Post by The Wonderful Wachter on May 5, 2013 3:49:05 GMT -5
By Liquidsword and Wachter
The crime scene was a family’s dining room. A simple scene lay before them. Plates had once been placed. Seats that were once full in preparation for a family dinner were empty. No emotion could be felt. It was strange. Surreal. What possessed the killer to do this was beyond Jack. He couldn’t comprehend the killer’s motive. It was always different… evolving. Every case was different. Every murder unique.
Why could he feel no malice here?
Why was it such a bleak home where he detected neither present nor past? Even poison left its mark on premeditated murders.
“Anything?”
“Nothing,” Jack muttered, massaging the bridge of his nose. “It’s like he was never here.”
“Three days past Mother’s Day, the bastard was definitely here.”
His companion was strangely dressed for the occasion. A scarlet shirt with an unusual insignia on it. It made an unholy combination with the green pants and the outrageous cape. Coast City’s Sentinel was far, far from home today. This case was personal for him. The killer they were tracking, the killer they hadn’t realized was the same serial killer that had appeared in at least half a dozen other cities until last month, had made it personal when he targeted Coast City simply because Sentinel was her Defender.
The morbid part of Jack that he fought so hard to control was deeply amused with the March killings. The killer had made his targets little people, midgets. Killed over twenty of them. Then he dressed them up as leprechauns except instead of shamrocks on their clothes, they had the Sentinel’s symbol… Coast City’s icon of hope. All this after proper warning on the killer’s part.
“We knew it’d be Mother’s Day,” growled Sentinel, vein pulsing in his neck. “We were just too slow. Couldn’t guess where. How… Who.” A look towards an empty place on the wall accompanied his statement. His ring revealed it had been a family photo. One where the mother had been circled and the killer had wrote: Happy Mother’s Day, Amanda. The investigators had already taken it.
Jack felt the man’s rage. Hell, he felt his own. He’d been chasing this case since Gotham in December. There had been inklings back then that it had been no normal string of murders. Not when they were holiday themed and he learned a series of families in November over in Gateway had died through the stuffing of turkeys down their throats and other… bodily openings.
People thought they were copy-cats. The government didn’t put together a team until February to try and profile the spree. But Jack knew… He knew it was the same man. If you reviewed the cases, reviewed the entire month either in that city or the next, you’d find clues as to his next gimmick and location.
That’s what drew him to Sentinel and they’d been too slow. Then there was the fiasco in April. It made Jack want to lose it. To go wild. This was insanity. No other way to describe the situation or his feelings of inadequacy.
“Why don’t you let the other guy out?” Alan asked without any reluctance as his ring continued to scan the crime scene. “Maybe he’ll be able to get a better feel.”
Jack fingered his left shoulder blade as he craned his neck to squint at the caped crusader. “Or maybe he’ll make things worse.”
This was useless. He might as well make a call for even more help.
“How’d you gentlemen get in here?” a dead voice asked from the opening leading into the family room.
“Agent Waller… You shouldn’t be here.”
Sentinel’s ring shined a green light on the newcomer. She was a large woman, dark skinned, dressed in a simple pantsuit and her face was completely emotionless. Unreadable. In looking at her, Jack was seriously starting to believe there was something wrong with his abilities. He sensed nothing. A part of him hoped so. Maybe he could be normal again… but he needed it to last just awhile longer… needed it to last until they caught this killer.
“Neither should you two,” she turned that fished-eyed stare on Jack. “And Mr. Ryder, why pray tell are you standing on my ceiling?”
There was really no sensible answer to that. None that he could come up with off the top of his head that is. He dropped down from the ceiling, his shaggy hair falling back in place and made sure to adjust his shirt to give him some semblance of dignity.
Fish-eyes watched his ever movement. Never reacted when he picked up his coat from the chair that would have been hers. No tell when he picked up his glasses from where her husband had died.
“Just trying to see the scene from another angle.”
She did not appreciate the joke. Beside her, Sentinel barely shook his head as a sign for Jack to keep quiet.
“You’re a victim now, Agent. You can’t—“
“This is still my home, young man.” Waller slowly walked towards the china cabinet in the corner of the room. Her emotionless gaze took in the patterns she’d never be able to set out before her family again. “Gift from my mother-in-law. Kept telling Joe that we’d use them next time. Never had a chance.”
Sentinel held up a hand to stop Jack from approaching the woman. Of course, Jack ignored it. He got down on his hands and knees beside the cabinet. His nostrils flared as he sniffed loudly. He caught the scent of something, the scent of cheese. He reached underneath it only to draw his hand back quickly with a yelp.
The ordeal surprised everyone present including Waller. Jack took that as a sign.
“Agent… did your home suffer from a rodent problem?”
“Not that I’m aw—“
“Sentinel!”
“On it…” The man’s ring highlighted a series of footsteps – plus the blinking phantom form of a masked man standing exactly where jack was –leading from the cabinet and into the family room. The trio followed it first there and then up the stairs to the second story. The footprints turned immediately at the top and led into the first door on the right.
“My daughters’ room,” Waller explained.
Jack beat her to opening the door. It was a room shared by two different personalities, generations. One either in her high school or college years, the other if Jack had to guess – he didn’t since he knew everything about the victims – in her first year of middle school. Posters on the wall showing boybands and rappers on one side, the younger daughter on the other hand still had kitten stuff. Even that adorable picture of a cat hanging in there.
The steps led to the younger daughter’s side of the room. Straight under her bed. At a different time, Jack would have had the tact to ask permission to search it. Unfortunately, he was losing it. His shoulder blade was itching. That voice in the back of his head told him to just let it out, take it off and let it all out. He dove underneath and returned with a small instrument case. He didn’t need Waller’s confirmation. He already knew.
“My daughter wasn’t in the band. Neither of them was.”
“As a friend of mine is so fond of saying,” he opened up the case and thankfully all he found inside was a flute. Just a flute. “It’s the clue.”
“What’s it mean?” Sentinel’s intense stare could be felt even from behind the domino mask. His ring showed nothing special about the flute. Nothing inside. Nothing on it.
Jack didn’t need to think about it. The rattrap, the flute, it was all coming together. “Pied Piper of Hamelin.”
“That happened in July, not June.” The fact that he knew that surprised Jack.
“No,” corrected Jack. “Brothers Grimm cite June 26th which is the same day the city celebrates as Ratcatcher’s Day. July 22nd was the day used by Robert Browning in his poem.”
“I knew the poem.”
“Gentlemen,” finally, there was some emotion from Waller. Jack could both feel and hear horror radiating off her. “One hundred thirty children died that day.’
Sentinel and Jack finally understood the scope of what they might be facing in the following month. Potentially over a hundred victims in a single month… all possibly children. Not a single person in the room doubted that the killer was capable of it.
“Maybe he just means to use rats as the murder weapon…” Jack said without any belief in himself. Each monthly murder or series of murders had been worse than the last.
Now they only needed to know where.
“Back to Coast City,” Sentinel ordered, taking charge while the other two let their imaginations override their sense and sensibility, “You should probably let your people know too, Agent Waller.”
“Coast City?” inquired Waller, still sick at the thought.
“The killer has been targeting those who had the means to stop him. First me then you as the lead investigator following his case.” The man crossed his arms, his face steeled for what was to come. “He’s modeled the kills after them too. Gotten arrogant, cocky.” He nodded towards the kitten posters. “Who chases rats?”
It took a second before Jack caught on. “Wildcat. Only one problem.”
“And that is?”
“He’s moved active gyms again.”
“Gentlemen,” Waller let the controlled fury out. “We’re heading to Blüdhaven.”