Bloodwalker Teaser

It wasn't in my job description. Nowhere near it actually, but lots of people confuse Forensic Specialist with Detective. Of course once we heard a child was involved it changed everything. No police officer, regardless of position, wants to hear about lost or abused children. Unfortunately we usually see the worst of people.

Jennifer Rice sat across the desk from me, a slight woman, very business like. Her black hair was chopped short, chin length, her pale blue eyes looked professionally made up, then they filled with tears. Her navy jacket and skirt had been perfectly pressed ten minutes ago, before sheer desperation entered her voice. I hadn't seen what was in the canvas bag she clutched, but I had a bad feeling that I would soon.

"Technically this isn't my job." I said, pretending not to notice the fanatic gleam in her eyes.

"But everyone else told me to come to you." She said, slightly panicked.

I pulled a travel pack of tissues from my desk drawer. Sometimes allergies are useful. "I'm not saying I can't or won't help. I'm just not sure why everyone seems to think I'm perfect for the job."

"My son is missing." Rice said, fumbling with the bag. "I went to pick him up from the babysitter's and he wasn't there. No one was. All the furniture was still there, but the clothes, the pictures, the toys, all the things that make a house a home were gone."

"Ms. Rice we have an excellent Missing Persons department. The best in this half of the continent." I reminded her.

"And they told me to talk to you." She pulled something fuzzy, red and green from the bag. She threw it onto the desk. "That's why."

I opened the bundle. It was a soft, pastel green blanket, the gender neutral kind they give out in hospitals. The middle of the blanket was stiff and dark red. You didn't need my powers to know what dried blood looked like.

"How do you know this is your son's?" I asked quietly. I couldn't take my eyes off the stain. I felt it, once it left the bag.

"My son and I are lycanthropes. I'd know his scent anywhere." Ms. Rice said, rubbing her arms. Legends said lycanthropes didn't get cold because the fur, when they were in human form, stayed just below the skin. It was a silly legend.

"I'll help, but only if the case is officially filed with Midguard Missing Persons." I said, still unwilling to touch the blanket.

"Oh thank you, thank you so much Miss Hall."
X X X

Blood tells many stories, if you have the training, or gift, to listen. Pure training told me this much blood from and eight year old boy was bad. Once I stretched the blanket out on a desk under a good light I saw a pattern.

"It was wrapped around a wound." I said aloud. The pattern was a lack thereof. It looked like the blood seeped into the blanket. Bruce Singer from Missing Persons sat in one of the vinyl chairs, dutifully taking notes. His face remained blank but I knew it bothered him. You'd think a guy with three kids would avoid cases like this. "It was tied like a bandage, around a wound to stop the bleeding maybe. See the points where it changes. That's were it was tied or bound. Mother 'thrope confirms the blanket and blood are her son's but let's get some typing to back it up."

That's the thing about all the supernatural powers popping up these days. Legally reports from telepaths, 'thropes and witches of all kinds have to stand in court if the source is reliable. But 'beyond a reasonable doubt' is much easier to attain with numbers than with words. People seem to trust science more, though any scientist can tell you it's just as easy to lie with facts and figures.

I used the blunt edge of a scalpel to scrape off a few flakes of the blood. Here came the fun part. Bruce slipped the blanket into an evidence bag and Daniel Temps, one of the lab guys, slid a chair under me.

"Do you need a glass of water?" Daniel asked. He was the only one in the room not looking away uncomfortably. Even outside of the office Daniel knew blood. He looked like the typical kid straight out of college, bright hazel eyes, sandy blond hair that always fell into his eyes and a darker red mustache and goatee. But Daniel was one hundred percent pure werewolf. The first to work in the lab.

"No, just hand me my sunglasses." I said sitting. Daniel's beefy hands passed them to me. I took the few flakes and put them on my tongue, pulling the glasses on to hide my eyes. Normally an ordinary brown, once the power activated my eyes filled with blood and tended to seriously creep out anyone watching. The burn started slowly, sliding from my tongue down the back of my throat and travelling, creeping through my body. My muscles tensed, out of my control. Under the glasses the heat filled my eyes and my forehead burned.

He woke up tied in the bathtub, arms behind his back, and gagged. One of the girls, Mandy, poked her head into the room. When her eyes met his she slammed the door and ran down the hall.

Something was wrong. He couldn't see straight and for a minute everything went black again. How could he fall asleep tied up in the bathtub?

Mrs. White came in a minute later. Jeremy realized he'd woken up again, because he didn't remember her coming in. Mr. White came in then, he remembered that much, in ripped jeans and a stained white shirt, something Jeremy had never seen him in before. Mrs. White still looked all proper and clean, like t.v. moms. Except for the bloodstained apron.

Mrs. White sat on the toilet. Mr. White took the edge of the tub. He stretched one of Jeremy's legs up, holding the rest of him down. Mrs. White pulled the big shiny butcher knife from the sink. Jeremy struggled. The blood surged suddenly to his head and he blacked out again.

He woke up to a horrible pain in his leg. He looked down to see blood moving slowly down the white porcelain of the tub. His blood. Mrs. White shushed him, holding his head and rocking him while Mr. White wrapped a blanket tightly around his leg. On a plate on the sink sat a red, bleeding chunk of muscle and skin. Beneath the blanket his leg looked wrong.

The screams stopped when my lunch burned its way out of my mouth, which meant they were mine. Most of the people in the room, male and female, made a colossal leap as far from me as they could. Many fled the room all together. Daniel already stood beside me, holding a wastebasket between my legs.