The Witching Hour
Disclaimer: All recognizable elements of the following story that pertain to the television show Wizards of Waverly Place belong to the corporation known as Disney. However, the imagination required to produce the story is in the ownership of the author.
Author's Note: Have you read the Just In Case Files? That has inspired this. This is terribly AU, I'm taking great creative liberties and I doubt there are to be any real pairings. And before you all heckle and say that this is too far-fetched to be believed—Harper would never be tough enough to be a cop, I hear some of you saying right now—just think how tough one would have to be to grow up in the type of household the show alludes to and still have the capability to be cheerful.
Prologue
Manhattan Cemetery
March 28: The Witching Hour
Run...Keep running...Don't look behind you...
He could hear each word pound his mind as his feet pounded the dirt.
They'll catch you...Just get out of the gate...Keep running...
He could feel his legs growing weaker by the moment but he knew that if he slowed down for even a millisecond, his pursuer would capture him.
Just a few hundred yards...You can do it...Don't stop now...
Oh God, how had it come to this? For millennia, his kind had been the predators of the night and it was an unwritten rule that there were to be no other hunters. How had they suddenly become the prey, the hunted, victims of merciless killing?
Keep running...
He knew he was young, in the eyes of his kind and the kind they pursued. He had been warned of this newfound danger that lurked in the same shadows but his need to feed had greatly outweighed his need for safety. He had figured that there would be many of his kind out and he would be left unharmed. He had been wrong and this was the price for his ignorance.
Almost there...Keep running...Keep...Keep...Keep
The shadows of night appeared to be darkening. He was only inches away from the gate, so close that his fingers could wrap around the wrought iron bars if he dived. He would survive to tell the tale. Just three...two...one more step.
And just as the tips of his fingers grazed the cool iron, he felt his body being jerked back by a force he did not recognize.
It is over.
*
Waverly Garden Apartments
March 28: 3:26 AM
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
The sound of the doorbell filtered through the alcohol-induced coma that I had placed myself in. I was not a drinker by any means, unless you counted the two glasses of wine consumed nightly at dinner, so the few straight shots of tequila I had downed last night at my partner's retirement party had put me under. And since the sound of my own doorbell was causing my head to beat the rhythm of the samba, I knew that it was going to be the worst Monday I've had in a long time.
Ring.
My sight was blurry when I finally opened my eyes but I could still clearly make out the red digits of my alarm clock. 3:28. Letting out a string of words that would have made my former best friend blush, I sat up and reached over to turn on my bedside lamp. Rubbing the heels of my hands over my eyes to force myself to completely visit the waking world, I let out another curse as I heard my godforsaken doorbell ring yet again.
I know New York is supposed to be the city that never sleeps but there are exceptions. One of those exceptions happens to be a cop, i.e. myself, who is in the middle of her three-day weekend and is sleeping off a nice buzz. Which brings me to another point and that is whoever would be waking up said cop must have a death wish since I rarely get days off to sleep.
Ring.
I could hear rustling from the apartment next to mine and knew that I would have to answer my new alarm clock before my nosy neighbor—a.k.a. my mother—decided to do it for me. Slipping out of the warm cocoon my blankets had made, I tossed an old sweatshirt that had belonged to an ex-boyfriend over my panties and tank top before rushing to my door.
Ready to give the soul who had interrupted my beauty sleep a piece of my mind, I undid the many locks that keep my apartment secure and flung open the door. But dishing out a well-deserved torrent of verbal abuse was going to more difficult than I originally thought as I was missing a victim. Confused but most definitely not amused at this turn of events, I took a few steps away from the open door to see if I could find someone lurking down the hall or around a corner.
Finding no evidence that it had been one of the local pranksters or my ex-boyfriend who was currently into stalking me, I made to return to my apartment and my bed. And when I did, I felt my toe hit something solid that should never have been there. A large envelope in the shade of goldenrod that was popular with private investigators and post offices only.
I glanced around to make sure that I was truly alone before I leaned down to pick it up. Ripping open the top, I peered inside at the contents to find that some unknown entity had awoken me in the middle of the night to hand deliver photographs before disappearing. In my line of work, strange occurrence like this not only required me to pay attention but to investigate as well.
Entering my apartment and securing the dozen locks once more, I flipped on every light I owned as I made my way to the kitchen and proceeded to pour myself a generous serving of red wine before dumping the contents of the envelope onto the counter. There were at least twenty photos before me, each of them more screwed up then the last. Some were of men, most of women, but there was one or two that depicted children—I have never gotten used to seeing photos of children doing anything but smiling.
I could tell that the subjects had been abused and tortured, even though the battle wounds appeared to have been cleaned and left barely any discernible evidence. But the patterns of the bruising varied as did the magnitude and on some, where cuts were all you could see, others appeared to have no cuts at all. It was disturbing to see what the person who had done this was capable of but what troubled me even more was that I had been chosen to be the recipient of this package of morbidity.
I wanted to burn these photos and pretend that they had never appeared on my doorstep—probably would have too—but a flicker in the part of my mind that belongs to the job came about. There was one similarity that each photo had. It was so subtle that I was a bit shocked to pick up on it at all. There were candles surrounding the body and an odd pattern had been carved in the exact location of the heart. It looked like two circles intersecting, one circle encompassing a triangle and the other an eye.
Disturbed at the images before and a little pissed that I would have to go to work despite my much-needed day off, I gathered the photos to return them to the envelope. But before I could slip the first ones inside, a bit of crumpled white paper at the bottom caught my eye. Retrieving it from the inside of the envelope and smoothing it open, I could feel the blood drain from my face and my body grow ten degrees colder as I read the words scrawled across in black ink.
It has begun...
TBC...