Title: Mantis
Author: Vanessa Finaughty
Published: Something Wicked,
Issue 2
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Detective Cassandra
Beckett shuddered. It felt as if hundreds of tiny spiders with icy feet
were scuttling up her spine.
She wasn't one to feel
queasy at crime scenes, but this latest spate of murders was particularly
gruesome and had every detective in the force losing sleep. Turning to
have another look at the latest corpse, she froze.
“Okay, who the
hell moved the head?”
All eyes in the room
automatically focused on the body. The victim's head, which had barely
been attached by a small piece of skin when they'd arrived at the scene
a short while ago, was gone.
Realising that none
of her team was about to say anything, Cassandra lost her temper.
“Is this a joke
to you lot? Do you think it's funny to play around with the dead?”
She snarled at her colleagues, her emerald green eyes blazing.
More silence followed,
as each of the other three officers in the room studied his colleagues
with suspicion.
“Right. So this
is just one big joke. I can't believe this! Whoever you are, you've quite
possibly screwed up our chances of gaining any clues off this body!”
Cassandra glared at each person in turn.
Nervously clearing
his throat, short, blond Carl finally spoke up: “I've been standing
next to Darren since I last saw the head. I can vouch that he didn’t
touch it.”
Darren nodded in confirmation,
the repulsiveness of the flapping skin under his oily chin quite alarming
to Cassandra, who then raised her eyebrows at John, who in turn shook
his head, “I just got here, Beckett.”
Quickly thinking back
through the last few minutes, she realised that she'd heard John enter
the room for the first time just as she'd noticed that the head was missing.
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