NationStates Jolt Archive

Out of the silence of the night, three in the morning to be more exact, came a soft moan and then again silence.

The normally busy city, Starlight, was now quiet and not many people stirred at this hour, except for the drunks, insomniacs, and well others.

Out of a dark alleyway came a woman. She stood about five feet seven inches and weighed about 110 pounds. She had a body many women would kill for, she had a body like a hungry-starved model, but she had the curves that made her a woman. She wore dark leather to match her mood. The leather covered most of her body, just leaving a hint of flesh to show. The colour of it was pale white to the black of her outfit and night. Her face was narrow and glowed against the darkness. Her blood red lips were sultry, but now frowned. Her hair a soft brown was pulled back into a messy bun. A few loose strands fell in front of her gray eyes. Her eyes a silver cement gray definitely made her have a cold look to her.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk and the heels of her boots clicked on the cement, sounding like drums in the calm of the night. She sighed and continued on her way.

It had been so easy. Too easy and now she was bored. She had gone to the bar earlier this night and a guy had approached her. She had been so hungry and he was so willing. A man in his early twenties, looking for a good time with a hot girl, walked up to her. She laughed as she remembered that he had said that. He deserved it then, she scowled. The night seemed to go slow as he guzzled beer after beer and she slowly sipped on her chardonnay. Finally, he decided to go and he wanted her to go with him, if he had only known who was really in control. They slipped out of the bar and into the alley. There he came onto her and she giggled under his hot breath. She pressed him up against the brink wall and slowly took his breath away. She almost stopped though, his blue eyes reminded her of something and that scared her. She couldn’t figure it out and so she finished and he let out one last moan and he was all hers.

She never looked back. The police wouldn’t figure it out, they never did. She never left a mark; she was different in so many ways. She got into her ultima and drove to her house and went to bed, tomorrow would be another day, just another boring day.

Morning light stuck her face and she frowned, a beautiful day, great. She stretched and then got up and ready for class. How ironic she thought that she was going to school. Well, something to do I guess. She wore a short pleated skirt and a black shirt showing off numerous tattoos of tribal and Chinese. She slipped into a chair near the door and slipped on some headphones.

OOC: I really don’t have a plot for this. I am willing to go anywhere with this, but I would like there to be some character development if I could. Anyone and thing can join, the more interesting it will be. More of my character will develop as the plot does. Thanks for anyone who joins.

BUMP!

OOC: UMMM thanks I guess. I really don't want to RP by myself though...it is hard to develop a character without interaction between people and action. Are you sure you can't figure something out?

Someone new was in the young woman's class today. He was a tall boy with striking features, his hair a mess but a luxurious black, matching his dense clothes. His skin was pale and young, like a soft light. The most interesting aspect of this strange boy were his eyes. They glowed golden like the morning sun, but flushed a firey red when the sun hit them just right. Though the woman had never seen him, there was an unmistakeable aura of familiarity about him, as if she had passed him on the street several times and therefore he became a part of her schedule. Maybe he had. She couldn't quite place it, but this boy stood out for more reasons than the mere fact he was new. He watched her like a hawk, flashing eyes judging her critically.

OOC: AHH!! Cyberutopia we RP once again, this should be fun.

IC: Star, people that were lucky called her that, although, her name is Katrina Mero. Star stopped writing down notes in her notebook and narrowed her eyes. She felt someone watching her and she wondered why. She pulled down her skirt a bit and shrugged her shoulders. Again she felt the intensity and she glanced over her shoulders. She didn't notice anything out of the normal.

The professional ended the class and the students gathered their things. She stayed back until most of them were gone and then she got up and walked out of the door. She found her keys and began to walk towards her car to get her other books.

((Indeed. :D I never did get the chance to kill Sarah in that one RP before it died... :lol: I need to make up for all of your fantasic RPs I've missed. I believe you've met this character before. Is this Katrina the same Kat from an earlier RP? The vampire one? If so, our characters have some history together.))

Star reached her car, and unlocked it. As she was bent over, gathering her books, she felt a shadow loom over her.

"I believe you are in trouble." The shadow whispered.

OOC: I remember you wanted to kill Sarah...but I wouldn't allow that. No, this is a different character, different personalities. Yeah, you did miss a lot of good RP I did...what was your deal? heehee

IC: Star began to laugh, a low growl more like it. A laugh that would make babies scream and grown men urinate on themselves.

She turned around and faced the man. "I do believe I love trouble and I want it." A yearning in her voice with a hint of cockiness.

OOC:Hmm, Intresting, I might just have the right characters for this. I was thinking of an eldarly preist and his wards, two twins.

((A laugh that would make babies scream and grown men urinate on themselves.

:shock: Cooooool. I got kinda busy with blowing myself up, so I didn't have all that much time for characters to not get killed by civil war. But I'm here now. :D ))

"And I do believe you haven't the faintest idea of who you are talking to." The boy responded with mock politeness. "It is murderers like you that give those who stalk the night a horrible reputation. It is selfish brats like you that give more and more reason to the world to kill us all off."

He brought her face so close to his she could smell the faint rot on him. For an instant, she could see fragility behind his handsome features, wrought with decay.

"And it is people like you that are the reason my mind has lost it's reigns, and my body is collapsing before me." He rasped spitefully.

Detective Michael Brock stood over the the lifeless carcass, blue from asphyxiation. His blue eyes had turned a cloudy white, like a man whose soul had been plucked straight out of him. But how did this guy get whacked? If he was strangled, nobody clamped anything around his neck...

Brock's thoughts were stopped abruptly by the clickety clack of the ADA's heels as she approached.

"What do you think, Detective?"

"Other than the fact that we've got a female Jack the Ripper on the loose?"

"Hmm, that's funny. I don't believe you've found any evidence pointing to the fact that a woman did this. What are you, sexist or something?"

"It's called a hunch, Hutton."

"That's Miss Hutton to you, gumshoe. Call up my office when you find this guy...err...woman...whatever." With a sarcastic chuckle, she shuffled back to her awaiting limousine.

He watched her buttocks sway with each step, wondering how such a beautiful creature could turn out to be a soulless demon. But then again, maybe it was because Jane Hutton was his fiancee, left standing at the altar when he decided to stay on the force. He loved her once...but realized too late that his job was more dear to him.

Then suddenly, he spotted it. A hair pin. Was that a strand of human hair...? Was this the big break he'd been looking for all this time...?

With an envelope opener he kept in his pocket, he scooped up the piece of jewelry and placed in an evidence bag...Hopefully the boys down at the lab could finger whose this was...

Star yawned and scratched her side. “And so what if I am a brat. I do it well.” She laughed once more. The smell touched her every sense in her nose, but she didn’t flinch, she was more than what she appeared. She licked her lips and smiled at the boy. She turned back to her car and hit the button to unlock her car and it beeped. As she walked to her car her skirt flew dangerously up, revealing much of her ass. She heard some catcalls from nearby guys and ignored them. She reached in and grabbed another book and notebook and walked back to the mysterious male.

“Well, it was fun chatting and all, but I really am not interested in you. I am really looking for someone with a sunny personality. Ya know not so much like me.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and walked back to the college. She didn’t care if he followed her. She knew he couldn’t do anything in public and well even if they weren’t in public, she wasn’t scared, he couldn’t harm her.

She sat in class, not paying any attention to it she knew it all, she had been threw this era, the Roman times were much easier than this. She began to doodle and looked down at her paper and saw she had drawn the male, a nearly perfect picture of him. Hmmm, how odd of her to do such a thing, I must be going insane. I need to come up with how to get him out of my way.

Meanwhile…

A woman who looked to be about 48 years of age, roughly walked towards the alley. Damn people walking in her alleys. How the hell was she going to get her things with them looking through her shit? The woman was overweight and wore about three layers of large sleeping gowns and a cake colored brown jacket with holes in it. She had a cigarette in her mouth and she had a garbage bag in one hand.

“Hey bum…what the fuck you think you doing with my hairpin?” She walked up to the man holding her pin in a baggie. She grabbed it out of his hand and took it out of the bag and put it in her long white hair, some oily strands still fell in front of her pale green eyes. She grumbled and walked away. “Damn people got to steal you stuff that you work so hard to find.”

"Whoa whoa whoa, Jabba the Hutt! You can't just walk into a crime sc--What the hell?!" Brock was infuriated by such a brazen act, especially coming from a street woman. The evidence was useless now as she had contaminated it with her own hair--it would take weeks for the labs to figure out whose hair belonged to whose, and Hutton would never allow their resources and manpower be spent on a fruitless endeavour to search for a strand of hair that may have already been lost to the wind.

There goes my only lead. "Somebody get this woman down to lockup. Book her for f*cking up my evidence!" Eight of the twenty cops present swarmed on the woman and did their best to stuff her into the back of a black and white. When that didn't work, a paddy wagon was called in to haul her out of there.

Suddenly a perky voice rattled by caffeine abuse rang through the alley--Helen Lauder, the token six o'clock news reporter. Famous for her pretty face and a gleaming set of chompers (but just a plain old nuisance to the police), she was striding towards Brock with that trademark look of seriousness in her face as if she was determined as hell to get to the bottom of things.

"Detective! Detective! He--"

"I know who you are. Jerry, get the press behind the line, please." Brock motioned to a policeman nearby who promptly pushed Helen and her cameraman back behind the yellow tape.

"Helen Lauder, CityScope News. Are there any further developments on who the Bachelor Butcher?"

The gruff detective let out a sneer, surprised that she had already conjured up a snazzy nickname for the killer. "He or she may be working for CityScope--you can quote me on that." Apparently, she had not gotten a whiff of the sarcasm he was dishing out; Brock noticed her writing something down on her pad. "Actually, we've got nothing yet." Well, at least he did until that fat tub of lard got a hold of the only piece they had. No way was he going to mention that to the press.

"So for three weeks, the Starlight Police Department has been unable to track the Bachelor Butcher?"

Brock finally looked up, noticing that the cameraman had tried to conceal the fact that the whole thing was being taped. So he played along. Maybe the killer would fancy the publicity she...or he...would be getting.

"To tell you the truth, whoever's doing this isn't leaving a lot for us to work with. Either A) this bastard knows exactly how to dispose of evidence or B) she's just getting lucky."

"'She', detective?"

"Call it a hunch..."

It's funny how technology has come a long way in fifty years. The whole thing had been beamed into every single TV set tuned in to CityScope, and hopefully the ruse would lure in whoever did this...

OOC: Great post Ramadoon.

IC: Star left her class and walked to her car and got into it. Her stereo blasted Adema. She let the depressing lyrics flow through her. She drove to her apartment, located on the nicer part of the city. She pulled into her garage and then walked up to her place. She went into her “home”. She tossed her keys onto the counter and looked about her living room and plopped onto her large black leather cough, sinking into its comfy cushions. She picked up the remote and turned it on.

Damn. It was the stupid Jerry. Way too perky for Star’s taste. She heard her say “Bachelor Butcher” and began to chuckle. She had been called worse, this was quite remarkable to come out of Jerry’s mouth, best one yet. Then the camera came on a man, I guess being a detective and Star narrowed her eyes and then smiled. So, I can stay here for a while. They have no idea who is doing this; I have nothing to worry about yet.

"To tell you the truth, whoever's doing this isn't leaving a lot for us to work with. Either A) this bastard knows exactly how to dispose of evidence or B) she's just getting lucky."

"'She', detective?"

"Call it a hunch..."

Great. Maybe she need to do something with this Brock, her eyes flashed with speckles of black mixing in with the gray. This could be interesting in this boring town. She could have some fun with him and then leave. Leave like she always did. She jumped into the shower and washed away the day’s problems, especially circling around that young man at school. She stepped out of the tub and looked up at the mirror, steamy, but say her face. Her face, a mixture of terror and peace, smiled at the sight.

A electronic tone of Papa Rouch’s Last Resort played in a nearby room. She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her and ran into the room and picked up her cell-phone.

“Hello.”

There was a pause. “Starrie?”

A roll of eyes, “Yeah, who else would answer this phone? “

The woman’s voice on the other line was low and it got harsher, “Child, you will never know, I only try to be safe. Like you should be right now. You should get out of here. Things are about to spiral out of even your control.”

“You have information for me?”

