Little Old Lady Got Mutilated..(A Fan Fiction)

[Estelle Russard]

Thread inspired by: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MRu8N2K0NY">Werewolves of London, Warren Zevon </a>


LATE LAST NIGHT:

Russard nosed the unmarked squad car up to the curb to park a short distance behind the ambulance and the other police vehicles already present, their sirens all fallen silent some time ago, but their lights continued their swirling flashes, illuminating the street and surrounding buildings an in electric blue/red glow.

She stepped from the car and nimbly skirted the few bystanders milling around hoping to see something gross, her progress up to the building unhampered by the Uniforms with a quick flip of her badge.

The apartment block was approximately twenty years old, and was in relatively good shape. The gardens were nicely maintained, the frontage lawn and little evergreen trees manicured to look like green icecream cones or lollipops dotted about the place. Estelle never did like the way people did that to trees and shrubs, too Scissorhands for her tastes.
She noticed that the block address numbers had been recently painted in gold-fleck so as to be more easily readable from the street and that, overall, the place looked care for.

The building itself was set back on a sideroad from off the main thoroughfare of Granville in an older part of Vancouver - an area where the locals were a melting pot of nationalities with a higher ratio of Chinese folk to most everyone else, as was evidenced by the many "Happy Lucky" restaurants around the neighbourhood. And speaking of, Russard made a mental note to be sure to stop by one later as she had a growing growl of hunger in her stomach. It had been about 6 hours since she'd last eaten.
The report of the homicide had come just as she was more than halfway through her evening shift and the fact she'd delayed taking her dinner break so she could finish some overdue paperwork was her own bad judgement call. One should never delay the dinner break, she'd learned that her first year.

Taking the stairs, Russard rounded the third floor landing and exited the stair well, only slightly breathless. There was an elevator, an old rickety looking thing, but the building was only three stories high and so...a girl took her exercise where she could. The door to apartment 309 was open, yellow crime-scene tape had already been streamed across it, which Estelle considered a tad short-sighted because the lead Detective, herself, was only just arriving.

She smelt the blood before she saw it. The other expelled bodily fluids were also identifiable and they mingled together to give the immistakeable stench of death - but blood was a scent that was always stand-alone, a rusty and detrius kind of smell, especially in large quantities. A fresh homicide - it'd been a while since Estelle had come in on one so close to time of death. Usually the DB's had been stiff for a day or so before anyone found them, and usually they were corrupting in some damp woods or muddy lake grass for a while before being disturbed. But not tonight. There'd been one helluva ruckas, apparently, noise and struggling and crashing furniture so that the neighbours had called the police quick-smart. The Uniforms (no fault of their own) had arrived too late to help and Russard was here now to try put all the peices together of how things went down.

"Ah, Detective Russard" a lanky young officer said, approaching her as she ducked beneath the tape and stepped into the apartments entryway. "The deceased is a Mrs Olive Moreland, widow and grannie of five" Estelle looked about her as he gave his report, reading from a small note pad he'd flipped open. "She lived alone except for her cat (whereabouts now unknown), kept mostly to herself, but was liked by her neighbours on either side of her. She was last seen retrieving her empty recycling box from the curb by the guy across the hall - he carried it in for her"

"Any sign of break-in...(Estelle read his name badge) Whitman?"

Whitman shook his head, "None. The struggle began in the kitchen we think"

"Ok" Estelle seemed to approve of things so far, adding "Note my time of arrival for the record"

"Sure thing" Whitman replied, but gave her an odd look, "Is that necessary, Detective?"
"You know the protocol" Estelle responded,"Of course it's necessary, Im the Lead on this case"
Whitman's eyes wandered momentarily and Russard seized on it immediately, "Is there a problem?"
Whitman looked for his partner, office Langton, who until now had been standing in a very officious pose, feet askance and listening to Whitman's report. Suddenly, he needed to tie his shoelace.
"Um, I only asked" Whitman hedged, "because we already have a Lead"

"You already have a--who?" Estelle swivelled about, looking for the usurper, ready to assert her authority.

"Hello sweetheart," Kazaar said, stepping from the kitchen and looking about as rumpled as the last time she'd seen him, "..bit late to the party aren't'ya?"

Geez, he was like that bad penny that just kept turning up, Russard thought sourly.
What was he doing here? She'd been told, promised, she wouldn't have to work with Aurelias Kazaar ever again, not after the last time. In fact, she thought he'd been transferred, or booted out, maybe even let go? There'd been rumors to that effect, anyway, and no one had seen him for eighteen months - which seemed to confirm things. And now he was here, standing smack in the middle of her crime scene in his all his wise-cracking annoyingness.
"I heard they fired you" she stated coldly.

"Yeah? And I'd heard I was dead" he responded with a cheshire smirk.

"This is my case" she declared coldly.

"Glad t'see you're happy Im still alive. I missed you too"

"I mean it, Kazaar. You're out of line being here. This stunt'll get you tossed to some deskjob in Moosejaw citing municipal by-law infractions."

"The old lady's been mauled by something" he tossed off-hand, ignoring her remark. Estelle always did have a tendancy for hysterics, he remembered, and it was best not to buy into it.

"She what?" Estelle stepped closer to the deceased Mrs. Moreland and looked closely, distracted for an instant from balling Kazaar out.

"Her back's been opened right up" Kazaar said, crouching and tugging Mrs Moreland gently forward by a shoulder so Estelle could see four huge gouges running the length of the old woman's spine. Russard gasped at the brutality of it.

"This is my case" she repeated, reverting to confrontation to help her through the moment of revulsion that threatened to make her throw up. "I mean it, Aurelias. You got no right--"
Kazaar forstalled her getting all wound up by tapping her knee with a folded sheet of paper he'd produced from his coat pocket. Russard knew immediately what it was, what the paper would say, recognizing it as the official VPD document that it was. She snatched it roughly and stood, reading over it. Whitman and Langton lent her the courtesy of looking nowhere as she had to accept her defeat. Kazaar had been given the case and she was to assist him, by his specific request. Sons of bitches.
"Who likes you so much up there in HQ, Kazaar?" she asked, anger and bitterness both vying for dominance in her voice. "Who is it you're in bed with up there who lets you do what you want?" She turned away, too angry to even look at him and seriously in danger of shooting him for any sarcastic quip that was gonna come out of his mouth.

He surprised her by what he said next, instead.
"This isn't the first time this has happened, 'Kid." He gestured to the old lady, pooled in her own blood on her living room floor. "We've seen this before. It's what Ive been doing the past 18 months."

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"First one showed up right after Nonis got fired as Canucks' GM." Kazaar slipped two rubber gloves over his leathery hands. He placed one of the fingers on his right hand into the old lady's wound and pulled up a bit of blood, bone and something Estelle couldn't tell. Kazaar swiped the contents inside a small evidence bag and gave it to Estelle. "Hold onto that."

He slipped his dark shoes (Estelle couldn't help but notice they were more boots than shoes) around the woman's body, doing his best not to disturb how she lay. Kazaar slipped another finger into one of the gouges on Mrs. Moreland's back, like he was inspecting a cut of fish at Wild Rice, not a body. Estelle's stomach flipped a bit but settled. She was still hungry, despite herself. Kazaar wiped a second bloody finger into an evidence bag and gave it to Estelle again. "Found the first body ironically near the Garage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Place). Looked pretty much like this one. Back ripped open, had th'face mauled too. Damn shame. College girl. Up visiting from Victoria."

He gazed down at the woman's body, studying it like a judge at an art contest. "Any idea why she fell backwards?"

No one answered and Kazaar repeated his question. "Any fuckin' idea why she fell backward?"

Langton answered. "Uh, we think, sir. She was pushed down and glanced off the armchair. The force knocked the vic sideways and she ended up on her back."

Kazaar smirked. "Think that all yaself or read it in my notes."

Langton turned red.

"I'm kidding Langton you're right." He slowly rolled Moreland back on her back. "Her left shoulder's broken. Collarbone too. She was going for th'door."

Kazaar stood up, pulled his rubber gloves off and tossed them in a small wastebasket. He was quiet for a couple minutes, staring at the body and the thin rug it rested on. "Russard, come with me."

He started walking towards the smaller patio outside. There wasn't much on the patio, more of the ice cream coned trees Estelle hated. A couple of small trees too. Estelle's shoes clopped against dark tile and she saw a thick wood railing near the skyline. Kazaar stuck a short, stubby cigar in his mouth and lit it.

Estelle was still annoyed she'd have to play second fiddle to Kazaar. It was bad enough the guy was hell on both brass and supervisors. It was once rumored he almost got kicked out of the Police Union for being open to his opposition to the Insite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insite) facility when it was unpopular to be against it. But that was Kazaar. Always skirting that line between in and out of trouble. And it pissed Estelle off.

"You came out here to smoke??"

"Not really." Kazaar gave her a smirk and walked towards the edge of the patio. "Take a look at that."

Eight claw marks, just like the four ones in Mrs. Moreland's back, had left imprints on the railing. Kazaar smirked and puffed away on his cigar.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Being the primary mortician for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s E Division, Mili was busy. She worked mostly in Lion’s Gate Hospital, which also serviced the Vancouver Police. It paid well, and she was good at her job. Most people thought she was, at best, eccentric. She just felt more comfortable around corpses than people. Corpses didn’t care what you had for breakfast or that you had gas. They didn’t make fun of you stuttering when nervous. The worst part of the job was appearing for court cases as an expert witness. She usually ended up half asleep from the sedatives to prevent a panic attack. In rare cases, they had her do field work. It was one of the rare cases.

She pulled her green Ford Fusion into the lot. The flashing lights, the cops milling about. Her chest tightened. She fumbled with her purse for Inderal. Why were there so many people? Oh God. One was coming. She reached inside her purse again and pressed the badge to the inside of the window while the other hand continued its’ quest for Inderal. The MAG light and the man behind it paused, noted the badge, and moved on. She could feel the plastic bottle amongst the other miscellany in the purse. With practiced ease, she removed a white tablet from the bottle and swallowed. Mili breathed. She tried to slow her breath, and counted to ten.

“I’m fine.” She told herself, and took another deep breath. Local VPD didn’t bother the Mounties much, and the most interaction she had was usually with the hospital staff, who mostly left her alone beyond casual pleasantries. Whatever had happened must have been unusual, so it must be mysterious or at least requiring her combined expertise of forensic science and mortuary science. It was important. Who would be there? The Chief of Police? Oh God. Mili took another deep breath. No, that was fanciful and stupid. She chastised herself. Her therapist told her “it’s ok to be frustrated, but it’s ok to be a bit silly too, so long as you can get through the day.” That last part was the tricky bit.

Mili managed to work herself out of the car. She paused at the trunk, popped it, and pulled out a large backpack. Her pale blue eyes flinched a little at the bright flashing red and blue lights. She trudged up the stairway to the third floor. Even her poor sense of smell picked up the gore and other death scents. She could see the two detectives milling about on the patio while two local cleanup guys grunted at the badge and ID she had hanging from her neck. She took the backpack off, and set it in an empty, untouched chair. Mili trudged over to the corpse. It was badly mauled.

“Who would let a mountain lion into their flat?” she asked aloud. Normally no one would answer that question.

[Tear]

THE FOLLOWING MORNING:

You've done it again.

Was the only thought that sorely dripped from Tear's hazy head as he sifted back to the land of the conscious. It must have been another wild Friday night. Tear's lip tweaked with a smirk. It was the only reason for his head to be pounding and his body to be aching in such a fashion. It took a moment behind bloodshot eyes, squinting against the soft morning light, which was just beginning to filter through the slanted white blinds of his bedroom. As it was now the weekend, Tear took the time to relish in a long yawn noticing with amusement he felt naked. The fact he could feel the bed sheets wrapped awkwardly around his torso and limbs confirmed his state of nakedness while also giving the young man a moment to take pride in the restless state he must have crashed drunkenly into his apartment.

