Hunted Blood: Predator and Prey

They had spent most of the morning looking through the vacant warehouses that sat around the dock area. Every one they had checked had, so far, turned up empty.

"This is the last one," Melissa told Michael as he walked around the perimeter of the building. He was checking the few windows along the building's front. He found none of them with loose panes, or even any that were, or would, open up. He shook his head, confirming to himself the vampire wasn't using the windows as an entry point. Michael looked up to the roof. He then pointed to the Melissa's car.

"Drive that over here," he told her. She nodded, understanding he wanted the car near the edge of the warehouse roof. They had found old crates or other objects to use to assist them in getting on the roof of the warehouses before this one. Some, though, Michael had scaled using his skills. This one, unfortunately, had nothing available nearby to help them and no easy access points that could be used for climbing.

Melissa pulled the car up to the building with its front bumper almost touching the metal siding. Michael stepped onto the vehicle's hood, then he jumped and caught his fingers on the edge of the warehouse's metal roofing. It was fortunate he was wearing gloves, otherwise the sharp edge of the tin roofing would've cut into his fingers. He and Melissa both had dressed warmly to ward off the chilly air. Michael was wearing jeans, a black turtleneck, black leather bomber jacket (it had been given to him by his father), and sneakers.

He pulled himself up onto the roof and crouched low. There were three skylight access points, all of which were made of metal and opaque fiberglass panels that could be opened and closed from within the warehouse to provide ventilation. He stepped softly and slowly across the roof, wary of any loose or squeaky tin beneath his feet. The first panel he came to, on the side of the warehouse nearest the street, was secured tightly. The middle one was the same. The last one opened up when Michael pulled gently at its edge. He slowly raised it up, again wary the rusted metal hinges of the panel would squeak. When it was open enough he could peer in, he did so, and saw nothing but a darkened and empty area below him. Michael continued to open the panel, and when it was fully open, he dropped down into the darkened warehouse, landing softly.

Michael crouched again on the dusty concrete floor. He extended his awareness, opening himself to the smells and sounds within the warehouse. He heard nothing, and he only smelled the musty odor of a space that had been kept closed too long. He slowly took a small flashlight from a jacket pocket and turned it on. As he played the beam across the warehouse's interior, he saw nothing but the concrete floor and bare metal framework of the warehouse's skeleton. The beam of light came across a door at the warehouse's far end. There were two windows beside the door. Stone guessed this was an office or reception area.

Stone went to the door. He shined his flashlight into the windows and saw a room lined with paneling. There were frayed telephone wires protruding out of one wall. The floor, Stone noted, was carpeted. As he shined the light across the room's floor, he saw the corpses.

Stone found the door to the office unlocked. He entered and looked at the pile of bodies in the corner. He then shook his head once more, and moved through the office to the warehouse's entrance door. He undid a deadbolt, opened the door, and called for Melissa to come around.

"Anything?" Melissa asked as she stepped into the doorway.

"Yeah," Michael answered, and he shined the flashlight beam into the corner of the room.

"Oh!," Melissa exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand, "rats!"

Michael nodded. He held the flashlight so it illuminated the corner of the room. There was a pile of rat corpses there. Michael figured there were probably twenty or so of the things. They looked desiccated, as if they had been there for some time and had dried out.

Melissa noted this aloud. "Looks like they're mummified."

"They were drained of blood and tossed into the corner," Michael explained. "The environmental conditions inside this warehouse are just so that they've become preserved."

"So the vampire is here?"

Michael shook his head. "No," he said with a sigh. "But it has been. I'm starting to think this one came in on a boat," he told her. "This warehouse was the first place it bedded down. It lived off rats here around the docks until it got enough strength to venture out to feed. I think it has moved on to somewhere else."

Melissa looked at his face. "Where else would it go?"

Stone turned off the flashlight. "I don't know," he answered her. He reached for her hand and clasped it in his own. He pulled her to the open door.

Once outside, Stone put his flashlight back into his jacket pocket. He leaned against the hood of her Taurus and looked at the ground.

