A NOTE: Big breaks between text are not chapters, but numbered to break up the monotony of text, and to make it easier for readers that may not be able to finish the story in one reading. This is a very, very long story, so these breaks should make it easier. I hope this makes it easier to navigate back to a particular point in the story. So please enjoy and a Happy Halloween to everyone!
This Short Story Weekly post is the very last one I'll be doing for the a Malacast Editorial, for the foreseeable future, anyhow. However, this story isn't very "short". I'll start by saying this: I'm not much of a mystery writer, I love mysteries, and I admire Doyle, Chandler, Oates, and Hoch. Especially Hoch, who wrote several novels, and was a contributor to Ellery Queen magazine so often, you'd swear he was on staff, and rightfully so! I've written mystery sparingly, it's a tough genre to leisurely read, it requires thought, provocation of both the mind and soul to devour. Edgar Allan Poe, mayhaps not the greatest, but surely the first mystery writer in modern history, is the aptly named author of the prize I've always sought as a child: the Edgar Award.
I know you can't always get what you want, but all writers seek that prize of their respected genre and taste: a Hugo, an Edgar, a Pulitzer, or even the coveted Newberry Medal. Yet, I don't write for prizes, I write for the love of it, and I know that imitation in writing is the sincerest form of plagiarism. I'm sure someone said that...but who says it's a false statement?
These stories will pop up on occasion, and they aren't necessarily original in nature, not as ostensibly as say my earlier works, but I can assure you that they are authentic stories, and full of smokescreen gumshoe approach in a more modern world.
This plot is greasy, dirty, and has taken quite some time to complete, it's a long post, but the finish of an even longer journey. I won't make any excuses for the validity of this first story, and if the aesthetics aren't noteworthy, I am following through with several more, regardless, because I know this will not be everyone's cup of tea, good or bad.
Before we press on into this story, I would just like to say it's been an absolute honor writing these short stories, and hundreds have viewed them collectively. I'm proud of many of them, and some I'm thankful to have finished on time. Others, although tardy, I've learned to make worth the wait. I'm always and forever grateful to the readership that has followed me all these years, and if I ever do return to doing short stories for the blog (although not for a vestigial amount of time) I will keep the weekly format. But as of today, I am done with short story weekly, and I'll be on my yearly hiatus. I'm proud of my work, and I'm. I less proud of the story you're about to read. This one took months to write, and I hunkered down until the eleventh hour completing it. I'm. It sure if it's my greatest work, or quantity over quality, it just-so-happens to be something I've been meandering over since May, and it is ready to share with the world today!
For now, let elaborations cease, and the work speak for itself. It's gritty, so reader's discretion advised, so with fair warning! I present:
Nothing But Gnawed Bones
1
Dave Spaulding woke up half past four in the evening, looked at his alarm clock, figured it was too damn early to be up so late. His wife rubbed his shoulders, and smiled.
"Someone's up early, still flustered from last night? You were sifting through the files when II came in the back door. This case has you off-balance each-and-every-day. In ten years, I've only seen you this frazzled once before: the Bethanny Snow case." She let him sit up, the receding hairline now just a combover feather away from full-on male-pattern-baldness.
"Susan, i need a drink, where's the absinthe hidden today? I'll sniff it out like a bloodhound if you make me, but I'm too damn drowsy from the migraine. Don't you have to get ready for work?"
"Hmph! Like you need another nip of hair of the dog!"
"Whatever, I'll snoop around, I'm going back into the office by six. The crazies will start coming out by ten, and I'll be home by nine. So you'll be back from the club by then, right?"
Susan, who danced at the local club, The Rabbit Mound, under the moniker Trixie, married detective Spaulding, a former cop turned private sleuth, and the rest was history. They wee both former addicts, Dave from the job, Trixie from association, now Spaulding was more a booze hound, and Trixie got off from tricks making it rain on stage. They were imperfect, but perfect for one-another.
"Don't worry dear, I'll make sure to get some coke from my hooker friends, and I'll bring home those tassels you love." Susan smirked, as she put on her shirt skirt, and denim jacket that barely covered her bustling bosom.
"Real funny, doll, but I'd be happier if you grabbed me another bottle, this hide-and-seek game is getting a little old.
"Just don't drown yourself in the case, you do shitty work when you're shitfaced."
Dave spit up a cigarette, along with decades of bad choices, standing up from the rickety old bed, the hardwood floor sticking him with splinters throughout his toenails. He flung off last night's clothes, and hopped into the shower. Susan smiled, and kissed him on the forehead, then smacked his ass, as she left the bedroom, and headed towards the living room for her car keys. She grabbed them from the read ashtray that was shaped like a pair of lips, and remembering that she needed to tell Dave something, bounced back perkily into the bath.
"I forgot to tell you: your daughter called this morning, said she needed to see you, was coming up this weekend. She's still sore with talking to me; no surprise, but she worked through, said it was important. I left you some food in the oven, just turn it on to 250 for twenty minutes, and it'll heat it up like it was just cooked. Love you honey."
"Love you, too!" Dave was pissed, he knew that Susan always loved to do that: mention something off-handedly so she didn't have to discuss it in great detail, especially when it came to his daughter from the first marriage. He was pushing fifty, but he still looked as prominent a figure as he was in his thirties. He first wife, Dolores, lovingly called Dory, was a hardlined prosecutor, breaking the glass liing well before it was possible. She took no shit, Spaulding admired that about her, but she never much liked his long hours. Sure, she worked her ass off too, a damn fine lawyer, it was surprising that marriage produced a living houseplant, never mind a kid, but Dave loved his daughter, no matter what.
The shower stabbed at his sweat, washing away dirt and grime, making the shower floor grimy. He hated walking the streets all night long, looking for culprits, and spying on cheating husbands. He used to bring rapists to justice, and put down a few scumbags in the name of the law. He was a tough cool, and played the assholes like a finely tuned harp, crying soprano. He made them scared shitless, he carried a boomstick, not a Beretta. Now he was tracking down lost cats, and chasing runaways that got caught up with the wrong crowd...pretty much his own childhood.
The undercover days were not shit, he loved the coke, smoked some good hemp, he still enjoyed a little puff-puff with Trixie and the girls. He never visited his wife at work, hated the name Trixie, but rules is rules he figured. The girls would come over, listen to the sob stories of the past twenty-five years of his life. Cocoa Puff, Lavender, and Misty (Jacqueline, Sahara, and June, respectively) were the older, yet still stacked to the brim with male desire of the girls that worked the pole, they were the grandmasters of smut. Not that Dave cared, he respected the gig, he worked some questionable beats in the past, but the idea of men oogoling his wife was one that was a hard pill to swallow, even knowing beforehand she was a stripper.
The Rabbit Mound was a shady establishment, probably worse-for-ware that it used to be a drugpin's hideout. In the late eighties, Dave had a sting operation that busted up a nice cocaine ring, and that was when he got hooked. His wife, prior to getting clean was a runaway, turning tricks at fourteen with scumbag pedophiles that loved nothing more than getting a little girl, the sick fucks were given leniency back then. He didn't question her past, she didn't question his, they both fucked up, and didn't look back, it was a different time. The girls kept them both on-the-level, and Dave truly enjoyed their company.
He cleaned up, toweled off, dressed up in his cheap suit, and turned on the oven. He could smell meatloaf, made with olives and ketchup, his favorite. He grabbed a glass, and too a nip of whiskey, knowing that Susan was gonna hog the absinthe all to herself. He never minded the green fairy, but she wouldn't get a lick if he was able to sniff it out.
Dave choked down on the food, sobering up with each bite, not that it took much to. Ring him back to reality, he was an active drunk, high-functioning, came from years of practice. He was a mess, but not as bad as the coke made him, that turned him into a monster. He wasn't really cured, he just found a lesser of two evils. Susan was the same but she never got shitfaced, but she lied to wet the pallete.
He turned on his laptop, it was older, but better, and it had his life on it. Several back-ups were around the house,mbut so far, the harddrive stayed strong. They were always built tougher ten years earlier, the sad pitiful state of technology. He wasn't a Luddite, hated people who didn't like human progression, in-fact, Dave adopted quite a few snarky habits, like updating his phone every year.
His most recent case was a missing persons, normal to get, because the cops would wait a good part of a week before taking it seriously, especially with an alleged runaway teen. He knew better, that these kids barely wanted to move out, let-alone runaway these days, so he took the case very seriously. Little Holly Greene, a fifteen year old black honor student that loved math and science. She was last seen dressed in tan capris, and a red tank top. She was five foot five, 140lbs even, wearing invisible denture alignments. She comes from an upper middle class home, two younger brothers who she often fought with, but never showed animosity towards them.
Her picture floated about his irises, reflecting on the pools of his soul. Her smile was bright an cheery, the photo was a year older, but descriptions fit the bill. She was a beautiful young girl with everything ahead of her, and no reason to be running off; especially in the middle of the day. That's especially what he didn't understand...nobody in the neighborhood saw this young girl run off during the daytime? Holly was well-known in the neighborhood: she had been a Girl Scout, selling cookies door-to-door as a young girl, she was into many extracurricular actives, including basketball, softball, and running a suicide hotline for young teens dealing with issues. She was so close to a saint, he almost didn't believe she existed, how could a kid have so much energy for all this, and then some? Dave didn't want to admit it, but even his daughter Nattie, never had such fortitude. This was a good kid, great paretents, and the Greenes were distraught from the loss of their daughter, ruling out foul play...an old cop's guts are enough to know when parents are full of shit, and they were very upset. Sure people can act, but you can't fake fear. Also, their background checks cleared, perfect citizens, sickeningly perfect.
Sipping at his drink, suckling down slivers of onion and oblong green olive slices, the case began to unwind. Dave always looked over the most recent of case before heading into town. This one seemed to be lingering on his mind more-often than the typical cheating douche of a husband, usually with some trash not good enough to even wait tables at the Rabbit Mound. He was blessed that his second wife was so understanding to him, didn't try much to change him, but at least pulled him to sit up by the sidewalk, rather than lay in the gutter.
He closed his laptop for a moment, the case vanishing to the depths of Rest Mode, relinquishing all matter of thought, as he finished his plate. He had about forty minutes before heading into town to his offices. Mostly he got tidbits from online, but the old bitties liked to come down to the offices, asking for help on a long lost grandson that was off in Aruba, or they needed Mr. Snuffles, or Mittens to be snatched from the harm of elm trees. He didn't charge the little old ladies, they loved him, thought him swell, and he found them too nice to charge as they shuffled in and out of the offices like a traffic jam of geriatrics. Bumper-to-bumper nannies, and they all had calicoes in distress. Usually Mallory, his young intern helped them home, and got the cats out of the trees, but occasionally Dave would have to choke back his ego, and go rescue Mr. Pussyfoot from a near-death experience. Only an animal that could leap thirty feet up a tree, but have not the vertical senses to find his own damn way down!
Today though, he felt like staying home, the nights of walking the beat were instilled him him like any good cop, soles that walked beaten paths so often, his feet were as reliable as a bloodhound's snout, and fairly more accurate. Institution helped him out, and he wasted no time making all those around the particular circumstances, quite uncomfortable. He was certain on the Holly Greene case that he was sure to have the Phys. Ed. Teacher especially frightened...the man had an odd odor to him. He smelt like guilt, with a side of confessioned hesitance. Dave was certain the bald bastard pissed those gym shirts slightly, he could smell a fresh yellow stain running down his terrified back.
Dave didn't have time to be nice, being a cop came with protocol, a private dick, well, they don't call them that for nothing, eh? He made sure to question all staff, coming, and going, even saved a lovely fat tabby from a bird nest on the way back to the offices. He questioned everyone the could think of that was relevant, irrelevant, even substitute teachers that haven't served at Holly's school in over a year. Nothing came up, nothing seemed to fit. This case was beginning to really fry his balls, he knew that it was less than forty-eight hours since Holly had gone missing.
Her father, Norton Greene came in with his wife Dinah about seven two nights before, said their daughter was missing for over a day, and the police had yet to put out an APB, so they found it a miracle to look up Spaudling and Reichart Detective Agency just on the outskirts of their little suburban paradise. The two of them seemed concerned on the protocol of the police, and Dave wasn't surprised, he'd been a cop for two-and-a-half decades. Kids were a priority, but a missing persons report was harder to get listed than a damn restraining order.
He reassured them that he would do everything in his power, and he started with all known affiliates: kids in the neighborhood, teachers, other parents, and even staff at that suicide hotline she helped set up, which seemed very peculiar to him: why would such a well-adjusted kid be so intrigued with setting up a suicide hotline? Sure, it's a seemingly noble cause, but Dave couldn't wrap his head around it. He knew this would be his best bet, perhaps she got too friendly with one of the callers, it's supposed to remain anonymous on both sides of the hotline apparently, but he was thinking that people calling there aren't in the greatest state of mind, and when anyone, kid or adult thought they had nothing to live for, they weren't in the most stable of mindsets. Still, nothing seemed to be turning up any leads: questions, brash tactics, or even strong arming the more suspicious teens and teachers. Dave didn't take shit, but he knew his boundaries. The case was giving him mental hemorrhoids, so he let it slip away back down deep into his subconscious, and packed up to head out, he figured he'd get an early start, and leave the offices early; he didn't get the best of sleep the night before, so he'd step in to greet the old biddies, then head out around midnight.
The inner-city was always rockin' and rollin. It was beginning to retire from the day shift into night. It was always cold, either the weather, or the bodies, it was never warm and welcoming. The world was cruel, the deep-seeded violence of the Chicago streets had been an affront to decency since the days of St. Valentine. Spaulding had been walking these streets since he could toddle out past his mother's sight. The vilified conflicts spilled out into the public opinion, shitty nights filled with torn hookers, and drugged mothers, babbling brooks of wasted potential. Lives ended, screwed up by circumstances,mor just a knack for evil. Spaudling didn't care, he'd knock out a punk kid, or pin a granny to the ground if she were guilty. He wasn't perfect, but somebody had to judge the assholes, and he just happened to have a feel for the work. If he'd have been the best damn sanitation worker he could,the damn it, he'd be hauling trash 'til the day that he died.
Lately, a string of kidnappings have been sweeping throughout the city. It seemed every couple of months, a young girl, a a stray pet would go missing without so-much as a shoe, or a tuff of fur left behind as evidence. If there is ever even blood at the scene, that's a certified miracle. Spaulding had seem some horrid things in his career, this one was different, but oddly familiar. He hated meeting with the parents, siblings, loved ones of the victims; it was always a misconstrued that he didn't care whenever he spoke to these people, as though he was some heartless fuck that just wanted to get at their money. The truth was he cared too much at times, always involving himself far more than the average private dick in these circumstances.
Holly Greene was the most recent abductee, she vanished nearly without a trace. She was a good kid, most parents will assure you their kids were decent, the honest ones will even tell you the saintly virtues of their children, but Holly wasn't a bad kid whatsoever, she was the picture-perfect candidate for the best child in the world. She even do sted her free-time to helping others. Spaulding had talked to her friends, they said she was "sickenly optimistic" and "cheery" she apparently had no secret vices, she wasn't into drugs, she didn't steal, and she wasn't into gang activities. Spaudling had no leads, it wasn't as though she had enemies, a friend to everyone she knew, and would go out of her way to help others. Spaulding knew that could've been her perpetual downfall....some people aren't the type you go around helping, especially at night. He wasn't sure if her disappearance was connected to the rest of them, but in these cases, with random abductions, and over the course of months....it becomes even more trifling to pinpoint an origin, as these disappearances could've been going on for years. Thenpolice do what they can, but everyone knew that after two days, it was a cadaver search. Spaulding didn't follow protocol, he kept searching even after others have written off the victim.
The unruly streets enraptured the aging detective, he was so used to walking the best, his feet were withered and warped with intentions of the rickety sidewalks. He could tell where he was from the feeling of toes gripping the ground. Chi-town had always had a brutal history, so nothing shocked him anymore, nothing made him question just what he saw, his eyes never steered him wrong before. He took a swig from his flask, more to wipe the taste of the freezing air from him, and replace it with some liquid heat.
Windy City indeed, the cold fronts that come off of Lake Michigan have a strength of incredible gusts that could send shivers down the spine of summer itself. In a city where the bodies were becoming like lawn ornaments, a dead black girl from a middle-class family wasn't necessarily news,mbut it raised a few eyebrows. Thenpolice had been made out of titanium, their emotions long-lost to PTSD, or a desensitization of all the shit that was piling up around them. Dave Spaulding had done the cop best, it wasn't him, and he found when the detective was paid personally, and there were more oppurtunities to perhaps bend the rules just a bit without thesdge, you tend to give a damn. Ore about who you're looking for, and you get involved with the client first-hand, it tends to make you want to earn that bread just a bit more.
There were rumors going about that this was now a murder, although you didn't necessarily,y need a body to prove a murder, you at least needed a suspect. The police had seen a great deal of murders in the past few years, but this one seemed to be tied to almost everything in the city, it was getting absurd! Dave was on his way to meet with a contact,mine he's had on the streets for a few years now. The guy was a total shithead, but he knew what was going down...just another friendly neighborhood thugs, pushing drugs on the less fortunate, and picking up the pennies of a life of crime. Elmer was his nickname,cause he was known for sniffing glue, but the guy was always willing to drop Spaudling a bit of information. Even drug dealers don't like it when little girls go missing...not because they have a heart, or anything, but it stops their business from growing. Dave didn't know how to be sick anymore over the vullshit that he ran into every night, and he too was no saint,mbut these assholes made him sick to his stomach. Elmer wasn't too bad, he kept Spaulding in good with a dimebsg here-or-there, another thing you couldn't do on the force, get a good high.
The particular shitstain alley that Elmer frequented had become yellow tape fiasco: it allered that a gang war zone wa happening throughout the it's,mbut this alley was now filled with enough blood and work meat to have a buthcer's floor look pristine clean. The Ganster Disciples and the Viceroys were having it out with the Crips, and the scene was dark blood watering the roots of Chi-town once again. Elmer wasn't going to hang around a murder scene, Spaudling found him three blocks down near a shanty little diner called Gorilla Eafs, and the food tasted like something that came out of ape entrails.
