Of Man and Monster

  * * *

  Wings ePress, Inc

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright ©2006 by Michael Shawn Williams

  First published in 2006, 2006

  * * *

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

  * * *

  Of Man And Monster

  Cory woke suddenly, confused. He lay on a rough dirt floor, surrounded by stone. In a cave somewhere, obviously. He lay for a long moment blinking into the harsh light of a propane lantern.

  His memory, in his mind's eye, seemed to him like a block of Swiss cheese. He remembered being in the canyon with Ben, then ... what? A sound from above, a panicked run, the lights go out, then ... He couldn't remember.

  "So, you're awake.” The voice came from somewhere on the other side of the lantern. It took him a moment to recognize the dark form as a human shape. The face was round, hair shaved, which simply added to the illusion of roundness. He leaned forward, a little past the lamp, and the tattoos covering his thick forearms swam into high relief. He smiled, which Cory assumed was meant to be reassuring. The inch-long canines on each side of his mouth didn't exactly go a long way toward establishing confidence. “Tell me, kid. You want to live forever?"

  "Huh?” Cory crawled up and backed himself against one of the stone walls.

  "You heard me. Me, I don't really care. I just gotta eat. You can either die or you can live forever. Your choice."

  He wasn't really a vampire, was he? Sure looked that way. “Why me?"

  "Why not? You're here."

  "But..."

  "Ah, Jeez. Listen, kid. I've got a powerful thirst, and I'm not interested in jawing ‘til dawn. You know what I am, and what I'm offering you. Eternal life. More or less."

  Other Works From The Pen Of

  Saje Williams

  Loki's Sin

  Loki set out to save the world. He didn't expect to fall in love.

  Wings

  Of Man And Monster

  by

  Saje Williams

  A Wings ePress, Inc.

  General Fiction

  Wings ePress, Inc.

  Edited by: Leslie Hodges

  Copy Edited by: Dianne Hamilton

  Senior Editor: Dianne Hamilton

  Managing Editor: Leslie Hodges

  Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

  Cover Artist: mpmann

  Illustration by Lourdes Jones

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Wings ePress Books

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright © 2006 by Michael Shawn Williams

  ISBN 1-59705-042-3

  Published In the United States Of America

  June 2006

  Wings ePress Inc.

  403 Wallace Court

  Richmond, KY 40475

  Dedication

  To my two first string proofreaders;

  my wife, Shay,

  and our friend, world champion ‘cat-herder',

  Liz

  One

  Saturday, April 5, 2008

  Central Oregon

  Another Earth

  Detective Rachel Flynn squatted next to the body and pulled the latex glove over her right hand with a sharp snap.

  The body lay like an ice sculpture, pale and blue, back pressed against the bedroom wall, with her head lying on her arm as if she'd simply fallen asleep. Not quite nude, but close to it. Rachel frowned, moving hair out of the victim's face so she could see it more clearly.

  Very young. Maybe eighteen. Barely more than a child. Damn, I hate this. She hadn't really looked around the crime scene yet, but she already knew what she'd see. A bedroom done up in romantic candlelight, a couple glasses of wine sitting somewhere within easy reach of the bed.

  The girl herself was dressed in fine lace panties and a peach camisole. Her creamy skin, lightly dusted with freckles, gleamed oddly under the harsh overheads.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the hulking figure of her new partner, Jeremy Binks. They called him “Binkie” just to annoy him. So far it wasn't working.

  "Her name's Tanya Voss. Twenty years old last week. She was found by a friend,” he told her, his high, almost squeaky voice sounding absurd emerging from his considerable bulk. He consulted his notepad. “Name's Angela Tarn. They were supposed to go to the gym together this morning."

  Rachel leaned forward and brushed a lock of lank, bleach-blond hair away from the girl's face. She'd been pretty. So why'd this happen to you, Tanya? She saw no sign of injury, no blood, no blunt force trauma. Again, like the others.

  She moved the hair back a little farther and spotted what she'd expected to see. A thin gash over the jugular with—again—no sign of blood other than a little clotting around the wound. The scene was as clean as the other two had been.

  "It's like someone—or something—sucked all the liquids right out of her. Right?"

  "Uh-huh,” she grunted, barely listening. They weren't going to be able to keep this away from the press much longer. Redburn had a vampire killer on the loose. The worst part is that he seemed, somehow, to be able to drain his victims in the classic way a vampire was supposed to, by sucking it all out through a tiny hole in the throat.

  Ridiculous, on the surface of it, but that's what the evidence suggested. “It's gotta be one of those freaks,” Binkie murmured, as if his brain was churning along the same path as hers. Except for the last bit.

  "Don't call them that,” she growled, climbing to her feet. She shot him a scathing glance to drive home her words.

