Since then, I’d been following her path of destruction across the city. I knew it was her after the first few attacks occurred. Several times I had tried to be in the right place at the right time by chance, but it hadn’t worked, not yet. I didn’t have enough data to create a pattern yet. The signs were the same—occupants of the buildings were beaten until they fled and the buildings destroyed. No one wanted to talk to the police about what happened because it would start a line of awkward questioning about who would want to target them and what they were doing in those places. Was it really only a bar? A club? What was in the rooms out back? Evidence of drug labs was denied, and the ownership of the buildings was so expertly twisted up in paperwork it was obviously the work of some larger criminal organization. Or several.
And her motivations were even more of a mystery. Was she working for someone or attacking at random?
Then there was the constant insistence by the victims they never saw the attacker. Which seems so unlikely it bordered on impossible. It eventually clicked in my mind it was code for a girl beat us up, and we didn’t want to admit it.
Kelly had been an invaluable source of information, but part of me knew Kelly was only helping because she hoped to get back together with me. I chose to ignore that part because then I could also ignore the guilt reminding me I was practically using her, and not only for sex this time.
So, this red-headed woman, this otherworldly being, this fucking monster or whatever she was, had targeted gang clubhouses, homes of pimps, biker gang headquarters, and fronts for drug labs and money laundering. This couldn’t be an accident. She knew what she was doing and the sort of places she was targeting. It would be too much of a coincidence for her to simply happen across these places each time she decided it was time to fuck something up.
I shouldn’t be concerned. Those people had made their own bed and perhaps got what was coming to them. If it weren’t from her, then it was bound to be someone else who took them down, right? But she was careless and reckless, and with every move she made, the chances of someone innocent getting hurt or killed multiplied exponentially.
Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Collateral damage.
Unacceptable.
Besides, Kelly advised the police were aware there was growing tension within the underground crime sanctions in the city, each group blaming the others for the damage. Something was going to break soon, and if I didn’t get to her, then certainly those whose toes she was stepping on would find her first.
Or kill each other, again with the potential for the loss of innocent lives.
I was no novice. I knew the crime-circles ran this city, tending to leave alone the rich-bitch side of the city and keeping to this end, where they could pay off cops and get away with it.
But we come back to the same point—protect the innocent.
Despite what this woman was doing, I don’t think I wanted her to end up in the hands of those who would kill her. She gave the impression there was at least some level of integrity with the places and people she chose to unleash herself upon. Or perhaps she was simply a tool, being led by someone else. Either way, she didn’t deserve to die.
On top of that—and this one bothered me a lot because a creature with sharp teeth, yellow eyes, and black inky skin surely couldn’t have ethics—but for whatever reason, she never seemed to kill anyone. Not once, although she’d put more than a few of them in the hospital. It was as though she lived by some fucked-up code where she was happy to maim people and destroy places as long as she didn’t actually kill anyone.
Weird rules, but psychopaths often had their own set of rules, I guess.
She was more than a psychopath, though. I know what I saw. Something else, something not human—no fingerprints, untraceable blood they were unable to identify the type, and strength beyond what should be possible for her size.
After a while, when the police reports and public information were getting me nowhere, I added some of my own research into my investigation.
Inky skin, sharp teeth, yellow eyes.
Demon.
Whoever she was, she was unnatural, and I would find her.
So, after the experience at the bar and the reports of similar happenings, I had asked Kelly for copies of police reports for anything with unusual results, and unidentifiable blood certainly counted as unusual. I think Kelly took the results personally, as though being unable to identify demon blood as a type was some insult to her career and abilities in her profession.
Kelly hadn’t wanted to help me further, scared to get involved and put her career at risk any more than she already had. Understandable. I preferred to work alone anyway. Apart from the risk she could lose her job, we hadn’t exactly left on the best of terms, but I fed her some drivel about needing to find purpose in my life since my discharge.
I didn’t want to admit to myself it wasn’t a lie.
On top of that, because it was still, and would always be, my duty to protect the innocent, I realized no cops were going to believe that not only was there was a connection between these incidents beyond the gang wars, but the connection was a toned red-headed woman on a warpath who happened to be an otherworldly being.
Demon.
I’m not sure what more proof I was waiting for to act, and to find a solution. Even if I were wrong, the worst-case scenario was I spend a bit of time trying to convince myself I’m not crazy, and perhaps as a bonus, apprehend someone who’s putting innocent lives in danger.
But my mother told me about Guahaioque.
So, I had more research to do.