Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

He got up, dressed and packed his suitcase. He planned to head straight to the airport and pick up some doughnuts and more coffee once he got there. His next stop, the ‘mistake on the lake’.

For some reason the word “mistake” stuck in his mind.

Serena was thoroughly annoyed. She had already called Metcalf back two other times.

“How come our connection is so shitty?” she asked.

“I already told you, dear, I’m in the back of a van parked in a San Jose garage.”

“Metcalf, darling, please watch this little snitty tone of yours. It doesn’t become you. If I heard you say that before do you think I’d be asking again? And why are you in San Jose?”

There was some soft static which Serena realized was Metcalf sighing, which exasperated the hell out of her. Condescending prick. He told her it didn’t matter.

“I think it does matter, darling, especially if you’re there to enlist a new recruit, which would be terribly sanctimonious of you given the way you make me grovel for your permission every time I’d like to add someone to my little family. Someone far less tolerant than me on hearing that would understandably do something justifiably spiteful, like cutting off all of your funding.”

“Look, Serena, what I do is for the common good. It’s not like I’m acting like you and infecting every hot looking girl because I like the way her pussy tastes.”

Serena’s face had colored to a pale pink. Her body shook slightly as she held the cell phone to her ear. Wilfred moved behind her to massage her shoulders, but she jerked herself free and elbowed him hard in the jaw. The blow would’ve been enough to knock a normal person’s head off. Wilfred backed away, massaging the area where he’d been hit. Gregory started to laugh, caught Wilfred’s angry glare, and zipped it. Zach mouthed to Serena that Metcalf was a dick and that she shouldn’t let him get to her. She was oblivious, a small inferno raging in her eyes.

“Explain to me how this is for the common good.”

Metcalf sighed again. “He’s a scientist. We need him to help us with the cure.”

“I’ve got news for you, Metcalf, darling, not everyone gives a shit about your cure. Some of us are quite happy with the way we are…Hello?…Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. Serena, you’re right. I should’ve run it by you. I’m sorry. We’re getting off topic. Let’s get back to that dead guy in Cleveland. To me, it doesn’t sound like Jim’s work.”

“Oh, it’s Jim alright.”

“I don’t think so. He doesn’t smash in his victims’ faces like that. That’s an act of rage and hate. With Jim, it’s almost an act of sadness and melancholy. I bet the bleeding heart even sheds a few tears over each of his victims.”

“You think you fucking know everything? I’ve got news for you, darling, you’re not all-knowing and all-powerful. Jim’s in Cleveland right now, and we have a deal!”

“Calm down. I know we have a deal, but you don’t know Jim killed that guy.”

“Oh, I think I do.”

There was another long pause. Then, “This isn’t worth arguing over. Your PI is heading to Cleveland, right?”

“That’s what I told you.”

“Fine. Let’s wait and see if he finds him.”

“And when he does?”

“If he does then I’ll go to Cleveland as promised. In the meantime get yourself under control. The odds are that someone else did this killing. And for God’s sake, don’t do something stupid.”

“Like what, darling?”

Another soft, static-like sigh. “You know full well what I mean.”

“No, darling, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m too stupid to know what you mean. We’re not all as brilliant and razor-sharp as you.”

“Cut the shit, okay, Serena? You know exactly what I mean. Don’t go to Cleveland. We don’t need the attention. Just stay put until you hear from your PI. If Jim’s there, I’ll keep my word.”

“We don’t need the attention? But it’s okay for you to snatch famous scientists.”

“Jesus Christ. We’ve been over this…”

Serena swallowed back what she was going to say. Instead, her voice fell back to its normal sing-songish lilt, the crackling glass quality from a few seconds earlier gone.

“Don’t worry, darling,” she said, laughing. “I won’t be doing anything to get us in trouble. I’ll stay put in Manhattan. There’s a new club opening tonight that I desperately want to go to, so don’t worry.”

“Good. Have fun with your opening.”

