Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 1



Three Months Later…

It was hot––sweaty hot––especially for Seattle in the middle of June.

Detective Lieutenant, Brian Kane, took the day off from his duties at the homicide unit in the West Precinct to celebrate his 47th birthday. He set the electric fan on the coffee table and pushed the high-speed button. His thick black hair fluttered in the refreshing breeze. The fact that he was only now beginning to show a slight touch of gray at the temples belied the daily stress of his years as a big-city cop. The crevasses that defined the contours of his broad face, however, told the real story like a gritty, pulp crime novel written in Braille. His six-foot, one-inch frame still carried his 185 pounds quite well considering he hadn’t set foot in a gym in five years and he’d had to let his belt out a couple more notches. One of these days, he kept promising himself, I’ll get me one of those treadmills. But this wouldn’t be the day. This was a day for relaxing.

It was exactly the kind of birthday celebration he preferred: alone in his downtown apartment, slouched back in his old recliner, comfortably attired in his t-shirt and skivvies with a bottle of Scotch, a bag of corn chips and a Saturday afternoon ball game on TV. It was perfect. That is until the top of the seventh inning when the Mariners came to bat and the phone rang. With a disgruntled effort he reached over and took the call.

“Kane here. What is it? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mitch. Get Davis to handle it, will ya? I’m celebrating here. Oh, for the love of… all right. Where?” He grabbed a pen and jotted down an address on the palm of his hand. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on my way.”

***

The crime scene was a Presbyterian church in a semi-residential district just north of the downtown area. Kane ducked under the yellow police tape that cordoned off the front entrance of the church and walked in. A couple of CSI guys were snapping photos of the body that was lying face down on the floor at the foot of the altar. Mitch Wheeler, a relatively new detective with the division, was busy taking notes and didn’t notice Kane approaching.

Kane announced his presence with the standard opening line from every similar scene on every cop show on TV. “Okay, what’ve we got?”

Mitch looked up. “Hey, Lieutenant. I’m sorry about––”

“Forget it. The Mariners were losing anyway. So what do we have here?” Without waiting for an answer he knelt down beside the body to see for himself. He grimaced. “Oh, Jesus. You gotta be kidding me.”

“Yeah. Just like that other one nine days ago.”

The first victim, nine days ago, was Reverend Paul Nichols. His body, branded with strange symbols on the forehead and the chest, had been found in an alley near the waterfront. The body Kane was staring at now was marked in a similar manner. The symbol on the forehead was the same on both victims. The symbol on the chest, however, was different from the one on the chest of the previous victim.

In the previous case from nine days ago, the Medical Examiner had determined the cause of death was a heart attack. He was puzzled, however, by the strange symbols––not so much by what they might mean but by how they were applied. He first thought they appeared to be the result of branding by a heated metal implement applied to the surface of the skin. Or possibly––even more likely, given the flowing lines and complexity of the symbols––the perpetrator employed the more advanced method: electro-cautery pencils. One way or the other, the welted skin seemed to be a dead giveaway that it was a case of human branding. However, much to the M.E.’s surprise, a closer examination back at the lab had suggested something more bizarre, disturbingly so. The markings had not been the result of something applied to the surface of the skin. They were the result of something that happened under the skin. Nothing in his medical training or in his twenty-three years of practice could offer even a hint as to what mechanism––biological or otherwise––could cause such a thing to occur. So, although he hadn’t been able to come up with an explanation for the ‘how’, he was reasonably certain about the ‘when’.

“It was done while the victim was still alive,” he told Kane. “And the pain had to have been excruciating. Look here, how the nerve endings…”

“That’s okay, doc. I’ll take your word for it. What else you got?”

“Well, as you already surmised, the victim was apparently sodomized.”

“Apparently?”

“We only have what you might call surface evidence of anal penetration. Minor tissue damage to the orifice shows––”

“Like I said, I’ll take your word for it. So you’re telling me there was no semen? Nothing? Hairs? Fibers? C’mon, doc. You gotta give me something. I could use a little help from a DNA sample. Y’know?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. Nothing. Not under the fingernails, not on the clothing… nothing. This is definitely one for the books. It’s like the poor guy was attacked by a damned ghost.”

“A ghost. That’s your expert medical opinion? He was attacked by a f*cking ghost?”

The Medical Examiner shrugged. “Just telling you the way it is.” He snapped off his surgical gloves. “Anyway, there you go. If I find anything more, you’ll be the first to know.”

Now, kneeling over the second victim, Kane shook his head and glanced up at Wheeler. “What kind of a sick f*ck does something like this?”

“I don’t know, but there’s one more thing.”

Kane got to his feet. “What is it?”

Wheeler held out a clear plastic evidence bag containing a small, thin, black object. He handed it to Kane.

Kane held it up to the light. “Son of a bitch. Another goddamn Batman coin.”

“Yup. Stuffed into the mouth of the vic just like the other case.”

“What the hell is it with these Batman coins? Get it to the lab right away. The other coin didn’t tell us anything but maybe we can get a print off this one.” He glanced down at the body. “Any I.D. on this guy? Do we know who he is?”

Wheeler peeled back a page or two in his notes. “Thomas Morgan. Pastor here at the church.”

“Preacher, huh? Same as that other poor bastard.” Kane’s brow crunched as he studied the body. “Doesn’t look like a preacher.”

Wheeler shrugged. “What should a preacher look like?”

“Black shirt, white collar. You know.”

“Well, he was a Presbyterian minister. They don’t always––”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He took another look at the dead preacher. “Those weird markings on the forehead, the chest. What the hell are they, anyway?”

Wheeler shook his head. “Don’t have a clue.”

“Then what good are ya?” Kane said as he turned to leave.

The comment took Wheeler by surprise. “What?”

But Kane’s footsteps were already echoing down the aisle between the pews toward the door. He’d entered the scene with a standard line and, true to form, he was exiting with a standard line. “Need a full report on my desk by morning,” he hollered over his shoulder.

Just as Kane reached the door, Wheeler called after him. “By the way, Lieutenant! Happy birthday!”

The words ‘f*ck you’––another line from Kane’s voluminous lexicon of famous phrases––was barely audible as the large oak door slammed shut behind him.