Page 24 of Damian’s Conquest

Mrs. Zhang nodded. “So you’ll look into it?”

“I will. Thank you, Mrs. Zhang.”

The information Mrs. Zhang had given her wasn’t much to go by. For all she knew, she’d seen a guy taking advantage of the fact that the club was busy because of the party, and had stolen a bottle of booze from the club and then promptly broken it in his haste to get away. The two people meeting at the back entrance and exchanging something could easily be a small-time drug deal. Perhaps one of the employees of the club was taking drugs, and the other person was his dealer. Nothing odd about that. And the blood? Naomi doubted that Mrs. Zhang could see that whatever was on the men’s clothing and face was truly blood. It could have been make-up, or wine stains.

“Thank you, Mrs. Zhang. You’ve given me a lot of pointers to investigate. And if there’s something to find, I’ll find it,” she promised.

Not that she would get her hopes up of stumbling over a juicy story. And if it was true that Mrs. Zhang had always only seen two men, it was doubtful that satanic rituals were performed in the basement of the club. A secret BDSM club didn’t make sense either, because there would be more people involved in it, just like in a satanic cult.

After leaving Mrs. Zhang’s flat, Naomi looked across the alley to the back entrance of the club. It was quiet there. The door leading into the building was closed. There were no windows on this side of the building that overlooked a small parking lot for no more than four cars. It was empty. To the left were three large dumpsters. Naomi looked over her shoulder, then crossed the alley and walked to the spot where according to Mrs. Zhang the person in the Harlequin costume had stumbled.

There were cracks all over the parking lot, and it looked like several attempts had been made to fill them with asphalt which had resulted in an uneven surface. In the dark, it was easy to stumble here. As she walked to the dumpster in the middle, she noticed different stains on the ground, most likely caused by leaking trash bags or liquor bottles. She smelled the scent of old beer and the sickly-sweet smell of sodas and stale wine. Nothing unusual for a nightclub.

At the large dumpster in the middle, she crouched down and searched the ground. There were glass chards, consistent with Mrs. Zhang’s claim that the person she’d seen had tossed a bottle toward the trash but missed. Bending farther down, she peered underneath the container and saw a bottle of transparent glass, its neck broken, but the remainder of it intact. She reached for it, careful not to touch the broken neck and pulled it out, when she noticed a small glass vial that had been hidden behind the broken bottle. She took the glass vial too, then examined both items.

The bottle with the broken neck could hold approximately sixteen ounces of liquid, a residue of which was still inside it. She tilted the bottle. The red liquid was viscous, much thicker than water or wine. She brought it to her nose to smell it. It had a distinct metallic scent. This was no ordinary drink. She turned the bottle to look at the white label.

A+ bottled by Scanguards, it said in black lettering. There was no other information on the label, no nutritional information like calories or alcohol content. She suspected why: this had to be blood. It smelled like it. It was labeled as if it was blood type A positive. But it was bottled by Scanguards, a security company, and two of their directors owned the nightclub. Maybe Mrs. Zhang wasn’t wrong with her accusation after all. Maybe something nefarious was going on here, and it involved Scanguards—and blood. But first things first. She had to confirm whether the red residue was really human blood, and not something else like the kind of stuff they used in the movies to give the illusion of blood.

When she examined the small vial she’d found behind the broken bottle, she realized that inside the vial was the same kind of red sticky residue. She sniffed. It too had a metallic scent. But why would they use such a small vial, when there was a sixteen-ounce bottle filled with it? Maybe this was something different. It was definitely worth checking out.

The broken bottle and the small vial in hand, Naomi walked back to where she’d parked her blue Mini Cooper at the entrance to the alley. She opened the trunk, where she kept a small overnight bag with a change of clothes and some toiletries in case she was called to report on a story and had no time to go home to change. She opened the bag now, and took out her toiletry kit. She emptied the small Ziploc bags in which she kept Q-tips, cotton-pads, and tampons, and used a Q-tip to swab the inside of the broken bottle until she had enough of a sample so a test could be performed. She locked the Q-tip in the Ziploc bag, then did the same with the small vial, and put a sample of the contents of the vial into a separate plastic bag. Then she pulled out a Sharpie from her bag and labeled the first Ziploc bag with a B for bottle and the second with V for vial.

She pulled out her cell phone and took photos of the glass bottle and the glass vial, before she put both into an old plastic shopping bag and stuffed it into a side pocket in the trunk. She closed her overnight bag, grabbed the two Ziploc bags with the samples, and shut the trunk.

Naomi jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off. Traffic was busy, but she didn’t have far to go. The lab her friend Heather worked in was just half a mile south of the 3rd Street bridge that led into Mission Bay, where new luxury housing developments had sprung up in previous years, and UCSF had built a new hospital as well as several new research facilities for their faculty.

Naomi parked in one of the visitor parking spots, and pulled out her cell phone. She texted Heather to meet her in the lobby of the building, but didn’t wait for her response. Instead, she grabbed her handbag with the two Ziploc bags and got out of the car. By the time she reached the entrance to the research facility, her cell phone chirped with a reply from Heather.

Down in a sec.

Naomi entered the lobby, and waited impatiently. Finally, the elevator doors opened, and Heather stepped out.

“Hey, what’s up?” Heather asked. “You know, I can’t have lunch today. I got in late this morning, and I’m behind already—”

“No, no, I’m not here for lunch. But I need a favor.” Naomi pulled the two plastic bags from her handbag.

“What’s that?”

“Blood, I think. I need to know whether these samples are human or animal.”

Heather furrowed her forehead. “Why on earth—”

“It’s for a story. I can’t really tell you more than that right now. Do you think you could run a quick test today?”

Heather took the two plastic bags. “I can run a precipitin test later this afternoon. You just need to know if it’s human or animal blood, but don’t need DNA, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s easy enough. But I’ve gotta wait until my boss goes to his meeting later. He’s already pissed that I got in two hours late.” Heather leaned in. “Cool party last night. You could have totally scored. The place was crawling with hot guys.”

“Glad you had fun,” Naomi said.

“You really should have been there. I wish you’d get out more. Next time, I swear, I’m gonna drag you to the party. No more staying at home when there’s fun to be had.”

“I wasn’t at home last night,” Naomi said with a smirk.

“What?”