A Darker Team
“Let them pass!” An authoritative voice came from behind the officer who had stopped a group of four from crossing the yellow tape. This officer turned and looked at his superior. He then turned back to the group he’d stopped and lifted the tape. The one that was clearly the lead of this small group gave the officer a slight smile.
“Thanks,” He said, but sounded a bit more condescending. The group moved past other officers and toward the one that had called to let them through. Three men and one woman comprised this official-looking group.
All of them were wearing darker clothing. Looked more businesslike than casual. Two of them had a couple of small duffle bags over their shoulders and walked up to the man who was in charge. There were three bodies on the ground covered by black sheets.
“I called you the moment I realized this was going to be a bit more than my guys can handle.” The officer in charge glanced around, but his men weren’t close and neither were the cameras. They stood in what looked like a rather wooded and natural area. The officer in charge, his name tag said Grayson.
“I’d tell you, you did the right thing. But I need to see what we are dealing with here to know. It better not be a waste of my time. We have more than our hands full of crimes to solve and killers to catch. Our specialty has been on the rise Grayson, so let’s see what you have and if it’s worth it,” Newark said. Grayson nodded, he met the brown gaze of the man who was speaking.
“I wouldn’t have called you Newark if I didn’t think this was a case you wanted to see.” Grayson wasn’t going to be intimidated by Newark and his tone.
Newark was average height for a man, clearly in good physical condition. Which all of the ones behind him were. Well trained too Grayson was sure, the other two men had sandy brown hair. The woman had dark auburn hair that was up in a bun at the back of her head. All of them stood there silent and serious looking.
“This way,” Grayson said and went to the body farthest from the tape and prying eyes. He pulled it back from the man’s head. The dead man was ghostly pale, and had a surprised look on his face. It seemed that he died quickly. Newark pointed to what looked like claw marks on the man’s shoulder, and then to a few punctures on his neck.
“I know this isn’t a vampire case, vampires haven’t been around here in this area in a hundred years.” Grayson spoke very low and the others were looking down. The woman crouched and took off her bag to open it and pull out a couple instruments.
“No there hasn’t been,” Newark commented but frowned and crouched down to look at the punctures on the neck. “They were hunted out of this area, their species is on the brink of extinction. I doubt they’d come to our city where we have our headquarters.”
“Unless they were positive, they could best us.” One man stated and Newark looked at him. The man just met his gaze but didn’t speak again.
“It’s not a vampire, definitely not a werewolf. The throat is still intact and it’s clear he was drained of blood.” The woman, Nova stated. She put on gloves and her sharp grey eyes took everything in.
“There are four punctures on his neck. Two from the canines used to puncture into the neck, but look at the two smaller pricks next to the puncture. Like the teeth retracted completely and a second set were used to hold on to the wound. Vampires don’t have that, unless this is some offshoot we haven’t seen before.”
“Take some samples, see if you can’t get some genetics from saliva, or anything. Check all the bodies. You and Ben.” Nova nodded to Newark. Ben had different bag and went to another body. Nova looked at the other two curious about where they were headed, but refrained from asking. She didn’t want Newark to get pissy.
“Conner, stay with me,” Newark commented tartly and looked at Grayson. “Anything more to show us than dead bodies?” Grayson gave a nod and motioned for the men to follow him.
“Yes, it’s clear that they ran from this direction. I had several men following their footprints, it rained earlier and you can see where they came from rather well.” He pointed to the marked footprints. Newark and Conner followed him being careful to not trample and evidence.
“How many sets of footprints?” Newark asked scanning in the trees and seeing what looked like only three trails were marked. Grayson confirmed that a moment later.
“Just three, and they started running from here.” He brought them to a rather unassuming rock face that had a fissure in it. There was one bag haphazardly flung just to the right of the fissure.
Newark looked down the entire area. He knew that there was a rather extensive cave system here. However he didn’t remember there being anything mythical nor any legends of the area. Most of it was hard to get into.
“They were apparently exploring in the cave system. It’s a rather popular area, but some of these fissures opened up in the last quake we had. So that brings them out.” He pointed to part of the rock by the entrance. There were a couple deep furrows there, it looked like something had gripped the side and launched itself from the rock face.
“I have a couple men inside seeing if we can follow the path they took, but I pulled them out as we don’t have a lot of equipment. I was starting to grow concerned that if this was some kind of animal-like creature it might have come back here. So, I called you, as protocol demands. None of my men know of course. They think we just called in some specialists.”
