LAPD
Parker Center
Detective Squad Room (Missing Persons)
The room was subdued. Everyone in the office had been working a double shift on the case that came in. It didn't make any sense.
The girl was snatched as she walked home from her job at a record store into a van in broad daylight by what witnesses described as a "crazy looking old guy wearing a fatigue jacket who threw powder in the girl's face and lead her away like a zombie after she struggled a bit."
When they looked at the tape, it was clearly some kind of drug induced kidnapping...but this was weird.
Ballsy and weird.
But that wasn't the freaky part. The freaky part was when the witnesses said the old man's tattoo's were moving as if they were animated.
Detective John W. Hardin reached for his long gone cold coffee and took a sip, the said "Does anyone have an idea what we have here?"
Detective Samantha Baden answered without looking up from the DMV records "A clusterfuck. We have 409 vans matching the description of the suspect's. We have no real description, because 'tats that move' means our witnesses were hitting the bong and drinking the water. No ransom demands, no...hold on..."
Hardin saw the look on her face.
She looked up and said "I just got an email from the lab. They enhanced the video and look what we've got..." as she turned her computer screen to Hardin.
It was a decal of a chemical company that had a warehouse downtown.
"It's probably nothing..." Hardin said without conviction.
"Yeah" said Baden. "Fuck it, lets go..." she said.
The ride over to the warehouse was tense. Nothing was said. They had worked togther for 2 years, each was tired as hell but wired tight, sweating in the LA sun as their body armor baked them, the air conditioning not helping much.
The arrived at the warehouse. Hardin checked his I-phone. The warrant had been signed.
It was closed, and nobody was around to let them in, but the doors weren't locked.
They looked at each other. Hardin got the AR-15 from the trunk, checked to make sure a round was chambered and it was on safe and handed it to Baden.
She checked the chamber, found it loaded, then retrieved 2 extra 20 round mags.
Hardin retrieved the old, scarred, Winchester 1300 that served as his trunk gun for the past decade. It was worn out like a boot on the outside, but the inside was perfect. He'd had it rebuilt down to the screws a year before when the LAPD wanted to retire it in favor of newer guns.
He liked this one. He shot clays with it, birds with it...and had used it 5 years ago on a crip.
Worked fine then too.
He checked the chamber, released the shells into his hand one at a time until he could count all 5 of them, then fed them back into the tube. He glanced at the side saddle and saw it had all 6 rounds, 3 of buckshot, 3 slugs all in their place.
They walked the the open door, and paused.
They felt it.
Wrong
It felt like a murder sceen, but nothing was out of place.
It felt like a hospital room of a loved one who had just died, and they had taken the body out...but the family was still crying...
They looked at each other.
This was the place.
The sun was setting in the sky, just touching the horizon. The sky was gold and red, the smog made the clouds look like old blood...
They went in carefully, not making any sound. They swept the small office, looking for signs of foul play.
Nothing...
They searched the warehouse itself...all the back rooms, 2nd floor...nothing.
"Shit" Hardin whispered, sounding like a shout in the warehouse.
Baden's head snapped up, then to the right, and left. Their it was, looking right at them.
In the middle of the warehouse was an enourmous chalk circle. Two of them...one a foot inside the other. She walked over to it and looked. Inside the space between the circles was ornately inscribed...writing.
Hardin walked over and looked.
Baden crossed herself, a gesture Hardin had never seen before. "Found Jesus, Sam?" he asked.
"No." was her response.
They seperated about 20 feet, then took a step over both circles.
Inside was...wow. Totally invisible from beyond the circle was the girl, Taylor North, bound with what could only be described as living shadow over a symbol made of...flowing pain.
The suspect was standing over her with a knife that looked like it was gold, or bronze.
And the other woman...She took Hardin's breath away. Her hair seemed to shimmer and changed colors as she paced, from honey to wheat to gold to the deepest blue to scarlet all in the blink of an eye.
