[Fic] The Pentagram Sacrifices [Part 1]
| Masterpost | Part Two |
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She wobbles as she makes her way, slowly down the street, her black three inch stilettos a hard clack against the pavement. Dusk is slowly spilling into night, the wind ruffling her hair as she makes her way back to her flat. Eddie had insisted that she join them at the pub. Sophia had complained she never saw her anymore. So she had relented and had gone to the pub with them. Now though, she wonders whether she should have drank that last gin and tonic considering that she still needed to finish an essay by tomorrow evening.
She doesn't register the first punch. It glances off her shoulder before she is pulled and slammed against the side wall of a brick building. She gasps, staring up at the stranger, pain blooming across her shoulders and down her back. They throws something--dust--powder at her face. It's chalky against her tongue. Tasting bitter, causes her mouth to pucker as she coughs, eyes watering.
Blinking furiously, she looks at them, a dark ski mask and the coming night covering their features. They-he tilts his head, streetlight briefly catches his face in an odd glow. It illuminates his mouth twisting into a sneer, the dull red sheen of his eyes stare back at her. It's instinctive, she steps back as she hits the wall, wincing at the pain. Her heart is beating rapidly, a pumped up staccato against her ribcage. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump. She feels sharply sober against the onslaught of adrenaline.
“What do you want?”
She tries to reach in, pull the steady power that always lurked beneath her skin, spell ready to cast. But the words, “Wáce--” falter against her lips as her magic slips away from as if it wasn't there at all. She tries again, face twisting, “Wáce--” but again there is nothing. It's as if her magic had disappeared.
“What did you do?” she asked, eyes widening, fear creeping up her spine as she tried to push past him.
He doesn't answer. He grabs her again, pushing her forcefully against the wall. Cages her body with his, as one of his forearms slams against her chest as they pull out a blade.
Staring at the knife in shock, she desperately pushes against him, trying to claw him off, but he sharply jabs his elbow against her gut painfully, completely immobilizing her as she wheezes trying to breathe.
She knew that this could happen as a Protector. It had been drilled into her head during training. Something the Council repeatedly said could happen. But she never expected it to happen to her. The last time a Protector had died was from old age. There hadn't been any threats to the city in years.
Swallowing, forcing air past the bile that had risen up her throat, tears falling, she manages to croak out, “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
She tries to knee him in the crotch, tries to scrabble against his chest to hit in the solar plexus but he fends off her moves.
“They will stop you. Don't think they will let this go.”
His breath against her ear makes her skin crawl and waves of nausea causes her to tremble against him. His voice is low and to her abject shock is recognizable. She can’t remember the face, but she knows that she had heard the voice before. She stills as she tried frantically to remember, “I'm counting on it.”
She starts to remember his face just as the blade moves. Sharp pain explodes as the blade plunged into her gut and was pulled sharply up. She feels light-headed, slowly sinking to the ground as he releases her. She couldn't focus, his face is blurry in her mind and fading fast. And then everything fades.
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When Arthur had gotten the call that there had been a murder in the East End of Chelsea, he was expecting something more run of the mill, a jealous lover getting too carried away in a fight or maybe a bad robbery gone wrong. The Chief Inspector had stopped him for a meeting about his latest case that was leading nowhere. By the time they were finished, thirty minutes had passed since he told Leon to meet him at the scene. Then of course, the A4 had more traffic than usual due to an accident somewhere along the motorway. Arthur glanced at his watch again, grimacing as he read the time. 3:15PM. Forty-five minutes late. Leon was probably already wrapping up at the crime scene.
The closer he got to the scene, the houses started getting bigger with luxury brand name cars parked on the street. It was strange to drive through the familiar neighborhood, close to where his father’s old law firm once had been
He slowed down as he approached the scene where a large crowd had gathered. It took him another fifteen minutes to crawl through the traffic to make it to the actual location. Parking illegally, he quickly strode past the milling crowd, many with their smartphones out recording every detail of the unfolding investigation.
Giving a nod at the uniformed constable standing closest to the yellow police tape, “Sergeant," stood attention with a quick ‘sir,’ he ducked under and look around. He scanned the area, noting the scene but also trying to see whether the forensic pathologist had already finished with his examination. Noticing, the sergeant added, “ Dr. Dulac is finishing up his examination behind those bins up ahead.”
“Thanks," Arthur said, his eyes already striving to see past the two blue rubbish bins.
Bloody hell, his eyes widened. The coppery tang of blood infiltrated his noise and briefly he battled the bile raising up his throat. There was an altar made with five black candles burned low. The dried wax flaking against the pavement with what appeared to be a disemboweled body a few meters away. A pentagram drawn up in chalk was etched next to it. Arthur squinted, the writing was blurry as if rubbed away.
