by JE Gurley
A rush of anger surged through me, as well as a bit of my stubbornness. “We’re going to get crucified no matter what we do. I’d rather go down following my gut instinct than playing it safe and spending two useless days interrogating witnesses.”
Lew shrugged his shoulders. “I’m game.”
* * * *
Ella Ramirez sat in the passenger side of the white WBBT 7 news van looking up at the Sattersby apartment, fuming with anger. They had arrived on the scene before all the other news crews, for all the good it had done her. She had attempted to gain access to the apartment with her cameraman, Steve Capaldi, but the police had not so politely turned them away. Then, some detective had appeared and forced all the reporters, including her, across the street where they could barely get a decent shot of the proceedings.
“Sasha Sattersby is big news,” she complained to Capaldi as he scanned the street with his camera. “This story will make national headlines. We need something good.”
Capaldi lowered his Sony XDCam and looked over at her. “We’ve got footage of her various public brawls and drunken appearances at charity events,” he reminded her.
“Oh, we’ll use those, but we need something better, something juicy. Sasha Sattersby is the fourth girl gone missing this week. People are frightened by this Midnight Monster character.”
Capaldi smiled at her as she said the name. “That was quick thinking,” he said.
She had coined it seconds before an on-air broadcast and the other stations and newspapers had picked it up. She returned his smile and continued, “Scared people buy newspapers and watch the news. Footage of police lines and detectives going back and forth are no good. There’s no drama.”
“What about this?” Capaldi asked her, pointing the camera out of the window and upwards toward the roof. She craned her neck to follow the camera. Two men stood at the edge of the roof. As she watched, one man climbed down onto a gargoyle while the other held onto his hand. He stooped and examined the gargoyle, and after a few dizzying minutes, he clambered back up. She couldn’t see what he was doing.
“It’s that detective,” she said. “What is he doing?”
Capaldi set aside his camera, skimmed through his notebook and grinned. “Thackery Hardin is the detective assigned to the case. I’ve heard of him. He’s a real hard ass. The big guy is Lew Attwood, his partner.”
Ella smiled. “We need to keep an eye on Mr. Hardin. He’s the key to this.”
“He’s not going to like it,” Capaldi pointed out.
“We’ll be discrete. We can’t get a shot or even a description of this Midnight Monster, so we’ll make Detective Hardin the news; use his face.”
Capaldi chuckled. “He’s going to shoot us.”
“You leave him to me,” she said in her most charming voice. “I know how to deal with the likes of Detective Hardin.”
* * * *
Night was still a long way off. I couldn’t ignore the possibility that our killer was a member of one of the loosely organized vampire cults that thrived in the dark alleyways and dimly lit, pounding heavy metal Goth clubs in the city. I knew of a small shop on Second Street that advertized vampire paraphernalia – clothing, false vampire fangs, make up, etc. It was a good place to start.
When Lew parked his SUV outside the shop, I stared out the window at the parade of ghost-faced punks and Goths dressed in funeral black and wearing dark eye shadow walking like shadows themselves, and I wondered where we as a society had gone wrong. How could a fourteen or fifteen year old kid be so turned off by life that he or she could see no future through the gloom? On first thought, seeking refuge in a fantasy world like vampires seemed like a built in excuse for failure to me, but then I remembered groups like the Masons and the Elks or the Moose Lodge. How were they any different? Their members played fantasy roles for fellowship and the perquisites that came with that fellowship, just like the Goths and the vampires. Maybe the fabric of society as a whole was fraying around the edges. Pack too many people in a concrete and steel box, toss in extremes of wealth and poverty and add a dash of racial tensions and religious differences and you had quite a volatile mixture. Today’s youth want to be vampires and live forever, while my generation dodged Iraqi bullets and IEDs and just wanted to live out the day.
Entering the store, I confronted the purple-haired punk behind the counter wearing a black Nosferatu t-shirt and black pants with a dozen piercings through his ears, nose and cheeks. He looked like someone had peppered his face with a shotgun loaded with metal filings.
