Hunter's Blood Special Edition (Cursed by Blood Saga) (27 page)

Lily turned toward the far wall and
the broken couch pushed against the chipped paint. Her skin grew cold to the
point of shivering, and panic bit into her gut. The images in her head turned
even uglier, and she cried out, covering her face as she felt each blow, the
tearing between her legs and warm blood flowing along the inside of her thighs.

It was the young girl with the orange
lipstick—paid for, beaten, raped.

Her head whipped around as rage, white
hot and deranged poured through her from behind. As if compelled, Lily turned
toward the tiny window to the side of the small bar. Shattered glass covered
the floor beneath the twisted metal window casing.

“This is where the perpetrator entered
the room.” With each step, Lily’s body shook against the storm of rage that
flooded her body. Her words pushed passed clenched teeth as she moved toward
the window. “I’m positive. This is it.”

Ryan stood to one side, his arms still
folded across his chest. However, instead of the casual stance he affected
before, now he just looked defensive. “Lily, what the hell is going on here? A
blind man could see you’re getting a reading, but you haven’t said a thing,
despite all your gyrations. You gotta cut me some slack. I’m out of my element
here, and I don’t like it one bit.”

Was he for real?
Lily just
looked at him.

He exhaled. “CSI didn’t find anything
to support a point of forced entry besides the shattered glass. No
fingerprints, no blood—other than from the victims—no fibers, no epithelial
tissue, no hair. So what do you see that they didn’t, or couldn’t?”

Lily didn’t answer. The closer she
moved to the window, the more the anger raced through her mind—red, black, and
craving vengeance. She fell to her knees in front of the hollowed out square,
glass biting into her skin through her jeans. Hands at her temples, her pulse
throbbed beneath her palms as her fingernails raked her scalp.

She was in the perpetrator’s mind. The
taste of blood, metallic and slick coated her tongue, and the taste wasn’t as
she expected. It was heady and thick, like honey. She ran the tip of her tongue
over her own teeth, but the sensation was that of razor sharp fangs.

Her vision narrowed, and a veil of red
descended across her line of sight. She scrambled to her feet and into a crouch,
her head jerking from side to side and her nostrils flaring.

“Lily! What the fuck?” Ryan said,
taking a step toward her, but jumped back when she snarled low in her throat
like something feral. She was out of time and place, looking through the vampire’s
eyes as events unfolded.

Her head whipped around again, the
scent of fear making her mouth water. Through the vampire’s eyes, she saw the
boy, Patrick, standing over the girl, his friends laughing as another rode her
hard, biting her breast so hard he drew blood. The girl cried out in terror and
agony, and the vampire smiled as it coiled to attack.

The image shifted, and Lily watched as
if in a trance. The window shattered, and the vampire landed on its feet in a
spray of glass and concrete. Covered in blood, the vampire ripped the boys to
shreds, choking on bits of broken bone and cartilage as it drank, the bitter
tang of their absolute terror scoring its throat.

Lily tried to free her mind, but the
vampire’s gnarled thoughts wrapped themselves around her perception like mutant
vines—its thought processes saturated with one word.
Kill.

Savoring the last of them, the vampire
lifted its gaze toward the mirrored wall, its bloodied visage reflected back
like a nightmare. A face so white and so thin, the cheekbones looked as if they
would rip through the pallid skin, yet stark against the dark red smears
streaked across its mouth. Fangs, long and dripping with yellow saliva, were
stained with blood and pieces of gore.

As if shocked, the creature’s hand rose
to touch its hair, the long, dirty strands hanging from a white scalp, like a
corpse. A vicious screech echoed through Lily’s mind along with the image of a
beautiful woman, tall and elegant, with long, lustrous blond hair and pearl
white skin…the only thing shared with the creature in the mirror was that she
too had fangs.

The vampire’s mind was a swirl of
incoherent thought, but one word escaped through the haze of rage and murder.
Why?
And for one lucid moment, the vampire’s mind held the creature and the woman
superimposed, and Lily knew. The two were one and the same, and the question
now begged, not only why, but how?

***

“If you don’t tell me what the fuck is
going on, I’m calling it…game over, got it? I’m not here to scrape you off the
ceiling, or the floor for that matter,” Ryan shouted, his arms hooked under her
armpits as he dragged her to standing. “What gives? And I want it straight. No
more dancing around and telling me you’re not sure.”

He dragged his hand across his
forehead, his face furious. This was not what he’d expected when he said he’d
take this on.

“You have two minutes, so start
talking,” he said, folding his arms across his chest again. This time it was
neither casual nor defensive, the move was pure self-preservation.

“Ryan…I…”

“No. If I wanted tap dancing, I’d get
assigned to the Broadway beat. I want answers. Now.”

