Michael Fisher

Michael Fisher

The Blood Letter
The Blood Letter

The Blood Letter
Written by:
Michael Fisher Jr.

Copyright: October 23, 2014

-Preface-

In mid-evil times there was an unorthodox treatment for any ailment at the time, it was called bloodletting. When the nobles were ill, no matter what the affliction was, the surgeons with their hideous beak nosed masks and the blacked out eyes would come in and perform a bloodletting. The bloodletting consisted of placing leaches randomly on the afflicted one’s body, and allowing them to suck the sickness out of the host body. They would also place small incisions in precise placements to allow the “bad blood” to flow out of the infected body. More times than not, the patient died, but they always assumed it was because the infection was too far gone. Or even that the Devil himself had a hunger for that person’s soul. Even during the time of the black plague outbreaks, smallpox, cholera and the many other ramped diseases of the dark ages, the bloodletting practice was incorporated. Even during the Salem witch trials this method was instilled as a form of torture to get confessions of witchcraft form the accused, and also to try to rid them of the evil blood received from the devil. The practice was thought to have died out with the knights, nobles, and the kingdoms of old, and destroyed along with the witches…or so we thought.
Fast forward many centuries from the dark ages to the modern days of the cell phone, laptops, hybrid cars, online dating websites, and modern medicine, and we arrive in Boston, Massachusetts, in about mid-October of 2014.A new wave a murders has hit the city. To this date here have been nineteen of these ritualistic type killings. All in the fashion of the bloodletting practice. And my luck just so has it that it is in my city, in my jurisdiction, on my beat, and the chief put it on my head to bring these killings to an end and the murderer to justice. My name is Detective Max Caine. I have been an inner city detective for Boston for eighteen years. The wife left me because she said I loved the job more than her or my kids. Sometimes I question if she may have been right. Perhaps I do love the job a bit too much. But it is my job to keep thugs, hooligans, and psychos of the streets. It’s my job to keep my family and all others safe.
This is my story. This is my case. The last case of my career, the most horrendous case I have ever had, the case of the “Blood letter”. So sit back, have a drink, grab a bite, and allow me to tell you the tale of some of the most horrific crime scenes I have ever seen in my life.

Please allow me to start this story from the beginning. Well at least the beginning for me. I grew up in a military family. Not only were both of my parents in the Army, but the majority of my uncles were as well. And it just seemed right that I follow suit. I joined the Army fresh out of high school. I went for infantry so I could be in the thick of it, and actually feel as though I made a difference in the world. I was expertly trained in martial arts, a decorated sniper, and an undefeated MMA fighter. I served in Operation Desert Storm, Desert Shield, as well as Iraq, and Afghanistan. I did a ten year tour in the Army. I received numerous commendations and medals for valor and honor, and a purple heart for leaving a small toe in the desert sand because some towel head decided to shoot me in the damned foot. Make no mistake; it was an even trade, a life for a toe. Bastard, it still pains me when the winter sets in even twenty years later.
After my ten year tour with the Army, I decided in was time for a subtle change in my life. I went to college for a major in criminal justice, and criminal psychology. I graduated head of my class and the proceeded to the police academy, where I also graduated with honors and at the top of my class. I was your typical snot nosed rookie when I joined the force, thought I knew everything about everything. But that quickly changed. I wasn’t on the force no more than a year when I met my mentor, Sergeant Mike Patterson. He taught me that because I was such a big shot in the academy that I wasn’t shit now. So I followed his lead. It just so happens that the chief made us partners. For the first month he made me more of a glorified shofar, and coffee delivery guy, with a badge. Six months into our partnership Mike gets a tip, a big tip. A huge drug deal was going down on the east-side docks. Some big shots were smuggling high grade cocaine into the city. And we were going to be there to stop it.
