Nashville, Tennessee
November 1
7:00 a.m.

Dawn had passed and Taylor’s stomach was growling viciously before she’d finished taking statements from all the victims’ families. She was exhausted, and most of her questions remained unanswered. The facts were straightforward—someone had slipped into the home of each victim and marked their flesh. Each victim had ingested some sort of poison.

The one exception was Brandon Scott.

She and McKenzie were loading up on coffee at the Starbucks on West End. There was no sense in sleeping. Taylor knew Sam was going to be at it bright and early—she had seven autopsies today, and her team had worked through the night. So far the last victim, Brittany Carson, had been holding her own, though she was in a deep coma.

Tim Davis had stayed up all night running tests on the Ecstasy tablets Theo Howell had provided them. Theo’s theory was wrong—the drugs he had collected weren’t laced. Which meant the victims weren’t random, proving Taylor’s initial theory.

Preliminary toxicology reports showed a mishmash of chemical components: Ecstasy combined with high doses of PMA, codeine, Ritalin and Valium. Apart, none of the drugs were immediately fatal. Together, the combination was overwhelmingly deadly. There were many more tests to be run, and the results combined with autopsy would help define exactly what effect the drugs had on the children’s systems.

Lincoln had been running through video feeds, looking for familiar or repeat faces. He had one, and he was waiting at the CJC for Taylor to look it over.

Marcus and McKenzie had taken statements from every kid at the party, all of whom had been honest and open about the events of the afternoon. They’d had the fear of God put into them, without a doubt. They weren’t aware that the pills they had turned over to Theo Howell weren’t deadly. As far as they knew, if they hadn’t checked their text messages, had turned off their phones, gone to a movie, anything—any little tiny thing—might have sent them to their deaths. Mortality weighed heavily on the young—the entire school was deep in mourning. Worry, relief and extreme pain had caused all of them to come together. Taylor could only hope they’d had their fill of messing around with drugs.

Hillsboro High School was expecting them at 10:00 a.m. to discuss possible suspects among the students. Taylor had talked to the principal at three in the morning—she had grief counselors ready to be unleashed on the school. There was talk of canceling classes on Monday, but Taylor had advised against it. Normalcy was best. Plus, she would be able to walk the halls, talk to some other people, see if they could find out who this kid dealer might be, assuming he really was a Hillsboro student. No one at the party last night knew his real name.

Taylor needed a few minutes to regroup. She drank deeply from her triple-shot latte, hoping for strength from the meager caffeine the espresso beans provided. She probably should have gone with black coffee, but her stomach wouldn’t stand for that. She nibbled on a piece of lemon pound cake, realized she hadn’t eaten the evening before. She was suddenly ravenously hungry and ate the rest of the cake in three bites.

McKenzie joined her, crashing in the chair next to hers. He had dark circles under his eyes, his sandy hair in total disarray. She could only imagine what she looked like.

“We’ve made serious progress, you know that,” McKenzie said.

“I do. Still, we need a quick solve on this. Tell me what else you’re thinking about this mysterious drug dealer before we jump back into the fray.”

“Well, I hardly think a fourteen-year-old is running a drug cartel through Nashville. You should put the word out through the Specialized Investigative Unit, see who’s selling to him. He’s being run by someone on the outside.”

“Three steps ahead of you. I’ve already called my friend there. Lincoln said the same guy was on video at four of the crime scenes, and at the press conference, lingering in the background. He’s trying to match it to people in the databases, sex offenders and the like.”

“I think the sex offender route is a solid one. Whoever’s behind the drugs is an adult. Who else would be able to get that quantity and quality of drugs into the school? And we all know how much our friendly neighborhood pedophiles like to peddle drugs to their innocent prey.”

“That expands our suspect pool exponentially, you know that.”

“Yes, I do. Are you ready? Why don’t we go take a look at those tapes.”

They gathered up their cups and coats. They’d just reached the parking lot when Taylor’s phone rang. The caller ID read Tennessean. A reporter, no doubt. She let it go to voice mail. They got into her Lumina—she’d never made it back to headquarters to retrieve her 4Runner the night before.

She turned right on West End, past the stunning foliage of Vanderbilt’s campus. Fall had come late this year, the colors not reaching their peak until the last week of October. There were still plenty of leaves on the trees, but the reds and golds were starting to be muddled by dead, brown chunks. Soon it would be time to hire one of the neighborhood boys to collect and bag leaves, get their lawn ready for winter. My God, had she really just had that thought? Eight victims, all kids, and she was worried about the grass. Something was wrong with her.

