Two nights later we received a call while going over the nuances of elven law and how those laws applied under the King's Law. There'd been another savaging in Rat City. It would be the fifth attack we knew of, the third I was called in on. The bodies were piling up. Ariane and I requisitioned a driver and continued our discussion while we rode to Stygia.
"I don't understand the 3rd article of the elven treaties," Ariane said from the passenger seat. "Are Rift Wardens considered thrones or not? The verbiage is a bit confusing on the matter." She'd shouted shotgun as our driver pulled up.
"The treaty allows the elven settlements to police themselves. Rift Wardens are not thrones, but they have a special mandate giving them authority to enforce the King's Law within the elf lands."
"So they're peacekeepers, but not pledged to the throne. Interesting."
"What's that mean for us?" the driver asked.
"It means in the absence of a throne the rift wardens represent The King." I flipped to the relevant pages in the leather bound book Ariane had taken from the library. "We seldom venture into the elf lands, but when we do the wardens act as deputies."
"I didn't know that." The driver took us down 1st Avenue, following the signs towards the river crossing.
A lot of instructors neglected the histories and treaties in favor of practical interactions and current policies. I knew Ariane would need to be twice as good as any other young throne if she wanted to succeed. I handed her the book. She wrote down the page numbers and let the book flip close. From the back, I could see the muscle in her jaw tensing.
"So the elves have been allowed to police themselves for thousands of years. That doesn't seem fair."
"Yeah it does," The driver interjected. "Lycanthropes are inherently aggressive and savage. They need closer supervision."
I shook my head, hearing Captain Hawkins in his words.
"That's not only incorrect, but bigoted. That kind of ignorance is inappropriate."
"Is it, sir? No offense, miss, but I listened to a lecture by Captain Hawkins on this exact topic a few months ago."
A low growl escaped Ariane's throat. She stared out the window, presumably ignoring our driver, but our conversation clearly had her beast's attention.
"How many lycanthropes do you know personally?"
"None, sir, but-"
"No. Listen, and drive," I said. I had to be careful how I worded my rebuttal. I didn't want to challenge the captain in front of the rank and file, sowing dissent was not my intention. "The lycanthropes makeup the same percentage of the community as we do, but we commit nearly double the amount of crimes."
"Isn't that because of the increased policing, sir?"
"There's no correlation to that." I shook my head. I'd had the conversation more times than I cared to count and I still didn't know how to make them understand. "The King's mandate is to police all citizens with equal justice regardless of species and ethnicity. It's what you swore to when you offered up your sword."
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."
The van lapsed into silence. I leaned back and watched the nightlights whip past as we crossed over from Tartarus to Stygia. The driver focused on the road, and Ariane read through the text. The skyscraper forest people associated with the name Gorgon City made way for massive apartment buildings, factories, and the occasional sports arena. Gorgon was a collection of urban wasteland, walled off suburban kingdoms, bridges, tunnels, bustling harbors, and mazes of crisscrossing railways. All of it tied together by an everburning string of colored lights. I let my mind wander until the driver said we'd arrived at our destination.
We climbed out of the van and told the driver he could return to HQ. He thanked me and drove away, leaving us on the curb in a low income shopping area. A few dozen stores lined both sides of the street with gaudy neon lights and signs in varying states of disrepair. Shoppers hurried past us. Members of the community recognized our suits and knew we were there on business. Some gave us curious looks, others just wanted to get off the dark streets of Rat City as soon as they could. As before, the atmosphere of the neighborhood was one of fear and a downward spiral into decay. The locals struggled to eke out a living in the slowly dying corpse of a town.
The entrance to the Demeter Avenue station on the 1 train line sat across the street. Caution tape cordoned off the stairwell and orange cones created a safe perimeter around that. We ducked under the tape and made our way down the stairs. The lights had been put out, a natural deterrent to prying human eyes.
Like my own, Ariane's shifter eye adjusted to the dim lighting as we went down to the token booth. Our footfalls echoed in the darkness around us, gradually pushing back the sounds of the streets above us. The smell of peeling paint and crumbling tiling mingled with the stink of the underground subway system to create their own unique scent.