Peeking over the edge of his bed he spotted the prime suspect of his absent memory. A familiar bottle of whiskey knocked on its squared side. It's contents having split out to circle its beveled shape like the chalk line for a murder victim. The dark golden remains still dripping slowly to the chocolate oak of his apartment floor. Groaning loudly, Tear rolled himself onto his stomach and buried his face into the sweet relief of his pillow, attempting bitterly to smother out the morning light.

There was a static click. The familiar sound of his alarm activating the morning radio.

"So I said answer that and stay fashionable."

"Its not funny anymore Jeff."

"Whatever you say Charis but I bet Vancouver's laughing. Anyways stay tuned for 'hump at the pump' coming up at 7: 30 and for anyone who is catching the bus, bring a scarf its gonna' be a chilly Thursday morning in downtown Vancouver!"

Tear's head sprung from the lumpy pillow. Thursday? The hell do you mean Thursday? A suspicious stare at his alarm clock corroborated the radio shows announced date. He blinked in disbelief, trying to focus out the blur of sleep that had been left in his eyes, maybe it was just playing tricks.

It wasn't.

Quickly sitting up he kicked his feet over the side of the bed dropping them onto the cool wooden floor with a wince of discomfort. He whipped off the sheets ignoring the fact that they felt oddly sticky when they came away from his body. With the movement of a straw scarecrow he began to make slow deliberate plod toward the bathroom. Definitely hungover he thought as his stomach twisted, rejecting the notion of locomotion. Tear hesitated to straighten his back for the throbbing strings that threatened to pull at the clump of tense muscles that were keeping his spine hostage. Continuing his uncoordinated bee-line, in hunchback fashion, to the bathroom. A slap to the door as he stumbled into its darkness to begin fumbling dumbly for the light switch.

"Common alre-" Flick. "Oh jesus." Reflected and framed in the bathrooms mirror he saw himself. From head to toe his body was spattered with blood. His hands were covered, his lips and bottom jaw painted, with dried lines pooling down the curve of his chest.

"No..." He could feel his knees weaken and his head grow light. Tear leaned forward catching himself onto the sinks edge.

"Jesus god please no. Not again. Not again..." His shaking hands felt sorrowfully through his hair. Quickly hiding his face between his arms. He couldn't look at himself, not like this, not again. His eyes stung as wet tears carved clean paths through the blood stained on his cheeks.

You've done it again.

[Estelle Russard]

Estelle's writswatch beeped at 7am on the hour, just as it did on every hour - it was something she'd at first found annoying with her watch, then had grown to count on it. It was a little reminder, an audible tap on the shoulder to remind her of the passing of time - of the day, or night, marching onward and that nothing remained static. She stretched her legs out and gave herself permission to keep her eyes closed for another ten minutes, or until Kazaar showed up with the coffee - whichever came first. Not that hospital coffee was ever anything to wake up for, and Lions Gate would likely boast no better than any other lower mainland institution, but coffee was sorely needed to pull her back into the land of the waking. She decided to extend her shut-eye until 7.30, then she'd go find coffee herself.

She shifted on the sofa where she'd spent the last three hours juggling for superior vantage against the lankish dimensions of Kazaar's body. The man was taller and broader than she gave him credit for and the term "sharing" the one comfortable chair in Milivikal k'Vik's office actually meant him taking the lions share and she cramped up in a corner and crooking her head on the armrest for a pillow. She could have stretched out, she supposed, but that would have involved some inadvertant body contact. She'd rather have the stiff neck and aching spine.

The evening's events and Kazaar's hints at his own working theory had left her slightly bewildered. The gruesome discovery of Mrs Moreland in her apartment and Kazaar's revelation that he had been tracking similar murders, initially starting in Seattle and that the last two had now taken place in Vancouver meant either a migration pattern of the killer, or perhaps a copycat.. Hopefully, k'Vik's examination - which she was conducting in one of the rooms down the corridor from where Estelle now sat - would provide some idea if the MO of last nights killer was the same as Kazaar's previous cases and maybe even give some clue as to the perpertrator's identity. They were high hopes, Estelle knew. If Mili could make heads or toes from that mangled mess, Russard would be very impressed indeed.

Cripes, what a job k'Vik had. It was bad enough dealing with the victim for as brief a time as detectives needed to, let alone poking around and inspecting every cut, tear, and abuse with a fine tooth comb. How'd k'Vik find herself in that line of work anyway, Russard wondered. It wasn't like she was gonna win any awards for miss personality, if last night's experience was anything to go by, and an ME didn't have to worry too much about conversation she supposed. It was pretty clear, Miss k'Vik wasn't at her ease around too many people...

LAST NIGHT

.....“Who would let a mountain lion into their flat?” she asked aloud. Normally no one would answer that question.

Kazaar and Russard had stepped back inside from the balcony just as Milivikal had spoken and they exchanged a cryptic look.

"I dont think is likely a cougar was in here" Estelle started, ready to knock down such an absurd remark.

"Why do you think that?" Kazaar asked, and then reached forward to introduce himself as he read her ID tag. "Im Detective Kazaar, this is Detective Russard."

K'Vik acknowledged the introduction with a mumbled hello and Estelle now noticed her ID tag too, a step behind Aurelias in recognizing Mili as a fellow professional.

Kazaar continued, "Why d'you think an animal as opposed to, say, a psycho with knives, Ms k'Vik?"

Estelle noted his tone was genuine interest and politely respectful.
Who was this man and where the hell was Kazaar?

[Milivikal k'Vik]

7 AM PST
k'Vik dumped her coat into the hamper, and a pair of bloodstained gloves into the bin. She checked the silver analog watch on her wrist. It was 7 AM already. It was exactly like the Garage slaughter. No one could figure that one out either. Wolves don't have proper claws for swatting or climbing. And the bite pattern was all wrong for a big cat. It looked like a big wolf. A massive wolf or dog. The zen of her job was wearing down, and she wanted nothing better to fall asleep on office sofa for a bit before heading home. She washed her hands, grabbed a platic glove, and pulled the door open.

Her office was occupied. Why was her office occupied? Why? She said they could stay for... She started to hyperventilate. The drugs had worn off hours ago, in the middle of her autospy, when it didn't matter. Estelle awoke from the wheezing sound. She started to move to help the woman.

"Stay back!" Mili snapped. She pinched her nose and covered her mouth. Estelle looked panicked. Milivikal looked panicked.

Kazaar pushed the door open.

"Hey ladies. I got coffee."

Mili passed out.



EARLIER
k'Vik blinked. It was incredibly obvious. The multiple simultaneous tears/slices set about a centimeter apart, bite marks. It was clearly an animal, most likely a mountain lion. Cougar. Whatever they were being called these days.

"Well, uhm. The gashes, here." She pointed at a mauled arm. "Knives slice when sharp. This was done with something much wider than a typical blade. And if you look at this leg, you can see how the flesh was being torn from bone. With a knife it would be cut away, it takes too much strength to simply rip it..."

She looked back over her shoulder at the pair of detectives. They looked more bewildered than before.

"We need to find hair samples. A rogue mountain lion with a taste for people is a huge problem." She added, and waived over one of the forensics team.

"Has she been moved?"

"No ma'am."

"Good. Get it bagged. I need to autopsy as soon as possible. Call Lion's Gate, or however you arrange this sort of thing. I hate field work." The forensics guy grunted. He liked field work. And k'Vik, well, she... she was weird. Brilliant. I mean, the guy knew good eyes when he watched someone, and she was incredible. But she didn't like talking to live people, and the rumors went a little past that. Still, his buddy had asked one of the guys who worked the cams at Lion's Gate, and nothing ever happened, except she sang while she worked usually. Sang absurdly well. The universe is weird. Blame it on Seattle.

"Did anyone see a Mountain Lion?" She asked. What the hell was going on? The small common sense slice of her brain spoke up when everyone started staring at the floor or ceiling.

"Why was a Mountain Lion on Granville Island?" She muttered singsong, and got much closer to the Detectives, who were simultaneously amused and concerned at her sudden realizations.

"Could one of you please tell me what the hell is going on?" Mili said with a quiet, musical tone.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

LAST NIGHT

"Ain't a mountain lion." Kazaar shook his head at k'Vik's question. "Claws yeh, but not a mountain lion."

"Why do you say that?" k'Vik cocked a plucked eyebrow. He looked familiar somehow but she didn't know how. It was missing from her mind, something she couldn't figure out.

Kazaar knelt down by Moreland's head. He put more gloves on his hands. "See right there..." He pointed to where nine puncture wounds were near the woman's wrinkled right breast. Seven of them appeared to be small, but two of them were very large. It was almost like someone took a nail and slammed it down right next to the Moreland's nipple. "Looks more wolf-like to me. Kinda like the others."

"Others?"

He looked up towards the two women. "Been seven other cases like this in the last 18 months. You've seen one of 'em Ms. k'Vik, the college student one near GM Place. Couple other municipalities, including some in Washington, are lookin' at it too. But ya know how the Americans can be."

Kazaar smirked. "Surprised one o'their FBI agents ain't shown up t'boss us 'round."

"Hey Kazaar." Estelle had a pen between her teeth as her eyes scoured the small apartment again. She stepped around the body, near where the a round, broken table had been cast against a wall. There were small bowls of something overturned nearby, which gave off an almost spicy odor. Pungent too.

"Look at this." She held up a thin, shiny knife handle. "Weird to see one of these don't you think?"

Kazaar came forward, more interested in the bowls than the knife. He poked around the bowls and sniffed. Whoo...

He picked a couple of the purplish-blue petals. "Have that analyzed. Dollars t'donuts that's wolfsbane (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconitum)."

"Wolfsbane?" Estelle cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeh..." Kazaar smirked and picked up a white-berried tree stem. "Mistletoe. The old geezerette's definitely into something that ain't normal. 'Least to most people."

7AM

"Aw crap," Kazaar set the three coffee mugs he had in his hands down on Milivikal's desk and put her head in his lap.

"Go get one o'her flunkies. Hey! You..." He called to a passing technician in the hall. The guy, with flaming read hair and a goatee, turned with a 'who me?' look on his face. "Yeah you. Get ya ass in here."

"Bloody cow, she's fainted again." The guy, whose name tag read 'Burish', almost rolled his eyes.

"She do this often?" Kazaar lightly patted Milivikal's cheek. He'd been nice to her the night before mainly because he'd heard how good she was as a mortician. The fact she was cute helped too.

Burish shrugged. "Every couple of weeks. Strange bird. Sings to herself. One guy said he caught her almost dancing in the morgue."

"Yeah yeah, don't give a damn about that, genius. How th'hell do we wake her up?"

Burrish looked like he'd been caught stealing. "We...normally let her sleep it off."

"You gotta be fuc-"

"Do you have any smelling salts?" Estelle quickly interrupted Kazaar from verbally castrating the hapless tech. She was annoyed and tired too but wasn't about to let it show too much. Kazaar could hang himself as much as possible, but she wasn't going to let it hurt her. Especially with a dead woman lying in the morgue.

"Umm...yeah. I think so..." Burish answered. He walked to her desk and rummaged around in it. "Here. Smelling salts."

Kazaar caught it with one hand and put it against the mortician's nose. The reaction was almost instant. k'Vik shot up out of Kazaar lap and crinkled her face as the salts took effect. She rubbed her eyes and stood up, trying to get her head around what had happened.

The elder VPD detective smirked. "We get all kinds 'round here don't we Elle?"

[Tear]

LAST NIGHT

"Damn rain never stops." Tear cussed under his breath as he hurried beneath the business end of a torrential Vancouver downpour. People with their umbrellas, he had lost count of how many times he nearly had an eye poked out from passerbys mindlessly swinging the damn things about. Hopping from the packed sidewalk, Tear nimbly skirting along the murky edge of a large puddle before rejoining the crowded, yet bless fully covered sidewalk.

