Justice
Author: Ares
Email: ares13@spin.net.au
http://ares132006.livejournal.com/
Written for the IWRY marathon
Word count: 918
Rating: R for torture imagery.
Thanks, Jo, for the push.
Disclaimer: The man’s a genius, Joss owns all.
Summary: A crime scene.
**
Justice
After he had slipped on the gloves the forensic team insisted everyone wore at a crime scene, the detective inspector made his way to where the body lay. He hadn’t bothered with the booties for his feet; there had been a multitude of people back and forth to have destroyed any evidence that may have lain on the ground. He had been warned what he was about to see wasn’t a pretty sight. The detective inspector steeled himself for the worst.
A large crowd of gawkers had gathered. The news people with their lights and cameras and presenters speaking into microphones had drawn attention to the crime scene. A cordon had been put up to keep everyone away: the police busy keeping an eye on who were present. It was a known fact that many a killer returned to the scene of their crime: perhaps to revel in the chaos they had created, or to gloat over the fact that they were responsible for the taking of an innocent life. The police were right in their assumptions. There was a killer in the crowd, though the officers never caught sight of him. If their gaze had fallen upon him they would have thought him a shadow.
That shadow moved and was gone, a fleeting darkness that settled up and on to the roof of the house. That darkness peered below. It focussed on the detective inspector.
Detective Inspector Jensen’s face was ashen. He fought hard to keep the contents of his stomach down. The first victim was a woman. To be correct it was what was left of a woman. Jensen had seen a lot in his time, but this took the cake. The woman had been tortured, brutally. The body was naked, left in its glory. The victim’s nipples had been bitten off. He glanced at the medical examiner. He got a nod. Yes, bitten. The nipples sat where the eyes should have been. His stomach churned. The fingers were bent at odd angles: broken.
The examiner said, “There should be more blood.”
Inspector Jensen didn’t think he had heard correctly. The body was soaking in it.
“This doesn’t belong to her.” The examiner tilted his head sideways. Jensen looked to where he indicated. A second body hung from a rope from the tree. The detective left the body of the woman to the medical examiner and approached the hanged person. It was a man, his penis stuffed in his mouth. A bloody gash was all that remained of his groin area. Two of his team stood by watching him. Johnson and Peak. The detectives were good at their job. He hoped they had something for him. A name, a suspect, a clue to what had happened here and why.
Johnson said, “You’re not gonna like it.”
Jensen peered at his man. He looked a bit green about the gills.
Peak, a couple of years younger than his partner, said, “There’s three more bodies. Behind the house.”
The inspector could hear the emotion in Peak’s voice. Peak was shaken.
When he followed his detectives around to the backyard of the house, he saw why. Beyond the crush of police, forensics and medical people, there stood three freshly dug holes in the ground.
This is a graveyard, he thought. Behind this suburban house, bodies had been buried.
“Children,” Johnson said. He definitely looked ill. Johnson was a family man.
“The bodies aren’t fresh. They’re in various stages of decay.” The examiner had come up behind them.
“We think there could be more bodies. We have yet to pull the basement apart. ”
“What do you know about the Hamiltons?”
“Tom Hamilton worked in an ice cream parlour, serving behind the counter. Judy Hamilton was a nurses’ aid at the hospital. The neighbours said they kept to themselves but there were regular visitors to the house.”
Johnson added, “We have a computer. It appears they may have been involved with a paedophile ring. Supplying kids.”
Peak said, “Whoever killed these two did us a favour.”
Jensen said, “A killer is a killer. He tortured these people. He needs to be off the streets, never mind what his victims did.”
The inspector knew he was in for a long night. The media were going to have a field day.
Up above, on the roof, the dark shape heard every word. Teeth gleamed in a feral grin. The police would never find the killer. He left no evidence. And the pathologist would find the bite marks resembled those of a wild animal. Fangs instead of human teeth. What they would make of it he no longer cared.
The man and woman had deserved every last scream. Every piece of pain he dished out to them, they had earned. Oh how he had relished their begging cries. Their pleading sobs had been music to his ears. Trafficking in children, kidnapping kids and selling them to paedophiles, they were the lowest of the low. It wasn’t Angelus on the roof. It was Angel. Crimes against children hit him the hardest. He held nothing back when he came across those who defiled such innocence. Since he signed away his Shanshu, since Buffy was taken from this world, his world, he meted out his own version of justice. The Powers be damned. He was, so what the hell! He would do as he pleased.
The vampire known as Angel disappeared into the waiting arms of the dark. It was all the comfort he needed.
End
November 2013