Chapter Four
The night was dark and warm, just the way he liked it. The boulevard teemed with life. A woman of the night boldly walked up to him and opened her shirt to show off her wares. He smiled appreciatively, wondering if he could entice her into a nearby alley. As he leaned closed, he caught the taint of bad blood in her sweat. The way his prey treated each other had long ago destroyed any pity he might have had for them.
This woman, with open sores dotting the skin of the arms she tried to hide beneath a cheap cotton blouse, certainly knew that to lie with a man would mean passing on her particular plague, condemning him to a long, slow, painful death. Yet her only concern was the money that would bring her a needle full of temporary amnesia. And they would call him a monster! A snarl of distaste curling his lip, he waved a dismissive hand in her direction and quickly moved on. There was plenty of game, he need not settle for something he deemed beneath him.
Sunset Boulevard.
The irony in the name was not lost on him. As the sun lost its grip of purity on the world, darkness grabbed it in a stranglehold.
Sunset heralded the beginning of his freedom, loosing him on the unsuspecting world until the sun returned. The dark made the prey afraid. It made them weak and stupid. And it made them want what he had to offer - a dramatic, ecstasy-filled escape from the pain of their mundane lives. And taking their worthless lives, devouring them in a frenzy of blood-lust, gave him a short reprieve from his most powerful adversary - boredom.
Occasionally, when he allowed himself such useless folly, he longed for the days of his youth. Days when a strong man on a warhorse could rule the known world. When women fell to their knees before him, begging for their lives - before becoming of the blood, he had never killed a woman.
Days when men bowed before him and swore their undying fealty. He chuckled - a wry, mirthless sound - the good old days.
Tonight, he was dressed for the kill. His blonde locks were slicked back with sandalwood oil, turning them sleek black, then pulled into a tight queue, held at his nape with a piece of black leather. He wore a silken black poet's shirt of the finest linen which revealed a good bit of his smooth chest, tight black slacks and black boots polished to mirror- brilliance. His long black canvas duster, an adequate modern substitute for the cape of old, brushed his ankles. A large, dark predator among a herd of defenseless sheep.
Searching his chosen hunting ground, his sharp eyes spotted a young black girl, maybe eight or nine, bouncing a ball against the wall of a grey brick building while the man he assumed to be her father called to passersby, encouraging them to enter the theater behind him and experience its pleasures. He felt the excitement of the active hunt begin, his heart picking up its beat, his lungs filling in anticipation of a need for extra oxygen. Could he take the girl without her barker father even taking notice? And if he were discovered by the child's dubious guardian, could he control him with the power of his eyes while draining the life's blood from the girl? At last, a challenge worthy of him.
He moved slowly toward the girl, feeling every muscle work as it propelled him ever closer to his prey. He kept her in his sight while training his other senses toward her father. He quietly slid into the space between two buildings that the girl was using as her personal ball court.
His pulse pounded in his brain as he grew rock-hard with anticipation. He slid the tip of his tongue over his teeth, enjoying the feel of the long, sharp upper canines. He was close enough to smell her now - a light sheen of sweat covered her young body from the exertion of her game - and he inhaled deeply through clenched teeth.
Her senses more attuned to the dangers of the streets than her youth should have necessitated, she must have heard his deep breath, or perhaps felt his hungry stare, because she turned and looked up at him, her eyes wide with apprehension and suspicion. His dark eyes easily caught and held her eyes. He smiled in triumph as he took her hand in his and slipped deeper into the shadows between the buildings. Her ball lay forgotten on the ground.
At the back of the rundown building, a dumpster stood against the wall. He stepped around and to the back of it, pulling the unresisting girl with him. His senses told him that her father knew nothing of her disappearance. As was most often the case with the people of the Boulevard, he was oblivious to all, even the fate of his own daughter, while in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. He wondered if, with enough gold, he could have just purchased the girl from her dear old dad. Possibly, but that would not have been a challenge, and the meal would not have been so sweet.
His predatory smile slipped to a snarl as he remembered times in the past when he had done just that, drunk the blood of purchased prey – an inconvenient child, or wife! - whose protector cared more for profit than the fate of those their honor should have dictated they protect. How worthless people had become within his lifetime, suitable only as meat upon which superior predators such as himself could gorge themselves!
He lifted the girl to his eye level, reveling in the sound of the warm blood coursing through her veins. Shifting his eyes to her throat, he broke the spell just long enough for her to begin a pitiful struggle, hoping the one whose job it had been to protect her would hear and come to investigate.
She managed one squeak before his teeth pierced her throat and she was gripped in the throes of pleasure his bite gave to all victims, young or old.
