Chapter 13

"Do you have the semen samples?"

"Yes sir, I sent it to Dr. Joseph 15minutes ago. He said it will be ready in twenty".

Officer Hank gesticulated towards the door, the rookie nodded, turned sharply on his heels and walked out, it reminded him of his training days. The identification of what was the Mastermind behind the killings had caused a battle between reason and fiction in his head.

He didn't believe in any celestial being except the bodies; the moon, the Galaxy of stars. Those were the only things he believed in as he could see them.

He rubbed his hands against his face slightly brushing the blackening eyebags, he hadn't slept well in days. He was always up before 5am and asleep after 2am giving his aching and stressed body only 3 hours of rest. But last night was different, the revelation had kept him up all night pondering and researching.

He leaned against the leather chair, and rested his head on the top, as he stared at the ceiling, the overwhelming feeling of sleep washed over him. He shut his eyes and the information he researched flooded his mind.

'Demons are summoned... They take possession of a host to operate... Demons don't leave till they've completed their mission... They need anger to thrive in a host...' A thousand and one questions flashed through his drowsy mind, questions he had asked before but had never answered yet.

'Who is the host? Who summoned the demon? What's the demon's mission?'. His ringtone disrupted his stolen sleep. He leaped up from his seat like he was caught in a cross fire, he glanced around for the source of the sound and saw his discarded phone at the far corner of his desk.

He stretched and lifted the phone, he saw the caller ID 'Dr. Joseph'. He quickly picked.

"Doctor", the roughness and the coarseness of his voice was difficult to miss

"Good morning Officer, are you okay?"

"Yes, why?" the snort at the end of his reply gave him away

"Have you been sleeping well?"

"Doctor I'm sure you didn't call me to ask about my health, did you?"

"Oh no, uhm, I ran the test on the semen samples"

"And?"

"The percentage match is too weak to be the semen of the same person but the slight match suggests that they are related"

"Related?" Officer Hank was slowly getting deeply intrigued by the case through it's complexities

"Yes, whosever impregnated her must have been Jack's relative"

"The only relative he has is..." Officer Hank moved the phone to his left ear and held it between his shoulder blades and his face.

He flipped through files scattered on his table, checking for Jack's bio data.

"...a deceased dad" he completed

"His dad is dead? Are you sure that's his only relative?"

"Yes, we took his body to the morgue, the assumed time of death is roughly a few minutes before Vivian's death"

"That means he is the father, or was"

"I've found my motive, he probably found out about the baby being his dad's and out of anger he killed them".

"Probably"

"Thank you, Doctor"

"You're welcome and Hank?"

"Yes?"

"Try and get enough sleep"

"Okay Doc" he chuckled as he ended the call.

The puzzle pieces were coming together, the motive for Vivian's murder, for killing Mr. Hogan but the bigger picture was still blur. The other deaths were hard to pin on Jack.

Hank dragged his hair in frustration. He hated being clueless.

The doors of his office was pushed in a hurry, startling him yet again. He really needed to sleep, he was jumpy and on edge, he thought.

"Sir you need to see this", the rookie poked his head through the office doors. Officer Hank stood up , immediately regretting the decision as his head ached as if hot pins were poking his scalp. He winced as he walked. He ignored the pain as he rushed out of the office, following the rookie.

"What happened?"

"Sir, the surveillance unit found some strange coverage that occured in Jack's cell" the rookie took rapid breaths as he speed walked to the surveillance unit.

"How strange?" Hank questioned

"Strange".

The rookie pushed open the door for Hank as he stepped in. The surveillance guy immediately stood up and shifted his seat for Hank, Hank sat down staring at the screen.

The surveillance guy hovered over Hank as he tapped keys at a rapid pace to bring up the footage.

"This occurred a night ago" he told Hank as he played the video.

There was dead silence for a few minutes. Jack could be seen clearly in the night footage lying on his bunk bed. Slowly he moved his feet at an irregular pace, it became rapid and then grunts eluded his mouth and then a scream.

His hands curled in a C form as his back arched on the bed. His screams died as he shouted ; "It...let...".

Then everything became tranquil, his body rested flat on the bed. His heaving chest indicating his regular breathing.

"Then this occured last night".

Another footage came into sight. A different time frame and date was plastered on the lower right corner of the screen.

Few minutes of tranquility preceded the screams. His body half dangled from the bunk bed. His screams stopped, he lifted his body and slept again.

"Go back" Hank told him. He tapped a key and it went back to his screams. Hank closed his eyes and turned his ear towards the screen, straining his ears to hear more.

"He said something amidst the screams" Officer Hank opened his eyes and stood up.

"Victor can you polish the audio and amplify his speech?" Hank turned to look at the surveillance guy. He stood frozen to a spot , mouth slightly open

"You know my name?" Victor asked

Hank raised a brow signalling him that it wasn't the time. Victor sat on the seat, plugged his headset and tapped furiously on the keys.

A few minutes later, he handed the headset back to Hank.

"The screams cannot be completely erased because somehow he managed to scream and talk at the same time but I did reduce the background noise, amplified the bass of his voice and reduced the pitch of the screams".Hank stared at him.

"In English", Victor flushed, "you can listen to it". Hank placed his headset on his ears and pressed play. The screams started but they were mild, then he heard it. "... won't...go". It ended. He pressed play again, that was all he heard. He went to the previous video and played it. Then an idea hit him.

He stood up and crouched beside the screen, "play the previous video with this one simultaneously". Victor sat, minimised the two video players and reshaped the screens. He tapped play, the videos played simultaneously. The voices of Jack flowed into his ears , at that moment he answered one of his questions; who is the host. Like clockwork, the different videos spoke at a conversation pace; "It won't let go", all of a sudden , he felt the urge to interview Jack again.