4

Cole saw the woman he was looking for, with huge bat like wings sticking out from her back and a long tail dangling behind her, sitting on top of what looked like a shriveled up corpse. Her glowing red eyes glared at him, sending a chill down Cole's spine.

"A pure soul," she whispered.

The woman dashed toward the back wall made of glass. Cole fired three shots before she jumped through the glass to the ground below.

Cole ran to the ledge and looked down. There was no body. No one could have survived much less walked away from a fall like that. Did she... fly away?

"What the hell did I just witness?"

Cole was miserably stoic the next morning when he gave his full report to his captain.

"I know what I saw, Captain," Cole said through clenched teeth. He desperately tried to defend his position after last night's events.

"This is a complete cluster-fuck, Detective Harvey," Captain Finnegan roared. Cole was on the receiving end of a thorough ass-reaming. "We have the dead body of a prime suspect in a chain of kidnappings that looks like he's been dead for decades! And all you've got is that a naked woman was in the room with him, who then jumped out the window when you showed up? Is that your fucking story?"

"Yes sir, Captain," Cole replied, sticking to his word. He failed to mention the huge black wings sticking out of her back, the horns sticking out of her head, the long tail, or the red glowing eyes. No reason to make the Captain think he was more bat-shit crazy than he already did.

Captain Finnegan sat back down in his padded chair. He lowered his voice to a less strident level. "Listen, Cole. You're a good cop, one of the best. But I can't help but think you haven't been thinking clearly."

Cole rolled his eyes in frustration, knowing the turn this conversation was about to take. "This has nothing to do with Maria, sir. I've been through endless therapy and countless psychological evaluations. The shrinks say my mind is fine and I've been cleared to be back on the force."

"I'm fully aware of that, Cole," Captain Finnegan said. "I can't begin to imagine what you've been through. I'm just hoping that your frustration with her case hasn't carried over into your duties."

"They haven't," Cole assured him.

"Good. Regardless -- I want to give you a few days off, with pay, to clear your mind and start fresh on this case."

"That won't be necessary, sir."

"That is an order, Detective Harvey! You are by no means to work this case until you report back next week, understood?"

Cole straightened. "Yes, sir."

"Before you go, see if Vince has turned up anything in the morgue. I need at least something to feed the press dogs before they go spewing this as an act of bio-terrorism."

The captain looked down at his desk, shuffling papers. Cole recognized the sign of dismissal.

Cole shut the door behind him and took a deep sigh. That wasn't so bad, all things considered. It could have been worse. At least he still had a job.

Cole made his way down to the basement level of the precinct building. He replayed the previous night's events over and over in his head. He knew he wasn't crazy, but if he told anyone exactly what he saw, he knew he would be taken off the force, possibly for good....

He passed Frank Wallace, the detective assigned to Maria's case. Frank was spending his oh-so-valuable time shooting wads of paper into a distant trash can. He sometimes scored. Of all the people they could have assigned to that case, they picked Frank. Frank! Cole was pretty sure Frank was a dirty cop. However, there was nothing he could do about that, not with Frank's connections.

Cole arrived at the morgue. He threw on a lab coat and entered Vince's examination room. The bald pathologist was busy autopsying Travis Dunham's shriveled body.

"Please tell me you have something, Vince," Cole said, greeting the reed-thin, middle-aged doctor draped in a worn lab coat.

Vince turned towards Cole and adjusted his glasses. "Seventeen years on this lousy job and I've never seen anything like this. Come here, take a look."

Cole approached the body, or rather what somewhat resembled a body. The corpse was desiccated as if entombed for millennia in Egypt. But the clothes piled on a steel table beside the body were the same ones he saw Travis wear last night, without so much as a stain on them...

"Now, look at this," the pathologist pointed.

Vince lifted a scalpel and punctured the corpse's arm. A fine red powder spilled from the opening, like he had poked into a bag of rusty sand.

"What is that?" Cole asked.

"That is blood, my friend. Extremely dehydrated blood."

"What could possibly do that?"

"That certainly is the million dollar question of the day, now isn't it? For blood to turn to a powder like this would take a sizable heat source or be freeze dried. The outside of the body would start to burn at such a temperature -- but as you can see, no burns."

Vince turned to Cole. "You say there was a naked woman in the room when you busted in?"

"That's right. So?"

"Was she hot?" Vince snickered.

"I didn't have time to assess her attractiveness, smart ass."

Vince laughed. "Okay, okay. But here's something else interesting."

He pulled down the sheet to reveal the lower half of Travis' dead body.

"Notice anything?"

It was obvious, even to Cole. Travis may have been dead, but he sported an extreme erection.

"Why isn't it decayed like the rest of the body?" Cole asked.

"I have a hypothesis," Vince said. "The only time a dead man has a hard-on like this is if he was extremely aroused the moment he died. Whatever this mystery girl of yours did to him, they where having sex when she did it. Pretty hot sex, it looks like." He grinned at his own joke.

"Makes sense," Cole thought. He did see her on top of him when he entered the room. The wings, tail, and horns were at the front of his mind, however.

"Let me know if you figure out anything else. The captain put me on leave for a few days."

Vince shook his head. "I think you're fine. We've known each other since college. After what happened to Maria, no one would be able to handle it well."

Cole smiled. "Thanks, Vince."