“Why else would I call? Well, we have another nation involved; I think it is called, Diminix. I guess one of your men was from there and they found out and are on their way. Now, I know you are not worried, but this detective Brock is something to worry about. He thinks it is a girl and he is known to not give up till he finds the killer. I suppose I am not worried that you can’t handle him, but we have more when we have another nation involved. Can’t you just ask where this loser are from before you take them?” Slight disappointment sounded in the older woman’s voice.

“I am not worried, I can handle myself. I have been for a long time.”

“Yes, but we have saved your ass a few times.”

“That was the past. I have learned a lot and time has given me a lot of advantages over these mortals.”

“I am just warning you. We are always here, but take our advice.” The line was silent and Star clinked her flip phone shut. Hmmmm. Maybe she should leave. Nah. Not yet. She would take some of the beggar’s advice, but she had her own plans before she left.

She got dressed and made some phone calls, finding where Brock hung out at night; she would pay him a visit.

She wore an outfit that would definitely call attention to her, but not in a disrespectable way, if that was possible, it was for her.

She had a short, black miniskirt on; her top was also black and revealed much of her back and her tattoos. Her shoes were black stilettos and tied up to her knees. She wore her hair down and carried a small black purse. Her outfit, she thought, fit her mood and the hunger that slinked up from in her.

She walked into the bar, a local hangout for a lot of young people. She avoided the looks and walked up to the bar, a few people away from the detective. She ordered a dead nazi and took the shot and had a pitcher of bud light for the later. She made no eye contact with anyone and just drank and watched the basketball on the TV. During a break she looked over and saw the detective looking at her, she smiled and blushed. She looked back to her drink.

IC: Father Borski, a short, thin, elderly with catholic priest white streaked grey hair in his late sixties sighed as he entered the bar, it had been disturbing day. One of the people who attended his church had died and ultimately he had been forced to identify the body as the man had no family that lived anywhere near the area. That wasn’t what disturbed him however, what had happened to the man was what disturbed him. It reminded him of events that happened many years ago when he was part of a special secretive branch of the church that hunted down and dealt with certain creatures and beings. He was long retired now, but something about this and the other deaths seemed familiar to him, something he had hunted down but had escaped before the church could destroy it. He never knew what happened to the creature as he retired from active service soon after to become parish priest. He shook his head; surely the church had tracked the creature down and destroyed it by now or at least he hoped so. He walked up to the bar and ordered some wine. What ever it was, he would contact some former colleagues maybe they would look into it. If not he would do some poking around himself. He had done work with local police in various places before as an consultant on strange crimes of various types before, it wouldn’t that hard to get such work again, if the police didn’t contact him first that is.

OOC:If this isn't alright, I can change it.

OOC: Just a little correction, Amanda. The reporter's name is Helen Lauder...The copper told to push the press back is Jerry. :lol:

Michael Brock seldomly frequented joints like this...It wasn't his style to waltz into some laser-drenched club with a mixture of techno and rap blaring into his ears. No, he'd prefer to be in some dingy bar with a tender named Bubba who'd serve him drinks on a mud-crusted stein. It was one of the many habits he had that drove Hutton mad.

He fitted right in of course, age-wise anyway. Brock was somewhere in his late twenties (jeez, sometimes he even forgot his own age), but the five o'clock shadow made him look two decades older. Only the stylish Armani he had used his last paycheck on was any indication that he was indeed young.

But he wasn't really here for some much-needed R&R. At his own request, Brock had volunteered to act as a human chum bucket. Outside, a team of surveillance ops and UC's watched his every move, listened to his every utterance.

About a few hours into the night, he started getting bored. He even considered calling the whole thing off on account of the fact that no one ever went near him...until that tall drink of a woman made her way inside. Those legs...Oooh, they could kill a man with one twist. He caught her noticing his gaze, and immediately his mind clicked back to the task at hand. Too bad he was on duty right now, or he would've marched right up to her and bought her a drink.

"Mike, ya got anything yet?" He could barely hear the voice in his earpiece what with all the racquet in the club. "Mike?"

Covering his mouth, he spoke low into the mic hidden in his cuffs. "Nothing yet. We'll wait an hour until we pull out..." Suddenly he heared what seemed to be a clashing noise on the other end, with his radio operator letting out a string of profanities. Then the voice changed.

"Brock!" Shit, her again. Jane Hutton, Assistant District Attorney. Job description: to annoy the crap out of Brock. "I've got good news, a**hole: you don't have to wait. All of your men, outside--NOW."

He let out a sigh as he picked up his things, his eyes glancing momentarily at the unnamed woman. If he had just had the night off...


-------


Outside, a brown UC Caprice awaited to take him back to the station...or at least he thought it would. As he opened the passenger side door, an officer cuffed him from behind, with Hutton approaching Brock like a hawk ready to pounce on its prey. "Guess what, hotshot? You're being booked on account of your clandestine operation. I guess you never read the part about having to go through official channels before you set up a stakeout, huh?"

"What's your problem anyway?" He shot back. He didn't like being pushed around by some bureaucrat bent on destroying his career. "Why would the city's ADA be so willing to screw up an investigation...unless you're the killer?" His grin widened from cheek to cheek as she saw her go beet red.

"My problem is a renegade detective who thinks he can do whatever the hell he wants, even if it means breaking the law! Up until now, all I've been trying to do is help you, you know that?" A blatant lie of course. She had delayed it at every single step, from evidence analysis to crime scene notes.

"Piss off." With that, Brock gave her the bird just in time before being thrown in to the back face first.

Exiled. Dead. He had nothing to live for, but it had not made him to take his own life. He had adjusted to his condition during his time as an inhuman creature, as he had always thought the beings he was to be. He had never not lost his faith in his fellow people, nor did he wish to have vengeance. He had become what he had become voluntarily, for the Inquisition, with no doubt in his mind. He had been a righteous follower of the Inquisition all his life and all of his unlife. He was not perfectly undead. He had no hate for the living, his faith had only become stronger when he... Changed.

He had been given a choice. Exile or death. He would not be tolerated in the lands of Marignon in the form he had become. He had accepted the mission knowing that. He always thought he would choose death, but he did not. He chose exile. With the clothes he had on his person, the weapons he was given and the boat that had been made for him, he left his homeland for times eternal. Long he had travelled, long he had explored the world, trying to right wrongs as well as he could, considering his handicap.

But now he was sitting on a bench, in some land he had never heard of. Apparently the city was called "Starlight." Never had he drank the blood of men, he had always used animals to quench his perverse thirst. Yes, this rendered him weaker than he could be, but it did not matter to him. He was a holy man from a holy land. His black robe had seen better days. It was not torn, but obviously had been. Many parts of his robe he had patched during the passage of time. The golden decorations on the front side his robe had faded long ago, but he did not care. The hood of his robe covered his head.

His eyes were closed, but he was not sleeping. He had noticed commotion somewhere close to him. He sat there, listening to his surroundings, smelling the air, feeling a cold, unholy breeze of wind. Something evil had come out of some dark pit within the Inferno. Justice had to be served, if at all possible.

And he waited.

OOC: Hey, Amanda. Remember me? Never did get to finish that angel/demon battle in that one RP you wrote when you were bored, so I figure you and I could settle the score. Preferably, finally. :D

IC: Daniel Pesicka peered out the window calmly from his rundown apartment overlooking the alleyway. Police had been there earlier, and even a few police officers. And even earlier before that... whoever was doing these killings was back in his territory, right beneaht his apartment, in his alleyway, preying on his targets. He slammed his fist down on the workbench he leaned over. Yards of wire lay out on the table before him, and he was busily wiring them into a switch-box, but he couldn't keep his mind on the task.

He turned away with a hard grunt. A TV remote lay next to him, and he turned on the small box. The news was playing. It was about the same damn thing: the murder which should have been his. A hard chuck sent the remote into the screen, shattering it and sending sparks on the hardwood floor.

He turned back to his project. If that amateur,whoever it was, was going to steal the attention, he ought to get it back. A switch-detonator, and down in his storage, necessary explosive materials. He would claim the show. There were plenty of churches and goodwill organisations to go around.

A letter lay not too far from where his detonator was. It had been written quickly on a typewrite, but it conveyed an intelligence far higher than his enemy who appeared so simplistic in their chore. It conveyed the cold and chilling nature of what he wanted: his enemy removed from his territory.

Daniel quickly put on some gloves. He lifted out a q-tip from a little cup of water, and spread it on the adhesive of an envelope. He then took the letter and slipped it in. It was addressed for the local station. The return address, as well, was marked the same. Daniel could expect it to reach higher ends soon. He stood up, and walked to the door, opening it. On the street, there was a mailbox. His letter would be picked up in an hour.

"Jesus Christ, Brock, what shitstorm have you flown into now?" Stanley Fleming was the Sgt. on duty at the booking station down at Precinct 21, about seven blocks from the crime scene. During his tenure at the desk, he had seen hookers, pimps, murders--basically all the rif-raff of Starlight--pass through the glass doors leading to booking. Never in his life did he ever expect one of the top detectives in the House to end up here.

"Apprently, it's Hutton's, Stan. She says I didn't have the proper authorization to track down the Butcher." He said this with a tone of indignation in his voice as he handed most of his belongings over to Fleming--gun, badge, watch, pocket trinkets, and shoes. Another officer led him down a hall of cells and into his very own swanky pad with the standard mattress and John. The lockup wasn't too full tonight...A noisy drunk and a weeping fratboy were his only companions.


-------


The 10 o'clock news was about to commence, with Helen Lauder substituting the usual anchor who had called in sick, when the letter came in. At first, it had been thrown aside having been figured out to be a letter from some anonymous wacko trying to steal the Butcher's spotlight. When it was finally read by an intern going through the day's mail and handed over to the station boss, who promptly had it read on the air.


It was unfortunate that Brock did not witness it.

OOC: Sorry, need to pay special attention I guess. Yes, I do remember you Archaic Slang Words. I do, however, that I did post and you never continued it. I think that maybe you got bored?

Star watched the male leave. What a pity, he was delicious. She smiled as he walked by. The DJ changed from tecno music to a popular hip hop song, “Get Tipsy”. The dance floor filled up and Savanna figured why not. She walked up to the dance floor and swayed her hips to the music. A small circle formed around her and she was glad. She hated when people danced so close to each other. She moved with the beat and added her own flavor. Another girl, dressed in some hot pants, that revealed much of her ass checks and a bikini too came up and wanted to battle her. The song changed to Black Eye Peas, “Hey Mamma”. The battle escalated and the crowd was cheering and they were tie. Savanna smiled and yawned. She waved goodbye to the girl and the crowd howled. Another boring night out. She headed out of the bar to see the man being put into the car. She laughed and continued on her way down the street.

((Is Savannah actually there, or are you just having a memory lapse? :D ))

Star felt a rush of wind, and a tall figure appeared to her side. As the attractive young woman looked over, she would find the boy from school, though he was drastically changed. He had the same soft white skin, and the same striking looks, but now he was cloaked completely in black clothing, that looked vaugely like an armorweave. His eyes had now changed from their handsome golden to an empty and souless opacity of milky white. A scarlet scarf dangled from his neck and covered much of his face, dancing against the ground with a life of it's own. A stain of black, nearly invisible in the night, marred the otherwise gorgeous silk. A thin smile curved around the two fangs that rested like daggers on his lower lip.

He looked down at her with vacant eyes and spoke. "This, as you might have guessed, is my true form. Only you can see me like this at the moment. Normally I'd just end your life...or unlife, straightaway, but for you I believe I have the need to explain myself, and perhaps remind myself why I'm doing the opposite of what comes naturally. There are many that are stalking you, myself included, and I'm afraid it's not for your looks. Respectfully, I'll leave the choice to you. Let me end your life now, or at least gain some insight before I do so."

"Nobody knooooows the....trubba, I' seen. Noooooobody knooooows...mah sorrows..." Brock could be an annoying asshole whenever he wanted to, and singing the tune made him content that at least he wasn't the only pissed off guy in lockup. The drunk a cell across from him repeatedly shouted obscenities, which in turn were met with even a louder and more off-tune acapella. Around 11:30 or so, he awoke to the metal clanging of the cell door as Fleming threw it open.

