Diamond got out of Belle’s car when parked in front of an old run down apartment building, “Thanks for the ride,” Diamond said as got out and when she closed the door behind Belle drove off.

  “Diamond, over here!” Chris’ voice yelled out and Diamond looked to the side to see him standing beside a stair entrance that went down. Diamond walked over and Chris pulled up the police tape blocking the stairs. “Careful there is ice on a few of the steps down.”

  “So what do we get this time?” Diamond asked as she ducked under the tape. Chris followed her under the tape and Diamond could hear the CSI team taking pictures below.

  “A vampire was killed and his ndlord found the body,” Chris said as carefully stepped around some ice. “The ndlord only found the body because the vampire was te on their rent.”

  “Can’t get money from dead man,” Diamond said as they stepped into the open door down at the end of stairs. When Diamond walked over the entry way she noticed there was an absence of smell, which confused her when she saw the room.

  The room was full of shelves, piles of books, and other miscelneous old items. It reminded Diamond of those rooms that hoarders made and Diamond gnced at some of the books to notice they were older books.

  “This guy was one of those vampires,” Chris grumbled as rubbed the back of his head as they walked deeper into the room. They ended up in an open area with a desk and working space. There was a blood pool in the center of the area and a smaller blood pool on the desk.

  “Nix already took the body,” Diamond said, Chris and the CSI working the area nodded. She gnced around at everyone and paused, “Do you all have no sense of smell?”

  “What? There is no smell.” Chris said before it clicked, “Nothing smells, not even the smell of blood.”

  “Give me a UV fshlight.” Diamond said as looked up to the roof of the room and one of CSI handed her a UV fshlight. Another CSI turned off the lights and Diamond pointed the UV fshlight up.

  The UV fshlight showed a hidden erasing scent rune on the roof, “That expins the no smell but next is if the killer put it there.” Chris said as Diamond shifted the light.

  “I highly doubt that, as that logo is a five year old design.” Diamond pointed out the logo. “This company changed its logo five years ago in rebranding, as the owner changed hands.”

  “Why would he have a…” Chris trailed off as he heard a small squeaking sound in the dark. “Right, hoarder vampire, no scent means harder reason to be kicked out.”

  Diamond turned the fshlight off and the CSI turned the main light on. “What coven was this guy part of?” Diamond asked as handed back the fshlight.

  “He didn’t have a coven and his name was Carlos Dale.” Chris said, causing Diamond to freeze up like a computer and everyone looked to her when they noticed her freeze up. “Someone you knew?”

  “Ya, he came to the store once a week to bother Ophelia about ‘treasure’ on her brother’s old pirate ship.” Diamond said as started to look around the room before walking to the desk. “A treasure that was never there.”

  “Wild guess, you often kicked him out of the store.” Chris said as he followed Diamond to the desk. Diamond went down to the back of the desk to make a loud sigh before grabbing something.

  “Yes, but st time he came in, he triggered Aziza and she attacked, giving him minor scratches.” Diamond pulled up onto the desk an old picture frame. “That was a month ago and he hasn’t been in since.”

  “Even if the treasure was fake, he would need some funding to go treasure hunting?” Chris asked and Diamond nodded as she was looking at the old picture she pulled up. “What do you have there anyways.”

  “Oh the st picture of infamous pirate Captain Ashwood.” Diamond said as she spun around the picture. It was an old paint portrait of an african american man in pirate garb from the seventeenth century. The man had an eerie resembnce to Ophelia and Chris was slightly put off by it.

  “I think we need to talk to Ophelia about this.” Chris said and Diamond put the painting under her arm. “Ya, bring that with us.”

  Diamond and Chris walked into Nightshade Inc. and Ophelia was sitting behind the counter. “What brings you here this time?” Ophelia asked as she put down a pen.

  “Carlos Dale’s body was found,” Chris said and Ophelia sighs in annoyance when hearing Carlos’ name. “We need to ask a few questions about your brother.”

  Ophelia looked to Diamond then back to Chris, “Guessing Diamond told you it’s impossible my brother being the killer,” Ophelia said and Chris looked to Diamond.

  “I didn’t say anything because I figured you wanted this.” Diamond said as hand over the painting and Ophelia looked at it with great disgust.

  “I thought I burned all of these.” Ophelia said as spinned around the painting to put on the counter. “Did you find any other things like this?”

  “A few books written by other people about him.” Diamond said and Chris looked panicked the moment Ophelia opened up the back of panting. “Stop panicking, the picture wasn’t evidence and was most likely stolen.”

  “Those books are all fan fiction, little truth to them.” Ophelia huffed and stopped taking the back off the frame as she was a book. “This may be something though.”

