Bloodless Read online

  Bloodless

  A Henri Dunn Novel

  Tori Centanni

  Bad Blood Books

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Henri Dunn’s Adventures Continue

  The Henri Dunn Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Tori Centanni

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, or institutions is completely coincidental.

  Editing by Eliza Dee of Clio Editing Services

  Proofreading by Kendra of Typos Be Gone

  Cover art by Rebecca Frank

  Ebook formatted with Vellum

  To Claire Browne,

  for being eternally awesome

  Chapter 1

  I stared down at the face of the pale, bloodless corpse in irritation. Of all the alleys and dumpsters in the Greater Seattle Area, someone had to leave their exsanguinated murder victim in the dumpster behind my workplace.

  The odds of that being a fun coincidence were practically zero, which meant this dead woman had been meant for me. To what purpose, I couldn’t begin to guess. A warning? A threat? A cute little present like a cat bringing you a dead mouse as a gift? The vampires I knew were notoriously bad gift givers.

  “Henri, get away from there,” Eric, the hapless restaurant manager, called. I ignored him. He was on the phone with 9-1-1, ignoring my protests that it was too late to help this woman. She’d been dead for hours. There was no stench of decay yet, so the noxious odor was one hundred percent restaurant waste. Le Poisson composted most of its food waste, but uneaten scraps still made their way into the garbage.

  Max retched and threw up near the back door. Jasmine, the busgirl and food runner who’d found the corpse, had been taken back inside. We’d all come running when we heard her scream, but even the cooks with the most bravado couldn’t stand to face the body for more than a few seconds.

  I wasn’t bothered by corpses. I’d dealt with more of them than I could count during the nearly a hundred years I’d spent as a vampire before being turned human again against my will. I would have been happy not to stand and memorize her face, but I needed to get a good look in case I was supposed to know her and that was the point of her being dumped her in my lap.

  Holding my breath and cursing my human gag reflex, I leaned in a little closer. Her throat had been slit in a clean reddish-brown line, but there were two bumps near the side of her throat under the slit. Fang marks. Vampire saliva has an agent that helps heal those wounds, but not if the victim is dead. Except she hadn’t been dead when her throat had been slit, not if the dried blood on her neck and shirt was any indication.

  I thought back to the mortals I’d seen at the Factory, but this woman didn’t look familiar to me, from there or anywhere else.

  There was one way I could get a clue as to her life or death. The thought turned my stomach, but I didn’t think I had a choice. I glanced around. Eric was talking frantically on the phone. Max was still doubled over, ready to puke again. No one was looking at me. In fact, they were all avoiding looking at the dumpster.

  I reached down, bending over the filthy metal lip of the dumpster, and carefully stuck my finger into the wound at her neck. The blood was tepid. Bile rose up my throat. Even when I’d been a vampire, I’d found lukewarm blood to be sort of gross. Before anyone could see, I shoved the finger into my mouth to read her blood.

  My heart started racing and all I could feel was a muddled mess of emotions. The two that came strongest were fear (understandable) and hope. Hope that she’d escape? Get away? There was no visual to help, only the frantic pounding of her heart and the sensation of being held, trapped, killed. And then the sharp bite of a blade at the throat. The minute she felt the blade, the hope evaporated and turned into sheer, unbridled terror. And then everything stopped.

  I snapped back from the vision with a gasp escaping my throat. Blood thrummed in my ears and my stomach twisted. I thought I might join Max in tossing my cookies. I swallowed and tried to steady my heart.

  “Henri, seriously, I need you this week, preferably not traumatized,” Eric said. I held back a derisive snort. A corpse was going to have to do more than lie there dead to traumatize me. I’d murdered plenty of people. I’d held their bodies in my arms, my fangs at their necks, while the life left them and they went limp. But that was before, when I’d been a vampire, a creature I doubted Eric even believed in.

  Eric stood several feet behind me, obviously afraid to step too close and get another glimpse of the body. Sweat beaded his upper lip and he looked like he wanted to shut the dumpster’s lid and pretend everything was normal. He’d hung up the phone and it dangled limply in his hand. “Authorities are on their way. God, I’m glad there were no customers left inside.”

  I stole a final glance at the woman’s slack face and dead eyes, her blond hair coming loose from its bun. Then I stepped away from the crime scene and pulled a box of Altoids out of my apron. The strong mint flavor helped dispel the coppery taste of her blood.

  “I feel bad for her,” I lied, hoping it would serve as the reason I’d taken so long with the body. I mean, I did feel bad: the woman looked like she was my mortal age, early twenties, and unless she was a serial killer or murderer or some other heinous thing, she hadn’t deserved to end up dead in a dumpster. Few people did. But I was more curious about who’d put her there and why. The answer was bound to be bad news for me.

  “We all do,” Eric said firmly, though I suspected he felt worse about missing his chance to duck out before ten o’clock. He patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s a tragedy.”

