The Avenged Detective Agency

“I thought you’d have somehow made an elaborate excuse to get out of doing that report on the Skin walker, guess I’m off my game.” A voice called from behind the darkness just outside the door frame.

Brian snorted, and threw the pen onto the desk with force. He kicked his boot on the side of the desk, and flamboyantly turned his fancy office chair towards the door. He crossed his inked arms and raised a very annoyed eyebrow. He could see Zacky’s eyes, they reflected the light coming from the mediocre desk lamp he had. A dead giveaway.

“I don’t know why you bother to try and hide, your eyes are a bit obvious.” Brian deadpanned, earning a slight chuckle from Zacky.

Zacky moved into the room quietly, taking the snarky response as an invitation, and sat down on the end of Brian’s bed. He looked around, his nose wrinkling in disgust at the smell of unwashed clothes and dust. He also sighed when he looked under the window ledge to find Jimmy’s missing watch.

“And besides, I actually enjoyed this case. Maybe I want to actually write about it. Don’t worry, I’ve given you a mention or two, my favourite part so far is when I describe the chaos that was caused by you not paying attention to what you were doing, and consequently being staked in the chest.” Brian smirked, knowing he’d have ticked him off.

“Yeah? Well make sure you mention the part where all of you were too stupid to remember anything about vampire lore, and thought I’d actually died. I did mention it a few times beforehand.” Zacky’s temper was rising slightly, he clenched his fists on the covers of the bed.

“Details, details.” Brian waved it off and turned his chair back round, getting back to writing. He’d lost this one.

Zacky sniggered, before standing up from the bed, he kicked away some of the discarded clothing as he made his way back out of the room he stopped a few steps before the door, and turned around, giving the room one last survey.

“You really need to tidy up, it smells like something died in here.” He shook his head before striding out of the room.

“Yeah, FUCK YOU, TOO.” Brian shouted back. Before muttering ‘vampires’ under his breath in absolute disgust, and angrily writing down words on the sheet.

--

Johnny was woken from his afternoon nap by alarming noises coming from the room across the hall from his. There was muffled shouting and something he knows to be the sound of books hitting the door and falling the floor.

He angrily pushed the covers away from his body and stomped across his room, opened the door harshly, and stepped forward to bang on the closed door with both of his fists.

The shouting stopped, and he heard feet moving towards to door, it opened slowly to reveal Matt, red faced with anger. Johnny quickly deduced he was the one shouting.

“WHAT?” He snapped, Johnny saw movement in the back of the room.

“If you two insist on shouting at each other, then could you at least have the decency to DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE?” Johnny practically screamed back. He took a deep breath the calm himself.

When there was no response from either Matt or Jimmy, he pushed his way into the room, knocking Matt into the small table beside the door. When he stepped into the room, it looked as if a bomb had gone off.

No, literally.

There were books tossed around the room and many smashed jars and bottles dotting the floor. Colourful powders and a myriad of leaves and concoctions were spilled across the meagre rug, some of them were even glowing. Jimmy’s floor also had a burn pattern on it, from what Johnny presumed was an experiment gone wrong.

“What the hell happened in here?” Johnny asked, he was not alert enough for this.

Matt answered. “Jimmy tried to make an elixir that would turn him into Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.” He turned to glare at Jimmy, whose response was to pull a disgusted face.

“There should be ‘Captain’ in there, wolf boy.”

Both of them turned to Jimmy and gave them an unimpressed look.

“Okay first off, this can be fixed easily, and second, why the hell are you trying to turn yourself in to Jack- I mean, Captain Jack Sparrow?” Johnny asked, shaking his head and throwing his hands up.

“I was bored, we haven’t had a case in weeks. Thought it would be funny.” Jimmy shrugged his shoulders, not daring to make eye contact with either of the men.

“That has to be the worst excuse you have ever fucking come up with.” Matt sneered.

“Shut up! You’re acting like 5 year olds, it’s annoying.” Johnny injected, before another argument was started.

“Okay, Jimmy, please don’t try to do that ever again, and clean this up pronto. Matt, go for a run, calm down or something, it’ll be fixed by the time you get back, and the room will be spotless, won’t it?” He turned to glare at Jimmy, who crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling in annoyance.

Matt looked at both of them, before scowling and muttering ‘fine’. He quickly exited the room, only for Jimmy to flip him off with both hands and mouth ‘fuck you, sparky’.

--
After a few hours, the house returned to normal, and everyone had cooled off. Matt had attempted to make something half decent for dinner, as an apology for taking his anger out on Jimmy. But he’s awful at cooking, so Brian took over and made soup with just the right amount of spice, a perfect autumn treat.

They were all gathered round the dining room table, everyone eating in silence. Well, everyone except Zacky, who was nursing a glass of AB blood from the hospital blood bank. Matt’s cell phone starting buzzing on the table, he looked at the screen quickly.

“It’s Scott McCoy from HPD.” Matt announced, before quickly taking the phone and answering as he walked off into the next room.

Jimmy immediately starting mock praying, “Please god, give us an interesting case or I will burn down a forest.” He said quietly.

Brian laughed, but Johnny smacked him in the shoulder. “That’s not even funny, Jimbo, global warming is a serious issue!”

“I thought it was pretty funny.” Brian said, reaching for his glass.

“You would, you’re an asshole.” Zacky retorted, before taking another drink from his own glass.

“Maybe, but you love it.” Brian winked at him, Zacky looked revolted.

