Halloway Hotel
Woody had stripped down his clothing and went to climb into the oversized bath tub. The woman laid her hands on his shoulders, her fingers going to massage his tensed neck.
"You´re so tensed, Honey...", she whispered. Woody felt her fingers going down his spine and he squeezed a bit when they reached his butt.
"Ugh...I like men with a tight butt..."
"Yes, but..."
"Not but! I mean butt! You can´t even imagine what a tight butt means to the rest of the back...Muscles working together and the firmer they are the better..." He felt her breath gliding over his neck and her lips touched his ear. With soft teeth she began to nibble and her tongue licked a line from ear to neck and down to his shoulder. With a slight shudder he jumped a bit and inevitably a moan escaped his mouth. Lips and tongue changed to tips of teeth when her fangs scratched softly over his shoulder.
"What...what are you doing?", he whispered. His head turning around so he could watch at her closely. Her tongue licked over her front teeth and her eye teeth looked a little bit longer and more pointed like they could have a sharp tip.
A second he thought of what Nigel had said then he warded off the idea. Even in the uncertain light he couldn´t prove that true.
Vampires!
Nonsense. Creatures out of the spine-chilling Gothic novels. TV, cinema. All...but not reality. Created for a welcome shudder or to reign in children or whole communities. He shook his head.
Her hand followed up his movement and stroke down his neck, his spine. Her other hand went for his groin.
"Relax...", she whispered barely audible. "Relax..." Her voice a tempting promise. She pulled off a sponge from a basket and began to wash his back then moved over to his belly. Woody gasped when the sponge moved over his lower belly and over his balls down to his legs.
He tensed a bit.
"Relax...relax honey...I´ll show you things you never dared to dream of..." Her head bent down and her tongue pulled a trace over his belly and his groin. Woody closed his eyes, tried to control his body and not to give in the urge to grab her head and pull it down to his dick.
When he opened his eyes her face hung directly in front of him, her lips split and her tongue shot out and she made low growling noises. Her face moved up and her mouth was approaching to his shoulder. He felt her breath and her voice lowed down to a whisper in his ear. Her hand worked his cock and when he got off her teeth scratched over his throat and when he moaned she bit down carefully.
Her teeth broke his sensitive skin and he shuddered when she began to suck while working him hard.
Fast enough he felt hard enough to break rocks and a few moments later he got off again, shed within her when she had slipped onto him.
When they both finished he sighed and it took a lot of time until he climbed off the bath tub.
"That...that was...whoa!", he gasped.
"I promised you to relax and I think you´re not dissatisfied with me...", she whispered and kissed his throat, her tongue licking intensively over his shoulder, so the coagulant in her saliva would speed up the healing. In one or two days he won´t see anything from the bite.
Well done vampire bites were discrete and relatively painless when it happened under controlled conditions.
Detective Hoyt closed his shirt and put on his holster with the gun. Then he turned around.
"Don't forget your coat, you'll need it tonight." she said with a distinct smile and reached him his coat.
"Thanks, my dear. You had been...wonderful..." Woody smiled and grabbed his coat; "I´m so sorry I don´t have more time for you tonight, but my flight to L.A. lifts off in two hours."
"Would like to see you again, honey...", she smiled and stroked his hair, kissed his cheek and dressed herself in a large towel before she opened the curtain of their compartment.
He kissed her and she waved him good by when he left. Then she slipped back into the compartment.
Boston Police Department- Forensics
Detective Hoyt yawned, put a hand over his mouth and grabbed for a large cup of coffee when he entered the Forensic Department in the morning.
"Hi Woody!", Nigel greeted him with a grin; "You look kinda you spent the whole night with a rug in hell..."
"Just tired a bit. Need that coffee. I didn´t spent all night long in hell. Went into paradise but don´t ask me, Nigel..."
"What happened, Woody?"
"I told you I would investigate the traces of our Mr. Manager! The credit bill led me to the Halloway Hotel here in Boston. I pretended to need a single room for the night and finally I ended up in the entertainment department of the hotel."
"Entertainment Department? So it´s a noble brothel? The kind we suggested..."
"Brothel? Maybe. I met a woman there who wasn´t astonished when I mentioned Mr. O´Donnell..."
Woody watched closely at Nigel when the eyes of the criminologist fixed onto his collar.
