Nocturne | ONC 2024

Seven: Evidence

Aaron wasn't particularly religious, but if he'd been the type to pray then he might have, at the sight that greeted them in the attic space above the main flat block.

The Nocturnes had converted the block into an almost entirely open-plan interior, only the dormitories for the humans who lived with them blocked off. Tana herself had led them through several floors, each more disturbing than the last; the ground floor, stinking of old blood and largely unoccupied at the time of their visit - though Aaron suspected it normally wasn't - and the first floor, where several lower-rank Nocturnes lounged on chairs and sofas and watched them balefully as they passed. Dotted between them, on the floors, in their laps, at work in the small kitchenettes, were humans with dozens of crescent scars at their throats. Bleeders. Debtors. Offenders.

Each floor up grew better kept, more ornately furnished, but that was when the cages appeared, all emptied for their visit. Coils of chain in unlikely places. Unbranded bottles lining shelves, none of them full of wine. Beds the occupants of the flats had no obvious use for, yet had evidence of recent use.

Aaron had known the Nocturnes dominated the black market in bleeder contracts and the victims of territory wars, but the chilling evidence was different to seeing it written in a file. The scale of the operation was apparent, even in this one stronghold out of dozens. In microcosm, this was what the country would look like if the supernatural populations didn't self-manage; human authorities had no hope of interrupting crime on this scale.

And in order to keep it from getting worse, they were being forced to help this gang solve murders of their own. The more Aaron saw of this place and the evidence of what went on inside it, the less he was convinced that it wasn't deserved.

"We should shut places like this down," he growled under his breath. "Look at it all. Who the hell lives in those tiny cages?"

"Lose the battle to win the war, Evans," Nikolai murmured. "Or something along those lines."

"We're not cattle, Meier."

The vampire's face remained smooth. "You can't afford to get upset in here. They can sense it. They'll give you every reason to provide an opportunity to retaliate. Do you have a body-cam?"

"...Yes."

"Make sure it's on."

Aaron scowled, adjusting his vest to check his body camera was running. It took every mote of his being to keep his mouth shut after that, even as the dogs all reacted to a dark stain spread across one of the building's floors that was unmistakably blood.

Tana had led them up to the attic floor, occasionally shooting what she probably thought was a flirtatious glance at Aaron over her shoulder, though it read more accurately as hungry. And as he'd seen what they were dealing with, all thoughts of what went on in the floors below had dropped out of his head.

"God," he whispered.

Vampires didn't die nearly as prettily as they lived, that was for certain.

"You understand why we are frustrated," Tana said. She stood by the door, making all the officers and forensics nervous as they had to pass her to get inside.

Nikolai had already prowled off to investigate the scene more closely; the team around him didn't seem any happier about him than they were about Tana. But without the vampire at his side, Aaron felt oddly naked under Tana's gaze. Vulnerable. Hunted.

The dog he was holding huffed, straining against the leash. He was glad to let it have its head, gladder still that whatever it had scented took him away from the black beam of the woman's gaze.

"Anything?" The dog's path took him past Nikolai, as he strained to keep it from padding through what remained of the second victim; a woman. Red-eyed. Dark-haired. Her head was lying almost under the desk where a shattered laptop lay, her expression twisted in a lingering scream. Aaron couldn't look at it for long. The vampire looked terrified.