“God, you make me want to throw up.”

Before Brian could make a snarky comment, Matt walked back in, he looked somewhat pleased after the talk.

“We have a case! Some jogger found a dead body in the city park, they need us to go to the scene now because they want to clean it up and open the park again. Scott said it required our specific expertise.” He nodded to them all as a hint to get ready, before moving his bowl to the counter top and grabbing his car keys and jacket.

He soon noticed that Johnny wasn’t getting ready like the rest of them. “What’s wrong?” he asked, moving over to him.

“I think you’re going to have to go without me, I don’t feel so good.” Johnny said, looking at the floor.
Now that he’d mentioned it, Matt noticed he had gained some colour to his cheeks and that a light sheen of sweat was forming on his forehead. He moved to put the back of his palm on Johnny’s forehead, only to confirm his suspicions. He had a fever.

“You’re burning up a bit, I think you’re coming down with something. Zacky, you stay with him, I don’t want him left alone.” Matt turned to find his keys, which he had misplaced.

“No, don’t, there’s no need, I’ll be fine on my own.” Johnny tried to wave it off.

“Why do I have to stay? Why can’t Brian look after him? He never contributes anything to the investigation.” Zacky said.

“I give you the privilege of seeing my gorgeous face.” Brian purred, smirking slightly. Zacky walked away.

“Stop being such an ass, Junior.” Jimmy snapped, flicking Brian’s forehead as he walked past. “And remember your gosh darn contacts this time, I don’t want to do another memory wipe on some police officer who saw your eyes, they make me sneeze.”

--

When they arrived at the scene, they found that a small blue tent has been placed over the body, and that a perimeter had been cordoned off from the public.

Matt sniffed the air quickly before crossing the bright yellow tape. He could smell the body beginning to decompose, also a number of pesticides and chemical enhancers for all the plants, and a very distinct smell of baking soda and salt.

The detective who called them, Scott McCoy, was already waiting for them on the other side of the tape. A cluster of police officers surrounded him as he listed off things for them to do, none of them could leave the crime scene until all the evidence has been processed. One of them had been given the uncomfortable job of talking to the lady who was jogging past when she found the mutilated body. When detective McCoy noticed them all, dressed in appropriate clothing, he called them over.

He gave them some notes of what the witness noticed first, and the timeline of events. “The lady over there says she jogged past at some point around 6:30pm, she called the police pretty much straight away. There was no one else in the area but her. We’ve also had a talk with the parks gardeners, who have just treated the grass throughout the park, they finished up at around 3 in the afternoon. So the killer had to have moved the body at some point between those times.”

“How come you know it was moved?” Jimmy asked.

The detective snorted. “If you’ve seen the body, you’d know it was moved. I hope you guys hadn’t just eaten before you got here, it’s gory as hell.”

“Hell ain’t that gory, sunshine.” Brian muttered to himself, Matt heard him, but the detective didn’t.
“I’ll go talk to the coroner.” Jimmy announced, before striding away to the blue tent.

The closer he got, the stronger the smell became. Jimmy has smelled dead bodies before, he had gone to college to become a nurse. You never really get used to the smell of decomposition.
He walked past the police officer standing guard outside, flashing his identification quickly and making his way into the tent.

oh, golly. he thought.

Well he can certainly say the detective was not lying. The victim’s chest cavity has been completely open, exposing numerous internal organs, some of the intestines were hanging out. The skin was discoloured, showing signs of putrefaction. His throat was slit and dried blood covered his skin on his neck, giving it an unnatural maroon tint.

Jimmy greeted Doctor Singh, before kneeling down next to the victim to get a closer look.

“We’re thinking he’s been dead for at least 4 days. His veins have started to show up on his skin. We’re also assuming that a knife didn’t do this, the cuts are too rough, probably something more blunt. Also, there is something most peculiar about this young gentleman, that you may be interested in.” The doctor said, he scribbled down some notes on a clipboard, before looking up at Jimmy again.

“What is it?” Jimmy asked curiously.

The doctor knelt down once more, his latex gloved hand pointed at the skin of the victim. “Can you see these? There are small markings carved into the torso, right across his breastbone. I have never seen anything like it before. Also, even more worrying, is that this young gentleman is missing his liver, it’s been pulled out.”

“His liver? It could be cannibalism?” Jimmy mused.

“They wouldn’t have just taken his liver though surely, and they wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble just to take one organ, no, I’ve seen victims of cannibalism, doesn’t seem right.”

“Fair enough. Can I get some pictures of the markings there? I need to cross reference them with my books, see if they actually mean anything.” The doctor nodded, and Jimmy pulled out a digital camera and started taking pictures.

Brian had been wandering around the crime scene for a few minutes, Matt had pretty much ordered him to look for the ghost of the victim, which was proving rather difficult, seeing as though the victim had been killed elsewhere and had been moved to the park. He was hoping that the victim had seen his body being moved and followed it.

“Hey! Can anyone see me? HEY I’M TALKING TO YOU!” someone was screeching, Brian turned quickly to find the apparition of the victim trying to follow around police officers and get their attention.

Brian moved closer towards the ghost, trying to catch his attention. Once he has noticed him, and that Brian was making direct eye contact with him, he ran over. Brian walked slowly to the edge of the perimeter into a secluded section of the park. He turned his back towards the investigation, and the apparition moved to stand in front of him.

