The Midnight Murder Series: Pieces

A small groan escaped Alvin’s lips as a female singing voice echoed in his head. He wearily rubbed his blurry eyes as he slowly opened them. He yawned as he sat up, letting his eyes adjust to the sunlight while making his seat straight again. He looked around and noticed Beyond was in the driver’s seat, Rufus in the second row with his twin using the werewolf’s thigh as a pillow, and Adán in the third row.

“How long was I out?” he asked with a yawn. He stretched his arms and legs out until he heard the beautiful sounds of his joints popping. “Did you give my baby some petrol?” he leaned towards the left, turned off the radio, and raised a brow when he saw the red needle on the E mark. He chuckled nervously. “Beyond, my baby is on empty. How is she running?”

“The sun,” she replied as she continued driving on IL-394 S. Alvin glanced out the window to look at the gray-covered sky ahead of him then back at the female. “We’re in Sauk Village.”

“That’s good,” he nodded while leaning in his seat. “Mark wants to meet us at the café place next to a cemetery. Funny place to put your business at, right?”

“Good morning, brother,” Arvel rose from his slumber and yawned. Oliver did the same. “Thanks for being my pillow, Rufus. Your career should be as a human pillow – Well, werewolf pillow.”

“Sorry for using you as a pillow, Adam,” Oliver spoke to Adán.

The vampire put a finger up to the hunter and took out one of his earphones. “Yes?”

“I said thank you for letting me sleep on your thigh,” Oliver smiled.

“You’re welcome,” Adán nodded.

The knight ignored the men and gently hit the brake before halting behind a black sports car. She sighed and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, counting how many cars and trucks were ahead of her. There were at least five to fifteen – Counting a large semi as one. She turned her head to the left and stared at the cemetery across the road. She surveyed it and spotted a female figure in an old-fashioned dress standing in front of one of the gravestones with her back towards the four-foot-tall, chain-link fence.

“Green means go,” Rufus stated while leaning forward and tapping Beyond on the shoulder.

Beyond forced her attention back on the road and drove into the left-turn lane. She turned on E Sauk Trail and clicked on the left signal to turn on a rocky road next to the restaurant.

“Uh, Beyond. The car park is that way,” Arvel pointed out the window to the restaurant that faded into the distance as she continued to drive until she reached a grass island surrounded by the rocks. “Okay. Don’t listen.”

She parked the car at an angle and killed the engine. She unbuckled her belt and opened the door to get out. Soon the others did the same.

Rufus sniffed the air and smiled. “Someone’s cooking steak and,” he sniffed the air again. “Liver.”

“Are they cooking heart, Rufus?” joked Arvel while checking his phone. “Okay. Mark says he’ll be meeting us at ten. So, we have an hour to eat. Who wants to get a seat?”

Everyone but Adán and Beyond raised their hands.

“You go ahead,” spoke Adán to the men. “We’ll be there.” He and Beyond traveled across the grass island and back on the rocky road.

“You saw her as well, didn’t you?” Beyond asked the vampire as they entered through the south fence.

“Who’s her?” he questioned as they walked on the short stretch of asphalt and stopped to read the granite boulder.

┼

ST. JAMES CEMETERY

NEW STRASSBURG

1847

Adán moved his head a bit to read the white sign mounted on a small flagpole. “I doubt that phone number is still available.”

Beyond shrugged and passed the boulder and onto the open stretch field. She scrutinized the cemetery and saw that all the graves from the east and west sides were facing inwards. She noticed small, white headstones near the back fence on the east side.

Adán followed her until they reached the tree by the white headstones. “Back in my day, they used to put the children in the back of the graveyard. They believed that since the child was small, they would take up less room than a full adult.”

“That was true in my time, but they put the newborns next to the parents,” the sound of gunfire echoed through the air. Beyond’s heart began hammering as she spun around to scan the entrances of the fence. “Who’s shooting?”

Adán shrugged. “People.” He ambled through the rest of the cemetery.