We were just beat cops. This was a job for detectives. But Mike always wanted to be in the spotlight. He had snitches that knew the drug world inside and out. But it still didn’t change the fact that we were in over our heads. When we arrived at the docks, they were all there, just as the snitch said they would be. We had gotten out of our patrol car and had stationed ourselves behind a container no more than fifty feet from these guys. I was sure we were going to get popped before we could snuff the deal. But Mike was a patient man. There were about a half a dozen guys in cheap suits, obvious hired muscle, and the ring leader, well he looked like a reject from an old Miami Vice episode. Was kind of amusing actually, I didn’t think people actually dressed like that. In walks six more guys armed to the teeth. From the haircuts the appeared to be military or at the most former military, and the way the carried their weapons gave that away as well. When the lead guy from this group started talking I noticed a thick accent. I couldn’t quite place it. I knew I had heard it before then it hit me, this guy sounded just like a Russian military advisor that was helping us train some of the Afghanis just before we left country. That’s all we needed Russians importing cocaine to the dealers of the inner city. I knew this was bound to get messy. Just then I watched two big suit cases be exchanged for to large duffle bags, and that’s when Mike made his move. I followed his lead, I ran out with my gun drawn and aimed, and my flashlight in the eyes of these drug pedaling goons. Mike does the usual police jargon, Freeze! Police! And right about here, is when the shit hit the fan. The Russians opened up on us. Killing most of badly dressed Boston creeps. Mike had his attention on the ring leader, remember the guy from the Miami Vice episode? Mike popped him one in the leg when her started to run, then Mike gets this jackass handcuffed. I am being pinned down my machine gun fire from the Russian importers, but at least that old military training didn’t go to waste. When I ducked behind some barrels they happen to be right next to a container. I made my way around the container and came out on the left flank of these guys with the machine guns. Just when they are ordered to hold fire I run out and knock out the guy closest to me. One man turned his gun towards me, I shoot center mass, putting him down, about this time Mike comes running to lend a hand, that’s when it happened, and two of these Russian bastards opened fire on Mike. His bullet proof vest wasn’t enough to save him. The bullets ripped through him like he was a paper doll. I watch in horror as my partner is gunned down to a bloody heap.
I picked up the machine gun from the guy I had knocked cold, and I started mowing these assholes over. It was down to two of the Russians, and the Miami Vice reject once the bullets stopped flying. The two Russians ran out of ammo and were both wounded one in the stomach and one in the arm and leg. I immediately call for back up. Once the detectives arrived and the CSI guys were there processing, I wasn’t sure what to do. I know at one point I had ahold of Mike, judging from the blood all over me it was for a pretty good bit. Once the shooting had stopped and I called for backup, everything just sort of went black. The chief arrives as I am sitting in back of the ambulance getting oxygen. He went right into asking questions about what the hell when on there. I didn’t say anything, I was too busy breathing.
They next morning in on the carpet in front of the chief and an Internal Affairs investigator, they are reading me the riot act and letting me have it with both barrels. When they finally let me speak I tell them how I was just following orders, and Mikes lead. Once all the screaming and questions are done is when I get the shock of a life time. They want to make me detective. They said it was for bringing down the two biggest drug dealers this side of the nation. But it wasn’t all me. I just followed Mikes lead.
The next day the papers are all about the bust and how I lost my partner and that I am being promoted to detective. I step out of my house that morning and I am swamped by flashing cameras, news crews, and reporters. I make a dash for my car and speed out of there. This should have been Mike’s promotion, his name and his picture in the papers. Not mine. But he was gone. At Mikes funeral I hug his wife and kid, tell them how deeply sorry I am for their loss. But it doesn’t make me feel any better at all.
Now let us fast forward eighteen years, several big time cases, and a slew of pimps, muggers, baby rappers, and killers behind bars later. The chief calls me into his office, and tells me to sit down, says he has a big case for me. He hands me the file and gives me the short skinny run down. The papers are calling this guy the “Blood letter”, due to the fact of the nature of the killings. Each person murdered by this creep has been tied up at the wrists and ankles and suspended about a foot of the ground. Some covered in leeches and drained to death, and others with incisions made in just the right spots for them to bleed out, slowly, and a pentagram carved into each victim’s chest. This is how I became involved in this case. Little did I know this case would change my entire outlook on myth, legend, the boogeyman, heaven, hell, God, the Devil, and just what is real or fantasy?
Now that the chief has put this on me, it is time for me to do what I do best. Gear up, get motivated and take down the bad guys. I am sitting at home going over the file when I get the call. A teenage girl has been reported missing by her parents. It has been forty-eight hours since they last seen her. She never made it home from school. Right about this time the news team breaks through the program with a special report. They have been sent a video from the Blood Letter. When the video starts it is a tight shot on the missing girls face, and it slowly draws back as she is screaming through her gag to show her tied at the wrists and ankles and a pentagram carved in her chest, and covered n leeches. A man starts talking, a deep voice, with a European accent. The camera then spins around and we see his face, well at least the mask he is wearing. He is wearing one of the surgeons mask from the dark ages, an all-white face, the beak like nose and the blacked out eyes, a black cloak and a black hat. It is like something from nightmares. He starts spouting how he is doing his lords work and this is the only way to clean the world of the infection of witches and whores. As he is talking he moves closer to the girl. The closer he gets to her, the more she struggles and screams.
