Homgz! I love you all! The amount of reviews I have already gotten makes me want to jump up and down and let out girlish squeals, which is not normal. Definitely not normal. Anyways, I just want to thank ArmoredSoul. She is the absolute best. A while ago she sent me this extract that she wrote and it has seriously given me the possibility to end Crimson Sin with a huge bang! Well, at least I hope I can. So, thanks Bryonne for inspiring me and all. I altered it a bit to fit down the passage I want the story to take, so yeah. Now I'll get on with the chapter. Yipee! My creative pool has been replenished and all my blocks are gone!

Disclaimer: I don't own Full Metal Alchemist. I'm really getting tired of saying that.

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Crimson Sin

Chapter Twenty-Three – Moonlight

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"So I take it that our little half-blood has discovered the location of the stone?" a female voice murmured. The owner of the voice itself was hidden within the shadows of the chamber, lounged on the velvet fabric of a couch. Her violet hair cascaded down her pale exposed shoulders and her deep crimson eyes glittered like rubies.

"Yes," Raith replied as he swirled the red liquid in his wine glass round, a smirk playing upon his pale lips.

"Good," the female purred as she got up from her couch, heels clicking against the hardwood floor. She moved towards the white-haired vampire, pressing her slim frame against his muscular one. "Though, I feel bad for deluding the poor dear," she murmured as she let her foot rub against Raith's calf.

"Guilt doesn't suit you m'dear," he murmured, letting his arm wrap around her waist, fingers playing with the fabric of her sleeveless silk top. She smiled, her long black-painted nails running along his cheek.

"No, I suppose it doesn't." She laughed and pushed herself away from Raith, moving towards one of the windows, hips swaying slightly. Of course the long red curtains were drawn, the thick plush material blocking out the sun's harsh glare.

"Lilith…" Raith murmured, not making any sort of move to follow her.

"What, Raith? Getting cold feet?" she asked, moving back towards him. She then took the glass he held and took a sip. She smirked. "Mmm. Where in the world did you find such divine blood?" She licked her red lips, carefully of course as to not smear her lipstick.

"Guess." Lilith cocked an eyebrow at this. Raith was never playful. The vampire was the biggest grouch in the world.

"Oh? So now we're playing a guessing game?" Her lips curled into a thoughtful smile. "Was it that waiter down at the café? He sure did smell delicious." Raith shook his head, his smirk growing. "No? Well, then. It seems that this little game will prove far more difficult than I had first anticipated." She let her index finger trace circles on the other vampire's chest. "But you know how much I like games," she breathed into his ear. "But I think I know the answer. Was it Chibi-Chan's pet?"

"How did you know?" Raith asked, his smirk fading away, replaced with a look of surprise. He knew Lilith was very good at these sorts of games, but he had never thought that she'd find the answer so quickly.

"Oh. A man so fine must have this sort of delicious blood." She grinned, her white teeth completely clean of any blood. "He tastes like vanilla mixed with fire." She handed the glass back to Raith. "But tell me, how did you manage to get his blood without attracting Edward's attention?"

"Oh. Both of them sleep like rocks, so it didn't take much effort on my part." Lilith let out an airy laugh and pushed herself away from him, deciding to take a turn around the room.

"I wonder if Edward will notice," she mused, talking more to herself than Raith as she gazed up at the ceiling. "However." She turned her head to the side a bit. "We must make sure things go according to plan." Raith nodded in understanding.

"Yes."

--

"What do you mean the train doesn't run to Oxiir?" a very ticked off blonde alchemist screeched, causing the poor soul who was on the receiving end to recoil slightly. Roy stood next to the irate boy, massaging his temples, feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Edward…" he pleaded, wishing that perhaps the younger male would quiet down. The Colonel could already feel the beginning of a headache beginning to form and he felt extremely tired and irritable for some reason. He'd had a good night's sleep save for the brief period of time that he had been awake in the early hours of the morning, but he felt like he hadn't rested in days. Not to mention that his neck felt rather sore. He slowly reached up and rubbed the side of it.

"I'm sorry, but the train stopped going there a while back," the ticket man said, his voice surprisingly steady as he was an easily intimidated man. This did not ease Edward's temper, instead it made the boy grow even angrier.

"Edward, stop," Roy said before the blonde could spout off some more. Of course this silenced Ed, leaving him to fume silently. The Colonel let out a tired sigh and directed his attention to the ticket man, who was relieved that Edward was no longer directing his anger at him. "Is there any other way to get there?" Roy asked. The ticket man thought for a moment before nodding.

"Y-Yes. You can ride there on horseback and I suppose you can bike some of the way there until the road becomes a bit bumpy." He paused for a moment. "It's very old," he added as an afterthought. Another pause. "Well, there's always the walking option, but I'm sure that horseback would be the best. There's a stable on the other side of town. I'm positive you can get one from there."

