Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
A light tap on my window startles me from my thoughts. I turn to see a striking blonde woman standing beside the car, her platinum hair styled in perfect waves, a wannabe Veronica Lake. Her smile is dazzling but doesn’t reach her eyes—cold, calculating eyes that lock onto mine with unsettling intensity.
Before I can react, a strange heaviness settles over my mind, like fog rolling across my thoughts. Her lips move, forming words I can barely comprehend, yet they resonate within me with undeniable authority.
“Get out of the car,” she says, her voice carrying a subtle European accent. “You want to help your friend, don’t you? We’ve been watching for a long time.”
Something washes over me like mud. With drowning thoughts I realize it’s compulsion, stronger than any I’ve encountered before, stronger than even Adonis. I find myself reaching for the door handle even as a distant part of my mind screams warnings.
As I step out onto the sidewalk, the woman takes my arm with cold fingers, her grip both gentle and inescapable, her nails painted purple and terribly sharp. “Come with me,” she murmurs, leading me toward a waiting black Cadillac. “We have so much to discuss about Victor Callahan.”
20
CALLAHAN
The Los Angeles Police Department smells like stale coffee, cigarettes, and desperation. I’ve spent enough time in these halls to know the rhythms—the way detectives hide their frustrations behind dark humor, the way the typewriters clack in mechanical symphony, the quiet sobs from the interview rooms where lives are unraveled question by question.
Today, though, everything is different.
Or rather, I am.
I catch fragments of whispered conversations from across the bullpen, detect the subtle scent of bourbon on Coleman’s breath from twenty feet away, hear the racing heartbeat of a suspect being questioned two rooms over. My senses have been dialed to eleven since yesterday’s revelation, and I still don’t know how to filter the onslaught of information.
Vampire.
The word still feels foreign, absurd. Like something from a dime-store novel or late-night horror picture.
Me, Victor Callahan.
A vampire.
A monster.
Your worst nightmare.
I leaf through the police reports at Coleman’s desk while he’s fetching coffee, keeping my movements casual despite the tension coiling in my gut. I nearly didn’t come today, too afraid that the cops would be looking for me for shooting those two men at the hotel last night. But I know staying away would only raise suspicions. Besides, I need more information, now that I know what I am. I’m looking for any unexplained deaths during my blackouts, any murders I might have committed while that…other part of me was in control.
A thin folder catches my eye. Jane Doe, found near Elysian Park three days ago. The same night I woke up on that park bench with blood in my mouth, dirt under my nails, and hours missing from my memory.
The crime scene photos are stark black and white, but I don’t need color to recognize the horror they depict. A woman, mid-twenties, found behind a stand of trees off one of the hiking trails. Deep lacerations on both wrists, throat torn open. Body almost completely drained of blood.
The coroner’s preliminary report suggests suicide followed by animal activity—coyotes, perhaps, drawn by the blood. But I know better. The cuts on her wrists don’t seem to be self-inflicted. And what animal leaves a body drained but otherwise unmolested?
As I stare at the photos, something shifts in my mind—a door unlocking, revealing fragments of memory I’d lost. I see the woman’s face, alive and wary as I approach her in the darkness. Feel her pulse beneath my fingers as she struggles. Taste the copper-rich flood of her blood as my teeth—my teeth—tear through the delicate skin of her throat.
My stomach lurches. I have to grab the edge of the desk to steady myself, knuckles white with strain.
I killed her. During my blackout, I hunted and killed a woman like some kind of predator. Which is exactly what I am, according to Abe and Lena. A predator designed by evolution or God or the devil to feed on human beings.
“Find something interesting?”
Coleman’s voice jars me back to the present. He sets a chipped mug of coffee in front of me, studying my face with careful attention.
“Just browsing,” I manage, closing the folder. “Anything new on the Short case?”
He sighs, lowering himself into his chair. “Nothing solid. Still interviewing suspects, but none seem to stick. All the confessions we’ve had so far are from a bunch of loons who think going to jail is worth the time in the spotlight. Brass is putting pressure on us to wrap it up, sweep it under the rug.”
“What’s the rush? It’s the biggest case this department has seen in years.”
“Exactly.” Coleman sips his coffee, grimacing at the bitterness that I can smell from here. “Too much attention. And there are…connections we’re not supposed to be looking into.”