“Detective Hardin,” I said, holding out my badge for his inspection.
The punk rolled his eyes as if bored. “You here about the Midnight Monster?”
Caught off guard, I asked, “Why would you think that?”
“Duh,” he smirked, “You’re a cop, this is a vampire shop and the Midnight Monster drinks blood.”
“Where did you hear that?” I pressed.
“Around,” he answered smugly.
I wanted to rip one of the studs out of his nose, but I refrained. I assumed one of the local tabloids had heard rumors about the blood loss in the victims. So much for security. “Do you know of any of your blood sucking buddies who might want to push the boundaries a bit on this, uh, vampire cult thing?”
“Dude, get real. People come in here to buy fake teeth, wigs, Goth clothing and stuff like that. I don’t even know anybody who files their teeth for real or who drinks blood.” He made a face. “That’s so gross.”
I glanced at Lew rummaging around the shelves, picking up and examining items. One item he held out for my inspection was a sharp dagger. Another was a meat hook made of ivory or whalebone. It looked sharp enough to rip open a person’s throat.
“Sell many of those?” I asked, pointing to the hook.
“Those just arrived yesterday. I haven’t sold any. Look, man, like I said, people who shop here are mostly teens and few lame gamers in their twenties, but no one who takes this shit seriously. It’s just a way to get high and to get laid, a way to look badass on an allowance. This Monster dude, he’s the real freakin’ thing.”
The punk was getting excited talking about the killer, as if he admired him. It was pissing me off.
“He’s a sicko who’s murdered four young girls,” I growled. I pulled my pistol. The punk’s eyes went wide and he backed away from the counter. “I don’t think I’ll need any silver bullets to blow his freakin’ head off with this.”
I replaced my pistol in my shoulder holster wishing now I hadn’t drawn it. The motion started my shoulder burning again. At least I had gotten the punk’s full attention.
“If you hear anything, give us a call, or else we’ll park a marked car outside your door. I’ll bet you won’t sell many of those water pipes in the glass case there with us sitting outside.”
He nodded his head, looking reasonably chastised and more than a little frightened. I felt better after letting off a little steam.
Outside, Lew said, “I thought you were going to shoot the bastard.”
“Too much paperwork. Come on. We won’t find our man with these wannabes. I think our guy has graduated to the big time.”
I felt certain we would find the Sattersby girl’s body at the monastery. Our killer wanted us to find it. He had seen us and we had seen him. Now, it was a battle to see who blinked first.
5
Sasha Sattersby’s right arm throbbed unmercifully and hung uselessly by her side. She didn’t know whether the bone was broken or if her shoulder was dislocated. It made little difference which. Either way the pain was excruciating. Laying on it didn’t help matters. She tried to move to relieve the pressure but the creature perched above her shifted its position menacingly. She stopped. Its red eyes stared down at her hungrily. She shuddered and not just from the penetrating chill of the damp tile beneath her. She was in the middle of a nightmare but she knew she was awake.
When the creature had attacked her in her home, it had her taken a fe
w moments to realize the reality of the situation – monsters really did exist. Then her instincts had taken over. She had taken two years of kung fu mainly as a way of staying fit and thin, but faced with a hellish creature from her deepest, drug-induced nightmare she knew she had to fight to live. Her first blow to its chest had done nothing. Her second to its groin even less. Sensing the hopelessness of fighting, she had tried to run but the creature slammed into her back, sending her careening into the wall with enough force to knock her breathless. Fiery pain quickly followed as the creature sliced into her arm with razor sharp talons in its attempt to drag her through the shattered balcony door. Clinging to the curtains and kicking at him had delayed him only a few seconds. Her damaged arm could not retain its grip.
