Ain't none of my business if they want to be quiet about it

transient evidence

The call comes in around 21:00. For those who study time and its passage precision tends to lose importance with enlightenment. Time isn't linear and it isn't quantifiable. Not really.

But to be precise: the call comes in at 21:23. Dispatch puts out a call for a noise complaint at 21:26. A tenant in a walk-up apartment building between Pontiac and Poplar called about the upstairs neighbor screaming. That's all the information dispatch has for him.

It's a new-construction building. Modern architecture and Alexander can tell even in the dark that the tenants here have money. It's not exactly prime real estate but the location is close enough to downtown that the adventurous among them could walk to whatever they might need. It means parking is a bitch. If he weren't in a squad car he'd have trouble finding a place to leave the vehicle for the duration.

When he reaches the front door he has to use the intercom to contact the superintendent to let him into the building. A five-minute wait ensues. The old man had been asleep when his phone rang and normally he and his arthritic hips would come shuffling to the door reeking of alcohol to remind the person that they're going to have a lockout surcharge to look forward to but this is the police and if the superintendent has learned anything it's that you don't mouth off to the police.

The noise complaint is news to him. It doesn't surprise him though. "Damn kids are always loud," he says as he leads Alexander to the elevator in the center of the lobby. "I get a lot of complaints about this one anyway. He likes to bring other dudes home. I think they smoke the marijuana before they do whatever they do. Ain't none of my business if they wanna be quiet about it, but..."

Alexander

The night had been slow so far. Sunday night isn’t the busiest Downtown, although there are still plenty of people making the most of the last few free hours before work restarts the following morning. The calls to the PD had been fairly sparse, the local bouncers keeping things under control. So when something had kicked off out east, the roaming squad cars had been dragged around. Then when something relatively minor, a simple noise complaint, came up? Alex just happened to be the closest available car.

It might have been one of the latest attempts at rejuvenating East Colfax. Oh, there had been attempts before, but years of underfunding and bad planning and outright corruption meant that previous scheme had never really gotten off the ground. This building looked new, but there were already signs that the urban blight was starting to re-establish itself. Graffiti waiting to be cleaned up. Dented security doors, meant to keep the unwashed and unwanted from getting to the dumpsters or finding somewhere quiet to sleep.

There’s a wait at the front door. He’d tried the buzzer for the apartment who’d made the complaint. The buzzer for the apartment in question. Even a couple of random ones. Nobody seemed inclined to let him in. Not their problem. But the building super eventually makes it out and opens up.

The super does seem to have a little information about what’s been going on before, though. About the tenant’s usual habits. “Ever heard of anything more than loud noises going on up there? Things getting smashed up, EMS being called out, that kind of thing?”

transient evidence

The elevator dings and the doors open and the superintendent leads Alexander inside the car. Hits the button for the fourth floor with his thumb and hikes up his belt. Unseen keys jingle in a pocket and he coughs before he responds.

"Nah, nothing like that."

Not that he would know. This is a big building with what looks like decent insulation between walls at least if they can't have it in between floors. The apartment in question is on the top floor. It stands to reason the person who called to complain lives below him.

"This the first time I had somebody call the police though. Got new people in the unit under him."

When the doors open again they reveal a corridor with new carpet and fresh-painted walls. Sturdy-looking doors. One of the fluorescent tubes overhead needs replacing. It's burned out and gives the hall a tired cast. The superintendent leads him left and pulls out his ring of keys in case the tenant doesn't decide he wants to open the door.

Alexander

“What’s the guy’s name? He live there alone?” There isn’t any small talk to be made, it’s all simply business. The business of the super to look after the building, the business of the cop to look into why someone was screaming. It wasn’t unusual for people to not even try speaking to their neighbours before calling for police these days. Hell, some of the things people call with would be laughable if they weren’t taking it all so seriously.

She posted something about me on Facebook!

It doesn’t take long for the car to reach its destination. The corridor is slightly curious – the new carpet and fresh paint on the walls jarring with the burned out lighting. “How long has this building been open?” It just seems strange that it would have burned out so soon, or for slack maintenance to be showing up quite so quickly. On the other hand, defects do happen. Maybe this was just the bulb in a million that was dying before its time.

They reach the door, but Alex doesn’t knock straight away. First, he listens. They would have likely heard screaming or shouting from further along the corridor. But if it had been something as simple as a horror movie, or some argument over the phone, then there might be something quieter to hear. He also pops the clip away from his baton, just in case it wasn’t quite so simple.

transient evidence

"Victor. Vic. Some Polack last name. He don't got roommates or nothing."

On the electronic registry downstairs Alexander was able to glean the surnames of the tenants whose names were on the lease. The tenant in apartment 404 showed up as KOZLOWSKI, V.

