"Have you bothered looking in the mirror lately?" Cole snapped off his bloody gloves and tossed them into a nearby contamination bin.
"I'm trying to avoid them. Between working day shifts and getting call-outs at night, the bags under my eyes feel large enough to pack a lunch in. Who's our victim?"
"Grant Haven, a local vampire who owned a cafe up on Smith Street." Cole handed me a pair of slip-on shoe protectors. "Apparently he finished locking up at one, and was heading to Dante's for a little top-up feeding."
"There were no witnesses?" I slipped on the shoe protectors then stepped forward, avoiding the thickening pools of blood as I studied the severed flesh. It wasn't a clean wound. In fact, the edges were all ragged, as if the killer had used some sort of serrated blade.
"No witnesses have come forward," Cole said. "But there's a whole club of people just waiting to be interviewed."
"You're fucking kidding me." I glanced at him. His blue eyes were filled with amusement and a smile twitched at the corners of his lips. My long night had just stretched into an interminable morning. "You're a bastard."
"Those were Jack's orders, not mine."
Then Jack was a bastard. God, he knew I hated interviewing these idiots. "We'll never get anything sensible out of them. They'll all be high."
Although, truth be told, the high from a vamp bite didn't last all that long—just like the pleasure received from sex, really. And like sex, most humans could only stand several hits before it weakened them to point of sleep.
I guess we were lucky non-humans didn't get addicted, because I very much doubted there'd be enough vampires in Melbourne to cater to a werewolf's hunger.
"If it helps any, there aren't many customers. Tuesday is apparently their slow night."
Well, thank God for small mercies. I nodded down at the victim. "Who called it in?"
He motioned towards Dante's. "The caller was anonymous, but we traced the line and location. The cell phone belonged to a Mandy Jones, and the call came from inside Dante's."
Meaning she was likely still there. "She obviously doesn't know a lot about Directorate practices if she thought she could remain anonymous."
Cole smiled. "I don't think the Directorate actually advertises the fact they trace every single call coming in, or out."
That was true. I'd only discovered it because I'd been horribly nosy during my time as Jack's assistant, and I'd often gone trawling through the computer system to see what I could find. "Do we know who owns Dante's?"
"Unsurprisingly enough, a vamp named Dante Starke."
"What do we know about him?"
Cole shrugged. "He has a rep for preferring to handle his own problems. Other than that, you'll have to check the system."
'Preferring to handle his own problems' probably meant he hated cops. And guardians. Great. "What was used on the victim's neck?"
"Rough tooth saw. Dusty found it discarded in one of the bins behind the club. But it's been wiped clean of anything useful."
I glanced around and saw the shifter in question hunkering down over what looked like an oil stain. Cole's other assistant, Dobbs, was nowhere in sight—but given the three of them usually traveled together, I knew he'd be around somewhere. "Was it a new or old saw?"
"Brand new. It still had the Bunnings price tag on it."
"Any chance of tracking down which store it was purchased at?"
"Maybe. But even if we found the right hardware store, I don't think they'd be much help. They probably sell hundreds of the things each week."
"Still, it's worth a shot." I frowned down at the vamp's unmarked body. "He doesn't appear to have put up a fight of any kind."
"None at all, which leads me to suspect that he's probably been drugged. We'll run the full toxicology when we get him back to the lab."
"So there's no indication so far of who our murderer might be?"
"Well, sawing through a person's neck takes strength, so we're probably looking for either a large male, or a non-human . "
"Gee, that really narrows down the field."
"Best I've got for the moment," Cole said, snapping on a new set of gloves. "Now, if that's all you've got, I've really got to get back to work. I have a bed and a lover waiting."
I raised my eyebrows. For as long as I'd known him he'd been relationship free, so the woman who'd finally caught his interest had to be someone pretty special.
"She has to be new, because anyone familiar with our line of work wouldn't bother waiting." Hell, Quinn hadn't. He'd mumbled something about bundling up against the cold, and had promptly gone back to sleep. Anyone would think I'd worn the old vampire out. "So, is it anyone I know?"
"No." His smile bloomed bright. Man, he had the love-bug bad. "And no, I will not share details. Now go do some work."
"You do realize that I am now officially intrigued?"
He groaned. "Please don't go investigating. I don't want to scare her away."
I grinned as I stripped off the shoe protectors and tossed them in the hazard bin.
"Riley, don't." He almost sounded worried.
"Don't what?" I raised my eyebrows, pretending an innocence that probably wasn't believable given the grin I couldn't quite control.
"Don't try and play innocent. You're as far from that as anyone could get."
He had a point there. "I just want to protect your interests. I'd do the same for any friend."
"Then please consider me an enemy."
I patted his shoulder as I passed. "Sorry, I've got suspects to interview. We'll continue this discussion later. Over coffee."
"You are such a bitch," he muttered, but the twinkle in his eyes took the bite out of his words. "And you'd do anything to get a free coffee, wouldn't you?"
"Totally," I said, and left him to it.
There were two uniforms stationed at the entrance to Dante's, along with a dark eyed man who looked in serious need of a good feed. He was standing to one side of the doorway, under a blue light, and it gave his sallow features an even sicker glow. His dark gaze was never still, flickering from the cops to me, then onto the surrounding streets.
I showed the cops my badge and met the other man's gaze. "Who are you?"
"Valentine Smith. I'm the bouncer here."
He didn't look as if he could bounce a kitten out the door let alone anyone larger. But then, if he was a vampire—and given the rather pungent scent he was emitting, he couldn't be anything else—his looks would have been misleading. Even the scrawniest of vampires had more strength than the average non-human. And far more than any human.
"How long have you been on duty here?"
"I just came on shift. The boss asked me to help out these officers, in case some of the customers got antsy about being detained."
I glanced at the cops. The older of the two nodded in confirmation. I returned my gaze to Valentine. He wasn't looking at me. He was studying the street, as if he expected something to happen. Though I guess having a dead vamp on your back doorstep and cops on your front would be enough to make anyone jumpy. "How many people are inside at the moment?"
He shrugged. "Maybe twenty customers, and half that again of vampires."
Interesting that the vampires weren't considered customers. "And who's in charge tonight?"
"Dante Starke."
"The boss himself?"
The guard's gaze flicked briefly to mine then moved on again. "He lives here."
That surprised me. The old warehouse was as grimy and as run-down as the rest of the buildings in this area. Surely a wealthy businessman would prefer a more… well, if not opulent, then less dangerous area to reside in? But maybe the key word was wealthy. He might be a vampire, he might own a nightclub, but that didn't necessarily mean he was rich.
"Could you please tell Mr. Starke that I'll need to speak to him?"
He looked at me again, then nodded. His gaze became slightly unfocused, and a buzz of energy caressed the air. He had to be a newer vampire. Any vampire with more than a few years behind him had learned not to let anyone know when they were using telepathy.