Myxine- What the hell is that...?
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tanya Huff and the writers of the show Blood Ties. I own nothing and I´m writing just for fun, as I´m making no money with it...
When Henry and Vicki have solved the case of the disappearing male models and Henry is still fighting with his emotional state in relation to Mike Celluci, he´d like some peace. But not so, if your new girl friend is Vicki Nelson! An unknown anything is haunting Lake Ontario and Toronto and Henry finds himself confronted with more than vampire trouble...
Chapter 1
A night at Lake Ontario
The night was dark, without any moonlight, and the walls of the gillnet deep under the surface of the Lake Ontario were an impenetrable wall for the fishes in it. They were circling in the wide prison, its opening lying anywhere in the impervious darkness of the water, that was black as the night. The swarm of the salmons had been trapped and their final fate was uncertain. Either they would be ending up in a smokehouse or they would spent a part of their life in a fish nursery, where their progeny would be nurtured to finally end up on the menu...
The fishes were swimming calmer now and slowly the hectic tightness of the swarm was dissolving, when the salmons slowly calmed down. The behavior of the leaders were showing them, that there seemed to be no danger in the moment and the salmons were spreading into the width and depth inside the widely arranged net.
For approximatey one hour everything stayed calm, then the leading salmons became nervous. Anything was wrong. Unfortunately they couldn´t localize, what was happening outside the net. Only a hint of danger that turned into panic, when suddenly there was a large opening in the net´s wall where none had been before. The leading fishes turned around, shooting into the direction of the swarm, positively rounding up the members of the swarm. For a mere second there was chaos in the pitch black water, then the chaos got structured into a compact mass of circling bodies and the fishes were speeding up, when they started to circle in a fin on fin formation.
A proven behavior to complicate it for a predator to target a prey, because the fast and tightly swimming mass of bodies made it more difficult to catch a single fish from the swarm.
Normally.
But not tonight...
The pitch black water turned white, when anything made it foaming. Liquid water was turning into something, what humans called glue. No salmon ever had seen anything like this and there was no time left to find out what this strange, sticking mass might be, before a mouth full of sharp fangs opened up in front of them, which was framed by a bunch of long tentacles.
The hungry anything of a predator, that looked like from outer space, was filling up what one might define as a stomach. Then it disappeared again into the black width of the Lake Ontario. So fast and invisible as it had been appearing out of nowhere...
"Damn! I have had a real great catch in the net yesterday afternoon!" The fisherman was cursing when he looked down into the water over the railing of his boat. The motor winch had pulled up the net, so that the salmons in it got pressed together to a tight swarm. The man was directing onto the water´s surface.
"That had been at least one thousand salmons! All some two feet long! That would have brought me some thirty bucks each! And now? Look at this shit! At least the half of them is gone and look at this friggin giant hole in the net and then...urggh..." he grimaced with disgust when his work gloves became white with any slime...
That shit was sticking like hell, worse than any tumbled over pot of wallpaper paste.
"I´m fishing in Lake Ontario since 25 years, but never got into such snafu...!" He pulled his hands apart, but the sticky mass was dragging on and on, extending to long fibers and he started to whirl around his arms, in an attempt to get rid of it again. To throw his gloves overboard was no reasonable option.
"Do you think, any badass of a polluter has dumped anything into the lake...? Any chemicals, which creates this crap in contact with the water?" one of his colleagues meant.
"And this bites such a giant hole into my net!? Stop kidding! That damn hole looks like any mill had done this! Most likely any idiot has driven into my net with his ship...though the lit buoys! Get my hands on his dump ass and I would..." He hit his fist onto the railing.
"But the hole in the net is in a position, that is lying way too deep under the surface for any screw, Jack!"
"Than it had been the fucking Navy! These idiots have been driving their damn submarine into my net! I´ll sue the damn Canadian Navy for damage! I´m making a loss of at least five thousand bucks right here! There aren´t more than some four or five hundred salmons left in the net! Half the catch..." he clicked his fingers, "Beat it!" Jack, the fisherman cursed.
"And all of this slimy glue? Wherefrom shall this come, Jack?"
"Who knows? Probably they are testing a new secret weapon! Stuff like that the cops shoot at people! Spider Man from the gun!"
Angrily he started, together with his companions, to winch up the remaining salmons onto the deck, where they slipped into large tubs. Then he would have to stay off fishing for at least two days, until the company in the harbor of Toronto would have repaired his net.
Two hours later an angry Jack beat down the receiver, when the officer of the Naval Station explained him, that there hadn´t been any of their submarines in the Lake Ontario.
