by Skye Knizley
"What for?" Sphinx asked.
Raven arched an eyebrow. "Because I'm the detective and I'm asking you to."
"Fair enough," Sphinx replied. "I will get right on it and have the results before my shift ends."
"Thanks. And ask Doctor Zhu if there was any blood left in the artery or cranial cavity," Raven continued. "If he has a sample, have him test it for Thirst, specifically looking for the catalyst enzyme that turns it from a mixture of powders into a single compound."
"I think all the victims tested negat…" Sphinx began to say.
Raven put a hand over his mouth. "I'm aware of that. Run the test."
Sphinx's voice was muffled when he replied, "Yes, Ma'am."
"Thank you."
Raven turned and jogged back up the stairs and out into the night. The Ninja whined to life and Raven headed south toward the records division where the tape of her supposedly killing Cassidy was being held. Traffic was heavy, but she weaved between the cars like she'd been doing it all her life. It wasn't even an hour before she was parking the borrowed motorcycle in front of the records office.
The inside hadn't changed much; beige walls, off-white tile, a dying Ficus Benjamina and a customer service window. She rang the bell next to the window and held the button down till the night clerk turned from his television. His eyes widened when he recognized her at the window and Raven smiled sweetly.
"Find me the evidence box for the Cassidy Stryker case and buzz me through so I can review it in the back room," she said.
The kid buzzed Raven through and guided her through the office and into the warehouse-sized records room on the other side without saying a word. He used an iPad-like device to look up the file and led Raven straight to the box. He pulled it down and handed it to her.
"Please just sign and date the box label," he said. "You can use any of the rooms three rows over."
Raven smiled, surprised at the change in the kid. "Thank you. Enjoy your show."
The kid smiled back and ambled off toward the front desk.
Raven watched him for a moment wondering what he'd heard about her and then walked around the corner toward the small conference rooms. She found one with a DVD player in it and plopped the box on the table. A few minutes later she was skimming through the video watching officers come and go with suspects. It took about thirty minutes for her to find the spot where she supposedly entered. She stopped the video at that point and moved as close as she could to the screen. The woman did indeed look like her, but there were differences that only someone who saw her own face in the morning would notice. The hair wasn't exactly the same and though the video was black and white, she could tell the woman had black hair, not red hair. The woman also had long, pointed nails, the kind Raven could never wear as a police detective, but the final nail was the shoes. The woman was wearing the kind of shoes Valentina was always trying to get Raven to wear and she wore them like she was born in them, something few women of her height and musculature could pull off.
"Vampire," Raven muttered. "But who are you, you bitch, and why do you have my face?"
She put the video back in the box and pulled out Cassidy's prison jumpsuit. She sniffed it, detecting the scents of a female mixed with perfume, cigarette smoke, the odd soap they allowed in cells…and blood. On the right side of the collar were three small drops of crimson that had gone unnoticed in the confusion of a cop killing a suspect.
Raven smiled to herself, put everything back in the box, signed the label and sent a message to Doctor Zhu that she had found blood on Stryker's jumpsuit and she'd like it pulled and tested for Thirst.
That task completed, she left records and headed back toward Old Town and the Mambo who had overseen her birth. She had a few questions to ask.
* * *
One a.m. struck Old Town, the sounds of the nearby church bell muffled by the thick fog that was rising all over the city. The gas lamps were barely keeping the fog at bay, and for once the fenced-in section of the city was quiet and almost devoid of foot traffic. Raven parked the Ninja just outside Marie's and entered. The shop smelled of raw chicken and a variety of herbs, a scent that the Mambo was in the middle of either casting a spell or making a midnight snack. Raven glared at the squawking crow, which slammed its beak shut immediately and huddled against its perch. She then continued through the store toward the back, one hand idly tracing over the cases of skulls, beads, chicken feet and other trappings of voodoo. She passed through the beaded curtain at the back and found Marie finishing a ceremony. Raven stopped and folded her arms, watching the Mambo finish draining the chicken's blood into a pan that contained a variety of bones and herbs. Marie tossed the chicken carcass into a trash bin and stirred the contents of the pan with the end of a palm leaf. She chanted over the mixture and then carried it to a large wood-fired oven. She slid the pan into the oven and closed the door and then turned to face Raven.
She smiled and wiped her hands on her apron. "Ravenel my child, what a pleasure! What brings you to me tonight?"
"Hello, Marie," Raven said, reaching out to hug the older woman. "I need more of your help if you have time."
"Of course, child. I have little to do until the chicken blood is dry. Please, sit and tell me," Marie said.
Raven hopped onto Marie's workbench like she had when she was a child while Marie sat in her overstuffed velour recliner.
"You look tired, child," Marie said. "Have you fed?"
Raven made a face but nodded. "I'm not happy about it but yeah. I had to trust my vampire side."
"It is part of who you are, my sweet. You must learn to trust in your abilities."
Raven shook her head. "I don't think I will ever trust them. But that isn't why I am here. Mambo…you attended my birth, right?"
Marie smiled proudly. "Your mother and father chose me as their midwife, yes. You were not an easy babe to deliver, were you not so stubborn you would have died in your father's arms."