“You can see me, can’t you?” The young man spoke, his voice had a hint of worry. His eyes were glazy and he was deathly pale.

“I can. They can’t.” He replied quietly, not moving his eyes away.

“Am I a ghost?” he asked, his eyebrows were raised.

“Yeah, sorry.” Brian said, giving him an apologetic smile.

“Shit happens. I thought you were supposed to go into some white light and move on to the other side when you died?”

“You were murdered, you can’t move on until your death has been resolved. That’s why I’m here, I’m supposed to find your killer, that’s why I need you to tell me everything you remember before you died.”

The ghost sighed, and scratched his head, after a few seconds he started tapping his foot. “The guy who iced me, he was foreign, his English was all broken and his sentences were not constructed properly. If I had to bet where he was from, I’d say North Africa. I’ve been there to write an article for a magazine, and the accent sounded familiar.”

The ghost furrowed his eyebrows and thought some more, before sitting down on the grass. Brian stayed stood up, not wanting to look strange in front of the CSI’s.

“He was tanned, well, I only saw his arms. His face was all covered up, wearing a mask or something. Big black wolf mask. He punched me first, right here on the cheekbone, it hurt like a bitch. Then he went for my throat, tried to cut it or something, but I’ve taken some self-defence classes in my time and I threw him off me. It was definitely a guy, by the way, he was wearing some fancy cologne or something. Well, even after all the fighting he slit my throat, which was painful. Anyways, after I’d kicked the bucket I saw him take out some weird pocket knife looking thing, he started writing into my skin, weird symbols. Then he did the- the, you know. Opened me up and stuff. I had to turn away. I don’t even know how long it’s been, but he moved me when the sun was up, dumped me right next to that tree.”

Brian glanced over to where the blue tent was set up, and nodded to the ghost guy. “Anything else?”

“He smelled weird, like old and dusty, and like he hadn’t bathed in days, probably wearing the cologne to cover it up. Yuck. Oh! He was short, like 5’5”, 5’6”? He was fast though.” He nodded.

Brian gave him one last smile and went to turn away, “Wait! What do I do now?” the ghost asked.

“You wait here, don’t move from this park. When we find out what happened to you, your door will come. Walk through the door, and you’ll be free.”

“What’s on the other side?”

Brian opened his mouth to answer, but closed it quickly. If he was in the ghost boy’s position, he’d like to be told that the other side is a beautiful place with light full of happiness and serenity. But he’d only seen the side that came about when you’d done wrong, and that certainly wouldn't convince him to go through the door.

“I don’t know. Good things I presume.” He lied.

“Okay. But before you go, tell me how come you can see me and they all can’t?” the ghost boy raised his pale arm and gestured to the groups of navy clad police officers in the area. “Are you a psychic?”

“I’m not a psychic, I’m something else.” He threw a very evil smile towards the ghost boy, before sauntering away and leaving him on his own.

--

When the CSI’s finished up processing and logging evidence, they cleared the guys to leave. After a silent car journey, they soon reached home, to find Zacky pacing around the kitchen and Johnny tucked up on the couch.

When he heard them walk in, Zacky rushed over to them. “He’s thrown up like, 3 times whilst you were gone, and he’s running a high fever. I think he needs to go to the doctors.” He looked at them all with a worried expression.

“If he’s sick again, we’ll take him to the clinic. But before we do that we need to consolidate all the information we gathered.” Matt retorted, before taking a seat around the dining table.

The others followed suit, all of them sitting down, except for Johnny, who seemed completely oblivious to them all, and carried on watching reruns of courage the cowardly dog of cartoon network.

“What did you all find?” Zacky asked.

Jimmy pulled out his digital camera from his pocket, and quickly found the correct pictures. He showed them all the wounds the victim had received, mentioning the fact that his liver was missing. He also gave them some other details, before zooming in on the pictures of symbols.

“These were cut into his skin, after he’d died. I can’t remember what they are right now, but I’m going to look through my books next. They were in a line right between his shoulders and breastbone. The coroner thinks they were done with a scalpel.” They all looked at the symbols, before passing the camera back.

“Well that corroborates with what the victim said. He saw the guy cutting them in. He also gave me a good description of what he looked like, short, tanned, smelled bad, and he was wearing a black dog mask. Also that he was foreign, bad English.” Brian added.

“When we arrived at the crime scene I could definitely smell baking soda and salt. It was really strong. Also, the detective says the CSI’s lifted a couple of partial prints from some piece of plastic next to the crime scene.”

“Wait, did you say that the liver had been removed?” Zacky inquired, Jimmy nodded.

“When Matt said he’d smelled baking soda and salt, it reminded me of the burial rituals of the ancient Egyptians. When someone had died and they were going to be mummified, they would dehydrate the body using this chemical called natron, which is pretty much baking soda and salt. I also have a feeling those symbols are something akin to hieroglyphics, the liver being removed is also something the ancient Egyptians would do, they’d take out the liver, intestines, lungs and stomach out and put them in canopic jars.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we’ve got some guy going around and half mummifying people?” Brian asked, ever the sceptic.

“Pretty much, I’ll have to looks up those symbols though. But I think that’s the best idea we’ve got.” Jimmy pointed out.

“Why didn’t they take out the heart though?” Matt asked.

“The Egyptians believed that they dead would need their heart to be weighed in the afterlife, in the hall of judgement.”

“Why do we never get a case where a human’s done it? They’re so much easier.” Brian moaned, before dropping his head onto the table dramatically.

