"Spoor,.Ryk.E.-.Digital.Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spoor Ryk E)

2
I got back to WIS at 2:45. The cops were gone but one of those wide yellow tapes was around the entire area. Damn.
I went to the pay phone on the corner, dialed the station, asked for Lieutenant Reisman. I was in luck. She was still in. "Reisman here. What is it, Jason?"
"You know, I happen to live in my place of business. Do you have to block off the entire building?"
"Sorry," she said. "Hold on a minute."
It was actually five minutes. "Okay, here's the deal. You can go in, but only use the front entrance and stay out of that back hallway."
"But I store a lot of stuff there."
"Sorry, that's the breaks. Tell your informants to die elsewhere from now on. Anything else?"
"Yeah. This thing has Sylvie really spooked. She's really nervous about this, and being in the business she is, it gives her weird ideas."
"So what can I do?"
"Just give me a call when the ME report comes through. If there's nothing really odd on it, it'll make things much easier."
She was quiet for a moment. "Look, Jason, medical examiner reports aren't supposed to be public knowledge, first off. But second, just what do you mean by 'odd'?"
I grinned, though she couldn't tell. "Believe me, Lieutenant, you'll know if you see it."
"Huh." She knew I was being deliberately evasive, but she knew I probably had a reason. She'd push later if events warranted. "All right, Jason, here's what I'll do. If the ME's report is what I consider normal, which includes normal assaults, heart attacks, and so on, I'll call you and tell you just that, 'normal.' If I see something I consider odd, I'll let you know."
"Thanks, Renee. I owe you one."
"You got that straight. Good night."
I went back to my building and up to my bedroom. I was drifting off to sleep when I suddenly sat bolt upright, wide awake.
The figure I had seen in the alley, backlighted by a streetlamp. I had thought it just moved away too fast to follow in the fog. But the Tamara's Tanning neon sign had been on its left, and the lit sign for WKIL radio on its right. One or the other should have flickered as it passed across them.
Both had stayed shining steadily. But that was impossible.
It was a long time before I finally got to sleep.
I got up at twelve-thirty; that yellow tape would keep away the customers who might drop by, and as a consultant I keep irregular hours anyway. I was just sitting down with my ham sandwich breakfast when the phone rang. "Wood's Information Service, Jason Wood speaking."
"This is Lieutenant Reisman, Wood. I've just read the ME report."
"And?"
"And I would like to know what your girlfriend thinks is going on here, Mr. Wood."
"Syl's not my girlfriend." Not exactly, anyway, I thought. "What did the ME find?"
"It's what he didn't find that's the problem." Renee's voice was tinged with uncertainty. "Your friend Lewis wasn't in great shapeЧcirrhosis, bronchitis, and so on, and various malnutrition thingsЧbut none of those killed him. He'd also suffered several bruises, someone grabbed him with great force, and after death the body was thrown into your door. But death was not due to violence of the standard sort."
"Well, what did kill him then?"
"The ME can't yet say how it happened," the Lieutenant said quietly, "but the cause of death was blood loss." She took a breath and finished.
"There wasn't a drop of blood left in his body."
I made a mental note that I owed Syl a big apology. "Not a drop, huh?"
"Well, technically speaking, that's not true. The ME told me that it's physically impossible to get all the blood out of a corpse. But it was as bloodless as if someone had slit his throat with a razor. The thing that's really bothering him is that the man had no wounds that account for the blood loss. He'll have the detailed autopsy done in a few days, but from what he said I doubt he's going to find anything."
"You're probably right. Well, thanks, Renee."
"Hold on just one minute, mister! You at least owe me an explanation."
"Do you really want one?"
She was silent for a minute. Then, "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Because there's one other thing that I haven't told you yet."
I waited.
After a few moments, she said, "All right, here it is. This body is not the first we've found in this condition. The others all had wounds that could explain the loss . . . but the ME told me privately that there were certain indications that made him think that they were inflicted after death."
"Okay, Lieutenant, but you are not going to like it."
"I don't like it now, Wood. Let me have it."
"Sylvie thinks we are dealing with a vampire."
There was a long silence. "Would you repeat that?"
"A vampire. As in Dracula."
Another silence. "Yeah. And damned if I don't half believe it, either. I must be getting gullible. But no way can I take this to my supervisor. He's the most closed-minded son of a bitch who ever wore blue."
I laughed. "I don't expect you to do anything about it. Just keep an eye out. I'm going to start some research of my own. If we are dealing with something paranormal, I doubt that normal approaches will work."
"God, listen to me. A cop dealing with vampires? I'll call you later, Jason. This is too weird for me to handle right now."
I cradled the receiver. I couldn't blame her for needing time to sort it all out. Hell, I was stunned that she accepted it as much as she did. Somewhere in the back of her mind she must already have decided that something was very wrong about those other deaths.
I went upstairs into my library, started pulling down books: Dracula, 'Salem's Lot, The Vampire Lestat, The Saint-Germain Chronicles, and various folklore reference works I'd picked up over the years; I like checking the accuracy of legendary "facts" used in my favorite books. I reconsidered and put back The Vampire Tapestry; a vampire that was little more than a human with an indefinitely long lifespan wouldn't be a big problem; one bullet would stop him.
I sat down at my workstation, started keying in information from each book. I hesitated at first at including fictional information; I mean, what good will someone else's imagination do me? But then I thought of two important points. First, the prevalence of the vampire legend. In some form, it is found around the entire globe; there are vampire myths in Europe, South America, China, and in almost every other major culture past and present. I couldn't discount some kind of Jungian "collective unconscious" that these writers tapped into. Second, and more important, was the possibility that one of these writers was writing from experience.
After three hours, my neck and arms started getting really cramped. I broke for a late lunch, headed back towards the computer just as the phone rang.