Her phone rang again. This time it was Commander Huston.

“Morning, ma’am,” Taylor answered.

“Lieutenant, David Greenleaf is trying to reach you.”

Crap. So that was the phone call. She played dumb.

“The editor of The Tennessean? Why?”

“You need to go over there right now. I’m sending Tim Davis along, as well. They have a possible piece of evidence that pertains to your cases.”

“You’re kidding. What is it?”

“A letter about the murders, apparently. You know they’re good at sussing out the real from the fake. Greenleaf called me directly, said he’d tried you but you didn’t answer. He didn’t tell me what it said, just that they were in possession of a letter that seemed credible, and they thought an evidence technician would be a good idea.”

“That’s interesting. Yes, I just got the call. I figured it was just another reporter. My apologies.”

“No matter, I wouldn’t have answered it myself.”

Taylor smiled. One of the things she especially liked about Joan Huston was her inability to mince words.

“I’ll head over there right now. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Check in with me when you get in the building.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She clicked off, looked over at McKenzie.

“The Tennessean has a letter that pertains to the case. We need to go there first.”

She was just crossing the interstate; The Tennessean building was on her left. She turned left into the parking lot and took the last space, sandwiching the Lumina into one of the too-small spots. The paper’s parking left a lot to be desired.

She and McKenzie walked in, gave their names to the security desk and waited. The lobby had changed dramatically since the last time she’d been forced to make a visit, to tell then Managing Editor David Greenleaf his good friend Frank Richardson had been murdered.

Greenleaf himself came through the locked door off the lobby. They shook hands awkwardly, and Taylor introduced McKenzie. The Tennessean had dined out for weeks on her fall from grace, and she still smarted from the drubbing. But they’d been trying to make amends, had done a positive piece on her ascension back to the head of Homicide just a few days earlier. She couldn’t blame them too much—they were in the business of news, and unfortunately she had been the lead story.

Greenleaf waved them into the hallway. He talked as they walked.

“How are you, Lieutenant?”

“Good, David. What’s been going on here?”

“Oh, you know. Buyouts and layoffs. This building can be like a ghost town sometimes. Whoops, here we are.”

He led them into a conference room, where two people were standing with their backs to the door, staring at a single sheet of paper lying on the table.

“Lieutenant, you remember Daphne Beauchamp? She’s our head archivist now, runs the morgue. And this is George Rodríguez, our head of security.”

Taylor did remember Daphne, with her funky glasses and her quiet strength. She’d been an intern in the archives when they’d first met, peripheral to a case. Her roommate had been kidnapped and held by the Snow White Killer, had barely escaped with her life. She was also quietly dating Marcus Wade, but Taylor knew they were keeping the seriousness of their relationship under wraps from both their employers.

“Daphne, good to see you again. Have you heard from Jane Macias recently?”

“You don’t read the New York Times, do you, Lieutenant? Jane’s making a name for herself as an investigative journalist. She’s halfway to a Pulitzer by now. Detective McKenzie.” She shook his hand gravely. “I found the letter this morning when I came in. It was on the floor near the back door, the Porter Street entrance.”

Daphne had grown up a bit, the last vestiges of college coed replaced by a calm assurance. Close contact with violent crime did that to a person.

Taylor turned to the head of security, a short, stocky Hispanic man with eyes as black as jet. “Mr. Rodríguez. I’m Lieutenant Jackson. This is Detective Renn McKenzie. Perhaps you could pull the security tapes from the back lobby for us, see if we can identify who might have dropped the letter off.”

“Call me George. I’ve already got them queued, but I can’t see anything amiss. There’s the usual mishmash of people coming in and out of that back entrance. The camera faces the street, and I didn’t see anyone out of place. It’s entirely possible someone ducked under the camera and slipped it through the door.”

“Isn’t there security at that entrance?”

“There’s a security booth, yes. But it was unmanned. Cutbacks, you know.”

“We’ll look at it more closely. Thanks for getting things set for us.” Taylor pulled a set of nitrile gloves out of her jacket pocket, snapped them on. “This is the letter?”

Greenleaf nodded. “Yes. I knew you needed to see it. I trust you’ll let us print this. I have a right to tell this story.”

She ignored the last question. “Who all’s touched it?”

