Force of Nature Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 4) (43 page)

She screamed out his name as she impaled herself over him. He was buried as deep as he could be inside of her. He held her hips still as she sat there. His cock felt strangled as her body adjusted to his size. She lifted her head finally and looked down at him, tears streaming down her face.

“You weren’t going to make love to me, were you?” He shook his head. “I told you that I wanted you, just not for us to exchange blood. Why?”

He flipped her over to her back and he rocked deep inside of her. “Because we’re mated now. Even if I don’t take your blood, which I want to more than my next breath, I can still claim you by filling you with my seed.” He rocked again, harder this time, and she moaned with him. “I’m going to fill you, Holly. And then I’m going to take your throat. You took me; I’m going to take you.”

He moved slowly at first, feeling her sheath hug him. Then as she moved with each of his strokes, he moved faster, harder, deeper into her. Taking her breast into his mouth, he scraped his fangs over the hard tip and then suckled it. Running his hand up her throat, he moved her so that he could bite, knowing that he couldn’t take her this way. Never would he take what she did not freely offer.

“Come, Holly. Come now.” Even as she climaxed once, twice, and then a third time, he felt his fangs stretch, the need to claim hard on him as he came with her. When she slipped away, fell into an exhausted sleep, he took her wrist to his mouth. “So that I can watch over you.”

The bite was small. She didn’t even flinch when he pierced her skin. The blood, however small an amount, was enough. He would be able to find her anywhere and at any time. He knew it was wrong, but after today he simply didn’t care.

Lifting her up, Phil took her to the still running shower. She woke a little, but not fully, so he did most of the work himself. By the time he’d washed her hair with his shampoo and then rinsed it, he was hard again. He doubted that he’d ever get enough of her. Laying her onto his bed, Phil dressed again. He had to go and find out what he could about the carnage downstairs.

Chapter 3

There were enough cops and other official personnel around that it would be small wonder if they were able to collect anything but cop DNA. Myles looked around the room again and thought that maybe this was the worst crime scene he’d ever been on. Yeah, he thought, it was worse than that bus accident a few years ago where fifty-three people had been killed.

“Sarge, there’s a guy here to see you. Says he might have something about the case you’d be interested in.” Myles looked at the officer before looking to where he pointed. “He said his name is Gregory Hooper.”

Myles took the information that the cop had written down and read it. Gregory Hooper was a retired detective from Georgia. The man was standing by the yellow tape that stopped most of the people from coming in, and Myles could see that he was probably a lot older than he looked. He wasn’t sure why he thought that, but figured he’d listen to what he had to say. He walked over to him and took his hand when offered. The closer he got, the older the man seemed to be. Myles thought him to be in his late seventies.

“Myles Kramer, homicide detective for this district.” Myles introduced himself as they shook. “My officer tells me you might have something to offer on this…case?”

Hooper looked around and then back at Myles. That was when Myles noticed the deep scars in his throat and cheek. Before he could comment on it, Gregory looked him in the eye as if he knew what he was thinking.

“Is there somewhere we can go to talk? I don’t…if you don’t believe me, I’d rather not have any witnesses again. I’ve been told I was crazy before and I don’t much care for it even after all this time.”

Myles nodded and told one of the men milling about to call him on his cell if and when the coroner showed up. The crime scene boys couldn’t do a damned thing without someone there to pronounce that the several hundred body parts for the three men and the woman strewn about the room were all dead.

They ended up in a conference room just around the corner from the bar. The hotel was clearing out quickly and Myles really couldn’t blame the patrons. Once word started to get out that there was someone killing off the guests, it sort of put a damper on the fun here in the Big Apple.

“I used to work homicide too. Though I wasn’t a detective back then. I was just a beat cop who was pulled in to do a little leg work for the big boys.” Gregory smiled at Myles as he continued. “We didn’t have all this stuff that you boys have now. It was a lot more guess work than anything else.”

“We still do a lot of guessing too. Most of the time that’s all it is and a lucky break. The cops have gotten a lot smarter, but so have the criminals. More so I think than us if you want to know the truth.” Myles looked up as one of the girls that had been in the back room of the bar when everything went hinky walked in. “The desk guy said we can use this room. If it’s a problem then we can—”

“No, he said to ask you if you needed anything. He said he’d like you to get this solved quickly and making you happy is our next priority.”