She was dressed in a gown of a time long ago, but cut more sexy than a cocktail dress, and it, along with her fingernails also shimmered and changed colors with her hair...all just beyond his perceptions.
When she moved it was as if she was floating on air, and stomping the ground like and angy bull all at the same time.
But her eyes...They were locked on the old man.
The woman looked 25 at the oldest...
Her eyes were full of hate. Bitter, aged hate. Not the hate of a young woman, all sharp and full of fire, but hate that was full and fine, vast as the sky and powerful as the ocean.
The old man didn't seem to care. He was chanting in a languange that sounded like chinese, arabic and latin all mixed, Holding the knife with infinite care and love as he stood over Taylor looking at the second woman.
He looked at the detectives with distain. He dismissed them as if they weren't even present.
"Step away from the girl, drop the knife and put your hands on your head!" Hardin ordered as he pointed the shotgun at the old man from 20 feet away.
20 feet was perfect. He's be able to take the man's head off with buckshot if he needed...
Taylor cried out "Help me! Jesus G-d HELP ME"
Then the old man smiled.
Samantha Baden was an excelent police officer, but made a fatal error that cost her life in that instant.
She shot the old man in the chest with 2 69 grain softpoint rounds from the AR-15. They impacted just below his heart and rocked him back, shreading lung, heart and bone...
But they didn't kill him instantly. They left him enough time to say the final words he wanted to. He looked at Baden and threw the knife.
It connected point first and took her in the throat above the vest.
Then it all happened at once.
Taylor fainted as the bindings and the symbols melted away.
The strange woman, who similed in triumph when the old man was shot suddenly screamed.
The scream was a sound of fury. Fury vast as the mountains, as full of energy as thunder and blacker than night.
It drowned out the sound of the Winchester 1300 sending a load of buckshot into the man's head turning it to pulp, and the sound of the next shots from the shotgun tearing him to hamburger.
Hardin turned to Baden and saw her laying in a pool of blood.
She was dead...
(OK Cats...you can jump in now)
Parker Center
Detective Squad Room (Missing Persons)
The room was subdued. Everyone in the office had been working a double shift on the case that came in. It didn't make any sense.
The girl was snatched as she walked home from her job at a record store into a van in broad daylight by what witnesses described as a "crazy looking old guy wearing a fatigue jacket who threw powder in the girl's face and lead her away like a zombie after she struggled a bit."
When they looked at the tape, it was clearly some kind of drug induced kidnapping...but this was weird.
Ballsy and weird.
But that wasn't the freaky part. The freaky part was when the witnesses said the old man's tattoo's were moving as if they were animated.
Detective John W. Hardin reached for his long gone cold coffee and took a sip, the said "Does anyone have an idea what we have here?"
Detective Samantha Baden answered without looking up from the DMV records "A clusterfuck. We have 409 vans matching the description of the suspect's. We have no real description, because 'tats that move' means our witnesses were hitting the bong and drinking the water. No ransom demands, no...hold on..."
Hardin saw the look on her face.
She looked up and said "I just got an email from the lab. They enhanced the video and look what we've got..." as she turned her computer screen to Hardin.
It was a decal of a chemical company that had a warehouse downtown.
"It's probably nothing..." Hardin said without conviction.
"Yeah" said Baden. "Fuck it, lets go..." she said.
The ride over to the warehouse was tense. Nothing was said. They had worked togther for 2 years, each was tired as hell but wired tight, sweating in the LA sun as their body armor baked them, the air conditioning not helping much.
The arrived at the warehouse. Hardin checked his I-phone. The warrant had been signed.
It was closed, and nobody was around to let them in, but the doors weren't locked.
They looked at each other. Hardin got the AR-15 from the trunk, checked to make sure a round was chambered and it was on safe and handed it to Baden.
She checked the chamber, found it loaded, then retrieved 2 extra 20 round mags.
