Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

other fun sexually transmitted plagues… and spread them. As a cop, he just didn’t see how that was beneficial to society.

He mentally went through the four men remaining in the biting group, wondering if they were in fact connected to the murder of Brandon and Nicole. Dalton was just a frat boy who stupidly stayed at a party he shouldn’t have, easily dismissible. But the others were of the same vein—blackguards. And porn-maker Marcus—he deserved to be bitten the most. Honestly, Matthew was surprised that the vampire lady had not killed the guy.

“Look, I’m going to retrace Brandon’s steps again to find his ghost,” JJ said, watching Matthew pore over the evidence for the umpteenth time. “His body obviously was dumped somewhere Troy might have walked—I think to frame him. You know the Order of Blood is still after him. Most ghosts haunt places where they have been killed, or their bodies—which he hasn’t.”

“Or reaped already,” Matthew murmured, hoping that wasn’t so. They needed more evidence. What they had was not enough.

“I don’t think he has,” JJ said, thinking the same thing. It was more hope than anything else. “Ghosts of people who are murdered are quick. Nervous. I think he’s hiding from reapers.”

Matthew nodded, knowing JJ was just hoping it. “Yeah. You do that. Keep looking for his ghost. I think I need to go to Brandon’s friends again and ask more questions. I have a feeling that Joshua and Connor have held stuff back. I could hear something was being restrained and they figured out how not to think of it. You know, focused their thoughts on what they were saying.”

“What Rick used to do,” JJ said with a nod, hope rising in him.

Cringing, Matthew closed his eyes. Yes. Rick was very good at controlling his thoughts so that they matched the things he wanted Matthew to know, yet keeping other secrets. Rick did not do that so much anymore. Most of his secrets were known to Matthew now.

“You knew your gift could be beat by those who were aware of it,” JJ said. “They could have been coached.”

“That’s my thinking,” Matthew said, hoping he was right. He didn’t want Troy to be the murderer.  

 

JJ went alone. Backtracking to the places where Brandon was last alive. He had the witness statement from his friends Connor and Joshua who had gone to clubbing with him that evening. Joshua went off with a girl he had met at one club and he had last seen Brandon alive, leaving with a group to other clubs. Connor’s story was that Brandon had gotten severely drunk at a strip club they ended up at, which honestly JJ had not wanted to enter the last time he was there, though he had gone in. The last time, he had questioned the workers and owners of the establishment. He had gone before opening time—when people were still mostly dressed and he could focus on the task. According to Connor, after Brandon got plastered, made a belligerent annoyance of himself, and threw up in the toilet, he and a friend had put him in an Uber to drive him home and that was where they lost track of him. Around the same time, Troy was already home with Nicole and accounted for by Bobo. Unless Troy miraculously snuck out for a night kill, some other vampire had gotten to Brandon. The question was, where?

Entering the establishment again before ‘opening time’, JJ showed his badge at the door and asked once more to enter. The owner, not wanting a cop roaming around, came out and asked JJ to come after hours.

“I need to look around now, before it’s too late,” JJ said, putting his badge away. Then with a glance to the muscular bouncer standing at the door. “Look, if I make people nervous, I will change my shirt so I will not look like a cop.”

The owner, eyeing JJ over, mulled over that with a hefty nod. “Ok.”

Quickly, JJ went back to his car and switched shirts. He also threw on a jacket around his waist to hide his gun. The fact that he drove a plain car made it easier for his investigation, and he parked in a discrete place. As soon as he was finally admitted in, JJ wandered around the dark space quietly, listening for any ghostly moaning. He knew all the signs of a haunting, and already he was getting tingles up the back of his neck. The place had the scent of a ghost—sort of an acrid, almost ammonia scent.

“You know, though, we’ve cleaned up this place thoroughly,” the owner said with a sweeping arm at the stage, the collection of chairs and the bar. The DJ was already setting things up. It was more like a dance club with strippers. Not the usual smutty place where the strippers were the main attraction. “I don’t think there would be any remaining sign of this guy here. We didn’t clean-up blood, you know.”

“But you remember him, right?” JJ said, his eyes raking in the still, but would-be-spinning light globe hanging from the ceiling. No ghosts up there. None were in the seats, either. “You corroborated that he was behaving obnoxiously and ended up in the restroom worshipping, and I quote: ‘the porcelain god’.”

Nodding with a mirthless chuckle, the owner said, “Yeah. We did clean up that.”

“Then that’s where I start.” JJ crossed the room, looking for the restroom. He had a feeling. Ghosts were weird about places they haunted. It wasn’t uncommon for a stairway or a bathroom to have a ghost inhabitant, especially if that was where they died.

The owner followed him. “What are you looking for exactly?”

“Signs of a haunting,” JJ said, weaving through the chairs and tables toward the back areas, looking for the placards of men and women stick figures on doors.  

Halting in his tracks, the owner paled. “What?”

“A haunting.” JJ gave him a firm nod, continuing on. He located the doors. They had these crude pics of biological male and female reproductive systems on the doors. Clearly they did not want to play the gender game.