Even though years on the force had made him more resilient than most, the scene before him was something else. There was a pool of blood next to the victim that looked like some sort of slick crimson colored oil spill. Perhaps worse was the long bloody entrails, the victim’s intestines, crudely arranged a few meters away placed in the middle of the altar. The smell of vomit lingering in the air with the stench of blood told him all he needed to know on how some of the officers had fared when they first came up on the scene.
What kind of sick bastard would do something like this?
Arthur wanted to start up on asking questions, but with his fingers drumming restlessly against his thigh he waited for the forensic examination to be over. He watched Lance tilt the dead victim's head to the side, his brown eyes carefully studying the body before dictating his findings to a tech standing by with a notepad. Rigor mortis had set in and there was no bruising around the neck that he could see from this distance.
It would have been easy to be clinical and pretend that the body wasn’t a real person. Easy to have ignored the straw-colored hair or the way the buttoned-down, collared shirt that must have been white had turned a burnt brown. The man's white trainers were a sharp contrast to the dark slacks he had on. His eyes lingered on the trainers, they were well worn but comfortable. He must have worn them all the time.
“Any thoughts on how the victim was killed?” Arthur asked finally stepping closer as Lance stood up, removing his gloves. His eyes wandered over the blood splattered that radiated outward as he edged around the body carefully to stand beside Lance.
“Sharp blow to the left side of the head, but I don't think that was what killed him.”
“You mean he was alive when he was disemboweled?” Arthur's eyes widened, his mind skittering away from the image as he surveyed the mess of guts spread out, the stench of blood and the already rotting flesh heavy in the air.
“I'm not sure until I get back to the lab, but I would say yeah, he was alive,” Lance replied, lips twisteddown, eyebrows drawn. “My guess from the blood loss from the deep stab wound that cut right across his abodmen. He probably lost unconsciousness from the pain before he bled to death.”
“Have we been able to ID him?”
“There was no picture ID on him, but his credit cards were left behind and several large pound notes as well. His phone is password protected. I think Owain said IT is working on it to get it cracked," Lance paused, drawing a sharp breath. Arthur waited for him.
"The credit cards had the name Keenan Gordon, but I won't be able to verify it until we get back to the lab.”
Arthur motioned Lance to continue as he crouched down near the victim, pulling on latex gloves.
“But he was in his mid-twenties I would say and in relatively good health at first glance. And based on the decomposition, it appears he's been dead between eight to twelve hours. Not after midnight if I were to guess though.”
“Who found him?”
“Leon said that some random kids taking a shortcut through the alley did.”
“And no one noticed a dead body back here in all that time?” Arthur asked incredulously eyes glancing up to the busy street half a couple of hundred meters away. Despite the crowd that had gathered at the scene, there were plenty of cars going by or pedestrians passing through beyond the taped off scene.
“Leon said the area had been blocked off because of the construction around the building up the street.”
“Where is Leon anyway?” Arthur asked scanning the scene for his fellow inspector. “Or Owain for the matter? I thought they were called as well.”
“Don’t tell me Sergeant Calloway didn’t work out?” Referring to Arthur’s sergeant.
Arthur ignored the amusement in Lance’s voice.
“He was more suited for paperwork than solving murders”
Lance glanced him, not saying anything. But Arthur could pretty much guess what he was thinking. It was the third sergeant that Arthur had gone through just this year.
“It wasn’t my fault this time,” he said defensively.
Gaius had not been happy that Calloway had decided to leave the CID to work in Traffic. Looking at Arthur for a long moment before sighing, the chief inspector had told Arthur to work with Leon again for the time being. Arthur had felt guilty at the disappointed look on Gaius's face. But working with Leon and his sergeant, Owain was easier, at least he trusted them.
“Don’t you think that it’s time to stop thinking everyone is going to be like Valiant,” Lance asked gently, voice cautious. His brown eyes sympathetic as he referred to Arthur’s last sergeant from two years ago that lasted more than few months on the job.
Arthur glared at Lance, “Do I really need to tell you to bugger off?” He didn’t want to discuss whatever issues Lance thought he had right now. Or preferably ever.
“Fine,” Lance said choosing to drop the subject, but Arthur could tell that this conversation was far from over.
“Leon’s still talking to the kids who found him,” Lance replied after a beat, motioning to the front of the alleyway.
Arthur nodded, distracted as he continued to survey the dead victim. He frowned, noticing an odd shape on the man's chest.
“Lance what is that?” Arthur asked pulling away the blood soaked shirt, pointing to two strange symbols carved on the upper right hand corner of the man's chest near his shoulder. The marks were raised almost as if they had been branded into the skin.
