Bad Blood, page 4
part #7 of Jack Dahlish Series
“How’s the bounty hunter? And the girl? Cavanaugh has been on me lately, trying to find out what I know about her whereabouts.”
“They’re good. Monica has been our eyes and ears from the safety of the brownstone, but she’s eager to get into the action.”
“She’s ready,” Annie said. She had returned to her stool and her meal. “I’ve been working with her, sarge, and teaching her everything I know about self-defense. Monica can handle herself, especially with that Nephilim strength she has.”
Ollie winced at the reminder that the mayor’s granddaughter was more than human. It was what made it hard for Mayor Swenson and her husband to accept that she had decided to go out on her own to follow a different path. They worried for the girl, though I couldn’t help but reflect that the mayor’s worry was more for how she would appear in the press and to the voters if the news of that break in the family got out. She had even insisted the girl’s disappearance not be leaked to the press when she had been missing for a few weeks.
“Don’t worry,” I said, putting an arm around Ollie’s shoulders to guide him toward the bar. “I make sure Monica calls her grandfather at least once a week. He knows she’s in the northeast, and she tells him that she’s studying electronics. Which is kind of true, since she took to the techy stuff quickly while Von was up there to do some training.”
“Just make sure that girl doesn’t get hurt, Jack. The last thing you need is the mayor of the city coming down on you like a sack of bricks.”
Annie snorted. “Last I heard, the odds of her being reelected for a third term were pretty slim.”
“Maybe so, but that election is still a year away, and until then she can put a serious damper on your activities.” Ollie gave both of us with his sternest fatherly look. “A little goodwill could go a long way.”
“You act like this is all my choice, Ollie. Monica makes her own decisions, and she’s still upset with both of her grandparents after the whole Jericho thing. They aren’t helping by refusing to tell her anything about her mother.” I shrugged helplessly. “She knows her mom is on the east coast, and she wants to visit.”
His stern look faded. “I suppose I remember when my kids were that age. Stubborn little teenagers.” A fond smile touched his lips at the thought of the kids he got to see so rarely now that they both lived outside of Texas.
“We’re treating her like our own, sarge. Dahlish and I will do everything we can to keep her safe.”
The door opened again behind us, and I turned to look at the new arrival. The woman appeared to be in her early thirties, with caramel skin and dark curly hair that fell to either side of her face. Underneath that human mask, I could glimpse the reality of the woman. Pale skin stretched tight over a misshapen skull, with patches of stringy black hair. As her lips pulled back in a smile, sharp fangs appeared.
I pushed the supernatural world into the background as I stood and approached her with a welcoming smile. “Mariah, it’s good to see you again.”
She put her hand in mine, and I felt the cold, clammy skin of a vampire. “Thanks for coming back, Jack. I didn’t want to have to bother you, but things are starting to get out of control.”
“Richard, do you think you can keep people away if we take the table in the back?”
“Sure, Jack. You’ve got an hour or so before the dinner crowds start to show up, but I’ll keep any arrivals down at this end of the bar until you’re done.”
With a nod of thanks, I led the others to the far side of the room where we sat around a tall table. Richard showed up with four glasses filled with the seasonal ale, before he retreated behind the bar. I knew he could hear what we said in the silent room, but I had come to trust him as much as I did Ollie and Annie.
“What’s been going on, Mariah?”
She took a deep breath, putting her thoughts in order before she began. “It all started a couple of months ago. One of our donors was killed at his office. His throat had been cut, and he was left to bleed out in the lobby of his building.”
I shuddered at the thought of dying in such a way. Donors were people who voluntarily let vampires feed on them, taking small amounts of blood each time. It was about the same amount you’d give during a blood drive, and the vampires usually had enough donors that they never had to call on someone more than once every month or so. In return for this service, donors were given recompense in whatever form they desired. Most took simple cash payments, others wanted influence to smooth their path through the business world, and a few wanted assistance from the clutch in political careers. It was a win-win situation for the vampires, who ended up with a food source and a well-placed corporate or political connection. It was in that way that most of the vampire families constructed world-wide webs of information and wealth.
“I was part of the team that investigated the murder scene,” Mariah said, referring to her job in the forensics lab. “I didn’t think anything of it, Jack. This donor was a lawyer with some shady clients, and the cops believed it was just an unsatisfied customer getting revenge.”
Ollie nodded. “The detectives found three drawers in a file cabinet filled with death threats that had been mailed or emailed. It took them most of two weeks to run down all the most likely suspects from those.”
“But then it happened again.” Mariah ran a hand through her thick, curly hair. I watched her real hand rub across her almost bare scalp under the superimposed image of her human mask. It was an ability I was growing comfortable with, and it no longer gave me splitting headaches to see both faces at the same time. “Another doner, this time the owner of a trucking company based in New Braunfels. He was killed in the same way, and the lab was able to determine the same weapon was used. The blade was razor sharp, but there must be a nick along the edge, because it leaves behind a few ragged tears.”
