Gabe Winters (ex_blindside211) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2010-07-12 10:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | 2009-07-19, valen |
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Who: Valen and Gabe
Where: Gabe’s house
When: Mid-Afternoon
The bodies were really starting to pile up lately. Despite the fact that the demons had stopped their assault, people seemed to be obsessed with ending each other’s lives. With a shrug, Valen stomped out his cigarette as he got out of his car and headed to the young man’s door. Perhaps it was the heat that made people crazy, and if that was the case, then he was in for a long damn summer. Whatever had done in this kid’s girl had certainly been something that could be classified as an “interesting specimen” and Valen was chomping at the bit to head back over to Erin’s and see what else she found out.
As it was, the need to put on a professional face kept his mind somewhat occupied. He was a pillar of the community after all, and it wouldn’t do if he wasn’t sympathetic to this poor lil’ bastard. Having one’s girlfriend broken before your eyes like that...well, there was no really good way to take it. Clearing his throat momentarily, he knocked on the door and put on his best, ‘I’m here to help’ face and braced himself for the plaintive sobs of someone foolishly demanding justice for something they probably deserved anyway.
Thessaly Bloom answered the door, unwilling to allow her son to be questioned without her present. She didn’t care that Gabe was eighteen; he was a victim in this instance and she wanted to make sure the law kept that in mind, no matter what he was. As far as they knew, he had done no harm, a fortunate thing considering the condition he’d been after Claire’s death. The only person that might have been hurt was Alex and, seeing as how he was a werewolf himself, he wouldn’t even have the scars to show for it. The boy had been a blessing and hadn’t even considered pressing charges.
“Good afternoon, officer,” she said, opening the door with an attempt at a smile. “Thessaly Bloom. I’m Gabe’s mother,” she said, offering a hand. “Gabe is in the kitchen. Do you mind talking there?” She thought it would be a good place for her son, comfortable but with a table, in case the officer needed to take notes. She’d tried to be thoughtful, keeping in mind that the police officer needed this information if they were to catch whomever did this to Claire and Gabe.
As soon as Valen saw the woman, he knew there was something he didn’t like about her. That same sort of irritating sensation of some sort of overly fuzzy adorable stuffed bear with big blue eyes that you just wanted to punch in the face. So what did he do in this situation? Deceive of course. Valen smiled, that smile that had charmed the folks down at the station, won him is wife, and earned him a fortune. It was a weapon that had been tested tried and true in the past, and there’s never anything wrong with leaning on an old standby. With a nod he shook her hand, “Detective Dragani ma’am.” His smile faded and he shook his head sadly, “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances it’s a shame the young fella got wrapped up in all this. I think the kitchen’ll be fine.” As far as he knew, this kid was one of Charlotte’s little friends, which means he pretty much doubted that he had the stones to off his little sweetheart. However, if he was the one responsible...well...maybe Valen might have him and his little dark side meet up with his stepdaughter one of these days. Ya know, before he captures the clearly insane were-child and hauls him off to prison for bringing such a tragedy to his household. That did have a lovely ring to it, now didn’t it?
Following Thessaly into the kitchen, Valen quickly took stock of the surroundings and pretty much saw what he was expecting. Some photos here, nice furniture, place was well cared for, your standard little suburban pit of banality. The longer he stayed in that house, the longer the feeling of irritation swept over him. Every second in contact with that woman was like getting the same dose of sheer annoyance from when someone attempts to lecture about morality. Still, he kept his veneer up of caring detective and sat down at the table, taking out his notepad.
While Thessaly didn't recognize the detective, Gabe knew who it was the second he heard the name. Charlotte said little to him about her step-father, but what she said never gave Gabe a good vibe. He didn't understand why until the detective walked into the kitchen. There was something unsettling about him, something that didn't make Gabe feel safe, despite him being an officer of the law. It was unreasonable, so Gabe pushed it aside, believing it to be his own discomfort with the situation. The only person who could have walked into the kitchen and made him feel better would have been Claire herself. Since that wasn't going to happen, Gabe resigned to feeling like shit.
"Afternoon, officer," Gabe said, both hands loosely holding a glass of water as he sat at the kitchen table. There was no emotion in his voice, though numb was better than what he was actually feeling. Though showered and shaven, dressed in jeans and a polo, Gabe still appeared worn thin, his eyes bloodshot from an earlier bough of sorrow. He wasn't tearing up every ten minutes now, but left alone he let the misery hit him.