--

After a lot of research and scouring through the musty pages of Jimmy’s books, they had found that the symbols carved into the victim’s chest were in fact hieroglyphics, and that the practice of carving symbols into the deceased’s skin was pretty much unheard of.

Brian had pointed out that it was usually sorcerers that marked the dead with their own cultures symbols, as a way to ensure the soul remained pure. This pointed them in the direction of Egyptian mythology, which sadly for them, wasn’t one of the subjects Jimmy had numerous books on.

After a quick browse of the internet they’d learned a little bit more of burial rituals, and got a bit of background on the types of gods that were associated with death and tombstones.

Whilst Zacky translated the hieroglyphics into something which made more sense, Matt went to check out the victim’s apartment and Brian went to his own collection of books to see if there was anything at all useful. Jimmy was given the less than glamorous job of taking Johnny to the local 24 hour clinic for a check-up.

Johnny was in an awful mood, he hated doctors and hated waiting rooms. Knowing full well that a bunch of sick people had touched everything and had spread germs around the whole place made his skin crawl. Jimmy has attempted to reason with him, but he felt bad about it, and let Johnny just get on with it.

Once Johnny had been called in, Jimmy waited in the reception. He glanced around, finding nothing that really stood out to him. The walls were a dull grey-blue colour, and the posters that decorated them weren’t that interesting either. There was a fish talk though, with some cool little goldfish, so he went to sit next to those.

He also tried to look at the people without being too nosey. But this was proving tricky, as they often looked at him because of his appearance, and he didn’t want to make awkward eye contact with ill people.

He did notice a woman who was in with her daughter, both of them were part fae, the fae folk had distinct features that were not common with other species. He also discovered that there was a shaman living nearby, because he’d come in to get a flu shot.

Before Jimmy could start tapping his feet, Johnny emerged from the Doctors room with a slip of paper and a bottle of water. He wandered slowly to the counter next to the main reception which dispensed medication. Jimmy quickly stood up and joined him.

“So, what’s the story?” he asked, jumping on his feet slightly.

“They’ve given me something to stop me being sick, they also gave me some paracetamol to try bring down my temperature, but other than that I’m healthy as a horse.” He gave Jimmy a weak smile, before handing his slip of paper to the attending pharmacist.

“Well that’s good, right? I’m surprised they didn’t tell you to stop smoking.”

“I guess they don’t really care about that. He said that there’s been loads of people in for flu so they’re a spread a bit thin.”

The nurse returned with some weird orange bottles with tiny little labels on them, before giving Johnny the bill and waiting expectantly for payment. Johnny went to his pocket to find his wallet wasn’t there, he gave Jimmy a worried look, before Jimmy then pulled out his own wallet and gave him cash.

“I’ll pay you back when we get home, completely slipped my mind.” He shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it, shorty.” Jimmy smiled, before guiding Johnny to the doors of the clinic and leaving to find their car.

After a stop for Johnny to be sick in a trash can, they got home. Zacky and Brian were fighting, Matt was on the phone, and there was blood, with a little broken glass mixed in, all over the floor. Jimmy saw from the corner of his eye that Johnny had begun to look nauseous again, so he took charge.

“You go to bed, I’ll bring you a glass of water once I’ve cleaned this up, and smacked then all in the face.” Jimmy shooed him away.

“I should rip your throat out now and do the whole world a favour!” Zacky shouted, by the looks of it they’d been arguing for a while. He’d begun to bare his fangs and Brian’s eyes were a luminous shade of purple.

“I’d like to see you try, sunshine.” Brian tilted his head to the side and pointed at Zacky, clearly to get a rise out of him.

“GUYS! Stop it!” Jimmy screeched, they both turned to glare at him, before realising that Jimmy was clearly not impressed.

“I don’t care what you’re arguing about,’ both of them went to shout again but Jimmy cut them off ‘OR WHO STARTED IT! Johnny is sick, we’re supposed to be working on a case, so do us a favour and act civil for at least a couple of days. The quicker we work out what’s going on, the quicker you can go back to dancing around each other like a pair of IDIOTS.” Jimmy finished, before sighing in relief that he’d vented all his anger out.

Brian and Zacky looked at each other in disgust, before Zacky retracted his fangs and Brian broke eye contact.

“What did they say about short shit?” Brian asked, showing no emotion.

“He’s been prescribed some meds, got to rest a few days, so no pranking him, no terrorizing him, no annoying him, or I’ll hex you both so hard you’ll wish you were never born.”

Matt chose at this point to finish his phone call and walk into the room, completely oblivious to the thick tension in the room.

“That was Detective McCoy, the prints got nothing, but they did find something else interesting on what was left of the Victim’s clothes, there were traces of calcium carbonate dust.” He smiled like an excited puppy.

“And how is that useful?” Brian deadpanned, crossing his arms.

Matt gave him a glare. “Calcium carbonate, also known as Calcite, was often used to make canopic jars, I read up on them when I got back.”

“I guess that confirms our suspicious that it’s related to Egyptian burial rituals.” Zacky shrugged his shoulders.

“Also, Doctor Singh said Jimmy can go look at the body again tomorrow morning, he said he’s found some stuff we may find useful. I guess that’s all we can do for now.”

“Didn’t you find anything useful at the Victim’s apartment?” Jimmy piped up.

