Queen's Night Ch. 01

Hello, everyone! This is my first posting on Literotica. And, while there is no inherent sex in this chapter, it will be coming. Please read and review. We writers live off feedback, after all.

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Parker McLaren rolled his eyes, as he found himself doing more and more when he spoke to his boss. Thankfully, the cell phone call meant that he did not have to show his face to the rat bastard.

"Listen, Parker," Gregory Hart said. "I know your vacation is coming up, but you're the only investigator with a clear caseload right now."

"I had a clear caseload because I was trying to get to my vacation!" Parker protested. Oh, how he wanted to punch his boss.

"Just consider it a working vacation, Parker!"

Parker was so glad that his glare couldn't penetrate the speaker system. "Are you docking my vacation hours? "

"Goodbye, Greg. Have a nice weekend." He punched the button on his phone to end the call.

He should have been in Denver now, getting on a plane to Hawaii. Today was supposed to be the start of a glorious, nine-day vacation designed to completely rid his body of the idea of work. Fate had an odd way of showing its appreciation of the idea.

Parker McLaren had joined up with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation three years ago. He'd had job offers from the FBI, the Federal Marshals, and the Denver Police Department. But he'd picked the Bureau since he wasn't a big fan of the feds, and Denver had never really appealed to him.

After a year of dreaded internship, he'd been placed with the violent crimes division, and had never looked back. But even after two years, and the last six months being the youngest senior investigator in the Bureau, he was still treated like crap.

Parker had learned to live with stuff like being called out to places like today's visit, Cold River. He reached down and took a sip from his travel mug. After that, he checked his phone, which told him to get off at the next turn was in three miles. Cold River. The name was so plain, and the town was so small, he couldn't recall any particular information about it. He wasn't even sure if he'd heard of the town before today when the call had come in.

It couldn't be too bad, he told himself.

Cold River was a town of maybe fifteen hundred, though most of that were small homes outside of the town proper. Parker had done a quick peek into the history of the city. It had been founded when silver had been found in a nearby mountain. The silver had gone quickly, but the local lumber was found to be fantastic. So, the people had stayed. Maybe the local logging company employed five hundred people in the town, while the rest of the town seemed to support the loggers or work independently.

He parked his car outside the sheriff's office, a plain building painted a drab brown. It looked, on the exterior, just like any other sheriff's office he'd seen.

He stepped out of the car after grabbing his phone, wallet, and sliding on his paddle holster. Parker passed two other cars, one SUV of the same make as his, and a smaller sedan without any official markings.

Parker walked up to the front door, which had a pane of glass with the sheriff's crest on it, and opened the door.

The interior of the sheriff's office was as familiar to him as the outside was. It consisted of a reception area, and a scattering of desks in a communal area. He passed the reception area, empty, and into the communal area.

There were only two officers in the communal area. The one sitting at the closer desk stood when he entered. "Can I help you?" The man asked in a friendly, though gruff, manner.

Parker took a moment to size him up. The deputy, he supposed, was tall, about matching his own height. He had a build like a linebacker, and seemed to make everything else look miniature in comparison.

"Yes," Parker said after a moment. "I'm Agent Parker McLaren, Colorado Bureau of Investigation." He flashed his badge, like second nature. "I was called in to assist with an investigation into a body that turned up in your town?"

"Right." The man seemed reluctant to admit that someone had called him in, though Parker understood the feeling. He knew how reluctant local authorities could be to hand over cases like this. "I'm Deputy Rick Fisher, Cold River Sherriff's Department." He stuck out his hand. "The silent guy over in the corner is Deputy Braun."

Parker shook Fisher's hand, both of their grips firm. "Pleasure to meet you, Deputy Fisher." He looked towards the other deputy, who was typing at his desk. "Deputy Braun." He nodded to him.

Fisher offered a genial smile. "Call me Rick, please. Deputy Fisher was my old man."

"All right, Rick." Parker relaxed. "Call me Parker, then." He then asked. "I hate to sound like I'm in a rush, but I'd like to take a look at your corpse. Has it already been moved to the coroner's office? I wasn't sure when you guys found it. I just got handed the file about two hours ago."

"Yea, the body's at the coroner's office. What we could find of it."

