Chapter 1

Art Hinkle was the kind of police detective you want on your case if you ever get murdered. He was experienced, thorough, patient, tough minded and had great working relationships with all of the other professional ghouls who lived in the world of homicide investigation.

None of that was going to do this particular victim any good, but Art didn't know that yet.

He had been summoned to respond to this particular crime scene with the limited information of; male victim, white or Hispanic, uncertain age, the location and that something was "strange" about the setup.

Art, or "Hink", as his coworkers had taken to calling him shortly after he made his bones as a cop, in spite of, or more likely because of, his dislike of the nickname, approached the scene following his normal route to that part of town. As he turned the corner to drive along the pavement on the block where the body had been found, he noticed that the road noise as his car travelled down the street dropped off to practically nothing. He looked out the window of his Crown Vic at the road and saw ... nothing; no cracks, no dips, no uneven pavement, no irregular edges around manhole covers ... nothing. Absolutely the most pristine section of pavement he had ever seen in his life.

Art thought that the public works people had outdone themselves on this stretch of road and hoped they could do the same quality of work around his house some day.

He closed on the patrol units near what must be the crime scene, pulled over, got out of his car and walked to the taped off area.

"Hey, Hink", the officer on scene greeted him. "Got a weird one for you."

"OK, rookie, perhaps you could give me just a little more detail?" Art replied.

"Hink, I've been working with you for more than five years. Could you maybe not call me rookie?" Officer Wade Stanton replied.

"Rookie status lasts until at least ten years. Ask me again in five more." Art smirked, using the designation to continue his ongoing guerrilla war against those who spread the use of the "Hink" nickname.

Stanton gave Art a shrug and replied "ANYWAY, the ghouls from the coroner's office have checked out the body. They are just waiting for you to look over the scene and clear moving him. Ghoul number one is over there waiting for you."

Art nodded and headed over to talk to the familiar looking woman standing near the body. Gloria Windom had the frumpy, middle aged public servant/teacher type look down cold. Inside that look was a sharp mind with a caustic sense of humor, a potty mouth and a severe case of grandmotheritis. Art thoroughly approved of her. The feeling was very much mutual. They had worked a number of homicides together over the years and found each other very satisfactory company.

"Arthur, as I live and breathe, how kind it was of this poor bastard to die so that we could meet again" Gloria said.

"Gloria, how is Ghoul number one tonight?" Art replied.

"Now Arthur, you know I am no more a fan of 'Ghoul number one' than you are of "Hink', so cut that shit out", Gloria smiled at Art.

"Sorry, Gloria. How are the grandkids? And what's the story here?" Art replied.

After the grand kid catch up report, Gloria turned to the body. She said "There was no ID on the body. This poor schmuck looks like something sucked him dry. It will be hard to determine what his race is until we look at his DNA. He looks like a fucking mummy, just a husk of a human being. There are no signs of physical trauma, no obvious wounds, no blood. So right now I think the fucker was just as likely killed with a humongous blow dryer then moved to this spot afterward as anything else."

Art stared at Gloria. "That's all you have? A blow dryer hit?"

Gloria looked at Art sheepishly. "Until I get the body back to the lab, run the prints and do some analysis, yes, that's all I've got- except..."

"Except?" Art prompted.

"Well..." Gloria said haltingly, "Did you notice the roads around here?"

"Yeah, the last block to the body was some of the best work I think the PW guys may have ever done." Art replied.

Gloria looked at him. "I suspect that if you drive any damn direction from this body that is going to be true for at least a block."

"What do you KNOW, Gloria?" Art asked.

"I don't KNOW anything, Arthur, other than this; One-that I drive through this area every few days taking my grand daughter to her dancing class and that NO PW crew has been working in this area and Two- that there have been some strange emails being passed around through my coroner connections mentioning this same fucking setup; mummy husk, paving improvement, no signs of trauma." Gloria replied.

"So aliens attacking us with humongous blow dryers and paving the streets around the attack? You do realize how crazy that sounds right?" Art looked at Gloria questioningly. "Any other odd bits of info from the coroner network?"

"Just one other thing." Gloria looked at Art. "When I ID this guy and you do a follow up on him, you are going to discover that he is either a violent criminal, nasty son of a bitch, mean spirited asshole or all of the above, and that whoever you talk to who knew him will be happy to get the news he is gone."

"So paving job combined with a blow dryer murder of a king sized asshole that probably has a lot of enemies. Great. I'm sure to get this one solved easy, then," Art said.

While Art and Gloria would hear of a number of similar deaths over the next few years, they never would find out why. It was just too crazy to be believed anyway.

Vladic Raczynski considered himself the most American of people. His paternal grandparents had come from Eastern Europe when they were very young, met and married in the US, and proceeded to have and raise a large, boisterous mass of children who then married cross culturally frequently and aggressively.

Vladic was unsure, but he believed it might have been possible that HIS generation, the grandchildren of his prolific Raczynski grandparents, were of such a confusing mixture of races and marriages that he might have been either a part of or a cousin to every meaningful ethnic group (he was STILL having those disturbingly frequent dreams about the time he and his part Chinese, part Sikh, part Eastern European gorgeous second (or was it third?) cousin had spent an enjoyable, exciting hour at his grandmother's place swapping spit and rubbing each other's intimate body parts-he was hoping of a repeat, but so far no luck).

