Read Cajun Gothic (Blood Haven) for Free Online Page B

quiet repose. There was nothing
ritualistic about it.
    That was the thing… it’d been utilitarian. Like a
meal you consume without thinking on it much. Eat ’til you’re full, and then
discard the rest, just shoving the plate aside for someone else to deal with
the remains. Like… garbage.
    And that’s what pinged my sub-conscious. Mythology.
The vamp subs valued the bites, evidence of favor and commitment, wearing the
wounds like a badge of honor. Like Svetlana had done.
     
    Trina.
    Trina had scoffed. No, more than
scoffed. She’d been pissed, in a way that made no sense to me.
    Why?
    Twice… twice that I could
remember clear as day, Trina and the tall stranger at Haven had sucked me into
world class orgasms, taking deep pulls off my vein, shutting down all feeling
except the heat pulsing in my neck…
     
    With a fist braced against the cord in my neck I
turned and rested my head against the cool glass, eyes blind to all but an
inner vision, a memory playing out behind a veil, leaving me with indistinct
images. And a desire so thick I could taste it in the back of my throat.
     
    Micah, she’d crooned in that
breathless voice, mesmerizing me. Let me help.
    No… no it was, I vant for you to
do this, I vill help…
    And the talon pricked the vein,
her vein, and she’d teased me with a taste, the first among many… it had to be.
More than once, the bouquet, the fulsomeness of the thick honeyed scent like a
tidal wave of pleasure, then pain… my body erupting, revolting, reviling my
choices and my lust.
    She’d marked me as hers, leaving only
psychic wounds to nourish my vanity, all traces of our passion removed with a
flick of her tongue, her spittle on my thumb rubbing gently on her swan-like
neck.
     
    It was her way… their way. The poseurs, the faux
fang bangers, never went far enough, could never, ever get it right.
    The hookers all had visible, unaltered puncture
wounds. Left alone it would have taken forever for each of them to bleed out.
No, they’d been suctioned dry.
    Like the four hookers in New Orleans. Except that the
blonde Goth girl hadn’t been a hooker, of that I was sure. A misguided kid
maybe, acting out… much like me at age nineteen. Wanting to be a part of
something bigger, more dangerous, more alive . Wanting to throw off the
tedium of growing up under a belt, and later fists, until the reason I stayed
took refuge and freed me to leave.
    While I traipsed down memory lane, O’Hearn and cop
central kept up a running commentary. We were on Second Avenue bisecting
Stuyvesant. The Medical Examiner’s office was off Thirtieth and First. I still
didn’t know exactly where we were going, then Tom mumbled something about St.
Vartan’s Park, and it took all I had to hide my sigh of relief. That was not
Sasha’s turf.
    I asked, “Did they find the body in the park?” He
nodded, keeping his eyes peeled for cross traffic as we hurtled through a
yellow. “Which end?” If my guess was right, it would make a big difference.
    “West end, near the benches.” He swung right on 34 th ,
the one ways forcing him to loop around the Cathedral and come up on the park
from the south side. Before I could question him further, Tom said, “Guy walking
his dog around three a.m. found her. 911’d it in.”
    We angle parked by the black and whites and got out.
O’Hearn flashed his credentials to a female officer. We followed her into the
park.
    The Parks Department and FDR Drive buttressing the
East River were the only things blocking the skyline. Dawn lightened the
heavens, leaving us with enough ambient light to see the body and surrounds
without need for floods.
    The body—the carcass—lay braced in the crook of a
wrought iron bench seat. Another bench sat at ninety degrees to it. Both
nestled in a quiet copse of trees, relatively isolated from the playgrounds and
tables set out for the lunch time crowds. During the day, kids with trykes and
moms with baby carriages would rule in manicured