Dying Bites: The Bloodhound Files-1 (9 page)

Which I’m really, really, beginning to loathe. I feel like I’ve been dropped into the last minute of a basketball game, told I have to play by a new set of rules, then had the ball passed to me while the coach promised he’d get that rule book right out to me, yes ma’am, by next week at the latest.

I hit the play button again. A rope attached to the divider leads upward to a pulley on top of a pole, then down and off-camera. Someone pulls on it, raising the divider, and the dogs lunge forward and attack.

The rest is fairly predictable, though Porter lasts longer than I would have expected; if he had more room to maneuver, he might have had a chance. As it is, once two of the
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dogs latch on to his throat and pull in opposite directions, it’s all over. It takes a third to actually sever the spine.

And then the body just kind of falls apart, disintegrating into big chunks that crumble into smaller chunks, until the whole thing is dust. Instantaneous decomp, right down to the molecular level.

First no ballistics, now no body. Frustrating, though I’m slightly mollified by having an actual recording of the murder.

I watch the second one. Same kind of flat, featureless terrain, but this time it’s redbrown instead of white, desert lit by the last rays of the setting sun. Once again the murder weapon is center stage, the sarcophagus standing mostly upright—it’s on some kind of stand, leaning back at about a seventy-five-degree angle—with the door open to show the victim inside. He’s muscular, looks like he’s in his thirties, has a bushy red beard and curly hair. He seems groggy. It must be possible to drug a lycanthrope, though I’m guessing it’s not easy—their immunity to disease and ability to heal rapidly suggest their bodies’ defenses would resist any kind of chemical.

The silver blades on the lid gleam sunset red, looking as though they’re already coated in blood. Once again, a pole, pulley, and rope arrangement leads to the door on one end, off-camera at the other. When it’s yanked, the door flips shut. There’s a wet, punching sound beneath the loud click of the lock, and then the vic screams. The killer’s timed it perfectly; the light from the horizon dims just as the lid slams closed, signaling that the sun is down and the full moon is now dominant. The scream turns into a howl halfway through, though the anguish in it remains the same.

Then it’s just the silver maiden rocking back and forth on its stand, as the victim inside thrashes and howls. It goes on for a long time. Eventually, dark liquid starts to drip from the base of the casket. Blood always looks black in moonlight.

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Both recordings were uploaded to a site called Televisionary, which seems to be this world’s version of YouTube. Viewers numbered in the thousands, at first—the footage was assumed to be faked, and the McMurdo site was remote enough to suppress news of the murder. When the Australian clip was released, though, the vic’s family recognized him and told the media. Removing the clips from the site didn’t help—they’d already gone viral, notoriety ensuring their survival in millions of downloaded copies. I know why the killer staggered the releases the way he has: he’s building an audience. The Japanese killing hasn’t been released yet, but everyone in the world knows it will be

. . .

When the killer’s added another victim to his résumé.

I close my eyes and think. Two different methods of killing, both of them savage yet impersonal. A lycanthrope killed in a coffin, a vampire killed by silver and dogs. Almost a kind of homicidal dyslexia, a reversal of methods instead of letters. The staging of the scenes, the preparation involved, suggests a strong element of ritual—but the sadism of the killings seems much more personal. Either the killer enjoys torture, or he has a deep hatred of his victims.

I look through the files on the vics. Not a lot in Porter’s; he was some kind of researcher working for the U.S. government near the South Pole. Everyone at the research station had been eliminated as a suspect, and Porter’s personal life seems devoid of psychopaths with a grudge.

The lycanthrope was Andrew Fieldstone, a local who made a living running tourists out to Ayers Rock. He was a bit of a troublemaker, had several arrests for public drunkenness and assault—starting bar fights seems to be the equivalent of a sport in the small town he lived in. He hadn’t been involved in anything that would provoke this level of violence.

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According to the animist evidence, the killer’s a human male. According to my new boss, he’s also crazy . . . but by Cassius’ own admission, vampires and thropes don’t have a lot of experience with psychopathic behavior. So why are they so sure the killer is insane? The murders, while disturbing, look more to me like the killer’s trying to send a deliberate message—and while that might seem unbalanced to most people, it makes a little too much sense to be definitely attributed to the workings of an irrational mind.

Something isn’t right. I’m not being given the whole picture, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that it must have something to do with the research facility at McMurdo. Besides, I don’t think they’d yank someone out of a parallel dimension for a paltry three deaths, no matter how gruesome. No, I’m pretty sure my employers know exactly why Porter was killed; it’s the other two deaths that have them uneasy.

And maybe the murders that haven’t occurred yet. . . .

The jet prepares to touch down at the New Chitose Airport on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four islands. It’s not as densely populated as the others, big stretches of it still virgin wilderness dotted with remote lakes and the odd volcano. The murder took place in the Hidaka Mountains, at a place called the Ezo Wolf National Park; from what Eisfanger tells me, we’ll need a four-wheel drive to get out there.

Charlie finally emerges from the pilot’s cabin and makes his way over to my seat. I’m staring down at the city through the window.

“Ever been to Japan?” Charlie asks.

“No,” I say. “Not on any world. You?”

“Once. Lots of pires, not as many thropes. In Tokyo, anyway.”

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“Maybe we should have brought Gretchen.”

“Maybe. Most of the bloodlegging trade goes to Japan; they still have a thirst for the stuff.”

“Bloodlegging?”

“Black-market human blood. Hear they pay a thousand dollars an ounce.”

“Nice to be wanted.”

“Nah, you got nothing to worry about. That’s for virgin blood.”

I wonder how much trouble I’ll get in for shooting my own enforcer.

