Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven)

(Blood Haven)

By

Nya Rawlyns

Gotham’s rules of engagement are
simple: no contact with humans … ever.

Rules more honored in the breach
than the observance, with consequences

that threaten the fabric of their
very existence.

PI Micah Shephard exists on the
city's fringes—the go-to man when the evidence

points to the impossible. A
venerable city institution hires him

to discover secrets best kept
hidden.

In the hidden world of the
vampire subculture, not everyone toes the party line.

When the Council’s resident bad
boy goes missing, it’s a race against time

to avoid a very public bloodbath
and an outing none can afford.

CAJUN GOTHIC

(Blood Haven)

Copyright ©2013 Nya
Rawlyns

First electronic
edition published by PubRight

ISBN (eBook):
978-0-9892496-1-4

Published in the
United States of America with international distribution.

Cover Design by Kayden
McLeod

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by
any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from
the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’
imaginations or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Erin O’Quinn and all her bad boys.

BOOK
ONE

MICAH

Poseurs and
tourists gather in a pretend world that chains NYC's Goth and Vamp

subcultures in
profitable bondage. Only the Council knows what's real, what isn't.

There are rules:
for engagement, for feeding, for exhibitionism.

Dead whores pose
no problem. Drained dead whores are news.

Some say that’s
good for business. Others disagree.

Private eye
Micah Shephard exists on the city's fringes—the go-to man when

the evidence
points to the impossible, to where truth and answers seldom intersect.

A venerable city
institution offers him a generous per diem.

It's just
another job, until Micah realizes the new client is unexpectedly ... himself.

CHAPTER ONE

Micah's Archives

Thurs. Aug. 9 notes:

Det. O'Hearn interview, case
notes, Medical Examiner report: Confusing the hell outta me, ME indicates body
drained, but little blood despite mess on the wall and around face.

Known to frequent Fangs &
Topaz, "friends" with 33-ME, hooker (indie), periphery of the cult,
did not imbibe (blood) yet. Puncture wounds consistent with... what? ME says
force of penetration consistent with animal attack (??). This is the third one
this month. WTF's going on? Need more before I take this to the client.

Shit, this one's gonna freaking
haunt me. The smell… it was like whoever did it... enjoyed himself.

Looking over some stuff from
home—shouldn't keep it there but it's too dangerous to have it all in one
place. Not secure enough here.

This one's friends w/ murdered
hooker. Got bad feeling about the meet. Wonder if I should try to find her -
try Topaz tonight? Notes: 3-9-2012, Subject 33-YZ, MP3 file (secured)

This chick seriously had me
shitting my drawers. Frequents 2 of the 3 top Goth/Vamp 'Nests'. Bouncer (yeah)
at Topaz, splits time between night job & lifestyle choice. True believer.
Zoned out on E, not much useful, try back later. Will think about her 'offer'
(Jesus, am I nuts or what?).

Prelim: psycho sally but that's
it, not exactly harmless (to me), watch step with this one…

Calendar: Wed. midnight (better
fortify myself).

****

Hoofing it from the Post building, I joined the
crush of suits in the daily pilgrimage hemorrhaging from the Financial District
to spread lemming-like through all quarters of the five boroughs. There was no
need for me to change; scruffy jeans and a tee would do just fine. I’d grabbed
my leather jacket and the notebook earlier in a rare episode of foresight.
Luddite that I was, I stuck to pencil and paper; electronics were too much temptation
for where I was headed.

Picking up the Q-Line at Canal Street, I stood
cheek-to-jowl with the unwashed masses, keeping my mind carefully blank. Too
many thoughts raced helter-skelter through my head, too much information
pointing to the impossible and the imponderable. I couldn’t pin the quote, but
the gist of it was… if I couldn’t fucking explain away the evidence in front of
my eyes, then what was left was… true.

And that simply was not going to fly. Not with my
client. That old-school sumbitch was about as likely to accept my thesis as he
was to wear a frigging tutu to work. That’s what you got when the Managing
Editor for a major rag coughed up two large plus expenses per diem.