He talks about her being impure and how she is a dirty diseased wretched little whore who is pregnant outside of wedlock. So not only is he looking to end her life, he is looking to end the life of an unborn child. All I can do is sit and watch in horror as he moves closer still toward the girl. I can see the fear in her eyes. He keeps talking about how this is what’s wrong with the world, and how anyone that could allow this to happen will also be cleansed. The camera spins so we cannot see him, then it becomes stationary. Then he walks around behind the girl. He grabs her by the forehead and pulls her head back and pushes his face forward so we can see him clearly, “this is for my lord, and may he bathe in her blood and relish the body of this whore as she buns in his eternal fire.” His right hand comes up and he drags it across her throat as blood pours out of the gash he leaves in this poor girl’s neck. He holds her head up as she bleeds out. Blood splashes onto his ghost white mask. The girl dies and then he says, “Beware the Blood Letter, for he is the servant of the Devil, and he will feast on your souls.” the camera goes black. The anchor woman comes back on with a look of shock on her face. “Please stand by.” She says in a shaky voice.
I quickly order a patrol car to go and sit outside the house where the girl and her parents lived, and as fast as I can gather my things I am out the door in my car and down the road. It is a half hour before I reach the residence; the patrol car is there ahead of me. As I talk with the officers they say they had been there almost the entire time since I ordered the protection detail because they were just two blocks away when the call came in. as I get their report of how no one has entered or left the residence, we hear it. Blood curdling screams from inside the house. The one officer yells “WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?” we all run for the door. I order one of the officers to head to the back door and the other through the garage. Once they are set, we breach. They both say they are ready and we enter the house. Still hearing screams we run for the upstairs bedroom. By the time we get there we find the woman tied to the bed by her wrists and ankles and her husband hanging from the ceiling over her tied the same way. How the fuck did this guy get in here? How did we not see him? It doesn’t make any sense. Both the victims had been bled out, and the pentagram carved on to their chests. What in God’s name are we getting into? CSI shows up to process the scene, no broken windows, no signs of forced entry, how did he get passed us and into the house?
As I sit is the stationhouse working on the report, I still cannot get it in my head just how he got past us and into the house. Was there something we missed? The CSI crew went over the house top to bottom, there was just no sign of how this freak go in the house. The chief reams my ass for the parents getting offed; I don’t think I’ll be sitting down for a week. This guy is twenty one kills in, and I can’t catch a break. With the ritualistic style of the killings I think I should probably get some insight in the field. There is a place down town called “The Rite of Passage”. The man that owns and runs this place is said to have assisted in the Zodiac murders investigation, and with the Son of Sam murders. This may be my best chance at catching a break on this case.
The next day I am the shop when it opens. This guy looks like a real creep in his own right. As me and the gentlemen are talking he pulls out a book that looks ancient. He says it’s called “The Blood Rite”. He starts flipping through the pages as I fill him in on the particulars of the case. His eyes widen as he stops flipping, he looks at me and says I may want to seek God if he is not yet in my life. He says I better pray for my soul. He spins the book around and points to the page, he tells me it is a demon doing these killings. I tell him that is fucking insane. The guy talked, he filmed a killing, and he looks nothing like a demon. He then asks “Can you see the man beneath the mask? Can you see the dawn before the night? Can you see past the black cloak and the white mask?” I ask him if he had seen the news broadcast where he killed the girl. He says “No, I have no need for the daily rags, and the modern news on the tele.” In his think British accent, “I can see the vile things this beast does before he does them, and this is not my first time encountering this particular demon.” He pulls back the thick matts of coal black hair and shows me a hideous scar and a marled eye. “This demon took my eye, as he took my wife and children. I followed the bastard to the states many years ago.” If you knew what the hell was going on why didn’t you call the police and say something? He says he tried but was regarded as a prank caller when he tried. I tell him I will be in touch and to stay close to his phone. He replied “I have no phone; I will know when you are in need of my services.” And he walks away. He leaves the book lay, and I close it and pick it up on my way out the door.
