Tink

I'm determined to finish this story if it kills me. I started it two years ago and well my enthusiasm for writing it died down. I decided to recently take it back up again. I really want to finish it. Just for my own amusement. I have written a couple more chapters but, they are kinda getting bizarre. That and I have yet to take them from paper to computer. I'm going to work on it today and hopefully add the new chapters plus some tomorrow.

A Twisted Fairy Tale

Written by Julie Zelasko
Illustrated by
Tink Doll by Josie Zelasko





Dedicated to My Children for always listening
and putting up with my weird ideas and stories

And

Andrea Webster, without whom this story
would have never seen the light of day.
Thanks for asking “What happened to Tink?”

CHAPTER ONE
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Oh good you’re finally here. I’ve been waiting for you. That’s right I’m talking to you, the reader. I was told that someone, like yourself would be stopping by to read my story. It’s my understanding that you tend to have a dark sense of humor. You like the stories that don’t always turn out “Happily ever after”. If I’ve mistaken you for someone else, leave now you won’t like it.

I guess I should start at the beginning. The date was May 13th, Friday the 13th to be exact. It had been an unusually calm day. Normally we’d be up to our tail feathers in Nuts and Wackos.

“Ay, Christopher.” came the voice of my partner George. “How about we cut out of here early? If nothing’s happened yet, odds are nothing will.”

George was not an overly active guy, but for some reason the dames seemed to love him. Maybe it was his, not a care in the world, laid back attitude, his attention to detail, or his sense of humor. Heck for all I know it was because his short brown hair looked as if it had never seen a comb, although I knew differently. He was always working to make it look that way. I can tell you the one thing it wasn’t, it wasn’t his voice. George’s’s voice had an odd way of sounding like a bird, not a sweet sing song bird; it was more like a goose. Most people didn’t notice it at first, but the longer a person was around him the more it called attention to itself. Unfortunately, because of George’s DNA makeup, my partner and I were known as the Geese Police.

That’s right, we were police officers, we worked in the Fairy files division. Ours was one of the lesser know departments on the force. We dealt with all things mythical and magical and everything in between.

“Christopher!” Cawed my partner again, trying to get my attention.

The sound was enough to shake me from my dazed state. “Huh?” My unused voice cracked as I tried to speak.

“Can we cut out of here early? It’s almost midnight and nothing’s happening.”

I looked at him for a moment as I contemplated his question. I’m a stickler for the rules. I didn’t litter, I didn’t speed when I drove and I didn’t Jay walk. Why on earth would I leave work early? I looked at the clock, 11:48. George was of course right, nothing was happening. All we were doing was sitting around wasting the tax payers’ money, so that he could play a rousing game of stick the pencil in the ceiling. Which by the way, he appeared to be winning. He had at least, 25 pencils sticking out of the ceiling above his desk.

“Okay, but on one condition” I spoke as I started to stand. “We write a note to payroll so that they can adjust our pay for the 12 minutes. “

“Whatever.” George said as he shook his head, rolled his eyes and grabbed his coat.

“At the very least we will save the tax payers some money as well as the lives of at least 5 more pencils.” I rambled as we headed toward the door. I was about to shut off the lights when the ring of a phone came crashing through my hopes of getting any sleep.

“Second Star Police department. This is Detective Christopher James speaking. How may I be of Service?” rattled out of my mouth as I answered the phone.

“Where are you calling from?” I questioned and started to scribble the address onto a notepad. “123 Morning Drive. Okay sir, take a deep breath and try to stay calm. I’m going to dispatch an ambulance and we’ll be on our way.” I press the flash button and called the emergency room to dispatch an ambulance.

“123 Morning Drive, the victims names are Tink and Peter.” I hung up the phone and headed back toward the door.

CHAPTER TWO
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The lights of the ambulance flashed as we pulled up to the house. “What’s with all the people?” I asked as we got out of the car.

“You can’t be serious?” George questioned with a fair amount of unbelief in his voice. “Come on? Even you have to have heard of Tinker Bell and Peter Pan”

I just stared at him blankly and simply nodded no.

“Peter Pan and Tinker bell?? There are all kinds of movies and stories about them, how can you not have heard about them?”

“George, there are far more important things in life.” I stopped to pick some food off his Jacket. “Things like…I don’t know, Laundry.”

“Yeah, Yeah, yeah, whatever.” George said as we showed our badges to the officer controlling the commotion. Then asked “Where’s the guy that made the call?”

The police officer pointed a thumb in the direction of a very, distraught cookie shaped man.

