Blood Secrets

twenty



November 19

ALEX HAD BEEN MISSING FOR NEARLY NINETEEN HOURS, and Varik drifted in numbness.

The memory of Alex screaming his name over the blood-bond continued to haunt him. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel a specter of her touch, a spark of her mind’s warmth. He wanted to reclaim them both and knew, as he sat in the mobile forensics lab, that it was possible with the help of the two analysts before him, if he could muster the energy to focus on their words.

Reyes Cott stood in front of him, gesturing to a porcelain doll encased in a large clear plastic evidence cylinder. “It’s supercreepy,” he said. His overly large eyes protruded farther than normal. “I’ve seen some weird shit but this doll beats it all.”

“Spare me the melodrama, Reyes,” Varik snapped. “Just tell me what you found.”

“Human blood.”

“On the doll?”

“In the doll.” Reyes picked up the cylinder. “As you know, the body is made from human skin that’s been turned into a type of leather, which is itself very high on the creep-o-meter, but the real show is in the porcelain head. At one time it was filled with human blood. A crack along the neck caused the blood to seep out.”

“Why fill a doll’s head with blood?”

“Good question. Why make the body out of human skin?” Reyes set the cylinder aside. “I think I have an answer to both.” He jiggled the mouse connected to his laptop computer and the monitor flickered from a screen saver to a website. “I found this site—it’s sort of like Wikipedia for occult practices—and there’s a bunch of stuff on here about poppet magic, or using dolls as a stand-in for a real person.”

“Voodoo dolls,” Varik said, pushing to his feet to view the site over Reyes’s shoulder.

“Not exactly. Voodoo’s a religion, whereas a lot of what’s detailed on this site is just straight-up magic. Really freaky magic.” Reyes clicked on a series of links and an article featuring a lifelike doll with glowing red eyes appeared.

Varik leaned forward. “Soul transference?”

“According to the author of this article, a portion of the soul can be trapped in a vessel, in this case a doll, and used to boost the creator’s prana, or psychic energy.”

“Which is what vampires feed on when we consume human blood.”

“Precisely.” Reyes tapped the screen. “Now, going back to what we discussed yesterday, I’m thinking if this is possible, and you could perfect the storage devices and get enough of them, the need to consume blood would practically flatline, once you overcame the cravings for the taste.”

“Alex said she heard hundreds of screams in the Dollmaker’s house.”

“If he does have hundreds of these and if he has any form of psychic ability, which you say he does, each one of these would act as a battery. The guy would be turbocharged.”

Varik straightened up and sighed. “That would explain why the bond has been cold. He’s blocking it somehow.”

“But that has to be taxing, regardless of the number of spare batteries.”

“Is there anything this doll can tell us about who he is?”

Reyes smiled, showing a crooked left fang. “I saved the best part for last. Because I’m such a thorough guy, I checked out this doll from stem to stern, so to speak. I found a partial print embedded in the porcelain underneath the doll’s wig. I used a high-tech modeling compound to get a workable negative—”

“He stuck Silly Putty to the doll’s head and then froze it,” Freddy Haver chimed in from his station across the lab.

“Hey, it worked. You said it wouldn’t, and you still owe me twenty bucks.”

Varik seized the back of Reyes’s neck and squeezed, earning a pained squeak from the analyst. “You could use your mother’s face to get the print. I don’t care how you got it. I want to know whom it belongs to. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you get a hit from IAFIS or VIPER?”

“Freddy has it.”

Varik released him and moved to Freddy’s station. It was standard procedure to submit all prints to IAFIS—the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System maintained by the human-run FBI—as well as its twin, the Vampire Identification Patterns and Enforcement Resource, or VIPER. The systems were maintained separately since vampire fingerprints weren’t as pronounced as humans’ and were often overlooked by them as smudges.

Freddy handed him two sheets of paper. “VIPER lists the print as belonging to Peter Strahan. I knew you wanted it so I put a rush on the request for a current address for Strahan—5726 Caspian Drive. It’s in the southeastern part of Nassau County. The second page is a map showing—”

Varik didn’t wait to hear more. He took the pages and in two paces had reached the lab’s entrance. “Radio Damian and tell him where to meet me!”

Forgoing the steps, he jumped from the converted RV to the pavement, his feet already in motion as he hit the ground. “Hang on, baby,” he muttered, running for his Corvette. “I’m coming.”

Alex banged the back of her head against the wall in frustration. A lunatic laboring under the delusion that she was his soul mate held her captive, and all she could think of at that moment was her growling stomach.

She’d passed the night trying to get free of Peter’s elaborate restraints to no avail. After she’d worn herself out she’d slept fitfully for a time since standing up wasn’t the most comfortable of positions and her slumber was plagued by nightmares.