"What are you looking for, Nigel? Do I have something...", Woody asked with knitting brows.
"Indeed. You have a stain on your collar...did you cut yourself while shaving?"
"Shaving with a blade? I´m not kinda mad to kill myself and give you the option to dissect me on your table, Nigel. I may be mad but not that kind of mad..." Woody grinned devilishly.
Woody´s hand moved upwards to the collar of his shirt and he strolled over to the glass front of a laboratory cabinet, tilted his head to the left side and nearly dislocated his neck to get a view on his throat. His fingers shoved the collar aside and he saw a distinct line of blood dots. A slightly curved line.
"Whoo, that looks like something has bitten you..." Nigel sounded eager in a way Woody felt uncomfortable with.
"Bitten? What do you mean?"
What Woody saw had a clear similarity with the impressions of a jaw with complete teeth line. Woody denied the thought of being bitten by something in an animal or human shape. That was freekin´ nonsense.
Before he could ask further questions he felt Nigel´s fingers pulling the collar away and his eyes fixed onto the bite mark with a real expert´s view. Woody tried to fought off the fingers but Nigel was insistent.
"He! Sit down and don´t move, Woody! I´ll do a mold from your shoulder. But first I´ll take a sample for DNA from it! You didn´t clean up before, Woody?"
"No...!?" Woody mumbled.
"Fine!" Nigel gave back with satisfaction. If Woody had cleaned his skin there won´t be DNA material left over for a testing. Or saliva. When Woody had been bitten there would be saliva around or at least inside the bite marks.
"What? What in hell is so important about a simple mosquito bite? Until we aren´t in Jurassic Park! Will I turn now into a Velociraptor or a T-Rex?"
Woody followed Nigel with his eyes when he sat down and Nigel went to prepare a molding.
"Not into a dinosaur but rather into a vampire!" Nigel grinned.
"He! You´re kinda mad...", Woody threw up his hands, gesturing desperately like he had to handle a gone mad scientist. "That´s a fucking scratch! Nothing more! I´m not dead! Not. Dead. See?", he pointed to his throat, smashed his flat hand onto the table with force.
"Outschh!That hurts! So I´m damn freekin´ alive!", he complained.
"I didn´t deny you´re alive. Maybe I should be careful! When you´re one of the undead..."
"You´re crazy, Nigel! If I would be undead I would dissolve into ashes! It´s daytime!" Woody directed to the window where the deep standing sun of fall time shone in.
"Count Dracula of Bram Stoker was still able to walk by daylight. He simply was weaker than at nighttime, but he didn´t burn up."
"I don´t sparkle in the sun! The less I did met good old Count Dracula! I met...I had some fun with a woman! Not a caped freak who can turn into dust, a bat or a wolf!"
"So maybe it had been one of his brides!", Nigel stated with stoicism.
"That´s all! I´ll go now!", Woody growled and tried to rise.
A strong hand pressed him down onto the seat.
"Stop Detective! I do the mold now and when I´m, ready you can leave for the precinct!", Nigel demanded.
"Not before I got my coffee!" Woody answered.
"As my master wishes!", Nigel bowed down in an old-fashioned manner like a servant in front of his king, his arm waving in a bow.
"You´re sometimes kinda kidding!" Woody laughed and sat still when Nigel bent over him, dabbing into the wounds with the stick from a DNA test tube. He shoved the tester into the tube, closed it and then he stroked the plasticine like mass on his shoulder.
"Okay, sit still please. Its hardening very fast. No such long time like a cast."
"No autographs, ain´t it?"
"Not from us but from the bite mark! So maybe from the lady who possibly had bitten you..." Nigel commented and after a few minutes he peeled off the mold carefully. Turned it over and watched closely.
"That looks pretty good! Okay. I´ll do a match with the mold from Mr. O´Donnell..."
"I had fun with the woman, due to duty! I wasn´t bitten...We just did some..." He waved his hand in a definite gesture. He has had Sex with her. He denied the possibility of being bitten during sex. He wasn´t in SM.
"What you just did...?", a voice asked from the door of the laboratory room. Woody´s head turned around.
Dr. Cavanaugh entered the room, a smile on her face.
Oh my Goodness, Woody thought. As often the coroner entered in the wrongest moment.
