From now on I'll take a lot of liberties with the original material. Fans of Sapkowski's books and CDProjekt Red's games, please forgive me.
Chapter 4 - Victim Profiling
The next morning, Castle woke up even earlier than usual. The sky had just started lighting up, it had a grayish, gloomy shade that made everything dull and boring. The Temple Quarter wasn't exactly the most stylish place in Vizima, it gathered the houses of the poor population, the nonhuman ghetto, the hospital, the Melitele Temple, a brothel and not much else. Poverty reigned supreme, the streets were constantly covered with mud, blood and dung, and to be completely honest, Castle wasn't exactly happy to stay there. But it was close to the Temple and he needed to be close to the library and it was easier. Not to mention cheaper.
Yet, that morning, he had other things in mind.
Before collapsing like a heap of wet cloth on the bed and sleep soundly until the first light of morning, he had spent quite a lot of time thinking about the contract that had basically landed in his hands in the form of a beautiful woman that could or could not be a sorceress.
So many victims in such a long span of time and no one had ever thought of contacting a Witcher? He was going to talk to the alderman about it, if there really was a contract posted, he should have seen it in the past. He visited Vizima fairly often, he took contracts every time he was there and he had never heard of this creature.
That story stunk more than a Rotfiend. And those monsters stunk like dead fish and sheep shit, all mixed in a rotten mix that ruined clothes and forced the unfortunate people who found themselves in the radius of their explosion - because they exploded when they died - to literally boil themselves in scalding water and caustic soda to wash away the smell. He himself was once forced to shave his head because he could still smell it around him.
Anyway, he got dressed, strapped his swords behind his back and went downstairs. The wife of the innkeeper, a sweet elderly woman with big blue eyes and gray streaked black hair, greeted him with a smile. Contrary to her husband, she had always treated him kindly. It wasn't the first time he rented a room there, they knew him, but the owner kept treating him like crap. His wife, on the other hand, kind of cuddled him.
"Good morning master Witcher," she greeted him. "Did ye sleep well?"
He smiled. "As always, Mrs. Fitzgibbons. Can I help you?"
She shook her head. "No, I'm just fine." Her accent made him smile. "What do you want for breakfast? The usual?"
He sat at his table and nodded. "The usual will be just fine."
A moment later, a large platter with freshly baked rye bread, butter and apricot jam, with a mug of steaming milk mixed with roasted barley powder. He wasn't a fan of overly complicated meals, the simpler the better. Simple, easily digestible, energetic meals, that was his rule. Fighting a monster with indigestion wasn't exactly the best way to assure you'd get out of the fight with all your limbs still attached.
He was spreading the apricot jam on the second slice of buttered bread when the door at his right opened and Kate Beckett stepped in the tavern. The sudden waft of cool morning air brought in all the smells from outside, even the faint scent of celandine plants that grew just outside the city walls. It had rained a little bit that night, so the smell in the air was strong and sharp in the thick, humid air.
She looked around and when she noticed him, she walked to the table and sat in front of him.
"Morning," she said.
"Morning to you." She was different, without the city guard gambeson. Her clothes were tight and hugged her body perfectly. The black leather pants were a little worn, but well made. Tailored, probably, as was the white shirt beneath the purple doublet and the gray jacket. She was harmed, a sword at her hip and a dagger strapped at her thigh. The woman knew her way around steel too, the both looked high grade metal, with a great deal of craftsmanship in the blades and the hilts.
"Slept well?" she asked.
"As well as you can sleep in a ratty place like this," he replied, lowering his voice so the innkeeper's wife wouldn't hear him. "Want something to eat? Drink?"
"Same thing you're having."
A quick nod to the elderly woman and a second platter appeared in front of them, another mug too. "Now that we're both eating…" she started. "You have a plan?"
He nodded. "Yes, just as I told you yesterday. I want to look at the body, where it was found. And I'm going to ask around."
"You can skip the last part. I already did that, many times."
He smiled as he chewed on a big bite of bread, the swallowed. "With all the due respect, I have ways you guards don't have. I can make people talk pretty easily."
"You mean you're going to use the Axii sign on those who don't want to collaborate?"
