Hunter's Kiss Read online

  12th November.

  Mike opened his eyes and groaned at the fact that there was no light coming in the window. He checked, six a.m., and thought about trying to sleep, but there was the lingering memory of a nightmare hanging in his mind and he did not feel like going back to it. Leanne was pulling a double shift and would be arriving to collapse into his bed in a couple of hours, rather than dragging herself to Hell’s Kitchen. He decided on a shower: maybe Leanne would not be too tired when she got in. Some chance.

  The thought occurred as he dried himself off that he had had more than one disturbing dream since the attack. Not unnatural, he assumed, but these seemed thematic. Fangs, blood: vampires. The fangs had been explained: tooth veneers, they had said. The ME had looked and found them. What was setting Mike back was the weird feelings he had had before and during the attack. He could put the wild euphoria which had weakened him down to blood loss, but it had started before he had lost that much blood. And then there was the vague, sickly feeling he had had on seeing the man, but maybe that was just to do with what the killer had been doing…

  Coffee was made and Mike got his laptop out and booted it up. Thinking it was a bad idea, he started up a browser and searched on ‘vampire.’ Google gave him 129 million results, topped off with a website for ‘real’ vampires and a Wikipedia entry. There were a lot of images of stunningly beautiful women wearing contact lenses and fake fangs, and the Count from Sesame Street. Bela Lugosi was on the fourth row, which suggested that Leanne’s comment about the way vampire movies were going was right.

  He clicked Wikipedia. ‘A vampire is a mythical being,’ he read aloud. ‘Newsflash.’

  It was a pretty long entry. The black-clad-creature-of-the-night myth was European, it seemed, but there were stories of vampires from all over. Africa and Asia all had blood-sucking monsters of one form or another. There were as many explanations for why the beliefs about the creatures existed at all. Poor understanding of the process of decomposition, premature burial, rabies, and the blood disorder porphyria had all been suggested. Others just said that vampires filled a niche, a mythological niche rather than an ecological one: they were, essentially, an archetype of storytelling.

  He tried another site, and another, and he was still working through links when Leanne rolled in and fell down beside him on the sofa.

  ‘Vampires? Seriously?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t sleep and I was just looking. You know how it is when you start clicking links.’

  ‘Huh, yeah. Okay. It’s better than finding you browsing porn.’

  ‘Which I would never do.’

  ‘Oh… no.’

  ‘Anyway, I was hoping we could make some ourselves, but you look like it’s been a long one.’

  ‘I’m still a little wired. You’d be doing all the work, but I might let you. You know… Hypothetically, obviously, but if there were real vampires, there’s no way you’d find anything about them looking on there.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Nuh-huh. What happens when someone thinks they’ve found a real vampire?’

  ‘Murder enquiries, mobs with pitchforks…’

  ‘Yeah. So if there was anything even remotely like a vampire, they’d hide. That’s why there’s no way the guy you put down was a vampire. They just wouldn’t… couldn’t run wild like that.’

  ‘That’s… logical. But people go nuts. Human people go insane and murder other people. Why couldn’t a vampire do the same?’

  ‘Okay. Valid. I could fall back on “there ain’t no such thing as vampires,” but since we’re playing hypotheticals… The other vampires couldn’t let someone like that run around and prove they existed. They’d have to take him out and cover it up. Good old vampire conspiracy stuff.’

  ‘You’d never cover up something like that. Too many people would know…’

  ‘Vampires are immortal. They’d have a lot of time to get their conspiracy set up, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over it. No such thing as vampires, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Now, how about you take me to bed and help me wind down before I sink into oblivion for eight hours.’

  Mike grinned and hit the power button on the laptop. ‘I can do that, sure.’

  14th November.

  ‘He has spent a lot of time digging into vampires.’ The speaker looked to be about fourteen and she sat in a large, comfortable office chair surrounded by screens, keyboards, and mice, as well as a games controller off to one side. The room was dimly lit, much of the light coming from various displays.

  ‘Successfully?’ the ‘angel’ asked.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘All right. What do you think of his research technique?’

