I consulted my map. The cemetery was smack dab in the middle of my green markers, as was Westgate Park and about a dozen other sites.
It was worth checking the human victim’s houses out to see what I could find. My visits to the vampire victim’s house and the dryad’s murder scene hadn’t discovered anything, but I had nothing better to do and sitting in my house wasn’t going to help me solve anything. I had a good feeling about this.
I grabbed my gun holster out of the bag and wrapped it around my waist, tucking it under my shirt and jacket. It hadn’t been very effective against Liam, but I wasn’t ready to give up on it yet. I’d used the Walther P22 on him. It was a good little gun but small rounds caused less damage than bigger rounds. In the hands of a professional, it was an extremely effective weapon, but if you didn’t know what you were doing, you were just as likely to get yourself killed after shooting someone. I knew what I was doing, but the rules of the game evidently changed when you brought supernatural creatures into the mix. I needed a bigger gun—one that did a lot more damage.
I headed back to my bedroom and grabbed The Judge. It was a .45 caliber long colt with a 410 round. You shoot someone with this and chances were, they weren’t getting back up. It left a little hole, only about a half inch wide upon entering the body but ripped a hole the size of a fist when exiting the body. We’d see if this would work. Next time I’d make sure to aim for a head and hope it killed the thing. Or at least injure it long enough for me to get away.
My phone rang as I was locking my door. I jogged down the steps as I fished it out of my pocket. The display said “Asshole Calling.”
I hit the ignore button and tucked the phone back into my jacket. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, and I had a feeling he’d try to stop me if he found out what I was planning.
Cherry waited where I left her. I could get used to the luxury a nice set of wheels provided. Jerry was probably going crazy right about now. My one-day job had dragged into day three with no end in sight. He was probably cursing my name.
As if my thoughts had summoned him, his name appeared on my phone screen as it chimed with an incoming call. I clicked ignore on that one too. I was beginning to think I should have just left the phone behind. That way I’d at least have plausible deniability when I said I never saw their calls.
I immediately discarded the thought as too dangerous. There was a possibility that I would need back up if I stumbled into something I couldn’t handle or found the draugr by accident.
I compromised by turning the phone to silent as I ducked into the driver’s seat. I turned the car on and pulled into the street.
Westgate wasn’t far from me. Filled primarily with lower middle-class homes, the community was nicer than I expected for being in the middle of Hilltop. Most were better maintained than the shithole I lived in.
I was only a block off the park when I saw police vehicles and a house covered in yellow caution tape. My guess was this was the scene of the most recent disappearances. It’d be pointless trying to get in there right now with police crawling all over it. Maybe if I had Liam’s ability to influence minds, it’d be possible.
I continued past the house, circling the block and heading towards the next name on my list. This house was situated on a road right next to the cemetery. Whoever owned it now would probably have a hell of a time trying to sell it as people convinced themselves it was haunted.
I parked two houses down and looked at the house. The windows were all dark. No one seemed to be home. Nobody was on the streets either. If I wanted to take a look around, this was as good a time as any.
I shouldered open the door and jogged across the street. Sticking my hands in the pockets of my jacket, I walked by the house and called in a soft voice. “Rufus. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”
I crossed the street, repeating the same words, confirming that I was the only one dumb enough to be out this close to midnight with a murderer on the loose.
I crossed back, walking up to the house as if I had every right to be there. I tested the front door. Locked. Of course. Made sense. The lock on this house was much better than the cheap one on mine. The credit card trick wouldn’t work on this one.
I looked around for one of those handy rocks people used to hide their keys. Having locked myself out of my apartment several times since moving in, I could attest to how convenient—if unsafe—it would be to have one of those lying about.
Looked like this family had erred on the side of safety because I didn’t find anything that could house a key. And I tried several rocks, banging them against the ground in vain hope. That option exhausted, I headed around back, testing the windows I could reach. All of them were locked. So was the back door.
No hope for it. I’d just have to improvise.
I picked up a rock and broke the back-door window, reaching inside to unlock it. Hopefully, I had the right house with no one here to notice my breaking and entering. Glass crunched under my shoes as I walked through the kitchen.
Nobody came running.
Looked like I was right; the place was empty.
The kitchen looked undisturbed, clean with no trace of being used in the recent past. The air carried no hint of the last meal cooked, and there were no empty dishes in the sink. I stopped by the fridge, drawn to a picture of a happy family. Two parents and a toddler. I wanted to believe that what went down had happened when the toddler was out of the house, but knowing what I did of the world, that was unlikely. Shitty things happened to good people, rarely sparing the young.
I moved into the living room to find it in shambles. There were books on the floor, family photos tossed around, and a chair on its side. I couldn’t tell if a struggle had taken place here, or if the police had been really thorough in their search.
I headed upstairs, pausing at a red stain on the wooden rail. I continued, not finding anything in the first bedroom, a child’s, by the look of it. The smell of old blood lingered in the air outside the bathroom.
I opened the door and staggered back as the stench struck me across the face. Someone had suffered in there. Fear and pain saturated the air until I could taste it on my tongue. I forced myself inside, feeling a tight feeling in my stomach at the amount of blood in the tub and drain. A little yellow duck sat on the side of the tub, its side freckled with red.
Mother and child surprised in the bath. They never had a chance.
I stumbled out of the room, not able to bear the image my mind created. Panting, I hugged the wall next to the bathroom and counted backwards from 100.
The scene wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever seen, not even in the top five. There hadn’t been any bodies, just blood, leftover from a crime that happened weeks ago.
