Blood And Bones Read online

  “How’s that?”

  “Without me, you won’t be able to track down then kill that cold-blooded bitch,” he said. “Then you’ll be hanging around here because you can’t find no place better to go. By then you’d have bit somebody. I mean self-discipline ain’t your strong point. So when that craving hits you hard, you’re gonna do it.

  “Then you’ll be biting my customers, all three of them that I have. They’ll be biting each other and any other idiots that wander past. Shit, before I know it, I’m gonna have an entire neighborhood of vampire-werewolf things. As if crack-heads hanging around outside my door wasn’t enough, I’d have to put up with that shit too.

  “And all of it would be because I didn’t go with you and track down this Spider-Bitch and make certain that we put her in the ground.”

  “All right, I give up,” I told Johnny. “You’re right. So where do you figure we start looking?”

  “That’s why you need me,” he said. “It’s obvious where we got to start, the same place you met her, at The Barbary Coast.

  Me and Johnny walked in through the door to The Barbary Coast tavern. It was quiet except for a guy nursing a beer at the far end of the bar hoping for a woman to show up.

  He looked up as we came in. As soon as he saw that we didn’t have tits his eyes dropped and he went back to watching the bubbles in his beer rise.

  Nate Jones was washing some glasses, setting out some nice little touches on the bar for his customers like little Dixie cups full of salted peanuts. The peanuts didn’t cost much and they would keep guys drinking beer thirsty.

  “Why don’t you do something like that at your place,” I asked Johnny.

  “Cause fuck-heads like you that drink for free would eat them all and leave none for my paying customers,” he told me. “You want some fucking peanuts, bring a jar.”

  We went and stood in front of where Nate was.

  Johnny said, “How’s it going man? I ain’t seen you for awhile.”

  “I’ve been here,” he answered. His big arms flexed as he worked on the glasses like he was hefting barbells.

  I spoke now.

  “Nate, that woman I was in here with last night, do you know where she came from?”

  He gave me a blank look.

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said. “You were in here alone last night.”

  I looked at Johnny.

  He looked back at me.

  “Don’t be fucking with me man,” I said my voice beginning to change to that low rumble that came when I told the woman in the abandoned shop to leave. The same feeling, the blood-lust was starting to come over me too.

  “I need to know who the fuck she is,” I growled.

  “Look mother-fucker, you don’t ever come in here causing no shit. I’ll stomp all over your white ass and don’t you forget it!”

  Nate Jones was a big guy. He was all of six foot five and two hundred and sixty pounds. I’d seen him in one of his last pro fights smash some dude so hard with a left hook that the guy went right over the top rope and plowed face first into the cement floor at ringside.

  He was a scary guy, but in the state I was in, nothing ... I mean absolutely nothing, was able to frighten me.

  We locked eyes and I started forward. I started to climb over the bar and leap on him and rip chunks of flesh loose and take his blood for my prize.

  I was grabbed from behind and hauled backwards.

  Johnny dragged me out through the front door before he let go of me. Once we were outside the need to rend and tear and kill went away like a light switch was flipped off.

  “You got a problem,” Johnny told me. “When things get tense you can’t control yourself at all.”

  “Yeah, no shit. It’s like I become somebody else.”

  “Somebody that needs a bath and a haircut,” Johnny said. “That’s for dam sure.”

  We walked back to Johnny’s car and I asked him, “What do you make of Nate saying that I was here by myself last night?”

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. But there is a pattern here that’s easy to see.”

  “You mean that I couldn’t remember her and now Nate can’t remember seeing her either.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” he answered.

  We got in his car.

  He turned the ignition over. After a few coughs his old Ford Pinto purred like a cat getting its ears scratched.

  “Take us to the Police Department,” I told Johnny.

  “You mean you’re finally gonna do right and turn yourself in for all that shit you’ve been doing.”

  “Not likely,” I said. “I want to talk to Joe Briggs. I want to see if there have been any unusual murders around here lately. If Elizabeth is doing some kind of weird hypnotic shit that makes everybody forget they saw her she still has to leave a trail. What she leaves behind her might be a trail of bodies.”

  It was a normal night at the East St. Louis Police Department and what that meant was that the place was a fucking madhouse.

  Pimps and hookers argued with Police on the sidewalk in front of the station. The Police were trying to get them to move on down the road to sell the fucking and sucking somewhere else. They didn’t have enough room in the jail to be able to arrest them so the Police were in a bad spot.

  The pimps weren’t budging one bit. They were there just so they could brag later that they were able to sell pussy right out in front of the Police Department.

  Life in East St. Louis was always interesting. It was just like being in a pornographic Disneyland.

  We parked across the street and as we slammed the car doors shut one of the pimps took a swing at a cop.

  That was not a very good idea.

  Before you could yell Rodney King night sticks were swinging and pimps, hookers and police were slugging it out on the sidewalk and in the street.

  Me and Johnny made a wide detour and let them go at it. It would have been fun to wade into the middle of that mess but tonight we just didn’t have the time.

