Chicago …
The heady scent of blood was floating on the air. This, accompanied by the panic and fear tainting the wind, drew Loki in. He was surrounded by warehouses, obviously in the more industrial part of town. Up ahead, shouts of surprise and pain echoed, and Loki knew without seeing it that it was going to be good.
Loki moved towards the sound, and as he got closer to the source, he could see the first of the bodies lying on the ground outside the door. Getting down onto his haunches, Loki got a better look at the corpse. The wound to the back of his neck looked as if it had been angled up, the weapon being driven into his spine to kill him instantly. There was blood everywhere, growing tacky around his body.
The light spilling out of the nearby door drew Loki’s attention. Standing up from his crouch, he entered the warehouse, hitting the wall of blood, seeing the carnage. There were more than a dozen bodies with at least a dozen different fatal wounds. Loki was impressed, and curious to know who had orchestrated such a beautiful scene.
But as he looked around a little more, he realized that he hadn’t even noticed the best part. In the middle of the room, Loki found a disembodied head positioned so it was looking up. Droplets of blood decorated the ground, a small perimeter of red circling the head. Loki’s eyes rose to the rafters, a gratified grin spreading across his lips. The body strung from the steel beams was still leaking, the victim’s life blood dribbling and seeping all over the bare concrete floor. His belly had been cut open, the intestines spilling out and dangling, suspended in the air like a macabre chandelier of human blood and flesh.
“Let’s get out of here,” a voice said, and Loki recognized it immediately. Stepping behind a tall wall of wooden crates, Loki watched Galen and Rhys descend the staircase at the back of the room and wander casually through the warehouse. They were covered in blood and gore, both of them wearing satisfied grins. They faded from the scene as the wail of sirens started in the distance.
The human authorities must have been on the way. Not wanting to be seen, Loki left the warehouse and staked out a spot in the shadows to watch. Within moments, the flash of red and blue lights reflected off the windows and steel doors of the surrounding buildings.
The first car pulled up, the word POLICE stamped across the front door. Another three cars followed, lights blazing, and the men from the first car got out. They both unclipped the snaps across their weapon’s holsters and kept their hands on the grips as they walked towards the front door of the warehouse.
Their eyes were on the first body as they passed it, but they pressed on. The man in front drew his weapon and led the way inside, his partner closely following behind him. Loki’s eyes moved to the other officers, now filing in behind the first two cops. He could see the wariness in their eyes as they passed him.
Staying back and out of sight, Loki drew closer to the door, watching the humans survey the scene in front of them. One of the younger ones suddenly doubled over, the contents of his stomach spilling out onto the floor a few feet away from one of the corpses.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Moloney,” someone said. “You’re fouling up the crime scene. Take it outside.”
The cop—Moloney—jolted upright like a puppet attached to invisible strings and turned around, wiping a shaking hand across his mouth. He didn’t even see Loki standing there as he staggered outside.
“What a goddamn mess,” another cop said, crouching down to inspect one of the bodies that had had its throat slashed.
“I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said another, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth and nose, trying to smother the smell of rust and spilled bowels.
“Who do you think is responsible for this shit?”
“There’s only one man who could order a hit this violent.” The man who spoke had a hard, square jaw, his mouth set into a grim line. Loki recognized this look. It was the look of a man who had seen too much.
“You’ve got a real hard-on for Craine, don’t you, Bray?” another cop said, this one a lot rounder and softer than Bray.
Bray ignored the comment. A drop of blood fell on his shirtsleeve, and he looked up at the ceiling. Taking a step back, he uttered, “Holy mother of God.”
The epithet drew the attention of the other cops, their gazes also gravitating to the rafters. Two more men gagged and fell to their knees.
“Do you know of any other man who would order that?” Bray demanded, gesturing to the body hanging from the roof. “This has to be Craine’s doing.”
The other man’s lips thinned into a hard line. “Okay, let’s say for argument’s sake it is, what’s the motivation?”
Bray was already walking toward the stairs. “All right, so we know Craine is the biggest importer and distributor of coke in Chicago, right?”
“No, we think he is,” the other man said. “We haven’t been able to pin a goddamn thing on him. It’s like he’s fucking coated in Teflon—nothing sticks.”
At the top of the metal staircase, Bray paused and turned around, his gun in hand. “I’d bet a year’s wage there’s something inside this room that will tell us everything we need to know.”
He twisted the handle and stepped into the room, gun raised. Less than a minute later, he was on the small landing once more.
“Well?”
“Nothing,” Bray replied bitterly, holstering his weapon and descending the stairs. His boots thumped against the metal. “Tell me the medical examiner is here already. I need to get out of here as soon as fucking possible.”