Under a Blood Moon Read online

“It takes getting used to,” he agreed.

  “Speaking of which, did Mark talk to you?”

  “He did.” His voice was clipped.

  “Sounds like you’re thrilled with the idea of him dreaming with me.” I didn’t bother to conceal my sarcasm. I heard him laugh, but it wasn’t a happy laugh.

  “Would it bother you too much if I spent the night with you?” He sounded hesitant, unsure. The idea that I would ever turn him away was ridiculous.

  “Bother me? You never bother me. I’d beg you to come here right now if I didn’t know you had another two hours of work.” I spread my arms out in the bed. It was only a queen but it felt large without him. Normally I liked my space but, lately, sleeping next to him beat waking up alone.

  “I could leave now.” I could tell he was grinning. “That’s the beauty of being in charge.”

  “If you get here in the next fifteen minutes, I won’t have time to get dressed,” I said.

  “I’ll be there in ten,” he replied, and I was positive he had a smile on his face.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  He arrived in seven minutes. I barely had time to contemplate putting clothes on when I heard the key in the lock. If he hadn’t been wearing clothes, I would have thought he’d turned into a mist to get here faster.

  “I was about to get dressed,” I said as he climbed the stairs.

  “I’m glad I got here in time to stop you.” He sat down on the bed and kissed me, his hand sliding to my breast.

  “Mark seems to think death witches can command vampires to feel things.” I rolled toward him lazily. He untied his tie and kissed me softly.

  “Mmm hmm.” It was either an answer or a moan. He was nibbling my ear so I couldn’t be sure which.

  “He was talking about happiness, but I was thinking about other emotions.”

  He made another noncommittal noise.

  “So you can reach out with your mind and smack Mark, but I could command you to orgasm,” I whispered in his ear. I let my hand drift between his legs, brushing the soft fabric of his pants. That finally got his attention. He drew back from my ear and gave me a lecherous grin.

  “Why bother with witchcraft? The old fashioned way is so much more fun.”

  He was right, it was fun. More importantly, in his arms, I forgot all about the cacophony of sights and sounds that had tormented me. Unfortunately, when I drifted off to sleep, they came back. Sharp images and sensations coming at me too fast like flashes of a horror movie. I felt myself start to panic when the dream charged abruptly.

  I found myself sitting in a very old fashioned movie theater, wearing a suit that screamed World War II. With the red velvet curtains around me and the giant screen in front of me the suit fit in, but I wasn’t comfortable in it. With a thought, I put myself in jeans and a sweater. I looked down and added white sneakers, much better.

  “I liked the other outfit better,” Mark said. He was sitting in the row behind me.

  “Where are we?”

  “The balcony of my favorite movie palace. I saw Gone with the Wind here.”

  “You saw Gone with the Wind? You don’t strike me as a romance kind of guy.”

  “The book was better than the movie.” He tossed a handful of hot buttered popcorn into his mouth. “I always wondered if this tasted as good as it smelled.”

  “It does,” I said, thinking my own tub into my hands. After debating for a second, I thought myself a Dr. Pepper and a box of candy. “Forgive me for ruining your popcorn, but how is this related to the wolves?”

  “What do you think we’re going to watch?” he asked. A second later, the disturbing images flashed on the scream in an unending loop. In this setting, I stayed calm, detached. Unfortunately, they still didn’t make any sense.

  “We need to go slower.” As soon as Mark said it, the images slowed. Now there was time to tell that a brown blob had been a werewolf being sliced open. Separated from the intense smell of blood and fear, from the sound of screams and liquid hitting the ground, the image made sense. The images moved forward, and with the clarity came horror. I was watching someone’s last thoughts, and most of them were hideous.

  “Wait, stop it there.” Mark interrupted my thoughts.

  “Can I do that?” I asked as the pictures continued to move forward. Before I finished asking the film started again.

  “Your dream. You’re in control. Look at the bottom of that image. What does that look like to you?”