Spaulding sat down in the booth across from Elmer, who had been enjoying a chocolate milkshake with a spoon. The shakes were the only good thing about the place, and they were so thick and greasy, you could spread it on toast. Elmer didn't even wave him down, he knew Spaudling for going on eight years, and he knew thwt once the old man stepped in, business was all they would talk about.
"Old Whitey need me to read the newspaper to him again? Not like it ain't all in the fine print what's going down. The clowns out and the ball brings are flying. What pretell do I ow this visit for in-particular? The missing honor student? That's been in the rags the past few weeks...a little late on the calling, eh, boss man?"
Elmer's teeth were stained with a gold-plated grill that looked old and fake. Elmer was Hispanic, but called Spaudling Whitey, because his hair had gone frost, and his Sicilian heritage from that olive tanned skin made his hair look even more like vanilla ice cream on a waffle cone. He never let it bother him, Elmer could be a jackass all he wanted, so long as his leads kept coming back true.
"The family came to me personally, they're still hoping that little Holly Greeme will be returned to them unharmed...I'm more in-line to believe thwt this is going to keep happening to kids in the area. Elmer, you and I both know that they don't even try to hie the bodies anymore, because by the time the police even finger a suspect, it's been months after-the-fact. The cops are exhausted, and they're killing babies...I know you deal, but even this must sicken you to no-end!"
Elmer smiled, and lit a joint, he took a few hits, and passed it respectfully to Spaulding, who in-turn declined. He was on the best, he needed his head clear, and he couldn't risk a cop walking in...hah, not likely, especially in this edge of town. Still, Elmer agreed, snorted a bit at the ganja smoke rising up, and politely coughed a bit, nodding as a gesture that he might have information.
"Whitey, you see I know that you have this idea that you're some kind of detective, but out here my man, you're just another guy making a buck....I respect that, but I'll give you what I know, although most of it may be a refresher course on what you've known for months now.:
"Before the Greeene girl, there were about five other missing cases where the kid went aloof, no parents saw it happen, supposedly the abductions were all at night. The on,y evidence that these were even potential murders were that the first victim was found torn to shreds, barely any bones left, even those were cracked and sucked dry. Yeah, I know that sounds like bullshit to you, but think so but it Whitey; marrow ain't just gonna dry out, and bones cracked like that, they still got some flesh, some meat deep inside. Those were teeth marks man, probably pack hounds digging up the remains...but no skin or muscle left? Nothing decomposes that fast without some chemical agent, nothing but animal saliva found. The rest of the kids were never found. All young girls, except the second one, which was a younger boy, most the kids were about 12-16, the boy was about ten. Makes you wonder what the sick fuck was doing. Anyhow, the abductions were once a month, twice last month, if you count Holly Greene. Falling on different days of the week." Elmer took another drag from his joint, the weed was becoming intoxicating, nobody else seemed to mind, they knew not to bother Elmer when he was enjoying his milkshake.
"Yes I already knew this, kid. There's really no pattern I've noticed-" Elmer cut him off with a few coughs, waving his finger in the air.
"Except that each of the abduction a just so happens to be on a-" Spaulding returned the interruption with a palm up, and his head down in his notes.
"Yes, yes, I know they all take place when there happened to be a full moon, kind of used to the crazies running around when the moon's out, nothing new, why I've been searching deeper...most people stay out alter on a full moon, and this kid was a local Girl Scout, abducted while supposedly selling cookies in her middle-class neighborhood. The other girls, even the boy came from different modes of income. Two girls were living just six blocks from Holly Greene, the one you've mentioned was found slaughtered just outside of the ghetto where she had been living with her mother and three brothers. Now there's five missing, one dead, from all over Chicago, and not one shred of evidence on who did any of this, and if the one murder is even connected. So do you have anything?" Dave reared up on his shoulders, making eye contact with Elmer, who had snubbed the roach, pocketing it for later, or to combine it with a more, Spaudling didn't really care, even though his mouth began to water when a waitress brought out a beer to the table across from them.
"Actually...I haven't heard much chatter, Dave. You know I respect you, but this one seems out-of-place. I mean, lots of kids go missing, wind up dead, but they're usually tied into the life, and quite frankly, it's never a surprise, but these kids, they're babies. Ten year old don't deserve this...but something's got the gangs scared. 4th Street and Angel Drive both been hearing talks about some guy who's crazy, like a big hulk, just killing at night and bolting like lightning. Some guys say he's over eight foot tall,
"Then again, there's not much merit to what a gangbanger has to say, most are too fuckedmup to know what they're shooting at these days. It's getting bad out here, my friend. Others have been talking about ghost stories and tall tales about monsters roaming the streets, like we're living in medieval times, and there's things going bump in the night. Personally, I think some new drug's got everybody hallucinating nothing but bad trips. You've got about as much as I do on what's going down, but something tells me that your best lead is what you have...not much unfortunately. The city's too big to just camp out anywhere and wait for another abduction, although the next full-moon is early this month. I'm sure that the motherfucker isn't going to change the day he does it, but I'll keep an ear out, and I'll call you if something comes up. Maybe one of my clients heard something."
"Thanks Elmer...keep your head clear, I don't want you getting fucked up and dying on me now."
"Hah! I can handle myself Whitey, still got your QuickDraw McGraw? That's illegally packing you know."
Spaulding laughed, showing off his six-shooter. He flashed Elmer a grin of yellowing teeth,a cap on his upper incisor, whiter than the rest, sticking out like a sore thumb.
"I'd rather go in the clink for having my old piece than winding up a bloodstain in some dark alley. Never had to pull it yet, but I'd pity the poor bastard that forces my hand. Just keep me informed, I'll let you finish your shake...be good, Elmer."
Elmer nodded back, slurping down more of the shake while Spaudling stood to vaca the nasty Gorilla Eats. He wasn't very happy to not get a lead, but it wasn't like he couldn't hunt down a few before the sunrise. He knew a few other haunts where information could be traded for a few Jacksons, or Grants. He had some extra cash, and with information at a premium, it was a buyer's market. This case had been haunting him for weeks now.
Holly's face was haunting him more and more lately. He didn't get calls from the other parents that might be tied to this case...it was too hard to tell. The truth was that he wasn't sure if the abudctions were as recent as that one boy...he had been missing for nearly six months now. The second most-recent abduction of the six was a girl named Loney Shepard. A girl living in a dump downtown. She was fourteen, no record of any sort, she wasn't a Girl Scout, but she was part of the FCCLA at her school. Nothing out sanding, just a normal kid trying to live in a shitty situation. Spaulding could relate, he'd been down bad roads, and he done some bad shit in his younger days, but these kids were angels in-comparison.
The night was growing, like the clouds were being pressed to the sides to welcome the awaiting darkness, Nyx was brandishing herself to the world, in full glory. A crescent moon was barely visible in the city smog, yet it grew immensely with every passing minute. Spaulding decided to walk around a bit, a hand sometimes on his six-shooter as he passed by gang territory. Most gangbangers didn't lay him mind...they knew him, and knew he wasn't going to be pestering them, and even if he did, he paid them well enough to get information. They also knew he was quick with a gun, and shooting a former officer wasn't good for their business. Mutal fear always makes for strange bedfellows.
There was an Irish pub controlled by the mob: The Emerald Shamrock. He decided thwt walking the streets wasn't going to produce anything but hypertension from squeezing the gun, and white-knuckling his pair of brass, but he knew old Fat Patty Flannery, who hated kid killers about as much as the police. It's amazing the ethics code of certain criminals, but Spaudling was craving a drink since he got out of the Eats. So he made a right turn, headed down the street, towards the East River's mouth, and was but ten minutes away from The Emerald Shamrock.
Like its namesake, The Emerald Shamrock was building with four rounded corners that looked like the shape of an actual clover. Fat Patty Flannery was up to his red nose in ale, rosy cheeks of a grandpa-looking drunk.
"How's business Flannery? Still busting heads on the Westside? Running illegal arms still?"
"Well look at the right bastard, you walking in on here? What's it you want Spaulding? Can't you seem I'm busy with my drink? I anoint got time for you private dicks moseying up in my place of business. A legitimate, tax-paying business I might add. So tell me,why I shouldn't have me boys take you for a lesson in common curtesy outside right now? Or would rather have a drink, you lousy drunk, couldn't keep it straight in the bloody force, now you're doing nothing but causing cats out of trees for little girls."
Spaudling didn't let the man's threats shake him, he's dealt with Flannery in the past, and knew the man for nearly twenty years. A few years back,mFlam her would say hello with a beer bottle to Spaulding's head, and a pair of brass to his nose, then laugh and buy him a drink, but he's gotten older, fatter, more docile, so his words had to cut whee a bottle of Killigian's would suffice before.
"I'm here about a kidnapping...now I know it wasn't you Flannery, but that doesn't me an you wouldn't have information on who did it. The girl was kidnapped a few weeks ago, following a kidnapping nearly twenty-four hours before. The kidnapping took place on the full-moon. You know the crazies are always running out then. But I'm thinking you might know what happened to Holly Greene, or perhaps you've seen her. I know you and I hadn't seen eye-to-eye, but the parents want closure." Spaulding showed Dlannery a picture of the girl,it was a 8" by 6" school picture that the mother gave him, and was always the first thing he saw whenever he opened the case file.
Flannery looked it over, analyzing it, or at least pretending to take interest in the girl's photograph. Be didn't think much if it, but shook it off, as though he was looking at a blank page.
"Nah, I haven't seen here heard about the kids disappearing,mits a damn shame I tell you. The city is going to hell in a hand basket, but I ain't seen or heard of some sick bastard who has been stealing these kids. Heard one was found with its bones picked clean. I swear Davey, it's getting to where I'm thinking of moving out west, damn city is getting as bad as Detroit, and we both know what happened in Detroit, ain't that right, Sully?"
"Yeah that's right boss, Detroit was a shit-show, still got nightmares over what thenfuck went down there." A goon behind the man turned and took a shot, shaking off the heat. Spaudling's lips grew moist, his tongue was nearly out his head.
"Here! On the house Dave, hope you get the sick mothefucker, I fear for my own grand kids, wished their stupid parents move them out of town,mbut they don't have a bloody clue, say they love the culture...nothing but blood and buckets you stupid twats! Thought I raised them better. Out one through law school, the other boy is a doctor. Damn smart kids, can't believe they come from my lons! I tell ya, old timers like us, we don't get this sense of stupidity with such a bunch if eggheads that this here generation's become, aye?"
Fat Patty chatted in-and-on, handing Dave a fresh mug of ice-cold beer, and he gladly huddled it into the crease if his arm like a child made of gold.
"Thanks for the drink, Patty shame you haven't heard about the kidnapping, figured you'd know a bit about it, seeing as this scumbag was doing it right under your nose." Spaulding took a sip, and smiled,knowing how to get under Fat Patty's skin.
Patty slammed his fist on the bwr top, and even in his old age,MIT still vibrated with some umph. He knew that Patty wasn't going to like hearing that someone had the smarts on him, or was doing shit that took aways from his business.
"That fucking cockscuker motherfucker perverted twat! Ugh! I swear, I'm going to skin the bastard right good if I ever find out who the hell it is!"
"That's what I suspected...and no information, I feel if the asshole killed these poor kids, well, the law says I gotta turn the over to police, but I don't follow any badge...I may not turn them iin allin one piece. Still, I think that If you get any information, Oatty. Please, for the kid, and the parents, if not for me, give me a call, and let me know what comes up. I want this scumbag off the street..I'm. I coo, so I don't quite care about what you're doing, Patty. That's for the FBI to deal with, I just want this guy off the street. We both know that no kid deserves this shit, and it's not going to stop anytime soon. Here's my card-" Spaudling tossed a card onto the barroom finishing his drink, and slamming his mug down with authority. "-give me a call if you have any information, anything Patty. Just know that I will get the sonofabitch, this one is becoming more personal than any detective would want it to be."
"Aye you have me word, on me mother's grave, and the sweet St. Patrick lead me to be truthful." He kissed his rosary, and nodded to Spaudling, putting the card into his wallet, which flashed with more cash than he had ever seen in his entire life.
"Thanks Patty, have a good evening, and thanks again for the drink, I'll buy you one next time." Spaulding laughed, and Patty laughed as well, as Dave walked out, leaving the bar, his thirst was quenched, and off into the void of the growing night meant the dangers would begin, but answers would be made. The next full-moon was less than two weeks away, and he wanted to catch the kidnapper before another young innocent went missing, destroying another family, when it could all be prevented...it was a tall order, but Spaulding worked with a purpose. Next stop: The Row.
The Row was famous for being one if the dingiest, shadiest hang-outs in Chicago. Monsters roamed about like sharks behind glass, just barely out if reach, but they'd break through and devour you if the chance was given. Dave Spaudling wasn't a fan of going to this area, therre is only so much immunity being a private dick can get you, but even in the circumstance, no validation by badge, or by gun would save you from certain evils.
It wasn't a surefire answer to all them problems, but there was a good chance someone strung up down in The arrow would know about the disappearances going on the past half year. If not; Dsve would be able to get a bag of weed, so the night wouldn't be completely wasted. Even still, there were always leads to better leads, and for the right price, assholes would talk, and The Row, well it was asshole city. Spaulding was going to paint the town red. No honor among thieves and the such, but more-importantly, no price a thief will turn down to rat on his fellow criminal.
When David for to The Row, it was apparent thwt he'd reached the destination firstly from the stench of vile crime and corruption. More dead bodies had been dragged from the alleyway than carcasses through a slaughterhouse. He always hated the stench, it reminded him murder scenes thwt nearly turned his stomach when he was just a kid.
"Shit." That's all he could ever say whenever he came up on The Row, it's really the only thing anyone could every say while stepping into that hellhole. Sometimes you never knew if you'd be coming out alive. He's been thankful, the last few times have left him barely scarred, but now he's wuestioningnhis sanity. There is a point when one has to ask them kes how many more times they're going to tempt fate. If the lion doesn't maul you the first time you enter its lair, that's not invite to move in for a summer retreat.
The detective moved down the gritty narrows, pushing through the crackheads and loons. He was looking for Billy, a coke fiend he used to bust back when he was on the force. The guy was a resilient sonofabitch, still alive, but not much was left upstairs. Spaulding knew at the very least that the information he'd get from the guy would be reliable. He needed soemthing,he wanted a lead to chase, something to sink his proverbial teeth into,just so he wasn't waiting around next full moon for a child to be abducted.
Billy was strung out, shaking on the same street corner he used to catch him on all those years ago. Like old, pitiful times. Back as a cop, Spaulding was paid to care, and even when he wasn't being indicted on drug changes,meh still kept a clean nose otherwise...a few years ago, he'd have a snort or two,just to get what he needed from old abilly Boy, but now...now he just wanted a bit of a lead. Anything. Anything that could get the fucker who took Holly Greene.
Billy was a coke addict, a buck, and probably a killer in his own right, the cops never got enough to stick for a charge, so the guy was just another wasted angel on the streets of the Devil's lease. The man was pliable, like a goo of a former human soul, wasting away on ground that had SAds named after it. Spaulding didn't care about this guy, he was paid to care so long ago...justice was what he used to want, now it's payment for the justice of others.
"Billy, you old trick, still sucking cock for nickel bags? You know, ire member the first time I brought your punk ass in off the street. It was right here in The Row, that used to be Disciples territory, now it's such shit, the gangs won't even touch this place for cheap hookers to turn a trick. You, you little prick,,you bit deep into my fingers. Now I wasn't a spring chicken, but that had to be the first time I ever had to get get us from a bite! You still got that tin grill, well what's left from what I knocked out of your face? Still, no grudges, you've been good to me over the years, Billy. I need a smoke, you want one, or did you quit?"
Billy didn't a set him, he just stared off in the opposite direction,likely so strung up on drugs he didn't know which ways was up or down. Dave knew he was listening. Whenever Dsve spoke, Billy listened like a jackal chasing a wou dead pigeon during Mardi Gras, because thwt meant Dsve was going to throw him some money, he was going to feed the disease. Crazy now life works.
"Ah, yeah, it's a nasty habit, but it beats hsving to pull my hair out. You know, the Mrs. is still working at the Rabbit Mound? I swear, I lucked out with the Mrs. She really is a swell doll. You know,a he still asks about Billy the coke head. I always tell her he's the best snitch this side city. So now-" he lit the cigarette, and this got Billy's attention, he spun his head around on the thin swivel he called a neck, and looked up Dave with wanting eyes at the smoke honing from his lip. Dave tossed him a smoke, and like a famished fiend, Billy stuck it in his mouth, almost lighting the filter, as he quickly flipped it around and inhaled deeply from the nicotine-enriched smoke. He coughed a bit,mbut happily giggled to himself.
"-I need you to be a good snitch again, and tell me what you know, and oh, I know your coke-field ass has an ear to the ground of this city, on who has been a ducting these kids the past five/six months. I know you know, and I want to catch the guy. We got less than two weeks before another full moon. I want answers, and I want them now."
"Nothing. I ain't got nothing, Spaulding. I hear stories...stories of a monst,something that steal little kids in the night, like a chimera, some sort of evil jinn, it feeds on the young and the weak. Like a rabid animal, there's a body on every corner, they say. I hear things you know, the voices say to me thwt these monsters, they er real, and we need to repent! The end is coming Spaulding....Hell is coming to Earth...what better place to start the reaping than here in good o'l Chi-Town? They say the Ripper was here once, Dr. Holmes, he was one-in-the-same, wasn't he, Spaulding?"
" I don't have time for your bullshit, Billy. The bastard is a monster, and I'm going to find him. I'm praying to Fod that maybe, just maybe Holly Greene me is still alive."
He kept hawking up lungs, as the next drag was taken, but David smiled, at the pain of the diseased innards being mended by the sting of poisonous smog. He seemed to forget wbout a David for a minute, who kicked hard near the addict's head. He shook it off, and glared deep at the detective, but Dave's glare was more stern, more threat behind it, and Billy was barely in the position to stand,male to-alone the state to pick a fight with a brazen end, treated forever police officer.