I am sitting at my desk reading this ancient and fragile book when something touches my shoulder; I jump um damn near ready to shit myself when I see it’s the chief. I knock his coffee out of his hand and down his nice white shirt and his powder blue tie. His eyes look like daggers ready to cut my head off. He asks, “what the hell you still doing here?” I said still? He tells me in 7am. I cannot believe it; I sat here for almost nine hours reading this book. I suppose I let it get in my head to get spooked the way I did. He tells me to go home and get some rest. That he will call me if he hears anything.
I am asleep on the sofa when my cell rings. It’s the chief. They found another body, this time hanging from an overpass, holy hell, not again. I arrive on the scene and see a teenage boy hanging there stark naked, pale as a sheet from all the blood being drained from his body. The pentagram is carved on his chest, this is our guy. No one else could have gotten this kid up there like this. He was a football star running back for the local high school. The same school the pregnant girl was attending. We are just getting the kid down and in a bag as his father comes running hysterically up to us screaming “THAT’S MY SON!!” I pull him aside and talk with him, I find out he was the pregnant girls boyfriend. Dear Christ, not another kid. This kid is my son’s age. This case is really going to do me in if I am not careful.
I take a detour on the way back to the station. As I am walking up to the fence at the school my son sees me as he is getting a cool drink from the cooler a he is taking a break from baseball practice. He walks up and sees the look in my eyes. “Dad, are you ok?” he asks. I lie to him, tell him I am fine. When in all actuality I am not fine. What would I do if that was my son hanging from that overpass? My reach out and give him a big hug, almost squeezing the air out of him. I tell him I love him and that I miss him. But with this case I am on I need to keep a little distance between us for a while. I tell him I don’t want anything to happen to him. He says he understands. “Look, Dad, I’ll be here when it is done, but I got to go. You know, practice and all, I love you Dad.” I love you too son. And I watch him run back throwing his hat on, knocking the bat against the bottom of his shoe and he cracks that ball over the fence. A home run!! That’s my boy. Now, back to work, got to get my head back in the game.
It has been a few days now with no new bodies, and no sign of the killer. I cannot make head or tails of this book I got from the creepy guy at the occult book store. There is a lot of weird shit in this book. A person could go ape shit just from reading this thing. I think I need to try to change my way of thinking. Try to get inside this guy’s head and figure out his next move, and hopefully by doing that possibly try to track down the next victim before he does. But what exactly is his method on how he makes his choices. Not for one second do I believe there is a demon running around Boston committing these murders, but I have to think outside the box on this. Oh God I need a drink! I call it a day at the station and I hit the Irish pub around the corner on my way home. Maybe a good stiff drink will help me wrap my head around this guy and shut his sorry ass down.
I wake up the next morning with my splitting like a chord of firewood, one too many drinks, maybe several too many and not enough water or food in my system to filter it out. A hot shower helps me clear the cobwebs; I grab my coffee and head to the precinct. There is nothing like a nice strong cup of coffee and a good cigarette to work on a hangover. I am almost to the station when I get the call that a woman had shown up at the hospital naked, bloody and completely out of her mind. I make a U-turn and head to the hospital, pedal to the floor and the sirens blaring.
When I get there they have her in the operating room trying to calm her down and stop the bleeding. The doctor comes out with a pale face and asks me is I am Detective Caine. As I shake his hand I feel him shaking, I offer him a smoke and we step outside to talk. He tells me he has never seen anything like this in his many years of practicing medicine. “When she showed up she was hysterical, completely naked, covered in leeches and blood, and she has this pentagram carved into her chest.” He continues to tell me that she also had ligature marks from what appeared to be barbed wire around her wrists and ankles. “She will never be the same.” He says. “She will most likely either spend the rest of her life in counseling or in a mental institution.” I ask when I could speak with her, and he says that she is heavily sedated and he will make sure I am notified as soon as she regains consciousness. I tell him I will wait in the waiting room until she is awake. I need to get the information out of her while it is still fresh in her head. “Good luck” he says.