“Oh, you know I always do.”

Serena made sure to hang up before him, not wanting to give Metcalf the opportunity to get the last word in. She stood frozen, her eyes hard angry slits.

“Who the fuck does he think he is?” she said, her crackling glass voice back. “The bastard thinks his word is God?”

Zach gave her a sympathetic smile. “Metcalf’s been on this God-complex bullshit for years, but the guy’s nothing but an asshole. Let’s just be thankful he’s long gone from New York. So what’s next?”

Serena’s face scrunched up as she considered that. She caught Wilfred sullenly rubbing his jaw and her face relaxed into an apologetic smile.

“Oh, darling, I did that, didn’t I? I wasn’t even aware.”

“That’s okay,” Wilfred mumbled, still pouting.

Serena moved over to him and touched his injured cheek, then her fingertips moved lightly down his chest before sliding into his pants. While she was showing Wilfred how apologetic she was, she stopped for a moment to tell Zach that they were going to Cleveland.

“Sure, I’ll book us a flight for tonight,” Zach said.

“No need to wait, darling. Arrange for a limo pickup. That way we can bring everything we need with us.”

“We could do the same with a private flight.”

“I know but there’s no reason to wait. Would you be a dear and arrange a pickup? Oh, and Gregory, I’m going to need you to stay behind so our little inmates here don’t run wild.”

Gregory made a bitter face at that. “Why me?” he asked.

“I need someone I trust to watch over our little hive, but Gregory, darling, it wasn’t nice of you to take pleasure out of poor Wilfred’s discomfort. Families don’t do that.”

Gregory nodded, his eyes lowered in shame. Serena turned back to Wilfred to finish making things up to him.

An hour later a Lincoln Continental limousine with darkened windows and shades drawn parked in front of Serena’s converted hotel. Zach, decked out in the hot hazy August New York morning in a head to toe leather outfit, dark wraparound shades, and a NY Mets baseball cap, loaded the limo with luggage, several coolers, and a duffel bag packed with five antique Samurai swords that were bought through auction and made by the famous sword maker, Hizen Tadahiro. Once the limo was loaded, Serena dashed from the hotel to the Lincoln, along with two martial arts experts that Serena had infected two years earlier in preparation for Jim being found. Wilfred and Zach joined them. Gregory stood in a darkened doorway brooding. The limo pulled away from the curb and Gregory waved half-heartedly at it before heading back into the building.

Duane Posey’s murder was a big story in Cleveland. Partly it was because of the grisly nature of it; his jaw and mouth completely obliterated and most of his blood gone, but the interest was also because of his long history of violence and suspected sexual assaults. When Carol was out getting breakfast, Jim turned on one of the local news channels and caught the story. According to the reporter at the murder scene-an attractive twenty-something blond whose wavy shoulder-length hair appeared shellacked, and who looked even downright diminutive compared to Carol-made sure to keep a dour frown frozen on her face as she reported how Posey had been arrested for over a half-dozen rapes during the past five years, but that the charges were dropped in each case. She didn’t spell it out, but it was clear that the victims had been intimidated to where they were afraid to cooperate with the DA. A police spokesman interviewed talked about how this was a bad guy and even though the streets might be safer without him, no one had the right to take the law into their own hands and that the Cleveland police were going to aggressively pursue his murderer. He hinted that given Posey’s violent past, this was more likely a revenge or drug killing than something ghoulish, but he had no explanation about what had happened to the dead man’s blood. There was no mention of the bar Carol had met Posey at, and thank God, nothing about Carol. But shit, what could they have, anyway? Maybe Posey had accosted Carol in that bar, but he accosted another woman there also. Still, Jim couldn’t help feeling like he had a dodged a bullet. He and Carol had been getting careless. Most of the bodies he fed off of were disposed of afterwards, the ones that were left behind he made sure wouldn’t be found for days, and that there would be at least a plausible explanation for what had happened to the missing blood-such as it washing down a sewer grate.