It was late. Tear pulled back the sleeve of his designer coat, flinching when a drop of water splashed against his brand new, three thousand dollar, omega watch. It was almost ten and he he still couldn't find the restaurant. It was a last minute invitation to grab a bite to eat, with his friend and coworker Jim, at one of the best Chinese joints in downtown, Lee Ho Fook's.

"Knew I should have taken a longer look at that google map." Somehow Tear had managed to find himself down the alleyway between a series of apartments. His stomach growled deeply as if aware of its hosts incompetent path finding skills. All day he had been craving something meaty, like a good chunk of pink steak, or a big bowl of beef chow mien. Tear felt his mouth water with the enticing thought of biting into a big juicy -

Like sandpaper being dragged across a chalk board, a sudden scraping sound caused Tear to jump and whip around in place. His back heel landed with a depressing splash sinking his three hundred dollar leather Armani sneakers ankle deep into a puddle.

"Ah!" Tear sucked in a hissing breath through his front teeth. Trying to fend off his temper to pick an appropriate expletive to shout. He pulled at his leg and the puddle made a loud slurping noise sucking the shoe from his foot.

"Oh, you mother Fu-"

"Excuse me..." The alleyway was nearly pitch black and the falling rain should have made it impossible to see three feet in front of him, but some how, Tear made out the hunched form of an old lady making her way towards him.

"I hate to be a bother, but could you help me pull this trash bin to the curb? Im afraid my poor ole' bones aren't what they used to be."

"Uh.." Wobbling awkwardly on one foot, Tear was fishing around the muddy puddle for his lost shoe while trying not to look like a bad yoga instructor imitating the crane pose.

"Hold on lady. Yeah, but I mean sure, just let me get thi-" He finally caught the swimming shoe, its black leather looking an irreversibly stained brown, he turned the shoe over with a miserable splash and sighed. "-This. Alright..."

The old lady was already shuffling off down the ally to where the scrapping noise had come from. Tear threw the soiled shoe down, his jaw clenching tightly in discomfort as his foot squished into it. He followed her with what little pride he could muster despite the embarrassing intermittent 'splorsh' occurring with every second step he took.

"Careful there's glass. Old Christmas decorations we won't be using this year." The old lady stepped off the path onto the grass inviting him forward to the recycling bin. It was filled to the top and, like a coating of icing, it looked like someone had sprinkled broken class over it.

"Don't worry." Tear searched the sides for the handles and slipped his fingers through the containers holds.

"Oh be careful. Really, I wouldn't want you to get cut." The ladies finger gave a funny twitch.

Alright lift with the legs, Tear thought, straightening his back and lifting the crate with suppressed grunt. "Its fine. I've got - Ah!" The crate came crashing down as Tear flailed his finger painfully about before instinctively slipping it inside his mouth.

"Oh! I knew that was going to happen. I'm so sorry. Here come, that's going to need a stitch or two."

"No, no, no, its alright. Its fine." Despite the protests the old lady had already clutched his free hand dragging him up and through a door, that oddly enough landed them in her kitchen.

"Really. I'm alright. Look its already stopped bleeding." Tear pulled his finger from his lips, to show her but she had already disappeared down the hall, leaving him to wonder just how he had ended up in this mess to begin with. All he had wanted was some Chinese food but now he had ended up in the back door of some old lady's house.

"Its fine dear. Just take a seat and ill be right there to clean that cut up."

Tear sneezed. The place smelled funny, most homes often did if they weren't your own but this one was different. He slid a chair back from a humble kitchen table that looked like it had been built in the 1800's. Even the chair had made him second guess sitting fully into it as it creaked like a splitting branch. Something caught his eye hanging in droves from the ceiling like a bunch of dried herbs but oddly familiar.

"Is that mistletoe?"

[Estelle Russard]

"Havent you a good eye" the old lady commended with an appreciative smile as Tear noticed the Mistletoe. "Not many young men would recognize it so early in its season, or even notice such a thing." She waited for the kiss that was supposed to come since they were both standing beneath a bow, but none did. She moved on. "You probably recognize the feng shui of my apartment" and if Tear was abrest of such tings, he would see the shabby furniture and the design of the whole apartment in general led to the Asian perspective of harmony and balance despite the economic restraints the widow had for her decorating. "The persimmon of the walls is the color of luck, you know" her smile broadened. "Your partner is a very lucky man" and patted his hand maternally as if she and he shared some secret. "Tea, dear?"

Tear noticed the kettle was on, the old lady having flicked the auto switch the minute they entered the apartment, and he was already jukebox-selecting in his mind his excuses for declining her offer to stay - "I have to meet a friend for dinner; I have a sick girlfriend at home who needs me; the hockey game starts at 8 and the Canucks have been playing AWESOME lately.." but he got no opportunity to use any of them. Mrs Moreland was way ahead of him.

She poured a handsome amount of the bubbling water from the kettle into an antique teapot, the darkblue ink designs decorated on the fine china looked tribal, even religious, in nature. As she poured, a rich fruity aroma filled the apartment and Tear inhaled deeply, finding the resolve he had to beat a hasty exit rapidly evaporating, despite his growing hunger. As she set out the teaset, Olive Moreland nudged back the sunflower patterned curtains with knotty fingers and glanced out her kitchen window at the deepening night sky, her green eyes clear and cannily alert for such a woman of her advanced years. The moon was almost full.

"I find tea the answer for so many of life's inconsiderations, dont you?" she said, setting a cup infront of the young man she knew to be a monster. "This will warm you after all that rain." Tear looked down at the little cup sitting primly on its matching saucer, two chocolate-chip cookies in attendance beside it like sugar sentries on a wall. The old lady took a seat opposite him, tea and cookies of her own and she looked at him with such compassion and understanding that it made him feel a little uncomfortable. He darted a quick look down - ok, good, fly's up. Olive smoothed the linen tablecloth with one hand, the clock on the wall suddenly seemed so loud to Tear, every second that passed did so with a tolling of a church bell. The subdued lighting of the little kitchen grew suddenly to hurt his eyes, the 'old lady' smell that drenched every square inch of the apartment suddenly grew so overwhelming that Tear felt suffocated by it. He felt his neck muscles tense, his thighs grow taunt. His pulse started to race. Olive recognised the signs immediately, but to her credit, she remained calm. "Drink up sweetie, theres a good boy.." she encouraged.
It was the last thing she ever got to say.

*******************************************

7.30am


Russard tried not to look freaked out. She was a professional, she was used to people doing the unexpected or behaving erratically. It came with the job. Yeah right. It was 7.30 in the freaking morning and she was on less than three hours sleep with a mutilated old lady on a cold slab up the hall, she'd shared the night with a smartass, wisecracking egotist of a partner and now had a fainting, disturbingly brilliant Medical Examiner (who sings, no less!) all doing their best to give her fits. The idiot redhead tech was just the cherry on top to what promised to be a horrible, no good very bad day...to quote one of her favorite childhood books.

"Maybe you should sit back down" Estelle prompted as Mili looked from each of them in turn with an expression of abject mortification (no pun intended) on her face.

"You--you weren't supposed to see that" k'Vik said awkwardly.

"Right" That was good enough for the Intern, Burish, and he beat it outta the office.

Estelle reached eagerly for the coffee -that would set her right - and Kazaar slowly lowered himself to perch on the edge of Mili's desk lifting his cup and sniffing the dark brew appreciatively. "Long night?" he asked Mili, which Estelle understood was a polite way of asking for what the heck she'd found out.

It was odd, this thing with Kazaar. Russard found herself wondering if there was some past between he and the fainting ME. He certainly was unusually patient around Mili, even sweet - which in itself was disturbing to witness, let alone think on the meaning for it. An old flame perhaps? Or a prospective new one? Ew. Shudder. She looked again at k'Vik and just couldnt imagine her going for someone as rough round the edges as Aurelias. But he on the other hand, his patient manner, his concern and gentleness.. It was like watching a a great white shark don a bow tie for a night on the town. It just looked..odd. An old cartoon appeared in Estelle's mind of just such a thing and she smiled crookedly. The thought occured to her that she might just be a little sleep-deprived. Punchy, even. She guzzled the coffee gratefully.

"So" she said more cheerily than was warrented, "You determine that the murderer was definitely not human, eh k'Vik?"

[Mirko Spendrim]

The glob of ketchup landed right on the center of his tie - a hideous paisley of browns, greens and yellows - and Mirko grimaced. He always used too much ketchup, he knew that. But eggs just weren't right if they werent slathered in the stuff.

He tried to scoop it off with his index finger, which worked to some degree but a glaring red blotch still remained. He tried rubbing it with the napkin, but then that only left little snowflake-like deposits of white paper towel which made it even more noticable. "Crap"

The server dropped off his bill, deftly slipping the little chit onto his table with the one hand and ignoring the his near-empty coffee cup with the swinging full pot in the other. "Miss...?" he supplicated hopefully.
Mirko was sure she heard him, but she did not stop. Why did he come to this diner? The service was always terrible here. It was cheap though, probably why he was here most mornings.

His cell phone went off, his ringtone theme from Dr Zivago beckoning him relentlessly as he fossicked about for it in his copious pockets. Almost got it....(Somewhere my love)...Almost...(There will be songs to sing)...Oh, other pocket...(Although the snow)....Slippery stupid phone....(Covers the hope of--). Damnit! Missed call. Mirko hit the redial for last missed call and a familiar voice answered.

"Why dont you ever answer your phone, Mirko?" came the irritated greeting.

"What do you think this is - Im answering, aren't I?"

"Its really annoying calling to never have you answer"

"Have you got something for me?" Mirko asked quickly, he could do without the whining. This guy was always whining - Mirko didn't pay enough for the tips he got, Mirko never gave him credit in his articles for the information he got, Mirko never appreciated the risks he took, it could mean his job..Blah blah blah.

Mirko dipped a finger in his glass of water and again attempted his assault on the ketchup stain. "So..............?" Mirko asked again. The hurt silence on the other end wouldn't last, he knew. It was the same tap-dance every time. Maybe give a little encouragement, "I'll make it worth your while buddy, you know Im good for it. Extra money for Christmas will be handy, wont it?"

"Ok" came the response, just like always. "You better get over here as soon as you can, Mirk" said his informant.

"Where? The hospital?"

"Yup. Got another one of those mutilations, an old lady off Granville Street. The cops are still here...you might even get a quote this time"
The disconnecting click was the first sign Mirko was on his way. The informant tucked his phone back into his locker and left the breakroom, reflecting on just how much this latest tip might net him.

Mirko threw on his hat, pulling it down hard on his head because the rain was still coming down in sheets and ran across the parking lot to his Smart Car. Traffic at this time of the morning was a bastard and he knew the onslaught of Vancouverites for the Second Narrows Bridge was epic. It would take him atleast forty minutes from his current location to get to Lion's Gate. The cadaver wasn't going anywhere, but the Detectives would be. He'd have to take every short-cut he knew in order to get there in time and confront them.

Another mutilation. Just when did these asshats plan on telling the general public about this maniac? Did they plan to keep this nut-job a secret for ever? Well, Mirko Spendrim of the Vancouver Herald would put that straight. Just the thought of scooping the Sun and Province spurred the diminutive journalist to lead-foot the accellerater, and the silver Smart Car squealed (or squeaked, as the case may be) out into the busy morning rush hour traffic.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

k’Vik took a sip of the coffee before responding.

“Well…” she trailed off, her voice fading into thought again. “It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen. The claw marks were closest to a cougar, but a bit more blade-like. The bite marks were like a very, very large wolf. Massive.” Mili shook her head. None of it made any sense, just like the last time, but there it was.

“This is going to sound absolutely preposterous, but it looks as if some kind of mix of wolf and upright giant cat did it. Whatever it was clawed her from a standing position, but the stroke was awkward for anything but a bear, and the claw pattern and gashes are consistently wrong for that. It was powerful, whatever it was, but didn’t have the mass of a bear. I’d guess it was closer to 200 kilos.”

