The Immortals Read online

  Taylor did remember Daphne, with her funky glasses and her quiet strength. She’d been an intern in the archives when they’d first met, peripheral to a case. Her roommate had been kidnapped and held by the Snow White Killer, had barely escaped with her life. She was also quietly dating Marcus Wade, but Taylor knew they were keeping the seriousness of their relationship under wraps from both their employers.

  “Daphne, good to see you again. Have you heard from Jane Macias recently?”

  “You don’t read the New York Times, do you, Lieutenant? Jane’s making a name for herself as an investigative journalist. She’s halfway to a Pulitzer by now. Detective McKenzie.” She shook his hand gravely. “I found the letter this morning when I came in. It was on the floor near the back door, the Porter Street entrance.”

  Daphne had grown up a bit, the last vestiges of college coed replaced by a calm assurance. Close contact with violent crime did that to a person.

  Taylor turned to the head of security, a short, stocky Hispanic man with eyes as black as jet. “Mr. Rodríguez. I’m Lieutenant Jackson. This is Detective Renn McKenzie. Perhaps you could pull the security tapes from the back lobby for us, see if we can identify who might have dropped the letter off.”

  “Call me George. I’ve already got them queued, but I can’t see anything amiss. There’s the usual mishmash of people coming in and out of that back entrance. The camera faces the street, and I didn’t see anyone out of place. It’s entirely possible someone ducked under the camera and slipped it through the door.”

  “Isn’t there security at that entrance?”

  “There’s a security booth, yes. But it was unmanned. Cutbacks, you know.”

  “We’ll look at it more closely. Thanks for getting things set for us.” Taylor pulled a set of nitrile gloves out of her jacket pocket, snapped them on. “This is the letter?”

  Greenleaf nodded. “Yes. I knew you needed to see it. I trust you’ll let us print this. I have a right to tell this story.”

  She ignored the last question. “Who all’s touched it?”

  “Security, Daphne, my assistant, too. It was addressed to me, so Daphne dropped it after she came in. My assistant opened it, saw what it was and set it on her desk. After that, no one. We used another sheet of paper to bring it in here for you.”

  “Okay. I’ve got a crime-scene tech on his way over. He’ll need to take fingerprints for exclusion. Thanks for being so cautious—that helps.” She only had one more glove in her pocket—it was time to stock up. She handed it to McKenzie, then stepped closer.

  The letter was typed, on regular white paper. What she read took her breath away.

  October 31, 2010

  The Tennessean

  David Greenleaf, Editor

  1100 Broadway

  Nashville, Tennessee 37203

  Dear Mr. Greenleaf,

  You can’t possibly begin to understand the impetus of this letter, so we would advise against trying. We’re sure that you will feel that our actions, while difficult, were purely motivated and absolutely justified.

  We are responsible for the murders. We are not sorry, they were horrible people who needed to be cleansed from this earth. We need to tell you why we came to this decision. Why we felt compelled to end their suffering. We have found the one true path. We had to show them the way. They hurt us. Over and over and over, they hurt us, and humiliated us.

  We sought only to release them from their dreary existence, to lead them unknowing out of their cave and school them in the bright, harsh light of the world’s realities, showing the underlying truth to their very existence. We are goodness and light, temperance and justice, sophists, skeptics, purveyors of platonic love. Ideal beauty and absolute goodness. We are truth. We are their deliverance. We are the sun, essential to the creation and sustaining life of their world. We guide the archangel into their corporeal bodies, fight to pilot their souls to the radiance, where together, as one, we can achieve the ultimate bliss.

  But words are not enough to satisfy our meaning. The best way to explain ourselves is through the medium of film. We have included a Web site address which has a movie of yesterday’s events. We would greatly appreciate you sharing this with your staff and helping us place it in the hands of a producer who can bring it to the big screen.

