She finally awoke, naked and woozy, in the bed of an old, yet very elegant hotel room. Her head and stomach felt like her insides rocked round on an unstable boat. She frantically grabbed for the trash bin and released her contents. The foul stench of expelled acids tainted her nostrils. 

Rolling away from the bin she tried so hard to recount her moments the night before. The details were still muddled but still able make them out. She last recalled her case going nowhere. Four dead; their heads found cleaved off, all blonde, no bodies. The she was assigned to an arrogant new partner, hopefully it was temporary. She wanted to get away from it all. It was late. A stop at a bar that led to a couple drinks. Then a beautiful woman approached her and bought her a couple more. The fuzziness was clearing. She and the woman talked for while and then she blindly followed her back to this hotel room. Once inside, the woman placed her lips on hers. The woman's hands passionately caressed all over her body and torn away her clothing. The last she remembered was the hungry look in her pearl eyes then blackness.

She rolled towards the clock and noticed a folded piece of paper. Perhaps her one-night stand left a message. She picked it up and read the message inside, "I hope you had a nice night. Found a lead in our case. I had the liberty of picking out an outfit for you for work. Look sharp! Meet you at the diner downstairs at noon." 

She glanced over at the chair. New work cloths laid out on top; shirts, pants, socks, the works. All appeared to been lifted from her closet back at her apartment. Glancing back at the clock. 11:46 AM. She sprang up and grabbed the clothes off the chair. She quickly dressed herself, and holstered her gun and FBI badge. Hastily she ran down the stairs, past the lobby, and into the small diner. Inside she looked around to see if possibly the one-nighter was there, but instead recognized a man she never wanted to see. Dressed in a grey London fog coat, a mid-thirties man with very pale skin, dark spiky hair, and pearl eyes much like the one-nighter before, sat at the corner of the diner, quietly reading a case file and fiddling an odd, silver coin between his fingers.

The man glanced up and gave a playful wave. "Ah, Agent Weston! Come, I got us some coffee."

Still dazed and tired from the night before, she staggered towards the table and sat in front of her new partner, Xander Nyte, a transfer from an unknown unit. She wasn't sure if it was the hangover or him that made her ill again, but whatever feeling she had she masked it behind a wrathful scowl. 

"You look like you had fun last night." Agent Nyte greeted.

"What the hell was that about?" Milla Weston demanded. Her scowl grew. "

"You were stressed out from the case," Her new partner explained. "So I set you up with a friend. Seemed you two hit it off well. 

"Fuck you!" She spat. "I don't need you to play matchmaker in my love life. Your note said you had a lead in the case so we can catch the bastard that's killing these women."

He smiled and presented the file he was reading. "Donald Krouller. Age 45. Works at a butcher shop. My informant shared with me, before her untimely death, that Krouller had a thing for blonde woman. Coincidentally, all our dead lovelies are blonde."

 Agent Weston studied the file and the suspects mugshot. He was a very large man with thinly red hair, balding scalp, and a triangular shaped birthmark above his left brow. "That's an interesting theory. Doesn't prove his our killer."

"How about this then," Agent Nyte proposed. "A restraining order was given after continuously stalking the first victim, Rebecca Johns. Two weeks later, her head is bobbing down the Mississippi. In 02, he was charged with harassment for stalking another blonde woman. In 04, charged yet again for the same crime. I'd say that warrants for enough reason to take him in for questioning. Also, shit, just look at this fugly sap. How can it not scream murderer?"

"But only their heads were recovered. What'd he do with the bodies?"

"He's a butcher. He knows how to handle meat."

Milla didn't want to follow up on his theory, but she knew she had no other leads. She signed and then stood up. "If your informant believed there was connection, probably best to check it out."

"She was never wrong, Agent." Nyte reassured. "Shall we?"

