Dancing With The Devil by the Pale Moonlight
III
I touch the fire, and it freezes me
I look into it, and it's black
Why can't I feel?
My skin should crack and peel
I want the fire back.
—Buffy, Vampire Slayer.
"We are recording. Let the record state that the interrogation of Daria Morgendorffer is about to begin. It's June 29, about 10:40 PM. We're at Arkham PD, I'll identify myself, detective Ryan Jackson, I'm also with detective Bruce Kent. Please state your name."
"Esmeralda De La Vega"
The interrogator turned the recorder off and gave the auburn haired girl a pointed look, "you do realize that your so called friend is dead, don't you? This is not a game."
Daria stayed silent for over five minutes, her hands holding her chin and her eyes narrowed at the detective. Their staring contest ended when the detective looked back at the one-way-glass, not really knowing what to do with the girl.
Daria took a deep breath and motioned for the recording device, "Okay, okay, can we get this over with already? I'm tired."
The detective didn't look like he thought she was telling the truth, but he decided to give her a chance and turn the recorder on, "Please state your name."
She stared at him for a brief moment, like daring him to force her to answer the question. But he didn't have to, she had gotten tired of the whole mess, "Daria Veronica Morgendorffer."
"Daria Veronica Morgendorffer, daughter of Helen and Jake. Is that right?"
She rolled her eyes, "Yes."
"Can you tell us where you were on the night of the 23rd last month?"
Daria blinked, looking more than a little surprised by the question, she started to say something but stopped herself, like knowing that whatever she was going to say wouldn't have helped her, "I don't see why that has anything to do with Jane's murder."
"We will decide what's important and what's not. Now, please answer the question."
She took off her glasses and gave him a look that could've easily killed if such a thing were possible. "I was at my place, in Pickman street, with Jane. We were watching reruns of 'Sick, Sad World' it was an all-nighter."
"You seem to remember that rather well, I'm asking, after all, about something that happened more than a month ago." He looked back at the glass and nodded, "Tell me, is what you just told me the truth, or a lie to cover what you were really doing said night?"
"The reason I remember about what happened that night, is quite simple," she said, looking at the detective almost as if he was a bug of some sort, one that could be crushed at any moment she so desired, "I have eidetic memory." When the cop didn't look like he knew what she was talking about she shrugged and explained, "Total Recall? As in 'I can remember stuff'?"
"So you're saying you didn't lie."
"The prize for the understatement of the year goes to you, detective Jackson."
The detective seemed to be on his way of asking another question, but stopped and looked back at the glass, he nodded and sighed, "You claim to have a nigh-perfect memory. Tell me, can you remember what episodes of 'Sick, Sad World' you watched on that night?"
"Easy: Episodes, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109 and 110. Episode 104 was omitted because the Royal Family sued the producers." She yawned, "Also, they showed, for some odd reason, last year's Halloween Special. We stopped watching after that, I don't really like Halloween all that much."
"Okay. What was the time when you stopped watching?"
"5 AM."
"Can anyone verify that you were indeed on your place that night and not watching the show from the other side of town?"
She glared at the man. "You know, I'm starting to get pissed off."
"Please answer the question." The other detective, Bruce Kent, said, talking for the first time on the interview.
She didn't look like she had heard him, as she started rambling, in what appeared to be Greek or some variation of the language. After almost a minute of non-stop rambling, she paused and then kept going on ancient Arabic. She did this for what appeared to be ages, instead of minutes.
"Stop." Detective Kent said, raising his voice.
She kept going. Each word she spoke seemed more sacrilegious than the last one. Her incoherent speech was almost hypnotic in nature, detective Jackson had a trail of drool hanging from his mouth.
"ENOUGH!" Roared Kent as he stood up and took Daria by the shoulders and pressed her against the glass. "You little witch, you will answer our questions or else…"
"Or else what? The Gods will punish me?"
