In a sea of leather jackets, gasoline musks, and dollar-store shades crouched a young blonde ingenue. Her black nightdress, spoilt by dust and blood, hung loosely against her scraped pale skin.
Her quivering breath taking in the dust cloud created by a pack of dreadful motorcycles circling her like a school of sharks playing with their prey. The echoes of the rider's laughter prickling her already taut senses.
"P-p-please…" she pleaded, a futile endeavor.
Suddenly, the great gas-guzzling cavalcade made way for a singular motorcycle. Clad in Stygian armor, a much larger Harley motorcycle halted next to the blonde, just enough for her to feel the spray of hot smoke coming out of its exhaust pipe.
The man straddled his black steel horse. He, too, wore clothing in pitch black, staring with hideous eyes. The dark smoke seemed to have latched onto the man's chin as he revved his engine like the wails of the damned.
Dust and smoke, great in volume, choked the poor woman, her eyes turning bloody as her skin cracked and shattered.
The ingenue's last sight was the back of the rider's leather jacket. It read: Seven Whistlers.
●●●●●●
When Irwin was but a child, his father, if the bastard was not drunk nor absent, had always reminded him of the most important piece of clothing ever invented: the suit.
One could wear it with a tie, or without one; One could wear a cumberbund, with cufflinks or a bowtie; in fact, he had likened the suit to a piece of armor one wears to a battlefield, expect, in the modern world, our battlefield is society.
Irwin had always despised the man's words, for they were destitute, deprived of even the basic liberties that made the world turn. If not because his aunts and uncles, on his dead mother's side, of course, could not churn their stomach at his state, he would not have been alive today.
Still, of all the drunken ramblings and malapropism of the man, his words regarding suits stuck to him the most. He supposed it was a charity, a gift from his memories to suppress the darker past.
"Why are we here, Richard?" Asked Gordon Walker, in a nice custom-tailored three-piece navy blue suit as he gazed at the young woman in front of him.
The blonde had her legs and arms cut off at the seam and lay on the ground, surrounding her headless torso in a circle. Her clothes neatly folded to the side, free of the dust and blood that dirtied the rest of her body. Her head missing.
"This is a case." Irwin brought his reveries into a close, feeling the fleeting moist air. "We'll just check this, then meet up with Garth at the museum."
"Usually, a case takes a few days to crack," Gordon reminded Irwin.
"Wouldn't know. This is only my second case." He told Gordon, a smile on his face. Irwin walked towards the folded clothes and felt its materials. He flagged down a nearby crime technician and asked, "How long has the body been dead?"
"We think about… 8-9 hours," the technician replied.
Irwin's eyes roamed around the dusty highway road on the way to New England. Normally in a situation such as these, before the first witness could even contact the police, the scene had already been contaminated. If not by the vehicles that traveled through, then by the critters that smelt blood.
Normally. Then again, they wouldn't be here if it was not normal.
"A third of a day laying on the road and not one ounce of contamination in the body." Irwin paraphrased the lead detective's words. "Not one bit of dust, even the clothes are clean. Don't you find it weird?"
"I don't know, man. It's Detective Mill's job to figure it out." The technician laughed before returning to his job.
Gordon whistled for Irwin, motioning for him to come closer as he inspected the headless neck of the woman. "See this? That's sinew and fiber, like it's been cut with a serrated knife."
Long bits of skin protruding out of the neck as if it had been run through a meat grinder, though, with further analysis, they could see that the strike to behead her was only done once.
"So powerful enough to shave her neck, but the blade is worn. Not great at cutting," Irwin added in his, clearly, shallow knowledge. "What else you got?"
"The limbs. Clearly ritualistic in nature, but I don't know which culture. The missing head is the key to figuring it out." Irwin noted everything Gordon said. After all, it's not everyday you get to see a master hunter at work. "Clean clothes are weird, possibly a clue, too. We should check lore to see if there's a significance with nudity, heads, and cleanliness. The body is dirty, but the clothes are clean. Not cleanliness, more like…"
"Rejuvenation?" He suggested. "Your body goes through rejuvenation and it gets dirty because you're using the ground. You remove your clothes before you do that."
"That!" Gordon clicked his fingers. "You're a natural. Do that. The smell of gasoline, though, that's another thing. If we're dealing with mobile witches, then that's fine, but the gasoline seems to be part of the ritual-"
"Ritual?" Asked Detective Mills, a red-haired woman, in her late 30s, standing tall at five foot and nine inches, as she strode towards them with a barely disguised boredom. "Federal Fella, did I hear you, right? We're thinking of a ritual?"
