By Xanthia Nightshade
Chapter 1:Homicide and Hangovers
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original Escaflowne characters, however, the plot is mine.
He was wearing a black leather coat that fell to his ankles, a black shirt with the top button undone and black trousers, he also wore leather gloves, which, to no surprise, were black. He had silver hair and blood red eyes, a long scar marred the side of his left cheek. The whole look was very dramatic, which was of course the point.
He slammed the man against the subway wall with such force that the tiles shattered around them, and then he threw the poor guy on the floor again.
" My death won't go unnoticed, Dilandau Albatou! My people will come for you!" spluttered the unfortunate man, then, then an unexpected thing happened, Dilandau started tolaugh manically, he was hysterical He clutched his sides in mirth and almost fell to the ground, then a soon as he had started laughing, he stopped. His face grew serious again. He grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and slammed him against the wall.
" Your 'people' can join the queue, Gaddes Tanaka! They won't be the only ones who want me dead," he pointed to his scar, " many people have tried to kill me and all have failed!" Dilandau the punched Gaddes in the head and let him slide to the floor, blood trickled from a large gash on the side of his head, he lolled, drowsy from Dilandau's punch. " Pathetic," Dilandau hissed at the half unconscious Gaddes,
He then felt a cool breeze on the back of his neck, he turned around to see it was coming from the subway tunnel, then a rather nasty idea came to mind.
He gabbed Gaddes's foot and dragged him to the edge of the platform and then kicked him off the side. Gaddes fell the two metres onto tracks. He lay there sprawled across them, he propped himself up to realise where he was. He stared into the darkness of the tunnel to hear the sound of wheels scraping along the metal tacks.
" You see that light? At the end of the tunnel? That aint Heaven," Dilandau shouted above the screeching "that's the C train!"
Just then, the train came whizzing past, completely unperturbed that it had just run over a man. Dilandau watched the train disappear into the pitch black of the other tunnel and licked a drop of blood off his cheek that had managed to find it's way there.
Dilandau heard a footsteps coming down the stairs, he turned and reached inside his coat for a gun only to see a man, dressed in similar clothes to him with messy brown hair. He let his gun slide back into his pocket.
The man walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down at the two halves of the corpse that was once the man Gaddes. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.
" Was this completely necessary, sir? As quick as lightening, Dilandau drew one of his numerous guns and pressed it against the man's head. " Are you criticising my work, Miguel?"
Despite the gun being pushed into his head, Miguel remained calm.
" No, sir."
" Then what did you say?"
" Nothing, sir."
" You better keep saying nothing or you might just have an accident, and you wouldn't want that, would you Miguel?"
" No, sir."
"Anyway, I wanted that pretty boy, Schezar, to get the message though his persons death that I don't like him sending people to spy on us. Have you got the flowers?"
Miguel held out a bunch of scarlet rose, Dilandau took the bunch and plucked out the most perfect rose. He held it out over the corpse and let it fall down beside it.
This was ritual that Dilandau practiced every time he killed, personally Miguel thought it was a waist time, but he dared not say anything. Miguel's tactics were very different. He was subtle and disliked any attention, poison or a stab to the heart with stiletto knife were two of his favourite methods of killing. The complete contrast to Dilandau's. He liked big scenes with lots of drama and blood, ones just like this one.
Dilandau turned and walked up the stairs and out into the night. Miguel took one last look at the mutilated body and then followed suit.
The next morning…
Detective Lieutenant Hitomi Kanzaki sat in her office with a hot water bottle over her head. It was unusually quiet today and she grateful. She had been out all last night with Yukari, Amano and Merle who had found this new club and had insisted that she came with them. She had refused to have any alcohol because she new she had work today, but someone must have spiked her drink, because she couldn't remember a thing after Amano had bought her a sparkling water. She had a mind splitter of a hangover! She wished that she was at home with her head in a toilet instead of work of all places. She was going to kill the person who had dared to get her drunk.
At that moment the phone rang, she groaned in pain at the noise. She took off the hot water bottle and lifted the receiver to her ear.
" Kanzaki, Homicide." She croaked.
"You sound like crap." It was the chief, her boss. Allen Schezar.
" Thanks." she replied dourly.
" No need to thank me for honesty. Comes with the job," he said, " There's body down 96th st subway station, next to Central Park. Some poor bastard fell on the tracks. Hope you haven't eaten anything because it's bloody mess. Looks suspicious, I want you known there presto All the uniform cars are out so you'll have to take your own."
"But sir, I…" She cut off; it was probably not best to tell her boss that had been drinking the night before work.
" You what, Kanzaki?"
" Nothing, sir. I'll go." He hung up. She put the phone back on the hook. She stood up shakily and put on her, scarf and coat, got her bag and made her way to her car.
Hitomi was a pretty person, but not overly beautiful. She had sandy hair, which would have probably looked a lot nicer if it was longer, but she refused to let it grow out in spite of years of Yukari saying she should, and kept it short and simple. Her grass green eyes that had a sense of life and warmth that most had not. She wore a black leather coat that she liked to call her matrix coat, because it looked like it come straight out of the matrix, that her parents had given her for her 21st birthday and a black scarf that almost reached the ground despite her 5'10 tallness. She wore a maroon blouse and flared pinstripe trousers.
