Bloodstorm Part 1

Prologue

Buenos Aries, Argentina, September 7,1935, 12:00 Midnight

She pressed his head close, into the valley formed by her breasts. Her nipples rose to stiff peaks, as his warm breath swirled around them. She felt his firm, male hardness slipping between the moistening folds of her sex. With one hand, she positioned him, while the fingers of her other hand traced random patterns on his chest. She inhaled sharply, as his blunt male hardness pushed into her with delicious slowness.

She always preferred this position, with her on top. It allowed her to control the pace and the depth of the act. His thick pillar of flesh pleased her greatly. He was a man of slim build and short stature in all other respects, save this one, and this had been a pleasant surprise. A little like finding buried treasure, she thought. The intensity of her pleasure soon blotted out all other thought, however, as she sank slowly down on him.

She paused there for a moment, thrilling to the fullness he gave her. He seemed to expand into the very depths of her, all the way to the borderline that nature provided between joy and motherhood. She gazed at him with half-lidded eyes, allowing the tension to build, and then she smiled her most sultry smile. He smiled back at her as he reached up with his hands to cup her breasts, sending waves of pleasure crashing through her body.

She began to rise, as slowly as she had descended, using her knees for leverage. The ache of emptiness he left behind felt almost as good as the joy of being filled. She continued to rise until she felt the ridge of flesh, surrounding his crown, just barely leave her. She waited, skillfully, in that position. She was torturing him in her small way. He brought his mouth up to her breasts, encircling one of her nipples with his tongue this time. She then began to drop again, allowing him to fill her once more.

She decided to start increasing the tempo, the pleasure building and sending fingers of warmth cascading out from her core. It seemed to glow to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her right hand slid down his body, pausing briefly to toy with his nipples, continuing until she reached the place where their two bodies joined. She moved that hand to her body, placing two fingers on either side of the small pearl of flesh that lay between her thighs. The added sensations that this brought her took her over the edge of her first orgasm. She knew that this was the closest to death that she would allow herself to go.

She watched his face closely as she continued to increase her speed. She watched for the subtle signs of his impending orgasm, the beads of sweat on his brow, his eyelids closing tightly, and, most importantly, the throbbing of veins in his neck. She dropped her head in preparation, her long hair spilling over both her face and his.

With a grunt issuing from deep within his throat, his hot seed splashed deep into her. With the fangs that had lengthened in her mouth on the onset of her first orgasm, she tore into his throat. As his blood poured onto her tongue, down her throat, she felt the true joy she had really sought from him. She lost herself in a second orgasm, yet continued to feed until her thirst was quenched.

* * *

Part One: The Calm Before the Storm

"Heterosexuality, or homosexuality for that matter, are luxuries that we cannot afford to indulge ourselves in."

- Jonas Winterhaven, Address to the Gathering of the Third Millennium

Chapter One: In the Beginning

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

- Genesis 1:1

Shady Glen Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, July 27, 2002,10:00 A.M.

"How many does this make now, Parker?" Mike Ford said in a tone of voice that approached a whine. "Five? Is it six? Or, has this Reaper creep scored number seven? God I hate working freak cases and this one is striking me as freakier than most. Fuck, I dunno, it's like an itch I can't reach; like eyes burning into the back of my neck." He said this as the two homicide detectives threaded their way through grave markers and mausoleums. They were making their way towards a cluster of figures garbed in yellow rain slickers. They both paused to light cigarettes.

"You know it's seven, Mike, so quit foolin' around." John Parker said to his partner of three years. "Do us a favor too; don't mention that Reaper crap 'round these guys. If the Chief thought we were giving Johansen anything to go on, he'd have our balls for breakfast. I feel that itch too. This case ain't just whispering freak, man. It's fuckin' screaming it at the top of its lungs. I wish the brass would get their heads out of their collective asses long enough to give us a green light on this thing."

Political pressure, always difficult in Chicago and more so in an election year, was a delicate part of the equation for law enforcement. The politicians did not want to even think about the possibility of a serial killer stalking the streets; streets that they had sworn to keep safe.

