“What’s going on, Detective?” Duane asked.
Freitas leveled her gaze on him for a moment, and then put away the badge, as though she had forgotten she was holding it. “A man was just found murdered in the alley two blocks from here,” she said. “He had been to Nocturnal Urges tonight.”
Isabel gasped. “Again,” she said. “That’s…”
“Five,” Freitas said. “You didn’t see anything, hear anything?”
“No,” Isabel said. “Why me?”
Freitas shook her head. “Two blocks from here, you’re patrons of Nocturnal Urges, I took a shot,” she said. “If you think of anything, give me a call.”
“Of course,” Isabel said. “I’ll see you later.”
Freitas nodded, and suddenly seemed much older in the few seconds before she turned to walk away down the hallway. Isabel closed the door slowly, suddenly saddened by the death of some man whose name she didn’t even know.
“Wow,” Duane said. “Some crazy killing people—that shit is nothing to fool with, Isabel. You’re not going back there.”
“I hadn’t planned on it,” Isabel said.
“You and the detective are kind of, what, friends now?” Duane asked, but Isabel ignored his question, leaning back against the door. She felt confused, torn, as if nothing was the same and yet everything was the same. Somewhere she realized it wasn’t the murder only two blocks away. That it had been building for weeks, something that had unseated her comfortable, ordinary life.
It felt as though the ground underneath her had become untrustworthy, like the floor of her grandmother’s attic that was boarded, but not nailed down. The wrong step would send you crashing down into the ceilings below you, and the boards themselves were bowed with age.
She felt alone, and yet her body was filled with need, more hunger than she knew how to satisfy, more desire than simple sex could fulfill.
“Love me, Duane,” she said, raising her eyes to his.
Duane blinked. “Wow, are you sure you’re up to—”
Isabel pushed herself into his arms, drawing his head down to hers with a nearly frantic need, that hunger that started somewhere in her chest where unshed tears burned. He clasped her tightly and pulled her down the hallway, still kissing her, toward the bedroom. The lamp was on, casting a dim light across her bed.
She tore at his buttons with urgency, pulling his shirt off his broad frame. She pressed kisses and licks across his chest, catching his flat nipple between her lips and sucking it. He kneaded her head between his large hands, drawing her face back up to his. His mouth crushed across hers, hard and strong, his tongue pressing between her teeth to glide against her own.
It seemed she couldn’t get enough. She grasped at him, her nails digging into his shoulders, as though by pressing that close to him she could feel again, the turmoil within her would be eased and the confusion would wane.
But Duane stepped back for a moment and she reached out for him.
“Wait,” he said, smiling. “Let’s try something.”
“Duane,” she said.
Duane turned to the nightstand and withdrew the silken scarf she had left there weeks ago. “Please,” he said.
Isabel would have agreed to anything, if only he would take her in his arms again. She nodded, and he quickly wound the scarf around her head, over her eyes. The darkness swept in, and she felt the scarf’s smooth fabric with her fingertips.
“Duane?” she said.
“I’m here,” he replied, and she felt his fingers probing between her breasts. It was different, not the usual preamble. This was rougher, more insistent and infinitely exciting. She reached out and found only empty space as he moved away from her. She took a step, and could not find him.
“Duane, where are you?” she said, her heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with fear.
Then she felt his hands on her, pulling at her blouse with insistent force, freeing her shoulders and arms and leaving her skin bare above the taut satin of her bra. His hands were already fumbling at her belt, and he was having trouble with it. She tried to help, but he pushed her hands away. She reached up and behind to find his head, bringing it down to the unscathed side of her neck. He nuzzled her, kissing and licking her, and she quelled the image of Ryan that immediately rose to mind.
Duane was still having trouble with the belt, so she turned toward him and unlatched it herself.
“Naughty,” he said, clasping her wrists together in one strong hand. He pushed her back on the bed, drawing her hands up over her head. “Stay.”
She could not see anything, only feel his hands move down over her body to her waist, where he pulled her slacks away, down her long legs to the floor. She couldn’t help it, she reached up toward him, pulling him closer to her.
He responded by pulling her hands back over her head and pinning them there with one rough hand. “Stay,” he commanded.
Isabel writhed beneath him, arching her back to bring her breasts closer to him. But he just teased her, his hand smoothing the skin across her abdomen, below the breasts, breathing hard against her chest but refusing to touch it. Her legs pumped beneath him, trying to draw him close.
