Chapter 26: Striking Distance
At the local police department Detective Louis was quietly looking through case files that were handed to him by Sophia. The files contained various details and photographs of the victim at Laqueur. Trying to analyze the victim he notices that body contained mysterious marks on the body to indicate that the perpetrator wasn't human. The report also indicated that the cameras weren't available to the investigation team at the time of the crime so, they were just left in the dark.
'What in the world are we dealing with? A monster?' Louis was puzzled at the thought. 'I have to ask Sophia about this.'
He scratched his head. 'Maybe I'm bothering her too much..'
SLAM
Startled by the loud noise. Louis looked to his left and saw a towering figure slap a bunch of case files on his desk.
"Chief!!" He immediately stood up to salute his commanding officer.
"Settle down there. No need to be excited. There is still more work to be done."
"Sir, are these more files?" Louis saw a bunch of files stacked on his desk.
"They are the new reports for a murder at a nightclub in the west end of town."
Louis picked one of the reports. "This happened just recently? This is a lot for me to cover." Louis was panicking practically sweating at the thought.
The Chief of police put his hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll do just fine." He looked at Louis straight in the eye, "You got this."
As he was leaving Louis slumped into his chair shaking at the thought of handling it by himself. He looked around to see if anybody was watching. All he saw were various glimpses of other detectives and police officers staring at him and whispering behind his back.
"The chief is really giving that case to him? He's really trying to kill him." A detective in a tanned suit said to a police officer with short hair.
"I don't know if he can handle it. He's sweating bullets right now" said the short-haired police officer.
Richard who happened to be at the precinct saw Richard looking down. He ran to his desk which happened to be next to Louis'. His eyes widen when he saw what was on his desk.
"Another one?" Richard asked.
"Yup." Louis said with a dejected voice.
"Man, the chief really has it out for you." He picked up a file from the pile sitting on his desk. "How are you gonna do this by yourself?"
Louis shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know. I'm gonna try to get something done. I finished the report for the first murder thanks to the help from that special division doing all the dirty work. Hopefully they can do it again."
Richard looked at his watch, "Oh shit! I gotta go. The team is investigating some suspicious activity near the docks. I'll catch you later. Make sure you keep me up to date so, I can help you when I get a chance."
'There he goes again.' Louis thought as Richard ran out of the police department. 'I hope Sophia will pull through with the reports I asked for...'
At the Blood Moon headquarters Alucard was in her office speaking with Shen and Ceros. Ceros was sprawled on the couch reading her light novels.
"Ma'am, another murder at a nightclub. This time she didn't bother to conceal herself." Shen placed photos of the would be murderer on the table.
"The first one is a clear photo of her entering the stall and the second one leaving. The other various photos are the aftermath of what this murderer has done to the victim."
Alucard picked up the photo of the woman. "She finally shows herself. She's not trying to hide it from the looks of it. Has the information been accessible to the local police department."
"Not yet, but word from Archette says that were about to lose jurisdiction over this whole murder case."
"Why is that?" Alucard was puzzled.
"The director vetoed the decision. He thought it wasn't too much of a hassle for the regular cops to cover it."
Alucard wasn't happy. "Same could be said with the Museum and the bank aftermath."
Then Alucard vaguely remembered the director saying, 'If those wackos are going to make a ruckus let the police handle it. We don't want the media discovering that the artifact is inside a girl. We don't know if she's gonna turn on us at any moment. She's practically a ticking time bomb.'
Alucard pounded the desk in frustration. 'We have to work fast.'
Shen approached the desk. "Is there a problem Madam? I know this is frustrating but, we are on a time limit. We don't know when she will strike again."
Alucard got up from her chair. "Darling, we need you again."
Ceros was wiggling her feet while she had her stomach laid on the couch. "Of course. Anything for you. Kyun Kyun."
"I want you to do some reconnaissance with..." Alucard didn't want to say her name. She shuddered at the thought.
"Cecilia sensei!!!" Ceros jumped off the couch and did a pose.
"Yeah...Her..." Alucard looked down. "I know that you didn't find anything before but this is our only option. Start as soon as you can and take the photos of the woman."
Ceros put the photos in her binder which had a bunch of stickers with her favorite idol groups on it. She then closed her bag and left the office. The wooden door made a creak as it closed and after that was silence.
Alucard placed both hands on her desk and took a deep sigh.
Shen was concerned and wanted to make sure that she kept her spirits up. "Don't worry the captain of the once famed Fighting Angels will pull through."
"I don't like calling her for help." She held a picture frame of group of women clad in military outfits in front of an airplane. "Not after she left...."
"It's for the greater good. The woman has revealed herself so all we need to do is catch her." He placed his hand on his chin. "This seems obvious as we aren't clear of her true intentions. There could a possibility that she could lure us into a trap."
"That seems like sort of a stretch but, her movements seem so out of place." Alucard slumped back into her chair. "It's all up to you darling..."
