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.
