So am I keeping you entertained? All comments welcome, good and bad.
Weaving through traffic, Stevie soon came to the conclusion, the day was too bright.
A lucid ache played at the back of her worn eyes as the sun glared at her through the windscreen.
Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the steering wheel and her gaze was fixed on the car ahead of her.
Turning off Broadway and onto Lafayette Street, Stevie had a pretty good idea where she was headed as soon as she saw the blue and red flashing lights ahead of her.
Parking outside the China Town Brasserie, Stevie turned off the engine and let out a long sigh.
Stevie got out of her car and locked it with the flash of orange lights. The smell of dumplings and spices wafted in the air around her, a few passers by looked at her as if she was their personal enemy, brushing of their looks, she walked down to the patrol car further down the street.
Stood in a dark grey t-shirt covered with a black bomber jacket and black jeans, Dean was talking with Khoo.
Khoo nodded her head in Stevie direction and Dean span around.
"Nichols" he greeted her with a chin jerk.
"Dressed casual?" Stevie ducked under the tape, zoning off the alley way the body was dumped in.
"It's hot" Dean shrugged and Khoo perked up.
"Same M.O as Mason, but the vic is a woman" Khoo guided Stevie over to the body.
Stevie winced and covered her nose with her hand.
"Urg, how long has she been here?"
"Over night, but what you are smelling is raw fish" Khoo added a matter of factly.
Stevie glanced at the dumpster and grimaced. Nausea set in but Stevie battled against it and knelt by the body to inspect the injuries.
Her eyes ran over the victims spilled innards. The flesh was crusted over with dry blood and her ribs had impaled the remaining skin.
Stevie looked at her face, her eyes were screwed shut and her mouth slack.
"Was she raped?"
Khoo sighed sadly and nodded.
"You know as I'd said I'd have fun with this case... I regret I said it" Khoo sniffed and looked at Stevie, her eyes filled with a sorrow that was alien to the M.E. She spoke for the dead, but today she really just wanted to go home to her cat and vomit.
The woman was Asian, but her skin was slightly lighter in complexion, even after death. She was in full rigor mortis, her body was frozen, like she'd stretched out to look at the sky.
"I.D?" Stevie glanced at Dean and he shook his head.
"So we gotta Jane Doe" Stevie sighed and slipped on a pair of gloves from her pocket.
"Hey, Doc" Stevie grabbed the attention of the M.E as her eyes roamed across the victims neck. There lay a slash so deep that it divided the skin and muscle and cartilage."This killer slit her neck"
"Oh I know, it severed the lumen of the trachea" Khoo's voice was bitter.
Upon further inspection Stevie saw the pearly surface of the cervical spine.
Stevie recoiled, but the wound got her thinking.
"I can practically hear the gears going, what you thinkin'?" said Dean as he shifted from one foot the other.
"This killer is definitely Mason's buddy but slitting her throat? Mason got straight to the chow down once he'd raped them... this guy probably slit her throat, then ate her, but where does the rape come in? This guy probably slit her throat becouse he thought better to kill her before eating"
"Respect?" Dean added and Stevie got to her feet.
"Probably"
"They techs have gotten foot prints from around the body... Doc when do you think you can get the body done?"
"This afternoon probably" Khoo had her hair tied back in a neat bun.
"Great" Dean grinned at her and Stevie stared at the body, transfixed on the pool of congealed blood.
"Nichols?"
"Huh?" Stevie snapped her attention from it's crimson appeal.
"Door to door?"
"I don't really wanna today..." Stevie ran a gloved hand through her hair and looked down at the Jane Doe.
"There's a lotta stuff we don't wanna do Nichols, but today I'm feeling like a bitch, so come on" Dean huffed and ducked under the tape.
Khoo shrugged at Stevie and made a phone motion with her fingers up to her ear.
Stevie smiled faintly at the M.E before ducking under the tape and peeling off the gloves like old skin. The powder stuck to her hands in irritating clumps.
"Oh, I love this place" Dean had already stuffed his gloves into his pocket and beelined to the Brasserie. Stevie wove past the crowd of on lookers, a few old men were grumbling at each other in Mandarin. A teenage girl and her friends looked Stevie up and down as she followed her partner.
"Really?" Stevie smirked as Dean motioned for her to walk inside with him.
"I'll buy you breakfast, come on" Dean's angular face was the definition of excitement. Stevie was soon taken back to Alex, breakfast... she hadn't even had time to eat it. Her stomach ached with the fact.
