Free Manitou Blood by Graham Masterton Page A

Fireman’s bed. His voice was extremely deep and resonant, as if he were hiding a double bass inside his suit, and Frank detected a Southern accent, South Carolina or Georgia.
    â€œNot yet,” said Frank. “I don’t think you’d get a whole lot of sense out of her, in any case.”
    â€œShe spoke to
you
, though?”
    A pale and pimply young nun was hovering close by, trying hard to look as if she wasn’t listening. Frank said, “I think you gentlemen had better come up to my office. You sent somebody around to her apartment, I presume?”
    â€œOh, you bet,” said Lieutenant Roberts. “They’ll contact me, just as soon as they’ve checked it out.”
    They went up to the twenty-seventh floor in silence. There was nobody else in the elevator except for a diminutive Korean nurse in huge white sneakers who kept yawning, which made Detective Mancini start yawning,too. Frank ushered them inside his office and closed the door.
    â€œYou want to sit down?” he asked them.
    â€œNot especially,” said Lieutenant Roberts. He was tall and grave, more like a preacher than a detective. He was not only wearing a black linen suit but a black silk shirt with a black silk necktie, and very shiny black patent shoes.
    Frank said, “Ms. Fireman was partly delirious, so I can’t vouch for the veracity of what she told me.”
    â€œYou’re not on the witness stand, doc. Just tell me what she said.”
    â€œShe shares her apartment with a young woman called Prissy and a young man called Michael. She told me . . . well, she said that she cut their throats with a kitchen knife, and then drank their blood directly from their severed arteries.”
    There was a very long silence—so long that Frank began to wonder if Lieutenant Roberts had heard what he had just said. But at last Lieutenant Roberts took out a very white handkerchief, unfolded it, and blew his nose—and, to his credit, didn’t inspect it. “Is there any reason for you to suspect that she might be making it up?”
    â€œAs I say, I can’t be one hundred percent sure. But the blood that she vomited was human, and it wasn’t hers, and the amount she vomited is consistent with what she’s been telling me.”
    â€œThere’s no chance that either of her victims might have survived?”
    â€œVery unlikely. The average person has about five-point-five liters of blood, and if they lose more than twenty percent of it. . . .”
    Detective Mancini’s cell phone warbled like a homing pigeon. “Ryker?” he said. “Okay—just a minute, I can’t hear you, you’re breaking up.” He turned to Lieutenant Roberts and said, “It’s Ryker—I’ll have to take it outside.” He left theoffice and went out into the corridor, closing the door behind him, although Frank could still hear him shouting to make himself heard.
    â€œYou’re in there? You’re in there now? What do you mean nobody’s answering? They’re supposed to be dead, you moron!”
    Lieutenant Roberts was silent for a moment, as if he were thinking about something completely different. Then he said, “What is actually wrong with Ms. Fireman?”
    Frank shrugged. “Physically—several things. She’s anemic. Her blood pressure is way down and she’s also hyper-sensitive to light. That’s why the blinds in her room are all pulled down.”
    â€œSo she’s suffering from
what
, exactly? Does it have a name?”
    â€œQuite frankly, we don’t know. We’re carrying out further tests, but until we get the results we’re pretty much guessing. She’s carrying some kind of unusual enzyme in her blood, but we haven’t yet identified it.”
    â€œIs there any known disease that makes people want to drink human blood?”
    â€œNo. But having said that, there might be some delusional psychoses