The Cactus Killer (The Inglewood Chronicles) (15 page)

She got up and stretched
herself. “Goodnight Vic, and thank you for looking out for
me.”

“
You got me into this mess
and now it is up to me to get us out of it.” I winked at her and
headed up to my room. I saw Reno and Phil in the living room with
Cristof and waved at them as I went up the stairs. My roommate
situation was getting a little overwhelming.

Sleep deprivation was an
ongoing epidemic, I didn’t get nearly enough sleep and, before I
knew it, I was driving Liz and Cristof to Argent’s office for an
early morning pow wow. Both made remarks that I was not a morning
person, which I responded with my best snarl. Cheery vampires in
the morning seemed to go against the natural order of
things.

It didn’t get better once
we were all gathered in Argent’s office. Dad and Bernard were
coming from a crime scene; we had another dead body.

“
Callum, just what is going
on?” Argent was almost in a panic.

“
We have another dead wolf,
Archibald. This time it was a Black wolf, Caleb Boeing. We were
tipped off again by an anonymous phone call where to find his body.
Dr. Tello has it right now in autopsy, but she thinks we will find
the same thing as we did with the Alvarez body.”

“
Dad, do you need me to go
investigate the scene?”

He looked over at the two
vampires. “It would be a big help if Victor could go.”

“
I think it is a wonderful
idea, Callum. Just because your son is now in my employ does not
mean he is not his own person. You can call on him anytime.” Liz
just melted my dad’s heart. The old wolf still had a pulse I
guess.

“
Perfect, Bernard, would
you mind going with him and seeing if he can spot anything we
missed?”

“
You got it, dad.” Bernard
turned to me, “Come on Vic, it’ll be just like old
times.”

“
I’ll text you guys if we
find anything.”

I followed Bernard out of
the office and we took my car. My brother is a spitting image of my
dad, just a lot younger. He has the traditional family red hair and
the stocky build. I look more like our mom, with my thinner
frame.

“
I miss these days Vic, the
police work you know? I hated working in the mayor’s office,
nothing but boredom city.”

“
Why didn’t you take the
sheriff’s job when dad was ready to retire then? As the lead
detective, you were more qualified than me.”

“
Unlike you and dad, I
don’t do well in the spotlight. I also knew if I was there, people
would question your judgment, so I wanted you to have your freedom
too.”

“
It looks like we both got
into places we are happy. I tell you what, those vampires know
their stuff, man. I wouldn’t have taken this job if they were a
half assed operation.”

Bernard looked at his
phone, “Text just came in from dad; all available Alphas are coming
here tomorrow. The scary vampire guy and Argent have decided that
this is bigger than all of us.”

I frowned a bit when I
heard this. “Too many hands in the pot. I might be paranoid again,
but I think this guy wants us to get bogged down and screw
ourselves over. Good old fashion police work is all this case
needs.”

“
The problem is too many
bodies are surfacing. Now the guy is targeting wolves and we have
to do all we can to protect our people. You, on the other hand,
have free reign. You need to use that to your
advantage.”

As we pulled up to the
crime scene and the sun was rising off in the east, I took my
brother’s words to heart. Billy was there taking pictures and
flagged us over.

“
Vic, am I glad to see you!
Not that I don’t enjoy your company Bernard, I do.”

“
It’s good to see you too,
Billy. Wish it wasn’t at a crime scene, but que sera my friend. Now
tell me what we got here.”

He went over the scene with
me, where the body was found and everything that was associated
with it. The musky smell was present once again, along with blood.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the body would
have been a slaughtered mess.

“
Bernard, was our victim
bled dry?”

“
Yeah, how did you
know?”

“
I can smell it; the smell
of blood is everywhere. Alvarez wasn’t completely drained so what
changed on this one?”

No one said anything; we
just looked at each other. I had heard of vampire’s being drained,
which made sense because his holy water concoction was made out of
it. But to do this to a werewolf could only mean…

“
He’s using werewolf’s
blood now. That is the difference!”

Billy looked up from his
camera, “What did you say?”

“
He had been using
vampire’s blood before, but from what I could tell it had been
unstable even in the best cases. The last two monsters I came in
contact with weren’t nearly as bad as the mess of bodies I found
under the church. He changed the Holy Water.”

“
So those beasts that
nearly killed you are humans injected with that chemical mixture I
read about in Dr. Tello’s report?” I was glad he read the report
and was up-to-date on everything.

“
The original recipe Dr.
Tello did a lab report on used vampire’s blood. He used Alvarez as
a sample and when it worked out so well, he needed more. That is
why our victim was killed and drained. They needed more blood to
make more of those things.”

All three of us just looked
at each other. If this was the case, then the werewolf community
was in bigger trouble than we had first thought. I grabbed my phone
and called Liz.

“
Liz, it’s Vic, I need to
talk to you right now.”

I heard her excuse herself
from the meeting. “What is it, Vic? Did you find
anything?”

“
Tucker isn’t using vampire
blood anymore for his holy water. He is using werewolf blood. The
last victim was drained completely. That’s why the last two
monsters were nothing like the guys in the mine or the mess we
found under the church. They are reacting better for some reason to
the werewolf blood.”

“
I will pass this onto the
rest. I do not like having to put this pressure on you, but right
now I need you to find anything that can lead us to Tucker. The
longer he is allowed to run free, the worse it is for all of
us.”

“
I’ll do my best, boss
lady.”

I was running out of ideas.
Tucker had so far avoided everything we did and even was able to
get my cell phone number. The call had been from a burner that
wasn’t traceable at all. But the guy had to have a trail
somewhere.