Ollie leaned forward. “The detectives had a harder time explaining this one. The guy was one of those down-to-earth types who volunteered at the Food Bank and gave thirty percent of his income to charity every year. They couldn’t find any links between the victims, either.”
Because the link was so obscure that no regular cop would even guess at it. “Uriah has to have someone in the force on his payroll, right?” Uriah Harrison was the head of her clutch, one of the three that called San Antonio home.
She nodded. “A few, but none of them are in homicide. We have a detective in the drug squad, but there was no legitimate reason for him to take an interest in these cases.
“And then it happened two more times, on the same night. The victims were on opposite ends of the spectrum, too. One was a college student who only became a donor five months ago. He hadn’t even been invited to the Harrison estate yet, which is customary to mark the one-year service mark.”
I grimaced at the thought of feeding vampires being seen as a service. I understood why it appealed to some people, especially those with no money of their own or an impatience to get ahead in life, but I couldn’t escape the image in my head of rows of men and women chained up on hands and knees with tubes running out of their necks to siphon out blood as fast as their bodies could produce it.
“The second victim that night was one of our oldest donors.” Mariah looked sad, and I thought there might have been a special connection between her and this person. “She was seventy-three, Jack. What kind of monster attacks an old woman just to send a message?”
I perked up. “What message?”
She lifted her hands and dropped them back to the table. “This person is targeting our family. They have to be, to hit our donors so successfully. There might as well be a flashing neon sign warning people that working for the Harrisons is bad for your health. The way our people are being killed, with all their blood drained out, is like a message that this person is purposely depriving us of our food sources.”
“It didn’t stop there,” Ollie told me, his expression reflecting the seriousness of the situation. “We have eleven victims now that were all killed in the same manner, and Mariah tells me all of them were Harrison donors.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I really wish I never found out about any of that, Jack.”
Ollie had worked with me for the last decade, but almost always on the periphery of my investigations. He would look out for any crime scenes that seemed strange or provide me with a little information if I needed it during a search for a rogue Nox. He’d only encountered the supernatural creatures a handful of times, most notably when he arrived in time to shoot a lamia that was seconds away from ripping my face off before she devoured nine children to sate her unnatural hunger. He had declined becoming one of my Knights, because he wanted to keep a distance from the kinds of creatures I had to deal with day to day.
“Why did you wait so long to tell us, Mariah? Your family had to know someone was targeting you after the third or fourth victim.”
She nodded. “We did, but Uriah insisted that we could handle the problem ourselves. He thought the danger was coming from the north, but our representatives have discovered that isn’t the case. Our enemies there have been engaged elsewhere recently.”
I sniffed at the vague words, remembering that she had mentioned some danger in the north before. At the time, I had thought it might be a rival vampire clutch. Now, I couldn’t help but wonder if the vampires might have been aware of the Circle and the Romani twins long before I was. “And now he sees that he needs help, and he’s willing to bring me in?”
“Well… no.” Mariah smiled in chagrin. “I’m breaking the rules by talking to you, Jack. We’re losing donors, almost more than we can stand to be without. Along with those who were killed, more than a dozen people have decided to walk away without the promised bonus payment at the end of their contracts. If the trend continues, our family will be desperate for food within a few weeks.”
She eyed me, silently communicating the rest of that thought. If the vampire clutch ran out of food from willing donors, they would have to resort to targeting people who were unwilling. Or, even worse, go to war with one of the other clutches to try and secure their food sources. Neither of those possibilities were something I was willing to allow in my city.
“Ollie, do you think you could get me copies of case files? I want to know as much as I can about the murders so far and see if there are any clues the police detectives wouldn’t be searching for.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said with a nod.
“I can get you our forensics reports,” Mariah added quickly. “The same weapon was used in every murder, and we have enough details on it to be fairly confident of what it would be. One of our techs even put together a graphic model of what she thinks it would look like.”
“That will help, but what I need most from you is an invitation.”
Her eyebrows bunched up in confusion, but then I saw understanding bloom. Her eyes went wide long enough for me to understand just how dangerous this could be for her if it went wrong. “You want to see Uriah, don’t you?”
“No, I need to see him. I have to tell him that I’ve recently learned about a string of murders from my friends in the department, and that I think it could involve the Harrison clutch. It’s my job to protect the people of this city, human and Nox alike.”
She flashed a smile, understanding that I wouldn’t spill the beans about her coming to me. “I’ll try to talk with him tonight and see what I can do.”
I dropped my voice into a nasally whine. “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Annie spit out beer as she laughed, and even Ollie chuckled. I like to think it was my wit that amused them, but I had a feeling it was the horrible impression instead.
Mariah only shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I’ll call you as soon as I can. Thank you, Jack.”
“Hey, that’s what friends are for, right?”
Her eyes were shining wetly as she smiled at me. “Yes. Yes, they are.”
