The crime scene
Abesses Station, Paris
8:47AM
With that warm, sunny weather, a man patiently awaits, leaning over on a yellow tape that impedes the entry of unauthorized personnel. Some journalists and reporters already showed up. They are always too nosey and an overall pain in the ass.
He finally sights the car that he was looking for cruising down that green tainted street.
The coloring of that 80´s Mercedes offers a perfect contrast with the parisian aesthetic. It isn´t an attention magnet like if a colleague showed up naked in the office, but it gives the irressistible tentation of deliberatly moving your gaze to watch it passing by. One could say that it´s lines and geometry are reminescent of that Notre Dame gothic. They also match with the Art Nouveau I am supporting my body weight on.
The car stops and Detective Lucard makes his presence be known.
A tall and slim figure like his fits perfectly on the Valentino´s he always wears.
Although they offer a professional look, suits are something you wouldn´t see me with. I´m more of a a fan of the mobility that other types of clothing offer to the body.
-Hector, good morning!
-Good morning.
-Buddy, what do we have at this time of the day?
I always forget about how close our professional relationship is! The fact that I started to work with him recently and his aura of a no-joke worker don´t help.
-A triple murder-His expression yells a mix of anxiety, interest and excitement. Let´s go, this one is very interesting.
-A triple murder and all that tranquility, huh?
-I'm not complaining, miles away from that, I just couldn't help but to expect that someone who was, up until a few months ago, passing tickets and dealing with drunks would have a little more... apprehension when pitted with a cenario like this. For each day that goes by, my admiration for you steadily grows.
-Thank you, Detective. You know that this isn´t the first time I see a dead body. Besides, stuff like this are merely a part of the job.
-That's not a bad mentality... and do not call me Detective. I know you don't want to disrespect me, but I view as unecessary the treatment by title. They just catalyze the distancing between people. For the first time, call me Abreas.
-YES! Understood, Abreas!
-There you go with the needless formality again...
I have to do something to keep the chain of this conversation intact!
-The platform is located thirty-six meters below the ground. This is the deepest metro station in Paris.
-I see I still have much to see.
He was transfered here from Dijon. I don't know how, but he scored a promotion in the three weeks that followed his arrival. Someone of his talents can pull off feats of that kind with relative ease. In order to not let them go to waste he proposed the Homicide Unit tutoring program. The upper escalons adored the idea. In order to pass the knowledge to the next generation and such... at least it was what he told me when I became his first pupil, as well as the pilot case of the program.
-Is it in the platform? This morning's rush hour flowed with normality.
-Sharp-witted as always! We simply need to take advantage of the amplitude of our Achille's tendons for seven kilometers.
-The travellers must have been terrified.
-Yes, it was a huge drama, screaming here and there. They should have shut off the tunnels as soon as the bodies were found, but they didn't want to lose time and all of the money. It's always the same bullshit.
-I hear you. Let's just hope that the scene was not badly contaminated.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Seeing the platforms empty like these is aberrant, considering our colective culture.
The gravel is at a distance of a meter and a half, maybe two.
I've always found the distance from the top of the platforms to the rails to be of a paradoxal nature.
I simply drop my feet with the rest of my body behind. Abreas mimics me and complains about his hip on the landing. He must have already seen his fair share of action.
At the end of the day, we're going to walk fourteen kilometers so, he tried to make small-talk to see if our temporal perception could be fooled. Trust me, walking that distance just once isn't fun.
-How is your princess?
-Oh, she is fine, but I feel that... no, I know that she wants to choke me in my sleep.
-Is that so?-Says he, with a playful smirk.
-With all of the burocracy and having to run around all day, I hardly have time to take her (worst of all being with her!) anywhere!
-I do not consider your version of the facts as being ethically correct and morally unquestionable.
A feeling of betrayal empaled me through the heart. I'm giving my best on all the sides of my life, but still...
-Do you think that fatigue and workload serve as excuses? Nothing in this world should prevent anyone from treating a lady like she should be treated! If you were suspended or even fired for slacking due to spending your time with her and for her... I would have been proud.
I can affirm with all certainty that I appreciate the romantic determination that he wants to teach me.
-Always remember, having someone by your side is the greatest treasure in existence. No person is an island. Always keep many and many empty chairs around you, and if someone arrives with their own chair, do not kick that person out of the party.
He speaks in metaphors.
Anyone who saw our expressions as we laid eyes on that massacre would think that we lack empathy, that we clearly exhibit traits of sociopathy. I don't intend on losing my food so easily, and I have no idea of what Ambreas already has seen. But this still does twist my stomach.
-They really did lose their minds.
I pretended to laugh of such a bad and mean joke that made me realize how good comedians are those who participate in amateur stand up.
His face tells me everything that I already know. He got a grasp on the barbarity that had just been syntesized by his vocal cords. He didn't mention anything else related to the matter, in the hopes that the sands of time would corrode the memory of what he uttered from the minds of the technicians who demonstrated their love for science, as always.
One of the womens who are among them suddenly turned around, as if she couldn't wait to share an Arquimedian discovery.
-We've already sent blood samples from the three men for identification. Take a look at this-she said as she moved around one lonely neck, revealing a white collar that everybody knows.
-They are priests, or at least, men of the church. The three of them were on the subway, no, on the subway tunnels at the middle of the night doing what? With the crosses and the holy water they brought in their body I would say that they were going to give the mass to some homeless people gathering, or something like that. I just can't conclude anything about the purpose of these handmade wooden stakes and those garlic flowers.
-But it gets even better, the preliminary analysis determined that these wounds were caused by some wild animal, but, after a more detailed look at them with a portable microscope, I could witness a clear absence of cone marks, and these cuts are clean. This means that the guilty is a crocodile, or something with a comparable bite strength. Their heads were separated from their torsos like champagne corks. You need to exert a force of multiple hundreds of newtons for such an effect!
-You do not think that Paris is becoming a clone of New York, do you?-He said, with a chilling coolness.
-I know how ridicule it seems Detective, but... there's no way I'm wrong about this!
-I trust you... I just need to, like they say, see it to believe it. The most bizarre part is... why only taking the heads? If it was hungry, we shouldn't be seeing them whole.
-Precisely. But that's something I'm not able to answer... yet.
Dracul's attention changes focus. He starts to draw a diatance between himself and that small crowd.
-Do you have anything in mind?
-Always, kid.
He says so much cool lines!
It's better to leave him by himself, he knows what he's doing.
After a few dozens of steps...
-Come see this!
The staff started to careffuly pack the instruments. You never know what you might need, but he knew.
-Simply bring the sample harvesting kits!
With such objectivity, they dropped everything else and we ran those meters.
-I am going to assume that it was an innocent slip, the fact that this escaped you-he said, with his back turned to us, when he sensed our presence.
My eyes don't betray me... a crimson trail painted one of the margins of the rails.
Maybe, by the end of the day, we had already known who was the generous donor, and had already saved the life of someone who must be in a dire situation.
Thinking deeply about it, it's not so easy... we don't even know if this blood originates from just one person!