Chapter Four: Of Eyes Wide Open
Raye woke up feeling all around crappy as hell. There was a relentless tempo pounding in her head and even as she tried to escape it by burrowing into the warmth that surrounded her, it refused to leave her alone. This encompassing warmth was so unlike the cool feel of satin that she was used to feeling against her skin, that Raye only made a half-hearted attempt at untangling herself from the cocoon of warmth encircling her. It was then the warning bells started going off in her brain. This wasn't her bed.
Raye's amethyst eyes shot open at the thought. She quickly sat up and surveyed the room, ignoring the jackhammers pounding away at her skull. Raye prided herself on being a detail-oriented person. This might not be her room, for never in her life would she buy herself a Roger the Rabbit comforter, but she had a pretty good idea of who it might belong to.
She searched her mind for any piece of information that would help her understand how she'd ended up in Serena's bed. She had vague fragmented memories of being carried on the slight blonde's back and being surrounded by warmth. She groaned as she got herself out from under the covers. She quickly redressed and left the bedroom.
It was Serena's high pitched voice, singing off tune that brought the psychic to the kitchen. Raye stood in the doorway in shocked silence. She gaped as Serena bounced in step to the song, a wooden spoon in hand while the black cat at her feet ignored the blonde's antics.
Serena did a half-spin and spotted Raye dressed in her crumpled suit, staring at her dumbfounded. She immediately stopped and felt her whole body flush in embarrassment. How long had the psychic been standing there, watching her make a fool of herself? Serena broke the awkward silence by laughing sheepishly. "I see you're finally up."
Serena had a way of stating obvious facts. Raye just nodded her head, still shocked by the fact that Serena even knew how to use a stove. Serena didn't cook. She couldn't even boil water without something going terribly wrong.
The blonde motioned for her to take a seat at the round kitchen table. "I'm just making us some breakfast."
Raye slowly approached the kitchen table and took a seat. She still had a niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right in the kitchen. Raye kept a close eye on the blonde as she began to babble incessantly about the media's coverage of their case. It briefly crossed Raye's mind that they were screwed. Setsuna was going to chew them out when they got to work. She groaned, burying her head into her folded arms. She wondered how much information the reporters had already leaked to the public.
Minutes later, the cat, which Raye had ignored, swiped her sharp claws at Serena's exposed ankle.
"Eek!" the blonde shrieked, "Luna! That was so mean!"
"If you'd fed me five minutes ago that wouldn't have happened."
"But I'm cooking breakfast," the blonde whined, bending down to rub at the angry red marks that now decorated her ankle.
Raye was pretty damn sure there were just some things even in this day and age that cats couldn't do, and talking was one of them. Yet Serena's cat had opened its mouth and talked. Raye eyed the cat and then its owner. Okay, so all that excess psychic energy had been coming from Serena's talking cat. That still didn't explain how the cat could talk. "Your cat just talked." Raye stated expressionlessly.
"She tends to do that sometimes." Serena started to laugh nervously, scratching the back of her head as she surveyed the room for possible exits. She knew they should have moved the stove away from the window. How was she to jump out of it when the stove was blocking it? "This is my aunt, Luna."
Raye blinked, gazing blankly at the cat. "Your aunt's a cat."
"Well," Serena started, scratching her chin with the handle of the wooden spoon, "She's actually my mom's cousin. I just think it's weird to call someone twice your age 'cousin,' so I call her aunt."
"She's a shapeshifter?"
"I'm a witch," Luna replied indignantly. She was tired of the two talking about her as if she wasn't there. She might look like a cat, but she wasn't one. Her tail swished threateningly as she eyed Raye with a dangerous glint in her eyes.
Raye had the feeling that this cat—Serena's aunt, she reminded herself—didn't like her all that much, not with the way her eerie crimson eyes were staring into Raye as if she was an interesting new prey. Raye willed herself not to be intimidated; after all, this was a cat she was talking about.
With a roll of her eyes, Serena interrupted the staring match by saying, "She's actually both. She's her own familiar."
Serena placed a bowl of warm milk in front of Luna. She scratched behind the cat's ears and Luna purred in contentment.
Leaving Raye still staring at Luna, Serena shrugged and turned back to preparing breakfast. She was in no way ashamed of her family. So what if one of her crazy spinster aunts had decided that instead of being known as the crazy cat lady, she would become a cat? Serena was sure every family had an eccentric relative or two, she just happened to be related to a lot of people who weren't always in their right minds.
Serena was beaming a beatific smile at Raye not a few minutes later, a plate of steaming oatmeal in hand. "Here you go, Raye," she said as she deposited the plate in front of Raye.
When the blonde sat opposite of Raye, the psychic eyed her plate as if any moment now, it would attack her. "I'm not gonna die if I eat this, right?" she asked skeptically eyeing the first spoonful of oatmeal.