"Thank you," Roy replied calmly before turning to Edward. "Let's go." He then walked off, stumbling every now and then as if he were in a daze. The blonde gazed at him worriedly for a moment and ran off after him. The puzzled ticket man just went back to his daily duties of selling train tickets, completely forgetting about his encounter with Edward and Roy.

--

"You're kidding me right?" Edward said when he looked at the beige and white pony that had been presented to him by John Truman, the owner of the stables. Said pony looked absolutely pathetic in Ed's opinion. Hell. He was taller than the stupid thing. Maybe he'd be better off walking.

"Don't be rude," Roy said, elbowing the blonde tiredly in the side. Edward let out a small 'Hmph' in response.

Okay. Roy had to admit that the pony was small, but according to John it was one of the fastest ones in the barn and the only one that could possibly fit Edward's unusual size. The stable owner had been smart enough to not mention small. Apparently he had a son who was just as sensitive as Ed about his height. The only difference was that his son was extremely tall, not short. Edward would like being freakishly tall better than being this short.

"Fine," Edward grumbled in defeat as he reluctantly took the pony's reins. Roy on the other hand, had been presented with a strong white stallion that made Edward's pony seem even smaller.

The two of them paid John and mounted their horses, or in Ed's case, pony. Then they set off in the direction towards Oxiir. It would take them at least till nightfall if they made good time to arrive at the cursed church.

Everything went smoothly for the most part. Edward and Roy talked, though the Colonel listened mostly as he was still quite tired. This didn't bother the blonde much. The short occasional responses were enough for him. But when the sun was beginning to dip down slightly, the blonde began to feel an unpleasant gnawing in the pit of his stomach. His mouth was also slightly sore and his back as well. He was also itching terribly and had to drop his reins numerous times to scratch his itches.

Another hour passed after the symptoms had started and they were only becoming worse. There were now bright angry red lines all over Ed's skin from his excessive scratching. In turn he was only becoming more irritable with each passing second. Roy sensed this and tried his best to soothe the poor boy. Of course neither of them knew what was causing these discomforts.

Suddenly when the sun began to set, Edward's horse bucked right when the boy was clawing at himself once more. Caught completely off guard, the blonde flew off, landing in a heap on the hard gravel path, the small stones digging into his skin, creating more red marks. The clearly frightened pony dashed off back towards the stables at full speed.

Roy was about to get off his own horse to help Ed when he too was thrown off. The spooked horse galloped after the pony, following its example. While Edward was unharmed thanks to his supernatural abilities, Roy had gotten the wind knocked out of his lungs.

The Colonel wheezed as he tried to get his lungs to fill up with air again, still in a heap on the ground. A rather large rock prodded him in the back and made trying to get up painful. His limbs were shaking from the sudden impact and refused to cooperate. Edward's eyes widened considerably when he saw Roy gasping like a fish out of water.

"Roy!" he cried out as he rushed to the other male's side. Panic had taken over and Edward didn't register that Roy would be fine in a few minutes. The blonde's head was spinning as he tried to think of what to do. Then it hit him. CPR! He'd do CPR! That would work right? Right.

Edward of course took a deep breath and was about to lean down to blow it into Roy's lungs when the Colonel sat up, panting heavily, his fingers on Ed's lips.

"I'm fine Ed. I just got the wind knocked out of me."

"Oh," Edward said, turning bright pink, laughing sheepishly. Roy winced as he rubbed his back. That rock would leave a bruise.

"I guess we're walking from here on out," the Colonel murmured as he shakily stood up. He almost fell back down, but Ed quickly caught him and helped him up. "Thanks," Roy murmured, his breathing still rather shaky.

"You're welcome," Edward said. He paused and looked up at the sky. The sun would make its final descent soon. Just thinking about the sunset made his stomach clench uncomfortably. What was wrong with him?

--

Hughes twirled around in his seat at his desk, staring up at the ceiling absent-mindedly. Well, technically it was Roy's desk, chair, and ceiling, but Maes Hughes never paid much attention to the technicalities. He was just filling in for Roy of course, who had decided to take a sudden vacation. Heck. They hadn't even gotten a phone call. Just a little note taped to Mustang's front door that said that he was taking a short vacation to visit some relatives, which was of course completely reasonable, but it was the fact that Roy hadn't bothered to call in that bothered Hughes.

Riza's going to shoot him the moment he walks through that door, he thought to himself. Suddenly he froze, frown deepening. Oh yeah. She can't.

He let out an unhappy sigh. The now Hawkeye-less office had taken a lot of getting used to. Truthfully, everyone missed the woman. It seemed that she had nothing but misfortune these past weeks. Actually, everyone seemed to be having rotten luck ever since the murders started.