“I know it sounds weird,” JJ approached the doorways, feeling for the ghost, “but I have a special skill set. I can see, feel, and hear ghosts. And I use this to solve homicides.”

“Oh crap.” The owner paled. He followed JJ quicker, though. “That’s what’s been happening….”

JJ felt shivers go down his arms. Was it the AC on cooler, or sign the ghost was near? It just made sense that Brandon had died here. He had gotten drunk and was making himself obnoxious. And vampires went to clubs all the time. It was their favorite places to stalk people. Troy’s notes were adamant about this. They were places with willing ‘suckers’, excuse the pun. And if that were the case, Brandon’s wound would have opened and the blood would have lured the vampire in for a meal.

“I have to say this, but since you came around the first time, weird things have been happening,” the owner said.

JJ perked up, halting.

“Every time the DJ plays a certain song, it gets ripped off and different song is put on.” The owner shook his head. “And I remember that prick hated that one song. He made such a stink about it.”

That was good. JJ nodded, heading toward the bathroom again. “That guy did seem the type to haunt a strip joint.”

“Hey!” the owner snapped, following him to the bathroom doors. “It’s a living.”

Shaking his head, JJ went into the men’s room first.

No ghost.

So… thinking about the nature of Brandon, still getting that chill, JJ turned and knocked the door for the ladies’ room. “Excuse me. Maintenance.”

Immediately, cold washed over him in a gust. And across the room, looking under the closed stalls, was the translucent figure of Brandon, still in the clothes he had worn the night he was killed.

“You perverted ghost.” JJ put a hand on his hip.

“Get out!” screamed the women behind the closed stall doors. All three were shut.

With haste, JJ stepped back and let the door swing closed. He exchanged one look with the owner who obviously could not see Brandon, though he had felt the chill. In fact, he said, “I saw nothing.”

“You wouldn’t,” JJ replied. “But he’s there.”

The owner huffed. “You just wanted to go into the women’s bathroom.”

Rolling his eyes, JJ did not respond. He found it ironic that a strip joint owner was fussing over modesty in bathrooms.

The women when they stepped out of the restroom, swore at JJ, one punching him in the chest. But when they had vacated, JJ went straight in and stared down the ghost that only he could see. The owner came right behind him, feeling the chill.

“Brandon Turner, you naughty boy. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” JJ folded his arms. The owner peered sideways at JJ.

Brandon looked pale as if he was his ghostly body was also drained. His bite marks stood out livid in his ghostly form as he gazed wanly on JJ then made a face at the owner who was peering around as if he could almost hear him.

“So… you can see me,” Brandon the ghost said. “That wasn’t crap your vampire friend had said. Huh. Well, he can go to hell.”

“Who killed you?” JJ asked him, shivering. He hated how cold it got when he was near an agitated ghost.

Sighing, Brandon shook his head. “You know I should have seen it coming. All the signs were there. He was hungry and a monster at heart. I knew it when I met him.”

“Who?” JJ hoped it really wasn’t Troy.

But Brandon laughed, an evil look in his eye. “You want me to exonerate your vampire friend, huh? Well, I wish he was the one who had killed me. I would have love to have him to blame. Nicole kept bragging about the size of his dick.”

“Who killed you?” JJ insisted, coloring.

“Connor,” Brandon said, laughing. “The day I met him he said he wanted to be a vampire. I totally thought he was joking. But he started bragging about how they are immortal, how blood must taste good, and obvious how they get the ladies. I mean, your friend Troy—soon after Nicole had sex with him, she didn’t want anybody else. She said he totally spoiled it for her and she could never go back to small weenies. That’s what she called us—small weenies—little smokeys.”

JJ put a hand over his face. This was embarrassing. 

“Imagine that, having her compare what you’ve got to a little smokey after enjoying a bratwurst,” Brandon said. He rolled his pale, transparent eyes.

“So Connor Davis killed you,” JJ said to confirm it, also trying to change the subject.

“And another vampire,” Brandon said. He shook his head. “I mean, I’m at this rave here, enjoying myself, and they gave me drink after drink until I totally passed out and had my face in the toilet. They pushed it in and they drowned me.”

Drowned? JJ stared. Did the body look drowned? He had to go back and check the evidence.

“Then he and the other guy carried me out. I watched it all, stunned that I wasn’t me anymore. They carried what had been me outside, pretending I was just drunk.” Brandon shook his head. “Damn. I didn’t want to die. I mean, yeah, I hated that I was being sued for sexual harassment by that lawyer and all. But, I didn’t want to die.”

“So they drowned you first?” JJ asked once more to confirm it.

“And revived me, barely,” Brandon said. “Out in the alley. I had a breath and I was choking. They wanted to drink me alive. It was the vampire with Connor who bit me, making the holes for Connor to drink.”

JJ gasped, adding it up. Connor had not drunk vampire blood. Just human blood. Physically, he was still human. “So Connor could still walk in daylight.”

Branson shrugged. “I guess. I don’t care.”

Frowning, JJ knew asking ghosts stuff outside of their fixation was