A throne sat in the booth splitting her attention between the turnstiles and her cell phone. She saluted as we walked past and I nodded in response. She buzzed us through the exit gate and onto the platform. The platform lights had been dimmed near the entrance, but brightened the further away we got. Near the tunnel entrance stood three thrones, and a pair of CSIs. As we approached, I could feel the death lingering in the air: young, vibrant, finite. I knew the victim was human before I laid eyes on him.
The sergeant on the scene was a nosferatu named Kolro, his large eyes glowed like a bat's through the goggles he used to protect them against the lights. He pulled back his hood, revealing large pointed floppy ears, and a face that more greatly resembled a bat than a primate. He saluted, and walked over. I felt Ariane recoil, but when I turned her face was stoic and professional.
"Lieutenant, ma'am." His German accent was less of a distraction than the impediment caused by the large fangs that replaced his front teeth.
"Sergeant Carlov, right?" Ariane asked.
"No, but close. Kolro. I'm glad you remembered my name."
"I never forget a face," she said.
Kolro pulled up his hood in what was likely a subconscious gesture.
I almost laughed, the Nosferatu were impossible to forget, sometimes hauntingly so. Aside from their hideous, hairless appearance, they also fed off of the life auras of others... the living and the undead alike. Madness was common among them, prompting many Houses to ban them. Even among vampires they were considered monsters. However, Kolro was a good throne and a strong leader. He would have been a praetorian if he wasn't on Hawkins's shit list. We weren't friends, but we shared a common enemy.
"What do you have for us, Sergeant?" I asked as I walked over to the body.
"Another mauling, sir. Three witnesses. The token clerk is a member of the community and called it in immediately. It's fortunate a team was around the corner."
"Around the corner?" I looked over at the two vampires standing behind the CSI recording the scene.
"There is a small blood bank around the corner, sir. We were making a purchase when the call came in," explained the taller of the two.
"We came right away, sir. Caught the witnesses while the token clerk kept them busy," said the other.
They were both nondescript vampires.
"Good. Tell me about the token clerk. What House, what pack?"
"Neither, sir. He's a witch."
The word was foul like something the throne needed to scrape off his boot. In our world there were biases upon biases. Elves and humans, lycanthropes and vampires, Pre-Men and vampires. Both sides believed their grievance more valid than the rest. Witches were despised by the undead, mostly because they nearly defeated us during the last war, partly because of carefully crafted propaganda created by the Vampire Council. My mother had been a witch. That heritage was just one more reason why many of my kind distrusted me.
"Where is he? I'd like to speak to him."
"I took his statement, lieutenant, and sent him on his way. He was carrying a small amount of contraband, but I confiscated it and gave him a verbal warning. We have his information if you need us to bring him in," he added the last as he incorrectly read my expression. He handed me a small pouch barely the size of a fist.
Contraband in regard to witches was the spell components and fetishes needed to cast anything more than a personal or cosmetic spell. Most thrones didn't actually understand what that meant and saw any elements of spellcraft as illegal.
I nodded and crouched beside the body, it's mangled nature reminding me of the mother in her apartment. I closed my eyes tight and willed the old images away. Compared to those, this one was somehow less terrible, though the damage was much the same. Once I was composed I gestured for Ariane to join me.
"Sucio, this guy reeks of beer." Ariane knelt next to me, pinching his nose. She pointed at the broken beer bottle by the man's feet. "It's Heineken and something else."
"Okay, you know your beers. What else can you tell me?"
Over lunch that first morning I'd learned she'd done two years of forensic science at Stony Brook University in New York City. She hopped to her feet and walked a circle around the body, stopping at each evidence marker. The CSI team gave her space, answering her occasional questions as they came. The others kept their distance and let her do her job. After three circuits she knelt on the opposite side of the body.
"The slashes and scratches all over the arms and face happened before the arms were torn off. Defensive wounds. The victim tried to defend himself. The blood loss alone would have killed him, but the damage to the torso and legs are what did the job." She looked up from the gruesome damage. "The killer has to be abnormally strong to remove both arms at the same time."
"We're looking for a werebear or maybe even a weretiger," Kolro said. "All of the victims have been torn apart. The ferocity is a hallmark of a feral lycanthrope, but even a mad wolf or rat couldn't muster this kind of strength."
