S. L. Viehl - Midnight Blues

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Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

Midnight Blues

A Novella of the Darkyn

By Lynn Viehl

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

First Electronic Printing October 2006

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

Para mi hermanastra, Monica.

Siempre sueñas, siempre seas.

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

One

“At least he died with a smile on his face,” a forensic tech said to Fort

Lauderdale Homicide Detective Adam Rafael Suarez said as he helped him turn

over the corpse. The tech crouched down to inspect the victim’s tight, tanned

backside, and the green-handled object still extruding from it. “And a . . . weed-

whacker up his ass?”

“A cattle prod.” Detective Samantha Brown, Rafael’s partner, joined them.

“Known on the streets as a ‘joy stick.’”

The tech grimaced. “I’m thinking he didn’t get much joy out of it,

Detective.”

“Carjackers slip the tip through a window crack when the driver stops at a

traffic light, zap, stunned driver,” she said, tapping the appropriate spot on her

windbreaker. “You can buy them off the internet.”

“No carjacker would leave the prod behind.” Evan Tenderson, the

assistant medical examiner, came to stand next to the body. “Prod . . .

behind . . . get it?” He stopped chuckling when he caught Rafael’s gaze. “What’s your

problem, Suarez? Didn’t Castro let you make puns back in Cuba?”

“Murder is not amusing,” Rafael said, “and I am not Cuban.”

“Hell, you Hispanicos all look alike to me.” Put out by the lack of response

to his joke, Tenderson lit a cigarette and pointed one of his loafers at the victim.

“Get these mitts covered, Brad.”

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

“A cattle prod,” the tech muttered as he bagged the victim’s hands. “What

happened to the good old days, when people just killed each other with guns and

knives?”

Rafael didn’t answer. In his good old days, people killed each other with

crossbows, swords and battle axes.

Something about the color of the victim’s upper back didn’t seem right,

and Rafael bent down to take a closer look. What had appeared to be random

tan lines was a series of long, healed welts running from just below the neck to

the small of the spine.

“Who called it in?” Samantha was asking Tenderson.

The assistant ME’s top lip curled over the end of his cigarette. “Do I look

like a receptionist to you, Brown?”

“It came in as an anonymous tip, traced to a pay phone down the street,”

the tech said as he clipped thin plastic bags over the victim’s hands. “The

dispatcher said the caller sounded like a Latino.”

“Well, that narrows it down to, what, eighty-five percent of the population?”

Tenderson gave Rafael a smile filled with malice and tobacco-stained teeth.

“Good luck finding the perp.”

“Oh, shut up, Tenderson,” Samantha said, sounding bored.

“These are lash marks,” Rafael told her, indicated the fresh scarring. “This

man has been repeatedly restrained and whipped some time in the recent past.”

“Detective Suarez.” One of the uniformed officers who had been

performing a sweep of the grounds around the crime scene walked up and

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

handed Rafael a large evidence bag containing something made of spiked

leather and heavy silver chains. “We found this draped on that statue over

there.” He indicated the life-size figure of the Virgin Mary, which paired with a

matching statue of St. Theresa stood guard in oval shell niches near the

convent’s walls. “Someone smashed the flood light or we would have spotted it

right away. Looks like leather bar stuff, or maybe a Halloween costume. No

blood stains that I could see.”

“Like you’d know how to look, Dipshit.” Tenderson grabbed his case and

headed for the statue.

“Halloween isn’t until tomorrow night.” Samantha eyed the bag. “Is there

a full-head zippered mask in there?” When the patrol officer nodded, she turned

to the body. “Lash marks, sexual torture and fetish wear. I’ll bet he’s a sub.”

She caught Rafael’s blank look. “A submissive, into bondage, beatings and other

assorted masochistic kinks.”

“Aroused by torture.” Rafael felt pity for the dead man. “Perhaps he was

with a lover, and things went too far this time.”

“Doesn’t explain why the body was dumped here, though.” She glanced

around. “No drag marks, no wheel ruts, and it’s at least three hundred yards to

the nearest parking spot. He looks like he’s about one seventy-five, one eighty,

right? That’s a lot of dead body to haul around.”

Rafael waited until the patrolman had walked away before asking, “Did

you touch him yet?”

