Sheriff Barker peered over the edge of the twelve-foot boat. He held his aluminum Maglite in his hand as he looked into the black water of the swamp. One of his deputies was beside him, holding a large rechargeable spotlight. He shined it ahead of them, as another deputy maneuvered through the cypress knees using the trolling motor.
"Whoa," Barker said. He thought he saw something. "Come right again." The deputy turned the boat sideways, the small motor churning the black water quickly. "Right there," Sheriff said. "Hold it right there."
The boat coasted over the exact spot the sheriff had wanted. "Dammit, son," he swore, "when I say stop I mean stop."
"Sorry, Sheriff," the driving deputy said. "You don't exactly stop this thing on a dime."
Sheriff Barker rolled his eyes. Then he felt a 'thump' under his feet. He looked at the other deputy beside him. "Probably just a root," the deputy said. "Ain't real deep here."
Barker nodded. Then he heard something scraping on the bottom of the boat. As the aluminum boat moved slowly forward, it tipped slightly, not quite enough to throw anyone off-balance. The boat settled again, then stopped moving entirely. Barker took a deep breath. "Back us up real slow," he told the motor operator.
The deputy reversed the electric motor and the boat began to move to the rear. Barker and the other deputy trained their lights forward on the water. As soon as the boat had moved three or four feet, they saw it. It was there, floating just underneath the coffee colored water. It was a body. The body of a young girl.
They worked quickly, donning rubber gloves to pick the lifeless corpse out of the water. The body had already started decomposing, an attribute of the enzymes and animals that lived within the dark water of the swamp. They grimaced as they stuffed the lifeless husk into a plastic body bag. When they had finished, Barker ordered them back to the landing.
They pulled the boat along the shore. There was a place that had been cleared of the weeds and grass that grew along the swamp's edge. Here, local fisherman had made a boat landing. Once they had come to a stop, Barker got out. He walked up to Red Stewart. He looked Red in the eye. He just shook his head. Red started for the boat. Barker stopped him. "You don't want to, Red," Barker said with his hand on the old man's shoulder. "Its bad."
"I gotta look," Red said. He went to the boat, where a deputy, on Barker's nod, unzipped the body bag. Red looked for an instant, seeing the body of his daughter, then turned his head away and began to sob.
The man wearing the black raincoat saw it too. His trained eyes looked past the recent decomposition. He saw the holes in the young girl's neck. They were puncture wounds, precisely over her jugular vein. The distance between the two marks was equal. The man had no doubt as to what had made them. Seeing all that he needed, the man turned to leave.
"Hey," Sheriff Barker called. "Hold on just a damn minute!" Barker almost ran to catch up with the stranger. The sheriff recognized him. His county had had two prior deaths of young women in the past week. He had seen this strange, tall man at all of the crime scenes. He now noticed that the man had not stopped. "Hey, goddammit, I said stop!"
The man in the black suit and long coat stopped. He turned around. Sheriff Barker approached him. The man looked at the sheriff with cold eyes.
"Just what in the hell are you doing here? You got some kinda weird fetish for death?" Barker wanted some answers. He doubted this was the murderer, as they usually didn't show up at crime scenes. That was arsonists. Still, stranger things have happened.
"I'm doing the same as you, Sheriff," the man said evenly. "Collecting evidence."
Barker looked at the man as if he was crazy. "Do what?"
The man nodded. "You've got a problem, Sheriff. I am here to solve it."
"What the hell are you, a fed or something? You got some ID?"
The man shook his head. "No, not really," he answered. "But I may be able to answer some questions for you about who did this."
Barker looked sideways at the man in black. "Really?" he said dubiously. "Ok, who did it?"
"A vampire," the man replied casually.
Barker tried not to laugh. "Alrighty then," he said. "I aint got time for all of this bullshit. You show me some ID or you're going to jail."
The man looked Barker in the eyes. "I'm serious," he said. "How else are you going to explain the marks on the two, now three, dead bodies? Did your crime lab tell you that there was saliva in the wounds? Did they tell you that the saliva contained DNA that had never before been encountered?"
Barker looked carefully at the man. He had read the crime lab reports. He had not shared that information with anyone else. People in this small, back-swamp county were superstitious enough.
"How the hell do you know about that?" Barker asked.
"I know all sorts of things, Sheriff," the man replied. "You want to hear what else I know?" The man half-turned to walk away. Sheriff Barker shrugged and began to walk with him towards a gray Ford Taurus.
"You got a name, Mister?" the Sheriff asked.
"Michael Stone," the man said, extending his hand.
--
"So," Sheriff Barker asked as they drove down the old dirt road in Stone's rented car, "are you some kinda X Files agent or somethin'?"
Stone cracked a smile. "Actually," he replied, thinking about it, "I am kind of something like that. I work for an organization that is composed of members of many different world governments. I get paid to track down vampires."
Barker shook his head. All of this was really too much to believe. After talking with Stone a few minutes at the crime scene, though, Barker was ready to listen to the man. Any lead was better than no lead. Stone had asked some fairly specific questions, and Barker had given him exact answers. They were driving to an old house on the outskirts of the swamp roads now.
The old house had been built by one of the first settlers to this area. The farmers here had raised sugar cane. The house stood in the middle of an old cane field that was now mostly weeds. There were no lights on inside the house. The white paint was peeling, and the old picket fence that stood around the yard was falling down. Stone stopped the Taurus and got out. He paid no attention as to whether Barker had stepped out or not.