"How do you know about Signs?"
Beckett chuckled. "I read. A lot. Even about you Witchers."
"And what do you know?" he asked.
She took a sip from her mug before she spoke. "Well, I know for instance you're of the school of the Wolf, given the wolfhead amulet hanging from your neck. I know you're pretty famous around here, specialized in curses and wraiths, but you can deal with monsters pretty well too. I also know you visit Vizima at least once a year around this time, that you usually spend a month here studying and that you always rent a room here."
"Wow… I'm impressed."
"Oh but there's more. I know you had an older half brother, that died in Rivia five years ago, his body never to be found, I know you write books to earn something on the side and that you're a vocal opposer, as your brother was of racism and you often took sides of the oppressed. And before you ask me how I do know about all of this, let's just say I wanted to hire the best, after Maarloeve failed to deliver."
He growled, softly. She knew too much. Things only a handful of people knew about him, all of them scattered around the world and one of them was dead.
He so wanted to ask her if she was a sorceress, but if she hadn't yet revealed it, there was a good reason. No need to scare a possible client away so early in the morning.
"As I said," he started. "I'm impressed. But with this set of skills at finding information, how come you didn't find anything about this creature?"
She smiled. "I'm good at following leads of people that leave tracks behind. This monster doesn't, or at least it doesn't leave tracks I can follow. That's where you come in."
Castle nodded. "I see. Come, if you're done with your breakfast, we can go."
"You sure you can walk in a morgue right after breakfast?"
"Beckett, please. I kill monsters for a living. After you kill your first zeugl, you're ready for everything, even a stroll in a morgue right after breakfast."
He paid for their meals and they walked out of the inn. The city was lazily waking up, only shopkeepers and the casual drunk sleeping the hangover off were on the streets. Even the guards were missing. Beckett guided him to the morgue, not far from the graveyard. On their way there, they encountered a heavily armed patrolman with a different coat of arms from the city guards.
"Hey, who's that guy?" asked Castle as they passed him by.
"Who? The knight? One of the guys from the Order Of The Flaming Rose. They're like… I don't know… special forces? They arrived here about six months ago, took over that building up there and started patrolling the city. Simple as that."
"Do they make a difference?"
Beckett shrugged her shoulders. "Not a bit. We still have our issues with criminals and monsters in the sewers, things we have to deal with. The only difference is that the Temple of Melitele is quickly losing regulars during functions while the cult of Eternal Fires gathers more. What do you think?"
"Bah… religion's not my cup of tea so I try not to think about it. What do you think though?"
"They're self righteous pricks that don't have a fucking reason to be here. They give us hell and do nothing to help us. I wish they'd just get the fuck out of Vizima and leave us be. We're not perfect, but damn it they're making everything worse with all their freakin' preaching and everything. By the way, what's a zeugl?" she asked turning in a closed alley and heading towards a small door recessed in the thick wall of a building.
Castle sighed. "You don't want to know. We're here?"
"Yes. Ready?" He nodded. She opened the door and let him in. "Lanie! I'm here!"
The dark skinned woman from the other night was standing near a stone table with a dead body laying on it. "Oh, you got him. Is he alright with dead bodies?"
"Ma'am, I'm a Witcher," he interjected. "As I said to Kate just a moment ago, once you kill a zeugl, there's nothing that would make me throw up."
The woman, the medical examiner apparently, nodded. "If you're sure. Come, the body you want to see is here."
She guided them to the back of the damp, dark room, to a slab of stone propped up against a corner. "Here he is. Mathias Rockford, Redanian," she read from a parchment attached to the toe of the body. "Reported missing eight days ago by a fellow merchant and found yesterday morning in the old elven ruins beneath the city. Cause of death, undetermined, but I suspect it was blunt force trauma to the back of his head." She turned the head and showed them a large wound that left the cracked skull exposed.
Castle nodded. "May I take a closer look?"
"Be my guest, Master Witcher."
"Drop the formalities. We're colleagues, in a sense."