  ‘Starting at the top and trying everything you see is not a research technique.’

  ‘It’s my research technique, more or less.’

  ‘You use more judgement. He’s finding all the usual rot, nothing particularly useful unless you know what you’re looking for. One interesting thing came up.’

  ‘Oh?’ Perfect eyebrows raised a little, the angel was interested.

  ‘His girlfriend suggested he go out with her tonight. One of her flatmates wants to go to the Black Candle. He agreed very quickly.’

  The angel smiled. ‘It’s Friday and I’ve not much else on.’

  ‘Give Pat my regards.’

  ~~~

  The Black Candle was a few blocks from the apartment Leanne shared, but neither she nor Mike had ever been there. Mike had had a number of reasons for agreeing to go out to the place, among which was the fact that he had barely left his apartment all week and he was going stir-crazy. There was also the company, Leanne’s housemates, all of them medical residents like her. Lisa and Mark were okay, in Mike’s opinion, but Andy, the one who had persuaded everyone to try the Candle, was a bit of a jerk and tried it on with anything female every chance he got. Lisa and Leanne ignored him, but that did not stop him trying.

  Then there was the other thing. ‘This place has a bit of a reputation,’ Mike said to Leanne as they walked down W 48th. ‘No one’s ever managed to get anything on the owner, or catch anyone up to anything, but you get some… rough crowds in there.’

  ‘It’s dangerous?’ Leanne asked.

  ‘No. Probably not. No more dangerous than leaving you to Andy anyway, but I thought coming along might be safer.’

  ‘And you can sit between me and Andy.’ Leanne flashed him a grin.

  ‘And that.’ Mike cast his eyes ahead and spotted the club. In the middle of the block, it looked like a converted apartment building, five storeys high. The ground floor had a stone facia, the windows blocked up, and the upper floors were brick with barred windows. No light came from inside, which suggested some sort of blackout. The door was at one side, painted black, and there were two bouncers standing outside it. There was no queue, but Mike saw the bouncers turning someone away as the group of five approached, Andy in the lead.

  The head bouncer, or Mike took him as such, flicked casual eyes over them. He was a tall, heavily built man with a shaved head and hard, grey eyes. His gaze fell on Mike and lingered for a second, and then he waved them in. As Mike walked up, he saw the earwig in the man’s ear, and then the bouncer nodded and said, ‘Detective. You’ll prefer the third-floor bar.’

  ‘Uh… thanks,’ Mike replied and continued in through the black-painted door with its rather discreet sign: red, Gothic lettering on polished copper with the name of the club. In the small foyer, the throb of music became audible from further inside. To the right was a coat check with a smiling, very attractive, blonde attendant, and they paused to hand over their coats.

  ‘You’ve met that guy before?’ Leanne asked as they waited in line.

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘He seemed to know you.’

  ‘My picture’s been on TV recently.’ It was a source of mild embarrassment, but it was true.

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’ Leanne slipped her co
at off as she spoke. She was wearing her partying dress: she only had the one. It was short and black, which he appreciated, in a watermarked silk or satin. He had never been sure what the difference was between silk and satin, and did not care much. The dress had one solid shoulder and one composed of three thin strips, and there was a lace band around the hem, and she always coupled it with her ‘stripper shoes’: a pair of cross-strapped sandals with thick, transparent plastic soles. Leanne was a practical girl on a budget: this was her one and only frivolous outfit.

  ‘God, Lisa, why do you do this to me?’ Mike looked around at Andy’s voice to see Lisa’s chosen outfit for the evening. You might have been generous and described it as a dress: hot pink with a deeply cowled neckline, ladder back, and wide slits up the hips. Her sandals were high-heeled and had a wide band wrapping her ankle. Lisa spent more on clothes than Leanne did, but then both Mark and Andy spent more on clothes than Mike did, despite not having his income. Of course, in a few years, that would change when they were surgeons or something.

  ‘Because I can,’ Lisa replied, smiling. Few people who saw her believed she was a soon-to-be-practising physician: most thought she was, generously, a model, or a ditz if they were being unkind. That partially stemmed from the blonde hair, long enough to reach her breasts with a tendency to messy and, currently, bright pink streaks dyed into it. She was blue-eyed, slim, around five-foot-nine, with long legs and a trim body. While she did not have Leanne’s chest, she did make the most of what she had whenever she could, hence the diving neckline, and her breasts had a certain pert quality which Andy loved to comment on.

  Andy was tall and blonde, good-looking and solidly built. He had played football in high school, and you got the impression he was the kind of kid who picked on nerds, but he did have a good brain in there; it just tended to express itself like a jock, or maybe a stereotypical med student. Compared to him, Mark was straight-laced and ordinary, and very much the wingman. He had more of a dusky complexion than black skin, dark eyes and close-cropped, black hair. He was fit and fairly attractive, but he constantly lived in Andy’s shadow, despite being the brighter of the two. Perhaps because he was brighter, he did not let Andy drag him into too much trouble.

