"Dude, don't make me laugh like that the glue almost came out my nose! Whoa - look at that moon!"
His companion. Galen, looks up, as Macon nudges him toward the real moon.
They stare hypnotically for a while.
"Dude, what would you do if I turned into a werewolf right now, and tore your head off?" Galen bursts out in laughter.
"How would you get home?" Macon posits as he puts the doobie in his mouth and inhales deeply.
"I'd take your car."
Macon guffaws. "Yeah, and just how are you going to drive it?"
"I'd only be half wolf. That other half would still know how to drive," Galen laughs as he takes another pull on the doobie.
"A stick shift?!"
Galen nods, defeated. Suddenly they hear a shriek followed by screaming. The two men exchange nervous looks before heading toward the noises.
Parting through some shrubbery, they come upon a tableau of terror. A woman is being attacked. The man belts out a hiss-like shriek, releases his victim, and darts straight toward the stoners, who dive for safety.
After a moment's pause, with neither one of them hurt, they regard each other.
"Did that just happen?"
The other gets up, and followed by his colleague, moves to the victim, kneeling over the exposed rib cage of the woman. Her upper torso appears to have been... devoured.
Damon watches as the dead body is bagged. A small crowd of bystanders looks on in concern.
Macon, one of the stoners is a rugged-faced man with a wide gap in his front teeth, leans against a tree, still shaken from witnessing the attack.
"What were you two doing up here so late at night?" Damon asks as he takes notes.
Macon and Galen share a glance and reply, "Uhm ... nothin'."
"Did either of you get a good look at the killer?"
"We was talking about werewolves under the full moon and all...then we heard the scream. I told the cops it wasn't an animal but they were like, "Shut up, ya hippies. Yeah, he called us hippies!" Galen replies indignantly in his Scottish accent.
"If it wasn't an animal, what was it?" Damon persists.
"Dude ... it was a monster!"
Out of thin air, notebook in hand, Elena Gilbert materializes. "Did somebody just say, "Monster?"
Macon raises his hand. "I did."
Elena approaches him. "What did this monster look like?"
"It was huge and scaly, and had fangs dripping with blood, and claws, and it had three eyes!" Macon describes him and gesticulates wildly with his arms.
"Dude, that thing only had one eye," Galen corrects him.
Macon shakes his head. "I saw three. Maybe when you looked at it, the other two were blinking."
"Did it have a tail?" Elena asks, trying not to laugh.
"Did what have a tail?" Galen counters.
Damon interrupts and pulls Elena to the side. "Why are you leaping to the most preposterous angle?"
"Why call it preposterous before all the facts are in? You don't even know if this thing has a tail," Elena defends herself, still trying not to burst out into a fit of laughter.
"This woman was killed here, Miss Gilbert!"
"What makes it any less a tragedy if a monster was involved? Besides, the witnesses say it was a monster," Elena covers her mouth to stifle her guffaw.
"You're going to take the word of these two?! They don't even know we're talking about them right now." Damon pauses, letting the stoners stare back blankly, proving his point.
Elena looks up at him. "That doesn't mean what they're describing doesn't exist."
"Sure, but on what planet?" Damon counters with an eye roll.
"You know, I'm not sure about the tail, but it had some gnarly horns," Galen states, nodding vigorously.
As Elena jots down notes, Damon rolls his eyes and moves away, crossing to the coroner's van where the attendants are loading up the woman's body.
Having left Detective Salvatore, Elena heads to the apartment of Luna Eclipse, her given name is Eloise Jacobs, one of the other belly dancers at Diamond Jacks.
Elena raps on the door and is met with a fierce-looking middle-aged woman, practically shooting daggers at her.
"Who are you?" she growls.
"Who's there, Doris?" comes from inside the apartment.
Elena rises on her tiptoes and looks over the older woman's shoulder to see a woman.
The room is cozy, with sunlight streaming through lace curtains. A young woman is spread out on a floral-patterned couch, fidgeting with her hands.
"Miss Eclipse?" she asks.
"Yes, I am." She smiles up at Elena.
"Excuse me, I beg your pardon, My name is Elena Gilbert and I'm with the Tribune. I'd like to ask you a few questions," She asks as Doris steps aside to let her enter.
"Would you like a chocolate?" Luna holds up a box full of them.
Elena shakes her head. "What I'd like to ask you is..."
Luna Eclipse was something less than helpful," Elena muses. "It didn't help that her bodyguard kept giving the dancer harsh looks as if to tell her to keep her mouth shut.
From there, Elena heads to the floating premises of Sapphire Storm, aka, Krystal Konner, another of the belly dancers who are employed at Diamond Jacks.
