Materiarth Genesis: Blue Moon

Chapter 3: New Players, Part 2

"Mind I ask what exactly happened here?" Vexen asked as he followed the Inspector to the crime scene. 

"Murder, and an ugly one at that. Never seen anything like it," the Inspector replied.

They walked past a line of yellow police tapes that encircled what appeared to be a dry puddle of blood with stains and patches dragging all the way towards the street outside of the Square. Yellow markers printed with black numbers were placed all around the few largest patches.  Two policemen in blue uniform, equipped with a stun baton and a standard-issued pistol strapped to their waists, guarded the perimeter in full attention. As Vexen passed by, they began whispering at each others' ears, their frowns did not help him assume that they were saying good things about it.

Ignoring the officers, he proceeded to scan his surroundings. "That's odd," he noticed that he was the only human nearby who wasn't wearing a blue uniform, and that there were no policemen guarding the four quiet roads that led to the square. "Is there some sort of curfew I don't know about?"  

 "No, sir," Cameron replied, scratching his scalp. "Just that the folks here don't like going out during the day as much as they do at night," he sighed. "Especially not with this many officers in town."  

He walked with Cameron to the backdoor of a blue van with the Starshore City Police crest painted on its sides. Two men wearing blue jacket and matching rubber gloves were about to push a stretcher with a black body bag on top of it, only for them to stop upon his and the Inspector's arrival. 

"What's the meaning of this?" one of the men asked, his tone sounded a bit hostile.

"Sir, this is nothing to be concern about. The forensic team can handle this."

"Open it," Vexen responded sternly, his eyes pointing at the bag.

"Are you trying to interfere with our work, greycoat?" the forensic investigator retorted. Greycoats; Vexen recognized it one of many the derogatory terms used to refer T.S.A personnel.

"Are you interfering with mine?" Vexen growled the words at him, causing the man to take a step back. He had no time to play nice right now. All he wanted to do was to find what he had came here for and fly back to High Command as soon as possible.

"Look, man. Just open the bag for him," Cameron persuaded,  his attempt at easing the tension was barely helping.

Vexen and the two forensic investigators intensely stared at each other for a while, until finally one of them reluctantly gave in while muttering a curse under his breath, as he partially unzipped the human-sized plastic bag, enough to reveal the bloodied and distorted face that was concealed underneath.

The two FIs immediately backed their head away in disgust, while Cameron pressed a hand against his mouth, struggling to keep the contents of his stomach in. As for Vexen, he had seen worse sights, and scent.

 Vexen looked down at the man. His skull appeared to have been forcefully pressed and crushed, leaving his facial features hideously twisted, his jaws dislocated leaving his mouth wide half open. Five wide gashes horizontally lined up from his throat to his collarbone, and on the sides of his cold disfigured face, are five almond shaped holes, four on the right and a slightly larger one right on his left temple. Upon closer inspection, Vexen noticed that the flesh and skin around the holes looked melted, as if they had came into contact with something corrosive. Not only was there a scent of blood, but there was also a pungent and penetrating odor coming from the man's face. 

As Vexen continued to inspect the victim's face, Cameron suddenly broke the silence. "Seriously, who could've done such a thing?"

Vexen pulled something out his ON-COMM from the left pocket of  his uniform; a thin, rectangular device with a glass screen on the front side and a square lens on the back.  He pressed a finger against the screen, bringing it to life in a bright bluish glow. Another tap with his finger caused the device to beep, and the lens on the back shone a blue line at the victim's face which scanned it from top to bottom. The device continued beeping as multiple tabs appeared and disappeared on the screen, each showing pictures of different individuals, with series of texts accompanying every picture.