Raven nodded and looked away. The next question was difficult. "Mambo…did I have a twin?"
"A twin?" Marie asked. "Of course not child, your mother's pregnancy was difficult enough. You were a single birth. Why do you ask?"
"Because there is someone out there who looks just like me," Raven replied.
Marie reached for her battered corncob pipe and tapped it on the side of her chair. She then opened a jar of pungent tobacco, rolled a nut between her hands and tamped it into the pipe. She brought fire between her fingers and lit the pipe, inhaling deeply as she thought.
"And this woman is of the blood?" she asked.
"I believe so," Raven replied. "The way she acts, the way she moves, I am almost positive she is a vampire and aside from having black hair she looks just like me."
Marie nodded and blew a square of smoke. "Ravenel, I know for a fact you are the only child produced by the union of your mother and father. After you, your mother could carry no other children. You have no sister that looks like you."
Raven breathed a sigh of relief and sagged a little, only now realizing how tired she was. "Thank you, Marie," she said. "I was having nightmares thinking there was another me out there."
Marie laughed and patted Raven's leg. "No matter what this vampire looks like, you are unique, child. The universe broke the mold when you were born."
Raven smiled. "Do you have time to assist me with my case?"
"Of course, Ravenel," Marie replied.
Raven pulled out her phone and showed Marie the photographs of the room in DeGrey's apartment, as well as the blurry shape of the creature that rose from the pit.
"I found this in a suspect's home," she said. "While I was there I think I messed up something because a blood-covered thing came up out of the circle in the floor."
Marie nodded. "The sigils you scuffed were part of a protection circle. You disturbed them, freeing the creature from the pit."
"Any idea what it was doing there?" Raven asked.
"The only reasons to summon a minor demon and k
eep it imprisoned are information, power or both," Marie replied.
"It said it was hungry," Raven said.
"Power, then," Marie replied. "It was hungry because someone was using it to draw magikal energy. You were quite lucky. Do you have cold iron with you now?"
"Yes, I have some of Thad's specials in my boot," Raven said.
"Good girl," Marie replied. "As I told you as a child, any creature from the pit may be returned to hell with cold iron."
"That is what saved me," Raven said with a laugh. "I remembered you telling me about cold iron and I happened to have an old frying pan close to hand."
Marie snorted. "I'm glad you remembered something of my teachings. Your mind was always elsewhere."
Raven looked down at the floor as another question rose unbidden to her lips. "Marie, why were you always trying to teach me so much about our world?"
Now it was Marie's turn to consider her words. She sucked on her pipe until lights danced before her eyes and then exhaled a heart.
"Child…your father knew," she said at last.
Raven looked confused. "Knew? Knew what?"
Marie looked away. "I have said too much, child. It isn't my place."
Raven wanted to press the issue, but knew the mambo would answer no further questions relating to her childhood. When Marie's mind was set her mind was set. She may as well try asking the sky why it was blue.
She slid off the worktop. "Thank you, Marie. I appreciate your help. I'd better get home, I've got bad guys to catch tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Ravenel my child," Marie replied.
Raven kissed Marie's forehead and left the back room, pausing only to leave two hundred dollars in the cash-register. She knew Marie would never ask for or expect payment for her assistance, but she also knew times were hard.
Outside, the fog had thickened and all the sounds of the city were muffled. Still, she thought she heard an odd scraping noise somewhere on the wrought iron fence that surrounded Old Town. It was a noise that made her blood run cold and sent chills down her spine. Visions of Freddie Krueger danced through her head and she turned to try and locate the sound, using her ears like radar. She thought she had the noise pinpointed, but the sound stopped as suddenly as it had started. She waited in the fog, holding her breath and listening, but the strange noise was not repeated.
With a shrug she started the bike and drove back to the estate, popping wheelies and thoroughly enjoying the borrowed Ninja on the city's now deserted streets.
When she reached the estate she tried to pull into her regular parking space, but a vehicle sat there, covered with a black car cover. With no other choice she parked nearby and went to stare at the new arrival, wondering who had bought yet another car. After a few seconds she pulled the cover off and what was underneath made her laugh. Another Equus, nearly identical to the bullet-riddled one she had sent home with Levac, sat in her space. The license plate read 'STORM'.
Raven giggled about it all the way back to the house.
* * *
CHAPTER SEVEN
The following morning found Raven standing in the garage dressed in a pair of leather leggings, a red sweater that matched her hair and hugged her curves, a black motorcycle jacket she'd found in her closet, but didn't remember buying and a pair of over knee boots with heels that would have made her mother proud. She was trying to decide between the borrowed Ninja and the new Equus and having a difficult time choosing between them. She loved the bike. It was the first time she'd ridden one any distance and there was a feeling to the bike she couldn't really describe. On the other hand it was about as practical for Chicago in winter as a bikini. Though the fog had lifted, the wind was still cold with a hint of snow blowing in from the lake. If the snow fell, the bike was going to be useless.