She lurched her head upward, trying to capture his mouth. But she missed in her darkness, and caught his ear instead. Passionately she sucked at it, and his hand tightened on her hip. He ground his hips against hers, still clad in rough jeans that chafed her tender skin in a delicious friction that went on and on.
“Oh God, Duane, please,” she cried out. Her words dissolved into cries as his mouth descended between her breasts, licking and kissing the tender skin as he moved over to suck a hard, taut nipple into his mouth. He molded her nipple through the fabric, and then slipped it free. She felt the moist heat of his mouth take her breast in hard passion.
She struggled against his restraining hand, wanting to reach down where his jeans remained in her way, to tear them apart and take his hardness in her hand, to bring him to her, to feel him within her. But he held her tightly, and the struggle itself was intoxicating and exciting.
Duane’s hand slipped downward, beneath the thin nylon of her panties and groped her mercilessly, without preamble or finesse. His rough fingers made her cry out at sharp sensations spearing through her. He pulled and tugged, and her panties were gone.
“God, Isabel, I can’t wait,” he said, finally releasing her hands as she heard his zipper go.
“Duane, oh God, Duane,” she cried in her darkness. His weight pressed down hard on her, driving her into the mattress, and she felt his naked heat settle between her legs. She clutched at the small of his back, heedless of her nails digging into the skin, urging him onward as his breath, fast and hard, came hot on her neck.
He thrust upward, hammering into her with force that made her cry out in mixed pleasure and shock. As always, there was a slight lessening of the passionate madness the moment he entered her, the actual sensation dampening the delicious tension that had built up. But he thrust again, hard and fast, and the tension built again, powerful and strong.
She cried out and held him close, feeling his hard driving thrusts push her deep into the mattress. It seemed she could not get him deep enough into her, as though she would draw his entire body into her skin. Not just the deep hard heat of him penetrating between her thighs, she wanted to envelop all of him into her and fill that horrible emptiness with heat and passion and
feeling
.
“Ryan, oh God,” she moaned, feeling him speed up, knowing he was close, that this hard passion could only be brought to explosion soon. She felt it beginning, almost insanely soon, as the frantic clapping beat of his sweat-soaked body slamming against her own skin sped to a pace nearly out of control.
“Isabel,” he cried, jerking so hard she had to brace herself on his shoulders.
Only another moment
, she thought, and he thrust hard four more times in quick succession, hard fast powerful thrusts and she came, huge bursts of glorious throbbing ecstasy radiating out from her very skin, and she cried out again in wordless sounds of release.
Just as she ebbed, Duane sped up again, hard and fast, crying out as he exploded, throbbing within her, his hands clutching the blanket on either side of her shoulders. She rode the waves with him, feeling his body begin to relax as his own passion waned within her, and it was almost as good as her own climax, feeling him within her.
He lay there for a moment, and did not withdraw immediately. She started to reach up for the blindfold, and her hand froze in midair as it suddenly struck her.
She had cried out beneath Duane. Cried out in passion.
Cried out another name.
Oh God.
Had he heard? He was still hard inside her, beginning to soften. Was he just now realizing what she had said?
Oh no, oh please don’t let him have heard.
She felt him withdraw, and he rolled away from her. She pulled off the blindfold, blinking a little at the sudden light, and glanced over at him. For once he was not asleep. He was staring at the ceiling, slightly out of breath.
She didn’t know what to say. Perhaps, if she said nothing, he’d think he imagined—
“I’m Duane, you know,” he said, his tone trying to be funny and failing. “In case you were wondering.”
For a brief second, Isabel thought of pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. Maybe he’d think she didn’t realize what she’d said. Maybe he’d even convince himself he’d heard her wrong.
Jesus, Isabel, who are you?
“I don’t know where THAT came from,” Isabel said, trying for a light tone herself. “Must be residual from the bite. Sorry about that.”
“Yeah,” Duane said. “Except he was here, wasn’t he.” It was a statement, not a question.
“What are you talking about?” Isabel said, immediately falling back on the lie and wishing like mad she had never heard of Ryan, Nocturnal Urges, vampires or sex.
“You went back there alone to see him; you lie to the cops…”
“What?” Isabel tried once more.
Duane rolled on his side. “I know, Isabel,” he said, his voice as serious as she’d ever heard it. “You lied to that cop. Someone did come to the apartment, someone you didn’t want the cop to know about, and now I know who, don’t I?”