"I did investigations like I told you. Nothing else!" The nothing else came a little bit too hastily, too much pressed out as an excuse.
"Do you have any results, Detective?", she asked kind of skeptical when she looked into his face. His expression , his whole body told her that he was going to hide something from her. But what was it?
His hand shot upwards, rolling up his collar to hide the scratch from her eyes. Nigel, this overly eager forensic, was mixing another mold from two components. The soft scratching sound of a knife in a silicon pod was the only sound for a few seconds. Woody tried to take away his view from him and to do as if nothing happened. He hoped she wouldn´t see the discrete trace of blood on his collar.
Time to distract her before she would become suspicious where and for what he had spent the whole night. And first of all with whom!
"I had been at Halloway´s to search for one or a few witnesses to Mr. O`Donnell´s pass away...", he began with a very controlled voice.
"Mr. O´Donnell´s pass away!? Do we still have any clue if it was intended murder or simply an accident during sex, related to strange practices?"; she asked in return.
"We haven´t still finished yet our tests and I´m going to make a new one now, Jordan!", Nigel answered and shoved back the hair on the neck of Woody. He put some of the molding mass onto the skin and Woody twitched.
"You mean…this test!", Dr Cavanaugh fell in and looked with interest. An interest Woody had definitely no need for by now. But he was placed on the small laboratory chair and tracking her interest without a possibility to get out of the situation now.
Get out of the situation!
That was the second time within twelve hours he had no chance to escape unharmed. He sighed. Seems to be my daily destination tonight.
"What is that? A scratch? Or something similar to the wound that was found on the femoral artery of our Mr. O`Donnell?" Her voice sounded suspicious. She couldn´t see the size of the wound as long as it was covered by the mold material. But that wouldn´t take all too long.
"It´s nothing…", Woody tried to soften the meaning of it.
"For a…nothing!...Nigel wouldn´t bring up so much activity!", she countered sharply. "If you have gotten hurt by an animal or anything else…." Nigel didn´t want to think about what the word anything meant in her mind. Or his. An all but not uncomfortable warmth was spreading southward and like a flash a memory shot through his mind. The memory of a beautiful woman, shed in nothing more than her skin, riding him to completion and then the flash of teeth, a bit too white, the canines a bit too long and…uh! Way too sharp…that stroked over his shoulder bow before he felt the Lady piercing his skin. Warm moisture onto his skin and…Uh! Better don´t think about the rest, he warned himself before a suspicious flush was going to redden his cheeks. And dilate his pupils.
Dr. Cavanaugh knew him very well. They had spent more than only the hours of duty together. They had been lovers.
"…you should have been examined and treated! If there´s danger for infection…Animal teeth are a real source of pathogenic bacteria!"
"Oh that´s not the case…It´s only a scratch…", Woody ward off.
"..that looks like the impression of an upper human jaw with prominent canines…", Nigel disturbed any attempt by Woody to shut up an all too interested Dr. Cavanaugh.
"You´ve been bitten? Upper jaw? Where the heck did I hear this today?", Dr. Cavanaugh asked and she took a closer look when the now ready mold was pulled off from Woody´s shoulder.
"Utsch…" Woody´s face tensed when it hurt. He tilted his head to the side and Jordan laid a hand at his temple, turned his head so she could see the wound.
"Really! That looks like the wound on Mr. O´Donnell´s leg! Nigel should really relate yours with our victim…Nigel, do it and bring me the results. Maybe we have a kind of…"
"Vampire epidemic!", Nigel finished her sentence.
"A what? What are you talking about, Nigel?" She sounded astonished. She was used to Nigel´s sometimes abstract ideas, but that was kind of strange enough. "Vampires?"
"Yeap! Those bipedal organisms with a special day-night rhythm, a specialization in nutrition and standing on the top position of the food chain!", he explained it the scientific way.
"Nigel! Now you missed target by miles! There are no such things like vampires out there!", she admonished him.
He looked at her, his face between a grin and a smile.
"He, Doc…Never heard of these wannabee´s who wear vampire fangs crowns and clad in black dresses, going on midnight parties and call themselves Gothics?"
She looked at him like he had lost his mind. Than she smiled. "So, get me an evidence that we´ll have to do it here with a scene murder…"
"I´ll do! Fore sure!" Nigel smiled at Dr. Cavanaugh and when she mumbled a Good! and turned away, Nigel grinned at Woody.