"Once we get the go on this case, then we can throw some real manpower at it." John continued. "We'll be able to focus on some specific areas; hell, we might even get some overtime approved." Both detectives chuckled at the thought of that happening. "This guy is obviously gettin' his rocks off, keeping us guessing like this. He's too eclectic in his tastes to cause a panic. I know it's a pain in the ass to keep quiet about this, but until we get the permission, we'd better not let on to what we've got. I don't want my ass going up a flagpole."

"Parker, these guys here, they all know what's goin' on, so…."

John let his partner ramble on. He was used to tuning him out, like white noise. Sure, even after three years, John still cringed occasionally at some of Mike's habits, but things could always be worse. Back when John had been with Gang Crimes, he had partnered with a guy who had a habit of indulging himself with Mozart and cocaine in the car on their way to a call. That had kept up until some gang banger, more hyped-up than Scott had been, shot him dead in some dark alley.

Mike, in spite of his personality quirks, or maybe because of them, was a damn good detective. His mind worked better under the surface than it seemed to on top of it. If Mike wasn't pissing and moaning about some aspect of their cases, it would be his marriage, his mortgage, his kids, or even the weather. Mike lived to bitch and seemed to enjoy himself more when he was gloomy and miserable. It takes all kinds, John thought, and if that was what it took to keep Mike safe and sane, then more power to him.

Mike Ford looked more like he should be playing basketball for the Bulls, not rummaging around dead people. Standing 6'4" tall and weighing 220 pounds, Mike usually played the bad cop to John's good cop. He was an African-American who, if asked, resented the implication that he was where he was through affirmative action. Mike's clean-shaven head could hold the facts from many cases, simultaneous with almost every statistic that dealt with the current roster from his beloved White Sox. He was a clotheshorse to beat all others and was an obsessive neat freak.

John Parker, in contrast, was your typical Irish-American cop. Maybe, not so typical, since he stood at 5'8" and weighed, on a good day, 145 pounds. However, his flaming red hair, that was always a little longer than regulations allowed, and the splash of freckles that looked, on his milk white skin, like someone had splattered him with red paint, were well known in the department. He also seemed to work better in clutter and disorganization. In fact, the car that they were assigned was divided exactly in half and you could tell whose side was whose.

Some of the things that Mike had just said, John had to agree with. There were many disturbing things about this case, the dead bodies almost being the least of it. He did not like that at all. He preferred clean, simple solutions. Smoking guns were wonderful in his opinion, but this case just didn't seem to have any. No exact cause of death had been forthcoming from the coroner's office, depending on any number of factors, or whom you chose to believe.

The chief coroner had unofficially confided to John that the cause of death, at least the most likely culprit, was simply impossible given the circumstances involved. This little fact, coupled with the complete lack of forensic evidence, left a real bad taste in his mouth. Some parts of the case really smelled like rancid meat, in his professional opinion. These involved some of the coincidences with the location of the bodies, and the fact that, deep down where it counted; John believed what the coroner had told him.

Given the official media blanket on these deaths, the likelihood of copycat killers was a remote one at best. Charlie Johansen had done his best to rile up the homicide squad with rumor and innuendo, but he was really fishing at an empty hole. The city, in the guise of the mayor's office, was leaving nothing to chance. The killings had been ruled, provisionally, as deaths under unusual circumstances. This still left it in the laps of the homicide unit, at least until after the election. When the case finally did get the priority it needed, an entire task force would be formed. Until that time came though, John thought, they were flying without a net.

When John thought about it, it almost seemed that, whoever this was, went out of their way to make the victim selection too random. Serial killers usually selected their victims as if they were filling out a shopping list, or taking job applications. Most killed within their ethnic background and according to their sexual orientation. Some narrowed it down to a particular hair, or eye color. Often this similarity set alarm bells ringing; at least in the heads of the police officers investigating those cases. This similarity was how police had tracked down killers like John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, even going all the way back to Jack the Ripper. They hadn't caught the last one though, John thought grimly.

