Nightshade Inc: Winter's Song

The smell of cooking of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil in a wok filled Diamond Silvervine’s nose as she stood still as a statue waiting for her order. With all the smells from the Chinese restaurant she could still smell the fear coming off the old man behind the counter and Diamond couldn’t blame the old man.

It wasn’t because she was half Native American, sometimes mistaken for Hispanic due to her skin tone, and she wasn’t any taller than five feet, it most likely from fact she was a Therianthrope. Therianthropes or werebeasts were easily spotted by the black sclera they had or maybe some part of his brain told him that she was dangerous, which he wasn’t wrong. Diamond couldn’t smell much fear coming off younger staff and which didn’t surprise Diamond either.

Werebeasts came out to the public around the end of the first world war because it was getting harder to hide themselves in the shadows. So the closer the human generation was from that point of werebeasts coming out, the more scared the generation were of a random werebeast in their presences.

Diamond watched as a young lady came to the older gentlemen and whispered something, which Diamond could hear but didn’t understand as she didn’t speak Chinese. While Diamond couldn’t understand the words, she did understand tones and actions as the young lady was trading places with the scared old man and he got up to head to the kitchen, with a quick step to it, in the back.

A middle aged man came out with a large plastic bag of take out food and put it on the counter before returning into the kitchen. The young lady looked at the ticket, “Mrs. Silvervine?” She asked Diamond and Diamond could feel the young lady’s eyes on her lips.

“Yes.” Diamond said as she walked to the counter and pulled out her wallet from her coat. Diamond’s clothing was simple blue jeans, a pair of running shoes, a tight black shirt with a high collar, leather necklace with a small carved bone hanging from it, shoulder holster pockets, and brown coat with fur lined collar.

A cell phone went off as Diamond pulled out her debit card and Diamond realized it was her own phone. She slipped her wallet back into her coat and pulled out her phone from her front jean pocket.

She noticed the young lady perked up from the sight of a gold moonflower cluster badge on her belt. “Who is this?” Diamond asked as put her phone beside her ear and shoulder as started to pay for her supper.

“It’s Chris, where are you?” A male voice said over the phone. Diamond recognized the voice as Chris Quinn, the police officer assigned to Diamond. “I got a tip about Ivan Popov’s location.”

Diamond grabbed the plastic bag after the young lady put some fortune cookies in the bag with the receipt, “In front of Jade Moon on the corner of North Street and Basher Avenue.” Diamond said before hanging up and heading out the front door with her supper.

The cold autumn air hit Diamond’s face and normally it wouldn’t affect a werebeast as their body temperature ran higher than normal humans but the cold made Diamond’s uncover scars ache. She had three in total of three visible scars on her face, one ran down her left eye, one the side of lip, and lastly on right side on the jawline almost reaching her left eye.

She moved to the curb to wait for Chris to pick her up. She took in a deep breath of the cold air and closed her icy cyan eyes before letting it all out as a pillar of fog. She could feel the light breeze move her dark chocolate hair that she kept in a low ponytail when in public and rarely wore it loose.

Diamond shifted her head to listen to the sound of the quiet city night and gave her shoulders a shake as she felt the air pressure change. “Snowfall is coming soon.” She whispered and paused as she heard footsteps heading her way.

She could determine it was two human males by sound alone and her nose could pick up both had been drinking, one far more than the other. Diamond felt no threat from the two men as they walked past her and gave them no attention until she heard their footsteps stopped a few feet from her.

“Dude, think I can get her number?” One male voice slurred and Diamond thought he was trying to whisper it but failed. Even if he did whisper Diamond would have heard him and kept a stoic face while the drunker spoke.

“I don’t know, she looks like she’s waiting for someone…” The less drunk whispered and Diamond heard him take a step away from her. “Also something feels wrong about her too.”

‘Looks like someone has a sharp flight response.’ Diamond thought and paused her thoughts as she heard the smarter of two groaning. The fool had walked to Diamond’s side and he started to talk but Diamond completely ignored the words he spoke.