  He shrugged, apparently not feeling particularly apologetic. The world's sudden shift from normalcy had taken everyone by surprise, but no one more than the protectors of the peace. Rachel had heard more disparaging comments from other cops than just about anyone else about these so-called “Metahumans.” Some called them “freaks,” particularly certain conservative radio commentators ... and cops. Cops tended to see things as black and white. They didn't have the time or inclination to see anything else.

  Rachel didn't know the whole story, but everything she'd heard suggested that the “freak effect,” whatever it was, happened almost at random. It could happen to anyone.

  It could happen to me. Or to him. Or even to this poor thing, she added mentally, staring down at the body. Might have saved her life.

  There were other things abroad too, things straight out of the faerie tales she'd been told as a child. The streets of the larger cities were infested with little boggles—of course the media called them goblins—very similar to the small monsters her grandmother had described in so many of her stories.

  So who's to say that vampires aren't real? “I don't think we're going to get anything else out of here, but call in the crime lab anyway."

  The other two scenes had been devoid of any sort of physical evidence. Not a single skin cell, hair, or other particle of DNA to be found. Binkie nodded, his coarse, round face as expressionless as
the moon it resembled as he turned to leave.

  She turned and followed a moment later, after a long, lingering look at the scene. Why was this one left on the floor? The others had been laid out nicely on the bed. There had to be a reason this one was different.

  Question was whether it meant anything important, or just a dead end trail in the wrong direction.

  Time would tell.

  * * * *

  She pulled into her driveway and glanced at her watch. 6:30. By the sheer volume of the music pouring out her front door, Cory was home. Probably had a few friends over, too. Smoking pot in the garage again, I'm sure.

  The loud rock music made her face twist in pain as she climbed from her car. It wasn't so much the music, but the vocals. The music wasn't much harder to a lot of what she had grown up listening to. But the “singer"—and calling him that was all too generous—sounded like a snarling dog. She sighed as she threw open the gate.

  Rowdy, her three-year old Shiba Inu, trotted out, plopped his butt on the sidewalk in front of her, and let out a mournful howl. Greeting or a lament she wasn't sure. With Shibas one could never tell.

  He was a medium sized, rather sturdy dog with a fox-like face and a regal bearing. “Hey, Rowdy.” She reached down and scratched between his ears.

  She leaned in the open door before risking the wall of noise. “Cory. Turn it down!"

  A few seconds passed, then the volume dropped dramatically. She stepped into the living room and gave her son the once-over. He stood by the entertainment center, hand still on the stereo controls as he dialed up another CD. “Sorry, Mom."

  "Don't say it unless you mean it,” she snapped back, with a tight smile to take the sting out. “You all by yourself?"

  Fifteen-year-old Cory was a tall kid, gangly, with her wild dark hair and hazel eyes. He had his father's jaw-line, though, and wide shoulders and thick neck that suggested one day he'd also have his father's build. His hair, dyed black with red tips, stuck up from his head like the bristles of a an overused scrub-brush.

  "Yeah. Mira called—” he pronounced the diminutive of his cousin's name as “Mirror" as a matter of course. Part of it was to jab at her, with a teenage girl's fixation with her face and hair. It didn't seem to matter anymore whether she could hear it or not. She was “Mirror” one way or another “—she said she was going to be home late and not worry about her for dinner."

  "It's your night to cook,” she reminded him, setting her purse on the bar between the living room and the kitchen. She stripped off her gray blazer and unsnapped the shoulder holster. The sudden release of tension felt like a massage in itself.

  He winced. “Yeah, Mom, I wanted to talk to you about that."

  "What's to talk about?"

  "Well, I figured that, since Mira is going to be out late anyway, we could all kinda fend for ourselves? Me and the guys were thinking—"

  "That would be a novel concept,” she muttered, earning her a sneer from her son, who'd long since grown accustomed to his mother's smartass comments.

  He cleared his throat. “As I was saying—me and the guys were thinking about going down to the bowling alley and getting a burger or something. Just hanging out, y'know? Maybe go to the drugstore and get a soda."

  Uh-huh. Tell me another one. More likely hanging out in the canyon across from the high school, getting stoned, and getting into who knows what kind of trouble. She really didn't know if Cory was smoking pot, but she knew at least one of his friends did. They'd had that talk more than once. He denied that he'd ever had any, but who knew, right? She also remembered that friend of his ... busted and sent to live with his Aunt in Redding.

  Like a change of scenery's going to help. There are plenty of drugs in Redding, too.

  Cory was watching her expectantly. “Okay. But stay out of trouble."

  "Don't I always?"

  And he did. Thankfully. But his grades had been hitting the skids again lately, and she wasn't about to let that slide for long. She watched him dash out the door and skate across the lawn on his bike before she'd managed to get her cell phone out of her purse.

  She dialed Binkie's number. He answered on the second ring. “Anything from the neighbors?” she asked, without bothering to identify herself. If he didn't recognize her voice, and know what she was asking, he didn't need to be a cop.