Vladic had spent the first part of puberty in a vain search for a girl friend who would call him "Vlad the Impaler" in honor of his sexual prowess. In spite of his considerable success with the fairer sex, and he certainly did have considerable success because of his talents, there had been no volunteers to give him that nickname.

Vladic's talent had first manifested itself when he was about eight. He hadn't known it was a talent until, one day at his grandmother's house, he had looked at Grandma Sofia and announced, "Grandma, you glow such pretty colors!"

Grandma Sofia looked at him very sharply and barked out "VAT DID CHU SAY?"

When Valdic was a little older he came to realize that Grandma Sofia's accent came and went mostly at her whim (she called it "Putting on the Slav"), but stress could also trigger the change.

Vladic, who frankly loved and worshiped Grandma Sofia, dutifully repeated what he had said.

Grandma Sofia immediately ordered everyone else out of the room. Disobeying Grandma (or Mamma) Sofia never having been a winning proposition, the room rapidly emptied.

"Now child, tell me vat you see." Grandma Sofia asked.

Vladic would have normally been nervous being questioned by an adult, but he felt strangely calm. "Grandma, you glow such a nice light blue color, just like Mama, but you have these neat black swirls. It's really cool!" Vladic replied.

"Light blue with black swirls?" Grandma Sofia replied. "Huh. Better than I hoped. Vladic!"

"Yes Grandma?"

"You MUST promise me that you will talk about the glow of other people only with me, until I tell you different, OK?"

"Yes Grandma." Vladic replied.

And so it was that over the next few years Grandma Sofia explained to Vladic that the glow he could see coming from other people was how their souls reflected their true selves. A bright, light blue glow was the sign that the person was essentially decent, kind, and cared about others. Vladic was happy because this meant that the mamma he had always loved was as good as he thought that she was. Of course it also meant that his brothers and sisters were also good, although he at more trouble believing that.

Grandma also told him that when he saw someone with a black glow to avoid them because it showed they were evil. Not just mean, not just unfriendly, EVIL, as in killing and/or torturing innocents evil.

One time Vladic finally worked up the courage to ask Grandma Sofia why she had black swirls in her mostly blue glow.

Grandma Sofia looked at him. "Well, my boy, I have done some things in my life that were not always good."

She smiled wanly "Before I met you Grandpa, who had one of the purest souls I have ever seen, I liked bad boys, VERY bad boys. We did some truly bad things. Since then, I have also done some things to protect the family that were also maybe not so good. Necessary, but not good. All of these acts weigh upon my soul. What you see is the result."

"Grandma, will you get into heaven?" Vladic asked fearfully. He couldn't imagine being in heaven without all of his family.

"Time will tell, young one, time will tell."

As time passed Vladic became more used to his gift. He was happy that it made it so easy to avoid bad people, but he was occasionally sad when he realized that someone he thought was interesting was also evil. Then puberty hit and Vladic's world turned upside down.

After his adventure with the still fondly remembered and beautiful cousin, Vladic launched into a more thorough exploration of all things female. At first he fumbled like any teenager, and then...

He had been on a date with Marcia Harding, one of the hotter girls in his freshman class, with a pretty blue soul glow. They were holding hands at the movies and suddenly he could FEEL something. As he looked at their hands he could see their combined glows swirl around the point of contact. He looked down at her very nice legs and the smooth skin between the hem of her dress and her knees. The surge of lust he felt from the view passed into their combined soul glows. Marcia sighed, then gasped, as his desire for her increased. She leaned closer to him. He could smell something strange and exciting, something he would come to know as the smell of turned on female. She pressed the soft side of her breast into his arm, sending a flood of blood into his already hardening erection.

After the movie he and Marcia engaged in an extended version of his time with the cousin, but as they touched each other more intimately Marcia's soul glow became more disturbed. Finally she pushed him away and made a shaky demand to be taken home.

The next day Valdic went of visit Grandma Sofia and described, haltingly, what had happened the night before during his date.

Grandma Sofia once again went into KGB mode. "You could see your glows mix yes?"

Valdic nodded slowly in the affirmative.

"Could you feel anything?" Again Vladic nodded slowly.

Grandma Sofia slumped back into her favorite chair. Vladic saw the expression on her face change. When he was older he would have described that expression as speculative. Vladic had seen pictures of Grandma Sofia when she was young. She had been a true Slavic hotty, high cheek bones, slight tilt to the eyes, long blond hair, and the kind of body that even frumpy clothes would have had trouble hiding. For a moment a ghost of those past looks flitted across her face, followed by a look that he would later have called decisive.

"Vladic, you have been cursed with the gift of your ancestors." Grandma Sofia stated.

"Cursed with a gift?" he replied.

"People will never be a mystery to you. You will know EXACTLY who you can have great sex with and, even more importantly, who you cannot have good sex with. Unfortunately, sometimes the people you WANT to have sex with and CAN have sex with won't be the same." Grandma Sofia sighed.

Being young, Vladic mostly heard "Blah, blah, blah, have great sex, blah, blah, blah."

Grandma Sofia looked at Vladic carefully, then, for the very first time in their relationship together, she reached out and slapped him sharply in the face.

"Vladic! You vill listen to me wery, wery carefully!" she snapped.

Vladic placed a hand upon his stinging cheek, looked in shock at woman he had loved and nearly worshiped his whole life and again nodded slowly.