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Her expression soured. "Oh great. What's going on now? Another Degath Squad in town? A skinwalker come to avenge his brother? Drunken trolls making an appearance?"
I shook my head and leaned on the bar so nobody else could hear what I had to say. "None of the above. I think we have rogue vampires on the loose—possibly new to the life and unaware of the V.A.'s attempts to corral bad behavior."
She blinked and took a sip, her eyes sparkling like a dazzling spring morning. I had blue eyes, too, but they were almost frosty gray by now, growing more so with each year I'd been a vampire. That is, when they weren't glowing red, which usually happened when I was hungry, hunting, or in a bad mood.>"What went down?" Whatever it was must have been bad. Chase knew better than to come around my bar all bloodied up. With Earthside Supes and denizens of Faerie hanging out here, it was an unwritten rule: If you were sporting a nasty laceration or a woman in the middle of a heavy menstrual flow, stay away from the Wayfarer. Blood scent risked setting somebody off because blood was an aphrodisiac to a number of Supes.
Yeah, something had happened to make Chase break with convention.
"Vampires," he said. "The victims were drained of blood but no obvious cuts or wounds. Sharah examined their necks and sure enough—twin punctures on every one of them. They were up in the balcony, near the back, where nobody else was sitting. So nobody saw what happened."
Vampires? Of course there were vamps in Seattle, but ones who would resort to attacking humans in a theater? That didn't track right. Vampires Anonymous (V.A.) had been working hard to combat feeding on the innocent.
I shook my head. "Did you catch them?"
Chase frowned. "We couldn't find any sign of them. We thought you might be able to help. The wounds are fresh; the vamps are probably close by. If anybody can find them, you can."
I groaned. "You want me to play Buffy? Give me one good reason why I should go staking my own kind."
Chase gave a rough laugh. "Because you're part of the OIA. Because you're on the right side. Because you know what they did was wrong. Hell, you can dress up in drag and call yourself Angel, for all I care. Just help us."
Great, just great. This was the price I paid for being nice to my sister's boyfriend. But as he stared at me, pleading for my help, how could I say no? I untied my apron and tossed it on the counter.
"Chrysandra, I'll be back in awhile. Watch the bar for me." I hurried to follow Chase out the door, into the dark January night.
My name is Menolly D'Artigo and I used to be an acrobat. In other words, I was damned good at getting into places and spying on people. Or rather, most of the time I was damned good. I happen to be half-human on my mother's side, half-Fae on my father's. The genetic mix leads to trouble, and whatever powers a half-Fae, half-human child is born with tend to get swallowed up in a mix of uncertainty. My sisters—Camille, a witch, and Delilah, a werecat—learned that lesson only too well.
During a routine spying mission, thanks to faulty wiring and a random roll of the dice, I slipped up. It was the last mistake I ever made. The Elwing Blood Clan took me down, and they play to win. The torture seemed to last for an eternity, and now—so will I. After Dredge killed me, he raised me into the world of the undead, turning me into a vamp just like him. But I refused to let the bastard win. Nobody ever gets the last word with me, especially a sadist like Dredge.
My sisters and I work for the Otherworld Intelligence Agency, which went bust a couple months ago. Civil war broke out back in Y'Elestrial, our home city-state in Otherworld. Queen Lethesanar recalled all operatives and filtered them into the military. We opted to stay Earthside, especially since she'd stamped a death threat on our heads at home.
Now we're in a race against time against a powerful demon lord named Shadow Wing. He's big and he's bad, and he's currently ruling over the Subterranean Realms. Together with his hordes of Demonkin, Shadow Wing intends to raze both Earth and Otherworld to the ground and take over. We do have a few allies back home in Otherworld. The Elfin Queen, Asteria, is giving us all the help she can, but it isn't much. Together my sisters and our ragtag group of friends are the only ones standing in Shadow Wing's way. And that's a scary proposition, at best.
The Delmonico Cinema Complex is the oldest theater in the Belles-Faire district of town, where the Wayfarer is located. Still outfitted with the original decor complete with squeaky chairs and a balcony right out of the fifties where lovers used to grope and fondle their way to celluloid ecstasy, the Delmonico had seen better days. But it still held nostalgic charm for the Seattle suburb, and hearkened back to a time of ushers who actually did their jobs and real butter on popcorn and monster movies on Saturday afternoons.
The theater was empty. The moviegoers hadn't even been aware of what happened. I doubted there had been many patrons to begin with. There wasn't much call during the week for late shows unless it was a cult classic, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Plan 9 from Outer Space. A young woman, the ticket taker by the looks of her uniform, and two food-stand attendants were sitting on a bench waiting for Chase's team to give them the go-ahead to leave.
"They don't know why we're here, so don't say a word in front of them," Chase said to me in low tones. "Depending on what happens, we'll tell them that a fight broke out and somebody ended up with a nasty broken nose."
He led the way up the threadbare carpet-covered stairs and I followed. Luckily I had enough control to keep my instincts reined in. I shook the smell of fresh blood out of my thoughts and focused on what he was saying.
"We received an anonymous tip about an hour ago. The call came directly to me, so somebody knew this was a case for the FH-CSI," he said.
The Faerie-Human Crime Scene Investigations unit was Chase's baby. He'd created it when he was first accepted into service by the Otherworld Intelligence Agency, Earthside Division, and it became the standard for all nationwide divisions that followed in its wake. The team responded to all law enforcement matters dealing with the Fae or Earthside Supes.
"Direct to your office, you mean? Your number isn't public, is it?" For some reason, the situation seemed odd to me.
Chase shook his head. "No, but it wouldn't be hard to trace if somebody really wanted to know. Thing is, caller ID was blocked and whoever was on the line sounded pretty damned sure that the FH-CSI was necessary. But when we got here it took a little while to ascertain that the victims had been attacked by vampires. A cursory glance wouldn't have shown anything out of the ordinary. If you can call any murder ordinary. So whoever called me had to know they were killed by somebody other than an FBH."
It was odd to hear the term FBH come from Chase's lips, especially since he was one, but it made sense. The acronym was easier than constantly saying "full-blooded human, Earthside born."
"Were the bodies moved? Could someone have checked to see if they were alive and, in doing so, noticed the punctures?" I stared at the victims. The OIA medical team was still looking them over. Well, they'd been an official OIA medical team until a few months ago—now the Otherworld Intelligence Agency was our baby and we were calling the shots.
"Nope. Don't think so. Sharah said that while there's a lot of blood, the patterns indicate they're right where they were when they died."
"Speaking of blood," I said slowly, gazing at the four bodies that, until earlier this evening, had been alive and—probably—happy people. I was no angel, that was for certain, but I chose my victims from the lowest of the low, which kept me in the clear as far as my own conscience was concerned.
"Yes?" Chase tapped me on the shoulder. He looked a little worried. "Menolly, are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said, shaking off my thoughts. "I'm fine. I was just going to say that there's something else odd about this massacre. There shouldn't be this much blood. There shouldn't be much blood at all unless we're dealing with one incredibly sloppy vamp, and even the grimiest bloodsuckers I know are usually fairly neat and tidy. That's why vamp attacks have generally gone unnoticed over the years. Unless…"
