Chapter 1

Where was all the blood?

That was the first thought that raced through Caine Valorian's mind as he entered room 210 of the Black Heart Hotel in downtown Necropolis.

The young woman on the bed had her throat slit from ear to ear. Besides the blood splatter on the graying wall behind the bed, there wasn't another drop on the green shag rug or the mustard-colored comforter. Not on first inspection anyway. Maybe with the ALS, alternate light source, he would find traces of it here and there. But for some reason that bored into his mind like a thumbtack, he doubted it.

Immediately, Caine could tell that this case was going to be different. After attending hundreds of cases over the past ten years, he knew when something was amiss, something odd and out of place. For a murder in the undead city of Necropolis, that was definitely saying something.

Popping a breath mint into his mouth, he approached the bed and nodded to Dr. Givon Silvanus, the medical examiner for the Otherworld Crime Unit, OCU, as he wrote notes in his logbook.

"Lividity is fixed, rigor in her jaw, neck and shoulders. I'd say she's been dead from six to eight hours," Givon stated in his matter-of-fact way without looking up from his notebook. "She's all yours."

Caine glanced back at his team, who were anxiously pacing behind him, waiting for the go-ahead to examine the body and collect the evidence. Jace Jericho had already taken multiple pictures of the hotel room from every angle, and now he was eager to inspect the body, as there were indications of possible bite marks, his specialty. Someone didn't live their entire life with lycanthropy and not know about the damage a set of teeth could do.

Lyra Magice had just finished inspecting the magical symbols etched on the door frame to the room. Her first inspection ascertained that there were no harmful magical blocks on the door to prevent them from entering, so the team had been allowed in. She also found bloodstains about knee-high on the doorframe and swabbed it for later analysis.

She was chomping at the bit to get to the body. They were told there were more symbols written in a red substance, most likely blood, on the young woman's chest. Having a full-blooded witch on staff had its advantages, especially in cases like these. Caine was eager to see what his youngest team member could do.

Having been together for the last six years, a brief nod from Caine was the only indication Jace and Lyra needed to move toward the body and begin their evidence collection.

"Lyra, make sure you look for trace evidence first before you inspect the symbols. I'd hate for us to miss something important."

She nodded and took out a magnifying glass from her stainless-steel crime collecting kit.

Before Caine could join them at the body, Captain Mahina Garner of the N.P.D., one of Necropolis's finest, strode into the room with the swagger of someone very comfortable in her five-foot-ten, 160-pound muscular frame, made even more powerful by her lycan shape-shifting abilities.

"The hotel attendant is an idiot," she remarked as she sidled up next to Caine. "He's a dumb bloodsucker that doesn't know the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground." She smiled at him then, straight white teeth gleaming. "No offense."

Caine smiled back, accustomed to Mahina's gruff manner and her prejudice against vampires. "No offense taken. I know my ass from a hole in the ground."

She laughed and patted him roughly on the back. "I know. That's why you're the only one of them that I like."

"Any witnesses?"

"Nope. No one heard anything. No one saw anything."

"Not surprising in this neighborhood. The Digs is not the most pleasant of places to be living and working."

She nodded. "True, but for once it would be nice to be able to start with something."

"Any ID on the body?"

"No." She opened her notebook. "The attendant phoned 911 after he realized he had no more rooms to rent for the hour, and noticed the do not disturb sign on 210. So he used his master key and opened the door to find, quote, 'the bitch lying on the bed dead,' unquote."

"Did he notice her when she went into the room?"

"No. He said he went on a blood break at around 10:00 p.m., and didn't notice the room's do not disturb till around 5:00 a.m., opened the door, saw the body and that is when he called 911." She closed the notebook. "So far his story checks out."

Caine glanced at his watch. It was 6:00 a.m. According to Givon's estimation, the girl had died around midnight. Therefore, if the girl and her assailant had come to the room during the time the clerk was on a break, they would have been busy for two hours before she died. What would you need two hours for? Sex? Likely, as the girl's shirt and bra were torn apart and her skirt was hiked up to her thighs. He didn't need to possess extreme sensory skills to smell the scent of sex as it still lingered over the bed.

Caine looked back at his crew working the scene. "What's the word, Lyra?"

"I pulled some burgundy fibers from her shirt, a tiny piece of what looks like copper wire and a black hair from under one of her nails."

"Good work. How about the markings?"

She glanced up from inspecting the woman's bare chest and the obscure symbols drawn there and met his gaze. Worry crossed her petite features. "Not sure yet, Chief. I don't recognize any of these symbols offhand. I'll need to get pictures and reference them to my textbooks." She held up a cotton swab, its tip tinged in pink indicating blood evidence. "It was definitely drawn in blood though. The vic's, I bet."

Copyright © 2007 by Tawny Stokes