The Natures of Men and Monsters Part One: The City of Monsters

-- Forest outside of town, 10:45 P.M. --

“The body was found missing most of its organs, its stomach looks like it was torn out completely, the throat was slashed, probably the initial killing move before moving onto the stomach. His face was cut a lot too and anything he had in his pockets are gone. We’re going to have a hard time with this one at the morgue I’m afraid.” reported Jimmy Smith, his face still pale from the sight of the murder scene he had responded too.

“Thanks Jim, that’s enough for now. If they find anything though let me know alright?” I say before taking a drag from my cigarette and reaching into my pocket to pull out my billfold. I open it and give him a twenty.

“Now go get a drink, try and forget what this place looked like, and don’t worry, one of us will catch this guy yeah?”

Jimmy nods and takes the twenty, but he’s not responding anymore. I pat him on the shoulder reassuringly, he’s a good man, and helpful to a private eye like myself. Hard to come by an officer whose willing to talk to me still. He saunters off and I turn and head into the woods towards the road where my car and partner are waiting. Upon arriving at the car I look past it, the road, and down the hill at the shining city below.  

Lots of cities have dark underbellies, some with sex trafficking, others drugs, but here in the city of Iron Heights high up in the mountains. Here there be monsters. I should know, I am one of them, as is my partner. Vampires, Werewolves, Skinwalkers, Bigfoot, hell we even have a resident snake-woman eh, what are they called? Naga’s? Something like that. Can you believe that the only things keeping these monsters from killing everyone else is the fact that it would be utterly stupid and that my partner and I are the only ones going around reminding everyone?

“Will you put that out and get in the damn car.” growled my partner, a werewolf named Jersey.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” I sigh, dropping the half smoked cigarette to the ground and stepping on it with my heel. “Old habits die hard.” I say with a sharp toothy grin as I open the door to our beat up oldsmobile and slide in.

I’m a vampire if you haven’t guessed. Well, more of a thrall really. I wasn’t born a vampire but was instead turned and as such I got some similar traits like heightened senses, thirst for blood, and the inability to die of old age, without the powers of heightened physical capabilities, hypnotic eyes and the like.

“That’s always your excuse.” he pauses to start the car and swing us around, heading towards downtown. “Pheh, anyways, what do we have?”

I flip open my notepad. “One body, male, cuts, tears, and bites. Missing organs, throat slit, and stomach torn open.”

Jersey whistled low. “Fuck, that’s brutal. So what are you thinking? Werewolf?”

“It could be anything.” I say with a shrug. “But the missing organs makes me think Skinwalkers.”

Jersey sighs deeply. “Great.”

“What?”

“Don't ‘what’ me Nathan. You know what.”

“Hey, they like you more than they like me. It’s natural you should go, besides, while you do that I can head to the morgue and see if they’ve started on or John Doe.”

“They don’t like me because I can do what they do without the practice, and the only reason they don't like you more is because you’re a racist.”

“I am not a racist!” I say with a hurt tone.

“You literally told a group of skinwalkers that they might have an easier time if they could lay off the firewater.”

“Oh come on, I didn’t mean to be insensitive there, I even apologized! Look, you weren’t there alright? There were humans everywhere. I just meant if monsters could overcome our base natures it’d be a lot easier for everyone, I was trying to be discreet! I misspoke, badly I admit, but I’m not racist.” I say grumpily rolling down the window as we hit downtown.

“God damn it Nathan, roll it up. You know I got a sensitive nose, especially with the moon being full in the next night or two.”

“Why don't we break and have something to eat. Game plan, then I can have a smoke. We can go to Betsy’s..”

Jersey growls, ignoring the question until I finally sigh and roll up the window. We drive in silence, keeping an eye on the streets and keeping an eye out for the normal troublemakers. I do notice that Jersey is making his way to his favorite diner, even if it was in a roundabout fashion, going up a few too many blocks before turning and the like.

-- Betsy’s Diner - 11:20 P.M. --

“Order me the usual.” I tell him before lighting a cigarette when we finally park at the diner ten minutes later. He was on his way inside but stops and looks at me with a confused look on his face. I just nod and Jersey reclaims his composure, grunts, and makes his way into the diner before the smoke can reach his sensitive nose. Taking a drag I look to the street where people walk up the block towards downtown where this cities nightlife starts for the ignorant masses of humankind.

