The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal: Read online

Damien was younger than the others, skinny, and he wore what looked like the remnants of a business suit. He’d obviously once had a short haircut that was only now growing out. Apparently, he was the next newest member of the camp, having arrived only the week before. The last man, Grime, lived up to his name. He was filthy, and Terrill could smell his stink even through the smoke.

  They were all looking at him, and he realized that he was supposed to be supplying a name. He was flustered. He hadn’t given out his real name in hundreds of years, except to Jamie, and look how that had turned out. But he was also tired of lying.

  Perry bailed him out. “With that big honking cross on your chest, I’m calling you Christian.”

  Terrill was surprised. That was the last name he had ever expected to be called. The last name he would have ever called himself. And yet…

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Mark was looking at him with raised eyebrows, but obviously it was traditional among these men not to ask too many questions.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Harve said, producing a full bottle of whiskey.

  “Here’s the rules,” Mark said after they had all taken a swig. “You have to bring in your own water and your share of the food. If you’re a drinker, you have to bring in your share of the booze. And I mean, if you drink a lot, you bring a lot. Got it?”

  Terrill nodded, his face impassive.

  “As the newbie, you have to get the firewood and dig the new latrine when we need one.” Mark smiled without much humor. “Little Damien here is glad as hell you showed up, ’cause we need a new hole.

  “All right,” Terrill said. He looked at Perry, who gave no reaction one way or the other.

  Grime muttered something, though Terrill couldn’t quite make it out.

  “What’s that, Stinky?” Mark demanded.

  “He said, ‘You sure love rules,’” Perry said.

  “Yeah, well, someone has to make this place livable.”

  Grime’s answer was a very loud fart.

  Mark made a face and looked at Grime. “Jesus! I’ll give you my share of the water if you’ll just wash yourself, for God’s sake! Otherwise, I wish to hell you’d just get the hell out of here.”

  Grime said something that was indecipherable.

  “Old Grime and I were here first,” Perry said reasonably.

  “Yeah, and it was a shithole,” Mark said. “I fixed this place up; that ought to count for something.”

  “Yeah,” Perry said. “It’s real comfortable now. Almost like one of them state-approved places. Oh, wait. I hate them state-approved places. You know why? Because there’s always some asshole in charge who thinks he can boss you around.”

  Mark shut up, but the tension remained in the air.

  “You want to take a vote?” Perry asked after a few minutes of silent drinking.

  “What’s the point?” Mark muttered. “Mister New Guy doesn’t get a vote, but you got Grime and Damien wrapped around your little finger.”

  Perry just smiled. He looked around the campfire, his eyes landing on Terrill last. He seemed to be appraising the newcomer. “You’re right about that. I have the votes. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking it’s you who ought to be the one who leaves.”

  Mark sat in silence for a few moments, brooding, staring into the fire. He exchanged a look with Harve, who nodded. Then he stood up and pulled a big bowie knife out of his pocket.

  “Listen, you old fart. This whole ‘vote’ thing is just bullshit if you can’t enforce it. You got Grime here, who’s pathetic, and Damien, who I’m betting is a little wimp who’s been kicked out of his mommy’s house, and you got New Guy, who’s as weak as a kitten.”

  He turned to Harve, who stood up and reached behind himself to bring out a baseball bat. “I think you’re right, boss. I’m tired of these useless freeloaders,” Harve said.

  Terrill saw the alarm in Perry’s face. He’d probably deliberately maneuvered the discussion in this direction, but it was obvious it had all come to a head faster than he had expected. Damien and Grime were both backing away from the campfire. Perry started to fumble for something in the pack beside his chair. Terrill saw the barrel of a pistol.

  But Mark was ready for him. He’d probably only been kept in line until now because of the gun, but now he ran toward Perry, the big knife raised. Perry fumbled with the gun and dropped it. He reached down for it, but he was going to be too late.

  Terrill moved faster than he thought he still could, faster than any human could, and stepped between Perry and his attacker.