"Turn to the police, probably they will help you on! Probably any yacht owner didn´t care about the rules on the lake!"
"Real good idea! Guess you dunno how many private boats are bobbing up and down outta there...! Have to be hundreds! And then try to get your hands onto this idiot who rips my net to pieces!" Jack cursed.
His second frustration bit his butt when he drove into the company, the net on his pick-up. Kindly they tried to explain him, that he might have to wait four days instead of two, because a lot of fisherman had brought in their nets for repair with large holes.
"I´m sorry, Mr. Donald. But we are suffocating with orders! In the moment we don´t have hands enough, to get these repairs done fast! You´ll have to wait..." the boss of the company explained to him.
What the hell was going on out there on the Lake Ontario?
Vicki Nelson investigations
Vicki leaned her head against the backrest of her chair, her feet were covered by thick socks and a cup of tea was standing in front of her. Outside it had become pretty cold. She had put up her feet into the chair, her knees bent.
Henry sat down onto the couch beside her. He slightly smiled.
"Got cold feet, Vicki? I might, if you like..."
Vicki bent back her head, looking at Henry with knitted brows. He recognized her typical, skeptical Vicki view, which he knew all too good.
"You might pour me another cup of tea, you wanted to tell me for sure..." she began.
"That too." Henry testified and his view didn´t turn from her face. "Low body temperature." he directed onto her thick socks.
"You´re gonna drink blood when you are in need to warm up!" Vicki grinned.
"Vicki, I don´t drink blood to warm up, but cuz it´s my...nourishment...!" he softly corrected her.
"But your skin temperature...is higher after you´ve fed..." she replied.
"A side effect. Not the main reason. Otherwise I would have to drink much more, as I do. I drink merely more than half a liter each night. Probably also every second night only."
"Mike might have quite a different opinion about that, Henry! Remember it. In the church; We might have to talk about your feeding habits!" Vicki was extending the point now consciously.
"Vicki! Please! This had been an...exceptional situation, which I don´t like to remind! And Detective Celluci hadn´t been that innocent..." Henry replied a bit grumpily.
After all it had been the detective, who had delivered him to this lunatic, although when he had realized his mistake and had tried to make good for it. The physical aftermaths had been healing completely, but Henry had to accept, that the encounter with his old enemy Mendoza had left back scars, which went way deeper. He often had been hunted throughout the centuries, but this inquisitor had been a special opponent. He has had enemies. But rarely he had been confronted by such hatred as by this man. And this with a man you called himself a man of the church.
An insult for the deep faith, which Henry had kept all over the time. But there were just people in the church and coincidentally he knew a couple of them.
"What did Mike want from you, Vicki? Why did he call...?"
"I don´t know yet..." Vicki shrugged her shoulders. "He´ll call back later on..."
"Vicki, I know that you had been part of the troupe earlier and that both of you obviously had been quite successful..."
"Quite successful actually, Henry!" she corrected him.
"Quite! Okay! Just what I wanna say...I would prefer it, when you...uhm, how shall I express it...?"
"Be my guest, Henry! I can understood pretty well that you´re pissed off by Mike. Anyway he had..."
"Pissed off...doesn´t hit the point exactly, Victoria..." his voice was slightly frosty and the Victoria was showing her, that he wasn´t up for a joke when he looked at her now. "if it had only been for confronting me with an enemy; he wouldn´t have been the first one! That also happened to me in the past..."
"The farmers with muckrakes and torches!" Vicki replied airily.
"Vicki, please! That isn´t funny at all! There had been things happening, which...went deeper than superficial wounds only, two broken ribs and bruises..." his voice became lower. Thoughtfully.
Loss of control. Rage. Revenge. He almost had killed Vicki. And Mike.
Vicki felt a knot in her throat and swallowed hard, when the images returned in front of her inner eye, which she had seen in the poorly lit, dirty cellar of the abandoned church. Vigorously she shook them off.
"Henry, I´m understanding you! Also when it doesn´t...look like that..." she tried now. Vicki was aware that she often could be very gruffly, when somebody didn´t know her good enough. And Henry was so old, that he probably had read her like a book a long time ago, also when she didn´t like this imagination. But with him it would be easier to talk about than with Mike.
"What I wanna say: I´d prefer it when you would be somewhat more reserved with your cooperation with Detective Celluci within the next time. I can quite help you too..." Henry carefully began.
"You aren´t in the Police and now and then I´m in need of information which only Mike can give me. So I can´t neglect him completely, Henry..." she admonished him.
