by L A Kennedy
Des was the end result of what had happened when an angel and demon crossed the unspoken line, creating what the Orygin had forbidden. She was good and evil, yet neither, with the ability of both. With a soul that sits in Pergetore, she tried to earn the feathers on her wings to pull her soul out of there. So far, not so good, case in point, she’s still fucking here.
A deal struck between the Orygin and Ruynous said that the winged couldn’t be locked away in Hades and half-breeds could not walk the earth in full power. Each good deed earned a feather for a set of wings only Des’ soul could see and feel. A full set would force the Wardyn to expel her soul and she’d be home free. Until then, Des and her soul were stuck in a perpetual rerun of a shitty reality TV show called life.
The Netherworld had been in existence since mankind had become perverted, spitting out beasts and burden. An irregular gene had been activated by the Genesys, the creator of the Rancor Order, for an absolute unquestioning army. He’d tried to play God and screwed them all. Anyone who had been born with this dormant irregular gene had become something more and less than man. Cue the reason the Netherworld had come into existence.
The Netherworld was similar to any other police task force, roping in those who broke the law. Only this flavor of criminal had fangs and claws. Fangs and claws were what Des hated the most. Pesky little things they were. The locals called in the twisted and perverted her to help catch the twisted and perverted them. It was the circle of life around here. Des wasn’t one to complain, much. It paid the bills and for the therapy that she should be going to.
She worked some of the most gruesome cases due to her ‘gift’. Most people were rotated off the grisly and heinous crimes every few years, human or not, or they washed out and crawled into a bottle. She was burned out and had already been in and out of a bottle or two.
But here she was, at midnight, leaning over the remains of a body, bloodied and left for the birds and critters, trying to earn another feather for a set of wings she couldn’t see.
The body lay on its side. Claw marks ran down the back and front of him, like a hot knife through butter. The pale white skin, drained of blood, had been sliced and gouged, ripped from the bones and laid over him like a safety blanket. Innards had been spilled onto the gravel, still shiny in the moonlight, reflecting the stars and flashing police lights. It was almost beautiful, the still calmness only death can bring, had it not been for the whole ‘dead and torn up’ part.
The second body lay roughly ten feet away. Des’ eyes focused on the lumpiness of his remains, like a sack of red, broken potatoes. It’s odd how your mind will focus on trivial facts, she thought, noting the oddities that came to mind, like how dirty the intestines were or how the hair wasn’t messy enough. For a moment, she wondered where he had his nails done. Her brain tried to pull away from the horror with thoughts that didn’t matter, thoughts that kept the truth of what she was looking at, at bay. It was an irritating fail-safe when she was on the job and the job was dealing in horror.
The second body had been ripped open, his chest splayed and insides removed completely, leaving him an empty sack of what once was a person. Des had stared at him, not a drop of blood had touched his perfect face, but the horror of the night was etched deep within it. She wouldn’t forget the look frozen in his glossy eyes and slackened jaw.
In daylight or utter darkness, some things couldn’t be lied about. Fear was fear. It didn’t matter how much light shined down. Fear didn’t care what kind of spotlight it was under. Fear was like Mother Nature. It didn’t think twice about wishes or timing. It just was. It had its own timeline, its own needs, and it didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s. Fear didn’t discriminate. It didn’t hate or care. Fear was fear for all. Fear hung in the air, coating skin like jelled sweat—like the remains of Mother Nature’s fury.
The bodies were lost under the canopies of the trees. Des rubbed the goosebumps from her arms, grateful that she didn’t have to stand beside them—smelling them, seeing them and mourning their deaths. From yards away, she could disassociate, divorce her emotions from the heinousness of the night. From here, each could be an ‘it’. She could lie to herself at a distance. From here, they could be bodies and nothing more.
For now, anyway…
As soon as she let her vision out, it wouldn’t matter where she was standing. She could be on the other side of this field and still feel it. The brutality would stain the air for miles, like being caught in the middle of a hailstorm, no escape from the little bruising bullets. The emotions she’d let in would feel like blistering hot hail and there would be no escape for her.
Being this close would feel like a football team all tackling her at once. She hated it and loved it. Her curse was a double-edged blade. If she didn’t use it, it would come out on its own and cut her off at the knees. It sprouted its ugly head at the worst of times, like standing beside a child and screaming at the thoughts running through their little heads. But using it left her feeling like a smashed bag of assholes. Consequently, this was how Des had gotten into the job, and why she had been there that night. She needed to use her curse before it used her.
She had done her job, poking at them like they were meaty clues. Besides them, there were no others to be found in the trees or on the ground around them. No surprise. Des wasn’t called in unless the Netherworld task force had hit a brick wall at two hundred miles an hour, face first.
Why was the Netherworld working a double murder on the edge of the burbs? These weren’t just any men. From the brief flashes in her mind’s eye, she could see wolves running. The smell of them filled her lungs and settled deep in her chest. She could taste them on the back of her tongue like a small sip of wine from an hour ago.
Cue the curse.
Each time she started a crime scene, she’d use her eyes and gut instinct, all of that pesky training they took. ‘Never depend on inhuman abilities, they could be gone tomorrow,’ they’d said. Unlikely, in her case. She’d been praying to the Orygin for that very thing her entire life. But here she was, curse still as strong as ever, a perpetual mind wedgie of the most epic of varieties. It was like dangling off the flagpole.
