The Seasons

Chapter 17

It took almost thirty minutes to settle on eight and a half weeks.

Micah took a seat on the couch, and Alexander sat next to him with Maddox beside him; Neo stood next to his husband. Winter, Summer, and Autumn were all standing off to one wall. Aether was standing next to Winter, who was not so subtly ignoring him. Cairo took a seat on one of the couches and was unsure of what to do, Wing took a seat next to him, and Jasper was about to sit next to him, but Thorne, not so subtly, pushed him away and sat beside his best friend. Cairo placed his bag in the middle before taking out eight large files with the words ‘CLASSIFIED’ stamped in red on the thick black folders and many files also in black but much less heavy.

Jasper grinned as he stared at them. “Awesome.”

“No,” Cairo said, groaning. “Not awesome. What I say can’t leave this room. If it does, Rex will kill me. Do you all understand?” The group eyed one another warily but nodded. “I am serious. Rex doesn’t know I am telling you the nitty gritty of everything that’s happening. He will kill me if he finds out.”

“We won’t tell,” Grey said, smiling.

Cairo sighed and picked up one file that seemed slightly thicker than the rest and sighed. “Okay. So, this file covers all the basic information, I’m going to read it once and only once, so be prepared. We know they have been active for at least fifteen years. At least. Chances are they’ve been active longer but we don’t have enough proof to link them to other deaths. But, we didn’t connect the dots until five years aho when a different wolf had the same cause of death as a wolf, five years ago. From there, we began comparing, all beings of the same race were killed the same way, but differently?”

“You’re not making sense,” Micah said. “They were killed the same way but differently?”

“Okay, so Olivia, one of the wolves found dead, was loaded with silver just as Sam was. But Olivia had silver injected into her, and Sam was dimemberd with silver. And as time has gone by, the group has gotten bolder and bolder.”

“Like dropies bodies aroubd town for everybody to see,” Jasper muttered.

“Exactly.”

“Now, everyone is at a f*****g loss because none of the victims we have on record have anything in common at all, besides species. So, if you can solve a curse that’s been going around for 300 years, you can help me figure out who and why they’re killing everyone.”

Jem eyed one of the folders and picked it up, opening it up. Grey peered over his shoulder as he stared down at the contents. “Vampires being killed by the sun? That’s normal isn’t it?”

Cairo looked up from his file to nod. “Yeah, it is. But no vampire is stupid enough to walk into broad daylight without knowing they won’t die. And Constance did, allegedly. And when we found her body crisped so we couldn’t get much from her. But Emmanuel, he was found in a dumpster exsanguinated, which is odd for a vampire, don’t you think. And the rest of the vampires we have information on have either been killed via sunlight or with blood.”

“Right,” Jem said, frowning. “So, species are being killed with their weaknesses?”

Rosalyn cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably as she stared at Elizabeth before slamming the file she had been staring at shut and dropping it on the table. She fidgeted for another moment before she wrapped her arms around Elizabeth, who frowned but held her close. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

“We also found a pair,” Cairo replied, not looking at anyone. “I’m assuming that’s the case Rosalyn just saw.”

Micah scowled as he peeled his eyes away from Rosalyn. “A pair of vampires?”

“No,” Cairo said. “A vampire and a human. From what we saw, we assumed they had been lovers. The human had been placed in a sunroom, and the vampire, had been starved,” Cairo swallowed a little. Wing blinked a few times as he realised what Cairo might be discussing. “We assume Milo had been forced into that room; he drank from the woman and killed her. And the sun killed him. We found them as the picture shows.”

Wing leaned forward, picked up the file, and opened it. He held his breath a little. The woman had been in the vampire’s arms; he had been burnt to a crisp, his head bowed, and she pressed to his chest, her face not visible. Wing blinked away his tears as he put the folder back down, staring at his hands.

Thorne frowned, and as he leaned forward to take the folder, Cairo snatched it away. Thorne opened his mouth, ready to argue, but when Cairo sent him a chilling glare, he decided against it.

No one said anything as they combed through files; hundreds of them, humans, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, fae, kitsune, nymphs, and so many more species, had all been killed with their weaknesses. Wing frowned. How had no one put it together? There were so many bodies, hundreds of people were dead, and this group had been active for so long, and no one had managed to figure it out.

Wing combed through his pile, but nothing stuck out to him, hell he wasn’t even sure what he was meant to be looking for. Something that could link hundreds of people together? He was combing through everyone in Moonwane. God, there were so many people. He paused when he noticed a cashier, Mellisa; she had worked at the uni shop and was a werewolf. He recognised her from her silver hair, with the ends rainbow. He had commented once on her hair, how he had liked it, and she had smiled back at him. He had liked her smile. But in this picture, she was deathly pale, her eyes blood red, her veins black.

But what he noted was one of the crime scene photos. He brought the picture closer to him, narrowing his eyes a little, it was so small he could have missed it, but he was sure of it. There was a small blue dot just behind her right ear.

“Wing, what are you doing?” Kevin asked, his deep voice causing Wing to jump a little. Jasper stirred in the man’s arms before he fell back asleep. He had been complaining for a while before he had climbed into Atticus’s arms and fallen asleep. But Atticus had also fallen asleep, so now both men were sleeping on Kevin. Jasper was in his arms, and Atticus had his arm wrapped around Kevin, his head on his shoulder.

“I don’t know if it’s anything, really,” he said, noticing all eyes in the room were on him; he fiddled with the photo a little before staring down at his hands.

“No, it could be something,” Cairo replied as he yawned into the crook of his arm. “Tell us.”

“I don’t think it’s anything; it might just be a fleck of dust,” he winced when his voice cracked a little, and he was sure if vampires could blush, he would be bright red.

Cairo stood up and grabbed Wing’s hand, pulling him up. Thorne narrowed his eyes as he was about to stand up, but Neo spoke up. “Thorne, why don’t you help me get some drinks for everyone awake?”

“No, I-”

Wing didn’t get to say anything else as Cairo grabbed his hand and led him out of the room.

~*~