Ha ha, that was quick to upload within two days. This chapter may be short but at least you get the main idea on what is happening. Do enjoy and feel free to comment! I am open with questions and comments. -Caitlyn

One may know how to gain a victory, and know not how to use it. - Pedro Calderon de la Barca

2: Examination

The streets of Manchester were now running in fear—the news of the murder of the young girl was spread through the news that night and warned anyone not to panic, but to make sure nobody would be out late at night without someone with them. As the news spread within hours, the investigation team Chanel and Lance were on departed to the headquarters where the police office held a meeting about the mysterious murders for the past two weeks. It was getting to the point where the head Chief of the office, Kenneth Young, made it official to everyone that the killer or killers must be stop immediately. Inside the corridor where the conference was held that night, Chanel, Lance and Josef sat with the investigation party and the police force to discuss the basic problem to the murders.

The conference room was a modern, large place with black and chrome panels nailed to the walls, ceiling lights made of a shiny metal dangled from the ceilings and illuminated the room with a vibrant color of faded blue. In the center, a huge oak table where people surrounded it, evidence placed on top to demonstrate what they have been seeing for the past two weeks and evidence found from last night—the girl recently killed hours ago.

Chanel seated next to Lance and glanced at Josef, who avoided her so that he wouldn't cause more problems, and listened to the head chief talk about the case. Kenneth Young was a bulky man with a bottled neck that outlined his chin; completely bald on top of his forehead and had a bear that was small and round at the end of his jaw. He was in his late forties and had a wife and three kids who he truly loved, mentioning them in his speech, that harm could attack anyone, including his three children who he doesn't want to be seen dead on the streets. Chanel propped her head in her hands as the long speech continued, lacking her self-worthiness to pay attention to the evidence the police force found. They don't even know the evidence I found that's unusual to find on a person, she mused.

"To clarify this entire case…" Kenneth enunciated. "I suggest we go back to the other cases and see if we can find some similarities to the murders…"

This is taking too damn long, Chanel deliberate inside her mind. She fumbled with her hands, impatient that the force was not getting the clues they needed to conclude the crimes. Lance stepped down to end Kenneth's speech and added something on his own.

"No matter what we do and where we find these people," he elucidated. "We won't be able to determine how they killed them. On each of these victims' bodies, we found no signs of puncture wounds, stab marks, bullet shots, and so forth. So how can we prove the case if we don't have any notes on cause of death?"

Mr. Young scratched his nose and pointed out towards Lance's point that he was on the right path. "This boy has got a point. The victims' causes of death are unknown because the lack of evidence is not helping."

Josef stood up from his chair and walked over to Kenneth to take his side of Lance's explanation. "I agree—we must seek for more evidence."

Moans and whines filled the room with negativity, that it affected Kenneth's new mood. He retorted towards the crowd of people who were moaning. "Ladies and gentlemen, behave like you are supposed to. It might be tough that we need to do more work, but I think this will help us a lot to undergo new facts sprouting from the cracks of this case." He motioned Josef to take a seat and ordered a young lady named Jennifer Borrow—a red haired woman with green eyes and small bone structure on her face— situated herself in front of the crowd and strolled to Kenneth, who passed to her a manila folder filled with thick papers. She opened it and tossed the notes around to people in a clockwise circle.

"To begin, let's talk about the girl last night." Jennifer said. "What do we know already?"

Lance took a quick momentary look at the paper he held and answered the question. "The girl's name is Amanda Crusher. She turned twenty-one two days ago and lives in Salem, Massachusetts. My bets are that she and her family—or friends—must have been celebrating her birthday at one of the nightclubs here in Manchester. The girl got drunk, wandered in the streets, and was unexpectedly greeted by a serial killer who then took her life. I think that is the scenario to her death, though we don't know how the killer killed her exactly."

Several of the people shook their heads in agreement; however, Chanel made no movement at all. She bellowed her head, grasped the paper from Lance's hands, and examined the notes herself. It didn't sound clear in her opinion though Lance's scenario seemed precisely wise, but how the girl was killed was something she didn't have the guts to mention. The puncture wounds on the neck…threatening every inch of her body, she couldn't handle the pressure she was already facing. If she told them, the Chief might get furious and claim her facts to be anomalous. If she didn't, then the same feeling over and over would circulate in her mind and continue to threaten her with messages she had never felt before.

There had to be a way to ease out the facts she found. "I think we should do an autopsy on the girl, that way we can find more than what we know."

"Is it a safe move, Ms. Keen?" Jennifer asked.

"I believe so."

"Okay then," Jennifer agreed. "We shall so a full body examination on the girl. Ms. Keen, you have the honors to work on that part if you want."