Myles looked at Gregory and he shook his head. “Just some water if you don’t mind. After you bring it in we’d like to not be disturbed. Police business, you know.”

She moved a cart into the room that had been out of his sight. There were two pitchers of water and an assortment of soft drinks, as well as some glasses and ice. Myles didn’t know who the guy thought he was serving in here, but the two of them could drink for a month and not drink all this. After the girl left, refusing a tip, Gregory started again.

“I was helping out on this case, you see. It was back awhile when a bunch of bodies showed up. They’d been torn up.” The man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. “Mind, we didn’t have the cameras there are now to take pictures, but I think you’ll see what I did.”

Myles opened the envelope and several pictures, all five-by-sevens, spilled out on the conference table. They were all in black and white, but he didn’t need color to tell him that it was the same as he had in the bar now.

“Where was this?” He sorted through the pictures and counted three men and one woman. “Did you ever find the killer?”

“Jersey City, and no. They were all in a bar or something similar to it. Nothing much like the one you’re in now. Back then there were more witnesses, or I should say more people around. They didn’t have anything to tell us. All we got out of them was they were suddenly covered in blood.” Gregory, using his finger, pushed a photo of a girl to him. “This here is Theresa. She was the first one that called us. She screamed to the dispatcher that there were a hundred people dead and that she thought maybe about that many people had done the killing.”

Myles looked at the girl. She looked to be about twenty, maybe less, but no more than that. Pretty little thing with dark hair and dark eyes. That’s all he could tell by the photo. He looked at the back of the picture and read her name and address. It was an address in Jersey City. He put the photo down and looked at Gregory. The man had yet to tell him anything all that helpful, but Myles thought the best was yet to come.

“You want to tell me what it is you’re hoping I’ll guess? I’ve got a few murders to solve and so far, all you’ve told me is that you have a crime similar to mine that happened a long time ago.” Myles watched as he pulled out another envelope from the other side of his jacket. “What’s this? More ancient pictures?”

The first picture sent a wave of cold air over his body. It was another bar, more dead people, and more blood. These pictures were in color. While Myles looked these over, Gregory stacked the first set of pictures up and told him about this set.

“Those were taken five years later. There were two more like this between the first and those, but the pictures were ruined during a fire in the basement of the station. I heard that the bodies were the same, three men and a woman. Same as the one you have in your hand. I got another two envelopes of pictures if you need to see them, but you’ll pretty much see the same thing. Blood, bodies, and three men and one single woman.” He put the first pictures back into his pocket. “That is the girl who called it in.”

It was the same girl. Her hair was different, lighter than in the first one, and in this one he could see that her eyes were a deep brown. He flipped the picture over. The name was the same too.

“This one says she lives in Hudson district. That’s about two hundred miles away. How did you get to be on both crime scenes?” Myles kept staring at the girl so it took him a few minutes to realize that Gregory hadn’t answered. “You’ve been gathering this information since then, haven’t you?”

“Yes. After the second killing, I started keeping my own notes and files. It wasn’t as hard back then, just ask the clerk at the print job to make you another set. And the newspaper didn’t care if I slipped them a few bucks to have anything extra they might have taken.” He took out a larger envelope, this time from the back of his jacket. “Those are my notes and anything else I have. I got more in my hotel room here.”

“Why?” Myles was going to take it all. If even half of what he was seeing in these pictures were true, then he wanted it all. “And what is the connection to all these deaths other than the girl? Why is she killing them?”

Gregory laughed. “Took me nearly five years to realize she was the killer. She had me fooled with the hair changes. And I suppose the way she didn’t age nary a bit.” He dumped the last pictures, these glossy color eight-by-tens. “She called in that one about a month ago. I was visiting a friend or I might have missed it. An old buddy of mine called me and told me about it.”

The pictures could have been duplicates of the scene from all the others. And the blood and gore seemed to be more…well, simply more. He looked for the girl, knowing there had to be a picture, when he found it. She looked to be exactly the same as she had in the first picture. Myles looked up at Gregory.

“When was the first murder committed? What year?” Myles didn’t really want to know, was afraid to know really, but knew that as sure as he was sitting there it had to have been at least twenty or so years ago—maybe as many as thirty.

“I’ll be seventy-five on my next birthday. I was eighteen when that first one happened.”