I toss my smoke and head inside, quickly locating Jersey who sat at a table that had half booth and half chair seating. He took the chair, and sitting down he was still up to my chin as I walked around him to sit in the booth. He was drinking black coffee, and grunted at me as I sat down.

“Everything alright?”

Jersey nodded. “Yeah, I got our order in.”

“You’re grumpier than usual.” I say knowing full well that bringing up anything about him right now would just raise his ire. Still I press on it. “Like, even more so than the nights before a full moon.”

Jersey gave a harumph but nodded. “While we were up in the mountains, while I was waiting for you, I just had a bad feeling. Like something wasn’t right. It’s still bugging me.”

“The whole thing seems off to me too. Which is why I think, after I check out the morgue tomorrow, and when you talk with our Ski-eh-informants, we should go back up and take a look around.”

Jerseys face flashes with concern for a minute, he almost looks spooked, but then he turns his head, a glower resting on his face and he gives a grunt and nods. I grin and rest against the booths padding, closing my eyes for a minute and just relaxing against the cool pleather.

“Wake-up.” Comes the voice of our waitress and my eyes blink open. I didn’t realize I had slipped into a doze and missed our waitress, Beth, sneak up on me. If I didn’t know any better she was some kind of monster herself, the older woman -  around sixty or so - was the most stealthy creature I knew even when I was fully aware.

“Oh, uh, sorry Beth.” I say with an embarrassed smile.

“Need some coffee? I got some more of that black mud Jersey here likes so much.”

“No, no. I’ll be fine.”

She shrugs. “Enjoy your food.” she says simply, without any concern or care, before turning and walking away. I look down and grin at the plate of spaghetti and meatballs with extra garlic. Across from me Jersey is eating a burger of some kind, cooked rare, a pool of red blood and grease forming around the bottom bun.

“So, “the usual” , what are you worried about?” Jersey asks. He’s indicating the heavy garlic. As a thrall I don't have a reversion to the smell of garlic, though vampires do, enough garlic will drive a vampire to cross the street in order to avoid you.

“Their is some new vamp gang that hangs around the area according to Jimmy, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Any word on who they are?” Jersey asks setting down his soggy burger and grabbing a handful of fries.

“Not yet, but they don’t seem to be biters, just some punks, probably thralls like myself.” I say as I spin my fork in the noodles, watching the garlic intertwine before taking the bite. “Just trying to be careful.”

Jersey chuckles and shakes his head, grabbing his burger again. “Sometimes I think you do all this shit on purpose to piss me off man.”

I shoot him another toothy grin. “Maybe that’s just a bonus.”

We eat our food in relative silence after that, and afterwards Jersey drops me off a few blocks from the Medical Examiners Office where the body is being held . He was going to head home and get some sleep before tracking down our informants tomorrow, and i’ll sleep the day away, by the time we meet up again we’ll be that much closer to the person who did this.

I light a smoke and begin walking down the road of closed businesses, and notice the street lights have been busted. A bad sign.

Some laughter from a block or two up catches my attention, and the sounds of a struggle. I sigh out a torrent of smoke and drop my cigarette on the pavement.

It was going to be a long rest of the night.

-- Iron Heights City Park: 2:30 A.M. --

She was a pretty little thing he had noticed once or twice jogging through the park late at night. Self-conscious thing she was, didn’t want others to see her exercise. He saw her though, and now he felt emboldened enough to talk to her, after the events of last night he felt unstoppable. She screamed when he stepped out of the shadows beside her while she was taking a breather. When he apologized and got her calm he began to tell her about watching her which made her nervous and offended. She called him names and turned to run away when he leapt upon her.

That was almost two hours ago. He was now wiping blood from his serrated knife, grinning down at the mutilated body below him. He had been worried about someone coming upon them, but some kind of luck allowed him to do his dirty work uninterrupted.

Beside her was several different sized ziploc bags, each one with a separate organ. He sheathed his knife, grabbed his ziplocs, and saluted to the very dead woman as he walked back into the shadows and away from the murder scene.

In the distance he heard chanting and what sounded like one of those wooden rattles native americans used, but when he came to the spot where the sound should have been, the music stopped, and no one was around.