Chapter 4 IV

Both men watched the new detective walk towards their boss who seemed to be overworking one of their juniors.

"For God's sake, you'll have to do something better than that so I'll have something to work with." He grunted.

"I'm sorry sir." Alfred, the junior replied.

"Forget about having lunch later...Was there any blood?"

"We couldn't detect any traces." Alfred said

The mean boss was about to say something when the detective stealthily walked up to them from behind.

"What the..."

"Captain Miller..."Alfred gasped.

"Good afternoon everyone. Detective, can you please repeat everything so I can be filled in?"

"Who sent you? Does your investigation team tell you to snoop around other people's crime scenes? Go back to and stick to your job, son." He said and tried to brush him away when the detective grabbed his hand and lowered the sleeve to expose a wristwatch.

"This is a really expensive watch. The colour's nice too."

"Oh, this. I spent a bit of money on it. Alright, can you mind your business and get the hell out of here?" The man tried to free himself from his grip but the detective held him firmly.

"But something doesn't add up..."He lowered his nose to take a sniff.

"What're you doing?"

"The watch smells like cologne even though you don't use any. And I would think you'd buy a watch that fits you, especially if you spent so much on it...and the time's not right. Isn't this the time in Russia right now?...I wonder if that tall, heavyset drug trafficker from Russia who was released not long ago got back home without problems." He frowned as he slowly lifted his eyes to his."I thought taking watches as a bribe went out of fashion long ago."

Alfred adjusted his glasses and turned to look at him, who stuttered. "Well...um.."

The detective brushed him aside with a smile. "There's no need to get flustered. I was only speculating...and since we're all on the same side, let's try to be polite to each other."He said and turned to leave.

Now,it was his turn to answer questions. "Did you really..." Someone asked.

"How could you, sir?"

"Looks like you need to answer some questions."

"No, that's not what happened...I just picked it up since he threw it away..."

He stopped to twirl his hand. "Now, please..."A smile tugged at his lips as he slightly bowed. "Do excuse me."

Alfred turned to look at him with admiration, especially how he managed to take bullies down in a notch.

Captain Kaiwan Miller, he graduated early from the police department. He had an amazing memory, and never forgets anything he'd seen once. Since the vampire task force was formed, his arrest rate has been over 80%. He had distinguished himself with his groundbreaking arrest tactics and had been awarded a national medal of the highest order at a young age. Most female officers in the force had eyes for him and always wanted to be in the same team with him because his list of achievements were endless.

He was called the demon hunter because was so good at hunting vampires.

"The scene is still a mess though. I think a couple of vampires got into a fight."Josh,his spy filled him in as he arrived the office.

"A fight?"

"Yes, well. It's good that we seem to have gotten rid of one more at least."

"The security cams?" Kaiwan asked as Josh handed him a file. He flipped it open and examined the pictures of the almost collapsed building.

"There are no security cams in the area and dash cams haven't picked up anything yet."

"Witnesses?"

"There were two students, one male and one female, at the scene around the time of the incident. But they both have alibis." Josh replied.

"What are their alibis?" He asked as he slumped into his seat.

"A resident reported the crime immediately after it happened. Both students were caught on camera in front of their houses at that particular time. Their houses are over twenty minutes away so that proves their alibis."

He frowned as he took a closer look at the picture of the building. "If there'd really been a fight, there'd be some traces of it."He thought to himself.

It wasn't a fight, he suspected. It was a one-sided beating and the guy taking the beating couldn't even get a single hit.

"The killer isn't an average vampire."

"Have you seen Chanbridge hall? It collapsed." A student said.

"I heard there's no security footage because it collapsed too fast and there was too much smoke. But nobody got hurt."

"Could this be the work of vampires? A lot of officers came to investigate." Another said and Zuriña turned towards the site where a group of students where gathered.

"There must be vampires in our school. Two incidents have taken place on our campus over the course of a few days. That's proof that they're among us. The school has done nothing about this issue despite our repeated demands for a solution." The guy who seemed to be their leader said.

"That's right."

"He's right. If they're not going to take action, giving all the lectures remotely would be better." Roshan said.

She had to be more careful in the future.