"Let me guess I should try the dumplings?"
"Oh my God yeah, the are perfection, this place has a tiny café in it too" Dean let her step in first then cut in front of her to greet a waitress.
"Dean!" her voice was squeaky and she carried a wooden tray.
"Hey Su" his accent seemed out of place but charming in this eastern wonderland.
"Table for two"
"We're on the job" Stevie hissed and he scoffed.
"Like that ever stopped us, what about that beer the other day"
"Good point"
"More like good pint, eh, get it, eh, eh" he nudged her and Stevie rolled her eyes.
"Just move it"
Su led them to a small booth, the red leather was worn and the red lantern above them set a tiny glow over their skin.
"So" Dean picked up the menu engraved in a wooden slat, after thanking Su. "Mason's buddy, who do you reckon we should be looking for?"
"Someone who is a twisted fuck" Stevie hummed her words as her eyes roamed the neat etched lettering. The only twisted fuck she could really think of was herself.
"I gathered that much Nichols, I mean we could work off the foot size, hell what if we find DNA on the body? That isn't Jane Doe's I mean"
How can somebody be this God damn chatty in the morning?
Oh wait that's right, Dean.
"Let's not get ahead of ourself, the world isn't that kind"
"What about saliva? We got Mason through that"
"Yeah" Stevie trailed off and she soon decided to have sweet and sour dumplings and some tea, she didn't feel up to much, it was almost like her body hated her for what she'd done.
"We'll ask Mason" said Dean as he set his menu down with a sharp clap against the wood of the table.
Stevie felt her heart skip a beat and the slow poison of disgust seep into her skin as the name rolled off his tongue.
"Yeah, we will"
"You seem out of it" Dean frowned at his partner. Her eyes seemed darker than usual, her movement seemed wounded.
"Oh, do I?" Stevie gulped, her throat had dried.
"Yeah, everything okay at the Fort?"
Stevie smiled at his name for her shitty home.
"Dean, what would you do if someone you suddenly cared about was in danger but you were responsible for telling them?" Stevie hated her vulnerability around this man, he had been her best friend since the beginning.
"I... I dunno" Dean scratched at the stubble around his jaw. Stevie then noticed the dark circles around his eyes. She'd been so caught up in her own problems, she suddenly felt hideous for not picking up on his appearance earlier.
"What's up?"
Dean shook his head and twitched his index and middle finger to beckon Su over to them.
"I'd tell her if I were you" Dean gave his partner a stern look, this look dissolved into a kind smile when Su skipped over, like she'd stolen all the optimism in the world.
"Let me guess, pork dumplings" she grinned at Dean like he was the best man in Manhattan, according to some, he was.
"And for you Cuòguò?"
Stevie ordered the sweet and sour dumplings, along with a pot of tea for the pair of them.
Stevie looked down at her hands then back at Dean.
"I've not exactly told her" Stevie's voice was hushed.
"So this killer is about and Alex doesn't know about it"
"Listen, I feel shit about it, I just want to make it right"
"Then tell her Stevie"
"I don't want her to worry, not again... besides it's highly unlikely this guy will know where I live"
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.
"They can find out very easily Stevie" his eyes grew darker as he continued. "The Bane murders"
His posture soon slumped, like he'd been defeated in an instant. Stevie now saw how haunted Dean was. "The fifth crime scene, the south of town, I was working it with Fletch, my partner at the time, it was old abandoned factory, you know all the machinery, the body was hanging from a meat hook, chewed on like a stick of salami, I was already a little shaken up from the previous bodies, so this one just made me wanna barf... the suspect we'd been chasing was hiding out, waiting for us"
Stevie suddenly felt cold, like her skin had been ripped open and caressed with ice.
"He leapt out, knocked me and Fletch out, when I woke up, he was havin' a happy chow down on Fletch" Dean gulped thickly "that bastard killed one of my best friends, I tried to run, but he spotted me, gnawed on my leg, good fuckin' thing I still had my gun, I blew his head in"
As Dean finished the food arrived, with the clank of plates the conversation hushed.
"Later that week" Dean began to stuff food into his mouth as if he wanted shut him self up. "One of his Brothers came to my house, trashed the place and waited until I came home, when I did..."
Dean looked up at Stevie with hard eyes.
"They can find you" he sighed and continued to eat. Stevie picked at her food and resorted to drinking the tea.