  Besides, with my craving for blood building fast, I’d probably start ripping throats out with the first time a punch was thrown at me.

  We skirted the brawl and went in through the front double doors.

  Inside the stationhouse was only slightly quieter than the riot going on out on the sidewalk.

  Pushers and junkies were arguing with cops about their rights. Across the room a cop was leading a staggering guy toward the cells in back. The guy made a grab for the cop’s gun in his holster. The cop back-handed him and the guy spewed a long rancid stream of vomit down the front of the cop’s uniform.

  I wasn’t sure who won that fight but as the cop dragged the heaving idiot back to the cells I had the feeling that boy was in for a rough night. His school of hard knocks was about to open.

  I went to the Desk Sergeant who looked like he’d survived an atomic war.

  “I need to talk to Joe Briggs,” I told him.

  “He’s busy,” he answered.

  Johnny said, “So he’s in back?”

  “Yeah, but he’s tied up.”

  We went around the desk and started through the door.

  The Sergeant opened his mouth the yell something at us then said, “Aaaah ... fuck-it!”

  That boy definitely needed a vacation.

  Briggs was at his desk but he was not alone. Standing next to him was a guy who could have been a clone for one of the guys that I’d been ambushed by when Elizabeth was with me.

  As we walked toward them I whispered to Johnny, “I think I better do the talking this time. Whatever lies I tell just go along with it.”

  “I’m used to you lying. So that won’t be a problem,” he answered.

  Chapter Eight

  Interpol

  Joe Briggs didn’t see us as we walked toward him.

  The dark haired white guy didn’t see us either.

  They were in an argument that was so intense there wasn�
�t room in either of their brains for anything else other than what they were shouting about.

  “Diplomatic immunity my ass!” Joe Briggs yelled in the Eastern European’s face. “I don’t give a fuck where you’re from or who the fuck you think you are. If you harm one of my citizens I will slap your ass in jail so fast your head will swim. Then I’ll lose the paperwork. And believe me, if I lose that paperwork you’ll sit in here till you’re old and gray before anyone around here learns how to type up the documents that can get you out.”

  “You don’t understand what you are dealing with,” the Eastern European shouted back. “This woman is deadly!”

  “So is half my fucking city!” Joe answered.

  I spoke now, cutting right into the middle of their argument. “I need some fucking work.”

  Joe looked up from his desk right into my eyes. “Shit!” He spit. “As if I don’t have enough fucking headaches right now.”

  “I need some work,” I repeated.

  “A mother-fucking parrot!” Joe shouted. He glanced over at Johnny. “And what the fuck do you want?”

  “I need work too,” Johnny played along.

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ!” Joe yelled and slammed his fist down on his desk. Joe Briggs was a big black bear of a man. When he slammed his fist down everything on his desk, pens, paperweights, a Diet Coke ... everything, jumped.

  Joe Briggs leaped to his feet. He shook his finger in my face.

  “You know the arrangement. I call you. You don’t call me.”

  He looked from me to Johnny then back to me again. “This ain’t no God-dam Labor-Ready Office!” he shouted. Joe had been shouting every since we walked through the door. I knew he’d had a long hard day and we were only adding to it.

  The Eastern European guy spoke now bringing the conversation back in his direction. “We must talk about the resources you have to track down Elizabeth.” he said.

  Joe turned on him. If it was possible his black face got darker. “Like I told you before, I don’t have no extra officers to give you. I don’t have any resources. And if I did, I got a whole hell of a lot of other things that I’d put them on anyway.”

  I spoke to the European now.

  “You pay us, we’ll track this woman for you.”

  He studied the two of us for a moment then said, “Perhaps something can be arranged.”

  Joe pointed toward the exit door.

  “You take your shit outside. I don’t want to know a God-dam thing about whatever you do.”

  The three of us, Johnny, me and the Eastern European, turned and walked toward the door leaving Joe to go back to his other police duties. Before we even reached the door he was yelling at somebody else.

  This time it was over the phone.

  We walked a block to get away from the mini-riot taking place in front of the East St. Louis Police Department. As soon as we were clear of the three “P’s”, pimps, prostitutes and police, brawl, the Eastern European stopped and turned to us.

  “I am Yuri Ivanov of the Hungarian Secret Police. I am working in conjunction with Interpol searching for a criminal who escaped our country and we believe is in your area. How can you be of assistance to me?”

  “Johnny and me know the St. Louis area better than anyone,” I said. “We know the ins and outs of what goes on around here like nobody else.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny agreed. “I usually run around with a higher class of idiots than John here so I know the uppity ups. But if you need to know about the down and dirty people, let me tell you, if there’s a dirty, stinky hole in the entire St. Louis area, then John’s been there. And more than once I might add.”

  “Thanks,” I told Johnny.

  “Just backing you up bro,” he answered.

  “So,” I looked hard into Yuri’s face. “What leads do you have on Elizabeth anyway?”

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  “We’re already hunting for her,” Johnny continued.

  “Interesting,” Yuri said.

  We were walking past a small Subway Restaurant so he waved us in through the door saying, “I will start by buying us some coffee and we can exchange information.”

