Chapter 5

The next morning at the station a troubled Cassi again recounted to Larry in greater detail her misadventure of the night before.

When she had arrived at the apartment last night, Linda immediately saw how upset and exhausted Cassi was. All plans for sex went on hold and she spent the evening holding her weary submissive in her arms while Cassi detailed her encounter with Leonora. At last Cassi had fallen into a fitful sleep but Linda had held her close and kissed her fevered brow throughout the night.

"I just don't get it," said Cassi, looking up to Larry with a puzzled expression, "she said..."

"Wait a minute. You said this "vampire" had a cock."

"I'll say," responded Cassi, the image of what she had glimpsed briefly last night momentarily sending a chill of both fear and excitement through her.

"But you said the voice was feminine."

"Yes, low and in control and at the same time seductive, but definitely feminine. I guess that's why I think of her as a woman. That and her face."

"Did you get a good look at her?"

"Not really. She wore a hood. There was just a brief moment when she stepped up to me and the streetlight lit one side of her face. She was beautiful in a hard sort of way. But the face I saw was definitely that of a woman."

"You know transsexuals can fool you. Some of them make gorgeous women," Larry smiled.

"Yes, I know. I've seen transsexuals and you're right. Some of them are absolutely beautiful. But there was something different about her. As dominant as she was, she was still every bit a woman."

"Well not every bit," snickered Larry, "unless what you saw was some kind of strap-on."

"No, it was real. I'd swear to it."

"Is it possible it could be a woman with a penal transplant?"

"I... don't know. I don't think so, but I just can't... all I know is that another minute and she would have raped me and I couldn't have stopped her. I'm just glad you showed up when you did."

"Hey so am I and if you ever feel the urge again to..."

"Enough, Hormone Man, I bat from the other side of the plate, remember?"

"Yeah, but you said you used to..."

"That was then and this is now. Just cool it."

"Okay, okay. So where do we go from here? Are you buying into your friend's story of a modern day vampire with rather unusual characteristics?"

"Of course not. It's just that nothing seems to fit. I know you sent a crime scene team down to that warehouse. Anything?"

"Nada. They found a sample of your... uh..."

"Let's just call it bodily fluids and let it go at that."

The encounter the night before had been so intense, Cassi had wet herself and some had found its way onto the pavement.

"Yeah, okay. But there was absolutely nothing else."

"Okay, then why don't you go hit the streets and see if any of our snitches have turned up anything."

"Sure. And you?"

"I'm going to do a little research -- see if anything like this Fleming case has ever happened before."

"You think we might have a serial on our hands?""

"Probably not. I've never heard of anything like this before, but it won't hurt to check. I'll run the name too. Who knows we might get a hit. Besides, I can't think of anything else to try."

"Okay, see you later," said Larry, getting up from his desk and grabbing his trench coat.

Cassi watched him leave and for the next several minutes she sat at her desk immobile, her mind replaying the encounter with Leonora last night. She imaged in vivid detail how she had helplessly stripped naked for her mysterious assailant and spread her legs. Had she done those things strictly because of the powerful aura of the woman or did she somehow want to be dominated and violated by the mysterious and beautiful creature?

She still wasn't sure as she turned to access her police computer, but there was one thing she did know. After replaying last night in her mind, her panties were soaking wet.

Later that afternoon the two police detectives were again at their adjoining desks in the precinct.

"Anything?" Cassi asked.

"Not a thing. It's strange. Oh there's the usual buzz about the murder but no one has seen or heard a thing that's useful. I got the usual concoctions from the down and outers looking to score a few bucks but nothing really serious. My usual snitches are coming up blank and that's not like them. No one's even heard the name. Whoever this Leonora is, she's sure keeping a low profile."

"I had a little more luck, but not with the name. I ran it through ours and the F.B.I. data bank. Got twelve possible Leonoras, six in prison, one deported, one in a mental institution and four dead. No luck there, but I did get some interesting info by dipping back a few years."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, there were lots of vics who had lost lots of blood but those were because of wounds, but it does seem our vic drained completely dry of blood was not the first. I went back five years and found noting. Then I went back ten, fifteen and twenty. Still nothing. But when I went back thirty years, I found a case at least similar to this one. The vic was a Regina Mobley, twenty six, an assistant in the governor's office. Her body was found in a deserted parking lot not far from the capitol building. She had been raped and her body was drained of blood yet there was no blood at the scene and no puncture marks on the body."

"How about the..."

"There's no mention in the autopsy of any wounds near the clitoris although it does say there was substantial vaginal tearing."

"The tearing could have obscured the other exsanguination wounds. So our perp was pretty well equipped."

"That or he or she used something else on her. No semen or trace evidence found. Police at the time followed up a few leads but nothing panned out. The case went cold and is unsolved."

"To think it might be the same person is a real stretch. I mean even if we assume this Leonora was in her twenties at the time, that would put her in her mid fifties now. Why did she wait over thirty years to kill again? And why kill by draining blood?"

"No idea. I think we can rule out some kind of delayed copy cat, however. The police withheld the fact that her blood was drained. All they released to the newspapers was that she had been raped and murdered."