“A what?” Estelle asked. Kazaar was smirking for some reason.

“I’m short of sleep. Don’t even think about writing that down.” Mili grumbled. She regretted her off the cuff remarks immediately. “I don’t know what it was.”

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"I got a pretty damn good idea what it might be." Kazaar sniffed and took another sip from his coffee cup. Wasn't as strong as a good cigar, but it kept him awake. Of course, he'd asked the brewer to add an extra shot of espresso which helped a bit. "A werewolf."

Estelle's mouth went agape and she muttered something unladylike. Her eyes looked tired and her attitude was just as bad. "You've got to be kidding me." She scoffed. "A werewolf? This is a joke right?"

Kazaar's expression didn't change and he took another sip of coffee. Milivikal looked just as confused.

Estelle couldn't believe it. "What're you reading too many George R.R. Martin novels??! Or whoever that Twilight woman is." She threw her hands in the air (somehow not spilling the coffee) and almost spat. "You seriously are crazy aren't you? Doing your own weird ass thing for the last two years has got your mind all muddled up." She shook her head and wondered what deity hated her to give her this case and this partner. "You were always off Kazaar, but this is...this is damned crazier than normal. A werewolf??"

"Yeah." Kazaar's smirk was hard. "A werewolf. Or some type o'creature like that." Another sip. "I've seen seven other killings like this. Maulings. Bitings. Arms bein' ripped off when they shouldn't've been. This ain't some kinda dog or some kinda mountain lion. This is a creature. Avatar of some sort, who the hell knows."

"You?"

Another smirk. "Yeh. Me. Also...this didn't come from just some sorta animal." He pulled a photograph from his jacket pocket and handed it to Estelle.

It was of a small satellite dish or what was left of it. It had been smashed at some point, almost crushed flat. But it was the red mark in the middle that was of more interest. It was large. Bigger than any paw print she'd even seen before. Even bigger than a human hand. It had five claw points, instead of the normal wolf four, and those points had ripped up the edge of the dish.

"Got those last night. After you went off to grab dinner. Went by the apartment across the street and found that."

"How'd you get up there?" Estelle passed the picture off to Milivikal.

She could hear Kazaar's smirk. "Landlord was headin' up to the roof. Complaining how his dish'd gone out during the middle of the Canucks game. Went up to the roof with him and found that. He sure as hell didn't know what to think."

"What you tell him?" Estelle's voice was suspicious.

"That it was a werewolf I'd been huntin' down for the last two years and he'd better not be it or I'd blow his brains all over th'roof. He wasn't too happy about that..." Kazaar smirked.

[Estelle Russard]

Russard didn't bother with a remark to that. Kazaar was back, and in fine form with his unconventional manner and ways of doing things. She couldn't even begin to comment on the absurdity of the great werewolf theory. She managed to not outwardly roll her eyes, but Kazaar knew they were rollin' around like billiard balls on the inside. "Lets stick to facts shall we? I'd like to see all that you have on those other cases. Seven, you said?"

Kazaar nodded, "Yup"

"And all of them of similar violence?"

"Yup"

Mili drifted back to her desk and continued to quietly study the photograph while the Detective's conversation escalated and grew somewhat heated. Estelle could only wonder what k'Vik must think. Vancouver's finest, sheesh. She felt like a poor man's Mulder and Scully and it was all Kazaar's fault.

"I grant you, the satelite dish thing is weird, Kazaar," Estelle opened, "but what mushroom do you think I was born under that I'll buy that crazy b-movie horror story stuff?"

"I got 9 dead bodies that would argue its not so crazy, if they could"

"I hate to break it to you, but the only monsters out there are sicko wackos that thrill kill and now some jerk up here is copying some other jerk from down in Seattle. Thats all."

"I'll get you the files, you can see for yourself. It's like I told you - We got ourselves a Werewolf" Aurelias was obstinate in spite of Russard's resistance.

"A werewolf, some Bela Lugosi wannabe is prowling our streets?" Estelle's tone was very dry.

"Lon Chaney" Mili corrected from her desk and Kazaar and Estelle blinked at her, remembering her presence. "Lon Chaney Jr was the Werewolf" Mili explained, "Lugosi was Dracula"

"That's right" grinned Kazaar, pleased.

"Oh. Excuse me. Mister Chaney is back in town!" Estelle was good with the sarcasm. "You know what the Department would do if they could hear you right now, Kazaar? What the papers would do to you?"

"Hunt him down with pitchforks?" offered Mili with a ghosted smile, which drew another grin from Kazaar. Mili was not helping, and Estelle gave her a look.

"We got nine stiffs and you care about public opinion Russard? Who's career are you worried about? Mine? Yours?" Kazaar volleyed hard and he saw that he'd hit his mark by Russard's reaction, her lips compressed together in self-chagrin. He knew her better than that. "You look at those files and we'll talk again" he relented.

She sipped long from her coffee cup. He'd won this round.

"What will you do in the mean time?" she asked, not convinced but atleast willing to play nice.

"I got some background work to do" he cocked a brow in Mili's direction, "You interested in comin' with me an' picking some egghead brains?"

[Tear]

9: 30am

He had scrubbed his hands desperately. Trying vainly to wash the blood from every crevasse, every crease, every pore, but it just kept dripping. Tear had spent the last hour in the shower trying to get clean. Watching as swirls of blood slowly spun about the drain. Trying to ignore the cold feeling creeping through his stomach telling him that blood had once belonged to a helpless old woman. An old woman he murdered. It took ten more minutes of scrubbing to realize he had been rubbing through his own skin like a rough eraser through paper. He screamed then, not out of horror or agony, but out of despair. A crumbling despair that hung over his body like a lead cape. Making every step he took a weighted decision.

Lock yourself away, He thought to himself slapping back the shower curtain. His bloodied hand leaving streaks of red to drip for the swaying plastic. Jim would understand, he was accepting for an agent. Just until these black outs stopped. Just until...until...these dreams are forgotten. Just until these memories are lost.

"She smiled..." His voice trembled mournfully with the sudden recollection. He had been in the middle of putting on jeans but now, dazed by the memory, was simply sitting on the edge of his bed, one pant leg on.

She had fed me some sort of tea and smiled. The sort of smile that is too genuine to ignore even with the musky smell of the tea rising up between cupped hands. It was funny tasting, some variant of Chinese tea he had thought at first. Tear liked to sip the stuff whenever he visited Chinese restaurants, like he was supposed to have last night. How did I even end up in that kitchen?

"Drink up sweetie, there's a good dog."

A movement off to the side barely caught from the corner of Tear's eye. A shadow, too close to the wall to pick out the form it was shed from. He jumped, nearly tripping over his jeans in the process. His heart had skipped into action, attempting to jog out of his chest, as Tear scanned the room for the eerily familiar voice.

"I find tea the answer."

Again something fast moved along the wall. The sound of finger nails being run against drywall accompanied it. Tear saw it move this time. Beneath picture frames, across his desk and computer, beneath his bed sheets causing them to writhe with the form of a body, sliding from the pillows to the foot of the bed then stopping. A wrinkled arm, gray and withered slid slowly from beneath the bed sheets to the floor. Horrified, Tear ripped off his jeans from the one leg they were clinging to and flung the article of clothing against the foot of his bed. The hand vanished.

A minute passed. Still Tear's heart raced, his body pressed as flat as possible to the wall at the corner of his bedroom, the furthest point from his bed. Fear had coldly swept through his limbs leaving them numb and unresponsive. But his mind was beginning to return to reality.

"Heh...seeing things that's all. Get a hold of yourself lady Macbeth." Tear moved slowly but confidently. Feeling his skin peel from the wall he had pinned himself so firmly against.

"This will warm you after all that rain." A hand, cold and wet reached out from the nothingness and clasped around Tears wrist. A scream. So terrified, two tons of concrete and sound proofing couldn't stop the primal sound from piercing through each and every apartment of the forty floor building.

[Mirko Spendrim]

By the time Mirko arrived at Lions Gate Hospital, he'd missed the Medical Examiner and her Detective associates by atleast half an hour. "No" the ME assistant/informant would not give Mirko k'Vik's phone number and "No" he did not think it a good idea for Mirko to loiter around the hospital morgue to await her return. He did, however, allow himself to be bribed into sneaking Mirko in for a quick peek at the victim's remains, which was disturbing yet enlightening. Something was shredding these people to bits and yet no one was talking about it.

Leaving the morgue behind him, Spendrim was at a loss as to his next move and so put one foot in front of another and found himself eventually stepping into the elevator. He could go to police headquarters and make a nuisance of himself, but not having any names to throw around in there held the newsman at a disadvantage. He needed to know more before he could be any kind of threat and therefore be worth shutting up with a few facts.

As the elevator doors opened onto the main level of the hospital and disgorged its occupants, Mirko had strung together a loose strategy. He would stalk the ME. Or, at the least, lurk outside her residence and question her using the leverage of surprise.

Spendrim jogged to his car, which had been ticketed because he'd parked in the handicap space without displaying the correct pass (the one he'd stolen from his great aunt). He was always forgetting to display it, one of the hazards of not actually being disabled, he supposed. Accessing his laptop from where he sat, he began a search for ME k'Vik's home address by hacking into the BC Hydro billing division. There were three k'Vik residences in the lower mainland, but only one that was within reasonable driving distance to LGH. Mirko turned the ignition and reversed speedily (not unlike Steve McQueen) out of his parking space, gearing forward rapidly and darted out into the flow of the traffic.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"Why do you need me to come along?" Milivikal's question came out before Estelle could ask the same thing.

Kazaar smirked. He knew asking k'Vik, instead of Estelle to come along would irk, if not piss off, Russard. He'd done it on purpose. A bit of a reminder that it was his investigation and Estelle (or whoever else assisted) was just along for the ride. Wasn't that Estelle was some pretty girl playing detective. He'd seen her scores at the academy and worked with her a couple times (when they didn't try to kill each other). Russard was smart but did every damn thing by the book. Which, in Kazaar's opinion, was fucking the problem. He'd never believed in doing things by the book. Hell, he still wrote out his reports instead of typing them. Drove people nuts.

'Course what drove his commanders even crazier was how good of a job Kazaar did. He got results, even if it was results that weren't expected. Kazaar'd seen way too much shit to think some things could just be 'explained away' naturally. Even if he didn't always have proof those stabbed corpses were vampire or that young woman had been killed by some demon-calling up ritual. Didn't make him a believer like some of the people Kazaar knew (like that cop in Chicago, Murphy). But didn't stop him from being curious. And to ask questions a lotta people didn't like asking.

He pulled out an Ashton Aged Maduro cigar, feeling its leathery texture, before answering. "Going by o'book store on The Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Drive,_Vancouver) and I need someone t'distract the employees while I ask their boss o'few questions. Plus...Skippy's 'bout to call."

"Don't call him that." Russard put in without thinking. 'Skippy' was really Captain S. Arthur Yip, her commanding officer. The 'S.' stood for 'Skip' but no one called him that to his face. Except for probably Kazaar.

"Ain't my fault his parents gave him that name."

"That doesn't mean you have to call him that. And how did you know he was going to call me. What're you psychic?"

That earned another smirk from Kazaar (no way in hell was he "her partner"). "Skippy called me while I was grabbing coffee. Wanted to know when I was gonna 'turn his best detective loose'. Oughta be callin'..."

Disturbed's 'Indestructible' suddenly started playing as Estelle's phone went off.

"Huh...woulda figured you for a Britney Spears fan."

Estelle gave Kazaar a very unladylike gesture and stepped out of the office.

