Zombies Sold Separately (5 page)

“You smell Vampires.” Wysocki said it as a statement with a heavy overlay in her tone that meant she had a hard time grasping that concept.

“Yes.” I met her gaze. “Their odor is like graveyard dirt. The older the Vampire, the stronger it is.”

Her frown deepened. “I never smelled anything like that when I was on cases involving Vampire attacks in the past.”

“That’s because you’re not a paranorm,” I said. “Most of us have a keen sense of smell. Some more than others.”

Wysocki stared at me for a long moment. No one said anything to break the silence.

With her thumb and forefinger, she rubbed at her temples as she stared at the body parts. Finally she said, “You did a damned good job on the last case. I trusted you on the Vampire slayings and you came through.” Her gaze met mine. “What you call paranorms … I guess anything is possible in this city.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Anything is possible. Things humans would never believe are a part of the world I come from.”

“I take it you’re not a Vampire,” she said with an assessing look. “If you’re not human, what are you?”

“I’m half human…” I glanced at Olivia, who shrugged, and Adam, who gave a brief nod. I met Wysocki’s gaze again. “I’m also half Drow.” The police captain tilted her head to the side, clearly not understanding, so I added, “Drow are Dark Elves. My people live in Otherworld, not here.”

Again it was quiet as she studied me. “One of these nights I’ll buy you a beer and you can explain everything.” She held up one hand as I started to say something. “Not promising I believe every word you’re saying, but I’ll listen. Enough has happened to convince me there is more out there than I had ever thought.”

“Good enough for me.” I thought briefly about taking her to the Pit and decided that might be too much for the captain to absorb.

The change in Wysocki truly was incredible. From the disbelieving police captain who’d wanted to kick us off the first Vampire massacre scene, to her growing if reluctant acceptance of the paranorm world, and her willingness to listen, was a huge difference. Her newfound respect for me had been hard won, but I’d earned it.

I turned to face the horror we had to figure out how to stop from happening again. Snow was already starting to cover the bodies. We needed to hurry and complete our own investigation before Lulu unfroze the scene.

“Were there any witnesses?” I asked.

“No.” Wysocki blew out her breath. “However, we did find a couple of cell phones in the snow and a wallet and phone on one of the male victims.”

In her rubber-gloved hand, she held up a black Motorola wireless. “Made a few calls from the phone that was on the victim who had a wallet and we got lucky on the fifth call.”

She continued, “A family member said that the victim and his girlfriend, along with two other couples, left together to take a stroll down Cherry Walk. They’d been partying just a couple of streets up on Seventy-Fifth. That means the victim was possibly with five other people.”

Olivia pointed her finger at each torso. “I only counted five bodies.”

Adam’s frown deepened. “So we’re looking at a possible abduction, too.”

“Maybe.” Wysocki must have had a killer headache by the look on her face as she rubbed her temples again. “Judging from the brutality of the attack, I have a feeling we’ll find her body somewhere else in the park.”

I shuddered. I’d seen my fair share of grisly scenes over the past couple of years, but they still made me queasy every time.

The snowfall began to thicken and visibility wasn’t as good. “We’d better hurry so that they can get back to their investigation,” I said.

We were always conscious of not disturbing the scene or impeding the NYPD’s investigation. Minus any paranormal evidence that might require a little cover-up.

Olivia and I did a quick but thorough search and examination of the scene while Adam tracked the bloody footprints leading away from the slaughter. Wysocki was busy making calls.

“Not a damned clue beyond what you’ve already laid out.” Olivia came to stand by me. “Other than those prints Boyd is tracking.”

My gaze followed the trail of prints in time to see Adam jogging back. When he reached us, he said, “No more visible prints after the perpetrators leave Riverside Park.”

I looked at the captain. “You have my number to update me on whatever you find.”

Wysocki looked beyond my shoulder. “We’ll finish photographing and processing the prints, along with everyone else, as soon as your princess over there unfreezes the scene.”

Adam, Olivia, and I turned to look at Lulu who sat on the park bench with her back stiff and straight.

Olivia glanced at the bodies, then back at Lulu. “Hold on while I borrow a foot.”

SIX

After I spoke with Rodán and brought him up to date on the crime scene we’d just come from, I called Tracey, who’d discovered the paranorm murder scene with Robert.

While I talked with Rodán and then Tracey, Olivia started her search on the Internet. Police reports, media articles, blogs, Twitter, Facebook—whatever form of information she could find that mentioned anything close to what we’d seen earlier.

“Hi, Nyx.” When she answered, Tracey, a Sânzian˘a—Romanian Fae—sounded sweet on the phone, like she did in person. But like all Sânziene, who were known for their gentle dispositions, Tracey was as deadly as she was sweet. “Rodán said you were going to call on the paranorms we found last night.”

“Are you positive it was a Vampire attack?” I asked her as I held the phone tight. I hoped it wasn’t Vampires. If it wasn’t it had to be something easier to take care of, right? “Was there anything unusual about the scene?” I asked.

Tracey paused for a moment, then spoke. “Robert and I have been talking about it … and the more we discuss it, the less likely it seems that it was a Vampire attack.”

Like earlier, a rush of relief cruised through me. That rush was followed by a flood of concern over the question of what was actually doing this. The fast shift in emotions made me lightheaded.

“I’m investigating human deaths that were originally attributed to Vampires.” I rested my free arm on my glossy Dryad-wood desktop. “But when I was at the scene I determined they weren’t.”

“Too much blood,” Tracey said. “Not to mention the type of bite marks and no neck wounds.”

“Exactly.” It was good to hear I was not alone in my conclusion. “Did you smell Vampires?”

