Chapter 11
Larry slumped in the seat as far as the seat belt would let him. His hands were clenched tight in his lap. He stared out into the dark like he was seeing something besides the passing scenery. Images of butchered teenagers dancing in his head, I bet. They weren't dancing in mine. Not yet. I might see them in my dreams, but not awake, not yet.
"How bad will this one be?" he asked. His voice sounded quiet, strained.
"I don't know. It's a vampire victim. Could be neat, just a couple of puncture wounds; could be carnage."
"Carnage like the three boys?"
"Dolph said no, said it's classic, just bite marks."
"So it won't be messy?" His voice was squeezed down to a near whisper.
"Won't know until we get there," I said.
"You couldn't just comfort me?" His voice sounded so small, so uncertain that I almost offered to turn the Jeep around. He didn't have to see another murder scene. It was my job, but it wasn't his job, not yet.
"You don't ever have to see another murder scene, Larry."
He turned his head and looked at me. "What do you mean?"
"You've had your quota of blood and guts for one day. I can turn around and drop you back at the hotel."
"If I don't come tonight, what happens next time?"
"If you aren't cut out for this kind of work, you aren't cut out for it. No shame in that."
"What about next time?" he asked.
"There won't be a next time."
"You aren't getting rid of me that easy," he said.
I hoped the darkness hid the smile on my face. I kept it small.
"Tell me about vampires, Anita. I thought a vampire couldn't drink enough blood in one night to kill somebody."
"Pretty to think so," I said.
"They told us in college that a vampire couldn't drain a human being with one bite. Are you saying that's not true?"
"They can't drink a human dry with one bite, in one night, but they can drain one with one bite."
He frowned at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"They can pierce the flesh and drain the blood without drinking it."
"How?" he asked.
"Just put the fangs in, start the blood flow, and let the blood fall down your body onto the ground."
"But that's not taking blood for food, that's just murder," Larry said.
"And your point is?" I said.
"Hey, isn't that our turnoff?"
I caught a glimpse of the road sign. "Damn." I slowed down, but couldn't see over the crest of the hill. I didn't dare U-turn until I was sure there were no cars coming the other way. It was another half mile before we came to a gravel road. There was a row of mailboxes beside the road.
Trees grew so close to the road that even winter-bare they covered the one-lane road in shadows. There was no place to turn around. Hell, if a second car had come, one of us would have had to back up.
The road rose up and up, as if it were going to go straight into the sky. At the crest of the hill I could see nothing in front of the car. I had to simply trust that there was more road in front of us, rather than some endless precipice.
"Jesus, this is steep," Larry said.
I eased the Jeep forward and the tires touched road. My shoulders loosened just a little. There was a house just up ahead. The porch light was on, like they were expecting company. The bare light bulb was not kind. The house was unpainted wood with a rusting tin roof. Its raised porch sagged under the weight of the front seat of a car that was sitting by the screen door. I turned around in the dirt in front of the house that passed for a front yard. It looked like we weren't the first car to do it. There were deep wheel ruts in the powder-dry dirt from years of cars turning in and out.
By the time we got down to the end of the road, the darkness was pure as velvet. I hit the Jeep's high beams, but it was like driving in a tunnel. The world existed only in the light; everything else was blackness.
"I'd give a lot for a few streetlights right now," Larry said.
"Me, too. Help me spot our road. I don't want to drive past it twice."
He leaned forward in his seat, straining against the shoulder belt. "There." He pointed as he spoke. I slowed and turned carefully onto the road. The headlights filled the tunnel of trees. This road was just bare red earth. The dirt rose in a mist around the Jeep. For once I was glad of the drought. Mud would have been a real bitch on a dirt road.
The road was wide enough that if you had nerves of steel, or were driving someone else's car, you could drive two cars abreast. A stream cut across the road, with a ditch at least fifteen feet deep. The bridge was nothing but planks laid across some beams. No rails, no nothing. As the Jeep crept over the bridge, the planks rattled and moved. They weren't nailed in. God.
Larry was staring at the drop, his face pressed against the tinted glass. "This bridge isn't much wider than the car."
"Thank's for telling me, Larry. I'd have never noticed on my own."
"Sorry."
Past the bridge, the road was still wide enough for two cars. I guess if two cars met at the bridge they took turns. There was probably some traffic law to cover it. First car on the left gets to go first, maybe.
At the crest of the hill, lights showed in the distance. Police lights strobed the darkness like muticolored lightning. They were farther away than they looked. We had two more hills to go up and down before the lights reflected off the bare trees, making them look black and unreal. The road spilled into a wide clearing. A lawn spread up from the road, surrounding a large white house. It was a real house with siding and shutters and a wraparound porch. It was two-storied and edged with neatly trimmed shrubs. The driveway was white gravel, which meant someone had shipped it in. Narcissus edged the driveway in two thick stripes.