“Fire,” Beyond turned around to see the same girl with her right side sticking out from behind the tree. “Fire destroyed the church.”

“Fire?” the knight asked the female in a blue dress. “What fire and church? Why don’t you come out of hiding, sweetheart.”

“I saw the fire,” the female spoke. “I saw people burning in the church. They were trying to escape, but the windows and doors wouldn’t open.”

“Are you a psychic?” Beyond espied Adán, who was kneeling in the third row in front of a child’s headstone. She noticed a tiny girl in a pink nightgown with black curly hair behind the vampire. “Why does she look familiar?”

“He killed me,” the female continued.

“Who?” Beyond looked back at the female.

She pointed behind Beyond. “Him.”

The knight followed the girl’s finger and discovered she was pointing at Oliver, who was leaning against the SUV trying to figure out how to use his new Android phone. She cocked a brow. “Who? Oliver?” she shook her head at the woman. “He wasn’t born when you were around.”

“He killed me,” the ghost snarled at her. “He did this to me!” She stepped out from behind the tree to show her the rest of her body. The left side of her body – Her arm was gone, the inside of her mouth was showing due to a large chunk of her cheek was missing, and an empty eye socket with blood still leaking from it.

Beyond was aghast at her appearance. In her three hundred and twenty-four years of living and helping her father reap, this is the most gruesome spirit she ever saw. She swallowed the lump in her throat before speaking. “Impossible. He couldn’t have. He was born a hundred and thirty-three years after you.”

“It was him!” the disfigured ghost snapped. A gust of wind chilled through the graveyard, hitting the knight’s body and hair. “I will kill him!”

Adán snuck behind the female with his scythe in hands, waiting for the order to attack.

Beyond yanked her blade in front of her to warn the ghost to step down. “Don’t do it. You will reject it.”

The spirit dissipated, then flickered in front of the hunter with rage in her eye. She was about to reach into his chest when a disembodied golden hand seized her wrist right in midair. Terror washed over the specter as a yellow light erupted from the hand. A shriek fled from her lips as it built up; causing the knights to shield their eyes when its brightness came their way.

Adán and Beyond uncovered their eyes when the light retracted. They were both shocked and confused when they saw both the girl and light were gone, and Oliver was still leaning against the vehicle playing with his phone. It was like nothing had happened.

“What the hell was that?” queried Adán while walking up to her side and putting his, now, scythe necklace back in his pocket.

Beyond shrugged, unable to give him an honest answer. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she began heading out of the churchyard.

Adán followed her. “While checking out the headstones, I noticed ten of the children’s ones have the same death day on them... October 26th, 1871. What can you make of that?”

“The female was talking about a fire destroying a church. Maybe a history lesson won’t kill us, huh?” Beyond clicked her tongue.

“Guys!” Oliver called out when the two reached the vehicle. “My band is on YouTube. This is brilliant!”

“What’s a YouTube?” she asked. “Is that where they put you in a tube and say you’re a YouTube?”

The blonde hunter shook his head. “No. It’s a site where you can put your music or videos on it for others to see or listen. My band, Our Bloody Nightmare, has over ten thousand subscribers on its channel.”

“Anyway, did you see any glowing light or any light source?” Adán questioned Oliver. “You know, shining light coming out suddenly?”

“The sun is coming out,” Oliver pointed to the sky and smiled. “Is that what you were talking about?”

Adán guessed the hunter didn’t see the female ghost nor the light. “Yeah,” he nodded and clapped his hands. “Okay, let’s go in and eat.”

“Hmm,” Rufus chewed the inside of his cheek while reading the menu, sitting in one of the chairs with his back facing the window at the rectangular table in the middle of the restaurant’s left side. “I wonder if they have leberknödelsuppe or maybe saumagen.”

Arvel glimpsed up at the werewolf. He made a disgusting face while looking back at his menu. “Jesus Christo, why would they do such a thing to biscuits? They put gravy on them.”

Alvin shook his head and frowned. “I hope it’s not the Jammie Dodgers. Strawberry jam filling with gravy is just gross.”