About four hours and several cups of coffee later a nurse tells me I can see her now. MY GOD!! She is covered in stitches and bandages. As I am talking with her she tells me how she had just picked up a john and was at her place getting ready to turn this trick when all of a sudden out of the shadows walked this very tall man covered in completely black shrouds and wearing a white beaked mask with blacked out eyes. “He grabs my trick and it’s like out of nowhere this guy strings him up with wire, and starts cutting on him.” She keeps going, getting more hysterical as she goes. “I couldn’t move.” She tells me. “And that is when he turned to me.” She tells me as this freak is cutting on her she is going in and out of consciousness, says she passed out from the pain of him carving up her chest. “When I wake up he is gone, and I am just hanging there with this wire cutting into my wrists and ankles and my trick is dead tied against the wall hanging upside down with a pool of blood under him, I was able to wiggle my wrists free and then untie my ankles.” She says. I ask her for the address and send units over along with CSI. I tell them not to move anything until I get there. I thank her for her help and tell her it is going to be ok, and that this guy won’t get to her, that we will post two cops outside of her room for her safety.
I arrive at the address and it’s a beat up little house. I walk in and follow the trail of blood to the bedroom, and I find CSI taking their pictures and one patrolman in the bathroom puking his guts up. There is blood everywhere. It is almost as if every inch of the room was coated in blood. It was unbelievable. I have never seen anything like this in my entire life. The wire is still hanging where she was hanging and there is blood dripping off of it still, and then I see bits of flesh from her wrists where she was moving them back and forth trying to get free. The lead investigator for the CSI calls me over to the corner of the room. “It looks like there was a fire in this corner, notice the charred markings clear to the ceiling, but there is no burn marks on the floor.” “It is almost like something was either burnt on the wall, or fire passed through it because there was another mark just like this one on the outside of the house.” I ask if he can connect it to the other scenes and he said “Yes” can this be my first break in this case. He then draws my attention to the center of the room on the floor. “Looks like tar, or oil, or old blood.” He says. I tell him to take a sample and find out what he can.
I head back to the hospital; I have more questions for the hooker. When I get there I only see one of the guards I ordered to watch the girl. “Where’s the other guy?” I ask. “He had to take a piss Sir.” He replied. I stand there and wait for this jackass to get back before I go in the room. “What the fuck are you doing? I said two of you at ALL times on this room! I should have you reprimanded.” “I am sorry Sir.” He says, “It will not happen again.” As I am asking them if anyone other than the nurses and the doctor on duty has entered the room, the halls goes black and we here the hooker scream. We run in the room and there he stands, black cape and hat, white mask and damn near eight feet tall. This bastard is massive. We draw our guns and fire on this freak the pistols do not seem to faze him but the shot gun seems to do some damage. I see him jerk his left shoulder back and hear him scream. I never heard anything like the sound I heard him make. It was almost like some kind of animal howling. The lights are flickering on and off and then we hear another scream as the room goes black just before the lights come back on. He is gone. She is alive but screaming and crying hysterically. What the hell did we just see? I see more of the black liquid on the floor like what we found at the house, and a piece of black cloth. I quickly grab a couple swabs and tweezers and I collect the liquid and the cloth. I look at one of the officers and tell them to get it to the crime lab pronto. Maybe I can get lucky and find something that will lead me to this prick.
After the girl is calmed down and sedated and I double the officers on the room I head back to “The Rite of Passage”. I want answers! I get there and grab this guy buy the color of his shirt and tell him to fill me in on what he is not telling me. “OK, OK, no need for violence Detective.” “What the hell did I just see in the hospital?” I ask him. “I told you that you were not dealing with your every day run of the mill punk Detective Caine.” He says with a little smirk on his face. “I told you to look to your god, did I not?” “This is a demon from the very bowls of Hell, why will you not accept this?” So I am to accept that there is a demon running around Boston killing people? If I tell this to the chief he will have my ass hauled off in a strait jacket on principle. “You Sir are coming with me and we are going to find this freak and you are going to tell me just how the fuck I kill this maggot.” I tell him. We get in my car and he asks for the book. “It’s in the back seat.” He grabs the book and turns through the pages and he says “This demon is among the most ancient of demons.” “To find him we must go to where the most pain and suffering is in this city.” He takes me to a corner of Boston I had never seen in my life. Even when I was overseas I never seen as many run down and boarded up buildings in my life. There are so many homeless here it isn’t even funny. You can see fire light flickering between the boards in the windows and the curtained doorways. We he has me stop the car it is in front of this building that looks like it has been around since the days of the Salem witch trials. A decrepit little building with the roof falling in at the center, and half the walls starting to buckle under the weight of them, wood and brick as old as dirt, and it looks almost black from the decades of weather decay. As we park the car I say, “Just a second, I have something special for this asshole.” I open my trunk and there she is, the shotgun I used when breaching buildings while I was in Afghanistan. I load her up with shells that can shred your toughest pad lock. I lose the leather jacket and put on my body armor and strap my holster to my waist that hold my 1911 Desert Eagle 9mm pistol that I also carried in Afghanistan. I had the chambers bored out added some compensators, and even added a laser sight to it. It used to be a powerful handgun, now it will punch a hole through the block off a 440 engine with an exit whole big enough to fit your head in. I make sure it’s locked and loaded, and I have my spare clips, and my trusty service .45 loaded and chambered. I am not going against this thing light on ammo that’s for sure. “I am set, let’s go.” He picks up the book and follows me to the front of this building. As we make it to the entrance we can see fire light flickering between the boards, and we hear screams, not just one, but that of at least two people.
