Dark Knight of the Skye (7 page)

D`nae came out of the bathroom to find Grady propped up on the pillows on the bed closest to the door. She was wearing a light pink tank top and dark pink boxers with a white towel on the top of her head. Grady pretended not to stare by rubbing his eyes as she moved across the room.

“Hope that was okay, things were kind of all over the place,” he said sitting up and stretching his arms above his head.

“You did really good. It’s kind of weird because all I sleep in is tanks and boxers. Strange that you would pick these.”

“I figured most girls are alike and I have been known to have a girlfriend from time to time,” he said and started toward the bathroom.

“I bet you have, Detective,” she called out as he shut the door. She hopped onto her bed, brushed out her hair and fell sound asleep, all before he came back out of the bathroom. When he did, she was curled up on her side with the sheet draped over the bottom half of her legs, leaving the rest her body in full view of his already yearning eyes. He turned the television off but left the small lamp beside his bed on. He took the towel from around his shirtless shoulders and tossed it across the back of the chair.

He walked over and checked the parking lot one more time before returning to his bed and getting comfortable. He lay back, closing his eyes as his mind outlined the shape of her body under the pale glow coming from the lamp. His eyes slowly opened as his head uncontrollably moved to the side, watching her. She moaned and moved her shoulders back just enough to show the soft movement of her large breasts, and growth became a factor he could no longer deny. He reached down his grey sweatpants and adjusted his manhood as his eyes molested the nipple that lay in a perfect tantalizing peak under the material that he so wished he was at that very moment.

The night was indeed a long one, just as D`nae had said it would be; only she slept like a log. It was Grady who slept on the edge of a fantasy that was smeared with the flashback shots of dream piercing memories, which entailed night after night investigating brutal decapitations and dismemberments. He woke to a horrible thought of finding the woman he fell asleep masturbating to lying in a heap of crumpled flesh, missing one beautiful head. It was certainly enough of a thought to put the mind back on track.

* * *

Once they left the station that morning, Grady wanted to secure a safe place for D`nae to stay while he did a little of his detective work to try and find out if he could pick up any clues as to who, or what, was on her trail. He knew why they would go to such extremes as murder, and he also knew the reason they were going to drastic measures looking for clues of their own, and not just going straight to the main source. He knew their reason all too well, because he had been doing the very same thing for the past two years.

When D`nae and Danny were attacked that night, now almost four years ago, they had been attacked by vampires. The only reason that D`nae survived was because a passerby witnessed a commotion while leaving the restaurant and called the police. It was apparent by her survival that the sounds of the sirens and the flashing lights had scared the three away before they could secure their kill. Three years ago, after numerous murders across the southern half of the United States, all heinously brutalized before being decapitated and gutted like cattle in a meat factory, D`nae Creel’s file slid across his desk as the only living survivor, who just happened to live in the same area as the last four victims.

Grady O’ Brian started eight years earlier with a secret undercover service that started investigating unexplained deaths back in the late seventies. He never made it in the police force due to his lack of control in the temperament department, and his overwhelming disregard for those in authority. He started up his own private practice and began doing a little detective work to pay the bills. It was by pure chance that the job he now carried fell into his lap the way that it did.

The police had arrived, as well as the F.B.I., and still no one had a clue as to what could have happened to the old man that had been out walking his dog that night. Grady was on another case altogether when he drove by and saw all the commotion. He pulled his car over as soon as he could and walked back to the first suit he found.

He flipped his identification badge open and said, “Names O’Brian, Detective O’Brian,” and proceeded to go under the yellow tape.

“Excuse me,” the suit said, taking him by the arm. “This is a matter for the F.B.I.”

“I see. Then you’re the man in charge here, and the one who will be answering to the family?” Grady replied, pulling a black pad from his back pocket. The only thing Grady knew for sure was that whatever lay hidden behind this yellow tape had the word unexplained murder written all over it. There were way too many different breeds of law on this site for it to be anything else, and he wanted a piece of it.

“You need to speak to Special Agent Harvey for that, Sir.”

“Then I suggest you let me do my job and I’ll let you do yours,” Grady replied and without another word, left the agent standing with his mouth slightly ajar.

He could smell the victim before he could actually see him, but it still didn’t prepare him for his first trip to a ‘once you enter you may never leave,’ life changing experience. The scene played out behind the apartment complex where the older man had lived. It was more than apparent that he had taken the dog out to the bathroom, because the dog was still attached to the leash that remained in the man’s hand. It was where the man was, that made the whole thing so baffling to every eye that gazed upon the eerie sight.

He dangled upside down in a ghastly state at the very top of the dead oak tree in the back corner of the lot; one leg pointing toward the sky, held by some type of cloth, the other twisted at the knee, hanging toward the earth. His legs were spread so far apart that his toes were gruesomely pointing at the sides of his ribcage, like a broken puppet. His abdomen and lower torso were an empty case of jutting rib bones, torn flesh, blood soaked tissue of intestines, and what was left of the man’s clothes, all which led down a morbid rope of gore hanging between the man’s headless shoulder blades.

On the end of the chain that remained in his hand hung the German Sheppard that was morbidly placed to mimic his master. Neither head could be found and no explanation could be given as to how anyone could have carried a man and his dog up to that height and secured them on such small branches without braking them with all the extra weight, doing it all in the short amount of time that his wife said he had been gone. Grady was drawn to the case like a bear to honey.

