Fiona Frost: Order of the Black Moon (17 page)

As a thunderous boom rattled the walls, I gasped for air, stifling a reactive scream.
My face melted from shock to
shame.
My reaction
entertain
ed
Detective Chase
, nonetheless
.

“Mother Nature
’s
screaming at somebody, huh?
”
he
laughed.

I sighed, shaking my head.
“
Yeah,
that one got me.
Whew!
So, h
ow long was Victoria with the foster family?”

“She
was taken away from her mother at
five-years-old
and lived in the foster
home until she was
eight
.”

“That’s very sad,” I
lamented
, dropping my eyes
towards the
ground.

“
Well
, I have to warn you about Dimitri’s appearance
, Fiona
.
You’ve never seen anything like it before, I can assure you.”

My imagination ran wild with tattoos, colored hair,
morbid obesity to radical
frailness,
gigantism
to dwarfism
—
all
of the extremes of humanity.

“Lay it on me, Detective
,
”
I challenged, not believing he could shock me.

He
leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk with outstretched hands, palms facing downward as if to set the stage for what he was about to say.

“He has what are called horn implants.
They stick out of the sides of
his forehead like skinned horns,
”
he blurted, leaning back into his chair
,
studying my reaction.

I wasn’t prepared for that.
I had never heard of such things as
implants
for anything besides breasts.
Horns?
In your head?
B
eyond my comprehension
,
but slightly intriguing.

“Excuse me
, Detective
.
They make implants that give you horns?”

He
raised his eyebrows, shrugging a shoulder towards his tilted head
. A
puzzled
mask of
disdain
on his face
.

“Yes
,
skinned horns
,
tattooed
as red spirals
.
He also has multiple tattoos on his face that look
G
othic or tribal and a set of gold vampire fangs as permanent caps on his canine teeth.
His hair is short
, spiky
and dyed bright red.”

I threw up my hands, palms facing
him
as if I were stopping traffic.

“
Alright
, Detective.
You won.
I’ve never seen anybody like that
,
and if I had, I
would remember him
.
And this guy put a curse on you?
What kind of curse?”

He
raised
his rounded shoulders and smirked hazily.

“Don’t know and don’t care.
I obviously don’t believe in curses
.
I
t was just a strange act to perform
on
a
law official
,
and
I suppose it
sets up
this guy’
s character.
He drives a Harley
motorcycle
and is a member of the
Devil’s Riders
—
a biker group that hangs out at the Gondola Bar
south of
Silver Springs Marina.”

“That place is serious trouble.
My mom said people drift over to Hartford in the middle of the night and cause trouble on campus because they dr
ank
too much
at that bar.
Dean Worcroft
has launched a crusade to
shut the place down, claiming
the students are in danger
.
”

The sky grew
dark as night
as the driving rain battered the window.
I worried about Agent Bronson standing in the front but figured he had made his way to his
car or came inside the station
.

“
W
e’ve made plenty of arrest
s
in t
hat place, mostly for fighting.”

“I bet,” I said, wiping my eyes with a tissue to make sure that I hadn’t run any mascara down my cheeks.
“What about the vampire group, how is it organized?
Is it just the one group in Godley Grove?”

“D
imitri
’s
the leader
with subgroups, Houses, scat
tered in the southern region of the United States
. As we know,
Damien’s
group
is
the House of the Nightmare Army
, one of
the smaller groups, only consisting of Damien, Victoria, Camber and they were inducting Sydney
.
I’ve received leads they were talking to more teens about joining the group, but I’m sure with the current murder case, those prospects will drop out, change their mind.”

“No doubt!”

A rumbling sounded from down the corridor.
I turned around in my chair to see a
boisterous
elderly man in a white sleeveless t-shirt, in handcuffs, being escorted by two uniformed police officers.
They
struggled as he shouted
random
obscenities
, fighting
to
escape
their grips.