We start prying away some boards so we can get inside, slow, quiet, steady, trying to sneak up on this guy. Once we are inside we start looking around. This place is bigger than looks on the outside. There are three big rooms and two smaller ones. And in the center of the biggest room there is a wooden pillar with manacles and shackles attached to it, and bones strewn everywhere. Some of the bones look like they have teeth marks in them. Has this thing been eating people as well? Behind the pillar is a table covered in bloody knives, saws, pieces of metal, glass and barbed wire, with candles burning at each corner and in the center of the table. And behind that I see two figures strung up, already bleeding badly. I run over to try to help them down, I’m to the woman first, I see her necklace and I get a cold spark up my spine. I know that necklace, I got it for my ex-wife for our third wedding anniversary, the same day we found out we was going to be having a child. I brush the blood soaked hair back so I can see her face, My God….it is her. Why? Why her? There is nothing I can do, she is already gone. I move to the next person, praying my suspicions are not right. This bastard killed my ex-wife and my son is hanging there limp, dripping with blood. I reach out to try to free him and he jerks his head back, screaming hysterically. I tell him to try to take it easy, and assure him that everything will be alright. He is so weak he cannot even stand on his own, and he is so pale and cold. I ease him down to the ground so he can sit down, and just at that moment we see a flash in the corner of the room and he starts freaking out. “He’s coming, He’s coming, don’t let him get to me again, please!!” his pleas break my heart in two and fuel my rage. This fucker is going to pay.
I call the guy over that I brought with me, “here” I say, “take my son out of here.” “If I don’t make it out of here, be sure he makes it to the hospital, and go to the car and call for backup.” He nods his head and grabs my son and starts walking away, he stops and turns “I never did tell you how to kill this thing” he says. “You must fully sever the heart, decapitate it, and burn the remains, only then will this thing stop.” “Thank you; now get my son the hell out of here. Wait!! What is your name? I never did get around to asking you.” “I am Abraham…Abraham Van Helsing.” No Shit? Like the guy that killed Dracula and all that shit? “Yes, I am the very man himself.” He replies. Now get my son out of here!!
I keep an eye on them to be sure they make it to the door, and just as I turn around I am eye to eye with this thing. I go to bring my shot gun up to fire and before I am able to it feels like I am hit with a sledge hammer. My head is ringing. As I shake the cobwebs from my head I look up and here it comes again, running full force at me. I pull my desert eagle and open fire, the rounds tear the flesh away from the bone in the spots I hit but he isn’t slowing down. So I aim hire, BAM!!!! Right between the eyes, he drops dead in his tracks. As I move toward him I drop the clip and pop another in its place. It isn’t moving. Was it actually going to be this easy? Then I remember what Abraham said, “you must fully sever the heart, decapitate him, and burn the remains.” I reach for my knife, it is gone. I look around for something to cut this son of a bitch’s heart out with, and then I see my knife lying right where I landed when he knocked me half way to Jersey. I bend down and pick it up and spin around and he is gone. There is nothing laying there except a white mask a black cape and hat.