Chanel nodded her head. "I will do it."

Kenneth stretched out a smile and shook hands with her, patting her back. "Wonderful, Ms. Keen. We are honored to have you on the team."

Josef rolled his eyes and held a grin on his face, ugly enough to avoid. "Under my rules she is on my team. Hopefully you aren't stealing her from my party because she's a smart woman."

"Indeed not," Kenneth frowned. "But I do wish though I had people like her."

Lance held onto the manila folder tightly and handed it to Chanel, who accepted it as a truce to breaking the case. "It's all yours now. You have the power to determine the results."

- - - - -

"So, are you saying that those files you had and saved on your computer are now…missing?" Quinn presumed.

Deacon stretched across his head and folded his hands on his stomach. The intensity, the anger, all of the emotions he had never cared about before were now blooming bigger than ever. He hated it, and wanted those emotions to go away. As being a deity, why would they cry out emotions? He questioned. They are fearless and strong—as for Deacon though, those dreams of being a powerful man were fading away. The resemblance of a powerful man in a clergy of twelve, influential people was something from the past. They were all dead, and he couldn't do anything to get his wills back. Though the La Magra energy was still within him, he couldn't face his emotions like a normal person would by talking to someone personal about it. He wasn't a normal person, he was a vampire for crying out loud. Vampires don't have the same emotions as a human; but why was he having them? Do vampires have emotions by don't show them as if they were real?

For the time being, he couldn't think about that. He had to deal with the loss of his files now mailed half way across the world—or somewhere near by—they could be anywhere and some innocent human is going to find them in their mail account. Deacon rubbed his forehead and sighed.

"These files were that important to you." Quinn said to him, rubbing his elbow.

Deacon mumbled, "Hell yeah they were."

Mercury, who was on Deacon's laptop searching information the mail address fumbled with the internet and searched everywhere who owned the e-mail address. A couple of popular sites she went on didn't help, but minutes later after going through the g-mail account, a site pointed her towards the way. She opened it and found a personal information page on the account holder.

"I found out the name to the person who owns the address." She said.

Quinn stumbled over and sat next to Mercury, looking at the same page. "Yeah, you're right."

She read the information aloud for Deacon to head. "Chanel Keen. Age twenty four and a half; lives in Fremont, New Hampshire with her boyfriend; is in college; and is in investigator for the Manchester Police Department. This girl sounds tough."

Deacon mocked Mercury cruelly. "She sounds tough. Like I'd give a crap about that. All I wanted to know who the person was." He rose from the bed and scratched the back of his head. "She lives in Fremont like you said."

"Yes, why do you want to know?"

A devilish smiled rose on Deacon's face; he walked to the closet and pulled out a black petticoat and a belt, and tossed them on his bed. He began to rampage through his dresser, pulling out a dark blue printed shirt with a Hollister slogan and a pair of dark brown jeans, and stripped down from head to toe and put on the fresh new clothing. He tossed the tattered clothing into the trash bin. At first, Quinn and Mercury were confused why all at once he was getting dressed up as if he were going on a fancy date. This wasn't the way he would usually behave. His style was awkward, young adult like. It was disgusting in Mercury's opinion for she liked the older look of Deacon before he changed all of a sudden. His ashen skin went perfect with the navy color, creating a muscular form with his chest and arms. He put on a belt and bucked it, and fixed his shirt to make it look perfect since perfect was one of his favorite words. Suddenly, he pulled out a pair of sandals from the back of the closet and put them on as well.

Mercury had enough of the foolishness going on and stampeded towards Deacon, thrashing her hand on his coat he was about to put on. "You look like you are dressed up for some beach party."

"Exactly my point to dressing up," he hissed. "I'm going to the Club Casino in the seacoast where Chanel lives and cause a threat there for her to come and investigate—she couldn't refuse if she has that kind of a job. That is when I'll meet her and suck out information from her about the files."

"You know, Deacon? You do come up with the best ideas around here."

He smiled and pulled on the coat again. "There's a club in the casino where we can go and wait for her, so basically everything will occur by the time we get there."

From underneath a bed he pulled out a silver suitcase, opened it, and passed to Mercury and Quinn two shiny guns.

"Pack all of your things, fellas, we're moving."

"To where?" Quinn asked.

"To New Hampshire."

- - - - -

Three days later after the investigation team agreed that Chanel would do the autopsy on the girl; quietness was all that they ever wanted. Three days of total silence, no crimes reported of mysterious murders, nothing. It was as if relief had come all of a sudden and wanted the terrorization to go away. Chanel, Lance, and Josef as promised continued to do the investigation on their own, let Chanel do the work by comparing the crimes aside each other, and comparing them to the girl they found three nights ago. Evidence was shown, as Chanel wanted; it was clear that they must have suffered the same death like Amanda did. Though Chanel didn't tell the team about what she found, she felt confident that she was closer to closing the case than the rest of the team completing their half of the story. However, the questioned remained in her thoughts. What kind of monster would have killed Amanda this way?

