BLOODLINE ZERO: THE DETECTIVE WHO HUNTS VAMPIRES

At 2:17 a.m., Detective Adrian Cross stepped into an apartment containing three dead bodies and no blood.

He stopped just beyond the doorway.

The smell hit him first.

Cold air. Expensive perfume. Disinfectant.

And something faintly metallic beneath them all.

Adrian pulled on his gloves and looked at the bodies.

One man lay beside the dining table, his mouth hanging open. A woman rested against the kitchen counter, her fingers curled around an overturned glass. The third victim, a younger man in an expensive gray suit, sat slumped against the wall with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

All three were unnaturally pale.

Their clothes were clean.

Their throats showed small puncture wounds.

But there was no blood on the floor, no stains on the furniture, and no obvious evidence that anyone had attempted to clean the apartment.

It was as if someone had removed every drop of blood from their bodies without spilling a single one.

Behind Adrian, a uniformed officer shifted uneasily.

"Never seen anything like this, Detective."

"Then stop looking at the bodies."

The officer blinked. "Sir?"

"Look at the room."

Adrian stepped farther inside.

The apartment occupied the thirty-second floor of one of New Carthage's most expensive residential towers. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked a city that refused to sleep. Blue and red emergency lights flashed against the glass, painting the furniture in alternating colors.

The front door had been locked when security arrived.

The windows were sealed.

The building's access system showed no unauthorized entry.

Three people had died inside a room that apparently nobody could enter.

Adrian crouched beside the man near the dining table.

"Who found them?"

"The building manager," the officer replied. "He received a complaint from a neighbor about noise. When nobody answered the door, he used his emergency access card."

"Time?"

"Two-oh-six."

"And the emergency call?"

"Two-seventeen."

Adrian looked up.

"Eleven minutes?"

"That's right."

"Did the manager stay inside the apartment?"

"No. He says he entered, saw the bodies, and ran back into the hallway."

"Then why did he wait eleven minutes to call the police?"

The officer opened his mouth, then closed it.

"Maybe he panicked."

"Maybe."

Adrian stood.

"But panic doesn't explain why he made three calls to someone else before contacting emergency services."

The officer stared at him.

Adrian pointed toward a phone lying beside the dining table.

"Find out who he called. And don't let anyone touch that device until forensics photographs it."

He turned back toward the bodies.

Something was wrong here.

He intended to find out what.

The first thing Adrian examined was the victim beside the dining table.

Male. Approximately forty years old. Well dressed. No obvious defensive wounds on his hands.

The punctures on his neck were small and unusually clean.

He leaned closer without touching them.

"Where's the preliminary report?" he asked.

A forensic technician approached with a tablet.

"Victim one appears to have suffered massive blood loss. Victim two shows similar signs. We're still examining the third."

"Massive blood loss from what?"

"Unknown."

"Arterial damage?"

"None visible."

"Major external wounds?"

"None."

Adrian straightened.

"So three people lost almost all their blood without the kind of injuries that would normally cause it."

"That's what it looks like."

"Looks aren't evidence."

The technician gave him a tired smile. "I was hoping you'd say something more encouraging."

"I save encouragement for people who deserve it."

He moved toward the woman by the kitchen counter.

A glass lay near her hand. Clear liquid remained inside it.

Adrian touched the outside with the back of one gloved finger, then checked the nearby kitchen thermostat.

The apartment was warm.

He glanced at his watch and waited for the technician to finish photographing the glass.

"Can you check its temperature before anyone moves it?"

"Water temperature?"

"Yes."

The technician raised an eyebrow but complied.

"Still cold."

"How cold?"

"Cold enough that I wouldn't have expected it to sit here for long in this room."

Adrian looked at the glass again.

It might mean nothing. The water could have come from a refrigerator shortly before the deaths. The apartment's temperature might have changed. There were ordinary explanations.

He wrote it down anyway.

Evidence first. Conclusions later.

He continued around the room.

Near the ventilation grille above the living-room entrance, a narrow strip of dust had been disturbed. The screws holding the cover were newer than the surrounding fixtures.

"Who inspected the ventilation system recently?" he asked.

A building maintenance supervisor stood near the doorway, sweating despite the cold air from the corridor.

"We did a routine inspection two days ago."

