BITE FORCE

  Being admitted to a hospital during a pandemic is bad.

  Being trapped there while a lunatic is on the loose is even worse.

  Ex-cop Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels, ex-criminal Phineas Troutt, and ex-private eye Harry McGlade are all healing after a near-fatal encounter. But it’s tough to mend when there’s a serial killer prowling the halls at night, draining patients of their blood.

  The psychosis is known as Renfield’s syndrome. The psycho has eyes on Jack and her friends.

  And they’re about to learn that giving blood isn’t always voluntary…

  BITE FORCE by J.A. Konrath

  Get ready to sink your teeth in.

  BITE FORCE

  A Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels thriller

  J.A. KONRATH

  CONTENTS

  Author Note

  Bite Force

  Begin reading BITE FORCE

  Joe Konrath’s Complete Bibliography

  Other recommended titles

  AUTHOR NOTE

  The Jack Daniels thriller series doesn’t have to be read in order. Each book functions as a stand-alone, and no knowledge of any previous adventure is necessary to enjoy Bite Force.

  That said, all of my books interconnect into a larger shared universe.

  If you’d like to see how, please visit my website, www.JAKonrath.com.

  I also would like to thank Jeff Strand, a writer of astounding talent, for graciously allowing me to include an extended cameo of one of his most beloved characters.

  Also, since I am a sucker for unusual ways to tell a story, I’ve peppered this one with movie-style flashbacks.

  Normally in stories, flashbacks either take up their own chapter, or are told using italics.

  For this book, I’ve set them off by calling them flashbacks. You’ll see what I mean as you dig in.

  And maybe it should go without saying at this point, but this book gets pretty creepy and gross. If you’re sensitive, squeamish, easily upset, or have a detailed imagination, be ready to skip some scenes.

  As always, thanks for reading!

  Joe Konrath

  BITE FORCE

  (Cocktail by Harry McGlade)

  2 oz Laird’s Applejack

  1 oz Aperol

  ½ oz Von Stiehl Cherry Bounce

  Two Muddle Me Bourbon Cocktail Cherries

  Crushed Ice

  Pour Applejack, Aperol, and Cherry Bounce into a rocks glass over crushed ice. Add two Bourbon Cherries. Do not shake or stir. Do not use a straw. Drink with parted lips and chew the ice while enjoying the beverage. You’re welcome.

  BACK IN THE YEAR 2021…

  BLOOD

  My name is Blood.

  I drink blood to live, and I live to drink blood.

  My old shrink called it Renfield’s syndrome. Also known as clinical vampirism.

  But I’m not crazy. I know for a fact that if I don’t drink blood, my insides will dry up, and I’ll turn into dust.

  I had a friend. We helped each other out. He helped me find blood.

  But he’s dead.

  Luckily, the people who killed him are in the hospital.

  A hospital I know very well.

  They’re going to pay for killing my friend.

  They’re going to pay Blood in blood.

  JACK

  St. Erasmus Hospital in Destiny, Colorado

  That cop doesn’t dick around when it comes to beer,” Harry said.

  Harry McGlade and I had been forced, due to coronavirus restrictions and overcrowding, to share a hospital room.

  Or perhaps he’d bribed somebody to make it happen.

  We also shared the double room with my husband, Phin, and our precocious eight-year-old daughter, Samantha, whose beds were opposite us.

  Unlike the majority of the other patients who’d been cordoned off in another part of the facility for Covid-19 complications, we’d been admitted due to injuries.

  I had an arm broken in five places, which would need surgery to pick out the splinters and screw the remaining bone together.

  Harry had a broken knee and leg, also requiring a surgeon, who had to use pins to hold the bones in place. Plus a patella removal.

  Phin had a concussion, and would need skin grafts to better close his still-oozing bite wounds.

  And Sam…

  Besides the trauma of almost being murdered by two elderly maniacs, Sam had some flu-like symptoms.

  We were all waiting for the results of our SARS-CoV-2 PCR nasal swab tests; the cherry on top of the misery sundae we’d all be force-fed. The laboratory was way behind on testing, and it could be a few days before we knew.

  It had been a brutal twenty-four hours. Harry and I had been drugged and beaten with a bat, and then a psychopath sucked our blood. Phin had been clobbered and had some chunks of flesh taken out of him. All of us had been scared out of our minds.

  We left the fast-paced life of Illinois for the peace and tranquility of Colorado, but peace and tranquility hadn’t met us halfway.

  I hated being in hospitals. Especially during a pandemic, which was the likeliest place to catch a disease because of the big concentration of sick people in an enclosed space.

  I hated the hospital gown, which seemed to strip away my humanity.

  I hated the hospital bed, because it felt like a hospital bed.

  I hated the sounds of machines beeping and intercom codes and the moans of the ill and injured from elsewhere in the ward.

  I hated the smells of bleach and antiseptic and bodily fluids.

  I hated being a patient, because I didn’t have the patience for it.

  “Did you hear me, Jackie? I said that cop doesn’t dick around. Or maybe he does. Was he handsome? I couldn’t tell with his face mask on. I hate these face masks. And I hate this privacy curtain. I can’t talk to you with this thing between us.”

