Of Man and Monster Page 2

  Rachel nodded. “All but for Tanya Voss,” she said. “The last girl."

  "Mary Gordon left the party at 2:00 Sunday morning and was found five hours later. She placed a phone call to an unidentified cell number at 5:24. So, unless it wasn't her making that call, she was killed somewhere between 5:24 and when she was found at 7:00 AM. A little over an hour and a half. When was dawn?"

  She glanced at him and shrugged. “Heck if I know. Why, is it important?"

  "I doubt it. I was just curious."

  "Now you have me curious. Hold on. Let me think about it. I think dawn was about 6:30. Which means the killer was more likely to have left before then. People are up and about and in the light anything strange would probably have been noticed.” She nodded, half to herself.

  "So we're down to an hour and six minutes ... maybe less. Even before dawn would have been risky. Say, maybe, thirty to forty-five minutes?"

  Peabody fancied himself a bit of an armchair detective. Every once in a while he surprised her. “Good thinking, Jerry."

  "Hey, it's my job to determine time of death. If I can't do it one way...” He gave her a tired smile.

  "How long have you been at this?” she asked him. “Don't you think your wife might like to see you tonight?"

  "You're probably right,” he breathed. “This one's gotten under my skin. I'll get my things and close up. Stick around a minute?"

  Bet your life, she thought. The feeling of foreboding hadn't gone away. Instead, it had grown slowly stronger until he'd agreed to go home.

  She nodded. “I'll wait."

  * * * *

  "They're not here,” Cory observed, unnecessarily, as they clambered down the canyon wall and stood together in the tall grass. “Well, that sucks."

  Ben nodded. “Looks like another boring night.” He pulled something out of his jacket and stuck it in his mouth. Producing a lighter in his other hand, he lit it and drew in deeply. “That's okay."

  "Okay for you,” Cory growled. “What about me?"

  Ben held out the joint, which Cory refused. “My mom would kill me. And you."

  His friend winced and pulled the joint back. “Yeah, you're right. Shit. Why isn't there anything to do in this town?"

  "I don't kn—” Cory froze, then spun quickly, staring up the canyon wall. “Did you hear that?"

  Ben frowned, blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “Hear what?"

  "I could swear I heard someone walking up above us."

  "Shit!” Ben stabbed the joint out on the ground, then slipped it under one of the rocks that made up the canyon wall.

  "That way.” Cory pointed toward the tennis courts next to the highway. “I want to get somewhere where it's light."

  Ben hesitated, then nodded. Probably worried that it's a cop, Cory thought. He didn't care. He raced around the bend in the canyon, breathing a sigh of relief as they trotted into the circle of the light flowing across the tennis courts like a literal ray of hope.

  Then the light went out.

  Cory spun, heart hammering as if it were trying to escape his chest. He felt the bitter taste of fear in his mouth as Ben's hand clamped down on his elbow. The terror sweeping through him wasn't natural. It couldn't be. Both of them knew this canyon like the back of their hands. They knew this town. The worst thing either of them had ever had to deal with was a school bully.

  * * * *

  Miranda Flynn pulled into the parking lot and shot a quick smile at her partner in crime, her best friend Julia. Both girls were blond—neither by natural selection—and were more often than not mistaken as sisters, if not twins.

  They did share similar features, blandly pretty but too concerned with contemporary style to be considered more than that. They looked like bleached-out copies of the teenage pop diva of the week. Not so much deliberately, but just because that's how the trends were going. “Doesn't look like anyone's here,” Julia said, sounding disappointed.

  Mira knew the feeling. She was tired of looking for something to do every weekend. It was almost enough to make her want to become a burnout like Cory's friend Ben. Any time he felt a little bored, he smoked some pot and watched TV or DVDs in his basement bedroom, gobbling chips and cookies by the fistful. It's a wonder the kid doesn't weigh a thousand pounds.

  Her aunt always seemed to know when Ben was stoned. Not like he tried to hide it. She wouldn't have been surprised to find out he brought it with him into the house. He wasn't smart enough to be afraid of getting busted.

  Too bad Rowdy isn't a drug-sniffing dog. Wouldn't that be funny?

  "What's that?” Julia pointed. A human shape stood silhouetted against the canyon lip some thirty or so feet away. It hadn't been there a moment before. Before her eyes even got the chance to focus, it was running toward them.

  "Who is it? Go! Go!"

  If anything, Julia was in more of a panic mode than she was. She tried to shove the car into reverse but ended up passing it and throwing it into neutral instead. She took another stab at it as Julia shrieked in her ear.

  "Ohmygod! Stop! It's Ben!"

  She slammed on the brakes and the blond kid ran straight into the front of the car, folding over and slamming face-first into her hood. She jumped out and raced around to his side. “Ben! Are you okay? Where's Cory?"

  That's when she saw the blood. Ben's left arm hung loosely at his side, his sleeve in tatters, rivulets of dark fluid running down and dripping off his hand onto the hood. “Ben! Where's Cory?!” She grabbed his other arm and shook him.