Diamond opened up her eyes as she heard Chris’ truck driving up and saw the fool was now standing in front of her. When he saw her eyes he flinched and started to stumble backwards. As he started to fall into the street, Diamond grabbed his shirt with her free hand and easily redirected him to fall behind her, face first.

“Listen to your friend next time.” Diamond said with an icy and impersonal manner as Chris’ black four door truck with a bed cover parked in front of her. Diamond glanced back to the fool’s friend and he froze in place from Diamond’s eyes.

The truck unlocked, allowing Diamond to enter the truck and she put on her seatbelt once seated. “Is the source of the tip that good?” Diamond asked and glanced over to Chris while putting the take out bag on her lap.

Diamond found Chris was just above average looking for a human but not her type, “It’s from guys in drug units, one of their undercover guys.” Chris said as his brown eyes shifted to glance at Diamond. “Got anything for me?”

Chris smirked as Diamond let out a low growl and Chris shifted the truck into drive to get back on the road. “They said he will show up at the unfinished Yunvk Tower tonight.” Chris scratched his five o’clock shadow as they stopped at a red light.

“Yunvk Tower is in the east side, lot of drug drops in that area.” Diamond muttered and remembered that Ivan was a known drug addict. “What are the orders, bring in alive or dead.” Diamond already knew the answer was dead as Ivan was a werebeast that had taken the life of a human woman, Jasmine Teller.

“Neutralize, though with his record he should have been put down earlier.” Chris hissed and Diamond grunted agreed with Chris’ words. “Anyways we will stake out the tower and hope the tip was right.”

The rest of the drive was quiet and Diamond could see Chris’ knuckles were white from how hard he gripped the wheel. He parked them in an alleyway across the unfinished tower and turned off the truck.

Diamond could see fine in the dark and she opened the plastic bag to pull out a white take out box. She took out some chopsticks next and she could feel Chris looking at her. Diamond grabbed one of the cookies and tossed it into his lap.

“Thanks, I was more just checking your mood.” Chris said and chuckled before opening the cookie. Diamond knew what he meant as other cleaners get nervous with a hunt, Diamond was rarely nervous and when she was, she easily covered it.

Diamond felt the truck get a bit cooler as the seconds ticked by and she wasn’t worried about Chris. He was wearing a police officer coat, red thick hoodie, grey sweater, black jeans, and a pair of black leather shoes. She did notice him adjusting his badge that was around his neck and gun holster on the left side.

Chris cleared his throat and started talking but Diamond tuned him out as it was nothing she was interested in, which he knew. This was just one of the ways he became less nervous on a stake out and she kept eating while looking at the tower.

Diamond stopped in the middle of her noodles as she saw Ivan stalking into the tower and she heard Chris stop talking when he ran his fingers through his spiky light brown hair. “What is it?” Chris whispered and Diamond stabbed her chop sticks in the last of noodles.

“Ivan’s here and just went in.” Diamond whispered and closed up her take out. Chris grabbed the shotgun from the gun rack on the suspect transport enclosure wall and she put her plastic bag of food on the passenger floor.

Both got out of the truck, “You lead and I follow this time.” Chris whispered and Diamond sped up her walk so she was in front of Chris. “Doesn’t look like he went up.”

Diamond grunted in agreement as she couldn’t see any movement on the upper floor and that meant Ivan was still on the main floor or went down. When they entered the building Diamond easily caught Ivan’s scent and the dried blood of Jasmine Teller mixed into his scent.

“He hadn’t washed since the kill.” Diamond whispered and used her chin pointed towards the large pit where the building foundation would’ve been poured. She put a finger to her lips and Chris nodded as he followed her down the pit in crotch walk.

The path down the pit was rough but the two managed to quietly get down into the pit and Diamond used her chin to point to a pile of steel piles close to the exit path of the pit. Chris nodded to Diamond and silently walked over to the pile of pipes to hide behind them.