"Tell me detective...hsve you ever seen the Devil? They say many officers catch that harlequin grin of Old Nick himself...have you stared at his work? Have you seen the true nature, the root of all evil, and dismay? I've been resourced from the dead more times than the Christ-child had returned from the crucifix. I've spoken more truth than the sermon on the mount as well. I have witnessed the Devil, I know he awaits me...he has sent his messengers for me, Spaudling. One of them roams the humble streets of our fair city, doing things that would make the Devil turn green with disgust. Those babies...they aren't the only ones...for many years, so many children hsve gone missing on a full moon, not just a full moon,don't forget those rare blue moons. The masers to your question...they are already on file. You'll find the child killer, and I assure you, dear detective...they are nothing but bones, if that, but the child killer is under your nose. I'd go back to your friends at the precinct...have them show you the missing children files for the past hundred years...look where most cops quit after protocol hinders progress."
Spaulding thought this over, mulled it over long enough to toss a whole pack of smokes to the drug-addict, and a few bucks; both of which were scrambled up into decaying pockets.
"Thanks for nothing, Billy. Thought you'd like to get this fuck off the streets. I'm only paying you because in your vullshit Ramblings, you gave me something useful. Because if you're right about the hunch I have...God help all of Chicago's children."
"One last thing, detective-"
"Yes, what is it?" Spaulding asked tossing down the cigarette butt, stomping it out.
"This demon, this Devil, when you do meet him...when you finally meet him on the grounds of battle, be sure to carry this with you. Lore is bullshit, Mr. Spaulding, remember that. Not even the Holy rosary will tempt the demons back to Hell. However, this right here-" he tossed capsule at Spaulding. It looked like a drug, not surprising, but Spaulding pocketed it, figured he could analyze the drug later. If it was a new designer, his old buddies down at the precinct could nip it in the bud.
"-this will send the demons back to hell, leaving the vessels behind. I promise you...you will thank me, for that microcosm will keep you from dancing with angels."
"I swear, Billy, seriously get some help....you're getting crazier and crazier every year, and I don't want to lose and asset like you. Take that money and get in rehab, make something if what's left of your fucked-up life, mske your mother proud."
Spaulding left Billy to himself, and knew that he had risked, and strived another walk down The Row. However, he wasn't sure he a going to survive his final destination for the evening: 118th precinct.
2
The precinct was a taxi drive away from the row, a good fifty minute walk if you wanted to die, but Dave Spaulding was a man of resources,mand packed everything up into a cabbie, taking him back to his old stomping grounds. Truthfully, he left in good standings, but that's on paper. To most officers, he was a disgrace. A former coke junkie, a pot head, married to a former prostitute, now turning tricks on a pole. He loved his old job, but his fellow officers were not something to be left desired.
The building was as old as the city. It may hsve even been the first building in all of Illinois, leave it to being a police precinct to be the foundation of human civilization in the whole of Chicago, let-alone all of Illonois. He hadn't been back to the 118th since he was "let-go" all those years ago. He lost half his pension,which was a joke to begin with, if not,mend retired to Florida and sold coconuts until his formal handshake with the Reaper was to take place. No, his eccentricities keep him form that lap of luxury, but he wasn't delusional, he loved the chase, and could he ever actually ever stop this? Probably, nobody wanted to be the ninety year old working security behind a desk trying to afford an escape plan from their miserable existence, and third mortgage.
The cold exterior of the building was as dark and gothic as a cathedral covered in the blood of the lamb, but he stepped right in, as though it was the most welcoming amusement park on Earth. The ethereal feel of what was the dank offices stirred up nostalgia for Dave,me oh was gawked at like a spook himself, returning to haunt the hallowed halls of the 118th Prescient.
"Oh no, no, no, you turn your ass around and head back out the way you came in, Spaulding! Unless we arrest you, don't ever come back here, or we'll cite you for trespassing, then handing you over to 120, or maybe those bozos down in the 105, they need their balls busted. So get the fuck out of here, go back to that little agency you got out of your hooker wife's cock closet." That was Buddy, the real prick on the payroll. Spaulding didn't let it even budge him, he kept walking, until he reached a captain Howard's office. Stephan Howard was his former partner, both of them had very, very different paths in life. However,he knew Howard well enough to get the documents he would need to get Holly agreen's abducter. Howard was an old-fashioned cop: he'd want the culprit caught, and hanged at the trial. He'd help Dave if it meant saving the life of another innocent child.
Spaulding burst through the doors. Howard was surprised that his old partner was just waltzing freely through the prescient, and he hung up the phone call he was on with a quick retro, and was already out of his seat before Dave could reach the front of the desk.
"what the hell do you want, Dave? I don't have time for your little hide-and-seek agency. Pretending to still play cops and robbers out there. You know that we had Internal Affairs all up our ass for years after you got off Scot-free! Now you come on back herer as if this is some ten-year fucking reunion . Oh, the set of balls on you, Spaulding. Lemme guess what you want: you want to pick up a flask you've kept hidden in the back of the locker room, right behind the first aid kit, right? Or do you need your coke stash, always under the desk in the boiler room, where the dogs would be able to sniff it out, what with all the different stenches coming from that shit factory. No, no, you want help, is that it?"
"The last one, Stephan, the last one. I need to see the cold cases, the ones on child abudctions. Got a hint from Billy the Cokehead. He's a perceptive sonofabitch, and I think that he's onto something with this recent string of abductions. There's a pattern, you and I both know it, but it's a benign one: a full moon? I know what thwt leads you to believe, but we still have only one body turn up, and I am trying to get the Hreen family some peace. They hired me because I know the best, and-"
"They hired you because you're the cheapest private dick out there, Dave. I don't know what to tell you, but giving you access like that. Most of it is in the public records, the rest is confidential, pending that the investigations reopen,of course. What exactly do you want from me, Spailding? Do you wsnt me to commend you on this life choice you've made? You're still a disgraced cop, a dirty piece of shit thwt twine this place of work, and we were clean before you, why couldn't you hsve been transferred to those Limey pricks down at the 86th, they're all part-time mob, full-time shit bags...you would've been made captain by now...Hell down there, you would've been made mayor by now. Christ, Dsve, we were partners, and you go and fuck me like that? Getting caught in a drug trafficking ring. I know they reduced the sentence to Posession, and I knew you were snorting, but damn it, you got caught, and nearly cost me my fucking job. I had to take a drop in my fucking pension, and my wife nearly left me, thinking I was involved. I'm no fucking druggie, and I sure as hell ain't dirty. That's your bed thwt you what in, and made snow angels in...so kindly fuck yourself, Spaulding."
"This isn't about us...this is about Holly Greene. Something out thee is abducting kids,confirmed to hsve killed one, and er both know it's just protocol to say that they're alive, but we both know, and have been on enough cases together that there is little chance any of those other kids are alive. Billy said this guy is a monster, a....chimerra....what could he mean by that"
"I don't know, Dave, I don't usually take much merit in the words of a coke addict. Still, a strange choice of words. You certain Billy knows enough about this guy? Have to admit, he's been on-point about these things before."
"if I had to guess, there's talking going around The Row, and the ghetto is up-in-arms about what the hell has been going on these past we months. Apparently your boys haven't been pulling their weight either. It seems your boys have been dropping the ball as usual. You have no leads, so yes, at this point,mid take the crazed Ramblings of a coke head over nothing. He's observant, and he thinks that the past six abductions are not the first, but six of numerous more that have been going on for years. Even decades. I need the cold cases, because that's where the cases seem to be heading, and I wanna see if the correlation is there. Full-moon murders...we always step up security, at least we always did when I was a cop. Then again...every nights a full moon these days."
"This is Chi-Town, Spaulding...it's braised in blood, and sautéed in tears. Broken spirits are the business. Killings are up nearly 1000% this year alone, and it ain't getting better by next year. I'm understaffed,hell, I'd take even you back right now if I could find a place to work you. Fuck it, the files are still in the baseman. I'm sending you with our on-staff psychologist. Sara Donaldson. She'll go over the forensics of the cases, and help you sort them out. She's a criminal psychologist, so she can catch patterns in her sleep. Don't make me regret this, Spaulding. The only reason I'm even humoring the thought if letting you go at it is becaue you've got a proven track record,mand I don't want another kid to go missing. Full moon's the seventh this month. You got a lot of work short amount of time. The old coffee pot is there too, I'd say get the dark roast cooking, cause you'll be burning into the late morning. Oh, and be nice to Sara, she's a good kid...so don't force my hands any more than I want to now. You got until my shift ends at eleven. So by my watch., that gives you just under ten hours....fuck me, I hate this shift. Never fucking ends, Dave, it never fucking ends. Homicide is starting to spill over into every department. Even HR is starting to look lime a blood bank got in a fight with a blender."
"Thanks Stephan...oh, you'll run this for me, right? Might be a new drug on the streets. Billy gave it to me, and I think that it might be some new designer drug. Don't know if you ca just give me an idea what it is...I'd like it kept together if that's possible, it is still evidence." Spaulding took the pill out of his pocket, and he's dead it over.
"Yeah, sue, I'll have the lab take a look at it, by the time you get done, they will probably have an analysis on what the hell it is. So get down the and get to work, before I change my mind. Donaldson will be joining you soon."
Spaulding headed down to the basement, where most of the files prior to the big jump to digital were kept. A quarter of what used to exist, now on digital mainframes. He wasn't allowed access to the precinct's database, but the files he would be looking for, all cold cases, were backed up on paper copies, and kept in the baseman. It was easy to access them by year, as they needed to be right on file in-case a case got reopened. 9 out of 10 times, reopening a cold case was more because new charges have been filed, and a court case was now pending. Others are when a new case may be tied to an older case, such as motive, circumstantial evidence, and serial killings.
There was a slight uneasiness stepping back down in the dusty basement, the smell of yellowing pages and spiderwebs was enough to make Dave second-guess why he was coming back down there. The words of a lunatic coke head sent him to a police station....only in Chi-Town could this make any sense. But even if Billy was talking out his ass, Spaulding knew thwt consistencies in the past case could at least develop a timeline. It can help find patterns long-developed when randomness begins to deteriorate. It could help even assume the age, race, and sex of the culprit...if there was anything else defining in the cases, eventually a pattern is found. Humans were pattern-machines,mand even the most careful serial killer leaves a pattern. Mostly it's the actions not involving their murders that get them caught. Parking in the same spot, getting their laundry done at the same dry cleaners. There's always patterns, and Dave Spaulding could sift through a haystack of randomness, and find the one needle that weaves all those actions together. He wasn't even sitting with the first case opened on the table when he was joined by Sara Donaldson.
"Hello Mr. Spaulding, I'm-"
"Yes, Sara Dondaldson, resident criminal psychologist, and apparently you're going to be helping me trudge through the paperwork. Stephan told me that you'd be swinging by, he also told me to out on the coffee brewer, because were going to be up to our assholes in paperwork. Now,don't get me wrong,mimappreciwte wny help that makes paperwork go quickly, but I need so,ething,many thing that'll give me the guy who's been abducting these kids, especially if there's anything that can give me a read on their age, or their assumed location. It's going to be difficult, perhaps impossible to get everything, but just a tweet, a little bite, and I'm going to keep chewing until I'm at the wsshole's doorsteps."
She looked at Spaudling with a disconcerting notion...as if he were suffering from delusions of grandeur. Her lab cost was more for aesthetics, because she kept a Glock and a badge within hand's reach. He was able to make her weapon in a split-second, and knew that it must've been a fracture Hell's gate when the doctors needed to be armed. Although he was caught-up in her Cadillac-red hair, and stunning sexual prowess, it wasn't easy for Spaulding to pull his eyes off her. He was excited by what he saw, and for a brief moment, smiled. He returned to the horrors of the case files when he looked down at the evidence of the first recorded case: seeing the boy's bones, eaten, gnawed down to toothpicks, and even those he's more blood stained than a thousand bodies could produce in plasma.
She sat next to Dave, and this made him slightly uncomfortable. He was attracted greatly to his wife, but he was also a hot-blooded man, not yet dead, despite the amount of near-misses. The buzz of the coffee maker was dinging on and off, and Dave took this hint from the universe as a moment of restitution, to clear his mind from the case, and regain some composure over a piping hot cup of artificial energy.
He grabbed two styrofoam cups, and poured them out equally, setting the remaining coffee back on the burner. There was some sugar and cream, he only used cream to cut the worst ess of the trucker-style coffee they brewed down in the precinct. He grabbed a few extra single-serving creamers and sugars for Ms. Dondaldson, in case she wanted to concoct some extreme faux latte for whatever was fashionable these days.
She smiled, and thanked him for the cup, and drank it straight down. She must've been used to the coffee, even something eh refused to ever grow accustomed to, because he knew taste buds survived after the career had ended. Still, this earned his respect, she wasn't just a pretty face with and cannon,mshe was a cop. Who felt the awkwardness that most cops like to avoid, and broke the silence:
"So as you can see, these were all the local and regional kidnappings on file for as far bad as ninety-nine years. In nineteen-fifteen, you can see there were about five major incidents when a child went completely missing without a trace. Not surprising, especially back then when forensics were primitive. However, most kidnappings were usually done to children come from unfortunate vast wealth. Yet, these two stand out....two impoverished black childre;, both girls. We all know how important the priority for the underclass was, but add in minorities, and it's a sad shame. We think these times are terrible...it's nothing we haven't seen before, a sad shame...nothing ever changes. Sorry, I've been dealing with two bac-to-back double shifts with this being the first cup of coffee I've had in all that time. Thanks again for it, I've been dead in my feet. Makes me think I was I was sent down here to rest."
"Those two....was it on a full-moon?" Spaulding asked, ignoring the woman's dazed steam of consciousness
"Oh, hmm....it doesn't say, but let me just check my calendar application. Let's see, the date was: October 14th, 1915. So by this...it was a blue moon. So technically, it was a full moon, the second of the month. Why?"
"And that was the first recorded time we have of a child gone missing?"
"Yes. The one child was reported missing at about 12 midnight, and the second was missing about Evelien thirty at night the same day. You could say it was almost two-days apart from one-another, but no trace was leftt behind, and the cases, bobviously hsve gone unsolved. The funny thing is, the two girls both went missing in their own neighborhoods. Because there seemed to be no struggle, no sign of forced entry, and no way of knowing if the girls were even murdered, it was not ruled a kidnapping until well after a month. Both girls were just a block away from each other....incredible."
She continue ue to read over the details, the parchment paper it was printed on seemed to be staind with century-old blood as she had turned the crisp, yellowing pages.
"So....the full-moon, and the blue moon...every single one of these cases....could they be tied to the moon?"
"Well, it's been said that psychopaths killed by the phases of the moon hundreds of years ago,because it was easier to see with the brightness of the moon. The moon was led to be believed to hsve psychi powers, and turn mere men ito monsters. Hence the lycanthrope theory, and the madness of rabies leading men to go walking about at night thinking it was daylight."
"Lycanthrope as...you mean werewolves? Like the damn Wolfman? You think someone is copying these kidnappings, or thinks they're a damn werewolf? There some fucking crazy people out there,mbut someone thwt thinks there a fictional monster."
"I've studied abnormal psychology for several years, it comes with the territory, and there's clinical studies of lycanthropy within many individuals who suffer from manic depression, even post traumatic stress,meh I believe themselves to be lychsntropic beings. Usually after a wild dog has bitten them, it is like going to war fro some people, and their illness which has been hidden under the surface, comes out like it wa there the whole time. They believe themselves to be turned I to a monster,mbecsue they are losing time, but this is because the secondary personality, now risen to the surface has taken control of their conscious mind. So they believe the loss of time is them becoming a shapeshifter, when we know the dog is merely a dog, or the wild animal was merely a haphazardous incident.
"Even here in Chicago, wild dogs are just as rampant as wolves in the Ozarks. It's not that remarkable to make such a correlation between the victim of manic depressive bi polar disorder, and multipe personality disorder, to then state they. Eleven themselves a monster. Most don't involve kidnapping, or even murder, specially the brutality of which was found with the most recent male victim. the distinct cases found have been mostly nonviolent, but there was always a fear of the patient wanting to murder loved ones,mand those with a robust history of the lycanthrope mythos would go-so-far as to bury the clothing they wore the night before, walking around naked."
Dondaldson seemed to know more wbout the topic than Spaulding could know from a marathon of horror films. Apparently he lived in a world where werewolves existed....even if it was only believed by lunatics. This sounded sad, almost pitiful to him, but man, or lycanthrope, he didn't give a damn, the asshole doing the kidnapping was a child murderer, and he was going to see justice done for the lives lost, and the lives still missing. The last bit about clothing Donaldson spoke of was intriguing to him, and he parroted her words back to her.
"Bury the clothes they we're wearing? Why?" He didn't know anything about werewolf lore, but even this seemed like a potentially good sign...if this guy was like these other whack jobs, then there might be a trial to follow. Spaulding wasn't sure, however, if he was excited, or frightened over the idea of someone thinking themselves an unstoppable monst. He tried to put crackheads down when they attacked him relentlessly on the force...it was like fighting Superman under a thousand yellow suns.
"Oh...well, in werewolf lore, the wolf is said to shed its skin, and it is believed that burying it in hallowed ground will kill the werewolf. So these people are essentially trying to kill themselves by burying their clothes. Some even dig up ancient graves to put their clothes in. Still, werewolves cannot in any form step on,mor oenetrate hallowed ground. If the skin walker, which is essentially what a werewolf actually is, although the two aren't always synonymous...will not be able to prepare for the full-moon, and die without their pelt. It's all based on extreme superstitions of course, and being a woman of science,mi cannot believe it to be anything but a delusion that has harmed these poor soulls. Normally the werewolf will keep their skin as a prized posession of their skin in a secreted place until the next full moon. Burning the pelt, burying the ashes in a church of any other hallowed ground, will kill it. In theoy,mod course."
"You seem to know a lot about this..strange hobby for a young woman like yourself...you know, an elegant and beautiful, smart doctor."Spaulding smirked as he grabbed for the next file, and a sip of his too sweet coffee.
"First-of-all, I only know about it, because it iis a legitimate mental illness. Secondly, I've learned a great deal of folklore because believe-it-or-not, the majority of them stem from questions in abnormal psychology. Thirdly, I kind've find them interesting. Such a symbolism...man turning into the last primal species on earth. In a world hw even tigers can be tamed,the wolf is still the lone creature that man cannot truly tame..well, thwt and the cat."
"That's the story for another day I'm sure...so tell me, Ms. Donaldson, just to humor me while i grab another cup of Joe, why not just a silver bullet? Isn't that supposed to put them down?"
