The Murder waves a hand and the flying skulls race towards Jenne. With a smirk, the private detective jumps away and slashes with her scythe, sending a gust of wind so strong that the flying skulls are pushed back and crash into the ground, shattering into pieces. The Murder shrieks in rage, jumping after Jenne. His prey whirls around and gives a swift kick to the small of his back. He falls to the ground and harshly rolls away as Jenne slams her scythe blade into the spot he was previously at.
“You can’t hide yourself from anyone anymore,” Jenne said as she pulls her scythe out of the ground, “You can’t turn back to your human form without my help. If any part of you seek forgiveness-“
The Damned roars and tries to attack Jenne with his talons, who steps out of the way and watches him tumble onto the ground. She sighs.
“The hard way, then.”
The eye sockets on the skull glow a mix of gold and red before she stabs the Murder in the back as he tries to stand. The Damned shrieks as coldness spreads through him from the scythe blade, a dark and shadowy mist seeping into the scythe. The Murder gurgles and pants slowly, his skin becoming pale and slightly tanned colored. His body slowly reverts back to his human form, his head and neck regenerating slow enough for one to see the development of the brain, eyes, and tongue before being hidden by the skull and skin. The last of the mist is swallowed by the scythe and Jenne pulls the blade slowly out, Danny falling onto his bare stomach. Jenne’s own body is enshrouded by ember-like flames that quickly vanished just as they came. She is back to her human form, covered only in her trench coat. Dan slowly turns onto his back to look at her, the private detective not bothering to button up her trench coat to hide her modesty.
“What... are you,” he utters, sounding very tired.
“A Half Breed,” Jenne answers as the mist appears as a ball in her hands, “One blessed or cursed by the Ancients to hunt down the damned, and collect the Ash that is the remains of their soul, and the source of their power. Luckily, you have some embers of goodness left in you, so your soul might recover. Your life has been shortened by much, so you may want to take what time you got left to redeem yourself before it runs out.”
“And if not? I’ll go to Hell? Already been there, demon! My mom blames me for you inability to have more kids, my dad’s a drunk, and I have been beaten more times than I can count. Only she had made sense as to my God gave me such a cruel fate.”
“God doesn’t play favorites like most stories have your mortals believing. We all roll the dice when we are reborn. Some are lucky, others aren’t.”
“Are you saying God does nothing then?!”
“He does something, but you wouldn’t understand. Not right now. Get redeemed in a few lifetimes and you’ll see.”
“Wait,” Danny calls as Jenne turns and walks away. The sound of cars stopping behind him makes him turn around to see police cars right behind him. He turns back to see... gone? Who’s gone? Was someone supposed to be here?
The police officers are getting out of their cars now. He has to run, but he feels so tired and his legs won’t do what his brain is telling them to do. Also... where are his clothes?
“Freeze,” the police officers yell, guns pointed at him, “Hands above your head!”
Danny has no choice but to comply. The game is over.
* * * *
Dawn is starting to light the sky with the colors of blue, gold, and orange. Jamerson General Hospital is starting to become more active as the night shift crew wearily wait for their shifts to end and they can leave while the day crew begins to arrive and receive updates on the patients they will be responsible for. The once empty waiting rooms begin to fill up with new arrivals for the day as current patients awaken for checkups and breakfast.
Ellisaüch sits in a room beside John and Richard, both young men sleeping soundly despite the beeping of the heart monitors. The doctors have checked them both and, other than being lethargic, they suffer no permanent damage. The doctors are keeping them overnight for observation, recommending a few days’ rest at home from school to be on the safe side. Tom and Samaria are still being examined, and the secretary is still waiting for the results. For them to take this long... they might not be so fortunate as their son.
“At least this time you remembered to bring clothes,” Ellisaüch suddenly said, turning her eyes to the open window. Sitting on the ledge is Jenne Cordovo, wearing a t shirt and pants under her trench coat.
"I made a quick stop at the apartment,” Jenne replies, “Although, I will be needing to restock my clothes for the future. These Damned don’t understand how much of a drain on my wallet clothes are when I have to change form.”
“Then it wouldn’t be so easy to catch them. I’ve been hearing that the police caught him.”
“Yep. All naked and confused by his surroundings. The norm for when they turn back to their human forms.”
“Oh good. I was certain that you would’ve killed him for trying to kill John. That wouldn’t have looked good on your reputation.”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t. There are better ways to punish someone than to kill. I’m not going to give him a free pass into Heaven.”
“Whatever. The Ash.”
Jenne lifts a hand and the ball of shadowy mist flies into Ellisaüch’s hand, who inspects it with great interest before looking at the private detective with a look.
“This is all?”
“Take a closer look.”
The young secretary inspects the ball once again, her eyes widening a moment later.
“What the hell?”
“Exactly. Our prey is a newbie Damned, and didn’t measured up to our expectations. The Ash isn’t pure either, which means...”
“We got a Carrier running around here. How did you miss a Carrier in your territory?”