“I noted it on my report, but I'm not sure what they are. Judging from the cauterization, I would say it happened after the vic was already dead.”
“Hmm, the markings look familiar," Arthur leaned closer, carefully running his fingers over the marks.
“Familiar?”
“Yeah.”
“Lance,” a voice interrupted them.
Lance greeted Leon as he strode up to them, “You finished up with the lads then?”
“Yeah. Those poor kids won’t be forgetting this anytime soon.”
“I would say. I don’t know if I’ll be forgetting this anytime soon. You would think working in Crimes you’ve seen everything and then this happens.”
“The poor bloke,” Leon said agreed, frowning down at the body. “Arthur?”
As he concentrated on the strange characters carved into the man's chest, Arthur gestured down to him, , “There's something carved into his chest. I think it's Celtic?”
Brows furrowed, Arthur stood as Leon peered down at the body, “Celtic? How can you tell?”
“I’m pretty sure. They look something like runes.”
Was he trying to mark his victims? Or was this something the victim already had before?
"Lance how recent would you say these marks were?"
"I would say within the past day."
Arthur stared at the markings longer.
Gut instinct told him that they were important to the case.
“But,” he said grudgingly as he stood up, “We probably should follow up on it to be sure.”
Out of the various murders in the past year, this was the second body to show up like some sort of ritual sacrifice. The last victim, a young woman in her late twenties had also been found disemboweled with a strange pentagram symbol drawn next to her. But her neck had been snapped before she had died according to the post mortem. The forensics team had followed up on it on the drawn pentagram. However, the inspector on the case made the final call saying it wasn’t relevant. There was nothing to tie the pentagram to the murder and the inspector, DI Muirden had decided it was just random graffiti rather than evidence related to the case.
From what he remembered, the young woman had been a local uni student who was living with her aunt and had been murdered on her way home from the pub. Arthur tried to remember whether there was anything in the reports about markings but drew up blank. She was wearing a unique necklace with a pendant and the fact that she still had her wallet and the necklace had ruled out robbery. But the way the body had been positioned and the pentagram, he remembered were similar to this murder.
“That body they found six months ago...the young woman? She had a pendant that looked like it was Celtic in origin.”
Leon and Lance both stared at Arthur.
“You think that case might be related to this one?” Lance asked slowly drawing out the question. Arthur could practically hear the skepticism.
“Maybe. We need to consider every possibility.”
“You don’t even know the markings are Celtic. It could be just chicken scratch for all we know,” Leon said cautiously.
“But the body was arranged similarly even if the method was somewhat different,” Arthur said trying to remember the details of the report, “and there was a pentagram drawn as well.
“Which was said to be irrelevant.”
Arthur scoffed, “This is DI Muirden we are talking about.”
“Point taken,” Leon said and then grimaced, “the Commissioner is not going to be happy about this.”
“I know,” Arthur replied grimacing in kind as he thought about how the Chief Commissioner Kilgharrah was going to react to the potential chance of a serial murder on the loose “And try to keep that it might be a serial killing from the press as long as possible. People will start to panic.”
Sighing, Leon nodded, “Not sure how long we'll be able to, but I'll see what I can do once we wrap up here. And maybe see if we can give a press release without giving too many details away.”
Arthur turned toward Lance, “Well once you’re ready, tell the SOCOs to finish gathering and send this all back to Scotland Yard..”
Lance nodded to them as he walked back, hands already gesturing to the techs to bring the body bag to get the body ready to be moved to the Westminister morgue.
“What did the kids you interviewed say?” Arthur asked as he peered up and down the alleyway, noting the buildings, the different angles of the scene trying to see whether there was anything they had missed.
There was nothing of particularly notable about the location. The alley led to several back end doors for a couple of the shops before curving into another street that was somewhat blocked off by orange "under construction" signs, but there was a small pathway through it. Most of the buildings looked fairly old and were several stories with what seemed to be office space. The chances of anybody seeing anything strange were slim.
“Nothing much, just that they use take this shortcut to get to school.”
“The killer must have known that,” Arthur said, “they wanted this body to be found but only after a certain time.”
Leon “hmms,” in agreement as he followed Arthur out of the alley.
“All of the buildings are mostly office space? No flats?”
“Yeah, no flats and pretty much either shops or small offices. We’re hoping we can find someone who might’ve seen something, but most of the shops have been closing fairly early due to the construction.”
As they move away from the crime scene and turned a corner to get out onto the main road, Arthur turns to Leon, “Any ideas?”
“What do we know so far?”
Arthur surmised, “So two murders in six months with both of them having similar, possibly Celtic, symbols carved onto their bodies.” Arthur paused and then added remembering the photos he had seen from the first murder., “And a lot of blood.”
