Dawn's First Light

"Maybe he's been hanging out for a while, playing hide and seek with the boys in blue," Thomas said as he fired up his email. Rodg had him curious as hell.

"No such luck. An eyewitness reported seeing the vic at the bar the night before he was found. Goddamned weird I tell ya. Jesus, people are sick fucks, I tell ya'. Poor bastard got his head cut completely off." Rodge snickered, "Guess he pissed somebody off."

Thomas snorted and scrolled through his emails. "Guess so. I just got your e-mail." He whistled low under his breath as he read the lab reports. "Do you think you could send me a blood sample? I'd like to run some tests of my own out of curiosity."

"Already packaged and ready to go. I thought you'd be interested. But, I tell you, the blood aint much. It's disintegrating as quickly as the body."

"What about from the second guy?"

"Man I'd love to send you some. But there isn't one damn drop in his whole body. It's like someone stuck a slurpy straw in him and sucked him dry."

"Do you think the murders are somehow connected?"

Rodge scoffed and scratched his head. "In this town, who the hell knows? I just slice 'em and dice 'em. I don't even want to think about what goes on after dark."

"No, you don't." Thomas agreed. He looked up as the sound of a wailing kid shattered the quiet dullness of his night. "Gotta go, paying customer just came in."

"When are you going to come back here and do some real doctoring?" Rodg ribbed lightly. Thomas was a damn fine physician and the little burg was lucky to have him. But, maybe with Thomas working in the ER again, his morgue wouldn't be standing or lying room only.

"Someone has to tend to the cows. I get some good stuff out here, once in a while."

"Yeah, sure you do. Hey, call me if you come up with anything."

"I will." Thomas snapped the phone closed and smoothed his lab jacket. The blood might prove to be the lucky break he needed for his research to move forward. If, the blood indeed was from the source he hoped it was.

*******

Patrick did his best bloodhound impersonation, sniffing at the rough brick. He had a scent, sort of. The city clean up crew had washed away most of the evidence. The astringent smell of harsh cleaners burned his nose and made his eyes water. He crawled on his hands and knees with his nose pressed to the pavement, tracking what lingering scent he had managed to find. He stopped at the end of the alley and shook his head. Vampires had been here recently. He could smell them. But, the scent trapped in his nostrils was too faint and too indistinct to track any further. Until he got lucky enough to come across the unique aroma again, he was done. "I've got jack shit," he said, rising to his feet.

John Mark scanned the dark alley and wrinkled his nose at the lingering scent of death. Despite the best efforts of the city to clean up the mess and wash away the macabre scene, the narrow alleyway reeked of the sickeningly, sweet stench of rogue, the coppery tang of blood, and the cloying, lingering aroma of death. The investigators had picked the alleyway clean of evidence and there wasn't anything left to be learned by hanging around. "We need to get a look at those bodies."

Keene lifted his head and ran his gaze over the shabby rooftops. There was little doubt in his mind Roark had already been here and scoured the area for traces of the infant. His former master could have squadrons posted anywhere, hidden out of sight, trailing them, and reporting back to the bastard. Keene could be leading his brothers into a trap just waiting to be sprung. Roark was blissfully out of his head. But, their conflict was far from over. The bastard wasn't a stupid man, and he'd wait till the most opportune time to make his move.

Bryce moved through the grungy club and its even grungier patrons. Even though there'd been a grizzly murder on the back stoop, it hadn't stopped people from coming in droves. If anything, the murders had drawn an even bigger crowd than usual and the staff was having a hell of a time keeping up. Good place to hunt, he mussed. And he was not disappointed to feel the eyes of a stray, doing just that, on the back of his head.

Bryce tipped his head to the stray both in greeting and in warning. The stray was one he recognized from his patrols. Carter had a reputation amongst the rogues and the strays in the city. He kept to himself. Caused no trouble. Divulged no information. And never got involved. But, most importantly, he didn't kill. Bryce knew better than to interrupt. Wasn't any point. Even if Carter did know something, he sure as hell wouldn't share it with the brotherhood. As far as Bryce knew, the man had no allegiance to anybody and no friends. Carter was a loner.