Melissa stood in front of him. She could see he was in deep thought, but she still put her arms around him. She kissed his lips.

"This is a big city," he said. "There's a thousand places to look."

She nodded. "So what now?"

He looked her in the eyes. "We're going to have to wait until it feeds again," he told her. She narrowed her eyes. "I know," he explained, "I don't like it, either. But, we've got no other way, no other really logical way to track it." He looked off towards the ocean for a moment. "It was fleeing this way to draw me here, make me think it was sleeping in one of these warehouses."

"So it was trying to deceive us," Melissa surmised. "Makes sense, I guess. I mean, animals do that, right? "

"Right," he said, "but this one is a very smart predator. Think about a wolf, now think about a wolf that can rationalize," Michael explained. "That is what we're dealing with here. When this one was fleeing from you and the other police officers last night, it was just trying to get away, but when it hit that rooftop and saw me, it changed its tactic to more than just flight. It had to draw us, especially me, away from its lair."

Melissa narrowed her eyes and turned her head slightly in a sudden understanding of the point Michael was making. "You're saying it recognized you, aren't you?" she inquired.

Stone nodded. "Not me specifically, but I do believe it recognized me for what I am. It recognized me as a hunter," he answered her. He pulled up the left sleeve of his leather jacket and glanced at his wristwatch. "It's time for lunch," he announced. "And I've got to send a report to my bosses."

They left the warehouse and dock area. Melissa drove them to a small café where they had some sub sandwiches, and then she took Michael back to his hotel room. There he got on his laptop and quickly sent a brief report via email to the Organization's secure servers.

"So," Melissa said as she sat on the edge of the bed and watched Michael close the laptop up, "what do you wanna do now?"

He looked at her with a half-smile. "Well, I know what I would like to do," he told her, "and I know what I need to do, but there always seems to be what I have to do."

She laughed and nodded her head. "Yep," she admitted, "funny how things like that get in the way."

He sat down beside her and planted a kiss on her lips. "What I would like to do is stay here and get you all sweaty for the rest of the afternoon," he told her. She smiled. "What I need to do, though, is take a nap; because what I have to do is recon this fucker's hunting grounds."

Melissa didn't say anything. She took of her shoes, unzipped and took off her jeans, pulled back the bed covers, and curled up on the bed. Michael followed suit, undressing down to his underwear as well, and curled up with her under the covers. It wasn't long at all before they were both asleep.

Stone slept most of the rest of the afternoon. Melissa had gotten up before him, and she left the hotel room to pick up some take-out for dinner. Michael got on his laptop and retrieved a return email from Yuri Pavelovich. Michael read it, then picked up his cellular telephone and dialed a local number.

The phone call connected to a secure server, which split the call to a satellite orbiting high above Earth, and also to a non-descript clothing shop in Sydney, Australia. The satellite routed the call to somewhere in Montana, then bounced it again to a privately owned Boeing 727 somewhere over the North Pacific.

"Mikhail Ivanovich," Yuri spoke into the phone. He stirred his cup of tea sitting on the oak table in front of him. He reclined back in the chair he sat, looking out the window at the dark water as it passed far beneath him.

"Yuri," Michael responded. "Where are you now?"

"Still a good distance away from you, Vanya," Yuri answered. "It will be tomorrow morning before I am in Seattle."

Michael nodded. "I'm having some trouble with this one," he admitted.

Yuri made a gasping sound. "This is the first time you have ever admitted to having trouble with anything, Mikhail Ivanovich. Perhaps you are losing your edge?"

Michael was silent.

"I am only teasing, Vanya," Yuri chuckled. "Even the greatest of hunters need assistance. It is a stupid man who does not ask for help when he needs it the most."

"The problem here is the sheer size of the area where this one is feeding," Michael stated. "And, the simple fact that there is only me, and of course Melissa, who I told you about in the email. The other police officers simply want to catch a serial killer, and without letting them in on this one being a vampire, I don't think we can effectively contain and kill it."

