Page 30 of How to Entice a Fiend

“I sure will. Where’s the joy? The color? The prints?”

“Pick something and let’s go,” I say since the rest of us are nearly dressed.

“It hurts, Finn.” Claude is literally cringing away just from the gentle touch of the fabric of a dark blue shirt.

“We’re leaving you,” I warn him.

“Dammit,” he whines as he pulls on the blue button-up and black pants. It is quite shocking to see him in something so plain. “It hurts. My body feels ill. Every inch of me is on fire.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Alexei assures him. “You look very nice.”

“Thank you, lovely. I know you’re just saying that to make me feel better. I really do appreciate it.” Claude isn’t quite so sure but follows us out to the car as we head for the address we’ve been given, which turns out to be a hotel.

There are police cars out front, so we hurry inside where Brooks meets us in the lobby. “This way.”

“What happened?” Marcus asks.

“Multiple vampires are dead. They must have attacked Mads, because most of the incident happened in his room and he’s missing.”

“Oh shit…” I say as we ride the elevator up to that floor.

People are getting escorted out of their rooms as the police do their best to keep them from looking at the massacre that happened in the hallway. From here, I can see blood splattered up the walls just past a screen to keep people from looking at the bodies. It doesn’t help that it appears like a lot of the fighting happened right outside of their rooms. There are three bodies out in the hall. One that is currently being examined is missing their head and another seems to have had their heart torn out of their chest.

We put our protective gear on so we don’t disturb the crime scene before Brooks leads us into the bedroom where two more lie dead.

The bed is rumpled, and the sheets are thrown to the foot of the bed, like someone tried to flee out of it and toward the window. There’s a large pool of blood on the floor and fingerprints smeared across the ground, as though someone was trying to crawl away.

“This is blood splatter from a gun,” Marcus says as he notes the splatter on the wall.

“Oh shit, do you think someone shot Mads with that special ammunition?” I ask. “Is he even old enough to live through that?”

Alexei steps closer to get a better look. “He appeared young to me, but it can often be hard to tell. Marcus?”

“I do think he’s younger, but I couldn’t quite tell how young. He seemed fine walking around in the daylight and carried no protective gear with him.”

“I noticed that too,” Claude says. “I don’t know that he’s super old, but his ability to walk freely in the daylight tells me he’s older than we think… but to survive one of those bullets… I’m not quite certain he’s that old. He’d have to be a true vampire to live through that, and I sure didn’t get that impression from him.”

“But if he didn’t survive, where is the body? Why would they take his body?” I ask.

“I… could be totally wrong, but I’m under the impression that Mads didn’t kill these people,” Marcus says as he waves to the bodies. “They died quickly and with a practiced hand. This level of finesse…” He trails off and I’m not sure why until I see members from the council standing in the doorway.

“You know who did this?” Leona asks.

“No, I haven’t removed any of their masks, but it appears as though their target was Mads. We will remove them once we’ve documented everything,” Marcus says. “You all are staying in the same hotel?”

“We are,” Ha-joon replies. “But I’m ten floors up. I didn’t hear a thing until I heard the sirens.”

“What floors are the rest of you on?” Marcus asks.

“Seventh floor for me,” Leona says.

“Callum?” I ask.

He grimaces. “I was only one floor up… I apologize that I didn’t hear anything or react sooner. I… struggle to sleep in hotels with all of the noise so I keep headphones on with music playing. Why would someone attack Mads? I mean… yes, he’s a part of the council, but he’s new and has very little pull. Was he involved in something I wasn’t aware of?”

“We will hopefully know more shortly,” I say as Marcus looks at the others, likely wanting to know if they heard anything.

“I didn’t hear anything,” a woman with a Kenyan accent says.

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