  “A knife maybe?” We were back to the image of the wolf being cut open. The region he was talking about was fuzzy.

  “We only have the images here, right? There’s scent information and sounds. Let’s add them in.”

  “They don’t make any sense.”

  “Try anyway,” he coaxed. I only had to think of it, and it was done, the same clip now played with a subtitle for smells and stereo sound. The sound of a werewolf dying was not something you wanted to hear in stereo.

  “Play the rest of them this way,” he asked eagerly.

  The loop played twice before he spoke again. “Do you see what I see?”

  “Clearly, I don’t.” I let the sarcasm drip off my voice but he was too excited to notice.

  “There are no humans here. No human scent, no human noises. Our wolves were killed by wolves.”

  “I assumed as much when we found them hanging eighteen feet off the ground.”

  “Right, but the images are blurry. They can’t make sense of all the information, so they must have been new.”

  I followed his logic. If he was right, the two we had found were sacrificial lambs, not hardened killers. That is, if he was right.

  “How do you the difference between what an old werewolf sees and what a young one sees?”

  “I don’t. But I know the difference between a young vampire and an old one.” The image on the screen changed, and I was looking at a woman in period dress. Every vein was outlined in red, her lips positively glowed. The fabric barely concealed the lines around her heart. Sounds came from all around me, a great whooshing of air, a pounding, water going through pipes. It was dizzying and confusing, I was grateful when Mark took the image off the screen. “That was Anne, from two days after I changed. This is you the other day.”

  It was me, wearing the new clothes Anna had gotten me. In Mark’s eyes, I looked thin and pretty. My hair was a deep chocolate brown and my eyes sparkling green. The bright red lines Anne had were reduced to faint traces. The noises in the background were barely audible.

  “What are we listening too?” I was amazed. I’d never seen myself through someone else’s eyes.

  “Your breathing.” Suddenly I heard only the air in the background. “Your blood flowing in your veins.” The sound of water through pipes appeared. “And your heart rate.” When he said it, I recognized the soft lub-dub from medical tapes. He flashed me a mischievous grin. “Of course, this was your heart rate before I ended the conversation.” The sound around me took on a rapid pace. “What ever were you thinking about?”

  I blushed, and to my horror, Jakob’s naked body in bed filled the screen. I wiped it off almost immediately. But I hadn’t been quick enough, Mark’s laughter stung my ears.

  “All right then, if you’re going to trick me into sharing secrets, tell me something about you. What makes your heart beat fast, hmmm?” I asked, expecting some woman to fill the screen. Nothing happened so I dug deeper. “Come on, doesn’t anything scare you?”

  The woman on the screen had blue eyes and pale blond hair. Her face was fey, unmarked. Her clothes were the same period as the other woman he had shown me. I realized Mark had gone completely still beside me.

  “Who is she?” I asked softly.

  “Catherine.” He said it like the name explained everything and he didn’t move.

  “What is she?”

  “A demon eater.”

  I looked at the face on the screen, trying to imagine the slight otherworldly beauty devouring vampires, drinking their soul
s. “I didn’t think they were real.”

  “I hope they aren’t anymore.” He wiped the screen clean and brought up the house lights. “She is the most frightening creature I have ever known. I don’t even want to think of her again.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, but the curiosity was already eating at me. Mark wished me good night and began to walk away, still distracted. Just the memory of the blond woman had shaken him. I felt guilty leaving him that way.

  “Wait!” I called. “Have you ever heard of Mel Brooks?”

  ****

  I woke up still humming ‘Putting on the Ritz’ from Young Frankenstein. The shutters were down, and Jakob was dead to the world beside me. The sheets had been tossed aside in the night, and he looked every inch the image from my dream the night before. It made it hard to leave him, but when I stroked my hand down his leg, and he didn’t respond, I knew it’d take something serious to wake him. I didn’t have room for any more serious things in my life.