Myles sat in the same chair long after Gregory left, leaving him the key to his room. He told Myles that he was leaving as soon as he got in his car and not coming back. He said he wasn’t long for this earth, that he’d been a heavy smoker all his life and it had finally caught up with him.

“Cancer got me. I guess I had it better than most, lived myself a long life. Not much of one, mind you, but a long one.” Gregory had stood and so did Myles. “You find her for me. Find her and kill her. That’s the only way to make sure that nothing like this happens again.”

He told him he’d do his best and sat back down at the table to look over the crime scene photos. Whatever this girl was, and he had no doubt that she wasn’t quite human, she was one pissed off bitch.

~~~

Theresa watched everything going on with a smile. Humans were so stupid, and she laughed harder when one of the policemen came out and threw up all over the hedge near the hotel. Yes, they were incredibly stupid.

She wanted to move closer but stayed back. She’d learned recently that there were cameras all around, and sometimes they’d catch her in the crowd. Then she thought about her buddy Gregory.

He’d been here. Later, but he’d been here. She could find him by scent now, and sniffed the air to see if he’d been close enough that she could brush by him. Nothing. She did smell something…almost something she liked, but decided it was the scent of blood and dismissed it. It wasn’t until she was moving toward her den that she realized what she’d smelled.

Vampire. An old one too. Turning to go back to where she’d been standing, Theresa changed her mind. If she could smell him then he would be able to smell her too. Picking up speed, she made her way to her resting area with five minutes to spare, and wondered if the old one had made it as well. Huddled down into the deepest part of the cave, she thought about what she’d done last evening.

When she’d first entered the bar it hadn’t been her intention to kill anyone. She’d only wanted a fast meal, and had happened upon the place because it was open. Going into the bar, she could feel the others there, but not in view of her. She went to the wall where she could hear them but not see them, and listened.

She could hear that they were there to kill a woman who they believed was a hired killer. Intrigued, she slipped into the room where they were using all sorts of equipment she’d only just recently started to pay attention to. She realized that they were listening in on someone. It only took her a few seconds to realize that here was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. But it wasn’t until she was actually in the room that she realized she’d miscalculated, and there were only two men in the room with a woman.

Killing the two men had been easy. She simply took the woman to her body and sank her fangs deep into her throat while they watched. She had no idea why some people thought this was incredibly erotic, but they sat long enough for her to feed enough to handle the two of them and drop the woman to the floor. Theresa had the neck of the first man broken before he could even make a sound. The second man was a bit trickier, but he was no match for her strength, and when he stood to attack, finally, she simply moved to him and lifted him off the floor by his neck until he stopped struggling. He was dead before she went back to the woman to finish feeding.

Tearing them apart had been fun. She loved the sounds the body made when it was torn to bits…bones cracking, flesh tearing. She did miss the sounds of them crying and begging for their release, but this hadn’t been planned and she was doing the best she could with what she had to work with. It was then that she went to the bar and tore the man up with the other woman, wishing the entire time that she’d waited for his companion, the female with him. She would have been much more fun.

Theresa hadn’t been a vampire long when she realized how much fun she could have with her newfound strength. The first time she’d killed had made her climax better than she ever had, even as a human. She’d had to do it again and again for the same thrill, getting better all the time. Smiling, she remembered the first time she’d killed four and found it to be the perfect combination of humans so that she had the optimum fun. Three were nothing but a lot of fun, and five had taken too long and she’d been too exhausted to enjoy the aftermath.

The third time she’d killed her quad was when she’d seen Gregory. He’d been on the case with some other detectives; back then, they’d simply been cops. And he’d been so nice to her when she’d told him what she’d “witnessed” that she’d made sure over the years that he’d get a call either from her or another person she’d made call him so she could see him again. She wished he hadn’t gotten old, but it wasn’t until recently that she realized she could have changed him into what she was and he would have been around for a lot longer. Now, he was old and dying, and she was getting bored with him.

As the sun started to rise Theresa thought of the scent she’d picked up in the bar and wondered who it had been. She thought that she’d go back there tomorrow, sniff around, and see what she could find. Maybe she’d be able to find whoever it had been in the room by following its trail. Smiling at the prospect of finding the scent, she closed her eyes just as the sun crested the horizon. Theresa was out before the sun was much more than a bright spot in the sky.