Accessing camera feed...
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NYPD TrffcCm ChurchSt/BarclaySt
Tracking assets: Carter, J., Fusco, L.
Tracking target: Burkhardt, N.
~o0o~
The entire front of the church was blocked with bright crime scene tape, and uniformed officers did their best to keep the crowds back. This was the fourth murder in the last month and a half with the same MO - vic ripped apart, torn to pieces. The gory scenes had turned even Lionel's cast iron stomach.
There was no apparent connection between any of the victims, aside from scraps of red fabric from what remained of their clothes - and the faint but still recognizable scent of a Blutbad. Of course, Lionel couldn't exactly put that in a report, any more than he could explain to Carter how he could smell it. Oh, yeah, Carter, by the way, I'm really a supernatural creature related to a fox. Hey, how about a cup of coffee?
Yeah, that would go over well.
The strange thing was that the first three murders had all occurred in a distinct pattern: one a week for three consecutive weeks, consistent with Blutbaden feeding habits, and then nothing. Lionel had assumed that the Blutbad had either been killed or moved on. And now, out of the blue, three weeks later, a new Blutbad attack?
He couldn't exactly follow up on the Blutbad angle himself, either; a Fuchsbau simply did not go around asking questions about Blutbaden, even if the Fuchsbau in question happened to be a cop. At best, they'd laugh in his face. At worst, they'd eat his face for dinner, along with the rest of him.
It was all extremely frustrating.
And to make things even better, he and Carter were saddled with Prettyboy from Portland, who was apparently going to be the next recipient of Wonderboy's attention. As soon as they arrived at the crime scene, their visitor/target immediately got out of the car and checked in with the clipboard-carrying uniform who controlled the crime scene. Carter stopped Lionel from following suit with a tense hand.
"I think he knows something, Fusco," Carter said in a low voice.
"What could he know, Carter? He just got here," pointed out Lionel, glancing through the window at Prettyboy, who was busy signing his name on the clipboard. "Though apparently he's got decent security on his phone. That force-pair app that Mr. Glasses gave me didn't work on it."
"Our mutual friends tell you to keep an eye on him?" his partner asked pointedly as her frown deepened.
Lionel grimaced. "Yeah. 'Don't let him out of your sight.' As if I didn't have a day job, and a night job."
Carter still looked concerned. "Did you see his face when you said that all the victims wore red?"
"What does this have to do with anything?" Lionel asked impatiently.
"It was like it meant something to him," his partner insisted.
Lionel already knew what the red clothing meant; feral Blutbaden were attracted to the color red, in a sort of homicidal feeding-frenzy sort of way. But Prettyboy couldn't be Wesen; he didn't have any distinct not-human scent to him, something shared by all Wesen. "Who knows?" he said dismissively. "Probably your imagination."
"Maybe." But Carter didn't look convinced.
"Hey, Carter. Crime scene, remember?"
As crime scenes went, it was brutal, bloody, and horrific. Limbs were scattered haphazardly across the stairs that led up to the church door, and drying blood coated the concrete. The torso had been shredded and disemboweled, and the head perched upright at the top of the stairs, eyes gouged out of their sockets. At first glance, it definitely seemed like the feral Blutbad had struck again.
But something was off. It took a moment for Lionel to put a finger on it, after he controlled his heaving stomach, but he realized abruptly that there was too much gore. The previous attacks had all been feeding frenzies, with goodly portions of the victims being consumed by the attacker. This was just as vicious as a Blutbad attack, but the guy appeared to be mostly still there, albeit in many tiny pieces.
Of course, Lionel wasn't going to stop to count the pieces to make sure of this. That was what medical examiners were for, and he was more than happy to leave that particular job to them.
Steeling himself, he knelt down next to that freakishly staring head, gingerly avoiding the blood stains on the concrete. Angling himself to ensure no one could actually see what he was doing, he inhaled deeply. His senses weren't as keen in his human form, but he could still catch a whiff of something undeniably canine. He could probably woge to learn more, but he suddenly felt a tingling on his back.
Craning his neck, he saw that Prettyboy was standing right behind him, an affable expression on his face.
"He got anything to say?" Prettyboy quipped wryly, his brilliant blue eyes shining with humor.
Lionel snorted and stood up, carefully hiding his discomfort. "Not to me, he doesn't. You ever see anything like this before?" he said, gesturing to the carnage before them.
The other detective's expression abruptly turned grim. "Actually, something a bit similar, yeah," he nodded darkly. "Co-ed."
"Huh." Lionel's eyebrows shot up briefly. Maybe this was what Carter had been talking about him 'knowing' something. Could it be he'd actually ran into a feral Blutbad in Portland? "You catch the guy?"
Prettyboy's jaw worked momentarily before he answered. "Yeah, and rescued the little girl he'd kidnapped."
"What happened to the guy?" Lionel asked, wondering how Prettyboy could have possibly survived an encounter with a feral Blutbad.
The Portland cop snorted, his eyes now hard as any twenty-year veteran. "My partner shot him," he replied simply.
Lionel decided his initial assessment of Prettyboy was wrong; there was something really rather disturbing about the expression on his face, cold and angry and tired. "Dead?"
The strange look on Prettyboy's face vanished, replaced by that amiable smile. "Very," he asserted emphatically.
~o0o~
Recording phone call
Outgoing: 212-555-XXXX
"Allo?"
"Il est ici."
"Good. And don't screw this up like the others. Do what needs to be done."
"Bien sûr. Je comprends."
"You'd better."