"I'll tell her"
"Good" Dean mumbled through a mouthful of dumpling and gave her a wounded smile.
The bath of heat that boiled the streets of New York didn't faze Alex too much.
Her skin was clammy and her body seemed almost dead while she walked down to the subway.
This mortal approach to life hindered her. Alex knew how to function in mortal society, sure she did, the only thing she couldn't stand was the inhabitants of the city. Men walking with briefcases, black suits and smart hair looked down at her with corporate eyes.
Women in day dresses and lugging shopping bags seemed all the same to her.
Alex took a sharp turn and jogged down the steps of the subway, the shade in which the underground system thrived was a blessing to her skin.
Cutting though the faceless crowd, Alex searched for the train that would take her back to her side of town.
Alex soon found the platform and leant against the tile wall, watching the hordes the either late or impatient people barge past.
Her gaze was averted from their rude mannerisms to a pair of dark brown eyes stood on the opposite platform.
Alex felt uncomfortable under their hooded glare. She gulped, feeling more than exposed. The stranger took out a cigarette from their back pocket and pinched it in between their lips. Striking a match, they light the cigarette and wafted the small match in the air so the tiny flame extinguished. The match dropped to the concrete and let out a string of grey smoke from it's smouldering nib.
Taking a long drag then blowing out the smoke, they gave a simple nod in Alex's direction and the train came trundling down the track.
Alex tried to spot them through the passing windows and sitting people, but her body remained frozen in fear of their simple gesture.
That nod had taken such little effort, but meant so much.
It was as if to say, I'll be back.
Alex gulped thickly and boarded the train with shaky limbs.
Groggy and nauseated from the various amounts of tea she'd consumed Stevie stood at the foot on the metal gurney in the morgue.
The circulating chill healed the sure sun burn on her bare arms.
Dean stood next to her, his face looking ghostly in the UV glow.
"So is it a different killer? Are they linked? Are they..."
"Let me do my job Dean" Khoo snapped, rubbing her temple. The heat of the afternoon was surely going to kill them if they went back out there.
Khoo's nose twitched, this tiny habit always appeared when she was about to perform an autopsy.
The M.E pulled on the blue paper mask along with a blue apron.
"This may get a tad messy" Khoo's voice was muffled, but the two Detectives stepped back from the gurney and Khoo began. Her assistant Porter had already taken photo's of the body and was pinning them up in the background.
Khoo wielded her scalpel with grace that Stevie could barley muster with a wand.
Dean turned his back to the scene and let out a long breath.
"Sink if you're going to vomit Dean" Khoo looked up briefly at him. He held up his hand in signal that he'd be fine.
Stevie stood, biting on the loose skin of her lip while watching as Khoo removed the remaining organs from the corpse.
"Whoever they were, they must be full" Stevie grimaced as she noticed there was no heart just lungs, the stomach was also missing, leaving a gaping pink and dark red abyss.
"Not necessarily" Dean huffed and stuffed his hands into his jacket pocket. "Dependant on their breed Werewolves need to eat constantly to sustain their life force, those tend to be mutts, pure breeds only need to feed every full moon"
"Someone's being doing their research" Khoo mumbled, Dean scoffed.
"You could say that"
"I just did" Khoo pointed out a matter of factly and winced as the lungs landed on a separate metal tray with a bloody, wet slap.
"Now I'll probably have to call up some of my contacts to recreate the layer of skin that's been eaten" Khoo motioned around the fleshy hole with ease. "What did you do to be killed?" Khoo whispered and Dean span back around.
"She probably didn't do anything!" his voice echoed in a harsh snap around the tiled room.
"Easy!" Stevie warned and Khoo hummed pondering on his aggression.
"So you think see was just random?" Khoo pulled the mask down and glared at him.
"Werewolves don't think, they just do whatever they fuckin' want" Dean pulled at his hair.
"Mason killed Hank becouse he'd slept with..." Stevie frowned, she'd completely over looked the fact. "Slept with Alex" she soon loathed the victim.
Dean huffed.
"So you are thinking she has a connection with Alex Russo as well?"
"I dunno, she is a Jane Doe... I'll show Alex her picture" Stevie felt her stomach churn.
"That'd be for the best" Dean's voice was croaky.
"Evidence have released her phone and wand right?" Stevie was already at the door.
"Yeah" Khoo and Dean spoke in unison.
"I'll get them for her, she's been a little stare crazy without them" Stevie then pushed the large glass doors open and walked down the glass corridor to the elevator.