“We are specialists. Conner, grab a couple flashlights from Nova. We are going to take a look.” Conner left and was quick to go back to Nova to get what was asked for.
“Are the three back there the only deaths?” Newark asked.
“That I know of, no one saw anything. A couple of teenagers found them. They haven’t been dead long. I haven’t had any similar cases. So I’m treating this carefully. I’m not putting my men at risk when they haven’t been trained like yours. Whatever did this, chased those men down and killed them fast. Within a hundred feet of each other. No weapon that we saw, just the puncture marks on the neck,” Grayson said.
“So far, I’d say you made the right call. We will look and see what we find. It’s not safe for untrained people to be going into a place with creatures they don’t even believe in anymore,” Newark said. Grayson gave a nod.
“That being said, do you need any back up, or extra weapons?” Newark asked.
“No, we are armed and until we know what we are dealing with, normal bullets might not work. Just stay where we have radios. I will be in contact with my team. If at any point they say to leave, you leave got me?” Grayson gave a nod.
“We will, once your team is done out here. We will be collecting the bodies and finishing the forensics, which shouldn’t be long. It is rather dark, and I will have a few men stationed, unless you say otherwise,” Grayson responded. Newark gave a nod and then motioned for Conner to follow him into the crevasse.
The two of them went in, and it was rather unremarkable to be honest. Nothing scary or foreboding. No ominous feeling and Newark didn’t think that whatever had done this was here anymore.
If it was, it didn’t appear to be a psychic type of creature. He himself was good at sensing things, this felt empty. It really made him unsure of what to think.
“Whatever it was, it tore ass out of here fast,” Conner commented pointing to the walls and the claw marks that they could see there. Newark walked farther on and kept an eye on the claw marks.
“Look at the height of the claw marks or punctures into the wall. Whatever it was, it was weak at first. It was using the walls to stay up right. They must have woke something up,” he said and they continued on, seeing footprints and more marks.
They were starting to get rather deep into this cave. There were markings on the wall with chalk that Conner had grabbed to make sure they didn’t get lost. Arrows as they followed the marks downward. The rocky tunnel slopping down again.
“Looks like this is as far as the police went,” Newark commented as the number of shoe prints decreased and they continued on. In some spots it was hard to tell which way the three might have come from, so they looked for claw marks. They came to a rather steep slope and there was rope secured here for repelling. The two of them looked down. The sound of running water came to them from this dark cavernous room.
“After you,” Newark said to Conner, neither of them really dressed for this. Conner gave him a look but grabbed the rope and used that as a guide to walk down the slope until it dropped off.
“They have equipment left here, let me put the harness on, and I can go down.” Newark followed him down and the steep slope leveled out. Conner was already dressed in the gear to go down the short drop.
“You get to the bottom take it off and I’ll hoist it back up so I can come down.” Conner gave a nod and they did just that. Not the best with the shoes they had, but they managed. Once at the bottom, they looked at the large room like area.
“If I knew we were going spelunking tonight, I’d have dressed different.” Newark just smiled.
“Job never gets old. Over there,” he said seeing something in the flashlight glow that caught his eye. They walked across. There was a good amount of water they had to go through, but it only got as deep as your knee before they were to the other side and out.
They came up on a kind of rise looking around they could see that this cavernous room had water flowing through it all around the area that they were up on. It may have been filled with water at one time.
However they slowly approached what looked like a raised tomb or crypt made of cement. There was a body here on the floor, her throat was torn out. It was clear whatever had attacked her, attacked her out of starvation and had drank sloppily. More animal like than those outside.
“Clearly it was starved, drained her and must have been moving slow because the other three got up the wall and out before it caught them. No doubt the blood took a bit of time to work and make its system function. Tells me whatever it was, was locked down here for a long time.” Newark stepped up to the sarcophagus, because that’s really what it was.
On the inside of the broken lid was writing, and some of it looked Egyptian. The rest a mix of things they’d never seen.
“What do you make of that?” Newark asked, and the space looked just big enough to fit a body.
“I think they opened something they shouldn’t have. This thing looks like it was moved down here a long time ago, it’s not originally from here,” Conner said.
