Blood Lust: A Supernatural Horror (15 page)

“Help me.”

In my grief
,
I
had forgotten about t
he Sattersby girl. She lay on the floor
,
trying
to
rise
using her one good arm. The other
h
ung
loose at her side,
probably dislocated. She was naked, filthy, bloody and frightened but she was alive.
Why
?
I asked myself.
Why had the creature
spared her
?
Two uniforms r
ushed
in, took one look at the mutilated corpse
of their
fallen
comrade
and retched. I couldn’t blame them
for their reaction
.

“Call this in
,
” I said
to one of them
.
“G
et a blanket from my car. Get several. Cover them up.” I jerked my head at Lew and the
dead
uniform
officer
that had saved my life.
To the other one, I said, “See to the girl. She’s hurt.”
Sasha Sattersby
was shaking uncontrollably either from shock
and
blood loss
, fear
or the cold.
I took off my jacket gingerly because of my shoulder and handed it
to
one of the
uniform
s
. “Wrap this around her,” I s
uggested
.

I could not face her. She was alive. That was good enough. It was
n’t
her fault that the creature had chosen her, but knowing the kind of life she led, the emptiness, the wasted potential, I could
n’t
stomach seeing her alive and Lew dead.
Using my scales
of justice
, i
t was a poor exchange.
I felt empty. I wasn’t sure what I should feel – relief at finding the Sattersby girl alive,
elation
that
I had
survived
a second brush with death
, grief that Lew had
not
,
or
anger at the creature. I knew
that
later the reality would
crash down on me
, probably as I filled out an incident report that no one would believe. I knew what I would feel then –
rage
.
In a flash of understanding, i
t dawned on me that t
he creature had
deliberately
set us up
.
We had dared to disturb its lair,
steal
its flesh trophies.
It had used the
Sattersby
girl as bait, knowing we would return to the
monastery
looking for
her
.
It had kept her alive as a distraction, to suck us in close
for the kill
.

It wanted me
:
I
had seen
this
in its
cold
inhuman
eyes
and I knew it as
surely as I knew Lew was dead
. It had killed Lew
del
iberately
to punish me
.
It wanted me to feel the same rage it felt.
I knew that this was
n
o
t over. It would kill again and it would wait for me to come
after
it.
It had seen my face and
had
recognized the
look of
determination in my eyes. It was intelligent enough to know
that
I would hunt it down
now
and kill it if it did
n’t
kill me first.

Outside, the uniforms looked at me and muttered
quietly
among
themselves.
I didn’t blame them.
One of their
own
was dead, beheaded by a nightmare creature
none of them had seen
. It was my job to keep rookies alive until they could learn the ropes. I had failed in this too.
They had questions they wanted to ask but my
aloofness
kept them at a distance.
No one knew wh
at I had seen. The only witnesse
s were dead, except for the
Sattersby
girl.
I wasn’t talking and no one would believe her if she did.
They would interpret her febrile ramblings as delirium.

I
sat
alone
on the steps
of the church
in the rain, letting the co
ld
droplets wash away my bitterness. I was
still
sitting there when the ambulance arrived
twenty minutes later
, lights flashing a counterpoint to the
stabbing
lightning
, siren silenced by the thunder
.
Rain, thunder and lightning – it seemed the perfect night for death
, for murder
.
The
f
orensics
team
van
pulled into the half
-
flooded parking lot just behind
the ambulance
. Dr. Munson
walked over
and stood in front of me
, frowning
through the waterfall
cascad
ing
from his bright yellow rain poncho’s hood
.

“You’re done i
n
, Detective Hardin
. Let the EMT give you a shot and get some rest.”

I shook my head. “No rest for the weary, Doc. Lew’s dead
,
”
I added almost choking as the words caught in my throat

“
I know.
I heard
it
over the radio
. I’m sorry.” After a pause, “What happened?”

I chuckled. Maybe he thought I was losing it judging by his perplexed expression. Maybe I was. It just struck me as funny when I tried to put my
jumbled
thoughts into words.