Diamond stood up straight from her crotch walk and started to walk to make noise. She spotted Ivan squatting close to the centre of the pit and her nose wrinkled from his unwashed scent. Ivan showed no sign he had tried to clean himself since he killed Jasmine as her dried blood on him and he was wearing some raggy dirty shirt and torn pants that match his scent.

He was muttering something in Russian and digging up the gravel under him. Diamond remembered seeing a picture of Ivan and the man in front of her was nothing like him on closer look. He had bloodshot eyes that were sunken into his skull, he looked skin and bones, missing multiple teeth, and patches of hair from his beard.

Diamond let out a low rumbling growl, “Ivan Popov.” Diamond hissed and Ivan looked up to stare her down. He let out a growl and Diamond could see he was long gone.

Ivan yelled out something in Russian before he started to spasm and Diamond removed her coat, throwing it to the side. The pit started to fill with the sound of bone cracking and human speech shifting into wild animal growling.

The sight of this transformation would cause a normal person to feel nausea, to Diamond it was normal to see a man transform into a monstrous wolf. Though Ivan’s full transformation form looked more like a starving dog with mange and not the hulking beast that a healthy werewolf would look like.

While Ivan transformed, Diamond did her own special trained selective transformation and rolled her shoulders lightly as it happened. She was shifting her muscles and bones to make them stronger and making her almost as strong as a fully transformed werebeast. It didn’t make her any bigger than her five foot self and she only could hold this state for twenty minutes but a normal werebeast battle never lasted over five minutes.

“Let’s get this over with.” Diamond growled loudly as she shifted her stance and fist clenched at her side. Ivan let out a roar before lunging forward to land on Diamond, Diamond was quicker and side stepped the lunge making Ivan land in front of her on all fours.

Diamond quickly raised both of her fists over her head, she slammed her fists down on the back of Ivan’s neck. There was a loud bone breaking crack when Diamond’s fists made contact and force transfer to Ivan’s body made it slam into the ground causing it to kick up a lot of sand.

Ivan’s body twitched and Diamond could see the light fade from his eyes. She knew he was dead but she didn’t live this long without making sure and she grabbed Ivan’s head. She made a quick and powerful twist on his head to cause internal decapitation, which was Diamond’s favorite way to finish off an enemy, a bloodless kill.

“It’s done,” Diamond called out and the sand cloud was clearing as Chris walked out of his position to stand beside Diamond. Chris looked at the body and Diamond let out a small grunt as her muscles and bones shifted back.

“That was quicker than I thought.” Chris said as bent down but quickly stood up from Ivan’s unwashed smell. “Good god, no wonder it was done fast, more beast than man.”

Diamond nodded and glanced around the pit before walking over to the wall where there was a switch. “Lights.” She said and Chris quickly covered his eyes as Diamond flicked the switch. The flood lights in the pit turned on and she blinked quickly to not be stunned by the lights.

Chris opened his eyes and looked around to see the spot Ivan was digging at, “I need to get my shovel while I call this in.” Chris said and his eyes went back to Ivan’s body. “Mind staying with the body?”

“Bring my supper down as well,” Diamond said and pulled a disinfectant wipe out of her holster pocket to clean off her hands. Chris nodded to Diamond’s request before he walked back to his unmarked truck, while Diamond went to grab her coat from the ground.

Diamond was sitting on the ground ten feet away from Ivan’s body finishing off the last of her food as she ignored Chris, who finally stopped digging.

“I found what he was digging for.” Chris yelled out and Diamond could hear a smirk with his words. “Smack head to the end.” Chris stabbed his shovel in the ground beside him and went to grab his camera to take a picture of what he found. “A few bricks of drugs, cocaine probably.”

“Cocaine was his choice of drug.” Diamond remarked as she tied her plastic bag to hold all her garbage once she finished with everything. She tilted her head to hear a familiar van stop in front of the tower, “Nix is here.”