In her dreams, winged demons and skeletal monsters chased her through an endless stone labyrinth. Shadows brandishing fiery swords stood guard at the exits. She’d been driven deeper and deeper into the maze. She called to Varik as she ran but it only seemed to spur the things pursuing her to quicken their pace. She finally awoke, to find herself still tied to a wall in a windowless attic and at the mercy of the Dollmaker.

At least her eyesight had improved. Gone were the fuzzy grayness and amorphous dark blobs. Now she could see individual objects, although they were out of focus and blurry, and could discern different colors. So long as Peter believed she was still blind, perhaps she could use it to her advantage and find a way to escape.

Trying to distract herself from the increasing amount of noise coming from her gut, her attention centered on the photo Peter had left on a table a few feet away. Everything he told her about it was a lie. It had to be. Her father wasn’t a Hunter. He’d taught history.

But how could she explain the photograph? If it was even a photograph at all. From this distance, until her eyes made another improvement, she couldn’t even be sure it was a photo.

The simplest answer was to rule it a fabrication, a product of clever computer manipulation.

But then, where did Peter find source photos of her father, Varik, Damian, and all the others?

The more she tried to deny the authenticity of what he told her, the more questions she raised that had no simple answer.

What if Peter was telling the truth? What if her father had been a Hunter and had been partnered with Varik? It would mean everything she knew about her father was a lie. Her relationship with Varik, past and present, would also be a lie.

It would mean the blood-bond was a lie, and she was forever bound to a man she couldn’t trust.

However, she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on such matters. She needed to find a way to convince Peter to release her from the restraints so she could escape. The kernel of a plan formed in her mind and soon blossomed. But in order for it to work, she would have—

Singing from the floor below the attic intruded on her musings. Footsteps on the stairs and the smell of freshly cooked sausage, eggs, and coffee signaled Peter’s approach. He bounded into the attic with a spring in his step, humming a ballad, and carrying a large wooden tray. “Did you miss me, darling?”

She bit back her sharp retort. She needed to do whatever she had to do to survive, to escape, and angering him wasn’t a part of her plan.

Peter set the tray, complete with a glass bud vase containing a single long-stemmed red rose, on a corner of the worktable. “I cooked some of your favorites—scrambled eggs with cheese, spicy sausage patties, grits with extra butter, and of course, coffee.”

Alex’s stomach churned with the thought of eating anything he’d cooked. She swallowed her discomfort and offered a weak smile. “Thank you. It smells wonderful.”

He beamed and picked up a fork. “Well, where shall we start? Eggs or grits? This could get a little messy, but …” He shrugged.

Alex laughed nervously. “Uh, darling …”

Peter hesitated, looking at her with suspicion.

“Before we start, I thought we could do without these restraints, and we could sit and eat together and talk.”

He shook his head, still smiling, and picked up the plate of eggs. “You’ll just try to run again, my tricky chickie.”

“No, I won’t. I’ve been thinking about what you said and want to know more.”

He looked unconvinced but set down the eggs and fork.

She tried to shift her weight and winced. “Plus my wrist is hurting, really bad,” she said, giving her words a slight whine. “Please, Peter.”

He was in front of her before she realized he moved. His hands cupped the sides of her face, keeping her from looking away. “Say my name again.”

“Peter.”

His lips closed over hers and Alex forced herself to remain still, to not succumb to the urge to bite him as he kissed her.

He stepped back and grinned. “I knew you would come around, darling. Now, let’s get you out of these restraints.”

Alex waited as he first unbound her torso and then her legs. Lastly he freed her arms, but kept a tight grip on her injured wrist so she had to grit her teeth to keep from whimpering.

“Just one last bit of business, darling,” he said as he forced her into a chair at the worktable. He produced a set of plastic zip-tie cuffs and looped one end over her uninjured wrist.

“What are these for? I thought we were going to talk.”

“We are.” He looped the other end over the chair’s ladder-style back. “There, that should do it.” He gave her another quick kiss. “After you’ve cleaned your plate we’ll discuss taking those off.”

Alex tried to remain cheery while he placed the plate of eggs and sausage patties in front of her. She picked up the fork and thought for a moment of gouging out his eyes but dug into the eggs instead. She would need her strength for the next part of her plan to work.

She shoveled the first forkful of cheesy scrambled eggs into her mouth. The softness of the eggs combined with the slightly oily bite of the cheese made her mouth water and her stomach grumble.

Peter smiled. “You like it?”

She hated to admit it but she nodded, spearing a piece of sausage with her fork. It was tender inside and slightly crispy outside. Peppery spices exploded across her tongue and she had to stifle a satisfied groan.

