Blood Hunt (13 page)

He felt her looking at him and saw her smile knowingly. She had noticed his increase in breathing and misinterpreted it, he realized .

“
Hey, baby. Maybe you’d like to party?”

He shook his head. “Don’t make me run you in for soliciting a cop, Velvet.”

“
Did I mention money? This is on the house. Call it saying thanks. Come on.” She reached up to ruffle his hair. “Let me show you blondes really do have more fun. Not just a head job in an alley, either.”

He started to say no, but something else in him, something controlled by the ravenous thirst, made it to his tongue first. “Okay.”

She tucked her arm through his. “It isn’t far. You’ll like this.”

The same thing Lane said to him that night. An inward shudder at the memory almost made him walk away.

He should have. Hunger aroused him even more than if he felt desire, and its effect impressed even Velvet...but the sex brought no release with the blood smell of her filling his head, burning his throat, making his teeth ache. Until hunger took all control from him and forced him to her neck...kissing it, exploring, fangs extending. Under him, she sighed in pleasure as his tongue found the throb beneath her skin.

The sound goaded him. He bit down, and...

Nothing! Only a drop of blood rose to tantalize him where each fang pierced. He had missed the vein! A scream of frustration echoed through his head, then screamed
at
him to just
go
at her, to rip and tear until he found the blood.

Garreth recoiled, scrambling away from her in revulsion at that image. Do to her throat what Lane did to his...
no
! The guilt he felt coming with her paled beside the self-loathing flooding him now. So he thought he could still be the person he was before? Like hell. Look at him, a ravening monster!

Velvet stirred drowsily on the bed. “Don’t rush off, baby. I actually enjoyed that and you look ready to go again.”

He struggled into his clothes, desperate to leave before the monster consumed what humanity remained in him. “I’m sorry; I have to work.” He buckled his belt.

She sat up, frowning irritably. “Well, wham-bam-thank-you ma’ am.”

He grabbed his coat, not daring to look at her. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Thanks. It was good for me, too.” Which came out like the lame afterthought it was.

“
Cops.” She snorted. “Always in a hurry to come and a hurry to go.”

He fled. In the street he pulled on the coat while walking away as fast as he could and gulping night air to clear her scent from his head. He kept walking, paying no particular attention to the direction, as long as it led away from the crowds and bright lights.

Missed! He could not believe it. Who ever heard of such a thing? See the vampire miss the vein. See him miss supper. Poor hungry vampire. Maybe he should hire a dowser to find veins for him.

How many necks did a neo-vampire have to mutilate before learning the quick, clean bite? The thought of learning curve carnage horrified him. There must be a way to avoid that and still eat.

A car’s horn blared. Garreth realized he had halted in the middle of the street. He dashed on across. Then he noticed his surroundings. He stood on the bay side walkway of the Embarcadero. A man passed him, jogging, a sleek Doberman loping at his side. They trailed scents of sweat and blood.

Garreth’s throat tingled. He turned to watch the dog. They had blood, too. Could he live on animal blood? Lane drank human blood and legend said that was the vampire diet...but blood was blood, surely.

The idea of preying on dogs did not really appeal to him...pets, loved by someone. Cats, too. Besides, he had no idea how much blood they could lose without dying. However — he turned to eye the piers along the Embarcadero — the city did have one species existing in profusion, that would not be missed, and that he did not mind killing. The idea of touching a rat, let alone biting one, revolted him, but people had eaten them, and worse, to survive. Better to feed on rats than people.

He jogged south, checking each pier, assessing their hunting potential. He wanted rats but no humans, no one to observe him. After passing under the Bay Bridge, he found a pier that looked promising...a dark interior reassuring him of human absence, light passing traffic reducing the number of potential witnesses seeing him go in. Just one problem...a heavy chain mesh gate pulled down across the entrance. Iron gates blocked access to the dock along each side, too. Garreth pressed against the mesh gate, fingers wrapped around some of the chain. Legend attributed great strength to vampires so he might be able to break through. Hunger pushed him to try. But...leave evidence of an intruder? No. If this worked, he needed to be able to come back again. He needed an undetectable way in.

Wrench!

Something seemed to tear Garreth all directions at once. Pain sent him crashing to his hands and knees. He huddled, gasping. What the hell just happened? Why? Mind churning, he groped for the gate, to pull himself to his feet.

Only his hand found no chain. He looked up to discover the gate had disappeared from in front of him. Because, he realized, looking around, it had moved behind him. He knelt on the ground
inside
the building.

He stared at the gate. So...vampires really could move through closed doors and windows? If they did not mind...what?...feeling like some brutal Klingon transporter ripped apart their atoms? And though the pain was fading, did leaving here mean enduring it again?

The hunger interrupted that unpleasant thought, snarling:
HUNT!
Climbing to his feet, he started down the length of the building, through a dark turned to mere twilight by his vision, his ears tuned for every possible sound. The building creaked around him. Outside, traffic mumbled and water slapped pilings. Then, amid other sounds, he caught the scrabble of tiny clawed feet and the squeak of a rodent voice. One turn of his head pinpointed the sound. He moved that direction, climbing over crates in his path.

The rat’s form appeared among the shadows between more crates ahead. It must have heard him, too, because it grew suddenly still. Only its head moved, turning to look up at him. The tiny eyes met his.

Garreth froze in place, too. At least ten feet lay between them. Could vampire speed — if that were real, too — cover it before the rat escaped? It had not moved, still staring him in the eyes. What if, he wondered, he had hypnotic power over animals, too.

Holding its gaze, he slid a foot forward. The rat remained motionless. Step by step, he crossed the space between them. The rat never twitched. Within reach of it, Garreth squatted on his heels. The smell of the rat reached him, a musky rodent odor, strong but not as strong as the tantalizing scent of its blood. He steeled himself to touch the creature. Blood is blood. He drew a breath, smelling that blood...and reached for his prey.