“Guys, it’s not cookies,” explained Rufus to the twins. “It’s soft bread. They may look like, what you will call, scones, but they don’t have all that fancy stuff in it.”

“Still,” Arvel put his menu down on the table and picked up his cup of coffee to take a sip. “What an awful thing to do with any biscuits or scones.”

Rufus rolled his eyes and saw his teammates and Oliver coming towards the table. He smiled and waved for Adán to sit with him, but frowned when the vampire sat down next to Alvin.

“How’s the life of a gravedigger doing, little brother?” Alvin joked as Oliver sat down next to Rufus and Beyond next to Oliver. “Is it satisfying that necrophilia nerve?”

Oliver reached over the table and slapped his brother upside the head with his palm. “Oh, just shut up, already. We’re in a public area.”

Alvin whined as he placed a hand on the spot where his brother hit. “Ow! Jesus, Oliver. Can’t you take a joke for once in your life?”

“Can’t you stop joking for once in your life?” Oliver picked up an extra menu and read it. He made a disgusting face similar to the one Arvel made earlier. “Jesus Christo, why would they do such a thing to biscuits? They put gravy on them.”

The twins rolled their eyes at their brother’s report.

“Agents?” The gang turned their heads to see a mahogany-skinned, five-foot-nine male in a police uniform. “Mark Vollans.”

The twins stood up and went on over to hug Mark with smiles on their faces.

“Mark,” began Alvin. “Or should I say, Officer Vollans?”

Mark chuckled and ended the hug with Arvel. “Yep. Last time we were together, I was still in the academy, and here I am, he lowered his voice. “My bosses were in the room when I called you. I’m sorry for using your aliases.”

“Never mind. Why don’t you sit at the head of the table,” spoke Arvel while he escorted the officer to the chair at the head of the table. “We’re about to order some breakfast.”

“Great,” smiled Mark while taking his seat. “I’m famished. I still can’t believe I just did my first night-shift.”

The twins took their seats as well as a waitress with dark hair came up to the table with a notepad and a pen in hands.

“Hey, Mark,” the waitress smiled. “The usual?”

“Hey, Carol. Yes,” he nodded. “But can I have strawberry syrup instead of raspberry, please? The wife thinks I’m gaining some weight.”

“Of course, I’ll give you the sugar-free syrup. Yasmine knows what’s best for you, Mark. I know that woman since we were in diapers,” she turned to the hunters and knights. “Are you six ready to order?”

“Yes, I’ll take the seafood omelette and a strawberry iced tea,” Adán started while giving her back his menu.

She jotted down his order and took back the menu. “Great choice.”

“Do you make leberknödelsuppe or maybe saumagen?” Rufus smiled at the waitress. “How about bauernfrühstück?”

Carol stared at him. Her face showed she was uncomprehending of his questions. “What?”

“May I have your notepad to write the recipe down?” Rufus asked. She nodded and handed him her notepad and pen. “It’s a quick, one-pan dish,” he continued while writing down the recipe. “It’s a hearty meal that takes twenty minutes to prepare and thirty to cook. Bauernfrühstück is a German farmer’s breakfast. You need more German dishes on your menus.” He finished writing and gave back the notepad and pen. “More German dishes on your menus, more booming for your business.”

She nodded and went back taking everyone else’s orders. “Everyone else?”

“I’ll take the seafood platter and just fry everything,” smiled Arvel. “But the fruit and banana bread.”

“I’ll have the same thing, but without the fried everything,” announced Alvin.

“I want the Mickey Mouse pancakes,” grinned Oliver. “With strawberries, whipped cream, and bacon.”

Carol arched a brow at the blonde. “Sir, that’s for the kids.”

“You’re never too old for Mickey Mouse,” remarked Oliver. “Or sitting on Santa Clause’s lap.”

The twins locked looks and smirked.

“You’re right about that,” she chuckled and turned to point her pen at Beyond. “And you, miss?”