Serena rolled her eyes. Apparently Raye was still stuck on that time she gave everyone food poisoning when she baked cookies for the office. "Just eat your food. We're already gonna be late for work."
Raye stifled a yawn as she settled in for a hard day's work. It was barely nine a.m. and already the outer main office was bustling with the movement of other agents. She'd spent most of the morning moving from her cubicle to Serena's office. From the small office she now shared with Serena, Raye had a perfect view of her old cubicle. She eyed it with something akin to homesickness. It wasn't that she had anything against working with Serena, but having spent most of her career with MID as a lone agent, having a partner was something she had to get adjusted to.
Still suffering from post-vision exhausting, she was feeling less than sociable. She badly wanted to rest her head on her forearms and go to sleep. She brushed the urge aside and went back to looking over some of the preliminary lab results the CSIs from OPD had faxed over. So far, they'd found no prints, hairs or fibers not belonging to the victim.
She sighed in irritation. Their suspect couldn't be that good at covering his tracks. He'd messed up somewhere. After all, he'd murdered his five victims in their own homes. He had to have left prints somewhere around one of the homes.
From her vision, she knew there was a good chance that the crime had taken place in the kitchen. But they'd found only found a scant amount of blood there. Most traces of blood had been in the living room. And he couldn't have worn gloves all the time he was in the house. She'd have the CSIs go over the kitchen, living room and front door again. They couldn't be anything other than thorough in this investigation, not with the way the media was already reporting on the case.
Raye sighed in irritation. She needed that autopsy done now. It'd be the key to finding out whether or not this had been a crime committed by a magical being. You could never be too careful these days.
From experience, she knew magic and science didn't get along. Science being an art that depended on things happening in a predictable way always clashed with the volatility that was magic. And magic tended to be a double edged sword when it came to solving murders. If they were lucky, catching the bad guy could take as little as a week. Shapeshifters and other magical beings usually left a distinctively identifiable magical signature in their wake. All one had to do was follow the traces of magic left behind to find the bad guy. But in most instances, the trail rarely lasted long. Raye knew they were running out of time.
Raye picked up her office phone and dialed the coroner's office. She didn't care if she'd have to intimidate the medical examiner into compliancy; all she knew was that she'd be seeing the body today.
Serena entered her small office with two cups of coffee in her hands and the highly prized folder of background information on their victim Amy had managed to put together for her under one armpit. She deposited one cup on Raye's spotless desk and took a seat at her own rather messier one.
"Setsuna wants us in her office at ten thirty," Serena told the other psychic.
Raye grunted in response. It was the only indication that she'd heard Serena. She was too absorbed in the files before her to say anything else. Serena began to skim through their victim—Bianca Lowood's profile. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about her. She was an orphan, a recent college graduate working at her first job at a publishing firm. There was nothing there hinting at why someone would want her killed in such a brutally gruesome way.
Serena was very curious by nature and always liked a good mystery. It made her itch to interview their victim's friends and extended family. There had to be something she was missing. People murdered people they knew and then they got caught. That's what made solving murders easy: people don't just go around killing people they didn't know. Even serial killers followed patterns when picking their prey. If she remembered correctly, their suspect had already killed four other women. And most importantly, this had taken place during the week of a full moon. If that wasn't a clue, she wasn't sure what would classify as one.
"I'm thinking our suspect's of the shapeshifter variety," She thought aloud, not even bothering to lift her head. Raye would understand.
Raye raised her head from the files she'd been perusing. "So am I." Her brows furrowed in contemplation. She scratched her chin contemplatively with her pen. "I'm thinking a carnivore."
"Now how many shapeshifters do you know that like to hunt during the full moon?"
Raye smirked in comprehension. "It has to be a lycanthrope."
"Yup."
'Well,' Serena thought, 'that was too easy.' All they had to do now was make sure Bianca Lowood had been murdered during the full moon. And that narrowed their pool of suspects. A little at least. She'd feel more than a little betrayed if the evidence said otherwise. But the part of her trained never to take anything at face value knew that this case was more complicated.
The true nature of one Agent Hades was something that was highly debated among MID agents. The woman gave off enough psychic energy to make just about everyone around her uncomfortable. Jared Knight —when he wasn't helping out OPD with cold cases and other such anomalies—found her presence to be something he couldn't ignore.
He briefly contemplated the fact that she might be Fae, but brushed the thought off. He knew enough about the creatures from the Other Realm to know that they didn't give a damn about humanity and only took interest when it suited them. Jared, who was presently in the company of said Agent, knew that Setsuna Matthews didn't fit the profile, though he was certain she was something other than human.