"Actually that's an American mix-up. Silver was always for vampires, and even that has never been a full-fledged way of dealing with the undead. Now werewolves Americanized zombies, and vampires are all considered the undead...but werewolves age, but at a snail's pace. Eventually, a werewolf will die of natural causes, not from the same aging prose, mind you,mbut because they are being killed by their own disease. In theory, absolutely. Still, the only way I ever heard of killing a werewolf was destroying the pelt, that's the one thenOld World swears by. Slthough, there are other things you can use to discover a werewolf,min their human form,of course. The upside down pentagram on the palm, the mark of the devil, is supposed to be one of them. A tattoo of the moon on their upper shoulder is another, however, this is more a mark than some modernized tattoo."
Spaulding returned, and offered her more coffee, but she declined, holding onto her cup, as she continued her gbirght eyes slit with the discussion in more an energetic child than a woman of medicine and science.
"You see, people who suffer from lycanthropy, they measure from laymen,to experts...some are bi polar from the beginning, and use their interests as a scapegoat, an escape from reality,mbut rarely is it ever deadly, it's like... LARPing, or lve-action role playing. Like a child playing a game, pretending to be a wolf. If the intent to murder was their prior to the psychological change, then it is meshed deep into the fantasy. If this is a true case of lycanthropy, it's the worst I've ever seen. Still, someone who can bury clothing every night, could easily bury a body deep enough so even cadaver dogs couldn't find them. Remember, this is a person who sleeps barely a wink at night, bause they sleep during the other personality is in charge. However, the chances of this being a lycanthropy case are extremely far-fetched, but 100 years...that's an extreme coincidence....I mean, this would have to be a at least four generations of killers and kidnappers following ten same pattern. Whatever thentruthnismsomewhere, it's merely fascinating in the most terrifying ways imaginable."
"You're throwing a lot at me, but nothing seems to be sticking...even you said for hundreds of years the moon was a call for people to kill, and I do believe that this guy is not doing this because of some mental disorder. This is cold, and calculated. Not animalistic, not some play acting. Why kidnap children? And to your theory, why leave the first, well first recently recorded victim's body out to be found...even if the sick fuck chewed on those bones himself...coroner even said the eftn were not like any animal he's seen, but that's because it could be multiple animals chewing about the carcass, why was it left out plain as day? Thwt means something went array,mor that was the first true victim, and the perp wasn't used to killing. So he got smart by the next one, he had a whole month to plot it out, and I still believe the sex is male, judging by the brutality, and the switch to all female victims. A man could dig done deep enough so the body would never be found. Erosion will bring up the bodies, and the. We'll know whether or not when, and if we find a body. For now, I need a clue, a true, authentic clue to determine where he may strike next. His age, his race, I'm believing he so-far is an Africa-American male, -aged between 40-50 years, and upper middle class. He has a respectable job that has interns blue, flexible hours, because if he's doing killings once-a-month, then he has to have days that are more flexible to prepare....so something contractual perhaps? Or someone that's self-employed?"
She wasn't surprised by the man's insight, he had been a cop for a couple of decades, but she was more intrigued that by the assumptions he's made that she had come to opposite conclusions. She disagreed with Dave,mbut the two spent the next five hours in suspense, looking through hundreds of cases. Dave noticed every-so-often, Safa would type into her phone, assuming she was texting a husband,mor boyfriend of sorts, he ignored it,mand thought best to send his wife a little sweet nothing via text. He used the popo emoticon, because she always thought it was cute. Suddenly, like a spark had lit up across all time and space into her quivering mind, she spoke to Spaudling as no chandlery as if they had not been silence scor hours.
"Judging by what I'm seeing,meven as event as ten years ago, there is a swift curve upwards to more, and more kidnappings. The correlations are unmissable. Look here...there is drop in similar kidnappings from-" she looked at her smart phone, typing in several digits, and turning the phone to Dave "1964, which is when the digital records go back, to 1986, and from 1987- to as recent as last mont's kidnapping, there is a surge upwards. In the paper records, there is a point where nearly three a month go missing, and one winds up mutilated. All different races, mostly underprivileged blacks, but this leads me to believe thwt there may be multiple abducters and killers, but then it appears one or two died off. I don't think it's just one man, or even just one woman of any singular race....this seems to be....please pardon the wording, but a pack of them, over the course of nearly eight decades, kidnapping...Dave, if we take out the coincidence of the full-moon, and follow the linear abudctions...we can see that if you remove other kidnaping cases, this one is like a circle rough out the suburbs, the projects, and circles sound at the area known as The Row, right back again....we have a pattern. Yet it's so well-designed to look random,but even I can just make out which streets are being hit, and the hitting of nearly a block away on blue moons. There were only 150 blue moons, including the last one being 3 month/ ago. The first double kidnapping we have on file...until now of course. This means, if my calculations are correct, and this graph is at least accurate by seventy-five percent...the next kidnapping is going to be on-or-around Oleander Drive. Dave, even if we cover a five-block radius, looking for only teenage-aged children, and have a cop at each corner, it's still a slim chance, but we may be able to stake out the son-of-a-bitch!" She nearly fell out of her chair, as she headed to the pblack of the rows and rows of filing cabinets. Making sure to grab a grimy bit of coffee from the second brew Spaudling out on two hours before. She chugged it down, her eyes more bloodshot than shower curtains from the Bates motel.
"This is the earliest kidnapping case on file. Our digital copies only go back as early as the sixties, but I just rememberd, we have one as early as 1891. Look at the astronomy chart on my phone. There was a full-moon the exact date: Juky 21sf. It was a blood-red full-moon...there were fifty-six kidnappings, seventeen murders, and eighteen people went missing."
"Chicago World Fair...all courtesy of Dr. Holmes. Kille a great deal of prostitutes that year, went unchecked until the smell of the bodies in the hotel wall gave him away,,correct?"
"What if he wasn't the only one doing mishevious things? He has had hundreds of unaccounted murders blamed on him, what if there were these psychopathic murderous abductions going on as far back as then? We could be looking at the longest-unsolved kidnapping case in Chicago history!"
3
The sun rose overhead, the late morning rolled over the city, and Dave Spaulding was growing weary, yet accomplished. He was beginning to feel what it's like to truly be tired. Normally he'd be in bed by seven A.M. on the dot, but he was struggling whether to drink more coffee, or wean himself off so when he actually hit the bed, his head wasn't spinning about. He learned a great deal from the missing persons files, and with Safa Donaldson by his side, he was able to piece together a timeline, and gather enough information to form a diagram of patterns throughout the entire city, and outside counties.
He packed up everything he could legally take, and all the notes and diagrams he sorted, and thanked Sara for her asian tec, and that he'd share anything he learned with the police. For now, he was heading home, because his wife would be worried sick over where he's been, and she always made a huge fuss whenever he came in late: drunk, or sober. He was punch drunk tired, but luckily, Sara was heading out as well, and she lived only seven blocks from his shotty apartment.
Sara's shift was done in an hour,mbut she figured she could take off early, so she clocked out, and the two of them headed to her tiny little smart car, and they puttered off into the late-morning rush for lunch. They talked a great deal about the cases, it seemed after several hours of just searching through paperwork, it was always difficult to shut off the brain. Both remembered stuff they read hours ago that teetered to the surface, but it ended abruptly, and without much clarification once she pulled up in front of Spaulding's apartment.
He meandered up the stoop, and climbed the three sets of stairs to his apartment, which was one of the better ones that side of Chicsgo, and perfect for himself and his wife. It as mostly a glorified bedroom, and on-suite kitchen. They mostly wet out, or they would whip up quick food in a pan, but nothing really serious I -way of thought was ever out into the apartment. He opened the door kissed Trixie right on the lips, and made his way into bed, saying he loved his wife more than all the tea in China, then crashed right onto the bed. He didn't even take off his shoes, his wife did that for him.
Sleep came fairly easy, and a light snoring was followed by a gentle kiss on the cheek by his wife, who then cuddled up next to him, and they both enjoyed the afternoon slumber. Seven o'clock rolled on by, and the alarm dinged heartily, as though it was about to die of a massive heart attack. The ringing drove the half-tired Spaulding up from the subtle dreams of nightmare's end. Bethanny Snowe left his beaded, cold sweat behind for another eight hour rest, she would return to torture him once the sun rose tomorrow.
He called ahead of the 118th Precinct, and Stephan told him that the lab finally came back with the pill that he was given by Billy. It took them forever to figure out what components ere in the damn thing, but he wanted Spaulding to come in as early as possible. He wasn't going to believe what Billy had in that capsule. Dave didn't pounce out of bed, although his lovely wife gave him a kiss on ten cheek Trixie wasn't without a fresh smile, and as golden her skin was, she still looked like she had in her twenties, but with a sexually prominent maturity.
"Good evening, dear, you slept in late! I was worried sick when you came in so late this morning! By-the-way, your old partner Stephan Joward called, said that you called him, and that he wanted you to come in about some strange substance you picked up on the street. He wanted you to go get someone named a Billy, before you come in....apparently they want to question him, but they don't have anything to 'bring him in legally' so he wants you to swing by and bring him over."
"Strange...what was in that pill? I'm gonna shower, and throw these sheets in the wash....I didn't think it through to lay on them after treading through all that shit the other night. I'll go get Billy the Cokehead." I'll try to be home early tonight, but it's going to be a long night, Susan."
"Hey, I know you're going through a great deal of pressure over the Greene girl, but know that I support you, you keep my life wild and interesting in the ways I need. I love you Dsve Spaulding, and I'm proud to be Mrs. Spaulding. Now go get them, my lion tamer, and get justice for that girl's parents." Her smiled beamed with the pride of a quadrillion lionesses. Dave nodded snd kissed her with the same passion as their first kiss, and headed into the shower. He cloned, and flung the sheets into their rickety old washing machine, bolting out the door. He hailed a cab, and shit off to Billy's favorite daytime hang-out: The Pussycat Palace.
The Pussy Cat Palace was a direct competitor of the Rabbit Mound, and s less-inviting...a daresay. "less sophisticated" establishment to Spaudling's wife place-of-work. Spaulding paid the cabbie, told him to wait there, and he ran in. The girls dancing were far from appealing, ore like mirages of monsters past. He saw Billy sitting around one of his favorite dancers: Destynee. Spaulding grabbed him, and before Billy could adjust from the dark lighting of the Pussycat Palace, to the doorway of the cvs, he was already shoved in, and they were off to the 118th Precinct.
Billy tried to struggle, but years of a use made the scrawny frame nothing but a fly whipping about in a spider web of Spaudling's tense muscles. He dragged him through the towering double doors, and flung him on the top of Howard's desk.
"What the hell do you doing, Spaulding?!" Screamed an outraged Cpt. Howard. He was red in the face, and walking like he had hotnshit in his pants.
"Just dropping by for the results on that pill this street trash gave me...so what is it? Some me street drug?" Billy tried to stand up, but Spaudling slammed him back down on the desk. Billy struggled a bit more,mbut then settled down to when it was discovered to be to no avail.
"My God man! I told you to bring him by, not roughhouse him! The lab came back with good the results...to took much longer than I expected, they were hot off the printer about five minutes before I called you. We had to take the capsule apart, and we were able to fit it back together, but....well, just look."
Spaulding looked over the pages, and he was shocked , startled b the findings: the pill was a supplemental mixture of rare, and unique herbs.
"Damn it, Billy, what the hell is this? Parsley, ginger, nightshade?! And what this last one...wolfsbane? What the hell is that?"
"It's a spies of monkshood. Poisonous, but not illegal. Same with the nightshade. We could try him with possession of a deadly weapon, but the charges would be hard to stick. Honestly Spaulding, whatever this pill was supposed to be, it doesn't make any sense...I don't even know how Billy could've got this kind of pill." Sara Donaldson chimed in, looking over her charts.
"Where in the Hell did you get the pill from, Billy?!" Howard dragged him over to a chair, and sat him down. Billy smiled, and began to laugh, but Howard was having none of it.
"Answer me God damn it! Tell me what the hell this pill is, and why did you give it to Spaulding? Do you know where Hilly Greene is? Who is doing these kidnappings? Answer me you asshole!"
Billy stopped laughing, and looked straight at Dave, completely ignoring Stephan Howard, complely ignoring the barrage of questions. Soaulding never last such a look of sheer contempt from Billy in all those years, but it was terrifying.
"I told you to hold on to that pill! Now it has been sullied with their meddling! The demon! The contorted anomaly! That will help in its defeat! You would've thanked me...now you've lessened the effects...take the pill back Spaulding! When you find the devil, slip it in the drink! I'm too weak to do it! I know where you can find it! The girl.....she lives!"
"What?!" Howard screamed.,
"No bullshit, Billy, tell me now, or so help me God, I will beat the shit out of you, and every office here will turn a blind eye, do you hear me you druggie prick! Where is she?!" Spaulding got right in Billy's grill, spittle flinging from his mouth, cleansing the dirt and grime from Billy's face. Billy wiped his face with his shoulder, and grew very serious.
"I will...but you hsve to protect me, Dave...I don't want them getting to me...it was too horrid a beast! A foul monster of what I've never believed! It stopped by 0th Street last night, it grunted and growled at me...it said it wanted you to leave it be. It knows you, Spaulding, and it wants to meet you, alone. I need protection. For the past month it has been following you."
"0th Street"was another nickname for The Row, most of the people who stay there call it that, because it seems to become the origin of all their problems. Spaulding hadn't heard the name in a while, but he didn't care, he knew now that his questioning put him on a crash course with whoever had been kidnapping the local children. If Holly Greene was alive, he'd beat the holy hell out of abilly to get to the exact latitude and longitude of the bastard's location.
"Okay, Billy, here's how it works: you're going to give me the exact location now, down to the very last detail, and if it checks out, we will give you some sort of clemency...keep you in a quarantine cell, under constant watch, not as a prisoner,obviously, but nothing can get to you while in here....then when we find out who came to you, we'll set you on your merry way." Howard tapped him on the shoulder in assurance.
"The Mage. I got the pill from The Mage. The Black Raven held it in its talon." Billy blurted out.
"Who's The Mage? Starting to sound like a Tolkien tale!" Sara exclaimed in trite confusion."
"The Mage is a place; not a person. The Black Raven, that's a code name for Wetzel, he's a German-Hatian con man, he runs The Mage. It's...well, it's quite a few things, but mostly illegal gambling ring, some say it's like a cult house. What the hell were you even doing on thwt side of town, Billy?" Spaulding snapped his fingers in front of Billy's face, who came to again.
"He summoned me there, using his followers...two came to visit, one gave me an envelope. He told me a white man would come to see me. He said, 'you know this man, he has great power, great pain, but he knows you too. Give him the pill, but do not have him take it! When he finds the demon...put it in it's drink, and it will be killed...but now...well, now you broke the pill. It was perfectly measured...now it may not work." Billy,,coherent as he was, was fading in and out of various states of consciousness.
Howard gently looked over the notes of the odd pill again, zspailding looked it over...the case was early translucent like a gel tablet, but slightly larger than an average headache capsule.
"Billy, even if half of the ingredients in this pill were missing, it's enough to down four men..maybe you should quit telling Spaulding ghost stories and about the crazy Hafian, and give us the location of the abducter! Do you know it or not? I'm about to let him best you to a damn pulp!"
"But! I'm telling you! He wants to meet! Alone, and he'll know if someone else is failing zspailding. He wanted to meet at a specific location, but I have to tell Spailding alone,or else...it'll kill me, they'll kill me."
"Who? Damn it, who is going to kill you, Billy?" Spaulding balled up his fist and threatened Billy with a permafrost stare. He wasn't in the mood for the bullshit that this guy was putting him through. Magic pills, crazy con men of underground criminal rings...a demon, 'a devil' roaming the streets of Chicago. He wasn't about to listen to this nonsense. He just wanted hilly Greene alive.
"Fine, but I want safety, lock me up, and get me some food, and coffee, please. I feel starved and dying! Once I'm locked up, I will tell, but only to Spailding, if he tell any of you after, it won't be my burden to bare."
Spaulding wanted so badly to hit the fool, knowing that it's would be beating a dead horse with a stick though, so he looked towards Stephan, who hesitated.
"Fine! He has 72 hours in lock-up, but you better come up with something good, or I'll throw you back out on the street. You here that Billy? Your info better be useful, and it better be golden, because if we can't bring this ash sole in, I'll personally put you bare ass on the street, ring the dinner bell, and let them come for you, understood?! And Spaulding! I cannot in good-intentions let you go in alone. You're a civilian now, you can't go chasing down a suspected murderer and kidnapper."
"Well...what exactly do you expect me to do? If this guy thinks there's a police prescence; it could get Hilly killed. If there's even a 1% chance that she's still alive after all this time! then we cannot! cannot! Take a chance with not following his demands to a 'T'. I'm a big boy, and I was a cop for decades,mom pretty sure I can handle myself.
"Damn it, Dave! You're in this one too deep, you're already acting like you did with Bethanny Snowe...getting way to involved! I was there too, Spaulding, we both drink becaue of it, always Bethanny Snowe...it haunts my dreams,mbut you are going to get yourself killed, and then that girl is going to be another victim. I cannot let you do this....unless you're certain that you're prepared to do this one by the books. You're a private dick, but if you're going to even humor this...you better be prepared."
Spaulding leaned in, and abilly whispered something into his ear, he sat back in shock, nearly falling onto the floor, convulsing. Stephan ran over, knocking Billy out of the chair, and punching him square in the jaw, then turning wround to Spailding. Sara Donaldson ran over as well, as they watched the man go into an eplieptic siesiure. Sara held his head firmly in place, as the on-call medics ran over, but by the time they were even able to implement a sedative, Spaulding popped right back up, brewthing heavier than he had when he tried to run that 3K marathon.
"Are you all right?!" Sara looked as pale as a ghost, as zspailding was helped to his feet, coughing as though he'd lost his breath, but he shook it off as though it we're nothing and stood on his two feet, pulling Billy to his feet, turning over the chair right side up, and sitting him gently back down in it again.
