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Chapter Seven
Dodging Danger
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Louis Bulters had not actually been listed as a missing person. With only the occasional phone call back to his family to catch up, it was only the boy's closest friends who had noticed his change in habits. He was not a particularly bright student, at least in regard to his grades. He got a basic pass, usually turned up on time and rarely stayed for the tutorial groups after the lectures. Still, he seemed a good kid.
Florian put in the call to the police station immediately. This was the freshest lead they had. He had only really been missing for two days. There was a chance, albeit a slim one, that he was still alive. The human kills had all been methodical. Time-consuming was one way to describe the insane mess that had been left behind by the killer.
This kid could still be alive. Maybe. If only the fucking traffic would move out his fucking way!
'Can't they hear the fucking siren!?' Florian howled as a cab driver crawled along in front of the police car. Bailey leaned hard on the horn, but the noise just added to the street's natural cacophony of horns and shouts of the average Thursday night theatre. Bailey swore, using some truly creative terms that Florian intended to steal for himself.
'Are you sure the address is correct?' she barked, turning her frustration on the only other passenger trapped with her. Florian fought down his natural cat instinct to flex his canines at her.
'Hey, don't you turn those fiery browns on me! I didn't ask for this shit to happen during peak hour traffic!'
'For fuck's sake, we could have walked there by now!' Bailey shouted, punching the horn a few more times to vent her frustration. Florian leant his head out the window and squinted up at the buildings.
'You might be onto something there. That's the university's apartment complexes,' he said, pointing to three tall grey buildings tucked away behind the next multi-storey carpark. The traffic halted at yet another red.
'You know what? Fuck it. Go,' she said.
Florian looked at her. 'Seriously?'
'Yes, get out! If that kid is with the killer, then his life is literally ticking down. Go!' Bailey shouted. Florian didn't hesitate. He swung from the car and wove his way through the juddering, stinking cars at the stand still until he reached the pavement. There, he broke into a hard run. Were they being reckless? Well yes, obviously. But shit worked differently in this city, especially after the merge with the cats. No one was going to complain if they got the kid back alive.
Sadly, it wasn't that unusual to see a full-grown man sprinting down the street these days. Most just avoided his gaze and moved out of the way. He slithered a bit as a drain overflowed out on the footpath, making it slimy with gods only knew what. He cut through the multi-storey carpark, ignoring the startled cry from a stunned security guard in the parking booth. He went over a wall and down a flight of concrete steps that had seen better days. He was soon racing along the back of the apartment buildings. The police station had called ahead and gotten the door code from the university. A member of staff had offered to meet them but not for another couple of hours. Unsurprisingly, Florian and Bailey had decided not to wait for them.
The apartments had an old but well-kept appearance. The buildings were simple in design, but functional with mottled grey walls and narrow rectangular windows chasing up the side of the towering faces. Florian didn't even bother with the lift. He took the stairs, counting the flights as he went. On the fourth floor he paused very briefly at the fire evacuation sign, his eyes frantically tracing the floor plan until he found the apartment number he was looking for. Ominously, it was right at the end of the last corridor, away from the rest of the students and situated near the other fire escape.
Lungs and calves burning, Florian knew something was wrong before he caught sight of the door. The hairs on his arms rose and his neck prickled. He had planned to knock, follow protocol, wait for Bailey if all was well. He couldn't say what made him do it, but he took out his gun. He didn't even try the handle. He just aimed and shot into the deadbolt. The noise was horrific, echoing around the solitary empty corridor with it concrete walls. Distantly, he heard people yell in alarm.
He kicked and the door flew open. His first sign that he was right and wouldn't need to fill out extra violations' paperwork was when his nose caught the scent of blood. A lot of blood.
'Louis Bulters!' Florian bellowed. The window was open, the lazy curtain twenty years out of date flapping about. The apartment was quiet. Then, for just a moment, there was the faintest sound. His ears picked up a quiet groan. It was so distant, it might have come from the next apartment down. He ran through the tiny living room and kitchen. The hallway had three closed doors. One led to a toilet, the second was a bedroom and the third...
Florian swore as he skidded to a stop at the bathroom door. The kid was in the bathtub, his pale arm hanging limply over the side as a butterfly needle was strapped neatly to his vein. The tubing was connected to a bag inside an ice bucket. It was already two-thirds full. There was a nasty blue and purple bruise across the kid's left temple and the eye was almost completely swollen shut. A low, sandpaper like rasp escaped the kid's throat, letting Florian know that he was alive. Just.