I watched her walk away, blinking at the bright light that came through the door when she left the Den. “How soon do you think I could get those case files?” Ollie shot me a look I knew well from our years working together, one that told me to stop being an impatient ass. I held up my hands. “I’m just asking!”
“I’m not on duty today, but I’ll see if a friend can get me copies. A lot of it should be available on the department network, but I lost access to most of it after the chief started cracking down on people known to work with you.”
I groaned, reminded of another issue I would have to eventually tackle. The chief of police had been burned by a private detective when he was first promoted off the streets, and that had turned him against all of us. I’d apparently earned special ire by solving cases that had been deemed unsolvable by the department’s detectives. Chief Allen wasn’t fond of Lieutenant Cavanaugh or his special unit that answered only to the mayor, either. And I’d helped Cavanaugh out when Monica had gone missing, on a case the mayor had purposely kept out of the normal chain of command. That antipathy had led to Annie being released from the force, and also to Ollie losing some of the special privileges he’d earned with his long service.
“I’d appreciate anything you can get me. Starting with some crime scene locations. Do you happen to know where the latest murders happened?”
Ollie pulled out the notebook he carried with him everywhere, and he scribbled a few lines on a page that he tore off and handed to me. “That is the address of the latest scene, just two nights ago. I’ll put the others into an email and have it to you before you finish checking that one.”
He had been around me long enough to know that I could see things at crime scenes that no one else would. An essence trail could narrow down our list of suspects considerably if it helped me determine a Nox was involved. There was also a chance I’d know what kind of Nox just from the taste and smell I picked up.
I nudged Annie as I drained my beer. “Ready, partner?”
She hugged Ollie again. “Bring Sandra to Windemere tonight, sarge. We should barbecue.”
My mouth started watering as soon as Ollie said they’d love that, and I was already looking forward to it as Annie and I headed for the door. I held up a hand to Richard, and he nodded as we left the Den.
SIX
I regretted not keeping our chauffeured car when we got back to street level, but Annie summoned an Uber from her phone. While we waited, I breathed in the crisp winter air of San Antonio and reflected that my home city had a much more relaxed vibe that New York City ever would. People weren’t rushing so much to get to their next destination, and you could see most of them sauntering along the sidewalks as they chatted with friends.
The Uber driver dropped us off after the short trip to Windemere, and we headed into the garage at the rear of the property. We left our backpacks by the door that led to the giant back yard, and I opened a metal box to pluck out the keys for my trusty Honda.
While I drove across town to the scene of the latest murder, Annie searched for stories about it on news blogs and websites. “There’s not a lot here,” she said while she read the few lines on one site. “‘Marvin Odom, 43, was attacked and killed in his place of business last night. An investigation is in progress, according to the San Antonio Police Department.’ This guy was such a non-entity that even the press can’t generate any excitement in their reporting of his murder.”
“Well, a lot of the vampire donors who set themselves up in business like to remain anonymous. They’re not all flamboyant narcissists who want every spotlight on them.” I changed lanes to fly past an old man who could barely see over the wheel of his thirty-year-old sedan. “Also, it was the eleventh murder in the last couple of months. Unless someone starts to connect the dots and realize they’re all related, it won’t get much attention. It’s not flashy enough.”
She shook her head in disgust. “I wish I could say the department was different, but they’re not. The detectives always wanted to be assigned to the high-profile cases, not the drudge work of some small business owner being killed. I’m not saying they won’t give it their best, but it’s not a case that will get them noticed.”
“Do any of the articles say anything about suspects?”
She scanned through the few she’d found again. “Nothing specific, but one of the blogs quotes a police source as saying they were looking into it being a possible robbery that turned into murder.”
“What? Mariah said all the victims were killed with the same weapon, so why would the cops not be thinking of it as a string of attacks by a single perpetrator?”
Annie shrugged. “They probably do by now, but they’re not going to tell the press that. The last thing you want as a cop is to have your perp know everything you’ve discovered. Leaking information about the weapon could cause him to switch it up and use something different. Then it would be almost impossible to know which victims were his.”
“Or hers,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re assuming this is a man.”
She turned her trademark smirk on me as we pulled up to a red light. “Because women kill in subtle ways, Dahlish. It’s rare to find a woman who cuts throats, much less one who could cut so deeply it almost severed the head in one instance.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“Ollie told me while you and Mariah were talking about your super-secret meeting at the super-secret vampire hideout.”
“Trust me, I’m taking you along. I need someone to watch my back in there.”
“Good, because I was going even if you didn’t want me to.” She reached over to rub the scruff on my cheek. “If I left you alone with a clutch of vampires, the gods only know what kind of trouble you’d start.”
I shot her an indignant look as the light turned green, but she only smiled back. We were near the strip mall where the victim’s small electronics repair shop was located. The logo and design of the store looked remarkably similar to a large chain of electronic stores, most likely as a way to catch the eye and lure in more customers.
