Purely F****** Sinful

Chapter 3

It had been too long. The time to act was now.

Anthony got up from the bar and marched towards the stairs leading to the upper balcony.

"Sir. Sir! You can't go up there!" the security guard insisted, grabbing Anthony's arm.

Anthony quickly fished his badge from under his trench coat. "Chicago Police, stand aside!"

He marched up the stairs to the only private room.

"This is the CPD, Chase! Open this door! Now!"

There was no answer. The door was locked.

"Do you have a key for this door?" he asked the security guard who immediately shook his head.

Anthony drew his service revolver from its holster and gave the door a hearty kick, and then another, until it flew open. He dashed inside with his pistol at the ready.

"Put your hands in... what the f**k?!"

Anthony saw the woman he was looking for, with huge bat like wings sticking out from her back and a long tail dangling behind her, sitting on top of what looked like a shriveled up corpse. Her glowing red eyes glared at him, sending a chill down Anthony's spine.

"A pure soul," she whispered.

The woman dashed toward the back wall made of glass. Anthony fired three shots before she jumped through the glass to the ground below.

Anthony ran to the ledge and looked down. There was no body. No one could have survived much less walked away from a fall like that. Did she... fly away?

"What the hell did I just witness?"

*****

Anthony was miserably stoic the next morning when he gave his full report to his captain.

"I know what I saw, Captain," Anthony said through clenched teeth. He desperately tried to defend his position after last night's events.

"This is a complete cluster-f**k, Detective Harvey," Captain Bayer roared. Anthony was on the receiving end of a thorough ass-reaming. "We have the dead body of a prime suspect in a chain of kidnappings that looks like he's been dead for decades! And all you've got is that a naked woman was in the room with him, who then jumped out the window when you showed up? Is that your f*****g story?"

"Yes sir, Captain," Anthony replied, sticking to his word. He failed to mention the huge black wings sticking out of her back, the horns sticking out of her head, the long tail, or the red glowing eyes. No reason to make the Captain think he was more bat-s**t crazy than he already did.

Captain Bayer sat back down in his padded chair. He lowered his voice to a less strident level. "Listen, Anthony. You're a good cop, one of the best. But I can't help but think you haven't been thinking clearly."

Anthony rolled his eyes in frustration, knowing the turn this conversation was about to take. "This has nothing to do with Bridget, sir. I've been through endless therapy and countless psychological evaluations. The shrinks say my mind is fine and I've been cleared to be back on the force."

"I'm fully aware of that, Anthony," Captain Bayer said. "I can't begin to imagine what you've been through. I'm just hoping that your frustration with her case hasn't carried over into your duties."

"They haven't," Anthony assured him.

"Good. Regardless -- I want to give you a few days off, with pay, to clear your mind and start fresh on this case."

"That won't be necessary, sir."

"That is an order, Detective Harvey! You are by no means to work this case until you report back next week, understood?"

Anthony straightened. "Yes, sir."

"Before you go, see if Blaine has turned up anything in the morgue. I need at least something to feed the press dogs before they go spewing this as an act of bio-terrorism."

The captain looked down at his desk, shuffling papers. Anthony recognized the sign of dismissal.

Anthony shut the door behind him and took a deep sigh. That wasn't so bad, all things considered. It could have been worse. At least he still had a job.

Anthony made his way down to the basement level of the precinct building. He replayed the previous night's events over and over in his head. He knew he wasn't crazy, but if he told anyone exactly what he saw, he knew he would be taken off the force, possibly for good.

He passed Matthew Finballe, the detective assigned to Bridget's case. Matthew was spending his oh-so-valuable time shooting wads of paper into a distant trash can. He sometimes scored. Of all the people they could have assigned to that case, they picked Matthew. Matthew! Anthony was pretty sure Matthew was a dirty cop. However, there was nothing he could do about that, not with Matthew's connections.

Anthony arrived at the morgue. He threw on a lab coat and entered Blaine's examination room. The bald pathologist was busy autopsying Chase Feen's shriveled body.

"Please tell me you have something, Blaine," Anthony said, greeting the reed-thin, middle-aged doctor draped in a worn lab coat.

Blaine turned towards Anthony and adjusted his glasses. "Seventeen years on this lousy job and I've never seen anything like this. Come here, take a look."

Anthony approached the body, or rather what somewhat resembled a body. The corpse was desiccated as if entombed for millennia in Egypt. But the clothes piled on a steel table beside the body were the same ones he saw Chase wear last night, without so much as a stain on them.

"Now, look at this," the pathologist pointed.

Blaine lifted a scalpel and punctured the corpse's arm. A fine red powder spilled from the opening, like he had poked into a bag of rusty sand.

"What is that?" Anthony asked.

"That is blood, my friend. Extremely dehydrated blood."

"What could possibly do that?"

"That certainly is the million dollar question of the day, now isn't it? For blood to turn to a powder like this would take a sizable heat source or be freeze dried. The outside of the body would start to burn at such a temperature -- but as you can see, no burns."

Blaine turned to Anthony. "You say there was a naked woman in the room when you busted in?"

"That's right. So?"

"Was she hot?" Blaine snickered.

"I didn't have time to assess her attractiveness, smart ass."

Blaine laughed. "Okay, okay. But here's something else interesting."

He pulled down the sheet to reveal the lower half of Chase' dead body.

"Notice anything?"

It was obvious, even to Anthony. Chase may have been dead, but he sported an extreme erection.

"Why isn't it decayed like the rest of the body?" Anthony asked.

"I have a hypothesis," Blaine said. "The only time a dead man has a hard-on like this is if he was extremely aroused the moment he died. Whatever this mystery girl of yours did to him, they where having s*x when she did it. Pretty hot s*x, it looks like." He grinned at his own joke.

"Makes sense," Anthony thought. He did see her on top of him when he entered the room. The wings, tail, and horns were at the front of his mind, however.

"Let me know if you figure out anything else. The captain put me on leave for a few days."

Blaine shook his head. "I think you're fine. We've known each other since college. After what happened to Bridget, no one would be able to handle it well."

Anthony smiled. "Thanks, Blaine."

*****

Anthony came home after sunset to his empty apartment. He hung his trench coat on the hook on the kitchen door. The kitchen lay in shadow; only a small bulb above the sink provided light. He opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of beer. Maybe he could relax.

He had just popped the cap and taken a swig when he noticed the unusual chill in his apartment. This wasn't the first time he had thought to call the landlord to fix the heater, but the temperature outside wasn't all that cold before he came in.

Anthony stepped toward the thermostat, and then stopped suddenly. A foreign scent tickled his nostrils. He recognized that smell, but it shouldn't be in his apartment - a mix of lavender, cherry blossom, and cotton candy. It was the same odor in the room where he found Chase' body. Anthony's mind stirred uneasily.

He looked around his untidy quarters. Case files and evidence photos lay messily on every available surface. Nothing seemed out of place or missing. The windows appeared to be shut tight -- that was a relief. He glanced into the pitch-black living room and saw two small red lights in the corner. It all clicked in his brain at once.

He wasn't alone.