AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He drank from me,” she said after several false starts. “The human. From me and from all those little girls.”
“Was he alone?”
She shook her head. “A female. A vampire. She promised to change him. Promised to bring him over if he killed me. Said I was wrong. That I shouldn’t even exist. Scared me, Lucius. Wanted to hurt me. Wanted to kill me.” She pressed her face against his shoulder, and he held her as shivers wracked her body. “I let it out. The monster inside. And I got away. But they wanted to hurt me, Lucius. They wanted me to be ash.”
“Nobody will hurt you,” he said, calling upon all of his strength to keep his voice calm. Soothing. “No one will ever hurt you again.”
“You’ll protect me,” she said, lifting her head to look at him, the pain in her eyes almost enough to bring the serpent back to the surface. “You love me.”
He breathed deep, willing the beast back down. “You are mine,” he said, holding her tight. “And I will protect you to the death.”
* * *
Since Blair had called while Sara was in her car with the news that the medical examiner wanted to see her, Sara skipped her floor altogether and headed straight for the forensic section of Division. She found Richard Erasmus Orion IV eating a peanut butter sandwich in the break room. He was leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed as classical music blared, his cowboy boots perched on the shiny clean Formica tables.
She cleared her throat and he jumped, then immediately shut the music off and held out a sticky hand for her to shake.
“Sorry! Sorry! Hard to find fifteen minutes around here. I was just taking five.”
“What have you got for me?”
“DNA,” he said, cocking his head and leading her across the hall and into one of the labs. The lab lights gleamed on his bald head, and he wore a long white lab coat that flowed when he moved, revealing a hint of the Hawaiian-print shirt he wore beneath.
“I’ve already read the report on the DNA evidence,” she said. “Was there an error?” She had the absurd fantasy that he would tell her that Luke was no longer implicated.
“More of an oversight,” he said as he poured coffee into a mug that said The Dead Do It Stiffer, then took a sip.
“An oversight,” she repeated. “What kind of oversight?”
“The kind where we find more DNA.”
She paused while reaching for the second mug he offered her. “Would you mind repeating that?”
“Happenstance, really,” he said. “I was taking another look at the wound, and that’s when I noticed that the bite radius was a little hinky.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you.” He punched a few buttons on a computer terminal and the familiar image of Braddock’s neck appeared on a wall screen. “Ripped up a bit,” he said, “but you can see the contact points of the fangs here and here,” he said, indicating with a laser pointer. “But this was what caught my attention. See this? Another fang impression, right? But at a slightly off angle.” He tilted his head to demonstrate. “Like our perp wasn’t happy with his initial grip on the victim’s neck.”
“All right,” Sara said, wondering what this had to do with DNA. She knew better than to try to rush him, though. She’d learned long ago that when an ME had a point to make it was best to be patient; eventually they’d get there.
“So I thought I’d check the bite radius. Just make sure it was our perp. And there you go.”
“It wasn’t?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. “There was another biter? A first biter?”
“A cookie for the little lady,” he said, tapping the side of his nose.
“And DNA confirmed that?”
“Did indeed,” Orion said. “Not enough markers to make a match, but enough to definitively conclude that there was another biter.”
“I need your report,” Sara said, her mind churning.
“Not a problem.” He went to a terminal, tapped a few keys. When he turned back, he held a ceramic candy dish shaped like a human hand. “Tootsie Roll?”
“No thanks.”
“So how much damage does this do to your case against Dragos?” he asked.