"I know. I only wanted to beg you..." Henry was aware, that he was testing uncertain waters.
The door bell rang.
Henry stopped, scurried for the door, listening. He put his hand onto his chest, then lifted his hand while turning to Vicki. He stretched one finger into the air and his lips silently formed the words One person. Vicki nodded with understanding, getting up from her chair and went for the door to open it. Henry scurried back to his place on the couch.
"Good evening! I hope that I won´t disturb...Ms. Nelson? That´s Nelson Investigations, ain´t it?" the elderly woman began who was standing in front of the door. She was wearing blue jeans, a worn out parka and fur lined booties, pushing her gray, obviously self knitted gloves into the pockets of her parka.
"You´re right in here, Mrs. …!"
"Turner. Mary Turner. I hope that you´ll be able to help me. The police can,t, Ms. Nelson."
"Please sit down. Then I´ll listen what´s up at least. I know that the police is often fast with a No!" Vicki directed to a seat in front of her desk.
"I still have been on the police station, but they said that this is none of their business. I shall turn to the animal protection, as long as I won´t have any evidence that anybody kidnapped my cat..." Mrs, Turner began.
"Mrs. Turner, I´m not quite sure if I´m the right contact person for you when your cat is missing. From time to time I´m searching for missing humans." Vicki thought back at the case of the missing male model, the young man who had fallen in love with the wrong woman: a Medusa.
And whose...fragments...were lying in the woods. Buried.
"Lucille is no stray. She´s living in my house, walking in the garden at night and a bit in the surrounding areas, then she´ll be back at the door in the morning. That she does since years and...never she had gone lost anyway or did bang around."
"Mrs. Turner, maybe Lucille had found an interest in any tomcat. Cats then stay off one or two days with the tomcat, when he appeals to her..." Vicki gave her point of view.
"Ms. Nelson, Lucille got neutered and she isn´t in tomcats usually. She...beats them off." she defended her cat.
"Looks anyway familiar to me..." Henry mumbled from his place onto the couch. Mrs. Turner looked over to him in some astonishment.
"My partner in the investigation business." she directed over to Henry. "Mr. Fitzroy" With that the theme Henry had been done.
"So your cat isn´t in tomcats. So far, so good. Since when are you missing your cat?"
"since two days. I had been at the police but they told me that missing cats are not under their responsibility. And my neighbor´s dog is missing too! And the dog is leaving the garden only on the leash. When Ms. Amelsen takes her dog for a walk."
Are any other pets missing in your area?" Vicki asked with some sudden interest.
"Mr. Paddington´s koi-carps are gone too! Three days ago his pond was empty...suddenly, although his fishes are going into hibernation now and the pond is secured by a lattice, cuz of the depth and because of the children in the neighborhood. And he has told me that the lattice was completely twisted and wrenched from the socket. Ms. Nelson! Anybody is assaulting our beloved pets!" Mrs. Turner complained.
Now Henry had gotten up from his seat and had been coming into the office. He was leaning at the wall behind Vicki.
"The whosoever seems to act rather haphazardly..." Henry threw in now. "Normally, if anybody is stealing animals he turns his interest on one species. And doesn´t steal randomly everything crisscross. And koi-carps are rather large and expensive fishes. Those you won´t simply put into your pocket. Fishes are very sensitive..."
"Henry...!"
"I´m only indicating the randomness of a potential criminal..." Henry replied.
Vicki was nodding.
"Are there any traces or indications who might be the kidnapper...or thief?"
"Which is anyway the same when it comes to the theft of animals. As humans are kidnapped...mostly for money. But animals are stolen." Henry gave back with a shrug and he got a critical view from Vicki for it.
"Animals can be kidnapped too to get money for them. Either for selling them over to a laboratory for example or to sell them back to their owners. And as you so eloquently put it, Henry: koi-carps are very expensive!"
"Mr. Paddington bought one of them for some two thousand dollars!" Mrs. Turner hastily explained in an attempt to convince Vicki in taking up on this mysterious case of disappearing animals.
"Two thousand bucks?! Oh my! Really an expensive meal!"
"Vicki!"
"Ms. Nelson!" the protest was coming out of two throats at the same time.
"Sorry...sorry..." Vicki throw her hands up in a desperate gesture. "Fishes are mostly part of a meal for me. Like salmon, carp or herring...I never kept fishes in a pond or tank. Better for them as I don´t have a "fish thumb"..." Vicki meant in relation to the so called "green thumb" Time to switch back to the case.