“
Bernard, I have an idea on
something. I think that church up in Elephant Butte still has
secrets that are worth checking out. I can’t physically go in
because they know me. But Billy here, he could probably get close
without raising suspicions if anyone still involved is
around.”

Bernard looked at Billy
before answering. “I think it is worth a go. Our first joint
undercover operation then, inspector?”

“
It would be a pleasure,
detective. I guess we just need to get our boss’s onboard,
huh?”

Billy looked at both of us,
thinking we forgot he was there. “Hey, do I get a say in any of
this?”

“
Deputy, you have a duty to
your community, are you shirking responsibilities?”

“
No sir,
detective!”

Bernard knew Billy’s
buttons too. “Well, that was easier than I thought.”

“
Yeah, unfortunately I
don’t think dad will be as easily convinced as young Billy the Kid
here.”

“
That is why you get to
talk to him and I will talk to my bosses. Plus, I want to check out
those Bibles one more time. Are they still in evidence back at the
station?”

Billy nodded, “Yeah, just
where you left them.”

“
Perfect. Let’s head back
and see if we can’t get this show on the road.” 

When I got back to Full
Moon, I was greeted with two pieces of good news. First, Cristof
and Phil were going to be stationed out of the Mayor Argent’s guest
house for the time being, which meant I was now down to just two
house guests. Second, both Cristof and Liz were on board with the
plan to go to Holy Methodist one more time.

According to Bernard’s text
messages, dad took a little more convincing than my bosses. He
finally relented and the sting was on. After a quick conference
call, we set it up that we would have two teams heading up, one
earlier to get in position and one showing up around eight tonight
with Billy. The first team would be dad, Bernard, and Chaz and the
second team along with Billy, would be me, Liz, and Reno. Phil
would be staying behind with Cristof in case of an
attack.

On dad’s way out of town,
he stopped by and dropped off the Bibles we had collected so far. I
figured before we left, if I could get any more clues out of them
it would be a great help tonight. The small pocket version off the
drug addict didn’t turn up anything worthwhile. The first one, from
the guy who assaulted Liz, however, proved to hold a lot of
ramblings.

“
Find anything interesting,
cowboy?”

“
Well, the guys that went
after you the first night in town were the true blue converts of
Tucker’s schemes. This Bible is filled with mad ramblings about how
vampires are the heralds of the end times and how the Hammer of
Jehovah is here to save them.”

“
Until our blood did not
work as he had hoped and now werewolves are the monster of the
day.”

She was right. God help us
if Tucker ever got his hands on something more potent. “Isn’t it
ironic that the monsters are the ones trying to do the right thing
here?”

Liz chuckled and sighed.
“Yes, it is quite a bit ironic in that fact. Who would have thought
Bloody Lizzy and a werewolf who cannot embrace his inner wolf would
be leading the charge.”

“
It doesn’t matter who we
were or what we can’t do, let’s show everyone that together we make
one badass team.”

Her face lit up and just as
we were about to enjoy another moment together, Billy came flying
into the kitchen from the backdoor.

“
Hey guys, the front door
was locked, so I just let…oh, am I interrupting?”

We both were glaring at
him, but then started to laugh. You just can’t help but laugh at
his cluelessness sometimes. “You ever hear of using the
doorbell?”

He sat down at the table,
“Sorry, I guess I’m just a bit nervous about tonight.”

“
There is no need to be
nervous, William. Reno, Vic, and I will be right outside to provide
back-up. You just do your best and we will make sure you come away
unscathed.”

I could tell his confidence
was still a bit rattled. “Billy, what happened to Talia was
horrible, but she wasn’t prepared. We are now and heaven help
anyone who tries a stunt like that with you.”

He looked over and gave me
a half smile. Talia and what happened to her would be our rallying
call.

“
Well boys I do believe it
is time for me to wake Reno and get ourselves on the road. We
wouldn’t want to be late now, would we?”

“
No ma’am, I hate for that
to happen on my second day now.”

I knew she hated the ma’am
line and I got the evil eye as she left to go get Reno. I got up
and poured Billy a cup of coffee and sat back down. “You’ll be
fine, man. Me and you started this whole crazy ordeal. It’s been
about a week but it feels like a lifetime though, doesn’t
it?”

“
You can say that again.
Last Saturday it was me, you and Talia taking care of a small town.
Today, you are some investigator for the vampires, Talia is dead,
and we aren’t any closer to putting this guy away. It feels like we
are chasing our tails.”

“
Some of us don’t have
tails, so speak for yourself.”

“
I wish your dad had some
of your sense of humor. It sure does help to have a good laugh
before going into the fire.”

“
Don’t discount working for
my dad yet. I think he is just under stress from both the office
and at home for the situations I’ve gotten into. Once we get this
cleared up, you will see working for him isn’t so bad.”

“
So anyway, what is up with
you and the vampire queen? And don’t even give me that line that
it’s just professional. I might be a little slow, but I can tell
you two like each other.”

“
Well, yeah it’s not solely
professional as you said, but it’s definitely complicated. When I
know for sure, you’ll be the first person I call.”

“
I’m going to hold you to
that, Vic.”

We sat there finishing our
coffee and soon Liz and Reno were coming down the stairs. Reno
headed straight for the fridge and grabbed the last bottle of blood
and went out back onto the deck. Billy got up and went with him,
saying he would like to talk to him for a little while. I knew he
was just trying to make up for barging in earlier.

“
How is William, Vic? Is he
going to be up to the task tonight?”