Chapter 28
28
P atrick shackled Mike Harris, the rogue vampire, to the metal chair that was affixed to the floor in the large underground interrogation room. The room was high, and from a two-way mirror just beneath the ceiling, observers could watch and listen to the interrogation without being seen. Ethan was in the room with him, and since they were the ones who’d brought in the suspect, they got the first crack at questioning him.
Samson and Gabriel were watching from the observation room, and Patrick wanted to show his father that he was more suited to this kind of work than running the company.
Patrick still wore his leather gloves, which he’d needed to handle the silver chains. He now took them off and tossed them on the metal table on which several instruments were displayed. They were the standard clamps, blades, and pliers used for light torture, as well as a few other items, though it was rare that any of the tools were used to elicit information from a captive. They served mostly as a veiled threat of what would happen if answers weren’t forthcoming.
“See this, Harris?” Patrick asked, pointing to the torture instruments. “Do I need to use them, or are you gonna answer me truthfully?”
Harris cast a look at the table, then spat in defiance. “Fuck you, asshole!”
“Big mistake.” Patrick exchanged a look with Ethan. They were a well-oiled team, and knew their roles in this game.
Ethan twisted his mouth into a scowl. “Just as well that I haven’t taken my gloves off yet.” He calmly walked over to the table and lifted a pair of pliers. “Hey, bro, how about these?”
Patrick shook his head. “That will barely hurt him.” From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Harris crane his neck to get a better look at the items on the table. “I’d go with the syringe. Very effective.”
Ethan smirked. “Bro, you’re one sick son of a bitch.” He took the prefilled syringe from the table and stepped closer.
Patrick watched how Harris shrank back in his chair.
“What is that?”
Patrick took a few steps closer to him and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You mean that? A syringe.”
“You think I’m afraid of a needle?” Harris growled, his eyes shining red.
Patrick looked at Ethan. “Not the brightest bulb in the shed.”
“You want me to explain to him what silver nitrate injected into his veins will do to him?” Ethan asked, his voice sounding calm and friendly.
Patrick made a dismissive hand movement. “Nah, I doubt he understands chemistry. Just inject him, and he’ll get it pretty quickly. I really don’t wanna be here all night.”
“All right then,” Ethan agreed and made a step toward the rogue.
Harris yanked at the handcuffs at his back, the rattling sound echoing in the nearly empty room. “Stay away from me!”
“I can’t,” Ethan said with a nod in Patrick’s direction. “I do what the boss tells me to do.”
Harris’s eyes shot to Patrick. “Don’t let him inject me.”
“But don’t you wanna know what silver nitrate in your blood will do to you?” Patrick asked innocently.
“No! I can guess.”
“Oh, so you’re aren’t that stupid after all,” Patrick said and leaned over him. “I guess that means you’d rather answer my questions.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll answer.” He tipped his chin in Ethan’s direction. “Just keep that guy away from me.”
Patrick suppressed his smirk. This was way too easy. “Let’s get down to business. When were you turned into a vampire?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“Voluntarily?
“Yeah, so?” Defiance colored the rogue’s voice.
Patrick ignored the last word. “About the body you left in the kitchen of your house… When did you kill her?”
“I didn’t!”
Patrick laid his hand around the jerk’s neck. The silver chain, which had been around Harris’s neck earlier had left the skin raw and the flesh below exposed, eliciting a wince of pain from his captive.
“Don’t lie to me, or my friend will inject you with what’s in the needle. Now, again: when did you kill your mother?”
Harris’s throat worked, and Patrick loosened his grip a fraction so he could speak. “Three nights ago.”
“Why?”
“The bitch deserved it. Always nagging me. Always complaining.”
Patrick let go of his neck and took a step back. The guy disgusted him. Had he admitted to losing control due to his insatiable hunger for blood that as a newly-turned vampire he had trouble controlling, he would have had a pinch of compassion for Harris, but this guy was a psychopath.
“Yeah, like you’re the model son,” Patrick hissed. “Who’s the vampire who turned you?”
Harris made an attempt at shrugging his shoulders, but the movement caused him visible pain.