"So...any traces...?" Vicki tried to get the talk back on some reasonable level she might work with. Finally she was a former police detective.
"I almost slipped in front of the door when I searched for Lucille..."
"Slipped? Slipped on what? Ice?" It was very cold outside and snow had fallen in Toronto, which wasn´t that uncommon in November.
"No! It hadn´t been ice. Any white, sticking stuff. I thought that the son of my neighbor had joked around with wallpaper paste. The stuff looked like that! I used my pocket lamp to look for. That stuff went from my door to the street..."
"To where exactly on the street?" Vicki asked.
"Down to the gully.."
"What kinda gully? Waste water? Rainwater?" Vicki asked.
"I think it´s rainwater...why do you ask?"
"Because...as far as I know...in your quarter the rainwater channels are ending in the Lake Ontario. Probably the perp came from the water site, having a boat down there..." Vicki was speculating.
"Vicki!" Henry warned her. He definitely felt not the slightest interest to investigate the sewers of Toronto personally again. The last time they had done this, they had met a Windigo. And he hadn´t come off well from that...
"Can we get a look on that stuff, that paste, as you call it...?" Vicki asked now.
"I´ve cleaned up the entrance and the sidewalk. When anything still sticks on the gully? That had been a hell of a mess, until I got rid of it...Sticks like hell...this you can believe me!"
"Please give me your address, I´ll take a look on it. Possibly anybody from the neighborhood knows anything about too..."
"Vicki, I don´t want to travel the sewers again. You know, why...!" Henry warned her about in an attempt to low down her eagerness.
"Henry, that won´t get that bad like the last time, I promise you!" Vicki smiled.
"Let´s hope so, by goodness!" Henry mumbled and he didn´t sound as if being convinced.
Vicki wrote down the address which Mrs. Turner gave her.
"When may you come over, Ms. Nelson? It´s...it´s very important for me. If probably anything happens to Lucille outside...?! She isn´t the youngest one anymore...and a bit too trustful with strangers. I´m so much concerned...!" Mrs. Turner looked at Vicki with a beseechingly view.
Vicki looked onto her watch. It was late, but for Henry it was still early. Probably he had grabbed a nosh, shortly after getting out of the bed. Grabbed...shoved between the teeth...pardon...between the fangs..., Vicki thought and an unintended smile escaped from her face, which naturally didn´t escape Henry.
"What are you thinking about, Vicki?" he whispered in a friendly tone and his face wore an expression of amusement.
So he didn´t take the earlier exchange of opinions the wrong way, Vicki thought with some relief.
"Uhm, I only had supper in mind..." she mumbled in a low voice.
"Supper? Are you hungry?" Henry shot her a doubtful look because Vicki never had been very interested in eating, once she got her hands on a case. Often enough he has had to put some soft pressure on Vicki to get her eating, so that she won´t fall off the bar. Vicki noticed that she had brought herself into a stuck situation.
"I´ve had eaten, Henry. How´s about you? She asked righteous to get the point to a closure.
"Thanks for asking! I´ve had a small meal tonight, so there´s nothing to say against a departure now, just in case you want..."
"Good! So let´s go! Mrs. Turner, do want to drive with us? So we might be there a bit faster..." Vicki suggested. Henry looked at her, then down onto his boots. His view hiding nothing.
"Is there any problem, Henry?" I thought, you´re sated...first of all." she bent deeper to his ear; "...or are you afraid that Mrs. Turner might stain your Jag with slime...?" Her voice had gone down to a whisper.
"No. Not about her...only...I just bought these new booties. Guess, you know when..." And to wade through slime with them...this imagination drove a cold shudder down his spine.
Vicki looked down onto his brand-new boots. The old ones had gone down into the garbage can when he had been rescued from the cellar. First the sewer, than the remains of the Windigo and finally Mendoza. Although the boots had protected his ankles from abrasions, they had come in contact with things Henry wouldn´t like to be confronted with again. Sweat, blood...
"I have an additional pair of Wellingtons here, which might fit for you..." she looked down onto his feet. Because Henry was only some 4" taller than her, he won´t get any problems.
"You´re having everything double on stock, ain´t you...?"
"Like my glasses."
"What else?" he smirked.
"You´ll see. All in due time!" Vicki opened her closet and reached him a pair of rubber boots, which he took when they left the office.