“Excuse me, sir?” “This is Detective James and I’m Detective Jungle. “ George said as he addressed the Cookie Man. “Can I get your name?”

Without looking up, the cookie shaped man replied “I’m the Gingerbread Man, but most people just call me Gingi.”

“Okay, Mr. Man, can you tell us what happened here?”

“I’m not really sure, when I arrived everything was a mess. Go look for yourself.” He responded still not looking up.

Pulling a notebook and pen out of my jacket I said “We’ll do just that, but we still need some more information from you. “ I clicked the pen “When did you arrive on the scene?”

“I’m not really sure.” He responded still in his monotone dazed state. “We had just finished eating dinner and decided to stop by to get some muffin wrappers from Tink.”

I interrupted as he was about to go on. “We? Who’s we?”

“The Muffin man and myself.” He said as he looked up and nodded toward another distraught figure. I nodded to George, he of course understood my nod and went to get a statement.

“Mr. Man, please continue.” I said as I jotted some notes down.

“That’s pretty much it. When we arrived the door was open so we let ourselves in and that’s when we saw the mess. So I called the police and came outside to wait.” His voice trailed off as he silently sobbed.

“Thank you, we’ll contact you if we need more information.” I took his contact information then met up with George who was waiting near the door of the home.

As we opened the front door, we were hit with a very sweet metallic odor. A sure sign there was a great deal of human blood and fairy dust inside. If it weren’t for the metallic odor I would have been feeling hungry, cause it sure did smell sweet. It almost smelled like my mom’s house at Christmas. She sure loved to cook.

I used great restraint to keep myself from inhaling deeply. Instead I tried to shake it off as I entered. It was a small room, if you could even call it a room. That was the odd thing about most houses in our division. On the outside they usually looked like the average human home. Inside however they always varied. This home was no exception. It was similar to a studio apartment in that there was only one room inside. In size it would be more comparable to a luxury walk-in closet, minus the clothes of course.

On one side of the room there was what looked like a large doll house. However, one must never make that assumption when working with fairy files. The majority of the room however, appeared to be a sitting area. All in all, not a bad little place to meet with a bunch of friends, with the exception of the blood splatter on the wall and fairy dust all over the room.

In a warped way, which I’ve never admitted out loud, it actually looked very festive. I’ve always loved the look of fairy dust. It was like a finely ground glitter that would shimmer and sparkle in gold and silver hues. However, if one were to look at it under a microscope they would find other colors as well. The color was always dependant on the emotion that the fairy was feeling at the time they used it. Regardless of how the fairy was feeling their dust had a way of making everything look wonderful and appealing. This was no exception but, the underlying truth of the whole matter was that this was anything but festive.

“Well, we know two things already.” I said to my partner as I headed toward a small black bag, no bigger than a human shoe box. “ The Sweet metallic smell tells us that there’s a human and a fairy involved. The fairy I’m guessing is in this bag.” I rambled on as I unzipped the bag to see its contents.

I couldn’t help but to wince as I looked into the bag. Before my eyes was a set of shredded wings and small torn up pieces of what, one can only assume was a fairy. I had never seen such a thing.

Upon seeing my reaction, George headed toward me “What happened to Tink?”

“Excuse me?” I asked a little confused

“What happened to Ti…..” George stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the bag. The color drained from his face and he appeared to be taking on a pale green color.

“What makes you think this is Tink?” I asked trying to snap him out of his shocked condition. “The body can’t even be identified as male or female.”

“You weren’t kidding me? You really don’t know who they are?” He asked turning to look at me in unbelief. “Okay, here’s the quick run down.” “Tinker bell, better know as Tink, is a fairy. Judging by the size of this home, this is her house. “Peter Pan is a human boy,” he motioned toward a group of emergency workers, “ about 17 years old. With Tink’s help, he ran away from home at a very young age. Tink and Peter had many great adventures, and Tink fell in love with peter. Peter however, had eyes for a human girl named Wendy. One day Tink decided to tell Peter her feelings, hoping of course that he felt the same. It was not to be though, Peter didn’t even acknowledge her, he had Wendy on the brain. Wendy and Peter spent a short time together and in the end she ended up leaving Peter for one of the pirates under Captain Hook’s command.” George started to push past the extra workers that had gathered.

I followed behind, “Then what happened?” I asked

“No one knows, they both dropped out of the public’s eye. But whatever it is, it can’t be good.” He stated as we were finally able to reach the center of the crowd.

