Kiss of the Vampire(52)

So much blood had been spilled here the air had a metallic tinge to it that he could taste. His eyes burned, muscles grew taut with a hunger that never took much to arouse. He put blue booties over his shoes and as he walked onto the scene he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Techs were busy finding and marking evidence and photographing the scene. Tobias minded his step, making sure to travel a path already used by the criminalists as he walked toward the body, where the ME recorded his findings into a small recorder.

Tobias stopped a few feet away and waited. There was little left of the body except a gaping torso with one leg to the knee still attached, and a partial head with no face. Christ. Who, or what, had done this?

The ME looked up and turned off the recorder. “Tobias.”

“George. What do you have for me?”

He stood. “Male. Mid to late thirties when he became preternatural. But with all the damage…” He motioned toward the head. In addition to the face being removed, the lower jaw was gone as well, and from what Tobias could tell most of the teeth from the upper jaw had been yanked out. “Face is obliterated, no fingers for fingerprints. We only got a couple of teeth, one of which is a fang, so at least we know he was a vampire.” He stood. “Other than that there’s no way in hell to identify this poor guy.”

“Probably what they were going for.”

“No doubt. Hell, we found part of his spine in the bike lane.” George scratched his chin. “This kind of thing will only further inflame humans against us.”

Tobias didn’t disagree. He stared at the body a moment longer, then murmured, “Thanks.”

“You bet.”

Tobias moved to the edge of the site and carefully walked the perimeter. In theory there should be some sort of evidence at the crime scene, this one or the others, to point them toward a suspect or group of suspects. He knew the crime scene techs were working as hard and fast as they could. There was almost always some DNA, some fiber, some plant spore, a tire tread, something to link the murder to the bad guy. The last location hadn’t had much since it was a dump site, but this… This was the kill site. He didn’t want to obliterate anything of importance so he watched where he put his feet.

While most serial killers were a few points shy of a Mensa invitation, pure dumb luck ended up playing a large part in catching them even with brilliant police work factored in. Tobias didn’t care how it happened, he just wanted to find the bastards who were doing this.

At one edge, near an alley between two buildings, he paused. Among all the scents here, those of human, werewolf, and vampire, there was something else. Smoky and dark. Demon. Yet there was an underlying scent of something more. But hell if he could figure out what it was.

Hunkering down, he studied a set of footprints, side by side and facing the crime scene, as if someone had stood here and watched the carnage. This could be the break they needed.

Tobias gave a sharp whistle to get the techs’ attention. “I need somebody over here.”

A vampire Tobias knew from his days with Maldonado walked over. “Whaddya got?” he asked as he squatted next to Tobias.

“You’re a field geek now, Mike?”

The tech grunted. “Can’t run around raping and pillaging forever. Gotta make a living somehow.”

Tobias grinned at the vampire’s dry wit. “Get photos and an impression of this, will you?” Tobias pointed to the footprints.

“Sure thing.” Mike opened his field kit and began to rummage through it.

“Thanks.” Tobias rose to his feet and moved toward the alley. More parts of the victim rested there, and Tobias called back to Mike, “When you’re done with that, print the wall here.” Just in case someone had braced his hand on the brick while he watched the victim be torn apart. “Also, there are more body parts back here.”

“Got it.”

Tobias stared down at the pavement. What had happened here was carnage purely for the sake of carnage. He’d seen prets under the influence of blood frenzy, and their victims ended up scattered like this. The question was, was this third murder a case of some poor sap being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had he been targeted? Tobias hoped the latter was true, because they had a better chance of finding the people who did this if they could build a profile on the victim. Understand the victim, find out who his enemies were, and you had a much better chance of catching the ones who killed him. If the victims were random, they’d have a much harder time apprehending the suspects.

He caught a fresh scent among the smells of death and knew Nix had arrived on scene. He steeled himself to see her again. Being around all this blood was eroding at his control, and being around her was not going to help. At all.