Matt shook his head. “Not really, he was a clean freak I guess, he wrote an article about us once, I read it on his computer. There wasn’t anything useful to us though.”

“Fair enough. Well, I don’t know about you losers, but I’m tired, I’ll see you all tomorrow at what will probably be a ridiculous time in the morning.” Brian waved pathetically before cautiously stepping over the blood pooled on the floor and taking off upstairs.

Matt and Zacky followed, leaving Jimmy to clean up. Once he was done scrubbing the laminate flooring, Jimmy locked up all the doors and made hot chocolate and filled up a glass of water, before trudging up the stairs and turning off the lights.
--
Jimmy did try to dress respectfully for his trip to morgue, but it was hard when he realised all his decent clothes were either wrecked, or covered in blood and/or chocolate sauce. He thought he could salvage his semi-normal suit jacket, but he gave up when he found 3 claw marks down the back. Instead he opted for a long black trench coat and a white button up shirt. As long as he covered up the tattoos and parted his hair to make himself look professional, then he would be okay, he thought.

The county morgue was on the outskirts of town, which meant he had long enough to prepare himself for all the gore and information. It took him too long to get there because there had been a car accident, and a police officer tried to stop him from driving past, but after a little bit of magical persuasion, he was allowed to go.

He flashed his special pass to the elderly lady at the front desk like a pro, before wandering down the bleak and tedious corridors. He reached Doctor Singh’s room and knocked politely before pushing the door gently.

“James? Come inside, grab some gloves, got a bit of hands on things for you to look at.” The doctor smiled before gesturing to the covered up body on the autopsy table.

Jimmy obliged, before standing on the other side of the table and waited for the doctor to pull down the cover.

“This young gentleman here is called Mathew Travis, 32 years old, was a writer for the local newspaper and an aspiring novelist. After a full and thorough autopsy last, I’ve identified his cause of death as death by exsanguination. He bled out after having his throat slit. But that isn’t why I called you in, I found something much, much more unusual.”

The doctor uncovered the body, revealing a much more decent looking Mathew. His skin had been cleaned, and the large majority of the body had been stitched back up. His eyes were shut, which did help Jimmy to concentrate more.

The doctor pointed to the section of the abdomen where the liver should have been. “Now, as you know, the liver’s main function in the body is break down metabolic waste products and harmful substances, and that it is connected to the rest of the body through a series of veins and arteries. When I went look to see how the liver was removed, I found that the hepatic vein, hepatic artery and the hepatic portal vein had all vanished. Gone. No sign of them at all, see? It’s as if they disappeared, and I can’t explain why myself.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened, and it was if a light bulb turned on in his head, he clapped his hands together and then clicked his fingers before shouting ‘YES’. He quickly turned to sprint out of the room, but the doctor called him back.

“Not only that, before you go, you should know that I found some very unusual substances in his stomach. I found a black liquid, which when I tried to look at under a microscope, showed nothing. I also found high concentrations of salt, the kind of salt you can eat, though.” The doctor shook his head, before reaching over to his desk and passing him a vial of a black ooze.

“It is useless to me, but maybe you can find a use for it.” The doctor smiled slightly.

“You’re a godsend, Doc!” Jimmy quickly pocketed the vial before giving the doctor the thumbs up and running out of the door.

--

“Watson! I’ve cracked the case!” Jimmy announced to a less than impressed group of friends.

Zacky was watching cartoons on Nickelodeon, with a sleepy Brian resting his head on his shoulder. Both of them wearing pyjamas, and with Zacky wearing his glasses. Brian had the most unruly bed hair Jimmy had seen in a long time. Johnny was snuggled up on the other couch, complete with a sick bowl on the floor beside him. Matt was stood in the kitchen, staring at the coffee pot, willing it to brew faster.

“I hate how you’re a morning person.” Matt growled, still not looking away from the coffee.

“Did none of you hear me? I’VE FIGURED OUT WHAT IT WAS THAT KILLED THAT GUY!” Jimmy threw his hands in the air.

Brian lifted his head up to that, and Zacky turned away from the screen to look at him, he somehow seemed to stare Jimmy down, even though he was sat lower than him. Jimmy assumed it was a vampire thing. Johnny stayed snuggled up, not moving.

“What was it?” Matt asked, coffee mug in hand.

“Okay so I know you hate it when I talk shop so I’ll simplify it. The victim died before he was all cut up, slit throat, drained of blood. But here’s the weird part! The veins and bits that connected the victims liver to the rest of his body weren’t there. They’d gone. So that got me thinking, and then I remembered!” Jimmy hit his own head with his hand. “I don’t know how I could have been so dumb and completely forgotten about the tergum domini demon! Then the doctor said he’d found black ooze in the victim’s stomach, which then confirmed my suspicions!” Jimmy rambled.

“You mean there was ichor in the guy’s stomach? Brutal.” Brian nodded his head slightly.

“What the hell is a tergum domini demon?” Matt’s gravelly morning voice stumbled over the foreign words.

Brian jumped up, suddenly, and walked slowly towards the kitchen to make himself coffee. “It’s called a skin master, or tissue master, they can destroy or create skin and tissue and blood, but it takes a lot of effort. Nasty business, don’t understand why they bother.”

“So, what? They’re harvesting organs to do some weird ritual? I don’t understand the connection.” Zacky startled them, he must have moved from the front room to the door in silence, he shook his head.

“Well you wouldn’t, sweetheart, you’re a vampire, you know nothing.” Brian smiled at him lazily.