Patrick looked over his shoulder to Ethan. “Bro, just give him the needle already.”
As Ethan approached with determined strides, Harris yelled, “No, no! Not the needle. I’ll tell you his name. Thomas. He said his name was Thomas.”
Patrick felt adrenaline shoot through him. They all knew a vampire named Thomas: Scanguards’ own IT genius. The name had to be a coincidence. “What’s his last name?”
“He didn’t say. I swear! And I only saw him twice. Please, believe me!” Red tears were welling up in his eyes now.
Patrick glanced over his shoulder up to the observation window, before turning back and demanding, “Describe him!”
“I don’t know. Taller than me. Short light brown or dark blond hair.”
“Facial hair?”
Harris shook his head.
“That’s not a very good description. That could be anybody.” But hopefully not Thomas.
“I only met him briefly. And it was kind of dark, and frankly the guy creeped me out.”
Patrick shook his head. “Yet you agreed to be turned by him.”
“Yeah, I mean… he was offering everything I wanted…”
“Back to the vampire who turned you. Where did you meet him?”
“Online at first.”
“Via the incel forum you’re on?”
Surprise flashed in Harris’s eyes. “How do you—”
“We know what you’ve been up to,” Patrick interrupted. “Where did you meet this guy in real life?”
“Somewhere behind a bar in the Castro.”
Patrick sucked in a breath. Many of the bars in the Castro were known as gay hangouts, and he was certain that Thomas and his partner, Eddie, had been to many of them. Did that mean that Thomas could indeed be involved in this?
Patrick pulled his cell phone from his pocket and navigated to an app, typed in Thomas’s name in the database, and it spit out his photo. He turned the display so that Harris could see it.
“Is that him?”
Harris shook his head instantly. “No. I’ve never seen that guy.”
Patrick turned back to the observation window. “It’s not Thomas.” But with the vague description that they had, they needed to bring in the big guns to find who this vampire was. “I think we need Gabriel down here.”
“He’s already on his way down,” Samson said via the speaker system.
The door opened in the same instant, and Gabriel strode in. He walked up to the captive, who shrank back, clearly scared of him, because with his imposing figure and the large scar on one side of his face, he looked like a violent criminal. Only those people who knew him, knew that he was a considerate man who abhorred needless violence, and only employed it when his friends or family were in danger.
“Are you gonna use your skill?” Ethan asked from behind Patrick.
Gabriel nodded. “It’s the only way to know for sure.”
He stopped right in front of Harris and stretched his hand over the vampire’s head without touching him. Patrick knew about Gabriel’s skill of being able to look into other people’s memories, but he’d never witnessed it firsthand.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Harris asked, his eyes darting nervously from Gabriel to Ethan and Patrick. “What is this?”
“Shut up, and let me concentrate,” Gabriel demanded.
“I would do what he says,” Ethan advised. “He’s not as gentle as my colleague and I.” He pointed to Patrick.
Scared into silence, the rogue clamped his jaw shut.
It took less than a minute before Gabriel pivoted away from Harris. “I saw who turned him. It’s definitely not our Thomas, but I’ve never seen the guy.”
Harris’s eyes widened. “What the fuck?”
Everybody ignored him.
“What now?” Patrick asked.
“I’ll go through our database of known vampires and see if I can find him in there. It’ll take a few hours, but with some luck he’s in there,” Gabriel said and already headed toward the door. “And put the guy in the lockup. Don’t kill him yet, just in case we still need him.”
“Kill me? What the fuck! I answered your questions. I told you everything I know,” Harris whined.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder. “You savagely killed your mother. And not because you couldn’t control your thirst for blood. Vampires like you need to be put down.”
Harris screamed and fought against his restraints, but he couldn’t break them.
Patrick wasn’t surprised that Gabriel had decided that Harris deserved death. Had it been his decision, he would have come to the same conclusion. A man who killed his mother deserved no better than death.
Patrick grabbed the rogue by his shirt collar, and bared his fangs. “I’m looking forward to killing you.”
“Who said you get to kill him?” Ethan asked, stepping closer.
“I called dibs.”