Yuri thought for a moment then responded. "If you are certain it has identified you, then it is possible it has left the area totally. However, I would caution against that line of thought, because if you are wrong..."

"Exactly," Michael stated. "So, having said that, I am open to suggestions."

"I am en route with additional personnel to put at your command," Yuri said as he looked to the four other members of the Organization who shared the airplane with him. "Until then, recon and mark the creature's movements. You must learn if it has indeed left Seattle and moved on to other hunting grounds before we learn about it in a news report."

"Will do," Michael said. He disconnected the call.

Stone turned to his laptop and opened a file with a map of Seattle and a database containing the vampire's known kill sites. He added the location of his last encounter and also the location of the warehouse where he and Melissa had located the dead rats. He was studying this when Melissa returned with Chinese food.

The sun was setting as Stone and Melissa ate. When finished, Michael looked outside as the lights of the city shone against the cloudy night time sky. "What's next?" Melissa asked.

"Reconnaissance," Michael answered. Then he looked at her with a half smile. "But first, I want dessert."

"Oh?' She replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah," he said, taking her hands in his and pulling her from the bed. He kissed her lightly on her lips then deftly unzipped her jeans. She wriggled her hips as he pulled her jeans down and off. Stone hooked his fingertips in the waistband of her panties, and those, too, slid down her legs. He took her by the hips and sat her down on the bed. He then placed a fingertip against the fabric of her shirt and urged her to lie down.

Michael opened her legs and kissed each of her thighs lightly. He then licked along the inside of her left leg, moving his tongue lightly and gently over her skin up to the juncture of her thigh and groin. He nestled his lips against this part and sucked lightly, causing Melissa to moan softly. He then placed a light kiss against the very top fold of her outer labia. Melissa moaned again, and when she did, Michael used his fingertips to open her up. He then licked her with a long, slow movement of his tongue between her folds, stopping his tongue on her clit.

"Michael," she said breathlessly, "that feels so --"

He clamped his lips around her clit and sucked.

"Oh my God!" she sounded out. She bucked her hips against his mouth.

Stone held her clit between his lips and while he sucked, he let his tongue dance across this most delicate of places. Melissa's hips began to gyrate and move rhythmically against his tongue. As her tempo increased, Michael used the middle finger of his right hand to delve deep inside her. She shuddered at his entry. He curled his finger, the fingertip finding the puffy pad of flesh inside her, and with subtle pressure he began to move his fingertip against her most sensitive spot in time with the flicks of his tongue against her clit.

Her moans became grunts, which turned to vocal enthusiasms of pleasure as Michael feasted on her. It wasn't long before she began to tighten on his finger, and she arched her back off the bed, her thigh muscles tightening and tensing. Melissa grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and put it over her face to muffle the scream that was building inside her. She was talking to him, saying something, but he couldn't make it out. Her body was telling him all he needed to know, however. As she became tighter on his finger, her legs responded in kind, tensing to the point where he had to lift his head from the bed in order to keep his mouth fastened on her.

Then, finally, there was a total tightening of her body, both inside and out. A muffled scream came from under the pillow she held to her mouth. Michael felt the rhythmic contractions on his finger from the muscles inside her, and he felt and tasted the flow of her juices as she came against his mouth and hands.

Michael stopped and held his finger inside her and his mouth against her. Her body began to relax and loosen, and he made one final lick against her which caused her to jerk against him. She gave a little laugh from under the pillow. Stone withdrew his finger, coated with her sticky come, and he sat up and used a napkin from the take-out food on the desk to wipe his mouth. When he turned back to the bed, Melissa had removed the pillow and was looking at him dreamy-eyed.

"That was awesome," she noted with a smile.

"That was dessert," he responded.

She clumsily sat up, still in the after-effects of her orgasm. "Your turn," she told him. "Get those jeans off so I can have my dessert, too."

Michael put his hands together in frustration. "I want to," he told her, "but we need to move so we can try to figure out where this thing is tonight." He leaned forward and kissed her. "You owe me," he said to her in a low whisper.

"Yes, I do," she whispered back to him. "And I can't wait to pay up."