Once she’d get an idea of what had taken place, she’d unleash the curse. Her supervisor had finally cured her habit of screaming, “Release the Kraken!” or her personal favorite, “This is Sparta!” No one got her humor around here. Sure, she had usually been standing over someone dead and should have had better sense than to crack a joke. In her defense, it was how she coped, joking at the wrong time. It was that or cry, and she was tired of crying around the boys.
Des took a deep breath and looked over her notes again to prepare for the visions. Going in blind was an assault on her brain. She needed something to ground her thoughts or she picked up everything, including snippets from the peanut gallery around. When she finally stepped up to bat and opened her mind to the emotions that still hung in the air, she was slapped with scenes and smells, tastes and emotions. To call it disorientating would be a grand understatement. It was painful, both physically and emotionally. Every section of her consciousness came alive at once, like rolling her brain around in a bowl of toothpicks.
Des slammed the door to her curse, taking in deep breaths—in through the nose and out through the mouth—forcing her to breathe past the need to vomit. Like many times before, she hadn’t prepared herself enough for the assault. It had been careless. Every now and again, she forgot the magnitude of what death could do to the mind. When she got too comfortable with her curse, it had the habit of throat-punching her to put her back in place. It was a little reminder that they worked as a team. Her curse was not her bitch, and this was the souvenir of that vacation down ‘Think Again Lane’.
She hadn’t been prepared for two dead bodies. One down, she could usually handle. Two, and she was kicked in the chest and left not knowing where her eyeballs were.
She would give it another try, the reminder still fresh on her bruised second sight.
She slowly opened the door in her mind again, prepared for the attack. She could smell wet dog mixed with the smell of the forest under their feet. She could see them and smell them. They were Therianthropes, werewolves. These weren’t just any random Therians. She could see them standing on their ceremonial altar, their positions saying they were a step down from the Fenris, the Alpha King. One was an Enforcer, the other a Punisher. She could feel the pride each had in their positions and taste the hunger each had for power. More than their positions, they were men—fathers, sons, husbands, cousins and friends. They were people, just a little hairier.
What could take down two of the strongest men in the pack? No average human could take down a Therian, let alone two of them together, at once. This didn’t look like pack fights for dominance. Those never spilled out for prying eyes to see. They kept it under wraps, where it belonged. They ate their own, keeping their people with them always. It was rare that anyone tripped over a Therian body.
Now that they knew who was in meaty mounds on the ground, they’d know who’d run the show. This was Netherworld territory, not local. The irregulars would work the case. The locals would throw a hissy, as per usual. They felt like the monsters were taking the glamorous cases, cock-blocking their climb up the ladder. The bitchy part of Des wanted to hand the case over, see how they fared against whatever the hell could do this to two Therianthropes. The sane part of her didn’t want them to come face-to-face with anything this powerful. Hell, not even she wanted to go toe-to-toe with whatever minimized two Therians into meat and bones, dripping in terror.
After a few years of this, she had finally gotten used to being called in—used to what she could and couldn’t do at an active crime scene. She’d started as a paper pusher until they’d found out about her abilities. They’d pulled her in, trained her and she’d been bombarded with nightmares ever since. She didn’t willingly go through life like an emotional sponge. She kept it locked up for a reason, only letting it out when she didn’t think her sanity would be horribly maimed. Thankfully it was dark and her newest nightmares wouldn’t have the Technicolor version of events.
By the time she’d gotten here tonight, the examiners had been done with the bodies. She could do the cha-cha over the bodies for all they cared. As long as it had sent them in the right direction, they couldn’t give a rat’s ass if she summoned their dead grandparents and had them bake her cookies.
Crouched down, leaning back on her feet, she scanned the area. The bodies had been found by joggers. Neither man had been dragged off, hidden, buried, nothing. They were out in the open, for the next passer-by to stumble on. Literally, a jogger had slipped on a kidney. Neither man looked like he had been a midnight snack. They had been mauled for the sake of it, like they had gotten in the way and had been removed quickly and quietly. No neighbors heard a peep. The ground was undisturbed, nothing out of place. It was perfect, in a terrifying way. What took out two members of the pack without leaving a bloody mess?
She could feel the killers in her bones—feel them like they were standing beside her. She couldn’t see them, but she could sense them. It was as if they had touched her brain and left a fingerprint. Each irregular had their own fingerprint. They were dead, but alive. Their souls were long gone, leaving an animated corpse behind. What was left behind was like a partially written book for her to peruse, just enough to give her the clues they needed and the nightmares she didn’t need.
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About the Author
L.A. Kennedy, beyond the story…
L.A. Kennedy is a Canadian born writer, living in the ever-growing city of Vancouver, Canada. Here, she spends her days getting lost in the beauty of reading and writing. L.A. Kennedy mainly writes fictional books. And can be found researching myth, folklore, and everything in between, with a special interest in edge-of-your-seat paranormal romance. L.A. Kennedy can be found behind a mountain of books, on any given Sunday.
L.A. Kennedy’s writing credits include two hit series that mix mystery, horror, paranormal romance, fantasy, and intrigue.
Email: [email protected]
L.A. loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com.
Also by L.A. Kennedy
The Genesys Project: Immortal Amour