'Maybe she's a demon,' he mused laconically. With the way she was making him feel like a caged animal, she had to be something powerful. He might be feeling trapped, but it certainly didn't show. He found himself raising an eyebrow in lazy enquiry as the woman continued to hold his gaze from across her imposing desk.
Matthews was giving him her best blank-slate look, unreadable as ever, as she informed him of the fact that she wanted him working with her agents on catching this serial killer.
"I hope this isn't an inconvenience?" she was saying.
His face was an impassive mask as he answered, "Not at all. I'm happy to be of any help."
Her lips twitched at that, as if she knew something that he didn't. "Glad to hear it."
It almost frustrated him that she wasn't giving him anything to work with. Jared wasn't one to be intimidated by a stoic face. He made it his business to know exactly what everyone around him was feeling and possibly thinking at all times. He wasn't getting anything off her. He almost wanted to break his own rule and invade in her mind.
Raye didn't know what she'd been expecting to find in her boss's office, but she was sure Jared Knight hadn't made the list.
Setsuna waved them in and Serena closed the door behind her, effectively blocking Raye's exit. "Raye, Serena, I'm sure you've already met Detective Knight."
"Oh," Raye responded cleverly. Jared was wearing a black suit this time. 'He looks better in blue,' she thought absentmindedly, unconsciously eyeing him, remembering the last time she had seen him. Raye wasn't sure why she was noticing these things, and it unnerved her. She gave him her best 'I don't like you' stare before turning her attention to her boss.
"He's here with relevant information regarding your case." Setsuna, of course neglected to mention it was information she already knew, and therefore there was no reason for Knight to be present. He'd already volunteered all the help and information that Setsuna was sure her agents needed in order to solve the case. She just liked to see how her agents worked under pressure. And she had a feeling Raye didn't like the detective very much.
"We can do this here or in your office." Jared turned his gaze toward Raye as he came closer to the pair. Raye forgot everything except the ability of those blue eyes to freeze her in place.
"I think our office would be better." Serena was saying, "We have a whiteboard with dry erasers. Do you like blue non-permanent markers?"
His eyes; Raye felt as if they were burning into her.
One side of Jared's mouth twitched as he repressed a smile. "Your dry erase board might come in handy."
"C'mon then," Serena motioned toward the door, "Our office's this way."
Raye refused to flinch when he brushed past her, but she still felt the tingle of his almost touch. She turned to leave Setsuna's office, but the older woman stopped her.
Before her boss could speak, Raye started, "Lowood wasn't killed by a human. It's not his jurisdiction. Why is he here?"
Setsuna regarded her calmly, but coolly stated, "I would think you'd want as much information as possible in solving your case, no matter its source."
"What we don't need is outsiders telling us how to do our jobs." Raye replied just as calmly, ice lacing every word.
"Does it really matter whether he's MID or not?"
Raye wanted to shout at her, wanted her to understand that it did matter whether or not some two-bit detective from OPD was telling her what to do, but refrained from doing so. Her simmering silence was an answer within itself.
"Don't let your personal vendettas get in the way of doing your job."
Raye couldn't hide her flinch at the reprimand. "Don't worry about it."
"I'm not." Setsuna answered just as calmly as before, her tone was warning enough: Raye had better not give her a reason to worry. "Consider this a friendly reminder. You're good at what you do. He's good at what he does. You don't need to be his friend in order to extract necessary information from him."
"He's nothing I can't deal with." Raye was known in their unit for keeping her cool under any situation. So what if Jared Knight got under her skin a little and made her have visions that weren't quite premonitions at all? It wasn't anything she couldn't handle.
"Glad to hear it." Setsuna gave her a small enigmatic smile. Raye had the feeling that Setsuna was toying with her.
"You're psychic." Serena stated the minute Detective Knight closed the door of her office.
"Is that so?" He replied, nonchalant as ever.
Serena knew his type and wasn't impressed. What did interest her was the tension between the blond detective and her new partner. Raye never let anyone get her that riled up. "Raye knows this too, but she's being especially dense at the moment."
Setting his briefcase on Serena's desk, Jared's lips quirked a half-smile, "I've noticed."
"So," Serena leaned in conspiratorially, "What are you?"
"Psychic."
She waved her hand impatiently as he started pulling folders from the briefcase. "I know that, but what's your Talent?"
Jared hesitated before responding. One way or another, she'd find out. Jared had the choice of either telling her now and getting it over with or waiting a couple of days while she ambushed him with more ridiculous questions. He could already see the gears in her head turning, formulating plots he didn't want to be involved in. "Telepathy."
'Damn,' Serena thought. 'No wonder he'd wanted to interview the witnesses.' And here she'd thought it was something normal like telekinesis or something. "You work upstairs?"
He raised an eyebrow, a very well defined eyebrow she had to say. "Who says I'm MID?"