  Chris grabbed the book and opened it up, “Uhhhh…this is all Greek to me,” Chris said as flipped through the pages and Diamond leaned in then stifled a ugh, “What, did I say something wrong?”

  Ophelia leaned forward to take the book to see a few pages, “Because this is Greek and my old recipe book.” Ophelia said and flipped a few more pages before something came out.

  Chris picked up the card that fell out and looked at it, “I think he made a decipher code, thinking it was a secret code.” Chris said and Ophelia causing her groan.

  “I knew he was an idiot but I didn’t think he was that stupid.” Diamond said as she took the cook book and started to read it. “Hmmmm…lot this sounds good, oh I remember eating this one few days ago”

  “You read Greek?” Chris asked and Diamond nodded towards Ophelia, who had put her face in her hands. “You taught Diamond how to read Greek.”

  “Not just read, speak and write in Greek.” Ophelia spped her hands on the counter. “So what else do you want to know about that Covenless dumb motherfucking shithead small peaker money grubbing treasure hunting asshole?”

  “I think he's a bit racist too,” Chris said as flipped over the card and pointed to the note on it. “He thought he needed to use Swahili because he thought you were from Africa.”

  Ophelia rolled up the painting finally, “This is one of many reasons he was covenless, I was born and raised in Greece.” Ophelia said and Chris noticed red markings forming around her eyes. “I’m going to burn this painting like it was meant to.”

  Before Chris could stop her, Ophelia rushed to the back room and up the stairs. “I still had questions about her brother.” Chris said and looked at Diamond.

  “Why, he’s dead, Ophelia personally killed him.” Diamond said as she closed the book. “She staked his heart and cut off his head off the coast of Nova Scotia before setting the ship on fire.”

  “Why does Ophelia hate her brother so much?” Chris asked and Diamond shrugged. “Also she never said his name…you never said his name either.”

  Diamond grabbed Chris’ arm and squeezed hard enough to make Chris winced from it. “Chris, drop it.” Diamond growled and Chris sighed in defeat as Diamond let go.

  Diamond turned and headed to the door, “Wait, did you just call me by my first name?” Chris asked as he turned to follow her out of the shop.

  Diamond was sitting on the window sill behind Chris’ desk and reading the old cooking book while Chris was in another room interviewing other tenants of the apartment building. Chris came walking towards his desk and sat down with a big sigh.

  “Nothing truly useful as all of them didn’t know or ignored him.” Chris said as he spun around in his chair before checking his computer. “Nix just finished the autopsy, he was stabbed in the heart then his head cut off. She also found blood under his nails but no matches yet.”

  “So we should look for a vampire as killer,” Diamond said and finally looked up from the book.

  “Still could be a werebeast but you are right vampires tend to stab first than slice.” Chris said as spinned around to face Diamond. “werebeasts tend to rip out hearts and rip off heads when killing vampires.”

  “I say most vampire money lenders wouldn’t have done it,” Diamond said and Chris shifted his brow up. “Vampire money lenders only get pushy about getting paid back if the customer has a mortal life span.”

  “And Carlos was a vampire, meaning he was immortal” Chris said and spun around back to the computer. “Can’t get money from dead man…maybe we should check past covens he was part of.”

  “If memory serves me right, his first coven was…I think it was called Ravenfist…” Diamond said as rubbed the side of her head. Chris pulled up some files and leaned back as the computer locked the files of Carlos’ coven history.

  Chris leaned forward once the files opened up, “Close, Ravengold coven, he was kicked out due to misuse of funds.” Chris said. “It doesn’t say much more than that in that one.”

  “Some very expensive wine, paintings that were actually fake, and other luxury items that you buy with your own money,” Diamond said as turned her head to look outside. “And not the community coven wealthy.”

  “Next coven was Dragopeak,” Chris leaned on his hand and read the file. “Another misused of money but with detail mostly him losing it to quick rich scams.”

  “That caused him to get a red fg on file.” Diamond said as watched snow start to fall. “That red fg would’ve made the next coven to watch him like a hawk with money.”

  “The next and st coven was Moonlight coven,” Chris paused to look over his shoulder to Diamond before returning to file. “Sexual harassing several female members of the coven, and other things I’m not going to repeat.”

  “And that is what bck marked him and couldn’t join another coven.” Diamond said and rested her forehead on the window. “That didn’t get us anywhere.”

  “Oh wait, he has recently got arrested by the west station.” Chris perked up and caused Diamond to look.

  “What for?” Diamond said as she stood up and walked over to read over Chris’ shoulder. “Harassing a woman named Medea Dimitriou…She’s currently staying in a room at Snowglobe Inn.”

  Chris’ phone went off and he looked at it, “CSI found the old battle ax used to cut off his head under some pile of books.” Chris said. “They bring it back to the b now to finger print.”