The drive through Downtown Toronto, down to the housing area at Lake Ontario needed more time, though Mrs. Turner was leading them, because once again the sky above Toronto had decided to paint the city white . Canadians were used to drive on snow, but they weren´t such idiots to drive with a lead foot. At least winter tires were obligate. Not like in other countries where every snowflake was leading into inevitably traffic chaos, because the cars were sliding into the ditch, blocking the crossroads and then were unable to drive on again...
Toronto Metropolitan Police- Mike´s office
Mike was digging through his tousled, blonde hair. The open file in front of him was growing thicker with every day. Dave bent over him and shook his head.
"Crowley is upside down under the ceiling with this case! But we can´t change it, the hard we ever try..." Dave commented the situation.
"Instead of getting this case solved...that damn file is filling up every day I´m putting my hands on it..." Mike groaned.
"Not exactly a good omen, Mike...looks like this case isn´t friends with you." Dave confidentially padded his shoulder in an attempt to give Mike some comfort.
"I won´t wonder if I´ll find out, that Vicki has her fingers in it also...together with her new partner! That case is just after her fancy. I won´t wonder when she would show up soon, presenting me a new abstruse explanation, how and why some badass uses a damn spreader to break the chest of this poor dude, crunching his heart and pulling his intestines out to drape them on a plate, crowned by the separated head. Not before he has stuck the eyes into the victims mouth..."
"That´s pretty disgusting, Mike! What about some ritual murder...? Two years ago, down in New Orleans, they found a whole cellar full of human remains which were piled up ornamentally... It had something to do with a Voodoo priest..."
Mike gave a deep groan and rolled his eyes in despair at Dave´s suggestion. The last thing he ever needed since his...encounter...with a certain man...vampire...in a cellar, was more of that paranormal shit. Superstition, vampires, Voodoo, zombies and any other...species...of the undead...thanks, no! He just had gotten an overdose of it, enough for the next decade...or way better: enough for the rest of his life. Mortal life! And Mike felt no intention to change this anytime. Not, that Fitzroy would come up with the idea to...to turn him anytime! How the hell does that work really? Biting, sucking until he would die and then turn him with vampire blood? Fitzroy had bitten him, had sucked his blood and he had been lying on the cold, dirty tiles of the cellar. Unconscious. Dying...?
Mike´s face became a bit paler and in a reflex he grabbed for his neck, his fingers were feeling for the scar that was still there...the scar where Fitzroy had ravaged his throat in blind hunger.
Undead?
What, if he was immortal now? His heart sped up for a moment and the office walls seemed to jump off, fading. He gasped for air. Then his mind won back controls. He had been outside...at daytime! If Fitzroy would have turned him, he would be ashes now!
The gasp of relief which Mike gave off, made Dave look at him in some astonishment. But Dave took it for a breath of relief in the view of this ugly case. Mike thankfully registered it, that Dave didn´t get it what was the real reason for his tension. He closed the file and was about to get himself a coffee. The shift wasn´t over yet and even so...how often were they hanging around in the office for hours after end of shift?
He got up from his seat, left the office and went down the hallway, where a vending machine was placed. Mike got his urgently needed coffee and with cup in hand, he went back into his office. When he opened the door, a man was sitting opposite his desk. Mike shot him a skeptical look. Dave was still in the office, so no violation of rules. As a person wasn´t allowed to enter an office all alone. When Mike came in, Dave shot him a grin.
"Mr. Stone is waiting for you, Mike..."
"Guess so!" Mike grunted and sat down at his desk.
A man in his mid-fifties was sitting in front of him. He had the weathered face of a human, who had spent most of his lifetime on the sea, being exposed to wind, weather and sunlight.
"Mr. Stone, I don´t know who has sent you to me into the homicide department..." Mike meant. He sipped at his hot coffee. At least the coffee that came out of the machine, was hot in difference to that, which was waiting hours in the pot on the coffee maker...
"Those dudes down on the Naval Station told me that I should contact the police. And your colleague...she has sent me into your office..."
"Detective Lam? What reason did you give her, that I shall talk with you? A case of murder?"
"Murder? Uhm, ehm...not directly..." Mr. Stone mumbled.
"Indirect murder? Guess, you´re meaning suicide, ain´t you?" Mike was staring at him, his cerulean eyes were inquiring, penetrating.
"Suicide? No. But anybody has destroyed my net and all my salmons, at least half of them are..."
"Your net got destroyed? Mr. Stone, that´s a case of property damage. And salmons are objects at law, there´s no murder... At the utmost it´s cruelty to animals when you let them peg out on your deck..." Mike replied.