With a small amount of reluctance she slid behind the wheel of the 770. A note was stuck to the steering wheel:
Ray,
Try to take better care of this one. The other is going back to the shop.
T
Raven tossed the note out the window, fired up the 380 engine and drifted the Equus out of the garage and down the driveway, just because she could. She then cruised sedately toward the precinct, butterflies dancing in her stomach about seeing Levac. She was nearly to her office when the phone rang playing Doctor Zhu's ringtone. She answered on the third ring.
"Hey Ming, what's up?"
"Raven? I got your messages about the Stryker case," Doctor Zhu said. "You were indeed correct, Sphinx found a tiny puncture wound just below her right ear along with a massive dose of Thirst in her carotid artery. That was likely the cause of her death. How did you know?"
Raven smiled and accelerated around a slow-moving truck. "Check their temperatures. The other three have a body temperature about ten degrees colder than Cassidy. That made me start looking for a different cause of death."
"Very well done," Zhu said.
"Thank you," Raven said. "And thank you for running all those tests."
"You're quite welcome," Zhu replied before ending the call.
Raven was sitting at a traffic light pondering the new information when the phone rang again. She knew it was Levac. The butterflies went berserk in her stomach, but she answered anyway. "Good morning, Rupert."
"Hi Ray," Levac replied. "We've got another body."
"We?" Raven asked in surprise.
"Of course we," Levac replied. "Where are you?"
"Sitting behind a delivery van about twenty blocks from the precinct," Raven replied. "Where's the victim?"
"Old Town. Aspen is getting a team together. I will meet you there."
Raven nodded to herself and flicked on her police lights. "Gotcha, see you there."
She ended the call and activated the siren to go with her police lights. The delivery van lurched out of the way and Raven squeezed the Bass between the van and a yellow cab. She skidded around the corner and accelerated, heading north and west.
Old Town always looked sad and freakishly abandoned by the light of day. None of the businesses opened until late afternoon unless it was a holiday and without the shadows cast by the gas lamps the area simply looked like a lot of old buildings in the middle of the city.
Raven was the first detective to arrive and her car was allowed through the crime scene barricade by a thin patrolman who nodded at her like he recognized her. Raven had no idea who he was, but she returned the nod like they were old acquaintances.
The victim was impaled on the wrought iron fence less than thirty yards from Marie's, his nude body nearly shredded by sharp blades. Like the others, a message had been left for Raven. It simply said, 'You're next, Storm'.
Raven pulled on a pair of gloves from her purse and began examining the body. The wounds and mutilation were similar to those of the first two beheaded men, though she got the impression that the work was done with greater force and anger. For one the wounds looked deeper, for another there were many more of them, crisscrossing themselves across his chest and thighs, many with little or no blood trails meaning they were inflicted after the victim had been killed. From the amount of blood on and around the victim it was clear his wounds had been inflicted at the scene and not at some other location as they had been with the first two.
Standing on her toes Raven confirmed that the blow that removed the victim's head was a single powerful chop from right to left. The white bone of the man's spine shown in the morning light, the cut was so smooth.
Raven followed the direction of the impact and spotted the head lying face down in the gutter nearby. She fished it out of the ice and snow and turned it so she could see the face. Milky white eyes stared at her out of a heavily scarred face.
She put the head in an evidence bag and carried it back to the rest of the body. She placed it on the ground and turned to the patrolman. "Were you the first officer on scene?"
The officer nodded. "Yes, Ma'am, though Angus MacLeod, proprietor of Isle of Night actually found the body and called 911."
"No, Ma'am," the officer replied. "He was heading home and just happened across our friend here."
Raven looked away as Aspen's crime scene van pulled to a stop nearby. She and Levac approached with their crime scene kits in hand. Aspen went straight to the body and began processing it for evidence. Levac was walking toward Raven, but he stopped to look at something he'd spotted on the fence. Raven thanked the patrolman and joined Levac.
"What did you find?" she asked.
"Scrapes on the fence leading toward our victim," he said, rubbing at a gray gouge on the iron, a place where the paint and rust had been cut through.
Raven leaned against the railing and picked at something with her fingers. After a few seconds she was rewarded with a sliver of sharp metal about half an inch long. She held the metal up to the light; it was dull grey on one side with a sharp, silver edge like that of an old steel sword or hatchet. She dropped it into an evidence bag and looked at Levac. She could tell from his beard and baggy eyes that he hadn't slept. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she didn't know what to say. Lost, she looked away again.
"What did you find?" Levac asked.
"I think it might be a part of the murder weapon," Raven said. "And I think I almost saw this happen last night."
"What do you mean?" Levac asked, the pitch of his voice change from smoke-tinged curiosity to concern.
"I had been showing those photos I took at DeGrey's to Marie," she said. "I was on my way out when I heard a scraping noise somewhere nearby. I couldn't locate the noise and it stopped so I headed home. If I had looked more carefully maybe this man would still be alive."
"Or you could have been the victim," Levac said. "The messages are getting more personal, Ray."
Raven didn't answer. Instead she returned to where Aspen was processing the victim for any trace evidence. "Anything?" she asked the purple-haired woman.