"Excuse me." Someone called from behind them and they whipped round and Zuriña was particularly surprised to see who it was.

"Are you Zuriña Anderson?"

"Can you tell me how to get to the police station?" It was that guy who had saved her and her siblings from Mr. Gangster leader.

"Oh, we meet again." He said.

"Yeah."

"I haven't introduced myself yet. I'm Kaiwan Miller, a detective."

"I see."

"Does your friend mind if I could borrow you for a while?" He asked and she turned to Roshan thinking he would protest but he smiled.

"Sure, I have some things to catch up with." He replied and they turned to leave.

They hadn't walked for long when she started hearing whispers from girls who were staring at him.

"Whoa...he's as hot as hell." One said.

"Is he a student from the theater major?"

"What an amazing body. He must be at least six foot two." Another said.

"I want his number."

What was he here for? When the police came by the previous day, she had not been suspected as she had fled the scene and her alibi checked out. But what did they want with her now?

"I came to offer my support."

Her heart skipped a beat. Had he read her mind?

"Huh?"

"I was worried that you might be in a lot of shock because it was a frightening incident. Why don't we grab lunch together? You can ask me any questions you want." He said.

She resisted the urge to sigh in relief and decided to act like she knew nothing.

"Um... okay. This is something I've always wondered. What happens when a vampire gets caught?"

He smiled. "That's a good question. It hasn't been made public so it's not something people know about. A vampire's weakness is their heart but because they can regenerate their bodies, so it's not easy to kill them by shooting or stabbing. You need to extract their heart completely and in order to kill them,we use a more surefire method."

"Which is?"

"We paralyse them using an electrified wire and then throw them in a blast furnace of over 3600 degree fahrenheit. That's how we melt them down without leaving a trace."

A blast furnace? She wondered. She'd only seen that in the movies.

"Doesn't that feel reassuring? It was my idea." He asked and she chuckled nervously.

"You must have a grudge against vampires or something."

"Well, I wanted to return things to how they were ten years ago, no matter what it takes. I want to be able to stay out late having drinks with my friends, walk my dog looking at the stars...and go on a date by the river in the moonlight. I just want the world to be normal again..."

They finally arrived at the restaurant and they slid into chairs before he took an order. "What would you like to have?"He asked and she looked around. Potato salad looked better than anything else.

"I'll go with potato salad." She replied.

"You're sure you'll be fine with just that? Feel free to order more. It's my treat."

"Thank you. I'm not much of an eater recently."She replied and he turned to the waitress who'd had her eyes on him all along. "That'll be all."

"Alright."The waitress smiled and went to fetch their meal.

"You know, there's nothing but a pizzeria near my station. I almost forgot there are other kinds of foods in the world. But are you sure you can study with just ?" He asked.

"Sure."

Their meals were served a couple of minutes later and Riña tried to hide her disgust for the meal. There was no way she'd ever get used to the smell of food.

"Let's dig in." He smiled.

"Alright, bon appetit." She replied with her hands shaking under the table as she made to dig in.

"Ouch!" Her head lifted and she regretted doing so shortly after as her eyes were greeted with blood dripping from Kaiwan's hand.

"Darn, I cut myself. I'm just so clumsy."He said

"Are you alright?" She asked, wondering how clumsy a person could get to cut his own hand.

Blood dropped down to the table and he smiled. "I'm fine. I'm used to seeing blood in my line of work." He replied as he took out a white handkerchief to clean up the blood on the table before he worked on cleaning up his hand.

Her heart began to thump as more blood gushed out of his hand. "It's a deep cut though." He sighed and glanced at her and she flinched as she lowered her head to hold on tightly to the crown of thorns, secretly hidden in her bag.

This man...he was doing that on purpose to make her reveal her secret. He knew a vampire couldn't eat normal food and now,he was trying to see how she would react to blood.

"I'm sorry. I hope that didn't make you lose your appetite. You should hurry and dig in." He said and she didn't raise her head. "Why aren't you eating? Does it taste bad? Or..." He leaned in, until his face was a few metres from hers, forcing her to look straight into those grey eyes of his.

"Are you someone who can't eat this kind of thing?"