  It really didn’t matter. Even if it had been a brick wall, McGlade could still make his presence known. I reached over with my good arm and pulled the fabric back.

  “I was trying to get some sleep,” I told him.

  “You’re awake. So you weren’t trying hard enough.”

  “How can I sleep with your constant rambling?”

  “Sam is asleep. Phin is asleep.”

  “I’m not asleep,” Phin chimed in. “Because of your constant rambling.”

  “How’s the beer, though?”

  “The beer is amazing,” Phin admitted. “That cop doesn’t dick around when it comes to beer.”

  “Told you! Jack, have you even opened it yet?”

  I had not. We’d been visited earlier by a Detective Kertis, who along with dropping off a four pack of Avery Tweak Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Coffee Stout, had also given us some case files.

  The Destiny Drac. A local boogeyman rumored to break and enter for the purpose of drinking people’s blood.

  Except it wasn’t an urban legend. Harry and I had been visited by the Destiny Drac, who called themself Blood. While we hadn’t seen a face, and Blood’s neutral voice gave no indication of age, race, or gender, we’d involuntarily donated to their bloodsucking habit.

  Blood was the latest in a long line of crazies I’d faced since becoming a cop in the 1980s. Anyone in town could be a suspect, with the exception of the four of us.

  Thankfully, we didn’t have to do anything other than offer advice. Which was a good thing. I was done with chasing bad guys.

  But just because you are done with the job, it doesn’t mean the job is done with you.

  “You really should try this beer, Jack,” my husband said.

  “I want to rest. I don’t need caffeine.”

  Harry begged to differ. “The coffee in the beer is offset by the ABV. This is 18% alcohol, Jackie. Each bottle is like drinking three shots of whiskey.”

  “Is that why your speech is slurred?”

  “No. That’s the morphine. I hacked the automatic drip so I don’t have to wait between doses.”

  “And you aren’t worried about overdosing?”

  “That’s why God invented Narcan. I always carry the nasal spray in case someone—mostly me—ODs on opiates.”

  That was a very Harry McGlade thing to do.

  “You shouldn’t abuse your body like that.” I used my Mom voice.

  “I’m not abusing myself.” Harry raised both hands. “See? I’d never manhandle the ham candle with a kid in the room.”

  “Our lucky streak continues,” Phin said.

  I didn’t feel lucky. I ached, yearned for sleep, and was worried about my daughter.

  Also, something about the Destiny Drac files seemed off. Like I was missing an obvious clue. I kept referring back to my notes, but nothing glaring leapt out at me.

  “C’mon, Jackie. Have a beer with us. It’s not like I’m asking you to take meth. Also, do you want some meth?”

  “You have meth?”

  “Don’t judge. Street drugs get a bad rep because they’re abused by addicts and often contaminated by asshole cartels and dealers. Methamphetamine has been around for a hundred and thirty years. It’s a quick, clean rush.”

  “Hard pass.”

  “Then at least open your damn ale and drink with the squad.”

  I caved to the peer pressure and opened my damn ale to drink with the squad.

  Wow. Detective Kertis didn’t dick around when it came to
beer.

  “Isn’t it amazingpants.” McGlade phrased it as a statement rather than a question. He liked to put pants at the end of words. Because he was annoyingpants.

  “Almost as good as Goose Island Bourbon County Stout.” That was my favorite beer of all time.

  “I have some of that in my cellar in LA. Had it shipped from Chicago. Do you miss Chicago, Jackie?”

  I had zero hesitation. “No.”

  “Do you miss being homicide cops?”

  “No.”

  “Do you miss being my partner?”

  “No.”

  “That’s mean.”

  I thought fast. “How could I miss you, Harry? You’re right here.”

  “Good save. Remember that time we took down those South African smugglers who said they had diplomatic immunity?”

  “No,” I said. “We never did that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s the plot of Lethal Weapon 2,” Phin told him.

  “Huh. I could swear that was us. How about that time we killed that great white shark off an island in New York?”

  “Jaws,” I said. “Or Jaws 2.”

  “Seriously? Next you’re going to say we didn’t blow up the Death Star.”

  You never knew with Harry how much was him joking and how much was him misremembering things. He was still convinced we were the ones who caught Norman Bates.

  “Have you ever been checked for dementia?” I asked.

  “I dunno. If I have dementia, would I remember it?”

  A fair point.

  I took another big sip of beer while Harry tried to convince Phin that Jaws was in fact a sequel to Casablanca, and I tuned the nonsense out and went back to studying the case files to try and figure out what was nudging my subconscious.

  For over a decade, citizens of Destiny and the adjacent suburbs had filed home invasion complaints of a similar type. It reminded me of the sleep paralysis/night terrors that many confused for alien abductions, except these victims didn’t see a bright light, or little green men, or get scientifically probed.

  This was much worse.

  Those who remembered bits and pieces of their ordeal all shared a common detail; someone crouching next to their beds, slurping up their blood through an intravenous tube like it was a drinking straw.

  Some went to the hospital. Examinations found no damage, except for needle marks and mild anemia. There were even a few pics of bare arms, showing the spot where the IV went in.