“You mean how did you miss a Carrier in my territory? You’re the eyes around here.”
“Regardless,” Ellisaüch waves a hand and the ball vanishes, “The serial killer has been taken care of and the town can rest easily while we finish the job.”
“I don’t think so,” Jenne suddenly said, “The Damned was crazy and claimed to have killed seven families, but his sins don’t add up.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more than one out there.”
* * * *
“Let me go,” a young woman screams as two police officers put her in a police car, “Those fools need to be taught a lesson!”
“Save it for the judge,” one police officer states, his partner handcuffing her, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you don’t have one, one will be appointed to you. Any questions?”
“Blow me dickwad,” the young woman spits, “My father will have your badge for touching me!”
“Antoinette May,” Raiden reads off a driver’s license, “Age: twenty-three. Studying nursing at Jamerson College, and working as an intern at Jamerson General Hospital.”
“Same m.o. as our dear friend heading back to the station,” a police officer adds, “Who knows how many of these serial killers are on the loose?”
“And it doesn’t help that our dear little Antoinette is the daughter of James May, one of the top district attorney in the city. He’ll most likely get her out within the hour.”
“But that’s our least concern right now. Have everyone spread out. Check all nearby colleges and do a head count of all students taking medical and doctoral classes. Anyone missing, make a list and search for them A.S.A.P.”
“Yes sir.”
The police officers leave and Raiden enters the police car Antoinette had been placed in. The young medical student growls at him, but the police detective ignores it.
“You’re lucky I came across you in time,” he said, “Your friend heading to the station, not so lucky. He lost a good fifty years of his life for his sins. That fate could’ve been yours as well.”
>
“You don’t scare me,” Antoinette states, “My father will have me out of this in no time, and I will be back for the Inglesias.”
“You really think so? Tell me, what had the Inglesias ever do to you or your family? What warrants such violence to them?”
“They spit on God’s gift of creation,” she declares in a matter-of-fact voice, “They only had one child when they should’ve had more. They can afford to have more, but they don’t. That bitch wastes her eggs and rather have her son be all alone instead of giving him brothers and sisters to play with.”
“Some people choose not to have more than one for different reasons,” Raiden informs, “There’s nothing wrong with that, as there are too many children being born and cast aside because of their parents’ selfishness. Adoption is expensive, because the orphanages are full of these children that don’t know why they had to be born into such hardships.”
“So they should risk their bloodlines on only one child, is that it? At least the orphans can be proud to know that their existence means that their family bloodlines will live through them.”
“One would think such thoughts to be madness, but...”
Raiden raises a hand and Antoinette gasps. Tiny dark shards of energy decorate her skin before flying towards the police detective’s hand, forming into a dark sphere. The young woman slumps into her seat once the last of the shards leaves her body, appearing asleep.
“Contaminants,” Raiden sighs as he looks the orb over, “Her soul hasn’t shattered yet. Still... this isn’t over yet. I have to speak to Lilia.”
With that, he turns on the police car and heads out. Antoinette will wake up shortly, hopefully saner than before and realizes her errors. He did not want to explain to her father that a Carrier had infected her, not that he could anyway. Trying to make up an excuse would be hard if she wakes up and wants to keep killing single child families.
This case is such a headache.
* * * *
“So, we’re back to Square One,” Ellisaüch concludes as she leans back in her chair, “We have a Carrier infecting medical students and the most likely reason is to create an army of the Damned to do who-knows-what.”
“Carriers don’t usually go political like that,” Jenne points out, “Not ones I had tangled with. As high-level Damned, they infect and move on. That’s all.”
Two days have passed since Danny had been arrested alongside whom the police believed to be his partner, although both young adults have sworn that they had never seen each other before in their lives. John and Richard were back in school with a clean bill of health, catching up on the work they had missed. Tom and Samaria, on the other hand, had to stay a day later to be treated for light barbiturates intoxication. The police had taken their statements and kept their names from the media. Jenne is grateful for small favors, for she is never good at dealing with those cockroaches. She had punched one in the past for stuffing a microphone in her face after being told several times she would not comment on a case and the reporter gave her a nasty comment. Some reporters take the “Freedom of the Press” right too literally.
“For a Carrier to avoid my Sight,” Ellisaüch said aloud in thought, “He must still be in human form.”
“And has connections with the medical field. Clever. Choose a career path larger than most careers. The fact that Danny is not from any college here will make this even more difficult to track it him down.”
“Perhaps what you need is assistance from an outside source.”
Both young women turn to see Richard entering the office, John following behind him and looking guilty.
“I’m sorry Jenne,” he begins.
“It’s okay John,” Jenne cuts him off, “I’ve been waiting for him to say something ever since our first meeting.”
“You knew,” Richard exclaims.
“Of course. Humans with the Third Sight are rare in this day and age, but they are still being born. You can even sense others like yourselves, but I guess you’ve never met others with the Third Sight before, so you didn’t know.”
