I've never liked cars.

I hated the confinement of the metal shell around me. But in the New York traffic, being in a car was nearly suffocating. Waiting in traffic was brutally boring and annoying. My Crotch Rocket was much faster and I didn't have to sit in the confines of a car. I was out in the open, feeling the breeze slapping against me. It was oddly comforting.

The newest crime scene wasn't all that far from my apartment, so I reached it in no time. I parked my bike and made my way to the back of the building, my gym bag slung over my shoulder and the file under my arm. I stopped in my tracks when I glanced at the name of the bar: Bloody Mary's. I raised my brows at that; obviously a vampire hangout. Interesting.

I stored that little bit of information in my mental filing cabinet and went to investigate my crime scene.

The back of the building was as dirty as you'd expect from a New York alley and the smell made me scrunch my nose in distaste.

Flipping open the file, I searched for the photos of the crime that had been committed here only a few nights ago. I held up the photo of the dead woman and tried to imagine the body fresh in front of me. It wasn't hard, the picture was very graphic.

She'd been a redhead by the name of Jena Wright, attractive with big...headlights. Our serial killer has good taste. The body had been found behind the bar's dumpster, her clothes had been torn, the tiny skirt pushed up to her waist. A ripped black thong lay nearby along with her discarded five-inch stilettos. She'd obviously been raped, the medical examiner had found semen which confirmed it.

Usually, cops would be jumping up and down at the presence of DNA evidence, but not this time. Vampires aren't usually recorded in DNA databases. Some are, but those are mainly newly made or young vampires. There's a couple of reasons for that: one, the new vampires are required by law to provide DNA evidence since they're now considered citizens. Two, the older vampires cling to tradition and sometimes hide in the shadows of society and aren't required to give DNA since they have only been citizens for the last ten years. Plus, the police can't track down every vampire in the country to gather DNA evidence. Lets face it, if someone doesn't want to be found, you're not going to find them. Especially since vampires were believed to be a myth for thousands of years and the human race has only known them to exist for the last ten years.

Her neck was nothing but a big gaping hole where our vampire had torn her throat out. Unnecessarily messy of him. Vampires didn't need the tearing to feed, the sinking of fangs into a vein should suffice, then they just suck the blood out from the wounds. They are no holes in the fangs, contrary to the beliefs.

The animalistic nature of the kill told me that our vampire serial killer was either stark raving mad or coldly brutal who enjoyed inflicting pain for the hell of it. I pulled another photo out of my ginormous folder, it was a close up shot of the slashes across the victim's chest and stomach. On one naked breast there had been another ravaged bite. And across her stomach and down her chest were deep, deep gouges.

These wounds were somewhat puzzling to me. They were obviously the killing blow, especially where our killer had cut her heart out of her chest. The tearing of her throat and breast spoke more of a crazy animalistic behavior, but the cutting was careful and precise. In my opinion, our vampire was a cold psychotic character. By the amount of blood, the vamp hadn't even really fed from the woman. He'd torn her to shreds just for fun, not for food. One bad mofo; one that kills for pleasure not necessity.

Had she screamed? By the lack of defensive bruising on her pale skin, I doubted it. I was betting on mind control, that meant that our vamp was an old and powerful one to keep her from screaming as he cut her up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Scanning the police report, I noticed with a frown that when the police had questioned the people in the club and the bartender, no one had recognized our victim. Now that was strange, she had obviously been dressed for a night out. By the look of the pictures and the bright red color of the blood in the photos, the kill had been fresh. There's no way he moved her here from somewhere nearby. Besides, there were not many other bars in the area. This woman had been in that club and had possibly met her killer in that same bar. So why was it that nobody recognized her or seen who she'd left with? Now that was the mystery.

Well, there was only one way to get the answer to my question. I retrieved a more glamorous shot of Ms. Wright out of the file and put the rest of it away in my gym bag. With it slung over my shoulder, I started towards Bloody Mary's.

My first impression of the bar didn't really impress me much. There weren't actually that many vampires in the bar itself, mainly human wannabes or some girls looking for a night with a monster. Honestly it wouldn't do me any good to talk to the humans, if they had happened to be here the night of the murder I suspect their minds had been messed with and they wouldn't remember anything important.

The vampires on the other hand might be chalk full of useful info. Vampires can't usually control the minds of their own kind, but on the other hand if this bad guy was as powerful as I was beginning to believe he was he probably could and did mess with the younger vamps in the bar. If I was lucky, there could have been an older vampire at the bar that night who wouldn't have been as easily manipulated as their younger brethren by my psycho.

I pushed through the doors and winced at the onslaught of Screamo music to my eardrums. The walls were scarlet red velvet with vampire movie posters adorning them. Tacky, in my opinion, but who was I to judge. Plus the wannabees seemed to like it just fine. The lights were dim in the bar, but with my excellent night-vision, I could see perfectly.

I merely glanced at the dance floor where humans and vampires alike writhed to the rhythm of what I deemed loosely music. Instead, I headed straight towards the glossy, dark wood bar.

