Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Necrofiend: Blood Moon ❯ Chapter Five ( Chapter 5 )

Blood Moon
-Original Work-
Warning: yaoi, yuri, graphic violence and gore, supernatural creatures, OC POV, etc

* * *
Chapter Five

I DIDN’T LOOK up upon hearing Raven’s words or when I heard his hurried steps leading away from the area. My attention remained on the task at hand: figuring out a possible motive for this murder. The body was that of a young man, possibly in his early teens. His skin was a rich but light shade of brown that no amount of tanning could produce. Despite the lack of blood, the skin held a reddish tinge as if his corpse was blushing about something. From where I sat quietly taking in the carnage, I couldn’t tell if this was a part of his complexion or tied into the red substance found in the grass just yards away. My eyes trailed from his facial features to his eyes. They had left them open and slowly singing under the abuse of the sun. I fought the urge to close them. Instead I took in the rich honey brown and moved on. His hair was thick and black, purposely fanned out on the ground he rested on. From the chin up, he looked as if he was simply staring listlessly up into the sky, dreaming of the future. That image was broken once his throat was in clear view. The flesh there looked as if someone had taken a cheese grater to it. There were spots rendered to nothing more than shredded tendons and others that looked like only the first layer of skin had been scraped away. It was a bloody mess yet the jugular was intact. I wondered how the killers had managed it, then wondered if the carotid artery had been left in the same state. I couldn’t check without contaminating things so I moved on. His chest had been sliced open from the top of his sternum to the bottom of his ribs. Said ribs had been forced apart and probably broken. I shifted left then right hoping to get just the right angle where I could see inside without touching, though I knew what I’d see. The heart would be missing. One couldn't appease a deity without some sort of offering. The most popular was a heart or a virgin, or both.

My eyes cut to the body I had yet to unveil. From how the tarp fell I could tell it was someone smaller and more slender. My guess was on either a child or a female. I stood then, taking that tarp with me. There was no point in guessing about something that was right there to be seen, as plain as the nose on my face.

I faltered as I pulled the tarp toward the feet of the corpse. It was a young girl no older than twelve. She had been stripped naked and her arms bound to bend at her back. Her back had remained in a force arch thanks to how her legs had been folded and forced apart. The same darkened rope that cut into her flesh to keep her arms in place was tied around each leg forcing them to remain in place like some twisted thanksgiving turkey. I scowled as I swept my gaze over the area between her legs. Even with her blood pooling at her back, her flesh was angry and red. Blood, amongst other things clung to her skin. I scrubbed my hand over my face, suddenly feeling as if I were tired. But I wasn’t, and when the time came for me to be, I still wouldn’t rest. As I bought my gaze to her heart shaped face, I knew I’d be seeing her wide, glassy, blue eyes and watching her pale, pink, pouty lips asking why this had happened to her. What had she done to deserve to die this way? My hand tightened on the tarp then let it fall back in place.

It took me two tries to find my voice. “This was a satanic ritual of some kind.”
“Do you know…what it was for?”
“Summoning…curses…worship…I don’t know. I’m not specialized in this sort of things.”
I looked up to watch the marshal frown. I guessed he was the type of guy that thought if you were going to be a freak of nature, it made you an expert on every type there was. I’ll admit to taking extra courses on the ones that interested me, but satanic rituals had never made that list. The Christian in me had found it disturbing then, and still did now, as I covered the other corpse up again. I’d pray for their souls when I had the chance. If they still lingered around, I couldn’t feel them. If they had been offered up as well…it was too late. There would be nothing left of them. That thought saddened me a little. Not because they were young but because they could have been robbed of the one thing that God himself had given, that no one should have been able to take away.
“There’s an indention in the grass…” I said almost whispered when I was finally able to take my eyes from the corpses. Even with them covered I could still see them. “Items were placed around them…candles…alters…gems…have your men check around the yard for anything that may have been left behind.” There was no argument. The marshal nodded and quickly called an officer over. The order to check for any and all items was given quickly and the officer was gone again.
“I take it that all the insight you can give me.” He said once the officer was gone. There was no arrogance behind his words. If I didn’t know better there was the faintest hint of gratitude there. It was then that I wished I had more to offer. I didn’t.
“Like I said….I don’t know what the ritual was. If you can get a witch or a mage….someone who knows the art then they’d be able to tell you.”
He nodded and pulled a small notebook and pen from his pockets. He jotted something down quickly then tucked it away again. “Thank you, Mr. Tiaz.” Once again there was that gratitude. Maybe how I had reacted to the bodies had shown my humanity or maybe the case was more important than any grudge or prejudice he had against me. Whatever the reason, I was impressed. Not many people with a badge can take the chip off of their shoulder so quickly.
“Ah…what about your partner?”

I turned and swept my over the yard to find Raven. The scenery that had been so bright just minutes ago didn’t seem all that bright and cheerful now, like the deaths of these kids had formed some invisible gloom overhead.