"Looks like you made bail, kiddo. Someone choked up a lotta dough just to save your ass."

Brock's throat was dry, and he had to force himself to swallow spit in order to ask "Who?"

"Dunno. Just waltzed in, spoke very little, gave me a wad of money--exact change, too. No ID, but I figger he was a friend of yours. Never did know you had any." Stan led him out to the main entrance with his belongings packed into a small carton box. As he dug through it to make sure nothing was missing, he noticed that his badge was MIA.

"Let me guess, paps. That two-timing bimbo took my shield."

"Correctamundo. She wanted to take your piece too, but I told her it wasn't police issue, and you owned it."

"Thanks."

Whoever bailed him out had the courtesy to call for a cab too...and pay for it. The yellow Crown Vic pulled up next to him at the curb and lowered the passenger-side door. "Hey chief, your friend gave me enough money to take you to Vegas. He said to take you where you wanted to go."

"25 Baker." Southshore apartments, one of the nicest pads in the city. Thanks for the trust fund, Mom and Dad...


-------


Michael Brock was not a village idiot. He knew the risks of being the head detective of the case, completely aware of the possibility that the killer may be gunning for him now. But what good would that do? He was suspended from the force, pending an investigation on his renegade stunt.

Well, at least for a few hours, anyway. Apparently, the Commish saw straight through Hutton's charade and pardoned Brock's sins, saying that the investigation needed no prior approval since "time was of the essence". A whole apology was left on his answering machine, along with a plea for him to work on the investigation again. God, did he love the groveling...

I'm letting my guard down. I'm being careless... Quickly, he drew the .40 P99 and scanned his surroundings. He checked every room in the apartment, every window, every possible entry point. Complete lockdown. Blinds were closed, windows were latched, doors locked.

For the rest of the night, he would have the couch propped up against a wall, with him keeping an eye on the rest of the living room. He had a pot full of coffee on the table and did his damndest to make sure no one could sneak up on him...

Tag... for ATG :D

OOC: Cyber you confuse me sometimes. :wink:

IC: Star looked the man in the eyes and laughed. "End my life? Now, that would just be silly of me to do that. It is just so great, never-ending greatness. Its the little things," she paused, "that just make it more interesting. I would like to see you end my life, but that would just be real hard. So, you are a vampire and you want to make me your fledging. Well, I just can't do that. My life is so much better than yours, but ya know we have something in common though, actually a lot in common. The hunger controls us and we just don't like that. I know I don't like that and things just don't go right when we lose control, do they." She continued to walk and he continued to stay at her side. She was getting annoyed by him and she wasn't bothering to hide it. "You I told you, you are not my type, I like the ones that give in under the pressure and are intoxicated by me and I know that wouldn't happen with you." She stopped walking, her face hidden in the shadow. "I know people are after me, but what do you want from me?"

The man continued to sit on the bench, but now he heard something... Something rather interesting. Two... Things that seemed unnatural were talking to each other rather... Carelessly. They, apparently, were not the cause of the commotion that he had noticed before. No, that had ended a while ago, well before they had emerged from the same place.

They were walking. Walking away. Soon it would become extremely hard to listen to their conversation.

Such pride. Such arrogance. Such inhuman beasts. Abominations.

He unsheathed his sword partially just so he could see its burning blade. A strange surge of holy energy went through his body. The pain he felt was almost unbearable, and the pain had only become worse during his years of inhuman existence. but he did not care. It was a gift, the last gift his brothers had given him. He would never stop using it, even if it would cause his death. After a while, he sheathed the sword again. The pain just went away.

Justice must be served.

He stood up.

Which way were they going? Ah, yes...

He began to walk to the same direction the two had gone. He had come to realize that listening to conversations like he now did was almost as effective as the methods of interrogation he had used in times past. And he did not even have to break the target. Sometimes an embarrassing truth finds its way into the wrong hands if one is not careful of what he or she says.

Father Borski nursed his glass of wine an hour before he left the bar. He still had much to do, people to get in contact with and documents to arrange to get into certain hands so the police would come to him for his expertise. Even if it was not the creature that had eluded him, unlikely as that was or another creature, it would be most useful to work with the police on this. He had all the right credentials to be hired as a consultant by the police and it would be useful know what they had uncovered as well as making it easier to track the creature down.

After reaching his church, an ancient walled church with cemetery that looked like it had been there longer the city had been. He talked to some of the junior priests. One of them he told to go to an old blind beggar with an faded blue bowl by the old city hall in the historic section and tell him the “In the name of the rose.”. The man was really a member of the organization he used to be a part of and it would inform them he needed to get in contact with them. The rest he told to make sure the church and cemetery was secure. He then went to his office and made some phone calls with contacts he had to arrange that the records of his previous work with police on serial, weird, strange, unusual and bizarre crimes as well his credentials would get into the hands of the police and the officer in charge of the investagtion. Hopefully this would get would get them to come to him for help, if not, he would have to conduct his investagtion on his own. One thing was sure, wither it was the creature and or some human serial killer, he would not let it get away.

((I confuse a lot of people. :) ))

The vampire laughed cruelly to mask the intense contempt he held for this creature.

He stopped as well and drew his face close to her's. "Fledgling? I think not. The last thing I want is a tainted thing like you as a fledgling. As with all of us, that hunger tempts us, seduces us, but another force controls me. Through some unlucky snip of the Fates, I was destroyed. Totally. I was ressurected then, decades later, in a awy abnormal to vampires. But I am one. My mind was totally destroyed, is in shambles. I snapped for a while, cut a swath of destruction through the world. For my punishment, the burden of all the World Chaos was placed upon me. Now the foolish decisions you make, like I once did, have lead me to this. The World Chaos is one of the world's base forces, the one of pure anarchy, the energy that courses through yourself and drives you to your killings. But you take pleasure in this oppressive energy, you revel in it. You unbalance it. Think of me as an unwilling vigilante, here to end that unbalance, no matter the cost. Until then, I remain this decaying heap of flesh. Then the cycle begins again. Another like you appears. And I lose my life, my mind again in return."

He paused, to let that sink in. The vampire didn't expect this belligerent radical to understand or care, but she deserved to know.

"I'm not your type, you're not mine. There is none of 'my type.' We shall hate each other until the end." He stated simply.

He withdrew his pale face and began to walk slowly again.

"There's a powerful holy energy nearby. I'd be careful if I were you." He practically hissed.

Brock sat until the early hours of the morning when the telephone rang. He let the machine pick it up.


"Detective, I know you're there. Pick up the phone."


Cautiously, he slinked towards the phone with his gun at the ready and held the cordless to his ear. "Yeah?"


"Hold on, let me transfer you to the Cap." A beep later, Captain Paul Asaki was on.


"Mike, you might want to hurry down here. The D.A. dropped by a few minutes ago...pissed as hell that he had to wake up this early...and handed over a file on some 'Father Borski' who specializes with the shit we're dealing with."


"'Shit we're dealing with?'"


"Yeah. I don't think we're dealing with anything human, by the looks of it."


"You gotta be kidding me..."


"I wish."


-------


The sun began to rise when he arrived at the precinct, looking worse than ever after having pulled off a night without sleep. Of course, he could go on for days on end without so much as a wink, but the investigations had kept him up the past nights. He figured he punched in about 10 hours of sleep in the past four days.


He was greeted by the Captain when he entered through the glass doors and led down to his office where the file sat neatly atop the otherwise cluttered desk. Brock took a seat across from the other's chair and began perusing through it.


"Vampires...?" He chuckled. "This...guy. He deals with vampires? I don't suppose we'll be hunting down a werewolf soon too..."

OOC: I went back and read some of my post and figured it out. Oops my bad. I guess that can happen when you are involved in more than one story. Sorry y'all.

IC: Star listened to the words the decaying vampire told her. "I can understand, but you don't understand me. I am not a vampire. I am not part of this World Chaos stuff. I am like you in that I am completely different from you. Obviously, they never taught you sarcasm in your time of learning. " Star rolled her eyes, "I have dealt with many holy people before this and they have not succeeded. I am aware they are here and I will deal with that when it comes."


She continued to walk up to him because he slowed to hear her more, or so that was what she thought he wanted. "If you are so bent on destroying me, why now. I have been "here" for eons and no one of your kind has every attacked me. Plus, if you know that even if you do kill me you will just have to kill another, for eternity. Doesn't that make you just as "bad" as us? Another thing, do you ever stop and wonder why we do what we do, maybe it is not because we are a psychopath or sociopath. Maybe it is for different reasons. Did you ever think that maybe there is a reason why I choose those males or not?" With that she walked back to where she had parked her car.

She had a headache and she knew it wasn't going to clear till things got solved. When she arrived at home there was a message taped to her door. On the paper was written "In the name of the rose" in red. Star smiled. So, they were coming back again. They would never learn. No one would ever learn. They just didn't care to. She sat down and flipped on the tube and ended falling asleep.

Whispers in her head and in her ear. She sat up with an exaggerated breath. She was sweating and she realized she was still in her apartment. She looked at the digital clock and it read 5:15 in the morning. Well, she was up now, might as well go for a run.

She stepped out into the brisk morning air and felt much better. She ran a few laps around the park and stopped at a bench to rest for a bit. She watched as the sun came up. The dawn always amazed her, never the same, but always reliable.

An idea came to her mind. Maybe she could be the link to help the cops and the priests in finding their murderer. What do they call a person again who can see into the mind of the killer? A profiler. She remembered this line…and how true it was for her.
When you look long into an abyss...the abyss also looks into you.
-- --Friedrich Neitzche


She could finally put use to her doctorate in psychoanalyst from The American Board of Forensic Psychology and her law degree from Stafford University. She made some more calls and one of her elders called the captain up and recommended her Katrina Mero to start to work with the police on this special case. Moments later she received a phone call on her cell asking her to come down to the station. A smile crept upon her face. She jumped into the shower and cleaned up. She decided on a suit to wear, with a shorter skirt to match the top. She left her hair down and flowing. On her way out to her car she grabbed her briefcase with materials that will aid her and the police. She pulled up to the station and walked in. She knew that everyone had stopped what they were doing and watched her walk directly to the captain’s office. The secretary smiled and let her in.

“Hello, Captain Asaki, I am Katrina Mero. I received an urgent phone call that I should come here. Will you fill me in on the information and then we can get started.”

EDIT: I stopped midway of having the post sent in and edited it, but apparently, NS accepted the first one submitted. Tried editing it earlier, but NS was busy.

Brock was reading the file on her when Katrina came in. He didn't turn to look, figuring it was someone bringing them coffee when the Captain greeted her.


"Doctor Katrina Mero, I presume?"


...Doctor? Brock thought they were bringing in that priest first. Maybe he was still asleep or something.


Finally, he let out a sarcastic grunt and uttered something in a low growl. "Doctor huh? Of what, exactly?" He hated the idea of being partnered with a priest. Being partnered with some profiler, who was probably from the Bureau, didn't make him any happier. Teamwork was never in his dictionary. He just thought of the other players in the field as a nuisance to his pursuit of reaching the goal.


"Look, Cap. I don't really need help. Not from a priest, and certainly not from her. We're not dealing with some supernatural bullshit that you seem to have fallen for." Brock placed the file under his arm and brushed past Katrina as he made his way towards the door.


"Not without, this." He stopped cold, realizing what Asaki was probably holding up. His badge. "You accept the help, you get back the badge. You turn it down, you don't have a job."


"Paul, you damn well know I have enough money to live till I'm eighty..."


"You'd kill yourself next week. I know how much you love this job." With a frown painted onto his visage by his narrowed brows and scrunched nose, he walked up to Katrina and held out the file.

"Take a look." He let it drop to the floor and made his exit, shouting at the Captain. "These kids I'm supposed to be babysitting better not get in my way!" Brock stomped angrily down the steps and into the break room for some coffe.

Asaki was left to apologize on his behalf. "Sorry, Doc. He just likes being the lone wolf. Call it an anti-social tendency..."

The vampire just stared at Star as she walked off into the night, catching every mans' eye along the way with her smooth curves. He snarled and stalked off.

'Foolish girl, you'll never understand. I'm no one special, just another unfortunate sould pressed into this service. I'll just have to end you.' He whispered calmly into her mind before he faded from her conscience.