“Now that we’re together, darling, I’ll make all your favorites—key lime pie, sweet-and-sour chicken, shrimp scampi.” He poured a cup of steaming dark coffee and set it beside her. “I even have your favorite movies on DVD. We can pop popcorn and watch To Kill a Mockingbird anytime you want.”

She swallowed the soft mass of eggs that had suddenly turned cold in her mouth. “How do you know so much about me?”

“We’re soul mates, darling,” he answered as if that explained everything.

“But I’ve only just met you. I’ve been blood-bound to Varik for years and—”

“Do not speak his name!” Peter’s fist crashed onto the table with the force of a gunshot. “You will never speak of him again!”

Alex recoiled from his anger. “I don’t understand. If you and I are soul mates, as you say, what harm can there be—”

“He is a deceiver,” Peter hissed. “He tried to steal you from me. The sooner you forget about him the better.”

Alex toyed with the coffee cup. “And if I don’t want to forget about him?”

He grabbed her jaw, fingers digging into an already-tender bruise, and forced her to look at him. “You will forget about him. I’ll see to that.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she spat and flung the scalding coffee into his face.

He shrieked and released her, trying to wipe the burning liquid from his eyes.

Alex jumped to her feet, grabbed the back of her wooden chair, and with a roar, smashed it across his back. The chair shattered, and Peter collapsed onto the table, groaning. The zip-tie looped around the chair’s back slipped loose, and she dashed for the attic exit. She neared the top of the stairs when Peter’s hand grabbed her hair and pulled her back.

His leg swiped hers and threw her to the floor. He covered her with his body, pinning her like a moth stuck to a specimen board. “That’s the last time you’re going to do that, tricky chickie,” he snarled, inches from her face.

“Go to Hell,” she growled.

He gently stroked her face and then entwined his fingers in her hair. A savage grin split his face. “You first.”

Alex felt the floor drop away beneath them, and she screamed as he forced his way into her mind.

Hurtling down Interstate 55 at speeds nearing one hundred miles an hour, Tasha reconsidered the wisdom of agreeing to ride with Damian and his Enforcers as they raced to catch up with Varik. However, time had been a factor and she hadn’t been afforded the luxury of rational thought. Damian had simply held open the rear door of the black Ford Expedition and told her to get in or get left the f*ck behind. She’d gotten in. Now she was sandwiched between two Enforcers decked out in body armor and carrying more firepower than she’d seen short of the last open house day at the National Guard Armory.

“Talk to me, Reyes,” Damian barked into the handheld radio from the front seat. “What can you tell me about Strahan?”

“Not much, unfortunately,” Reyes Cott answered amid the static. “His record’s surprisingly clean.”

“I find it hard to believe one of the most prolific serial killers in history never had a run-in with the law somewhere.”

“That’s my point. I’m not finding any records for Peter Strahan before 2003.”

“How is that possible?” Damian asked. “There has to be something—driver’s license, tax records …”

“Nada,” Reyes said. “No credit cards, bank accounts, parking tickets—nothing. I can’t even find a birth certificate. The guy’s a f*cking ghost, sir.”

“How was he able to buy a house without even so much as a driver’s license?” Damian asked.

Reyes issued a low whistle. “He didn’t buy it. He inherited it.”

“Inherited from whom?”

“Benjamin Corman.”

“Wait a second.” Tasha sat forward and grabbed the radio from Damian. “Is this the Cottonwood property?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Reyes said. “Court documents refer to it by that name and they’re all I’ve been able to dig up on Strahan.”

“I was out there yesterday,” Tasha said to Damian. “No one answered the door when I knocked. The place looked deserted.”

Damian’s fist slammed down onto the dash. “Goddamn it!” He took the radio back from Tasha. “Reyes, Strahan’s a f*cking vulture. He’s been tailing Sabian for years, that much we know. Expand your search to include Louisville and surrounding areas. Look for properties like this plantation. Those will be his targeted marks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you mean he’s a vulture?” Tasha asked.

“The f*cker lives off carrion,” Damian explained. “He waits for someone to die and then uses a fabricated identification to swoop in and pick the estate clean. He’ll hop from one to the other, changing identities each time. Peter Strahan is just a shell name. That’s why we can’t find information on him.”

“How do you determine his real ID?”

“The only way is to keep him alive and question him.”

“But he’s killed hundreds of humans,” Tasha exclaimed. “That gives him an automatic death sentence.”

“We have a body for one, and we can’t conclusively tie it to him yet.”

“He has Alex. Surely kidnapping a federal agent is something you can pin on him.”

“That we can make stick, but depending on what we find when we get there, he could be sentenced to prison instead of death.”

“Which gives you plenty of time to question him.”

Damian fixed his golden eyes on her. “Only if we catch Baudelaire in time, otherwise there may not be anything left of Strahan to question.”