"Who authorized it?"

"I'd have to check the records."

"Do that."

"Detective, with respect, I don't see how an air vent—"

"Three people are dead, and we don't know how their blood disappeared. Until we know otherwise, everything in this apartment matters."

The supervisor fell silent.

Adrian looked at the vent again.

He had no proof that anyone had entered through it. In fact, the opening appeared too small for a person to pass through.

But the disturbed dust suggested someone had opened the cover recently.

He added another note to his report.

Then he noticed the clock.

A decorative wall clock hung above the dining table. Its hands had stopped at 2:03.

Adrian checked the time displayed on a nearby digital appliance.

2:41 a.m.

He looked at the wall clock again.

"Has anyone checked whether it works?" he asked.

The technician shook his head.

Adrian photographed it.

The clock might have stopped when someone removed its battery. It might have been broken for weeks. But the time was close to the estimated period of death.

He wasn't ready to dismiss the coincidence.

His phone vibrated.

A message from the department's forensic unit confirmed that the building's access system had experienced a brief reset at 2:04 a.m.

One minute after the wall clock had stopped.

Adrian's expression hardened.

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"You're still here?"

Adrian turned.

Detective Daniel Mercer entered the apartment with his coat unbuttoned and his tie hanging loose around his neck.

They had worked together for four years. Daniel was a broad-shouldered man in his mid-thirties, dependable under pressure and usually the first person Adrian called when a case turned complicated.

Tonight, he looked irritated.

"Three dead people tend to keep me busy," Adrian replied.

Daniel glanced toward the bodies.

"Christ."

"That's one way to describe it."

"What happened?"

"That's what I'm trying to establish."

Adrian showed him the preliminary findings.

Daniel scanned the notes, then returned the tablet.

"Could be a staged drug operation. Some experimental substance, maybe. We have seen stranger things."

"Have you?"

"You know what I mean."

"No. Explain it."

Daniel's jaw tightened.

"Look, the victims have connections. One works with a major pharmaceutical company. Another has friends in city government. The department wants this handled quietly until we know what we're dealing with."

Adrian studied him.

"Who told you that?"

"Our captain."

"When?"

"On my way here."

Adrian glanced at his watch.

"You arrived four minutes after I called for backup."

"So?"

"So your captain responded remarkably quickly to a case nobody understands."

Daniel sighed.

"You're doing that thing again."

"What thing?"

"Turning every ordinary detail into a conspiracy."

"And you're doing your thing."

"Which is?"

"Trying to convince me the case is ordinary before we've investigated it."

For a moment, neither man spoke.

Then Daniel looked toward the security console beside the entrance.

"Have you checked the cameras?"

"Working on it."

"Good. Let's get the footage, write up the obvious findings, and let the specialists handle the unusual stuff."

Adrian watched him walk toward the console.

Daniel's eagerness to leave was becoming difficult to ignore.

He had not asked who the victims were.

He had not asked whether their families had been contacted.

And he had not shown the slightest curiosity about the missing blood.

Adrian said nothing.

Sometimes the most useful information came from watching what a person chose not to ask.

The building's security room was three floors below the apartment.

At 3:06 a.m., Adrian stood beside a technician named Felix while the surveillance recordings loaded across three monitors.

Daniel remained near the door, checking messages on his phone.

"Here we go," Felix said.

The first recording showed the victims entering the building separately.

The woman arrived at 8:43 p.m.

The older man followed at 9:12.

The younger man entered at 9:38.

None of them left.

At 1:52 a.m., the corridor camera showed the apartment door remaining closed.

At 2:04 a.m., the screen flickered.

Then the recording jumped forward eleven minutes.

Adrian leaned closer.

"Go back."

Felix rewound the footage.

The flicker appeared again.

"Could be a power interruption," Daniel suggested.

"Then why are the hallway lights still on?" Adrian asked.

Daniel said nothing.

Felix opened the system logs.

"There's a reset recorded at 2:04. But it wasn't triggered by a power failure."

"Meaning?"

"Someone initiated it through the system."

"From where?"

Felix typed several commands.

"An internal terminal. The credential is valid, but the activity record is incomplete."

Adrian folded his arms.

"Can you recover the missing section?"

"Maybe. The primary recording is damaged, but the system keeps a secondary backup."

