Immortal Distraction by Elizabeth Finn Page A

of them that weren’t torn to shreds or saturated in blood were rough, old, dirty, and grimy and likely secondhand. A street kid like the others—albeit younger than the last. She didn’t linger long at the scene. Her heart was groaning and begging her to have a meltdown and get it over with. There would be parents to notify, parents to watch languish over their loss. Even street kids belonged to someone.
    When she made it back up to the officer and witness, she wasted no time introducing herself. “What did you see?” She didn’t want to sound too harsh, but she also didn’t want him getting nervous and clamming up on her.
    “Blood. On his face… I don’t … I don’t… He wasn’t human, man. I don’t know what he was, but he wasn’t… No…” Now he had her interest. Hell, hadn’t she just accused a man of being inhuman already today? The witness was shaking his head. He was incredulous, dumfounded. She understood that feeling well.
    “I’m going to need you to come to the precinct and give a statement.”
    “Oh man… I have to come in? Can I just…”
    “No. You witnessed a murder. We need a statement, and we need one now. Don’t worry. No one here gives a shit what you were doing wandering around in the middle of the night in a deserted park.”
    When she finally managed to get the witness into an interview room, he was shaking, pacing, and he looked like a startled rabbit that might stroke out at any moment. Yeah, he was an addict, and right now, he’d do just about anything to get a fix. Poor man witnessed a murder most likely while he was out drug seeking. That’ll sure put a wrench in his drug habit.
    “So tell me more about the person you saw.” She sat back and settled into listen. She wanted to hear every last detail he could remember. This was as close as any living subject had gotten to her suspect, and she was practically drooling in anticipation.
    “He was biting her. She was screaming at first and then … nothin’. She was just a kid … just a kid. I mean … like … she wasn’t a kid kid like a little one or nothin’, but she was young, and he just … he just…” He was raking his hands through his hair as he paced. Brit stayed seated in the chair, trying to appear as calm as possible. He didn’t need to see her anxiety, her excitement. He had plenty of adrenaline pumping through his veins already. Humphreys was in the next room watching. He was shockingly good at sitting back and observing the nuances and body language when Brit interrogated a subject, and he nearly always shed light on the easy to miss cues that she’d overlooked during the interview.
    “He just what?”
    “It was like watchin’ some damn public television show where the lion is tearing the throat out of some poor animal. You know thems gazelles that’r always gettin’ themselves killed off? She didn’t have a chance, that poor one. No chance…” His head dropped, and he was shaking his head back and forth.
    The man looked as stunned as any witness she’d ever spoken to. His words were rambling and disjointed, but she listened. She could ask questions later. Right now, she wanted his mouth to have full run of the room. “She was choking, likes she was choking on water… Probably just her blood, and then he saw me. I’d come up on the path behinds him. I heard her screaming for a ways off, and I was just checking it out’s all. But he saws me, and that’s when I gots scared, man. He had teeth on him like nothin’ I ever seen before. Brightest moon I seen in a long time, and I tell you those teeth was white and damn near glowing out there.” More head shaking as he collapsed into the chair. “They wasn’t teeth though. Not real ones. They was fangs. Looked like some movie actor from a horror film. His face was covered in blood, dripping from his chin. He was eating that poor thing alive. I ain’t no perfect man, but I just … I just can’t imagine anybody doing that to a