Oh yeah. He was supposed to be doing research on them right now. Though even when he had been working overtime he hadn't found a single hint or clue to what could've caused these sudden and mysterious deaths. Nothing like this had ever happened in Central. These massive killing sprees would start to take a toll on the town's population. But, they had suddenly begun to slow and there was that small smidgen of hope that they had stopped for good.

Suddenly there was a soft knocking at the door. If it hadn't been so deathly quiet in the office, Hughes probably wouldn't notice. He let his feet drop down to the ground and straightened his chair. During this time there was another knock, louder this time.

"Come in!" Maes called out, his expression and voice serious. Hopefully there were some new developments to report.

"Lieutenant Colonel?" a small soft voice said as Cain Fury peeked out from behind the door, a nice thick pile of manila folders in hand.

"What is it Cain?" Hughes asked. He was intrigued by those folders the other male held. Fury pushed his glasses up and hurried over to the desk, setting the folders down, careful to not let them topple over and spill their contents.

"Well, we've all been reexamining these deaths," he began, opening one of the folders. It was filled with pictures of the bodies and information regarding the individual depicted in each photograph. "And we discovered something rather interesting." Hughes let his gaze drift down to the photos for a moment, his nose wrinkling in disgust. Each body had been mauled, completely mutilated. It was not a pleasant sight to say the least.

"And? Go on. I'm listening," the Lieutenant Colonel said as he folded his hands in front of his mouth to create a thoughtful pose.

"Well, at the beginning there were only six deaths, correct?" Hughes nodded in confirmation as Fury pulled out some other photos from the back of the folders. These showed close ups of the bite marks. "As you can see in these photos, bite marks were found on each victim."

"Would you get to the point please?" Hughes asked, growing slightly impatient. Fury nodded and pointed to one set of bite marks. These were quite small and only slightly bigger than pinpricks.

"You see that these are quite small and could've possibly been made by a child," Cain said, his gaze locking with Hughes' for a moment. "A child, Maes, a teenager at most, but never an adult. Darren down in the lab already confirmed that." He then feel silent, giving the other male a moment to mull this over. Finally Hughes spoke.

"So we're looking for a child," he said in disbelief. Fury nodded.

"Or a small teenager," he added.

Hughes' brow furrowed as he closed his eyes in concentration. A child? A child killer? It was a preposterous thought, but if Darren said so then it was most likely true. After all, that man knew what he was talking about when it came to the human body.

"But that's not all," Fury said as he pointed to another photograph. This one had bite marks that were far larger than the other pair. They were almost the size of a pencil's eraser. "These." He tapped the photo for emphasis. "Are far larger. Too large for a child or teenager to have made them. A young adult most likely."

"Two killers," Hughes murmured as realization dawned on him. They were trying to catch an young adult and a child. Fury nodded.

"But, there's something else I think you should know about," Cain said, biting his lower lip nervously. Fury pulled out some more photos. These were from the Grand Neko. "Here we have a total of four with the smaller set of bite marks. The rest of the bodies were just mangled. None of the larger bite marks are present."

"And?" Hughes asked, not quite understanding what the other male was trying to say. Fury took in a deep breath before speaking.

"Who did we find in the hotel that night?" he asked. Although he had fainted from the gory sight, he still remembered who he saw in the middle of it all, covered from head to toe in the blood of innocent people. Hughes frowned, sensing what Fury was getting at.

"You think Edward did this?" he asked, his gaze fixing on Fury.

"Yes," the smaller male said with a small nod.

"Edward Elric? The Full Metal Alchemist?" Hughes got another nod in response, to which he responded to with a sigh, clearly not too sure about this.

"Maes," he began, "He was there at the scene of the crime and he's a small teenager. He fits the bill! It could be possible."

"Perhaps," the Lieutenant Colonel replied, defeated. He had to admit that Cain had a good argument and that there was a slight chance that Edward could possibly be that smaller killer, but what motive did he have to kill all those people? The poor boy had been devastated, shocked, in tears! He sighed again. "But what do you think would cause Edward to suddenly bite people and drain their blood? It just doesn't seem to fit!"

Cain bit his lip. He'd been dreading this part of the conversation the most. Taking in a shaky breath, he closed the folder and moved it to the side, picking up another one. Opening it, he pushed it towards Hughes.

"Just read," he murmured.

"What?"

"Just do it!" Fury snapped, temper rising a bit. Hughes gave him a quizzical look before reading the text printed onto the paper below. His eyes slowly began to widen.

"This is…" he began, looking up at Cain. He frowned and re-read it again. When he was finished the second time his frown had deepened considerably. "Are you suggesting that this was the work of vampires?" he asked in disbelief.