“Afternoon young man,” and then Valen spent the next thirty seconds reviewing his notes on the situation. Not because he really needed to per se, but mostly to let the little whelp shiver and quake for a few moments. Looking up from his notepad he sent the boy a smile, one with just a bit of weariness in the corners of his eyes. Mixing emotions like water colors, Valen had mastered the art of looking what he didn’t feel. For example, right now he didn’t feel pity or anything other than the urge to smack this kid upside the head. Looks like he’s just like his mother. “Now...Gabriel, I know this is gonna be very difficult, but would you please recount the events that occurred the other night?”
It was very difficult to not drum his fingers along the table, not out of boredom, but just out of an attempt to irritate the boy. In the end it might serve him well to look all the more fatherly and worried to Charlotte’s friends...hell now that would be funny.
"Gabe," he said solemnly, his eyes focused down on the table. "Please call me Gabe... sir." He knew he should have been nervous, and maybe a small part of him was, but so much of him was in mourning that it was hard to maintain both at the same time. Any other situation with a policeman would have had Gabe sweating and fidgety, but right now all he wanted was to be left alone.
This was going to be the hardest part, recounting that night as he remembered it. It would have been easier had Gabe been able to remember all of it, but at least there was an explanation for the gaping hole in his memory. He'd practiced the whole thing with his mother once, but she didn't ask questions like the police would. "We were out on a date. Claire and I. We went to dinner at The Golden Dragon, then went and saw The Hangover. We were walking home through the park." It was a safe park, one he and Claire had walked through on many an occasion. It was a good neighborhood. There had been no reason for them to be worried about an attack. "There was the sound of something hitting the ground behind me. Then Claire screamed..." The hair on his neck rose and Gabe took a sip of water as he closed his eyes. He didn't want to remember. "I turned around, saw it, then told her to run. I grabbed her hand and we ran." But not fast enough.
Valen nodded, “Gabe it is then.” Might as well attempt to put on at least a semi-visible sense of professional courtesy. He jotted down the boy’s story, making sure to ask for little details here and there. At the mention of ‘it’, Valen’s pen stopped. “I don’t suppose you’d be able to describe what you saw behind you that night?” Valen wanted as much information about this creature as possible, a sociopathic vampire attacking werewolves is just plain interesting. He would definitely like to speak to someone with that sort of chip on their shoulder, arresting or no. “Anything you can recall about what the other person looked like that night would be of great assistance to us.”
“It looked like a werewolf,” Gabe said, his frustration growing as Valen touched on the topic that had bothered him since the encounter. “Except it was huge. Not that werewolves aren’t big, but this one seemed bigger. And when it caught Claire, it was like-- like it was amused. When a bitten shifts, they’re not there. So if this was a born were, then what the fuck? And it didn’t have a heartbeat. That I’m sure of. It never could have snuck up on me if it did.” That was the one thing Gabe had trained himself to listen for-- approaching heartbeats meant people close by. It was his way of knowing when he was alone... and it had failed him.
Inner Valen was grinning from ear to ear at the sound of this boy’s irritation, but outer Valen showed nothing less than concern. “Now, I know that it’s kind of obvious what is and what isn’t a werewolf, and this isn’t a dig at you in any way,” it was, “but are you absolutely sure you saw a werewolf? We really need to make sure that you get everything down perfect for these statements.” The signs at the crime scene pointed to one werewolf, and one vampire in a scuffle. This kid really didn’t know just how bad a way he was in, if he kept to this story of some ‘mysterious giant werewolf’ that there was no evidence of he was heading to jail fast. With a grin, Inner Valen was sure he’d be worth quite a few cigarettes though, so the kid had that going for him. “So once again, I have to ask, are you absolutely sure you saw a werewolf? One that inexplicably had no heartbeat?”
“I’m absolutely sure that the thing that attacked Claire had no heartbeat and did not smell right,” Gabe said. His eyes might have deceived him-- he’d never actually seen a werewolf in battle form, other than the one that bit him-- but his nose and ears did not. “I thought it was a were, but... could it have been something else? Some sort of shape shifter?” It hadn’t occurred to him that Grim might have been a vampire, since vampires weren’t supposed to look like werewolves. Maybe if he’d turned on the news he’d have known it was a possibility, but Gabe couldn’t handle seeing the reports on television when they were still playing behind his eyes each time he closed them. “It was huge, with sharp claws and fur and teeth and... it picked her up like she was nothing.”