  The knife sank into the left side of his chest, slipping between his ribs.

  He fell backward, the knife still lodged in his heart.

  It was a grave wound, even for a vampire. If he had been stabbed with wood instead of metal, that would have been the end of him. Even so, for a few moments, he felt paralyzed.

  “Oh, my God!” It was a high voice, one Terrill hadn’t heard yet, so it must have been Damien. “Don’t worry, I’ll go get help.” The voice receded toward the end and Terrill guessed the young man was running away.

  He felt rather than saw Perry hovering over him. The knife was removed with a slurp, and Terrill’s body began to feel again. What he was feeling was tremendous pain, but at least he was feeling something.

  There was a scuffle of some kind, and then he heard Mark say, “You and your gun; that’s the only thing that kept you in charge. Now I’ve got it. You and Grime take the dead guy and get him out of here. Bury him, whatever. The knife you got in your hand––you know, the one with your fingerprints all over it? Keep it.”

  “There were witnesses,” Perry said, but he sounded defeated.

  “Grime? Good luck with that. I also doubt you’ll ever see Damien again, and I doubt that was his name. He was embarrassed every minute he was here; I doubt he’s going to advertise it now. So what do you got? It’s your word against Harve and me. So my advice? Bury the guy. No one will ever miss him.”

  “This isn’t the end of it,” Perry said.

  “It better be,” Mark said, sounding cheerful.

  Terrill felt himself being lifted by the arms and legs. From the smell, Grime had his arms, so Perry must have had his legs. They stumbled away, dropping him several times in the process. Terrill thought maybe he could move, but when he tried, he found that he couldn’t. After another few hundred steps, he tried again. Nothing.

  They were well away from the light of campfire before his leg twitched.

  “Holy shit!” Perry exclaimed, dropping Terrill’s legs. “Did you feel that?”

  “…idn’t …eel… othing,” Grime answered. Terrill could suddenly understand him, as if he’d been given a Rosetta stone. The man mumbled his first letters, but if you made allowances for that, he was clear enough.

  Terrill groaned. Grime dropped his arms and Terrill slammed into the ground, his head hitting a rock, which made it hard for him to speak for a moment.

  “…hat’s …mpossible,” Grime said.

  Terrill sat up and both men sprang backward with shouts of alarm.

  “That can’t be,” Perry said. He looked frightened.

  In answer, Terrill opened his shirt. Where the knife had gone in, there was only a red mark, but the crucifix seemed to blaze in the moonlight. He tapped the cross with his fingernail and it made a metallic sound.

  “Must have hit the cross,” Terrill said.

  Perry wasn’t buying it, Terrill could tell. But the cross seemed to reassure him somehow, and he grasped at the explanation, willing to believe it––outwardly, at least.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  Terrill got to his feet. Grime backed away, his eyes wide. He kept his distance, but thankfully didn’t run away.

  Perry regained his composure. He shook his head. “There’s something really strange about you, fella. But… it is what it is. Since we’ve lost our home, we’ll have to seek shelter somewhere else. Don’t have much time to do anything but go to the homeless shelter
. You up for that?”

  Terrill nodded. He didn’t want to go back to the tarp with the holes in it if he could help it, but going into town was going to be dangerous. However, a trio of homeless men was less suspicious than one homeless man. And it wasn’t like he had any other choice.

  They started walking toward the road. Both of the other men walked behind him, at a distance, talking quietly between themselves. Terrill didn’t mind. For some reason, he trusted Perry. If his instincts were wrong, then he was probably finished anyway.

  He was at peace. It was as if he’d hit bottom and was on his way back up. Something had changed inside him. He was feeling emotions and thinking thoughts he hadn’t experienced in centuries.

  He was feeling almost human.

  He didn’t see the young man they called Damien hiding in the bushes, a cellphone to his ear, his mouth open in disbelief at the resurrection he’d just witnessed.

  Chapter 26

  Brosterhouse found Officer Carlan at his desk in the main squad room.