“Just coffee,” the knight spoke. “And a cup of hot water.”

Carol nodded before walking away.

“Mark, on your right, are the following ‘agents,’” Alvin began. “Agent Rufus Wolf, Agent Oliver Horny, and Agent Beyond Salem. You know my twin and next to him is Agent Adam Dracula.”

Mark nodded at the new agents before clearing his throat. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. You remember my father, Samuel, right?” the twins nodded. “Well, a few days ago, he and my mother argued about their next vacation. My mother wanted to go to Japan, but dad wanted to stay home for once. So, he decided to take a walk to clear his mind,” he paused for a moment to collect himself. “My mother heard his scream, saw him getting dragged under a car, and he was gone. She said she saw a black figure dragging him underneath.”

“Don’t worry, Mark,” Alvin placed a hand on the officer’s shoulder and smiled. “We will find your father, and we will kill the son of a bitch who kidnapped him, okay?”

Mark returned a smile at the hunter. “Thank you – All of you for helping my family, again. My mother and siblings will be glad to know.”

“After breakfast, why don’t you go home and we’ll get started,” announced Arvel. “We’ll check the cameras and eyewitnesses.”

“Mark, was there a church fire in Sauk Village?” asked Beyond.

Mark thought for a moment. “There were some fires back then. Sauk Village was originally called New Strassburg until the 1950s. We have a legend about this ghost in the cemetery here,” he recalled. “I remember the story was about this teenage girl named Mai Kipling. She was around sixteen at the time in 1871. The story has it that she was with Father Fischer one night, locked him out of the church, then disappeared. Fischer told everyone that he saw Mai fighting these figures in the church through a window. She beheaded one of them but was kidnapped by the other two. There was a search party for her, but no luck. Her journal had paragraphs of the church being on fire on a stormy night. She wrote them as nightmares. On October 26th, 1871, a lightning bolt struck the church during a thunderstorm, and thirty children with six nuns got trapped in the church. Ten children and one nun died in the fire while the rest died a day or two later from smoke inhalation. In 1873, there was another fire on the second anniversary of the first church massacre.”

“Did they ever find Mai’s body?” Adán wondered. “Where was the first church at if you know?”

“I don’t know they ever did find her body, but it’s believed that her spirit roams the cemetery,” Mark grabbed his glass, took a sip of water, and set it down. “The first church was behind this restaurant, but to my left a bit more. It was more like a log cabin than those fancy ones you see around.”

“Here you go,” Carol came up to the table with some trays of food in arms. She set the plates down in front of the gang and smiled. “Enjoy your meals.” She left.

Everyone, except the knights, began eating their meals. They tried to think of what fiend likes to drag people under things or was Samuel taking that walk at nighttime. They traded glances until an idea popped into Beyond’s head.

“We’re probably dealing with an incubus,” she announced. The humans paused and looked at her.

“On men?” questioned Oliver.

“Some can be women,” she shrugged.

“Incubus, like the rock band?” Mark asked.

“No, the fiend,” she replied.

“I don’t understand but okay,” Mark shook his head. “Now, I’ve heard everything.”

“You can’t hear everything,” Beyond spoke. “You can’t hear the angel radios or the voices of the gods. Humans have only ten percent of power within them. They used to chew plants until they discovered fire and salt. By the way, the sex that you do is completely wrong.”

Mark’s eyebrows arched uncomprehending.

The hunters nervously chuckled as Oliver shoved a strawberry into the female’s mouth. “She’s kidding,” they spoke in unison.

“Bye, great-grandma. Bye, great-grandpa,” called fifteen-year-old Ronald Schmidt before opening the front door to a brick and frame rowhouse on Union Avenue. “I will be home at three.” The red-haired boy gently closed the door and sighed in annoyance when a wooden plank with the house’s address, 717, fell on the concrete enclosed porch. He bent over to pick it up and tried screwing the rusty nails back in the holes. He shook his head, opened the door again, and put the plank down on a desk by the door. “Great-grandpa, I think it needs new nails. Bye, again.” He went back outside and hurried down the steps. He raced down the hill to get to Hillcrest Avenue.