  "Down there. It came and took him. I tried to stop it, but ... It was just too strong."

  * * * *

  Rachel woke suddenly, glancing at the clock and knowing, without knowing, that it was 1:00 AM and neither of the kids were home. Bitter panic twisted in her gut as she threw aside the comforter and leaped out of bed.

  Her cell phone rang as she reached the bathroom door and she spun around to answer it. “Flynn."

  "Aunt Rachel. It's Miranda. I don't know how to tell you this, but Cory's missing. Something attacked him and Ben and dragged Cory away. We're at the hospital now. Ben's arm is all tore up, but they say he'll be okay."

  Rachel stood there paralyzed for a second, the words churning in her head but not really meaning anything. Cory? Missing? Attacked by what? “Stay there. Don't move. I'll be there in five minutes."

  * * * *

  Rachel barely remembered the drive to the hospital, the whole thing captured in her mind like a dream. She pulled into the parking lot feeling a metallic tang she recognized as dread clinging in her mouth. She climbed out of her car and shook her head in the chill night air in the forlorn hopes that it would somehow clear it. Her mind was choked with details, images of the crime scene from earlier, a nasty feeling of guilt for allowing Cory to go out in the first place. What was I thinking?

  She knew what she was thinking. He didn't fit the killer's profile, and, in general, Redburn was one of the safest places in the country to raise your kids.

  He should have been safe, dammit.

  She walked in through the ER doors and found Mira sitting in one of the waiting room chairs next to her friend Julia. Her pretty face was red and puffy, her makeup smeared just enough that Rachel could tell she'd been crying.

  "Where's Ben?” she asked, pulling her niece into her arms as the girl flung herself out of her seat.

  Mira forced down the sobs that had risen in her throat and swallowed once. “He's in surgery. His arm ... it was sliced all the way to the bone ... peeled like a banana.” The sobs rose up again into a spasm of great wracking coughs.

  Rachel glanced at Julia, who nodded. The other girl looked stunned more than anything else. One of her jobs as a cop her was to keep this sort of thing from ever touching their lives. This time it looked as though she'd failed.

  That thought led to another and she grimaced as she pulled away from Mira. The girl sniffled and rubbed at her nose, looking, for a brief moment, like the little girl she'd been when they'd first met.
Rachel felt the ghost of a smile track across her face briefly. It felt almost like a betrayal, but she'd grown to love Mira as if she were her own child. Even in the face of her shock and horror she was gratified to see the rivalry between the two kids subsumed for a brief dark moment.

  From the back came a doctor in a lab coat, carrying a clipboard and looking vaguely distracted. He glanced up and Rachel found herself staring into the deepest blue eyes she'd ever seen, framed by a face straight off the cover of a romance novel, with streaked blond hair a little longer than perfectly professional. His eyes had a vaguely Asian caste to them, she noted absently.

  He reached up and brushed long bangs away from his eyes. “I'm looking for Ben Dalmas's parents?"

  Rachel shot a glance at Mira, who shrugged. “I called them,” she said. “They're not here yet."

  She nodded absently. “I'm Detective Rachel Flynn. How is he?"

  His sleepy, distracted demeanor snapped suddenly and he was all business. “Gavin Chase,” he said, thrusting out his free hand. She took it, abruptly aware of the ridges of callous along the edges and at the base of the fingers. An odd sensation for a doctor's hand, she mused.

  "Are you investigating the assault?"

  "I am now,” she told him. “The boy who was with him was my son."

  He nodded slowly, as if he knew the story. “Ben will be fine. He looked like he'd gone a couple of rounds with Freddy Krueger when they brought him in. Lost a lot of blood, but we've got him stable and managed to put the arm back together."

  "Has he said anything?"

  "Nothing that makes any sense. Between the painkillers and the fact he was already stoned, he's not making a hell of a lot of sense. Which reminds me—” He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. She looked down at the joint with a queer feeling in her stomach. “I figured you might want to do something specific with this."

  She sighed and shoved it in her jacket pocket. “Thanks. So can I see him?"

  "I don't see why not. He's not under suspicion of anything, is he?” He seemed genuinely concerned about that.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I just need to know what happened."

  "He isn't going to help much, I'm afraid. But, if you insist, you may as well follow me.” He gave a jerk of his head and walked back through the double doors.

  Two

  Rachel drew her sidearm and pushed the door open, sliding into her own house as if it were an unsecured crime scene. First time I've ever done this, she thought. It felt weird. She crept room to room, throwing on the lights until the whole house was bathed in harsh luminescence. Rowdy followed her through the house looking at her as if she'd lost her mind.

  If she could actually trust him as a watch dog, she wouldn't have had to do this. He didn't like other dogs much, but he loved people. Particularly strangers that he hadn't had the opportunity to charm yet.

  Once she'd assured herself no one was lurking inside, she returned to the front door and motioned to Binks to bring the girls in. It felt a bit strange being so protective all of a sudden, but she'd lost any sense of security she had over the past few hours.

