Sylvie

When Elle pulled off the highway towards Noah’s Petersburg home, she’d been driving at a high speed with her blue lights flashing.  Usually taking roughly over an hour, Elle got to the city limits within forty-five minutes.  She pulled over to and stopped in an empty parking lot before punching in Noah’s address to her iPhone.  “Cool.  About three miles.”  She spoke to herself and set the path.

Driving to Noah’s house was a test of her patience.  She needed to see more of his detective work so she could figure out the remaining vampires and where her target, The Cross-Killer, was.  

-It isn’t enough to stop the person, Agent Miller.  You need to investigate why.-

A scary version of the thought dawned on her as she stopped the car in front of a one-story ranch.  “What if there is no why.  There is a chance this is just random killing.”  She sighed and headed for the front door.  Immediately she knew something was wrong.  Where there should have been a door knocker, it was replaced with a crucifix.  “Noah?”  She knocked on the steel door and it swung open easily, having not been latched shut. “I don’t like this a bit.”  Elle told herself and drew out her service .45 and headed into the house. “Noah, it's Agent Miller, call out if you can.”  She pulled the hammer back on her pistol and took the house one room at a time, closing doors behind her as she did so. “Noah??  If you can alert me, just bang on something and I will come for you.”  Elle waited and nothing but silence came from the man’s house.  Sighing, Elle determined that the structure was empty and she replaced her pistol in her holster after placing the weapon back on safe and releasing the hammer to a neutral position.

Elle made her way back to the front door and then began to look over the house more closely since the home seemed empty and the front door open.  Starting with the living room, Agent Miller saw the first signs of violence.  Bloodstains on the carpet, broken picture frames and even the coffee table splintered into a bunch of pieces.  Following the small blood trail from the living room to the kitchen, Elle knew that this is where the biggest part of the fight occurred.

Broken glass covered the floor in jagged piles with little bits of blood on them.  Cutlery stabbed into walls, and even the dining table flipped over with a leg missing, which Elle found with blood all over it, “A bat.  What the hell happened here, Noah?”  Topping off the sight of the kitchen was the scent that lingered behind.  Dead and rotting fish mixed with swamp water.  Pinching her nose, Elle studied the kitchen a little more and discovered another crucifix that could hold something like a doll to it.  It was after picking it up that she noticed the tightly wrapped paper affixed to the back of the cross.  Uncurling the little note like a scroll, Elle began reading.

—

Agent Miller,

You have the unique opportunity to save Noah and capture me.  All you need to find us is in the kitchen where you found this tiny note.  

I will be looking forward to meeting you,

The Cross-Killer, Patricia Heartwell

—

Elle blinked and opened her FBI database and checked out the name left behind. “Interesting.  Patricia was reported missing ten months ago by her husband?”  Elle spoke aloud to herself.  Elle read the rest of Patricia’s file and found out that the woman had been visiting friends out by the farms and had been due to return home a day before she disappeared. “Car found three weeks after disappearance, deep in the woods…covered in tar?”

Elle scratched her head impatiently and tried to make sense of the note in conjunction with the woman’s disappearance.  Making her way back to her cruiser, Elle set down her iPad and opened her laptop and looked at the map of the surrounding cities and where the car was found.  Using the function on the digital map to see a wider area, Elle zoomed the map out and spotted a lake. Raising one of her eyebrows, Elle highlighted what was called Moore’s lake. “Could that be it?”  She pondered and typed the name of the lake in a search engine and smiled as the results came up. “Somehow I knew it.  The lake was named after the fishing company that developed the land.  That is a man-made lake.”  Reading further, Elle began reading the last water readings that the City of Petersburg had performed nearly a year before. “Brackish and cannot sustain life.  Diesel and oil products have made even swimming impossible for the lake.”  Snapping her fingers and closing the lid to the computer, Elle started the engine and headed for the old fish factory. “I am sure the place smells like dead fish too, given the state of the water.”

Following the directions that her Tomtom provided from the dashboard, her drive took about ten minutes.  When the indicator pointed to an overgrown and broken asphalt road, Elle turned off the map and headed down the unused road.  Along the roadside were signs with peeled paint advertising the lake and Moore’s Fishing and Crab.  “Established 1899?”  Elle laughed and snorted to herself as the FBI cruiser made its way to the clearing that held the processing plant.  Noticing the putrid yellow vines and the bubbling black lake, Elle shook her head and shut off the engine. “What a place.”  She paused and heard cranes off to her right. “No way.  She’s watching us.”  Elle got out of her vehicle and walked to the trunk, and donned her bureau-issued AR-15.  “This is a fucking trap, and you know it.”  She muttered to herself as she checked the amount of ammunition in the clip.

Taking advantage of the sun’s rays to hide in the shadows, Elle made her way around the building and the one permeating thing she smelled was the exact same rotting fish scent that lingered at Noah’s home. Elle reached the south side of the plant and a light flashed on and covered the area in bright white light. 

“How much longer are you going to walk around outside, Agent Miller?”  The Cross-Killer asked. “I have watched you since you turned down Moore’s Lane.”  Without being seen by the FBI agent, Patricia pushed the back door open and kept to the shadows. “Please come in, we have much to discuss.  Unless you plan to shoot me now and get it over with.”

Elle waited for the motion sensor to turn off the light before she flicked on the night vision scope that was atop of her weapon. “As a matter of fact, I prefer we get this over with.”  Elle snapped the safety to fire, took aim at The Cross-Killer’s head and pulled the trigger.

-Crack-bang!-

“One shot, one kill, Good job Miller.”  Elle watched as Patricia’s head blew into pieces and the body of The Cross-Killer hit the ground and then twitched. “Noah?”  Elle screamed and waited for a response that never came.  Slowly, while still using the setting sun as her guide to enhance the night vision scope, Elle tracked across the entire main bay without spotting anything else that she needed to be aware of.