Her body spasmed as her heart pumped scarlet eternity into his veins. He sealed his lips tightly around the punctures so not one drop might get away.
He shivered with the effort to control his sexual response to feeding, his erection becoming painful. Though he preferred to have his dinner with a side of sex, he was not a pederast. He had taken the girl purely for the challenge. He knew he would have no difficulty finding female entertainment later, so, for now, he would enjoy the near-pain of anticipation.
Sighing as the girl's heart ceased beating, he licked the last drops from her throat and tossed her body into the dumpster.
"Hey, man, what you doin' wit' ma kid?!"
He silently cursed himself for letting down his guard for even a moment, a foolish, potentially lethal mistake! Though he doubted anyone in this neighborhood would have the intelligence, or wherewithal, to become a serious threat to him, there was still no excuse for such laxity on his part.
Self-chastisement at an end, he slowly turned away from the dumpster to address the current threat. A very angry black man, the girl's father, was barreling down the alley, waving a small handgun menacingly as he ran.
Inhaling the man's scent of anger and fear brought the beast within him to full glory. His voice was a deep growl of warning.
"The girl's miserable life is at an end. Do you wish to join her?"
He attempted to catch the father's angry glare but found to his disgust that it was too dark in this alley to make the connection. Though he could see well in this light, the man could not see his eyes; therefore, the spell would not take. He stepped forward in an effort to reach better light and the gun roared the father's fury.
White hot pain shuddered through his body, centered just below his breast bone. He looked down and saw the wet blossom of blood on his shirt. When he once again raised his regal head, his eyes glowed with a light of their own. He reached out and grabbed the hand that held the gun before the man could fire again. With one sharp, seemingly effortless, pull, he tore the arm from its socket and tossed it, gun still tightly clutched in dead fingers, to the ground. As the man tried to cover the gaping wound with his other hand, it, too, was torn from its socket with unnatural ease to be thrown into the dumpster where it landed atop his daughter's body. Pink saliva dripped from the long canines of the predator as he grabbed the man's crotch. His victim's screams drowned out the sound of tearing cloth as he twisted and pulled, then dropped the mangled heap of flesh and cloth at his feet.
Reaching into the pocket of his silk pants, he withdrew several hundred dollar bills which he stuffed in the black man's shirt pocket. The prey had gone into deep shock by this point, no longer screaming, just watching him with wide, dead eyes. He leaned close to the victim of his most vicious attack in years and whispered near his ear.
"She was delicious, well worth the money."
He tipped his head, listening. His slow smile was evil incarnate.
"If those sirens bring help quickly enough, you may live to be an old man."
His tone dropped lower, barely human. "I wish them God's speed!"
A squad car came to a screeching halt at the mouth of the alley, its headlights cutting the darkness where he stood. Narrowing his eyes against the sudden increase of light and hissing his displeasure, he slipped quickly behind the dumpster. Examining his surroundings, he quickly came to the conclusion that the only way out of this cul-de-sac was straight up. His chest was throbbing, blood continuing to seep from the gunshot wound, his strength leaving with it. His powers of concentration would be affected by the pain and loss of blood, so he would have to use a method other than his first choice. Focusing his whole being on the edge of the rooftop to which he wished to jump, he bunched the muscles in his legs and sprang into the air. Landing badly, he slipped and fell back, barely managing to grab the edge of the roof. With a great effort, the ripping in his chest nearly his undoing, he pulled himself up onto the roof, then rolled onto his back and lay there panting. He had the urge to moan with the pain in his chest but, due to pride and the proximity of the police, he controlled it.
As he gained his feet and began the search for an exit, he couldn't resist a chuckle at the realization that the pain from his erection had ceased. That was one inconvenience he was rid of for the evening.
A scream of agony sounded from the alley below. He whipped around, his long hair flying, his lips curling in the smug smile of a sated predator.
Lieutenant Michael Decker had seen a lot of bizarre, and brutal, human behavior in his twenty years on the Los Angeles police force. A lot of it had happened on this very boulevard. But nothing in his past, not the last ten years in Homicide, not even a couple tours in 'Nam, had prepared him for this. This one entered the realm of what he liked to call the animals among us'.
Finding the body of a little girl in a dumpster was, unfortunately, not that unusual an occurrence around here. Drunks, whores and junkies didn't take very good care of their children. Most the kids in this neighborhood were accidents their mothers had turned into welfare cash cows. He made a mental note to notify the Department of Family Services about this girl's death. She had surely been used enough in life, he'd be damned if he were going to let her keep feeding her parent's bad habits for even one more month in death.