"How the hell...how in-the-hell...why Billy? How can this be? I saw him...his face, it wasn't clear. The Crazy Haitian...I know people spoke of his magic tricks...but what I felt seemed so real. I'll see him tonight then...Stephan...put him in lock-up please, treat him like a guest of honor, and I'm sorry, I have to go alone. What he told me...what I've seen, the visions, how can they be real, I don't care...keep him safe, please. I'm going to need him alive if I want to stop this. All those girls...they're alive, but...I'll need that pill, and pray to God the damn thing will work."
"Dave...you just had an episode, you're not making any sense right now, just sit down, and we can talk this over, okay? Get him some water, damn it!"
"No! Stephan, I'm fine, never better, but I mean it. Keep him safe, please. I'm going home, I need to get my gun...if that'll even work. Billy, they'll keep you safe. Here-" he tossed a dew hundred bucks to Stephan. (-get the bastard whatever he wants, but don't let him have any drugs, make sure you got your best on him, incorruptible cops. I'll need him sober. I'll return after I meet with this asshole...then I'll have to go see the Hatian. I have to go."
Spaulding put the pill in his pocket, and headed out the door, without much more as a sigh, leaving Sara, Stephan, and the bulk of the precinct staring in disbelief by all-account what they witnessed as soemthing otherworldy, something surreal, but easily forgotten as the man hailed a cab, and Billy was locked up in an isolation cell.
Subtle Park was a name used by few to describe a grove on the outskirts of the main city. It could be seen from the Sears Tower, but it looked just like a tiny thicket from the skyscraper. Spaulding made his way over to it, a Holly Greene was all that he saw, submerged in the towering image of that poor,defenseless little girl. He wanted to find her, he needed to find her, failure was no longer an option, especially if Billy was right, and there was hope she was alive.
The night was darkening. A quarter moon shined faintly in the distance, and there was a slight caw of birds echoing in the in the long-off distance. He could barely see in front of him,the rows and rows of brown thickets,dying of from the Fall cooling, they whistled in the wind, he hugged his raincoat fighter, keeping warm. The park was essentially empty, the grove with brown patches of dead grass, thencotyneouldnt fix it until there was evena hint of Spring,mshich could take all the way until July in some of the hardest years.
However, he heard a slight rustling, the smashing of twigs below engorged hindquarters. He turnd around, and the dark figure, raveled up like a mummy stood like a gargantuan figure in front of him.
"Have no fear, Detective Spaulding, as the old saying goes: if I've wanted you dead, you'd already be dead. I see thwt lackey of yours delivered the message, no doubt you hsve him in custody, protected by your old precinct. Cute of you to think that will matter....still, I'm very glad you could come along, I know how desperately you've been trying to get a hold of me...well I'm here now, so speak your mind."
"Who the hell are you? Where's Holly?! Billy said she'd still be alive, so tell me where she is!"
The figure moved with a quickness that seemed unprecedentedly supernatural. Almost a shadow of a shadow, barely a trace, but the figure was atop him before he could even pull his gun, and with the strength of Jaws of Life, the figures clamped down on Spaulding's rickety hand, holding down the gun he was attempting raise up.
"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk, Mr. Spaulding. And here I thought with old age comes patience. I myself am unfairly patient in my negotiations. Here, gaze upon her yourself, this is a livestream, and encrypted well so it won't even be worth the time to jack if if there are any police nearby. See, she's fine. A bit tied yup, but no less worse for wear."
Spaulding careened his neck towards the phone, and it it was indeed a livestream, people watching in sheer terror, or delight, depending in their level of sickness. Holly was alive, and she was indeed tied up, just in her underwear, and she was crying so badly, her face was matted by her frizzed hair.
"Now, now, I didn't violate her in any way, I assure you. I merely stripped her down out of her clothes, because she liked them, and they were washed, and pressed. You see, Mr. Spaulding. I don't want to hurt Holly. I had to hurt the others...they were weak, and couldn't survive the process. But Holly is perfectly strong, I've never seen such a better candidate."
"What the hell see you muttering about! Give me Holly, and tell me where the girls you've murdered are!"
"Murdered! I never murdered anyone, Detective! No...they just did not make it....the poor babes. See, I tried with older, and I tried with younger, the boy...oh the precious boy! He was an accident, I swear it! I would've let him go,mbut it was too late...he changed, and so quickly. Like a mad dog, it was difficult, but I had to out him to sleep. Let God rest his merry soul in Heaven. I for one still here his mangled screams in the morning. I will have to live with that Detective, but you for one must know I never meant any harm, I never wanted any of this to go as far as it has...I'm not a man of violence, but I am very lonely. When your the dominant predator...being on top is just as appalling as being on the bottom...if you have no one to share that with."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Spaulding wrestled away from the grip of the figure, quickly enough to get his hand raised, and fire several rounds into the cloaked man. The rounds knocked him back, but didn't bring the towering wrapped shilloutte down. Dave unlocked the cartridges and hurriedly put in six more, and put those rounds into the figure, discharging those crated ridges as well, and he began to fill up the chambers again, but the figure stood, tapping his massive foot on the ground.
"You do realize that it isn't working? You've put twelve lead rounds into me, and I've not even had a spittle of blood grave this frost item grass. It won't work,mi thought I'd save you the trouble, what with the price of buckets these days. No, Detective, I am fairly certain you are going to listen to me, and listen well. I'm keeping Holly Greene for myself, she will be my companion when the right time comes, and we will live on for centuries. If anything, I'm bestowing the gift of near-immortality, you want to damn her to death, at what, at the most she will see 100 years,if disease, stress, and the violence of these streets do not get to her first?! I'm a good man, Mr. paul dig, I am a man of peace, but circus fancies from long ago have halted the allowances for forgiving trespasses...now I'm afraid you have but one choice: tell the Greenes that their daughter will be fine in my care. I can promise her she is not going to be held against her will...once the gift takes hold, she will be as free as the city's winds...but she must never, ever come to visit ever again. We will be departing once she is whole, and going off the the Motherland. From there we will live a happy life, and you, Detective Spaudling; you will feel the joy of knowing that Nolly is alive, and well, far better than you will ever be. If you test me, though...I will have her come back, and do away with your grandchild, a d your lineage will be all but a memory. For now, I will leave you with my name,for it is rude to know your, and you noto know mine."
"Impossible,..I aimed several for the head...you should be-"
"Dead, Detective? Oh I was, for a good twenty minutes once, but I came back, the lunar saved me from the callous cold claws of Death's hand, but he follows me about every-so-often. I see the dead, you think we are alone in this park...but many lost souls still roam. Not-so-subtle I'd say."
"You're mad! You're not real, non of this is real! Just give me back Holly, and turn yourself in, they will lower the charges if you cooperate, they'll see that you're mad, and you'll get all the Haply a pills your psychotic ass will ever need, deal? I just want Holly back."
"Nonsense! I'm done with the prattle of mere mortals as yourself. Holly loves her parents dearly,as any good child would! So tell them she's okay, here-" the figure swiped several times on his phone, and Spaulding's began to vibrate.
"-I've sent you a video message taken earlier today from ms. Greene, it's for her parents. She doesn't want to be rescued, she's upset that her parents will never see her again, they'll be dead for many years before they ever see their daughter again. Even then, I'm not so sure. But I promised you my name: Issa Omari. The highborn, saved by God himself. Huh! Seems more like lucifer favors me. Good luck Detective, but do not follow me, you will not win; and I will end you."
And just like that, as quickly as the figure appeared, it left with a resounding speed that made Spaudling question his beliefs, and sobered him faster than a come-to-Jesus meeting.
"Shit." An emphatic statement from Spaidling, who could not rationalize just what happened, or who...or what Issa Omari is.
4
The clock struck two in the morning. The lights were bright in the city, a curfew is in affect, but nobody ever follows it...violence occurs every turn of the alley, life is in danger...looks like a wars one at every instance. The world looked grim, and location, even in a first-world economy, meant plentiful, or peril. Dave Spaulding walked through streets for decades. He remembered the first time his mother let him run the streets alone. It was when he was 10, and him and his buddy walked to the store to buy her a pack of smokes. She was a heavy smoker, and it showed when she didn't even live to see him graduate from the academy at twenty-three. Still, he loved the feel of the sidewalk pavement pounding beneath his feet, the kind of feel that comes with years of walking your feet flat.
He wasn't going to hail a cab to where he needed to go, and he walked and walked for what lt like miles. It took him nearly half an hour to get from the Subtle Park, to The Mage. He held the pill in his pocket, grasping every fifteen minutes just to make sure it was still there.
The Hatian-German descended Wetzel would know what this was all about. He was in disbelief, but he didn't have time to be awestruck. He needed to move faster than ever before to catch Issa. The doorman looked him over, but didn't hesitate to let him through.
"the Boss Man wants to see you, said you'd be the only white boy old man to come to the door. The Boss Man sees everything, he got the spirit in him...you're the Detective of the name Dave zspailding, aye?"
Spaulding didn't even answer him, and went through the door. The Mage was full of scumbags, the kind of criminals that made the others look like play actors. He was ick in,marrying to be as silent as a shadow on the wall. The doorman followed.
"He'll be in his office, at the the top of the stairs, then you take a left, my man."
"Thanks." Spaulding kept walking, and climbed up the stairs, passing illegal gambling, cockfighting, and drug dealings.
The stairway was rather long, spiraling up towards a velvet curtain. He went through, and made the left, to the Hatian's office.
He knocked, but the door was amwr, and Spaulding walked in to see the host sitting at his table, two lovely Barbadoan women were at his sides, and he waved them away. They walked past Dave, and he had the events to make it subtle that he wasn't looking, but focused on the Crazy Hatian, Wetzel.
"Mr. Spaulding...ah, Detective, come, come inside, have a seat, a drink of voodoo juice, it'll knock you on your ass, ha! Come, it is discourteous not it have a drink with the host in his place of business. In Hati, it is custom to respect the host of a party by doing as he pleases, and trying the house drink. My mother, God bless her, made this concussion for years, it was for great celebration...and intense negotiation."
"Don't have to ask me twice." Spaulding took a big gulp, squinting through the heat, and letting out a sigh of delight, pouring half a glass more, and quickly swigging that down, the burn less-intense.
"I love a man who loves his drinks, and knows what he wants." Wetzel squealed with delight, leaning in to pat Spaulding on the shoulder,giggling and haggling with every holler. The man seemed demonic, almost possessed by some sort of energy that was ancient,mand Dsve wanted no part of it, so he moved on quickly to business, putting the capsule up on the table.
"Always to business with you, Mr. Spaulding? Aye, seems the boy got to you my calling card. It be a very important piece to the puzzle."
"The damn thing is full of poisons, it's a pill full of herbs that are rare,dangerous, yet, they all are perfectly legal...what the hell is this supposed to be for? Huh?"
"Ah! You don't know? It's a boobytrap my good sir! It's a means to an end. Think of it as an insurance pill. You sleep that to the man, and he'll be weakned,possibly dead. Depends how long he's been around. What did you see that needed to be seen, Detective? Did you see anything special when the monster came for you? You've for a few days left to find him again...he doesn't fear you, but he's being concerned with who you are...he knows you come after the babies, he wants to keep those babies, he wants to make sure they turn...but you can stop it, never too late."
"What the hell are you talking about Wetzel? We both know that you're a man of money. The bastard led me to a park offered me up, told by Billy, what does he even have to do with all of this?"
"What's there to know? Billy's a bit of a druggie man, is he not? That means he's easy to buy, and barely remember what he said. But I'm talking about that Issa boy...he been around since my great granddaddy come to this country, and he gave is all reason to fear. He's old, ancient, comes from the Dark Contintent he does. He doesn't fear you, he's not mere mortal, but he'll provide for you a fairly clean death. He's no predator, more like a garbage disposal. However, what you're facing, has been around since the Fair, a devil amongst us, killing for generations, creating more and more monsters. Back home, my family created many a zombies, people around here, they think we're batty, crazy men, who come up with stories of the brain-eaters, but zombies are slaves. These creatures, they're slaves of habit themselves, but you might wanna hold on to that pill, it could save your live, my good boy. Just give it the good slip, and the bastard-thing will be no-more. You might also want to slow down on the voodoo, it can have side effects."
Said long dlooked down at his glass, and he felt the good warmth of the drink. But he was a let to speak fluently, as he always had, but the struggle was more apparent.
"This pill...what exactly is it? I've had my friends up in the precinct do an analysis of what was in it, and it is u like anything I've seen before....what's the point of this pill?"
"Tell me....you met this Kssa, right? The one. Y great grand-father knew...he comes from a small principality formerly in Egypt, now long gone. He's. Of as ancient as the panorama, but his stench would say otherwise. He as to been a man for generations, Detective. Still, he's older than the two of us combined, double, if not triple that! No, he has been long overdue for the sarcophagus. So feed him that pill, it cost a great deal of money, it is perfectly balanced, and it will do the job. Well, it won't kill...but it will stifle the monster's power. You do want to get this Issa Omari, correct? You want to kill the werewolf, don't you?"
"The what?!" It was rhetorical, even with some voodoo drink in him, he could understand the word 'werewolf'.
Wetzel stood up, and leaned over the desk. His face free into a grimace, and his tone became as serious as a stroke.
"Oh, you know what I meant; Detective Spaulding. You've heard me say the word werewolf...and you and I both know that is what the bastard is....a god damn werewolf. He isn't them only one, but he is the oldest one, goes back to the end of the 19th century. He travels from city-to-city, but somehow he's grown to admire you...why, only God, of the Devil knows. For me, a f. Spaulding, I don't care about the whys or the hows, I just care about the beast getting put down. Sue, you don't believe me...why would you, I've shown you no evidence...I know they call me the "Crazy Hatiosn" but my German lineage is as proud, and wheree the man-beast have stemmed. The shapeshifters have always roamed the zblack a forests, they have roamed about the Danube, as much as the Nile. They are everywhere now, no longer a point of origin to map."
Spaulding couldn't really fathom everything he was being told, but his eyes saw plenty of something obscure when the beastly man visited him on the empty grove earlier that evening, now heading into morning light.
"I've seen him up-close, he gave me the name you said: Issa Omari, he sounded mad...but there was a dialect in his gone that made him sound as though he was older than my grandfather.mthwt old Chicago accent...does he stem from here ostly, then? You seem to be the expert on these things." Spaulding finished off the last of the blue liquid in his cup, then stood, and thought twice, and sat down once again.
"He travels the Midwest, but mostly stays in Illinois. My family had tracked hims for many years...I cannot say I'd be as comfortable staring the beast down, even his human form must be rather monstrous after all this time alive. However, I do envy you seeing his existence. The monster must be a terrifyingly brilliant creature. I fear you may have to witness such horrors, but it'll be the last thing you witness if you do.
"The children, why you're really here. The girls, he is gathering up a pack. All female, so he can stay the alpha, and turn them all into his brood. Once they mature, he will have unlimited access to procreating, unleashing a horde of nightmares out this world. He is also running out of time to do-so."
"Why is that exactly?" Spaulding sat back in the chair, relaxed by the drink,mbut still quite coherent enough to carry on a conversation, and remember most of what was being said.
"Werewolves may be able to live for long periods of time, but just like men, their half mortal part dies off, and they in-turn will die. They are extended mortal. He has lived for a good three hundred years, perhaps slightly more. He he only a few more healthy years left...a decade of so...he will drastically age in thwt much time, and be on his deathbed where his soul will instantly burn from his body, causing a sponges out combustion. In that amount of time, he could have a pack of more than a dozen female lycanthropes...and numerous children. The gestation period for a werewolf is thought to be much shorter than that of a human. We are talking a giant pack of descendants of Issa O Sri, and your young, virginsl girls, all caught and likely turned, will be the mothers of these ungodly beasts."
"So what can I do to prevent this from haplening? He told me Holly Greene was still alive right now. If this is true, does that means she's already been turned?"
"Likely...and if she's been turned into a werewolf,then her first true change will be durning the full moon...which by the clandef is less than a full week from now, but-"
"What? What is it?"
"Well, the next full moon is precise eight days from now, technically nine, as it will be fully visible about 12:01 midnight."
"So I have right days to stop him, before he is fully powerful and Holly is forever changed." Spaulding was sure this was all ridiculous, but the more he listened, the harder it was to deny that this was all too-true.
The lore of the Motherland states that there are several ways to become a werewolf,mbut if chosen by the lycanthrope, the beast will turn you by scarification. The beast will claw into the palm an inverted pentagram. Many think this is the sign of the devil, but the age of the pentagram is older than even the written existence of Yahweh. The symbol is supposed to be of that of a wolf with a long jowl,mand two pointy ears. The full-circle thwt encompasses the pentagram is to represent the full moon. The other way is to survive an encounter with beast, a scar that is impossible to remove. A victim will then change as any other werewolf when the moon is full, but it will be painful, dreadful, and the victims they kill haunt them like ghosts until their dying day."
"You can understand that this is a great deal to take in....so how will this all work, and this pill, how does it weaken Issa?"
Wetzel smiled, he didn't realize at thwt point he had forgotten to explain the point of the pill.
"It's simple! The pill is full of wolfsbane, a very powerful poison that is Extremly rare. A form of monkshood, it can kill most men, and is extremely deadly. It, by itself, will not kill a lycanthrope, but it will harm it, making it vulnerable to-"
"Lemme guess....a silver bullet?"
"Actually, that doesn't work, and neither does the old adage of buring the skin,mthwt is. It even the same creature...no, the only true way is to carve out its heart, and devour it, this will cure anyone changed into a lycanthrope. It sounds gruesome, I know, but to devour the ess me of the beast is is to eradicate it from existence. I'm sort, but thwt is the only way. The wolfsbane will take away it's powers temporarily, so use thwt pills wisely. If what you say is true though, and it has been tampered with, I cannot guarantee it will work the way it was intended. For now, I've exhausted our concerstion. Perhaps, Mr. Spaulding, you should go home and rest. I will have one of. He cars take you...oh, but if you can do me a favor....if you can bring yourself to succeed against Issa, I would like something in return. It's sort of a trophy for all my efforts. I want the hand of the werewolf, the left hand, it must be the left. Please bring me the hand. You will know which one, it will have the sigil I've spoken of on it, and I will be forever grateful. I will handsomely reward you if you can bring it to me, and I will make it worth your while. For now, you should go. Return to me after it's been done. I thank you again Detective Spaudling...my guy will see to it you make it home safely."