“Do we even know why that young woman was killed?”
“Hmm, it happened in Islington right?”
“Yeah, she lived with her aunt while she was at uni. I remember reading that she had been out with her mates coming home from the pub.”
“That’s what so weird about it,” Arthur said, “It was barely dark, I think not even eight and no one noticed anything strange.”
“Didn’t she have a boyfriend?”
“She had a thing with a bloke from the shop she worked at but he had a solid alibi.”
“Could be a sociopath,” Leon said as they both ducked under the yellow tape. The sergeant standing, different from when Arthur had arrived at the scene gave them a strange look but they both ignored him.
“Could be the workings of some sort of cult.”
“Do any of the other recent murders have any connection to these two, assuming that these two are connected?”
Arthur sighed, “I think it’s a safe bet that the murders with the symbols are connected, we just don’t know how or why yet.”
Leon rubbed his forehead, “Well, if it’s a cult then we have multiple perpetrators to worry about.”
Arthur could feel a headache coming on. This was just what he needed. A group of crazies killing for some mad belief.
Leon glanced at Arthur and noticed his disgruntled face, “Maybe we should think more broadly… like robbery or something.”
Arthur gave him an annoyed look.
“Hey,” Leon said, throwing his hands up defensively, “I’m just throwing out ideas here. No need to get your knickers in a twist.”
Arthur rolled his eyes.
“Nothing was stolen from any of the victims unless you count their ID, which I don’t by the way, so robbery is completely out of the question. And Morgana is starting to rub off on you,” Arthur said referring to his sister and Leon’s wife. Half of the time Arthur thought that was the reason why he and Leon got along so well because they were able to commiserate together.
“Besides, why go through the process of disemboweling and carving symbols, much less kill just to steal something?”
“You just asked for ideas, you didn’t say they had to be good,” Leon responded, almost petulantly.
Arthur and Leon walked in silence for awhile, the crowd was finally starting to disperse and then Leon perked up, “Maybe the robber didn’t mean to kill the man and was doing some sort of penance ritual?”
“Nothing was stolen.”
“That we know of,” Leon said, this time there was definitely a petulant note in his voice.
“It also seems too staged… these murders were planned.”
“Jealous lover?”
Arthur gave Leon a blank look, “Now you’re just trying to annoy me. One, a jealous lover would usually indicates passion and it seems more likely that this murder was premeditated. Though, I'll concede there are jealous lovers who plan out killing their victims," Arthur said after a pause. "Two, we don’t know if the first crime was done out of passion. Bloody hell, can you imagine a jealous lover easily disemboweling or snapping the neck of not just one of their ex-lovers, but two of them?”
“Yes. You just don’t think outside of the box like I do and besides, I was thinking about just this murder individually.”
Arthur contemplated that for a moment and then shook his head, “No, I really think these murders are connected… especially because of the symbols.”
“There’s always the possibility that the second killer -if there’s more than one- heard about the first murder and copied the first killer’s methods to make it look like the murders are connected.”
Arthur opened his mouth to rebuke him but then just sighed, that idea was actually very plausible and so he said instead, “Well, we can’t make any concrete conclusions about how the victims died until the autopsy report.”
“Ok, so let’s say the killer didn’t know the victims personally, but then does that mean they were chosen randomly?”
“So now you think they are connected too?”
“Well, experience has taught me to believe whatever you think is right, so I’m just going to go with it.”
“Don’t do that, even if you have inane ideas, there may be some elements of truth in them.”
Leon raised an eyebrow, “Thanks, I think.”
“Ok, so they could be chosen at random but we don’t know enough about the victims personally to know for sure. Let’s just think about this murder. Why would he be down here? There would be no reason for him to take a shortcut right?”
“Possibly, but we don’t know where he was headed. I’ll have somebody ask around the neighborhood to see if they had seen the vic before. And see if the he shows up on any of the CCTVs,” Leon said thoughtfully, “And maybe have the IT team check every single one within a single mile radius within the couple of hours before and after of when the vic was killed.”
“That’s a good idea. Tell them that it should have priority before everything else.”
“Ok.” Leon replied as he pulled out his mobile to make the call, Arthur waited, brows furrowed as he gave the crime scene one last look.
“Do you remember what the report said about the pentagram? Was there anything written with it?"
“I don’t remember, but maybe there is somebody we can contact who knows more about this? Like a consultant?”
“Yeah, and find someone who can read those markings. We probably should try the local colleges. Gaius might know someone since he used to teach law at some uni several years ago.”
But whether it was a sixth sense or not, Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling they weren’t going to find much of anything.
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| Masterpost | Part Two |