As Elena is about to knock on the door of the tiny home, a long-haired brunette steps through the door.
"Sapphire?" Elena asks and the woman gives her a dirty look. "I mean Krystal Konner."
"Oh, hi, I can't talk to you now, I'm late for class. If you wanna sell me something, come back later, I don't have any money for extras, so you'd just be wasting your time," Krystal calls over her shoulder as she jumps in her rusty Volkswagen and drives away.
"No hair, no skin beneath the nails, no prints or bodily fluids found on Jupiter," Elijah tells Damon as they look at the woman's body splayed out on the autopsy table. "And there doesn't appear to be any signs of sexual assault."
"Sounds like the first two women, except for a hunk of the torso missing," Damon comments as he compares victim photos.
"Maybe they're not related?" Elijah comments as he makes a notation on his tablet.
"That's completely possible I suppose." Damon tips his head back and forth considering it. "What exactly are we dealing with here? I mean the only witnesses claimed it was a monster but they were so strung out on pot, they might as well have said Santa Claus was the killer," he remarks in frustration. "The phones are ringing off the hook. I've got reporters asking me questions I can't answer." Damon swallows. "I need a profile."
"I based the time of death on stomach contents. That means the killer is doing his dirty work at night," Elijah points out.
"This I know...If it's one killer, we have psychopath on our hands and if these cases our unrelated, we may have two." Damon hands the photos back to Elijah and walks out of the morgue.
Damon's sitting at his desk, sifting through case files. The room smells of stale coffee and desperation.
Elena, a tenacious journalist with a penchant for trouble, raps on his door, wearing a determined expression, and clutches her notepad like it's a lifeline.
Leaning against the door, Elena asks, "Detective Salvatore, since you're alone, mind if I have a moment of your time?" Her eyes dart around the room, taking in the framed commendations on the wall and the crime scene photos pinned to the corkboard.
Damon looks up at her and smirks, "What brings you to the lion's den?"
Elena smiles, "Just chasing shadows. You said to make an appointment but I saw you here so I thought I'd give it a shot. Can you tell me anything about the body found in that abandoned warehouse down by the docks? You know the one?"
Damon leans back in his chair. "Yeah, I know the one. What's your angle?"
Elena leans in lowering her voice. "Word on the street is that it's some psychopath."
"More like a one-way ticket to an early grave. You poke the hornet's nest, you'll get stung."
Leaning forward on her elbows, Elena prods him. "Come on, Detective Salvatore. You've got a lead, right? What's your gut feeling about this case?"
"Gut feelings don't solve crimes, Miss Gilbert. Evidence does. But if you must know, something's off. The killer's too meticulous. Too calculated." Damon leans in, his voice low. "You know as much as I do. You were there when the stoners were talking about a "monster", he air-quotes the word.
"Was there anyone else?" Elena asks, raising her brows in anticipation.
"There's a witness— claims he saw the whole thing go down. He says he heard gunshots and saw a guy in a black trench coat fleeing the scene. But he's got a rap sheet longer than the Yellow Pages. Hard to trust him."
Elena scribbles furiously. "Black trench coat. Got it. What about the victim?"
Shuffling through some papers, Damon pauses to take a swallow of coffee. "Mini mart attendant, Sarah Taylor, disposed of sometime after 2 A.M. a block and a half from the first murder. Nothing concrete."
"Maybe it's personal. Maybe these women crossed someone they shouldn't have. Or maybe—"
Damon leans back, eyes narrowing. "Or maybe you're digging too deep, Miss Gilbert. This isn't some noir novel. Real life doesn't wrap up neatly in 300 pages."
Unfazed, Elena counters. "Real life is messy, Detective. And I intend to get my hands dirty. So, what's our move?"
Damon sighs. "We follow the breadcrumbs. The trench coat guy, Diamond Jacks—I can't say definitively that they're all connected. But tread carefully. I'd hate to see that pretty face of yours on a slab in the morgue."
"Well, Damon, I've danced with worse devils. I've got to go. Deadline's looming." Elena heads for the door, pausing at the threshold, to look back at Damon. "If there's a breakthrough, call me."
"I'll consider it. But don't hold your breath," Damon smirks as he watches her leave, hearing her heels echoing in the hallway.
Elena steps into the harsh sunlight, her shadow stretching across the linoleum.
The door closes behind her, leaving Detective Salvatore alone with the weight of the case.
Happy Leap Day. My cousin's son was born on a leap day. :D
Thank you all so, so much.
Chapter title: Bad Moon Rising by CCR.
Have a wonderful day and we'll see you next with Wildflowers 8.