  ‘Music sounds good,’ Andy said.

  ‘It sounds loud,’ Leanne replied as Mike handed over his coat. ‘The guy on the door suggested the third floor.’ They walked through the heavy door onto a dancefloor which was throbbing with some sort of dark, Gothic rock, and a lot of bodies. ‘Definitely the third floor,’ Leanne added, though only Mike heard her. Still, Andy began weaving through the dancers towards the stairs at the back of the room.

  Mike watched the crowd as he moved. He was expecting to see evidence of drugs, but what he saw was something else and he was not entirely sure what it was. There was attention: Mike was sure there was more attention directed at the newcomers than he would have expected. Nothing dangerous, more curious. The dancers seemed… exotic, a little strange… and there was that weird feeling in Mike’s mind, but it was different, more of a head rush than nausea. Some of the looks they were getting seemed almost hungry, with a healthy dose of sexual tension. Well, there was a lot of pretty close dancing…

  The head rush faded, but did not vanish entirely, as they got to the second floor and a more sedate dancefloor. At one end of the room, a band was playing some sort of techno music: Mike was not too hot on that kind of thing, but it was lighter than the dark stuff downstairs. The floor area was smaller, surrounded by tables where various groups and couples sat. Many were watching the dancers, but several turned to look at the group of people crossing to the next set of stairs. This lot looked better off, in Mike’s opinion, but looks could be deceiving and the light downstairs was too dim to tell designer distressed leather from genuinely distressed.

  There were waitstaff here, two girls and a guy, dressed to kill and all attractive. The women were in heels which looked totally impractical for a waitress, but the girls showed no sign of discomfort. Mike’s feet ached just looking at them.

  And then they found the bar on the third floor. It was subtle, not at all brightly lit, with a lot of dark wood that seemed to absorb what light there was and booths around the edge which were mostly in deep shadow. On the street side of the building, the opposite end of the room from the stairs, was the bar counter with various people propping it up, and there was an empty table big enough to sit all five of them.

  ‘Almost as if we were expected,’ Andy said, grinning as he marched over. ‘You getting the first round in, Detective Williams?’ Andy only ever called Mike that when money was involved.

  ‘Yeah,’ Mike said as he joined Andy at the bar and waited for the woman behind it to see them.

  Mike knew who she was from talking to some of the vice cops at the precinct: Patrice Lumiere, born in New Orleans, she had been running the Candle for almost fifteen years and owned the place. She was tall and slim, quite beautiful with shoulder-length, pale-blonde hair and eyes the colour of good-quality whiskey. She was wearing a tank dress in pink and purple, and pink high heels, and she was not showing any discomfort either as she walked down towards Mike with a smile on her face.

  ‘Detective Michael Williams,’ she said, ‘the hero of the day. You did a good thing last week. I’m Pat. First round’s on the house.’

  ‘Uh… thanks, and if you’re Pat then I’m Mike.’

  Pat’s smile widened a little. ‘What’ll it be?’

  As the drinks were ordered, Mike looked around. The weird feeling in his head was still there, but subdued, and no one seemed to be looking their way. Except when he looked down the bar. At the end, perched on a stool in a tight, black, high-collared dress with a low front, was a woman. She was tall and dusky skinned with lush black hair that fell to her breasts. Her long legs were strapped into ludicrously high-heeled boots that ran up her calves, and she had a thin, black choker around her throat. And Mike was sure he should recognise her. She lifted the tumbler she was holding in a silent toast and gave him a nod.

  Leanne, of course, noticed. ‘Do you know that woman, Mike?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so, anyway. I think I recognise her, but… No.’

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  Mike looked at his girlfriend. ‘I am required by law to say that you’re more beautiful.’

  ‘Sweet-talker.’

  ‘Who knew having a cop on the team would get us free drinks,’ Andy said as they settled around the table.

  ‘Well, don’t expect it to be a common occurrence,’ Mike told him. ‘The news channels will find something else to focus on soon enough and then I’ll have had my fifteen minutes.’

  ‘You deserve more,’ Mark said.

  ‘For almost getting killed?’

  ‘For stopping that nut. What was it? Eleven dead in forty days? The guy was a maniac.’

  ‘Drinking blood,’ Andy added. ‘I mean, what kind of person drinks blood these days with all the potential diseases you could catch?’

  ‘A crazy one.’

  ‘Or a vampire,’ Lisa said.

  ‘Here we go,’ Andy said, grinning broadly.

  ‘No such thing as vampires, Lisa,’ Leanne said, a little wearily.

  ‘What? Look at the facts. He drank blood, and he was strong. Mike put, like, twenty rounds in him before he went down. PCP does not explain that.’

  ‘It has to, or something else, something more powerful.’

  ‘Now who’s clutching at straws to justify her beliefs?

  ‘Huh,’ Mark said, ‘this is a good conversation for a night out. How about we talk about something more amusing, like sclerosis of the liver?’ He lifted his beer.

  ‘That,’ Mike said, lifting his own, ‘is something I can get behind.’