A loud knock at the door and a yell by the doorman who ogled her suggestively each time she passed through the lobby startled the creature. She tried to scream but her face was pressed too tightly against the creature’s clammy skin. Then she was airborne. She looked down in abject horror at the city below her fearing that the creature would release her from its iron grip to plummet hundreds of feet to the ground. She closed her eyes for the dizzying ride above rooftops, opening them only when the creature veered sharply to clear the steeple of a church. She opened them again when the creature dropped her roughly on a cold, wet stone floor, but almost immediately lost consciousness.
Now, she lay in a dark, filthy room filled with the stench of death surrounding her. She tried to turn her head slightly and recognized that she was in an old chapel. Her blood suddenly went cold. She knew the one. She had seen it many times from her balcony. She had also seen it recently on the news. She was in the church where they had found the dead girls. She could even make out strips of crime scene tape strung from stone columns. Now the death odor frightened her. She knew what it was. It was no longer just an inconvenience but a threat. It could be her future. She thought it ironic that the only time she had been to church in many years a vampire had brought her.
For vampire it was, not the Bela Lugosi-type vampire in a dark suit with hypnotic gaze, but a winged gray creature resembling a gargoyle born in the depths of hell. It had licked at the blood pouring from the wound in her right arm, the long sinuous tongue rough and slimy against her skin. The pain had been horrendous until some sedative in the saliva had deadened the arm. She had expected to die quickly. She had read about the other bodies found in the same church, drained of blood, but to her amazement, the creature had retreated to its perch near the roof and remained there. There was no chance of escape. Every time she moved, the creature reacted with a shrill call.
At times in her delirium, she longed for death. Her entire life had been one long slow attempted suicide. Born rich, pampered and left on her own, she had quickly developed a disdain for her family and their semblance of normalcy. She had many supplicants but no friends, no one in which to confide her fears or to reel in her extremes. She had lived an empty life, void of love or hope. Drugs, sex and outrage had been her revenge.
Then, at other times as she lay there in the wet and filth and the stench, she prayed for just one more chance. She clung to life tooth and nail, daring to hope that the fact she was still alive meant something. She grew angry, would have attacked her tormentor with her bare hands if it had come close enough, but the creature simply waited and watched. She had no choice but to wait with it.
6
Just after ten p.m. I once again stood before the walls of the monastery, eager to find the bastard responsible for the girls’ deaths. We had parked our vehicles across the street out of sight. I figured six uniforms would be sufficient to form a perimeter. I didn’t want to discourage our killer, just keep an eye on him. We would have no moon until it rose at four a.m. and the inside of the old church would be as dark as the inside of a bank vault. Each of us carried flashlights but dared not use them. I had my police issue .45 and Lew his trusty .38. The uniforms were equipped with pump 12-gauge shotguns and their side arms. They stood around me expectantly.
“For God’s sake don’t use your flashlights and give away your position. If you fire your weapon, shoot to kill. Our suspect is a murderer,” I reminded them. “He’s killed three girls, maybe four.” I stared at each officer until they nodded that they understood. If we found the Sattersby girl’s body was inside, I didn’t want to have an interrogation room interview with her killer; I wanted to look down at his cold dead body and call the case closed.
Lew had his usual objections. “The captain will want him alive if possible for questioning,” he argued. “The press is on his ass about this case.”
“He can hold a damn séance for all I care,” I snapped, my rancor undisguised. “This guy kills young girls. I don’t want to see him sitting in a jail cell at taxpayers’ expense until I retire, working on endless appeals.”
Lew nodded. He had voiced his objection like a good partner should and said nothing more about it. We had worked together long enough for him to know I usually didn’t set out to kill someone we were after. This case was different and he knew it. I suspected he agreed with me. We walked around the compound’s walls as I pointed out positions for the six officers that gave them both a good view of the premises and kept them out of sight. The side of the compound parallel to the riverbed was impassable, a sheer wall, so I ruled it out as a way in or out. That was my first mistake. I stationed one man out front by the gates, one in the rear of each of the two main buildings and fourth covering the side entrance by which we would enter. Two men got a lucky break and drew stations inside the church sanctuary out of the predicted bad weather, hidden on either side of the transept. They would follow us inside, keeping their distance. We each carried walkie-talkies, but I issued strict orders to keep the useless chatter down unless they spotted our killer.
