Blood Torn (Blackthorn Book 3) Page 22

  She continued along the hallway before entering the main room. She skimmed over the empty battered sofas ahead, the vacant chairs and table to her left. There was no sound of voices in the makeshift bedrooms beyond, no echo of a shower running. There were no strewn around mugs except for one sat alone on the tarnished coffee table ahead.

  Unease took a painful hold on her chest. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Sit down,’ Daniel said softly, resuming his place in the dip of the tattered sofa.

  On autopilot, she sank next to him, her body turned to face him fully. ‘Dan?’ she asked again, her heart pounding.

  He took a steady intake of air. ‘They’re gone, Phia.’

  It took a moment for the word to sink in. ‘Gone? What do you mean, “gone”? Gone where?’

  ‘Some might have made it into Lowtown.’

  ‘Some?’

  He moved to stand. ‘I’ll get you a coffee.’

  She grabbed his arm before he had chance to rise more than an inch. ‘Dan, what the fuck is going on?’

  For a moment he said nothing as he stared at the coffee table. Then his eyes met hers. ‘They’re dead, Phia. Nearly all of them. Dead. The Alliance is finished.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Caitlin Parish stepped through the cornered-off apartment, her colleagues milling about – mainly forensics gathering up whatever evidence they could before the rest of the investigative team stepped in.

  As she assessed the room, the blood splatters on the wall, the corpse strapped to a dining chair in the small bedsit, it was one hell of a way to spend her first two hours back at work.

  The response had been cold enough that evening as she’d returned to the Vampire Control Unit for the first time in two weeks. For the first time since the trial that had exposed the corruption of the three agents, let alone the head of the Third Species Control Division, determined to bring down their most wanted vampire, Kane Malloy.

  The vampire whose bed she had just come from.

  The office, always a flurry of activity and noise, had fallen silent the minute she’d stepped into it. All eyes had been on her as she’d made her way across to the desk she hadn’t sat at since the court case, since the scandal had outed.

  The scandal she had outed.

  She’d glanced around at one or two glares of disapproval – colleagues she’d had enough of a battle with over the years to prove her worth in the VCU and not just in the interrogation room.

  Now they’d emanated the hateful “I told you so” look. A look she knew she’d have to get used to. Fast.

  She’d sat at her desk and fired up her computer before tearing the sticky note off the screen.

  Vampire whore, it had said.

  Never had two words cut her deeper.

  ‘Or just whore,’ a whisper echoed behind her. ‘A dirty little vampire-loving slut.’

  She’d wanted to turn and march over to confront the faceless voice, to slam the paper on his desk. Instead, she’d scrunched up the note in her hand, adjusted her chair and logged into her computer.

  Before marching straight to Morgan’s office.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ she’d said as she’d stood at the threshold to his office.

  He’d looked up from his pile of paperwork, pen still poised in his hand. ‘Welcome back, Agent Parish.’

  ‘You said it,’ she’d declared, closing the door behind her. ‘Agent Parish. So would you like to tell me why I’ve been put on shadow reading only for the next month?’

  Morgan sighed and threw down his pen. A resolute sigh that had told her it was the precise response he’d been expecting. But he had been her street partner for eighteen months. And she had been his senior.

  He’d leaned back in his chair and held his hand out towards the one on the other side of his desk.

  Caitlin had promptly accepted his offer, perching on the edge, her forearms on the desk that her stepfather had once occupied almost seven days a week for over a decade. Occupied, until she’d told the court exactly what he, her father, and her ex had done to Arana Malloy under the toxic influence of the head of the TSCD, Xavier Carter.

  ‘I can’t let you back out there yet, Caitlin.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I did the right thing, Morgan – and you know it.’

  ‘But unfortunately for you, ninety-five per cent of the Vampire Control Unit think you’re wrong. Probably ninety-five per cent of the entire Third Species Control Division.’