In the evening Ceros was in front of Cecilia's housing complex. She was wearing her black jacket with a brown hood, she then proceeded to knock on the door.
"WHAT IS WITH YOU HOOLIGANS BOTHERING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE..."
Cecilia opened the door so fast that she almost fell forward.
"oh its you..." Cecilia caught her just in time. "You can't keep doing this. You are going to give me a heart attack."
"It's urgent." Ceros started pouting.
"Staph it... Come inside we'll talk upstairs." Cecilia brought her up her room. The woman on the bottom floor were waving at her as she made her way to Cecilia's room and Ceros smiled right back.
"She's sooo cuuute!" One of the women on the bottom floor said as she downed a can of beer.
As Ceros sat at the same knee high desk as before and laid out a bunch of photos on the table.
"How'd you get these?" Cecilia picked up one of the photos and examined the woman in it.
"Master had these taken from the recent investigation at the club a couple nights ago."
"Our stint didn't go as plan the last time you were here but, we were able to gain some valuable information. Were you able to tell her what happened?"
Ceros looked away, "Not exactly…"
Cecilia was confused. "Why not?"
Ceros had no answer. Cecilia brought her face towards hers. "I'm not gonna pressure you but you're gonna have to tell her what happened sooner or later. It won't be a secret for long."
Cecilia pinched her cheeks.
"Ow." Ceros rubbed her cheeks with her hands.
"Lets move on." She patted her on her head.
"According to what Master said she's blatantly revealing herself this time. No gimmicks, no cover-up. Which is odd since her first attack had such a large time gap."
"Hmmm…interesting. If she were to do that, do you think she was solely trying to get someone's attention."
"If that were the case wouldn't she pick a different place to find who she was looking for?"
"Who do you think she might be after? We have no clue what this person wants?"
"I have an idea but…it seems far-fetched since we just got a hold of it."
Cecilia was concerned. "You're gonna have to find another way to do that. That's too risky and I don't think your boss would like that either."
Ceros grinned. "Since when did you care about her feelings."
Cecilia pinched her arm this time.
"OW!"
"Watch it!"
Rubbing her arm Ceros brought out her tablet showing the map of the city.
"I've marked the locations that we were able to surveillance last time we were out." Ceros drew a circle to surround the locations the woman has been to and the radius of the woman's would be target spots.
"The raidius on both murders are in the middle and the east end? Also did you confirm with her that its the same person were dealing with in the first attack?"
"We know that she likes to go after bars and clubs. Her victims include two men, one in his mid to late twenties and most recent a man in his early twenties. We could scope out our previous locations to backtrack and catch her off guard."
"Interesting plan you got there. We'll spread this investigation over three days to keep her off our trail. We'll go together and hopefully that list of yours will come in handy."
"Yes ma'am." Ceros put her tablet and photos in her backpack.
"Meet me here at the first location at 10pm. Make sure you aren't followed."
"I learned from the best. Don't worry." Ceros winked.
Cecilia rolled her eyes. "That dumbass learned from me."
In the middle of the night and Myra was at a nearby riverbank where was dragging something along.
'This thirst is never quenched.' Myra heaved a man's body into the the river.
Splash
The body began sinking into the river. Myra clapped her hands and proceeded to walk away until she heard a rustle. She looked around her to find the source of the noise. She shrugged off the noise, 'It must be the wind.'
Just a couple meters away across a road there was a bunch of trees in a section in front of a building. In between the trees Cecilia was covering Ceros' mouth. Gently Cecilia let go of Ceros' mouth and they were both staring at the woman leaving the riverbank.
"Out of all the fuckin places in that tablet of yours we got lucky..." Cecilia was glad but at the same time disappointed.
Cecilia looked over at Ceros. 'You really are her student.' She then pulled out her gun and cocked it.
"I'll try to get close to her. In the meantime go to the riverbank and find whatever she did to the river."
Ceros' saluted and they left their position. Myra was walking in the dark to avoid the lights of the road. It was like she was a shadow moving in between the lights.
BLAM
Myra immediately dodged the bullet and created some space between herself. She ended up skidding down a hill into what seems to be a shipyard. The shipyard was dark so she couldn't see where the mysterious person would strike next.
BLEM
A bullet dinked off a metal shipping container. It was still pretty far from Myra as she moved positions again.
BLORP
The bullet hit a sign on a small shack that she was heading for. The sign then began to fall and crash right in front of her.
'Shit' Myra used her arms to cover her body. There was dust and debris that blocked her vision.
"Oof" Myra got kicked in the stomach and she fell to the floor.
Myra was slowly regaining her vision. She only saw a shadowy blur. Then her eyes were wide open.
"Who are you? How'd you get here. What do you want?"
She could hear the sound of bullets falling to the floor. The sound of a gun reloading.
"That's something I should be asking you?" The figure said with a smile.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone