Half Blood: Chapter One
December 09, 2014
One
Detective Vaile Wolfe stuck his
pen into the little pile of ashes he was crouched over and stirred. The burned
remains, picked up by the slight breeze from the mouth of the alleyway, got
stuck in his nostrils, forcing a low growl out from between his lips.
What a goddamn
fucking mess. The wolf that shared his body shifted uneasily, the scent of the
blood awakening his baser instincts. He could feel his lupine form move under
his skin—under his ribs—stirring to life restlessly. He’d denied the Change for
nearly two weeks, sending the flashing red light of warning off in his head. He
was putting the cops he worked with in danger with every day that passed. He
muttered a few words under his breath to calm the beast and stood up, unable to
avoid looking at the huge puddles of blood at his feet. He’d be seeing red for
a fucking week.
“Did you find
anything?” he asked the officer that had been assigned to him just that
morning. He’d chewed through a dozen rookies in the last six months and he had
a feeling that this guy wasn’t going to make it much past sundown. Vaile had a
rep for being a sonofabitch to work with and that was just the way he liked it.
This new kid
was all WASP. His pale eyes were wide as he took in the carnage around him.
Vaile had caught him puking in the dumpster next to the crime scene. As soon as
he’d seen the blood, he’d gone as white as a sheet and ran. He could still
smell the stuff on his breath.
“No, sir.
Nothing yet,” he replied perfunctorily. Vaile’s lips flexed into a parody of a
smile. At least this kid knew who was Top Dog, not like the last cocky bastard
he’d had working for him. “We’re just waiting for forensics to show up, sir.”
The kid turned back to look at the puddles. “Sir, where’s the body?”
“There ain’t
no body, kid. It’s obvious that this was the kill site. The body’s been dumped
someplace else.” What the WASP didn’t know was that two members of his pack had
taken the stiff a few hours before they’d even got the call from a sanitation
worker reporting a lot of blood down an alleyway that morning. The cops weren’t
ever going to find the body either because by now it would be nothing but ash.
The other thing they didn’t know was that a vampire had been given its Final
Death in that alleyway, but they would never recognize the signs. Humans only
saw what they wanted to see. To them, the ashes that littered the ground in
that goddamned frozen, filthy alleyway were the remnants from a hobo barrel
fire, not the last resting place of a blood-sucking parasite.
The kid
swallowed convulsively, his throat working over a lump, his skin turning a pale
shade of green. “You going to puke again?” Vaile barked.
“No, sir,” he
replied in a shaky breath. His fear was coming off his body in waves, causing a
sneer to pull at Vaile’s top lip. Vaile got up in his face, taking him by the
collar of his shirt and pulling the guy in close to his massive body.
Intimidation factor? He would have said around a ten.
“Because if
you are, you’re not working with me. You can just go back to the station now
and get desk-raped,” he growled.
Vaile hadn’t
thought it was possible, but the kid swallowed the green and blanched out even
further than his already pasty skin. “I’m fine,” he replied with a quavering
voice.
What a fucking
lightweight. Vaile gave him a hard look and pushed him away, causing him to
stumble into the dumpster. Vaile walked back to a beat cop waiting just inside
the yellow police tape. Beyond him—at the mouth of the alleyway—were
rubberneckers wanting to see a glimpse of the carnage. Although another officer
was placed there, arms outstretched and desperately trying to stop the
click-click of camera phones, they still managed to get an uninterrupted view.
Sometimes Vaile thought humans were more bloodthirsty than the wolf that shared
his body. Looking away from them in disgust, he asked, “What did you see when
you got here last night, Mack?”
Mack was a shifter,
too. Werewolves made good cops. It was as simple as that. His pale green eyes
flecked with brown met Vaile’s for a split second before dropping down to look
at Vaile’s chin. “A human male drained of blood. That was all.”
Vaile grunted.
“Were you told anything else other than to get your ass down here?”
“Just that
there was a body. But judging by the smell, and—” he kicked his toe into the
ashes at his feet, “I’d say a vampire got four-twentied here, too.”
Vaile grunted
again. He didn’t know who had given the vamp the cure for life, but he was
goddamn elated that they had. He was a damn good cop and an even better
detective, but the stench of the vampire was cancelling out the scent of any humans that may have been
involved at the scene of the crime. To his sensitive nose, all he could smell
was burning, rotten garbage topped off with a healthy dollop of cow shit.
“So who was
the guy we picked up last night?” Vaile turned and spat on the ground; the
nasty taste of the blood-sucker had coated the back of his tongue. After he
wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, Vaile turned back to Mack. He didn’t
need to worry about the police cataloguing the sample because the whole damn
report was going to mysteriously disappear in the very near future.
Mack shrugged.
“No wallet on the body, but he was dressed too nice, which is unusual for this
area. Maybe he was a Renfield and the vamp lured him here. Maybe he was just
unlucky.”