I imagined Tracey shaking her head as she said, “No. That’s another reason why Robert and I think we were wrong in our initial assessment.”

Tracey didn’t have much more to offer. What they’d come across was similar to the human deaths that Olivia, Adam, and I had investigated earlier. Mutilated bodies, chunks of flesh torn out, lots of blood.

“Oh,” she said just as I was about to disconnect the call. “We think two paranorms that were originally with the group are missing.”

“Missing?” I tried to wrap my mind around that one. Now why would some people out of a group be taken? If it was a Vampire attack, that was an easy one. Vampires liked to take select humans and “turn” them. If the turn was successful, then the Vampires had a fledgling to add to their ranks.

After I finished debriefing Tracey, I went into the break room and made myself a cup of hot green tea sweetened with honey. Warmth flowed into my chest as I sipped it.

“Over the past two months there have been unexplained attacks similar to today’s, only smaller,” Olivia said when I walked out of the break room. She studied her wide screen monitor. “Similar in the way the bodies were dismembered and large amounts of blood. Not to mention huge chunks bitten out of various body parts.”

The swallow I’d just taken of my cup of hot tea suddenly felt burning hot. I set my teacup on the credenza beside the mail inbox.

“Let me see.” I walked across the tile to lean over her Dryad-wood desk and peer at her screen. Olivia still smelled of a snowy winter’s day after being outside for so long.

“Found a police report from Brooklyn that’s pretty interesting.” She pointed toward one of the six windows she had open on her huge screen. “Then I dug a little deeper.”

“Go on,” I said when she paused.

Olivia touched the screen over a coroner’s report that she’d managed to hack into. “A college kid was found last week near Dumbo with so many bites taken out of him that he was barely recognizable. Kid was eaten alive.” She looked at me. “Missing his heart, liver, kidney, right lung, and most of his heart.”

My stomach twisted at the thought of what the guy must have gone through in Dumbo—Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

“The police report said he was with his girlfriend, according to a family member,” she continued, “but they couldn’t find her. She’s an heiress from a very wealthy family so it was thought she might have been kidnapped for ransom. She showed up two days later.”

“Go on,” I said.

Olivia nodded and pointed toward a missing persons report. “She didn’t remember a thing. Said she’d been sick, yet no one had seen her or could find her.”

I frowned. Strange.

Next to the coroner’s and police reports, Olivia showed me another window with a medical report. Olivia had ways of getting into things without actually hacking into them herself. I was pretty computer savvy for someone who had spent the first twenty-five years of her life without technology. But what Olivia did was beyond me.

“The girl took the attack surprisingly well considering what happened to her boyfriend,” she said.

I pursed my lips. “Maybe she’s in denial.”

Olivia rocked back in her chair. “Something like that.”

“There was someone missing from the group who was murdered in Riverside Park,” I said. “And two paranorms missing from another group hatchet job last night.”

She raised her brows, then gestured to the screen next to the coroner’s examination, this one a police report. “A month ago in the Bronx, a report came in from someone who said a homeless man tried to chomp on his arm.

“The victim was wearing a heavy leather coat so the attacker’s teeth didn’t make it through,” she continued. “Guy punched his attacker and ran. According to the police report there were tooth marks on the coat. They were deep enough that it showed the attacker’s teeth had punctured the thick leather and almost made it through the lining.

“This blog,” Olivia said, indicating the third window across, “is written by a teen here on the Upper West Side who swears she saw a homeless man rip off a woman’s arm before taking a bite out of it. No other witnesses were around and the police never found a body. The girl says the police didn’t take her seriously.”

I winced at the images that came to mind from the girl’s story. “With no proof it would sound pretty farfetched coming from an adult, much less a teenager.”

“On WABC a piece aired ten days ago about a rise in the homeless population.” Olivia pointed to another window. “Those who don’t go into the shelters even though you’d freeze your ass off in this weather.”

“What do the homeless have to do with all of this?” I asked.

“You tell me.” She tilted her head. “Two of three reports mention homeless men. Then we have an article about a rise in the homeless population.”

I straightened a little and braced my palms on her desktop. “Do we have some kind of homeless paranorms who could do what we’re seeing?”

“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Olivia said. “And maybe it’s not.”

“Strange.” I rose. “It might be a good idea to interview some of the homeless in areas where the attacks, or alleged attacks, happened.”

“My thoughts, too,” Olivia said. “But we probably want to do it now while it’s still daylight—when you’re not purple. Otherwise you might scare off all of those poor guys.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Amethyst,” I said.

“Whatever, grape butt,” she said to me and I snatched up an eraser from the pile on her desk and pinged it off her head.

Olivia rubbed her scalp. “You do know this means war.”

“What, you and your army of Dwarves?”

She went for the wooden rubber band shooter in her center desk drawer and had it loaded with an eraser almost as fast as she could draw her Sig Sauer.

I raised my hands. “Sorry. Really, I am.” But I couldn’t hold back a laugh.

She scowled at me. “I’ll sorry your ass.”

I dodged the first eraser, then threw up an air shield so that the next one almost hit her on the rebound.

“No fair.” Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Fight like a woman.”

I grinned. “All is fair in love and magic.”

*   *   *

After I changed into blue jeans and a simple navy boat-necked T-shirt, I stuffed my ID and a fistful of bills into my pocket and grabbed a black leather jacket out of my closet.

Olivia and I never went anywhere unarmed and I wore my side holster with my Kahr K40 9mm beneath the jacket. I’d also slipped small but wicked daggers with serrated blades into the sheaths on the inside of each of my Elvin boots. I slid my phone into a leather phone holster before clipping it to my belt.