  I headed into work. Mark was equally dead to the world, so he wasn’t going to need me. Talking the case over with Danny would do me good. I took the train in, staring at nothing in that way commuters have. We like to think we look contemplative or deep in thought when, really, we all just look blank.

  I glanced around hoping someone had left a paper behind. There was nothing. Some big news must have broken to make people take their papers with them. Everyone was jaded by the killings. I wondered what could have had such an impact on the city.

  The squad room was overly full when I got there. Half of the night shift hadn’t gone home yet. Sure, they were all dedicated cops, but normally the night shift guys all clocked out promptly at 7:30.

  I started to sit down at my desk when Danny called me into the lieutenant’s office. Ben was inside as well. I’d never seen him look so miserable. Even his dark Hawaiian coloring looked pale and weary.

  “Do you need a cup of coffee?” I asked.

  “Very much, but I’m hoping to get some sleep today, so I’d better not.”

  “What’s keeping you up? Did something new turn up after I left the crime scene?”

  “Nothing new, Mors. That’s half the problem.” Lieutenant French sat down with a heavy sigh. “I take it you didn’t read this morning’s paper either?”

  “No, sir.” I glanced over at Danny, who shook his head. He didn’t know what the paper said any more than I did.

  “According to this morning’s paper, the killings we’ve been investigating were the work of two rogue werewolves. A group of vigilantes killed those wolves last night. The city has nothing left to fear. The article has quotes from two people: Tom Canidae, who in typical politician fashion doesn’t take any blame but hogs all of the credit for his people and,” he took a minute to fold his hands neatly on his desk, “former Sergeant Artman, who speaks at length about how the SIU knew it was a bunch of monsters all along but was prevented from acting because the community of freaks didn’t open up to us.”

  All three of us gaped. The way the lieutenant said ‘monsters’ and ‘freaks’ I knew he was quoting Artman. There was no good way to spin this. Denials from our department would fall on deaf ears, but we couldn’t sit quietly by and agree that the community we served had shut us out either. Too many people felt we didn’t bother with crimes that hurt the supernatural community only with the crimes they committed against normal people.

  “Former sergeant?” Danny asked.

  “Former. Artman has been put on unpaid leave. The union was going to step in, but Special Agent Zollern had already contacted them about his antagonistic behavior toward fellow officers.” He glanced at a report on his desk. “Of course, we all knew about that, but when it comes from someone outside the force suddenly it matters.”

  “So what can we do? Speaking as a freak, I’m not sure what would make me feel better after I read that,” Auster said.

  “Damage control. It’s the only thing we’ve got left. I don’t think those two wolves are the root of this problem, but I don’t have any proof of that. You go home and get some sleep. Don’t talk to anyone or answer the phone. Gallagher and Mors, find me something other than witchcraft that says these two wolves weren’t our killers.” He contemplated his phone with resignation. “In the meantime I’m going to try to convince the mayor that no one here is running a hate campaign.”

  ****

  Dr. Mohahan hadn’t gotten a chance to process the two bodies from last night yet, so Danny and I began with the crime scene reports. There were a few finger print samples from the week. We called the lab and asked them to pull prints from the bodies. We hadn’t gotten much in the way of hair and fiber sample, but what little there was would be tested against the two in the morgue. It was a reach, but we really didn’t have much else. We went back and forth with little information we had when my phone rang.

  “Mors,” I said without summoning a smile. With this kind of morning my callers were lucky I was answering. They didn’t get a pleasant phone voice.

  “Don’t you sound chipper?” Mark asked, his voice full of sarcasm. “I mean, what with our job being done and all, I expected a happier greeting.”

  “You read the paper then.”

  “Indeed, minutes before I called the main office and renewed my criticism of that drunken toad of a sergeant.”

  “He wasn’t a drunk.” I thought about it for a minute. “Was he?”

  “He smelled like liquor to me, but then we talked about how I’m sensitive last night.”

