Chapter 1

Captain Hawk's phone rang for the umpteenth time.

The soldier clenched his fists hard and sighed: the day had not yet begun and he was already tired. He answered. It was the Mayor again who wanted updates on the delicate case he was working on.

He could not help but reply that there was no news.

The politician's irritated tone only increased the restlessness that had been torturing him for days now with stomach acid and constant headaches; in order not to be disrespectful, he just answered (with great willpower) with simple yes or no until the conversation ended. Grant Hawk had often found himself dealing with very serious cases during his career in law enforcement, but the last one who had appeared on his desk had made his skin crawl from the very beginning: a serial killer of young girls. , the most ruthless he had investigated. Until now, the bastard could boast of 10 victims "conquered" in a period of less than 2 months.

The case had passed into different hands since its inception, starting with the Special Victims Unit to the FBI forces, but none of them had made significant progress and now it was up to his department, as his hometown San Francisco, had become new hunting camp.

The investigation file was worse than a horror book, reluctantly he had to start reading the details of the murders and the attached photos of the victims put together in the form of gruesome galleries. The elements that accumulated them were very few: among them, the age that was between 14 and 20 years of age and red hair. For this last detail, he was nicknamed by journalists as "The Scarlet Killer".

And that’s it, there was nothing else of significance. None of them had connections to each other, or through friendships or family ties, complete strangers who came from all over the country.

The killer, in his opinion, had to be a psychopath to target that kind of girl, as well as a huge asshole. According to the psychologist, there must be a reason for resentment behind his actions, as it explained (perhaps) why he disfigured the faces of the post-death victims with clear signs of fury and anger. His was an obsession, and perhaps it would never end. Hawk widened his shirt collar, nervousness gave him the impression that he was choking him, dark jeans instead had stuck to his legs from the sweat.

At that moment one of his agents entered to give him news that worsened his mood: it was the warning of the disappearance of two other girls. Hawk swore heavily and immediately swallowed a couple of antacids. For the identikit he received two large photos that framed the faces of the girls, both smiling and with eyes full of life; both accompanied by a detailed profile. Hawk mainly read names and ages:Nadia Lowe, 20 years old; and Willelmina Devin, 16.

It was the first time that the killer had taken two people away at the same time, this change in one's habits was not a good sign.

The time available was precious, scarce in any case to be able to hope that the unfortunate ones would not suffer psychological or bodily harm, she already had the chills in imagining what could have happened to her.

> he said to the agent.

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Hawk resumed reading the file on the girls. He didn't notice anything important until he finally realized the big inconsistency: the Devin was missing there in San Francisco, while the Lowe from the city Marietta in Ohio. The missing notice had come almost at almost the same time and with the same indication, which was that they had probably disappeared during the night, taken away from their belongings during the night.

"What the fuck!" Hawk thought.

How can two people from two different states disappear at the same time?

This made him think of two horrible possibilities: either one of the two kidnappings had been carried out by a mythomaniac, or the killer had found himself an accomplice.

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Within an hour, both he and a number of undercover agents were scattered around the neighborhood where the local victim lived. The San Francisco business district was loud and crowded, but never to the point of becoming a crime scene. There was very little to do, he told the team to concentrate in the places most frequented by the girl. He set off too, there was no way he could stand still.

He looked at every person who animated the streets and shops, often dwelling on the groups of teenagers who played with each other between jokes and jokes. Thinking that innocence was often violated by heartless bastards made him want to personally shoot all those motherfuckers in the head who dared to lift a finger at kids and teens. He hated that scum, it was the only thing that got him mad.

His reflection appeared in the rearview mirror of a car and he was very surprised, as if a stranger had replaced him: his beard had grown excessively and even his hair was not an example of order, his square face was enriched with too many wrinkles, blue eyes looked dull. Usually his build was massive and athletic, but lately he had lost a muscle mass and his belly had grown ... stress reduces you really badly, when it gets the better of you.

> suddenly croaked a voice from the earpiece to the right ear.

>

Here's another absurd thing about those kidnappings: nothing.

As sick as the killer was, his ability to leave no clues was insane: no trace of DNA had been found on the corpses or in the crime scenes themselves to help him follow a lead or even set his sights on a suspect. , even among the relatives who seemed most suspicious nothing of relevance had emerged. Nothing, nothing and nothing. An unprecedented cleanliness. But no one could be so clever after ten murders, sooner or later he too would be wrong!

Hawk resumed studying the photo of the girls, then he checked that among the people there was a face that corresponded to one of the two, it often happened to exchange it with that of another person who then, at a closer look; he realized he had nothing in common.

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Hawk couldn't believe his eyes when he realized that Devin, in flesh and blood, was crossing the street right in front of him mixed with the rest of the passers-by. Those red curls were unmistakable, they were like a cloud of fire. He thought of so many things as he ran towards her, anticipating the idea of ​​finally having a victory.

He called her by name a thousand times as he made his way to reach her, so many strangers turned around but not her, not even when she used her surname. His instincts told him to put his hand to the gun, it had gone too well not to hide behind it a big, very big rip-off. In his work, then, the rip-offs were bastard.

The girl continued to walk gradually moving away from the city center until she reached the Golden Gate Bridge where, suddenly, she collapsed in the middle of the road blocking the circulation. The concert of thundering horns and the chorus of heavy vocal insults were proof that the drivers had not understood the gravity of the situation.

Hawk rushed to help her, she was shivering.

He held his breath, the girl's eyes were completely white, the thin veins branched off from the irises which, instead of being pink; they were black with a slight bluish tinge. Even on the rest of the face the veins were the same color, and they were even more swollen enough to lift the skin.

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The girl began to feel his face crying and begging for mercy.

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Suddenly Hawk felt his legs collapse, weakened by a heat that he could describe as cutting. Some kind of arrows had pierced him below the knee, the blood dripping like the froth of a beer shaken too sharply.

Despite the pain he managed to remain lucid, some motorists decided to approach to help him despite being frightened by his condition.

Perhaps it was the hallucinations due to pain, but in the crowd he saw a disturbing solid black figure with the head of a bird: it was a living head, not a mask, with black feathers and the beak that opened from time to time, two large eyes white with tiny pupils that look like pearls. The rest of the body was hidden under a dark cloak made of layers of… feathers? Flakes? He could not understand what it was, but there he glimpsed a hand emerging, holding a round and porous object, like a piece of lava rock but dark. The fingers closed on it and the "thing dissolved," spreading through the air like a light dust.

A little later around him people began to tremble and their eyes melted, in a few moments they became dead bodies that fell to the ground, without emitting a gasp or a moan. Instead, the girl dissolved into a pile of dust and dry leaves, releasing an intense smell of burning. The hybrid paced through the heap of dead bodies muttering in a low voice something like “another hole in the water. What a waste of time ”. He was about to leave when Hawk shot him a shot in the head with the pistol, stopping him. He rummaged in the plumage, shortly after extracting the crushed shell, still hot from the explosion.

> he said in a very low and distorted voice.

Luckily for him she decided to let him live and left.

As it had begun it all ended quickly, returning a calm atmosphere, as if nothing had happened. But there were the corpses all around him to prove it wrong. And that was just the beginning.