Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven) Read online

  CAJUN GOTHIC

  (Blood Haven)

  By

  Nya Rawlyns

  Gotham’s rules of engagement are simple: no contact with humans … ever.

  Rules more honored in the breach than the observance, with consequences

  that threaten the fabric of their very existence.

  PI Micah Shephard exists on the city's fringes—the go-to man when the evidence

  points to the impossible. A venerable city institution hires him

  to discover secrets best kept hidden.

  In the hidden world of the vampire subculture, not everyone toes the party line.

  When the Council’s resident bad boy goes missing, it’s a race against time

  to avoid a very public bloodbath and an outing none can afford.

  CAJUN GOTHIC

  (Blood Haven)

  Copyright ©2013 Nya Rawlyns

  First electronic edition published by PubRight

  ISBN (eBook): 978-0-9892496-1-4

  Published in the United States of America with international distribution.

  Cover Design by Kayden McLeod

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To Erin O’Quinn and all her bad boys.

  BOOK ONE

  MICAH

  Poseurs and tourists gather in a pretend world that chains NYC's Goth and Vamp

  subcultures in profitable bondage. Only the Council knows what's real, what isn't.

  There are rules: for engagement, for feeding, for exhibitionism.

  Dead whores pose no problem. Drained dead whores are news.

  Some say that’s good for business. Others disagree.

  Private eye Micah Shephard exists on the city's fringes—the go-to man when

  the evidence points to the impossible, to where truth and answers seldom intersect.

  A venerable city institution offers him a generous per diem.

  It's just another job, until Micah realizes the new client is unexpectedly ... himself.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Micah's Archives

  Thurs. Aug. 9 notes:

  Det. O'Hearn interview, case notes, Medical Examiner report: Confusing the hell outta me, ME indicates body drained, but little blood despite mess on the wall and around face.

  Known to frequent Fangs & Topaz, "friends" with 33-ME, hooker (indie), periphery of the cult, did not imbibe (blood) yet. Puncture wounds consistent with... what? ME says force of penetration consistent with animal attack (??). This is the third one this month. WTF's going on? Need more before I take this to the client.

  Shit, this one's gonna freaking haunt me. The smell… it was like whoever did it... enjoyed himself.

  Looking over some stuff from home—shouldn't keep it there but it's too dangerous to have it all in one place. Not secure enough here.

  This one's friends w/ murdered hooker. Got bad feeling about the meet. Wonder if I should try to find her - try Topaz tonight? Notes: 3-9-2012, Subject 33-YZ, MP3 file (secured)

  This chick seriously had me shitting my drawers. Frequents 2 of the 3 top Goth/Vamp 'Nests'. Bouncer (yeah) at Topaz, splits time between night job & lifestyle choice. True believer. Zoned out on E, not much useful, try back later. Will think about her 'offer' (Jesus, am I nuts or what?).

  Prelim: psycho sally but that's it, not exactly harmless (to me), watch step with this one…

  Calendar: Wed. midnight (better fortify myself).

  ****

  Hoofing it from the Post building, I joined the crush of suits in the daily pilgrimage hemorrhaging from the Financial District to spread lemming-like through all quarters of the five boroughs. There was no need for me to change; scruffy jeans and a tee would do just fine. I’d grabbed my leather jacket and the notebook earlier in a rare episode of foresight. Luddite that I was, I stuck to pencil and paper; electronics were too much temptation for where I was headed.

  Picking up the Q-Line at Canal Street, I stood cheek-to-jowl with the unwashed masses, keeping my mind carefully blank. Too many thoughts raced helter-skelter through my head, too much information pointing to the impossible and the imponderable. I couldn’t pin the quote, but the gist of it was… if I couldn’t fucking explain away the evidence in front of my eyes, then what was left was… true.

  And that simply was not going to fly. Not with my client. That old-school sumbitch was about as likely to accept my thesis as he was to wear a frigging tutu to work. That’s what you got when the Managing Editor for a major rag coughed up two large plus expenses per diem.

  I knew why he picked me, Micah Shephard, your bulldog for a day. I just wish he hadn’t. Kicking that anthill wasn’t going to lead to what Annie called ‘resultados positivos’. My conscience and sometimes personal assistant had an annoying habit of keeping me on track.

  There is no try, there is only do…

  Yeah, yeah, enough with the mental finger quotes, bitch.

  The coach slowly shifted its human cargo, and little by little my lungs found enough room to breathe… not that I wanted to inhale anything too deeply. What spewed off got replaced with garlic and stale beer, and that odd essence that told me we were hanging solid in the stink of Russian Mafiya turf. I slid into a seat next to a babushka, nodded politely and got a glare for my efforts.

  Two stops later I got off at Brighton Beach.

  I finally had a name and address for the dead hooker. A lot of the uptown talent originated in the Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach districts, all pipelined in from the old country as economics made a shambles of the Eastern European block. That alone, the skin trade, would have given Talon, my editor-client, a hard-on in his younger days; but lately it took more to get it up. Dead bodies of hookers piling up? Who gave a damn? Certainly none of the pimps and none of the city fathers and their prissy trophy bitches did.