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

“No point.” Samantha possessed a psychic ability to see the recent past

of the newly-dead through their blood. Although her life had changed

dramatically three months ago, she could still use that last, human gift. “The

body has been completely drained.”

Rafael and Samantha worked Homicide’s graveyard shift for a specific

reason. Their colleagues on the force thought it was because they were both

single and had no families to go home to. No one suspected the partners were

both nocturnal, blood-dependent immortals known as Darkyn.

“What are you thinking?” Rafael asked her.

“Kinky sex and a bloodless body dumped in front of a Catholic convent.”

Samantha switched off her PDA. “Someone from our little vampire club having a

good time, maybe?”

Rafael heard the doubt behind the sarcasm. He had not been human for

seven hundred years, but only a few months had passed since Samantha had

become Kyn. She had yet to adjust to the enormous changes it had caused in

her life, including discovering the fact that the man she loved had been a Kyn

assassin for centuries. Some nights Samantha was more accepting of her

situation than others.

Tonight might not be one of those nights.

“There is no scent trace, and no Kyn could drain a body and walk away

from it. We would have found his attacker lying next to him, in thrall from drinking

so much blood.” Rafael glanced up at the high walls of the cloister only twenty

feet away. “It does seem as if the body was left here for a reason.”

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

“In front of the convent, or on our beat?” Samantha waved over the techs

waiting to remove the body. “Has my boyfriend made some new enemies?”

“I cannot say.” Rafael met her gaze. “Samantha—”

“I know. He doesn’t kill humans. Or anyone. We hope. Unless they

shoot me. Christ, ever since I died my life has gotten so complicated.” She

buttoned the front of her jacket. “Let’s go talk to the ladies.”

The man and woman were coming to the door.

Of course they were, Dani thought as she watched them approach

through the peephole. A dead body had been found in front of the sanctuary.

They would come to the door, and ring the bell, and ask for someone in charge.

They would have questions.

Questions for which they would want answers.

The sound of the bell made the women gathered around her turn en

masse to stare at Dani.

“I will see to them,” she said, covering her hair with a long black veil that

effectively shadowed her features. “Go back to bed.”

Before she had succumbed to advanced breast cancer, Sister Marguerite

Aretino had given Dani her heavy ring of keys, along with strict instructions. All

doors and windows were to be kept locked, and no outsiders were ever to be

allowed inside the walls of the sanctuary. Boundaries had to be preserved, and

the women of the sanctuary protected at all costs.

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

Guard them with your life, Marguerite had whispered, clutching Dani’s

hand as tightly as she had her rosary. God demands this of you now, Daniela,

as penance for your sins.

Her sins. What were they? she wondered. Being born to her mother?

Being a female child? Or being made by the Father to absolve – to pay – for the

sins of others?

She had asked the old woman once, before Marguerite had brought her to

America. What I have done, what you wish me to do – when will it be enough?

When may I be free of this duty?

The slap to her face had hurt, but not as much as Marguerite’s answer:

You dare question the will of God? Without his mercy you would still be in the

jungle, living like a savage. Or worse.

Dani unlocked the double entry doors and stepped out before the man and

woman on the other side could enter. “Yes?”

“Good evening, Sister. I’m Detective Suarez, Fort Lauderdale Homicide.”

He gestured to the woman. “This is my partner, Detective Brown. We’d like to

ask you some questions.”

Dani stared up at Detective Suarez, who seemed excessively tall and

broad-chested for an American policeman. Her ear told her he was no American,

however. His accent, like his neatly trimmed black mustache and beard, brought

back memories of the men who came from Europe to visit the exiles in Argentina.

They, too, came out of the night, so many silent, walking shadows, with blue

glints in their hair and death in their eyes.

Midnight Blues ~ Lynn Viehl

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1MidnightBlues~LynnViehl2MidnightBluesANovellaoftheDarkynByLynnViehlMidnightBlues~LynnViehl3Copyright2006bySheilaKellyAllrightsreserved.FirstElectronicPrintingOctober2006MidnightBlues~LynnViehl4Paramihermanastra,Monica.Siempresueñas,siempreseas.MidnightBlues~LynnViehl5One“Atleasthediedwithasmileonhi...

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