"How long?"

"Ten minutes, perhaps. The data's corrupted."

"Recover what you can. Preserve the original, document every transfer, and don't overwrite anything."

Felix nodded.

Daniel finally put away his phone.

"Adrian, we should let the technical team handle this."

"We are letting them handle it."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes. You keep saying that."

Daniel's expression darkened.

"You're making this personal."

Adrian turned toward him.

"Three people are dead. Someone deliberately interrupted the surveillance system. If you think I'm going to ignore that because the department wants a quiet night, you don't know me as well as you think."

For a moment, Daniel looked as if he wanted to say something.

Instead, he walked into the corridor.

Adrian watched him leave.

Then he turned back to Felix.

"Call me the second that backup is ready."

At 3:34 a.m., Adrian returned to the apartment to finish documenting the scene.

The forensic team had removed the bodies for further examination. The room looked almost normal without them, except for the yellow evidence markers and the empty spaces where the victims had lain.

Adrian stood near the window, studying the city.

New Carthage spread beneath him in a maze of illuminated towers, dark alleys, and crowded roads. Somewhere below, people were leaving bars, finishing night shifts, and arguing over taxi fares.

Ordinary lives.

Ordinary problems.

He had spent seven years believing that even the strangest murder could be explained if he found the right evidence.

Tonight, he wasn't so certain.

His phone vibrated.

FELIX: BACKUP RECOVERED. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS.

Adrian immediately returned to the security room.

Felix had isolated a short section of footage from a secondary camera positioned across the hallway from the apartment.

"The image quality is terrible," Felix warned. "But the timestamp appears intact."

"Play it."

The recording began at 1:47 a.m.

The hallway was empty.

At 1:51, the elevator doors opened.

A man stepped out.

He wore a dark coat and black gloves. His face was angled away from the camera, and the lighting made identification difficult.

He walked directly toward the apartment.

No hesitation.

No attempt to conceal his movements.

He stopped at the door and looked up.

For a fraction of a second, his face turned toward the camera.

Adrian felt something tighten in his chest.

"Pause."

Felix froze the image.

The man's face was partially obscured, but the shape of his jaw was familiar. So was the scar running along his left eyebrow.

Adrian touched the same scar on his own face.

"No," he whispered.

Daniel stepped closer to the monitor.

"What is it?"

Adrian didn't answer.

"Adrian?"

"Keep playing."

The man on the screen opened the apartment door.

He entered.

The recording continued for several seconds before the image distorted. Then the figure disappeared into static.

Felix enlarged the final clear frame.

The face became sharper.

The scar became unmistakable.

The man entering the apartment was Adrian Cross.

Adrian stared at the screen.

He had never visited that apartment.

He had never met the victims.

And he had certainly not entered a murder scene nearly two hours before the bodies were discovered.

"That's impossible," he said.

Felix looked uncomfortable.

"Could be someone who looks like you."

"Enhance the image."

"I'm already working on it."

"Check the timestamp against the independent system. Verify the file's integrity. I want the original backup preserved."

Felix nodded and began typing.

Daniel stood behind them without speaking.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Finally, Felix turned around.

"The timestamp matches the building's independent access records. The recording hasn't been edited in the section we recovered."

Adrian slowly faced him.

"You're certain?"

"As certain as I can be without a full forensic examination."

Adrian looked back at the monitor.

His own face stared at him from the screen.

Then his phone rang.

The caller ID displayed the police department's internal number.

He answered.

"Cross."

A woman's voice spoke on the other end.

"Detective Cross, this is dispatch. An urgent alert has just been issued concerning the triple homicide at the Bellweather Apartments."

Adrian's eyes remained fixed on the screen.

"What alert?"

There was a pause.

"You're being listed as a person of interest. Officers have been instructed to locate you immediately."

The call ended.

For several seconds, the room remained silent.

Then Adrian noticed Daniel's reflection in the darkened edge of the monitor.

His partner was staring at him.

Not with shock.

Not with confusion.

With something much worse.

Recognition.

Adrian turned slowly.

"Daniel," he said, his voice suddenly cold. "What the hell is going on?"

Daniel's hand moved toward his waist.

And on the screen, the impossible recording continued to play.

Adrian Cross entered the apartment.

The door closed behind him.