I knew why he picked me, Micah Shephard, your
bulldog for a day. I just wish he hadn’t. Kicking that anthill wasn’t going to
lead to what Annie called ‘
resultados positivos
’. My conscience and
sometimes personal assistant had an annoying habit of keeping me on track.

There is no try, there is only
do…

Yeah, yeah, enough with the
mental finger quotes, bitch.

The coach slowly shifted its human cargo, and little
by little my lungs found enough room to breathe… not that I wanted to inhale
anything too deeply. What spewed off got replaced with garlic and stale beer,
and that odd essence that told me we were hanging solid in the stink of Russian
Mafiya turf. I slid into a seat next to a babushka, nodded politely and got a
glare for my efforts.

Two stops later I got off at Brighton Beach.

I finally had a name and address for the dead hooker.
A lot of the uptown talent originated in the Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach districts,
all pipelined in from the old country as economics made a shambles of the
Eastern European block. That alone, the skin trade, would have given Talon, my
editor-client, a hard-on in his younger days; but lately it took more to get it
up. Dead bodies of hookers piling up? Who gave a damn? Certainly none of the pimps
and none of the city fathers and their prissy trophy bitches did.

Chill, man.

The image of the hooker splayed like so much meat in
that tub, the careless way she’d been left in death reeked in more ways than
one.

The idea—‘serial killer’—was getting good play. But
I needed some icing on that cake to make it front-page material for a man obsessed
with the bottom line. And if I could provide an op ed, then that’d be sprinkles
on top.

I needed sprinkles. But the confection I tracked was
crimson, and stank of iron and despair.

The doors wheezed open, and I exited with the
babushka and her dozen plastic bags. We parted ways; I headed toward 11
^th
and she turned west toward a row of shabby clapboards. I checked the address.
The place wasn’t near as bad as I expected, as if some care had been taken to
lift it from modest squalor to pride of place. I heard the giggles filtering
through an open window. Crap, I had a feeling this was a dormitory. That might
be good, but maybe not.

If I was lucky, one of them would speak English… or
offer me a blow job. Right then I was easy.

I knocked on the door and the giggling stopped.

I wasn’t a weapons expert, despite my
undistinguished stint serving Uncle Sam, but I recognized the sound of a nine
millimeter being cocked. I dug in my wallet for my license-to-pry and said a
little prayer.

The door cracked and a mountain in black stared at
me with displeasure.

The bit of plasticized ID wavered as I held it up
for his edification and enjoyment. When he moved to slam the door in my face, I
spoke, proud my voice didn’t crack.

“I’ve come about Svetlana?”

Svetlana, the corpse with the empty veins and no
last name. A high pitched sob from the upper reaches had Ivan reconsidering my
options.

He stood back and beckoned me in.

Squeezing past him, I reached for my notebook. The
Sig Sauer pressed against my ear and we wormed our combined masses into a narrow
hall.

I smelled cabbage. Cheap perfume. Ivan’s sweat. And
a shitload of fear.

I put all thoughts of a blow job aside.

My nose smelled a story, and my nose was seldom
wrong.

Ivan holstered the weapon.

The rooms stacked in a long line, living room to
dining area to kitchen—the entranceway to that layout immediately to my right.
I knew that because the mountain maneuvered me through the archway and into a
cluttered space littered with newspapers, paper plates and overflowing ashtrays.

Ivan made a space on the futon and I sat, glad I
hadn’t overdressed for the occasion. The downstairs appeared empty. Not so the
upper floor. I heard soft scuffling and tittering, voices low, trilling in what
was probably Russian or Ukrainian. Not that I could tell the difference.

The mountain moved to the arch and peered up the
stairwell. A pair of very long, shapely legs teetered unsteadily on platform pumps
with some kind of crisscrossing fabric wrapping halfway up calves that made my
mouth water. Ivan murmured something and took her elbow, guiding her down the
last couple steps. He allowed her to move into the room, hovering over her like
a mother hen.

It didn’t take a genius to know he was smitten.

As well he should be.

She was all leg, narrow-hipped and angular, not a
spare bit of flesh on a five-five frame. She gave the impression of being taller.
I stayed rooted to my seat. If I stood, she’d know exactly how happy I was to
see her.