  Diamond and Chris walked down a long hotel hallway and stopped at the door with the number ‘120’. The door opened up and standing there was Ophelia and Chris froze up for a second, “Officer Quinn and Dia, why are you here?” Ophelia asked.

  Chris snapped out of it, “We came to talk to Medea Dimitriou,” Chris said and Ophelia gnced back. Chris and Diamond looked past Ophelia to see another dy sitting at a table with a tea set.

  She was a stunning beauty just like Ophelia with the lighter chocote skin tone and her long wavy hair was deep pinkish red. Her eyes were dull blue and the moment Diamond noticed the dy’s eyes could tell she was blind. “I am Medea Dimitriou.” The dy said without turning her head to face Chris. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Officer Chris Quinn, I’ve got some questions about Carlos Dale.” Chris said and Ophelia raised a brow. “He was man th-”

  “The man who was harassing me, what about him?” Medea interrupted and motioned for them to enter. Ophelia moved out of the way to let them in and everyone sat down at the table.

  “He was found dead,” Chris said as sat down and Diamond tilted her head as looked at Medea. “The report didn’t go into much detail into why he was harassing you because you dropped the charges.”

  “He had mistaken me for my older sister,” Medea said as she put her hand on Ophelia’s hand. “Who I thought was dead.”

  “I guess my letter didn’t get to all that time ago.” Ophelia said and started to feel Diamond’s silver eyes staring at her. “And it seems I forgot to mention I had a little sister.”

  “Yes, seems like so, forgetting anything else.” Diamond asked before her eyes returned to Medea. “So why are you here in the city instead of in Greece?”

  “I heard that my sister was living here, so I came looking for her.” Medea said then paused. “How did you know I was still living in Greece?”

  “Your clothing mostly and your bags have tags from Greece.” Diamond said. Medea was wearing off the shoulders light white sweater, pair bck dress scks, and sheer sleeveless undershirt.

  “Medea, did you have any more contact with Carlos?” Chris asked and Medea shot her head as no. Chris gnced at Ophelia, “So is Dimitriou your original surname or…”

  “It’s our maiden surname,” Medea said and smirked. “Ashwood is Ophelia’s first spouse’s surname.” Ophelia started to blush and Medea started to think of something. “Angelo Pappas.”

  Ophelia’s face shifted quickly to snarl, “What about that worm? Is he still stalking you?” Ophelia asked but was stopped with Medea putting a finger on her lips.

  Medea looked to Chris, “Angelo Pappas, is a vampire from Greece that we grew up with, when we turned into adults he tried to get me to marry him.” Medea said. “But he stopped when my sister scared him off and local covens made sure to keep him away from me ever since.”

  “Whenever Medea got the interest of another male, they would disappear or turn up badly wounded.” Ophelia hissed and Diamond noticed both of Medea and Ophelia’s eye markings shift color. “At the time there wasn’t enough evidence or technology to prove he did it but everyone knew.”

  “You think he followed you here?” Chris asked and the silence between the two sisters was loud. “Do you have a picture of him for us to use?” Medea got up and went to her bags. Diamond noticed she was wearing high heel boots and without them Medea would be five feet and four inches tall.

  “Here you go,” Medea said as she handed Chris a folder, “I’ve kept a copy of his case file just in case the police needed it.” Chris opened the folder to read it.

  “Dia,” Ophelia leaned into Diamond’s ear, “When you find him, call me.” Diamond paused before nodding to Ophelia’s request. Ophelia leaned back and gently took Medea’s hand. “I'll be with Medea until than and she will be staying at my apartment too.”

  Diamond and Chris got up from the table, “If he is stalking Medea, maybe he’s close by and we should ask the front desk.” Diamond said and Chris nodded.

  “If not here, maybe nearby motels.” Chris mentioned and Diamond nodded as they started to leave but Diamond stopped and turned back to the sisters.

  “I was reading your old cook book, I want your famous moussaka ter,” Diamond said, causing Ophelia to smile and both sisters chuckled. Diamond turned around to catch up with Chris and Chris was already at the elevator.

  “Did you really not know that Ophelia has a little sister?” Chris asked and Diamond shrugged. “One of those she may have told me but it slips my mind moments?”

  “Ya…do you have any siblings?” Diamond asked and Chris paused for a moment before looking at Diamond.

  “Yes, two older brothers and one little sister.” Chris said with a smile. “I see I’m finally not seen as just another moonflower officer.”

  “Yes Quinn, you're not a normal human moonflower officer.” Diamond said as the elevator opened and she entered. “You're the only one I don’t want to throw out a window.”

  Chris paused before shrugging and entering the elevator. “I’ll take that as a win.” He said before pressing the lobby floor button.