United Service (2 page)

As he brushed his shoulder length dirty–blond hair, he studied himself in the mirror. He spent time last night in the mansion’s private gym lifting weights with his father. Sterling’s muscular physique was well formed, and even the poor reflection showed his ripped muscles. He took great pride in this lure since it worked so well where human women were concerned.

He paused and leaned into the mirror. Was that a gray hair? Yep, but only one. Next, he studied his eyes. Wrinkles had formed overnight as well. Looking down at the medallion of the Patron Saint of Rain, Genevieve, he noticed a gray chest hair. Guessing his age was now in the mid–thirties he continued to brush his hair as he waited for the effects of his breakfast on his body.

The wait wasn’t long. He felt the warmed blood course through his veins and his cells began to regenerate. His hair gained more color, his wrinkles ironed themselves out, and he had a healthier glow about him. He took a deep breath and glanced back in the mirror. His fuzzy reflection showed him at the age of twenty–seven again. It was his age during his Jahrling Year, when he transitioned into a full vampire and his fangs extended to their full size to allow him to eat a blood–only diet. His fangs came in late because he was a half–breed. If he had been a purebred vampire, he could look as young as the age when most humans got their wisdom teeth, their early twenties. It was just one more thing to thank his long dead mother for, not that he ever had a chance to meet her.

The blood lust from his morning’s breakfast finally hit him. The sensation would come quicker if he had injected the blood direct into his veins. By orally consuming it, his spleen had to process the blood from his digestive system to his circulatory system, which took time. The first drops of blood acted as a fountain of youth, then eventually affecting other areas of his body like liquid Viagra. With no woman to satisfy him, he ignored his aroused state and decided to dress. Besides, feeling miserable was the norm. It didn’t bother him to remain uncomfortable.

He opened the top drawer of his dresser and pulled out a pair of socks and underwear. From the middle drawer, he pulled out a set of skin coverings. They resembled long johns but were made from a light cotton fabric. They covered him from neck to ankles and prevented most of everything from touching him. They weren’t a great fashion statement, but they worked well. He walked to his closet for a pair of jeans and a shirt.

He had just finished dressing when his cell phone buzzed. It was another Colony member, Daniel, who was working downtown, and the one vampire in the world Sterling avoided as much as possible.

The phone rang again, and Sterling stared at it with a grimace on his face. When it rang a third time, he answered it. “Yes, what?” Sterling huffed.

“
Good morning to you too, mate,”
Daniel said in a slightly faded British accent.
“I’m with the police looking into a bloody murder, quite literally. I think you ought to see this.”

Sterling cursed under his breath. Miss Manners never covered the social protocol of how to behave when dealing with a man you murdered in cold blood, and then had turned into a vampire against his will.

He could understand the need to exact revenge, but Daniel forgave him for what he did. On top of that, Daniel was nice to him, which made no sense to Sterling. He gritted his teeth, “Text me the address.”

Sterling jumped into his Ferrari and punched the address into its GPS system. As he drove, the intensity of the itchy sensation on his skin grew. He blamed the irritation on heavy smog as he got closer to the city, as well as mold, cedar and other allergens probably high this time of year. Right now any areas not hidden by his skin covering and gloves itched, mostly his face and neck. He could live with that. His headache remained mild, so he was in good shape to start his day.

The GPS system guided him to a beautiful two story home. The red brick house resembled something from a Norman Rockwell painting. It resided in a little neighborhood tucked away from the busy streets by a tall grove of trees. The house even had a white picket fence.

Police cars lined the streets, which told Sterling the forensics team remained inside. Sterling parked his car on a side street and walked up to the officer guarding the entrance to the home. Judging by the man’s jacket, he worked on the homicide squad. Sterling wasn’t surprised, considering the smell of blood that was in the air. The officer seemed young, and human – so not a problem. Sterling looked the man in the eye. “You are going to let me pass.” The man stepped aside, and even apologized for being in Sterling’s way.