What I saw was unreal, Peter, or so I assumed, was pinned to the wall with what appeared to be a pick axe. However it was unlike any I had ever seen. On the end of the handle appeared to be a sharp blade, it reminded me of the arrowheads used for hunting deer. The handle itself was different than most, it wasn’t made of wood but of metal. Topping it off was the axe head, on one side was a large claw, very similar to those that you find on a hammer. The other side curved off like it should however it had sharp jagged teeth. I couldn’t tell how far the teeth went but, I could tell you that it was piercing the victims side. He was covered with a mixture of blood and fairy dust. Around his neck was a purple and black boa and lying near him on the ground was what appeared, at first glance, to be a toy gun.

The workers were cutting the Boa off from around Peter’s neck and trying to remove him from the wall without removing the axe.

“Is he alive?” I heard George ask the EMT, as I snapped a couple pictures.

“Barely, we just about have the wall behind him cut. Then we can work on safely removing the axe.”

It was right about then that a loud snap could be heard and Peter fell into the arms of the waiting emergency workers.

“Excuse me” said the EMT as he helped move Peter into the ambulance waiting outside.

I looked back at the wall, the whole left behind was a fairly decent size. I could probably stick my head inside it should I choose. Suddenly I saw movement inside the hole.

“George! Take a look at this.” I said as I moved closer to the hole wanting to look inside.

“ What’s up.” He asked as he tried to see around me.

“I saw something move. I know I did, but I don’t see anything now.” I said scanning the interior of the wall the best that I could.

“Let me take a look.” He said as I backed up for him to move in. He peered inside the hole. “I don’t see anything” He looked up at me “ Are you sure you saw something?”
“I’m positive.”

“Okay, I have an idea” he said reaching into his inside jacket pocket. He pulled out a penlight and looked into the hole. “Ahh, there he is.” He said as he put away the penlight and stepped back. “Come on out.” He spoke toward the wall. “We know you’re in there and we need to ask you some questions.”

I looked inquisitively at my partner, then back at the hole. A small shadow seemed to be growing from the hole. You would think that after working in this department nothing would surprise me. However, I heard myself saying “What the…”

“It’s peter’s shadow.” My partner said as if it were common knowledge. “Peter is the only known being to lose his shadow. In his stories, he seems to have a habit of it.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off it as it slowly grew bigger and eventually took the outline of what one could only assume was the boy Peter. “Does it speak?” I asked still shocked at the news that one’s shadow could become separated from them.

“No, he doesn’t have a mouth just an outline.” My partner said in a slightly mocking tone. “Shadows however are very good at charades, or so I’m told. So it’s just a matter of asking the right questions.”

“Well,“ I said looking at George with a smirk. “Since you seem to know everything, why don’t you question the shadow while I finish gathering evidence.”

While George played a twisted game of charades with the shadow, I took pictures and fingerprints. Then bagged the boa, gun and fairy dust from various places in the room. This was without a doubt the most fairy dust I had every found at a scene.

“You finished?” asked George as he put away his notebook.

“Yep,” I said as I took one last look around the place. “that seems to be every……” I noticed an odd mark on the wall. “Just a sec…”

“What’s up?”

“Probably nothing I just want to be sure.” I replied as I took a closer look at the wall. “George can you take some pictures of this?” I asked as I grabbed some tweezers and a bag. I removed what appeared to be an ordinary BB. Weird I thought as I bagged it. “Since when do you find just one BB?” I said out loud more to myself than anyone else.

CHAPTER THREE
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Morning came way to early the next day. Not that I got much sleep, it’s always hard to sleep when you start a new case, especially one of this nature.

“Good Morning George.” I said as I put my cocoa on my desk. “This is a first, you never arrive before me.” I started to fumble around my desk looking for paper work I had yet to fill out.

“Never left.” He chirped. As he dropped the already completed form onto my desk. “ I also turned in the evidence into forensics and sent for Peter’s clothes and the axe.”

I tried not to look surprised as I listened to George. It was not a natural occurrence for him to out perform me. I started to download the pictures I had taken from the crime scene.


“And before you ask, Peter’s is not doing so well. He’s still in ICU. They can’t seem to wake him. “ George prattled on as he thumbed through some papers.

Finally the last picture was downloaded, I stared at it a moment. “George, have you ever seen anything like this before? I asked as I looked at the picture of Peter pinned to the wall.

“Like what, “ He answered as he walked over to my desk.

I said nothing, I just stared at the picture.

“You mean a boy pinned to a wall? Nope that would be a first for me.”

“No.” I replied as I shook my head and pointed “I’m talking about the pickaxe.” I paused, “…something about it seems…wrong.”

“Are you sure it’s a pickaxe?” he questioned. “The only beings I know of that carry those are the seven dwarves and they look nothing like that.”