I start scanning the room, looking for any signs of movement. With the flames flickering and the shadows moving it seems like he is all around me. Something catches my eye in the corner of the room and I start moving in that direction. As I am moving I hear the creaking of boards. It is hard to tell if that’s my footsteps or if he is moving around. I stop moving and can still hear the creaking. I spin around with my pistol in one hand and the knife in the other, nothing there. I still hear it. Where is it coming from? I feel something falling on top of my head and I look up, and just then this thing falls from the ceiling beams and lands on just in front of me crouched in position. It starts to stand up, and as it does I see two huge bats like wings open up. Dark brown slimy skin, tuffs of thick hair randomly on its body, and then it raises its head. A wicked smile showing teeth like a shark, eyes glowing red like fire and two horns protruding from his forehead, what the hell am I looking at? This is an actual demon!! I step back and raise the pistol and open fire again. I quickly empty the clip. I throw the gun down and grab my service .45 and unload on him again, but before I could move to reload he is on top of me in the blink of an eye. Damn he is fast! Massive arms wrap around my torso as he scoops me up and starts squeezing. I hear the popping of my spine and feel my ribs breaking. Luckily for me, when he grabbed me my left arm flew up staying free, I can still feel the knife in my fist. I grip it tight and firmly plant it in him neck. Thick black blood starts gushing out of his neck covering my arm. I feel his vice like grip tighten around my body and I push the knife in deeper, and twist. He drops me, I grab the horns one in each hand and bring my knee to his face as hard as I can. It feels like kneeing a boulder.
He flings his head backwards tossing me over his head, and I land hard on my back. He spins around and sinks his dagger like teeth deep into my shoulder, the pain is almost crippling. I scream out and bring my free arm up and jam my thumb in his eye. It makes a noise almost like a lion roaring out in pain and opens his jaws and I roll away. As I roll I feel myself roll over the shot gun that I dropped when he smacked me across the room. As I roll up to my knees I bring the barrel up just as he is moving toward me, I get off three fast shots, one to the body and two to the left arm, blowing it clear off. I get off one more shot before he brings the right arms around punching me across the room again. When I land I roll with the force and throw myself behind the table for cover and take the chance to reload the shot gun.
I ease my head over the table top to see if I can see it. It is down on one knee holding its stump I left him where the left arm should be. I jump up and immediately open fire again. It throws the right hand up to try to grab the barrel as I pull the trigger blowing the hand off. I shoot again, one of his wings fly off, this I go for the legs. Screams overpower the blasts of the shot gun and then it falls to the floor, twitching, trying to get itself upright. I move toward it shooting again, and it stops moving. I am standing over it, with its left arm, legs, one wing and a hand missing, along with its left eye this thing is still breathing. It opens its eyes and tries to bring the handless arm up and I blow it off. I stand on its right shoulder so it cannot move and aim for where the things heart should be. I pull the trigger and blow a whole clean through it into the floor. Then I bring the barrel higher and aim for the glowing eye that is still looking at me, again I pull the trigger and the head explodes. Chunks go flying everywhere and I get splattered with the thick black tar like blood. I hear the sirens of the back up in the distance as I recall what Van Helsing said, “Completely sever the heart, decapitate it, and burn the remains.” I go and grab one of the candles that are burning on the table and toss it on the lifeless torso. It bursts into bright red, and then blue flames and the heat is intense. The flames quickly burn out and there is nothing left but a charred spot on the floor where the body once laid. I head for the door and see the squad cars, and the ambulances pulling up. They quickly run to me I tell them I am fine, check my son. As they get him on the gurney and loaded into the ambulance, I see them bringing his mother out. I go over and I look down and I brush the hair away from her face, and I lean down and kiss her forehead. “I never stopped loving you.” I say. “I will take care of our son.” They zip the body bag closed around her. I walk over to Abraham, “so”, I say, “Van Helsing huh?” he gives a little smile and winks at me and shakes my hand. “Thank you”, I say, “thank you for telling me how to kill this thing.” “No, thank you.” He says, “This thing killed my family, and every one I ever loved or held dear to me. You have done me a great honor by killing it. I never could have done it myself; after all, I am just an old man.” “And just how old are you?” I ask. “Too old”, he replies with a chuckle. We shake hands and I make my way to the ambulance, “Detective, we will meet again” he says. “Until then,” he says, and he walks away. The CSI crew and other officers are scurrying around like ants at a picnic; I take one last look back and then get in the ambulance with my son. “Dad, where is mom?” he asks me. I squeeze his hand and I say to him “she is gone son; she will wait for us in Heaven.” He starts to cry, “I love you” he says. “I love you too son, let’s go get fixed up.” The doors close and the ambulance takes off.
I never did realize that my life would take such an amazing turn as it did that year. But one thing I learned, never ever think that anything is as it appears. There are things in this world that we cannot quite explain. There are things that should remain in the darkest regions of our minds, and things that this world should not see. And I faced one of those things tonight. The case of The Blood Letter forever changed my life, but just how much would it change it?....that my friends, is another story.

The end….for now.