Jackson shook his head, crept out by the fact that he had been enthralled by the girl's words. He recovered himself quickly enough; he also stood up and forced Kent away from Daria. "That's enough Bruce, go take a five."
Detective Kent seemed glad he was allowed to be away from the girl he believed to be a witch. He left the interrogation room without saying a single word.
Jackson motioned for Daria to sit down and he did the same, "Gods? Don't you mean 'God', Daria? I read in your file that you're Catholic."
"My family may be," she said, holding her breath, "using plural is a simple question of what could be true considering how the world truly is."
"At first you stroke me as an agnostic."
"I am."
"Then why would you bother yourself by saying something like that?"
"No reason." It was clear she was lying.
"What was all that about? You were talking in tongues, Greek, I believe."
"Among others." She nodded and then smiled at him, "You drolled all over on your face."
He nodded and cleaned himself with his sleeve. "Lets go back to the question, and don't you dare go all 'Linda Blair' on me."
"About who could verify that I was at my place the night of the 23rd? Jane could." She looked down, "She was my only friend, Jane."
"But Jane is dead and can't confirm your story. That means you have no alibi for the murder of the Smiths."
"Aha!" She looked up, her eyes livid. "So now I'm the so-called Nosefartu Killer?"
"It's a possibility that we're not going to discard. You are the owner of all those occult books, are you not?"
"Yes, but most are just fakes. I'm trying to get my hands on the Al Azif for ages. But the damn librarian won't let me have a look at it."
"The what?"
"Al Azif!" she said, like it was common knowledge, "you know, the Necronomicon."
"Like on those Bruce Campbell movies?"
She rolled her eyes, "I decided to come to Arkham because Miskatonic is one of the only places in the world where you can find a copy of the good book." She made a face, "It's a damn shame it's not an original, but I know Spanish well enough to understand it."
"Spanish?"
"It's translated from Latin, which was translated from Greek, which was translated from Arabic. I'm sure a lot was lost in all those translations. But finding an original is almost impossible, especially considering how hard it is to get one's hands on a mere copy."
"So you did get your hands on this, 'Necronomicon'. Didn't you?"
"I never said that."
"You said it was in Spanish, how would've you known that fact if you hadn't read it?"
Daria smirked and gave a small nod in approval of the detective's keen eye, "I took a quick peek at it when the librarian wasn't looking."
"Now, can you tell me what this book is so important to you? More so than Jane's life?"
"I never said that." She repeated, and pressed her lips, her stare getting colder by the minute.
"Jane died. She was brutally murdered and you are talking about a stupid book. That says a lot about your character."
"I didn't kill Jane or any of the others."
They had another staring match and after two minutes, Jackson said, "Okay then, you say you're innocent. Let's go back to the month before last, the 6th. Where were you then?"
Detective Dencoyne was watching the whole exchange from the other side of the glass, invisible to the eyes inside the interrogation room. "I don't like her."
Kent massaged his eyes, "tell me about it. The little bitch is crazy."
"I don't mean that. She is far too smart for my liking. It's almost as if she's playing with us." He scratched the tip of his nose and frowned, "And it looks like she really has that Eidetic Memory."
"You think she's our killer, boss?"
"She may be. But if she's not, I'm pretty sure she's just as dangerous."
"The 6th was when those jackasses died, right?"
"Jackasses?"
"You know, Beavis and Butt-Head." She snorted, "I went to the same middle school as them. I heard they were here on a 'Quest for Tail'. Or something like that. When I heard they had died I…"
"You… What?"
"Can't say." She said, looking a lot smaller than she did just a few minutes before.
"So you knew not only the latest victim, but also two others. I wonder, did you know the Smiths?"
"Are you saying that I followed and hunted people I know, just for kicks and giggles?"
Jackson paused before replying, "you don't strike me as the Joker type. No. If you did kill them, I'm sure it was for a reason only you could explain and that's not s**** 'n giggles."