It was full and pretty much everyone there was taller than me so I had a tough time pushing my way to the bar. A human male stepped out in front of me and gave me the once-over, "Hey, baby. You want me to buy you a drink?"

I ignored him and turned my attention to the vampire bartender. He looked young, though the thrum of power he gave off said he was easily three hundred years old. Not bad-looking, I decided, if you liked the whole lean, starving artist look, which I didn't. I liked a guy with plenty of meat on the bone.

The bartender turned towards me and I caught his eyes with a smile. He came over and asked, "What'll you have?"

I put a Ben Franklin in his hand and said with a smile, "Some information."

He raised his brows at that but tucked the money into his pocket. He started to open his mouth but I held up a hand, "Is there somewhere else we can talk?"

The bartender studied me for a moment, but waved over another man and whispered something in his ear. When he straightened he motioned for me to follow him out a back door. I followed.

It appeared to be some sort of office, the walls were still red, but it was decorated with tasteful art and not movie posters. The bartender went and sat in the office chair behind the antique desk. Propping his feet on the top of it, he sat back in his chair and raised brows at me, "Okay? What do you want to know?"

I glanced around the office, "I assume you're not just the bartender, huh?"

The corner of his mouth lifted up, "Nope, I own the place. The name's Daniel Baxter. And you would be?"

I dug out my badge and held it up so he could see it, "Rowena McCoy, I'm with the Hunters."

Interest gleamed in those pale blue eyes, "Ah, this must be about that murder the other night." His head titled to the side in obviously false confusion, "I thought the police had already investigated."

"I'm not the police."

He laughed, "That's true, you don't act like a cop. You're more like a predator."

I grinned, flashing fangs, "It's what I'm good at."

He smiled in return as if he understood. Then the smile vanished and his face blank, "Now, Ms. McCoy what is it that I can do for you?"

Flashing him the photo I asked, "Did you see her here the other night?"

Baxter studied the photo and slowly nodded, "Yeah, but only for a moment or so. She came up to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks, that was it. It was a busy night so I didn't really pay that much attention to her after that."

So he had seen her when others hadn't. So far, so good. "Did you happen to notice if she left with someone? Another vampire perhaps?"

Shaking his head, Daniel replied, "No. Like I said, it was busy and she was just another customer. But." Taking his feet off the desk Daniel set planted them on the floor and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. He met my eyes, "I felt a presence here that night. Something old and powerful, I looked for the source of power the entire night, but whoever it was was able to cloak themselves from me."

Mind fucking a three hundred year old vampire wasn't easy at all. My psycho was one tough bastard, "How old do you think this guy is?"

Baxter pushed his hands through his already unkempt hair, "I think maybe a thousand years at least. Maybe older."

Shit. "Around what time did the presence evaporate, Daniel?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes in thought, "Uh, I think somewhere around 2 a.m. maybe."

I ruffled through the folder and found that Jena Wright's estimated time of death had been around 2 to 4 a.m. She must have been killed as soon as the two of them had left the bar together.

I checked the witness reports and raised my eyebrows at the report from Daniel Baxter, "Why didn't you tell the cops what you told me?"

He shrugged, "I don't trust humans. Plus, if I'd told them I had felt someone strong in the club, would they have understood?"

I shook my head, "Probably not."

"What are you going to do now?" the club owner asked me with serious eyes.

That was a very good question. I tapped my toe of my boot on the carpet as I thought. "Powerful vampire may mean that he's a guest in town to visit the Master of the city, or it could even be one of his vampires that's doing the killings. I need to talk to Wolfric."

"And if the Master knows nothing about your killer?"

I shrugged, "I'll just wing it."

Daniel Baxter got to his feet and offered his hand, "It was nice to meet you Ms. McCoy. I wish you luck in finding your murderer."

I shook the offered hand and pressed my card into his palm, "If you feel that presence again or you think of something helpful, give me a call."

He tucked the card into his shirt pocket and escorted me out.

On my way out the door, I got stopped by the same guy at the bar. Great.

The college boy grinned drunkenly at me and tried to pull me onto the dance floor. After I pushed him off for the third time, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders from behind. His words slurred in my ear, "Come one, don't play hard to get. Just one dance."

I'd had enough. Grabbing the guy's wrist, I slid my feet apart, positioned my weight and threw the guy over my shoulder and onto the floor.

All talking, dancing, and drinking stopped and the club was silent.

Mr. Macho blinked up at me for a second before he turned on his side with a groan and lost his lunch all over the floor.

Charming, I thought with distaste. Stepping over the fallen drunk, I made my way out the door with the weight of eyes on my back.

As I made my way towards my bike, I thought about my next move. I really do need to speak with the Master of the city, Wolfric. He was top gun around these parts and if there was a powerful vampire in his territory, he should know about it.

I wrinkled my nose in distaste, if only he wasn't such a pompous, irritating bastard. On my list of people I'd like to punch, he was pretty high up on that list. Sighing, I straddled my bike, I was just going to have to get over my dislike of Wolfric and grin and bear it.

You gotta do whatcha gotta do.