"I´ll prove that I´m right with it! There are vampires out there, whether the good doctor believes it or not. I bet our Mr. O´Donnell got lost of most of his blood. Through these tiny holes in the femoral artery! And not commonly by a trocar!"
Woody looked at him and shook his head. If he would not know his colleague so well he would have gotten doubts of his mind´s health...
The results would prove as the traces of a blood theft...for what purpose so ever! Any cult, any ritual, but...
...no vampires!
Woody rose to his feet, feeling a bit shakily on his legs. "I definitely need some coffee now!" he mumbled when he grabbed for a hold at the table, took a deep breath, and with utter concentration, went for the door. Outside in the hall there was a vending machine. Not the best coffee of all, but it would be hot, brown, liquid and caffeine! That´s all what´ll count now! he thought and pulled the steaming paper cup from the machine. Carefully he sipped from it. He shook his head when he thought back at Nigel´s strange interest and went down to his car that was parked in the backyard of the forensic institute.
Two hours later Bug opened the door and came into the room in which Nigel was working. He looked at the large laboratory table. Beside the usual forensic instruments and machines Nigel had spread out a large collection of skulls, some of natural origin, some of artificial material.
"What´s that, Nigel? You robbed the anatomy collection of the human and veterinary sciences?" Bug threw in and grabbed for a small skull with open mouth and protruding fangs. "Felis silvestris! Hm, what are you up to, Nigel?"
"I´m comparing different teeth profiles with these moldings from Mr. O´Donnell´s leg and those I´ve taken from a wound in Woody´s shoulder..." Nigel explained while he tested another upper jaw.
"With which result? Any match?"
"Size, profile and shape of the wounds do only fit into those from a human skull. So it´s certain that the wounds were inflicted by a human. The DNA test for the saliva is still running..."
"Okay. Is Woody out for saliva samples from suspects? Mr. O´Donnell died in a noble brothel...looks like from special sexually related practices. There should be an amount of persons who will find themselves on the list of those who´ll come into question."
"When the test is finished, I´ll call him for the results and he can go for a court order to collect samples from the brothel´s ladies!" Nigel looked onto the PCR reactor and finally the flashing green light on it indicated that the process had been completed. He took out the test tubes and typed on the keys. The printer gave a sound, more a low noised vibration than the clatter of the former electric typewriter like printers. Nigel pulled out the sheets of paper and transferred the result to his computer too.
With some clicks he brought the results to the screen.
"That´s strange, Bug! Really strange...!"
"What´s strange about, Nigel?"
"This!" Nigel directed to the list of contents from the saliva samples. "This should normally and definitely not be part or content of human saliva!"
"Hmm...uncommon! Coagulants in saliva...normally these are to find in cellular lumen and in blood. This is a thromboplastin like structure but not the one we find in humans regular. The structure is equal but it has differences in molecular structures...but I bet it´ll work equally as the normal human thromboplastin. Prothrombin is attendant and these protein structures...I rather can´t believe what I see...but I´m a scientist and as far as the sample isn´t contaminated...Hm, really unusual!" Bug stated and looked at Nigel who was a very experienced criminal technician.
"I´m sure that these samples didn´t get contaminated by anything else. Same procedure as usually! I have been careful as usually. These went directly from the tissues to the process!"
"I didn´t have doubts about, Nigel! I know you pretty well...We have to relate these protein structures with something that is usually not part of saliva but part of cells..."
"What are you thinking of especially, Bug?" Nigel sounded very curiously now.
"Growth factors. Especially the structures of epidermal growth factors..." Bug indicated a direction which let grew a suspect in Nigel that was about to fit very well into his...by now unspoken...theory of a vampire attack. Bug hadn´t been in the laboratory when Nigel had discussed his theories with Woody and Jordan.
"Epidermal growth factors...they are responsible for the growth of skin in general as well as for the recovery of skin after injuries...like in a wound! Ain´t it or am I right, Bug?"
Nigel looked at Bug with a grin and the doctor looked at him very thoughtfully.
"Where are you going for, Nigel?" he asked him with some severity. He knew the sometimes strange ideas of his colleague. Nigel had some tendency for...he couldn´t call it other than...Gothic and the paranormal. Nigel was a very experienced colleague and a serious one and always trustworthy, but it wasn´t to deny that he had found some interest into it beside his job in the laboratory, sometimes mixing it in with more or less fun. Like in the case with the almost totally burned up victim who was found in relatively unharmed surroundings, bringing in theories of spontaneous human combustion, a theory that was related to the paranormal. Bug slightly smiled.
"Hm!" Nigel grinned a bit; "I don´t want to pull your reputation into any question, Bug. And for sure you won´t confess that you might believe in it...but have you ever taken into consideration the existence of...immortals?"
"Immortals? What does immortality have to do with our results?" Bug asked back.
"Immortality, more exactly the ability to reproduce cellular structures in a speed that compensates the decay so a body would live an indefinitely span of life. On and on..."
"Science is searching for these reproducing factors to prolong life time, Nigel."
"I know! Guess there is still a species out there which is immortal! Guess you´ve heard of!"
"I don´t know where you are going for, pal!"
"You know but you rather don´t want to, Bug! What I mean is the existence of...vampires. Those beings who are feeding on blood to sustain their life!" Nigel looked at him, expecting exactly the reaction which was coming now.
"You don´t mean this seriously, Nigel?! Ain´t you?" Bug´s face was showing his confusion with Nigel´s comment or the attempt to take this seriously. "Vampires are creatures out of novels, movies and the human fantasy and tendency to create some suspense, just to satisfy some hunger for controlled fear. With the result that it had been some harmless fun after you finished the book or the lights switched on again in the theater after the movie ended." Bug tried to put down Nigel´s obviously weird idea.
Nigel wasn´t about to go Bug´s way.
"Okay, Bug! Look what we have in the results. Results that were found in a totally scientific and multiple times verified and testified process! We have: saliva with prothrombin, thromboplastin and further coagulation factors as well as epidermal growth factors. Animals can have anticoagulants in their saliva as do bats and leeches as they feed on blood. But never coagulants as they have absolutely no use to clot blood while feeding or afterward. Desmodus rotundus and Diphylla ecaudata (*two species of bats who feed on blood) have anticoagulants in their saliva to keep the blood of their feeding sources running while they feed on them. And they don´t care if their victims are bleeding further on after they have left them, Bug!"
"But you don´t want to say that our victim died by bats!"
"No! Of course not! This bat should have been of a giant size related to the dental impressions!" Nigel laughed out loud. When he regained control again, he went on. "But simply and once follow my thoughts, Bug! It´s only a thought at once: Given a species in human shape which might sustain its life by feeding on blood, like the bats do, they would have to take care of that their victims or donors won´t bleed on after the feeding. And the faster the inflicted wounds would heal the less blood would be lost unintentionally. Second point: if the bleeding stops fast or at least almost immediately, the less traces would be visible to others as a donor would not run around with blood stained clothes after he or she left the place! What would make sense as a fact to hide the activities of a species which way of nutrition won´t be accepted in general!" Nigel looked at Bug who was following his explanations willingly but with some natural skepticism.
"To prevent themselves from attacks by farmers with stakes and torches!" Bug added with a grin. "Oh c´mon, Nigel! That´s all funny and stuff for a horror novel but don´t talk about it to Jordan! If you wanna become a novelist...okay. But don´t write something like this into your scientific report!" Bug took a deep breath. "We have to find out how and why these substances came into the samples.
"But DNA test shows only DNA from the victim and the persons from whom the saliva came. I have DNA from Mr. O´Donnell, from Woody and from two persons from which the saliva samples are coming. And these are from two different persons. So I can say that the saliva in Woody´s wound isn´t from the same person as those from the victim´s leg wound! Both got bitten...uhm hurt by two different persons, Bug! What means that..."
Bug interrupted him; "That means that the person who has probably killed or at least inflicted Mr. O´Donnell´s death isn´t the one who has hurt Woody. The only thing we can say is, that both prefer equal sexual practices as far as Woody has been involved in some...activities due to duty!" Bug smiled a bit at the intention when he looked into the files which showed that Detective Hoyt had done first investigations at the Halloway Hotel.