It had been three weeks since the crimes had evoked New Hampshire into a state of emergency, now that the most sever murders in the largest cities were calming down, relief spread out everywhere. A few misdemeanors were in some spots of the state, but they wasn't as severe as the murders, that they were handled and treated easily and the problem would be fixed. The police department was as happy as ever that the levels of incidents in Manchester were lower than the average crimes in the state. Kenneth Young was also pleased that the investigation teams involved were ending on the case once Chanel is able to find the cause of death. Therefore, they waited patiently for an answer from the girl, who devoted everything in her power to solve the deaths.

Lance's relationship with Chanel was tighter than ever. Every day he would come by to Chanel's house and make out with her for at least three hours until he had to head home for the evening, but the big question popped in his mind occasionally. Should he asked the big question, or should he wait until the right moment comes? It sounded funny in his mind, but in reality, he was serious about it. He would do anything to tell her how much he loved her, even if it was a big stuffed teddy bear sitting on her front yard, holding a bouquet of flowers. It was clear that he had to tell her, but his guts wouldn't let him, and the knot in his stomach constricted over time.

A month had passed and New Hampshire thought the terror was done…but it wasn't. It continued again.

By the time the reign of terror occurred again, September was coming to a sorrowful end. Fall was blooming and it wasn't going to be pretty, and some of the towns people feared for going on vacations, that they instead stayed at home with their children. For Chanel and the crew, their vacation was not going to be easy now that they had to deal with a new problem. Instead of three murders a week, eight murders occurred, and the results were disastrous than ever before, that even the police force and investigation teams scuttled in fear. However, Chanel withstand her grounds and told Josef that she was going to continue the rest of the investigation while everybody else hid underneath their blankets. Josef, however, didn't like the idea for Chanel to investigate along, now that the case was almost ending.

It was on September 22 when Josef couldn't take it and peer pressure sucked his mind from the reality the state was facing. Not only was Manchester in disaster, but also was the seacoast. Finally, Josef gave up and had to make the move—he had to call for professional help.

In his quaint size office that appeared to look more like a library than an ordinary police agency, he picked up the beige phone and dialed in the numbers he only knew. Secretly, he dialed and waited for a voice to show.

"Hello," a deep, tone voice answered.

Josef sighed in relief that he was still there. "Oh thank god you're around these days." He replied. "I really need your help, Eric."

Eric began to laugh. "Josef, you know that nobody calls me Eric anymore. It's weird."

"Not to me it isn't. It's a great way to keep your identity shut."

"It's a little too late for that—everybody knows me."

"True, but listen. I need your help—for the past two months we have been having unknown murders throughout the state, and this is getting to the point when already over twenty murders are being investigated. I know what this is caused by, and I know one of my clients has the answer too, but she won't tell me." After explaining the rest of the story, Josef gave the final thought to Eric. "I think your kind is revolting."

"I knew it," Eric said, who sounded just as disgusted as Josef was.

"So, can you help the investigation?" Josef asked.

Eric gave his approval immediately. "Yes I will. But may I ask you something first so I can understand this clearly?"

"Anything." Josef clarified.

"It's been rumored around here that some missing files from an apocalypse are somewhere in your area of the state. In addition, they are leading to the one person on your team you mentioned: Chanel. Do you know is she still has those files or not?"

Confused by what he was talking about, Josef answered, "No. But I had no idea she was in possession of files this important. Where might she had gotten them from?"

"I was told some clergy had them and accidentally sent the information to the wrong person." Eric said. His voice was so furious, that Josef backed away from the phone to avoid getting an earache from his loud, booming voice. "I hope to god this isn't what I think it is from. If so, I'm going to start my season for hunting early."

"You're a good man, Eric." Josef exclaimed happily, staring down at the manila folder Chanel was in possession of. "I will assign you to help with us…and tell Chanel the truth."

"We'll have to eventually, because if she is doing this alone, she will ultimately find out and most likely get petrified about it."

Josef knew the consequences if Chanel did find out the truth. Whether this was a good idea or not, he had to tell her in the end or else time would run out. "I'll see you soon," Josef said, and hung up the phone, burying his head in his hands. Was it the right decision to hire him for the job, or was his world now going to toss and turn into the pit hells of fire. Whatever the cause, his choice was limited, and for Chanel doing it alone, there was no way she would understand the meaning to an immortal life.

NEXT CHAPTER COMING SOON