  ~~~

  Mike made his way to the bar for another round of drinks and found the only space at it beside the black-haired woman on the stool. He looked down the bar and decided he might be waiting a small while since Pat was pretty busy; his
gaze turned to his neighbour.

  Up close, she was lusciously beautiful. Thin eyebrows arched up over large, blue eyes. She had high cheekbones over hollowed cheeks and a strong jawline. Her lips, painted a deep red, were full, almost pouting. Her figure was like something out of Playboy: her dress strained to hold in a very large pair of pert, rounded breasts, her waist was slim, her hips wide, and she had legs that belonged on a Vargas pin-up. There was something almost unnatural about her, as though she had been manufactured to be that perfect. Her dress, he noted, had a zip at the front, rising from the hem to her navel, which was unzipped for four or five inches.

  ‘Good evening, Detective,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’ Mike frowned. ‘Have we met before?’

  She just smiled. ‘I’m Diana, Diana Hunter.’

  ‘Mike Williams.’

  ‘I’m aware. You’ve been all over the news. “Hero cop ends chain of killings.”’

  ‘Yeah, well… I’m still not sure how I did that. I thought I was dead.’

  ‘Apparently you were mistaken.’ She had a voice to go with the body: lush and velvety with a throaty quality.

  ‘Apparently. I think they pumped the entire city’s blood supply into me at the hospital.’

  ‘You did exceptionally well. He is not going to kill another. You should take some pride in that.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’

  ‘Hello again, Mike,’ Pat said, appearing beside them. ‘Time for another?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I remember the list. You need another, Di?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Diana said.

  ‘Hey, I thought I’d come help with the drinks.’ Leanne managed to quietly insert herself into the group as Pat went after the drinks. It was not that Leanne got between Mike and Diana, but she placed herself so that she was clearly assuming a buffer position. Mike felt his cheeks flushing.

  Diana seemed not to notice. ‘Hello. We haven’t met. I’m Diana.’ She held out her hand to Leanne who took it automatically.