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3:04
My new sedan is of Dwarven Make, I've had it for all of about a week, so I understandably wasn't overly all that keen on driving my new baby over to the bad part of town this evening, for a new murder case I'd just been handed down.
It's a black, GreyMaul Moonhound, incidentally. It was made last year. Not many people here in Piram City are into automobiles yet. why would they be? If you could fly using the wings on your back to the place you wanted to be in about a quarter of the time it'd take you to navigate the roads of this city, the idea of choosing to drive might seem a little wacko to you. But hey, suppose you're a part of the other half of the fey, the ones without wings, A fey like me. Then you travel in style when possible.
I was admiring my new hood ornament, a polished steel drake with its wings flared out, when I turned into Rustwater Row. It was underneath the overpass in the west wing of the city. It was mainly a dockyard area, with a few shoreside businesses and warehouses scattered about here-and-there.
The steel disc wheels to my fancy new ride pulled to a screeching halt near a small gathered crowd of murmuring onlookers and press. I felt a long sigh escape as a familiar sense of dread crept over me in a spider's crawl, I knew then and there that this one wasn't going to be pretty. I lit up a long, dark purple cigarette, a pixie puff, then exhaled out a plume of violent sparkling vapour into the ether through my nostrils. I reached for my door, then pulled it open to exit out into a cobblestoned street.
I had to tap and push my way past more than a few muttering people as I made my way over to the scene barricaded off by yellow and black tape. A nearby officer spotted me and lifted up the tape-rope for my dipping head. I grunted as I straightened back up, feeling the ache in my knees from the curse of no longer being young. "Alright. What you got for me?" The Sentinel patrolman, a round-looking man, with yellow toads skin fethered with sharp porcupine spikes, scoffed at me under an ugly smirk as he shook his head. "Pheh, you'ze gonna wanna see fuh'ya'self detective. Go ahead, she's right ova there, laid out all nice'n'pretty like."
It was a bright, cloudless day out here this evening on the wharf, but the oncoming night was just around the corner. I knew I had to make use of what little time I had left before the natural light faded.
"Evening Grim. A couple'a dockhands and porters fished her out of the brine about an hour ago. Nobody's touched her since." Sentinel Flynn spoke in a whimsical, sing-songey voice, he was a Pooka, a furry male fey creature with long dark fluffy rabbit ears and large round cat's eyes. I walked over to him and bumped him on the arm as I stepped around to get a better look at the body. "Huh, a mermaid. . .without the tail. Don't that just make her a maid?"
What I was staring at was the mutilated body of a naked girl sprawled out on her back. There were no defensive wounds, her nails were pristine and free of blood. Long blonde hair framed a pretty face locked into shocked surprise. Sky-blue eyes were fading into milky white orbs, as the woman's body began its climb into decay. The killer had shot her through the heart, she'd died fast. That was the only good thing about this awful mess. A puddle of reddish pink gore oozed out from the missing tail part of her body, leaving only the severed torso and stringy-like intestinal tract that hung loose around the bone white edge of her clipped spinal column.
I looked around and saw a trail of the pinkish sludge leading over to the edge of the wharf, presumably from where they'd first pulled her onto land. "Think ol'nessy did it?" I asked the pooka Sentinel, referring to the lockness monster that sometimes visited the bay for a snack and some free publicity. The furry man shook his head with an exaggerated sniff flaring his stubby cat's snout. "Nah, the body hasn't been in the water all that long."
The little guy had a point, the girl was a fish out of water, and she'd started to smell like one. The smell was unique, like petrol or whale oil, unless you've hung around many mer-folk before, you've probably never experienced it. It had nothing to do with the start of her decay yet, it wasn't one of those sorts of reeks. So, someone had killed her nearby, and then dumped her into the drink to make it look like she'd drifted in from somewhere else?
I stepped into the puddle of viscera and bent down to try and pry open the dead girl's hand, she was clutching onto something. The rigor-mortis hadn't yet arrived, so her fingers were easy enough to bend open. Inside the corpse's grip was a balled up piece of paper. I unwrapped it into part of a label of some kind. It was blue and yellow paper meant to be wrapped around a food can. There was a picture, half of a grinning spearfish winked up at me past the torn wrapper.
I glanced up to make out the signage of the closest warehouse. It was a cannery. There was a sign hung up front above the main doors. One painted in blue and gold, with a winking spearfish, also winking over to me. The golden text wrapped under the logo read "Marlons canned seafood." There wasn't any salmon, trout, or any kind of edible fish in these parts, the water pollution was too bad. But, having close access to the docks meant the cannery didn't have to wait long once a shipment had rolled into shore.
I was done for now, so I told the boys to wrap our girl up and send her on down to the morgue. I didn't hold out hope, but maybe those lab coats could tell me more later. Before It was time to head back to my new Moonhound however, I had to take a peek at the cannery.
I heard the bells begin to chime, so I stopped to turn and face the colossal Bell tower rising above everything else within the centre of the city. After that third and final somber bell toll finished bouncing its great wave of noise off the nearby walls to the wharf, I got to moving again. The diamond sun had begun to fall from the sky--the moment the tower had started to sound. It's bright white light had dipped below the horizon just after that last bell, and all in the span of ten-or-so breaths, mid-day had become mid-night.
I made my way over a wide cobblestone walkway till I'd arrived at a large metal shutter door meant for delivery trucks. Besides it was a smaller wooden door built into the red brick wall, the door was locked tight and fastened so with a thick onyx padlock.
Maybe I should've left it there, but gut instinct told me there was someone inside this cannery—right now, laying low till the red and blue flashes had gone away. I pressed my ear to the door and just listened. Minutes went on by, and still not a peep from inside. It was time to pop open this can, I reached for my picks and got to work on that sturdy padlock. "I'm not gonna like what I find in here, am I. . ."