“Good morning, Ronald,” smiled a middle-aged female neighbor to the teen while fixing her motorcycle at the end of her driveway. “Have fun at school.”

“Good morning, Miss Jackson,” Ronald waved to her. “Thank you and you too.”

Miss Jackson chuckled while checking the air pressure in her tires. She stood up straight to admire her work when the sound of screeching tires echoed in the atmosphere.

“Let go of me! Help!”

Miss Jackson turned her head towards the voice and gasped when she saw some men in hoodies struggling to get Ronald in a gray van at the end of the corner. “Oh, my God! Ronald!” she ran over to save him. “Release him! I have a gun!” By the time she reached the van, the men already pulled the teen inside and sped off. “Oh, my God! Oh, Jesus!” She felt her heart pounding while taking her phone out of her pocket and phoning 911. “Hello, please send some police out. Some men just kidnapped my neighbor’s grandson!”

Rufus drew out his phone from his jacket and turned it on. He sighed when he strolled his thumb through the text messages that Zak sent, asking him to answer him and don’t ignore him. He put his phone back in his pocket, picked up his fork, and dug in his food.

Adán stared at Alvin eating his food and shook his head. He picked up a knife and fork and reached over to the hunter’s plate. “You need to cut your food,” he began cutting his food into bite-sized pieces. Alvin raised a brow at him while chewing with his mouth shut as the vampire finished and smiled at him. “There you go. We don’t want you to hurt your little tummy-yummy,” he poked his stomach and giggled. “You’re growing up way too fast. Don’t make papi ancient, okay?”

“Okay,” Alvin swallowed and gently pushed the other’s finger away from him. “Thank you... You should eat your food.... Papi.” He looked down at his plate to see his food as tiny squares. He glared at Adán, who was smiling and eating his food before staring back at his square-sized food with a face of discomfort.

An hour later, Mark went home to get some sleep, and the team went to the police station to check the tapes after stopping to get some gas for the vehicle. The team was sitting around a metal table with case files of eyewitness reports of Samuel’s disappearance and some bags with camera tapes in them. All six of them sighed and rubbed their faces with their hands.

“All of these are saying the same thing,” huffed Arvel while sipping his cup of coffee. “Maybe we’re missing something.”

“Well, we know it was nighttime,” Oliver added. “And the tapes are shit. Incubus kidnapping men for breeding, maybe, but let’s check for more clues.”

“Oliver, we’re not the Scooby gang,” Alvin said. “You’re not the pretty boy Freddy, okay? You’re more like Shaggy.”

Oliver snarled at him before turning his attention back to the papers. “What if it was a hellhound? You know, Samuel made a deal and his time was up.”

“Could be, but if there was any sulfur, the CSI probably contaminated it and the crime scene,” Rufus yawned while giving Adán his file. He paused as he put the pieces together. “What if it’s a race thing?”

The hunters looked at him, puzzled. “Race thing?”

“They lynched Native Americans and African-Americans because of their skin. Maybe Samuel was kidnapped by racist humans to repeat history,” explained Rufus while standing up. He went on over to an officer on duty at his desk. “Excuse me, can we have all missing person files that went missing this month?”

The officer nodded before picking up nine files from the edge of his desk and handing them to him. “Here you go, Agent Wolf.”

Rufus smiled slightly. “Thanks,” he walked back to the table and set them down in the middle. “Bet you they’re all not white.”

Arvel took the first file from the pile and opened it. “Rosemary Butterfly Giles, a fourteen-year-old, African-American from Steger,” he hummed, believing that Rufus’ theory is correct. He closed that file, set it aside, and grabbed the second one. “This is Samuel’s.” he set that on top of the first and got another one. “This one is about an Asian boy from Steger as well,” he repeated the same moment like before. “A Hispanic woman from University Park.”