“Drunks, I swear,” Detective Chase
chuckled while
shaking his head in displeasure.

“That’s nuts.
Yeah,
I’d rather be on the investigation side of
things when I finally work here and not have to deal with that,
” I giggled, turning back around.

He
scooted around his desk and shut his door.
His office felt like a closet, but the window made it tolerable, albeit today was a challenge with the thunderstorm.

“Where was I?” he
dropped
into his wooden chair,
whipping it around with
the rollers against his
rubber
floor mat.
“Oh
Yeah,
Dimitri’s
O
rder
of the Black Moon
is a
part
of the
bigger organization, the
Southern Vampire Alliance
.
He
is
well-
respected in that community
and
authored the five tenets.
They are v
ampire society guidelines
,
”
he detailed.

I stared at him with curious eyes.
The torrential rain calmed into a misty drizzle, the sky a dark, steel gray.
I hoped the thunder was over.
At night, it was
strangely calmin
g,
but a wicked nuisance during the day.

“Whoa, this is so weird
.
Vampire society guidelines?
Do any
of the tenets include sacrificing people
?”

He
pointed
his index finger
at me
, nodding
his head.

“
Good thinking, Fiona.
No, nothing about sacrifice
.
M
ost of them outline
norms of society
—
if you ask me.
The five tenets are detailed
in that
little Bible-looking
black book they all carry
.
One tenet
deal
s
with consensual feeding
,
which means they only drink blood
from another living person
—
if they are
willing.
”

“No way!
”

Nausea
hit me
like a Greyhound bus
.
I tried to delete the mental images I created, but flashes of people drinking other people’s blood
kept popping into my mind
.
It was more than repulsive.

“Unfortunately, Fiona.
Some people
do
live this way
.
During criminal investigations
, we learn about
things you would never dream existed.
Some of the scariest people, you learn every detail
—
their habits, their history, their inner thoughts.
Get ready for it,” his voice was earnest.

I shivered
.
“I’m ready.”
I looked at him, waiting.

“The tenets outline
d
iscretionary practices
—
they
cannot tell humans they
are vampires.
They are to respect their elders, avoid large gatherings
,
and only perform rituals if they are in need of increased power
—to
fight an uprising of another
o
rder.”

“So, it
does
outline rituals
?
What kind of rituals?”

“It doesn’t specifically say.
We’re assuming they all know, have been told verbally, and we’re working on getting the information we need.
Oh
,
one more interesting
thing
—
there’s
a tattoo on
Dimitri’s
middle finger
.
It is two
bold
black
stripes.”

“Wait a
minute;
the victim had one like that!”

“Yes, it is identical to the victim’s tattoo.”

“
Is
this a mark of the cult?
Do the other members have it
?
Was the victim a member of the vampire cult?”

“No, it is not,
and she was not associated with them,
Fiona.
We’ve done some research
,
and it is a mark of a G
othic cult from the seventies.
It seems that Dimitri and the victim went to school together and were in the same
group
called the Dark
Realm
.
They were not vampires
—
just a bunch of
Goth
kids trying to be different.”

“Well,
he at least knew the victim
.
He
’s the leader of this cult that supposedly killed this woman, so is he a suspect now?
Where was he during the murder?”

His
office phone rang
—
he held up an index finger, answering it.
I
t
was
somebody
from the serology section of his lab
.

He walked t
he caller
through a protocol for a genetic screening for polymorph
ism
—
a series of tests used to identify a suspect via their blood sample.
When
he
inquired on how much of a sample the tech had, I knew he was asking to be sure he could run the test himself to ensure the results were valid.
He hung up the phone with a sigh.

“Everything
alright
, Detective?”

“Oh
y
eah,
Fiona.
New
hire
.
I’ve
also
hired two more serology
techs;
one is starting on Monday and the other, a week from that.
Both of them have loads of experience so I will have that section running smoothly in no time.
I’m over budget, but the Chief is working with me on that.
”