That gave Serena pause. She's been so sure he was MID; he'd have to be. Her division didn't just let telepaths walk around without tagging them. And he appeared to be relatively sane. There weren't a lot of sane telepaths running around, or maybe he was screwing with her. She narrowed her eyes at the thought. 'Don't mess with me,' she thought with enough vehemence she was sure he'd pick up on it. Out loud she asked, "So you're not?"
"Not what?" Raye asked upon entering their office. She made her way to her desk and leaned against it.
"Going through the hell of being your partner?" Serena answered cheekily. Being Mina's partner for six years had taught her a thing or two when it came to annoying Raye.
Raye shot Serena a nasty look and turned her narrowed eyes on Jared, who seemed unaffected by the intensity of her gaze as usual. His blue eyes were taunting her, daring her to say something to put him in his place, and that only served to increase her aversion of him. You are as cool as ice, she reminded herself. He is nothing but an insignificant pest to be ignored. The sooner they got through this, the sooner she'd be rid of him. Raye reached behind her for paper and pen. "Your information?"
Jared cleared his throat, eyes in turn hardening. "I was assigned these cases around the same time the fourth victim was murdered. This has been happening for months. Each murder takes place during the full moon. Since it takes twenty-eight days for each new moon cycle, that's the schedule our perp goes by. He picks them up during a new moon and by the full moon, they're dead. As you can see, this has lycanthropy written all over it. We're thinking it's either a local or foreign loup-garou. One that's familiar with the area. These young women were locals. Our suspect's MO from what I've gathered so far is blonde, blue eyed young women in their mid-twenties. All living alone." He paused. "Any questions?"
"What about the cat?" Serena couldn't help but ask. It was a question that had been nagging her ever since she'd seen the photographs at the crime scene.
Jared's face lost its seriousness for a moment and his mouth quirked into a half smile before it returned to its neutral, inexpressiveness, "It appears that all of our victims were cat owners and currently, their pets are listed as missing. No animal shelter has reported finding strays anywhere near where the vicinity of our crime scene or the surrounding neighborhoods. So far, no one has come forward claiming they've found a cat matching the victims' pets."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Serena couldn't help but exclaim. Their suspect sure as hell was making his MO apparent. Either he really hated cat owners (if it really was a loup-garou doing this, Serena could understand the aversion to cats) or he just liked killing the same woman over and over again. Serena knew that people didn't just wake up one day and decide to go on killing sprees. Once they determined their suspect's motive it would make catching him a hell of a lot easier.
After clearing his throat Jared asked, "Anything else?"
"Why did it take so long for OPD to come to MID?"
Jared's left eye twitched in irritation. He'd been expecting this to pop up. He could mention the fact that it had been Hino's boss who had called his office and directed him to the latest crime scene, but refrained from doing so. This wasn't the time to get into a pissing contest with her, as much as the raven haired psychic's dislike of him amused him. "It didn't occur to the department that these were serial killings until this last murder: same MO as the others."
Raye resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She knew there was a reason why she never did like the local police. They hadn't a clue as to how to solve a murder. She wondered why such departments even still existed. "What about our suspect?"
"From the information we've been able to piece from the victims' families and neighbors, we know our suspect's a male between his mid-twenties and early thirties."
"Anyone ever get a look at him?"
"Only one witness, though it wasn't a very good one. She's the second victim's neighbor."
"What's her contact information?"
"Currently, she's out of state."
"Why are you so sure this was done by a loup-garou?" Serena asked. Even though she and Raye had reached the same conclusion, having someone else explain why always reaffirmed her convictions. It would silence the part of her that thought moon cycles had nothing to do with the killings.
Jared shrugged in response. "It's pretty obvious, don't you think?" He shrugged again. "There's always the possibility that our suspect's imitating a lycanthropy kill. And there's some of the Fae who could do it. For all we know, a Daemon could have done it."
"It could be some other kind of shapeshifter." Raye added, if only to spite him.
"True, there are many shapeshifters who kill their prey by eviscerating them, but I don't know many other were-creatures who follow this pattern for hunting prey."
"All right, so our suspect might be a loup-garou." Serena conceded, stopping a minor glaring contest in the works. She knew how stubborn Raye could be when she set her mind to something.
"I'm currently going over the medical reports and autopsies. We have to be sure that these killings were done by a lycanthrope or there won't be any cooperation from the loup-garou Council's end in this investigation."
"Cooperation?" Serena frowned at him slightly, her pen tapping against her cheek. It wasn't unheard of for a loup-garou pack leader to cooperate with MID. She just wasn't sure how that fit into their case. "Don't the people upstairs handle that?"