  Having been recently fed upon by Blood, I knew how gross and creepy it was. Nightmare fuel for years to come.

  Using my unbroken left arm I pulled up the sleeve of my ugly hospital gown, checking where Blood had jabbed me in the shoulder with a needle.

  Minimal bruising.

  “So you’re saying that Rick knocked up Ilsa in Casablanca,” Phin said, “and their kid was Hooper from Jaws.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Harry said.

  “It makes exactly zero sense,” Phin countered.

  “Why else would Hooper study sharks? Because his father abandoned him during the war, trading him for a beautiful friendship with Louie. Tell me that bromance didn’t end in a reach-around.”

  “I don’t want to interrupt your stupid conversation,” I said, interrupting their stupid conversation, “but McGlade, I need you to look at the mark where Blood stuck you.”

  “Only if you agree that Richard Dreyfuss is Humphrey Bogart’s bastard child.”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  McGlade checked his arm. “Looks like a needle mark. Am I supposed to notice something?”

  “Is there a hematoma?”

  “Hrm. No. I’m bruised everywhere but there.”

  “So Blood found your vein. Found mine, too.”

  McGlade was silent for a moment. A rare event for him.

  “You’re thinking Blood’s a phlebotomist?” Phin said. “Maybe works for a blood drive?”

  “I just looked up blood banks,” Harry’s good thumb was a blur on his cell phone. “Only one in town is here. At St. Erasmus.”

  “Blood might not be a phlebotomist,” I said. “Could be some other healthcare professional. Nurse. Lab tech. Doctor.”

  “All of whom would also be working here,” Harry said.

  “So the person that attacked you guys might work here?” Phin asked. “At this hospital?”

  Harry made a face. “When you say it like that, I don’t feel safe.”

  “I don’t feel safe,” Phin said.

  I didn’t feel safe, either. Phin and I exchanged a look, then our eyes darted to our sleeping daughter.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Phin said. “You guys get some sleep, one of you can relieve me at dawn.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll take first watch. I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway.”

  “We’re all in bad shape, and none of us are armed,” Harry reminded us.

  “If Blood comes in, I’ll bash them in the head.” I knuckle-tapped the stainless steel bedpan on the nightstand next to my bed. I’d never used a bedpan, and had no desire to ever use one. Except to bash in someone’s head.

  “But will you know it’s Blood?” Harry asked. “We’ve already seen a dozen nurses, orderlies, doctors, assistants. And, honestly, your town is kind of inbred and creepy. That janitor with the weird facial tic? That RN with those huge strangler hands? That candy striper with the off smile and thousand-yard-stare?”

  “I don’t think they’re called candy stripers anymore,” Phin said.

  “I don’t give a flying shit off a diving board what they’re called. At least five people have come into this room that are totally sus. Including Detective Beer Bribe Kertis. Does he really want a consult? Or is he trying to figure out how much we know before he sucks us dry? He’s a big boy, that Kertis. I bet he could kick Phin’s ass.”

  “He could not kick my ass,” my husband insisted.

  “He’s got fifty pounds and reach on you,” Harry said. “He’s younger. And he isn’t stuck in a wheelchair so he won’t re-open all the bite marks taken out of him. Unlike some people I know. That’s you I’m talking about. With the bite marks.”

  Phin glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re the baddest person on the planet, sweetie,” I assured him. “You can kick anyone’s ass.”

  “Thank you, hon. I get my strength form the people I love. I’m a family man. A family man who kicks ass.”

  “Whatever. It doesn’t matter who Blood is,” Harry continued. “My point still stands. We’re all worse for wear, and if someone walked in right now with bad intentions, we’d be in trouble.”

  As if on cue, we heard faint footsteps on the tile hallway, and appropriately held our collective breath. The steps grew closer, nearer, louder, as they approached. Finally, just when my imagination told me that maybe this wasn’t some goofy coincidence, maybe it was actually a threat, a nurse strolled past, peeking in on us in a creepy kind of way.

  “Jesus,” Harry said. “I just pissed in my catheter.”

  I glanced at his bed, noting the lack of bags. “I’m pretty sure you don’t have a catheter.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t escape from Larold and Rita Goodall’s house of horrors to wind up the disabled hero of a bad Agatha Christie knock-off.”

  “You’re not the hero,” Phin said. “You’re the comedy sidekick that gets bumped off first.”

  “That’s even worse. If I’m killed, who is going to provide the rapid-fire laughs? The inappropriate jokes? The puns that no one likes, including myself? This would devolve into another one of your depressing, serious adventures where everyone mopes around, acting like whiny little babies.”

  “I never act like a whiny baby,” Phin whined.

  I knew that I sometimes whined a tiny bit, so I kept quiet on that.

  “What we need,” I forged onward, “is a three-pronged approach.”

  “I’ve never been three-pronged,” Harry said. “But I’m intrigued. Go on.”

  “First, we need to write up a list of suspects. Starting with the folks in this hospital that seem suspicious.”

  “Like that nurse who keeps trying to give me enemas,” Harry said.

  “You keep asking her for enemas,” Phin reminded him.

  “You make your list of suspects, I’ll make mine.”