The early morning sunlight shined through the windows and glass sections in the front door. It lit up the downstairs foyer as Sterling walked in, causing his shadow to stretch across the marble entryway. Blood stained the floor of the home. The red spatter ran from the front door all the way up the staircase, marking the white carpet on each step. Sterling placed his feet carefully outside the dark red trail as he walked further into the home, removing his sunglasses once he was safely inside.

The forensics team kept busy by bagging, swiping and collecting the evidence. The humans were too busy to notice Sterling as he searched the downstairs for Daniel. Not finding him on the ground floor, Sterling walked up the huge, slightly winding staircase. He found Daniel on the second floor in one of the bedrooms. “I’m here. What do you need to show me?” he asked Daniel. He rarely made eye contact with the vamp he had murdered and had turned, and today, as he looked away from Daniel, was no different.

The blue–painted room seemed like it was for a young boy. The double bed, the computer and backpack in the corner told Sterling the boy was no longer a toddler. He walked over to the nightstand and opened a small plastic case that contained a retainer. He set the case down and touched other objects on the table – an mp3 player, a headset and a LEGO toy.

Daniel stood over the bed studying a bloodstain. “Right. Thanks for coming by,” said the gray haired vampire, who appeared to be in his mid–sixties. “What I need to show you is in the master chamber.” He led Sterling from the tiny room down the long hallway to the bedroom. “This house is owned by a Ms. Lenora Miller. She lived here alone with her son, Stephen, who is ten years old. I don’t know where the boy is, but I think I found what’s left of his mother.”

They entered the master bedroom where Sterling noticed a uniformed officer. “Sterling, this is Captain Travis. He’s with the crime scene search unit. He’s the one that alerted me about this case,” Daniel said.

The officer wore his dress blues, and they were crisp and sharp. Even his badge was polished. Judging by the man’s salt–and–pepper hair, Sterling guessed the man to be in his mid–fifties. Taking a good look at the officer, Sterling felt a slight tingle on his skin. He could tell the officer was a vampire, one of the many who hid among humans and lived their lives in secrecy. His appearance now made sense to Sterling. Everything in tip–top shape, nothing out of place, and nothing to notice about the man. He probably dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’. It was a perfect camouflage in a crowded world. Blend in, and don’t be noticed.

Captain Travis glanced from Daniel to Sterling, and then recognition set in his eyes. It was a look Sterling knew too well as a half–breed. Sterling gave off no predator threat and appeared to most vampires as human. The only telltale sign to Sterling’s lineage was he had no body warmth, nor did he reek of human food and body odor.

“Sterling’s a good bloke, I’ve worked with him for years,” Daniel said, offering the officer no other credentials for Sterling.

Travis’ muscles relaxed as he nodded toward Sterling. “Personal diary, phone and laptop,” Travis said, handing a box to Daniel. “We’ll need them as evidence, but you should scan them first for any delicate information before the humans review them.” Travis picked up his field–testing kit and walked to the door to leave the room. “Just make sure I get everything back once you’ve scrubbed it down.”

Once they were alone, Daniel set the box down near the bed. The bed was unmade, with the sheets rumpled and hanging to the floor. A thick chain was wrapped around the bed and through the frame itself, held in place by padlocks. The chains were slack, as if once they had held something down, but that something was no longer there to hold the chains taut. A small layer of dust lay on top of the heavily stained fitted sheet.

Daniel pointed towards the center of the bed. “Forensics already collected her dust, but they had no idea it was her remains. I already removed it from evidence and erased them from the records.” As Sterling’s ungloved hands approached the chains, Daniel warned, “Those chains are silver. Don’t touch them.”

Noticing Daniel’s burned hand, Sterling touched the bed frame and ran his hands along the sheets. His hands grew warm. They tingled as he closed his eyes. Visions of Lenora’s life, who she was, what her dreams were, they all appeared to him. Lenora was her real name, but not Miller. Stephen was her son, but she had another child who was already an adult. He touched the pillow where Lenora’s tears had fallen and the images Sterling saw in his mind grew darker.

