BLOOD MOON RISING - english version

~ Chapter 1 ~

The room reeked of cheap booze, sweat and sex.
The curtains at the window were almost completely closed and the bedside lamp, which had probably burning all night, bathed the shabby furniture in yellowish light.
Alfred Taylor wrinkled his nose when he noticed the heavy, metallic smell of blood, faint but noticeable. The young policeman, who had let him in, kept silent in the background and Al whistled softly through his teeth as he stopped in front of the bed with the brass frame. His nervousness about the first female corpse in his agent career was suddenly blown away.
Amidst the rumpled sheets, legs vulgarly spread under a flimsy sheet, laid the dead woman. Her full, blonde hair was curled over the pillow and she had a handsome body, but her once certainly pretty face was now swollen black and blue and froze in a gruesome grimace in agony. Broken eyes gazed at him under half-closed eyes. Alfred sswallowed hard and tried to ignore the flies that were already squatting on the black lips, waiting to continue on their meal.
Dark marks disfigured the woman's swollen neck and Alfred didn't really need to look closely to see the cause of death, but he let his gaze wander to make sure to not overlook even the smallest detail. For a moment it felt strange to look at the woman so shamelessly. Alfred was a man who loved women and he felt a sudden touch of pity for the dead woman. The murderer had proceeded with obvious brutality and Alfred was sure that her neck was broken. The head would probably dangle like that of a rag doll if the woman was moved.
"The owner found her like that this morning. No sign of a man, but she said she didn't remember every visitor last night."
The policeman coughed slightly. "Apparently, a lot of people come in and out of here at night."
"Hmm."
He looked aside in shame as Alfred gently pulled the sheet from the dead woman's legs with a gloved hand. She was still wearing her underwear made of laced white linen. The smell of blood was stronger down here and Alfred leaned a little closer over the body to pick up her scent. The policeman looked at him suspiciously, but he was not impressed and pushed her thighs a little more apart. The woman had apparently been menstruating, he recognized a brownish dried stain on the fabric between her legs. Alfred straightened up again, he had seen enough to get a first impression.
"No doubt the owner had simply lost track after the first few drinks from the bar," he replied dryly and dropped the sheet again. For a moment he actually considered that the woman might have died in an unfortunate, perverse love game. A sex murder, as it sometimes happened in the demimonde and was usually covered up wordlessly. The brothels did not usually care about one prostitute more or less.
"It could also have been an accident. Such things happen, you know," he added, but the policeman shook his head.
"This time it's quite unlikely. We found blood under her fingernails and on the sheets," he said. "Two nails are missing... she must have fought with her killer."
He seemed to have regained some of his self-confidence and appeared much calmer now that he was no longer alone with the disfigured corpse. Alfred pulled the sheet a little higher up over the face of the dead and the flies flew apart with an angry buzz. He opened his notebook.
"Do you have a name for me, or is she a stranger?"
The policeman nodded and handed the agent a folded sheet.
"Her name is Rose Williams. Our client wondered, well..." He cleared his throat. "When she didn't come back to her, uh, brothel this morning, someone came to look for her. ...and then she was found like this."
"I understand. Well, I think the cause of death is quite obvious," Alfred said, putting his notebook back in his pocket. "Please arrange a forensic examination of the dead woman. I will come back for the results later. There's nothing more we can do here for the moment."
He turned to the dead woman in the dirty bed and felt a strange anxiety. A premonition, perhaps?
"Poor thing. Let's hope this remains just an unlucky accident..."

Alfred took a deep breath when he had closed the front door of the hotel behind and was back in the fresh, rain-soaked air. He had the feeling that the musty stench of the room was still adhering to his clothes and sniffed at one sleeve, but only smelled the odour of wool fabric. He fished a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his coat and lit one on the spot. Despite several attempts he just couldn't stop smoking. Too many smells poured into his sensitive wolf nose in this city and at least this one smell of blue smoke remained the same and gave him in his monotony a certain security. He took a deep breath and looked up into the cloudy sky.
Alfred Taylor was a wolf-shapeshifter. Although he rarely took the wolf form, he proudly carried this secret. In the north, where he was born, they had been around for centuries and as the cities grew larger, the individual packs decided to join forces. Among the humans they lived a more or less loose community in secrecy and many a wolf man or woman lived with a human as a partner, the latter without knowing about the second nature of his spouse. Alfred smiled pensively. As the second son of a wealthy family he was given a certain amount of freedom to decide what he wanted to do with his life and he finally decided to become a Pinkerton agent. As a member of a small special unit he had been involved in some adventures and when he came to Chicago a few weeks ago he could not imagine that the adventures here would continue the same way. This brought his thoughts back to the unfortunate dead woman.
The young policeman was right - in fact it didn't look like an accident and he didn't like that at all. New Orleans was an immensely big city and if there was a possible murderer on the loose, it would not be easy to keep it a secret for very long. Even if it was just a sex murder, an accident - and a shiver ran down his spine at the thought - it would make waves. Alfred flicked the smoked cigarette butt aside and looked for his reflection in the half-blind windows of the hotel for a quick check on his appearance before he made his way back to the agency.