Nocturne | ONC 2024

One: The Murder

The shadows were moving. Smoothly, slowly, cold as death.

The figure in the centre of the room shuddered, glanced around. Eyes sparked like struck rubies in the dim light of a street lamp outside, hawk-sharp, nose keen.

But shadows have no scent.

It was a quick death, more than the bastard deserved. She hadn't had a quick death. Hers had been long, strung out in misery and pain and loneliness. Vampires had no quick physical death; theirs was a disintegration, an undoing, an emptying of a vessel that had been occupied overlong. But there was another kind of death, as long and slow as any. Soul death.

And shadows have no soul.

The evidence wasn't difficult to dispose of; shadows left no fingerprints. All it left behind was a stain and a distraction for those who would follow it here. The vendetta it took with it; there was nowhere it could be abandoned, nowhere its weight could be rested, nowhere the memories could be stored, numbed, forgotten.

Shadows have no life, and all of those who took its life away would lose theirs.

***

There was a stain on the floor that used to be a vampire, and Aaron Evans was starting to feel like he really wasn't being paid enough.

"This is bad," Hal muttered beside him, as if Aaron hadn't already come to that conclusion himself. As if everyone in the room hadn't already come to that conclusion. It was only a matter of time before trouble started over this; the only questions were over how much and with whom. In London, there was rarely a good answer to either.

Aaron shivered and clutched his coffee closer to his face, trying to warm it against the chill wind blowing through the broken window and the open door. He already knew he was going to end up assigned to this one, which was why he'd been dragged out of bed by a call from his supervisor at 4am. He was the only one in his unit who had enough experience to deal with vamps, and that wasn't because he was especially good at it, just that he was still in the unit after going through training. Most of the guys he'd trained with had dropped out or had unfortunate accidents, but at this pay level he didn't have a choice but to continue even on the days where even that much felt like poor recompense.

Days like this one, in fact.

"Do we know the gang yet?" he murmered back at Hal, taking a sip that burned his lips. It was dark out still, and the breath of the on-duty police misted in the light of the street lamps outside. Winter was always the most active time for those who operated in the night hours, and Aaron couldn't remember the last time he was called to a serious scene like this where he hadn't risked frostbite to be there.

"Bill reckons he was a Nocturne." Hal nodded towards their senior officer — the only supervisor in the unit, for similar reasons to Aaron's unearned status. Hal technically wasn't in his unit, but he was the forensics connection for all things supernatural, and it felt almost as good as having a colleague who knew what they were getting into and chose to stick around. It felt a little less like he was utterly mad for doing so himself.

He looked back down at the stain, sensing every drop of free time for the next several months vanish down the drain. "I hope not." He sighed. "I really, really hope not."

-

"He was a Nocturne."

The words landed on the desk between them with the weight of lead. The beginnings of a headache throbbed behind Aaron's eyes as he and Bill stared at each other across the desk, both fully aware of what that meant. "Are you sure?"

"Fraid so," Bill said, looking just as unhappy as Aaron felt. "They've already claimed what's left of him."

"How the hell are we supposed to investigate a murder if we don't have the body?" It was more than anyone's life was worth to go marching into the Nocturnes' Den demanding to look at the evidence — far better not to let them make off with it in the first place. Not that any human wanted to be the one to tell the Nocturnes they couldn't have it, for the same reason they couldn't allow this to go unsolved. When the vamp gangs were angry and had no target, they took it out on the city, and territory wars were hard enough to contain without adding flying accusations and blood feuds.

"You're not," Bill replied. "Not alone, anyway. We've brought in a specialist who should be able to help us get what we need from them."

Aaron narrowed his eyes. There were no specialists in the unit; the closest they came to it were both sitting at this desk.

Bill's moustache bristled with a wry smile, sobered by exhaustion. "We've found a vamp detective who's willing to work on this with you."

"There's no such thing."

"Apparently there is." Bill's hands and eyebrows both rose in a 'don't ask, I couldn't tell you' stance, his own scepticism plain. But in a situation this delicate, they couldn't afford to turn down help like that if it was genuine. "He has all the paperwork. He's qualified. God only knows where he trained, but trained he is. His name is Nikolai Meier, and he's going to meet you back at the crime scene tomorrow."

"Don't you think it's a little risky?" Aaron asked. "You know what the Nocturnes are like. They have a grudge with everyone."

"He says there are no grudges, and we're going to have to trust him on it." Bill sat down, reaching for a half-forgotten coffee. He grimaced into the mug, and Aaron realised his boss looked exhausted; haggard, and far older than his years. So much time working in proximity to supernaturals could do that to a man; it wasn't like they were all that understanding most of the time, even if they weren't one of the types inclined to prey on humans. If he didn't find a way to leave this job in the next few years, that would be him one day, and since he was only in it for the substantial wage, that was hardly an appealing prospect.

"Fine," he said. It would be useful to have a vamp on side while dealing with the gangs. There were laws against interfering with the human authorities, but a gang as big as the Nocturnes, which held most of central London and kept the bleeder trade thriving almost single-handedly, had always been just far enough above the law to make him uneasy. "How will I know him?"

"Oh." Bill snorted, ruffling his moustache again. "You'll know."

WC: 1119