The condition of the body was just one of the very strange facets of this crime scene. He didn't need an autopsy to tell him that the little girl, black - Uh-uh, Decker, African-American' - approximately five-years-old, was a few pints low. She looked like a deflated balloon, her skin lying flat against, almost sticking to, her bones. The poor little thing hadn't had much weight to begin with. He figured now she'd probably weigh in at about a pound-and-a-half, maybe two.
The only wound on the body immediately visible to the naked eye was a set of puncture marks on her throat. Decker snarled, a sound of disgust coming from the back of his throat. Some nut with a vampire fixation had probably decided that tonight was the night for his coming out and this kid had been his lucky first customer. The only problem with that scenario was where was the blood? There wasn't a drop on the ground or in the dumpster from what he could see. No human could drink that much of the stuff without puking his guts out and there was no sign of that in the near vicinity. Had the creep siphoned it into some kind of container to enjoy in the privacy of his own home? How? Forensics had better give him a lot more to go on than he could see or he was in a heap of trouble on this one.
Of course, there was always the possibility that the witness, the kid's huckster father, would live. A grim smile flashed across his lips, then was gone. From the description of the guy's injuries he had received from the senior patrolman on the scene, that possibility was practically nil. It looked to Decker like the guy had lost enough blood on the scene to punch his ticket. Shrugging, he reminded himself that anything was possible.
The junior patrolman, a young man no more than twenty, walked up to him. Decker felt sorry for the kid. He was slightly green, the tell-tale signs of puking written all over his face. Decker smiled and examined the scene more closely, giving the kid a chance to recover his dignity.
"Lieutenant Decker?"
Decker looked back at the young patrolman, then took his proffered hand with a solid shake.
"I'm Decker."
Decker had a deep, gravelly voice that soothed some, and irritated others.
Luckily, this kid was one of the former. The Lieutenant reminded him of his father and that made him want to do his duty to the best of his ability. He straightened his shoulders and rested his hand on his holster, presenting, at least in his mind, a picture of strength and preparedness. "I'm Bobbie Wilson, sir. I was the first on the scene. Since you're in charge of the Homicide investigation, I thought you might want my report directly."
Decker shouldered a smile, not wanting the young man to think he was laughing at him. The enthusiasm of youth never failed to give him a little tee-hee. Withdrawing his notepad from the pocket of his suitcoat, he flipped to a new page, and raised expectant eyes to the patrolman.
"At 10:45 I received..."
Decker held up a hand. "It's late. Cut to the chase, son."
Bobbie blushed and cleared his throat, mentally running the whole incident through his mind until he found what he thought would be the beginning of the chase'.
"When I pulled into the mouth of the alley, I saw an African-American male standing there."
He pointed to a spot about three-quarters of the way down the alley, a few feet in front of the dumpster. A large pool of semi-moist blood bore silent witness to some horrible event having taken place there in the last hour. Decker had a feeling that none of that blood would pan out as belonging to the girl.
"He was just standing there, Lieutenant. I couldn't see his wounds. I mean, I thought he had his hands in front of him, ya know? He didn't seem to be in any distress."
Decker nodded, silently relieving Wilson of any guilt he might feel at not having realized the man was a victim and not a perpetrator.
"The report had said shots fired' so I unholstered my weapon...," Decker smiled. You could always tell a rookie by the way he talked. Unholstered my weapon' instead of pulled my gun'. "...identified myself and started cautiously down the alley. I told the suspect to raise his hands and turn around."
His color, which had improved considerably, started another downhill slide. Decker really didn't want to wait around while the kid lost more of his last donuts and coffee so he prodded him a little. "Did you see anyone else in the alley?"
The patrolman quickly looked away, mumbling, "No, sir." Decker had been lied to enough in his life to know one when he saw it, and Wilson wasn't even good at it. But why would this fresh-faced kid hand him a big one now? Replacing his notepad in his suit, he lowered his voice and wrapped one arm around the boy's shoulders in an attempt to incite confidentiality.
"Off the record. What do you think you saw?"
A blush once again colored the boy's pale skin. He spoke so quietly the Lieutenant had to lean closer to make out his words. "I've been trying to convince myself that it was a trick of the light or something, but... My patrol car's lights lit up this alley like daylight, sir. Just after I pulled up, something big and black flew from behind that dumpster up," he pointed, "onto the roof of that building."
Decker's brows drew together into a deep frown. He mentally traced the path Wilson had indicated something big and black' had taken. That would have been about an eight-story jump. But the kid seemed on the up and up so he'd play it straight for the time being, and ream somebody later if his leg was getting pulled.