  The Immortals

  Blood is intensity; it is all I can give you.

  http://www.youtube.wearetheimmortals.com

  The row of symbols was smeared, the edges ragged, the ink suspiciously crackly and imperfect, ranging from dark pink to deepest burgundy.

  “Son of a bitch. Is that blood?” Taylor asked.

  McKenzie stooped over the letter, looking closely. “Looks like it. Tim will have to do a presumptive test.”

  “What’s the black underneath?”

  “There are words handwritten under the symbols.” “Can you make it out?”

  “I think so.” He picked up the letter, moving it back and forth in the light. “It looks like it reads, ‘Blood is intensity, it is all I can give you.’”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  He met her eyes. “I have no idea.”

  She turned to Greenleaf. “We need a computer. I want to see this ‘movie’ they’re talking about. Have you watched it?”

  “Just the beginning. I…I couldn’t go any further.”

  Greenleaf blanched, and she felt the dread building in her stomach.

  It only took Greenleaf a few minutes to get them ready—he’d been anticipating their desire to see the Web site immediately. Daphne had a laptop already tied into the high-definition screen that was used for presentations. She dimmed the lights a bit, apologizing—the screen showed up better in the dark.

  Taylor shook her head. What now?

  She could see that the video lasted twenty minutes, and didn’t want to imagine what might be contained in that time period.

  The film began in darkness, a pinpoint of light in the center growing larger and larger until they could clearly see it was a full moon. A deep voice narrated, one that sounded familiar, but Taylor couldn’t place it. The words were a jumble, overwrought with purple prose, but their message was clear. The vampires were recreating their race from the nonbelievers. It reminded Taylor of any number of ads for horror films she’d seen over the years—films she would never, ever watch. She lived horror every day, had her own nightmares. She certainly didn’t need someone else’s twisted imagination inside her own head.

  The narration ceased, silence crowding through the speakers. The distinct sounds of footsteps grew louder as the shot came into focus. She recognized the scene—it was filmed from the front lawn of the Kings’ house.

  “Fast-forward,” she said.

  “It will take a minute. The upload isn’t done yet.” Daphne fiddled with the controls, tried sliding the play bar forward, but it wouldn’t move. “We just have to wait for it to load all the way.”

  It didn’t take long. The next scene flashed up, and Taylor leaned forward in her chair. It was a long shot of the hall leading to Jerrold King’s bedroom. Taylor sucked in her breath as a hand appeared in the frame, pushing open the boy’s bedroom door. King’s body was spread-eagled on the bed, naked. The camera never panned to his face, just showed the long shot, then his torso. He appeared dead.

  The disembodied hand disappeared, then came back into the frame with a long, wicked, gleaming knife. Taylor forced herself to watch as the knife got closer to Jerrold’s body, and the tip pierced the boy’s flesh, loving, gentle, then whipped into slashes and circles, the pentacle appearing in a blur of motion. The wound oozed, but didn’t bleed freely—Jerrold was newly dead, but dead for all that.

  The scene cut to an open mouth. A high-pitched laugh, disembodied and androgynous, filled the frame. The camera pulled back slightly, enough to allow a vision to appear, a specter in black, unidentifiable but with black hair. The camera zoomed onto its chin, then did a close-up on the mouth, black-stained lips drawn back in a gri
n, as sharp, pointed fangs drew closer to Jerrold’s stomach. A pointed tongue flicked out of the mouth into the fresh wound, lapped up a bit of Jerrold’s blood. The lips tainted red, and were licked suggestively. Taylor noted absently that they looked chapped.

  “Jesus,” McKenzie muttered.

  “Stop it there,” Taylor said. Daphne clicked the pause button.

  Taylor stood, hoping that movement would settle her stomach. She flipped open her cell phone, called Forensic Medical. Kris, the receptionist, answered. Taylor asked to speak with Sam.

  A few moments later, the phone clicked and Sam came on the line.

  “I’m glad I caught you. Have you started the post on Jerrold King?”

  “I’m about to. Stuart’s working the prelims now.”

