Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven) (4 page)

I flagged a cab and sat in irritated silence,
mulling over options I hadn’t been aware of. Dead hookers, even drained dead hookers,
simply should not be blowing a breeze up anyone’s skirt. Yet there it was,
sitting on my lap—a prime directive of sorts. An all-expenses paid jaunt to the
Big Easy. Names, addresses and a pass to hang and soak up some jazz.

Déjà vu.

Back to the beginning.

Back to the end.

If I hadn’t had my little epiphany in the alley, I
might never have connected the dots… or agreed to this trip. The Vamp feeding
on me had awakened memories someone had tried hard to erase. I was betting that
had been Trina, maybe someone else. That I might never know.

I also knew whoever was draining and killing innocent
and not-so-innocent victims in my city was a different animal altogether from
any vigilantes or sick fucks with a hard-on for messy.

The fact that my DNA was exhibit A should have
bothered me. It didn’t.

My flat was stifling and rank. I’d forgotten to take
out the trash again. After opening windows to let in the thick sultry air of
late afternoon fumes, I paced the small space, knocking aside bits of detritus
littering the floor.

Apparently the cleaning lady had taken the year off.

Annie was going to kill me.

But that was a tongue lashing for later. Right now I
needed to try on a few terms and see how well they fit.

Settling at the computer, I googled
Vampyre,
Council of Gotham, Haven, Goth Culture
and a host of other search terms for
the millionth time in a row. Nothing new popped.

Nothing except what was now in my head, clear as the
light of day.

Staring at the wavering screen did nothing for my
peace of mind. That nineteen-year-old, clueless kid had had big, bold brass
ones, never asking why, just living in the moment. The thirty-five year old man
knew a thing about loss and consequences, even if he never gave a rat’s ass about
any of that.

The closet door yawned open, and for no good reason
I pushed away from the desk and padded over to reach for the shoebox on the
upper shelf. It weighed next to nothing.

Mattress sagging under my weight, I laid the lid and
the box in a precise line, lid to the left, box to the right. Then I spread the
photographs out: one, two, three, four, down a row… repeat. Obsessive compulsive.
It was the only thing I did, the only tell I had, that gave insight into my
hidden fears. Eleven in all. Not having a twelfth often gnawed at my innards,
but I’d put on big boy loafers in my twenties and gotten past that.

The third from the right beckoned. I fingered it,
considering, then tapped two others, working down the grid. Avoiding the last
one for as long as possible.

New Orleans. Trina. That was taken the day before
she disappeared. Some tourist wandered past. Trina gave her the camera. Dear
God, I'd forgotten the particulars.

Nice lady, down to visit relations as she called
them. We chatted… well, Trina chatted, her English haltingly beautiful but
flawed. It made the warrior less imposing, more… human? Trina never smiled but
her eyes would crinkle, her lips might cock or twitch with silent mirth,
concealing the fake fangs I always thought were an affectation.

I wasn’t so sure about that now.

Not about the affectation but about them being fake.

Why I pulled that box out of the closet, I'll never
know. So many memories were flooding back, and I asked the question that had
had no answer for sixteen long years: I wonder if I will ever see her again?

My belly gurgled, reminding me that I was down a few
calories in the energy department. Never being a big eater had kept me lean.
Unfinished business kept me mean.

I flipped the cell open and hit speed dial.

She picked up on the fourth ring.

“Annie?” I listened to the garbled Spanglish on the
other end.

I explained about the trip. That I was out of town
meant little to her, but getting a retainer and all expenses… that had her
attention. She asked if I’d eaten, I said no, not bothering to keep the hope
out of my voice.

She signed off, giving me just enough time for a
shower.

The tee-shirt was a total loss. Avoiding the mirror,
I grabbed the bottle of Betadine and liberally squirted the rust-colored acid
wash over my shoulder—right, then left. The memory of her body pressed into mine,
the deep pulls at my neck… it was almost like the blonde girl had been
transparent, invisible. All I felt was
her
.

Annie keyed herself in, a small concession just in
case. If I was lying dead or severely injured on the floor, she’d be able to
get in and see to the few personal items I cared about.

My family had been too poor to trust banks; it was a
lesson I’d learned well and nothing over the years had dissuaded me from that
opinion.

“You look like sheeet, Micah.”

“Jose agrees with you.”

“He smart man, Jose.” She held up a cloth bag
bulging with covered dishes. “You no eat, you sick.”

I am sick… you just don’t know
how badly.

Annie, Anna Maria Theresa Rodriguez, was all of five
feet nothing—rounded, matronly, in her mid-forties with most of the kids gone
except for Juan who kept showing up like a bad penny after every stint in
juvie. Now he was fresh off a five-to-ten but out on good behavior. The penal
system’s definition of ‘good behavior’ and mine had a serious disconnect.

She set the containers on the table and rustled
around in a kitchen drawer for clean silverware, but finally gave up and pulled
out a box of plastic ware instead.

That’s my girl.

“Is not warm. I’ll nuke it.”

The smells were so mouth-wateringly delicious, I
said, “Don’t bother,” and stood by the sink eating out of the Tupperware.
Through a full mouth, I muttered, “Jesus Christ, this is good.”

“Micah,” she warned, but didn’t bother to hide the
glow of pleasure.

While I stuffed my face, I read over Talon’s new
info, trying to organize the ‘what I know’ and ‘things I wish I knew’ into the
appropriate columns.

No props for guessing which one had more items in
the ledger. When I finished, I rinsed the containers, surprised that I had
scoured them clean.

There weren’t many people I was comfortable being
around, and fewer still I let into my personal space, so it was with regret
that I bid Annie goodbye.

She tried to make excuses. “It’s Juan. You
understand.”