  ‘Since when did what’s right and what’s wrong work on a majority-decision-only basis?’ She’d unscrunched the paper in her hand and smoothed it out on top of the paperwork. ‘See this? Is this right?’

  ‘People are still upset.’

  ‘No, Morgan – this is ignorance. And I don’t get bullied by ignorance.’

  ‘It’s not about what’s right or wrong in this. It’s about the fact I can’t guarantee your safety.’

  ‘No one wants my back, right?’

  ‘Caitlin, I don’t need to spell it out to you. They don’t care about your motivations or your reasons for what happened. They don’t care about what really went on. All they see is that you betrayed your unit. You took a vampire’s side over the side of your own. Worse still, you chose to sleep with him. Any respect you had gained in this unit is gone. Besides, upset in the team is the last thing we need right now. I’m trying to keep morale high and the VCU united for the bastards out there who think we’re broken. I’m doing what’s best for the team. So I’m sorry, Caitlin, but if you want to stay a part of this unit, you have to take what I give you.’

  ‘So you tuck me away. Pay lip service to my return to work. And what does that achieve other than you proving you’re nothing but a nodding dog to every agent out there who thinks this is acceptable?’ she’d said, slamming her finger on the paper. ‘Is this really how you want to start your career – keeping your head down? Tell them that they either accept me or they can reconsider their place on this team.’

  ‘And that’s what you’d do in my position, is it, Caitlin?’

  ‘Too right, I would. Because with it I would be proving to every single person out in Lowtown and Blackthorn that the Vampire Control Unit, let alone the Third Species Control Division, is not an all boys’ club of scratching mutual backs and looking after your own. It’s about doing what we’re paid to do, which is protecting those streets with the most impartial and effective agents we have. And I was and will continue to be this unit’s most effective agent, Morgan – and you know it. You stick me down in one of those shadow-reading rooms and I will lose total respect for you. Because you will prove that this whole system, just like they’re saying out on the streets right now, is a lost cause. You have a chance to change things, Morgan. Really change things. And you can start right now.’

  She’d leaned back in her chair, her arms folded, her glare fixed on Morgan.

  He’d held that gaze for a moment then shaken his head slightly as he’d looked back down at his paperwork.

  She’d not dared move, her breath baited as she’d awaited his response in the passing seconds.

  He’d slipped a thin cardboard folder out from under his pile of papers and dropped it in front of her.

  ‘It’s the eighth one in three days,’ he’d said. ‘All tortured before death. All totally unrelated as far as we can tell other than the fact all the victims are human.’

  ‘Tortured for what?’

  ‘We don’t know. With no survivors, no witnesses and no one on the street talking to us, we’re clueless.’

  ‘Retaliation for the trial?’

  He shrugged. ‘A possibility. What’s interesting though is that their fingertips were burned off to slow down identification. At the very least, whoever it is, they’re buying themselves some time, which tells us there could be more to come.’

  She’d flicked through the papers. ‘What about dental records?’

  ‘There were no dentures left
to analyse.’

  She snatched her gaze back up to him. ‘So basically we have nothing until DNA results come through?’

  ‘This is the DNA report on the first two,’ he said, pulling out the yellow sheet amongst the white. ‘One victim came from Midtown, the other from Lowtown.’

  ‘Feeders?’

  ‘No sign of it.’

  ‘Then what were they doing in Blackthorn?’

  He’d shrugged. ‘That’s the big question. So, are you up for the job, Agent Parish?’

  She’d smiled and gathered up the folder.

  ‘Just look out for yourself,’ he’d said, easing back in his chair. ‘Tyrell’s already on this case so he’ll be your partner. I don’t think he’ll give you any major problems, but you’re still on your own now. And that’s no way for a VCU agent to be.’

  She’d stood up. ‘I’m not quitting, Matt,’ she’d said, clutching the folder against her chest. ‘I know that’s exactly what they want me to do, but I’m not walking out of here.’

  He’s sent her a weary smile. ‘As if I should have expected anything less.’