The next day, a tall, nondescript Asian man waited outside of the police station, feet kicked up on the steering wheel and a newspaper in his hands. He scanned emotionlessly over the headline.

Batchlor Butcher Strikes Again, More Evidence Found?

But he had been watching Star intently since this morning. She hadn't taken another victim, and at the moment she was being interviewed by the police.

'Ironic, that.' He thought to himself, and went back to reading the story about the faux Butcher.

Father Borski approached the precinct the police station, he wasn’t pleased with his old order. They had brought him back into active service but were not going to provide any large amount of support. Apparently they had bigger fish to fry in this area of the world to get him any more help in a timely manner. That meant that he would have some support if he needed it but not as much as he would like. It couldn’t be helped however, if they couldn’t provide as much support as normal that meant they had a really big target in mind, something or some things extremely evil that required their full attention and assets in the region to deal it. So it was likely he would get sent people brought out of retirement like himself and some raw recruits. No matter, gods would be done. Evil always failed in the end.

He entered the station and made his way in. He walked in quietly and the astrosphere changed almost at once. The room quieted down and several criminals waiting to be booked turned their faces away shamefully at the sight of the kindly old priest making his way to Captain Asaki’s office. There was just something about the short old priest; a sense of quiet, calm holiness seemed to hover around him and fill the room around him. He spoke softly to the secretary when arriving outside the captain’s office, his voice carrying a hint of a slight foreign accent that couldn’t quite identified. “Excuse me, I am Father Borski. I believe I am expected.”

He had followed the female beast to her house while keeping his distance, and listened to the conversation she had had with the man. Both of them were not human. Yes, obviously. But the man had not done much to attract his attention. When the female had gone to her car and the man with the stench of decay had left, he continued to follow the female. Her stench was easy to follow. He followed her to home. He chose to stay there and see what the beast would be up to. He sat down onto some bench with a line of sight into the apartment building's door.

He waited. Morning came, but it did not seem to bother him all that much. The female came out of the apartment, and began running. He did not move. He knew he could follow her unholy smell if the female would not return. The sun rose up before she did.

More time passed. The female was now all dressed up and she went into her car and she drove away. This time the man stood up. His intention was to track her down as he had done before.

He ran. The unholy presence became stronger. Every step he made took him closer to the source. He then spotted her car, and he could smell to which building she had gone. He walked up to one of the walls of the building, and he sat down onto the ground. He closed his eyes, and began to listen... Maybe they have a window open through which he could listen to what they speak. Maybe it would be his lucky day.

Brock noticed the priest coming by and bellowed out his despise for the extra help. "SHIT!" The vulgarity emanated through the whole building, eventually shaking the walls of Asaki's office.


The Captain turned to Katrina and sighed. "I think the priest just walked in."

"SHIT!"

Most everyone in the building turned and froze at the veracity of the explitive.

Everyone save for one lone figure, making his way silently to the duty desk seargent.

The figure reached into his pocket and flashed a badge.

"I have been sent to investigate some... murders..."

The officer glanced at the dark-garbed man in front of him. He noticed that the skin under the black coat was pale, and drawn.

"And you are..."

"DEO... Able. Daniel Able..."

Another exclamation from Brock rattled the building again as he saw yet another "assistant" waltz into the PD. "Goddammit! Who the hell is calling in these people?!"


Storming out of the break room with a cuppa bad coffee in his hand, he marched toward his desk in the "pit"---the central room in the SPD lined up with row upon row of desks for the detectives and secretarial staff. Picking up the phone, Brock dialed Hutton's home phone number.


A groggy woman answered the voice. "This is Jane."


Brock's ensuing tirade was heard by all. A common occurence in the building whenever his tempers ran high. "What the hell are you doing impeding my investigations by bringing in all these civvies! Didn't Kettle tell you to back off already?!"


"The Commissioner has no say over the mayor's word."


"What the hell are you talking about?!" Suddenly, Asaki's hand fell upon his shoulder. He motioned for Brock to hang up. "We'll settle this later..." He placed the receiver down and angrily shrugged off the Captain's grip.


"Paul, what the hell?! First the priest, then the girl, now HIM!" The finger stabbed towards the direction of Able. "A fed!"


"Like I said before, you insolent prick. Whatever this department tells you, you do it. We tell you to jump hoops, you do it. We tell you to set your goddamn balls on fire, you do it. You probably even heard it from Hutton herself: the mayor wants it this way."


The Captain was right. Everyone had been with him up until this point, and he knew why. He wasn't getting results, hell he hadn't come up with anything but a hunch for the past few weeks. Maybe he did need the help...


Finally, Brock conceded. "Fine. But the minute I get a good lead, we drop them. Agreed?"


"No."


"Okay." Sipping from his coffee, he went to meet the team...

So many people entered the building after the female he was after. And many of them were even coming to the same place the beast had gone. One of them even had a slight holy aura upon him. Curiouser and curiouser. He continued to listen, although he found it to be rather hard. The windows weren't fully open, but it would have to do.

Agent Able shook his head, and looked towards the Captain, named Asaki if he was correct.

"I do not mean to intrude on anyone's jurisdiction, but I represent the Department of Extranormal Operations, based out of Valient."

Able reached out a hand to Asaki, which the Captain took. The clasp was cold and clammy.

"I... have experience with vampires and their ilk. Is there anyone who can brief me on the situation here?"

The Asian man watched a third person enter the police department, and raised an eyebrow.

"I've seen him before...in that manor a while ago. But he seems...undead, like me. I wonder if he's changed at all..." He muttered to himself.

As he took a swig of his mud-laden "coffee", Brock chimed in to answer for the captain.


"Actually, Agent Mulder, we got a bunch of green guys outside running around causing a ruckus."


The captain threw daggered stares at him, to which Brock responded with an innocent shrug that seemed to say "What did I do?". Asaki cleared his throat and responded with a firm handshake. "I'm Captain Paul Asaki...You must be the third one they've sent for? The priest and the profiler are waiting in my office." He led both the Detective and DEO agent down to his little niche in the precinct where Borski and Mero awaited. "Say hi to the rest of the team."


Brock was quick to throw in a jab at the other three. "So these are the three stooges I'm stuck with, huh?"

Star internally laughed at Brock's antics. This person is a real character. On the outside she remained calm and unchanged by his attitude.

"So these are the three stooges I'm stuck with, huh?"

Star raised her eyes to meet Brock's and her once soft gray colour turned a hard dakr gray. "I did not come here out of a favor to get ridiculed by a man who, obviously, couldn't handle the case on his own. Although, I do agree the others might make this look quite extreme, but I am willing to cooperate with them." She pulled the Captain aside, "Maybe he just needs time to get used to us. I can understand, but I do not deal with ignorance. That is not why I came here." The Captain nodded, he made it well known previously that he agreed with her.

She smiled politely at Brock. Maybe it was a good thing he didn't remember her from that one night. Or if he did it would have just been more interesting. She opened her briefcase and pulled out some articles. "I arrived here a few days ago and did some research on my own. I was not sure how this agency handles working with those on a higher level of justice. She pulled out an article from today's paper. Seems as if we might even have a copy-cat on our hands. This victum does not fit entirely in with the others. This one was done out of rage I feel. Maybe even jealousy, I don't think that the killer intended for this kill, it was just done to show something. What that is I have no idea as of yet. I looked back into the coroner's notes on the previous kill. The male has substance in him, alcohol, but the blood alcohol level was legal. He had no other substance in his body that could be traced. So, we can't lead this to drugs. The even more interesting part was there was no marks on his body that showed he had been harmed in any way. There was a mark on his neck, but later it turned out to be a birthmark."

Katrina paused and looked about the room. "Are there any questions yet?" No one spoke up. So, she continued. "It seems we have a connection to all the killings. They are males and young. I do not have a connection to the nation of Diminix, although, two males were from there. But the others were not." She stopped again and looked at Brock. "I watched the newscast of the killings and I am not sure this is a female's doing yet, the evidence does not point to a certain sex yet. But...I can understand why you would feel that most guys would not go out into an alleyway with a male, but we cannot say that to be true. All of these men, I believe, were under the influence of alcohol and who is to say they wouldn't go out there with another male."

She looked over at the Captain, "Captain Asaki, I would like to go investigate the area of the previous murder and then compare it to this one." She raised the article up that read Bachlor Butcher Strikes Again. "I would like someone who was at the previous Diminican murder to assist me." She smiled at Brock, "And that means you." She looked back to the Captain. "If that is alright I would like to start right away, after the briefing I guess. The others are welcome to join me, but I work better in a quieter environment. We can always set up a time to meet and discuss later plans together. So, what do you think?"

Father Borski pointy stared at Agent Able for a moment, and then stared intently at Doctor Katrina for a few moments, there as something about her that seemed familiar but that he couldn't quite place. After collecting himself he rose and spoke. "I am afraid from my experience and knowledge of things; I would have to agree with Detective Brock hunch. It is highly likely that the killer is female, likely young or with at least the appearance of youth. Our killer experienced at alluding capture and covering up their crimes. Now has anyone questioned the bartenders or the people at the bars or around them? Did anyone see the victims leave or go into the alleyways?”

EDIT: Sorry for the mistake...I just assumed you were a vamp :lol:

Brock shook his head as he took a sip of the coffee, muttering something under his breath. The captain told...or rather...ordered him to speak up so that everyone could get another dose of his opinion.


"That's funny...You said all the guys had low alcohol levels but assumed they were drunk when this happened?" He cleared his throat sarcastically. "I mean...how did you put it? 'Under the influence'?"


As he was going about trying to discredit the unwanted partner, Brock paused as he took a long look at her...Something about her--she looked...familiar. Wasn't she the girl from the bar? No, it couldn't have been. Lack of sleep must have been playing games with his vision.


"Now has anyone questioned the bartenders or the people at the bars or around them? Did anyone see the victims leave or go into the alleyways?” The priest. Or was it reverend? Frankly, Brock didn't care. What was important was the question.


"Hmm...well..." He hated himself at this moment. How could he neglect questioning the goddamn bartender...? "No. I didn't ask the bartender."


By now, steam was billowing out of Asaki's ears once he heard of the detective's blunder. The cap chewed him out on negligence of procedure, to which Brock took pretty well. He knew he screwed up and was willing to take the heat for his own actions. "Look, Detective. You obviously need the help if you can't do a simple thing like questioning a witness. All of you, go out there and find this son of a bitch before someone else turns up dead. Brock, take 'em back to the crime scene and see if you can come up with anything else."


"But hasn't homicide finished yet?"


"No...they're still there. Everyone's waiting for you four."


It took Brock about five minutes with the siren blaring to drive the team down to the alleyway, where they were greeted by photographers from the local news station. The press was eventually pushed back to allow the squad car to pass through.


In the alley, everything was left just the way it was when he had left; the only difference was that the body had already been sent to the morgue.

Father Borski looked at the scene as he did, the holy aura around him intensifed noticably as he studied the scene finally. Yes it was indeed the creature or another like it that was behind it. He turned to the detective and spoke an intent question like he alway knew the answer but wanted to here it himself. "Detective Brock, there was an mark on the body, this mark was on the other victims wasn't it?"

The moon silouetted a dark figure, sinister in apperance. A long tail curled out behind it, twitching like it was alive itself, independent of the shape in front of the moon.

The figure wore dark clothing, a sort of black cloak with a large hood. Something on its back gave it an odd outline aganist the moon's silvery glow. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the figure vanished into the night...

OOC: Ramadoon, in my last post I said nothing about being a mark...

The male has substance in him, alcohol, but the blood alcohol level was legal. He had no other substance in his body that could be traced. So, we can't lead this to drugs. The even more interesting part was there was no marks on his body that showed he had been harmed in any way. There was a mark on his neck, but later it turned out to be a birthmark."

The blood was not sucked out of the first victum...the one Brock found. Because how else can they run tests on his blood. Plus, the mark turned out to be a birthmark.

Maybe it wasn't clear as to which victum i was talking about. I am sorry about that. I never made it clear how exactly the victums where killed, but blood was not sucked out of them. Maybe the copy cat killer does, but not my character.

As the police cruiser left the police station, the Asian man calmly folded his newspaper and drove off after it. It wasn't hard at all to follow with the siren screaming needlessly. The car stopped across the street from the once quiet alley where the press and police now inhabited, and festered like a plague.

