Primacy of Darkness by Brock E. Deskins Page B

I’ll have to take a look at your entire menu.”
    “Ah, you must be talking about our serial killer victims.”
    “Yeah, but show me the dead vamps first.”
    Raj double-checks the autopsy room and waves me in. Sheets cover two bodies already out on the tables. The ME opens the doors to the freezer banks and rolls out four more.
    “Since you came here for the serial killer victims and not the beheadings, I assume they have some sort of correlation with your people,” Raj says.
    “Your serial killer is a vampire, a particularly twisted one at that.”
    “I did a preliminary blood test and found out that the two decapitated men are definitely your kind, but the women are normal humans. Any connection they share would help me a great deal. Given the nature of the wounds, I am almost certain we are dealing with two very different killers.”
    “So we have a vampire killing prostitutes and someone killing vampires.”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think you best start carrying an umbrella, because there is a shitstorm brewing over New York.”
    My mostly useless heart jumps in my chest when I hear Castillo’s voice.
    “Raj, you back here?”
    Hell. There is only one way out of the autopsy room and that takes me right past Castillo. I jump on a vacant table and pull a sheet over my body. Raj tugs the edges to help cover me just as Castillo and Angel walk in.
    “Good, you’re still here,” Castillo says.
    “Yeah, I will definitely be putting in some overtime thanks to our killers.”
    “Killers?”
    “Yes. I recovered slivers of metal from some of the victims and sent them to the lab for analysis. I just got it back today and have not yet written my full report.”
    “That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to wait on paperwork while this creep is running loose. Why do you think we have multiple killers?”
    “The women were all killed with the same weapon. Given the witness description of the blade and the lab’s analysis, I think the murder weapon was a falciform amputation knife. The spectrograph shows that the blade was old and likely forged in England in the late seventeen or early eighteen hundreds. The cuts to the throats indicate that the man was of average height but very strong. Each cut was made with a single smooth motion that nearly touched the spine. The blade used to open the abdominal cavities and remove the organs was a different knife altogether.”
    “Maybe our killer bought the knife locally or online,” Castillo says. “This is a medical instrument?”
    “Yes, a very old one. It was already going out of style by the early to mid-nineteenth century.”
    “There can’t be too many of those around and even fewer places that sell them. Angel, get someone to start checking out antique stores or auctions specializing in old medical instruments.”
    “I’ll get someone to search the eBay listings too,” Angel says.
    “What about our two decapitated guys? You’re thinking different killer?”
    “Most likely. Our two headless victims were killed with a very different blade, probably a sword of some type. Again, our killer has above-average strength, but the beheading was completed with a heavy chop, almost like an execution. Given the secondary trauma, both men put up a hell of a fight. One was shot several times, and the bruising suggests an exchange of blows and the use of a Taser. The other lacked bullet wounds, but was also tased prior to being beheaded.”
    “Again by a sword-wielding maniac.”
    “I know what you’re thinking, Sarge, but we have chased Leo for this kind of thing before and been wrong,” Angel says.
    “Just because we couldn’t prove it, doesn’t mean we were wrong. Raj, what about the trace metals you pulled from them?”
    “The metal is also antique, dating back to the sixteenth century, but is of Chinese manufacture. However, that is not the most remarkable weapon used. At first, I thought these were ligature marks around this victim’s wrist, but it was