"Detective! I´m a fisherman since more than twenty five years. I´m handling my catch livestock-friendly!" Mr. Stone was looking at him angrily.
"Okay, I didn´t deny this, Mr. Stone! But damage of property...that´s business of another department..."
"Detective..." he looked onto the batch, that Mike wore on his chest. "Detective Celluci...anybody or anything has ripped my net to pieces and half of my catch is gone and some of the fishes are looking rather strange. Dead and like anything has rasped off skin and meat..." Mr. Stone explained with a more intensive voice.
"Anything?" Mike shot him a skeptical look. "Anything? What shall this mean? And when you´re having dead and as you call it...rasped fishes in your net, then it´s the question, where from do these unusual injuries come? So far...so good! But that´s something for the Department of fishery science and aquaculture!" Mike came something in mind like a large catfish. And that was definitely a case for the Department for fishery. These guys were caring about fish stock and species control.
"Other fishermen are having the same problems within the last time, Detective!" Mr. Stone tried it again.
"Then you should all together go to the DoF down at the harbor. There you shall find any better help, Mr. Stone. I´m investigating cases of murder and suicide. Dead salmons are none of my business, I´m sorry, Mr. Stone...!"
Mike had gotten up from his seat and with an apologetic smile, he directed to the door of his office.
"For you...at first a fisherman will have to get rasped and die!" Mr. Stone grunted.
"Then it would be some of my business, indeed...Good night, Mr. Stone." Mike tried to keep a friendly tone.
"Good night, Detective!" Mr. Jack Stone grabbed his jacket and left the office.
Mike sank back onto his seat with a moan, gulping down the rest of his coffee.
Some people´s trust into the responsibility of the police was unlimited, he thought and shook his head.
Lake Ontario
Henry stopped his Jaguar in front front of a house in the Hammersmith Avenue. The street was lying in the east of Toronto and was running directly down to the Lake Ontario. Small houses were lining the road side by side and between them were narrow alleyways, which went to their backyards.
Henry watched into one of the dark, narrow passage.
"Do you have a garden over there, Mrs. Turner?" he directed into the alleyway.
"Yeap. It isn´t a large one but Lucille goes with it. She makes her walks in the neighborhood and I...I can´t imagine where she...could have gone lost. The neighbors know her. None of them would do my little sweetheart any harm, believe me!" her voice was trembling and Henry could hear her heart beating faster.
"Okay, let´s check the whole surroundings..." Vicki suggested and Mrs. Turner was leading them I to the area behind her house.
"Kitty, hello kitty...Lucille! Sweetheart, sharpen your little, fluffy ears!" Vicki tried to lure the cat when she was searching through the garden with her Mag Lite in hand. Henry was standing behind her. He didn´t need any lamp, on the contrary...the focused light was more a hindrance than any help for his night-time adapted vampire eyes. But because of her RP Vicki preferred as much light as possible.
"I don´t know if she´ll react to you, Vicki!" he whispered.
"Do you hear anything, Henry? You know: bumm bumm! Bumm bumm!" she directed to her heart.
Henry shook his head no, listening with utter concentration, his eyes were searching through the darkness behind the dancing beam of light.
"Nothing to hear but..."
"Two pairing rats...?"
"A mouse under the cover of snow. That would be just right now for a polar fox." Henry smirked. "But no cat. I´m sorry!" He deeply inhaled the cold air, his nostrils widening. Shaking of the head. "Old cat urine under the snow. Not fresh..."
"That isn´t good, Detective Fitzroy!" Vicki replied; "...can you smell anything else? Humans? A predator? Anything that might have left over that...paste?" she whispered.
"Vicki, just as you´re asking: it´s smelling of humans here everywhere! We are in a housing area!" Henry gave back in a very low voice.
"And I thought that your vampire nose may bring us forward..." Vicki grunted and Henry could hear the disappointment under it.
"Vicki, I´m no dog and even when my sense of smelling is way finer than yours...back here´s nothing that may be any improvement now. I´m sorry, Vicki." Henry laid a hand on Vicki´s shoulder, softly leading her back to the house. He knew her handicapped eyes all too well, but it was difficult to give Vicki a helping hand without Vicki finding it somewhat offending. She was really great at hiding her problems, even from him! Henry had found out that all discussions about her eyes problems were ending up in an angry Vicki.. So had decided to handle it on a low level which she could cope with. Give some help without her knowing it, this had become a rule for him.
"Maybe we should search in front of the house, on the street, Mrs. Turner. You´ve said that at the front this stuff went to the gully..." Vicki began.