Halloway Hotel – Boston
The door was opened and Aidan entered the conference room together with Henry. Suren was standing at the large window and she turned over to them when they had reached the large wooden table. Henry´s face was a stern mask, impossible to read but Aidan knew that his son would feel uncomfortable. The last time they had been in this room had been the opening to an unspeakable cruelty. The large table would wake up terrible memories in Henry and Aidan regretted it that he had given in to come in here again to talk about the lost-corpse-case that had unintentionally woken up the interest of Boston´s Police Department in the Family. Since Bishop was ashes there had been no equivalent in keeping things flying low under the radar. Bishop always had taken care for that a feeding accident didn´t become visible to the official police investigations. He had been their safety factor among the officials.
And follow up Felicity hadn´t been running along all too long. She might have become a security factor if she wouldn´t have been killed by a pack of werewolves. This way they were all on their own in the moment.
And Suren was expecting a solution for the problem that a lost corpse had exposed their activities to the eyes of the public. It looked like the problem now stuck to Aidan and Henry. A rather uncomfortable situation. But Suren looked at Aidan as her right hand and to get Mother involved into their contemporary problem was the last thing any of them could have need for.
"Aidan, you know why I called you in!" she stated with a grim expression.
Aidan nodded; "I know! You expect us to solve your problem!" Suren looked at him and her view went over to Henry who was standing motionless at his side. Henry avoided it to look onto the table and his view seemed to go straight through Suren as if he didn´t even see her. He was caught in his own thoughts despite the fact that he was listening to the conversation.
"Your problem? It´s your problem too, Aidan and Henry´s too and everybody´s problem who´s a vampire here in Boston! When the police finds out we´ll have to run or start a war! Not to speak of what Mother would say to any of these options! I think none of you would like her wrath focusing onto you!"
Aidan had clear imaginations that her punishment would be worse than any Suren could bring up!
"Suren, we have to find a solution for the case! But it won´t work to simply steal the corpse from the forensic lab! And we can´t start to kill all people being involved into the investigations."
"Think about what Bishop would have done in your position, Aidan!" she shot back at him, her voice icy.
"Bishop has had connections. He could let disappear a corpse from the police´s tables! In the lab and in the files too!" Aidan gave back; "But we can´t do such a thing! The only option is to lead their attention onto a person who´s obviously responsible for the death of this banker..."
"I would have no problem to sacrifice the responsible person in here in order to save us! But as you know, the responsible person is a vampire too and so it forbids by itself as it would expose us to the public! We have to hide from them under all circumstances!" Suren looked at Aidan and Henry.
"So the murderer has to be a human who would rise no suspect in relation to vampires!" Aidan stated; "Irrespective to the fact that we´ll have to find out who´s responsible for the deposit of the corpse. Elaine would never have done that cuz she obviously has no reason to expose any of us or herself to the public!"
Suren didn´t answer and Henry bent over to Aidan, whispered; "Do you indicate that anybody else had done this? Anybody from outside the Boston Vampire family?"
"Probably! What comes to my mind is...what if it has anything to do with the immolation of the orphans...?"
"But there had been no survivors but me! All of the orphans had been inside the house when it got blown up! I know as it had been me who had taken care that we were all inside due to your idea to save them!" His voice broke when he thought about the weight of guilt that had been loaded onto his shoulders by it! He was responsible for their death. I should have become suspicious when Suren came into the play, he thought. Aidan had been forced to solve one of Suren´s problems. She always used others for her purposes!
And now she was about to do it again; loading the responsibility on Aidan´s shoulders again! She was centuries old but unable to solve any friggin problem on her own! To some certain degree it was understandable that Mother didn´t really let her from the leash, keeping an eye on her daughter. Honorable leader Suren should have spent eighty years outside in the streets instead, like me! Would have taught her the skills one needs for survival and problem solutions!
"We have to investigate this! As I once have had a human relationship there´s the possibility that we have not seen somebody out there who was related to any of the orphans and is out to seek for revenge now, Henry!" Aidan brought up.
"You mean...anybody who´s not necessarily a vampire but a human lover who seeks revenge for his or her loss by placing a feeding accident in front of the police. This anybody might have stolen the corpse from the guy in the cellar?!" Henry completed the thought that Aidan had started.
Aidan nodded. "We´ll have to find out! Guess we should start with him. He has to explain how and why he got lost of his precious freight! And why he has let him out of guard! This corpse never should have come into anybody´s sight with exception of the one who was responsible for the transport and the following secret burial!"
to be continued