  “That we did.” I leaned back in my chair. Danny’s look reminded me that I was supposed to be working. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need you to go to the lab and call me back. I have an idea that can’t wait until dark.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At the city morgue, we found the two dead werewolves center stage surrounded by adoring fans in lab coats. I suspected it was the first time Dr. Mohahan worked with an audience. His hands were buried in the abdomen of one of the bodies. He was loudly announcing his every move. We watched for a minute but when he saw us, he stopped, hastily dismissing everyone. I tried not to hear their disappointed muttering.

  “Sorry about that, we don’t get many werewolves in state around here. Most of them die in human form.”

  “What of?” I asked.

  “Other werewolves, drug overdose, and suicide.” He dumped a set of instruments in the sink then ticked the options off on his gloved fingers.

  “Most lycanthropes don’t respond to drugs,” Danny said, doubtful.

  “Which is why they take way too much and overdose. It’s like they’re so desperate for a hit they don’t realize their heart can still explode.” He frowned. “And don’t even get me started on the ones who OD on Blue. That’s an ugly way to die.”

  The necklace Anna made for me felt heavy against my chest. I quickly grabbed the phone and dialed Mark. After getting his permission, I put him on speakerphone. I gave a quick introduction, not bothering to mention why Mark couldn’t join us in person.

  “Have you identified the female?” Mark asked.

  “Yes. Can I ask how you knew that? The sex organs aren’t obvious after they change.”

  “The scent of the blood is different.” His voice came through the phone with a trace of annoyance at being questioned.

  “You’re a wolf yourself, then?”

  “Vampire,” Mark bristled. “Detective Mors, can you look on side of the right ankle of the female?”

  I went over to the corpse. “There’s too much fur, I can’t see anything.”

  “Shave it off.” It sounded a bit like an order but I knew he was furious over being mistaken for a werewolf so I went along. The electric razor hummed for a minute before revealing perfectly smooth white skin. Touching it, I felt the tiniest bit of death left behind. It wasn’t enough to bother me, but it didn’t make me want to examine the body any further.

  “There’s nothing there,” I called out to the phone, feeling foolish fo
r talking to a little black box.

  “Fine, do the same thing, other side.”

  It took a minute but the result was the same. “Nothing,” I repeated.

  “Fine, this time on the small of the back.”

  The corpse had to be turned over. I was all too happy to step back and let the men do the work. The doctor quibbled for a bit, about how they would need to call someone, but Danny shamed him into working. The back of the wolf was unbroken; no Y incision, no cuts from its death, just thick fur and a long tail.

  I asked Mark for more instructions. He directed me to shave the small of the back, where the waist would have been on a human.

  “There’s something here,” I practically shouted as the tiny black dots came into view. Dr. Mohahan came around the other side. Danny stayed by the phone.

  “What does the something look like leaves, lines or dots?” Mark asked from the phone. I knew it must be maddening not being able to see.

  “They’re lines,” Dr. Mohahan said, his finger pointing out five thin black bars that ran across the back.

  “There are circles too.” I traced the shapes with my finger. “At least they were circles once. It’s all stretched out.”

  “It’s music,” Danny said. “Three measures of notes from her favorite song. How did you know?” He directed his question to the phone, which was good since the rest of us were clueless.

  “I didn’t. Half of the female victims had a tattoo, the bulk of those were on the ankle or the back.”

  “Could someone fill me in?” I demanded. I was the one touching the corpse. That entitled me to a little bit of explanation.

  “It’s Brenda, from the clinic where Madame Marie was found,” Danny told me.

  “But that means…”

  “That there’s no way this wolf is your killer. It was her first change. She wouldn’t have had the strength to go hunting,” Mark finished the thought from the phone.

  “You got an idea on the other one?” When Danny looked down at the snout of the corpse, his eyes were sad.

  “None, the men don’t have as many identifying marks.” Mark stopped for a second. “Detective Mors, fax me the autopsy reports. I’m going to get some sleep. It looks like we’ll be hunting tonight.”