With that, he ignited a torch hanging by the slab with a quick flick of his fingers and moved the source of light closer to the body, in order to see better. Upon a first, cursory look the body was definitely in bad conditions. Rigor mortis had come and gone already, meaning the poor man had died more than twenty four hours earlier, and he had little blood left in him, considering the severed arm, the large missing chunk of thigh and the missing guts too. Large, monster-like bites covered his skin, some superficial and some deep enough to cause copious blood loss. All wounds were ante or perimortem.
"Alright, definitely a monster," he declared. "Beckett, can you hold the torch? I need both hands."
He rolled the sleeves of his shirt up above his elbow and went back to examining the body. Careful, he started a very scrupulous search for traces and anything left behind by the murderer. "You still have the clothes?" he asked.
Lanie nodded. "Yes. They're in a bag beneath the table. You can look at them too, if you need."
"Thank you." Then he went back at the body. He examined the head first. The wound in the back of the head had been caused by a cylindrical object, probably a blackjack of some sorts, wielded by a very strong arm, and it was indeed the cause of death. Bruising of the scalp around the ragged edges of the wound proved that blood still flowed in the poor man's body when the fatal blow had been administered. He looked through the hair and ears, found traces of dust and some scented oil residues on the skin and hair. Same traces of oil around the eyes and the mouth. In fact, the head was the only part of the body that lacked bite marks or wounds of any kind.
"Did you notice that the face is unscathed, save for the wound in the back of the head?"
The two women took a long look at the body before nodding. "Yes. Any particular reason?"
"Repellant oil." He pressed his thumb beneath the left eye and gathered a little of the residue on his finger, then smelled it. "Dog tallow, wolfsbane and bryonia. Common repellant for both werewolves and lesser vampires. Not enough to cause the beast to coward but just enough to make it avoid the face. Did the other bodies have their faces intact too?"
"Yes," replied Beckett. "They were all recognizable, untouched."
"Mmh… sounds like premeditation to me."
"You mean this is not the work of a monster?" asked Lanie.
"Oh, it definitely is the work of a monster, but the body has been used as a bait by someone that wanted to hide a murder, that's it."
"That means?"
"Give me more time. You said there were no traces left where you found the body?"
"Not one."
He cleared his throat. "We'll see about that. Let me finish."
Slowly, he examined the rest of the head. Around the nostrils he found some white powder. Fisstech, probably, the favorite drug of the moment, easy to produce, cheap and extremely addicting. When snorted or rubbed on someone's mucosa, usually the gums or the inner lining of the mouth, it had narcotic effects. It was sometimes used, in deliberately small doses, as a painkiller for treating extreme wounds, as it had a very quick effect. Here, apparently, the merchant had been kept sedated with it. There were no signs of defensive wounds anywhere on the body.
Out of habit, being used to dealing with monster corpses to extract the valuable parts for his potions or to sell as trophies, he checked the mouth of the merchant.
"Ah! As I thought. The tongue's missing," he exclaimed.
"Surgically removed," added Lanie. "It's the first time though, I checked the reports on the other bodies found in the past and everyone of them still had the tongue."
"Whoever is doing this, he or she has a ritual and uses a monster to torture his or her victims. By the type of wounds, I dare to say we're dealing with a lesser vampire, a fleder maybe. Most of them hibernate if they don't find food, so it's kind of easy to keep one in captivity and awaken it when it's required. You said something, yesterday, about bodies being always found near water. The elven ruins you spoke of, are they close to any water way?"
Beckett nodded. "Yes. The ruins are crossed by the sewers."
"Then I suspect that the ruins are the dropping spot, but sometimes they are flooded and bodies are caught in the undertow and dragged somewhere else. That would explain the fact that all the bodies are found close to water and with no traces left on them."
The medical examiner thought about it for a moment. "That's plausible. The first solid theory and lead we've had in years actually."
"Beckett, when people disappear, do you patrol the place?"
She shrugged. "Used to. After the third body appeared there as if by magic, with a squad of armed guards patrolling the ruins, the alderman gave up."
"Mmh, magic involved. Maybe there's a portal or something like that… I need to see the place though to be certain."
"You're thinking of residual magic there?"
He frowned, observing the mauled body in front of him. "Might be. Won't know until I see it. Wouldn't be bad to see even a couple of other places where other bodies have been found too."