“A Native American man from Richton Park,” Adán added while shutting three more files. “And two are from Sauk Village, and they’re African-American. So, you think this is a hate crime from humans and not a fiend?”

“Can creatures be racist?” Oliver raised a brow at Beyond, who was staring at him with glowing green eyes, again. He blushed and whispered. “Beyond, we can’t do it, right now.”

Beyond closed her eyes and shook her head. “Sometimes, they can.”

“Apostolos is,” Adán uttered then whispered. “The biggest dick in the Milky Way. I don’t know why King Thanatos hire him.”

“He wasn’t always a dick,” Beyond rose from her seat. “He just has a jealousy problem, that’s all.”

“What’s he jealous of and how do you know that?” Rufus interrogated her.

She just shrugged. “When Thanatos shows people more love. He’s in love with him, but Thanatos doesn’t share the same feeling,” the lights began flickering while she exited the station.

“Jennifer, the lights are doing it again,” yelled an officer. “We need new lights up in this joint.”

“After this case, I’m going to play a long game of draughts,” Oliver rested his head on the pile of files and yawned. “And a nap.”

Inside the wooden gazebo behind the village hall and by a small pond was Thanatos watching some ducks swimming in the water while smoking a cigarette. He smiled as one of the ducks dunk its head in the water in search of food.

“Shouldn’t you be in Netherworld?” he looked over his shoulder to see his daughter coming towards him while staring at the ducks. “Ew, disgusting little devils. You know Dany wants your head on a plate.”

He nodded before taking the half-smoked cigarette out of his mouth. “These things can kill you, you know. Leave those ducks alone. They’re not hurting anyone.”

“I know, why did you call me?” she fixed her hair into a ponytail while leaning against the railing. “I need a haircut.”

Thanatos shook his head at her comment. He flicked the cigarette stub into the water. “You look fine,” he walked up to her while reaching into his coat pocket. “Anyway, I’ll be going back to Netherworld, but I wanted to give you this.” He took out an orange pill bottle and handed it to her. “You forgot your medicine after your great escape at the hospital.”

“Thanks,” she gave him a dimpled smile as she nabbed it. “It wasn’t my greatest escape, but it was an escape.”

He rolled his eyes. “Honey, have you been noticing any changes since that attack?”

She shook her head. “No, dad,” she lied. She had been noticing changes since that attack. Her powers have decreased, and sleep wasn’t on her side. She didn’t want to worry him more than he has been. “Just some weight issue.”

He screwed up his face into a frown. He knew she was lying – She was his daughter for Netherworld’s sake! She act like her mother, most of the time. Oh, speaking of Elizabeth. “Destiny, I come bearing gifts,” he snapped his fingers and a silver bracelet with crystal teardrop charms floated out of his coat pocket and into the air. Each crystal was the following: Rose Quartz, Tiger’s Eye, Unakite, Peridot, Green Aventurine, Turquoise, Sodalite, Lapis Lazuli, Garnet, Amethyst, Black Tourmaline, and Snowflake Obsidian.

Her eyes glistened in awe as the bracelet moved towards her. She reached out to get it and surveyed it intently. “Dad, you made this? It’s amazing,” she smiled.

He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Your mother did. She said that it would help you with your magic.”

Beyond snickered and took off her left glove to put it on. She slid her glove back on to cover it. “Really? Tell mom thank you for the jewelry.” She closed the gap between them with a hug.

“I will, and be careful,” he hugged her back. “Stein says to take your medicine with food and no dairy.”

“Dad,” she buried her face in his coat. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Fresh one this morning, agents,” a female officer stepped up to the table and dropped a new file on top of the others. “A teenage boy from Chicago Heights. A neighbor saw a van and some men in hoodies kidnapping him.”

Rufus opened the file to see a copy of a Facebook picture of a red-haired boy with glasses, smiling at the camera with anime posters on the wall in the background. “Ronald Schmidt, a fifteen-year-old, Caucasian born in Germany, raised in Chicago Heights,” he sighed in frustration. “Maybe this isn’t a race thing.”