Spaudling was quickly led down to Wetzel's personal car, and driven off to his home. It was still rather early of a night, but he was feeling surprisingly tired. He was helped up the stoop, and up the stairs,mi to this home, where he was gently laid on the bed, and handed his keys. The two men who drove him,mbidmhimadieu, and they locked and closed his door, as he went to sleep as the sun began to rise,brightening the south side of Chicago with unhibiting light.
Spaulding's phone rang about five in the afternoon, waking him up abruptly. His wife was sleeping next to him, still deeply, and soundly in a deep sleep. He picked up the phone, and gently moved from out under her, answering the phone in the other room.
"This is Spaulding."
It was Sara Donaldson on the other point, apparently he had forgotten in his drunken discussion with Werzel, thwt he was supposed to return with information to the 118th Precinct. This of course, wasn't going to happen, he really wasn't sure what information he was even given. Then he remembered that he got the video from the figure only known as Issa Omari, and that was for the Greenes. He checked his phone, and saw the e-mail, which was encrypted beyond his skills as a computer hobbyist. He opened the video, and it zipped right on, and it was of a Holly Greene. She was in the red tank top and tan capris that she was last seen in. He stopped the video and saved it to his harddrive on his laptop, and made sure to back up several copies. He also downloaded it permed rely on his phone.
He called up Norton and Dinah Greene, and made a meeting for seven that night, at the local coffee shop, it was a public area, but still secluded enough that they could get down to the business of this video. They immediately responded, and said they would be there at exactly seven. Spaulding had no doubt. This gave him time to kiss his wife on the forehead, take a quick shower, and wash off all the swear and shit from the ight before. He's washed around some mouthwash, to get rid of the stench of booze, and put a couple of fried eegs in his stomach. He ran off to the core shop, where he grabbed himself a large coffee with extra cream. He used the bathroom, washed his hands, and came out to see the Greenes standing in the doorway. He ushered them off into the corner of the shop. He bought them both coffees, which they gladly accepted. Then he got down to the gritty business.
"Okay, I don't want to get your hopes up with this video, but it's from your daughter in only downloaded it, I didn't think it would be right for me to watch the video without you present. How I got this video...it's complicated. It was e-mailed to me. Over a highly encrypted server. Whoever took your daughter wanted to make sure that you were not going to be able to get to them. They wre very, very careful. Still, they knew who I was, and are playing games. The video is time stamped early yesterday afternoon, so she was alive yesterday. So let's watch."
He turned up the video's audio, as Holly came onto the screen. For all-intent -purpose, she looked absolutely fine, as though she wasn't even kidnapped, but that this was a video shot with her best friends.
"Hey mom! Dad! How's it going? I'm fine, I'm with Is-" a whisper could be heard from behind the camera. Spaulding knew exactly who it was, but he didn't want to necessarily disclose the name of the culprit just yet, especially if what Wetzel had said was true. He could still fee the pill in his cost pocket, mingling around.
"I mean, I'm perfectly fine. I was scared at first, but I'm doing great! I'm well taken care of, and I'll be just fine. I know this is sounding crazy to you, and that you think I'm being coached,mbut I've found a new home, and I'll be just fine. I think that I'm actually hwppier now than I've been in years you've put so much pressure on me,mi guess I was going to crack...but now that Is- I mean, now thwt mive found something else, I feel so alive. I've been through so much trauma, but I promise you guys, thwt I love you dearly...and I'll be coming home very soon. I'll be bringing my new friends along, and we'll be one happy family again, I swear!"
Spaulding wasn't sure thwt the girl was still in her right mind, but he never thought he could ever be scared of a happy-faced teenage girl before...but her smile, it wasn't pleasant, it put him at such an unease, he had to turn away...he began regretting showing the video to the the Greenes.
"Oh my god! That's our daughter! She's alive! What the hell have those dreadful cretins done to her! The bastards, they've corrupted her! She's so fragile! What wre we going to do?! Detective Spaudling, will you be able to get her back?"
Spaulding lit a cigarette, and took a swig of his coffee. He was so put-off by the video, he wasn't even sure thwt saving her would salvage anything. If it was true...if this thing was a lycanthrope...a fucking werewolf, then maybe she and to become one, but the livestream closed circuit of her writhing and twisting in fear and desperation was a completely different scene from the happy-faced girl just several hours before...maybe she changed her mind. This might've been a scare tactic by Omari...whatever it was, the parents couldn't know the whole trust just yet, and neither could ten precinct, or he'd be seen as a nut job who drinks too much.
"If she's alive, I'll get her back, and bring this scum to justice. I'm sure that this is just a scare tactic....she's just doing the video so he doesn't hurt her. Trust me, she's a smart girl...so whatever this guy wants, he's going to keep her alive until he gets it, and there isn't a ransom...perhaps she's playing him. Most of these kidnappers aren't thwt bright, and many don't want to harm their victims,mothers always an ulterior motive. Im going to find her thoug. I just want you to know thwt this was a very big mistake, and I'll be getting to her. I can promise thwt I'll do whatever I can to find her. This guy know sim working the case, and he's been following me since the beginning, well guess what? I'm getting closer, and the fondly means that I'll be finding out his precise location. I'll have a group working on decoding this signal, and I'll be certain to find his base. Just know thwt I have the best connections to figure out where this guy is. So have faith, I will do everything I possibly can to get your little girl safety back home."
They didn't seem so sure, espcial'y with a video like thwt...Spaulding was regretting not looking it over himself prior, but he didn't want to accidentally disclose any I formations bout Issa Omari. Still, he did what hem could to keep everything calm. They talked some more, and now a solid eight days were left until the full moon. He wasn't sure just what to thwt meant, because Spaudling believed in some great evils, but werewolves in achicsgo...not really something he could say was believable. Still, he knew thwt he had been lucky thwt she was even still alive today...so the faster he found Holly, the more apt she was to be alive.
The three parted ways, he gave the parents a solemn hug, and ent on his way. He would focus greatly on the video he was given, and the email thwt it was pinged from. He knew it was a vullshit name, but he knew that all pings had to leave traces behind, and like a linear map that's in any/every direction across the glee of the internet, he'd be able to have someone trace it down.
For the next five solid nights, he had the 118thnPrecicnt working on the data he recovered from his phone, and his laptop. He turned the laptop over to them after he printed out all his files first, and backed the. Up on his personal computer. The nights were gritty, and he searched and searche, wondering if anyone else has seen or heard of Issa Omsri. He even went back to Fwt Patty Flannery, but it was though he was chasing a ghost.
It was as though he ran a marathon, but finished only to realize he had barely crossed ten starting line. But the end of the sixth night, there we ware only two solid days left until the supposed full moon. He had become frustrated, thinking he would've discovered the lair of this monster by now. He grew distance form who's wife, and drowned his frustrations in fresh black rum. Billy was still in lock-up, but he was now no longer useful, not gathering information on the street. Still, the streets were his best bet.
Finally, the feed form where the video stemmed was cracked. Police bombs redid the location with local officers from all the nearest precincts, but nothing but a bare old house was found with nothing but the stench of dust and film, and there was nothing but a half-gnawed femur bone. It was barely noticeable as anything but a chew toy...and Spaulding was beginning to feel defeat. He didn't want another girl going missing in the paleness of the full moon. He wanted Stephwn to send out a city ordinance for all children under the age of 18 to be inside by eight o'clock, but it was impossible to enforce such a curfew.
On the seventh day...it felt dire. Dave zspailding, now on what felt like a three-day long binge, found his way back up to Wetzel, known as the Black Raven, up at The Mage. This time, Wetzel greeted him at the door. The club itself was closed for the day. Even criminals needed a day off, it seemed.
"Ah! Detective! It feels like hearsay I was introducing you to some voodoo juice! Seems you've had a bit of fun since! I like a man who knows what he loves, but I respect a man that would go toe-to-toe with a devil such as Issa Omari. So tell me: did you get the left hand for me? As agreed? I will pay you wuite handsomely for it...you we a mercs seri, are you not? Have you gotten it? I hope you get it for me...you didn't get the lycanthrope yet...hsve you? No, I suppose not, the beast would be slain if you've recovered the little girl, but hat would be all over the news pieces wouldn't it? Bah! Why wre you here then?!" TheHaitian's smiled turned to chagrin disadain over the fact he came across from simply staring at the defeated man.
"It's hopeless..the full-moon is up tomorrow night...we haven't gotten anything in days! It's like the world has gone dark on Issa Omari. I mean...it's almost a joke, like he never actually existed, like a dream, gone away, but the nights re stay. Little Holly Greene is still lost to this world...what do I do? How do I track the werewolf?"
"Ah-ha! So you're finally admitting that there is a werewolf, are you? Good, good! I can see thwt you have no other explanation to what you've seen. Let me explain: it is very real, and that little girl, she's no saint. I've heard of the video...she wants to become one of the undead. There is a romanticism tied behind the primal nature of the lycanthrope...but it always ends in tragedy. Remember...even the monster was once human, and it too had a lol and love, and a history. She will be lost to thwt, and become a myth of evil, and fear. A demonic creature of fable and lore. She will be hunted down, or die in a burst of purifying flames. Then go straight to Hell with the other servants of Satan's spawn. But I will help you one last time. You've put all the pieces together, but yet, where Is throne place that must be the point of origin? Where else; pretell, does it lead to? You hsve the sneer...just do some detecting, and lay off the voodoo juice, it's giving you bad mojo right now."
"I don't know what the to tell you, I believe more what I saw. Of this thing is a werewolf....where is it? How do I stop it...you said to eat its heart....but does that have to be the only way? This is all insane!"
"My friend, Mr. Spaulding, everything is insane, just a matter of degree. A beast of that age...it will not go down without a fight. Even a monster of thwt strength and agility, has a morbid fear of mortality, just like we, but the stakes are much greater. When it dies, the soul burns to a Hell that you and I could not imagine. Three is a special place of torment for a monster like that, a special, horrid place where only monsters fear other monsters, immortal creatures that were damned by the creator long ago. Are you a praying man, Mr. Spaulding?"
"Well...I drink a lot of wine,if that's what you mean...but not really, kind've hard to pray a great deal when you see the horros thwt man can be capable of...now we have the luxury of dealing with monsters, and the treachery of their malice. No, I'm not much of a praying man, Wetzel....but I'm beginning to believe that if something as dutifully evil, as much as Hell incarnate that exists in a being to jeopardize the safety of these young girls...then it would be a great sin if a God of equal purity didn't exist in countenanced opposition."
"Well, then you know thwt prayer and might will be what defense you from the best. In either form he would be a challenge...but you may not be up to the task. Still, there is no one else, and others will think it crazy thwt such a thing exists...but circumstances,you are the best to fight Issa...you saw it up close, so it is only you that will challenge him, and kill the monster. He lies off the shore of Lake amici fan. You will need to go soon, but first, you must take this-" Wetzel handed over a metalic sigil, it felt heavy, and ice-cold, it looked to be gold,mbut surely gold was not this frozen to the touch.
"This is alchemized gold. I know what you're thinking, yes it is heavier and denser than most gold, but that is because it isn't truly gold. The catalyst of alchemy creates a vibrant force of metal, and it is the tool the ancients of China and Jaoan used, and forged to combat the werewolf. It is sharp on the one edge of the circular sigil. The lead has been transformed into a material, a kind of symbolized doomsayers for the werewolf thwt is too a transformed being. That piece alone, the amount of procession of materials to create such a piece...all the oil in the Middle East and Russia could never pay a fist price for what its true worth is if tallied. You will take this, and slice deep into Issa's chest, and retrieve his heart. Use it to cut off the left hand as well, return it to me, whole....and you will be rewarded greatly for your efforts."
"Wetzel, wt this point you could tell me that rainbows are unicorn shit, and I'd believe it...but you were never quite clear why you want thwt hand...I'd be breaking a few laws just to let you have that hand, the leat you could do is explain why. Make haste, if your information is correct, I'd need to get a move-on to the lake."
The Haitian smiled, content lay, knowing that no matter what he said, the detective would hsve to give him the hand, or face the dire consequences. Wetzel had waited most of his adult life for this moment. He was never able to take on a full-fledged werewolf, and Issa was the mother of all shapeshifters, and he wasn't without question to even humor the thought thwt Issa Omwri had not begun the process of creating a brood pack to repopulate the area. The city was already chaotic, and random deaths were part of live, werewolves would stive in Chicago, and move outward until there was nothing left but pockets of humanity,...might as well be stables where the food source grazed.
"You ask the questions to answers you do not want, I don't think for a moment you could handle the process of which I I tend to use that hand. You do not grasp the power of the claw of a werewolf, and the devil's mark as it entailed...no my good man, I'll only say thwt with it, I can manipulate some events, rather a series of major events to play out in my favor...think of it as a lucky rabbit's foot, or lucky numbers on a lottery ticket. Thee is no harm, and it will allow me to live a long,mhwooy, fulfilling retirement. I've been waiting decades now to receive this blessing, sixty years I've lived, with twenty of them wanting this blasted hand. I think I've established the reward for doing this little task will greatly reward you, rather than hinder obviously kill the beast first...then focus on the hand. I've given you a pill to weaken him, in the wre case he turns, and with that sigil, you will slice him deep. If you can retrieve ten pelt, shred it with thwt, and he will be vanquished as well, but do away with the heart, and those that are his victims may see peace once again. Hell of that magnitude is no place for young girls, Spaulding...and if you fail, you may soon join them in a torment not even the mortal soul can sustain. So go! You have little time!"
Spaulding didn't hesitate, snd fled out the door he had quickly come from. He heard a screeching call from behind him, it was a Barbadian Princess, not the same woman who was holding on to Wetzel's arm,mbut a goregeous sunk-soaked, young woman who had a power of a leopard, and the appear ce of a bronze statue.
"Wait! Mr. Wetzel thought you'd use the best of his cars easier, no need to call a cabbie boy to take you to your predestined action, right? Here you go Mr. Detective Man, you have a good day fighting down the mongrel pooch that be bait in' the children faire!"
She threw him a ring car key on a keychain thwt had a little voodoo doll present. It looked generic,untouched, as though it was ready for a victim to enforce the will of another onto...it scared eh shit out of Spaulding. He wasn't sure what wa real or what wasn't. With the alchemized golden circular sigo gently rocked into his cost, barely wble to fit into this pocket without slicking it clean in half, and thwt ever-present pill lodged deep down in his cost pocket, which he thought better and transferred into his front of pants pocket, he drove off towards alake Michigan.
Spaulding arrived at the Lake just an hour before dawn. The whole of alake michigan spread for day of horizons, careening back and forth throughout the edges of the Illonoise/Michigan borders. The golden sigil beamed with the light of the peaking sun, as though it was drawn directly towards it, and without much effort, it sprinkled sparkling reflective light all about the car, a makeshift disco ball. To find Issa Omari, it was going to take a great deal of searching. Wetzel made it seem as though the sigil itself, now sitting on the passenger seat since it seemed to glow from his jacket pocket, would lead him to the werewolf. The thing seemed attracted to the foul creatures, and it would want to meet skin with ten beasts. It wanted to cut deep, needed to cut straight down to the beast's ancient bones. The formed catalyst wanted sacrificial blood, screamed out in pain for the lack of it, and the more the face of Holly agree e flashed in front of his yes, the more badly that he wanted to cleanse the piece with Issa's skin, and let plasma flow all about in that poisonous goo of the adevil's own making.
He wasn't mad, he knew thwt he was going up against a monster of unbelievable proportions, but Spaulding wasn't without his merit. He had tackled nothing of this magnitude, but a man, even with power and strength on his side, was still just a man, overcompensating. A best like this never knows defeat, and the surprise of the slightest hint of defeat is going to be the distraction zspailding needed...and what he knew would lead to the bastard's timely defeat.
He drove the edges of the lake for several hours, using the glowing intensity of the alchemized gold as an ancient GPS, it was a tributary of light and sound, almost ringing with a resonation of that of a fine tuning fork. It wasn't an annoyance,mbut it glistened and glimmered with a holy angelic sound. The cold metal grew hot with light and song, like an orchestra of seraphims ringing in his ears, as he made one last turn into the early evening, and stopped outside a boathouse with one light in in the kitchen...and a small glimmer of a beam etching off the sun from the sigil, beaming brightly up towards the attic.
Spaulding, with just the wisdom of an ancient carving out of unnatural gold, and the heat of his gun at his side, the pill prodding like a thorny reminder in his side, he stood up, existed the vehicle, hiding the resounding metal in his jacket's great pocket; wheree it quite,y simmered down, and without haste, knocked on the wooden door of the old boathouse.
The boathouse was a blue color, rickety, older than he'd imagined, but a ramshackle style that had him guessing it's been there for many, many years. It was far out of the reaches of the city, but luckily for him, he wasn't a cop, and the circumstances were unusually grim, as his calm knocking, because e fetid taps of nervousness and haste.
Finally the door opened, and out of it came a young girl. Spaulding didn't recognize her, it was definitely not Holly,Moto young to be the beautiful, charming girl he saw in that video reply to her parents, nor the shrilled, scared child he witnessed from the live feed the beast had shown him...no, this girl was different.
"Can i help you?" She asked concerningly, measuring Spaulding with a false shield of disconcerting disinterest. A calmness that given the circumstances seemed out of place. For a moment, he thought thwt this was perhaps the wrong house...but he sniffed the sir, and looked around. No, this had to be the right house, things seemed too normal, rehearsed, and rehearsed, and rehearsed again. The way the girl acted, it even seemed to be too human, too emotionally disconnected. Something was awry.
"I'm sorry to bother you, miss. Are your parents home? Perhaps your father? I'm a detective, and I'm investigating a missing child's case. My sources have me believe that there is a possible lead. Now I don't want you to think thwt you, of your family may be involved, but I'm just asking around the area if anyone has seen anything unusual lately, so are they around?" Spaulding didn't want to question a minor without a parent or guardian present, because even if this was all a ruse, even if he could bring in Issa Omsri to justice, a slight formality could have him back on the streets. He knew Wetzel wanted Dave to shed blood, but if he could do it by the book, he had to, or he'd be a monster as well. Something told him, though...that this wasn't going to be a book'em Dan-O moment.