  Now, in the dingy bedsit, she stepped up to the chair, up to the body. She crouched down to look up at the face. It was badly beaten. She glanced down at the fingertips that had been burned off just like the others. All the teeth with missing.

  She stood back up again.

  ‘I take it we have nothing again,’ she said as an open question, her attention still on the body.

  When she was met with silence, she glanced around at her so-called team.

  Carl, who she’d worked with in forensics for long enough, just shrugged.

  They’d always had a good relationship, but now he struggled to maintain eye contact with her. She excused it as her own paranoia setting in at first, but his response was too uncharacteristic to his usual free-flowing concise and insightful analysis. It wasn’t helped by him glancing at some of the others in the room, as if needing their approval.

  Others who remained equally silent.

  As if someone had jumped on her back, she felt the weight of their reproach.

  ‘Do you have a problem in solving this case?’ she asked, staring straight back at Carl.

  His eyes, laced with resentment at being confronted, finally met hers.

  ‘Because if you’re struggling to do your job, I can organise a replacement,’ she reminded him.

  It was a foolhardy statement – one that wasn’t going to win her or regain her any fans. Not that either were a battle she was going to win anyway. But she was going to do her job properly. And if that meant reminding her colleagues who was in charge, then that was what she’d do.

  ‘Male, late twenties,’ Harry, one of the investigators, said as he handed her a plastic evidence bag with the ID open inside. ‘This had fallen down the back of one of the drawers. It’s the first time anything has been left behind. We don’t know if they were in a hurry, got slack or were just disturbed. His name’s Mark Turner. Formerly of Midtown. Good education. Plenty of money behind him. He had no reason to be here. We’ve done all the standard checks. His system is clear of alcohol and drugs. There are no bite or syringe marks, so he wasn’t a feeder. Like I said – he had no reason to be here.’

  Caitlin scanned the information on the ID. ‘I want to know more about his background. I want to know about any political influences. I want to know if he was here on a cause.’

  ‘A cause?’ Carl asked.

  ‘These attacks are down to a third species,’ she said. ‘So I’m guessing Mark here, along with the others, has offended someone somehow. Until we find the link between the victims, we’re not going to know.’

  ‘Cons are proficient at staging crimes like these – shifting the blame.’

  ‘The lab reports show from the angle, force and indentations that the victims’ jaws were removed by hands, not tools. Besides, up until now this whole operation has been meticulous. From the way each of the victims was tortured, someone wanted something from each of them. This is clinical, not personal. And it’s professional. This was a mission.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ Harry said.

  ‘And flag the files up to the Unidentified Species Unit. We can’t assume only vampire or lycan involvement. We might have something else on our hands.’

  ‘Why don’t you just ask your boyfriend for help?’ someone piped up.

  She scanned the room, detecting the smirks, before locating the officer guarding the door.

  ‘He knows all about this kind of thing, doesn’t he?’ the officer added. ‘Torturing, maiming, killing? Maybe he had something to do with it. Maybe he thinks he can get away with it now he’s got someone on the inside to cover his arse for him.’

  She turned to face the officer at least twenty years her senior but five ranks her junior.

  ‘How about you produce a statement to that effect?’ she suggested, biting back her aggravation. ‘And submit it for consideration, if that’s your genuine suspicion?’

  ‘So you can get him into the interrogation room all over again? Oh no, you don’t need to, do you? You can strap him up in your own private den now. Or is it true that you like him to strap you up?’ He looked around the room and smirked. ‘I think that’s where we’ve been going wrong all these years, boys. She’s not frigid.’ He glowered back at her with his cold, grey eyes. ‘She just likes it rough. Vampire rough.’

  Pulse racing, chest tight, she stepped up to him. ‘I’m more than capable of setting my personal feelings aside. If you’re having difficulty doing the same, maybe you’re not emotionally up to the job.’

