Her Crimson Kiss

Author's Note: Her Crimson Kiss was written as part of a writing challenge I did on another site. It was supposed to be a guided story. Each new addition was supposed to contain the word or concept of a term selected by the readers.

This would provide inspiration for continuing the story and add a (hopefully) creative random element to the author's writting style. None of us who participated in the challenge finished our stories, but I intend to continue H.C.K. at some point.

For now I will just post the sections here. The 'Prompt' is the term chosen by the readers.

Prompt: Purring

Cagney lay purring in Detective Matt Bluestone's lap. Rubbing against the redhead as Matt stroked the cat and sat in front of his big screen television in his little apartment.

But though the late Detective Elisa Maza's cat was happy, her (former) partner was not.

Bluestone had offered Cagney to the Wyvern Clan after Elisa Maza's death but Goliath and the other Clan members didn't seem interested. They were too obsessed with getting their hands on Demona and punishing her for Elisa's death.

Moreover, detective Bluestone had other concerns.

Since Elisa Maza's death two weeks ago there had been a series of similar murders. The victims were all drained of blood and had prominent wounds in their necks. However, unlike Elisa these men looked as though their throats had been torn out by a wolf, and many of them appeared to have put up a struggle before dying.

The victims apparently had nothing in common, beyond the fact that they were all male and violent criminals. Since the death toll was approaching two dozen the top brass at the NYPD had assigned a number of detectives (including Matt Bluestone) to the case.

Most of the detectives were assuming that they were dealing with some sort of vigilant. However, Matt thought differently.

Draining armed criminals completely of blood would be neither the easiest nor most efficient method of killing them. Moreover, if the intent was to torture the victims to death, there were easier and more effective ways of doing that too.

Something more was going on, Matt Bluestone was convinced.