When Elle pulled off the highway towards Noah’s Petersburg home, she’d been driving at a high speed with her blue lights fshing. Usually taking roughly over an hour, Elle got to the city limits within forty-five minutes. She pulled over to and stopped in ay parking lot before pung in Noah’s address to her iPhone. “Cool. About three miles.” She spoke to herself ahe path.

  Driving to Noah’s house was a test of her patienbsp; She o see more of his detective work so she could figure out the remaining vampires and where her target, The Cross-Killer, was.

  -It isn’t enough to stop the person, Agent Miller. You o iigate why.-

  A scary version of the thought dawned on her as she stopped the car in front of a oory ranbsp; “What if there is no why. There is a ce this is just random killing.” She sighed and headed for the front door. Immediately she knew something was wrong. Where there should have been a door knocker, it was repced with a crucifix. “Noah?” She knocked oeel door and it swung open easily, having not been tched shut. “I don’t like this a bit.” Elle told herself and drew out her service .45 and headed into the house. “Noah, it's Agent Miller, call out if you .” She pulled the hammer ba her pistol and took the house one room at a time, closing doors behind her as she did so. “Noah?? If you alert me, just bang on something and I will e for you.” Elle waited and nothing but silence came from the man’s house. Sighing, Elle determihat the structure was empty and she repced her pistol in her holster after pg the on ba safe and releasing the hammer to a ral position.

  Elle made her way back to the front door and then began to look over the house more closely sihe home seemed empty and the front door open. Starting with the living room, Agent Miller saw the first signs of violenbsp; Bloodstains on the carpet, broken picture frames and even the coffee table splintered into a bunch of pieces. Following the small blood trail from the living room to the kit, Elle khat this is where the biggest part of the fight occurred.

  Broken gss covered the floor in jagged piles with little bits of blood on them. Cutlery stabbed into walls, and even the dining table flipped over with a leg missing, which Elle found with blood all over it, “A bat. What the hell happened here, Noah?” Topping off the sight of the kit was the st that lingered behind. Dead and rotting fish mixed with s water. Ping her nose, Elle studied the kit a little more and discovered another crucifix that could hold something like a doll to it. It was after pig it up that she noticed the tightly ed paper affixed to the back of the cross. Uncurling the little note like a scroll, Elle began reading.

  —

  Agent Miller,

  You have the unique opportunity to save Noah and capture me. All you o find us is i where you found this tiny note.

  I will be looking forward to meeting you,

  The Cross-Killer, Patricia Heartwell

  —

  Elle blinked and opened her FBI database and checked out the name left behind. “Iing. Patricia was reported missing ten months ago by her husband?” Elle spoke aloud to herself. Elle read the rest of Patricia’s file and found out that the woman had been visiting friends out by the farms and had beeo return home a day before she disappeared. “Car found three weeks after disappearance, deep in the woods…covered in tar?”

  Elle scratched her head impatiently and tried to make sense of the note in jun with the woman’s disappearanbsp; Making her way back to her cruiser, Elle set down her iPad and opened her ptop and looked at the map of the surrounding cities and where the car was found. Using the fun on the digital map to see a wider area, Elle zoomed the map out and spotted a ke. Raising one of her eyebrows, Elle highlighted what was called Moore’s ke. “Could that be it?” She pondered and typed the name of the ke in a seargine and smiled as the results came up. “Somehow I k. The ke was named after the fishing pany that developed the nd. That is a man-made ke.” Reading further, Elle began reading the st water readings that the City of Petersburg had performed nearly a year before. “Brackish and ot sustain life. Diesel and oil products have made even swimming impossible for the ke.” Snapping her fingers and closing the lid to the puter, Elle started the engine and headed for the old fish factory. “I am sure the pce smells like dead fish too, giveate of the water.”

  Following the dires that her Tomtom provided from the dashboard, her drive took about ten minutes. When the indicator poio an rown and broken asphalt road, Elle turned off the map and headed down the unused road. Along the roadside were signs with peeled paint advertising the ke and Moore’s Fishing and Crab. “Established 1899?” Elle ughed and so herself as the FBI cruiser made its way to the clearing that held the processing pnt. Notig the putrid yellow vines and the bubbling bck ke, Elle shook her head and shut off the engine. “What a pce.” She paused and heard es off tht. “No way. She’s watg us.” Elle got out of her vehicle and walked to the trunk, and donned her bureau-issued AR-15. “This is a fug trap, and you know it.” She muttered to herself as she checked the amount of ammunition in the clip.

  Taking advantage of the sun’s rays to hide in the shadows, Elle made her way around the building and the one permeating thing she smelled was the exact same rotting fish st that li Noah’s home. Elle reached the south side of the pnt and a light fshed on and covered the area in bright white light.

  “How much longer are you going to walk around outside, Agent Miller?” The Cross-Killer asked. “I have watched you since you turned down Moore’s Lane.” Without being seen by the FBI agent, Patricia pushed the back door open ao the shadows. “Please e in, we have much to discuss. Unless you pn to shoot me now a over with.”

  Elle waited for the motion sensor to turn off the light before she flicked on the night vision scope that of her on. “As a matter of fact, I prefer we get this over with.” Elle she safety to fire, took aim at The Cross-Killer’s head and pulled the trigger.

  -Crack-bang!-

  “One shot, one kill, Good job Miller.” Elle watched as Patricia’s head blew into pieces and the body of The Cross-Killer hit the ground and then twitched. “Noah?” Elle screamed and waited for a respohat never came. Slowly, while still using the setting sun as her guide to enhahe night vision scope, Elle tracked across the entire main bay without spotting anything else that she o be aware of.