'I'll just end her quickly when no one's looking, it's safer that way. No explanations, no long winded philosophical chats. This execution will certainly be odd; she's doing nothing different that what I would be doing were this burden lifted from me.' He thought, a twisted smile on his neutral features. 'Yet it's different. I'm...hesitant. Hateful thing, that.'

Katrina did not ride in the police car, but drove her mercedes-benz. She was glad cause she would not have wanted to ride while the sirens were on. She pulled up behind and stepped out of her vehicle.

Katrina looked about her, definitely too many people around. She wouldn't be able to concentrate that well with all the noise.

She walked up behind Brock and tapped him on the shoulder. "I read your report, but could you tell me exactly how the victum looked and I might get a better picture for it."

"Yeah...There was a mark on his neck, but later it turned out to be a birthmark." " Brock found himself repeating the same exact phrase she had used. "Turned out to be a birthmark..." He was still analyzing every crevice, every wrinkle, every contour of her face. Though he was still in that sleepless stupor, he was sure that Mero was the one at the club.


No, get back to work. IA would be on your ass if you tried anything... Ahh, yes. Internal Affairs. Wasn't Hutton prodding them to find any dirt on him so that he could be put down like some unwanted mutt?


Finally, he spotted the bartender stepping out for a drag, the bald man giving the cops a look of murderous contempt. They had been there for almost two days now, and it cost him customers. And lost customers meant lost revenue; lost revenue meant he was beyond "irked".


Brock approached the man and offered up another cig as he quickly finished his. "So you're the bartender, huh? What's your name?"


"Big Joe. What's it to you, cop?" The bartender swiped the cig out of Brock's hand and placed it between his lips. Brock offered a light.


"Okay, Big Joe. Do you remember anything about the night one of your patrons was killed?"


"You know, I really can't." He held out his hand as if asking for a bribe, to which the good detective didn't really care for. Within a second, the burly barkeep was pressed up against the wall by a man half his size, his arm behind his back and pinned upwards. "Bru---ahh....Police bru--" He yelped once more as Brock jerked his arm harder.


"You scream one more time, I swear to God that joint pops loose. Now what do you remember?!"


The latter complied with his head tilted towards Brock. "I don't know, I don't know, man! The guy...he was out partying with his friends and this chick comes in. Nice lookin' girl. One thing led to another, she led him outside, and that's it, alright!"


One of the officers cautiously approached Brock from behind when he let go. "You! Get some to draw up a composite sketch of--" Before he finished the bartender was already staring intently at Mero, who was but a few yards away. "What? What's the matter?"


"That's her, man...That's the chick!"


"What...?"


"The cop, she was the one I saw!" The finger pointed straight at Mero, there was no doubt about it.


Every cop in that square block turned to look at the doctor when Big Joe began to point hysterically at her...Some were unsure of what to do, while others followed the guidebook procedure--unholster pistol, draw, and wait for orders.


Brock approached Katrina cautiously with a pistol drawn in one hand and a pair of cuffs in the other. "We're going to have to bring you in for questioning, Doc...Seems like we got a new suspect..."

Father Borski didn’t react at the actions of the Bartender. He merely stared intently at Katrina, the holy presence around him intensifying even more. He knew that it would not be as simple as this but he didn’t thing she would try anything, if she was indeed the creature as he suspected she likely already had something planned in case of this. He murmured to Brock as he passed. “Carefully, remember. She had enough connections get her self onto this case. I am sure you know what that means.”

Katrina smiled at the hysterics of the bartender. She looked at Brock, "Let me show you something. If you call your dogs off of me." She opened her briefcase and pulled out a picture and a file containing papers. The picture was of a girl that looked just like her, but the clothing attire was completely different.

She walked up to the bartender and shoved it in his face. "Is it this girl or me?" She growled.

The bartender looked confused. He looked at the picture and at Katrina's face. He stumbled with his words, "Umm...I...I...think it is the picture. Yeah! I remembered that outfit...damn did it look good. I just wished she hadn't left with the yuppie kid." Katrina grabbed another picture this one being a bit classier. His eyes widened, "I remember her, the type you want to take home to your mother and bang her on the couch. Basically all she did was watch people and she left real early in the night." He gasped after he said that when he realized the picture was off her. The girls looked completely identical, except for one different tattoo on the first girl's neck, it was a different Chinese symbol then the one on the second girl's picture.

Katrina turned around and slipped off her jacket and pulled up her hair. Her tattoo matched the second girl's tattoo and not the first.

Katrina handed Brock the pictures and the papers. The first picture was off Mercedes Mero and the other was Katrina Mero. The papers were background information on both females.

She glanced at the priest, knowing he had an idea of what she was and her sister was and brushed the feeling off. She hated when her sister used her name, she almost hated her sister for everything.

She looked at the others and then to Brock, he would understand, she hoped. The priest would just kill her and she was not sure yet where the other guy stood. She would put her trust in him and she never did that.

"Brock we need to talk."

The Asian man had been passively poking through Katrina's mind as soon as she had gotten into the bartender's face. He almost laughed.

'This is a lot more complicated than usual, and it'll probably be a lot less dull. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's not all that bad to indulge in old habits of malice now and then...right?'

OOC: Sorry I haven't been able to post as much...this week, I've got graduation coming up so I'm pretty busy with robe fittings, practice, etc.


"Brock we need to talk."


"Yeah, you're telling me..." He looked at Father Borski and Able hesitantly as he took in the new evidence presented to him. Brock took a quick glance at the report but was still doubtful of its authenticity. No worries. A quick call to HQ would clear things up. "Spitz, call in HQ and have them do a quick background check on Mercedes and Katrina Mero, will ya?" An adjacent officer nodded and sprinted toward his squad car to do the detective's bidding. The group could see him jotting down notes as he spoke with the radio operator; it took Spitz only a few minutes to get the skinny on the two Mero's.


"Detective, this is all I got." The uniformed officer handed over a yellow slip of paper with some writing on it.


Brock read the note aloud. "Katrina and Mercedes Mero...twins...Born...wow, you look 20." Brock cleared his throat as he continued with his report. "Yadda yadda yadda...Mercedes Benz registered to Katrina Mero," a nod to the car, "and distinct tattoos on each. Looks like you're off the hook for the meantime, Doctor."


Everything went back to normal, just as it had been before the bartender went about with his crazed McCarthian accusations. CSI's milled about collecting evidence, coppers still keeping back what was left of the press (some had left, hoping to return when the killing spree commenced yet again), and Brock led the team to the alley, pointing out where the body and collected evidence had been. The only physical evidence that was left behind was an insignificant maroon smear on the pavement, left behind by the victim after his skull made contact with it after he had been let go by the killer.


Now, there was only one thing that worried the detective. If the killer was Katrina's sibling, would she hinder their progress in order to protect her? "Doctor, may I speak with you in private?"


Without waiting for a response, he led her about a few hundred yards away from the commotion--enough so that they could only be seen, not heard. "Now that our witness just pointed out our prime suspect, I need to know one thing: because of your relationship with Mercedes, tell me now if that's going to affect your duties as a part of this investigation..."

Katrina laughed. “Is this going to affect my role in this investigation? Now, that is a real silly question. I have been following this case for a few months now and through five different nations. I will tell you I am no way affected by my sister’s presence and will not let her change my role as a profiler. Plus, there are other things as to why I am doing this.” She stopped and stayed off in the distant. Blinked once and said, “There are many things you do not know about this vast world, detective and I will be showing you something new soon. Too soon that is.” She flipped through some papers and then tossed a few to Brock. “Read these.”

The first article was one on the Mero murder. It stated that Mercedes Mero killed her twin sister’s, Katrina, husband who was Blaise Careager. He was a big lawyer in the nation of AmandaTheGreat. The strange thing was the police couldn’t figure out how she had killed him and she vanished from site. Days later Katrina was on the move, told reporters she had a new case and she wouldn’t give up on this one.

The second was the coroner’s notes on the death of Mr. Careager. Katrina gaze did not leave Brock’s, “If you have any questions I will be at the scene.” She walked back to the scene and looked it over.

Doing his best to keep his dexerous tail under his cloak, Whiptail enters the bar. To most, he seems to be an older person, with a bent back. To more observant people, he appears as a person with a ridiculous walk.

He seats himself in a dark corner booth, watching & waiting. Occasionally, a glimmer of gold flickers out from under his large hood, a reflection of his eyes in the dim lights of the bar. Carefully, he places his arms on the glossy surface of the table, keeping his clawed hands within the large sleeves of his tattered black cloak.

He selects a drink & a meal from a menu with a slight gesture, then sits back & waits for his selection to arrive...

Father Borski meanwhile was studying the scene, but he wasn't looking for any physical evidence. He was looking for spiritual signatures, something all creatures living, undead and other had one, even demons had that was unique to each individual being. It was not something that could hidden or changed to mislead, it did however fade over time and it could be covered over by the passing of many people. However in this case the signatures of the victim and of the killer would should still be strong enough to read, because the nature of the killer and of the circumstances involved even with all the traffic of people coming and going because of the investigation. It would also give him a good idea how the victims died though wither the good detective would believe it or not was another matter.

There was really nothing else to do in the alley except question the barkeep, and with that mission accomplished, it was unnecessary for them to linger any longer. Perhaps it would be best if he took them down to the morgue to have them take a look at the body.


"Everyone saddle up. We're going on a field trip to the coroner."


-------


Had they paused at every stoplight or yield sign, they would've gotten to the city morgue in twenty minutes. The detective managed to shave off half that by speeding through the busy streets with the siren blaring. It was fortunate for him that he could always write it off as an excuse to get his job done as quickly as possible...


Even from its gothic exterior, the morgue had a stench of death that could be detected for blocks on end. Well, maybe not a "stench" per se, but rather an aura or feeling of it. Fashioned from an abandoned cathedral, its towering spires were adorned with a snake-like design; gargoyles were perched right above the sign--"Starlight City Morgue". Even the hardened Det. Michael Brock got the shivers every time he got within a foot of the place.


The group was buzzed in by an old guard panged with arthritis. The elderly man, with his bent frame and shallow wheezing, led them down to the basement where row upon row of human beings were placed upon refrigerated trays like some sort of high-tech mausoleum. Each "drawer" was labeled with the deceased's last name...Sheffield...Rourke...Perez...the all ubiquitous "Smiths"...Brock found it ironically humorous that it was unfortunate that something as trivial as a last name was the only legacy any dead man could leave behind.


His thoughts were suddenly shaken by a deep and brooding voice--Dr. Philip Tooms, the head coroner in his district. A tall wiry man in his late 50s, Tooms fit right in with the setting...Scraggly long hair (balding at the front), a permanent five o'clock shadow, worn clothes--the only thing that seemed brand new was his white labcoat that was always neatly pressed, but it still seemed as if he only put it on when guests were coming. Why in the hell would he dress to impress anyway? He hung out with dead people...


"Michael, are you all here to see the body?" The line was delivered deadpan, with no emotion in the coroner's face. Tooms sure is one helluva scary guy Brock found himself thinking.


"Uhh...Yeah Doc, we sure are."


"How's my brother?"


"Oh...your brother? Yeah I think he's partnered with Eddie Spitz now."


Tooms uttered a gutteral grunt which served as his only response when he desired to bring about an abrupt end to meaningless chit chat. He disappeared behind a partitioned area of the basement and wheeled out a stretcher and body draped in white linen. "Don't...mess anything up. I just finished cleaning this one."


Brock glanced at Katrina, seeing as she was the only doctor around here after Tooms disappeared. "Ladies first..."

Katrina glanced at Brock and smiled, "How sweet of you." She bent down and pulled back the cold white sheet that covered the frozen body. She pulled it down to his hips. She put clear non-latex gloves on, just in case.

She grabbed the clipboard next to his shelf and flipped through it. "It is the same one we have already read." She sighed. All the same. They were all the same. "Healthy body, no marks. Only alcohol in the blood stream." She shakes her head. She knew, she just had to prove it, but the question was how.

Then she thought, did any of these guys fight back against the monster that attacked them? She gently held the man's hand up and looked under his nails and into the nail bed. Nothing. The doctor must have cleaned his nails already. She placed his hand back down and looked at the other. This guy must be a clean freak.