Jared hesitated only a moment before saying, "We haven't been able to get in contact with the local packs or their Council. I'm betting the only way we can catch this guy is with their help. The local packs monitor the newly turned loups-garous for three full moon cycles before they're allowed to Change alone. It's a precaution. Our suspect's either a newly bitten lycanthrope or a rogue. Either way, getting the Council's cooperation is essential to our success in catching this guy."
"All right then," Raye stated, "Serena and I'll look over the previous victims' autopsies and pay their families a visit."
"All right." Going to his briefcase once again, Jared pulled out more folders and made a pile on Serena's desk. "Here's a copy of the previous victims' autopsy reports and everything else we've been able to gather."
Raye grudgingly had to admit that Setsuna was right; Detective Knight did know what he was doing.
"Thanks." Serena mumbled, flipping through the folders. There were so many colored tabs sticking out from the folders, it was starting to scare her. And here she'd thought Amy was anal about organization. Jared Knight took it to a whole other level. Maybe it was symptomatic of the job. But then again, she'd been on the job for more than five years and she still hadn't developed the sudden compulsion to organize everything in her path. "We'll be in contact with you if we need anything else."
Jared took that as his cue to leave. Hoping futilely that the blonde hadn't noticed that he'd let slip that he worked "upstairs." And maybe he'd get lucky and win the lottery. "Yes, of course." He packed up the rest of his folders and stuck them in his briefcase. Smiling, Serena waved him out of their small office.
They were silent for a moment as Serena restacked the pile of folders in a semblance of their previous orderliness. Serena stood up to stretch, "I'm thinking we should look at what local packs are near our victims' homes so we could at least narrow down how many packs we'll have to call."
"I'll go talk to Amy. She's likely to be more helpful in the narrowing down part," Raye started, getting up from her desk, still holding the pad of notes she'd taken from Jared's briefing. "And the more info we have on our vics, the better."
"Right. I need to call Sapphire. He owes me a favor." [1]
"See you in thirty minutes. We have a meeting with the M.E."
Sapphire liked to think he lived a rather uncomplicated life. This dream of normalcy was impeded the minute Serena Fairchild had come crashing into his life. He should have known the moment he'd first bumped into her that she'd be trouble. He was really starting to regret giving her his office phone number.
Sitting behind his desk with a phone glued to one ear, he listened to her demands and half-threats, trying not to groan in agony. There went his lunch break. He knew he shouldn't have picked up when his secretary had informed him of the fact that Serena was on the other line. Serena calling was never good news. He had to start remembering that.
"You're sure this was done by a loup-garou?" He asked once again, just to make sure. They'd been arguing in a circular fashion. The promise she'd likely extract from him by the end of the phone call was on the tip of his tongue and Sapphire was doing his damnedest to evade it. It was a pointless exercise in futility and they both knew it. Life would be so much simpler if he could just give in and do as she asked. But there were consequences to taking the easy way out. Consequences that came in the form of Endymion's anger. There was no way he'd call his alpha if there wasn't any evidence (circumstantial or not) that suggested this was a case dealing with lycanthropy.
"Yes," Serena hissed in exasperation. Hadn't she gone over this like a thousand times in the past fifteen minutes?
"I'll see what I can do," he stated warily. "I'm not promising you anything."
"Just get me a meeting with him," she replied pleadingly. It was easy to see that she'd won their argument that wasn't really an argument: Sapphire never could say no to her. And she wasn't just saying that because he always gave her what she wanted. Really.
Sapphire wanted to point out that his pack leader didn't take demands well, but refrained from doing so. He knew Serena was likely to ignore it. She'd probably end up bothering him for the next couple of days until he did come up with the results that she wanted.
"I'll try." That said he hung up.
Rubbing his temples, Sapphire closed his weary, navy blue eyes. He momentarily considered moving to another continent. Maybe Serena wouldn't be able to track him down and pester him to death. But that hadn't worked for Diamond so it sure as hell wouldn't for him and Sapphire wasn't about to go to the extreme his brother had gone to in order to escape both Serena and MID's grasp. He liked being two-footed.
Sapphire was the kind of guy who took his responsibilities seriously. As Endymion's second-in-command and Council member, his pack and his kind always came first. He knew it was MID procedure to contact at least one of the local packs when a rogue loup-garou was loose in the city, if only to avoid conflict from occurring between the Division and the local supernatural beings. Though he was sure the supernatural community felt no need to reciprocate. He could still remember the bloodbath from years ago— before laws like these were instated— when MID agents had taken out an entire tribe of were-tigers and the uproar it had caused. Shuddering, Sapphire hoped something like that never happened again.
MID had a whole department dedicated to keeping the supernatural communities informed on killings they deemed "important," and usually one of those agents would contact his office. He frowned in thought, the actually agents working the cases usually never had any contact with him, and the information needed was usually faxed or given through a phone call. If Serena was considering asking the Council for help, that only meant one thing: her suspect was a danger to both the human and supernatural communities. The person he knew Council was most likely to dispatch to take care of the problem was Endymion.
