to stay hidden. Everybody you’ve seen is one step away from no longer existing. And I’m afraid, Jonatan, that includes you too.”
The coroner sat rigid, his coat damp at the shoulders. “You think they’ll come for me?”
“I do. I’ve seen this too many times before. You are a link between them and their secrecy. And that makes you a liability,” Haden replied. “This all has happened so quickly, but I am also quick. I’m going to call in reinforcements, men who reside in Amsterdam. Speed is of the essence here, and these are men who hunt for pleasure, who are methodical, and won't let their town be overrun by vampires and monsters. And you, Jonatan, you notice things, you don’t accept the status quo, that makes you useful. I’m hazarding a guess that one of them has either threatened the police sergeant or paid him off.”
“And if I say no?” the coroner asked with a frail voice, a voice completely unbecoming of his person.
“Then you’ll leave this church, go back to your life, and in a week or a month, someone will find you in your own autopsy room. And your report will vanish before it’s filed.”
The coroner didn’t answer immediately. He stared up at the fresco, eyes lingering on the flaming sword in Michael’s hand, as he took a deep breath.
“I’ll come,” he said quietly. “But I don’t know the first thing about killing.”
“Neither did I, once,” Haden replied, standing. “Not until my hand was forced.”
He placed a hand briefly on the man’s shoulder, saying, “We meet tomorrow. At ten p.m. The old catacombs beneath the university archives. You are to tell no one, not even your wife, understood?”
The coroner looked up at Haden, the mercilessness gone from his face, leaving behind worry and age. He nodded briefly, and Haden nodded back.
And once that business was concluded, Haden walked out into the rain, disappearing between the downpour as yet another shadow in the cemetery.
The catacombs beneath the university were not meant for meetings. They were places where forgetfulness dwelled. Bricked-in hallways from the seventeenth century, stone sweating under the pressure of the city above.
A trickle of water echoed every few seconds as it dripped from the ceiling into a rusted drain, the sound carrying farther than it had any right to in the stillness. The air was cold enough to remind a man of what lay beneath the ground, but not cold enough to preserve a body. A place of in-betweens. Between history and oblivion, between faith and what it had buried.
Candles had been set along the alcoves in iron sconces, their flames wavering, throwing shadows across statues whose faces had already been half-consumed by mold. The scent of wax and old limestone hung thick. At the center of the main chamber, a round oak table had been dragged from somewhere else, its legs scarring the stone floor on the way down.