  Chill, man.

  The image of the hooker splayed like so much meat in that tub, the careless way she’d been left in death reeked in more ways than one.

  The idea—‘serial killer’—was getting good play. But I needed some icing on that cake to make it front-page material for a man obsessed with the bottom line. And if I could provide an op ed, then that’d be sprinkles on top.

  I needed sprinkles. But the confection I tracked was crimson, and stank of iron and despair.

  The doors wheezed open, and I exited with the babushka and her dozen plastic bags. We parted ways; I headed toward 11th and she turned west toward a row of shabby clapboards. I checked the address. The place wasn’t near as bad as I expected, as if some care had been taken to lift it from modest squalor to pride of place. I heard the giggles filtering through an open window. Crap, I had a feeling this was a dormitory. That might be good, but maybe not.

  If I was lucky, one of them would speak English… or offer me a blow job. Right then I was easy.

  I knocked on the door and the giggling stopped.

  I wasn’t a weapons expert, despite my undistinguished stint serving Uncle Sam, but I recognized the sound of a nine millimeter being cocked. I dug in my wallet for my license-to-pry and said a little prayer.

  The door cracked and a mountain in black stared at me with
displeasure.

  The bit of plasticized ID wavered as I held it up for his edification and enjoyment. When he moved to slam the door in my face, I spoke, proud my voice didn’t crack.

  “I’ve come about Svetlana?”

  Svetlana, the corpse with the empty veins and no last name. A high pitched sob from the upper reaches had Ivan reconsidering my options.

  He stood back and beckoned me in.

  Squeezing past him, I reached for my notebook. The Sig Sauer pressed against my ear and we wormed our combined masses into a narrow hall.

  I smelled cabbage. Cheap perfume. Ivan’s sweat. And a shitload of fear.

  I put all thoughts of a blow job aside.

  My nose smelled a story, and my nose was seldom wrong.

  Ivan holstered the weapon.

  The rooms stacked in a long line, living room to dining area to kitchen—the entranceway to that layout immediately to my right. I knew that because the mountain maneuvered me through the archway and into a cluttered space littered with newspapers, paper plates and overflowing ashtrays.

  Ivan made a space on the futon and I sat, glad I hadn’t overdressed for the occasion. The downstairs appeared empty. Not so the upper floor. I heard soft scuffling and tittering, voices low, trilling in what was probably Russian or Ukrainian. Not that I could tell the difference.

  The mountain moved to the arch and peered up the stairwell. A pair of very long, shapely legs teetered unsteadily on platform pumps with some kind of crisscrossing fabric wrapping halfway up calves that made my mouth water. Ivan murmured something and took her elbow, guiding her down the last couple steps. He allowed her to move into the room, hovering over her like a mother hen.

  It didn’t take a genius to know he was smitten.

  As well he should be.

  She was all leg, narrow-hipped and angular, not a spare bit of flesh on a five-five frame. She gave the impression of being taller. I stayed rooted to my seat. If I stood, she’d know exactly how happy I was to see her.

  She patted Ivan’s arm and sat in a chair opposite, the skirt riding way past propriety, yet she managed to exude naiveté and chasteness. She crossed her legs.

  Jesus.

  Licking my lips, I decided to get the party started.

  We talked, each question followed by a furrowed brow, then a carefully worded answer of sorts. I wasn’t scoring much I couldn’t already guess from the surface crap. I needed to drill deeper for the stuff nobody would talk about.

  “Are you familiar with Fangs and Topaz?” A brief incline of her head and something fleeting in her eyes. Fear? Concern? I couldn’t tell. “Did Svetlana ever go to either of those places?” I clarified, “As part of her job?”

  Sasha worried at her lower lip with a taloned forefinger, considering how much she wanted to give me.

  I assured her, “I want to find out who’s murdering these women, including your friend. If you know something, please… anything you can tell me will help.”

  That was a mouthful even for me, and the girl needed time to process and convert it into something that made sense. Ivan continued to murmur behind her, possibly translating on the fly.

  Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke haltingly, “Svetlana was to those places many times. She was, how to say? It was religion to her.” That sent a frisson of excitement up and down my spine. “She believed a thing…”

  “A thing.” My nosed nearly twitched. I tried to keep a neutral expression. One look at the mountain gave me the reality check I needed. My eagerness was spooking her.

  Ivan decided on an intervention. He motioned for me to follow him. I was loath to leave Sasha’s presence, but my curiosity spiked so I followed the man up the stairs to a miniscule bedroom with bunk beds, a small dresser and a nightstand. He pulled a drawer open and pointed to the contents. I leaned around his bulk and peered inside.

  What I saw didn’t surprise me. Fake fangs on a variety of dental appliances, a black wig, a neck collar with spikes—I didn’t have to touch them to know they were the real deal. The top of the dresser was cluttered with makeup, heavy on mascara, false eyelashes and all the other accouterments of the Goth culture. The closet contained the usual assortment of leather products, some I recognized, lots I didn’t.