"Yes, I have scrubbed like mad! That has stuck like hell, I thought that I won´t get rid of it..." Mrs. Turner led Vicki and Henry back to the street and to the opening in the curb, that was leading into the rainwater drain.
Vicki checked the opening thoroughly, for what she had to kneel down into the snow.
Henry was standing behind her. "And...?"
"I can´t see much from up here! One might go down there..." she meant when she rose from her knees again.
"You cannot be earnest, Vicki!" Henry sounded...disgusted. Vicki shot him a look full of incomprehension.
"Where have your flair and your hunting instinct gone to, Henry?"
"My hunting instinct you´re referring to, isn´t focusing on little, slippery animals in the sewer. Or large hairy ones!" He was staring at her and in his face she read the word Windigo. When hunting the Windigo, after all Henry had come in physical contact with the contents of the sewer when he had to avoid the electric bolt, which should kill the monster.
Vicki shook her head and then turned over to Mrs. Turner; "Do you know where we´ll find a usable entrance to the drain system? Where do the maintenance workers go?"
"I...uhm...down at the beach, there´s an entrance which is used for maintenance, but I guess, it´s locked. That´s reasonable. In the past it had been open, but there have always children slipped in and the parents got all excited about it!"
"Understandable when afterward one smells of old pond!" Henry commented on his own experiences. "Apropos pond! You mentioned that someone got lost of all his precious pond fishes, Mrs. Tuner..." Henry tried to get the point onto something less unappetizingly. A pond could be inspected from above!
Mrs. Turner was nodding. "Yeap! Mr. Paddington´s koi carps. He lives three houses ahead..." she directed up the street.
"Then I´ll look if Mr. Paddington is at home and we might look at his pond. Probably there will be any indication of the perp!" Henry suggested and Vicki nodded.
"Okay, so let´s visit Mr. Paddington first"
"And next in the row will be the owner of the dog which disappeared!" Henry added. He wanted to save the sewer option for the end, just in case that their interrogation won´t bring up any usable information.
After some time of pressing the bell button, an elderly man opened the door finally.
"Victoria Nelson of Nelson Investigations. My partner Mr. Fitzroy." Vicki introduced them to him. "We are coming cuz of your disappeared koi carps, Mr. Paddington. Mrs. Turner has retained us to search for her cat, who has also disappeared...!"
"Come in! I wanted to go to the police tomorrow, to press charges against unknown, cuz of theft..." Mr. Paddington began.
"A case of theft? Burglary than..." Vicki looked at him with some skepticism.
"Uhm...ohm...I can barelytell the police, that a giant catfish has crawled thru my garden, broke the lattice and then has swallowed my fishes. They gonna feel for my head...!"
Vicki stared at him.
"Catfish? You have...you have seen the beast?" A first indication of an animalistic...thief.
"Catfish...hm, so anything like that. I´ve never seen such a large beast before. At least in the dark it was looking like that. Long shape, relatively light-colored and it was snaking thru the snow...First I thought it to be a large snake. You don´t have any clue, which hunks of snakes some people are keeping." He led Vicki and Henry thru his home onto his porch and then down to the pond.
"But snakes are hematocryal animals. These temperatures are way too cold for them." Vicki threw in.
"Even that exactly. That´s why I thought it to be some catfish. I couldn´t see much and then...it had been gone!" Mr. Paddington explained. "Look at this, Ms. Nelson..." he lifted the lattice which edge was twisted and suddenly Vicki noticed a white mass a bit ahead at the left edge.
"Tell me, Mr. Paddington...do you make use of silicone to fix it?"
"No! Why? There are clamps, in which the ties lock...Look!" He lifted the lattice and directed to the ground clamps.
Vicki got a pair of gloves from the pocket of her parka and protected by them, she felt over the white mass that was smeared over the edge. It was hardened and glassy. Vicki bet on anything watery, that had been frozen due to the icy temperature. She pulled her Swiss army knife from her pocket and started to scratch and to lever it off so long, until she managed it get one piece loose and she could maneuver it into a small bag which Henry held open for her. He didn´t feel any urge to come in contact with it, whatever it might be.
"Thanks! So lock it and then Dr. Mohadevan can take a look on it! Probably she´ll find out from which animal it is!"
She let run her view over the garden, moving alongside the bare bushes with her Mag Lite, which were planted at the border of the garden. Henry was watching over the other side of the garden. Suddenly he waved to her.
"Vicki, look here! That looks like a piece of fish skin..." Vicki lit it up. Henry hissed when the beam of her Mag Lite hit his eyes unintentionally.