  The Bend Police Department had assigned Brosterhouse a room in another part of the building, somewhere out of the way––a minimal courtesy on the part of the local police. It was obvious that behind the scenes, Carlan had made an issue of an outside cop taking over the case.

  Brosterhouse was carrying a couple of coffees in white Styrofoam cups. He sat down without being invited and tried to give Carlan one of the cups. Carlan scowled and shook his head. Brosterhouse opened the lid and drank half of it down. Foo-foo coffee, with some kind of added flavor. It was hard to get plain old black coffee these days. Still, he polished off the cup and took the lid off the second one.

  “You like this Hardaway family, don’t you?” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Carlan sounded defensive.

  “I mean, you seem to hang around their home a lot. The way the Hardaways described you, you might be their son-in-law or something.”

  “Of course. I dated their daughter for over a year. What’s that got to do with anything?” Carlan was filing papers, not looking up from his desk. I’m busy, his manner said. You’re interrupting my work.

  “The two sisters look a lot alike, don’t they?” Brosterhouse was keeping his voice casual, as if he was just making conversation.

  Carlan flushed, and Brosterhouse knew he’d hit on something.

  “Not really. They don’t look anything alike. Besides, Sylvie’s too young for me.”

  “That’s not what she says.” Brosterhouse let some of his skepticism creep into voice.

  “What?” Carlan stopped shuffling papers and looked up. “What’s going on here? Why all the questions?”

  “The Hardaway residence was broken into last night.”

  Carlan looked puzzled, and unless he was a hell of an actor, Brosterhouse thought he really was confused. But there was something going on with this officer. He was dirty, Brosterhouse could feel it: the kind of policeman who thought his authority gave him power over others, and who used that power over women most of all.

  “What’s missing?” Carlan asked.

  “I can’t divulge that,” Brosterhouse said briskly. In reality, the Hardaways hadn’t found anything missing. Carlan seemed shaken, and now was the time to apply some pressure. Maybe the guy would spill something by mistake. Brosterhouse’s voice became hard. “Ms. Hardaway says you were there yesterday evening.”

  “Yes, and she probably also told you I left. I didn’t have any of their valuables in my hands, either.”

  “No… not that she noticed. But she also didn’t see you drive away. Who’s to say you didn’t come back?”

  “Oh, hell. This is ridiculous. I left the scene right then and there.” Carlan paused, and then he smiled. “Wait a minute. I just realized––I have a witness. As I was leaving, I talked to some new neighbor. A Mister Harkins.”

  Brosterhouse didn’t breathe for a second. That couldn’t be a coincidence. But if it was the same guy, what did he have to do with the case? Could he be the killer? It took some real brass to question the lead detective on a murder you yourself had committed––not to mention hurling that same detective into an alley––but it also fit the psychological profile of most serial killers. “Describe this guy.”

  “Oh, tall––maybe six feet, three inches. Nicely groomed and dressed, slender, in his late forties. Dark hair.”

  “Did he have an accent?”

  Carlan had been confused by the questioning, shaken, even. But this question seemed to let him off the hook, and he took on an interested expression. “Yes, as a matter of fact he did. He sounded British. Highbrow. You think he has something to do with this? Hanging around the scene of the crime? That kind of guy?”

  “Maybe,” Brosterhouse conceded reluctantly. Dammit. The whole dynamics of the conversation were changing. The pressure was easing off of Carlan. He’d been near breaking, near to spilling out the truth. Now he had a nice red herring to divert attention.

  “I’m going to send some officers over to canvass the neighborhood,” Carlan said, sounding rejuvenated. “Find this Mister Harkins. Shouldn’t be too hard; he said he just moved in.”

  “You do that,” Brosterhouse said tiredly. It was unlikely that Mr. Harkins would be found so easily.

  He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and the coffee wasn’t doing anything but giving him a sour stomach. He wanted to go home, but he was pretty sure he had the murderer sitting here right in front of him. They hadn’t found any of Carlan’s suspect’s fingerprints in either the motel room or the car, which Brosterhouse had to admit was pretty strange––as if the guy had worn gloves to bed and in the bathroom. But as far as he was concerned, until the DNA evidence came back, Carlan was still the prime suspect.