The agents left the hotel diner and drove through the clustered city, scouting out for their possible suspect. They drove past the jammed traffic stops, past the roaming civilians, and past the conventional street preachers. The file directed the agents outside Krouller's butcher shop. The exterior bricks looked rusted and grimy, but looked more cleansed like a church in contrast to the filthy, roach-covered interior. Nyte and Weston approached the front counter, noting that their suspect was nowhere to be found. They swung under the counter and proceeded to enter inside the dark meat locker. Racks of frozen meat under on hooks, swaying motionless in the cold air. 

"Makes you want to go vegan, huh?" Xander joked as he pushed aside the bug-infested meat to make a clear path for him and his partner.

"Where did you say you were from again?" Weston interrogated her mysterious partner.

"Far. Why the second degree, Agent Weston?" Xander asked, checking if Krouller was behind the racks.

"If I'm going to be working with someone, I'd like to know some of their backstory." She added.

"Worried I might share the same fate as your last partner?" Agent Nyte unintentionally mocked.

"That has nothing to do with this!" Weston snapped back.

"Relax, I meant nothing by it. You don't have to worry about me. I'm really hard to kill. I've spent a long time in this line of work, studying law, analyzing criminals, closing numerous cases for my department. They would've have sent me to you if they didn't believe in my skills. 

"It's a shame my informant died investigating him. Probably figured her for a spy and had to ax her off as well when she got too close. We were close, her and I. It'll be a matter of time before her death will receive justice. I feel the death penalty is the best solution, don't you agree Agent Weston?"

Weston remained quiet. The way he spoke unsettled her. She never heard any amount of empathy in his voice. It was more cold and tranquil, much like the sociopaths she put away. Her bare hands then began to tremble in the cold room.

"Aren't you cold too?" She asked, still following behind Agent Nyte.

"No." He responded. "It feels more like tanning weath-"

POW

A shotgun blast erupted through the darkened room. The explosive shrapnel punched into Agent Nyte's abdomen, forcing him to bounce backward. His lifeless body collapsed on the dirty-tiled floor. His dead, pearl eyes staring into Weston's. Weston ducked behind one of the hanging rib racks. Her pistol readied, she shot back at the attacker, who also shielded himself behind a giant rib cage. She fired four shots, but the bullets were not strong enough to puncture through the old meat. The attacker gunned down the hook that held the ribs high then shot Weston through her right shoulder. She cried out in pain as the blast knocked her against the wall. Weston reacted fast and clenched her bloodied shoulder with her left hand, breathing heavily in the process. She desperately fought to say conscious, but the damning pain was proving too much to handle.

Marching past racks of cold meat was Donald Krouller himself, reloading a double barrel that was aimed at the wounded FBI agent. His large body sweating through his dirty and bloodied clothes. His face scrunched up as a mixture of emotional torment ensued. Anger and regret boiled inside, but no emotion or sense of conscience could convince him to not undergo the action he must take.

"It weren't s'posed to be like this." He slurred his explanation. "I'd a heart fer her. But she'd had none for me. She and them others."

When the final shell was place inside the barrel, Krouller flipped the gun up and had it pointed at Weston's head. Suddenly, Krouller's gun was pulled upward as he fired at the ceiling. Weston's eyes widened as she witnessed the previously dead Xander Nyte striking back their suspect. His body was still riddled with shrapnel but no amount of blood was stained on his clothes. 

Krouller tried to grab at the agent, but Nyte brutally kicked him in his groin. Sharp talons grew over his fingernails as he slashed at the suspects stomach. The first slash ripped along his flesh, leaving behind four long, bloody claw marks. The second poured Krouller's entrails onto the floor. Krouller dropped down to his knees, gasping for his last moments of breathe. He tried to desperately beg the inhuman agent for mercy, but all he could let out was gargled squeals of pain. 

Nyte looked into his remorseful victim's eyes as he bent Krouller's neck back, exposing his hairy throat. "I want you to know that I would have followed your human laws and have turned in to the authorities, but then we'd have a problem. You see, you tried to kill me, you almost killed my partner, and, most importantly, you killed my friend. She was one of us. So your laws means nothing to my laws."

