Natural (vamplock)

Chapter 3: Stakeout

(blood, mentions of weapons, woman sort of forcing herself on a man, usual TWs)

I would have been happy to say that the next day was devoid of any dead bodies and vamparistic crime scenes but it seemed the universe was against me and my friend, along with the whole of Scotland Yard. First, the night of our investigation, my dreams were filled with haunting images of the girlfriend of our second victim: of a mysterious, pale girl with raven black hair and green eyes, blood dripping from dazzling white fangs, mouth open in a psychotic smile. Others were filled with gut-wrenching sights of my friend, laying on his bed, eyes open and glazed over, blood leaking from two identical holes in his neck. It wasn't until I had triple-checked that my flatmate was still alive and breathing (he had woken up during one of my excursions and voiced his annoyance after assuring me, 'yes, John, I am perfectly fine. Go to sleep.') that I was finally able to drift into a dreamless slumber.

I had drifted off around four or five in the morning and woken up at ten to find my friend experimenting in the kitchen, resulting in him blowing up the kitchen by accident. Which went down about as well as you'd expect with me blowing a gasket and Sherlock paying for breakfast at Speedy's. After breakfast, the majority of the day was uneventful. I called a clean-up crew to repair the kitchen (Sherlock kindly announced that he would pay for everything. It was mind-blowing that the detective actually took responsibility for his actions. Rare, but greatly appreciated.), Sherlock played his violin, I updated my blog, went on a date with a lovely woman who I will not be seeing again, and ran some errands.

Only around six pm did things really get interesting. It started with a text from Lestrade, informing us of yet a third victim in the span of two days, and ended with a stakeout and exhilarating chase.

An hour after the Detective Inspector's message, Sherlock and I had arrived at the crime scene. It was almost identical to the second one- the daughter (a girl with long, raven-black hair and captivating green eyes) had found her father in his sitting room chair. She had informed us that at first, she had thought her father to be sleeping, until she took a closer look and found two puncture wounds at the base of his neck, completely clotted over. It seemed to be a clean job, I had thought, hating myself for even thinking about it.

By this point in time, my friend seemed to be somewhat interested in the case. The three victims had painted the bloody picture of a serial killer, out for blood. And even if it weren't the case, three bodies in two days was impressive enough, however morbid it seemed. Sherlock had told me before we had reached the third crime scene that he was seriously considering this case to be an 8, a common rating for serial killers in my friend's book. The only downside to his interest, however, was the consistent tangents the detective repeatedly spewed, informing us of his unbelieving of vampires and how the killer could not have been a vampire. He had already given us two lectures and was well into a third when Lestrade finally shut him up. I think we all thanked the heavens just then because my friend, however much I cared for him, was getting quite bothersome.

Until, he somehow predicted the next victim and announced that we should participate in a stake out at the estimated location. He convinced me to come along and I reluctantly agreed. The one question on my mind for the ride back to our flat was how he had guessed the location of the next murder. I never did get an answer. Funny how it works- my friend is always so observant, yet he never tells me what he sees.

Five hours later, Sherlock and I are camped out in the supposed next victim's house. Sherlock believed it to be a 27-year-old male with bright red hair and chocolate brown eyes. It was quite the interesting combination, was my first thought upon meeting him. Earlier in the day, when we had met this young man, he had greeted us as if we were family and was extremely gracious. It was incredible how kind this man was. When we told him the news that my friend expected him to be the next victim in an ongoing series of murders, his face went white and he set his cuppa on the coffee table as to not drop it. He then confessed that he had a friend he fancied but had always gotten a bad feeling from. His description of this friend matched the description of every other girl who had found every other body. Of course, Sherlock had immediately connected the dots, but it took me quite some time to finally piece together the puzzle, but I will get to that in a little bit. Patience, my dear readers, as my friend likes to say.