Dave Zeltserman - Blood Crimes Book One

He heard the Harley before he saw it. As expected the driver slowed down enough to see that the doorframe was busted up, then did a quick one eighty and drove off. Jim couldn’t tell whether the driver was Raze or another biker. He was hoping it was Raze. He pulled the Monte Carlo onto the street and kept the headlights off as he followed. He tried to maintain a two-block distance. With his acutely sensitive hearing he could tell where the biker was heading even when he couldn’t see it. For twelve miles he was able to follow the bike this way without any problem, then he saw the bike pull down an alleyway, and when he drove up to it found that it was too narrow for the Monte Carlo. He thought about running after the bike, but instead stopped and listened, putting every ounce of energy he had into his concentration.

The world became still. In his mind’s eye he could see the turns the biker made, could picture them, and by the time the engine was shut off, Jim had a good idea where the bike had stopped. Not too far away. He decided that the biker never realized he was being followed. Still, though, the area the biker led him to didn’t make sense to him. These were mostly tenement buildings; he expected Raze to be holding Carol in a safe house out in the burbs. It didn’t feel right to him, but it was the only lead he had. He got out of the car, taking the sword and gun with him. For a moment he stood paralyzed trying to wrack his brains over anything else he could do to smoke Raze out. If he had to he’d rob a bank the next day, but he couldn’t help feeling that Raze was fucking with him; that the guy wouldn’t trade Carol for any amount of money. How could he? Maybe Raze hadn’t realized it yet, but he had to have an idea of what he was dealing with; that if he had already hurt Carol there was nothing that could keep him safe once Jim found him. Which meant he couldn’t afford to let Jim find him, or for that matter, allow any swap. Maybe he just hadn’t realized it yet, but he would. Probably after he slept on it. It was everything Jim could do to keep from breaking out sobbing. He looked up into the hazy darkness as if he were beseeching the sky for answers. There were none coming, nothing but a sad dim moon overhead mostly obscured by haze and clouds. He would find the biker he had followed, and if Carol was being held someplace else, he’d do whatever he had to to make the biker tell him where she was. Whatever it took. Whatever…

Jim started running to the location where in his mind’s eye he had pictured the biker stopping, the blade of the sword reflecting the street lights, the. 45 that he gripped in his other hand not much more than a grayish blur.

It was three-thirty-six in the morning when Metcalf knocked on Hayes’ hotel room door. Serena let him in, a pale trace of a smile showing. Metcalf didn’t bother acknowledging her, just stared though her with empty eyes before moving past her. He barely seemed to notice Hayes laying on the floor, moaning softly, his wrists and ankles chained. Metcalf walked across the room, stepping over the PI, and sat in the chair that Serena and Zach had shared earlier. He appeared more haggard than usual, his cheeks sunken, the skin under his eyes colored a grayish-black, almost as if soot had been applied. Serena smiled thinly at him, her almond-shaped eyes as dull as sandstone.

“I hope you had a pleasant flight,” she said.

He shifted his empty stare to look at her. It seemed as if it were a struggle for him, as if the last thing he wanted to do was acknowledge her presence. “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” he finally said.

“Oh, darling, of course I’m not. Maybe a tiny bit surprised that you were able to find a flight so quickly out of LA-”

“San Jose,” Metcalf corrected her.

“San Jose, then,” she said, her smile stretching. “Always the stickler for details, aren’t we?” The sight of him brimming with all that violence excited her. It had been a long time since they’d been together. Thinking about one of their long-ago sessions made her face flush. She walked over to him and sat on his lap, her hand inching towards his waistband. Metcalf grabbed her wrist and stopped her. That surprised her and her eyes flashed dark for a moment, but she kept smiling, maybe even wanting him more than before. “Once I saw that you were trying to call me I knew you’d be heading here. And I knew you’d be clever enough to track me to my private eye’s hotel room. I assume you saw the CNN report?”

“Yeah, at the airport.”

“That was quite a video one of the bystanders made. Poor picture quality, but still very exciting. I could watch it over and over again.”

Metcalf squeezed harder on her wrist. Serena had the distinct impression that he was trying to crush her bone into powder.

“Let go, darling,” she said. “That is not very nice. And you know that I can be equally unpleasant if need be.”

“What are you trying to do, ruin us?” he asked, his voice cracking with rage, but he released his grip on her wrist. Serena slid off his lap and moved over to the bed. Sitting down, she leaned backwards so she could support herself by her elbows, her long legs dangling off the edge of the mattress. A surging violence had darkened his face and it left her throbbing between her legs. She had to take a deep breath before she could talk, her voice huskier, her soft lilt gone.

“Calm down, darling,” she said, her smile more of a tease than anything else. “No one is going to recognize me or any of my family from that video, so please don’t go all drama queen on me. It’s too late in the evening for that. Besides, that’s usually Zach’s job.”

Metcalf stared bullets at her. She smiled back but was beginning to lose some of her enthusiasm. Enough was enough already. Screw him. She sat up and crossed her legs.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Oh probably no more than what you’ve already guessed. We decided to take a trip to Cleveland after all, and it’s a good thing we did. You should be thanking me, darling, you really should. It turns out our Jim has gone berserk. He is completely out of control. We were driving on Euclid when what do we see but Jim out in the open feeding. This was in broad daylight, mind you. And as it turns out, he’s been doing far more than just that. If you watch any of the local news you’ll see that he’s also been ripping people’s heads off in motel rooms and their arms off in movie theatres.”

Metcalf stared open-mouthed at Serena as if she were nuts. Quizzically, he asked, “Why would he do any of that?”

Serena’s smile turned more into a cat-who-ate-the-canary variety. She told him Hayes’ guess about the Blood Dragons taking Jim’s girlfriend and the bloody aftermath that had since followed. To support this hypothesis, she showed Metcalf the drawing she had of Jim’s girlfriend. Metcalf looked intently at it and murmured that the girl was beautiful.

“If you like trailer-trash, I guess you could consider her okay.”

Metcalf shook his head, looked at Serena. “I know trailer-trash when I see it. This girl’s stunningly beautiful.” He put the drawing down, violence again darkening his features. “Why did you have to massacre those police officers?”

“It couldn’t be helped.”

Metcalf stared at her as if she had just sprouted horns. He dropped his face into an open palm and squeezed his eyes between his thumb and index finger. In a pained voice he asked her why it couldn’t be helped.

“It just couldn’t be.”

Metcalf sat for a while, frozen, then pushed himself out of his chair and paced the room, all the while squeezing his eyes. He asked Serena to explain why she couldn’t have helped it.

“There was nothing else we could do,” she said, shrugging. “They showed up while we were trying to deal with Jim. And then they started firing at us-and those bullets sting! We did what we had to.”