Matt growled at him, which made Brian roll his eyes. “Skin masters originate from ancient Egypt. They were embalmers, did all the mummifying for the pharaohs and important people. They can only manipulate dead flesh, never the living. They died out though, well, we thought they did.”

“So one survived? Okay, fair enough. But why is it leaving bodies in parks?” Jimmy took a seat.

“Why does anyone do anything? Because they’re bored. Imagine living under the radar for centuries, not being able to do anything but exist. I’d be bored too, wouldn’t you?” Brian leaned against the counter top lazily, folding his arms.

“So we’ve got all the information now, how do we find it?” Matt asked quietly.

Jimmy clicked his fingers, before reaching into his deep pockets and pulling out a hospital vial filled with the black substance. “With this. It’s Ichor, demon blood. I can use a tracking spell easily now that we’ve got some of its little demon DNA.” He shook the little container whilst smiling.

“Well what are you waiting for? We’ve got a demon to maim and/or seriously injure.” Brian patted his shoulder with some force before taking his cup of coffee and sauntering off upstairs.

“Does anyone else get the vibe that he gets off to violence?” Matt mumbled, to no one in particular.

“Yes.”

“Definitely.”

--

Jimmy was in his room preparing the tracking spell when Matt walked in, without even knocking. He closed the door behind him quietly, before waiting expectantly for Jimmy to look at him. Jimmy didn’t oblige, and carried on picking out jars from his shelf of ingredients, before grabbing his drumstick from his bedside table and moving everything to his work table.

He tipped some weird powders into a black metal pot, then added the Ichor. He spun around to go back to his shelf, knocking the table and nearly tipping the pot over. He retrieved some weird plants from the top shelf, picking off some leaves and throwing them into the pot. Once he’d got almost everything, he lifted his drumstick and tapped the side of the pot gently a couple of times, before carelessly throwing the drumstick over his shoulder.

With the mix complete, he turned to the map spread out on the floor, a laminated copy of course. He positioned himself over the map, before tipping the pot and pouring out the brown colour sludge into the map, drop by drop. He beckoned Matt over, and handed him the dirty pot.

He then held his hands out, fingers spread and closed his eyes. He concentrated hard, whispering something in a language Matt didn’t recognise, his voice seemed to echo, even though he was quiet. Matt could feel his heart beating and hear himself breathing it was that silent.

He then heard a crinkling noise from the floor, looking down he saw that the pool of brown and black sludge with twigs and leaves sticking out was sliding across the map, slowly. Matt noticed it followed street markings.

Jimmy opened his eyes when he too heard to noise, putting his arms by his side and exhaling. He watched anxiously as the slime moved.

“How long will it take?” Matt finally spoke up, still clutching the pot.

“Depends, I presume he’s still close, when it stops moving, we’ll have found him.” Jimmy crossed his arms and leaned against the table.

After a good 5 minutes, in which Jimmy has started tapping his feet out of boredom, they found that the sludge was moving around in a circle. Jimmy moved forward and took a picture of the map with his phone, before texting it to everyone.

“You will find him at the storage facility, a mile and a bit down from the centre of town.” Jimmy said clearly.

Matt smirked. “We’re not driving there, let’s go.”

--
It took all of them fifteen minutes to get all their equipment Brian had to have an enchantment put on himself to cover his eyes and search through the pigsty that was his room to find his throwing knives, Zacky hid a machete away in his coat jacket, Jimmy had to put on a Kevlar vest, as he often had a tendency to get stabbed, and Matt had to change into clothes that could get wrecked.

They stepped out of the house, giving Johnny instructions to not answer the door or leave, and made their way down the street.

One of the houses on their street was owned by a couple with 2 kids and a dog, and on that particular afternoon, they were out doing yard work. When they saw the group walking out of their house, the father stopped raking leaves and sneakily stared at them, whereas the wife openly gawped at them, her eyes lingering on Brian. The kids, who were putting leaves into bags, stopped and looked too.

When they walked past that house, Matt smirked at the kids, who each gave him a thumbs up. Brian winked at the wife, who visibly blushed and turned away. The husband stared at Zacky’s facial piercings and gave him a disapproving look, Zacky growled and bared teeth, causing the husband’s eyes to widen in shock.

“Hey there, neighbour!” Jimmy waved his hand and smiled politely. The couple did not reply.

Once they’d walked to the end of the street, the husband was still looking. So Brian took it upon himself to turn around and swear at him.

“That was slightly unnecessary.” Jimmy commented.

“As someone who is attracted to all genders, it was definitely necessary to swear at the Republican who lives across the street from me. Definitely.” Brian deadpanned, Zacky stared at him, looking him up and down.

They walked through the towns streets as the sun slowly started to set in the autumn evening sky, the enchantment had already worn off of Brian’s eyes, giving them an ethereal purple glow. Zacky’s eyes had started to reflect the light that was being given off by the street lights and neon club displays, making them look a golden colour.

“Do we actually have a plan of attack?” Zacky asked, looking nowhere but ahead.

“Yeah, attack.” Matt replied lightly, smirking to himself.

“Did you just quote The Avengers?” Jimmy mocked.

“I panicked, I don’t have a plan and that was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Okay first off, please stop making pop culture references at inappropriate times, and second, we go in and try resolve it peacefully, if that doesn’t work then-” Zacky was cut off abruptly.