"How big? Could it have been a bird, or maybe a cat?" Decker grimaced. Here he was handing the kid Poe's Raven or super-pussy and telling himself he was playing it straight. God, he needed a cup of coffee!
"No, sir. It was about the size...sir, I think it was a man. A man wearing some kind of long, black coat."
He uttered a very unmanly giggle that bordered too close to hysteria for Decker's liking. His voice rose slightly as he continued. "Or a cape. I guess it could have been a black cape."
Decker tightened his hand on Wilson's shoulder, hardening his voice to its most stern.
"Get hold of yourself, Wilson."
Bobbie took a deep breath, then nodded sharply. When next he spoke, his voice had regained a semblance of normality.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. Maybe you're right. I guess it could've been a big cat."
The Lieutenant nodded, releasing the patrolman and turning back to the scene.
Decker didn't buy one ounce of super-pussy. Wilson's tone had made it clear that he wanted, needed, to believe, so he would, but that wasn't Decker's style.
After telling the supervising officer to keep the scene as undisturbed as possible till forensics was finished, Lieutenant Decker walked to the front of the building. With an expression that stated clearly he would rather drink sour milk than do this, he flashed his badge at the heavy-set woman inside the ticket cage of the adult' theater. She smiled knowingly and licked too-red lips. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, reminding himself that this, too, was one of the people he had sworn to protect and serve'.
"What's the quickest way to the roof of this building, ma'am."
Surprise showed in her close-set, bulging eyes. Her hand fluttered near her face like a dying bird.
"No comprendez."
Decker looked at the ground, hissing through gritted teeth. "Great, just great!"
He jabbed his index finger toward the sky, desperately searching his admittedly poor reserves of Spanish for the right word.
"Tejanos?"
The woman's blank stare twisted to complete confusion. He searched his memory of high school Spanish again, then grimaced as he realized he had just asked the poor woman for a pair of jeans.
"Tejado?"
She smiled warily, her lack of faith in his sanity obvious, and pointed at the door to the theater, then to her left. Decker hoped he was interpreting that correctly as go through the door and to your right.' If not, he'd just hunt around till he found the damn stairs by himself! He nodded, said "Gracias" and walked through the door. Bowing to the necessity of letting his eyes adjust to the dark, he stood just inside the closed door and stared straight ahead, making a point of not looking at the stage in the middle of the large, smoke-filled room. He knew what he'd see there - naked women enticing desperate men to put their hard earned dollar bills in places money had never been intended to go. He sincerely hoped he never got so hard-up for female companionship that he had to seek it out in one of these places. He'd prefer someone just shoot him.
Watching the wall on his right, he came upon a half-open door. Carefully pulling it completely open, he found what he had been seeking stairs ascending to the roof. He took a penlight from his jacket pocket, switched it on and placed it in his mouth to light his way. Always on the cautious side, he pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and slipped off the safety. With the weapon held in front of his chest, he slowly climbed the stairs.
As he climbed Decker realized he was missing the usual smells that emanated from stairwells left open for more than two minutes in this neighborhood. No urine, no vomit, even the smoke was less noticeable here. That had to mean that access to these stairs was usually restricted. So why had the door been open tonight? In the penlight's beam Decker saw something wet on the stair above him. He leaned closer to confirm his suspicion. That was blood, fresh blood.
There was more of it leading up the stairs. Keeping his bare hands off the bannister so as not to destroy evidence, Decker continued to climb. He knew he'd reached the roof when he noticed light shining in through the open doorway. That set off more alarms in his skull. By law, the roof's fire door was to be kept closed at all times. Smut palaces like this were usually pretty careful about that kind of thing. They had enough chances of getting shut down without giving the law any easy ones.
He approached the exit carefully, listening for the slightest sound.
Nothing, complete silence. Just his own breathing, a little heavier than he would have liked, and the soft pad of his shoes as he stepped into the doorway. The first thing he noticed was that the fire door was not only open, it was gone, the remains of the tattered metal doorframe glinting in the moonlight like tiny daggers. He cautiously shone his penlight on the ground at his feet, then followed a trail of tiny red drops across the roof.
By the edge that faced the alley where the attacks had occurred, there was a small puddle. Though he was too far from it to be certain, in his gut Decker knew it was blood.
His instincts, those untrained naturals that had kept him alive more times than he would care to count, telling him that the assailant was long gone, Decker holstered his gun and stepped out onto the roof. He sucked a deep, disturbed breath through clenched teeth as he saw the firedoor lying a few feet from the exit. The metal door was bent and mangled, as though a furious animal had vented its fury upon it. As Decker went to the edge of the roof to get the attention of the officers below and get forensics up here, he wondered if that wasn't one hell of an accurate analogy.