"C'mon Mil. We're going to The Crystal Sky Bookstore." Kazaar didn't really give Mil a chance to object but pulled her out of the hallway (ignoring Estelle's voice on the phone) and headed down to his 2008 Toyota Camry. With the rain from last night he figured it was easier than taking his Harley. And it'd keep k'Vik from killing herself passing out on the road.

******************************************

"Yes Captain?" Estelle answered her quickly as she stepped out of k'Vik's office. Anything to be away from that bastard Kazaar.

"Russard." Yip's Prince Rupert's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert,_British_Columbia) accent was pretty noticeable through Estelle's cell phone. "Are you done with the ME?"

"For now sir." Russard brushed part of her hair behind her ear.

"Good. Am I to understand this. Kazaar believes a werewolf could be involved in this?"

Estelle felt her cheeks burn. "Yes he did. I don't believe it sir."

"I don't give a damn what you believe Russard. Do you think it will affect the investigation?"

"Sir, honestly I don't know...Kazaar can be such a cowboy sometimes..."

"You won't hear any disagreements from me. Come in at once. I want to talk about your involvement with Kazaar on his goose chase."

******************************************

The Crystal Sky Bookstore turned out to pretty much look like your normal, garden variety independently-owned bookstore. It occupied a single store front of a tannish-green building with red trim. Outside of a cash register/display case (with several crystals) facing the doorway, the entire store was wall-to-wall books in various sections including: love life, how to work magic, escape artistry, and similar texts. This wasn't what Kazaar was looking for, but he knew where to find it.

"No idea what th'hell that title stands for," he whispered to Milivikal, "But the guys there ain't bad. Long as ya don't talk to the ones named 'Summer' and 'Windsor'. Those two are creepy.

"I'll be back. Gonna see where the boss, Masterson, is. Probably back in the 'ancient history' section. See if anyone's been 'round that ain't normal."

[Milivikal k'Vik]

“How am I supposed to know if someone isn’t normal?” Milivikal had squirmed the entire trip to the book store. Rodents stalked by cats were less nervous than Mili, and she wasn’t doing much to stop the nervous twitches. Everyone in here looked a bit off. Sure, she was pale and awkward, but she looked normal otherwise. She bought most of her clothes at Macy’s. Aside from minor color blindness, she never had any problems looking normal. Although someone told her in school singing while performing an autopsy looked weird. It probably was, she admitted to herself. Well, she couldn’t walk in heels, but that wasn’t unheard of. And she did her morning routine exactly the same way every day. And the same haircut for 5 years. Was it dated? Mili figured she should ask… someone.

She browsed the titles of the books. It was unanimously New Age crap. She flipped through “A New Era for Herbalism” and snorted after five minutes, disgusted with the lack of scientific rigor. It was all anecdotes and disorganized studies with no control groups on sample sizes entirely too small to be of any statistical significance. In fact, nothing here had any science behind it at all. Where was Kazaar?

“Can I help you?”

“No.” She snapped. “Just browsing.”

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"Kazaar." Masterson was American, from North Dakota, and did his best to sound Canadian. He'd once started the shop trying to sound Australian but that hadn't worked. His voice would sound too much like Crocodile Dundee, so Masterson had dropped that act and just gone with being from North Dakota (although if anyone asked him, he was from north Nunavut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunavut)). Since no one really went up there...no one asked him anything. "What brings you here?"

The detective plopped himself down on an overstuffed leather chair with some kind of Indian design on it. He had a feeling if Masterson was a white guy with blond hair, he'd try to pretend to be from some Indian tribe. Probably call himself 'Dances with the Birds. Dances with bullshit more like it. "Lookin' forra book. 'Bout werewolves."

Masterson leaned forward. "Don't have any."

"Th'hell that s'pposed to mean? Ya got everything from air spirits to...bog monsters and wendigos. Whatta ya mean ya don't have any?"

He got a shrug in return. "A woman bought my last werewolf book a while back. I've slept since then so I can't remember." Kazaar snorted in response. "Seriously Kazaar, it was an ancient text. Dating all the way back to the 1300s."

Another snort. "Sure Masterson whatever ya say. If ya ain't gonna have books f'me. What the hell use t'me are ya?"

He got a shrug in return. "There might be someone else who has a book."

Kazaar shook his head and got up. "Th'fuckin' Swede. Great...thanks Masterson. Ya a real pal."

Fifteen seconds later he was back in the main area of the bookstore. "Mil. Hey, Mil." Looks pretty damned bored. "C'mon, let's go. Gotta see o'Swede 'bout o'book."

He lit another cigar as they walked towards his car. "What...didn't find anything ya liked?"

[Aurelias Kazaar]

Estelle made a quick stop at a local Tim Horton's to grab another cup of coffee before heading to Vancouver Police Headquarters. She tried not to drink too much coffee (wasn't a big fan of caffeine) but there were certain times where she had to have it. Most of those times, it seemed, were when Russard was partnered with Aurelias Kazaar. Estelle cursed his name again as she hurried up the steps into the tall brownstone building.

Stupid Albertan cowboy. Why is it I always stay up 24 hours when around him?

She walked up two flights of stairs before taking the elevator to the sixth floor and her section of the Major Crimes Section. As usual, the floor was a bevy of activity. Detectives were either on the phone, tapping away on computers or discussing theories on various cases with their partners. Captain Yip's office was at the end of the bullpen area and, unlike most days, the frosted glass door was closed.

That didn't bode well.

Russard grabbed another cup of coffee and dumped in two sugars and one cream. If she knew her captain, he probably had an hours old cup in his office. Best to refill that with something more fresh.

Estelle put both cups of coffee in the crook of her left arm, knocked on the door and entered.

Arthur Yip sat behind his desk looking like he'd been up as long as she had. His blond hair was cut close to his scalp, partially because he liked it that way, partially because he was going bald. His brown eyes stared at Estelle and he gave a short nod towards one of the chairs in front of his cluttered desk.

He accepted the cup of coffee and put it next to a ceramic cup emblazoned with the Vancouver Canucks logo. "A werewolf?"

"That's what Kazaar says sir." Russard gave a sheepish smile.

Yip's face twisted at Kazaar's name like it was a curse of some kind. "What's his evidence."

Estelle detailed what she and Kazaar had discovered: the multilated body, the torn up apartment building, the wolfsbane and mistletoe. She also told Yip about k'Vik's findings about the woman's death. How the claw marks were consistent with a wolf attack.

Yip's expression didn't change. He looked frustrated, probably because of Kazaar. "And where's Kazaar now?"

"He went by some New Agey shop called 'The Crystal Sky Bookstore' or something like that. To do 'research'."

The captain's expression got darker and took a sip from his coffee mug. He cringed, then spat it back into the mug. Yip then found the Styrofoam cup Estelle had brought him and took a sip. It placated him only somewhat.

"Why the hell is Kazaar headed there? Masterson's a damn charlatan and he knows that."

He scowled. "What do you make of all this?"

[Tear]

"You look like hell." She spoke, a woman in her mid twenties, baby blue eyes with locks of auburn hair that fell in tight curls around her cheeks. She was looking down at a man. A man she had loved, shared years with, and nearly promised to share many more. He was sitting, his legs folded to his chest, with a shake in his hands only addicts and the terrified share.

Tear looked up to the voice. "You?" A somewhat startled response. "Of course it's you. Why wouldn't it be you." He buried his hands into his face with a groan, washing it with his palms and rubbing his eyes, in hopes the world might have 'etch-a-sketched' into something less insane.

"You sound like a crazy person." She leaned back playfully nudging his leg with her toe.

"How are you here? I thought. I mean you left so long ago. I never knew where you went. I reported you missing to the authorities for god sake." Tear was looking up at her, staring hard, trying to make sure the water in his reddened eyes wasn't playing tricks with faces. Her name was Brea. She was an actress and they had met four years ago in a small silly commercial for a new Nescafe coffee blend. He had accidentally choked on a sip during a take and coughed it all over her. She laughed it off and suddenly they were dating for over a year and taking a trip into the mountains. He had planned on proposing when she never came back from a hike. That was two years ago.

"You know where I was." Brea sat down next to him, shyly drawing her hair over her shoulders.

"That's insane. I don't even know where to start with you. I called the cops. We spent months trekking all over those god damn mountains looking for you! For a body! For anything! I had to confront your parents! I had to tell them I lost you. Do you have any idea what that did to me?"

She only smiled. "You realize you aren't wearing any pants right?" Her eyes flicked down to her former boyfriends sight of disarray. He had boxer shorts saving him from complete nakedness with an unbuttoned dress shirt, it's collar half flicked up. His hair was ruffled, the obvious cause was his nervous habit of running his fingers through it. "Are you alright?"

Tear's face crinkled, a man's last resort from crying."I've missed you so much. Why didn't you ever call to say you were alright? Did you contact your parents? Did you tell them not to say anything to me? I don't understand." He sucked back a breath. "Where were you?"

"You know where I was."

"Why do you keep saying that!" His voice cracked, more worried then angry. He reached for her to shake this game from her head. Why was she being so cruel? Where were the answers he needed?

His fingers fell onto her shoulder but beneath something slick and warm caused it to slip. Tear pulled his hand away.

"Jesus is that blood?" His finger tips dripped darkly under his inspection.

"Hah!" She smiled, flicking her hair back, her soaked auburn curls sticking to her cheeks. "You know where I was."

Tear reeled back, slipping down several steps from his perch on the stairs of his building. The pain from the fall bit sharply into his back but it was numbed by the terror that was creeping through his limbs. "Whats happened to you?"

Brea leaned forward crawling arms first down the stairs toward him. He could hear the pop and click of her bones as she reached down every step. Her whole appearance was melting before him. Her skin growing taunt and pale, with noticeable gashes and chunks of flesh peeling from her body.

"Did you talk to the old lady?" She hissed. "That poor little old lady. She didn't even have a chance to run. Not like me. I ran and you chased and chased and chased..."

"I didn't! I didn't know!" The maddened screams of a man wreathing on the ground with no pants on was beginning to gather a concerned crowd.

"You did. You did this to me and you will do this to all of them." She was on him now having crawled swiftly down the stairs and over his paralyzed body. Her mouth agape, spouting maggots and flies as easily as words. "You're a wolf among sheep. Kill them all! Kill them all and I'll love you forever."

[Estelle Russard]

"What do I make of all this?" she repeated, thinking the "its a werewolf" defence was a load of horseshit cooked up by Kazaar's bourbon-baked brain.

"I'd like to review the case files before I commit myself" she answered instead.

Yip pushed the folders deliberately across the desk toward her. "Makes for some nausiatin' reading" he warned. "Lucky you arent the squeamish type, Russard"

Scooping the files up, she tossed the chief a half smile, "You got that right, boss."



Russard pulled the thin beaded metal chain on her desk lamp, blinking the bulb into life in a less than spectacular fashion so that it cast a well-meaning, yet weak, radius of illumination over her blotter. A familiar low-level hum emitted from it's base as it did so, company for Russard during long nights of research. The lamp was a peice of junk, as remarked upon by just about every person in the precinct who dared poke their head into her cubicle and say so, which was plenty, but Russard refused to throw it away. Bending forward, Estelle squinted at the first of dozens of garish crime scene photographs while sipping her endless cup of coffee in quiet study. Grusome was a good description of the same story being repeated again and again in unbaiased and undiluted polaroid flash-tastic gore infront of her. It was the Little Old Lady all over again - deep gashes that ran the length of torsos and extremities, ravaged faces, blood spatter that made the Texas Chainsaw movies look like tea parties. The only difference was in the victim themselves - there was no rhyme or reason to the person being attacked. Young, old, male, female, rich, poor. The crime appeared to be one of opportunity, not motive. Brute violence, but driven by what, exactly? What kind of person could do something like this? What damage had been done to their frontal lobe to produce such acts?


A rap on her door heralded another frontal lobe damage-ee as Kazaar sauntered in, "Pretty huh?" he said, dropping into a chair.

