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Authors: Whitley Strieber
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he was on CIA’s payroll.
Kiew Narawat was a precise, solemn man from Sri Lanka, an excellent operative and a profound friend of the United States. But Narawat wasn’t a member of Paul’s team, just a garden variety asset who had been detailed to observe any nocturnal comings and goings at a certain temple in Chiang Mai.
Paul went into the hotel.
If they hadn’t messed up the corpse somehow, that would be one good outcome from this tragedy. Not only would there be a useful forensic and medical yield, the condition of the body would help him make his case that the vampire killings should not be declared crimes. “This was the act of an animal,” he could hear himself saying. “This man was not murdered, he was fed upon.”
If they could just get a little more vampire DNA, that would be it. The discovery of the vampires had taken place in 1989, when the Japanese government had asked for help with a very strange murder. They had the attack on videotape from a traffic control point. It was three in the morning and the streets were empty.
An old man was struggling along the sidewalk. He was the only person in the area. Then this strange creature came loping along, and grabbed the man. It had put its mouth on his neck and suddenly the entire body had withered, disappearing into its own clothing. The creature had stuffed it into a satchel and walked off.
The man was unattached, very poor, and normally wouldn’t have been missed even in that very careful country. But the police made an effort, because what they had seen was so disturbing. They identified the old man. They went to the spot where the crime had taken place and took careful samples of everything. A hair had appeared in the debris they vacuumed up from the sidewalk that was not human, and not from a known animal.
It had taken years for the mystery to percolate into CIA’s pot. Paul got it because he was an old Asia hand and had his own father’s mysterious death in his file. The way the old man looked after his blood had apparently been sucked out of him and the way Paul’s dad had looked when he’d been discovered had been strangely similar.
They gave it to him because they thought he’d be interested. Well, he wasn’t. And damn them for dredging up his father’s memory like that.
Nothing more was done, not until 1998, when a crime reporter, Ellen Wunderling, had disappeared in New York while innocently doing research for a Halloween spoof about vampires. She had delved too deep into the gothic underground, an eerie, subtly murderous subculture that would be an ideal place for real vampires to conceal themselves. He’d begun his own investigation of the disappearance, but then came Tokyo and an opportunity to take immediate and direct action. He had been finding and killing vampires ever since.
Paul got into the elevator. He hated riding elevators. It opened on a wide corridor, with rooms open here and there. The management had cleared the whole floor. In front of one of the open rooms, a small crowd of Thai police, medical personnel, and plainclothes officers came and went.
The instant Paul entered the room, the smell hit him. What was it? A human odor, maybe. But so strange — salty, dry, distressingly organic. He looked down at the yellow flowered sheet with the angular lump under it.
“Thailand will expect extradition of the perpetrator, if he is found elsewhere, Mr. Ward,” the colonel inspector said in his heavy, careful English.
Paul grunted, wishing that the man could be made to go away.
Kiew Narawat had been ordered to report if he saw anybody enter the temple. So why had he ended up in this room like this, instead? Paul took the sheet and pulled it back.
He actually had to stifle a scream. This was the most spectacularly destroyed human body he had seen in his adult life. But not in his whole life, and that was what made it so terrible for him.
He was twelve again. He was awakened by a sound like the last water getting sucked
Kiew Narawat was a precise, solemn man from Sri Lanka, an excellent operative and a profound friend of the United States. But Narawat wasn’t a member of Paul’s team, just a garden variety asset who had been detailed to observe any nocturnal comings and goings at a certain temple in Chiang Mai.
Paul went into the hotel.
If they hadn’t messed up the corpse somehow, that would be one good outcome from this tragedy. Not only would there be a useful forensic and medical yield, the condition of the body would help him make his case that the vampire killings should not be declared crimes. “This was the act of an animal,” he could hear himself saying. “This man was not murdered, he was fed upon.”
If they could just get a little more vampire DNA, that would be it. The discovery of the vampires had taken place in 1989, when the Japanese government had asked for help with a very strange murder. They had the attack on videotape from a traffic control point. It was three in the morning and the streets were empty.
An old man was struggling along the sidewalk. He was the only person in the area. Then this strange creature came loping along, and grabbed the man. It had put its mouth on his neck and suddenly the entire body had withered, disappearing into its own clothing. The creature had stuffed it into a satchel and walked off.
The man was unattached, very poor, and normally wouldn’t have been missed even in that very careful country. But the police made an effort, because what they had seen was so disturbing. They identified the old man. They went to the spot where the crime had taken place and took careful samples of everything. A hair had appeared in the debris they vacuumed up from the sidewalk that was not human, and not from a known animal.
It had taken years for the mystery to percolate into CIA’s pot. Paul got it because he was an old Asia hand and had his own father’s mysterious death in his file. The way the old man looked after his blood had apparently been sucked out of him and the way Paul’s dad had looked when he’d been discovered had been strangely similar.
They gave it to him because they thought he’d be interested. Well, he wasn’t. And damn them for dredging up his father’s memory like that.
Nothing more was done, not until 1998, when a crime reporter, Ellen Wunderling, had disappeared in New York while innocently doing research for a Halloween spoof about vampires. She had delved too deep into the gothic underground, an eerie, subtly murderous subculture that would be an ideal place for real vampires to conceal themselves. He’d begun his own investigation of the disappearance, but then came Tokyo and an opportunity to take immediate and direct action. He had been finding and killing vampires ever since.
Paul got into the elevator. He hated riding elevators. It opened on a wide corridor, with rooms open here and there. The management had cleared the whole floor. In front of one of the open rooms, a small crowd of Thai police, medical personnel, and plainclothes officers came and went.
The instant Paul entered the room, the smell hit him. What was it? A human odor, maybe. But so strange — salty, dry, distressingly organic. He looked down at the yellow flowered sheet with the angular lump under it.
“Thailand will expect extradition of the perpetrator, if he is found elsewhere, Mr. Ward,” the colonel inspector said in his heavy, careful English.
Paul grunted, wishing that the man could be made to go away.
Kiew Narawat had been ordered to report if he saw anybody enter the temple. So why had he ended up in this room like this, instead? Paul took the sheet and pulled it back.
He actually had to stifle a scream. This was the most spectacularly destroyed human body he had seen in his adult life. But not in his whole life, and that was what made it so terrible for him.
He was twelve again. He was awakened by a sound like the last water getting sucked
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