Chapter Text

A murder? How shocking.

This was not the first time Abolish had stood over a dead body, it wouldn’t be the last. Not in his line of work anyway.

Even after doing this for the better part of a century however, it never quite dampened the unnerving feeling of seeing someone’s eyes open, cold and dead.

“The victim is Jared Clark, thirty-five years old. Victim seems to have had his neck slashed open. Based on the lack of defensive wounds, it suggests he either knew his killer or was quickly overpowered. Nothing was stolen or moved aside from a book that was knocked off the couch side-table during the scuffle. Notably the front door of the apartment was locked, with the only possible accessible point of entrance being the open kitchen window, however as we are on the fifth-floor this has been ruled out as an entrance point.” The senior inspector rattled off his notes as Abolish investigated the body, being careful not to disturb anything.

“Is there anything else?” Abolish pushed, slowly standing up, dusting off his jacket as he rose.

The inspector flinched slightly, clearly having not noticed the man crouched next to him. Abolish had to stop from rolling his eyes. Exactly what you want in a chief inspector, the observation skills of a dead squirrel.

The chief recovered quickly, eyes snapping to Abolish, eyes narrowed, “Yeah, who are you and how did you get in here?”

“I’m afraid that is above your pay-grade.”, was the retort, made in the ever-constant neutral tone, before Abolish turned, ducked under the police tape and out into the crowded hallway. He made his way to the elevator just as a stretcher with a yet-to-be filled body bag rushed past him.

This was the fifth body in just as many months that had been found in a similar situation. As much as he wasn’t a betting man, the prediction that the labs would show this victim had also had the majority of their blood systematically drained from some inconspicuous part of their body before their throat was slit was getting uncomfortably predictable.

To the police, this was a serial killer, plain and simple. Well, as plain and simple as having an active serial killer can be in one of America’s most densely populated cities. Abolish however knew better. This wasn’t a serial killer.

Well, he supposed it was, as he exited the building into the crisp evening air. But he very much doubted the NYPD really had vampires on their shortlist of suspects.

That’s where he came in.

The organisation was specially versed in all sorts of ‘mythical’ creatures. The kinds only told about in ancient mythos and children's bedtime stories. Although more recently there was a certain… adult market for them as well. A shiver ran down his spine at that, not from the chill for once.

And, although Abolish was expertly trained in how to handle the majority of these beings, he truly thrived with vampires. Which was ironic really when you considered that ancient vampires were very much near the top of the organisation’s danger scale.

He was negating that for the time being, as there were far more precedented things to focus on at..

Abolish’s mind was going as quickly and methodically as it always did as he took the twenty minute walk from the crime scene to his temporary apartment, stopping to grab a takeaway from the Chinese at the bottom of his apartment block.

Once actually through his front door, he shrugged the black jacket from his soldiers, placing it neatly on the coat-rack in the entry before moving through to the kitchen. Taking up a chair on the comically small dining table, he began noting all the information he had on the victim into a fresh document on his laptop, meticulously comparing the information to that of the four previous victims.

At this point so soon after another body was discovered he did lack key information such as cause of death (although he could hazard a guess), neighbour/witness statements, recent banking activity or any other such things. That information would come after he hacked into police servers in a couple hours.

That in no way meant he had nothing to do. Even base level information was important to building a proper case. This had been made much easier to gather over the past decades with the popularisation of the internet in the 1990’s. Even more so with the growth of social media.

One quick search and he’d already found an instagram, facebook and a poorly aged myspace page. These did, unsurprisingly, consist mostly of selfies and reposts of gym-motivation videos. Whilst this was useful in helping build what kind of character Mr Clark was, and thus further concluding a M.O. for the killer, all it really showed was some wannabe tech-bro who portrayed a life much larger than what he actually had based on the bare state of his apartment living-room.

What intrigued Abolish more was the linkedin profile. Under current occupation, Mr Clark had stated that he was a ‘high ending financial consultant’ (which Abolish was sure meant accountant) for Velvet Night.

Now, usually a fashion company was not where one looked to find a deranged yet systematic serial killer. Although if this serial killer was anything close to normal Abolish wouldn’t be sat at this desk currently.

No, the reason this was an important detail is due to the nature of the company's ownership history. Founded by the Aurifaber family in 1793 before being sold multiple times until present day, where it was owned in joint partnership.