All is quiet in the corridor. All is quiet behind the door. They can hear the distant sounds of a siren as it blares across the city but that is coming from outside and not from inside apartment 404.

The silence behind the door is heavy. Good cops are able to call on their instinct and to trust it. Alexander has the feeling deep in his gut that the silence is the afterbirth of the moment that made the neighbor call 911.

Alexander

Before Waking Up, this had been as far as his ‘sixth sense’ had extended. The feeling that something wasn’t quite right without really knowing why. Sometimes it’s a noise, something not enough to bring itself to conscious awareness. Sometimes it’s the lack of a noise. Sometimes, as now, it’s the feeling that something significant had happened on the other side of the door and that the dust was still settling, the world not yet taking its next breath.

The clip securing his pistol is loosened as well.

The feeling is enough to be cautious, but maybe not enough to call for backup just yet. Not without any more to go on than some shouting and a silent room. There are times where he wished he was more skilled with the abilities he’d acquired since learning there was more to the world than met the sleeping eye. The ability to sense through walls, for example. Or feel for life. Or minds. Or any number of things that would give him more of a clue of what had happened on the other side of that door.

There are still precautions that can be taken, though. “Give me the keys and wait by the lift. If it sounds like trouble, go call 911.”

First things first. If there’s a buzzer, it’s pressed. Otherwise Alex gives the door a knock. He doesn’t, yet, announce his presence any more than that.

transient evidence

With a frown the superintendent takes in Alexander's badge number and name tag. Might as well be able to tell the dispatcher which of their officers brought more trouble into the building if it reaches that point. Threads the key off the ring and hands it to Alexander with little more than a grunt of acknowledgment. Does as he's told. The wall by the elevator holds him up as he waits.

The door is secured by the lock. It does not whine open with the introduction of Alexander's knuckles to its surface. He has to use the key to let himself in and when he does he sees it is lit as if someone was here if not now then at some point.

An open floor between the kitchen and living room with hardwood floors and a warm yet dark color scheme greets him. In the kitchen the stove light illuminates clean appliances and clutter-free countertops. To Alexander's immediate left is the door leading into a spacious and unoccupied bathroom. An apple-scented candle burns on the counter beside the sink and the flame casts a red glow.

In the living room the television is off. As Alexander walks through the kitchen he passes a black square table with four chairs around it. Mail opened and piled atop it. The door to the washer and dryer closet is closed.

As he crosses the invisible demarcation between kitchen and living room he sees a bloody half-footprint pressed into the hardwood just in front of the bedroom door. The door is ajar but not enough to see inside.

Alexander

No answer, so he uses the key to gain entry. There’s to be no dramatic breaking down of doors or shooting of locks tonight. Not this early in the evening, at least. Who knows what the rest of the night will hold.

Alex stays quiet as he steps into the apartment, slow and cautious, hand resting on the back of his pistol. It’s not drawn, not yet, but it is kept in hand. Because that feeling that something’s not quite right is still there and it’s not getting any less. The room is clean, ordered. There are the usual signs of someone living here – the opened mail, the lit candle, other little tells that this wasn’t simply some display apartment to show people what they could be buying into.

The footprint, now that gets a reaction. It’s curious, though, that there were no others in the parts of the apartment that he could see. Footprints don’t generally start in the middle of a clean floor, with no puddles of anything to be stepped in. Blood is very rarely a good sign, though. The pistol is drawn, now, ready to be used.

Screaming, blood… Now there’s enough to get him concerned enough to want someone else there to watch his back. Someone more than an elderly guy with a limp and a bunch of keys. Alex backs out into the hallway for a moment – if anyone was in the apartment, they might already be aware of his entry and short circuit of the living area. But in case they weren’t, he wants his request for backup over the radio to – hopefully – go unheard. Alex keeps his pistol aimed at the door while he uses his left hand to work the radio.

“Car 12, requesting an additional unit to this noise complaint. I’ve got bloody footprints inside the premises.”

If Alex was sensible, he’d stay put and wait. Hell, it’s tempting. But one of his flaws is the same one that eventually brought the cat to a messy end. He wants to know what happened in there. He wants to know if there’s anyone still alive in there. Hell, they could be bleeding to death while he waits. He returns to where he’d found the bloody footprint, and the cracked-open door in to the bedroom.

“Denver police!” The door gets a swift kick before Alex steps back to the side, using the wall to shield himself from whatever’s on the other side.

transient evidence

And the wall forms as effective a shield as he could hope for. The silence inside the apartment belies nothing. If anyone were lurking behind the half-closed door he could if he could see through walls be able to call on his extra senses to tell him there's a body heat signature within his line of sight. But he cannot see through walls. He has to expose himself.

No movement inside the room. No breathing.