Nyte opened his mouth as wide as he could. His pearl colored eyes rolled over into a black abyss like a hungry shark. Sharp inch-long fangs replaced over his regular teeth. His mouth contorted out to spread even wider as an animalistic screech echoed throughout the storage locker. Nyte lunged his fangs into Krouller's neck as Krouller's screams were drowned out by the sufferable sounds of all his blood being drank from his body. 

Weston watched on in horror as her monstrous new partner maliciously executed their suspect with his bare teeth. Once drained, Donald Krouller dropped dead. Weston couldn't move. She was loosing blood and consciousness. Nyte then walked up and crouched down, greeting her with a blood-stained smile.

"Sorry you had to witness that, Weston." He said through his sinister smile. "All this Dirty Harry shit wound up an appetite. Don't worry, I won't do the same to you. We're partners after all. I'll call in an ambulance as soon as I cover my tracks. Me and my kind, we'll need someone to look into our murders too. And I think you're the perfect candidate. Rest up now. I think it's going to be fun working with you, Agent Weston."

His pearly eyes beamed through the darkness as she faded out. She'll wake the next day, her shoulder bandaged and greatly confused as to why she's hailed as a hero by the department and what had transpired. She would question if what she saw was a dream or reality. Nyte would return to her once he reported to his vampiric overseers, closing another case in what they called the Stoker Cases.

Time doesn't matter here. In this strange city of upside-down spires and glass streets there is no rightful path to natural life or death per se, no specific governing rules so as to indicate either the definite birth or destruction of any one individual. With most of the city's inhabitants failing to demonstrate mortality or, for the most part, nearly any sort of humanity as a general census, it is only practical that the colossal, free-floating clocks and bell towers dispersed throughout the city function as purely decorative objects to be admired, symbols for the few chosen and newly seraphic occupants to regard as vestiges of a lesser, smaller life. Thus the elimination of unnecessary construction workers regarding, specifically, the titanic, golden clocks has been set into motion as only one of the first steps of the general improvement plan for the third provincial area of the divine city. Increasing efficiency and reducing costs, that's the company motto. Even more pressing, with the addition of an average of fifteen to fifty new residents per day and an ever decreasing outflow, more energy and space is required to comfortably accommodate the growing population through the creation of greater buildings, facilities, and various recreational centers -- leading to an estimate of approximately 2,000 lesser beings being replaced with the more desirable 1,000 to 1,500 higher celestial members. Quite a logical decision to be executed within the next few weeks or so. The only time that matters now, really, is the range of business hours between the rivaling coffee and tea shops standing adjacent from one another just a few blocks away from the spiraled office building. The yelling back and forth is always a nice touch. In this strange city of gods, beasts, and other oddities, the seven o'clock latte and chocolate chip muffin still reigns supreme on my list of priorities.

I suppose the noticeable habit is exactly why a ceramic mug and wrapped pastry perch on the edge of heavy, cream-colored stationery, unobtrusive. Also very delightfully scented. I am glad to note that if a kidnapping were to ever occur again, I am lucky to expect that it is a very tasteful, floral-scented, business oriented kidnapping.

And the eccentric, flower-faced man behind it all stands in the corner, of course, grinning. I sigh.

"You couldn't have at least waited until I read the note before you came in here? Kind of ruined the whole surprise kidnapping, if you ask me." The sheer-paneled dress placed on one of the salon's numerous, slightly overdone cherry dressers rests lightly in my hand as I run my fingers over the expensive cloth, regarding the details of the baroque hotel room: gold and silver accents on every possible piece of wall and furniture imaginable, five or ten mirrors too many for one chamber, small, strange, and intricate statuettes occupying much more space than appropriate on any one table. Or floor. The businessman runs four, tulip-tipped fingers against the edge of the door frame to capture my attention again, and I turn to the sight of him rolling the golden filigree sphere in the air, impatient. I catch myself before I smile, continuing, "Though I suppose I should've expected that it was you, given the bouquets and floral everything everywhere."