It's a black, GreyMaul Moonhound, incidentally. It was made last year. Not many people here in Piram City are into automobiles yet. why would they be? If you could fly using the wings on your back to the place you wanted to be in about a quarter of the time it'd take you to navigate the roads of this city, the idea of choosing to drive might seem a little wacko to you. But hey, suppose you're a part of the other half of the fey, the ones without wings, A fey like me. Then you travel in style when possible.
I was admiring my new hood ornament, a polished steel drake with its wings flared out, when I turned into Rustwater Row. It was underneath the overpass in the west wing of the city. It was mainly a dockyard area, with a few shoreside businesses and warehouses scattered about here-and-there.
The steel disc wheels to my fancy new ride pulled to a screeching halt near a small gathered crowd of murmuring onlookers and press. I felt a long sigh escape as a familiar sense of dread crept over me in a spider's crawl, I knew then and there that this one wasn't going to be pretty. I lit up a long, dark purple cigarette, a pixie puff, then exhaled out a plume of violent sparkling vapour into the ether through my nostrils. I reached for my door, then pulled it open to exit out into a cobblestoned street.
I had to tap and push my way past more than a few muttering people as I made my way over to the scene barricaded off by yellow and black tape. A nearby officer spotted me and lifted up the tape-rope for my dipping head. I grunted as I straightened back up, feeling the ache in my knees from the curse of no longer being young. "Alright. What you got for me?" The Sentinel patrolman, a round-looking man, with yellow toads skin fethered with sharp porcupine spikes, scoffed at me under an ugly smirk as he shook his head. "Pheh, you'ze gonna wanna see fuh'ya'self detective. Go ahead, she's right ova there, laid out all nice'n'pretty like."
It was a bright, cloudless day out here this evening on the wharf, but the oncoming night was just around the corner. I knew I had to make use of what little time I had left before the natural light faded.
"Evening Grim. A couple'a dockhands and porters fished her out of the brine about an hour ago. Nobody's touched her since." Sentinel Flynn spoke in a whimsical, sing-songey voice, he was a Pooka, a furry male fey creature with long dark fluffy rabbit ears and large round cat's eyes. I walked over to him and bumped him on the arm as I stepped around to get a better look at the body. "Huh, a mermaid. . .without the tail. Don't that just make her a maid?"
What I was staring at was the mutilated body of a naked girl sprawled out on her back. There were no defensive wounds, her nails were pristine and free of blood. Long blonde hair framed a pretty face locked into shocked surprise. Sky-blue eyes were fading into milky white orbs, as the woman's body began its climb into decay. The killer had shot her through the heart, she'd died fast. That was the only good thing about this awful mess. A puddle of reddish pink gore oozed out from the missing tail part of her body, leaving only the severed torso and stringy-like intestinal tract that hung loose around the bone white edge of her clipped spinal column.
I looked around and saw a trail of the pinkish sludge leading over to the edge of the wharf, presumably from where they'd first pulled her onto land. "Think ol'nessy did it?" I asked the pooka Sentinel, referring to the lockness monster that sometimes visited the bay for a snack and some free publicity. The furry man shook his head with an exaggerated sniff flaring his stubby cat's snout. "Nah, the body hasn't been in the water all that long."
The little guy had a point, the girl was a fish out of water, and she'd started to smell like one. The smell was unique, like petrol or whale oil, unless you've hung around many mer-folk before, you've probably never experienced it. It had nothing to do with the start of her decay yet, it wasn't one of those sorts of reeks. So, someone had killed her nearby, and then dumped her into the drink to make it look like she'd drifted in from somewhere else?
I stepped into the puddle of viscera and bent down to try and pry open the dead girl's hand, she was clutching onto something. The rigor-mortis hadn't yet arrived, so her fingers were easy enough to bend open. Inside the corpse's grip was a balled up piece of paper. I unwrapped it into part of a label of some kind. It was blue and yellow paper meant to be wrapped around a food can. There was a picture, half of a grinning spearfish winked up at me past the torn wrapper.
I glanced up to make out the signage of the closest warehouse. It was a cannery. There was a sign hung up front above the main doors. One painted in blue and gold, with a winking spearfish, also winking over to me. The golden text wrapped under the logo read "Marlons canned seafood." There wasn't any salmon, trout, or any kind of edible fish in these parts, the water pollution was too bad. But, having close access to the docks meant the cannery didn't have to wait long once a shipment had rolled into shore.
I was done for now, so I told the boys to wrap our girl up and send her on down to the morgue. I didn't hold out hope, but maybe those lab coats could tell me more later. Before It was time to head back to my new Moonhound however, I had to take a peek at the cannery.
I heard the bells begin to chime, so I stopped to turn and face the colossal Bell tower rising above everything else within the centre of the city. After that third and final somber bell toll finished bouncing its great wave of noise off the nearby walls to the wharf, I got to moving again. The diamond sun had begun to fall from the sky--the moment the tower had started to sound. It's bright white light had dipped below the horizon just after that last bell, and all in the span of ten-or-so breaths, mid-day had become mid-night.
I made my way over a wide cobblestone walkway till I'd arrived at a large metal shutter door meant for delivery trucks. Besides it was a smaller wooden door built into the red brick wall, the door was locked tight and fastened so with a thick onyx padlock.
Maybe I should've left it there, but gut instinct told me there was someone inside this cannery—right now, laying low till the red and blue flashes had gone away. I pressed my ear to the door and just listened. Minutes went on by, and still not a peep from inside. It was time to pop open this can, I reached for my picks and got to work on that sturdy padlock. "I'm not gonna like what I find in here, am I. . ."
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