Page 4 of Taken

A year ago, a corpse would have made my skin crawl, and I’d have cringed at the sight of it, but not anymore. This last year, we cleaned up or reported a few dead bodies, mainly between Boston and Salem. It was a change I had to get used to.

Bury whatever icky feeling you have, Mercy. This is your life now.

But why here? I wondered.And why now? The only time vampires had ever come to East Greenwich was because of me. We’d made a treaty with them six months ago that I would leave them alone as long as they didn’t kill a human or turn one against their will. I even gave them a choice before driving a stake through their chest.

Well … most of the time.

Their choice was simple—become human again or die at my hands. The ones that were just rotten to their core always chose death or tried to fight me before I ended it for them.

Vampires like Dorian were proof enough that good ones were among the fold. It had taken me a while to convince the rest of the coven, but eventually, they came to agree with me. Most vampire clans listened and obeyed this new “law,” but there were still a few bad seeds. And those bad seeds were the ones that kept us fighting.

Caleb moved to the side and let the cops walk by, but Officer Shields spotted him as they exited Tippy’s.

“Hey!” Shields shouted. “Get on the other side of the tape before I arrest you. Now!”

Damn.

Caleb threw his hands in the air in defeat. “Alright. Alright.”

Lily ran back around to meet us, slowing down as her eyes spotted the gurney. “Mercy, I managed to get a glimpse of the body before they fully zipped up the bag. It’s Tippy, for sure, and there was blood completely covering his neck.”

I felt my heart drop to my feet.

“No! Ryan!” a female voice shouted from my right. Caleb and I turned our attention toward Tippy’s grandmother, Joanne, as she ran toward the restaurant. “No!” she screamed again, pressing her hands to her chest as if she were experiencing intense pain. Her legs gave out from under her, and her knees hit hard against the pavement. The officer manning the perimeter rushed over to Joanne, signaling to a medic to assist him.

Oh, shit.

I turned back to Caleb and slowly wrapped my arms around my waist, feeling a sudden coldness hit me at my core. When I looked up at him, I asked, “Why would anyone hurt Tippy?” I shifted my feet, letting my arms drop to my sides. “This isn’t the typical pattern of vampire attacks that we’ve seen lately, Caleb. They’ve cleaned up their mess when there was a victim, to cover their tracks since they know we’re local here. What the fuck is happening?”

Right after the officer and medic assisted Tippy’s grandmother, she tried to push past them and the lining of the caution tape, but before she could, her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the ground again. The same officer rushed to hold her shoulders, helping her to her feet. Joanne began to weep uncontrollably, and the officer escorted her away from the parking lot toward a police car.

“Would a vampire really do this right now?” I continued, trying to ignore the sound of her crying. “Knowing we’re so close by? How stupid can they be?”

Caleb shook his head. “I don’t know, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

_______________

WE KNEW WEwouldn’t get any answers from the officers, so we headed home. I showered off all the dirt and grime from the involuntary burial and climbed into bed, exhausted from all the events of that day. However, sleep was impossible for me. It was four in the morning, and I still had Tippy and his poor, sweet grandma on my mind.

I browsed the news on my phone, and our local news channel had reported what they had learned from the scene. According to initial police reports, Tippy had been killed shortly after ten in the evening after he’d locked up the restaurant. A couple had come to eat there and hadn’t realized Tippy had closed up for the night. They saw him sprawled out on the floor through the window, covered in blood.

Evidence showed that he was in the middle of mopping the floor when someone broke in and took his life. The killer had shattered the back window by a corner booth, and muddy boot prints lined the walkway leading to where they’d found his body.

They didn’t release any information on how Tippy had been killed, but Caleb would be following up with our medical examiner contact, Melissa. She’d been helping us this last year whenever the supernatural arrived in the morgue.

“We need to have a connection that allows us to determine if it’s a human or a vampire attack,” Caleb had explained to me a year ago.

Brown University had invited Melissa to give a lecture to the medical students in forensic medicine. Given her credentials, Caleb thought she would be an asset to the coven. Though it was a bold move for us to fill her in on what we were, we approached her after the seminar and shared with her a world she hadn’t known existed. Of course, she freaked out at first, but she was also happy to learn the truth. A whole new underworld seemed tantalizing to a medical professional like herself, so it was easy to get her on board.

We had to know if the victim was attacked by a vampire so we could be the ones to handle it. It would put the police force in danger if they were tracking a creature they didn’t know how to take down.

I shot a text to Caleb, as I was sure he wasn’t sleeping, either.

Me:I’m coming with you tomorrow. I want to be there for this one.

Caleb:Alright, I’ll pick you up at ten. But try to rest. It’s been a long night.

Me:Night.

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