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The streets were packed with shoppers looking for Christmas bargains. As we edged through traffic, Chase flipped on the radio and Danny Elfman’s voice came out of the speakers, blaring
“Dead Man’s Party.”
“Man, I remember dancing to this at one of the local clubs almost fifteen years ago,” he said offhandedly. “I was in high school and dating a girl named Glenda. She had hair a mile high and was in ful retro mode. Al she wanted to wear was glittery spandex and she looked like one of the B-52 girls.”
I glanced at him. “Do you miss those days? The days when you didn’t know about us or the demons?”
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as we waited for traffic to inch forward. “Trick question. No way to answer that truthful y.” Giving me a sideways smirk, he added, “Yes, I do, but only because life was much simpler then. Choices were black and white. But I have to say, since you three entered my life, I’ve never been bored. Scared shitless, yes. Bored? Never.”
Snorting, I leaned forward and turned up the music. “You ever want to, you’re welcome to come clubbing with Nerissa and me, as long as we aren’t hitting a vamp club. We’re damned good on the dance floor.”
Chase’s turn to snicker. “Right. While I’d be the envy of a thousand men, I don’t know if that would fit my style anymore. Then again . . . it might be fun. Hel , I have no clue as to what my style is now.” He sounded lost, and a little frightened. “Look—Santa.”
A sidewalk Santa was ringing his bel for the South Street Mission in front of a smal boutique.
The winter was chil and cold, and a lot of people were out of work. Gauging from his expression, Santa wasn’t gathering many coins for charity.
“Santa’s a freak-ass scary dude in reality. Camil e met him when she was young.” I stared at the pseudo-Santa through the window as we passed by and fel silent. Santa passing out presents.
The Tooth Fairy handing out coins for teeth. The Easter Bunny hiding eggs. Humans clung to their myths in the hopes that they’d ward off bad luck and evil, that they’d bring prosperity and security. How little they knew about the truth that hid behind their fairy tales, or what monsters were really sliding down their chimneys.
I turned up the music as Ladytron replaced Oingo Boingo. A part of me felt sorry for Chase.
We’d thrown a monkey wrench into his life and he could never go back to what he’d been, to the life he’d expected to lead. Col ateral damage. We were leaving a nasty trail, and there’d be far more by the time this demonic war was over.
It took us another twenty minutes to reach the FH-CSI (Faerie Human Crime Scene Investigation) headquarters. I knew this building al too wel . It seemed like my sisters and I were here al the time, especial y since the war against Shadow Wing was escalating.
Most of the building was underground—the bottom level was the morgue, in-house laboratory, and archives. Third floor down held the jail cel s for the Otherworld magical and strength-enhanced Supes. Second floor down was the arsenal—containing a vast array of interesting weapons viable for use against anything from werewolves to giants. The main floor contained both police headquarters and the medic unit. Delilah had hinted that she thought there was another level below the morgue, but we didn’t know what it was or whether it real y existed.
Chase led me straight to his office, rather than the morgue. A good sign, I thought. Straight to the morgue was bad. Straight to the morgue meant immediate danger, and right now I wasn’t in the mood for trouble.
But as I took a seat opposite his desk, I happened to catch a glimpse of the photographs spil ing out of a file on his desk. Crap. Blood and more blood. Everything was always covered in blood these days.
“That’s your trouble, I take it?” I nodded to the pictures.
“Yes, and I wish you could take it as far away from me as possible.” He let out a sigh. “I don’t know what to make of it. If it looked like simple vampire kil ings, at least I’d know what I was dealing with, but there’s something else going on.” He motioned for me to scoot my chair closer and laid out the photos in a line for me to look at.
There were four women, each with obvious puncture wounds in her neck. Vampire activity, al right.
“Looks pretty straightforward to me,” I said.
“Yeah, you would think so, wouldn’t you? But look again at the women. Look closely. Notice anything odd?” He frowned and leaned back in his chair, crossing his left leg over his right and interlacing his fingers. “I real y want your honest opinion because I want to make sure I’m not just barking up a tree that doesn’t exist.”
I studied the photographs. Women, al pretty, al somewhere in their thirties, looked to be. Al . . .
wait a minute. Pattern. There was a pattern.
“They al have long brown hair, layered. They al have brown eyes, and they al seem to be around 130 pounds. How tal were they?”
“Al between five six and five eight. So you see it, too?”
“Yeah. Was there any connection between them? Any other similarity to their deaths?” A nasty thought was forming in my head, and I had the feeling Chase had already come to the same conclusion.
“Obviously they were al exsanguinated, and they were al kil ed at night. Puncture wounds on the throat, though there’s no way to prove for sure that they were kil ed by a vampire. Al the women were murdered within a five-mile radius, in the Greenbelt Park District. Al four were hookers.” He frowned. “I’m thinking we have a vampire serial kil er. If it weren’t for the fact that al the girls look alike, I’d just chalk it up to a rogue vampire attack, but they look so much alike, they could be related.”
I stared at the pictures. Chase was right. They did look like sisters. And even though he couldn’t make the official cal , I knew in my gut that it was a vampire—most likely singular—attacking the women.
“Do you have their bodies, stil ? I can probably verify vamp attack, seeing that I am one, but I need to look at their wounds.”