Parker furrowed his brow. "What you could find of it?" He inquired.

Fisher sighed. "Come on, I'll show you. We'll walk it there. It's just down the street." Fisher led him outside of the building. Parker breathed in the fresh air of the mountain air, savoring it.

"City folk?" Fisher said, his voice holding just a hint of tease.

"Not terribly, but it's nice out here."

"Yea, only real industry up here's the logging." Fisher said. "So where are you from, originally?"

"Colorado Springs. Dad taught at the Air Force Academy."

Fisher smirked. "Flight jockey?" He asked.

"Aerospace physics, actually." Parker answered. "Why, got something against the Air Force?"

"Was Navy myself. But no, just curious more than anything." Rick said.

"All right." Parker said. "So, tell me about the body."

"Business, aren't you?" Rick chuckled.

Parker offered a little shrug. "I hate to come off like this, but I'm just here for the prelim. I'm supposed to be on a plane for Honolulu earlier this morning, but Deputy Director Hart called me in for this." He withdrew from his jacket a notebook and flipped it open. "So, victim's name?"

"He's unidentified, so far." Rick said. "How's your stomach?"

"I've worked Violent Crimes for three years now. I'm pretty good on not tossing up my meals, Deputy."

"Well, we'll keep the bucket. This one's a doozy."

Parker rolled his eyes. "Please, I'm not some agent on his first case..."

Parker heaved into the wastebasket for the first time in two years.

"Big statie comes in, thinks he's big stuff..." Rick teased him. "You all right there, kid?"

Parker saw a hand towel in his peripheral vision, and he grabbed it to wipe off the gunk from his face. "Ugh, thanks."

"If you're quite done puking over my exam room, I'd like to get started." Said the matronly county medical examiner, Dr. Emily Bauer.

Parker picked himself up of his knees and stood. "Um, yea, I'm fine." He insisted as he dusted himself off. "Sorry, but that...that's something else."

They walked back to the exam table, and it took all of Parker's professionalism to keep himself from vomiting again. He'd done about a dozen or so murders before, but none of them even came close to this one.

The body, or what was left of it, had been savaged. That was the only appropriate word he could think of to describe it. The skin was torn in dozens of places, revealing patches of flesh underneath. The right leg and the head had both been torn off the victim's body, missing now. The left arm of the victim lay severed next to its torso.

Parker put on a pair of glasses, taking out his notebook and making observations. "Animal attack?" He asked.

"I'm cautious to rule it as an animal attack." Bauer said. She was a short, plump woman in her fifties, with iron-gray hair and matching eyes. She had a constant look of disapproval on her face.

"Why would you say that, Dr. Bauer?" Parker asked, making a note of several teeth marks on the bone of the severed arm's humerus. "I can see bite marks. I would guess that animals have fed off of this, but well, severing the head off a torso takes serious work."

She nodded. "Yes, but his defensive wounds are what worry me." She turned over the left hand, showing a number of fine scratches on his forearm. "Those don't match the pattern of any animal I've seen. They more resemble nails of a woman."

"So I'm looking for a woman who can flay a man and decapitate him? What was cause of death?"

"Exsanguination."

He furrowed his brow. "Beg pardon? Exsanguination?"

She nodded. "He was bled to death. Purposefully."

Rick shuddered a little. "Awful way to go. Do you have a time of death?" He asked.

"About a week ago. I'm afraid I can't be more specific with the state in which you brought this to me."

"What was the state?" Parked asked.

"We found John Doe here on the bed of a river near town."

"John Doe," Parker repeated. "No ID on him?"

"Just him, naked. No clothes, no ID. We've sent his fingerprints off to the state database, and they said theyshouldbe back to us in a few days. In reality, though..."

"I'll make a call, put it on the state crime lab's top priority."

Rick furrowed his brow. "You'd do that?"

"If my boss thought he should postpone my trip to Hawaii for this case, it's a priority."

"Hawaii?" Bauer scoffed. "Your boss sucks."

"Tell me about it." Parker rolled his eyes. "So, uh, do you have a file for what you've got so far?"

"We can get one for you." Said a voice behind them.

Parker turned. In the doorway was a woman in the uniform of the sheriff's office. She was short, barely even five-four. She had blond hair in a ponytail, and sharp, elegant features.

