Immortal Tales #Wattys2020

Chapter Seventeen

Katie

The girl called herself Katie Thomson.

Katie was the secretary of Chief Biller, head of the police department of New York City. She was quiet mostly, but when she did speak everyone listened. Everyone knew she was the smartest head in the district. She wasn't an official police officer due to her young age, but she would become very soon. Her official outfit was constituted by a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt, the NYC badge shining bright at the waist. She had liked wearing gowns and dresses in the past, but she had to admit that it was so much easier to walk around in pants. Especially when she had to jump from one crime scene to another.

She was holding a yellow pad with one hand a pen in the other, taking notes on every detail on the crime scene.

A man had been drained again, the chief had said, not having a better way of describing the streak of murders that some psychopath was leaving behind.

The media wasn't allowed on the scene, Biller was afraid they could spread terror in the city, so it was Katie who had to take as many pictures as possible.

Her fifty years old boss would be very upset if she didn't get everything right.

She took out her reusable camera and snapped a few shots of the pale corpse.

Naturally, she knew this was pointless. The path-changers never left a trace behind, she and the other immortals had learned that truth a long time ago. She had joined the police force not to catch the murderers, but to get some insight on the victims themselves.

Who were they? Why was their life important? Could there be others in danger? Stuff like that.

A few times, they had managed to find some victims before their murder.

The story was always the same: the victim was about to make a choice that could revolutionise the world. Sometimes it was such small things that Jane had laughed at how ridiculous the situation was, like the launch of a new brand of sandwiches, but others it was a new tech with the potential to start wars.

The only thing they had to do was stopping the fact before it happened. That could involve telling the person, stealing a recipe or destroying a nuclear bomb. Just the usual things in an immortal life.

Katie stepped back from the corpse and let the doctors from the autopsy department collect it.

From them, Katie had learned that the magic that sucked the energy out of a person's body was actually no magic at all. Immortal blood was poisonous to humans: by scratching them, they allowed it to enter their circulatory system. There, it reacted in a similar way to lithium with water and burned a body from the inside out. A single drop could bring a grown man to his knees, two could kill him.

Katie and Andre had performed their own experiments in the small kitchen of their apartment, revealing that a substance in their saliva was able to counteract the effects of the poison.

So much for the magical breathe that the people of the mist had suggested.

-Thomson, report - said a familiar rough voice as soon as she was outside.

Biller was a tough man, there was no better way of describing him. He was tall and large, every inch of his body covered in muscle. His thick mustache covered his top lip, reminding her of a cowboy she saw in a restaurant many years before. His dark eyes revealed nothing about his inner thoughts, giving other mortals the impression that he could not feel anything.

Katie knew that wasn't the case, but she appreciated how much control the man had over his feelings. Whenever he was scared or upset, he never let his men see it. He was their anchor.

He played with a gun in his hand, the famous 9 millilitre that gave him his nickname of "Never misses Biller". She wished she was never on the other side of the gun.

-The copse looked like a dried fruit sir - she said equally as cold.

Biller had picked her because she was lucid even when other girls and guys were squimish. He didn't like vague, pointless speeches, he wanted facts.

-Did the psycho leave any information on what he wanted this time? - he continued.

Katie shook her head. The chief sighed.

-Same as usual then. - he said. - I want the report on my desk by tomorrow morning, together with that other file on the missing child. -

Katie nodded. She had asked for a little help to Isaac with that one, hoping he could get some more information from the parents of the child, but nothing had come out yet.

-You are free to go Thomson, I will clean up this mess by myself. - he ordered.

She could have offered to help, but she had no intention in talking with the paparazzi again. The last time, a very insisting woman had almost made her lose control of her mask such was the will to strangle her.

She could already see in on tomorrow's newspaper headline:

"January 1993, Former segreterary of New York City police officer beats a reporter to death with her own notepad. A woman named Andre laughed at the sight."

Katie left the crime scene without hesitation and jumped on the first bus she could see going in the North direction.

The vehicle was packed with people, and sweat started rolling down her spine despite the cold winter air. She liked to walk for that exact reason, but that day, a small flickering string had appeared at the edge of her vision, willing her to take that direction.