Valen nodded, face stern and somewhat giving away the idea that this ‘one armed man’ business didn’t really fly in most court cases. At least, not for the defense anyway. Letting out a sigh Valen nodded, “I suppose it could have been a shape shifter, I’m not inclined to rule anything out nowadays.” But you’re dead in the water without a better defense, the unsaid statement hanging in the air in an almost visible sense. “Okay, so this creature comes out of nowhere, grabs Claire...and then what? I’m sorry to prod about that night but I’m afraid it’s my duty to get all the details.” Ah, poor kid. If only he wasn’t friends with his daughter, then Valen might’ve been inclined to go a little easier on him. Well, probably not.
“He didn’t come out of nowhere,” Gabe said, picking up on where Valen might be going with this. He wasn’t alone at the scene, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have killed Claire. “We were in the park, and he jumped down. Out of a tree, or something, but I heard his feet hit the ground. Claire screamed. I took her hand and we ran. He chased after us. We got out of the park, but then she fell as we were crossing the street. I turned around, but before I could help her, he picked her up, shook her by the neck, and threw her on the ground.” God, it was awful. Just saying it all again made Gabe’s hands shake, a combination of nervous energy, fury, and a helplessness that he hated with everything he was worth. “Her heart stopped beating. That’s the last thing I remember.”
Valen jotted down everything he said, noting when he started trembling and how he said his sentences. Once more he let loose a weary sigh when Gabe replied somewhat defensively about how the attacker entered the scene. “Okay, I know this must be hard for you, difficult beyond words. I can’t even imagine what I’d be going through in your situation, just remember that we’re the good guys, okay? We’re gonna find whomever did this, and bring him to justice.” Said with such conviction that even Valen himself almost believed it. Goddamn, he was good. Going back to his pen and paper he said, “Okay, so that’s all you remember about the attack, that’s gonna help us loads Gabe, thank you. Now, I just need to find out what happened to you the rest of the night and we’ll be all set.”
Gabe looked up at his mother, who was standing against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. Thessaly nodded her head, encouraging him to continue, and Gabe took a deep breath, focusing back on Valen. “I’m a bitten werewolf. Claire was my mate. When he killed her, I shifted and... I woke up at this guy’s apartment a while later. His name is Alex. I can give you his contact information. I think he knocked me out.” He wasn’t going to say how, since he really didn’t know. If Alex needed to fabricate a story about how he’d taken down a bitten werewolf without admitting that he was one as well, then that was fine. Gabe would have liked to leave him out of the story entirely, but that wasn’t really possible considering the circumstances. “When I woke up, I called my mom. She came and picked me up, and we called the police.”
Valen nodded as Gabe continued, “Okay, I’m gonna need that Alex’s contact information as well, thank you.” After jotting down the info he needed about this newcomer to the scene, Valen stood up and put on his most concerned face. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am to put you through this, Gabe. You’re definitely holding up a lot better than other people I’ve seen in your situation. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you a shoulder to cry on because of my official position here, but we do have a therapist down at the station if you need someone to talk to.” Heading over to the door, he gave Thessaly a polite nod, “Thank you both for your time,” handing her his card he added, “feel free to gimme a call if you folks need anything at all.”
Thessaly wasn’t sure her son was holding up as well as the detective seemed to think, but she was proud of him for putting on a brave face and talking through it. As Gabe wrote down Alex’s contact information, Thessaly took the offered card from Valen and looked it over. No matter how official Valen seemed, she kept thinking something was off about him, that he was there to do her son more harm than good. “We both appreciate you taking the time to come out here, rather than talk at the station,” she said. “You’ll let us know if you hear anything?” Gabe asked, standing as he handed Valen the sheet of paper with Alex’s phone number on it. He didn’t like the thought of Claire’s killer running around town, putting other people in danger. He needed to pay for what he’d done.
Valen nodded, “As soon as I find something, I’ll let you know as much as I can.” Heading out the door and walking over to his car, he somehow managed to keep a smile on this face. Things were going so well he was almost ashamed he hadn’t planned on this random murder. Pulling out of the driveway he almost felt bad for the kid...little fella obviously had no idea what he was getting in to. But then again, pariahs usually didn’t right at the beginning. Funny little world we lived in, Valen mused, kid’s probably gonna have little girl wolves clawing at his door once all this activist publicity sets in and he won’t want any of it. Youth is truly wasted on the young.