"Can be arranged."
"I'll go and retrieve the files about the most recent murders," stated Lanie. "Last two? Three? Five?"
"Five will be fine, it's not like we have all the time in the world, we have a serial killer to catch."
"So? It is a serial killer?" asked Beckett.
"Oh definitely, a serial killer with a monster in the basement. A monster he uses to hide his crimes. And that makes him extremely dangerous."
Suddenly, that contract moved up a notch on his scale of interest.
Monsters and other foul creatures sometimes were nothing compared to some humans. Sometimes monsters were just victims of adverse circumstances, mostly caused by other humans, like botchlings and the very common drowners, and in that particular situation, the real monster was the man behind the trapped creature kept in captivity to satisfy his sadistic need to hurt and kill.
"Before I go, can I take a look at the clothes?"
Lanie pulled a bag from beneath the stone slab. "Here you go. There's a desk if you want to use it, over there."
The Witcher spread the clothes of the victim on the wooden table. Lacerations on the cloth coincided with the bite marks on the body. Blood and mud stained the once fine trousers and doublet, while the once red shirt was now completely soiled. The cuts indicated sharp fangs and taloned hands, so the hypothesis of a lesser vampire had some foundation indeed. He searched every nook, fold, and crease in the clothes, finding more traces of fisstech and pollen. It was spring, so it could possibly be due to the high pollen count in the air, but he took a mental note about it nevertheless, because it was verbena pollen, an uncommon potted plant.
Much to Beckett's disgust, he was very careful in his examination and also smelled the filthy clothes. Except for the mud, sewage and blood, he could distinctly pick up the smell of another man. As it hadn't been submerged by the sewer waters and not washed like the body, the cloth had retained all the smells of everything it had been in contact with. Around the lapel of the doublet and shirt, there was a faint but distinguishable scent, a high quality fragrance typically used by high society men. White musk with a tad of sandalwood, very common in Nilfgaard, less widespread in the northern kingdoms.
"Ladies, we're looking for a rich man," he declared.
"You sure?" asked Lanie.
"Hell yeah I'm sure. A rich man that likes cologne." He spread the shirt and doublet and pointed at their lapels. "He must have grabbed our merchant and some of the perfume, probably not yet dried up on his wrists, was transferred to the tissue, here and here. It's faint, but I could still pick it up."
The medical examiner sighed. "Must be so good to have enhanced senses in your line of work."
"Oh believe me, it's extremely useful, but it's also a damn curse on its own. Now, if I may… can you show me the ruins?"
"Sure, come with me."
They walked out of the morgue to find a slightly busier Vizima. Shops had opened, pilgrims and believers were coming and going from the temple, be it for a prayer before work or to ask the Sisters of Melitele, tame and obedient servants of the goddess, to heal minor wounds and ailments, and the streets were full of people busy with their tasks.
"Tell me about your mother," he said, breaking the silence.
"Why?"
"Victim profiling."
The guard sighed. "Well, she was a lawyer… from Redania. Both my parents come from Redania actually, and they worked here in Vizima at the Redanian embassy. That's all."
"Any connection with the other victims?"
She shrugged. "Nope. Many were beggars or workers. People easy to find at night, that few people would notice if they were missing. The merchant was the first important person killed after I think three total unknown."
"So there isn't a track to follow. Uhm… I was hoping our guy had a preference. Anyway, I suppose we'll have to go through the sewers to reach the ruins. You ready for that?"
"Stop asking me if I'm ready for disgusting stuff. I'm a city guard, I see filth every day," she explained. "I went down to look for the dead guy, I was one of those that hauled the corpse all the way up there, with Esposito and Ryan. I can deal with those kind of things."
Castle smiled, inwardly. That woman was incredible. She reminded him of Triss, a close friend - very close friend - that had a fierce character, strong enough to keep up with Lambert… and if she could keep up with that grouchy, sarcastic prick of his colleague, then she was a very strong person. A bit finicky about dirt, but Kate apparently didn't mind getting down and dirty. Literally.
But mind out of the gutter, Kate was opening the gate that led them inside the underground sewers of Vizima. It was time to get knee deep in the gutter.