A uniformed policeman stopped us in the foot of the sloping drive. He was tall, big through the shoulders, and had dark hair. He shined a flashlight into the car. "I'm sorry, miss, but you can't go up there right now."
I flashed my ID at him and said, "I'm Anita Blake. I'm with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team. I was told Sheriff St. John is expecting me."
He leaned into the open window and flashed his light at Larry. "Who's this?"
"Larry Kirkland. He's with me."
He stared at Larry for a few seconds. Larry smiled, doing his best to look harmless. He's almost as good at it as I am.
I had a good view of the cop's gun as he leaned into the window. It was a Colt .45. Big gun, but he had the hands for it. I caught a whiff of his aftershave; Brut. He'd leaned too far into the window to look at Larry. If I'd had a gun hidden in my lap, I could have fed it to him. He was big, and I bet sheer size saw him through a lot, but it was careless. Guns don't care how big you are.
He nodded and pulled out of the car. "Go on up to the house. Sheriff's expecting you." He didn't sound particularly happy about that.
"You got a problem?" I asked.
He gave a smile, but it was sour. He shook his head. "It's our case. I don't think we need any help; that includes you."
"You got a name?" I asked.
"Coltrain. Deputy Zack Coltrain."
"Well, Deputy Coltrain, we'll see you up at the house."
"I guess you will, Miss Blake."
He thought I was a cop and deliberately didn't call me "officer" or "detective." I let it go. If I really had a professional title I'd have demanded it, but getting into an argument because he wouldn't call me "detective" when I wasn't one seemed counterproductive.
I drove up and parked between the police cars. I clipped my ID to my lapel. We walked up the pale curve of sidewalk, and no one stopped us. We stood outside the door in a silence that was almost eerie. I'd been to a lot of murder scenes. One thing they weren't was silent. There was no static crackle of police radios, no men milling around. Murder scenes were always thick with people: plainclothes detectives, uniforms, crime scene techs, people taking photographs, video, the ambulance waiting to take the body away. We stood on the freshly swept porch in the cool spring night with the only sounds the calls of frogs. The high-pitched, peeping sound played oddly with the swirling police lights.
"Are we waiting for something?" Larry asked.
"No," I said. I rang the glowing doorbell. The sound gave a rich bong deep within the house. A small dog barked furiously, somewhere deep in the house. The door opened. A woman stood framed in the light from the hall, placing most of her in shadow. The police lights strobed across her face, painting in neon Crayola flashes. She was about my height with dark hair that was either naturally curly or had a really good perm. But she'd done more with it than I did, and it framed her face neatly. Mine always looked sort of unruly. She was wearing a button-down shirt with long sleeves untucked over jeans. She looked about seventeen, but I wasn't fooled. I looked young for my age, too. Heck, so did Larry. It can't just be being short, can it?
"You aren't the state police," she said. She seemed very sure of that.
"I'm with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team," I said. "Anita Blake. This is my colleague Larry Kirkland."
Larry smiled and nodded.
The woman moved back out of the door, and the light from the hallway fell full on her face. It added five years to her age, but they were a good five years. It took me a minute to realize she was wearing very understated makeup. "Please come in, Miss Blake. My husband, David is waiting with the body." She shook her head. "It's awful."
She peered out into the colored darkness before she closed the door. "David told him to turn off those lights. We don't want everyone for miles to know what's happened."
"What's your name?" I asked.
She blushed slightly. "I'm sorry; I'm not usually this scattered. I'm Beth St. John. My husband is the sheriff. I've been sitting with the parents." She made a small motion towards a set of double doors to the left of the main entrance.
The dog was still barking behind those doors like a small furry machine gun. A man's voice said, "Quiet Raven." The barking stopped.
We were standing in an entryway that had a ceiling that soared up to the roof, as if the architect had cut a piece out of the room above us to create the sweeping space. A crystal chandelier sparkled light down on us. The light cut a rectangle out of the darkened room to our right. There was a glimpse of a cherrywood dining room set so polished it gleamed.
The hallway cut straight back to a distant door that probably led to the kitchen. Stairs ran along the wall with the double doors. The bannister and door edges were white, the carpet was pale blue, the wallpaper white with tiny blue flowers and tinier leaves. It was open and airy, bright and welcoming, and utterly quiet. If we could have found a piece of uncarpeted floor, we would have dropped a pin and listened to it bounce.