“Then we rip him apart.” Brian finished, before smiling and showing way too many teeth.

After that they walked the rest of the way in silence, earning some looks from people who were queuing outside of nightclubs. They continued on regardless, reaching the storage facility in about 20 minutes.

When they walked in, they looked at Zacky expectantly, in complete and utter silence. Zacky took the hint and closed his eyes, listening to everything closely. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and looked at Matt.

“There’s 2 heartbeats, in that unit over there.” Zacky pointed to one of the ones closest to them.

Matt nodded once, before walking closer towards it, he cracked all his joints noisily causing Jimmy to cringe.

They surrounded the door, before they all glanced at Brian, giving him permission to go first.
Brian rolled his eyes dramatically before pushing to container door open with ease, the door groaned in protest. Light flooded into the space, and Brian walked in, looking around for anything that might have moved when he opened the door.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Brian sang. There was no reply, which caused him to turn around and give Zacky a glare.

But before Zacky could throw something at him or growl at him, a figure moved from the side of the container and ran straight into Brian, knocking him over with some force. He swore loudly and pushed the figure off him and into the light streaming in from the street lights.

It revealed a man, not looking a day over twenty, wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt and plain dark blue jeans and converse. He had dark skin, and startling blue eyes which looked old and lost. He snarled, revealing sharp white teeth, before lunging at Brian once again.

Brian landed a hit to the demon’s face, causing him to stumble to the side. He used this window of opportunity to repeatedly kick the demon in the stomach, before bringing his foot down on its leg. There was an audible crack.

After the little outburst, he stood back. The rest of them joined him, staring down at the demon that was currently trying to back away and making noises out of pain.

“So, are you going to start talking or am I going to have to break another limb?” Brian asked calmly.
The demon sat up slowly, and glared at them all individually. He shook his head vigorously before spitting at Brian’s feet in disgust. Zacky laughed, Jimmy gasped.

“Okay that is disgusting. Now you’re going to lose a limb.” He stepped forward and grabbed the demon’s arm roughly, shaking him.

“Wait! Wait!” The demon shouted, fear written all over his face. Brian stopped.

“What?”

“I just wanted to make sure we have a fair fight.” The demon purred, his voice smooth. His eyes clouded over, a murky grey colour, and he smiled.

Brian raised an eyebrow at him, and went to hit him again, but was interrupted by a chilling sound from the back of the room. He let the demon go, pushing him to the side with force, before moving forward to see what it was in the back.

“Oh my god.” Zacky muttered to himself. “Jimmy, get some light in here, now.” He said quickly.
Jimmy quickly waved a hand, and the fluorescent lights on the roof of the container flickered on, revealing quite the scene.

There were two bodies in the back, both partially decomposed with their torsos opened up. One was male, one was female, and both were sat up. Their skin was a dull grey colour, and tight across their bones. The eyes were sunken into their skulls and their lips were a purple colour due to oxygen deprivation and decomposition.

Both of them started to stand up, joints bending at unnatural angles and bones cracking. They were slumped and hunched over, one even attempted to place its entrails back into the gaping hole in their abdomen. The male creature opened its mouth and let out a blood curdling roar.

“Okay, that’s new.” Brian said, backing up slowly. The zombie like creatures moved in unison, stomping forward towards what they presumed was their master.

The demon boy was stood now, he spat blood to the side before looking up at them all. “There you go, a fair fight, yes?” He hissed, teeth black with Ichor.

Brian heard the familiar snick of Zacky’s fangs descending, and a low growl from Matt. He slowly moved his hands to his back pocket, and pulled out several titanium throwing knives.

The reanimated corpses moved first, faster than before, one going for Zacky and the other going for Matt. The demon boy let out a battle cry before running at full speed towards Brian.

Zacky was the first to notice the extremely long nails of the zombies, as he took several scratches to the face. They healed almost instantly, leaving faint lines of blood. He snarled and went for the zombie’s throat, missing it and being knocked to the floor.

Matt had not yet shifted, but his claws had come out and he was scratching up his own opponent with as much force as he could muster. The zombie, however, seemed unfazed, and continued to try bludgeon him with his own limbs.

Jimmy and Brian had been left to fight the demon, Jimmy distracted him whilst Brian attacked, which was turning out to be an excellent tactic. But when Brian ran out of throwing knives, he had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. He pushed the demon over easily, before placing him in a chokehold. Jimmy took this opportunity to use a body constraining enchantment, effectively tying up his arms and legs. The Demon cried out.

At this point, Matt was growing impatient, he grabbed the zombie’s shoulder, and with his other free hand, put his fist straight through the only unexposed part of the chest cavity. He grabbed hold of the heart, and pulled, his arm coming away completely covered in brown blood, stringy bits of flesh and a network of capillaries. The zombie stumbled backwards, crushed bits of bone tumbled away and a small chunk of muscle fell to the floor. He dropped the organ and quickly went to ripping apart the rest of its body, starting with the limbs.

Zacky took a similar approach, but started with the throat and used his teeth. His nails scratched away at the reanimated corpse, shredding skin and bits of clothes. He pulled away from the throat and started to expose more of its internal organs. Once he has finished, he spat out a massive chunk of muscle and skin, as blood steadily dripped from his chin. He growled once more, before grabbing its head and ripping it clean off.

Silence fell across the room. Brian removed the chokehold from the demon, sitting him up.