Estelle closed the folder she's been reading. "Ive seen worse"

"I was talkin' 'bout me, but bullshit, Russard" he said, knowing she'd seen nothing like this before.

Russard didn't refute him, "Where's the Doc?"


"Right behind me" Kazaar said twisting in his chair, realising that wasn't actually the case. "Y'know, I dont think she's all....you know" he said tapping his index finger to his temple.


"She spends her days with dead bodies, Kazaar"

"So do we" he volleyed back quickly

"I hadn't finished" Estelle said, annoyed. "Dead bodies, and.. she works alone alot. And she's a hell of a lot smarter than you and me. She probably thinks we're, you know" and tapped her finger to her temple in the same disparaging fashion Aurelias had. Estelle's manner made it clear she meant more him than herself. "She's probably fending off advances from Kierbowsky in Vice. The guy's a little worm"

"You get anything outta the files?" Kazaar pulled them back to point, K'Vik could look after herself he figured - she could probably flay strips of Kierbowsky without even being awake.

"One thing" Estelle said, not entirely happy that was all she had so far. "The killer randomizes his vics as he migrates north. Coming up from Seattle and Port Angeles on through Bellingham and across the border into Canada. It seems he heads for the larger populated areas, easier for him to hide in, I spose. Judging by his track record, we only got a month or two before he's moving on."

"We know something else though, too, Russard" Kazaar said, an edge to his voice that gave Estelle a chill that she couldn't quite put a name to. "He's gonna do it again"


Mili stepped coolly into the small room in time to hear Kazaar's remark. She tossed a crumpled note into the waste basket, "And it will be tonight" she stated emphatically.

"Exactly" agreed Kazaar, rising to leave. "Full moon cycle" he added in explanation to Estelle, spitting his gum to land into the garbage can and chuckling to see it stick on Kierbowsky's discarded phone number.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"So...how do we want to go about this?" Estelle was the first to ask the question, figuring Kazaar probably had it all planned out. Well, planned out as well as Kazaar did things. She suspected he did a lot of stuff off the cuff. Kinda like that John McClain character from 'Die Hard'. Or that Han Solo guy from 'Star Trek.' This man...is frustrating.

Kazaar had already pulled out the book by the time the words were out of Estelle's mouth. He tossed it onto the detective's desk. "Figured we'd take o'look at this before movin' forward."

The book looked like someone had dipped the leather in blood and left it lying in the sun for about three weeks. Its cover was cracked and looked it like was ready to fall to pieces at a moment's notice. Estelle couldn't make out the writing but it looked like it had Lupus written in very faded gold leaf script in the middle near the top of the cover. Like a title of some sorts.

Estelle cautiously opened it as if she expected some sort of springy snake to pop out (never knew with a jackass like Kazaar). Instead, she saw writing in a language she vaguely recognized.

"What the hell is that Latin?"

"Yup." Kazaar's expression sure as hell seemed like he wanted to give her some kinda 'golf-clap' for recognizing it. Russard wanted to smack him for not expounding any further.

"Sooo...where did you find it." It wasn't a question.

Kazaar stuck a cigar in his mouth (not lighting it for some reason). "Got m'sources." He let it hang for a minute so Estelle could glare at him even more. "Guy named Stevensson gave it to me. Owed me o'favor from o'while back."

She didn't bother asking what kind of 'favor' it was. Russard was pretty sure a 'favor' with Kazaar it could be anything from washing someone's car to only breaking a finger, instead of a leg to get information. "So what kind of book is it?"

She got a shrug in return, as Kazaar put his booted feet on her desk. "Hell if I know. 'ccording t'Steves, the book was given to him by some librarian in California who'd in turn gotten it offa some 'dark priest'," He emphasized this by using his fingers as quotation marks. "Who'd stolen it from th'Catholic archives in London. Or some kinda goofy-ass story (wasn't really paying attention). Damn thing's supposed t'help us track down o'fuckin' werewolf.

"Course, I don't read Latin. How 'bout you, Elle? Ya MP ovva daddy send ya t'Catholic school or'd he prefer public education like th'rest of us 'normal people'?"

[Milivikal k'Vik]

5 minutes earlier...

"Why hello there..." Kierbowsky started in on Mili while she bent over the water fountain. Mili jerked upward and whirled to face her greeter. Traces of water were beaded on her lips and chin.

"What?" she replied, confused. She pulled a tissue out of her purse and dabbed her mouth. Kierbowsky paused for a moment, not used to that degree of surprise. Her jaw moved to say something else but nothing came out.

"I'm Kierbowsky." He cracked a big grin, and puffed himself up. He handed Mili a business card. Mili looked more confused, if it were possible. Who was this guy? What did he want?

"Oh." She said. "Listen, I need to..." She tried to slip passed him, but he was in the way.

"Aw, what's the big hurry?" he said. Mili recoiled, and then grabbed him by the tie, and pulled him down to face level. She poked him on the side of the neck with the card, below the jaw. Her eyes were colder than the lab freezer, her pale face flushed with fight or flight.

"Hey!" He lifted his hands up, and looked a little panicked.

"Injection site. Would be cut out when the jaw is removed while the subject is here." She nearly sang, her voice smooth and sweet, but had a haunting quality.

"First, an incision here." She traced a neat line across his adam's apple. "No screams, just strange, quiet gurgle. Then here." k'Vik swiped across his lower abdomen. "If supine, it would take roughly 8 hours for the subject to bleed out." Every female staff member smiled widely. She laughed, and let go of Kierbowsky's tie.

Now

"No." Estelle shook her head, and pursed her lips. She wanted very much to let Kazaar have it.

"Oh, Latin." Mili said, as if it were something she saw on a daily basis. She traced her finger across the text.

"You know Latin?" Kazaar asked, only a little surprised.

"Minored in Latin and Ancient Greek." Mili explained. "Chapter I: Nature of the Beast. Hmmm." She paused and looked over the rest of the table of contents.

"Chapter IV: The Manners of the Beast." She carefully opened the book to the marked page. An ornate drawing of a wolf, a man and a werewolf eating a gutted sheep and gutted person. Mili began to read. The book elaborated on what was the typical hunting pattern of the minor and major werewolf was according to sources in the 12th century.

"I'm not sure how this is going to help." She said after reading five pages.

[Mirko Spendrim]

Mirko slurrped up the remnants of his Big Gulp with gusto, searching greedily with the end of his straw along the lining of the jumbo paper cup until he was only sucking air.

The little newspaperman wriggled upward a bit higher in the front seat of his car and scanned the apartment building for the arrival of the Medical Examiner. So far, she was a no-show.

Tossing the empty cup into a small trash bag looped around the hand brake, Mirko rummaged through his glove compartment until he found a loose toothpick and began to glean a wayward seasame seed that had lodged itself in his teeth. He really should ask for plain buns, but he always forgot to until he got one of those wheaty little bodies stuck annoyingly along his gums.
Lunch had been a rushed affair - quick stop at the local 7-11 where he'd grabbed a hotdog, a drink (monster-size) and an "O-Henry". He'd eaten the candy bar before he'd even gotten out of the parking lot and hadn't really considered what his drink choice would do to his bladder. Now, however, he was well and truly aware of it.

He exited his car and gingerly crossed the street to k'Vik's apartment building. He buzzed the first name on the list, no answer. The same for the second name. He continued on until someone answered, a man.

"Got a Registered letter for ya" he said off the cuff, crossing his legs in discomfort. The response was muffled, but Mirko got the general gist that the door wasn't going to be unlocked. He buzzed again and again, on down the list of names but without any luck.

Beginning to think he'd have to find a back lane, a tennant arrived home - a pretty woman pushing a stroller - and spared him that decision. As Mirko played the gentleman, holding open the door while the young mom maneuvered her offspring's four wheeled chariot inside, Spendrim stepped in also.

He followed mom and babe into the elevator and without hesitation pressed the 4th floor button. He'd borrow k'Vik's facilities, it was the one apartment he knew would be empty.

[Estelle Russard]

"I'm not sure how this is going to help." She said after reading five pages.

Russard couldn't agree more.

"Its not going to help because its not a freakin' werewolf we're after." She turned to Kazaar, "I could try to say that in Latin, if you would accept that better"

Estelle plucked the book from Mili's hands.
"I mean, seriously Kazaar, its all Brahm Stoker and Dr Jekyll-type fancy in here" she said, fanning through the book's pages. Stopping to one page - a diagram of a man shifting shape into a beast had caught her eye. She showed it to Mili and observed dryly, "I think I dated this guy once.."

"You shouldn't mock what you dont understand, Russard" Kazaar warned, unamused and then turned expectantly toward k'Vik, "What does it say about the shape changing, Doc?"

Aurelias, in fact knew the outline of what it said, but wanted Mili to read it for herself. For the moment, Kazaar felt his only real ally in the room was the Doctor.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"Well..." Mili seemed like she was trying to concentrate without freaking out at the same time. No one had asked her so many questions at once. At least not how Kazaar did.

Her eyes scanned the book's pages like they were a corpse she was getting ready to slice. Her hands caressed the dry paper as well. She found one page which had three images: a man turning into a wolf, a man turning into a large wolf (but retaining most of the wolf-like features) and a man turning into a massive wolf-like monster. The last looked mainly like werewolves seen in various different monster movies just...creepier. Its legs were long and overly muscular. Its chest looked pretty muscular and wide too. Too wide to be any normal human being. The face didn't look right either, but it could have been the age of the drawing.

k'Vik's eyes were wide but had some kind of weird firmness to them as she read. "The 'normal' werewolves (those that just change into wolves) are susceptible to normal firearms or blades. They're humans who can just turn into wolves."

She read even more about the second image: the one of a massive wolf. "Almost the same, but silver seems to work best in penetrating the hide. Everything else is just resistant. Give it enough damage and you should be able to take it out."

"Kinda like o'tank." Kazaar put in. "Where's th'army when ya need 'em."

Milivikal paused a moment, focused and kept reading. "The third...this is where Hollywood makes up all those foolish movies from. Silver appears to be the only way to kill it, but not just any kind of silver. Silver...blessed by a priest and passed down from one relative. It doesn't say which one comes first."

Estelle looked skeptical. Kazaar just glared. "Fuckin' great."

"There's more..." Milivikal continued. "Wolfsbane and mistletoe are deterrents against them, but not a cure. Also...this is interesting..."

She was interrupted by Russard's cubicle phone going off. Estelle grabbed it, almost thankful for the chance to go back to 'normal' work and none of this werewolf bullshit.

"Yes?"

"Detective Russard," A familiar voice started. "It's Officer Whitman. Detective Kazaar wanted me to call if I found anything new."

"Yes Officer go ahead."

"There's been another murder..."

[Estelle Russard]

"What?" Russard snapped into the mouthpeice, frowning darkly, "When?"

What? Aurelias mouthed at her, stepping closer, to which Russard just shook her head at him - he could wait his turn. Kazaar flicked an irritated glance over to Mili - Russard was such a pain in the ass.

"Are you certain?" Estelle continued. "Same M.O? Ah-huh, ah-huh...ah-huh...."

Kazaar reached for the phone, but Estelle slapped his hand off.

"Uh-huh...who'd you say again? HE found it? What the hell is he doing there?"

Mili shrugged at Kazaar's glaringly impatient face... Who found what? Where? No point in Kazaar constantly looking to her for answers..

"Well, keep the little rodent there and dont let him speak to anyone. Whitman, you listening? He talks to no one till we get there. DONT let him out of your sight."

Russard slammed the phone down on its cradle and pinned Aurelias with a cold stare, "Your little mate, Spendrim, found a body that's atleast 24hrs cold." She tapped Mili on the shoulder, "You ride shotgun with me, I'll need you to give directions." K'Vik clearly wasn't correllating the order with the purpose and neither, by the goofy look pasted on Kazaar's face, did Aurelias. So Russard clarified for them as she scooped up her jacket, "The body's been found in your apartment building, Doc"

[Tear]

"You don't understand!" Tear howled, twisting in the grip of two police officers who were half dragging and half pushing the resisting man down the hall.