I fingered the pouch in my hand, the contents of which were a fine powder. The feel of it was a sensation I'd missed. The taboo of magic had pushed me away from the craft, but magic was a part of me. I felt the Darkness then, watching and listening. It wanted me to use its gifts.
"Are we sure?" I asked as I stood. "We've been tracking these killings for nearly two months. Are we positive we've profiled the monster?"
"Yes, lieutenant. I've been doing this for decades. I know the signs." Kolro adjusted his hood, clearly annoyed at my questioning his findings.
I ignored him for the moment. "Ariane. Are you sure? Once we call it in, the seeker teams will track down every werebear and tiger in the city, and bring them in dead or alive. As detectives we make the final decision and we're responsible for what follows."
Everyone watched as Ariane looked from me to the corpse to Kolro and back. I dug my fingers into the powder, a ground crystal. She furrowed her brow and studied the armless body more intensely, my words seemingly emphasizing the seriousness of our job.
"Now that I look closer, I'm not sure."
"With all due respect. This is ridiculous and we waste time." Kolro threw up his hands. His hood slipped back, revealing the frightful nature of a scowling nosferatu.
"Did you follow protocol, sergeant Kolro?" I asked.
"Of course, lieutenant. I'm good at my job!" he snapped.
I ignored his outburst, more concerned with the teachable moment, but I made a mental note of his outburst. I would address it later.
"With protocol followed the stops in each direction have been cleared of any innocent bystanders and teams are in position, waiting for the all clear." I looked into his goggled eyes. "We have time to do a thorough job."
"I-"
"The scratches!" Ariane cut in before Kolro could make things worse. "They're too shallow. Even rat claws would have left deeper tears in the skin. A tiger would have left the bone exposed... a feral lycanthrope wouldn't have had the restraint to be so careful."
"I'm sorry, but in my professional opinion this has to be a lycanthrope."
The CSI techs and the rest of Kolro's people turned to me, waiting for my decision. Watching their faces, something took hold of me. I gestured for everyone to back up as I opened the pouch cupped in my hand.
Words of power taught to me by Phillipe leapt from my lips, calling to the magic in my sluggish blood. I scooped out a handful of the crystal grains and cast it over the body. The rush of power played in my ears like drums from the motherland. The words guided that power to the crystal powder. The powder reacted to the blood on the train platform and the memories locked within.
"Show me," I commanded.
One of the techs hissed as smoke rose up from the crimson stains. They all gasped as the smoke took shape.
The victim stood before us, clutching a beer bottle and smoking a half-spent cigarette. He swayed on his feet and laughed to himself. Drunk. The smoke expanded across the platform, chasing the others back. A little man in a trench coat and cap walked past. The victim stopped him. Angry words were exchanged in silence and the little man tried to walk away. That's when the victim attacked, smashing the beer bottle over the smaller man's head and shoving him to the floor. The cap fell to the floor revealing huge gremlin ears, pointed and fanned much like the ones in the popular movie franchise.
The smoke faded and then dissipated as the little man jumped onto the victim, clawing at his face and chest. We couldn't see what happened next, but we were all familiar with what happens when gremlins go berserk. The spell broken, the others looked to Kolro. He stared down at the body, his expression unreadable. I dropped to the floor, the energy leaving me limp. My heart strained in my chest, trying in vain to pump life into my flesh.
Ariane came to my side and placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
I tried to speak, but my voice was hard to find. She lifted me to my feet with a strong arm around my waist.
"I'll be fine," I croaked. "It saps a lot out of me."
"What was that," she whispered into my ear.
I watched the others, their expressions ranging from fear to revulsion. The shadows in the corner thinned and for a second I glimpsed a black bobcat. The Darkness backed into the wall and faded like the smoke from the spell. I shuddered and would have fallen if Ariane hadn't held me firmly.
"Truth in the blood."
"I've seen a bruja work before, but never," she paused looking for the right words, "it never felt like that."
"Lieutenant, I... I amend my original assessment." Kolro's face was stern, his posture rigid. "What are your orders?"
The other vampires weren't sure what to think, the confusion on their faces was evidence of that.
"Call in the seekers."