The man had surprised her as she was about to drift off to sleep, and had snuck up to the bed before she had even detected his presence. His eyes were wild, and his long bangs had dipped well below his brow, which had given him the appearance of a madman. The chains were already put across her chest, burning her flesh, before she had even cried out to her attacker to spare her son’s life. Sterling watched through Lenora’s eyes as the knife was lifted and a phrase in Latin was uttered. He felt her fear, and it caused his body to shiver. She had known she would die right here today, in this bed, at this man’s hands.

Sterling read more about Lenora’s long life and guessed her age to be about 150 years. It was common for vampires to live among humans. It was rather easy to do. They would move to a new neighborhood and feed often to appear in their twenties. Overtime they would feed less often and age gracefully. A vampire could live in the same place for roughly seventy years at a time, adjusting their age accordingly. They would then fake their death and move on. Sterling could tell Lenora had done this often. She was slightly younger than Sterling himself.

“This knife was found in the center of the bed next to the chains.” Daniel held up a dagger stored in a protective plastic evidence bag. “The stain on the knife is not human blood.”

Sterling blinked a few times to remove the visions from his mind. He focused his eyes on the knife and the blackened stain. His skin itched as though bitten by dozens of fire ants, and he had only touched the bed sheets. He learned years ago not to scratch because that only made it worse. Instead of scratching, he took the bag from Daniel and studied it. The purple blood was from a vampire and it belonged to Lenora. She had been staked with this knife as she lay helpless on the bed, chained up like an animal with silver chains that surely had burned her skin. “The knife has writing on it,” Sterling noticed.

“Yes. But bugger if I could read it,” Daniel said.

“It’s Latin. It reads, ‘Instrument of the Lord’.” Sterling opened the plastic bag and touched the knife. His fingers instantly heated by the touch. Images, evil images, slammed into his head like a freight train crashing through a shopping mall. His breath caught and a tear escaped as he closed his eyes and watched the horrific images. He saw as the man stabbed Lenora, and he felt the man’s joy as she bled out and turned to dust. Sterling’s hand shook and he dropped the knife.

He blinked a few times and then cleared his throat. “The knife is one of dozens. It belongs to a group who called themselves, The Hands of God.” He placed the knife back in the bag and sealed it. “They believe that they perform the acts God needs them to do.”

Sterling could still feel the twisted mind of the religious zealot who plunged the dagger into another living being. The murderer had felt righteous in the killing and had felt no remorse. It wasn’t the first kill he had done, either. The images that had flooded Sterling’s mind now caused his headache to pound.

“These religious freaks know about vampires,” he cursed. “They took Stephen to save him.” Sterling turned to face at Daniel. “You said the boy is ten?”

“Right. About that age,” Daniel answered as he picked up the box of Lenora’s personal belongs. “We’ll have to check with your father about the family line, but I’m guessing the boy is about halfway to his Jahrling Year.” Daniel paused and then said in a hushed voice, “Unless, of course …”

Sterling’s eyebrow rose as he noticed the pause. “What?”

Daniel cleared his throat and then asked quietly, “Could the boy be a half–breed?”

Sterling hated when people walked on eggshells regarding the subject of half–breeds, saying it in whispers as humans would say ‘cancer’. “Lenora was a pure vampire,” Sterling assured him.

“What about Stephen’s father?” Daniel pressed.

Sterling shook his head. “The father couldn’t have been human. Must have been a purebred or turned vampire.”

“What about a half–breed father?”

Sterling shrugged. “Maybe. But, the boy would be a purebred regardless.”

Daniel surveyed around the room. “There’s nothing around that tells you anything about the lineage?”

Sterling’s jaw slackened and his eyes widened in disbelief. “It’s not like we half–breeds wear badges,” Sterling sternly said, now looking at Daniel. He took a few steps towards the door shaking his head. “If I had to guess, I’d say the boy is a purebred.” Sterling wanted to believe that, at least. He didn’t want to think other half–breeds had better luck with the female vamps than he had experienced.