South Beach Diet...Part 1

I emerged from the Shadow into a dark side alley. I stopped at the end of the alley for a moment to take in the festive scene of a typical South Beach evening—pounding music, snarled traffic, pulsing neon lights, and a throbbing crowd of underdressed people of all races, genders and orientations milling about happily trolling for their next fling.

The call for assistance had come earlier in the afternoon from the Miami office of the Bureau:

“Hello.”

“This is Special Agent Miguel Corrales from the Miami Office, are you Agent Rusty Bones?”

“Yeah, that would be me. What can I do for you Agent Corrales?”

“Well, uh, we’re having a bit of a problem down here and we’re hoping that you might be able to help us to solve it.”

“What kind of problem are you having?”

“Well, um, it’s kind of hard to explain without sounding…ridiculous.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry about that Agent Corrales. I specialize in handling problems that sound ridiculous to most people. Tell me what you got going on.”

“You’ve probably seen some of our problem on the news, if you watch that stuff. We have someone, or something that is stalking and killing people here near South Beach.”

There had been a few news stories about a series of gruesome killings in Miami Beach lately. I hadn’t really paid attention to the stories, so I didn’t know too many details, other than that the mutilated bodies of young, otherwise healthy young people were turning up on the beaches of that city’s hottest nightspots, only to be discovered in the early morning hours.

“I’ve seen some of the coverage, yes. Looks like you might have a serial killer of some sort who has become active down there. But the Bureau has better people than me to create a profile of potential serial killers.”

“Yeah, well that’s just it. We’ve had a profiler brought in from Quantico already, Jennifer Wilson, she’s looked at everything, including the details that haven’t been released for the media outlets and she swears that the facts aren’t fitting any into any of her profile models. She gave me you name and number and suggested that I give you a call.”

I remembered Jennifer. She was a bright young agent who had sought me out on one of my many trips to Washington in the last few months. She had been one of Ravyn’s students a few years back. She had the natural talent to be a full fledged Caster and had been offered a position within the ORC’s, but had decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. She was now a rising star within the Bureau using her Talent and her training to build profiles of serial killers. She hadn’t been wrong yet. If she was stumped, this was serious.

“OK, I’m listening. What details have you guys kept from the press?”

“Well, all of the victims were badly mutilated, that much has been made public. But what wasn’t released is that each victim was missing a particular organ. We’ve also found blood and other…evidence that wasn’t from any of the victims at each site.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Fluids that we can’t identify, strange looking symbols drawn in the sand near each body. Tracks going away from the sites of the killings always lead to the ocean.”

“And Agent Wilson said that she couldn’t create a profile from this?”

A young woman in a skimpy bikini top and a multi-colored sarong staggered to the edge of the alley where I was hidden and retched onto the ground, interrupting my reverie. She looked up from my puke spattered boots, staggering up to one knee. “Hey buddy, whatcha doin’ back there?” As her eyes traveled upward from my boots, her eyes grew wide. She got up quickly and stumbled off to rejoin her friends.