  “Catch him, quick. We might have the killer’s DNA on King’s body.”

  Fifteen

  They watched the rest of the film in horrified silence. The tableau was repeated three more times—the vampire arriving at the scene, carving open the flesh of the dead. The dancing figure in black, fangs and lips growing bloody again and again. The only reason she recognized the bodies was because she’d been at each scene. The killer had been very careful not to show the victims’ faces outright.

  They scrutinized the repetition, looking for anything that might reveal the killer’s identity. The editing was superb, cutaway shots of deepest black inserted at the perfect time to obscure the identity of the film’s star. There was never more of the murderer shown than the leering mouth, and that hand draped in black clutching the knife.

  Taylor had Daphne rewind and forward the film several times—it seemed like the act of licking the wounds was the same every time. She didn’t know what that meant. Had the killer only licked the wound of Jerrold King, or all the victims’? She filed the thought away.

  It wasn’t until Brandon Scott’s scene that it all changed. Brandon was caught by surprise, obviously changing to go for a run. He turned to face the camera, shouted “No” several times, then was attacked with a fury. The cat-o’-nine-tails bit into his flesh again and again, his hoarse cries became begging screams.

  The shot faded into a haze, and it was over, Brandon Scott’s shrieks of agony settling into a silence that echoed through the conference room. Brittany Carson’s attack had not been documented.

  They were all dulled for a moment, absorbing. Taylor was the first to regain herself.

  “That’s it. We have to get this video down from the site now,” Taylor said. Lincoln would be able to handle that. “How many people have seen this?”

  Daphne pointed to the counter. “It’s going viral. It’s only been up since late last night, and we’re already at five hundred thousand views.”

  McKenzie glanced at the page. “Can you tell who posted it?”

  “I was looking at that before you came. There’s no real way—the user name is generic, letters and numbers, nothing personal. This is the first video posted using that name, there are no identifying details. Obviously, the company will have more information.”

  “Lieutenant?”

  Greenleaf was still sitting, his face pale.

  “Yes?”

  “Was that, I mean, could that?” He breathed out in a great gust. “Was that real?”

  Taylor was suddenly very conscious of where she was. They were sitting in the conference room of the statewide newspaper, owned by a national media conglomerate, Gannett, and this would be mind-blowing, startling news that would capture the headlines for days. A scoop like this could sustain them for weeks.

  “I’m not sure,” she said carefully. “It seems this video has some elements of reality to it. But David, don’t run it. Please.” The Tennessean had a robust online community with breaking news updates sent to computers, phones and PDAs all over the city. A rallying cry like this would force the video even further into circulation. Then again, maybe it would crash the server and they’d have half their work done for them.

  Greenleaf didn’t look her in the eye, but nodded. She hoped that meant he’d sit on it, at least until they could get the video taken down.

  “Thank you. Daphne. David.” Taylor shook hands with Greenleaf, who was actively sweating. She couldn’t blame him—that would have horrified anyone. She was feeling rather sick herself. There was no doubt about it—the video most certainly was real.

  Taylor and McKenzie took the security films with them, headed to the CJC. Tim Davis had the letter in evidence and was bringing them a copy with his results. Taylor had phoned ahead to Lincoln, warning him about the video upload. He said he’d get right on it.

  Taylor was still a little shaky. She slid behind the wheel and turned to McKenzie, watched him placidly click his seat belt home.

  “I can’t believe this. I can’t remember a murder case that had an accompanying video. Have you ever seen anything like this?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Once, unfortunately. This guy in Orlando was making snuff films in his basement. He killed three girls before the Orange County Sheriff’s Office got to him. But those were getting sold on the black market, through the fetish sex clubs, not being broadcast to anyone who wanted to look. And I didn’t see the victim at the scene where it took place, either. It’s not without precedent—we’re living in our very own brave new world.”

  McKenzie had jotted down the symbols from the letter and was staring at them with an intensity that she thought might burn a hole in his notebook.