  When I was done satisfying my curiosity, we left and returned to the living room. Sasha had vanished into the kitchen. I heard her moving around, putting something on the stove.

  “You seen enough?” Ivan spoke, second gen Brooklyn boy.

  I’d seen but I had more questions. “Did she have any enemies? In that group, not from her…?” I hesitated to say johns but he knew what I meant.

  “They’re a fucking bunch of freaks. She’d get knocked around by the johns, but nothing like what those assholes did.” I waited a heartbeat. “Fucking bloodsuckers. She’d come back bit so bad, it was like a pack of wolves done her.”

  “And she never reported this? What about her pimp?” Some pimps liked their girls pristine, some not so much. Tastes varied.

  Ivan barked a laugh but not because he thought it was funny. “She fucking loved it, man. Showed everybody, even put up with Boris beating the shit outta her when it got too much. Jesus Christ, you ever been?”

  He meant, had I been to the clubs. Yes, yes I had.

  “When was the last time she was… bitten?”

  “Uh, couple weeks maybe. Her pimp worked her over pretty good after, so she had to stay in for a few days. Sasha saw to her.”

  I wanted to know more about Sasha but this wasn’t about her. At least, not yet. My gut told me I’d be making some time to look into her situation more closely, and professionalism had little to do with my interest.

  “So when did Svetlana go back out on the streets?”

  “Two, three days ago.”

  “Did she go back to any of the clubs that you know of?”

  He just shrugged. I imagined it would be tough keeping track of a houseful of hookers.

  Her body’d been found sometime in the wee hours this morning. I’d been in my joke of an office, working on another deadline when the police report came through and Annie had sent me hightailing it uptown. The Medical Examiner’s report had only specified the one set of puncture wounds as being probable cause of… something. The M.E., Chen, hesitated to state it categorically without conclusive proof, but I knew she believed like I did. Whatever had attacked her and left her in that tub had sucked the blood clean out of her.

  Right down to the last fucking drop.

  There didn’t seem much more to say so I thanked him and walked myself to the door. Sasha met me there, a pained expression on her face. It was all I could do not to lean down and kiss her brow.

  If I did that, I’d likely not stop there.

  She whispered, “You help?”

  “Yes.” I said it with all the conviction I could muster. Then I said, “Sasha, be careful.”

  She simply turned away and climbed the stairs. I left and began the long walk back to the subway station.

  Somewhere along the way I picked up a tail.

  I hoofed it to Windsor Terrace and picked up the B68 headed north. I’d change at Avenue J and take the straight shot to the terminals lining the Upper Bay below Red Hook. There was a fetish bar I’d only visited a few times, but not recently, and rumor had it they now catered to a clientele with ‘special tastes’.

  I sat at the back of the bus and observed who came and went. After a half hour the entire bus had emptied and refilled. I could have sworn I had a tail, though whoever it was knew what they were doing and stayed far enough away so I couldn’t make them.

  Why someone would want to follow me was a whole other concern, though it shouldn’t have surprised me. I was digging into a very select subculture, one where anonymity was the currency of the day. Unlike the BDSM clubs that relied on relatively strict and mutually observed rules, this group was a whole hell of a lot less restrained by normal social conventions.

  Not that there weren’t any rules.
The so-called Vampyre scene intersected with Goth, BDSM and other fringe groups with a lot of mixing of mythologies. The Vamp Havens considered themselves more tolerant than the rest of their kindred spirits.

  Of that I could attest.

  And that was something I wasn’t going to think about.

  A vision of Sasha, Alexandra, niggled at the back of my mind. I couldn’t shake how much I’d been drawn to her. How much I still tingled at the thought of… touching her, caressing her.

  Damn.

  Staring out at the deepening dusk, I tried to empty my head again, not something I was terribly good at. The club—Haven—I was headed for was part of the Court of Gotham that governed all the Havens in and around the metropolitan center. I’d never been to one of their gatherings, though back in the day, Trina and I had gone to the Big Easy for their Endless Night Festival.

  That was when I lost her.

  I licked my lips, remembering the taste and texture of her skin, porcelain white, lips full of crimson sweetness… and doe eyes the color of moss: liquid, rich, and mesmerizing.

  I shook myself. Where was that coming from? I sounded like a bad romance writer for Christ’s sake. The problem was, every time I thought about Trina something deep inside spoke to me. Of things hidden. Things forbidden.

  She’d taken me places a kid should never go. She’d been my first and, for a short time, my only. I had secrets buried so deep, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to dig them out.

  Catrina Constantinescu had gutted me with a rusty knife, the rips and tears never healing.

  No, I didn’t go the therapy route, not right away. By the time I’d paid for a private dick to search for her, I was tapped out. In more ways than one.

  The Stans had offered a respite from worry. When in doubt, shoot something, anything. The desert and the sweet-sour smell of addiction wrapped me up cozy and secure. But never enough to forget.