Sonatorrek: Lokasenna - 12

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

WARNING: MATURE SUBJECT MATTER

The investigation finds a connection with a recently busted child pornography ring, and Kane's mental slide is further confused by a meeting with Wanda.



“Here.” Snorinsen passed over a business card, which had a stylised version of the symbol that kept cropping up in relation to the murders. He’s dropped by the police station to find the Chief sitting at his desk ashen, staring into space.

“Looks like the same symbol.” He turned the card over, and it had a gibberish line of numbers and letters on the back, like a pin for a piece of software. “Where did it come from?”

“How strong is your stomach?”

“Another murder?”

“Three. Ages eleven, eight and four.”

“Fuck-“ Kane sat down abruptly.

“Garrison, this is not something that I’d normally ask anyone who doesn’t have to be involved in go further, but you’ve been pretty convincing about this all being tied together, and in thirty years, I haven’t seen anything this awful. I need you to look through something you don’t want to look through.”

“It’s alright, Arnie. I want this fucker. Whatever it takes.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be making that statement with this shit.” He sat back heavily. “We’ve been working with the state troopers and the FBI on a kiddie porn ring that they think had a production centre somewhere in the area. The site is invite only; one of those cards arrives in the mail with the code on it – no user logins, no logging software, everything handled remotely, which is why it took them so long to run it to ground.”

Kane had paled at the mention of child pornography, but forced himself to distance the reaction. It was a lead and this was his job. “You guys found it.”

“Vacation property about ten miles out of town. Problem was that someone fucked up and our suspects decided it was time to get rid of the evidence and run. Troopers picked up Wesley and Jen Milwaski about a mile from the border. We raided the house at the same time – computers wiped, recording equipment destroyed and sunk into the lake…”

“What about the kids?” Arnie dropped his gaze. He picked up a file from his desk and passed it over. Kane opened it and recoiled. “Jesus fuck-!“

“Looks like they didn’t have enough fuel to completely incinerate the bodies. We found traces of blood on an axe and a saw pulled out of the shallows near the dock. Guess they didn’t know where the deeper water starts.”
Kane got up, pacing as he tried to process it. Every second or so an image would flash back into his minds’ eye, making him jolt visibly at it. Arnie reached for a pack of cigarettes and lit it. Fuck the no smoking rule, he thought.

“Where’s the tie-in? I mean, the symbol but-“

“That’s where it gets worse.” Arnie took a long drag, ignoring Kane’s incredulous expression. “The symbol was also branded on to the kids. We’ve identified the three victims from the photos, but the local FBI wants you to confirm it.”

“You’re not suggesting-“

“No. They’re ordering it. The Milwaski’s confessed, and were clear that they received ‘orders’ and money from the owner of the site, who they have never met. The Chicago field office identified one of the kids on the site as a missing person from Chicago. It’s a federal case now.”

Kane could have killed Arnie or the local FBI Field Office, but they were right. The pictures would be in DC and with specialist units, but his job was to liaison with the local police to see if they could identify any victims out of the local population.

“You realize that I’ll need one of your people here to?”

“That will be me. No way I’m making one of my people go through this shit.” Arnie turned his laptop around and took one of the chairs in the front of the desk. The photos from the site had been seized and were now waiting in a folder, as innocuous as a directory of vacation shots until you opened the up. “You ready for this?”

“Yeah.” It was a lie, but he had a job to do. Kane took a deep breath, sat down beside Arnie, and opened up the file of horrors.

***

Kane had stopped on the way back to the motel and had jumped the guard rails to get into the forest. With a thunderous blow, he felled a tree, bloodying his knuckles. The images keep pushing into his mind, and he felt like his head was about to come apart. What was happening around here? He’d run down a dozen leads to his serial killer, but it seemed the entire social fabric was coming apart around him.

He stopped off at the Longboat Diner for a cup of coffee, a handkerchief wrapped around his hand. He had only taken a sip when a finger ran across the back of his neck, and Wanda slipped into the seat beside him.

About to say something smart, either truly smart or just of the sarcastic variety, Wanda paused when she saw the handkerchief and the general condition of Garrison's hand. She absentmindedly answered the waitress who paused by the table to ask her order, asked for the tea, and then refocused her attention to the man next to her. It had only been happenstance that she'd caught sight of him as she'd rounded the corner but her original reason, catching up, took a back seat.