  “What do they mean?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I think they’re meant to be pagan, or at least symbolize the occult—that much I can tell you.”

  “Really? So they match with the pentacles?”

  “Yes, to an extent. Here’s the irony. The pentacle is a symbol of protection. It’s a sign of unending life, the cycles of the year, the interconnectedness of the universe. It doesn’t represent evil, and it’s not meant to invoke fear. It’s a very misinterpreted symbol.”

  Taylor glanced over at him. “McKenzie, how do you know that?”

  He was quiet for a moment, then sighed loudly. “Listen, this is going to sound ridiculous, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I was kind of into this stuff when I was in junior high. And high school.”

  “You were a Goth?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. I got into it to avoid dealing with my sexuality. It was a great release, and there were a lot of other kids who were confused, as well. We did a bunch of experimenting, and I ended up with…quite an education.”

  “Renn, you never cease to amaze me. So you can be our resident expert in all things occult?”

  “I guess. But do we have to tell everyone? I feel sort of dumb about it.”

  “We’ll see how dumb you feel when you’ve helped close seven murders in one fell swoop, okay? Tell me more about the video. You said the pentacle was for protection. The victims certainly weren’t protected, so maybe they were meant for the killer’s security?”

  “It’s much more than that. The fangs were real. Whoever starred in the film had them created, filed, lengthened with bonding agents to look that way. There are dentists that will do that kind of work. We should take a still shot around to some of the local cosmetic dentists and see if any of them recognize their handiwork. We’re dealing with someone who believes they are a vampire. Most are content to role-play—there are very few genuine sanguine vampires out there. Combine that with the symbols—this is someone who is trying out several different religions, trying to find their place.”

  “Sanguine?”

  “Blood drinking.”

  “Right. So this was a religious killing done by a blood-drinking vampire?” she asked, her sarcastic incredulity ringing though the car. Hell, she didn’t believe in vampires. Or witches, for that matter.

  “No. It doesn’t feel like we have a true believer on our hands, someone who is against the pagan world and trying to make a point. This feels more like seeking to me. Someone searching for answers, for their p
lace in the world. The symbols from the letter are old markings. A couple of them are obvious—the pentacle again, the moon and sun represent the seasonal cycles of the earth, the cross and the thunderbolt. The inverted triangles and the circle with the cross inside, they may mean something else. It could be a bunch of drawings meant to look like pagan symbols, too. They may mean nothing to the killer, outside of looking interesting. You never know.”

  “So if the symbols aren’t meant to portend evil, what the hell is this self-described vampire doing sending letters with them? And why does it say ‘we’?”

  “More than one, probably. A coven. If you could drop me at the library, I bet I could find their meanings quicker.”

  She turned the ignition over, edged out onto Broadway. “Sure, but why not look online?”

  “Well, I could, but I’ve got a hunch about these. Have you ever heard of the Strega?”

  “No.”

  “Stregheria, or Italian witchcraft. It’s an earth-based religion, pagan to its core, probably the oldest of the pagan religions that’s still practiced today. Nature is life, and magick, spelled M-A-G-I-C-K, is knowing how to control the interconnectedness of all the natural forces of life. Strega look for ways to manipulate the earth through their worship. It’s a positive journey. They aren’t worshiping the devil or anything like that. No animal sacrifices to dark angels. Not anymore, or at least not publicly.”

  She glanced over at him, saw he was trying to tease. It didn’t work, they were both too rattled. McKenzie continued, looking out the window.

  “Some of these look suspiciously like Strega symbols. We’re talking mythology worship here, the polytheistic society. Earth, moon and stars, all represented by the different Gods and Goddesses.”

  “Let me guess. You speak witch, too?”

  He shot her a look, saw she was teasing him back. “You’re funny. Didn’t you study the classics in college?”

  “I took a class in mythology to satisfy one of the liberal arts credits I had to take, but that’s it. All I remember is Zeus and his lightning bolt and something about the Tower of Babel.”