  What Ben had told them made no sense at all. He'd been high, but Dr. Chase—Gavin—had backed up at least a portion of his story with his description of the wound he'd stitched up. The whole thing about the lights going out by themselves before something—some one—leaped out of the darkness at them struck her as a little weird, but the bruises and other injuries Ben had suffered seemed to validate the rest of his story.

  The attacker had simply shoved him aside and grabbed Cory, who'd shrieked in terror and tried to fight back. He wasn't a weak kid, but the assailant ignored his struggles, holding him like an adult might grasp a feisty kitten. Shaking off the initial blow and his pot-induced haze, Ben had leaped on his back and tried wrap his arms around his neck.

  According to him, the guy had just reached up and ripped him away like a stray piece of duct tape, fingernails shredding the flesh of his forearm like a row of tiny knives as he was hauled around and hurled several feet away. He hadn't bothered to let Cory down when he did it, Ben said, which meant he'd only used one arm. The kind of strength that would've been needed to pull that off meant only one thing. A meta had stolen her son.

  Question was ... why Cory? Was it somehow related to the case she was investigating? Or a coincidence? And what did he want with him? Was he some sort of superhuman sexual predator?

  The very thought made her mouth go dry. Please, God, let it be anything but that.

  * * * *

  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."

  Cory paused, chewed his next few words carefully before spitting them out. “I just want you to know, first off, that I really appreciate the offer. And I'm probably going to take you up on it. But I need to know some things first."

  This seemed to amuse his captor at the same time it aggravated him. “Like what?"

  "What would my weaknesses be? Garlic? Crosses? Holy ground? Sunlight?"

  The vampire sighed. “I shoulda known it would be like this. Okay, kid. You want to know the buzz? Listen good, cuz this is important.” His eyes seemed to bore straight through Cory's. “You religious, boy?"

  Cory shook his head and shrugged. “Not really. Been to church a few times, but it wasn't for me."

  "You're lucky. Means that the crosses and shit won't affect you. Holy water, either. Something weird about being a vamp—shit can hurt you just cuz you think it can. Sunlight will burn the crap out of you, though. You can tolerate it a little, but you'll be dopey any time the sun's up anyway. Weaker than you are now. One vamp I know passes out when the sun comes over the horizon. Sleeps like the dead until dusk.

  "A stake through the heart won't kill you, but it'll paralyze you long enough for someone to chop your head off. And that will kill you. Get me?"

  Cory nodded. It made sense.

  "Smart kid. I tell you, I don't even want to be here. I'm just following a problem I made by accident. As soon as I get you on the road to handling it for me, I'll be heading south to Cali, or maybe even Old Mexico. Still a lot of places a hungry vampire can vanish into down there and not leave a ripple."

  "Me? Handling it for you?” Cory asked suspiciously. “Handling what?"

  "There's a female vampire in town, kid, a crazy-ass bitch by the name of Veronica. She was my first get. An accident. I fell upon her in Olympia and drank her down like an iced latte before burying her in a shallow grave. I didn't know she'd climb back out of her grave three nights later."

  "Other than the obvious, what do you want from me?"

  "Not a damn
thing, kid. It's what you want that matters. You want to protect your people, right? This little Podunk town is yours. You don't want some strange vampire coming in and turning people at will. Do you?"

  "No.” Cory blinked at him, not sure he had heard him correctly. “There's a vampire in town killing people?"

  "Turning them,” he replied with a tight smile. “There's a difference."

  "How much of one?"

  "Enough. The mortals investigating the ‘murders’ won't be able to see it. And it puts them in jeopardy."

  In jeopardy. Mortals investigating murders ... Ohmygod. He's talking about Mom. “And what can I do to stop it?"

  "You can rise in three nights and work against her. Make your own get. Make a thrall or two. Save your mother—save your town."

  Cory pressed his back against the wall, the jagged stone digging into his flesh as his heart pounded in his throat. “Put it that way and I guess I can only give one answer."

  "Good. Enough talk, then.” The vampire stood and Cory felt himself cringe just a little.

  "Wait! I don't know how to make ... get ... or thralls. If there are any other secrets you think I need to know...” He let the thought trail off.

  The vampire uttered a low growl and sat back down. “Fine."

  "Let's start with your name, if you don't mind."

  "My name?” The vampire laughed, actually sounding amused this time. “Dave.” He leaned forward once again, eyes glinting strangely in the harsh glow. “You're going to wake up thirsty as hell three days from now. You'll need to feed, and do it quickly. Find yourself an animal—preferably one you already feel some connection to. If you feed from it first, you'll gain some of its traits, and create a lasting bond with all creatures of its kind.

  "Creating a ‘get’ is easy. Just drain the victim completely, put the body somewhere safe, and wait the three days. You can choose whether or not to share the secret about the animal. It's always good to keep a secret or two in reserve.

  "Thralls are even easier. Just feed a mortal some of your blood ... without draining him. It'll grant him some of your strength.