  The eyes of the nameless officer narrowed in hatred, despite it being the first time they had ever so much as exchanged words. He was the silent voice of everything that was wrong with the TSCD – quick to judge, quick to condemn and, typical of bullies, quick to make sure as many others as possible did the same. And he did so with a sanctimony that was the ultimate irony. ‘When we’re alone, I’ll show you just how much I’m up to the job.’

  Her stomach flipped, queasiness at the very suggestion only adding to her indignation. ‘Is that a threat?’

  ‘Not that anyone in here has heard,’ he replied.

  She looked around as all eyes rested sullenly on hers.

  ‘No one wants you here, Parish,’ he added. ‘So why don’t you go and shuffle your papers like some good little secretary and leave the real work to the men who know how to give it to the vampires, not roll over and take it.’

  She glowered deep into the officer’s eyes.

  In the silence of the room, no one defended her. No one spoke up. No one moved. Hardly anyone breathed.

  She brushed past him. ‘I want everything on my desk before the end of the shift,’ she said before turning to face the room again. ‘Unless you all want to be the ones rolling over and proving everyone right who thinks the TSCD have lost their touch. I sure as hell won’t be.’

  She headed back to the stairs in the derelict tower block. She fisted her trembling hands and struggled to calm her breathing, not least when she heard laughter inside, even some congratulatory comments and a slap on a back.

  Face flushed from humiliation, from anger, from the injustice, she headed back down the stairs, unable to stop even for Tyrell for fear of her barely held-back tears giving way.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sophia held her breath as if waiting on the cusp of a joke. But the punch line never came.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ was all she could utter quietly. ‘What do you mean, dead?’

  ‘We’ve been ambushed. They know about us. And they’ve been killing us off. Abby called an emergency meeting the night after you disappeared. She warned us to go underground. She said we were to sever all ties with each other – that The Alliance was broken. I’ve never seen her so scared.’

  ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Who’s responsible for this?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  Marid?

  Or maybe ev
en Caleb himself.

  The latter made perfect sense. If Marid knew, others knew. And if anyone knew everything that was going on in Blackthorn, it was Caleb Dehain. And he had Alisha. Alisha knew about The Alliance – she’d forced a confession out of Sophia months before with the threat of going to Leila.

  Caleb could have found out from her. Or Alisha could have let it slip to Jake if there was something going on between them.

  Her heart pounded. ‘Dehain,’ she said. ‘The Dehains have come after us. They worked out we were responsible.’

  ‘No. No, this is bigger than that.’

  He stepped over to the dining table where the laptop was, Sophia following behind.

  As she perched on one of the chairs, he turned the screen to face her.

  ‘I’m keeping a close eye on every report, not that there’s much being disclosed,’ he said. ‘But the VCU are involved now.’

  Her gaze shot to Daniel’s. ‘Do they know about The Alliance?’

  ‘Nothing has been said publicly. But even if they did know, there is no Alliance anymore.’

  She flicked through the images that had been plastered over news reports. There were no images of the bodies, but there were plenty of accounts and images of the aftermaths left behind.

  ‘We’ve lost at least eight in the past three days. There could be more. Like I said, we’ve all lost contact. Hannah, Simon, Tyrone, Cass, even Zach – they’re all gone. And now Lola too. Whoever this is, they’re fast. And they’re meticulous. And they’re covering their tracks. They pick one off, they torture them for more names and then they move on to the next.’

  Sophia stared back at the screen, at the blood-splattered apartment she had known well. She’d had one or two celebratory drinks there. One or two discussions putting the world to rights through to dawn. Lola had been a quirky little thing – tiny but lethal. And Sophia had always had a soft spot for her.

  Originally from Midtown, Lola’s parents had been forced to move from Midtown into Lowtown after her father failed on his employment scores. A bout of severe ill health for his wife had had him exhausted and underperforming. Instead of looking to support him, he’d become an inconvenience to his employers. They’d turned up the pressure and he’d been destined to fail. Her mother’s ill health and inability to go out had subsequently lowered all their social contribution scores. The worry meant Lola had started to struggle in school.