This case, of course, just had to be different. The victims, not counting the one they were about to view, were from four different racial backgrounds, lived under various economic conditions, they were from different parts of the city, different ages, and to round it all off, were of both sexes. There were only a few similarities that John or Mike could find: where the bodies had been found, the same mysterious manner of death, and other disturbing, but seemingly trivial things. It was just a far out case from start to finish, John thought. What we really need is to get this asshole to just surrender to authorities and we can go grab lunch. Hell, if it were that easy, continuing on the same train of thought, they wouldn't need guys like us.

John's thought took him back to the one thing that kept sticking in his craw. It was like exploring a toothache just to see if it still hurt. What bothered John the most about this case was the manner of death.

None of the victims had shown obvious signs of recent trauma. They all looked like they had just decided to lie down and take a nap. In one of the cases, the body had been completely devoid of any scars or blemishes to use for identification purposes. Then, when the bodies were opened at autopsy, they would find almost no blood in the body. Never more than a few milliliters were found.

This should have caused major organ damage. Oddly enough, other than the heart stopping, which was major when John thought about it, all of the organs looked healthy. The lack of such damage was probably the real reason for the coroner's concern about fixing a cause of death. He had gone so far as to tell John that it was a statistical improbability that such a diverse group would have such uniformly healthy organ tissues.

All of this information brought up a large number of questions. Questions that no one had been able to answer to anyone's satisfaction. Questions that had been swirling around in John's head for six months now. The answers that he could come up with merely brought on more questions. It didn't matter what he tried; they still popped up in his mind, often in the middle of the night.

"John! You want to call the corpse? Or, you want me to do it?" Mike shouted out, breaking into John's thought processes, as they arrived at the knot of men and women waiting for them, surrounding the silent form on the ground,

"Go ahead, Mike, you take it. I don't think I've got the stomach for this shit right now; you know what I'm saying? "

Mike brought out a micro-cassette recorder from an inside jacket pocket and checked to be sure that he had a tape in the thing. When he was satisfied that everything was in working order, he punched the record button.

"Testing, two, three. Detective Mike Ford, badge number 6264. I am making a preliminary field report on case file 177875-G. The time is 10:18 A.M. The date is July 27, 2002."

Mike rattled the information off quickly, giving the body a cursory once- over at the same time. John did the same, knowing immediately that they would come up with the same results, which still translated into nothing substantial.

"We have what appears to be a Caucasian male, possibly late teens, early twenties. There are no obvious signs of trauma to the body on initial viewing. The body has not been moved or tampered with since it was discovered earlier this morning by groundskeepers. The body is lying on its back, fully supine. The body appears to be fully clothed in a brown leather jacket, black tee shirt, new denim jeans, and black leather construction boots.

"An object, which appears to be a brown leather wallet, is located near the victim's head, a foot, maybe eighteen inches away. The body is located in front of a marker in Shady Glen Cemetery."

This similarity bothered John. All of the bodies had been found in various cemeteries, never the same one, and always well removed from where the victims had lived. All of the bodies had been found with identification that matched the markers where the bodies had been found, but not in any way that made sense. The markers were of people already entombed but they were not related to the fresher body, or had any connection that they could unearth.

There were also no signs of how the victims had been transported. A hearse, John thought, would be a real kick in the balls. It was just another sour note in a symphony filled with them.

"The marker reads," Mike said, continuing his report. "Vincent Chambers, 1902-1956, beloved father, husband, and son. End of epitaph. End of initial report."

Mike gave a small snort of disgust as he shut the recorder off.

"Fuck it John, they are really dropping the ball on this one, y'know? This perp must know the location of every dead stiff in Chicago. We don't have many more options to try. I think we've gotta run this thing by VICAP." Mike waved to the coroner's people and the Crime Scene Forensic Evidence Collection Unit, to indicate the detectives had finished, for now. "I mean I really hate this guy. I want him bad and I hope he puts up a fight when we find him."