Sapphire truly did loathe the idea of calling Endymion especially when he knew his pack leader had made it excruciatingly clear that he did not wish to be interrupted at all today. He'd have to make this short and to the point. Sighing in resignation, he picked up the receiver and dialed.
The inside of Raye's car smelled of jasmine and Casablanca lilies. Serena, seated in the passenger side of Raye's red Acura, flipped through the autopsies of the former victims whose families she and Raye would be re-interviewing that afternoon. She hadn't been able to dissuade her partner from the morgue visit. It wasn't as if the body would disappear on them. Witnesses and victims' families on the other hand, they could disappear in a heartbeat.
Most frustrating of all, she was sure there was still something they were missing in all of this —something detrimental to the entire investigation. One of the obvious things that had struck her as "odd," was the fact that the crime scenes were too clean. One didn't do that much carnage without there actually being bloody footprints. Either their suspect liked to clean up after himself or he wasn't a loup-garou as they were assuming. It made her think that their killer wasn't as crazy as they were assuming he was either. Maybe he wasn't crazy at all.
All of the victims had the same type of cat, a white Maine Coon with light green eyes who seemed to go missing after the murders. Serena was really starting to contemplate the possibility that the killer had murdered the cats. He must have given it to the victims, she told herself. That would explain why they all had the same type of cat. Serena knew there was a point where coincidences couldn't be taken as such. When it came to murders (especially of the serial kind), there was no such thing as coincidences. She made a note to look into Maine Coon breeders in the area. Serena was pretty sure that loups-garous held a general aversion for felines. Andrew always seemed to avoid her when she smelled like Luna. The question then was why would the killer go through all that trouble of gifting his victims with the same cat?
Serial killers took pride in staying one step ahead of the authorities. But this one was an enigma. The cases —when seen alone— seemed like a typical human-gets-mauled-by-werewolf-and-doesn't-survive, yet their suspect was going after a specific type of prey: young women who were all blonde and blue eyed. What worried Serena the most was the fact that he had Changed. Loups-garous were as scary-strong in human form as they were deadly when they turned furry. Their killer could have killed his victims in human form. What Serena couldn't seem to wrap her mind around was why they'd all been killed in wolf form; it didn't make one bit of sense.
"This guy, he doesn't operate like a serial killer. Yes, there is a specific type of women he goes after, but since most serial killers collect mementoes from their kills —well, he hasn't done that. The victims' houses are always spotless. Nothing ever seems out of place except for the crime itself. It just seems like he's killing these women after going out with them."
Raye snorted. "Our guy's keeping his crime scenes simple for one reason only: the fancier the scheme, the more likely it is to fall apart."
"That may be true, but there's still something fishy about the whole thing. It doesn't make sense."
"When have serial killers ever made sense?"
Serena didn't answer and the rest of the ride to the morgue was filled with a comfortable silence. Serena turned back to her files looking for anything unusual. She'd be looking over the notes she'd collected later at home.
The M.E. who led them to the morgue looked haggard and harassed by the time Serena and Raye were in scrubs. The regular pathologist who occasionally dealt with MID agents was currently on vacation. And Raye wasn't making it easy for his substitute. "Did you check for foreign hairs on the victim like I asked?"
"Yes." He replied dragging a cart with the tools they would need next to the examining table. "Everything of interest that I found has been sent to the labs to be analyzed. You should get a report soon enough."
"What's the COD?" Poor fellow, by the time this was over, Raye was going to destroy him.
Bianca Lowood's body, after being uncovered for their viewing pleasure, looked exactly as it had the last time the two agents had seen it. Laid out on a metal slab with only a thin, white sheet hiding most of the carnage done to her body, Serena had a sudden urge to cover the corpse. It looked too much like a broken rag doll. There was something she should be noticing, something she hadn't the night before. The nagging feeling that was her psychic intuition wouldn't let it be. It wasn't just the magic in her rebelling at how familiar and yet unusual this all seemed to be, it was the cop too. The smell of antiseptics and dead flesh that tickled her nostrils wasn't helping either. There had always been something about morgues that made Serena decidedly uneasy.
They snapped on latex gloves as the medical examiner started listing off everything he could find about their corpse on the table. Most of it they had already noted at the crime scene. The damage was extremely obvious.
Serena's mind wandered off in a matter of minutes. Some distant part of her knew that Raye was taking meticulous notes, but the other more focused part of her was re-examining the body and seeing the damage their killer had wrought under the fluorescent light of day. It seemed more real this way. He'd eviscerated her, gorged out her abdominal cavity, ripped out intestines. Lowood's chest was ripped to shreds, her throat had been crushed, small bone fragment were protruding from torn tissue. It still wasn't a pretty sight, even with the M.E.'s clean up of the cadaver.
