A pure soul

It had been too long. The time to act was now.

Drayce got up from the bar and marched towards the stairs leading to the upper balcony.

"Sir. Sir! You can't go up there!" the security guard insisted, grabbing Drayce's arm.

Drayce quickly fished his badge from under his trench coat. "Chicago Police, stand aside!"

He marched up the stairs to the only private room.

"This is the CPD, Travis! Open this door! Now!"

There was no answer. The door was locked.

"Do you have a key for this door?" he asked the security guard who immediately shook his head.

Drayce drew his service revolver from its holster and gave the door a hearty kick, and then another, until it flew open. He dashed inside with his pistol at the ready.

"Put your hands in... what the fuck?!"

Drayce saw the woman he was looking for, with huge bat like wings sticking out from her back and a long tail dangling behind her, sitting on top of what looked like a shriveled up corpse. Her glowing red eyes glared at him, sending a chill down Drayce's spine.

"A pure soul," she whispered.

The woman dashed toward the back wall made of glass. Drayce fired three shots before she jumped through the glass to the ground below.

Drayce ran to the ledge and looked down. There was no body. No one could have survived much less walked away from a fall like that. Did she... fly away?

"What the hell did I just witness?"

*****

Drayce was miserably stoic the next morning when he gave his full report to his captain.

"I know what I saw, Captain," Drayce said through clenched teeth. He desperately tried to defend his position after last night's events.

"This is a complete cluster-fuck, Detective Knight," Captain Finnegan roared. Drayce was on the receiving end of a thorough ass-reaming. "We have the dead body of a prime suspect in a chain of kidnappings that looks like he's been dead for decades! And all you've got is that a naked woman was in the room with him, who then jumped out the window when you showed up? Is that your fucking story?"

"Yes sir, Captain," Drayce replied, sticking to his word. He failed to mention the huge black wings sticking out of her back, the horns sticking out of her head, the long tail, or the red glowing eyes. No reason to make the Captain think he was more bat-shit crazy than he already did.

Captain Finnegan sat back down in his padded chair. He lowered his voice to a less strident level. "Listen, Drayce. You're a good cop, one of the best. But I can't help but think you haven't been thinking clearly."

Drayce rolled his eyes in frustration, knowing the turn this conversation was about to take. "This has nothing to do with Phoebe, sir. I've been through endless therapy and countless psychological evaluations. The shrinks say my mind is fine and I've been cleared to be back on the force."

"I'm fully aware of that Drayce," Captain Finnegan said. "I can't begin to imagine what you've been through. I'm just hoping that your frustration with her case hasn't carried over into your duties."

"They haven't," Drayce assured him.

"Good. Regardless -- I want to give you a few days off, with pay, to clear your mind and start fresh on this case."

"That won't be necessary, sir."

"That is an order, Detective Knight! You are by no means to work this case until you report back next week, understood?"

Drayce straightened. "Yes, sir."

"Before you go, see if Vince has turned up anything in the morgue. I need at least something to feed the press dogs before they go spewing this as an act of bio-terrorism."

The captain looked down at his desk, shuffling papers. Drayce recognized the sign of dismissal.

He shut the door behind him and took a deep sigh. That wasn't so bad, all things considered. It could have been worse. At least he still had a job.

He made his way down to the basement level of the precinct building. He replayed the previous night's events over and over in his head. He knew he wasn't crazy, but if he told anyone exactly what he saw, he knew he would be taken off the force, possibly for good.

He passed Frank Wallace, the detective assigned to Phoebe's case. Frank was spending his oh-so-valuable time shooting wads of paper into a distant trash can. He sometimes scored. Of all the people they could have assigned to that case, they picked Frank. Frank! Drayce was pretty sure Frank was a dirty cop.

However, there was nothing he could do about that, not with Frank's connections.

Drayce arrived at the morgue. He threw on a lab coat and entered Vince's examination room. The bald pathologist was busy autopsying Travis Dunham's shriveled body.

"Please tell me you have something, Vince," Drayce said, greeting the reed-thin, middle-aged doctor draped in a worn lab coat.

Vince turned towards Drayce and adjusted his glasses. "Seventeen years on this lousy job and I've never seen anything like this. Come here, take a look."

Drayce approached the body, or rather what somewhat resembled a body. The corpse was desiccated as if entombed for millennia in Egypt. But the clothes piled on a steel table beside the body were the same ones he saw Travis wear last night, without so much as a stain on them.

☆