"No. You don't understand." The two cops heaved Tear hard against a nearby cell's bars. "Drunk and disorderly. That's what you're charged with. Now quit resisting." There was a click and the grating sound of a cell door being slid back.

"Wait! Please just wa-" The biting hand cuffs were peeled from Tear's raw wrists and without hesitation he was flung into the cell. One of the officers stuck his foot out managing to snag Tear's legs as he fumbled awkwardly through the air in attempt to save himself. Instead he fell hard into the cold cement flooring.

Tear curled, writhing to his side, the wind knocked from his lungs. Someone laughed. Not a guard but another person in the cell with him. Staggering back to his feet Tear hung from the cell's cold iron bars. A shaking hand reaching after the two cops as they walked away.

"Shit." Tear hissed desperately between clenched teeth. His forehead pressed frustratingly against the bars of his prison. Watching the carefree saunter of the two officers as they made their way down a not so empty corridor. Empty to the officers maybe, this special ceremony was for Tear's eyes only. Flanked on either side of the corridor were standing rows of corpses. Over two dozen of them stood, still as death, arms crooked and raised with their hands held firm to their brows, a mocking salute. One at a time their eyes would drift to Tear and they would smile, a cruel smile of rotted teeth and fleshless dimples.

There were so many now. Tear kept his jaw clenched tight. Holding back the urge to wretch at the sight of them. It had started with two at first. The old woman in his apartment. His lost ex girlfriend from two years ago. The police had come called by people complaining of a drunk on the street. They couldn't see them. They didn't care to listen either. Even in the back of the cop car the corpses didn't stop showing up at every red light. Some simply watched Tear as he past. Other chased, screaming in rage. Others simply asked questions through the windows.

Now they all stood outside his cell. Tears fists tightened around the cold steel bars of his prison. What were they waiting for? What did they want?

"I need to get out of here."

"Eh? Just sh'leep it off boy. You'll be out in a few." The same voice from before.

Tear turned from the bars to see an old man with a thick beard. His face was weathered and worn like an old strap of leather. His form thick with overlapping clothing not one piece of which looked like it had been washed in years.

"Excuse me?" Tear replied honestly. Not sure if the old man had spoken or if he was about to meet a new corpse.

"Sh'leep it off. Sober up. You'll be out before the night." The old man winked. "It's jes'the drunk tank."

[Milivikal k'Vik]

Although it may have seemed impossible, Mili's face drained of color. Well, she traded a palest of pinks for a sickly off-yellow. She located Estelle's waste paper bin.

"Hrrrjghghghgllgblrrrrrrrrrrrrrf." She vomited and managed to get all of it into the bin. In the same building? The thing... it could have been through her carefully arranged apartment. She trembled. With one hand on her face, she fumbled and found the tissues on Estelle's desk. She grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped her teeth and tongue off. Mili reached into her purse, and gulped down a pill that would keep her on the handle.

"Okay." She managed through ragged breath. She stood slowly.

"Lets go." Estelle said, and kept a hand on Mili's shoulder the whole way to the car, to make sure the eccentric coroner wouldn't fall over.

[Estelle Russard]

To say Mili's reaction to the news about the murder in her apartment building was surprising, would be accurate enough, but it was a bit alarming, to boot. Russard was not used to dealing with sensitive types..Kazaar being a classic example. Sure, a cop came to expect that type of thing from the civies, but not a fellow proffessional, and a coroner at that.

She glanced at Kazaar over k'Vik's head, a silent assessment of the two of them. Great, the case of the century and she's stuck with clunkhead and penelope pertwistle..This investigation just keeps getting better.

"Mind yer upholstery" Kazaar cheered as they parted in the parking lot, Estelle and Mili forming up either side of Russards' vehicle.

"Just dont touch anything til we all arrive, Aurelias." He waved her off like a nagging wife. "I mean it" she repeated with annoyance.

Sitting beside Mili, Estelle took a moment and lifted a box of kleenex from the glove compartment, handing it to her pale companion. "You doin alright?" Mili nodded a response.

"Im sorry you're caught up in all this, Mili" Estelle apologised. "I know its not your usual area - you dealing more with the "after the fact" scenarios - but you're going to be a big help in us catching this psycho, especially now, with all this so close to home.." Russard reversed the car out of the parking bay, "But if think you may puke again, gimme warning so I can pull over, ok?"

[Mirko Spendrim]

Mirko was seated on a single chair, placed just inside the apartment doorway for him by the police as much out of courtesy as to keep the diminutive reporter from getting in the way. Spendrim craddled his head in his hands, eyes cast downward, was deep in thought and it was in this posture that he was unaware of Kazaar's approach.

Mirko had no idea what he had been going to discover as he drifted upward in the elevator with the young mother and her baby only a short time earlier.

"Its been such a weird day" she'd said to Mirko as she tucked the blanket edge down the side of the stroller to keep out a draft.

"Yeah" Spendrim agreed in reflex, before really hearing what she was saying, his thoughts already ahead to getting into the Coroner's apartment.

"I mean, did you see that guy earlier this morning?"

Mirko shook his head, only just vaguely tuning in to his companion.

"....Half-naked, sitting on the front steps causing all kinds of a ruckus"

"Wait, half-naked?" he asked, suddenly attentive.

"Had to call the cops myself. I mean, who wants that element around here? People got kids ya'know. I mean, after all that yelling and thumping the other night and then crazy stoop-guy this morning...There are places down town where you can do that isnt there? Used to be in my day anyway" she said this last as if 'her day' was a millenia ago.

"Thumping and yelling?" Mirko queried.

"Yeah, well two nights ago, and then this nonsense this morning..I got rights you know. Im a voter, Im a taxpayer. Im even on the damn Strata!"

The elevator stopped, but Mirko made no move to exit.

"You said yelling and thumping, two nights ago?"

"Thats what I said"

"On, which floor? This one?"

"No" the young mom replied, "My floor, two floors up. Sounded like someone was getting murdered for a while there, but then things settled down. I must have gone off to sleep. Its exausting looking after a little one."


Spendrim gave what he hoped was his most winning smile. "Can you show me which apartment?"

She'd agreed and Mirko, telling her he was a private investigator for the Buildings Insurers, waited for her to leave him to his task. He might have said something about passing on how she'd assisted him to the Strata and perhaps hinted at Insurance rate reductions for her... she'd left him in peace to make his grizzly discovery alone.

Mirko smelt the aroma of cigars and bourbon even before Kazaar stood two feet from him. Lifting his head from his hands, Spendrim jumped quickly to his feet.

"Kazaar!" he could barely contain himself, "Isnt this awesome! I was the first to find him, its all bloody and gory and disgusting. Got some great photos, Im talking Pulizter-worthy.." Mirko was in heaven, and here was his ol' buddy Aurelias to witness his coup.
"You think its the same guy as did the old lady..?" Mirko asked eagerly.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"You fucking idiot!" Kazaar bellowed as he spied the smaller news reporter. "What the hell is your problem!?!"

Spendrim's expression first changed from a look of shock to a look of confusion to a look of almost pain. "Bu-bu-but Kazaar! I got information for you." He shoved some hastily scrawled notes towards him. "Information you can use."

The Vancouver detective just scowled and didn't bother taking the notes. "No...ya got crap. Ya got crap I coulda figured out myself in 'bout 30 minutes of questioning."

Again Spendrim was confused. He'd just done Kazaar's work for him. Sure it was a stroke of luck, talking to the woman on the elevator, but he'd gotten important information. "No Aurelias, you don't understand. I talked to a witne--"

Kazaar's expression hadn't changed. In fact, it'd gotten a bit darker. "Whatta ya fucking dense? I said ya got nothing! Nothin' ya can take back to ya rag ovva paper. Nothin' ya can give me. Hell, ya can't even wipe ya ass with those notes ya wrote. I oughta have ya taken in for interfering with o'damn police investigation!"

Kazaar actually was pretty pissed at the reporter. Give th'guy one exclusive... And that was on a case Kazaar wasn't even sure was really supernatural. After that, Spendrim was all over Kazaar's work. In hopes of getting the guy to lay off of him, Kazaar would feed him a line or two of rather generic information, but that never helped. Good old Spendrim would show up at the least expected time, sometimes with good information, sometimes without. But most of the time he was an annoyance. And not the good kind

"Gimme that camera. You can pick up the pictures later." Kazaar was to the point of almost assaulting Spendrim. "And get the hell outta here! I don't wanna see ya 'round here again."

At least not until we've left.

[Milivikal k'Vik]

“I’ll be fine.” She insisted.

Milivikal’s heart calmed when she noticed all of the commotion was on the opposite side of the building from her flat. Her stratospheric ability to worry was fought down by pounds of self-control. She thanked her genetics that she didn’t get carsick. It was the only way the ride would have been more miserable.

Estelle and Mili climbed out of the car in time to see Kazaar finish accosting the lizard-like reporter. Mili didn’t care, but Estelle looked annoyed. All Mili cared about was the fact that her apartment was fine. She took a deep breath and let the misty rain of relief soak into her psyche. She felt clean again. Part of it was probably the pill she just took.

“What the hell was he doing here?” Estelle asked. She was fairly certain Kazaar had a hand in it. Spendrim’s presence wasn’t a coincidence.

“No fuckin’ clue.” Kazaar chomped. His anger and irritation wasn’t aimed at Estelle at all, for a change. It dispelled her theory that they were currently in cahoots. He refocused on the camera he had just taken from Mirko, who was scampering towards the other side of the street. Mili affixed a gaze to him that sent shudders down the reporter’s spine when he turned to make sure Kazaar didn’t smash the DSLR into little pieces.

“Doc, ya gotta look at this.” Kazaar said with a degree of self-satisfaction. He’d figured out the Nikon’s interface well enough to get it to display the pictures on the rear screen. She caught up to Estelle and Kazaar a moment later. She appeared from behind Kazaar’s wide torso and squinted at the camera.

“Similar splatter patterns and claw markings.” She remarked as the rest of police took notice to their presence. A quick flashing of badges took care of it, and they moved to the actual scene. Mili was glad her sense of smell was somewhat poor. It was rank, but death was seldom neat, and even more seldom of a pleasant scent.

She pulled a camera and ruler from her kit and set to work, re-doing some of the forensics’ team’s standard photos.

“Same claw and paw size.” She remarked after taking a snap of a damaged doorway. It was merely confirmation to both Russard and Kazaar that it was the same thing. She let the camera hang from her neck and began taking samples of the areas that the creature had come into contact with.

[Tear]

The dead surrounded him. Tear was beginning to become accustomed to it. Their presence becoming the only reliable constant in a day that was becoming ever more maddening. He had started off terrified of them. Their sudden appearances. Their enigmatic taunts. Their lifeless stares and reaching hands. Their smell. It was all fading into the background now. Like white noise which, every once in a while, would try to grab you from between a series of steel prison bars. Chalk it up to a generation of gory movie sets. One can only stay in a state of horror for so long before one simply becomes jaded to the experience.

After a few hours of trading stares with the dead Tear had gained enough confidence to venture from his isolated corner in the cell. When the ghosts first appeared they seemed angry. Blaming him for horrendous acts he knew deep down he had committed. But as the day wore on and night approached they began to shy away from his presence. Even flinching at Tears brave attempts to grab back at them through the bars. The small success re-ignited the pompous confidence in the actor. To the point where a conversation with his cell mate, the bearded homeless drunk, might prove a passable way to whittle away the time.

---

"So...you're a super hero."

"What? How did you even come to-" Tear stopped mid sentence and shook his head. "Have you even been listening?"

"Sh'ure have. You're like batman."

Tear buried his face in his hands. This wasn't even therapeutic anymore. "I'm not like batman."