“Okay. I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you’re going to give me answers. Or I’m going to let my friends do that” he pointed at the remains of the zombie creatures. “To you. It’s up to you, sunshine.” He smiled cheerfully.

The demon boy looked defeated, and knowing he had no way of getting out of this one, sighed.
“Good. So, how did you survive all these years?”

“I was entombed in one of the resting places of a pharaoh. As a sacrifice. I do not need food or water. I was released from my prison when they found all the tombs. I stayed hidden.”

“Alright then, and what made you think it would be at all okay to leave a decomposing body in a park?”

The demon remained silent.

“Well I’m glad we had a nice talk. Zacky, sweetheart? Come rip his face off.” Brian patted the demon’s shoulder once, and gave him a smug smile before standing up and walking over to Jimmy and Matt.

Zacky grinned, baring bloody teeth. Before kneeling in front of the demon. The demon’s bright blue eyes were wide with fear and he tried to shuffle away, his breathing picked up and he quickly gave a pleading look to them all. It was cut short when Zacky charged forward, using one hand to grab his the demon’s hair and the other to grab his shoulder. With one swift movement, his teeth cut through flesh and muscle and he bit down. The demon let out a shrill cry.

After a few seconds, he pulled his mouth away, and released the vice like grip on his shoulder, only to use his now free nails to slash at his face repeatedly. Not long after, Brian moved forward, gently tugging on Zacky’s shoulder, telling him to stop. He stopped nearly immediately, before leaning back, and handing Brian the machete he had in the inside of his jacket. Brian took it, twisted it around slightly, before plunging it right into the demon’s chest cavity. He died almost instantly.

They both stood up, Zacky started to clean the Ichor and blood away from his mouth, and Brian wiped the sides of the machete on his trousers, before handing it back to Zacky.

“Case closed.” He nodded.

“Wait! Zacky said there were 2, didn’t he? Well, where’s the other one?” Jimmy asked, looking confused.

“I said there were 2 heartbeats, not 2 demons.” He growled, his voice had a lower tone.
“Wait a sec.” Matt held his hand up, telling them to be quiet.

He stepped forward, sniffing. He then moved over to where the zombies now lay, before walking around the remains towards the back of the container. He sniffed even more, before moving towards the corner where a bunch of boxes were.

“Jimmy! She’s alive!” He called, Jimmy sprinted into action, leaping over the bits of dead body and towards where Matt was.

There was a woman, about 30 years old, wearing a business suit that was almost soaked in blood. She was unconscious but breathing, which was something Jimmy could definitely work with. He instantly went into medic mode, checking the whole body for any obvious injuries. She has small cuts on her throat, but nothing too major, and she was wheezing and breathing shallow, indicating she had a punctured lung.

He put his fingers to her wrist and counted her pulse. “She’s tachycardic, her pulse is way too high. Get rid of the demon’s body, then call an ambulance, she needs to go to the hospital, now!” He shouted back to them all.

--

After they buried the demon’s body in a shallow grave near the container, they anonymously called for an ambulance and practically ran away. They got back home and looked at each other, before smiling. Zacky went for a shower, Matt went for a bath, and Brian went up to his room to smoke several cigarettes. Jimmy made tea, which he shared with Johnny, who was sat up watching Star trek on TV, surrounded by boxes of medication. Jimmy gave him a very detailed account of what he’d missed.

Once they’d cleaned up and smoked up, they came back down stairs and sat in the kitchen, writing up a report on the evenings events.

“I had no idea that skin masters could reanimate corpses, it would have been a fun surprise if it had been under better circumstances.” Brian shrugged.

“Yeah, and I can definitely tell you that rotting zombie blood is not pleasant. Not pleasant at all.” Zacky crinkled his nose in disgust.

“I have to agree with you there, and also state that putting your arm through someone’s torso looks cool in horror movies, but is not something I would recommend you to do, ever. There’s still loads of blood stuck under my fingernails, yuck.” Matt grimaced.

Before they could continue their discussion, the home phone rang. Johnny answered, wandering into the kitchen wrapped up in a blanket with a phone in hand, he handed it over to Matt.

“It’s Detective McCoy.” He murmured, before walking off to watch Captain Kirk beat up a Gorn.
Matt answered. “Hello?”

“Matt, glad I got you. I presume it was you who found whatever the heck it was that killed that guy in the park, well, I pretty much know seeing as though there’s entrails and limbs spread out all over the fucking place. Next time, please be a bit neater, the CSI’s are having a fit over here.”

Matt looked slightly ashamed. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I don’t really give a fuck, I trust you dealt with the problem?”

“Yes, sir. Dealt with.”

“Great, another case solved, sort of. It’s mostly just lies, but hey, that’s what paperwork is. Anyways, I’m also assuming here that you were the one who found Miss Tucker?”

“Again, yeah. Is she okay?” The other in the room perked up, and started listening.

“She’s in a high dependency ward at the moment, she’s got a lung drain in and all that. She’ll live though, so I guess that’s one thing.”

Matt smiled and sighed in relief. “That’s good to hear, thank you. Is there anything else you need us to do?”

“No I think that’s all, you’ll get payment in the mail in a couple of weeks, as usual. Thanks for your help, Sanders.” The Detective hung up.

Matt put the phone down on the table and smiled. “She’s going to be okay.” Jimmy cheered and Brian and Zacky nodded in approval.

“Case complete.” Matt said cheerily, before folding his arms and leaning back in his chair, content with the outcome.