Chris straightened up and put his camera in his pocket as both of them heard the van door open and close. “Down here!” Chris called out and Diamond stood up. “You will need a beast gurney.”

Diamond wiped her hands on her jeans and took some blue latex gloves out of her holster pockets. As she was putting on the gloves Nix was rolling the very large and sturdy gurney down the pit.

Nix’s pale skin seemed to glow under the bright lights and she was wearing some dark blue jumpsuit, clung to her curvy body. Her black and red hair was tied up in a bun and held together by a large silver hair clamp.

“You get the shoulders and I get the legs.” Nix called out as got closer to them. Any untrained werebeast wouldn’t smell passed cigarette scent but Diamond could easily pick out Nix’s true scent of a blood drinking vampire.

The vampires came out to the public like the werebeasts but they came out after war world two. The main reason was to be able to punish the vampires that sided with the Axis and those vampires charged with their true crimes. Publicly, they told the reason was werebeasts were right about hiding in shadows of humans was impossible now and safer come out now.

“Hello, Doc.” Chris said as walked over to stand by Diamond. “So will you be doing the autopsy tonight or tomorrow?” Nix put the gurney beside Ivan’s body and Diamond moved to the shoulders.

“He will have to wait tomorrow, there was a large car crash, involving a semi-truck, just outside the city…flip him before lifting.” Nix said and Diamond nodded as both of them bent down. They flipped Ivan’s body before easily lifting onto the gurney with little trouble.

“Is that why you are alone tonight?” Chris asked and Nix nodded as she moved Ivan’s arms over his chest. “Well this is low on the list of things to do. We already know he was the killer and what we found here I’m thinking it was a paid kill.”

“Drugs for kill.” Diamond said as she helped Nix strap down the body to the gurney. “I will bet those bricks have some silver powder mixed into it.”

“Thinking of that one case of that junkie werebeast being killed by his drug dealer when he tried threaten dealer for free drugs.” Chris said and Diamond pulled off her gloves with a nod.

“Best way to keep a secret if there is only one person to know it.” Nix said as she double checked the straps before moving to the handles of the gurney. “And we barely blink when we find a dead junkie werebeast any time they show up.”

“Because the amount of drugs they have to consume to get decently high is an overdose and a half,” Chris sighed and Diamond glanced up to the main floor. She could hear some vehicles park close to Nix’s van but probably not in a way not to block her way or back doors. “Sounds like the drug unit is here to take over the scene.”

Diamond snorted, “Meet you in the truck.” Diamond grunted to Chris and walked beside Nix as she took Ivan’s body out of the pit. On the way up they were passed by some uniform officers and plain clothing officers as well.

They gave Diamond and Nix plenty of room and Diamond could smell their fear as they saw Diamond. She glanced at them and some of them flinched and lowered their eyes as they walked past her.

“Easy up on them.” Nix whispered to Diamond and Diamond let out a small huff before sped up her walking speed. She got to the truck and sunk into her seat before closing her eyes while waiting for Chris to return.

Diamond walked into her apartment after being dropped off by Chris, which she had to wait for almost two hours for, and she paused in the entrance hallway. Something felt off and she started to glance around the unlit apartment, which wasn’t too dark with her night vision.

Diamond’s apartment was a studio loft apartment and the main part of the apartment was simple style. It had a living room area, a kitchen that doubled as a dining room, white door that led to a bathroom and a set of stairs heading up to the loft bedroom.

She couldn’t smell any strange scents in her apartment at first but that changed when she took two steps into her apartment. Her eyes locked onto a navy blue duffle bag on the couch and her eyes dilated as her heart rate spiked from an odd but familiar scent.

Diamond spun around when the bathroom door opened and damp and hot air flowed out, “Welcome home, Dia.” A familiar deep female voice cooed and Diamond stiffen.

Standing in the bathroom doorway was Alexandra Olsen, Diamond’s spouse, and they were dripping wet and only had a towel wrapped up in a towel around their waist.