"Hello?" Parker asked. "I think you have me at a disadvantage here."

"I think I do." She walked towards him and extended her hand. "Amber Kelly, Cold River County Sheriff."

Parker shook her hand, finding her grip even stronger than Rick's. Surprising, he thought. "Pleasure to meet you, Sheriff. Agent Parker McLaren, Colorado Bureau of Investigation."

"Pleasure to meet you, Agent McLaren." She said. "Now, you wanted a file, I believe? Let's make this happen."

Alyse awoke with a start, tossing the covers back from her bed. Her breath escaped her mouth in harsh pants, even though she lacked the need for it.

It had happened again. She had dreamed of death.

The same dream visited her every time she slept. Her fangs and nails hot with blood, and before her, the body of a male before her. He was torn to pieces, savaged like a wild monster. Missing limbs, drained of his blood.

It made Alyse curl into a ball on her sheets, panting. She felt it-her hunger was growing. Ever since the dreams had started, her hunger had tripled. She had once only needed to drink once a week, with the occasional indulgence in passing fling.

Ever since the dreams had started, she had needed to drink every other night. It was a burning hunger that had consumed her. Even after she drank, the fire of hunger was sated, but still she craved more.

She grabbed a robe hanging off a chair next to the bed and tied it. She walked out of her bedroom, and headed into the kitchen. Her servant, Presten, was already in the kitchen.

"Majesty?" He arched a thick eyebrow. Presten was a tall man, towering over her five-six. He had dark hair, trimmed precisely, and intense blue eyes that pierced her soul.

"I need to drink, Presten." She said.

Presten smiled and nodded. "Of course, Your Majesty. I'm afraid that the usual contacts have not recovered. You'll need someone new."

Alyse felt a growl bubble in her throat. "That's not good. Find someone else. Take one of the others' food sources."

"I will check with the other vampires, but you will have to ask, Majesty. You know the rules."

Of course Alyse did. She had been a vampire for six hundred years. Because Cold River's vampiric community was small, she had been named Queen, as the oldest and most powerful vampire. It was only appropriate, as her sire had been a Queen herself.

But Aria had been Queen by blood, her line some of the first rulers of their kind. And she had passed down her curse with her. Alyse could only drink from living blood, none of that bagged blood some vampires did. She craved living flesh.

"Contact them, then." Alyse ordered. "I'm going to go take a walk." She started off back to her bedroom. "And Presten?"

"Yes, Majesty?" Presten asked with that tone that she hated. The one that was so... English-ly pleasant.

"Thank you." She said, her voice soft, though she knew Presten would hear her.

"Of course, Majesty."

Alyse groaned in protest as she stepped outside. Though vampires did not burn up on sight when they stepped out into the sun, like Hollywood was so fond of, it didn't mean they had to like it. Sun block wasn't a necessity in the gray Colorado afternoon but in places like California, she had needed it.

She left her house, a modest one-story cabin, and headed into town. It was a mile's walk, and she didn't particularly mind. She had dressed conservatively, with jeans, a button-down plaid flannel shirt covering her t-shirt, and an oversized wool coat. After growing up in a cold European village in life, Alyse never liked to be cold.

It was a twenty-minute walk into town. She went into the store and bought a number of steaks, as they would at least prolong her hunger. She gathered her things, and decided to make a stop by her friend's lab.

She had been walking down the main street of the town when suddenly, in a moment, she froze. She knew how unnatural it would look to others in the town. Vampires had the unnatural ability to do that, she knew.

There was a new scent in town. But it was nothing plain, like a new flower or a exciting new bread from the bakery.

This scent was of a man. Her head spun towards the scent. He was leaving Dr. Bauer's office. Tall, easily six-four, with gorgeous dark hair and a strong jaw. He filled out his suit in a decidedly delicious manner, with the lithe body of a runner or a swimmer. He was Adonis personified.

She saw him, a perfect specimen of man. And her hunger increased right there, a burning in her gut. She saw him, and realized right there, right then. She had to have him. Whoever this man was, whatever he was, he was Alyse's new focus in life.

And she would have him.

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Chapter two will be coming, guys! Again, reviews are greatly appreciated!