I didn’t. He was an abusive bastard, just like his
father. Waiting for the day when I had a good excuse to wipe the streets with
his ass gave me warm fuzzies. I wanted Annie to kick him out, once and for all,
but that wasn’t my call.

She came over and reached up on tiptoes to palm my
cheeks, squeezing gently.

“You good boy, Micah. You take care.” She grimaced
and thought about her words, weighing them carefully. “I no like you go to this
place. Is not lucky for you.”

“I know sweetheart, bad juju. But you know me…”

“Sí, that’s the trouble. I do know you.” She shook
her head and opened the door, leaving with a whispered, “
Vaya con Dios
.”

The night yawned empty and evil, the divide between
real and imagined closer, not nearly the maw it had been before last night.

I needed to decide what to believe. I had choices
and it had nothing to do with free will.

I wanted Catrina back in my life. I ached for her
feral, razor-sharp emotions and the whiplash seesaw of pleasure and pain. I
wanted to feel strong, alive… worthy.

Mostly I wanted back into that world. She was the
only ticket I had.

CHAPTER FOUR

By the Numbers

Annie’s refried black beans and rice sat heavy in my
belly, parallel parked next to a feeling of dread and salsa’d up with spicy
ain’t
doing right
. The text swam in murky waters… words, definitions,
explanations—none of it shedding light in those dark places my brain inhabited.

Pawing through Talon’s notes for the bazillionth
time did nothing for instilling clarity. He’d supplied all his peoples’
research jottings, file photos, newspaper clippings, and some cross-over links
to similar deaths in areas served by the parent company. Obits. Next of kin.

That’s where New Orleans had popped, and the reason
I was flying down on an all-expenses budget jaunt to look into a similar set of
‘circumstances’. Unsolved and unresolved. Four hookers, over a period of six
weeks, all united by occupation but not necessarily by body type, or even
location. All drained dry.

It was the tail-end of hurricane season. One of the
Goth Fests was in full swing when it, the incidents, started—Fall… nearly a
year ago. The first body barely made a ripple, nor did the second. By the
third, conspiracy theorists and those favoring serial killer stats had the
forums abuzz. One, two, three: bam, bam, bam. Like clockwork. The fourth hadn’t
been found until much later, and it was only through TV quality CSI-work that
links to the other three ‘ritual murders’ could be established.

Tabitha was first on the list, short and stocky, skin
the color of milk chocolate and on the far end of her use-by date judging from
the fuzzy file pic. A Detective Rochon and his new partner had gotten a
heads-up, strangely enough from the whore’s pimp. Time of death was put at too
far out to be useful and, as with my city’s body count, hardly worth the fuss.
Plenty more where she came from.

Det. Rochon also pulled number two, same pimp making
the call. More brown sugar, tall, skeletal lean. No pic, just the description.
Documentation didn’t seem to be a strong suit down there.

Their pimp had shot to the top of the leader board,
name of Baptiste, whether that was first, last or only name wasn’t noted. His
alibi on number two was solid, and the man was rattled to his shiny wingtips.
He pulled all his girls and rabbited before his right to remain silent ink
dried.

Number three was the freshest, discovered next to a
dumpster just hours after being drained. She was the only white girl,
relatively young, in her mid-to-late teens. No identification and no one to
claim her. Likely an independent contractor, aka runaway.

A few enterprising newshounds with math skills added
up the bodies and came to enough speculation and sensationalism to jack the
murders to page three. The force got put on mild alert in the red-light
district, but beyond that no one in an official capacity seemed to care. The
pimps reportedly hired muscle to patrol their allotted turf for a while. It
didn’t take a genius to see they were doing that to show the city fathers some
good faith efforts to clean up their own shit without unduly taxing official
coffers. It worked to some extent.

Number four was an afterthought, too decomposed to
be of use, but they had a name from dental records and some next of kin in a
northern parish with roots in Superstitionville. When the candles and charms
failed to pony up the perp, law enforcement lost interest.

It didn’t help that inclement weather wreaked
last-gasp havoc on both the law-abiding, and not so law-abiding, citizens. Whoever,
whatever, had chowed down on the ladies of the night slipped away with the last
of the storms.

I did the notes in chronological order,
cross-checked some missing persons, traipsed through homeless person reports, and
even missing teens, trying to trace some vector aiming toward my town. Nothing
popped.

What did pop was another beer tab, looking to
hydrate after Annie’s excellent, but fire-breathing repast. Sometimes osmosis
worked just fine for me. Shuffle the papers, move stuff around, pile A here,
list of whatevers there, letting my subconscious have at it.

I’d already had the ‘aha’ moment the night before.
What I needed was backstory… and a why. There’d been a tail, I was sure of it.
Was it the Goth—Vamp—chick from Haven? If the mythology was true, then the
answer to that was… unlikely. It’d still been light outside when I left the
dormitory in Brighton Beach. However, that didn’t preclude a helper bee from
the novitiate ranks doing surveillance.

She, they, knew I’d be at the club, knew what I was
looking for. I’d been targeted. I’d bet my sorry ass life on it. And in my
tequila-addled state of lust, it never occurred to me that one half of that
carnal sandwich had been a set-up. Hindsight being twenty-twenty didn’t alter
the fact I’d been cocky and stupid.

Tall, dark and toothy had given me answers, ones
that even now left me with cravings nice boys only fantasized about. I was no
longer a nice boy, hadn’t been since I walked away from hearth and home into
the arms of a porcelain-skinned, silver-haired dreadlocked freak with fangs and
skills that still set my blood boiling.

The Haven Vamp chick had taken me to all the places
my head and body remembered, putting me right on that fast track to Hell. Then
she’d done a Vulcan mind meld on me, because no way was I conjuring up the passage
of time between the mother of all orgasms and coming to, peering down into the
East River at the crack of dawn.