"What, like, madness and calamity follow copies wherever the Necronomicon goes? That's hardly news. Besides, didn't that Dr. Wingate Peaslee say that this has been going on for at least thirty years? I may look a little younger than what I actually am, but I got to say, I'm twenty, not forty or whatever the real killer would be."
He raised an eyebrow at that. "That man speaks more than he should; those killings he talks about were very different from the ones we're currently investigating."
"Okay then, I just say what I read in the paper."
He was about to ask her another question but then he noticed something, "Wait a moment, when did you read that? That article was printed today and you didn't have access to the outside world."
"Maybe I did."
He took a deep breath, "very well, we'll look into that later. Anyway, you knew about Beavis and- that can't be his name," he sighed, "-Butt-Head. And you didn't look sad about their deaths. Did you hate them?"
"What, you think this is some sort of revenge fantasy turned real?" She laughed for the first time, it was a raspy sound, almost like a crow's call. "You know why revenge is a plate best served cold? It's a poison; it's for fools and for madmen. I'm definitively not a fool, I know you can tell that. So, knowing that, do I look like a madwoman to you?"
"You certainly looked like one a few minutes ago when you started chanting in tongues and talking about insane books that bring forth calamity and destruction." He argued.
"So, if I had been talking about the bible and Jesus' deeds, I would have been just a religious nut? Or simply someone highly educated in the scripture?" She folded her arms, "but then again, the look on your face as I made a fool of myself didn't strike me as someone that thought that I was insane."
He took no notice of her quip. "So you don't believe in that mumbo-jumbo crap, but you study it anyway?"
"I believe what I see, if I ever saw a man raise from his grave, I would at first consider him an anomaly, taking into account that it's almost impossible to raise from a grave alive. Once I discard the 'he's alive' theory, I would go for the 'he's undead' one." She seemed highly amused by her own voice.
"Excuse me, but I don't follow.
"Are you familiar with Dr. John H. Watson's biography work on Sherlock Homes?"
"All cops are"
"Good. Then you know of the following saying, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'. Do you not?"
"I have. But I don't think that has anything to do with the case."
"If I really was the so called Nosferatu Killer, don't you think you would've found some traces of blood somewhere at my apartment? Where did the blood go? The only reason you believe me to be the killer is because Jane was carved with a complex Sumerian Magick Circle and I happen to be study such magicks."
"We have a little more than that."
"Circumstantial, all of it." She said with disdain. "I would rather be free, searching for Jane's killer by myself than being in a cage for the amusement of you, Smurfs." She bit her lip and then extended her hands to the sides, "I was the first one on the scene. Didn't you imbeciles ever think that the Nosferatu Killer wasn't the one that carved Jane's body but it was me, instead that did this, in the hope that she would reanimate herself?"
"You're saying that you tried to perform a satanic ritual to raise the dead?"
"Considering it's already past 11 PM, I'd say that I successfully performed a Circle Magick Spell to force her spirit back on her body, preventing it from being eaten by something nasty. And I never said it was satanic. I used circles because they bypass the need for will to perform a spell. I didn't have the time to perform something less creepy."
"What do you mean with 'successfully performed', there's no such a thing as ma-" He stopped talking mid-sentence. He was clearly being told something by the detectives on the other side of the glass. His face paled for a moment, "I was just informed by my superiors that Jane Lane's corpse has disappeared before an autopsy could be performed. You say you performed a magic trick. I'm saying you and somebody else killed Jane in cold blood and now stole her body because she had something in her that could give you away." He turned the recorder off and stood up. "This is not the last time we will talk. And believe me when I tell you, I will pray for your soul that will rot in hell."
She looked almost bored by his antics. "Oh, boy, really? And here I was chanting and waving my hands in the air and talking in ancient and eldritch patterns in order to cast the Elder Ones away, or was I trying to summon a demon? I can't really remember, but I know for a fact that Tom Cruise was summoned in such a manner. Rather spooky if you ask me."
He glared her one last time and left the room. She looked at what appeared to be a mirror and smirked, "Typical. Just typical. You raise the dead and they accuse you of conspiracy."