The young girl stood motionless, as though pretending to think over the question, perhaps avoiding a seeming too wuicklynor his film, trying to throw him off, or force hi. To return tomorrow, a very, very bad idea if the cow dr was correct. Eh looked up when the girl was turned, a quick glance up to see the moo was nearing its full cycle...it would no-doubt be full, and bright by tomorrow. He needed to act quickly, so Spaulding repeated the question, this time with more haste and umph.
"I'm sorry, but I'm the only one here. I didn't want to say thwt becaue you're a stranger, and strangers who think you're home alone....well, they can do very bad things."
"Im a detective, here's my credentials, see, you're fine, I'll just leave my card. Do you know she. They'll be home?"
"Well, Mr. redd is here, but he's not my daddy, he's the babysitter. Mommy and Daddy had a date night, so they won't be home until very late. You could talk to Mr. Redd if you'd like. Come in, he's just upstairs right now." The girl seemed worried, and yet, perfectly calm to let in to the house a compete and total stranger. Something was off, and it felt as thoughDsve was walking into a clever trap. Yet, it seemed to be vicariously planned to have him trample in, have his guard down, but it only made him raise up his soup ions higher. Then again, this girl wa far-off from the hectic inner city, her furthest neighbor was about three miles down the shore, and she did have and adult prescence, which always raises the calmaility of a situation. Still, he refused to let anything slide in the oblong cod stances of the last several months. Everything was coming to a-head, and if Issa was there, he wasn't going to let him get the jump on him.
The house was partially normal. Some did she's in the kitchen sink, the evening news blaring from a flat screen in the living room. Spaulding could here some thumps and thuds coming from the upstairs strive, where he saw the glowing light coming form from just outside the window minutes prior.
"Why is your babysitter up in the attic, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Oh, daddy is paying him a bit extra to get clean it out while he watches me. Some old stuff from grandpa that Daddy wanted thrown out. Mr. Redd is very helpful."
"Does mr. Redd have a first name...actually what is your name"
"Chris-" she started to say, but quickly said "My name isCharlotte Davis." This seemed peculiar to Spaulding,mbut brushed it off...knowing kids gave themselves nicknames and such,perhaps she didn't want to seem like she was lying to who might be a police officer. He made his way up to the attic door, which, unlike the typical attics that came down from the ceiling,mthis one was a true door with stairs to climb. He knocked on the door, and with Chwrlotte right next to him, smiling intently like the happiest child ever, he called up:
"Mr. Redd! My name is Dave Spaulding, I'm am private detective investigating a string of child abductions and im working a missing persons case, I've just spoken with Charlotte Davis, I didn't question her any further than asking of your location. Can you come down, and we can have a quick conversation? I won't keep you from your duties, but if I can have a moment of your time, I promise I'll be out of your hair very soon."
"Oh! Charlotte, is that a guest? Oh please, do come up! I am just a bit tied up with something at the moment, but if you could please come up here, I will gladly a sre any questions you have! Though I don't know much about any kidnappings or burglaries, or any other goings on!"
The voice wa like thwt of an old man, perhaps no younger than seventy, and this was all rather suscpious to him, more than ever.
"What did you say his first name was?" He asked Charlotte.
"Oh! Sorry it's um...Otis! Yes! Otis Redd, and he's our neighbor down the road, a good friend of the family for many years, since grandpa was alive. He was like a brother to him."
"Okay, well stay here, dear. Im going to go up and have a talk with Otis, don't be worried, you, nor Otis are in trouble. I'm just doing an investigation, and I will be out of here in no time flat, and you can go back to playing, okay?"
"Yes sir!" She smiled and giggled, running off to the kitchen, where a microwave oven was turned on.
Spaulding climbed the stairs, and he was too much on edge with adrenaline, he didn't happen to notice that the sigil in his js let's Brest pocket was tingling and shining a bit. It was hidden by the thickness of the trenchcoat, but he also did not assess the danger he was walking towars.
"Mr. Otis Redd? Are you up here?" He called out combing the steps to the very top of the attic, which he had to duck down. No answer came from his calls. He was suddenly very much afraid, knowing it was foolish to climb the stairs and leave himself I a vulnerable position. The attic was very dark, except for a dim light. He called out Otis' name again, but heard nothing reply to his call.
The room was pitch black, and depression ingle empty for an attic. He stayed focused on the situation in front of him,mbut never before did he feel so vile er wble, even in a dark alleyway with junkies shooting at his head.
"Hello? He called, this time with not nearly as much vigor. He heard a silent moan, as though muffled by a gag. Then he heard it again,mthis time slightly louder, and towards his left. He ran towards the sound of the frightened muffles, and to his surprise, found three young girls tied up to the major studs of ten attic wall he was even more surprised to see thwt none of the girls in front of him were Holly agreene. These girls wre much older, and in a ghastly note, he saw that all three of the young women...were with child.
"Hold still, I'm going to get you free! What the hell is going on here?!" Spaulding exclaimed, thinking he may have accidentally uncovered another abduction, one unrelated to the case he was working. He pulled out his gun, and searched the perimeter, but it looked at though Mr. Otis Redd had given him the slip. Still, he was wary of the circumstances, and so he unbound and ungagged the young women, who frantically wcried and moaned as he did. He looked behind him, to make sure nobody was there, as they all came loose.
The one girls went from crying and whimpering to smiling. This however, was not a smile of relief or thanks, but a maniacal smile, one that a raptor gave to a sniveling mouse once it's been unshideled from the snanctity of a daisy field.
"Oh Mister zspailding.you shouldn't have done that." He heard from behind him, as a click of the door locking from across the attic set his heart beating harder than those marathons he tried to run.
"I can hear your heart begging to let go and pass one with fright. Eve. It knows that the situation you are in is to one that will salvage any hope of your continuance to live any further than you have up to this pinpoint in the joke thwt is your existence. I just hope you ere able to drink enough to not be around to witness what will become of you...although your a day earlier. My girls were tied up because they are ravenous with pups. The only thing keeping their salivating jowls from tearing you apart is my power to will over them in their current form. Did you know, Detective, that even the slightest refraction of moonlight interior current Stwtes of gestation would turn them? So even the three quarter moon is just enough to have them become three ravenous wolves, and you would just be an appetizer. Just watch-"
The voice behind him, as he glanced out the corner of his eye was in-fact Otis Redd,mbut thenshamblynold man's voice was replaced with a suave, intelligent repurposed sound, it almost melted inside his ears. The three girls ere chomping at the bits to try and reach Soaulding...he saw blood in their eyes,mand noticed thwt on each of their left palms was the upside down pentagram, which Wetzel warned him about. These girls were changed by blood, and blood alone, they weren't some careless victims, they wre chosen to breed stock for the wolves to repopulate. He knew now, that this was a fight he simply could to win, but he was I. The thick of it....he just wished he rememberd to tell Susan that he loved her dearly, with all his heart.
"-and learn. Jeanette! Move into the light! Don't be shy! Give Mr. Spaulding a show!" Otis waved his left hand, and this one too had the reversed pentagram as well.
Spaulding turned back, one of the girls, almost like a posed porcelain doll grazing across a treacled wooden floor, dodgy and careening with every step, moved into the front of the window. The moon's rays Weee singeing deeply into the attic now, and the woman began to howl in pain. Never before had he seen soemthing so frightful, so terrifying as the woman began to morph, transforming, bones cracking and bending, reek iting to form something inhuman. The screams were something between a shrill ing woman and a howling she-devil, it took but minutes, yet once the transformation was complete, the she-beast stood in front of him. There was no doubt in his mind now: werewolves were real, and Iss Omari wasn't the only one. Being the selfless cop he was, in thwt moment when a beast no smaller than a grizzly bear wa to pounce on him, ending his whole pithless life, he felt sorrow only in knowing thwt finding Holly Greene in-tact, and still human was now close to zilch. He hated himself for not acting fast enough. Falling to his knees, dropping his gun, he awaited the spring of the lycanthrope, but it never came. The man, who he now wondered was truly named Otis Redd, jumped atop the werewolf, and chained her neck with a collar that looked of a high density lead. She fell flat to the floor, panting and whimpering, looking back at me, then to Otis.
With the same quickness thwt he saw of Issa in their first meeting, Otis moved and repositioned the other she-wolves back to their original positions, gagging them, and chaining them onto their studs. Spaulding was almost relieved, as he looked back at the slippery salivating jowls of the snapping she wolf, growling and barking, the spit smacking him in the face, even from such a distance. Otis laughed, and grabbed Spaulding, rushing him wuicly to the back of the attic, caniningnhim far away from the ivory teeth and seducive claws of the she-wolf.
"So I'm guessing you're not Issa...even without all the garb she was mummified in, I cans tell you're not the same stature...so who are you really, 'Otis'?"
The man who was rather a strong bean, and although he appear eased to be a very health, rather aesthetically pleasing man of a certain age, he was not showcasing any frailty of his autumn years in the ways he manhandled the detective.
"First, let's take away your weapon, it was buzzing in my ears ever since you pulled up! Ah! Three we go!" He reached into Spailding's trenchcoat pocket,mand removed the sigil.
"Ah! The Sigil of Nyx! How appropriate. I see the alchemist Druids who reigned in the Middle Ages had finally completed the throwing discus, but I've only thought those tales legends! So...the Haitian led you as day, like so many others. Oh, don't look so surprised! Do you really believe this was the first attempt to get at the great Grey?! The Great Grey, the one who shakes the might of the very lunar body herself! The Sigil of Nyx, however, that was a good play on his part. Never before had he entrusted one of his cronies with such a miraculous weapon. It may have even worked too against my dominator..,but no, it is alas, a folly of you mortals. I am not Otis, the silly child always mistakes the name...I'm Osiris Reddling, of the Reddling clan of what today would be Nice, France. I was turned twelve hundred years ago, by a rival clan's monstrosity. My lover, and new dominator, Issa Omari is the new Alpha of the clan of Chicago."
"Wait...you are over twelve hundred years old?! Doesn't thwt make you older than Omwri?!" Spaulding wa led to believe at Issa Omari was the oldest-living werewolf...or so the Naitian had told him, and he would've only been alive for several hundred years.
"Oh, he's much older than I am. He only claims his lineage up until the early 1800's becoming a sheikh of the Egyptian clan of the Omari's land. He has seen Cleopatra reign. I am his love, he is my heart. That fledgling of a Lycan hunter you call The Crazy Haitian, he has no founding of how much influence we have...why! He thinks his family lineage is as great as the Great Grey! But he is sadly misled by false information pased about for a mere one-hundred fifty years! I assure you, my last shit is older than his entire bloodline. You! Mr. Spaulding, however, interests the dominator."
"I don't understand...if you two are lovers...then what about all those-"
"Bah! Do you think me some scorned human?! Werewolves have no concept of sexuality, we just exist, and we are far greater for it! You humans with your laws, and your lines in the sand. We see the superior being, accursed, but no hated stems in my heart! No malice towards you, I cannot hate what nourishes my young, and his young. You will be a delicate feast!" Osiris exclaimed.
"If I am to die, I just want to know: are the children safe?! Did the girls you and your hellish love take live, or are they as much mutton as I am to become?!" Spaulding was sweating,mbut not from his impending death, but in hopes the beast in front of him did not sniff out the pill he had kept hidden in his pants pocket.
"How debonair of you to care! First, I have the one you call Holly Greene away in the basement. She has personally accepted to become a brood for the Grest Grey and myself. We do share until one of us has imoregnsted a female with pups. We make sure to keep them in constant lycanthrope form, so thre is no threat of death upon birth. One she-wolf will birth a gaggle of pups, enough to rid you simpleton mortals of your precious city in a few years. With the introduction of the three girls we've captured, and your precious Holly Greene thwt you've slsved over to save...who in an ironic fashion has joined us willing! Oh the stinging feeling thwt must give you, tell me...all thwt trouble, and she will gladly tear holes in her own parents tomorrow night! Ha! You humans have no concept of superiority, because you've always been at the top of the food chain, but not anymore.
" Our numbers are rising, and we will be strong enough to surpass even your greatest weapon...the nuclear bomb. The older we seem the harder to kill, the stronger we become from superior genes, the faster your grasp on this world slips. She insane of us now. The Great Grey Issa will see you before the end. For now, Mr. Spaulding, sleep! For tomorrow night, you will be the first adult male to witness the glory of the Great Grey in over a century!"
Osiris leaned in, kissed Spaulding on the cheek, the breath of the old man was rank with eat, and a stench of a thousand bodies in a damp furnace, it knocked Spaulding out faster than ten right cross that came in, and nearly busted his temple. For a while, he swore he was dead, as he drifted off into the unconscious. The growling and howling of the she-whole a osiris called Jeanstee played the lullaby to his departure....the end was coming,and he was powerless to do anything about it. Darkness came to his very soul, on the back of moonlight.
5- Final Break
Spaulding awoke early that afternoon. Charlotte, the young girl thwt answered the door for him was staring wt him with intensity. He shuttered and moved away from her, still chained to the wall. The she wolf named Jeanette was slumbering p, back in her human form, at the other end of the attic. The other girls were tied up again, and hooded, sleeping nude , their dresses on the floor, their protruding bellies moving about in unnatural life.
"Hello Mister." She cheerfully said to Spaulding, who was sweating bullets, knowing true fear for the first time, making everything else he's ever dealt with seem like that classic walk in the park.
"H-h-hello there....Charlotte was it? You didn't tell me your real name, smart. Very smart. So wre you one of them as well? Older than you look?"
"I guess you could say that...I mean only eight, Mister, I'm 'a pup', or that's what they called me. I don't know sir, I'm just doing what Daddy says. Him and Mr. Redd are very good friends, but Amy's my Mommy. She's the nice lady in the middle. She's having my baby brothers and sisters! I'm so excited, because I was born alone. Daddy doesn't like that, but I know he still love me!"
"Oh...is your father Issa then?" Spaulding's frustrations grew weary, as his blood turned cold. He knew that this was his last day alive. Issa Omari, the one Osiris Reddling called the 'Great Grey' wasn't going to let him live.
"Daddy is Daddy. He's out though, with the pretty girl...she's in the basement. He says she's going to become part of the family tonight. She bares our mark, see?" She lifted up her left palm, and therre was the pentagram that still shocked Spaulding still. "I call it my happy little star." Charlotte giggled and looked at it with delight.
"I see...I'm guessing he told you to avoid me, and that I'm a bad man, and I would hurt you, right?" Spaulding almost wanted to laugh at the whole situation. Here he was just hours away from being a feat for werewolves, and he was talking to a little girl, as though she wouldn't happily sink her little fangs into him if given the power of the moonlight.
"Well, he told me not to talk to you, said you wanted to hurt us, and that bad old Mr. Wetzel has been trying to hurt Daddy for so long. He said that you've worked for him, but your a police officer, so you are supposed to be a good guy, right? I learned about police officers in school, and that if you're ever in trouble they will protect you and find your Mommy or Daddy. Daddy says Mommy is very tired from having babies, so she has to be tied up so she can be safe, and safety for the pups. I cannot wait until I have brothers and sisters, it gets so lonely at times being the only little girl. I talked to the pretty girl...Holly, I think she said her name was...but she's still a bit older. I think she said fifteen, that's so old!!"
Spaulding knew thwt Holly was downstairs, but Charlotte confirmed what Osiris said. There were more lycanthropes than he could deal with...now this poor little girl...she was an innocent monster. Issa would pay for this! He felt his courage return in the form of anger, and he realized he had to get Charlotte to help him, or else he'd be trapped there until the full moon rose.
"Charlotte! You're a good girl, right? You need to help me, I'm a police officer, and your daddy isn't feeling well, that's why he said not to trust me. He's afraid if he's sick that you'll get taken ah, but don't worry! I'm a police officer, you can trust me, I won't take you away, but i. Eyed you to get me out of these chains so I can help him, and Holly! You like Holly do to you?"
She looked at him wing mistrust, but smiled and nodded happily
"Good! Well Holly has a Mom y and a Daddy too! They're very worried about her, and your Daddy didn't realize this..so her mommy and Daddy sent me to get her back, so she can go home. So let me go, and I'll help your Daddy, and your Mommy, okay?"
She mulled this over as a child only can, and quickly agreed to help him. She grabbed the chains,and pulled them off the wall, the chains broke, and Spaulding was freed.
"Daddy always told me police officers help us, so I can help you, will Daddy be okay?"
"Daddy will be just fine, is he with Holly right now?"
"Yes, Mister police officer, down in the baseman, but be quiet, Mr. Redd is sleeping in the living room, if you wake him, he might get very angry. He gets angry a lot. I saw him do something very bad to one of the neighbors, but he said that our kind need to be powerful...that the neighbor deserved it. I didn't like what he did, but Mr. Redd scares me, I think he scares Daddy, too."
"Well don't you worry Charlotte, I'm going to make sure Mr. Redd doesn't hurt you, or anyone else, okay? I'm an officer, it's my job to protect people....even from themselves." This last part Spaulding said under his breath. He stood up, and made his way to the other end of the attic, tiptoeing by then resting she-wolves, putting his finger to his lips to hush Charlotte, who smiled and hopped behind him.
He made it to the top of the stairs, and went slowly down the creaking stairs to the half-opened door. The sound of the television played in the background, Charlotte followed behind him, thinking it more a game than a life-or-death escape attempt.
Osiris Reddling was precisely where Charlotte said he would be, and the soft snores of a resting beast were just slightly muffled by the evening news' forecast. Being the sleuth he was, he snuck behind Osiris, and headed down towards the basement. For weeks there was a haunting suspicion in the back of Spaulding's mind, there was the desire, the obsessive need to find this girl, and bring her back home. Now, he was just steps away from her.
With a hauntingly eerie creak, the envy of any horror scene, the door opened, and there, tied up, bleeding from a scratch as thick as the mantle of the Earth, stood a ribboned face of Holly Greene. She was breathing heavily, almost in the rythmn of a jackhammer. The mangled Chelsea smile was more a mess like an eighties spaghetti strap shirt. She looked up at Spaulding, who let out a ghastly gasp at the sight of what was left of Holly Greene's face.
"Hello?" She asked as she stared into Dave's eyes, it was so horrifying, that he had to look away. The word even came out like it was sliced in threes, barely an audible, human voice. Her naked body was singed with fiery scratches, and the horrid details of the scars glowed deep with a hellish red.