The current ‘head’ of the company was Louis Harker, who appeared to run a very tight ship whilst still being adored by all those who worked for him. His husband however was a much more classic criminal cliché, having been given several warnings for violent outbursts over the past several years as well as a singular arrest for which Louis swiftly and discreetly bailed him out.

Louis’ business-partner was a silent holder, with fifty-percent shares in the company. A person who…

Abolish could find nothing about.

No name or even a pseudo name. All business information relating to them was signed S. C. O. There wasn’t anything for Abolish to hack into. No listed bank accounts. No emails. No extended official presence. No evidence this person exists other than three letters hand-signed on important documents.

Now if that wasn’t suspicious, even independent of the serial killer, Abolish didn’t know what was. The fact it was a leader of Velvet Night only made it worse.

See, there were heavy implications that the founder of Velvet Night was a vampire. An ancient vampire at the time of foundation, which makes him fucking old even by vampire standards, especially considering the man’s likely still alive. After all, the organisation only keeps note of vampiric claims which hold at least some weight to them, so the likelihood he was a vampire is more likely than not. Unfortunately.

For this reason, any higher-ups in Velvet Night were suspects. An ancient vampire’s ego is not one to be crossed. Abolish would know. He was raised by one. And as kind as his father was, he’d seen plenty other elders react violently to damaged pride. Even if this vampire was smart enough to murder randomly or at least away from their personal life, he could imagine that a deep enough scorn could lead to rather rash actions regardless.

Which, if the rumours rang true, meant that Abolish was likely dealing with a very temperamental ancient creature. And, considering the coven instincts of vampires it was even more likely there’s multiple vampires in the vicinity.

How lucky he was…

It was once again cold, although that was likely because it was about 3am and Abolish was scaling the side of the apartment he’d been at just hours prior.

Despite his earlier inspection of the body, Abolish rarely had the time to investigate crime scenes whilst the police were actively present. Not that he minded this method. The police usually just got in his way anyway

And yes, he was well aware that all notes of the inspection would be in the police files he’d be reading later. However, he’s found people to be largely incompetent at their jobs thus far, so he’d really rather just do it himself actually.

Hence, he was now, quite ironically, climbing through the still open kitchen window. The same one the killer likely used to gain access to the apartment in the first place.

The apartment itself was dark. It was only because he was a half-vampire that he could actually see, and even then the colour was far less vibrant than it would be for a full vampire or some other such creature.

What he could make out from his search of the apartment was telling. Firstly, he checked the other two rooms, a bathroom and the messiest bedroom one had ever seen. Honestly, Mr Clark was lucky he hadn’t died in there otherwise they may have never found him amongst all the clothes, alpha-bro books and quite a large collection of magazines Abolish wished to never see again.

That and the bathroom were entirely clear of any form of evidence regarding the murder. So, Abolish moved back into the kitchen. Based on the lack of dishes in the sink and the unopened bag of groceries left on the countertops it suggested Mr Clark died quite quickly after arriving home from work given he’d yet to start making his dinner. This was corroborated by the fact his corpse had still been wearing soaked shoes, with his wet jacket dumped on the couch-arm nearest to the front door.

Considering the rain had only lasted from 17:23 to around 18:41,that meant Mr Clark must have died within that time-frame or very shortly afterwards. It also explained the slightly muddied footsteps that led from the front door to where the body had been.

Interestingly, there was no second set of footsteps, as if the killer had not walked here through the rain and merely just appeared in the apartment.

Following this, Abolish had moved to stand next to the tape outline of the body. The book lying next to it courtesy of the knocked over table was some kind of book into stock trading. Now that had Abolish rolling his eyes. Not because of the nature of the book, just because it was in fact a shit book with an equally shit author.

Regardless, despite the proximity to the body, no blood had touched the book, even with it being only a couple inches away. Usually with the slitting of a neck, there was an inordinate amount of blood accompanied with splattering patterns coating the nearby surfaces from severed arteries. The lack of such blood across nearby walls and furniture as well as how little was soaked into the grey carpet was unusual.

Almost as if the victim had suffered excessive blood loss before their death…

He couldn’t even pretend to be shocked at this point.