I spotted Raven by the hedges, still partially bent over them. I excused myself and made my way in that direction. There wasn’t anything else I could do until the results from the samples came back or some miracle piece of evidence was found. As much as I hated it, I was useless. I couldn’t raise zombies and I couldn’t kill a vampire in this situation.
“How are you feeling?” I asked before I got to him. He looked up at me and the look on his face said it all. I wouldn’t be the only one having nightmares, but at least he hadn’t seen the second body. I knew for a fact that Raven didn’t do well with the death of children.
“How can you stay so calm and collected?” He asked hoarsely then grimaced. While he turned his head to spit, I thought back on how I felt looking down at the male’s body. I had felt nothing. Yet when I set eyes on the body next to him that was relatively unscathed, it bothered me.
“I don’t know…I’m used to it, I guess.” I answered and wasn’t sure I liked the fact that I could look down on a fellow human being that was so badly mutilated with such a level head. Part of me wanted to feel that nausea inducing horror that sent even the strongest man seeking comfort and part of me was happy I had passed it.
“Come on…there’s nothing else we can do here. We can swing by the hotel and you can brush your teeth and get settled in.” I gave his back a pat then turned to go toward the backdoor. He caught up.
“I don’t know if I can do this….”
“This what?”
“This whole…homicide thing.”
“Then you should get out while you’re still ahead.”
We looked at each other for a moment. Something must have shown on my face because he looked away.
“You wouldn’t think less of me if I chickened out?”
“Of course not.”
“The second body….it bothered you. What was it?”
“….I’d rather not talk about it.”
He nodded and left it at that. I was grateful. We entered the estate again on our own. Apparently, Officer Roberts had been called off somewhere to take care of things. Not that we couldn’t be good boys and simply walk through the house of a would-be killer and rapist. I scowled at the partially shadowed furniture as we passed through. I’d be back. It was just a matter of time.
We reached the front door without a hitch. I let Raven walk out first while keeping an eye in the direction of what looked like a foyer. It would appear that we had come in through a side door instead of the very front. I made a mental note of that and stepped out next. We went straight for the jeep instead of lurking around to check in places we thought the other officers wouldn’t. In other words, we sort of fled. As childish and cowardice as it sounded, we left as fast as and as soon as we could. I needed time to clear my mind and Raven needed time to clean up and recover. What better way to do so than by heading to the hotel that someone else was paying for?

Canaan had accommodated for Raven rather eagerly. Instead of one large hotel room to myself, he had traded for another room on the floor just below the indoor pool and Jacuzzi room. It would have been something to talk about once the door closed behind us. After all, it was one of the more expensive rooms we’d ever gotten during a case. Instead, silence reigned thick and heavy in the room. There was two queen sized beds positioned side to side with each sporting a thick, soft pale peach colored comforter. Not too far from the beds were a series of four couches. Each one was the same peach color of the comforters and had an almost organic shape to them. The walls were painted a paler shade of peach that was almost white if you looked at it too quickly. That color had started at the juncture between the ceiling and wall and slowly made the transition to snow white once it reach the floor mold just above the matching white carpet. It was a very soft and very plain room that leaned heavily toward feminine but we didn’t complain.
“I’ll be in the bathroom.” Raven announced. He didn’t wait until I acknowledged the statement. He simply took his bag in one hand and disappeared into the room.
“Take your time.” I muttered and sat heavily onto the bed. I took a glance at the clock and read two-thirty. The hours until sundown were slowly ticking away and here I was bone tired. Days of an erratic sleep pattern, stress and mental strain was suddenly catching up with me. I cradled my head in my hands and sighed. I was sure that a power nap of any kind would be out of the question but one minute I was sitting there staring at the blackness created by my palms pressing against my eyelids; the next I was awakened by my phone ringing. I took in a deep breath and reached to the pocket where I kept it. I pressed it to my ear while my other hand raked over my face in an attempt to get rid of the disorientation that clouded my head.
“Hello?” I answered and then realized I hadn’t paid attention to the actual ringtone. Was I speaking to someone I knew or a stranger with the wrong number? There was only one way to find out.
“Who is this?”
“So this is the executioner I have been hearing about.” The voice on the other end of the phone had a heavy French accent. It was thick and smooth as the speaker carefully formed each foreign word. Most who didn’t grow up speaking a particular language always had a slight awkwardness whenever they spoke no matter how long they had been speaking it….unless they were immortal. A normal human lifespan was hardly enough time to become comfortable with a second or third language. Hundreds and thousands of years were. My face hardened as I noted the chill the voice sent down my spine, followed by my stomach tightening.
It took two tries to speak and not give the person on the other end the satisfaction of knowing they’d affected me.
“To whom am I speaking?” I asked once more as I ran my fingers over the smooth cross-shaped burn scar that was perfectly centered. I had gotten the brand years ago during one of my first vampire executions. The vampire had gotten the upper hand and thought it would have been funny to have a vampire hunter suffer the same scarring as the monsters they worked so hard to hunt down. There would have been more, but luckily help had arrived. I had taken great pleasure in blowing the vampire's heart and head to kingdom come.

“My name is Adriano. I do believe I am the master vampire you are seeking.”

To Be Continued….

Author’s Notes: Eh I could have had the chapter to continue but…it felt right to leave it at that. I should be having another chapter out pretty soon. Like I said I’m nervous about rewriting the series but in a way it’s just as fun as it had been when I first wrote it. And who knows, maybe I’ll start getting more reviews *hint*hint* if it gets really good. ;)