"Holly? Oh Christ! Holly! What the Hell did that sick fuck do to you?! Don't worry, I'm getting you out of here."
"A fine statement, Detective...but perhaps you shouldn't make promises you may not be able to keep. However, I applaude your commitment to your goal. Yes! As you can see, Holly Greene is still altogether...well, mostly."
The voice was all-too-familiar to Spaudling. He knew it was the Great Grey, Issa. He knew that he was right behind him, and he damn well knew that the mounting figure was just as terrifying as a man than it was as a lycanthrope.
"Just let us go, Issa....you don't have to-" Spaulding pleaded, turning around to see the towering killer, no longer covered up in layers, but an eight-foot bronze behemoth of a man. His hair was almost white, rather than grey. A similar grey goatee covered up a face thwt looked just as lupine than it did human.
"Don't tell me what I have to do, Detective. It seems we've come to the point of no return. Evening is already setting, the moon will be here in full come the morning....and three she wolves sit with pups, will ask upon all of Illinois, birthing my spawn that will replenish The old clans! You monsters! Driving our kind from the homeland! I used to roam with the packs that guard Anubis himself! Is it not apparent that this world was meant for us?! Osiris! Come down here, and tie up this man!nyou, little one...was it you that let this man go? Answer me, now!" The hulking ancient turned to the young child, who twiddled her thumbs behind her back, nudging her foot into the rough cement scaffold of the basement.
"Maybe, I'm sorry Daddy, he said he was a police officer, and I was always told to always trust a police officer."
"Being thwt you are a more child, I'll let your ignorance of the facts go this time...no matter, the man In-front of you in the I car are of evil...the Spauldings have always been a thorn in our hindquarters! What a fool....what a sad, sad fool his lot stem from....murderers, all of them! They killed your cousins, brothers, and many more. Yet I survive, I carried on, n'ver to fall to a Spaulding blade!" Turning back toDave, he saw there was a disconcerting, humbling look of confucion. At this point, Osiris Reddling made his way down with a velocity of a swooping hawk, and before he could move, Spaulding was right beside the young girl he came to save.
"You'll not get out of these chains, mutt slayer's spawn! You will not live to see the end of days of y precious species " Osiris Reddling snickered, and backed up to his lover's side, licking Issa's hand in a grand display of affection. Issa shooed him off, and with incredible speed, ran back up the stairwell.
"So...you get your little lackey to do all the heavy lifting, then what, you get the prize? What's this about my family? The Spauldings never said anything about werewolves! I thought you were Hollywood garbage up until last week!"
"Your ignorance, Detective, I will not let skate by wothout punishment! To make this poor, innocent child fall for your allure, pros owing her thwt you were the good guy, you're more a villian thank ever could've imagined! To think I was under the impression we could be allies....now I know I was the fool...a position I will not be in again!" Issa cratered the side of Spaudling's jaw with a hit so hard, he thought for a moment thwt this was going to to be it,mthwt he was dead.
A couple hours passed as he came to, and Spaulding discovered he was alone in the basement, with a whimpering, gagged Holly Greene. He was only thankful thwt he was not on the side of the face that was torn to shreds. He could not handle seeing such a morbid sight again.e was also thankful she was gagged, because the sound of that dicey voice was just as graphic as the macabre scene.
"Holly Greene, my name is Dave Spaulding, I'm a Private Detective, and I was hired by your parents to find you...they miss you, and they want you back. This man, of you can even call what thwt was a man, he's something dangerous, ancient, and he will take your mortal soul. He scarred you, but if I can get us free...I can save us. He promises you lies, and all the years he claims he can ass to your life is not worth the eternal damnation. I will save us, I have to! I have-"
Spaulding jiggled his jacket, and luckily, the pill was still hidden. The Sigil of Nyx, however, was still in the posession of Reddling. The chains he was tied to wre heavy, and tight. He knew only one way he'd even have a chance to free himself...but it was going to be dreadfully painful. He brought his arm over to his face,mand he took a nice, big bite of his jacket, squeezing his eyes shut. Then with a wuickness, and skill thwt came from years on the force, he dislocated both his thumbs, and pulled tightly through the chains,cutting up his hands both front and back. The pain was quick, and white heat across his eyes, he nearly saw stars.
However, he came free, and using his teeth, where he spit out fibers from the jacket sleeve, replaced his one thumb, and then the other. He loosened the chains hollering up Holly, and discreetly covered her naked body with his jacket, making sure to pocket the wolfsbane pill into his front pocket.
"Okay....it's, shit! Eleven-forty-five, thwt means they're already preparing to move out! The moon will be full in less than fifteen minutes! Okay, I will get us out of herer, and get you to a doctor!" He gently removed the gag from her mouth, but it seemed to bare her no pain. He grew accustomed to the ribboned cheek and jawline of the girl, feeling nothing but pity for the once-beautiful young girl.
"Mister." She said to Spaulding.
"It's okay dear, it wasn't your fault, this is all their fault. They kidnapped you, they did this to you. They will pay."
He wrapped her up, and knowing she was going to be too weak to walk, he had to carry her. Spaulding wasn't going to be able to do anything until he got back out to the Haitian's car, which he thankfully still had the keys to, but he feared the inevitable would happen to Holly if the full-moon hit her skin. The moonlight would change her, and even if he drove 100mph, he couldn't out race the moon.
He had no choice....he would have to retrieve the Sigil of Nyx...he would have to kills Issa, and Holly would have to devour the heart...or else she would remain a Werewolf until her dying breath...then the eternity in damnation. She didn't deserve this, neither did little Charlotte, but fear had been replaced with such hatred for the old beast. He was a mortal man, he could die, and he would be killed....was Spaudling. Of the mutt-slayer's spawn? He dreamt when unconscious, but it was more like memories...apparently his family were chosen to slay the greatest werewolves of history: from Kutahn of the Great African a Kingdom of the Zulus, to Kameko Kama, a Japanese Princess of feudal Joanthat shared a dual spirit, and had been a transgendered woman, turned by a lycanthrope in her late twenties. She killed great portions of her Honshu providence.
His family had been bred and raised to kill these monsters. He wasn't sure of this was fright and a panicked dreamscape, or he truly was a werewolf hunter successor of some privileged lore. All he knew was thwt if everything he had seen was true, then the only way to save this girl was to kill the bastard that did this to her. He also had about thirteen minutes to pull this off without jeopardizing his chances of fighting a full-fledged werewolf.
"Okay....listen carefully to me, I'm going to be right back down here to get you, but stay away from any windows, and hide. There! Go in that closet! Stay the until I come to find you, do you understand, Holly? I know you're scared,mbut I swear to God, I'll be coming back for you, it's just safer for you stay put until I've brought in the bad guys. Be safe."
He put the young girl in the closet, which was more like a storage pantry. He then locked the door, so she couldn't come out. He knew what direct moonlight could do to her, and he refused to have her being caught up in the chaos of what was about to ensue. He knew that in the next twelve minutes, as he climbed the stairwell, that It would all be over in a flash. He palmed the pill, and opened the basement door.
Staring in at him was Issa Omari, along with his mongrel lover, Osiris Reddling. The howls of the several impregnated she-wolves ran through him like a mixture of human laughter and hyena touts. They didn't even care thwt he was loose form his chains, as though this was all a humorous joke, a silly game.
"Welcome! As you can see, we are all just about to prepare for the big night! Our tuxedos are just minutes away, and we will all be out on the hunt. The girls have showed up fashionably early. You remember Meanette? Well she certainly remembers you, guess you left an impression on the girl! She's just in a daunting mood to sink her teeth into you, Spaulding!"
"I may not live through the night,mbut I cannot let you do this, Issa! You're a mad dog, and mad dogs need-"
"To be put down, spare me your frivolous semantics, Spaulding! You're going to be nothing but gnawed bones! Decades of death your family name has stout upon my loved ones! My very kin! Our kind will flourish, and the woods will be ours again!"
Spaulding felt a cringe creak up the center of his spine, like icing stakes poking up the back. The image of all these cool cucumber monsters in front of him made him sweat like a hooker in confession. Issa approached him, and grabbed him by the left arm, tugging him upwards, almost dislocating his shoulders. His face was right up to the beastly. Outs of the anthropormorphic madman. His breath smelled like an ancient crypt, and Spaulding had to cough and hack to gasp for fresh air.
"As, ar you frightened my little man? Don't fear,the moon is but inches away from becoming full, and you will be the first Spaulding to fall from the bite of our kind! The true heirs of this earth! We are the apex pred-"
"Spaulding heard enough, and slammed his right hand deep down the noxious throat, shoving the pill down.
He pulled back his hand, glad to we all his fingers were still in-tact. At first Issa seemed no afflicted...and Spaulding was sure that having that pill analyzed may have ruined it's effects. Then suddenly, he felt the grip loosening on his arm, and he dropped. Quickly he shoved the Greaf Grey back, and mass a beeline to Osiris Reddling, jumping up and kneeing him right in the face. They both tumbled to the ground,mand Spaudling began beating on him, then searching the body, he found the Ivile of Nyx. He looked back to see a horrendous sight.
Issa was trans morphing, and because of the pill, it looked to Spaulding like a blog of skin and grey ing fur was attempting to fight over the same mannequin. He turned back to see Reddling holding up Spaulding's gun, but with a quickness, Spaulding sliced through Osiris' hand, and the gun, along with the left hand flopped to the ground. He picked up the gun and put two in the skull of Reddling.
Howls screamed in a fury from outside...the moon was full, 12:01 am came, and the Grewf Grey lived up to his name.
"SPAUL-DING!!!!" the half-human mouth of the changing Issa exclaimed.
Dave Spaulding looked at the monster in front of him. The literal monster was forming, and it looked painfully disastrous. He looked around, and saw the morphing bod of Osiris Reddling. He had split the skull, but it was of no hinderance. The monsters rose to his front, and his back.
"SPAUL-DING!" Osiris mimicked his dreadful lover, the sound was just as animalistic. They two bodies rose to nearly ten feet tall, ducking under the height of the ceiling. Spaulding stood his ground, and turned all his attention to Issa Omari.
"That's my name, you fucking dog, and, now...I'm going to neuter your ass!" He jumped up, and as the beast that Omari became was still wriggling to digest then wolfsbane, Spaulding sliced deep into the chest of the beast. Osiris himself felt it, and cries of howling pain rang up with a great sonata of wolf cries.
He pummeled and sliced, and sliced until he saw the elated beating heart of the monstrosity of grayish fur and rotten organs. The heart was ashened black, but Spaulding was not taken aback. He sliced deep in, and the heart came out. Blood was nothing but red dust, and yet the heart still beat in his hands. Spaulding ran towards the stairwell of the basement, while the two werewolves cried in agony, but even without the heart in-tact, Issa Omari was now turning to chase down the detective. The entrails and cordiage came wrapping wround issa's paws, but there was no slowing down the enraged animal. Spaulding reached the door and grabbed it with his right hand, as Issa came upon him...but this time, the detective would not get away unscathed, as the salivating jowls clamped down on his left hand, and it came off with the same twist and jerk an aligator uses to kill its prey. The pain shot through Spaulding, as. His hand and the heart went flying across the room.
He didn't have time to feel pain, so he took the sharp sigil in his hands again, and sliced at the throat of the beast, and he watched a spray of dust went out across the room, like crushed rose petals floating on a dream. Spaulding then grabbed at the heart, now one handed, he placed the disgusting, decaying, yet somehow mythically still pulsating organ into his mouth, and reached the door, this time throwing it open, and closing it right behind, locking it.
Spaulding ran to the door of the closet/pantry that he kept Holly, and unlocked it, throwing it open, and staring into darkness.
"Holly! Holly! Are you okay?"
There was silence. At first he was going to run in, thinking she may have succumbed to the injuries on her face, of pased out from blood loss. But then he heard it...the sound of a low growling. It was Hilly, she had turned, even with a minute amount of moonlight, she was capable of transforming. She stood on her hindquarters, her rancid decaying breath hit Spaulding hard, as he backed up slowly back into the basement.
"Whoa now! Whoa!" But he couldn't say or do anything, as the wolf jumped atop him. He couldn't move,mas the snarling hulk that Holly had become pressured and pulled on him, he felt his body being scratched lightly, but there was too much weight and sigh coming off the creature. With a last ditch effort, Spaulding shoved the heart into the mouth of Holly, and she chomped and chomped, swallowing the heart thwt geared up until the very end. The pounding on the door of the basement stopped, and howls turned into screams, whiched turned into human whimpering and begging. That's when the explosion happened. Scratch that five major explosions, and the smell of thick smoke was almost instant. The body of Holly Greene began to twist and distort itself into a human form once again. Holly was completely naked, and unconscious,laying there as the thick smoke fun led upwards.
Spaulding couldn't waste any time, he grabbed the girl, and headed up the stairwell. He burnt his hand unlocking the door, then kicked it open, nearly dropping Holly in the process. The backdraft scorned his brow, but it was unfashionably hotter than he could've imagined. This wasn't normal flames, but the furies of Hell itself. He watched as the bodies of the wolves burned and twisted with dead end nerves making one last struggle to live, and he made it to the front of the home. He checked for the keys, and they wre still in his pants pocket. He threw open the door slowly, and turned back to hee crying. It was Charlotte she was crying and covered in the ash of her father.
"Charlotte!" Spaulding screamed, and she looked up at him with a as grimace, but with the same terrifying quickness as the Great Grey had.
He couldn't. Ask a fair judgement call, all Spaulding knew was that he had to get out of the house. He ran and put Nolly down on the cool grass. He opened the trunk and threw a blanket atop her. Charlotte was right next to him, her eyes glowed red, but she smiled, and asked if she could ride up front of the car. Spaulding only thought of survival, he nodded,mand opened the back, laying Holly in, and jumping up front, turning on the car, and speeding off towards the city.
"Can I stay with you, Mr. Police Officer? I have nowhere else to go!" She moaned like a child who had lost all hope.
"Sure...we'll figure it out Charlotte, we'll figure it out. I just need to get Holly Greene back to her parents. Her Mommy and Daddy miss her very much."
"I don't have a mommy or Daddy, anymore." She said in a sullen sunken tone. Spaulding couldn't help but feel a tear on his heart. He didn't know why Charlotte didn't turn, but she still had the mark of the best on her hand.
"All I have is this, Mr. Redd's hand." She placed the cut off hand of Osiris Reddling's wolf paw on the seat next to her. It too has the pentagram...Spaulding at least would be able to give Wetzel the and thwt he wanted...but at what cost? Or for what purpose. Wasn't his problem, now thwt he had Charlotte...things seemed to change. He took out his flask, but thought diff to and flung it out the window. Holly began to stir, but stayed asleep, as she would up until she would grasp onto her parents, hugging them until the world froze in their love. She would keep that scar on her face forever, but a constant reminder that the onster a were real, and that they had taken her in I ent. She would fight against her personal demons for years to come.
As for Detective Dave Spaulding, he would not break thwt promise to Charlotte, he would watch her, and scare for her. He took her parents, so she was now his cross to bear. And what of the house? It burned to the ground, after two centuries of existence the house had been greatly missed, but it had left nothing of the wolves, just a sad tragedy of a heat that forensics said was impossible. Another obscure case of sponges eons human combustion.
Spaulding looked back at the furious fire that grew and grew, then died out in an instant, as though only that area of the world would burn, and like a candle at the end of its wick, died. Not a trace of the violence,more the potential threat to Chicago was ever seen. Nothing of the lycanthrope but to those who have witnessed it would ever know, that the fury of beasts,the pack of demons...that wanted to end humanity's own demons, were now laid under soot, nothing but ashened bone.
Thank you so very,very much for this past year's support of Short Story Weekly this is the final one I'm doing for the foreseeable future. If I do bring back Short Story Weekly, it will not be until sometime next year, if not even in 2018. Of course the number of posts are also a major deciding factor in what I'm going to do. This is one of the longest stories I've posted on the blog. I will say this: if I were to do more short stories, I may just have to do a sequel, and bring Dave Spaulding back, depending on if people enjoyed this story.
Normally I would just end the conclusion by asking for people to follow me on either Twitter, or via e-mail, but because this is such a long post, and SSWkly has become such a major part of the blog,mi figured I'd take a little more time and say that one thing I've always wanted to do was make a sequel to Brightside, one of the few stories I've personally enjoyed writing, and although I felt the rush and hazards of trying to write a story weekly. For as long, and as many short stories that I've written, I'm very happy to hsve shared my work with hundreds-if-not-thousands of people who have supported me. You've take the time to read my work, and I can only graciously say "thank you" to everyone out there who are my audience. I have to thank Blogger as well for giving me the conduit to I still my work to a broader audience than I've ever received before. For over a decade now, I've been writing for this blog, and I believe I've only gotten better, miscalculations and addled mistakes aside, I'm happy to have taken what I did, reviewing games and movies, and now writing my own, personal fiction.
I never thought my fiction would ever be seen by anyone but close-and-personal friends. I'm. Of a sham person, nor am I scared of criticism, but I've always been worried to share my work with others. I'm glad people have read my work, enjoyed it, even shared it on social media. I can promise that I will. It, I repeat, will not a ad on my readers who come for the short stories. I will eventually want to do this again, but like all things, it needs to have a break. This is the last post until January. I was going to do an editorial, but I've decided it would be better to just end it here until the New Year.
But I should take this moment to give you all an idea of what to expect from the 2017 launch of the blog.
Firstly, I will be doing more video game reviews than before, discussions on gaming, and I'll be posting more often. I will have some announcments coming in early January, and I would like to be steaming come January or February. I will also be publishing several e-books if applicable.
Secondly, I will be more active on Twitter, because I need to think of twitter as not only an extension of the blog, but also its own entity for information/entertainment, and updates.
Lastly, I want to say thank you to those who come by the Malacast Editorial. I know it seems sappy, but I am very humbled for all of those who visit, read, and hopefully take away something enjoyable from the blog. Here is until we reach 600, then the last 66 posts will be each as important as the next. For now, enjoy your holidays and observances, and I will return with new posts in January. Announcements will be made through Twitter, and hopefully a new page on FB will be up properly, and running. Have a great holiday season! And of course, Happy Samhain/Halloween!