  Inside the sandwich shop I sipped hot black coffee and liked the bitter taste.

  Johnny tasted his black coffee. His lips curled up and his eyes bulged out.

  “Yuck!” he said. “That stuff tastes like Count Yorga’s diarrhea.”

  Yuri tasted his coffee.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “This coffee has been on for at least twenty-four hours. It is strong, just like Momma used to make, which is why Father strangled her on my tenth birthday.”

  The two of us stared at Yuri.

  He broke into a grin.

  “I was joking,” he said. “He did not strangle her ... on my tenth birthday.”

  After a moment of silence I spoke.

  “All right, that’s enough playing around with your family. What do you know about Elizabeth anyway?”

  Yuri’s smile fled.

  “She is a criminal, wanted for money laundering, trafficking in narcotics and running a prostitution ring. Elizabeth should be considered very dangerous.”

  Both Johnny and me knew that only Yuri’s last statement held any truth at all.

  He spoke again.

  “What do you know about Elizabeth?”

  I knew if I lied to Yuri he’d only lie right back at me and we’d go around in a circle of lies. So I tried a different tactic.

  “I fucked your precious Elizabeth,” I told him, “Fucked her good too! I spread her legs and had her slobbering at the mouth and howling at the moon like a rabid dog in heat.

  “She ain’t the best I’ve ever had,” I continued. “In fact, in this neighborhood although she did a good job of polishing my knob, Elizabeth only rates slightly higher than a frigid nun. No, we’re not trying to find Elizabeth to invite her to a gang-bang. We’re trying to find her because she infected me with something that makes me sick in the daylight and need to rip people’s faces off and eat them when the sun goes down.

  “You need to tell us the truth Yuri. Tell us who or what this Elizabeth is and we can help each other. Don’t and we just might drag your ass out of here and take you to an alley where we’ll beat the living shit out of you until you tell us anyway.”

  I had expected the Eastern European to be surprised at all that I said to him but he didn’t even bat an eye.

  Yuri Ivanov smiled and in that smile I could see cold harsh death. It was a grim smile.

  “Yes, you have reason to know,” he told us. “We will track this woman, this thing together. She is a curse upon my people, a plague that will not die. You do have a right to know what you are getting into.”

  This is Elizabeth’s story as Yuri told it to us.

  In the Carpathian Mountains, in the 16th century one of the legends that inspired Bram Stoker to write the novel Dracula was actually taking place.

  A beautiful young woman married to an aristocratic soldier lived in Csejthe Castle. Most of her married life was spent alone in that dreary castle since her husband was gone on military campaigns for long periods of time.

  To ease her boredom she gathered around her all manner of practitioners of the dark arts, witches, sorcerers and alchemists. From these people it is said she developed a taste for torture and the shedding of blood.

  When her husband died in battle in 1604 she was at the age of 43 and soon she longed for a man to replace him in her bed. But the mirror did not lie to her. Age and indulgence had dulled her good looks so that she knew she would not be appealing to young aristocrats.

  In a fit of rage she slapped the face of one of her serving girls drawing blood. Where the blood touched her skin it appeared to her eyes that her skin was youthful, renewed and lovely. After meeting with her coven of witches they devised a ceremony comprised of black magic and human sacrifice.

  Elizabeth from that day forward became a drinker of blood. She also bathed in blood because she l
oved to feel its slimy smoothness all over her body.

  Elizabeth and her cronies used up her servants in her lust for blood. Then they turned to the villages in the countryside around the castle where they kidnapped or enticed young women to Csejthe Castle.

  This went on for five years until she made the mistake of enticing young girls of Royal Blood to come to her castle to be trained in the social graces of that period.

  She was found out after one of her coven disposed of some of the bodies by tossing them over the castle walls.

  Elizabeth was put on trial for the torture and murder of at least 600 girls.

  The witches, alchemists and sorcerers were burnt at the stake.

  It was against Royal Law for anyone of Noble Birth to be executed. As punishment Elizabeth was walled up inside her castle of horrors. Only scraps of food were passed in through a slot to her. She was banished from all human contact until the end of time.

  This much is in the history books.

  What is not is that Elizabeth never died. Whatever black magic, blood ceremony took place in her castle, it worked.

  They gave innocent blood and innocent lives for Elizabeth to remain young and beautiful and she has remained so.

  In 1650 Elizabeth escaped Csejthe Castle and people like myself, members of the Hungarian Secret Police, have been hunting her every since.

  Well, that’s a real comforting thought,” Johnny told Yuri. “You’ve been chasing this blood-thirsty bitch for over three hundred and fifty years and you haven’t caught her yet!”

  “We have been close many times,” Yuri said.

  I spoke up this now.

  “Close just don’t fucking get it Chuck! Close just ain’t good enough.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Day Before Yesterday

  “Now that I have told you what I know,” Yuri Ivanov said, “It is time you informed me of what it is that you know.”

  I quickly related what happened between Elizabeth and me ending with the abandoned shop and what Jeanette told us about that.