“I’d agree, the style looks Egyptian and some of the writing as well, but I have to admit I’ve never seen script like this before with strange symbols. But it also has druid writing on it too, all over the outside.” It was hard to see and faded. The two of them started moving around the thing examining it. Newark didn’t touch it, neither did Conner.
“It was laced with something, like an oil and there is an incantation inscribed.” Conner’s gaze wasn’t so happy about this. “If they had to resort to entombing it forever, I’m not so sure this thing can be easily killed.”
“We are still going to have to find it, because it’s clearly out in the world,” Newark said. The two of them were taking photos of everything. They were going to need a translator. There was a very slight sound that made Conner turn and he immediately pulled his weapon. To his utter shock the dead woman stood up.
The woman with the torn-out throat was standing, her eyes milky white. It didn’t look like she was breathing, but she was definitely standing and looking at him. Her head was tipped as the ligaments were torn on one side not keeping it straight. At Conner’s movement Newark also pulled his weapon pointing it at the woman.
“Move and I’ll shoot,” Conner said, they were trained to treat all as enemy. Sometimes though shooting your enemy before you could get answers wasn’t the best way to go. The woman suddenly shot forward with a screech and moved faster than a woman with a torn-out throat should be able to.
Conner shot, hit her several times right in the chest and heart, but she only jerked back at the heavy fire power and came at him again. Another shot rang out and she went to the side, the bullet hitting her in the head. She went down and didn’t move. The two of them literally stood there dumbfounded in that moment.
“Was… she was dead Newark,” Conner said more for a confirmation.
“Yeah, she was dead.” The two of them stared at the woman, not sure if they wanted to approach to check her.
“Infection?”
“I don’t think so, maybe. The dead don’t rise without magic, or possession.” Which made them both wonder if they were now infected, what if this was something else? Holy shit, this was next level.
“Necromancer, that’s the only time I’ve ever seen something like this,” Conner stated and moved a bit more forward. “Because zombies just aren’t real.”
“Never discount anything,” Newark said glancing around, and approached the woman. The one side of her head was completely gone, and she wasn’t moving. They hoped that she didn’t move again.
“We have a serious issue, especially just seeing this. To be honest I have absolutely no idea what kind of creature could do that. Or if perhaps it’s not even a creature that is alive at all.” Newark wiped a hand down his face. “We need to get a team in here, and we need to get them now. If this is contagious we need to figure it out.”
“Shit.” Both of them knew that they had now been exposed and so had the officers if those dead men outside were killed the same way.
“We need to get back up there before those others start standing up.” Both of them were quick to move, and Newark needed to get more in here now if they were going to contain this. As of right now, with what he saw this was a level black situation.
The dead standing back up, that was not a situation any of them wanted to deal with. He highly doubted that a necromancer had been in that sarcophagus. Necromancers were just humans with magical abilities. They lived longer because of the magic, maybe a couple hundred years, but that tomb had been down here a hell of a lot longer than that. Something else had come out, something they had never seen before.
Newark covered Conner, watching around the room and toward the body of the woman but she didn’t move. Once Conner was up Newark went next. Conner covered him from above, but nothing happened and the two of them were quick to get out of the cave system.
Newark already had his phone out waiting for the moment he got signal. Neither of them were aware that they were being watched in that cave, in the darkness from up high.
Their human eyes couldn’t see it, and their flashlights hadn’t been powerful enough to reach it. Newark’s special sense didn’t pick it up. However the moment they climbed out, something moved close to the ceiling sitting on a ledge there. It looked odd shaped at first from where it was hunched. But it moved and dropped down from the ledge.
Several massive wings spread out and in the darkness of the cave there was no way to really see, but this thing seemed able to. It moved toward the exit of the room. It moved slow like it was in pain, still weak, but it moved with purpose. It's distraction working to get the men out.
The men didn’t know how close it had been to them. Watching, observing because it wasn’t just some animal hiding in the darkness. The humanoid shape stopped below the exit looking up. The light from the flashlights disappearing.
It suddenly leapt upward, seemed to hoover for a moment and then moved up the slope without a sound. It followed far enough back that the flashlights wouldn’t see it. Nor human eyes in the darkness, but the form moved forward slightly hunched with how tall it was.
It seemed to be gaining a bit more strength as it followed the two men out of the cave system. Clearly staying here was no longer a viable or smart option for him. More would come and the creature was not ready to fight yet.