John had to agree with his partner's last sentiment. He couldn't remember a case he had felt so strongly about. Some of the thoughts Mike had expressed, however, John had a problem with, and he had to set the younger man straight.

"Mike, the brass hasn't dropped the ball on this case. This whole mess is as much our fault as it is theirs. We've gotta get the evidence. We've gotta put the pressure on and keep it there. Sure, we know there is some bozo runnin' around out there, getting' his jollies by killing people. We just don't know how he's getting away with it. We have zilch for physical evidence, and VICAP just ain't a hot idea. If the Feds get involved, this whole case will turn into a circus and we'll look like jerks."

VICAP, the acronym for Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, was the FBI's computer database that assisted local law enforcement in exactly these types of cases. Another database, the National Criminal Information Clearinghouse, or NCIC, was really only effective once police had suspects to run through the thing.

"The only thing we can do, Mike, is what we're already doing. Keep workin' the back trail on these victims. Interview friends and relatives; maybe somebody saw somethin' worth following up on. We have to keep up the solid police work, until we catch a break in the case. Until we get that break, the only thing we're doin' is this psycho's janitorial work."

"What we really need is for him to walk into some area station house and surrender." Mike said, petulantly.

Neither detective thought this would happen any time soon. This anonymous killer, whoever it was, simply enjoyed the game too much. They had nothing to base this theory on, except for the instinct that any cop develops over time. The whole thing is just so frustratin', John thought, but I'll be damned if we don't throw everything we've got at this guy. He made this a solemn vow to himself as he pulled his pack of Camels out from his jacket pocket and searched for a lighter.

"By the way." Mike said, a grin creeping into his voice. "Did I ever tell you why cops say 'fuck' so much?"

"Nah, you never fuckin' tell me a goddamn thing."

"'Cause, they think if they say it enough times during the day, they just might be able to do some of it when the sun goes down." John could not help laughing.

Chapter Two: Eye of the Beholder

"And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, 'Where are the men which came into thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.'"

- Genesis 19:5

I

Park Condos, San Francisco, California, July 31, 2002, 11:30 P.M.

He loved the feel of this man's cock. It fit beautifully in his mouth. His hand stroked the shaft lovingly in the places where his mouth could not quite reach. His fingers, every so often, would stray down to play with the man's balls.

Earlier he had let the man take his ass, allowing him to sodomize him roughly. He had loved the feel of him then as well. Pushing and pulling at him thickly lubricated with K-Y jelly, so as not to degrade the condom. He missed the feeling of a man's come jetting into him. In this insane day, however, it was suicide to do otherwise. At least, with a man he had just met. They had shed those false skins, however, for the oral part of the evening's festivities.

He had met the man at a leather, 'pose and prance' bar, on the darker side of Castro Street. He had been struck to the heart right away by the stranger's strong, good looking features and the rippling muscles he saw under the light yellow, silk shirt. The long, blonde hair did not hurt matters any either. They had struck up a fascinating conversation and seemed to have a great deal in common. It may have been a combination of instant lust and slow liquor that gave him the courage to invite the man to his condo on the ocean. To his complete astonishment, the man had said yes.

Back in the present, his shaft was thickly engorged. He had never been very pleased with his size. This man, however, seemed to enjoy how prominently veined it was.

"All the more texture for the feast later." The man had said at the first sight of him. Larry had not questioned the gleam of desire that flashed in the man's eyes.

Larry's hand moved faster, while he used his mouth to produce more suction on the head. The comparison that darted across his mind was that of a straw, with his mouth trying to suck the come up through him. He wanted to taste him on his tongue, feel him in the back of his throat, down to the very core of his body.

At first, the other man had just massaged Larry's prick with his hand, teasing it until it felt like it was the hardest it had ever been. Then, the man deep throated him in one, swift gulp and Larry had almost came right then. A spasm passed through him, giving a slight shiver to his own movements. That feeling had faded; and then the man had really gone to town on him.