“Security, Daphne, my assistant, too. It was addressed to me, so Daphne dropped it after she came in. My assistant opened it, saw what it was and set it on her desk. After that, no one. We used another sheet of paper to bring it in here for you.”

“Okay. I’ve got a crime-scene tech on his way over. He’ll need to take fingerprints for exclusion. Thanks for being so cautious—that helps.” She only had one more glove in her pocket—it was time to stock up. She handed it to McKenzie, then stepped closer.

The letter was typed, on regular white paper. What she read took her breath away.

The Immortals

Blood is intensity; it is all I can give you.

http://www.youtube.wearetheimmortals.com

The row of symbols was smeared, the edges ragged, the ink suspiciously crackly and imperfect, ranging from dark pink to deepest burgundy.

“Son of a bitch. Is that blood?” Taylor asked.

McKenzie stooped over the letter, looking closely. “Looks like it. Tim will have to do a presumptive test.”

“What’s the black underneath?”

“There are words handwritten under the symbols.” “Can you make it out?”

“I think so.” He picked up the letter, moving it back and forth in the light. “It looks like it reads, ‘Blood is intensity, it is all I can give you.’”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He met her eyes. “I have no idea.”

She turned to Greenleaf. “We need a computer. I want to see this ‘movie’ they’re talking about. Have you watched it?”

“Just the beginning. I…I couldn’t go any further.”

Greenleaf blanched, and she felt the dread building in her stomach.

It only took Greenleaf a few minutes to get them ready—he’d been anticipating their desire to see the Web site immediately. Daphne had a laptop already tied into the high-definition screen that was used for presentations. She dimmed the lights a bit, apologizing—the screen showed up better in the dark.

Taylor shook her head. What now?

She could see that the video lasted twenty minutes, and didn’t want to imagine what might be contained in that time period.

The film began in darkness, a pinpoint of light in the center growing larger and larger until they could clearly see it was a full moon. A deep voice narrated, one that sounded familiar, but Taylor couldn’t place it. The words were a jumble, overwrought with purple prose, but their message was clear. The vampires were recreating their race from the nonbelievers. It reminded Taylor of any number of ads for horror films she’d seen over the years—films she would never, ever watch. She lived horror every day, had her own nightmares. She certainly didn’t need someone else’s twisted imagination inside her own head.

The narration ceased, silence crowding through the speakers. The distinct sounds of footsteps grew louder as the shot came into focus. She recognized the scene—it was filmed from the front lawn of the Kings’ house.

“Fast-forward,” she said.

“It will take a minute. The upload isn’t done yet.” Daphne fiddled with the controls, tried sliding the play bar forward, but it wouldn’t move. “We just have to wait for it to load all the way.”

It didn’t take long. The next scene flashed up, and Taylor leaned forward in her chair. It was a long shot of the hall leading to Jerrold King’s bedroom. Taylor sucked in her breath as a hand appeared in the frame, pushing open the boy’s bedroom door. King’s body was spread-eagled on the bed, naked. The camera never panned to his face, just showed the long shot, then his torso. He appeared dead.

The disembodied hand disappeared, then came back into the frame with a long, wicked, gleaming knife. Taylor forced herself to watch as the knife got closer to Jerrold’s body, and the tip pierced the boy’s flesh, loving, gentle, then whipped into slashes and circles, the pentacle appearing in a blur of motion. The wound oozed, but didn’t bleed freely—Jerrold was newly dead, but dead for all that.

The scene cut to an open mouth. A high-pitched laugh, disembodied and androgynous, filled the frame. The camera pulled back slightly, enough to allow a vision to appear, a specter in black, unidentifiable but with black hair. The camera zoomed onto its chin, then did a close-up on the mouth, black-stained lips drawn back in a grin, as sharp, pointed fangs drew closer to Jerrold’s stomach. A pointed tongue flicked out of the mouth into the fresh wound, lapped up a bit of Jerrold’s blood. The lips tainted red, and were licked suggestively. Taylor noted absently that they looked chapped.

“Jesus,” McKenzie muttered.

“Stop it there,” Taylor said. Daphne clicked the pause button.

Taylor stood, hoping that movement would settle her stomach. She flipped open her cell phone, called Forensic Medical. Kris, the receptionist, answered. Taylor asked to speak with Sam.

A few moments later, the phone clicked and Sam came on the line.

“I’m glad I caught you. Have you started the post on Jerrold King?”

“I’m about to. Stuart’s working the prelims now.”

“Catch him, quick. We might have the killer’s DNA on King’s body.”