SWNOVELS Chapter CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The forest surrounded her
With trees and wildflowers
On the path to perfection
On the road to heaven
Her body lay silent amongst the trees
She would not age
She would not see
The beauty that surrounded her
In the forest of nature’s trees
THE FOREST WAS RELATIVELY QUIET. Nature had a way of calming one’s soul, its personality enchanting. An orange and brown Tawny Emperor butterfly lit on a tree over her body while a bluebird was singing in the distance. The corpse had already commenced decomposing in the heat of the summer. She wore black shorts with a matching top and had been tossed around like a ragdoll before being thrown on the forest path. Her spine had been severed, amongst other things.
Vincent stared down at the young woman’s body. “You poor thing.”
The police had called the Red Sheriff to the crime scene and remained at a distance with the area cordoned off. Vincent had read the note placed in the hand of the 19-year-old college student. It was obviously a supernatural death, but now he wasn’t so sure it was a vampire. Her neck was torn out, and some of her blood was taken. What an absolute waste of such a young life. The note was telling. Whoever did this was not going to stop but may have wanted to be caught on some level. Sick minds could be disharmonious to themselves. The sheriff slowly and deliberately scanned the area but saw no one.
He glanced at the police down the forest path as he went through his investigation. At almost six and a half feet tall, Vincent was impressive. He was as tall as he was handsome. He was an independent red sheriff; he wandered wherever and whenever he wanted. Vampires would often flee an area if there was a rumor of his presence. The police watched as he stared up into the trees, but he was scenting the area. Something was so slight in the air that it was almost imperceptible. But the scent was there. Vincent walked the immediate area for discernible tracks but found none. It was almost as if he had scent amnesia. The memory of it was there but in pieces. Vincent would almost get it, but then it would slip away.
She had been killed just after sunrise, out jogging on the forest trail with her white water bottle speckled with blood. Some folks wouldn’t dare travel alone, but obviously, she had been one of the brave ones, although strength in numbers didn’t apply to humans facing nasty blood suckers anyway. She perished doing what she liked to do. No sign that she had carried a weapon unless the perpetrator had absconded with it, but he didn’t think so. He stood up from examining the body and instinctively placed his hand on his colt, realizing that one of the officers had aimed his gun at him as his back had been turned. Not a serious threat, merely an act of stupidity.
The sheriff went off the trail into the nearby forest. He searched for telltale signs of movement and then finally found it. There were broken branches where someone had approached from the west. Whoever it was had torn out a sapling in an apparent rage, and the murderer had moved fast. It had been over quickly; she probably didn’t have time to panic. Had he been fighting with himself to not kill the girl? That was undoubtedly just speculation at this point. A crow flew over his head, landing on a nearby branch where it began to caw. It passed to another branch and returned to the first as if it wanted him to follow. Some animals acted strangely around vampires. Vincent knew that the crow could have been a namuhwoork, a crow that could transform into a human. They spent more than ninety percent of their lives in crow form. The sheriff followed the bird quite a distance; when it stopped, it cawed repeatedly. When the bird flew down onto the forest floor, he knew he had something. Sure enough, as he looked down, there was a nine-inch paw print. A werewolf! Not a vampire but a werewolf.
“Hey, did you see the attack?” Not wanting to be involved, the bird flew off and out of sight.
“Damn. I haven’t seen a werewolf in years.” Vincent remembered how the last one he encountered had taken a chunk out of his left leg. The paw prints were more than double the size of a regular wolf. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was a werewolf. Unlike vampires, werewolves were few in number. Most of them left humans to their machinations, except for the newly turned. The new ones were more in a Jekyll and Hyde state, unpredictable. In human form, they could be exemplary. They would settle into their new lives much faster if they could find a pact. “Well, this complicates things.”
Wolves were at home in the forest, and after a kill, they could remain in wolf form for days, a consequence of the excitement of the kill. Vincent hadn’t come face to face with a new werewolf in a while. This was a lone wolf, but the nearest pack he knew about was almost a thousand miles away. Vincent hated killing wolves; they were such beautiful creatures. He would bring in a trap and hope for the best. Vincent had several werewolves friends but hadn’t seen them in years. Perhaps it was time to rectify that.
After killing, he composes that odd poetry for whatever reason. And to write about the killings meant rational thought, not Jekyll and Hyde shit. Where were the pen and paper when he was in wolf form? That part didn’t make sense, but as of late, not much did. All he dealt with day after day was senseless killing. Irrational vampires were increasing in numbers.
Vincent heard a branch snap in the distance, and when he turned his head, he realized it was merely a white-tailed deer. He would not inform the police that they were dealing with a werewolf. The current vampire onslaught was bad enough for them to wrap their minds around. Just another day in the big mixed-up city of New York.