Freitas stopped eating for a moment and looked at Isabel. “There’s all kinds of animals, human and vamp. You can’t tell an animal from a man just by looking, Miss Nelson.”
“Isabel,” she replied. “You can call me Isabel.”
* * * * *
“Watch your step,” the uniform warned her, handing over a clipboard as he stood watch in the alley.
“Thanks, Wyben, I’ve never been to a crime scene before,” Freitas snapped, glancing at the notes scrawled on the clipboard.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the kid said. “It’s just real slippery.”
Judging by the blood smeared along Wyben’s pants, he’d figured that out the hard way, she thought. The two short steps leading into the abandoned building were slicked with blood, almost invisible against the dark, filthy cement in the shadows cast by the orange streetlight.
“Photogs done?” Freitas asked.
“Yeah,” Wyben said, looking a little green. “M.E., too. Soon as you’re done, they’ll bag him.”
Wyben was trying to look tough, but even in the crappy orange light Freitas could see he was pale. She tried to think of something steadying to say, but quickly gave up. Comfort wasn’t one of her strengths.
Freitas stepped—carefully—over the blood-soaked steps and into the shadowy space beyond. A few jury-rigged lights had been set up, and three officers held up their flashlights, sending dancing shadows around the abandoned building. A photographer was carefully loading his equipment back into a bag and everyone was walking on eggshells.
Freitas tried to avoid the runnels of blood all over the floor, but finally gave up.
Crappy shoes anyway.
She walked straight through the blood toward the body, laid out under the best of the lights.
“Dead no more than a few hours, the blood’s only tacky,” said the medical examiner, squatting beside the body. Freitas thought only three types of people could squat gracefully—little children, the mothers of little children and Joann Betschart, a medical examiner who didn’t like to kneel in blood and shit. If Freitas tried squatting like that, she’d end up with a big smeary bloodstain on her ass.
“Vamp?” Freitas asked, staring at the guy’s torn-up throat. No way he’d been any older than twenty. His blue eyes stared sightless, frozen in nearly comical shock at whatever had been his last sight on earth.
“Unofficially?” Betschart said. “It’s someone who really likes to bite. Not a dog or other predator—that’s a human bite radius. Not enough tissue left for a match, but I bet if you find the sick son of a bitch, you won’t have any trouble figuring out it’s him.”
Freitas leaned over, shining her flashlight right at the torn flesh of the throat. In the harsh relief of concentrated light, the wound looked like someone had jammed a monster firecracker down the guy’s throat and set it off.
“Tell me he’s never been to a particular club near Beale,” Freitas said.
“Can’t help you there,” Betschart said. “He’s got old bites.”
Freitas leaned closer. “How can you tell? His neck’s hamburger.”
“Wrist,” Betschart said, lifting the meaty arm. Freitas shone her flashlight at it, and sure enough, there were the telltale pockmarks of a regular feeder.
“Doesn’t mean NU,” Freitas said. “He could have a vamp lover.”
“That’s your department,” Betschart said. “I just work here.”
“It’ll be NU,” Freitas sighed. “Wonder what this one did to get munched.”
Betschart shrugged and straightened up. “Kept breathing?”
“Ha. That’s funny, Joann, you gonna come back for a curtain call?” Freitas took a closer look at the bites on the wrist.
“Testy, Annie, you might want to get more fiber in your diet,” Betschart said. “I’ll send my boys down for him. Wyben outside has his vitals.”
“Yeah, I saw the sheet,” Freitas said, running her flashlight around the body in a quick, cursory glance. “No wife and kids this time, praise the Lord and pass the blood.”
“It’s gonna stink to high heaven in here by Tuesday,” Betschart said. “They’d better get a HAZMAT team in.”
“Better yet, just tear the whole nasty-ass place down, this building gives me the creeps,” Freitas said. “Blood barely changes the decor, and by the way, why is there so much of it? Don’t suppose Dead Man Bleeding had any company?”
“Nope,” Betschart said. “There’s two gallons of blood in the human body. You take one glass of orange juice, drop it, and it’ll cover half the kitchen floor. Two gallons’ll mess up half your house quite efficiently.”
“I can always count on you for gruesome, useless trivia, Joann,” Freitas said, following her out.
“See ya next body,” Betschart said, turning the opposite way.
Shit
, Freitas thought.
Four.
* * * * *
The water flowed over Isabel’s fingers, and she jerked them away quickly. She turned down the hot water a little and added two scoops of bubble bath salts to the water.
Humming to herself, she switched on the radio and let jazz music fill the room. She lit a candle beside the oversized oval tub.
In the mirror, she saw the fading marks on her neck.
It had been two weeks since the night at Nocturnal Urges and the marks were already healed over. Only a faint reddish tinge remained.
Isabel sighed and unwrapped her robe belt. Of course, at that moment the phone rang in the bedroom. She dove for it, keeping an eye on the water level in the tub. “Hello?”
“Hey, baby,” Duane said. “What’re you doing?”
“Taking a bath,” Isabel said, walking back into the bathroom with the cordless phone. “It’s a very exciting evening.”
“It would be if I was off work,” Duane said. “I’d come over to your place, sneak upstairs while you were in the tub…”
“Oh stop, you’re just teasing me,” Isabel chided.
Duane deepened his voice and added a fake accent somewhere between French and German. “Zen I would slide up behind yu, cover your eyes vith my hands and make luuv to yu in ze vater…”
“You’re so mean,” Isabel said, testing the water again.
Duane dropped the silly accent. “I’m trying to get back on days, baby,” he said.
“S’okay,” Isabel said. “Good to have you out of my hair once in a while.”
Instantly, the accent was back. “Nevaire, nevaire, my darlink,” he said. “Yu are mine, mine, mine!”