Renfields. Weren’t
they a treat? They were humans who believed vampires were real, and who
regularly donated their blood to other humans pretending to be vampires.
Ignorant fuckers. And they wondered why HIV was spreading through the human
population like wildfire.
Vaile drew in
a deep breath and coughed. “Goddamn vampires. I hate their fucking stench.”
“Tell me about
it,” Mack replied in a drawl.
Just then, the
forensic crew arrived in their signature white van, parking outside the alleyway’s
only entrance and exit. The Uniformed began pushing people out of the way
again, trying to make room for them to get out of the van. Time to get the fuck
out of there.
“Hey kid!”
Vaile called out to his “partner”. When he couldn’t see his blond hair, Vaile
marched over to the closest dumpster and peered over the other side. The kid
had curled himself up into a ball in a pool of his own vomit. “Ah, fuck.” He looked
over at the other shifter. “Mack? Come give me a hand, will ya?”
Vaile drove
him and the WASP back to the station after he and Mack had got him into the
back of his unmarked. Sure, Vaile could have lifted the kid no problem, but
hauling a grown man around on your shoulder like he weighed nothing drew too
much unwanted attention.
There was a
groan as the car humped into the car park behind the station. Vaile looked into
his rear view mirror to see the rookie coming around. The smell of vomit had
permeated the interior thanks to the kid, and no amount of Febreeze was going
to get that shit out.
“Get out and
get reassigned,” Vaile barked, slamming his car door behind him. He navigated
his way to the back of the building without a backwards glance to see if the
kid had gotten out or not. When he reached the solid metal door, Vaile heard
the distinct sound of a car opening and closing.
And another one bites the dust.
Hauling open
the heavy steel, Vaile walked into central command.
People were
everywhere. Vaile passed through the security check point, disarming himself
and producing his badge. When he was finally through, he slipped his holster
back on again as he walked up the stairs. At the top, he hung a left.
His office had
about twenty people in there, each sitting behind a computer with three soft
walls. It was partition heaven. Parking it behind his desk, he turned on his
computer and clicked into his emails. He’d been working the Buxton rapist case,
and the latest medical report was front and center. He opened up the email and scrolled through the
three-page report, skimming it for anything that was useful. So far nothing
viable had been collected from the women or the scenes. The sick fucker was
getting more violent with them, too. He’d started just by threatening the
girls, but now he was following through on the threat. The last girl had a
broken jaw and a fractured cheek bone thanks to the bastard.
Kicking out of
his chair, he went to the kitchenette they had in the back corner of the office
to make himself a cup of instant. It tasted terrible, but at least it got rid
of the taste of vampire that was still sticking to the back of his tongue. He
took another sip and from over the lip of his coffee cup, he saw his boss
walking towards him.
“Wolfe. My
office. Now.”
“You got it,”
he replied, walking casually back to the desk to dump his still-full coffee
cup.
“Sit down,”
his boss said as soon as Vaile had shut the door to his office behind him. His boss’s
name was D’Angelo. His dark hair had started going gray around the sides, but
his dark eyes were still sharp. “I’ve just spoken to Hauptmann. He says he
wants off your service.”
“Really?”
“Don’t give me
that fucking tone Wolfe. Jesus!” He ran a hand through the gray. “You only had
him for…fuck, like two hours.”
“He’s not cut
out for the work. He’s a beat cop at best. And besides, I’ve already told you I
prefer working alone.”
D’Angelo’s
blood pressure went up a few clicks. “You know what? If you weren’t my best
detective, I would get your ass transferred someplace else where I don’t have
to see you every single damn day.”
“But I am your
best detective,” Vaile reminded him. “And I’m sure you’d miss me.”
D’Angelo
opened his mouth to argue again, but a knock on the door saved him. “Come in!”
he yelled. The door pushed open and the scent of roses wafted in. Vaile’s head swiveled around to see a
female officer standing in the doorway. He’d never seen her around the station
before, but then again he’d never really looked at human women. What was the
point? Love couldn’t transcend species. Lust? Fuck yeah, but love? Not a
chance.
“You wanted to
see me, sir?” she asked, breaking Vaile’s fixation on her. He turned back
around in his seat, uncomfortably aware of her.
“Grey, come
in.”
She shut the
door behind her and sat in the chair next to Vaile. The scent of roses grew
stronger, but it wasn’t her perfume. It was something else. Maybe it was her
soap or shampoo or some shit. “You expressed interest in working with Detective
Wolfe. Does your interest still stand?” his boss said.
Vaile looked
over at her and wondered why in the hell she would volunteer to spend time with
him.
“Yes, sir.”
D’Angelo
nodded perfunctorily. “Congratulations. You’ve been reassigned. Now get your
asses over to Buxton Gen. There’s another girl been brought in overnight—rape
suspect. Get a statement. See if we can’t finally nail this guy’s ass to the
wall.”
Vaile stood up, Grey shadowing him. “You got it.”
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