"I see nothing that could lead us in any direction." She sighed. "It is hard for me to see anything when the killer does not leave a mark, but I have the feeling it is my sister. I just don't know how to explain it." She backed away and turned her head away from the body. "Now what detective? You have another stakeout planned? Maybe one to attract the copy-cat killer?"

Father Borski spoke calmly as he stepped forth to look at the body. He didn't care for morgue and this one really disturbed him, there was something unholy about the abandoned cathedral. He spoke to Katrina. “This is hardly a natural death even for a murder, nothing natural committed these murders. Tell me, you are a doctor after all, If something could draw out the breath of its victim and prevent them from breathing by paralyzing the lungs somehow, would that not have the effect like what has killed the victims?"

Katrina thought for a moment. They were getting it all wrong, the breath was not sucked out of the victums.

"Father, I can understand why you would assume that their air and oxygen was drained out of them, but this is not the case. In fact the report shows no damage to the lungs, there was no evidence of necrosis to the tissue. If their had been this would have affected their respirations and those their heart and the rest of their organs. There was no evidence to show this. If we would have seen this, the aveoli would have been almost collapsed. I do agree though, Father, that this is an unnatural death, therefore, my knowledge on the anatomy part would not have a play in this, but my psychology might. I am still doing research on this, but the church might have some information on what I think they call themselves...Soul Catchers. I have seen some sites on the internet of their rituals, well, I am not really sure what you would call them...maybe glorified witches. But the sites did not offer me a lot of information, it was all really general and very tightly controlled. "

Maybe it was time to go back and visit her old wican clan. They might have some answers for her.

"I think we need to act quickly. Maybe do another stakeout and I can go and talk with the White Flowers and see what they know."

Maybe I could get ahold of Mercedes...She looked at the others. "I don't know about you all, but I had enough fun hanging out here. We should move this elsewhere and maybe get started on our long load ahead of us. What do you say?"

Father Borski replied. "Soul Catchers or as others would call them Soul Stealers; I have dealt with their kind before. There are some witches and sorcerers and I am not talking about Wiccans or other pagan groups when I say witches, more like demon worshipers and people who traffic with demon, that know how do such things. There are certain types of demons that can do such things but they generally need to summoned with complex rituals first, which wouldn’t likely fit this. I agree about leaving here. I do not like this place, there’s something unholy here.”

ooc: Sorry to join in so late, but this is awsome!
IC:
On a lonely street, a strange mist suddenly billows from an allyway. From it steps a man in a white, hooded rope. A long scar traverses the left side of his face and his left eye is an ery milky blue. He strides perpusfully to a bum who happens to be wandering around.
"Than kios boca dose?" The bum's jaw drops. He didn't understand the man's language but, at the same time, he did.
"E-english." The bum stutters.
"Thank you." Talshi walks down the street, druming his fingers on the hilt of his katana. He had come to this corner of the world to do what he always did: slaughter the perversions of mortality. Be they zombies, werewolves, vampires, or demons, his mission is to destroy them.
"But you are a perversion, no?" Talshi smiled slightly as he remembered the words of the witch he had last delt with. He absent minded wonder if the police department was still trying to figure out how someone could be stabed fifty-three times, with enough force to puncture a tree behind them, before they hit the ground.
Talshi shook himself, he was wasting time. He had to find and deal with these perversions.
ooc: Sorry if this is crap, I'm new at this...

"Demons, wiccans...I don't know about that, Father. With all due respect, I don't really believe in those things. Now...You say it's not a natural death, I agree with that. But I'm quite sure we don't need to jump to conclusions yet."


Brock turned to their female cohort, whom he had decided to stick with for the meantime...She was the most "logical", or so he believed, out of the three others.


"Well, the only lead we got is that the bartender pointed out that your sister, Mercedes, was the last one to be seen with him. Since we've got no physical evidence as of yet, maybe we should pay her a visit?"

Katrina looked to Brock, "Well, detective, sometimes you may not see certain things, but there are there. For instance, we do not see germs and yet we know that they exist that is all I can say for now on that subject." She smiled, he would definitely be experiencing a new world real soon, "We do not visit her, she visits us." She thought though. Her sister knew she was after her, but Katrina did not have the evidence to prove Mercedes did it in a legal and well a way that commoners would understand. How would she get her sister to visit up with her again? They only had run-ins and well usually that just let Katrina frustrated.

She knew her sister liked to hang out at bars that offered music, she thought that one night she would be able to run into her when she saw the detective at that bar. Maybe she would go again. She had an idea.

"Okay, I usually only get to see my sister at special occasions and well just bumping into her, so, this is going to be harder. I can make some calls and find out if she is going out tonight. I am thinking she might be at that local club where the entire young crowd hangs out. I heard on the radio it is ladies night or something like that. I will go there, but my sister would know if I was there I was there for her, so, I need a story why I am there." She looks back at Brock, "You work with me and you dare me to actually go out to the bars." She raises her eyebrows and winks, "But that means we will go there as friends and well no wise ass remarks about team players on this one. The problem is what to do with the others. No offense Father, but you would stick out. Maybe we could have a team researching information on Soul Catchers...shoot I should be doing that also I am familiar with them. Well, I am not even sure if we should go, but maybe something would help if we did. I am up for any other ideas. Got any?"

"I have an idea." A dark voice from behind the group rasped. "I've been watching you all for a while, and you have the same problem as I do."

The vampire, in his true form again, stared at Brock for a few seconds before he sifted his name out of the man's mind.

"I can go into the bar with Brock, while you keep up your research. Your sister can't recognize me if I do not wish it." The tall, thin man told Katrina. "Ah, excuse me, I must have startled you all. Please, merely call me David."

A predatory smile marked his lips from behind the silken veil.

Talshi walks into the city, intent on finding the perversions he has been sent to kill. As he walks down the sidewalk, the milky blue orb in his left eye socket pulses gentally, giving him a sort of sixth-sence for detecting negative sources.
Disgusting, Talshi thinks. Is everyone in this city tainted?. Normally he would slay them all before their taint spread further, but he is determined to avoid arrousing suspition.
Then, he feels it. A faint negative source coming by a nearby ally. He jogs over and finds the area roped of with yellow tape. A quick slash with his katana and Talshi enters. The ally is laced with traces of negative activity and Talshi strokes the finger-sized crystal around his neck thoughtfully. He then leaves, his cape billowing out behind him.

OOC: Cyberutopia, feel free to RP the character though I think this thread has gotten big enough, but please understand as to where my character is coming from. You're not only a newcomer, but you've shown up uninvited at a city morgue where common visitors are usually not allowed in without proper clearance.


Before Brock could even agree to the plan, the shadowy figure suddenly appeared. The detective thought that the man spoke in that menacing tone a kingpin had once used to threaten him when he was getting too close for comfort...


"Ah, excuse me, I must have startled you all. Please, merely call me David." Something wasn't quite right with this guy. Well, not only was he breaking and entering (did Tooms let him in...?) but he could be booked for hampering their investigation.


"The hell you startled us...David. So what makes you think that I would even deputize some crazy looking China-man who, out of nowhere, pops up like Lo Pan and starts telling me that he's been spying on me?" Brock turned towards where the stairs are and calls out for the guard. "Guard! Get this guy out of here. Have the PD send down a black and white to book him for breaking and entering."


Nonchalantly, he turned back to Katrina as if nothing had even happened. "That's a good idea, but we're either going to have to do it without the department's knowledge...or...you could call up the brass and see if they green-light it. I'm not about to call up the ADA, either."

((I honestly thought you'd been paying better attention to this thread. I was the very first person to reply...yeah, I'm a newcomer, alright. :roll: Your second point is more valid, as I never directly said what David could do, so I suppose I will now. AmandaTheGreat already knows some of this, because I've RPed this character with her before, but some has changed since then.

David is the keeper of the World Chaos, which if you want a full explanation of, is back on the 3rd or so page. He has the ability to planeswalk, meaning he can literally teleport from place to place (so Tooms wouldn't know he was there) and affect the "soul" side of living creatures (not including undead or other "soulless" creatures). In addition, he can change his appearance at whim, and if you had been reading my posts, you'd see that he was back in his true form of a vampire. Furthermore, he also has the increased agility, strength, and enhanced senses that come with being a vampire, and therefore able to push your body beyond the premise of pain (considering you can't feel such).

I hope that clears some stuff up a bit. It's a mistake that I can see as understandable (though sort of a stretch) to ignore someone accidentally, but I was needless to say rather hurt to see that you'd totally bypassed every single one of the posts I'd made in this story (which was a good number, if you'll look through the thread), and that I was, in fact, the first to enter this story, not a newcomer by a long stretch.

*shrugs*

I can only hope it won't happen again. I'm sorry if my post displeased you, but I was bored of just having my character hang around observing passively, and this was a chance to interject my character. Though I suppose he wasn't exactly being as subtle as possible following your car, either.

If you're sick of the dark, mysterious characters that everyone seems to be entering with now, I can always just leave. It'll only mean eternal torture and regret for him, I guess.))

OOC: No, I'm not mad or anything. And by newcomer, I mean that your character hasn't actually interacted with any of us (well besides AmandaTheGreat's char), instead taking the route of the "watcher" for a bit.

((Alright, slight misunderstanding, I had thought you didn't see any of my posts. :oops: Seems I really don't know how to respond, what were you hoping for?))

OOC: Cyber you know that I like your posts and think you are a good writer. I can also understand why Ramadoon would be confused at your interaction. It is okay with me though, we need some of that dark energy to react with the light energy. Just keep what we are doing…this is developing very nice. I am glad I am working with all of you on this story.

IC: Katrina smiled at David, “Yes, I do remember you. I thought I told you to stop following me around like a lost puppy.”

She sighed, men would never change and she figured this one wouldn’t either. “I do not agree with you David. I go on the investigation or it does not happen. Don’t worry Brock I am higher up than you would assume me to be and this is cleared. Of course, I have already talked to the ADA and,” Katrina grins at him, “it seems that she was tough to influence, but she would allow it to be done under my orders.”

Katrina walked out the door. “Let’s meet elsewhere and get rid of pesky things.” She winked at David. Knowing that he would follow anyway.

Father Borski sighed and looked at Detective Brock. "This just gets more intresting." He muttered under his breath. "Now all we need is one of those crazed hunters to show up. The Order is just going to love this."

How perfect, Talshi thinks as he stares up at the morge, The demons are hiding in a dark castle full of dead bodies. He says a quick chant and the crystal around his neck glows blue. He has woven a Web of Unremarkability around himself. Now when people look at him their eyes pass over him, not seeing him as anything out of the ordinary. This effect will last as long as he doesn't do anything to call attention to himself, like talk or draw his sword. With grim determination, he walks into the morge, intent on figuring out what the perversions are up to...

Katrina smiled politely at the Father, "Hunters are the least of our worries."

OOC: Where is everyone? Okay, I am going with the idea of the stakeout again at the bar, but before that I am going to meet up with my sister.

IC: "Okay, let's break and get changed for tonight. Meet back at the station at six and we can discuss how we will drive to the stakeout tonight. Bye."

Katrina walked to her car and got in. She made her way home and undressed. She would shower and think more of her sister. How could she get to the bottom of this. She just couldn't do it by herself. She ended the shower quickly and wrapped the towel around her soaked body. She dialed a number on her cell-phone and then came the click.

"Hello."

"We knew you would call."

"Well, if you knew I would call. Why didn't you just call me?"

"Child, things are just not that easy."

"Yes, but you all make them harder."

"You can handle this challenge, no?"

"Of course I can, but you just give me a headache."

A raspy giggle. "You can find your sister in the park, but hurry she plans another kill tonight." Then another click and silence.

Katrina grumbled. Time to change. She slipped on a black miniskirt and white stilettos. She slipped over her head a small tube top. On her neck she placed a silver necklace and in her earlobes silver loops. She pulled back her hair and placed it in a black scarf. She glanced in the mirror. I look like her. She sighed. She put on a black jacket and grabbed her purse and was out the door shortly after.