That was the night that Grady met and became a member of the A.A.D.F.: Agents Against Dark Forces. A.A.D.F. was a group of elite men who had military or police training, who were willing to place their lives on the line to stop forces that the world didn’t want to believe existed. Grady had been working on a particular group of what he called ‘rogue vamps’ for more than five years. Two years into his investigation, he came across D`nae’s file and for the past three years had been studying her every move, hoping that her attackers would one day want to know what happened to Danny Gilmore’s body as badly as he did. His waiting finally paid off, but what he hadn’t expected was the unpredictable part that his heart would play.

* * *

Here he sat, not two feet from her, driving to a small house that a few of his fellow agents had acquired, that had been secured with new locks on all the doors and windows, and several cases of paraphernalia to share with D`nae once they arrived.

“How far is this place?” D`nae asked looking out the window.

“Not too much further. You’ll have everything you need, even a phone where you can reach me at all times.”

She turned in her seat, glaring at him the hardest she could and said, “You mean to tell me, you’re taking me all the way out here just to leave me by myself? Stop the truck!”

“D`nae,” he said smiling.

“Stop the fucking truck!” she screamed right at his face.

He slid the truck to a stop and no sooner than he had, she jumped out and started walking back in the direction of the city. He killed the motor, got out and ran up beside her.

“How in the hell do you think I’m going to find out who’s doing this to you, if I’m stuck up your ass the whole time?” he said trying to keep her pace.

“Oh, I don’t know, bring me out in the middle of fuckin` nowhere, Grady. That’s a start. Oh yeah, then leave me alone so someone can cut my head off and smear my shit on the walls,” she replied, stomping her feet harder and faster with every word.

He reached up, grabbed her by the arm and spun her around so hard she lost her footing and went straight down on the sharp rocks beneath her feet. “That was a sorry thing to do,” she said looking up at him.

“Damn it, I didn’t mean to make you fall… here,” he said reaching down.

“I swear if you don’t back up,” she more growled than spoke, slowly shaking her head.

“Okay…okay,” he said holding his hands in the air and taking two steps back. She tried to stand up but sat right back down holding her ankle.

He walked around behind and lifted her to her feet, helping her back to the truck. They rode in silence until he pulled onto the dirt road that led to the house where she would be staying. “Grady, if they find me, you’ll never get back here in time.”

“I’ve had this place taken care of and I don’t want you to worry about anything. No one knows you’re with me, and there is no way in hell that they could know about this place.” he explained softly.

“I hope you’re right,” was all she said as they drove down the rugged dirt road that had a major undergrowth problem, covered by a swarm of huge trees canopying the earth, like enormous umbrellas. The whole time, she was praying more than hoping that the man at her side knew what he was talking about as doubt took precedence.

* * *

They pulled up in front of a single story, white country house that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years. The paint was peeling, the screen door was hanging on by one hinge and almost every window was covered with wooden planks. The landscaping wasn’t much better. What was once the yard was now more of an undergrowth of weeds and stray bushes that reached anywhere from three to five feet up the base of the trees that circled the small house, leaving little more than a path for a small animal. It was past three in the afternoon and the way the sun hit the greenery, if you weren’t sitting right in front of the place you wouldn’t even know it was there.

“I can see why you think no one would know about this place, but will I at least have running water?” D`nae sarcastically asked.

“I think you’re going to be very surprised when you see what my friends have done to the inside for you.” He hopped out and left her sitting in the truck.

“Friends?” she replied to herself, stepping out of the truck. “I didn’t know you had friends, O’Brian.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he called back and waved for her to join him.
‘You’re telling me!’
she thought as she limped to catch up. He took her around to the back entrance, where they entered through a newly placed door. Once inside, she realized that ‘you may be surprised’ was an understatement. She was thinking more along the lines of a soft cushy bed with maybe a color TV, and a full size bathroom. What she got was a nice green army cot, a portable DVD player and a mini port-a-potty... not to mention a room filled with seven men dressed in black tanks and army fatigues. Surprised, indeed.

The only room that she would be using was the one in the center; it was once used as a bedroom and only had one window. The window had been sealed from both inside and out, with metal sheets for strength and old wooden planks to fool any onlooker. Grady ushered D`nae over to a chair in the center of the room, next to a crate that was about four feet long and two feet deep, with a matching one right behind it.

“Grady, what’s going on?”

Grady knelt down in front of her and said, “I work with a special group of people.” He paused and lowered his head. “What I’m trying to say is… we think what is after you is the same thing that attacked you and Danny Gilmore almost four years ago.”

Grady studied her eyes as well as her response. He knew with every ounce of training and experience that he had, that she knew something about the whereabouts of Danny. Whether he had been changed into a creature of the night or was truly dead to this world. It was without a doubt the one key to finding the leader of the murderous force behind the string of vicious killings.

“I have been on the very verge of having this killer in my hands, D`nae. I’ve seen the calling cards he leaves behind and his mark was all over your landlady’s portion of that house.”

“How do you know it’s a vampire? Couldn’t it be some crazed maniac?”

“Thirty nine years ago, one of the boys that didn’t lose his head found himself walking around the morgue a few nights after he was murdered. Six years ago, the same thing happened, only this victim was a female. When she was found at the scene, her head had been half torn from her body, her insides had been ripped out but the heart was never dislodged. They put her back together,” he shrugged. “We made sure she stayed down the second time.”