She had long, slender lags of a runner, in fact, when she was in high school, she was the fastest 100m sprinter in the school and had been ranked 3rd in the nation for her age.
Just before she made it out of the building, Merle, a detective sergeant and one of Hitomi's friends called her name.
" Hitomi!" she yelled, making Hitomi wince in pain. She turned to see Merle running down the hallway, " Are you okay, because you were pretty pissed last night! When Amano spiked your drink, I didn't think he put that much in! And when you…"
" So it was Amano, was it?" Hitomi cut her off, Merle tended to talk far to much. " If you see him, tell him he is a dead man, and keep it down will ya? I've got a hangover the size of Hiroshima! And I can't remember a thing, from last night what did I do? No, don't answer that, I'd rather not know!"
" Sorry," Merle said, only a bit quieter, " don't tell Amano it was me who told you it was him. He said you needed to loosen up, live a bit. For the hang over, try holding your nose and drinking raw egg white. It works, believe me!" Raw egg white? No way was Hitomi going to try that!
" Thanks for the tip Merle, but I'll just wait it out. I've got to go now, see ya!" She waved to Merle and went outside.
Hitomi found her car and got in the driver's seat. Her car was an old Ford Escort that spewed out evil smelling fumes that Hitomi thought contributed to most of the worlds Global Warming. She pushed the key in the switch and prayed to God that it would start. She turned the key. No sound. She cursed and tried again. Nothing happened.
" Damn it! Why don't you just work you stupid car! I only just sent you in to the garage! Do you know how much it cost me to fix you? 84$! I've got a headache that feels like a nuclear bomb just went off inside of my head! Now you better damn well work or I'll sent you to the scrap pile where you belong!" Then, all of a sudden, the engine sprang to life. Hmm, she thought, maybe it's true that if you yell at things long enough, things do work the way you want them to…
She parked her car a block away from the station and started walking. When she got to the subway, she saw a police van parked outside. There was a fat officer standing outside the entrance eating donuts, and supposed to be guarding who went in, and who went out. She showed him her badge and he let her threw. Hitomi climbed down the stairs and walked into the station. It was old and tattered. The once white tiles that served for both wall and floor, were now yellow. Broken bear bottles and empty crisp packets lay around the place. Yukari's forensic team were everywhere, all with the q-tips getting samples of stuff.
She saw two body bags, which looked like they contained half a human body in each. Hitomi shuddered and forced down the bile that was rising in her throat. She had been with the force for six years now, but she still wasn't used to the sight of mutilated bodies and she didn't think she would ever be. It just wasn't right.
She turned around and saw Yukari by the tiled wall that was cracked in a circular pattern, she had a q-tip and was swiping a few brown spots on the wall that looked suspiciously like dried blood.
" What have we got Yukari?" she asked. Yukari turned around to see Hitomi, she smiled.
" Hi Tomi! A guy, fell onto the tracks, cut in half. A royal mess. But I don't think he fell." She pointed to the wall, the tiles where broken and cracked, "You see there, It looks as if there was a body slammed into there, and there." She pointed to another part of the wall that had similar cracking in the tiles. "Looks as if there was a fight. The body was too mangled up for visual identification. We're going to have to DNA swab it. I'm sending it back to HQ for analysis. This is a public subway station so we're going to have everyone and their dog's prints here, so no point trying to find them "
". I don't think we are going to get much more out of this scene. It's pretty simple; there's only one was in and out. The CCTV footage is useless, there was a power cut here all last night." she continued
" Hey, Tomi. Are you alright? I don't think I've ever seen anyone so drunk!"
" Yeah, well. I have your boyfriend to thank for that, to bad for you that I'm gonna kill him. I have one hell of a hangover!"
" Try holding your nose and drinking…"
" Raw egg white? Merle suggested that one, but I think I'll just sit this one out."
"Okay, you want some aspirin?" she asked.
" That would be heaven, why didn't I think of aspirin before? It would have saved me a whole load of pain! What would I do with out you Yukari!"
" Die a miserable and painful death by headaches, Hitomi." Yukari reached into her pocket a box of aspirin and held it out.
" Here take one." She said
Hitomi smiled. Yukari was her best friend, and had been since they were eleven. The had gone to high school and collage together studying similar things, but Hitomi wanted to be a cop, and Yukari and forensic scientist.
Yukari put the q-tip in a sterile plastic vial, and then labelled it. She then put it in a box containing other vials with q-tips in.
"Well I'm done here," said Yukari as she picked up the box, " I'll be heading back to HQ. See ya!"
"I'll go to, nothing keeping me here." said Hitomi.
They made there way up to the street. Yukari opened the van door and jumped in. She looked around.
" How did you get here?" she asked
" All the uniform cars were taken, I had to come in my car, I parked about a block away." answered Hitomi.
" You really need a new car Tomi, I'm surprised your car can even still move!"
" It's not that bad!" protested Hitomi, yes it is, said a voice inside of her. " Anyway, I'll buy a new car when I have enough money!"
" Whatever Hitomi. Bye!"
" Bye Yukari!" said Hitomi, and walked to her car.
Author's Note: Hi! This is my first fic so please, criticise it all you want! I need you to point out all the bad stuff and the good stuff. I apologise for any typos there are, and please review!
Xanthia Nightshade