It was right about then that a man brought in two bags. One contained Peter’s clothes and the other the Axe. George hustled over to get the bags and thank the man. He stopped to put the clothes on his own desk and brought me the bag with the pickaxe.

“Thanks.” I said as I started to examine it through the bag. Nothing new caught my attention right off. I decided to Google the letters on the handle to see if it could help me out any. I typed in SA axe. Hit return. The first result was no good. It wasn’t even written in a language I could understand. So I clicked on the second entry; Grivel Napal S.A. Ice axe. “That was easy.” I said aloud to myself. It really was. Now to get the facts. I read through the description. This axe was typically used for snow and glacier travel.

That made absolutely no sense to me. In all my time working the fairy files I’d never seen even a snowball. So why, or better yet, how did someone get their hands on one. One might argue that they could order it online, if it weren’t for the fact that No one delivers to any of the areas in our division. Someone went to a great deal of effort to get it.

“I’m taking these clothes down to trace . Want me to drop off the axe too?” George asked already knowing the answer, as he headed to pick it up.

“That would be great.” I handed him the tool. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Oh if your interested the statements for the muffin man and Peter’s shadow are in my shared documents.” He said as he disappeared out of the office.

Perfect, I thought to myself. As I headed for George’s shared docs. I found two witness reports name Peter’s shadow and Mack Muffin. I Perused both the reports. Interesting enough comparing the two I found a couple of things that I wanted to recheck. I decided to jot down some notes and type up Mr. Man’s witness report. It was as I was finishing that up that the phone rang and my computer alerted me that I received mail. Logic made me answer the phone.

“Second Star Police department. This is Detective Christopher James speaking. How may I be of Service?”
I checked my e-mail as I listen to the voice on the other side. It was George. “I’ll be right there.” I hung up and quickly read the new mail. It was the Head EMT’s Witness report. It stated that Peter went into surgery upon his arrival to the second star medical Center. The surgery went well but peter was still in ICU. I wanted to read more but I had told George I would come down to the Forensics department. Apparently there were some things I needed to see for myself.

CHAPTER FOUR
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The forensics department was located in the basement of our building. I never liked going down there, it always seemed kinda creepy. I watched as the elevator reached the basement and chimed. The doors open and instantly I was hit with a sterile smell , similar to the smell often associated with hospitals. Only this smell also had a touch of what could only be described as sweet metallic throw up mixed into it. I guess that couldn’t be helped since the morgue, where all autopsy’s were conducted was also located in the basement. The idea of someone cutting open a victim and examining every last little thing. Seemed almost cruel to me. Hadn’t they been through enough. I know, of course, that this was the last chance for a victim to talk for themselves. I just can’t get over the creepy feeling it gives me.

I looked down the hall as I stepped out of the elevator. George popped up from the seat he was in and headed my way. From the happy look on his face and the bounce in his step one could ascertain that he was, without a doubt, very excited about something.

“You’re not going to believe this.” he said as he turned to walk in the same direction I was headed. “It would probably be better to show you.” He motioned into a nearby room. “ First off, Peter’s prints weren’t the only one found on the gun. There was another set, so we ran it through Second Star’s CODUS.” He pause for effect and motioned for me to look into the microscope.

I moved over to the scope and looked in . It was an ordinary set of human prints. I really didn’t understand what there was to get all worked up about. “Ya, so what?” I said wishing this would play out already..

“Any Guesses?” George asked eager to hear the answer.

“No. Would you..”

George interrupted with a squaking “Hook! Their Hook’s prints.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar but, I couldn’t place it. So I stared at him blankly.

“Captian Hook? ” George said with unbelief and distain in his voice. “Captain Hook, the pirate.”

Everything clicked “Wendy!” I said as I raised my eyebrows. ”She ran off with one of his men.” The look on my face changed to one of puzzlement. “What does he have to do with Peter?”

George’s eyes suddenly glazed over then closed, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out. When he open his eyes his demeanor had changed and he spoke with a soft patient tone. “Peter Pan and Captain Hook are archenemies.” His voice slowly reverted to it’s normal tone as he continued “ There’s no way those two would be near each other. So how is it that those are the only prints on the gun.

As he spoke I made a mental note to stop by a library on the way home and read up on Peter pan and Tink. “I see. You think that this is more than a quarrel between the two of them.” You do know, we are going to need more evidence to show foul play?”

“Not a problem .” George said as she started to walk away. “Follow me.”