The storm blew in from offshore just after midnight with a heavy downpour and a lightning display worthy of any Fourth of July spectacle. I looked up at the cloud-filled sky from the leaky shed under which we cowered and silently cursed my run of bad luck. Trudging through the rain dodging puddles, I made my final rounds making certain our perimeter guards were well out of sight. Satisfied we were as ready as we could be, I turned to the other two officers waiting with us.
“Follow us in. Stay well back but be ready to move in when I call.” I remembered how quick the bastard was. “He’s fast,” I warned. “Don’t bother with a warning shot.”
Lew and I entered the church. Walking down the hallway with no light was a test of wills – mine against every object into which I banged my shin. Flashes of lightning through the broken windows stabbed my eyes with fire, creating spots of light on my retinas. After stumbling around for five minutes, I called a halt.
“We have to let our eyes adjust to the dark,” I said.
Lew glanced out the windows at the lightning doubtfully but nodded.
We stood in the shadows for fifteen minutes to let our natural night vision engage. I could tell from his anxious stance that Lew was eager to continue, but the chances were slim that the Sattersby girl was still alive. Going in too early and too noisily would risk alerting her killer. When I could well enough see to move around by the light filtering in through the dirty windows, I judged we were ready.
The sanctuary of the old church was empty, as I figured it would be. I motioned the two officers to positions at the chained front door of the church and another just outside the hallway and waited until they had disappeared into the shadows. Yellow police tape still barred the hallway leading to the monastery’s chapel. I slipped under the tape and held it up for Lew. We paused, listening, but all I could hear was the deep rumble of thunder from outside. Taking a deep breath, I crept down the corridor to the open door into the chapel.
“I’ll take the right side,” I whispered to Lew. He nodded and immediately moved to my left. He had his .38 out and ready. I unsnapped the holster on my .45, hoping I didn’t have to draw it quickly. The pain in my shoulder had retreated to a dull throb, but my
shoulder was still stiff.
I sensed we were not alone as soon as I entered the chapel’s nave. Mingled with the loud patter of rain on the stone floor and between peels of thunder, a scraping sound came from behind the altar. I pointed toward it and Lew nodded. Quietly, we moved down opposite sides of the chapel, using the columns as cover. Remembering our killer’s propensity for heights, I scanned the roof as well as the rest of the room but saw nothing. Between flashes of lightning, the room was pitch black. Halfway down the nave with no repeat of the sound I was beginning to think the noise had been in my imagination.
“Help me,” a weak feminine voice called out from behind the altar.
“My God,” Lew whispered. “She’s alive.”
He hesitated, glanced over at me, and then headed directly for the altar in a mad rush. I motioned for him to wait, but he waved me off. I broke cover and followed to back him up. As I hugged the wall, I saw movement behind the altar, a girl lying on the ground. I knew it was Sasha Sattersby. I wondered why our killer would change his M.O., especially to bring her back to the church and keep her alive all day. It made no sense. Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. I smelled a trap. Lew had stopped when he saw Sattersby. I looked at the ceiling and noticed a shadowy movement. I pulled out my weapon and aimed.
“Lew!” I yelled out in warning.
He looked back at me, then followed the direction of my .45 upwards. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, flooding the room with light. Blinded, Lew raised his .38 and swept it back and forth in front of him, unable to see anything. In the flash, half blinded, I caught my first glimpse of our perp and almost pissed my pants. It was a monster. I stood frozen as the shadowy figure glided, not fell, through a hole in the roof. It swooped down and across the nave directly at me. Lew fired twice and the creature swerved midair, gliding up and around a column. Lew’s shots broke my torpor. I pulled my .45 and raced toward Lew.