"Yes," Fury replied, realizing that he looked like a complete and utter idiot at the moment. "It's a completely valid explanation. The bodies drained of blood, the bite marks, everything!"

"You're right," Hughes said, "It would be a completely valid explanation if vampires existed!" He voice grew slightly colder. "They're nothing but creatures invented to scare small children. Myths!"

"I know sir, but everything fits!" Maes still gave him the same look of disbelief. "Fine! Take a look at this then." Fury slammed another folder in front of the Lieutenant Colonel, who opened it and began to read the contents. Cain watched as Hughes' face contorted with confusion before relaxing.

"At least consider this theory," Fury murmured, gaze falling to the floor.

"I will," Hughes replied with a sigh. "At this moment the facts do point to him." He paused. "Has anyone seen Ed since this incident? Here it says that everyone at the interrogation building was killed and Edward was nowhere to be found." Fury's eyes darted up in surprise.

"No one knows. He vanished, but he hasn't been acting like himself lately." Cain shrugged. "I do not want to believe that Ed could be the killer, but we have to go with the evidence and most of it points to him."

"I know," Hughes replied. He took in a deep breath and exhaled softly. "From this point on, Edward Elric is the number one suspect in these murders." He paused. "You are free to go, but leave these folders."

"Yes sir," Fury said, saluting Hughes before leaving the room and the folders he had brought.

Maes flipped through each folder's contents once more. If Ed was one of them then who was the other one? That was the million dollar question.

--

"Edward, are you alright?" Roy asked for the umpteenth time. The blonde nodded yet again. The Colonel was sure that Ed thought that he didn't notice that the boy shivered every now and then. He gave the boy a long stare.

"I'm fine," Edward said through clenched teeth. He was clearly in some sort of pain and had a slightly feverish look to him. Roy rolled his eyes.

"You are not fine," he retorted, "You're shivering and look like you're about to drop at any moment." Edward sighed and shivered yet again. This time Roy reached out and felt the boy's forehead. It was burning hot, far hotter than it should've been. He snatched his hand back, but Ed grasped it back and pressed it against his cheek, enjoying the sudden cold.

"So nice and cold," he murmured, closing his eyes a bit, a small smile playing upon his lips. Of course Roy was not smiling.

"Ed! You're burning up!" His eyes grew wide as Edward desperately clung to him, trying to get closer to Roy's cool skin. Behind them the sun began to disappear behind the horizon, vanishing from sight.

They were now walking in a forest and if one looked carefully then the tips of the church's spire could be seen rising above the pines. It wouldn't take much longer to get to Oxiir that was a given, but Edward had suddenly come down with this horrible fever. His body temperature was definitely far warmer than any normal human could survive with, but Edward wasn't normal.

"Roy," the boy moaned as he rested all his weight on the older man, causing the Colonel to loose his balance and sending them both sprawling to the ground. Ed continued to shiver, eyes scrunched tightly together as he curled into a small ball, head resting against Roy's chest. His fingers curled around the fabric of Roy's shirt, stretching it slightly. "So hot." Another groan escaped Ed's lips.

It was all happening so quickly and Roy had no idea what to do. Was Ed dying? His heart began to thrum against his ribcage as fear began to take over. He didn't want to loose Ed. What should he do? Thousands of questions raced through his mind. Then he suddenly became aware of a sudden wetness on his shirt and the sound of coughing. His eyes widened tremendously when he looked down.

Blood dripped from the blonde's lips, staining them red. A growing stain was forming on Roy's shirt as Ed continued to cough, bringing up even more of the red fluid. Tears began to leak out of his eyes as well. There was a horrible burning feeling inside him. His body felt like it was being engulfed in an inferno.

Sweat beaded Ed's brow as he clung to Roy, his small frame shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly the blonde pushed the older male away and spat out a large glob of blood onto the dirt. Edward was now gasping for breath as his nails dug into the ground. Pain pulsed out of every nerve in his body. He could faintly hear Roy calling his name and holding him, whispering comforting things in his ear, trying to help him get through this. Even Edward didn't know what was happening until he looked up at the dark sky. His eyes widened at what he saw.

"The full moon," he rasped.

--

Ohoho! Such an evil cliffhanger no? Well. Not really. It's not too bad. Well, it's about one thirty in the morning here, so I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. I worked my butt off, so review :D It makes the world go round. And this is probably one of my longer chapters too. Yay. It was about eight pages on Word, so I'd say that's a pretty decent size. Anyways, school is starting soon and my birthday is in less than a day, so I'm pretty excited. About my birthday that is. Not school. Anyways, I'll try and update soon for you guys. Only two more chapters left!

Next Chapter:

Chapter Twenty-Four – Turning Point