Florian had gone through the same first aid training that Bailey had, honestly probably a little more considering his practical experience with stitching up gunshot wounds and the occasional drunken laceration. He carefully removed the butterfly needle and applied pressure.
'Louis? Hey, can you hear me? Kid?' He slapped the kid's face lightly. The working eyelid flickered just a little, but the kid's head remained limp like the rest of him. Florian dug out his phone with the free hand.
'Have you got him?' Bailey's voice rung around the bathroom with almost as much volume as the gunshot.
'Yes. Fuck, where the hell are you? He's alive, but he's lost a lot of blood and god knows what else.'
'He's alive!? I'm nearly there. Paramedics and backup are on their way. The police were already called. Apparently, there was a gunshot?'
'Yep, that was me,' Florian growled.
'The killer?' She gasped excitedly.
'I wish. No, I shot the damn lock. Killer's not here.' There was a moments silence.
'Do you think he heard the gunshot and fled?' she asked. Her voice was echoing now. She must be in the building's spiralling corridors.
'Can't have. We're on the fourth floor.' The window was open though...
Bailey burst through the door not five minutes later. 'Watch the kid, I've got to check something.' Florian didn't have long before the place was swarming with people. The room was weirdly neat for a lazy university student. Acting on a hunch, he pulled his jacket over his hand and nudged open the fridge and freezer. Two more bags of blood lay inside.
Well, that was... morbid. Just what the fuck was the point of all this? Everything was incredibly clean. There was a single plate in the drying rack in the kitchen, fresh fruit in the little ceramic bowl on the counter and a head of fresh lettuce in the crisper drawer. He peered in the bin. There was old takeaway wrappers and unmarked containers of food. Was the killer living here? They might have. The blood was certainly older than just today.
There were loud voices in the corridor outside. Campus security had most likely been called as first response. Sure enough, two men in the university's uniform barged into the apartment, guns drawn. Florian already had one hand in the air and the other holding his badge up high. Very briefly he wondered what it was like to live in a world where school security didn't carry firearms. Not in the city and especially not since the merge with the cats.
'Bailey, local security's here,' Florian called. He didn't move. The two men looked confused, and pale faced. That scared look and moving bodies generally ended with flying bullets and Florian just wasn't interested in getting shot today. Bailey came out of the bathroom. So many times in the past, the sight of a uniformed police officer generally escalated a problem. This was a rare occasion where it had the opposite effect. Her uniform seemed to ease the fear of the security guards because the first man, a weedy looking fellow with dust-coloured hair, lowered his gun.
Bailey tilted her chin and put on her best authority voice. 'Gentlemen, we have a situation.'
There were plenty of curious students who wanted to know what was going on. Whilst the police worked, the security guards were sent back down the corridor to chase the onlookers away. Florian had done his own search of the place before the main team had arrived. A very annoying afternoon followed which included a very awkward statement where he had needed to lie. He couldn't very well say he smelt blood from the corridor when the kid was kept in the bathroom with a medical butterfly needle and bag carefully inserted and no actual blood spilt. Instead, he said he heard the kid groan. This made Bailey raise an eyebrow, but thankfully she didn't contradict him.
As Florian wasn't technically police, he was relocated to waiting off to one side as the detectives and paramedics came through. He had now worked so many cases that most of the officers recognised his face even if they weren't particularly happy to see him there. As he answered the monotonous questions his mind kept flicking back to that open window. They were a clean four storeys up and the side of the building was a boring flat face. There were windows for sure but no balconies. He didn't even remember seeing a fire escape on the east side of the building.
Finally, he made his excuses and decided to go look for himself. Bailey watched him go with some suspicion, but she was far too used to his habits to bother asking. He would tell her his thoughts soon once he had something firmer to go on.
The apartment complex was exactly like he remembered. He walked a slow lazy track on the gravel footpath outside, his hands buried in his pockets. He still garnered a few odd looks. Too old to be a student, to oddly dressed to be a teacher. The wall was very flat. It was also grimy and needed a good power wash. Florian counted the windows carefully until he was standing under Butler's rooms. Florian squinted up. There were marks against the grey slabs, but it was too late to say if they were significant. What was significant were the very deep impact prints on the damp grass. The footpath was tucked right up against the building with the lawn on the other side.
His stomach tightened as he calculated how high a jump like that would be. Even if whoever it was had climbed out the window and was agile enough to bounce down to the window below it on the third floor and then the one below that and so on... well, that kind of dexterity wasn't usually seen except out of people training to be stunt doubles for Hollywood or people trying out for the damn circus. Their killer was either an incredibly well-trained human with a very specific skill set or, much more likely, the killer was a cat.
He sighed.
Zhen was not going to like this.