Isabel gave it up. “I’m sorry, Duane, I just didn’t want to…complicate things,” she said. “He just came by to see if I was okay. He had a soda and left. The end.”
“Didn’t give him a sip or two just for old times’ sake?” Duane said, and now his tone was getting harsh. She read the hurt underlying it, and she understood it, but it still pissed her off.
“Of course not,” she said, sitting upright and fixing her bra to cover herself again.
“Don’t,” Duane snapped. “Don’t act like I’m being so fucking unreasonable. You lie to the cops, you lie to me, you call out the name of some goddamn leech…”
“Don’t say that!” Isabel snapped back.
“What, leech?” Duane yelled.
“Stop it!” Isabel cried.
Duane jumped to his feet and started pulling on his clothes with harsh, jerking motions. “Jesus, I think I could handle it if you were fucking a man behind my back, but to fuck a leech…”
“I’m not fucking him!” Isabel shouted.
“No, you’re just thinking about him while you’re fucking me!” Duane shouted back. “What are you thinking, Isabel? He’s a monster!”
“Stop saying that,” Isabel cried, pulling a blanket up against her semi-nude body.
Duane got right in her face, and she saw all the hurt pride and pain come out in fury through his eyes and words. “He’s a fucking vampire, an undead leech, creature, monster demon animal—”
“Get out!” Isabel shouted.
“I’m gone,” Duane said, and strode out of the room. A moment later, she heard the front door slam with force enough that somewhere a picture fell off the wall with a crash.
Isabel gathered the blanket around her body, still warm, still full of fizzing endorphins, as though her body didn’t realize what had just happened.
She sat there, curling herself smaller and smaller, trying to draw herself into the blanket. Tears tried to come, but it was too much for tears. She squashed them back down her throat like bitter gall.
Chapter Four
“Hey, Fiona, how’s tricks?” Freitas called, raising her shield up at eye level as Brent the Bouncer came toward her.
Fiona shook her head vehemently. “It can’t be, not tonight,” she snapped. “No sirens, no flashing lights, no way there’s been another one!”
“Hate to ruin your day, Fiona, but the bastard is branching out,” Freitas replied, whipping out the photograph. “His buddies say this one was here last night, and ended up dead a few miles away in Midtown.”
Fiona glanced at the photo. “I don’t recognize him. He didn’t order a special.”
“Special?” Freitas asked. “That’s what you call it?”
“Give it a try sometime, Detective,” Fiona cajoled. “Might loosen you up.”
“I’m gonna ignore that,” Freitas said. “Hey, Brent!”
The bouncer ambled over in his laid-back manner. Freitas shoved the photo in his face. “Recognize this guy?”
Brent stared at it for a second, and his eyes flicked to Fiona for an instant. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember him. He came in with a bunch of frat boys, loud and drunk. I had to kick him out.”
Freitas pulled out her notebook. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Why’d you boot him?”
“He was bothering one of the girls,” Brent said. “Shoving her around, calling her a leech.”
“I don’t stand for that shit in my place,” Fiona said imperiously.
“You know, it’s real funny how your language drops out of the nineteenth century when you’re talking with me, Fiona,” Freitas said, writing quickly. “The vampire girl, was she here with anyone?”
“No, she was one of ours,” Brent said. “Rebecca.”
“Thank you, Brent,” Fiona said, and Brent immediately shut up and moved off.
Freitas continued writing, although at this point she was basically scribbling gibberish to make Fiona nervous. “Once again, Fiona, the city would like you to consider—”
“No,” Fiona snapped.
“Voluntarily—”
“No.”
Freitas sighed. “It can’t be good for business to have your customers eaten, Fiona.”
“My customers are not eaten. Someone’s killing them, you haven’t found out who, and I’m not closing my place until you get a court order,” Fiona said, folding her arms.
Freitas gave up. “When’s Rebecca come in?”
“Seven,” Fiona said. “Until then, she’s sleeping.”
“I always meant to ask you that, Fiona,” Freitas said. “How come you and Brent never sleep during the day?”
“I sleep during the early morning, so I can be awake when the police come for their daily chat,” Fiona shot back.
“And poor Brent?” Freitas said.
Fiona glanced over at the hulking bouncer, who was facing away from them, pretending he didn’t know what they were talking about.
“Brent does what I tell him to do,” Fiona said.