A dripping though. Slow enough that he misses it at first but as he hides and stands silent Alexander can hear it. Thick fat drops of liquid pattering to an already-saturated carpet is the only response he receives after kicking aside the door.

Alexander

No shots come ringing out, no shouts of defiance, and no sudden flurry of footsteps as someone tries to get away. No sound at all.

Apart from the dripping.

No breathing. Drip.

No movement. Drip.

Alex finds himself dropping back on instinct again. Conscious thought, doubt, worry would only get in the way. Instinct might keep him alive. Gun still drawn, outstretched, he moves slowly towards the door. As the angles change, he gets more of a view of what’s inside the room. He’s alert to threats, to people, to weapons. To anything that he needs to immediately react to. But he needs to see.

transient evidence

The first thing he sees is the body of a young man who was up until very recently still alive.

Drip.

Not as large as the living room but the bedroom is still a sizable area. Taking up most of the floorspace is a king-sized four-poster bed. The bed was made. A light gray comforter that was soaked in blood and other bodily fluids. The clothes the man had worn out this evening are strewn around the room and even without having taken a course on splatters or forensic psychology Alexander can tell that they were removed in haste and in the midst of a struggle. A pearlescent plastic button lies against the shore of another fuller bloody footprint.

Drip.

A pool of blood has soaked into the berber carpet keeping the only room in the house without hardwood floors insulated. The body is difficult to miss. The young man has a ragged mouth slashed into his abdomen. Someone pulled a length of intestine out of his belly and tied it around his neck and used it to lash him to one of the posts at the foot of the bed.

Drip.

No one else is in the room. Not hiding in the closet or underneath the bed.

Alexander

Oh, fuck. The training slips for a moment when Alex gets the full view of the room, sees the body on the bed and what had been done to him. But it comes back, that sense of floating over chaos, as he checks the rest of the room for whoever had done this.

Nobody here. He moves to the side of the bed, to check the body. He hadn’t expected to find a pulse, given the amount of blood soaked into everything that would absorb it, given the fixed gaze with the open eyes, no movement of breathing. No pulse.

How long had it been since the call came in? How long had the guy been lying here, bleeding out.

People who don’t really understand their work like to ask what’s the worst thing you’ve seen. This would be a contender. Certainly up there with some of the other things that he’s seen, especially the ones he wouldn’t talk to anyone outside of his circle of Awakened friends about. So he’s holding it together, for now. Maybe later, back at station standing under the hot water of the showers, it will hit him. For now?

Car 12, requesting urgent backup. I’ve got a murder scene here, no sign of the assailant.

There might be nobody living in the room, besides him. But that doesn’t mean that there’s nobody else in the room. The pistol stays drawn, ready to aim, but now Alex moves towards wherever he can find a mirror. Maybe in the closet, if not there’s the bathroom. Hell, anything with a reflection will do. Enough for him to see the recently departed.

[Arete: Sensing spirits, Spirit 1. Coincidental, so Diff 4. I think I’ve got this tagged as practiced? So -1. I think aiming for 2 successes, so there's time for a conversation?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (8) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

transient evidence

The neighbors downstairs must have decided to call the cops after the assailant disemboweled the young man. As of right now the only person who can identify the body as belonging or not belonging to the tenant in 404 is the aging landlord outside. Without having heard shouts or shots he isn't going to come any closer to investigate and he can't besides. The doors shut with a simple lock and a deadbolt. The simple lock will stay engaged even after the door has been unlocked. In order to get inside the apartment one has to unlock the deadbolt and then the simple lock.

Alexander will have to remember later when he writes his report that the deadbolt had been engaged. He had to unlock it to enter the apartment.

This means whoever killed the young man had to have a key to lock up behind him. Either that or he somehow vanished into thin air.

Or he's hiding in the bathroom. Alexander didn't check behind the shower curtain.

When he opens up his senses to check beyond the Gauntlet he can see the pale impression of the young man left behind. Drifting around the body as if making sure it's uninhabitable now. Pale and growing weaker for he does not intend to stick around. He knows damned well he's dead and there's nothing to which he'd care to cling anyway. Ghosts are vibrant creatures. This is not a man who has any desire to be a ghost.

Alexander

Alexander spares enough attention to look at the spirit, seeing that he’s there and already fading. His knowledge on this bit is rather fuzzy but he’s already vanishing faster than some of the other recently dead that he’s encountered.

“Victor.” His first attempt to call to the man is tense, tight, wound up as much as he is. Alex clears his throat and tries again.

“Vic. Listen to me. I need to know what happened here. Who did this to you? Where did they go?”

The pistol? That’s still aimed towards the entrances to the room, with Alex’s back towards one of the corners. He can see the spirit out of the corner of his eye, look to him if he needs to, but the doors are what he’s more interested in. At least until he’s not quite so alone.

transient evidence

That hazy place between living and death and without anyone calling his name at the end of his life the dead man had had no reason to stick around sure but now here's someone in his apartment walking around called too late to do anything to keep him on the other side and the spirit that once belonged to the body of Victor Kozlowski turns its head towards the sound.