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'So, the kid's going to live?' Florian asked as he rocked back and forth on the old chair, watching Jackson's face twitch every time it creaked.
'Yes. He's still unconscious. He lost a lot of blood and his folks have been called, but the doctors are confident he should make a full recovery,' Jackson growled.
Bailey shook her head. 'That kid is either the luckiest person on the planet or the unluckiest.'
'There's a good chance he saw his killer,' Jackson said as he looked down at his notes.
'You have officers with him, right?' Florian asked.
Jackson snorted. 'Of course I do. How shit at my job do you think I am? We aren't taking any chances that the killer comes back to finish the job.'
Florian gave a small nod of satisfaction. 'Anything from the apartment?'
Jackson's eyes narrowed. 'You tell me. You said in your statement that you heard the kid groan. He seemed pretty damn unconscious to Bailey. You want to explain that?' The two men looked at each other for a moment before Florian decided on the truth.
'I smelt the blood,' Florian said simply.
'Excuse me, you what?' Bailey spluttered but Jackson only nodded. Florian would never advertise what he was, but he did trust Bailey. If she wanted to connect the dots, he would let her. She looked from him to Jackson with an annoyed expression. She waited for him to elaborate, her face growing darker the longer he stayed silent.
'Anything else?' Jackson said, ignoring Bailey's outrage.
'Yes. I went outside the apartment to check out the lawn directly below his window.'
'Why? It was four storeys up!' Bailey squawked.
'I know. There were imprints in the grass. They were deep and fresh and at least a size eleven in men's,' Florian explained.
'You know the likelihood of a human jumping down the side of that apartment...?' Jackson ventured.
'It's not impossible but yes, I can see what you're getting at,' Florian growled.
'I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but we are getting a lot of pressure from the higher-ups about this case.'
'You know me, Jackson. I'm not going to say anything for sure without proper evidence. There's a chance those imprints weren't even related. The only other evidence that points to a cat is the bodies and even that doesn't really make sense. Someone is making a huge effort to create the biggest mess possible,' Florian growled.
Bailey nodded. 'I was thinking the same. The bodies were cut to ribbons in the end. Somebody is trying to make it look like a cat. What kind of a cat would take and store blood? Is that some kind of ritual we don't know about?' she asked.
Florian shook his head. 'Definitely not. Zhen may his quirks, but I'm damn sure he would have mentioned something like that. Aside from that we have... what exactly? Did they find anything else? Were there any prints? Any hairs?' Florian asked.
'No. Our team swept the place. It was clean. Insanely clean.'
'Too clean for a student apartment. Did you notice the fresh fruit?' Florian asked grimly. The other two nodded.
'You think that the guy was living there?' Bailey asked.
'Well, someone had to stay to keep the kid subdued,' Florian said with a shrug. The trio went quiet for a moment.
'There's still a chance that it could be a human. Florian, I'm sorry to do this to you but can you go to the red zone and find Ronan?'
Florian winced. 'The leader of the Humans First group?' He already knew the answer. He just hoped maybe the squeaky chair had caused Jackson to have a small aneurysm and say something stupid by accident.
Jackson's eyes narrowed. 'Yes Florian, the Humans First group. They are the most vocal group in the city at the moment. Even if they weren't directly involved, there's a good chance someone would have heard something.'
He was probably right. Didn't mean Florian wasn't going to argue with him a little. 'So why are you asking me to go!? Surely you want someone more... normal looking. What about Miller? He already looks like he's had a partial lobotomy. He's way more down on their level.'
'That is my partner you're talking about,' Bailey growled.
'He's also a well-known face in the red zone. Most of the police force are, one way or another. You have street credibility. You can keep a low profile and more importantly, you don't look like a cop,' Jackson sighed.
'I also don't look like an insanely racist asshole,'
'Mmm...' Bailey began.
'Enough. Just add it to your bill,' Jackson said flatly.
'Oh, you better believe I'll be charging extra for this shit,' Florian snapped. He stood up from his chair in a huff and stalked from the room with Bailey right behind him. She stopped him outside in the corridor with a surprisingly firm grip on his arm.
'I don't like being kept in the dark,' she growled. 'What did you mean back there, that you smelt the blood?'
Florian met her gaze steadily. 'There's a reason this department uses me as a middleman,' he said cryptically then tugged his arm free.
'Are we cool?' he asked. She still looked both confused and slightly worried.
'You've had my back for years. So long as you aren't about to tell me you're actually some cat assassin, we're cool,' she said finally. He smiled weakly.
'No. Not a bad idea though. I'd probably get paid better.'
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END
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