  "Nobody saw or heard anything. I'm going over to interview her friend in about half an hour. If she was seeing anyone—"

  "—her friend should know. Go ahead on that angle, but I doubt this is anyone she's been seeing, despite what it looked like. This was a seduction attempt."

  "You sound pretty sure of that."

  "I'm a woman. Trust me. I know seduction when I see it."

  "So who would she be trying to seduce?"

  "That's the question, isn't it?” She reached into her purse and pulled out her PDA. “She worked at that little boutique down on Main, right? ‘Charms’ or some such, if I remember correctly. Not a place you're likely to pick up many men, unless you're hitting on the delivery guys. If she had any line into any strange men, her friends should be able to tell us how and where."

  "Anything else, boss?"

  "Not for now. I'll give you a call later, or you can call me. Bye.” She hung up without waiting for his reply. Ah, it's nice to have someone else to do the legwork for a change. She popped open the CD changer and eyed them dubiously, finally deciding on AC/DC's Back in Black for workout music, then jogged into the bedroom for a change of clothes as the disk loaded. An hour of katas would go a long way toward taking the edge off her nerves so she could get down to some serious thinking.

  * * * *

  He stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing but black. He could feel the night waiting outside, calling seductively. Hunger—thirst—pounded in his brain like a pagan drum circle. He needed to feed. He rotated his body and crawled out of the narrow cave, ignoring the warning rattle of the snake he disturbed in passing.

  If it struck him, he felt no pain. He crawled into the sharp chill moonlight and laughed as the smell of sage and desert struck him between the eyes. He scanned upward, catching sight of a silent hunter cruising the night sky. The owl banked and passed overhead. He could hear the wind threading its feathers.

  He turned and trotted toward town.

  * * * *

  "Out of the way, punk.” Gil Brogan shoved Cory out of his way, even though it would have been easier to walk around him.

  Cory turned and snarled wordlessly at his retreating back.

  "You ever going to stand up to him?” his friend Ben asked, running ink-stained fingers through hair as equally bristly as Cory's own, but bleached to a pale blond.

  "Do I look stupid?” Cory replied. “He'd kick my ass."

  "Just remember what the Sioux used to say."

  "Sue who?"

  "The Sioux. You know. Native Americans. Sitting Bull? Kicked Custer's ass?"

  "What about ‘em?"

  "'Today's a good day to die.’ That's what they used to say."

  "Whatever,” Cory sighed, gazing in through the drugstore window, trying to catch sight of a certain redhead. Personally he didn't think any day was a good day to die, but he wasn't about to find a Sioux and argue with him about it.

  "Let's go out to the canyon,” he said, taking one last look through the window. “I heard Jason say something about maybe putting together a LARP out there tonight."

  LARP. Live Action Role Playing—where the players acted out their parts in the game, pretending to be centuries’ old vampires involved in a convoluted social and political system vying for status and power.

  In a tiny little town like Redburn, it was damn near the most exciting thing going on. And what that said for the place, he wasn't about to guess. Nothing good. Probably.

  * * * *

  Rachel laid back in the bathtub and felt that last knotted muscle start to give way. A glass of wine sat beside the tub, next to a single white candle burning against the surrounding gloom.
She closed her eyes and imagined the scene once again, the bedroom laid out for an intimate encounter, the corpse lying on the floor as if sleeping.

  She sat up as her cell phone rang from across the bathroom. Cursing, she clambered out of the tub and padded, dripping, to the sink. “Flynn here."

  "Rachel. It's Dr. Peabody."

  "I know, Jerry. My cell phone has caller ID.” He always identified himself when he called, even though she recognized his voice these days better than she recognized her mother's. He knew about caller ID, too. Didn't seem to matter. “What's up?"

  "You know we haven't gotten anyone in to claim either of the other victims, right? Well ... it turns out that it worked to our advantage."

  "How so?"

  "I pulled them out to compare them to our latest and—now, hang on a sec, this gets a little weird—they don't seem to be decomposing."

  "They what? Can you think of anything that could cause that?"

  "Not off-hand. Some sort of bug, maybe? I'm going to do a full spec analysis, see what I can dig up. I just thought you should know that there's something odd here."

  She scooped a towel off the rack and began drying off. “I'm heading down there right now, Jerry. You can show me what you've got when I get there."

  "Thought you might,” he said. “See you in a few."

  * * * *

  Jerry Peabody was a short fellow dressed in an oversized lab coat, barely topping out at five-two, with a ring of puffy white hair like a crown of cotton perched atop his shiny dome. She resisted the urge to rub the top of his head as he opened the door to let her in.

  "Jeez,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “You didn't have to lean on the bell."

  She didn't want to admit that she'd become suddenly concerned for him, to know he was safe. It wasn't the first time she'd been struck by something like that. She'd learned over time to trust feelings like that, especially when they came on suddenly.

  "It has me baffled,” he told her, as he led her into the lab. “As you can imagine, I haven't been able to pin down time of death, but I think you've pretty much established that for all of them already."