The night was dark and warm, just the way he liked it. The boulevard teemed with life. A woman of the night boldly walked up to him and opened her shirt to show off her wares. He smiled appreciatively, wondering if he could entice her into a nearby alley. As he leaned closed, he caught the taint of bad blood in her sweat. The way his prey treated each other had long ago destroyed any pity he might have had for them.
This woman, with open sores dotting the skin of the arms she tried to hide beneath a cheap cotton blouse, certainly knew that to lie with a man would mean passing on her particular plague, condemning him to a long, slow, painful death. Yet her only concern was the money that would bring her a needle full of temporary amnesia. And they would call him a monster! A snarl of distaste curling his lip, he waved a dismissive hand in her direction and quickly moved on. There was plenty of game, he need not settle for something he deemed beneath him.
Sunset Boulevard.
The irony in the name was not lost on him. As the sun lost its grip of purity on the world, darkness grabbed it in a stranglehold.
Sunset heralded the beginning of his freedom, loosing him on the unsuspecting world until the sun returned. The dark made the prey afraid. It made them weak and stupid. And it made them want what he had to offer - a dramatic, ecstasy-filled escape from the pain of their mundane lives. And taking their worthless lives, devouring them in a frenzy of blood-lust, gave him a short reprieve from his most powerful adversary - boredom.
Occasionally, when he allowed himself such useless folly, he longed for the days of his youth. Days when a strong man on a warhorse could rule the known world. When women fell to their knees before him, begging for their lives - before becoming of the blood, he had never killed a woman.
Days when men bowed before him and swore their undying fealty. He chuckled - a wry, mirthless sound - the good old days.
Tonight, he was dressed for the kill. His blonde locks were slicked back with sandalwood oil, turning them sleek black, then pulled into a tight queue, held at his nape with a piece of black leather. He wore a silken black poet's shirt of the finest linen which revealed a good bit of his smooth chest, tight black slacks and black boots polished to mirror- brilliance. His long black canvas duster, an adequate modern substitute for the cape of old, brushed his ankles. A large, dark predator among a herd of defenseless sheep.
Searching his chosen hunting ground, his sharp eyes spotted a young black girl, maybe eight or nine, bouncing a ball against the wall of a grey brick building while the man he assumed to be her father called to passersby, encouraging them to enter the theater behind him and experience its pleasures. He felt the excitement of the active hunt begin, his heart picking up its beat, his lungs filling in anticipation of a need for extra oxygen. Could he take the girl without her barker father even taking notice? And if he were discovered by the child's dubious guardian, could he control him with the power of his eyes while draining the life's blood from the girl? At last, a challenge worthy of him.
He moved slowly toward the girl, feeling every muscle work as it propelled him ever closer to his prey. He kept her in his sight while training his other senses toward her father. He quietly slid into the space between two buildings that the girl was using as her personal ball court.
His pulse pounded in his brain as he grew rock-hard with anticipation. He slid the tip of his tongue over his teeth, enjoying the feel of the long, sharp upper canines. He was close enough to smell her now - a light sheen of sweat covered her young body from the exertion of her game - and he inhaled deeply through clenched teeth.
Her senses more attuned to the dangers of the streets than her youth should have necessitated, she must have heard his deep breath, or perhaps felt his hungry stare, because she turned and looked up at him, her eyes wide with apprehension and suspicion. His dark eyes easily caught and held her eyes. He smiled in triumph as he took her hand in his and slipped deeper into the shadows between the buildings. Her ball lay forgotten on the ground.
At the back of the rundown building, a dumpster stood against the wall. He stepped around and to the back of it, pulling the unresisting girl with him. His senses told him that her father knew nothing of her disappearance. As was most often the case with the people of the Boulevard, he was oblivious to all, even the fate of his own daughter, while in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. He wondered if, with enough gold, he could have just purchased the girl from her dear old dad. Possibly, but that would not have been a challenge, and the meal would not have been so sweet.
His predatory smile slipped to a snarl as he remembered times in the past when he had done just that, drunk the blood of purchased prey – an inconvenient child, or wife! - whose protector cared more for profit than the fate of those their honor should have dictated they protect. How worthless people had become within his lifetime, suitable only as meat upon which superior predators such as himself could gorge themselves!
He lifted the girl to his eye level, reveling in the sound of the warm blood coursing through her veins. Shifting his eyes to her throat, he broke the spell just long enough for her to begin a pitiful struggle, hoping the one whose job it had been to protect her would hear and come to investigate.
She managed one squeak before his teeth pierced her throat and she was gripped in the throes of pleasure his bite gave to all victims, young or old.