She blared Linkin Park all the way to the park. She ran out and into a nearby some meadow and saw her sister sitting on a beach. Mercedes was wearing white pants and a fuschia pink tank top. Her hair was down and wind blown. "Where are you going, sissie, all dressed up?" She smiled and it sent chills up Katrina's back. "Were you in my closet? Cause those clothes are actually hot."

"I am going out tonight, I can also have a break from work." She looked down at her clothes, "I thought I would try something different. You going out tonight?"

"Might."

That means yes. "Where?"

"Don't know."

Yes, she did. Katrina was getting mad, but did not show it. "Well, maybe I will see you later."

Mercedes look bored and she glanced around. "Yeah. See ya." Mercedes raised her eyebrows as to tell her to leave.

As Katrina walked away she saw a young man sit down next to her sister. I knew she was waiting for someone. She won't do anything out her in public. I will wait for later. She heard a ring of her phone and she answered. The caller told her to go to the local bar known to have two for ones tonight. The bar was called Get Lucky. Katrina laughed how nice. She walked into the station and got several hoots and hools, but when people realized it was her they blushed and went back to work.

Now she would just wait for the others.

Talshi follows Katrina when she leaves the morge. When she gets into her car, he strengthens his Wave of Unremarkability and climbs into the back, carefully lieing behind the seat so he won't be seen in the rear-view mirror. His web would doesn't work on his reflection. Katrina gets out and Talshi waits. He is an assassin, not a peeping tom. She gets back in the and drives for a little while. When she gets out at the park, Talshi follows her. Then she speaks with someone who looks strikingly familar... It is quicky evident way the two women speak to eachother, not to mention the fact that they are identical, that these two are twins. Their auras both contain a taint of impurity.
Kill two perversions with one stroke, Talshi thinks. As he prepares to lunge, something stops him. He decides to wait, it will be more fun that way. As Katrina leaves, Talshi leans up against a tree, watching her sister.

Mercedes loved the way men came to her, too bad her sister did not enjoy the simple things in life. Oh they so were identical, but so different. This man was naive, like most and she was growing bored quickly. She swatted him away like a house fly and sat alone once more. She knew he was there, Talshi. She smiled, she loved to hunt, but being hunted was always more fun.

"You might as well come out right now and let me play some games also." Her tone was playful and yet had a hint of warning.

Father Borski nodded to Katrina as he also leaves then stops for a moment and murmurs out loud in Latin. “Agage Satanas.” Then walked away, he had people to meet before he returned to the station house. Walking to the street corner he catches a cab and goes to the Airport. Moments after arrival he was standing at a small runway as a small two engine plane landed and an group of priests disembarked from the plane carrying various bags and luggage and headed towards Father Borski.

Everyone in the group was either very young or very old, an outside viewer would notice a slight holy aura around each the group, for those who could sense such things, that is. Father Borski noted, the order had sent among the youngest and most inexperienced as well as some of the oldest members, some of the team members were older he was. What ever else the order had planned, it had to be big if this was all they could send.

Father Borski spoke to the group of priest. “Welcome brethren, you have arrived safely I see. Go to the church, I will meet you there later for introductions, one of my assistants will give you a brief of what has been happening so far before we meet again. I have other business first.” The other priests nodded and left as Father Borski returned to the cab which drove him to the police station.

After paying the cab driver he walked into the police station and half raised his eye brows at what Katrina was wearing. “Well I can see you are prepared for this stakeout of yours.”

Talshi laughted quietly. "In all my years as an assassin, no one has seen me coming. You must truly be strong." He cluckled again, but deep within a small spark of fear ignited. No one had ever seen him coming. How is she differnt?
You moron, she can probably read your mind! The voice that booms in his skull is not his own, but originates from the Pearl of the Spirit Dragon lodged in his left eye socket. I supose I'm gonna have to kill this one...
Talshi's face loses all expresion for a moment, then the pearl that serves as his left eye surges with positive energy. When Talshi speaks again, his voice has an eery quality to it, like it's not his own. And it isn't.
"You want to play games?" Talshi reaches into one of his pockets and draws a pair of thowing knives. "Catch." He charges them with positive energy and throws them at Mercedes.

Mercedes laughs. The swords stop an inch away from her and she glares her eyes and they melt before her. They drop to the groud sizzling. She stands up.

"I am too old for those games. I have moved on to adult games now." She walked up to him and touched his face, "Have you ever played Are You Nervous Yet?"

She continued and inched her mouth closer to his face, her lips so close she could feel the heat from his breath. She asked once more, "Are you nervous yet?"

Talshi takes a step back, out of Mercedes' reach, "You have the self-restraint of a drunken teenager on spring break." He remarks, still speaking in the eery voice that is not his own, "I have come to kill you, yet it seems you would suduce me. What are you to have such arrogence and such power?"

ooc: Anybody hoooome? Hello? Hello?
IC:
"Not so chatty anymore, are we?" Talshi awaits a responce, but gets none. "Well then, I will end you now." Talshi draws his katana, The Moonsinger. As his aura flows through it, white flames shoot along it's shining edges. Then, a strange sound begins to come from the blade, it sound all most like a courer. "Like it?" Talshi raises the blade, "This blade is crafted of a mystic alloy of dimond and silver. No demon can melt it. That sound is the Moonsong. I hope you like it, because it will be the last sound you ever hear!" With that, Talshi lunges forward, his blade arching down with the intension of cutting her from her right soulder to her left hip.

Mercedes laughed. She looked at the sword and and then to the sky. A dark cloud grew over them and lightening struck the sword and vibrated among the metal, rain began to pour down over the city.

On her face she wore a frown, "I am a female and I am pissed off." The corner of her mouths turned up and she said, "it would be nice for you to know I am not a demon, but so much more."

Lightening struck the sword one more time...


Meanwhile...

Katrina blushed at what the father said. She had no idea what to say. She was dressing more and more like her sister and she was getting scared by that thought. "Uh yeah. Where are the others?"

Father Borski sighed looking at Katrina. “I am not sure. Detective Brock is likely preparing for the under cover operation… I was meeting some people at the airport and directing them to my church… That strange agent I don’t know what he is doing… and that strange Vampire David will show up sooner or later I imagine wither we want him to or not…” He broke off several times during the conversation looking though a window. “That’s strange, it was just sunny a minute ago and it’s too early in the season for sudden thunderstorms and the weather conditions are not right for such storms. I am an priest not an wizard but I would say someone must be messing with the weather. This storm can't be natural.”

Talshi staggered from the park, reaking of burnt flesh.
Imortality hurts he thinks. It will take time for him to heal, but he will. He enters a small allyway where a bum has taken refuge.
"You don't look so good," The bum states, "Can I help you?"
"As a matter of fact..." Talshi's fingers clap onto the bum's temples. After a few moments the bum drops, dead. Talshi stands, fully healed, and mutters, "Sorry, but you mortals owe me." He then leaves, fully aware that, for the first time in his life as an assassin, he's gonna need some help.

Katrina followed hhis gaze and saw the storm clouds circling overhead. She sighed, if only her sister didn't draw so much attention, but why did she. She had just left her sister and already Mercedes was calling up the power of the earth. She just didn't understand. Someone must had pissed her off and Katrina smiled, she had to find that person. She wished the detective would hurry up because they were running short on time and before another kill.

Father Borski sighed, shaking his head then spoke again. "Who ever are doing that should be careful before they unleash something or things unpleasant into the city or attracting something really nasty into the city. If these killing don’t first that is. That is what happened on the last case like this I was on. We almost caught the killer but ended fighting something that had been attracted by the killings.” He slightly shuttered unwillingly as he though of some of the beings that could be attracted. He spoke again. “I just hope we can put an stop to this before anymore people die.”

Talshi thinks over his options:
If I go to the other assassins for help, I'll never hear the end of it Then Talshi remembers someone who might help: the friendly local law enforcement.
A few minutes later, a blond-haired man with vivid blue eyes walks into the polce station. A cop at the front desk asks:
"What are you here for?"
"I'm hear about the..." Talshi quickly dives into the cop's mind, "Bachlor Butcher Case."
"Isn't everyone," The cop muses, leading Talshi to the correct room.

OOC: OMFG, I am so sorry that I've been out on this hiatus for so long!!! I just came back from CA and barely had the time to sign onto the net to post :oops: . Extremely sorry for the delay, people...Will post to explain the cause of his lack of punctuality and Abel's disappearance.


An accident of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, as Brock would say about the crime scene vics when he kneeled over their lifeless forms to examine every inch for the most minute of details. He never expected that goddamn H2 to T-bone the passenger's side of his car at an intersection mere blocks from the station.


Must have been some careless prick who thought he could beat a red.


Regardless of how the hell such an occurence took place, all that Brock could remember was that he was sitting on a curb adjacent to the burning wreck without so much as a torn sleeve. Paramedics were trying to determine whether he was going into shock or not, shaking him, asking him his name...All to no reply. Brock finally blinked once, whereupon he looked blankly upon the man dressed in white.


"What the hell happened?"


"Buddy, you're lucky to be alive...The driver of that black Lincoln flew right through his windshield coz' he didn't have his belt on. Pretty much scraped the pavement with his face." The EMS techie clenched his jaws, realizing that he should be assuring a possible shock victim--not telling him the gory details of the crash.


"And Abel?"


"We don't know about your friend, but we'll do everything that we can, okay?" An absolute lie, of course. He got banged up beyond recognizable after he was plastered onto the grill of the SUV. "You're lucky to be alive though...We can't really explain it, but somehow the impact threw you out of the vehicle--without much injury mind you. How's your arm?"


The detective stared at his left arm, which was dotted with red spots of blood. "Feels like just a scrape." He rolled up his sleeves to discover that there were a few scrapes on his arm from which the blood had seeped out of.


"You'll live...We'll just clean it up and put bandages around it."


"By the way, I'm Detective Michael Brock from Precinct 47. I live in 25 Weatherby, a few miles...that way. And I'm not in shock--just...surprised that I made it."


-------


It took him a few hours to register that a fellow cop--well...not really a cop per se--had died on his watch. Though he never liked the idea of having been partnered with a fed, it didn't mean that he hated the man they sent. How had he been spared and not him?


Chance has a way of screwing people over, doesn't it?


He was in the safety of the station now, amidst astounded co-workers asking him what had happened. He never bothered to answer them, and they understood...It was tough on everyone to lose a partner on a job, no matter how long you knew him or her or under what circumstances. Brock shuffled over to the nearest terminal, looked up Katrina's personal file, and wrote down her cell number. Upon reaching his own desk, he plopped down into the chair and gave her a ring.


"Katrina..." It was the first time he had ever addressed her by her first name. "Is ev--Are you busy right now?"

Talshi walks into the room and his eyes lock on Katrina. It's that thing from the park! How'd she- Then he remembered, the thing had a sister. Talshi clears his throat loundly as he enters.
"Hello, I think I've found your butcher."

ooc: Is anyone gonna object if I bring in another character?

OOC: As long as you RP it within reasonable boundaries, why not?

The captian had just finished up telling Katrina about Brock and his accident when her phone sounded. She excused herself and answered. "Hello."

"Katrina..."

"Is ev--Are you busy right now?"

"No, we were waiting for you. I will come into your office."

She turned her head towards a new voice.

"Hello, I think I've found your butcher."

Katrina smiled. This gentleman may have found the butcher, but he wouldn't catch her. She motioned for a detective to question the man, while she walked over to Brock's office. She knocked on the door and went in.

Brock had tried to hide the papers he was looking at, but she saw and knew it was her profile. She narrowed her eyes slightly and then asked, "So, detective what can I do for you?"

Father Borski merely calmly and intently looked at the man claiming to have found Katrina's sister and noted sliently that he need to have an background check run on his man. He would rather know who this man was and wither he would an problem.

"Oh..." Wow...he didn't realize that Katrina had been inside the police station. Perhaps the accident still left him a bit dazed. "Yeah, the files. I was just looking for a way to reach you. You never did give me your number, on account of me being such an asshole since we met."


He paused to think, to rub his temples and wince slightly when he bent his arm. "So have you talked to--" Brock was interrupted by another man in blue who suddenly burst into the room.


"Detective, a word in private if you're not too busy? It's important." The other responded by leaving Katrina to her lonesome and shutting the door behind him. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but we finally got the VIN on that Lincoln after the reds put out the fire. Looks like it was Hutton's."