Freitas raised a mental eyebrow at that, but closed her notebook. “Thanks for everything, Fiona,” she said. “Of course, if you should think of anything that might help the investigation…”
“Absolutely,” Fiona said, and turned to go back inside. Freitas watched her go, and waved with false cheerfulness to Brent before heading back up the street toward her car.
Brent stood under the awning, watching the detective leave. He didn’t turn when Ryan came up behind him.
“What did she ask?” Ryan said.
“The same,” Brent replied. “This is getting serious.”
Ryan stared at the detective’s car as it trundled away from the club. “It was always serious, Brent.”
* * * * *
Freitas stared at the apartment door. Somehow, it looked exactly like she thought it would—a splintery, peeling wooden door with a lousy lock, covered in bumper stickers.
Vampires: A Grave Problem
Your Civil Rights End At My Throat
Vamps Welcome at Sunrise Services
That one’s particularly funny
, Freitas thought, and knocked with three short raps.
A few steps, then a male voice. “Whozzit?”
“Memphis P.D., please open the door,” Freitas said, holding her badge up to the peephole. Just to be safe, she kept one hand on her holster.
The chain rasped, and Jonathan Osborne opened the door. He was wearing a sweatsuit, no shoes and his eyes weren’t focused. “Can I help you?”
“Sorry if I woke you,” Freitas said, putting away her badge. “Wanted to chat with you a few minutes.”
Osborne blinked a moment, and then stepped aside without a word. Freitas followed him into the apartment.
It was covered in books and stacks of flyers, piled on a sagging couch and a rickety kitchen table. On the walls, she saw several posters, ranging from a giant picture of a movie Count Dracula with a big red X across his face to a stark black square with VAMPS SUCK in large red block letters.
“Nice place,” Freitas said.
“Yeah,” Osborne said. “It’s a real dump.”
Freitas couldn’t really disagree. “How are things in the protest biz, Jonathan?”
Osborne shrugged. “Can’t complain. Saved four souls this week, it’s been good.”
“Yeah?” Freitas said. “How’d you save ‘em?”
“Shared the word of God,” Osborne replied, and now he was starting to wake up. “Showed them the power that the vamps can hold over them, and gave them the strength to set themselves free.”
Freitas wandered over to the bookshelves, scanning titles like
Vampyre Victims
and
Never Cross a Human
.
“How many people do you have in your group, Jonathan?” Freitas asked.
Osborne shrugged. “I don’t know, about fifty or so on the mailing list. Only fifteen that really show up for the protests.”
“Any of ‘em particularly vocal?” Freitas asked.
“They got reasons to hate the vamps, most of ‘em,” Osborne said. “Mostly they’re God-fearing folk out to save souls.”
“I’m sure,” Freitas said.
“You a believer?” Osborne asked, a shrewd look in his eyes she didn’t like at all.
“I belong to the Church of Law and Order,” Freitas replied. “So where were you last night, Jonathan?”
Osborne blinked again. “Protesting, all night,” he said. “Ask any of my people, they’ll tell you. What, did someone get killed again?”
“I’ll need a list of your people who were picketing last night,” Freitas said. “Anyone outside your group who can corroborate your whereabouts?”
“I guess that heathen bouncer or the vamps across the street,” Osborne said, writing down a few names on a slip of paper. “What, am I in some kind of trouble?”
Freitas leveled her cop eyes at him. “Stay away from the patrons, Jonathan,” she said sternly. “You don’t want to fuck with me. Wave your signs all you want, but I better not catch you crossing the line.”
“Whatever,” Osborne said, handing her the list.
Freitas knew when she was being blown off. “Be good,” she said, heading out the door.
As she walked down the apartment building stairs, the cell phone rang. Swearing to herself, she fumbled it out of her jacket. “Freitas.”
“Hey, Annie,” Betschart said. “I finished your vamp-kill.”
Freitas opened the exterior door and gratefully stepped out of Osborne’s dingy apartment building onto a slightly less dingy street. “Who said it was a vamp?”
“It’s a vamp.”
Freitas sighed, walking briskly down the street toward her car. Fortunately, it appeared unmolested by the denizens of Osborne’s less-than-upscale neighborhood. “That’s a problem for me, Joann. I’ve got a shortage of vamp suspects.”
“Okay, there’s one way it isn’t a vamp.”
“Now you’re talking.” Freitas slid in behind the wheel and started the car, letting it warm up.
“If the human had a set of false teeth made, something custom, to resemble vamp teeth, then he could do the job on Hamburger Boy.”
“Ugh,” Freitas said. “You just ruined my lunch plans.”