Her body spasmed as her heart pumped scarlet eternity into his veins. He sealed his lips tightly around the punctures so not one drop might get away.
He shivered with the effort to control his sexual response to feeding, his erection becoming painful. Though he preferred to have his dinner with a side of sex, he was not a pederast. He had taken the girl purely for the challenge. He knew he would have no difficulty finding female entertainment later, so, for now, he would enjoy the near-pain of anticipation.
Sighing as the girl's heart ceased beating, he licked the last drops from her throat and tossed her body into the dumpster.
"Hey, man, what you doin' wit' ma kid?!"
He silently cursed himself for letting down his guard for even a moment, a foolish, potentially lethal mistake! Though he doubted anyone in this neighborhood would have the intelligence, or wherewithal, to become a serious threat to him, there was still no excuse for such laxity on his part.
Self-chastisement at an end, he slowly turned away from the dumpster to address the current threat. A very angry black man, the girl's father, was barreling down the alley, waving a small handgun menacingly as he ran.
Inhaling the man's scent of anger and fear brought the beast within him to full glory. His voice was a deep growl of warning.
"The girl's miserable life is at an end. Do you wish to join her?"
He attempted to catch the father's angry glare but found to his disgust that it was too dark in this alley to make the connection. Though he could see well in this light, the man could not see his eyes; therefore, the spell would not take. He stepped forward in an effort to reach better light and the gun roared the father's fury.
White hot pain shuddered through his body, centered just below his breast bone. He looked down and saw the wet blossom of blood on his shirt. When he once again raised his regal head, his eyes glowed with a light of their own. He reached out and grabbed the hand that held the gun before the man could fire again. With one sharp, seemingly effortless, pull, he tore the arm from its socket and tossed it, gun still tightly clutched in dead fingers, to the ground. As the man tried to cover the gaping wound with his other hand, it, too, was torn from its socket with unnatural ease to be thrown into the dumpster where it landed atop his daughter's body. Pink saliva dripped from the long canines of the predator as he grabbed the man's crotch. His victim's screams drowned out the sound of tearing cloth as he twisted and pulled, then dropped the mangled heap of flesh and cloth at his feet.
Reaching into the pocket of his silk pants, he withdrew several hundred dollar bills which he stuffed in the black man's shirt pocket. The prey had gone into deep shock by this point, no longer screaming, just watching him with wide, dead eyes. He leaned close to the victim of his most vicious attack in years and whispered near his ear.
"She was delicious, well worth the money."
He tipped his head, listening. His slow smile was evil incarnate.
"If those sirens bring help quickly enough, you may live to be an old man."
His tone dropped lower, barely human. "I wish them God's speed!"
A squad car came to a screeching halt at the mouth of the alley, its headlights cutting the darkness where he stood. Narrowing his eyes against the sudden increase of light and hissing his displeasure, he slipped quickly behind the dumpster. Examining his surroundings, he quickly came to the conclusion that the only way out of this cul-de-sac was straight up. His chest was throbbing, blood continuing to seep from the gunshot wound, his strength leaving with it. His powers of concentration would be affected by the pain and loss of blood, so he would have to use a method other than his first choice. Focusing his whole being on the edge of the rooftop to which he wished to jump, he bunched the muscles in his legs and sprang into the air. Landing badly, he slipped and fell back, barely managing to grab the edge of the roof. With a great effort, the ripping in his chest nearly his undoing, he pulled himself up onto the roof, then rolled onto his back and lay there panting. He had the urge to moan with the pain in his chest but, due to pride and the proximity of the police, he controlled it.
As he gained his feet and began the search for an exit, he couldn't resist a chuckle at the realization that the pain from his erection had ceased. That was one inconvenience he was rid of for the evening.
A scream of agony sounded from the alley below. He whipped around, his long hair flying, his lips curling in the smug smile of a sated predator.
Lieutenant Michael Decker had seen a lot of bizarre, and brutal, human behavior in his twenty years on the Los Angeles police force. A lot of it had happened on this very boulevard. But nothing in his past, not the last ten years in Homicide, not even a couple tours in 'Nam, had prepared him for this. This one entered the realm of what he liked to call the animals among us'.
Finding the body of a little girl in a dumpster was, unfortunately, not that unusual an occurrence around here. Drunks, whores and junkies didn't take very good care of their children. Most the kids in this neighborhood were accidents their mothers had turned into welfare cash cows. He made a mental note to notify the Department of Family Services about this girl's death. She had surely been used enough in life, he'd be damned if he were going to let her keep feeding her parent's bad habits for even one more month in death.
