Blood Trail

                “If you’re looking for Cathy you just have to head to the most gothic, trendy, fake ‘vampire’ bar that you can find, and there she’ll be dancing like an idiot.”

                We pushed our way through the mob of thronging moody young people searching out our goal. Of course she was forced into the densest crush of people. She swayed and moved with the entwined bodies in ways that would make nuns ready their rulers. She was so lost in the music that she seemed to have no awareness at all. I could see that Robert thought back to the old wars he spoke so fondly and the incredible warrior she had been, but now she was little more than a blithering idiot making herself comfortable with a throng of fools.

                He had his hand on her shoulder before she gave any sign of noticing him, but then her reaction was decisive and immediate. She had his arm forced behind him as she swung him to the floor. For just a moment there was some of that killer fire in her eye, then as she focused on the victim in her grasped that fire died.

                She released the hand, “Oh God… Please don’t kill me.”

                Robert rolled his shoulder back into place moving to release the tension. He stood back up still working the pain out of his arm. 

                “Cathy, Rick,” he gestured between us, “Rick, Cathy.”

                We shook hands and I realized how very strong she was as I pulled back my bruised, slightly crushed appendage.

                “Sorry,” she said, “I sometimes forget my own strength.”

                I rubbed the pain out of my hand as Robert tried to steer us away from the packed dance floor.

                “We need to talk,” he said in as much of a hush as he could manage over the blaring music.

                “What would you have to talk to me about after all this time?”

                This seemed to be my cue to jump in, “We’re investigating a murder, and Robert said that you would be helpful.”

                She seemed interested. She conceded to talk to us and lead on to a table. It was a back booth away from the masses. It was secluded, which was appreciated, which she understood. I looked back at the crowd and couldn’t help but think that there was someone watching us. I scanned the room, but could see no one paying us any particular mind, and so joined my peculiar hosts.

                I pulled out my file on the case and slid it across the table to her. At first she just looked at the manila folder as though she were trying to place it. She glanced at Robert and then back at the folder. She placed her hand on top of the file and again looked at Robert this time letting her gaze linger as she asked, “Am I going to regret seeing this?”

                “Probably,” was all he said in reply.

                I didn’t think that vampires could be squeamish, yet here I was faced with one that was. I looked to Robert but he was watching her reaction as she opened the file. I joined him in his inspection in time to notice the faint fire livening in her eyes once more. She wasn’t squeamish, it was the thought of massacre that terrified her into stillness, but only because it unleashed a hunger that should be locked away for all time. Yet here at the sight of the grizzly crime scene photos it surfaced again.

                “What are your leads so far?”

                “Not sure, wanted your opinion,” Robert answered, “I know you’ve got connections.”

                She flipped through the photos slowly methodically, and I got the sense that she was savoring the images, and that made me uncomfortable. She stopped on one picture in particular. She pulled it out and slid it across the table.

                “You’re thinking a vampire did this,” she told him.

                “I fear that might be true,” he responded, “there has already been an increased slayer presence in the area since.”

                “There are vampires that could do this, but look at all the blood,” she said as she gestured to the photo, “and the cuts aren’t even.”

                Robert turned to me, “vampires wouldn’t waste like this, the blood is too precious.”

                “What, they don’t waste any?” the idea seemed rather absurd to me, but vampires were still a stretch for my mind.

                “It like Stoker wrote, ‘the blood is the life,’ and besides vampires don’t kill anymore.”

                “So vampires don’t kill either? You guys are getting less and less scary every minute.”

                “It is no longer practical to kill our prey,” Robert told me.

                “It wastes a good blood donor, and it draws too much attention. Vampires that kill as a hobby are generally… ‘dispatched’ quickly before they can endanger our society as a whole.”

                “Why butcher the cow if it’s still giving milk?" Cathy mummbled ith a smile.

                I don’t much like being referred to as cattle, but this didn’t seem like the crowd to argue with it about. Cathy picked through more of the photos scrutinizing every detail with a deadly focus. When she had looked at everything in the file she passed it back to me. She took care not to look at me, and I realized she hadn’t looked directly at me since we met, and she had not once spoken to me, but rather directed everything she said at Robert. I wasn’t worth her attention apparently.

                “I’m not sure what it was, but I can say with certainty that it wasn’t a vampire.”

                “You haven’t heard any rumors about a rogue then?”

                “One that attacks like this would have been caught, at the very least mentioned, but nothing has come up. So I’d have to say that it can’t be a vampire.”

                “What are your theories?” I asked trying to be engaged.

                She looked right at me, and her eyes still carried the glimmer of hunger. She was unsettling at the bare minimum, terrifying everywhere else.

                “I’d have to see the body to make any reasonable guesses.”