As a general rule one needs to be able to touch the spirit world in order to communicate with those who inhabit that side. But Victor hasn't left yet and the fact that Alexander uses his nickname is a stronger tether than anything else.

But he doesn't know what happened here. He doesn't know who did this to him. He doesn't know where they went. If Alexander takes the silence as willful that would just be the nature of spirits but this particular spirit looks the Orphan right in the eye before he does the same thing the person who killed him did.

He vanishes.

Out in the hallway the elevator dings. The superintendent has to go let another pair of cops inside the building.

Alexander

“Waitwaitwait!”

Fuck.

This wasn’t the first time Alex had tried to speak to a spirit to get more information. There had been the guy who had been one of Victoria’s little pack. The woman in the creek, where he’d encountered Skye again. Each of them had stayed long enough to get something out of. Even to apologise to, for not being able to help them. He’s no Lucy, there to help guide the deceased to their final rest in a sleepy black river on the other side of the Gauntlet. Hell, he’s just making this up as he goes along, as best he can.

But he can’t look back. He can look through, but no more than look. Can’t look into the threads of magic that may or may not be running through the place.

Do the more adept of their kind know how lucky they are?

He does look for what little else there is that he can sense. Chaos. Time. Forces. He’s not really expecting to find anything, but there might be a clue to rule in – or out – anything supernatural.

[Arete again, sensing Entropy, Forces, Time. TN4. Winging it without all of his foci, so +3. So spending the WP, only want the 1 success to pull the effect.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (1) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Alexander

[Awareness: something hinky going on here?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

transient evidence

Sometimes the best way to begin the journey on a path to enlightenment is to determine what it is one does not know. This case is going to leave his hands just as soon as the crime scene technicians and the homicide detectives show up but in the meantime for the time he stands with his senses open he cannot see as anyone has made any alterations to the timeline. No radiation or strange heat signatures linger in the place. Nothing is about to break.

He gets the distinct impression that this is going to happen again though. That this was not an isolated incident. Call it fate.

He can also feel the presence of another's Working here. Such a faint sensation that he cannot state with certainty what sort of resonance the individual left behind. All he gets is the feeling that something has come undone or is coming undone. He is aware of it and that is all he can state with certainty.

In a few more minutes the officers from car 12 will be there. Alexander will have to answer more questions than he can answer. These are the last few minutes he will have alone in the place.

Alexander

One thing Alex is sure of is that there are lots of things that he doesn’t know. The finer aspects of investigating a scene for fingerprints, footprints, fibres, hair, trace evidence that isn’t obvious to the naked eye. Equally, he doesn’t know the first thing about how the warp and weft of magic can be looked at, traced, analysed. Or how the connections between things can be traced and followed. The trace of resonance here, was the Vic or the assailant? Do dead Mages leave a resonance? The place didn’t seem to be soaked in it, but then again Alex so rarely Works at home too.

He knows that this guy was murdered, and he didn’t seem all that happy about it. He knows that some kind of magic – other than his – was used here. He knows that blood and death can be used in rituals, although the particular pattern of cuts doesn’t strike him as particularly arcane. No runes, no symbols. Just a gaping hole.

Alex also knows people who do know things. The CSI’s, the coroner, the detectives. He might not be on friendly terms with many of them, but he does have access to the same computer systems that they do. There will be call logs, and CCTV, and all sorts of data that might come together in some way. He’s friendly with one of the medical examiners. And he knows people who can look back who might be able to find out more.

There are specific questions. Who did it? Why? And, maybe more important right now, where in the hell did they go?

There’s not much time left before others arrive here, but then there’s not much else that Alex can be getting on with before they do. One of those things is to take a closer look at the body, in case there’s anything else there that might be important. The other is checking the parts of the apartment that he might have skimmed over before. The windows. The laundry closet. Behind the shower curtain.

transient evidence

Nothing about the body gives him any further clues. No signs of a break-in. No signs of a struggle until he considers the state of the strewn clothes. The location of the murder could imply that this was a crime of passion. Or a crime that occurred under the guise of passion. Without looking back or convincing the spirit to stay long enough to talk Alexander will have to save his questions for another time.

There are no defensive cuts on the palm or forearms. Other than a cut across his throat and the cut across his abdomen no other injuries make themselves obvious.

The weapon came out of a block in the kitchen. It's lying on the floor where it is far enough away that it appears to have been kicked there rather than dropped or thrown. That single bloodied footprint outside the bedroom is the only indication that the killer had walked away.

For all his searching though Alexander has nothing else to tell the responding officers. Nothing that they will believe, anyway.