"Sorry..." she mumbled.
A blood stained piece of scaly skin with dark and orange-colored areas had been wrapped around a branch. "Okay! Bag it, with the branch..." she ordered.
"Heaven! That´s looks like from one of my koi carps!" Mr. Paddington was directing to the differently colored parts of it. "Then this beast has fed off my fishes! Damn! Wish I would have been after it directly, then I might have gotten my hands on the damn beast!"
"That wouldn´t have been of any help for your poor fishes! And as long as we don´t know if the fish thief can become dangerous for humans too, I´d be rather careful, Mr. Paddington! Which size do you estimate for the attacker?" Vicki warned him about taking hasty actions against whatever it would be.
"Oh my goodness! Hard to say. It had been dark outside and I only got a very short look onto the fuckin´ beast. I guess...anything between six and eight feet long. It was snaking thru the snow very fast and then it disappeared into the neighborhood. Over there..." he directed into the corner where Henry had found the piece of one of the koi carps. Vicki lit over to the neighboring plot, but the freshly fallen snow had covered probable crawling traces...
"Crap! can´t see a thing! If only it hadn´t been snowing so heavily!" Vicki was cursing, but she couldn´t simply climb over the fence, to continue her search on the other side. And her RP wasn´t much of a help to define structures within the white correctly, despite the pale light that was caused by the snow.
She turned over to her partner. "Henry, can you identify anything that looks like a crawling trace?"
Henry was staring over to the neighboring plot. Even for him it wasn´t so easy to differ on unknown territory, where garden structures ended and a potential trace was beginning. His eyes were searching the area and finally the bushes to find out, if anywhere anything large had been breaking thru.
Finally he directed to a corner.
"Over there...there are a couple of broken branches; the rounded opening in the bushes. But this can be caused by any other animal too, Vicki! We can´t fix it onto our fish thief definitely from the distance..." Henry turned back to Mr. Paddington: "Do you know your neighbor? Did he see anything and has talked about it with you?"
"We are living side by side though, but Mr. Shultz is a rather introverted type. He doesn´t like to talk much with peeps..." the man answered.
"So, would you have any suspect that he´s anyway involved in the disappearing of your fishes?" Vicki now mixed in to proof the trustworthiness of his statements.
Mr. Paddington gave a negative wave.
"He? Nope! He´s only interested in TV. Once a month he mows his grass. That´s it all!" he bent nearer to Henry; "Better stay off his ground, just in case you´re understanding, Mr. private eye!"
"Okay! So Mr. Shultz isn´t much help as a witness." Henry slightly grinned at him.
"And I can´t send Mike to him for any official investigation. Not as long as we don´t have a corpse! Guess, you know pretty well, what he thinks about me and you working together...!" Vicki looked at Henry who was nodding.
"He accuses me, that I´m the reason and at the same time responsible for it, that you´re mixing up with...weird...cases over the last time. And I´m feeling no intention to feed his speculations right now..." Henry mumbled to her, so that Mr. Paddington couldn´t understand him.
"So we´re finished over here now, Henry!" Vicki put things to the point.
"Well! Shall I drive you to Dr. Mohadevan´s laboratory, then you can deliver the samples freshly..." Henry offered to her. The further investigations would depend on the results from her laboratory, because the descriptions of the attacker were kind irritating and rather vaguely. Snakes couldn´t crawl around at temperatures below 32°F and a catfish was a fish who wasn´t fond of fresh air on solid ground, Henry was resuming.
So it had to be anything else!
Hopefully not one of Astaroth´s emissaries again!
Henry sighed, he wanted to say Good bye to Mr. Paddington and wanted to go back to the car, when Vicki held him back by his arm. Her voice was terrifyingly unbiased when she said: "Get your Wellingtons from your luggage trunk, Henry! Now we´ll check the rainwater drain, once now that we´re in the area here..." The smile around the corners of her mouth did augur badly.
Henry was staring at her for a moment, in disbelief. He has had the hope that Vicki wouldn´t let become this option true.
"You cannot be serious, Vicki!" he groaned and rolled with his eyes.
"But it is! You aren´t afraid of the dark, Henry, ain´t you!?" She was smirking, bantering him about his former experiences with a certain sewer. Sometimes she could be a pain in someone´s ass. "Or shall I climb down there alone? You´ve promised me something..." she reminded him, that he had promised her to protect her.
To protect her from the forces of hell.
But who knows, with whom or what they had to do here again...
to be continued