The rat’s fur felt spiky in his hand. He waited for it to struggle, but the creature hung quiescent in his grasp. One wrench would break its neck, or a bend of his elbow bring it to his mouth, but he hesitated. Rats carried disease. How did pathogens affect the undead? They must drink diseased blood once in a while. Was it like buzzards, who he remembered someone telling him could eat infected flesh without sickening? Oh, yeah...it had been Marti’s girlfriend Janice the walking encyclopedia, the time she and her husband drove to Las Vegas with Marti and him and they spotted the birds eating roadkill along the highway.

Maddened by the rat’s blood smell, the hunger grabbed for control.
Bite! Tear! Drink!
Garreth fought back. All right...but do it his way, not the hunger’s. He remembered the switchblade in his pocket. That would keep him from having to actually bite the rat. Then what?

The rat remained quiet. Draining the blood into the palm of his hand and licking it up from there sounded not only slow but primitive. There must be a more...civilized solution.

Garreth stood, looking around for inspiration. His gaze fell on a trash barrel. He carried the rat to it and peered in. Almost on top of the litter sat a coffee carry-out foam cup, lipstick on one side of the rim.

After this he would know to bring a cup of his own, maybe one of those collapsing things for camping, that fit inconspicuously in a pocket. For now, necessity ruled. He set the cup on a crate then, using both hands, broke the rat’s neck and brought out the switchblade.

The blade sprang open. He cut the rat’s throat and held it over the cup by its hind legs. The stream of blood set his throat and stomach burning in anticipation, even while his brain still recoiled. Blood is blood, he reminded himself. Blood he needed. And when the rat stopped dripping, he resolutely picked up the cup, lipstick away from him, and gulped down the contents before he had time to think further.

With the first taste, all revulsion vanished in a savage appetite for more. At the same time, the blood tasted flat, lacking, as though he drank watery tomato juice when he expected the peppery fire of a Bloody Mary. His skin crawled. All blood was not created equal, then, and what the hunger demanded was human blood.

Suck it up. This is all you’re getting.

He drained the cup to the last drop and went hunting another rat.

7

“
Mik-san!” Harry came up out of his desk chair. “What did the doctor say?”

“
You can have back your guest room.”

Around Homicide, other detectives converged on Garreth.

“
Is that our Lazarus behind those Foster Grants?” Evelyn Kolb said.

Faye and Centrello pounded him on the back. “You’re looking damn good for a dead man.”

From the doorway of his office, Serruto said, “Better than the last time I saw you, anyway.”

The benefit of drinking heartily.

The lieutenant beckoned Garreth into his office and closed the door. “So. How did your physical go?”

“
Better than I expected.” Needing, to his astonishment, minimal persuasion...once they passed the dangerous “say ahhh” where his fangs wanted to extend. Even in miserable daylight the blood pressure and heart rate Dr. Charles fussed about before somehow made it into the “normal” range, albeit just barely. He aced the reflex and treadmill stress tests. The rats had not given their lives and blood in vain. Garreth handed Serruto the evaluation form. “I’m cleared for duty.”

In anticipation of which he had stopped by his apartment last night for the tie tack replica of his seven-pointed star badge. Wearing a turtleneck instead of shirt and tie, he used it as a lapel pin.

Serruto frowned from the form to Garreth. “This soon? That’s hard to believe. You still look pale to me, and gaunt.”

Garreth shrugged. “I am losing weight, and the doc wants me losing even more.”

Serruto fingered the form. “Your neck is healed?”

Garreth pulled down his turtleneck to show just scars...deceptively livid in color, thanks to being touched up with blusher. “My family are fast healers, and I’ve been giving it every chance...doing nothing since Saturday but sleeping and eating, and drinking an herbal tea my Grandma Doyle swears by.”

Well, he slept plenty by day — except Tuesday afternoon when he dragged himself to the Drivers License Bureau to replace his drivers license and pick up his car at the Hall. Nights he spent decimating the rat population on the Embarcadero, feeding the little drained corpses to the bay.

Not a way he liked living, though. Last night he came close to being caught by a watchman...making him crouch behind crates with breath held until the man walked out of sight. He needed a way to hunt less often and lower his risk of discovery.

Serruto frowned at the evaluation. “I don’t know what the man’s thinking. But the shrink still has to weigh in. Two o’clock, right? Don’t miss it.”

“
I won’t.” Not a lie. He wanted to work...to hunt down Lane. “Do you mind if I hang out here until time to see Leonard?”

Finally Serruto smiled. “Go ahead.”

He went to his desk, sitting back-to-back with Harry’s. Unlike the medical exam, the shrink worried him. Was passing a simple matter of hypnotizing the man and telling him:
You conclude that I am psychologically stable and fit to return to duty.
Or did he have to contend with tests which, like the ECG, created a material record? How did he influence those?

Harry looked across from ending a phone call. “Relax, Mik-san. Leonard isn’t going to eat you.”

His nerves showed? He sighed. “Maybe he will.”

He expected Harry to tell him he would do fine. Instead, Harry said, “If he doesn’t okay you for duty right away, it isn’t the end of the world. Go visit your folks. Visit your son.”

Garreth frowned. “You think I won’t pass?”

Harry hesitated a moment, toying with the phone he still held in one hand, a finger of his other hand on the switch hook. “Let’s face it; you’ve been strung tight since the attack. You pick at your food, even things you’ve always loved. You hardly talk. It’s like you’re looking over your shoulder. Some rape victims have this fear the rapist will come back after them. Is that what’s going on, you’re feeling Barber’s going to come back and finish the job on you?”