It’s just after 2:00 P.M., Hokkaido time. I used the onboard kitchen facilities to brew up some Urthbone tea shortly after we left, then poured it into a little plastic travel bottle I found in a cupboard; I take a healthy swig now. We’ve been in the air for a little under eleven hours, and all I’ve had to eat has been the sushi and some cheese and crackers—I stayed away from the raw haunch of lamb and the wax carton of sheep’s blood in the minifridge.

The jet lands and rolls up to a gate, where one of those enclosed accordion ramps latches on. We disembark, and I realize I never saw or heard the pilot the entire time. Typical spook stuff: classify and compartmentalize, and never tell anyone anything except what you have to. He probably flew the plane wearing blinders—or maybe Charlie just sat there and glared threateningly at him the entire time.

Unlike most of the airports I’ve been in, this one seems practically devoid of glass and almost deserted—it feels more like we’re in a big subway station at 3:00 A.M., lots of illuminated signs in Japanese and echoey concrete. Then I realize that, for vampires,
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this is the middle of the night; no doubt the place is much more active when the sun isn’t up.

“Okay,” I say to Tanaka. “What’s next?”

“The train station.”

We head outside to an idling taxi. No waiting at customs, either; Tanka simply gives a guard stationed at a turnstile a curt nod, and he lets us through. NSA privileges, no doubt—or maybe Cassius is so well connected he doesn’t have to bother with little details like international borders. The cab’s built like they are in the UK, two seats facing each other in the back, and Charlie and I take one while Eisfanger and Tanaka take the other.

I glance at my watch. “Crime scene is now thirty-three hours cold. Not great, but better than forty-eight. How soon before we reach it?”

“Two hours by train. Then thirty, perhaps forty minutes by car.”

I look out the window. Chitose is supposedly a reasonably sized city, but it seems closed: not many cars on the road, most shops locked up. There’s something else about it that seems alien, and it’s not that all the street signs are indecipherable.

It takes me a moment to figure it out. Most windows have tight-fitting shutters of plastic or metal, though a few businesses have windows with heavily smoked glass. Combined with the deserted streets, it gives the place a locked-down, fortress-like feel, as if the inhabitants were preparing for some kind of coming battle.

The cab lets us out at the train station, and I almost expect to see tumbleweeds blowing across the empty platform. The train is waiting, a shiny new Shinkansen bullet train, all streamlined chrome and steel. The public transport feels a little low-rent to me—the FBI
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would have used a chopper—but that feeling vanishes when we board. We have an entire car to ourselves, and it’s definitely not coach; in fact, it seems to be a completely outfitted forensics lab.

“I hope these facilities are adequate,” Tanaka says. “David was not completely clear on the level of technology you’re used to.”

Is that a scanning electron microscope? “This’ll do, pig, this’ll do,” I murmur.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. Film reference, wasn’t meant as an insult.”

“Ah. I see.” His tone tells me he clearly doesn’t. I briefly consider educating him, but explaining a movie about a talking pig who wants to be a sheepdog to a Japanese vampire just isn’t all that high on my to-do list.

The train begins to move; I get the impression they were waiting just for us. “Not a lot of service this time of day, I’ll bet.”

“Very little, and none to Shimukappu. The Hidaka Mountains are sparsely populated, even more so at this time of year. In another month, when the snow begins to fall, there will be many more people.”

I try to figure out what attraction snow would have to vampires and werewolves, and fail.

“Why is that?”

“Ski season.”

Sure, why not. I can just imagine Bela Lugosi shushing down fresh powder while his cape billows out behind him. Do people ski at night? I don’t even know.
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Charlie’s found a seat and sunk into it, staring impassively out the window. Eisfanger’s already examining the equipment, making occasional sounds of glee. I look around, find a bare countertop and put my laptop down, then pull out my bottle of Urthbone and take a healthy swallow.

I’m abruptly, intensely aware of Tanaka standing behind me. Though I can’t see him, I know he’s changed into were form. He’s staring at me hungrily through glowing yellow eyes, his claws flexing, his gleaming white fangs bared. . . .

I whirl around. Tanaka stands in the same spot he was a second ago, unchanged. He arcs an eyebrow at me quizzically.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “Long trip.”

“Would you care to freshen up?”

It turns out our little expedition consists of more than just a single car—there’s another with living quarters and a third that’s just for support personnel. I’m starting to feel a little like we’re going into the mountains to hunt Godzilla. Maybe he’s into snowboarding.

I make grateful and extensive use of the facilities, which include a shower. By the time I’m done I feel a lot better; I’ve swapped the turtleneck for a scoop-neck sweater in brown and a pair of black jeans, both of which I’m guessing Gretchen picked out.

Tanaka’s nowhere in sight. Charlie’s tipped his fedora over his eyes and gone to sleep. Eisfanger, however, is more than willing to talk—just not about anything I care about. When I ask him about the silver samples from the dog teeth, I get a twenty-minute technical dissertation on the molecular qualities of metal pigments. It culminates in the astounding revelation that silver-based paint, while not commercially available, is pretty damn easy to mix up.

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Silver occupies a strange kind of niche in this culture, not quite as dangerous or rare as uranium, but more toxic and easier to obtain than mercury. Vampires can handle it without any trouble, and—much like mercury—it’s indispensable to certain industrial processes, which Eisfanger is apparently intent on describing in detail.

“Eisfanger,” I say, trying to derail him. “Interesting name. German?”

“No,” he says, momentarily distracted from an in-depth explanation of silver halides. “It’s Icelandic—my father can trace his ancestry back to a pack of Arctic wolves. That’s where I get my hair and eye pigmentation from.”

“How about your mother? Same thing?”

He laughs. “No, my mother’s lineage is a lot less distinguished. Her grandmother was mauled by a wolf-bitten pit bull and survived. Her kids all turned out like me—kind of blocky.”