“You’re complaining about us but you have sunglasses and gloves on,” DeGray teases.
“My eyes are sensitive to the light!” I ignore the glove thing. “So… what’s going on?” I ask as I get into the back seat with DeGray.
Briar turns in her seat to face me. “We got a call about a possible homicide. Two vampires and a human found dead in a café on Front Street.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Right in the middle of the city? We have a ballsy killer, then. Who found them?”
“An employee who came in late.”
“Interesting.”
When we arrive, the regular police already have the area sectioned off, but they’re staying outside, since it’s now our case. Church gets out and goes to the trunk where he and the others get their equipment. I already have my gun and other equipment on me, but they need their masks in case something goes wrong.
“Got everything?” Briar asks.
“Yes, I have a tranq gun and my regular gun.”
“Perfect,” she says.
We follow Church under the tape and into the café.
The first victim is toward the counter, behind some tables. Briar kneels down next to her and examines the body. “Vampire… looks like a waitress. Gunshot to the head. Unless she’s very young, that couldn’t have killed her…”
I follow Church and DeGray back through a door where there are streaks of blood and a body sitting up in the corner.
It’s the human, probably in his late thirties. What I find strange is that the blood is running up his face, like he’d been upside down when they killed him, and the blood drained that way.
“He was clearly moved,” I say as I follow the others so we can secure and assess the place before taking more time to examine the scene closely. “Be careful. This is very strange.”
Church nods and moves forward. “DeGray,” he says as we reach a closed door.
“Ready,” DeGray responds.
Church swings open the door and DeGray moves in first with Church right behind him and me taking up the rear. That’s when I hear a strange noise and look up as something falls toward us. I jerk back, but not before something warm and wet hits me. The metallic smell instantly fills the air as I open my eyes and realize what it was.
Blood.
The three of us are coated in fresh blood.
“What was that—” Briar starts.
I turn and look at Briar as she comes around the corner and stops instantly. Her eyes fixate on me, locking on like I’m prey.
While older vampires can handle blood and dead bodies, it’s not often they’re coated in a bucket of fresh blood. And with the restrictions on access to human blood, they’re generally hungrier than they’d choose to be.
“What the fuck… what the fuck…” Church mumbles as he steps back, but my eyes are on Briar, who is clearly the youngest of the three. She rushes at me, the freshest source of blood in this place. For a moment, I don’t know what to do. I’ve gone against vampires before, but generally, they’re not ones I want to keep safe.
I step to the side and she slams into DeGray who’d been in the process of putting his mask on. He’s thrown back and loses his grip on the mask. It hits the ground and slides across the floor. I turn and pull my tranq gun out and aim it at Briar, since I’m not sure I want to take on three vampires at once if the other two decide to attack me. She grabs onto me and sinks her teeth right into my arm… the fake one. I almost feel bad for her by the sound it makes, but instead, I pull the trigger. The tranq hits her and she stumbles before flashing her fangs at me, like she’s planning on intimidating me even as she looks like she doesn’t know which side is up. Instead, she staggers before stumbling and dropping to her knees. DeGray is groaning, like he’s trying his hardest to fight it, so I grab a pan that’d been filled with water and toss it at him. The water hits his face, washing away some of the blood so I can step in and grab his mask off the floor. I shove it against his face, and he grabs onto it before dropping to the ground and cradling it to himself.
And that’s when Church slams into me.
Honestly, I’m shocked by it. I hadn’t even been paying attention to him because he’s older and so focused. I didn’t imagine the blood would bother him. I grab for my tranq gun and he smacks it from my hand before pinning my arm against the wall as one hand slides into my hair, yanking my head to the side as his mouth hovers against my throat.
Suddenly, I’m hit with an old fear that I haven’t felt in years. One that makes my body shake and my mind grow blank. But I can’t fall into that. They feed off fear. At least, he did.
I take a breath, regaining my focus and determination. “Church… Church, stop… please. You can’t hurt me.”
I can feel the tip of his fangs against my neck, digging in just enough I can feel the prick of them piercing my skin.
“Church!”
He jerks back like he’s been shot and grabs his mask, pulling it onto his face. I go to the sink and hit the water on before quickly sticking my head under the running water, hoping to wash away what I can, so I don’t look like a rare steak for my fellow vampires. I take out my phone and put a call in to Brooks as Church escapes through a side door.
“Hello?”
“Calling to tell you to keep anyone from VRC away from here. There’s blood everywhere. Someone rigged up a bucket to make blood hit us.”
“Shit. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I have everything under control. I’m going to finish cleaning these three up and then get them out of here.”
“I’ll send some backup immediately.”
“Great.”
After hanging up, I grab a pan and fill it with water and soap before going over to a side door to find Church in the alleyway.
He warily looks at me as he crowds against the brick wall like he can disappear into it.
“Get over here and let me wash some of the blood out of your hair. I trust you,” I say as I walk toward him. He stands still as I dump some on him and then begin scrubbing at his face.
“My eyes!” he cries.
“Well, keep them closed!”
He pulls the mask off and rubs the water against his face before quickly putting it back on.
“I talked to Brooks.”
He nods. “I’m going to call another unit in… a human unit,” he says as he turns and walks away from me with slumped shoulders.
I busy myself by guiding DeGray out and washing his face before getting him to help me get Briar out and cleaned up. I know I could be disrupting evidence, but I’d rather disrupt a little evidence than have any one of these vampires attack a human. A human unit responds almost immediately to handle the absolute fuck-up, and as soon as they’re here and are done getting samples and evidence from us, I usher our unit back to Church’s car. I cover the seats and shoo them in.
It’s like herding dejected puppies, and I realize that they haven’t said a single word since Church called for a new unit. I get into the driver’s seat and look over at Church who is refusing to take his mask off even though I’m positive he’s not going to eat me at this point. He’s leaning against the door, like he’s trying to get as far from me as he can.