Carter balanced the blonde female on his lap and dipped his head to Bryce. He knew the tracker. The two of them had crossed paths before many times. For the most part, they kept out of each other's way. He had no quarrel with Bryce nor Bryce with him. Carter kept a smile pinned on his face as he stroked the female's inner thigh, eliciting a shiver of desire from her. He was old enough and wise enough to give the brotherhood a wide berth. But, it was nice to see that they'd finally crawled out of their cave and ventured into the city to do their damn job.

Carter had information. Not that he intended to share it. He was neutral to any cause. And had full intention of staying that way. There was an infant prowling the streets. But, it wasn't his concern, as long as the brothers lived up to their reputation and took care of it. And if they didn't, he'd do it himself. The Sons weren't stupid and they'd figure it out. The infant's trail led right to Roark's doorstep. A nasty fight, one that he did not want to be in the middle of, was coming.

Bryce turned and walked out of the bar to join his brothers in the alley. There were no discernable scents in the club. Nothing that indicated who had done the killing. The trail was too old to be of any use. Bryce covered for Carter by simply not mentioning him and shrugged his shoulders at John Mark. He saw no point in dragging the man into this mess. If the brothers knew there was a stray prowling the club looking for an easy meal, they'd want to question him. And they'd spend all night trying to track him down. Not that it'd do them any good. How he did it, Bryce had no clue. He'd been surprised by Carter before. The man had wicked skills when it came to being nothing more than a shadow. Carter was a master at remaining invisible. If Carter didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be. And they did not have the time to waste chasing a shadow. Bryce doubted that his brothers had caught Carter's scent. He hadn't.

Keene hated the narrow confines and the exposure of the alley. There wasn't enough space to maneuver effectively. And if Roark had enough willing men, he could easily trap them between the towering brick walls. "Let's move out and quit wasting time then."

With their minds focused on the task at hand, the SUV was quiet as the grave on the drive to the morgue. No one put into words the thoughts of the group. Roark was behind this mess somehow. Each and every one of them knew it. This whole thing could be a set up to draw the brotherhood into the city. Damage control would have to be done, quickly and efficiently. Get in-get out. And avoid the Rogue Master, as if that were possible.

Stealthily, the quartet stole into police headquarters. At this time of night, the building was sparsely populated by a handful of humans. Silently, they made their way to the basement, following the faint scent undetectable to humans to the morgue. The stench of death grew thicker as they took the stairwell down into the bowels of the building.

Taking aim, John Mark severed the cable feeding the security camera outside of the morgue's heavy gauge steel door. With expert precision, Bryce picked the sturdy locks within a matter of seconds and got the brothers inside. Patrick whispered a soft suggestion to the only living thing in the morgue. A pudgy, balding man in his mid-thirties, tucked away in an office, intently bent over a mound of paperwork behind a utilitarian putty colored desk. Keene marveled at the efficiency of the brothers as they worked in tandem. No one had to say a word. They knew their jobs. They did their thing as a team. And the brothers went to work.

Following the reek of dead blood, Keene stalked into the back room slid a body out of the cooler. Unzipping the thick, plastic body bag, he recognized the dead vampire inside immediately. He hissed as his gaze fell onto the cold, dead, eyes staring blankly up at him. He wasn't sorry to see the vampire dead, just surprised. "I knew this man."

"One of Roark's?" John Mark asked.

"He was."

Patrick bent close to the body, ignoring the choking scent of decay as he went to work, sniffing out the killer. There might be a trace of the murder's scent still clinging to the cold, gray, dead flesh. Contrary to human myth, vampires did not 'poof' into dust when they died for once and for all. They rotted, just like every other 'living' thing. They just did it a little more quickly. And at barely a day post-humus, the vampire was already in a bad state of advanced decay. He barely detected the undertone of soft, musky feminine perfume and human scent mixing with the stench of rot. "The killer is a woman," he said darkly, studying the severed head with wonder. "A human."

"Human?" Keene lifted an eyebrow, doubting Patrick's assessment. Keene found it highly unlikely that a vampire as ruthless as this one had been met his demise at the hand of a human female. This rogue had been known for his ruthlessness and his harsh treatment of humans and his eagerness to kill. How could a human have been fast enough, lethal enough, and desperate enough to do this kind of damage?