The condition of the body was just one of the very strange facets of this crime scene. He didn't need an autopsy to tell him that the little girl, black - Uh-uh, Decker, African-American' - approximately five-years-old, was a few pints low. She looked like a deflated balloon, her skin lying flat against, almost sticking to, her bones. The poor little thing hadn't had much weight to begin with. He figured now she'd probably weigh in at about a pound-and-a-half, maybe two.
The only wound on the body immediately visible to the naked eye was a set of puncture marks on her throat. Decker snarled, a sound of disgust coming from the back of his throat. Some nut with a vampire fixation had probably decided that tonight was the night for his coming out and this kid had been his lucky first customer. The only problem with that scenario was where was the blood? There wasn't a drop on the ground or in the dumpster from what he could see. No human could drink that much of the stuff without puking his guts out and there was no sign of that in the near vicinity. Had the creep siphoned it into some kind of container to enjoy in the privacy of his own home? How? Forensics had better give him a lot more to go on than he could see or he was in a heap of trouble on this one.
Of course, there was always the possibility that the witness, the kid's huckster father, would live. A grim smile flashed across his lips, then was gone. From the description of the guy's injuries he had received from the senior patrolman on the scene, that possibility was practically nil. It looked to Decker like the guy had lost enough blood on the scene to punch his ticket. Shrugging, he reminded himself that anything was possible.
The junior patrolman, a young man no more than twenty, walked up to him. Decker felt sorry for the kid. He was slightly green, the tell-tale signs of puking written all over his face. Decker smiled and examined the scene more closely, giving the kid a chance to recover his dignity.
"Lieutenant Decker?"
Decker looked back at the young patrolman, then took his proffered hand with a solid shake.
"I'm Decker."
Decker had a deep, gravelly voice that soothed some, and irritated others.
Luckily, this kid was one of the former. The Lieutenant reminded him of his father and that made him want to do his duty to the best of his ability. He straightened his shoulders and rested his hand on his holster, presenting, at least in his mind, a picture of strength and preparedness. "I'm Bobbie Wilson, sir. I was the first on the scene. Since you're in charge of the Homicide investigation, I thought you might want my report directly."
Decker shouldered a smile, not wanting the young man to think he was laughing at him. The enthusiasm of youth never failed to give him a little tee-hee. Withdrawing his notepad from the pocket of his suitcoat, he flipped to a new page, and raised expectant eyes to the patrolman.
"At 10:45 I received..."
Decker held up a hand. "It's late. Cut to the chase, son."
Bobbie blushed and cleared his throat, mentally running the whole incident through his mind until he found what he thought would be the beginning of the chase'.
"When I pulled into the mouth of the alley, I saw an African-American male standing there."
He pointed to a spot about three-quarters of the way down the alley, a few feet in front of the dumpster. A large pool of semi-moist blood bore silent witness to some horrible event having taken place there in the last hour. Decker had a feeling that none of that blood would pan out as belonging to the girl.
"He was just standing there, Lieutenant. I couldn't see his wounds. I mean, I thought he had his hands in front of him, ya know? He didn't seem to be in any distress."
Decker nodded, silently relieving Wilson of any guilt he might feel at not having realized the man was a victim and not a perpetrator.
"The report had said shots fired' so I unholstered my weapon...," Decker smiled. You could always tell a rookie by the way he talked. Unholstered my weapon' instead of pulled my gun'. "...identified myself and started cautiously down the alley. I told the suspect to raise his hands and turn around."
His color, which had improved considerably, started another downhill slide. Decker really didn't want to wait around while the kid lost more of his last donuts and coffee so he prodded him a little. "Did you see anyone else in the alley?"
The patrolman quickly looked away, mumbling, "No, sir." Decker had been lied to enough in his life to know one when he saw it, and Wilson wasn't even good at it. But why would this fresh-faced kid hand him a big one now? Replacing his notepad in his suit, he lowered his voice and wrapped one arm around the boy's shoulders in an attempt to incite confidentiality.
"Off the record. What do you think you saw?"
A blush once again colored the boy's pale skin. He spoke so quietly the Lieutenant had to lean closer to make out his words. "I've been trying to convince myself that it was a trick of the light or something, but... My patrol car's lights lit up this alley like daylight, sir. Just after I pulled up, something big and black flew from behind that dumpster up," he pointed, "onto the roof of that building."
Decker's brows drew together into a deep frown. He mentally traced the path Wilson had indicated something big and black' had taken. That would have been about an eight-story jump. But the kid seemed on the up and up so he'd play it straight for the time being, and ream somebody later if his leg was getting pulled.
"How big? Could it have been a bird, or maybe a cat?" Decker grimaced. Here he was handing the kid Poe's Raven or super-pussy and telling himself he was playing it straight. God, he needed a cup of coffee!