“It
was
a God damn
ed
vampire, Doc
. N
ot some psycho bastard, a real blood-lapping, wing-flapping
,
God damned vampire.” My voice rose in volume and tenor as I spoke.
I
choked back a
sob
as my body shuddered
.
I could tell I was close to
the edge
. I tried to
rein in m
y emotions before
Munson
had me in a straight jacket.

I continued.
“It was bigger than a man and
all
gray
except for those God
-
awful eyes.
They were blood red and as big as baseball
s
.
I shot it in the back and in the head
with my .45
and barely
ph
a
s
ed it. The
rookie
shot it in the wing with the shotgun and
damaged
it a little,
just
enough to save me and
to
kill him.”

I
noticed
Melody standing behind Munson, listening
intently
. She had that
‘
poor wet kitty
’
expression on her face,
as if
she wanted to dry me off and feed me a bowl of
warm
milk.
Normally, seeing her would make me feel fuzzy
inside
. Now
,
I felt nothing. I could tell sh
e didn’t believe me an
y
more than Munson did.

“How do I write this up, Doc? You don’t believe me and I don’t blame you. I saw it and I
still
don’t believe it except I’ve got a dead partner
lying back there
with his throat ripped out.
” I shook my head to clear the cobwebs but they clung tenaciously to my psyche
, trying to shroud the horrors I had just witnessed from my mind, to save it from shock, but I needed to remember and clearly
. “I don’t…”

I paused.
A
familiar high-pitched scre
ech
brought me to my feet
. Melody
had
heard it too. I saw her t
ilt
her head upwards
with an expression of amazement
.
The color drained from her face as her beautiful red lips convulsed in a rictus of horror.
Then
a great gray mass hurtl
ed
out of
the darkness
overhead
toward her. I
pushed past Munson
but it was too late.
I was moving in slow motion
as events around me blurred
.
The creature grabbed
Melody
by her shoulders with its three-clawed feet.
Six
inch t
alons dug deep into her flesh as
the creature’s momentum
jerked her off her feet
and into the air
. Blood spurted over Munson’s
yellow poncho.
Melody’s expression turned from on
e
of
disbelief
to
one of
fear and pain.
Her eyes stared
at me, pleading
for help
like the Sattersby girl
but she did not scream
.
The horror crashed in on me and time returned to
its
normal
pace
.
I ran and managed to grab
Melody
by her legs
with my good
left
arm
,
preventing
the creature from flying off with her.
We raced across the parking lot
, my feet fighting for purchase in the slick gravel
.
Now she
began screaming
as my added weight pulled against the
creature’s
talons
,
which bit
deeper
into her flesh
.

The creature
struggled and managed to lift us
both
a dozen feet into the air but
was
unable to rise any higher under our combined weight
. It
reached down
its head
,
bit into
Melody’s
neck and jerked savagely.
Melody’s
screams ended
abruptly
as her head plunged past me and splashed into a puddle
below
. The
n it
released
both of
us. I
plummeted
to the ground still
clinging to
Melody’s
leg
. I hit the ground hard with her
dead
body
sprawling across me. Munson ran up, open-mouthed and looked back and forth between me and Melody’s decapitated corpse. Finally, he screamed
almost as shrilly as
had
Melody
.

I
gazed upward as
the creature retreat
ed
into the night, glancing back over its wings at me.
In a flash of lightning, I read amusement in its crimson eyes.
Munson kneeled and checked Melody’s pulse as if she would have one with no head. Like me, he was having trouble dealing with a real life nightmare. I groaned and
rose
to my feet unsteadily. My shoulder was numb and my back
was
on fire. I reached out
with my left hand
and touched Munson on the shoulder. He jumped and stared up at me without recognition. Gradually,
sanity
cre
pt
back into his eyes. He looked back down at Melody
’s decapitated corpse
and grimaced.

“My God,” he muttered.
“My God.”
I felt his body trembling under my hand.