 Mr. Aster -- or Arum or Acacia or Amaryllis, I'd forgotten exactly what he had introduced himself as at the company meeting last week -- shrugs, signing an apology. He had only been instructed to ensure my presence at the more private meeting of representatives of the reigning corporate powers, hadn't been given any specifics as to which methods were appropriate or inappropriate. Not that kidnapping was especially preferred, but given that -- ------- reach me at -- ------, he ---------- it ---------. I look at him in confusion; he signs again: - ------- reach --- -- your ------.

He shakes his head and points at the watch on his wrist before I can ask him to repeat himself. Late -- or, with those extra gestures, about to be late? Already late? The supportive communication classes at the Divine Business School for the newly seraphic had never been quite as useful as I had wanted them to be. A question about why, exactly, he had chosen such a roundabout way of taking me to something as simple as a smaller meeting between representatives would take at least three days. Or, as another example, questioning all the flowers and fancy, scented card that I hadn't bothered to read and baroque, almost-certainly-paid-for-by-corporate room would take nearly a decade.

A look, then: will --- -- out to ------ with --?

I nod my head in general agreement. The flower-faced businessman smiles.

I sat at a corner table sipping club soda and scanning the hotel bar. I could see everything, but I couldn't see anyone who appeared to be waiting for me. The little golden ball was an unfamiliar weight in my pocket, but I didn't dare keep it out in the open for fear that it was meant to mark me as a target for someone.

I glanced at my watch. 11:45. If I didn't see anyone soon, I'd be forced to show the ball to the concierge at the desk just outside the bar. I was afraid it was some sort of trap; one doesn't do well in my like of work without a healthy amount of paranoia. But my curiosity was getting the better of me. Someone had gone to great expense, drugging me, setting me up in a deluxe suite at an opulent hotel, and even purchasing a perfectly tailored Italian suit. It wasn't really my style, but the cryptic not had said to wear it. When in Rome, I guess.

At 11:50 I presented the little ball to the concierge. He waved over a bellboy and instructed him to guide me to Conference Room A.

After a short trip down a side corridor, the bellboy opened a door and gestured me inside. The conference room was every bit as elegant and well appointed as the rest of the hotel. It had to cost a fortune.

Seated at the head of the long conference table was a well dressed man. My trained mind sized him up instantly: mid 40's, probably between 5'10" and 6'0" when standing, about 220 pounds, but fit. The suit obviously came from the same tailor, so either he had purchased them both or he was in the same boat I was. The latter was doubtful, as he had a confident air about him and gave off the vibe that he was in control. There were no bulges in his jacket where a shoulder holster might be, and from his posture I doubted he had a waistband holster.

"Please have a seat," he said amiably. The was something familiar about him that I just couldn't place. "Glass of wine?" He began pouring before I answered, from a very expensive bottle.

"Why am I here?" I asked as I took a seat.

"Just as I expected. The first to arrive, and already asking questions. Out of curiosity, why don't you ask my name?"

"You won't give it until you decide to, there's no point in asking."

"And how do you know that?"

"Your whole act is geared toward anonymity," I replied. "Strange hotel, note with no names, unique marker presented to the concierge. No, you aren't going to tell me who you are until you're good and ready."

Just then the door opened and Donovan Brigg stepped in. He called himself a retrieval specialist, but really he was just a punch-up artist. One of the best in the business, but still.

"Donovan," he said when he saw me. "Haven't seen you since we ran into each other in Belgium."

"The stolen Degas. I remember."

"Of course you do, you stole it."

"Now, gentlemen, let's put our past differences aside. We're going to work together on this one," said the man pouring the wine.

The door opened again to admit someone I didn't know. My brain kicked in: Five foot seven, 130 pounds, doesn't go outside much, slouch indicates someone who spends a lot of time sitting at a desk, thick glasses. Judging by the fact that our mysterious host had gathered a thief and a hitter, it made sense that this guy would be a hacker. And that's when it hit me.

"Henric Jameson," I said as I turned to the man still seated at the conference table.

"A hat tip to you, my friend. Now, if we can all have a seat, I'll tell you about our heist."

I didn't normally work with a crew, but I was willing to make an exception. Because Henric Jameson was the best Mastermind in the business.