Jeanne Stein - Blood Drive

I kick at the stuff on the floor, scattering and stomping until I’ve reduced as much as possible to shards of plastic and ribbons of tape.

But my rage is far from satisfied.

I return to the living room.

“Bite him,” I tell Frey. “His leg.”

Darryl starts to scream before Frey sinks fangs into the calf muscle of his right leg. I watch as Frey closes his jaw and shakes his head, worrying at the leg as a cat would a bird. I let it go on for a full minute, before I call him off.

Frey backs away, eyes bright, sniffing at the blood pooling under Darryl.

I squat down beside Frey, lay a gentle hand on his head, and turn my attention to Darryl. “You remember how this works, don’t you, Darryl? I ask you a question, and you give me an answer. Only this time, it won’t be me biting you if I don’t like what I hear. It will be my little friend here.”

Darryl’s eyes are dull with fear. They’re locked on the jungle cat, never shifting away, when he asks, “What do you want to know?”

“Were there other girls besides Trish?”

He shakes his head, and at the movement, Frey tenses and growls. Darryl freezes, his voice barely a whisper when he answers, “No. Just Trish.”

“Who are the men with Trish in the video?”

Darryl closes his eyes. When he doesn’t respond, I wave a hand. “The other leg.”

His eyes pop open, “No. Please. I’ll tell you.”

I stop Frey with a nod.

Darryl wipes at his face with his good hand. “I met them at a bar. They’re college students. They go with me sometimes to Beso de la Muerte. They were there the last time. You know, when I was with you.”

I do remember. The two at the bar. “Names.”

He spouts them off, and I sort them away, conjuring up their faces in my head. I know I’ll recognize them when I see them again.

“Where do they live?”

“An apartment near SDSU.

6300 Montezuma Road

.”

“Good.” I pat his leg, the good one. “So far, so good. Now, what happened with Barbara Franco? Who killed her?”

Darryl’s voice becomes a whine. “It was a mistake. We only wanted to scare her into keeping quiet.”

“We?”

“Me and the guys on the video. We picked her up on the way to school and took her out to the desert. But she wouldn’t listen. She kept fighting. One of the guys took off his belt and started hitting her. Then he put it around her neck. It was over so fast. She just died.”

“And then the sick fucks had their fun with her, didn’t they?” It’s my own voice but from a place I don’t recognize. The fury is back.

Frey hears it, too, and muscles ripple under the dark fur as a low growl emanates from his chest. He bares his teeth and growls.

I want to let him finish it. But there is one more thing.

“The people who buy your videos. I want to know who they are.”

“It’s all on the computer. I can get it for you.”

The answer comes too quickly.

“I’m not stupid, Darryl. What did you do, fix the computer so you could delete everything if you needed to?”

He lapses into silence.

I think about my conversation with Max. “I think I have the solution. I’ll take the computers with me and turn them over to Chief Williams. His experts will get what we need.”

Darryl’s eyes narrow. “But if you do that, they’ll get the videos, too. It’s all there. Everything that we did with Trish. Do you want to take the chance that somebody might make a copy?”

No. I don’t. The idea that the scum who bought those tapes would get away with it and move on to other victims turns my blood to ice. On the other hand, exposing Trish to more humiliation if she’s made to go to court to testify against any of them is just as bad.

Darryl smiles at my distress, knowing the reason for it. The smug expression on his face is too much. It makes me angry enough to forget about the garlic infusing his blood. I don’t know what kind of effect drinking from him will have, but in a flash of anger, I don’t care. I bend over him, growling, and actually have the skin of his neck in my teeth when Frey lashes out with a paw. The blow sends me tumbling off Darryl. In a flash, I’m back.

Like animals fighting over a bone, Frey and I face off. I want to finish Darryl. Drain him. Make him die screaming. I want it so badly I’m willing to fight Frey for him. Every muscle in my body, every cell prepares to do battle. I’m on all fours, like the panther, and the sounds coming from my throat are as ferocious as the ones coming from his.

A spark of something human flashes in Frey’s eyes. He is snarling, lips curled back to expose fangs as long and sharp as daggers, but he doesn’t advance. He watches me, motionless. His breathing becomes soft susurration, the only sound in the room. Next to us, Darryl lays frozen in terror, his heartbeat so frenetic it echoes in my ear as if it were my own.

A voice I barely recognize erupts from my own mouth. “I want to end it.”

Frey moves so fast, I have no time to react. He breaks Darryl’s neck with one snap of powerful jaws.

And for Darryl, it’s over.

I’m not sorry he’s dead.

Frey crouches over the body. He watches until I back off, and then he turns away, too. He slinks toward the window and leaps through. When I look outside, I see him lying under the canopy of a shade tree, head resting on front paws like a pet tired after a long day of play.

I rest my cheek against the glass. The coolness is a balm on my feverish skin. I’m waiting for the vampire to retreat and the human Anna to reappear. It takes longer than it should. Is this an indication that I’m becoming more animal-if that’s in fact what being a vampire is all about-and less human? Not a comfort.

Finally, my pulse slows and my blood cools. I return to Darryl’s body and stand over it. He has a look of surprise on his face. I try to dredge up pity or compassion. I can’t. He was a child pornographer, he killed Trish’s mother and admitted being an accomplice to Barbara Franco’s murder. He deserved what he got.

But I have to clear my head and decide what to do next. Bradley is out there as well as the two who killed Barbara and molested Trish. My original thought to torch the place would be the easiest way to destroy the computers and the videos, not to mention a way to explain Darryl’s death. But there may be evidence on those computers to tie Bradley in with Darryl-bank records or e-mails, maybe. As it stands now, my word is all that I have to offer as proof that Bradley is involved.

I have to take the computers. I trudge back to the bedroom. Besides the laptop Darryl took from me earlier, there are three computer systems and a digital camera. I also find a box of disks and some files in a cabinet in the closet. I bring everything into the living room and pile it on the coffee table. I’ll pull the car around to load up.

When I look for Frey, to let him know what I’m doing, he’s no longer under the tree in the backyard. No matter. If he’s not waiting for me at the car, I’m sure he’s somewhere nearby. How far can a panther get in broad daylight? Or a near naked man, for that matter?

I reach into my pocket for the car keys.

The pocket is empty.

Shit.

I glance around the living room.

They could have fallen out of my pocket in here, or outside when I was dodging bullets.

I don’t find them near Darryl’s body or in the bedroom. That leaves only one alternative. I yank open the front door-and find myself face to face with Bradley. He’s not alone.

“Well, well,” I say. “Special Agent Bradley.” I look past him to the two young thugs at his side-thugs I recognize from Beso de la Muerte. “And you’re Darryl’s friends. Come on in. He’s inside.”