Hello faithful readers!

We are back with another installment of The Sorcerer Chronicles!

Disclaimer: We went over this already.

Things should be answered more, and another thank you to those who reviewed. Here's to hoping for more reviews and more faithful readers! Hear hear!

O, and WARNING: This chapter may be a little ... bloody and incredibly grim. The focus of this chapter will be a rather bloody and gory scene, so readers are warned. I did give you fair warning about how gruesome some may feel it to be.


JACKIE POV

"Hodge, git yer arse down here, pronto. We got'a sit chew way shun."

I held back a groan. The voice was gruff, and tart, even over the crackle of static from the phone. The accent was unmistakably Irish, with a slight touch of New Yorker in there somewhere, and the voice was just like the man who owned it- tough, old, and stubborn. It belonged to Inspector Patrick O'Flynn, one of those people in this city who just plain don't like me. I'm not really sure why though, it might have to do with that one time we worked together for this case in Manhattan, a case that didn't really end well. But then, he was a captain, now he is an Inspector, and runs most of New York's investigations from his desk, though he still has his connections. And I'm one of them.

"Inspector!" I said, in as polite a tone as I could manage, "What can I do for you?" I could see him scowling on the other side of the line.

"Ah said git yer arse down here, pronto! Ya wanna keep that pass o' yer's, ya get ta Washin'ton Square park five min'tes 'go! Ya got that?" O'Flynn roared through the earpiece. I winced a little. You see, ever since I got my license as a private investigator, I signed up to be a consultant for the New York police. It helps to pay the bills, and the pass I get allows me access to some of the minor benefits the police have when solving my personal cases. And I'd rather not lose that, it gets me into a lot of places where ordinary folk aren't accepted as easily.

But it wasn't just the threat that caught my attention. An incident at Washington Square park... that was where I had ditched Clarissa and the other vampires. Strange, could they have done something there after I lost them? Piqued with curiosity, I tentatively asked, "Why? What's at Washington Square?"

"Yer spe-shalty! Weird shit! Now, git down here!" O'Flynn seemed to growl menacingly through the phone before the line went dead.

I sighed. I couldn't figure out where Arthur went now, what with O'Flynn calling about work. If I blew off O'Flynn, he would just have my pass revoked and I wouldn't be able to consult for a long time. And man, I had worked my ass of to get that pass. I guessed Arthur could wait, and if there really was something wrong at Washington Square, and it had something to do with last night...I made my decision. Arthur could wait. I just hoped he wouldn't get into too much trouble.

Grabbing my coat and gear once more, I snatched the other set of keys to the Stallion from the kitchen, and headed out. Easing myself calmly into the cloth seats, I settled behind the wheel of the muscle car, and hoped that it wouldn't have engine problems, and took it out the drive, and drove through the picturesque streets of Greenwich Village.


As I pulled up to the park parking lot, I noticed the throng of onlookers, ordinary folks who normally go about their business not paying a care to the people or things around them. It always amazed me how people could ignore others around them, but whenever there was a sight to see, like a car accident, or a police investigation in process, they all slowed down, and stopped to stare. Pushing my way past them, I flashed the pass at one of the officers standing by a large wall of yellow tape. Stepping through the tape, I thanked the officer just in time to see a new van pull up and park next to the Stallion. I paid it no attention, but if the media were here, it might complicate matters further. Not that they would have any idea what was going on, the police didn't seem to want anybody getting too close to whatever had actually happened.

Well, if keeping the public from noticing things was the point of the matter, it was now moot. Walking down the stone flagstones, a stumbled a bit and began to feel bile in my throat as I noticed what the onlookers had. The entire Central Plaza had been cordoned off, on account of the 'repainting'. The Plaza was splattered in blood. Red ichor in pools and splatters everywhere, and it was fresh. I could still smell the iron in the air, the metallic tinge making me want to hurl.


Stepping carefully around the fresh marks of blood, I walked over to where a group of men and women were gathered, some in uniform, others in plains clothes, all of them workers for NYPD. I noticed O'Flynn roaring something at one of his junior officers as some people were laying out tape and taking pictures. Patrick O'Flynn is a rather striking man. Squat and rotund, he would seem fat if not for his barrel chest and burly musculature. He was of rather average height, shorter than me though, and had a face that seemed set in a perpetual scowl. The veins in his neck and forehead seemed to be bulging and his face was a little red, which was normal for him, given how angry he always seemed, but they did so more than usual today. He has these small eyes that are somehow rather acute and glaring, a pudgy nose, and a scraggly beard. His short brown hair did little to offset the angry Irishman, though it did show his age, as it was starting to grey and bald a little.

He seemed to notice me, and stopped berating the poor young officer, and turned to roar at me instead. "Hodge! Git o'er here!"

I sighed, and made my way over, making sure not to step on any of the blood. There seemed to be a lot of it. As I got closer, I noticed the source of the blood. Or should I say sources. Several masses, since that could barely be called anything else, lay huddled on the stone of the plaza; around us several more lumps lay in other positions around the crime scene, their cuts had been frozen and frosted around the edges. I pulled on some plastic gloves from one of the forensic team had, and squatted down next to one of the lumps of flesh.