Instead he did one last sweep of the area to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

He hadn’t. The work of a vampire was oftentimes messy and violent until they matured into a more elder being, which the completely immaculate crime scene suggested this was.

With his inspection completed, Abolish set about making his way back out the window (giving a quick check to make sure no one would see him) to climb very carefully down the back of the building into the alleyway below.

His feet made a soft, barely audible thud onto the concrete before he had to make an about-turn and heading once again back to his apartment to continue his research into this case before the police files were released later into the morning.

10:36 was when the police files were updated. Abolish was thankful to find this included an autopsy. The one positive of serial killers is that police forces often tended to focus a fair amount of effort towards them and push labs and other such investigative necessities to the front of their priorities.

He was awfully thankful that the investigator who had written the report and organised all the information was actually a fully competent individual. He might even have been convinced to thank Inspector Drift Lavelle personally for it.

Aside from that, the information given was fairly consistent with Abolish's own observations.

The autopsy showed a death time of around 18:50, with a purple discoloration of liver mortis consistent with intense levels of blood loss which caused the victim to lose consciousness before they were killed by having their throat slit. As with the other bodies, the cut was incredibly precise, hitting major arteries and veins with complete accuracy and the care of a surgical knife, thus suggesting extensive medical knowledge.

Another similarity to the other victims is where two punctures were found. They were concealed under clothing in a non-descript place, in this case it was the back of the neck, right atop the vertebrae. This made more sense for blood draining, including a vampire bite, with blood being closest to the surface in the neck, thighs and forearm.

The more obvious and vulnerable location made sense since this was by far the most physically fit victim of the five, so it would make sense the killer wanted to down them as quickly as possible, even with their vampiric strength.

All other noted similarities were fairly obvious. Each victim was found in their own home, no DNA evidence or true signs of struggle to be found, not even an accessible way for the killer to have entered the property. None of the victims had any relation to each other outside of their deaths.

Abolish took a deep breath, blowing a section of white hair out of his eyes, before moving to the next part of the police files; witness statements.

It seems they were far more rigorous than earlier ones in the case, carried out by Insp. Lavelle herself. All six apartments on the fifth floor had been interviewed, as well as all six on floor four:
+ Mrs Yang and her son, apartment 5C, had heard a crash around 18:50,
suspected to be the side-table, followed by a swift thud

+ Mr Roberts, apartment 5D, hadn’t heard anything but did discover the body at 20:23
when he used his spare key to gain access to the apartment to retrieve a football
jersey he’d left there the night prior

+ Miss Novak, apartment 5F, had seen Mr Clark arriving home at around 18:46, stating
he seemed to be in a very positive mood, mentioning how he would soon be ‘set for
life’ before entering the apartment

+ Mr and Mr Pacheco, apartment 4B, had both heard the same crash and thud as 5C,
however being directly under Mr Clark’s apartment they were also able to hear muffled
voices before a faint gurgled scream at 18:50

Everyone else interviewed either wasn’t home at the time of the murder or had no useful additional information to add.

Abolish felt Miss Novak’s statement to be the most pressing. From the information he had gathered earlier in his research, he knew Mr Clark’s family was not wealthy, and even if they were it seems he had stopped talking to most of them after moving to New York. Really Mr Clark only occasionally spoke to his father or attended family events held at his sisters once every few years. This meant the idea of a large inheritance was off the table.

Whatever was going to set Mr Clark up for life was going to have to come from himself or a similar source. Which, once again brought the question back to his employment at Velvet Night.

No official company documented Mr Clark getting even so much as a pay-rise, let alone earning a life-changing sum of money. He was already paid quite well anyway as an accountant for such an important company, but he lost most of it to stock trading from what Abolish could tell.

Something in Abolish’s instincts was driving him towards Velvet Night. He knew that it was biassed conclusions he was making from the evidence. Velvet Night had nothing to do with any of the other victims.

At the same time, his instincts were never wrong.

He knew the police would still investigate it, interview Louis Harker and any of Mr Clark’s close colleagues. Once again though, the question was whether they would do a good job at it and get Abolish the necessary information to actually find the killer. Or at the very least a suspect.

Abolish pulled out his company mandated phone, typing in the number he knew by heart that picked up on the first ring.

“I need to go undercover in Velvet Night.”