  “Do you think she was killed here?” Max asked, wiping his mouth. He looked green.

  “No,” I said immediately, while Eric frowned like this was something he did not even want to consider.

  “I didn’t see her inside,” Eric said.

  “She wasn’t a diner,” I said. “She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.”

  People had worn jeans to Le Poisson and lived to tell about it, but most of them were men and they were two-hundred-dollar dark denim dress jeans, not acid-washed Levi’s. Women wouldn’t get away with such casual attire inside, at least not without a lot of sneers from the hostesses and a seat near the bathroom. Sexist, but true.

  No one commented further and we stood there lost in our own thoughts—mine about whether this was likely to be some kind of sick joke or an actual threat—until a cop car pulled up, with an ambulance not far behind. Neither had used their sirens.

  I took Max by the arm and led him inside to the bar, where I told Kevin to give us both double gin and tonics. Kevin raised an eyebrow but poured the drinks without further comment. He had refused to even step foot in the alley. I was su
re we’d have to talk to the cops, but we might as well get a drink first. Eric couldn’t whine about us having a shift drink on the house when there was a body on the property.

  Max’s hands were shaky as he lifted the glass to his lips. He watched me warily. “Don’t tell me you used to be in the army or something. How the hell are you so calm?”

  “I’m freaking out on the inside,” I said. That, at least, was true. Because there was no reason someone would dump a body drained of blood at my place of work unless they wanted my attention. I sipped the drink, letting the bite of juniper settle onto my tongue.

  “My insides are out on the sidewalk,” he said, and laughed unsteadily. “God, what kind of monster leaves someone in a dumpster like trash?”

  “That’s a damn good question.”

  Chapter 2

  The cops asked the expected questions. What time Jasmine had found the body, if we’d seen anyone suspicious near the alley, if we knew or recognized the woman. Jasmine looked shaken by time the police let her stop repeating herself so her mother could take her home. They took all of our information down, and I gave them the fake name that was on my ID.

  Max still looked peaked and unsteady, so I gave him a ride to his place and then headed to mine. It took me almost an hour to find parking on Capitol Hill, and I swore to move or start taking the bus as I hiked from my parking space to my apartment building. The apartment was dark and cold, and for a second, I got my hopes up that it was empty. But as soon as I turned on the light, I saw a blond head of hair sticking up from the easy chair. The easy chair moaned.

  I sighed. My unwanted roommate was home because Cazimir never left the apartment. I had to force him into the shower and was pretty convinced he was going to melt into my sofa one of these days. Seeing him in the easy chair was something like progress. At least he was off the couch.

  “Can’t you leave me alone?” Cazimir said, his French accent punctuating the words.

  “This is my apartment. If you want to be left alone, get your own damn place,” I said. I sounded more irritated than I felt. I had used up the last reserves of my patience with the police and now I wanted to relax and unwind.

  Cazimir sighed dramatically and stood. He was dressed, rather than loafing around in sweatpants. He wore jeans and a t-shirt that said “I’m So Vein” in red letters against black cotton, which I suspected had belonged to Cazimir’s dead, murderous lover, Aidan. Sean had dropped off a box of things for Cazimir but hadn’t included Cazimir’s own clothes, at least not the King Louis Collection that Caz had formerly dressed in. When Cazimir noted that the wardrobe was mostly not his, Sean had shrugged, unconcerned. I was pretty sure I’d even seen him smirk. Sean probably thought it was funny, making him wear his former mortal lover’s castoffs instead of his regal attire, but Sean didn’t have to live with him.

  Cazimir looked thin and worn, the shirt loose on his torso. His face was pale and gaunt and he barely looked human. But he was human again, after hundreds of years of being a vampire. Like me, Cazimir had been stuck with the Cure against his will. His spurned mortal lover, who had lost patience waiting for Cazimir to make him into a vampire, had gotten revenge by making Cazimir human, too. Aidan had also murdered at least four people and was now dead.

  I hated being human again. I desperately missed being a vampire. I missed the rich elixir of blood, I missed having fangs and super strength and all the perks of being immortal and ageless. Like lack of hunger, I thought, as my stomach growled and reminded me that a cup of potato leek soup sucked down five hours ago between taking orders was not a sufficient dinner. But Cazimir didn’t just hate being human—he loathed it.

  “You look terrible,” Cazimir said. I shot a look over my shoulder and turned back to examine the contents of the fridge. There was nothing edible except pickles and olives.

  “You’re one to talk,” I said, letting the fridge door swing closed.

  Cazimir raised an eyebrow and then cast a casual glance down at himself. He hissed. “That’s not fair. I have no access to my wardrobe.”