Isabel couldn’t help giggling. “Can anyone hear you? Because you sound completely ridiculous.”
“No, my darlink, ze information seestems department ees completely empty, because only schmucks like me must vork this shift,” he said.
“My bath is ready, and I can’t take ze accent any longer,” Isabel said. “Go earn money, behave yourself.”
“Your vish is my command, my darlink,” Duane said. “Enjoy ze bath.”
“Goodnight, silly,” she said.
“Goot night.”
Isabel clicked off the phone and set it beside the tub in case he called back for more goofiness. She slipped off her robe and let it drop to the floor, sliding a foot into the bubbles and the warm caress of the water. It was just right, almost too hot but not quite.
I’m so lucky
, she thought.
Duane is so
…
No words came to mind. She sank into the tub, the water flowing over her, and she felt the familiar prickles of goose bumps along her legs and arms as the water warmed her.
Duane was smart, funny and sexy as hell, she reflected. He made her laugh and he made her cry out in passion. He was good-looking as well—half the female workers at their company were jealous to see him drop by her cubicle.
Isabel sighed, smoothing her hands down her thighs, gathering suds and drifting them up over her chest.
So what’s wrong?
Nothing was wrong, she thought. She couldn’t be such a perfectionist as to find something wrong with Duane. She’d gone from relationship to relationship, always finding some fatal flaw as soon as things got serious. But Duane had been around for six months and so far, no flaws had appeared. He’d even introduced her to the bite.
Instantly, the sensory memory took her over, and she felt the sharp press of teeth at her neck, that coil within her loosening and drawing beneath her skin, the growing tension of pleasure through her body, almost as if it were happening again.
You’re crazy, girl. No orgasm is better than a real, solid relationship. Duane’s a good guy, a keeper. Are you looking to be alone?
Isabel let her eyes drift closed, leaning back against the wall of the tub as a husky female voice came from the radio, mellow and smooth. She drifted her hands over the suds, over her breasts, and thought about what Duane had said. She imagined him sneaking into her bathroom, his hands sliding into the water, and she let her own hands drift over her abdomen and down between her thighs.
“Mmm,” she murmured, imagining he was there, touching her, his black eyes intense above hers, black hair cut too short around his face.
Her eyes flew open, reasserting reality and banishing Ryan’s face from her mind.
“Dammit!” she said aloud. “Would you leave me alone?”
No one answered.
Isabel sat up, her body now tense and unrelieved in the tub. A thought came to mind, a simple image.
The bed. That black-iron bed with four posts, lit only by the candelabra.
Ryan lying naked in the bed, reclining on his side, with the black satin sheets discreetly swept over his hip. An inviting smile graced his mouth as he beckoned her to join him.
No. It’s cheating.
Isabel absently smoothed sudsy water over her shoulders.
It’s not cheating. It’s just another bite. Only this time I’d be alone.
She splashed fresher water on her breasts, rinsing away the suds.
It’s going behind Duane’s back. It’s wrong.
She opened the drain. It had been a very short bath.
Marital aids with teeth. That’s what he called them. It’s no different than…than using a vibrator would be. And he wouldn’t mind that.
She stood up in the tub, letting the water and suds course down her body. Grabbing a thick towel, she patted herself dry. The bath made her skin smell like flowers, a light musky scent that made her feel attractive and feminine.
He thinks they’re animals.
She reached for her jeans, but at the last moment, looked into her closet instead. She pulled out a sleeveless black dress she hadn’t worn in a long time. It had a long, swirling skirt, and Duane didn’t like it. “I like to see your legs,” he’d said. Thinking of Duane, she stopped for a moment, her hand sliding over the fabric of the dress.
He goes by himself.
Duane had said he’d been bitten at least a dozen times. That meant he had to be going by himself.
That settled it. She pulled on the dress and a fresh pair of panties, deciding at the last minute to forgo a bra. After all, it was just a short drive downtown.
* * * * *
Walking in downtown Memphis was an entirely different experience alone.
The streets seemed different, with muted colors and sharpened echoes. The light took on a different quality, bright enough to be daytime, but still with shadows. She noticed the footsteps and voices of other people, whether they were walking along the next block or sitting on a park bench, waiting for the tourist trolley to come by.
Main Street was winning its battle between urban decay and old-fashioned grace. For every shuttered, gated shop with a FOR LEASE sign in its soaped-over window, there were three shops of trinkets or toys to grab the unwary shopper. Recent years had brought new money in the form of shops and restaurants, but history was built into the very streets. The cobblestones and streetlights tried to recapture the days of the Old South, but ominous sounds from the alleys and streets nearby reminded her that it was definitely the modern era.
All along the way, like a murmur beneath raised voices, the river flowed past the city. Isabel caught a glimpse of it from time to time, glancing to her right as she crossed another street. Its faint rushing sound was both huge and still at once, something eternal in the ever-changing city.
Isabel was mindful of the fact that she was alone. She had to park several blocks away from Nocturnal Urges. Smart enough not to bring her purse, she kept her hands in her jacket pockets around a small wad of cash and her keys. She walked quickly and purposefully, passing the small park with a lighted fountain where lovers would cast their coins into the water, making a wish.
She passed the Beale Street jazz district, and turned down the sidewalk toward Nocturnal Urges. Her steps faltered, however, on seeing what had taken over the street.
A crowd of people shouted from the block just west of the club, just as they had before. Sure enough, she recognized the man with the dark beard, screaming and waving a placard that read DON’T CROSS A HUMAN.
But on the other side, another crowd shouted just as loudly, waving its own placards. SAVE THE BITE read one and MORALITY IS SKIN DEEP read another.
Isabel stopped, considering making a break for it. But somehow, the thought of her empty apartment was unbearable, and she started walking again, down the middle of the narrow street.