Both young men look at each other, memories of their first meeting at school flashing before their eyes. That lightning feeling... the moment their eyes met...
“I can see pass the glamour they wear,” John confesses, “My contacts help me block my gift and keep me from going mad. Some of them are... not very pretty.”
“The Third Sight varies between humans. Sight, hearing, smell. Even touch can allow one to tell the difference between humans and nonhumans. A final gift from Eden.”
“And what you both are...” Richard draws, suspicious.
“A Half Breed,” Jenne replies simply, “You may want to sit down to hear this. I cannot give you everything, but I will tell you what I can.”
“And why can’t you tell me everything,” Richard demands.
“Because we’re not allowed to,” Ellisaüch points out after a brief pause, “Higher powers you cannot fully understand prevent us from doing so, so just take what we can give and stop being so greedy.”
“I-“
“It’s pointless to argue with her,” John interrupts, “She’s on a higher level than any Half Breed or anything I ever met. Believe me. I tried.”
“Many times,” the young secretary adds with a smirk, both young men sitting down in front of Jenne’s desk.
“As you know,” Jenne begins, “There are three levels of the afterlife: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. Heaven belongs to the angels and the souls of purest light. Hell to the demons and the souls of the blackest shadow. Purgatory is neutral ground, where souls of neither side go to and wait for judgment. How long depends on the circumstances surrounding the soul.
“Years of war tore at all the realms, threatening to destroy everything. It was decided that a truce would be made, and all would stay where they belong. The truce is to remain in effect until the time of the apocalypse, and that date is only known by the higher ups and no other.
“The wars, however, left a black mark on the living world. The Damned. Born from the shattering of mortal souls after committing certain sins for a long time, these creatures seek to infect others and spread their sins to others, making them Damned as well. It’s similar to a plague of viruses. Once a Damned has changed form, they can almost never go back to being a normal mortal and they die after several months of the change. The shattered remains of a soul cannot be made whole again, and the former personality of the mortal is lost. In other words, they cease to exist.
“None know how the Damned came to be, and that they only appeared among the mortals. The angels and demons can’t come to the mortal world to fight them, but they found a loophole in the truce: the souls of the dead.”
“The souls?”
“Angels and demons can’t have offspring. They are mainly created by a magical means, but that means and resources are very limited. The continual use of such would be short-lived. The ancient ones found that by forming a bond with a mortal soul, they can turn a mortal into a Half-Breed.”
“Beings of both and neither species,” Ellisaüch continues, “Half Breeds are able to exist between the mortal world and the afterlife. However, they cannot be reborn as humans ever again. Once they die, their souls head to their respective place for eternity.”
“We abide by the truce and lay no harm to Half Breeds of the other side unless provoke,” Jenne explains “We can only remain in the mortal world to fight the Damned. Any other time, we are back where we belong.”
“And you belong in Hell,” Richard assumes, “am I right?”
“Yep,” the private detective confirms, appearing not to be phased at all by Richard’s reaction.
“I won’t let you corrupt John and steal his soul,” he yells, jumping from his seat in outrage.
“Stop it Richard,” John yells.
“Don’t be-“
“She saved my life!”
“What,” Richard looks at him in disbelief.
“It is against the ru
les for any Half Breed to manipulate mortals to either side,” Ellisaüch explains, “At the time the one that would’ve killed John just happened to be Jenne’s target and would’ve infected him to become a Damned. She took John in and pretends to be his sister to keep Social Services away from him.”
“I never did trust those idiots,” Jenne snorts, “Regardless of your prejudicial views of my demon blood, I do care for John. I do wish at times we were blood related, as he is a good kid and I would’ve been honored to be his relative. However, I am also glad he isn’t, for then he would’ve been bound to Hell like I am.
“Anyway, we have work to do. We have to catch the Carrier before anymore mortals become infected and change into the Damned.”
“The Carrier?”
“A high-level Damned that has yet to shatter their human form. They infect other mortals with the bits and pieces of their soul called Ash and change them slowly into the Damned, enabling them to maintain their human forms. That serial killer, Danny, was such a victim.”
“So,” John thinks aloud, “He will go back to being a normal mortal soon, thanks to you freeing him from the tainted remains. Well he remember anything?”
“Some parts of course, but not all of it. For the infection to take full effect, one must have either committed the same type of sin that the Carrier had or had harbored a deep desire to commit said sin. Otherwise, the infection takes no effect. The infection can stay in the mortal body indefinitely, so it can take effect anytime when the conditions are met.”
“Unless it’s a child they are infecting,” Ellisaüch corrects, “Children are quite vulnerable to corruption due to their innocent nature, their inability to fully understand things to their fullest and to set limits for self-preservation. Children abused or rape will many times think it to be the norm and act as their captors, never knowing better.”
“So what’s the next move,” Richard asked angrily, “We can’t allow this... Carrier to keep making more serial killers.”
Hell's Detective: Murder Page 15