Lily took a deep breath, rummaging
through her pockets. “Okay, Ryan. But I’m telling you right now, you won’t
believe what I have to tell you.”

After what he just witnessed, he
didn’t doubt it. She was still fishing through her pockets, her face beautiful,
but drawn. She probably needed a cigarette. After this, even he wanted one, and
he didn’t smoke.

Whatever Lily smelled, he smelled it
too, but you didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that she not only
smelled it, but saw whatever it was that had caused this. He took a breath and
exhaled. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can talk.”

She picked up her baggie full of puke,
and the two walked out onto the street. She dumped it in a trashcan near the
corner where Ryan was double-parked. Wiping her hands on her slightly
bloodstained knees, she stood on the sidewalk waiting for him to finish with
the uniformed patrol.

“Where to?” she asked.

“It’s almost four p.m. and neither of
us has eaten. Let’s grab a sandwich. I know a good bagel place not too far from
here. We can talk while we eat.”

Lily shook her head. “I appreciate the
offer, but after this, food is the last thing on my mind.”

“Okay, then we can head back toward
One Police Plaza. Your car is there, right? We can talk upstairs.”

Lily frowned. “No offense, but with
what I have to say, being anywhere near your office is not exactly a bright
idea. Listen, it’s late, and I’m drained. Why don’t you drive me home and we
can talk at my place? I’ll have a friend pick up my car.”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were
riveted as Lily rolled her shoulders, her full breasts pushing forward through
the front opening of her coat. The move was harmless, especially after what
she’d just been through, but it left his groin thickening and he forced himself
to look away.

“Shall we?” she asked, her hand on the
passenger car door.

Martinez nodded. “Sounds good.” He
cleared his throat and slid into the driver’s seat, covering the telltale bulge
in his pants with his jacket. “Where to?” he asked.

“Jane Street. Westside.”

He put the car in gear and pulled out
onto the street. Neither one said a word. It was like they were both lost in
thought, only he would bet her thoughts occupied the mystery surrounding the
crime scene. His were occupied with her. Period.

She smelled unbelievable, even despite
her puking her guts up. Every move—from the way she pushed her hair back from
her face, the tilt of her head, the sway of her hips as she walked around the
crime scene, even when she snarled at him, all he wanted to do was throw her on
the ground and fuck her.

Keep your head in the game, stupid…

Problem was, she was in the game with
him, and that made it even more intoxicating. She was a bitch and a fighter,
and yet he had seen her face cloud over with compassion more than once today.
As hard as she was, she was still a soft touch.
Soft.
He groaned
inwardly at the thought of how she would feel beneath him, what her mouth would
taste like, the softness of her skin and the sharp edges of her nails across
his back.

Ryan reached into his pocket and
pulled out his cell phone. At a red light, he scrolled through and pressed
Shaw’s number. It went straight to voicemail. “Sergeant, it’s Martinez. I’ve
just left the scene with Ms. Saburi. I’m not really sure what Ms. Saburi found,
if anything yet, but I’ll be at headquarters later to fill you in, if I can at
that point.” He pressed end, and put the phone down in the front cup holder.

“I wish you had told me you were going
to call him,” Lily said with a frown.

“Why? He’s my superior. I need to
check in with him, or did you forget this is a police investigation?” Ryan ran
a hand though his hair, feeling himself scowl.

“I already KNOW this is a police gig,
detective. That’s the third time today you’ve felt it necessary to remind me of
it, and it’s seriously getting on my nerves, so quit it! You are not the only
professional here. I merely wanted the opportunity to tell
you
what I
saw before I have to tell everyone else. I already warned you.”

“Warned me? About what, huh? What is
it exactly that you think I can’t handle?”

Lily didn’t answer. She stared out the
window, her arms folded in front of her chest.

“Now you clam up?
Jesus
, woman,
a homicide investigation is no place for head games. If you’ve uncovered
pertinent information, I need to know.”

“Pertinent information? Listen good,
because if you or anyone down at police plaza think you stand a chance at
solving this after what I saw, you’re nuts. This goes way beyond any nightmare
you could ever dream up. It’s going to take a collective effort, and I’m going
to need to call in reinforcements of my own.”

He looked at her, his face
incredulous. “Reinforcements? You’re joking, right? Do you know what Phillips
had to go through to get the commissioner to allow YOU on the case? What? You
have some kind of ESP army at your fingertips?”

Lily just looked at him, her lips
pressed together. “You know, at some point during all this, you are going to
thank me. And I’m going to take extreme pleasure in saying I told you so.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s just hear what you
have to say, first. Okay?”

“Whatever you say, Detective.”