“Sorry.”
“Where does someone get teeth like that made?” Freitas asked.
“I see them from time to time, humans who got the shot as kids but grew up wanting to be vamps. They get the teeth made from the same companies that do custom dentures, sometimes have their own teeth pulled so they can have permanent implants,” Betschart said.
“So they’re kooks,” Freitas said.
“I make no judgments on other people’s lifestyles, Annie. That’s why I live such a happy, healthy life.”
“I thought you lived a happy, healthy life because you spend your work day cutting people open,” Freitas shot back.
“Caught me.”
The car was warm. “As much fun as this is, I need to drive now.”
“I’ll have a report on your desk this afternoon. Drive carelessly.” Betschart clicked off without saying goodbye. It was one of her many charms.
Freitas rolled into traffic, heading downtown along Union Street. She knew exactly where she was going, and when she pulled into the parking garage of one of the nicest office buildings in downtown Memphis, she flashed her badge and was waved in immediately.
She strode through the lobby to one of the few first-floor suites. VAMP was engraved on a conservative plaque outside the shuttered doors. It was the only suite where the windows were covered.
Freitas knocked, and a tiny camera swiveled toward her face. She held up her badge to it and waited.
A moment later, the door swung inward and she stepped through a pair of black curtains into a quiet reception area, tastefully furnished in hunter green with silk flowers on the coffee table.
The young man working the desk rose to greet her. “Detective, how may I help you?” he asked.
“I’m here to see Drew Sanford,” Freitas said.
“Is he expecting you?” the flunky asked.
“Nope.”
The flunky stood there, a little nonplussed. He was clearly waiting for her to explain herself, but instead Freitas stood silent. “Well, I’ll go see if he’s available,” the flunky said, and disappeared through the door.
It was strange, Freitas thought. Although the room was carefully shielded from any possible sunlight, it was not dark and moody like Nocturnal Urges. It could have been the office of an investment company or a high-powered law firm.
“Detective,” Drew Sanford said, appearing with the flunky. “How nice of you to stop by.” He extended a hand, and Freitas shook it politely. “Follow me.”
Sanford led Freitas back down the hallway, passing closed office doors marked with signs like RECRUITMENT, PLEDGES and OUTREACH.
“Quite an operation you have here,” Freitas said as they reached a plush corporate office. Sanford sat down in a comfy-looking executive chair, and gestured to the guest chair across his mahogany desk. “About how many people in your organization?”
“Thank you,” Sanford said.
Freitas pulled out her notebook. “For what?”
“For referring to us as people,” Sanford said, leaning forward. “There are approximately two hundred in the local VAMP chapter, who actively participate in our organization and regularly attend events.”
“Including the protests,” Freitas said.
Sanford nodded. “There are another nine hundred or so on our international mailing list, mostly from the internet.”
Freitas paused a moment. “More than eleven hundred?”
“Or so,” Sanford said, a small smile creasing his lips. “More every day, and many of them humans. They are coming to believe, as we do, that this abominable practice of selling the bite is perversion, nothing less. We are gaining influence, and we will convince your government to make it illegal.”
“My government is your government, the last time I looked,” Freitas said.
Sanford leaned back, eyes cool as ice chips on glass. “Of course it is,” he said. “I misspoke.”
“It’s getting dangerous around Nocturnal Urges these days,” Freitas said.
“Indeed,” Sanford said. “Obviously the wanton disregard for the pure nature of the bite has begun to lead both humans and vampires down the path to madness.”
Freitas’ pen paused. “Explain that to me, if you would.”
“The bite is meant to be shared between a single human and vampire, a most holy and sacred bond that should not be taken lightly,” Sanford said. “It is not meant to be merely food or sexual pleasure, and to demean it is to demean us all, to cast mud on the moral center of the vampire existence.”
“How do you get your blood?” Freitas asked.
Sanford inclined his head. “I have been with my current wife for twenty-nine years, Detective,” he said.
“Current?” Freitas said.
“Unfortunately a vampire will outlive many spouses over the course of his existence,” Sanford said. “I have had nine wives in the course of my life, and I have been faithful to each of them.”
“I thought the law didn’t allow you to marry,” Freitas said.
Sanford smiled, but there was no humor in it. “It is the term we use for our life partners. Currently we are not allowed the legal protections of marriage, no. I am bound to my wife and share the bite only with her. I supplement with animal blood from the butcher, as do my less fortunate brethren.”