There were rumors that circulated every now and then of hunters. Bad bedtime stories Roark used to subdue his minions into obedience. There was a chance. Sure, there was always a chance some human might...might be able to kill one of their kind. But, proof of it, Keene had never seen. They were legends. Fables. And he doubted even if there was a shred of truth to the vapid whispered tales, even a hunter would have left evidence of this nature behind.

Bryce pulled open another chiller compartment and shivered at the stink of rot. The ruthlessness of humanity never ceased to amaze him. Gunshot victim, judging by the six holes in the man's chest and the hamburger meat the exit wounds made out of his back. Not the man they were looking for. "This one's just plain dead," he said, zipping the bag closed. Returning the corpse to its resting place, he slammed the chiller door closed and moved onto the next compartment.

The place was creepy, pale fluorescent light reflected off the stainless steel tables and doors, bathing the place in an eerie sickly, greenish glow. Bryce fought the urge to rush to the sink and scrub the death off his hands in disgust. He, for one, needed no proof to believe in fairy tales and legends. And his runaway imagination got the best of him. He watched way too much TV. The logical part of his mind knew sure as shit that none of these corpses dead on their slabs were coming back to life in any way, shape, or form. That just didn't happen. But, he'd be damn glad when they were done in the morgue. He'd rather face Roark head on than spend one more second down here with these stiffs.

Keene randomly pulled open a compartment. Unzipping the bag he stared down at the corpse. It seemed he was the lucky winner. He sifted his fingers through the greasy strands of hair, releasing the scent. The body reeked of disease and depravity, and of something else. Vampire.

He inhaled deeply. He never forgot a scent. And he did not recognize the reek of rogue clinging to the hair. Keene had his doubts that Roark authorized the man's murder. Roark ruled his followers in a rigid, iron grip. If the kill had been ordered, his minions would have never have left a body behind as evidence. There were a few accidents, from time to time. But even then, the mess was cleaned up quickly. He ran a fingertip over the savaged puncture wounds. The bite marks were ill placed and messy. Not typical of a practiced killer. A rogue moved in fast, killed quickly, and moved on. This man suffered before he died.

Patrick swallowed back the bile rising in his throat and focused on the job. Now more than ever he hated the rogues. That they could savage a human being like this and leave a corpse, discarded on the street like an empty pop can, rankled him. He'd killed. He understood the lure of death better than any of his brothers ever could. He'd felt it calling to him as he drained Nikki's life. Patrick pushed back the sudden surge of guilt and ran his nose along the corpse's cold skin. The scent of feminine perfume clung to the body. Even though the fragrance was the same, the underlying scent was different, definitely vampire. Female. He took his time embedding the burning essence into his memory for future reference. Not that he had the scent, all he had to do was find the trail and the world would be minus one more cold blooded murderer on the streets.

"We need to get these bodies out of here," John Mark said. He spoke to Toby through the microphone attached to his collar. He could hear Toby's rapid typing through his earpiece, erasing the electronic trail of evidence. Luckily, the vampire had no discernable past. And the investigators had conveniently managed to ID the human victim on the slab. Easy. People disappeared everyday. Went off the grid, as it were. By the time Toby got done hacking into any database that might have the slightest trace of information about the man. It would be as if he'd never existed at all.

John Mark groaned as he lifted the cold, stiff, flesh off the slab. The barrier of thick plastic between his shoulder and the corpse really did nothing to dampen the sheer creepiness of carting around a one hundred and thirty some odd pound dead body. But, the brothers couldn't afford to leave the slightest trace of evidence behind. He arranged for a pickup at a desolate location in the bowels of the city and motioned for his brothers to wrap it up. The neatly packaged corpse thumped against his back as he walked toward the door. John Mark hadn't tossed his cookies since he'd cut his first fang. His guts pitched and rolled. He was not a pussy. He would not puke. But, he could. He definitely could.

The man dozed peacefully with his head resting on his arms oblivious to his guests in the morgue. Patrick sorted through the mounds of paperwork on the man's desk in bland disinterest, pocketing anything that might reference the corpses on the slabs. According to the name placard, the man was a physician. Roger Spencer, MD.