Hardin retrieved the old, scarred, Winchester 1300 that served as his trunk gun for the past decade. It was worn out like a boot on the outside, but the inside was perfect. He'd had it rebuilt down to the screws a year before when the LAPD wanted to retire it in favor of newer guns.
He liked this one. He shot clays with it, birds with it...and had used it 5 years ago on a crip.
Worked fine then too.
He checked the chamber, released the shells into his hand one at a time until he could count all 5 of them, then fed them back into the tube. He glanced at the side saddle and saw it had all 6 rounds, 3 of buckshot, 3 slugs all in their place.
They walked the the open door, and paused.
They felt it.
Wrong
It felt like a murder sceen, but nothing was out of place.
It felt like a hospital room of a loved one who had just died, and they had taken the body out...but the family was still crying...
They looked at each other.
This was the place.
The sun was setting in the sky, just touching the horizon. The sky was gold and red, the smog made the clouds look like old blood...
They went in carefully, not making any sound. They swept the small office, looking for signs of foul play.
Nothing...
They searched the warehouse itself...all the back rooms, 2nd floor...nothing.
"Shit" Hardin whispered, sounding like a shout in the warehouse.
Baden's head snapped up, then to the right, and left. Their it was, looking right at them.
In the middle of the warehouse was an enourmous chalk circle. Two of them...one a foot inside the other. She walked over to it and looked. Inside the space between the circles was ornately inscribed...writing.
Hardin walked over and looked.
Baden crossed herself, a gesture Hardin had never seen before. "Found Jesus, Sam?" he asked.
"No." was her response.
They seperated about 20 feet, then took a step over both circles.
Inside was...wow. Totally invisible from beyond the circle was the girl, Taylor North, bound with what could only be described as living shadow over a symbol made of...flowing pain.
The suspect was standing over her with a knife that looked like it was gold, or bronze.
And the other woman...She took Hardin's breath away. Her hair seemed to shimmer and changed colors as she paced, from honey to wheat to gold to the deepest blue to scarlet all in the blink of an eye.
She was dressed in a gown of a time long ago, but cut more sexy than a cocktail dress, and it, along with her fingernails also shimmered and changed colors with her hair...all just beyond his perceptions.
When she moved it was as if she was floating on air, and stomping the ground like and angy bull all at the same time.
But her eyes...They were locked on the old man.
The woman looked 25 at the oldest...
Her eyes were full of hate. Bitter, aged hate. Not the hate of a young woman, all sharp and full of fire, but hate that was full and fine, vast as the sky and powerful as the ocean.
The old man didn't seem to care. He was chanting in a languange that sounded like chinese, arabic and latin all mixed, Holding the knife with infinite care and love as he stood over Taylor looking at the second woman.
He looked at the detectives with distain. He dismissed them as if they weren't even present.
"Step away from the girl, drop the knife and put your hands on your head!" Hardin ordered as he pointed the shotgun at the old man from 20 feet away.
20 feet was perfect. He's be able to take the man's head off with buckshot if he needed...
Taylor cried out "Help me! Jesus G-d HELP ME"
Then the old man smiled.
Samantha Baden was an excelent police officer, but made a fatal error that cost her life in that instant.
She shot the old man in the chest with 2 69 grain softpoint rounds from the AR-15. They impacted just below his heart and rocked him back, shreading lung, heart and bone...
But they didn't kill him instantly. They left him enough time to say the final words he wanted to. He looked at Baden and threw the knife.
It connected point first and took her in the throat above the vest.
Then it all happened at once.
Taylor fainted as the bindings and the symbols melted away.
The strange woman, who similed in triumph when the old man was shot suddenly screamed.
The scream was a sound of fury. Fury vast as the mountains, as full of energy as thunder and blacker than night.
It drowned out the sound of the Winchester 1300 sending a load of buckshot into the man's head turning it to pulp, and the sound of the next shots from the shotgun tearing him to hamburger.
Hardin turned to Baden and saw her laying in a pool of blood.
She was dead...
(OK Cats...you can jump in now)