It wasn't long before the M.E. was done reciting the list of damages done to Lowood's body. Finished, he handed Serena two post-mortem reports (probably because she looked to be the friendlier of the two agents), stating he'd fax another if need be.
Raye wanted to look the body over again and Serena consented with a shrug. She'd gotten over the fact that they were wasting time when they could be interviewing key witnesses. And there was something wrong with the corpse. She tapped her highlighter against the cool steel of the examining table as she began scanning the copy of the autopsy report. The M.E.'s report stated that Lowood's eyes were dilated and there weren't any defensive wounds on either the victim's arms or legs. That immediately struck her as odd. Serena added it to the growing list of things that made this case frustratingly confusing. She was sure that sane people liked to defend themselves when being chased by big, bad, furry wolves with sharp claws that were likely to tear one to pieces.
"Raye look at her eyes."
Raye snapped out of her daze, cocking her head to the side. "Why?"
"Her pupils Raye," Serena stood up, placed the reports where she'd been sitting and moved closer to the body, "Look at them."
Raye arched an eyebrow questioningly. It wasn't as if she didn't know how the other psychic worked when she was on to something. All she had to do was wait for it; Serena would be making sense soon enough.
"The autopsy states that her pupils are dilated." She grabbed an ophthalmoscope[2] from the cart and pulled one of the eyelids back, clicking on the light source. The black of Lowood's pupil was still expanded, swallowing the blue of her irises. The ophthalmoscope fell from her numbed fingers, crashing into the metal slab of the examining table.
Serena leaned in closer. Against her better judgment and Raye's protest, she took off her gloves and touched the corpse's cheek. The cold chill that slowly crawled up from her fingertips straight down her spine had nothing to do with fear; Lowood had seen Death coming. She'd seen it and still she'd died. Talk about a useless gift. "There aren't any defensive wounds on her."
The dark haired psychic nodded. The M.E. had said as much. "She didn't stand a chance."
'She'd seen it coming,' Serena thought in something akin to frustration. That's why this had felt so familiar. Lowood shared her Talent of seeing into the future. That meant the others were psychic, too. Their pupils were still dilated because they'd been in the process of foretelling their own deaths. And maybe that had been for the best.
She looked to the raven haired psychic with sadden eyes, "They were psychic Raye."
"No way," Raye huffed out a frustrated breath. She shoved a hand through her hair. This guy was preying on psychic women and the state was teeming with them. "This is so fucked up."
'It must have been painless,' Serena thought absentmindedly, her hand still on Lowood's cheek. She unconsciously caressed the cold, smooth flesh. Distantly, she felt her stomach twist in unnerving knots. She'd be throwing up her breakfast soon. 'If you aren't there mentally, you can't feel anything.' And this must have been the worst type of betrayal: to be hunted and killed by the one you loved the most. "We have to stop him," she stated in firm conviction, her hand cupping the dead girl's cheek gently, "He stalked and killed these girls without their knowledge. They loved him, Raye." And that's when her stomach chose to rebel.
Serena was far from recovered. Her stomach still clenched rebelliously every time the image of Lowood's face snuck into her thoughts. They had to get this guy before he found himself another guileless victim. Most importantly, they needed to warn the psychics of the state. Their lives were in danger.
"Raye, this guy's killing psychics." Serena said, half way to their first interview of the day. They were stuck in traffic and all she could do was analyze what was wrong and how to fix it. "We have to warn them."
Raye sighed, momentarily taking her eyes off the road to smile reassuringly at Serena. The other psychic needed it more than she knew. "I know, but Setsuna doesn't want the public to know yet, not until we have some clue as to how to find this guy. And until we get the loup-garou Council's permission, this could end up being a total disaster."
Serena's mind chose to go with the worst case scenario. It reporters got hold of this before MID gave a public statement, this could blow up in their faces and cause wide spread panic. The last thing they needed was for the human population of this state to lose their minds over these killings. The loups-garous would demand that the investigation be suspended and that they take care of the situation. MID would refuse and it'd all go down hill from there. Serena repressed a groan. "God help us when the reporters get this little tidbit. I can already see them swarming in like piranhas[3]."
Raye, who was used to random comments from the blondes of her acquaintance, was only momentarily floored by the comment. "Serena, piranhas don't swarm."
"Yes they do, Amy told me so."
Raye rolled her eyes and refused to comment. If she answered, it'd deteriorate into childish bickering. Serena had that kind of effect on her.
Serena wasn't affronted to say the least. She sobered when the image of Lowood's corpse, as they'd first found it in her bedroom surfaced in her mind: prettily arranged, with arms straightened out on either side of her body, eyes closed, dressed in a white nightgown which had been soaked through with dried blood, body already in an early state of decomposition; the stench of Fear and Death had been as overwhelming as the blood. "Let's be serious here, our suspect's killing the same woman over and over again. Once we find out why, we've got him."
"We both know it's never that simple."
"I know, but it's the only thing we've got right now."
They were still stuck in traffic when Serena's cell phone startled them both. Raye had been complaining about the traffic for what seemed like hours and by then, Serena had found a way to block her out. It was reminiscent of how she used to be able to tune Mina out whenever her partner started to ramble about bizarre things.
When Serena didn't make a move to answer it, Raye told her to. Serena wasn't in the mood to talk. She knew that if it was something important, Setsuna would be calling Raye, not her. She was less than reliable these days. But she answered on the third ring, not even bothering with the caller ID. "Hello?"
"It's me, Sapphire."
"Oh," Serena rubbed at her eyes in hopes that something positive would come from this conversation from Sapphire. They already had enough bad news to feed a small army. She put the phone on speaker so both she and Raye can hear the news. "What did your pack leader say?"
There was a pause as Sapphire tried to see how receptive Serena would be to the news he'd have to relay. After a moment of indecision, he decided to just come out with it. "He's thinking about it."
Serena heaved a frustrated sigh. They didn't have time for some arrogant alpha to make up his mind. "Call him again and tell him how important this is. Someone's going to die if he doesn't agree to help us."
Something in her tone sent prickles of apprehension racing down his spine. "What's wrong?"
Serena rubbed her temple, trying to fight off the oncoming headache. Maybe Sapphire would understand the significance of killing psychics who could see the future because she sure as hell couldn't. "He's killing psychics, Saph."
"Shit." Sapphire, who'd only called to give bad news hadn't been expecting some himself. Killing women was a capital offense that warranted death in the loup-garou community. But psychics, that's something else entirely. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"No, it's true," Raye responded, not liking how much the man on the other line was swearing. She'd only met Sapphire once and to her, first impressions were everything. Sapphire hadn't impressed her much, but he hadn't seemed the type to swear up a storm just because psychics were mentioned. "What's so special about psychics?"
"You mean aside from the fact that they have a higher potential of surviving the Change?"
Shocked, both women stared at each other in befuddlement. "What?"
"It's true. Turning a human is a lot more complicated than you'd think. Just biting the person isn't enough. A Changed loup-garou would have to intend harm, to intend to infect their prey, which by the way, requires a lot more focus than an average wolf can muster. And even if the wolf does succeed, most humans are below average when it comes to surviving the Change. Psychics have a higher rate of survival."
"So our suspect's been "biting" these women in hopes that they'll survive the Change?"
"That's starting to sound like a distinct possibility." There was a pause as he processed her last comment. "Wait a minute, there's more than one victim?"
"So far he's killed five and is probably in the process of picking out his sixth."
"Damn it!" He exclaimed, "Serena, why didn't you tell me this the first time around?"
Serena's brows furrowed as she eyed the phone. "I didn't think it was important. What I needed from you was a meeting with your pack leader or the Council's permission."
"Serena, you may not know this but once a loup-garou starts to kill humans, they tend to go insane."
"So our wolf is crazy?" she asked skeptically. There went that theory.
"There's no doubt about it. Your killer's not only a danger to the humans but to other loups-garous as well. You might be dealing with either a moon-madden werewolf or a Berserker."
Raye let out a strangled breath. She'd hunted a couple of insane werewolves before, but neither she nor Serena had ever encountered a Berserker. How the hell were they supposed to catch this guy if they didn't know a damn thing about what he was? "Sapphire," she said. There was an edge to her voice as she imagined the disaster waiting to happen, "You need to call your pack leader immediately. He can't keep putting off this meeting. We need to deal with this now. We can't afford a sixth victim."
There was a long pause followed by a heavy sigh. "You're right. We need to catch this wolf before he causes anymore damage and you need to know what you're facing. I'll arrange it."
Both agents sighed in relief. That was something, at least.
AN: This chapter is nowhere near as long as the last one, but at least it got the plot movingXD
[1] For those of you know don't recognize him, Sapphire/Saphir is Diamond's younger brother from the Black Moon saga. He was the only sane one in the bunchXD And since I took away Endymion's generals, he really needed a friend that looked almost like him (don't believe me, go check out his pics and compare).
[2] I was having the hardest time figuring out what that thing the doctors use to examine your eyes is called. *grins triumphantly* It took three Beta readers to figure it out, but I finally found the name!
[3]Okay so I didn't know whether or not piranhas swarmed, but I wanted to use the phrase. But apparently, piranhas do swarm and therefore Serena wins this argument.
Last Edited Nov.20, 2009