The back of Diamond’s neck hair stood up as Alex’s scent, that was similar to salt water and christmas, filled her nose and her eyes scanned Alex’s peach skin tone shine in bathroom light. Diamond saw new scarring on Alex’s body, some bullet scars on their stomach and acid burn on their left forearm.

Alex slicked back their strawberry blonde hair and allowed Diamond to see their ocean blue eyes. “I was going to surprise you by coming to the front door but you weren’t here.” Alex said and Diamond slid off her coat as Alex’s scent hit her. “So I tho-”

Diamond grabbed Alex’s face and pulled it down to kiss them on the lips. Diamond could feel Alex’s surprise that melted into relaxation as they started to kiss back.

Diamond broke the kiss while she was still holding onto Alex’s face and she whispered to them, “Welcome back, sailor.”

Chris let out a small sigh as he stood outside and put a cigarette in his mouth. He just finished paperwork that handed the case of Mrs. Teller to the drug unit, and now he was taking a rare smoke break after a long day. He looked up to the dark clouds that were starting to let snow trickle out, and covering the ground in a thin layer of snow.

“Need a light?” A familiar female voice asked and he glanced to his right to see Nix. She had pulled out a silver lighter and Chris leaned down to allow her to light it. “Long day?”

Nix lit up his cigarette before putting away her lighter, “Thank you and yes, my case got snatched by the drug unit.” Chris said and watched as Nix pulled out her own cigarette. She leaned up as she was only five feet and six feet, while he was six feet, and Chris smiled as he used his lit cigarette to lit hers, performing a cigarette kiss with her.

Nix sighed as she relaxed and drew in some smoke into her lungs before blowing it out her lips. “It’s been a long year, and…” Her voice trailed off and Chris recognized the look on her face when her thoughts swarmed her mind.

Chris paused before puffing out some smoke before he spoke, “A penny for your thoughts, mon Cheri.” Chris gently smiled and Nix looked at him for a second before resting her head on his shoulder.

“The extinction of the vampire race.” Nix sighed and let out some smoke from the large sigh. Chris paused at her word before moving his hand onto her hip to hold her close. “In the start of the Georgian era the vampire race was ten percent of the world’s population but now less than one percent.”

“Then there are low birth rates and some vampire families are ‘puritans’ about their feeding type.” Chris sighs as he scratches the back of his head with his other hand. “Add on too is that most vampire victims of murder are caused by their fellow vampires nowadays.”

Nix became quiet and only the sound of cars driving by could be heard. “What are you doing this weekend?” Nix finally said and Chris didn’t mind the blatant change in subjects.

“Nothing big, maybe bring some of my winter gear out.” Chris said as held his hand to allow some snowflakes hit the palm of his hand. “Also spending time with the most beautiful woman in the city.” He glanced at her and gave her a gentle smile.

He saw her lightly blush from his flirting words and a small smile appeared on her face. “Well this woman wishes to introduce you to her human son.” Nix said and Chris remembered that Nix had two kids from her past marriage.

“What kind of dress code?” Chris finally asked and Nix smirked. “I mean probably something formal but I don’t want to do too for-” He was cut off from Nix gently pinching his side.

“Semi-formal and our smoke break is over,” Nix commented before putting the cigarette bud in the public ashtray garbage can. “Come on, Casanova.” Chris chuckled as he followed suit with throwing away his cigarette bud.

Nix started to walk back in and Chris had to catch up with her. “I love you, mon Cheri.” He whispered into her ear as he placed his hand on her hip once more as they walked back inside together. Nix smiled and he felt her lean into him and enjoyed his warmth and tenderness.

“I love you too, Dragul meu.” Nix smiled as she leaned into him. Chris walked her back into the building through the morgue loading bay and he saw she was a bit saddened when she had returned to the morgue, alone.

Chris walked to the elevator to get back to the second floor where the bullpen was set up. When he got into the bullpen it was quiet and few cops were at their desks. Chris flopped into his chair and rolled into his desk to finish up his paperwork.