I followed George as he headed down the hall. I had no idea where he was headed next, I just knew I didn’t want it to be the morgue. Any being who knows anything about fate , knows that the instant I thought that, was the instant my fate was sealed. With every door George passed my hopes of not spending time in the creepiest place in existence faded. As George passed the last door, I closed my eyes for a second took a deep breath and braced myself for that which I knew was coming. I opened my eyes just as it was time to turn into the doorway.

George was already asking Cathrine to show me her findings. Cathrine was a unique individual. She appeared at first glance to be human. When in reality she was anything but. She was a unique species that called themselves Vertis, truth seekers. Their species had amazing abilities to see the smallest sub particles, smell and identify the faintest of odors and _____________________. These abilities made Cathrine one of the best practitioners in her field.

“Morning Christopher.” Cathrine said as she looked up at me and smiled. “A little bird told me you wanted to see what I found.” She smirked as she flashed a flirty smile to George.

“Lets see what you have.” I said as I rolled my eyes at the two of them.

“As, you probably already assumed, the victim was a fairy, a pixie to be exact. From her unique wing patterns we were able to identify her as Tinker Bell. Which you may have also already assumed. “

I nodded my head in agreement and waited for her to go on.

“Here’s what you don’t know, The dust that she was expelling was made up of three distinct emotions. Loathing, Anger and, get this, compassion.” She stopped and looked at me waiting for my confusion to set in.

I crinkled up my brow, a sure sign that I was indeed confused. “Wait a minute.” I said. “That doesn’t make any sense. How does a person feel all of those at one time?”

“That’s what I wanted to know, so I decided to check out her emotion center.”

“How can that tell you anything?” I asked

“All mythical and magical beings and the humans they come in contact with have a section of their brain that stores the triggers for their happy thoughts. Beings that are not human are born with it. Humans however get it the first time they encounter or experience a magical moment. The magic they encounter causes a chain reaction in the emotion center of their brains. This reaction allows them to easily store and use triggers.

Triggers allow beings to use their happy thoughts without any effort, therefore they are able to use and experience magic easier.” Cathrine finished and looked at me to make sure I understood what she had said.

“Wouldn’t a trigger be the same thing as a memory?” I ask inquisitively. “ All humans have memories.”

Cathrine raised her left eyebrow and looked at me very pleased “Correct, they at first seem very similar. The only difference is a trigger allows you to instantly relieve the moment stored. Then it enhances the memory making the emotion that went with it stronger than it had been the first time. Regular memories tend to fade, and emotion is never felt the same as it was the first time.”

“ahh, I understand. But if triggers store happy thought why would you want to check out the Victims?” I asked seriously not seeing what this had to do with anything.

“For the victims dust to be so packed with the emotions we found is abnormal. They are to opposite to be found in such large quantities at the same time. The only way that could have happened is if the victim had a trigger that went off at the same time as she was experiencing a strong emotion.”

I interrupted “But I thought you said triggers were for happy thoughts?” I looked at Christopher as I asked Cathrine the question. He looked like a kid waiting in line to see Santa. He was having a hard time sitting still and waiting for his turn.

Catherine, noticing my gaze wander to Christopher, glanced over to take a look as well. Her face broke into that, isn’t he adorable look that I’d seen him receive for reasons beyond me. Then she continued “In very rare cases when a being experiences a traumatic event or a head injury their trigger is altered and they are no longer able to access and use happy thoughts. Instead the emotion is often one of fear or sorrow. These altered triggers also causes reactions in the beings that are contrary to how they would normally behave.”

As I opened my mouth to ask a question cathrine continued. “Before you ask, there’s one more thing. The victim had three distinct triggers. The DNA in the neural cells in two of the triggers didn’t match the victims DNA. Someone had to have put it there. “

I could feel my mouth drop open as she said it. The whole thing sounded ludicrous . “Someone had to put it there?” I asked out loud and continued without waiting for an answer. “Is that even possible?”

I’m sure the look of confusion and shock on my face was greater than it had ever been. George however looked as if he couldn’t take it any longer.

“That’s what I asked!” he squawked “The answer is simply unbelievable.” He beamed at Cathrine.

“To be honest,” Catherine chimed in. “I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing. It would take a great deal of magic to even attempt what were taking about. As far as I know there are no beings with that amount of magic. Whoever did this had to have gathered the magic of several different beings, not to mention they would have to have an understanding of magic far beyond what most psychic doctors have.”

While the shocked look remained on my face, My look of confusion had been replaced with one of terror. There was only of way to gather magic from beings and still have it usable. George was right this was unbelievable. With the mood changed I stated that which was obvious “We have a serial killer on our hands.”