"No, sir. It was about the size...sir, I think it was a man. A man wearing some kind of long, black coat."
He uttered a very unmanly giggle that bordered too close to hysteria for Decker's liking. His voice rose slightly as he continued. "Or a cape. I guess it could have been a black cape."
Decker tightened his hand on Wilson's shoulder, hardening his voice to its most stern.
"Get hold of yourself, Wilson."
Bobbie took a deep breath, then nodded sharply. When next he spoke, his voice had regained a semblance of normality.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant. Maybe you're right. I guess it could've been a big cat."
The Lieutenant nodded, releasing the patrolman and turning back to the scene.
Decker didn't buy one ounce of super-pussy. Wilson's tone had made it clear that he wanted, needed, to believe, so he would, but that wasn't Decker's style.
After telling the supervising officer to keep the scene as undisturbed as possible till forensics was finished, Lieutenant Decker walked to the front of the building. With an expression that stated clearly he would rather drink sour milk than do this, he flashed his badge at the heavy-set woman inside the ticket cage of the adult' theater. She smiled knowingly and licked too-red lips. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, reminding himself that this, too, was one of the people he had sworn to protect and serve'.
"What's the quickest way to the roof of this building, ma'am."
Surprise showed in her close-set, bulging eyes. Her hand fluttered near her face like a dying bird.
"No comprendez."
Decker looked at the ground, hissing through gritted teeth. "Great, just great!"
He jabbed his index finger toward the sky, desperately searching his admittedly poor reserves of Spanish for the right word.
"Tejanos?"
The woman's blank stare twisted to complete confusion. He searched his memory of high school Spanish again, then grimaced as he realized he had just asked the poor woman for a pair of jeans.
"Tejado?"
She smiled warily, her lack of faith in his sanity obvious, and pointed at the door to the theater, then to her left. Decker hoped he was interpreting that correctly as go through the door and to your right.' If not, he'd just hunt around till he found the damn stairs by himself! He nodded, said "Gracias" and walked through the door. Bowing to the necessity of letting his eyes adjust to the dark, he stood just inside the closed door and stared straight ahead, making a point of not looking at the stage in the middle of the large, smoke-filled room. He knew what he'd see there - naked women enticing desperate men to put their hard earned dollar bills in places money had never been intended to go. He sincerely hoped he never got so hard-up for female companionship that he had to seek it out in one of these places. He'd prefer someone just shoot him.
Watching the wall on his right, he came upon a half-open door. Carefully pulling it completely open, he found what he had been seeking stairs ascending to the roof. He took a penlight from his jacket pocket, switched it on and placed it in his mouth to light his way. Always on the cautious side, he pulled his gun from his shoulder holster and slipped off the safety. With the weapon held in front of his chest, he slowly climbed the stairs.
As he climbed Decker realized he was missing the usual smells that emanated from stairwells left open for more than two minutes in this neighborhood. No urine, no vomit, even the smoke was less noticeable here. That had to mean that access to these stairs was usually restricted. So why had the door been open tonight? In the penlight's beam Decker saw something wet on the stair above him. He leaned closer to confirm his suspicion. That was blood, fresh blood.
There was more of it leading up the stairs. Keeping his bare hands off the bannister so as not to destroy evidence, Decker continued to climb. He knew he'd reached the roof when he noticed light shining in through the open doorway. That set off more alarms in his skull. By law, the roof's fire door was to be kept closed at all times. Smut palaces like this were usually pretty careful about that kind of thing. They had enough chances of getting shut down without giving the law any easy ones.
He approached the exit carefully, listening for the slightest sound.
Nothing, complete silence. Just his own breathing, a little heavier than he would have liked, and the soft pad of his shoes as he stepped into the doorway. The first thing he noticed was that the fire door was not only open, it was gone, the remains of the tattered metal doorframe glinting in the moonlight like tiny daggers. He cautiously shone his penlight on the ground at his feet, then followed a trail of tiny red drops across the roof.
By the edge that faced the alley where the attacks had occurred, there was a small puddle. Though he was too far from it to be certain, in his gut Decker knew it was blood.
His instincts, those untrained naturals that had kept him alive more times than he would care to count, telling him that the assailant was long gone, Decker holstered his gun and stepped out onto the roof. He sucked a deep, disturbed breath through clenched teeth as he saw the firedoor lying a few feet from the exit. The metal door was bent and mangled, as though a furious animal had vented its fury upon it. As Decker went to the edge of the roof to get the attention of the officers below and get forensics up here, he wondered if that wasn't one hell of an accurate analogy.