  He would focus on trying to trip up Carlan, on getting him to confess.

  Still, there was the nagging question of this Mr. Harkins, with his… unusual strength. He’d been about to think “supernatural strength,” but Brosterhouse refused to let his thoughts go there. In fact, he’d been trying not to think at all about what had happened in the alley.

  How did the Englishman fit into all this? Most murders were about love or money. Unless he was completely wrong, this murder had all the signs of being about love.

  But there was another kind of murderer: the kind who killed strangers, and who then hung around to watch all the emotion and drama that surrounded the crime––the kind who tried to get close to the authorities so he could soak it all in. A serial killer.

  Brosterhouse had been relieved to find that the sketch of Jonathan Evers didn’t look like Harkins. There were some similarities, but it was obviously a different man.

  The name was a coincidence. It had to be.

  Chapter 27

  Richard Carlan was innocent and he knew it, but he’d been a cop long enough to know that wasn’t any guarantee you’d stay out of jail, not if a determined cop came after you.

  Brosterhouse was coming after the wrong guy, but Carlan had no way of proving it. It was frustrating that there hadn’t been any fingerprints. The Portland lab was taking forever with the DNA, just as he’d feared.

  He had a good sketch of the missing “Mr. Evers,” at least. The motel clerk had been very observant. But the killer seemed to have disappeared into the darkness without a trace. Though the dogs had been at the scene of the abandoned Escalade within minutes, they hadn’t been able to pick up a scent… which should have been impossible. Carlan had driven back to the motel room and grabbed some of the fugitive’s clothing, but even that didn’t help.

  Brosterhouse seemed determined to stick around, and it was making Carlan nervous. His relationship with Jamie had been complicated and messy, and who knew what the Portland cop might turn up if he looked long enough?

  Carlan was kicking himself for having uploaded the video he’d taken to a site that paid him a thousand bucks––one of those “boyfriend revenge” sites. It hadn’t even really been about the money. The thousand bucks looked pretty paltry now,
especially since it was all spent. But the video was still one of the top ten most downloaded whenever he visited the site. Jamie had been a good-looking girl, and even sexier with her clothes off. Thankfully, his face was never in the picture.

  He was pretty sure Jamie had left for Portland without ever knowing about the video, but Carlan lived in fear that someone would recognize her, and that they would realize who her boyfriend had been at the time.

  He needed to find Jamie’s murderer quickly and shut down the investigation.

  There was a flurry of activity, a ripple through the squad room, which usually meant something major had happened. He got to his feet. Mostly likely they’d found the culprit. Half of the department was out looking for him.

  “They get him?” he shouted to one of the cops getting up from his desk and putting on his coat.

  “What?” Detective Burkett looked confused for a moment. “Oh, no. Sorry, Richard. There’s been a stabbing at one of the homeless camps.”

  Carlan leaned back in his chair, disappointed. And then a little trickle of suspicion entered his mind. Where could the fugitive have fled? He hadn’t been seen on any of the main roads; all the motels had been checked. He had to be eating and sleeping and hiding somewhere.

  “Wait up!” he shouted. “I’m coming with you.”

  #

  The police had found an old service road that ran near the encampment. Floodlights lit up the scene. Two homeless guys were sitting at the edge of the camp, stiff and obviously uncomfortable with all the attention.

  “So the guy was dead,” one of the uniformed officers was asking when Burkett and Carlan walked up.

  Both of the men were nodding vigorously.

  “I’ll take it from here, Jerry,” Burkett said, stepping into the light. He pulled out a recorder. “Tell me what you got.”

  “Yes, sir. Apparently there was a fight, and one of these gentlemen stabbed another gentleman in the heart. We got a cellphone call that said that the guy who was stabbed got up and walked away. These guys are saying that’s impossible.”