The crowd melted away. With her laser held at the ready, she stepped back and kicked the door. Wood shuddered, splintering. She booted it a second time. The door flung open, crashing back on its hinges.
The kite was in the middle of the living room, its sheetlike form covering all but the stranger's slippers. His screams suddenly choked off, and all she heard was an odd sucking sort of noise. Blood seeped past the flaccid, winglike sections of the creature's arms, forming pools that seemed to glisten black in the darkness.
She raised the stun laser and fired at the creature. The blue-white light bit through the darkness, flaring against the kite's leather-like skin. If it had any effect, she certainly couldn't see it.
She switched her aim to the creature's odd shaped head and fired again. The kite snarled and looked up. It had no mouth, she saw suddenly. Or rather, its whole body was a mouth. It was sucking the stranger's flesh and blood in through pores on its skin.
She shuddered and fired again, this time at its eyes. The creature snarled a second time, the sound high pitched, almost bat-like. It shook its head and jerked upright. Bloodied strips of half consumed flesh slid down its body and puddled at its feet. Her stomach churned, but she held her ground and kept on firing the stun gun at the creature's eyes. It obviously wasn't stunning it, but it was doing something, because the kite's movements were becoming increasingly agitated.
It screamed again, then turned and stumbled for the window. She edged into the apartment. The kite smacked into the wall, then flung out an arm, feeling for the window frame. It was almost as if it had lost all sonar capabilities. Maybe there was something in the blue-white beam that addled its keen senses.
It grasped the window frame, felt for the other side to position itself, and then dived through the shattered glass. She ran over to the window and leaned out. The kite was floating back to the street, its arms out wide, loose skin stretched taut to catch the light breeze. She pressed the earphone again.
"Gabriel, the kite is now in Macelan Street, heading west."
"Do not go after it. I repeat, do not go after it. Stay in the apartment."
Her smile was grim. If the tone of his voice was anything to go by, he was madder than hell. He had a right to be, she supposed, but what else could she have done? Let the kite devour the stranger?
Not that her intervention had saved him. She turned away from the window and dug out her viaphone, the latest in gadgets from the SIU labs. It was similar to the wristcom the State Police used, only it had a cell phone and camera attached as well. And all in one palm-sized package. She hit the record button and panned the camera from the doorway she'd kicked open to the window and then down to the body.
"The kite smashed through the living room window and attacked victim at 3.15 a.m. SIU Officer Ryan intervened and drove kite back through window." She hesitated, walking across to squat beside the body. "Victim is male, probably mid-sixties."
She panned the camera down the length of his body and captured the bloody detail of the murder. What remained of his flesh hung in strips, almost indistinguishable from the remnants of his red and white striped pajamas. His eyes were wide, mouth locked into a scream — a look of astonished horror that was now permanently etched into his features.
Why this man? Why not the two men talking in the flat below? Or the woman who'd only just joined her partner in bed? She glanced up and studied the room.
The kite had come straight to this apartment — had obviously wanted this man, and no other. What they had to find out now was why.
She rose and walked across to the shelving unit. After sitting the camera on the shelf, she dug a set of gloves out of her pocket and put them on. Then she turned off the radio, picked up the camera and panned it across the photos lining the shelf.
Each photo contained the same four men, either fishing, drinking, or standing around a barbecue. All of them looked to be at least fifty or sixty. She glanced at the body. The only hair the victim had was scraggly wisps of white near either ear. He wasn't in any of these photos, then. Maybe he'd been taking them.
She picked up one framed photograph and then turned at the sound of footsteps. Gabriel entered, his gaze sweeping the room until he found her.
"I could put you on report for your behavior here tonight," he said, stopping just inside the doorway.
Though his face was impassive, his hazel eyes were stormy with anger and, surprisingly, a touch of fear. She fingered the viaphone's off button, then shrugged and left it on record. Procedures stated any and all activity at a crime scene had to be recorded. If that had to include her being told off, then so be it.
"Do it. Maybe then you'll get your wish and be rid of me." She hesitated. What was the point of arguing about it here? There were far more important matters to be worried about — like why the kite attacked this man. "Do you know who our victim is?"
For an instant, it looked as if he might say something more. Then he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked across to the body. "Male, in his mid-sixties, obviously." He glanced around the apartment. "And fairly well off. Those paintings are by Kyle Parker."
She glanced across to the stylized landscapes. To her admittedly untrained eye, a three-year-old could have done a better job. And yet Parker's paintings sold for millions.
"If he could afford those, you'd have thought he'd have installed better security."
"Security doesn't usually stop the kites."
"No, only decapitation or the sun can do that." She frowned down at the body. According to the SIU labs, the kites were some sort of offshoot from the vampire family tree. The SIU researchers were desperate to get their hands on a live specimen to do some tests, but as yet, no one had figured out a way to capture one and stay alive. "This wasn't a random attack. The kite came straight to this apartment."
"Maybe the victim was the only one moving around."
She shook her head. "There was movement in several apartments. The creature ignored them all and came straight here."
He frowned. "There's been no evidence that the kites can be programmed to kill certain individuals."
"But there's been no evidence that they can't, either."