Patrick snickered and shook his head in puzzlement. Humans truly were strange creatures. What kind of doctor would the dead be in need of? He snatched up a stack of files related to the case and tucked them under his arm. Pushing aside a half-eaten pastrami on rye, wondering who in the hell could eat in a creepy place like this. He spotted a neatly labeled shipping box, addressed and ready to be sent express mail in the morning. "Hey, this is for Thomas," he said to himself as he read the label. Sometimes the mail was slow and unreliable. Especially if the town's only mail carrier had been on a particularly bad binge the night before. He'd save Thomas the wait and deliver the package to him personally.

Keene zipped the body bag, mindful of the vampire's severed head. Even though the man had been a true son of a bitch in real life. The dead deserved some sort of consideration. He hefted the vampire's bulk over his shoulder and headed for the door with his distasteful burden in tow. So far, the mission was going according to plan. They hadn't seen a sign of Roark or his minions. The whole thing was easy, too easy. And it was that he didn't trust.

Bryce had the job of getting the brothers out undetected. He locked the doors behind them and led the way through the deserted hallways. The whole place had an eerie vibe. There was no detectable scent of rogue in the sterile air. But, he could almost feel eyes on the back of his head. Palming a dagger, he moved through the corridors toward the back service exit. There was just...something about this whole set up that wasn't quite right. Maybe, it was the corpses that had him on edge. The job shouldn't have been this easy.

Ok, so much for his policy of non-involvement. Mentally, Carter kicked himself. He'd missed out on a perfectly fine supper, thanks to his conscience. Something, until now, he thought had abandoned him long ago. Dealing with Roark's minions had been too easy. The bungling bunch of mindless fools didn't have a brain among them.

It'd been a simple task to lure them away from their posts. Leaving the opening the brothers needed to get in and do their job in the morgue. He dropped the gear he'd 'borrowed' from the brotherhood's black SUV and gagged at the earthy scent of the Sons clinging to his silk shirt. He'd have to go home immediately and scrub off the stench of do-gooder from his skin before it stuck.

The whole city stank like the brotherhood thanks to the trail he'd woven through downtown. It was enough though, to make Roark's goons believe they were in hot pursuit of the brothers. And it was laughable, the way he led them on a wild goose chase through the city. This one was gratis. He didn't help anybody. Ever. But, tonight, with the cloud of death leaving its reek over his city, he had.



Chapter 34

Angel was drunk from her newfound sense of power. She was street smart and savvy, two traits that had served her well in the past. She sat in the back of the upscale posh bar with her fingers wrapped around the cool moist exterior of a glass filled to the brim with an exotic concoction that she couldn't enjoy. Her mark sported designer clothing and expensive leather loafers, obviously well moneyed and with excellent taste. At least, Angel hoped he tasted excellent. She ran the tip of her finger in a circle over her crimson stained lips and smiled coyly, nodding in his direction, inviting him to take the empty seat in the booth next to her.

She pretended to listen as he prattled on about some bullshit she could care less about. Occasionally she added an appropriate comment or nodded her head here and there as he went on and on and on making small talk. She leaned closer and smoothed her palm over the lapels of his expensive suit. Angel hated business types. But, he suited her needs perfectly. And the lack of a tan line on his left ring finger meant nobody would miss him for at least a few days. He was good looking enough she supposed. Falling for her ploy with an ease she hadn't thought possible. Was he just that dumb? Or was it simply that easy to lead a steer the slaughter room floor? He fell for the oldest feminine tricks, hook, line and sinker. "You've already got me in your bed. Why don't we skip all the formalities and go to your place," she whispered seductively.

His deep walnut hair was soft against her fingers and his eyes sparkled brilliantly with desire. "You certainly are in a playful mood," he said, his lips curling in an anticipatory grin. Hesitantly, he trailed his palm along the smooth skin of her inner thigh to muster his courage. Angel tolerated the contact. She tolerated him. Spreading her legs wider apart she let his fingers dance around the lacy edge of her panties and pretended to enjoy it.

Hell, she didn't even bother to learn his name. What difference would it make? "I know how to play all sorts of games." Angel ran her tongue along the pulsating artery in his neck barely able to hold back her hunger. She smelled his blood as it ran beneath the thin barrier of flesh between her fangs and his life. She had no intention of sharing her body with him intimately. The thought repulsed her. She did not fuck her food. Coyly, she slid her hand underneath the table and cupped his erect cock with her palm stroking him till he shivered and panted from her touch. "But, I warn you. I play for keeps."