  “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

  Cazimir wrinkled his nose like I’d asked him to eat a live snake. I understood the sentiment. I still had trouble eating certain foods because the texture of solids was just plain wrong after ninety years of subsisting on blood. In the beginning, things like cooked meat had completely grossed me out, which is sort of funny when you think about it. Now the only things I had any real issues with were slimy things: overcooked pasta, mushrooms, that kind of thing. I did not understand the rabid love of risotto at Le Poisson. Every week, the chef would come up with a new flavor of the mushy rice and people were delighted by it. So it had taken me a while to get used to chewing food, let alone the plethora of flavors and textures.

  Cazimir had been mortal less than two weeks, and he’d been a vampire for several hundred years longer than I had. It was going to take time before he could enjoy eating.

  “Let’s go get food,” I said. “I’m starving and I need to tell you about the corpse.”

  His petulant expression faded. “Corpse?”

  “Yeah, in the dumpster at my work. Go get shoes on.” I swear, it was like a having a child, another thing I’d never wanted or needed. Cazimir obeyed, but probably only because he was curious about the body. It was hard to make him eat and I had to seriously wonder why I bothered, other than not wanting a corpse rotting in my apartment if he starved to death.

  I popped a mint in my mouth as we walked to a bar that served Southern-style food all night. We grabbed a table and a server came over right away. I ordered a gin and tonic and Cazimir ordered a glass of red wine. I ordered food for both of us, getting Caz a side of grits and a biscuit. He wouldn’t eat anything that wasn’t plain and dry. Anything too rich or spiced made him a little ill. He would adapt, if he was willing.

  He actually managed to eat several bites of his food after sniffing it and poking it with his fork for a few awkward moments. I had no problem eating my chicken and waffles as I told him about the woman in the dumpster. I started to add details about reading her blood and the vision of her final feelings, but I stopped myself. I couldn’t really trust Cazimir farther than I could throw him. Like me, he was desperate to be a vampire again. Giving him anything he might use as a bargaining chip to get a vampire on his side was monumentally stupid.

  “Who killed her?” he asked, pushing his fork around in his grits.

  “That’s the million-dollar question. Any theories?”

  Cazimir dropped his fork and lifted his wineglass. He took a hearty sip, wincing at it like a man expecting cabernet but getting a mouthful of Kool-Aid. But he swallowed it down and took another sip. “This stuff is vile,” he said. The waiter had come over to check on us and looked startled to hear it. I waved him off.

  Cazimir finished his wine and then said, “Sean?”

  I snorted. “No way. If Sean wanted to fuck with me by playing ‘leave a body,’ he’d probably have put her in my bed or something.”

  “I never did understand the dynamics of your relationship.”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, which was true. There was love and hate in equal measure between me and Sean, and I never seemed to know which one was winning at any given minute. He had a way of making everything worse, but there were times when he made everything better. Right now, I could really use his help—so, naturally, he was God knew where, doing who even knew what.

  “Modern haute cuisine is complicated,” Cazimir said. “Sean is an asshole.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. Cazimir hadn’t done much but lie around on my sofa learning about the evils of infomercials and whining about how everything was awful since Sean had dropped him in my lap. Joking was a good sign. It meant maybe the denial portion of his bereavement was coming to an end and he might start learning to cope with his newfound mortality.

  He picked up his fork again but only stirred his food around with it. It didn’t make it back toward his mouth.
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  “What about Lark?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You know her better than that.”

  I sighed. It was true. I wanted it to be Lark trying to scare me out of her city as part of her power grab, but that was too obvious and things were never that easy. Caz was right: Lark wasn’t one for subtlety. If she wanted me gone, she’d come hand me a plane ticket herself. Or stab me in the stomach and watch me bleed to death. We might have shared a sire, but there was little love lost between us.

  So no, it probably hadn’t been Lark or Sean.

  Which left me without a lot of suspects. Maybe I was wrong and those marks on the dead woman’s neck weren’t from fangs. It was dark, after all, and mortal eyesight isn’t as good as vampire sight. They could have been places the killer hesitated with the blade. I might have assumed and seen what I’d expected to see.

  But the fact remained that someone had left a bloodless corpse for me to find. If she’d been killed in any other way, I might be able to convince myself it was a cosmic joke in the farce that was my life. One of those coincidences you always hear about. But the body had been drained of blood. That was just too on the nose.

  “What did the victim look like?” Cazimir asked. He’d dropped his fork and started tearing his biscuit into little bits.

  I shrugged. “A woman. My age. Mortal age,” I corrected. I was 112 years old. My mortal age was twenty-three, closing in on twenty-four with a speed I didn’t want to think about. “Blond hair, jeans. Kind of pretty.”

  Cazimir dropped the biscuit and rubbed his hands together to remove the crumbs. Then he met my eyes with a wicked expression.

  “What?” I asked. As glad as I was to see something other than existential dread or dark brooding on his face, the sinister smile was wigging me out.

  “Sounds like someone I know.” He gestured to the window, where our reflections were easy to make out in the glass.