"You dress up in a suit at night and hunt bad guys."

"I turn into a monster and rip people apart."

"Bad guys?"

"No."

"Sh'o yer' the bad guy?"

"I don't want to be the bad guy but it's," Tear searched for the words, "What's been...execrably put upon me."

"Execrablah, wah?" The homeless man, who seemed to be sobering up well enough, gave his beard a cushy scratch causing the matted rug of a beard to gush beneath dirty finger tips.

"Forget it." Tear leaned forward and ran his fingers through his hair. Making sure to draw his finger nails across his scalp lightly. It was something his mother used to do for him when he was sick as a child. Now he found himself doing the same whenever he was stressed.

The movie star covered his face with his hands once again. Giving the bearded bum a look of defeat through parted fingers. "So when do we get out of here?"

"Sh'oon, probably five minutes." The bum waved three fingers in response. "Why boy? You in a hurry? Got'a place to be or sumfin?"

Tear squinted uncomfortably. "Haven't you listened to a word I've said? I'm going to turn into a monster tonight. If I'm still in here when it happens you'll be torn to pieces."

"Hah! Boy." The beard seemed to exaggerate the homeless man's hoarse laughter. "You can't kill me again."

Tear's mouth went dry. "What? What did you say?"

"You can't kill me again boy. You got me once on the street already." The bum straightened slightly, pulling back several layers of coat and rags to reveal a gaping hole torn from his chest. "See." He gave a hanging bit of flesh a flick "Least it doesn't get cold anymore. You know?"

"Fttnn..." The actor slid back on the bench. Lengthening the gap between his cell mate. He was feeling nauseous again. "You're one of them?"

"Now, now." The homeless man's body didn't shift to move but began to slide down the bench anyway like he was sitting on some magical airport luggage belt. "You knock that nancy-boy crap off and grow up. We're like angels. We're here to guide you. There'sh no need to be scared boy."

"Angels?" Tear swallowed sickly, his stomach felt like it was a pot set to simmer. "I killed you. I've done horrible things to innocent people."

"It's not like that." The bum's voice pitched to a tone of concern. "Is it evil for a wolf to hunt a rabbit for food? It's nature is all. We all understand." The homeless man stopped floating across the bench. "You're looking at it like you're still human. I've got news for you my boy. You're as much human as I am."

"That's not true." Tear's head shook swiftly in refusal. His features scrunching accusingly in the face of such a lie. A lie from who. This can't be real. Tear thought trying to summon up a snicker. "It's just a bad dream. I'm in bed drunk. Maybe some bad drug trip. That's all."

"Enough boy. You're making yourself sound crazy. You don't want to look like a nut job on t.v do ya?" The bearded man pointed up to a surveillance camera in the corner of the room. "Ah, hell. What do I care? You're just a shell about to be cracked away to reveal the yolk in it's center."

"It's not true. I can stop this fucked up dream. I just have to wake up." Finger nails across his scalp. Pulling hard. Breathe. Just breathe. It's just a bad trip Tear. You'll wake up soon.

"It is true. You can feel it tugging at you from within. That hunger. That memory of racing through the darkness. The taste of the air on your tongue. You liked it. That's what you feel most guilty about. You liked it all. Admit it."

One of the dead leaned it's head through the bars. It head twisting around in circles as it spoke in a child like upbeat tone. "Its like an itch that can't be scratched."

"No." Tear's voice a whisper. His heart was pounding as fast as his thoughts. Feel bad. Know they're lying. Know how it feels to be guilty. Lie to yourself. You're still human. Don't let go. Act it out. If you believe it hard enough it can be made true. You don't like it. The freedom. The taste. Oh god...the taste.

"YES." A chanted response. The dead had filled the hallway and his cell now. They could see the truth. Pale dead eyes, the shine from their skin long ago dried. Shoulder to shoulder they reached for him with split and peeled finger tips.

"NO!" Tear slammed his eyes shut against the onslaught. His hands clutching hard at his ears. His cell shook and rattled.

"What do you mean no?" One of the guards stood, his hand still on the keys that had let the cell door pop open. "It smells like puke in here kid. Drunk times over. Common lets go."

Tear's eyes snapped open. The cell was empty. The hallway too save for the two guards. He was alone again.

Alone and hungry.

[Estelle Russard]

Russard was thoughtful, allowing all the peripheral activity about her to slide out of focus as she stooped over examining the sprawled corpse.

The old lady last night, this guy the night before - and Kazaar and k'Vik both asserting there would be another murder tonight. Whoever this killer was, he or she had quite an appetite. As with all investigations of violent crime, the linchpin to solving it hinged on motive. Russard was at a loss. What was driving this individual to such extremes? She had never encountered this degree of compulsion before and it was a very disturbing thing.

"What did Mirko have to say?" she asked Kazaar, who was looking from the photos in the Nikkon to their corresponding real-life counterparts. "How is he involved?" her questions spoken aloud as they come to her, "And why was he here snooping around in the first place?"

[Aurelias Kazaar]

"If I knew Russard." Kazaar pulled a cigar out of his pocket and started chewing on it. "I'd be sitting in Skippy's office and his ass would be here."

Yeah right. Estelle fought the urge to roll her eyes. My ass you would be.

Kazaar chuckled. "Seemed like, He decided t'go check out this place for the helluva it. Maybe he's gotta police scanner I got no fucking clue."

Actually he did. Mirks probably thought he'd talk to k'Vik about what's been found. Just doing his damned 'journalistic duty'. I swear I'm never telling him a damned thing again.

"Well should we question him...?" Russard was bent down in front of the claw markings but her face was towards Kazaar.

"I dunno...what do you think, Doc?" He rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. "Ya think a five-foot-four guy could change into something that's...what...six anna half feet?"

[Estelle Russard]

Russard looked around her burly partner and lifted bemused eyebrows at Mili.
Seriously-they were as bad as each other, Estelle thought.

"I can tell you right now that Spendrim didn't do this" she sniped, losing patience and interjecting before k'Vik could respond, "...Hulk body changing, or not. The man's afraid of his own shadow."

How was she supposed to conduct an investigation when Kazaar insisted on this back-woods gypsy curse nonsense?

"We need to canvas the building. Ask around. Someone knows something" she insisted, as much to herself as to Aurelias and Mili. This was an act of rampaging violence and more than just one person would have heard it. Surely.


"...And get Spendrim back here!" she yelled with unbridled irritation to the uniforms who were standing guard superfulously at the door. Her voice was shrill, which she hated, but atleast it made the constable jump.

[Mirko Spendrim]

Mirko was found loitering about the building entrance. He had still not managed to brush off his feelings of humiliation and injury at the shabby way Kazaar had treated him even as he was ushered back into the victim's apartment. Honestly, he had expected a much different reception to his presence and remonstrated within himself on being a fool - on being such a glass half-full kinda guy - when it came to his perception of the gruff detective. He'd called him an idiot - Aurelias owed him an apology. Mirko would insist on it, would not say another word until Kazaar said sorry. Or until he at least, looked like he was sorry.

Both detectives, Russard and Kazaar, looked up from the dead body upon Mirko's return and eyed him with varying degrees of speculation. Mirko clamped his lips shut rebelliously and pretended to look with mild interest at everything else in the room, avoiding Kazaar specifically. Mirko's mind was set, he would not be moved, would not say one thing until.....oh hello! "Are you the coroner then?" he asked, spotting k'Vik and forgetting himself. Damnit. So much for not being moved. Never mind, it didn't mean he couldnt talk to anyone else besides stupid Kazaar.
"What's your take on all this then?" he pressed, sideling up to Mili with open interest in his little brown eyes, admiring the beauty before him. "You thinking Werewolf? Or Chupacabra maybe? They had one of those in X-files once. Those stories were all true you know - the monster ones, not the alien ones. You see the uniformity of the claw marks?"

[Milivikal k'Vik]

She was going to say no, but Estelle didn’t give her a chance to say why. Mili suspected Estelle didn’t like her very much right now, and was a bit confused as to why. She gave Estelle a confused look. She went back to collecting samples and examining the scene.

“Ssshshshshssh.” Milivikal waved at Mirko like he was a fly that buzzed about her head, and went back to swabbing the claw marks.

She was working, despite all of Estelle’s yelling and Mirko’s asinine commentary. She held her fingers crossed for a tuft of fur, or something to give her a concrete DNA sample. Blood, maybe. That wasn’t the victim’s. She crouched down, her hands delicately working in concert with a surprisingly bright LED light to find scratches left by the paws of the creature against the wood floor. She tried to retrace its steps, but it double-backed onto itself. The creature was worried it was going to be followed, maybe.

[Tear]

“You know when you stretch? The way your muscles feel as your doing it. Taught. Tingling. Just terrific. Your body makes a dull pop or crack and for that small moment you just feel amazing like you could reach into the sky or run through a wall.” Tear turned to a nearby potted plant. The pot was a cement cylinder, hip height, with small green flutes sprouting from it. It was decorative with seven more just like it lined up the walk way into the Fairmont hotel.

It’s nice isn’t it, boy?

“That is how my entire body feels ALL the time right now. My muscles itch. There‘s this constant pressure in the air but it‘s not like a headache. It‘s good, you know? I want to run and jump and breathe and feel.” Tear curled his fingers through the potted soil of the plant. The moan that escaped his lips from the sensation bought the attention of more then a few passer bys.

“Hey.” One person in particular, clad in a funny little suit of black and buttons. He was the doorman to the Fairmont hotel. A man of six feet and some odd inches. The doorman finally had his fill of what looked like a drunk muttering himself and molesting the plants out front. “Hey, you alright? Maybe you should -”

Tear in hailed sharply. “Piss off.” He could smell the doorman. Not just smell him but smell everything about him. The smell of salt on his skin not from sweat but from the sea where he had eaten a late lunch, chicken and it had been spicy. Tear could smell the hint of perfume and hair conditioner from when his girlfriend hugged him goodbye when he left for work.

“Common. Just get out of here. I don’t need to start my shift off like-” The doorman stopped. An inquisitive squint scrunched his features. “Aren’t you that actor?”

I think we should go.

“I think you’re right.”

The doorman was already taking out his phone. “Damn straight I am. This shits going on youtube.” A small red light blinked on the device.

Tear turned and ran. Not for fear of being caught on video but just to run. He wanted to feel the soles of his feet beat rapidly down the pavement, watch as his surrounding went whipping by in an ever increasing blur. It was with startled excitement when he caught the name of the last street he passed, he had sped through six city blocks already.

“This- I…I shouldn’t be loving this so much.” Tear stopped, taking one deep breathe to settle his breathing. He wasn’t winded, in fact he was the exact opposite, he wanted to run more.

Why not? It’s what you are now. What you have been for years. Only now your coming to realize this isn’t a dream. This is real.

The grisly image of the homeless man who had shared his cell an hour ago was speaking again.

Resting on his knees, more out of nerves then anything, the actor eyed the phantom. Tear couldn’t help but laugh. “This is ridiculous. What are you? The cricket on my shoulder? You going to warn me of danger? Instil me with confidence until I murder without remorse?”

Something like that, boy.

“Fine.” He laughed again. “Fine. If it feels this good to be insane. Fine. I don‘t care anymore.”

Maybe he was insane. Tear was beginning to believe it but what he knew for certain was that as the night wore on, his fears, his anxieties, his guilt, it was all being washed away. Each breath he took was deeper then the last, more confident. Step by excited step he aggressively made his way through the darker alleys of the city. He wanted something to happen. Something or someone to test himself against.

Then he found something unexpected. Something away from the sights and sounds of the inner city and it’s harsh luminescent glow.

“What’s that smell?”

Follow it.

Gravel scraped beneath Tears muddied Moschino sneakers as he came up the darkened path. The gate looked heavy but a firm push sent it creaking open. “This is a graveyard. Why does it smell so good?”

Bon appetite