It didn't take long for the detective to crumple down to his knees and begin weeping; though he had portrayed her to be an ice cold bitch, deep down he knew it was his fault. He truly loved her, once, back when he was fresh on the force and she was still that intrepid hotshot lawyer. Though she made some sacrifices to spend more time with him by putting off her career (she opted not to take up a job in a New York firm for him once), he never returned the favor. Soon, his job took him over and not long after, the bottle.


If you had been there for her, she would be alive today. Oh that humdrum "it's all your fault" conscience again. He shoved it aside, wiped off his tears with the back of his hand and got up with the help of that hapless copper who had to watch a grown man weep.


Brock returned to where Katrina was, his eyes still puffy and red. But now was not the time to connect with her--they had a case to solve.


"As I was about to ask...Have you spoken to Mercedes yet?"

As Katrina leaves, the officer whom she instructed to interveiw Talshi grabs his sholder and guids him to an interigation room. As the officer gets ready to begin, Talshi smiles slightly and asks:
"Could I ask you a question before we begin?" The officer nods and Talshi leans forward, droping his left eye's disquise and allowing the crystal around his neck to become visable. "Do you belive in magic?"

He is here, I know he is. A tall man with a bandage wrapped around his eyes. The man is quite skinney and tall due to the abnormal length of his legs. His long arms dangle past his knees. He stands just beyond the city, breathing deep the sents in the air. Death is thick here, but not blood. When mortals killed one another there was always lots of blood involved, so these killings had to be supernatural. The sents, however, were not the thing that drew this particular being to this city. It was the faint strains of music he had hear before a freak lightning storm, The Moonsong.
Talshi is here, the being thinks as he enters the city. The time for my vengence is at hand.

Katrina noticed his red-rimmed eyes and said nothing about them. There would be another time for that, she paused, but would there? She shook her head as if one word could bring her out of this nightmare she lived from day to day.

Mercedes.

She had seen her, oh yes, but no ground had been covered.

She took a deep breath and her shoulders moved up and back down. She looked Brock in the eyes. "I have spoken to my sister and we are in the same spot as we were before." She paused as to contemplate something. "Well, no, now we have to deal with more." She took a step closer to Brock and leaned in a bit. Her voice softened considerably, "There are things you do not know about us, Brock. So many things you do not know about what the world has offered us, well, what nature has offered us and now we have another card to deal with. A man came in here knowing of my sister and he does not seem right with me." She looked outside through the shades of the window. "There is something that stirs nearby, something growing very impatient." She blinked her eyes and came back to Brock's. "We need to find my sister and we find the answer."

Katrina's eyes flickered down at his desk and saw where her hand was placed on. It was a GQ magazine and her hand was placed on the word magic. Yeah, the whole saying was 10 magic ways to spice up your love life, but her hand still found its way there. She looked up at Brock and saw that his eyes were on her hand and the words. She swallowed hard and laughed, "So, how is your love life, detective?"

Katrina noticed his red-rimmed eyes and said nothing about them. There would be another time for that, she paused, but would there? She shook her head as if one word could bring her out of this nightmare she lived from day to day.

Mercedes.

She had seen her, oh yes, but no ground had been covered.

She took a deep breath and her shoulders moved up and back down. She looked Brock in the eyes. "I have spoken to my sister and we are in the same spot as we were before." She paused as to contemplate something. "Well, no, now we have to deal with more." She took a step closer to Brock and leaned in a bit. Her voice softened considerably, "There are things you do not know about us, Brock. So many things you do not know about what the world has offered us, well, what nature has offered us and now we have another card to deal with. A man came in here knowing of my sister and he does not seem right with me." She looked outside through the shades of the window. "There is something that stirs nearby, something growing very impatient." She blinked her eyes and came back to Brock's. "We need to find my sister and we find the answer."

Katrina's eyes flickered down at his desk and saw where her hand was placed on. It was a GQ magazine and her hand was placed on the word magic. Yeah, the whole saying was 10 magic ways to spice up your love life, but her hand still found its way there. She looked up at Brock and saw that his eyes were on her hand and the words. She swallowed hard and laughed, "So, how is your love life, detective?"

Father Borski frowned as the man was taken away for interrogation. First the sister of the killer, then the strange vampire David, now this stranger, likely one of the fore mentioned crazed hunters he was sarcastic about earlier, things were getting out of hand. If this kept up he would have sent for more help than just from his order, he might have to send for some knights from one of the holy orders because he and his follow priests could do a lot and handle supernatural beings but there was some things they could only ward off and some things that only knights of the church could fight off, he was an priest he couldn’t fight off an physical attack after all. He sighed as he waited for detective Brock and Katrina to return. This was beganing to go beyond even his expectations for things unexpected.

Talshi steps out of the interigation room, once again looking perfectly normal, leaving a snozing officer behind him.
Useless. Talshi had rifled through the man's mind, finding nothing that matters. He walks back down the hall to the room he had first been lead to.
"Evening, Father," He says to the priest as he enters and sits down, as if he had every reason to be there.

I am getting hungry... The being walks down the streets of the city, people parting abselt-mindedly before him. To them he only apears to be an exeptionally tall man with a book-shaped bag over his shoulder and a cane. The being does, in fact, have a bag, but the "cane" is actually a thick quarter-staff. I could feast here... He looks around at the hundreds of people but soon shakes his head; he must not reveal himself that obviously. He must feed, however, so he walks into a small park. The sun sets as he spots his prey: a young couple making out on a bench.
"Excuse me," the being voice is a demonic hiss. The couple look up and scream, for they see the being true form. The sides of the being's mouth curl up in a fanged smile as he unwraps the bandage around his eyes. The being leaves the park several minutes later, his eyes rewraped, leaving behind two fully clothed stone statues.

ooc: "begining to go beyond even your expectations for things unexpected," eh? Nice :lol:.

Father Borski frowned, like he had said earlier, he wasn’t a wizard that didn’t mean he couldn’t sense certain things and as a priest further more a member of the order he belonged to, he had certain abilities that came with both. Something had happened out in the city, something most unholy had entered the city and something had happened, likely a demon. Great like there weren’t enough problems, at least this would likely get him some help from the church; half the priests in the city had to have felt it. He nodded to the man who entered and sat down. “Evening and who would and more imporantly what would you be?” He alrighty thought he had an idea but he would rather the figure was but would rather hear it from the persons own lips.

Talshi grins like a young child with a secret. "I'm gonna hold off on that info until your friend gets back." His eyes narrow as a stange but familer feling creeps up his spine. Something evil was in the area.

Father Borski merely stared into Talshi eyes for a moment like he was looking into Talshi’s very soul then murmured quietly. “That should be interesting.”

Tears welled up in his eyes when she asked her that question...He wanted to be mad at her for making such a blatantly insensitive remark, but she did not know of what the he had just been told. The tears were choked back, rolling down various channels to his nose, which he promptly wiped with a tissue from his desk.


"Not too good," was his only response to her joke about his reading habits. "You were saying something about your sister? I can have an APB put out so that we can get her here without much effort...That or we go hunt for her ourselves." Brock shuffled over to a locked closet that was almost as tall as he was and opened it up, revealing a stock of five shotguns and small boxes containing shells. Two were pulled out, with the other tossed at Katrina along with a box of slug-type ammunition. "Just in case if we encounter any...unforeseen trouble."


The detective still didn't believe in the supernatural even after the ominous warning that Katrina had given--to him, vampires, werewolves, magic...they remained to be the stuff of legend that only came true in the world of books. The shotguns...well, they were a precaution. If he was wrong about his own assumptions, he was better off coming prepared.


In the most horrible John Wayne impression (wo)man has ever heard, Brock belted out the command. "Alright, people. Saddle up cause we're goin huntin'."

She backed up a bit has the cold steel hit her hands and she caught them with ease. She looked back to Brock. This man has no idea what he is getting himself into. She set the guns down on his desk.

She looked at him with a face that showed sympathy and comfort and then it quickly went back to her normal cold gaze.

"Brock what we are dealing with guns will not help us." She pulled out a long duffle bag and pulled out several weapons. A wooden sword incased in a steel case that could also be a weapon. Another was a long katana that curved to two sharp points. She did carry one small pistal, but the barrel was wider than most. She popped it open and showed him the bullet casings, which contained a silver liquid.

She smiled at him, "Yes, detective these are all registered."

She slide the gun into a belt holder and on the other side the sword and on her backside went the katana. She slipped a long black leather trench coat over her body. She smiled once more, but this was more vicious and animal like, she looked more like her sister...

"It is time to hunt."

"Indeed it is," Talshi, attracted by the horrible John Wayne impression, enters the room. His ilusionary disquies falls away, and he sticks out his hand to Brock. Then he turns to Katrina. "I need to know exactly what you and you sister are. She struck me with bloody lightnig!" He pauses before adding, "Twice!"

Father Borski walked in behind Talshi having following him. In Borski’s left hand was a short black staff bound with silver that could be easily hidden in the priest’s habit and easily wielded with one hand like what he was doing. "Katrina could explain some things, or at least what she can, but then so do you need to explain things. None of us have seen you before you entered the police station today and you yet to even give your name."

"Forgive me, father, I got a little a head of myself. I am Talshi the Omnipotent." He looks at the group. "Never heard of me? The Omnipotents are a group of highly skilled imortal warriors who work for the Sacred Moon and slay the impurirties that plague humankind." Talshi turns back to Katrina. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to deal with your sister before something else tracks me into this city."

The gangly being has looked hard for Talshi, but to no avail. The being reaches into his bag and pulls out a thick black book. It's cover is coved in stains of human blood and golden embroidery. The being opens the book and speaks a single word from its pages.

Talsh shuders. His false left eye has senced a great dark energy. He looks around at the group.
"Tell me I'm the only one who felt that."

Father Borski shook his head with a grave look on his face. “I am afraid not, every priest in the city had to have felt that, I am guessing it would have to do with the unholy presence that entered the city earlier that me and likely half the priests and other clerics in the city felt entering.”

"Okay, okay...let me get this straight." Brock was still reluctant to believe in all this magical hoopla that was being presented to him, most blatantly by Talshi--a man who just appeared out of nowhere. "You," he points to Katrina with the butt of his shotgun, "don't want a fistful of boomstick to carry around so that we can catch a dangerous criminal."


His gun sways towards Talshi. "And you...you're some sort of 'supernatural' being who managed to survive being struck by thunder...by who? And that book? Looks like crusted human blood to me."


Finally, his last victim for the rather curt Inquisition. "And father...what's this about...about...unholy presence? Will somebody PLEASE explain to me what the hell is going on!" With that, the detective, taught for years scientifically and believe that there is a rational explanation for every murder, every crime, every dastardly deed, finally gave up and plopped down on his chair with the shotgun resting on his lap.

His gun sways towards Talshi. "And you...you're some sort of 'supernatural' being who managed to survive being struck by thunder...by who? And that book? Looks like crusted human blood to me."
ooc: My bad. Talshi dosen't have the book, the other character whoser turning people into stone has the book
IC:
"Well, when you put it that way it sounds crazy," Talshi chuckles. "Her sister, AKA the person you guys are after, stuck me with lightning. Twice, I might add. I survived because I can heal." He nods tword the shotgun barrel pointed at him, his hand straying to his katana, "Now if you wouldn't mind pointing that thing elsewhere..."

Katrina did not trust this newcommer.

"How were you able to realize Mercedes was my twin and I wasn't her. People never know unless I point out the differences. The real only way is if she told you, which I doubt, or you know us. Well, I know I don't know you and from what I gather she doesn't know you. So, I suggest you start to spill your beans now, or I will enjoy doing it myself." She would not take some pompous male comming in on a investigation like this and she had no idea who this fellow was, but she would call someone soon and find out. He, obviously had some idea of what they were.

She smiled at the fact he was struck twice. Served the bastard, but maybe he could be of some use to her. Bait?

OOC:Hmm what happened to everyone?

.-tag-. Im on the fourth page atm. I'll join in when I've read em all, wich would be on monday.

I'm here, but I thought my story was lost in the net...heehee...let's get this thing rolling again...I want to end this or start another one with the character Katrina or Mercedes....haven't decided yet....

OOC: Start anotherone, make my life so mutch more easier :P