"Yes, ma'am." Answered Irwin. "Any identification yet on the woman?"
"Nope. Her jeans and shirt didn't have a lick of wallet or id. I had my men scour the rest of the road if it got blown over, but I doubt it." She answered.
"Well, we'll get out of your hair, detective." Gordon said, brushing the dust off his suit. "Hope that helps your investigation."
"Good luck, ma'am." Irwin extended his hands.
"Oh, I doubt we'll solve this," Detective Mills replied, shaking Irwin's hand. "Thanks anyway."
The two went on their way, getting back to the car and heading straight towards the museum. As they passed by the police car and local media trucks, Irwin smelled the noble trees of the countryside for he knew that soon urine and musks of the cityscape would soon pervade his enhanced senses.
Suddenly, a few kilometers out, his nose twinkled with iron and hints of salt. "Blood."
The car lurched to a stop, startling Gordon. "What the hell?" He asked, "What's the matter?"
"I smell blood." Irwin replied, getting out of the car without a second word and launched himself forward, instinct moving faster than thought.
A dozen meters away, behind the thick foliage of trees and bushes, lay a blood-stained negligee. Beside it, a bush laden with locks of blonde hair.
Irwin smiled. "Looks like I found us a clue." He picked up the dark negligee, lightly sniffing like a bloodhound on a mission.
"Fucking wierdo." He heard Gordon mutter, but disregarded it.
Irwin focused on his senses, his instinct, as he forced it to tell him more information.
The blood was fresh, warm to the touch. The hair, too, had bits of scalp tangled in its locks.
It pointed him southward, the same as the direction of their next destination: New York City.
●●●Upper West Side●●●
The concrete jungle stood like a tableau of culture and greed, favored by the new kings of society as their playground. As he had expected, the scent of urine and, surprisingly, delicious food hosted a melting pot in his nostrils; and, to be perfectly honest, he kind of liked it.
The cacophony of beeping horns and relentless buskers offered Irwin a taste of a multicultural zeitgeist the city offered its denizens.
He could see the citizens of this fine city either milling about enjoying the bounties of their home or stride purposefully aiming to enjoy the fresh water provided by good money.
Irwin smiled at all of them, reminiscing about his days where money was both the solution and the root of all his problems. Not anymore, though, he thought peacefully.
"We're here." Stated Gordon, that, unlike Irwin, had no reaction whatsoever to the cityscape.
Irwin had a gleeful expression as they faced the entrance to the American Museum of Natural History.
Large length-wise, banners were plastered on its front walls, announcing the creation of a new hall for the ancient European military. Life-size cutouts of warriors of the distant past stood at the edge of the stairs as if guarding the museum from suffering the same fate they did.
"He just sent me a text." Irwin motioned towards the entrance, ascending the stairs alongside the other patrons. "Man, can't wait to see the dinosaur bones."
As soon as he said so, Gordon pointed towards a poster in red.
"Fossil Hall is shut down for maintenance. Apologies for the inconvenience."
Irwin's shoulder deflated like a balloon, his mood now sour as a lemon. He puffed his cheeks and went inside without his previous enthusiasm.
"You do know you can come back later." Gordon tried to placate him, but Irwin was determined to be a downer.
"Man, probably not. An angel will probably kill me before I can get the chance." He said, scoffing at the delighted faces around him.
Contrary to Irwin's expression, Garth could not be more delighted during his stay in New York.
Who wouldn't when you get to stay in the Hilton and have a $2,000 daily allowance?
He thought he earned it too, given the fact that he was ordered to guard a freaking Devil's Gate. In the past week alone, Garth has spied a dozen different demons, or one demon with a dozen different meat puppets, milling about the same city he was in.
As soon as he saw Irwin, he waved furiously and thanked the lady for the cotton candy.
"Wassup, dude!" He greeted, suddenly hugging Irwin. "Man, you look like you stepped on dog poop?"
"He might as well." Joked Gordon.
Garth's eyes widened in surprise, "Dude, are you Gordon? Man, we're coworkers, now. Bring it in!"
Gordon took a sudden step back, fist up in warning. "Don't you dare!"
"O-okay, what a grumpy puss." Garth muttered, smirking to Irwin, but saw the man longingly gazing at the cordoned off Fossil Hall. "Anyway, I saw the new hall, man. There were knight armors, shields, and-oh, I forgot to tell you."
Garth handed Irwin a cassette tape with an abashed expression. "They still haven't upgraded their security systems."
"What's this for?" Irwin asked, puzzled, pocketing the cassette tape.
"The silver sword, Wolf's Bane, the one you want… it's been stolen."