It was horrifying to think that the mounds of rotting flesh around me were once living bodies, people who had lives. I felt sick to the stomach, but I concentrated on the mound before me, and began to make out the various parts of the body remaining: chest, neck, shoulders, stumps of the arm, part of the hip. There were some ribs sticking out, though it looked as if they had been crushed. The rest of the bones seemed to have suffered the same smashing. There also seemed to be some blast areas where it appeared bullets had been fired, or shrapnel from a shotgun had torn the flesh. I could also see some of the investigators pulling out small cartridges and pieces of bullet shrapnel from the nearby area.

But that wasn't the weirdest part. These weird frosted cuts and the amount of ichor were what stood out the most, but as I looked I realized that I didn't even know what the hell these things were. They seemed humanoid, but with only a torso to work with, I didn't have much to go on. Taking a quick look around, I noticed that body parts seemed to be everywhere. A foot, a hand, some arms...but no heads. Weird. that would have been the best way to identify what exactly died here. There were clearly multiple dead victims, but I couldn't be sure if they were even human or not. How curious that there were no heads about. Normal killers don't take the care to decapitate their victims and mutilate their corpses only to keep their heads...


Standing up, I went over to one of the men taking the pictures, careful not to be near the camera. If it malfunctioned, there would be fewer pictures to go over later. I asked him, "Hey, you find any...I dunno, heads around?"

"Hells, man, With all this gore, it's a wonder we can even count the number of bodies. But nah, not that I've seen..."

Nodding, I walked over to O'Flynn who was giving me a rather nasty glare. I could tell he wanted to talk to me, so I headed over, scratching my head, wondering what the hell was going on. The smell of blood was nearly overwhelming, and I tried to stop from smelling it, but I soon got used to it. Funny, it was a strange sort of smell for blood. Sure, it had that iron tang to it, but there was something else...something I just couldn't place.

"Hodge! Whut'cha got?" Inspector O'Flynn asked. I winced, brought out of my ponderings as the pudgy police officer turned to me as I approached. I noticed he was a little out of breath and seemed tired. Clearly desk work was not his style, though it fit his rotund form. Generally, police Inspectors wouldn't come out to a crime scene. Well, I doubt this is an ordinary crime scene. It's a field of slaughter.

"Jesus, Patrick, you could have warned me on the phone. What the hell happened?" I asked, rubbing the back of my head as I glanced about at the carnage. Despite all the mess from the dead bodies, it seemed as if the plaza and the surroundings themselves hadn't been touched.

"I told you, it's Inspector O'Flynn now! And wha' does it look like? It's a damn crime scene! Several cold Johns or Janes, wit' no heads, and mutila-ted by sum sick sonnuva' gun!" O'Flynn roared, spit flying as he did. He seemed riled up, and one of his hands seemed to be clenched about some pendant. A cross I guessed. "Na-ow, whad'ya make uv all this?" he demanded, waving his other hand about, gesturing at the mess.

"Well," I said slowly, "Clearly there was some killing..." O'Flynn seemed to go red, and about to vent with several cusses people weren't meant to know, so I hurriedly added, "and the lack of heads show that someone was interested in making sure the bodies couldn't be ID'd. With all the blood, there isn't likely to be any finger prints, and with no heads, we can't ID the vic's by dental records. Plus, I have no idea what in hell kinda murder weapon could do this."

"Ya sure it ain't...ya know, your kinda problem?" He asked, voice dropping a few decibels. It was still loud enough to hear normally, but for O'Flynn, this was a hush. I shrugged, knowing he meant was magic involved. The police usually don't accept the usage of magic or the supernatural as a problem, especially since they never have to run into it. But, when they have something that just can't be explained, they came to me for 'consultation'.

"I can't tell. It's hard to say, and with the civies around," I said, nodding to the throng of onlookers that was gathering outside the perimeter of yellow tape and the new vans and cameras that were trying to zoom in on the scene, "I can't really use methods your people haven't tried yet."

"Well, what use ar' ya then? Ah, hell wit' it, just stick aroun' 'n see if ya spot anythin' which makes yer services wor'while," he said, shaking his head, as he turned to listen to what one of the forensic investigators was reporting about a few more pieces being salvaged. As he was talking, O'Flynn's face seemed to scrunch up a little, as he was taking some deep breaths.

"Oh, god dam' it! What in God's name is that smell?! It smells lik'a bunch of eggs gon' bad!" He roared.

Then it clicked. The smell from before, the smell I couldn't place among the iron tang of the blood. Rotten eggs. Only, killers don't smell like rotten eggs. But sulfur does. And sulfur isn't very common in it's pure form, so it had to be part of the murder here. Then it hit me. In the middle ages, alchemists discovered sulfur and used it in their experiments. Only the alchemists called it brimstone, for it lined the ground of the Christian Hell. Whoever these dead bodies were, or whoever killed them smelled like Brimstone. That narrowed down the suspects to a very small degree.

Either a demon had somehow found it's way into the city and was slaughtering people, or someone - or more likely, something - was using the powers of Hell.

"Damn it all," I swore under my breath.


To be fair, I did give fair warning about it being 'bloody'.

Anywho, Read & Review please!

And next time on The Sorcerer Chronicles: Where in the world is Arthur Fontayne?

Till Next Time!