"Hello, Garrison," she said, resting her chin on her hand as she angled her body slightly so she could look at him properly. "Your hand, and yourself perhaps, has apparently seen better days."

"I won't be sad to say goodbye to Aiktins." He agreed, trying to drive the images of the children away from his thoughts. "Found out anything useful on the Sons of Hel?"

"Enough to justify the legwork," she responded, leaning back against her chair with a sigh. To be honest, once you started to put the pieces together, it had started to paint a rather ugly picture. "A few years ago, the Sons of Hel were semi-small time, I suppose. Stereotypical crimes for a motorcycle gang - bar fights, territorial disputes, larceny, the occasional murder, the kind of things that get attention but nothing really out of the ordinary."

The tea arrived and Wanda set about pouring herself a cup. She continued to talk as the steam curled around her face. "However, things started to change. On the surface, things were just getting uglier but progressing along "normal" routes - more murders, more racially induced attacks, that kind of thing. However, digging down revealed odder incidents. People claimed to have seen the Sons involved in strange rituals and then those people were suddenly no longer around. Other people decided that not talking was in their best interest."

She looked over at him with a frown. "All of it within the last year."

"So it fits with the vague time period that things started to happen here." Kane rubbed his eyes, willing himself to focus. "What if Thor wasn't the only thing that changed about that time? Like, maybe our killer is somehow connected, like an evil version or something. Can that happen with this shit?"

She mulled that over for a moment before slowly answering. "That is not outside the realm of possibility. Consider how many cultures, myths and stories involve the struggle of yin and yang beings. It would make a certain amount of sense, for sure. The natural order of things might require something to balance out Thor's presence and power."

"Let's say then, for the moment, our killer is Loki. I'm sure the FBI shrinks will love this." Kane said, shaking his head. "What's his profile? If Don is Thor on earth, what's Loki?"

"You might be better off asking one of us who have actually been to Asgard," she said, somewhat in amusement. "The mythos around Loki speaks of someone who enjoys sowing chaos, a trickster; someone who is keen on usurping power, especially from ones he thinks took it from him or are withholding power that is rightfully his. A vengeful sort, too. That could translate on Earth to a businessman, a crazy homeless person, a king ..."

Rubbing the back of her neck, she shook her head. "I could not say for sure, honestly."

"Meanwhile everything around here is going from bad to worse." he frowned into his coffee cup and waved away Thelma as she came to try and refill it. "Back to looking for a connection between the incidents and the Hels, I guess."

The tea no longer held any appeal for her and Wanda took out enough money to cover the drinks and tip. "Since that sounds like so much fun, I suggest we head on out to start doing just that." Besides, sitting next to Garrison was starting to get - distracting in a way that Wanda found both intriguing and highly annoying.

Kane nodded, following her out of the booth. He didn't want any more coffee in any case. Just another dead-end. He needed to find a new angle if he was going to find his killer before he racked up more victims.

Getting some fresh air didn't help at all and, in fact, she was feeling more and more aware of Garrison with every passing second. "We can cut through the alley," she said, rubbing her forehead in frustration. The only thing she wanted to do was get back to where she was staying and take a nice, cold shower. The jumble of emotions ranged from desire to lust to frustration and right back to lust and she was trying her best not to do anything ... stupid.

"Yeah." He considered telling Wanda what he'd just seen. Maybe she had a perspective with horrors like that in her line of work. But it felt weak, as if he was loading her up with his problems. No, he needed to get his shit together. They walked over the parking lot and then to the alley behind, leading back towards the hotel.

She honestly thought she had it in control but then his hand accidentally grazed her arm and Wanda's thinking brain decided to take a vacation. Safely within the alley now, Wanda effectively pounced, grabbing Garrison's hand with hers and used it to spin him up against the wall. Breathing heavily, she pressed her body tightly against his, sighing as that almost painful pressure eased up.

Astonished, Kane almost pushed her back. His mind was an ugly place right now, and the last thing that he wanted was sex. But as she pushed him back, the part of him that was desperate to escape the hell he'd found himself in asserted it. He could only see the children behind his eyes until she'd pressed against him, and finally something else replaced them even momentarily. It was selfish and unfair to her, but Kane was past caring.