Can’t the weird new kid just have a nose for dead bodies?
Sirius really didn’t know what his friends expected to see besides some police cars and taped-off area’s. The bodies had long been moved away and all pictures safely kept at the police station. However, the smell of blood was still very present above the ground where the victims took their final breath. Litres must have seeped into the earth, and now that there was no skin to filter at least part of the smell, Sirius had to keep his mouth closed if he didn’t want to reveal his fangs. Or lose control. Maybe it was best if he just went home.
Remus had noticed what was up and stood beside him as they looked down at yet another outline of a dead body and small, bright yellow signs with numbers on it to mark any other proof in the area.
“How’s the smell treating you, leach?”, he asked like he enjoyed Sirius’ struggle.
“Horrible”, Sirius answered, making sure none of his friends were looking in their direction. They were all too busy looking at the police material. “It’s definitely not vampires”, he added. “So much waste of good blood…”
“Yes, I figured so. To bad the bodies aren’t here anymore. We might have gotten some clues to the actual culprit that way”, he said as he scratched something behind his ear again.
“Don’t do that”, Sirius remarked. “You look like a rabbit dog, it’s pathetic.”
“I can’t help it; these sites make me too nervous”, Remus argued, still scratching.
“Maybe you should have taken that into consideration before brutally murdering five innocent people”, Sirius reminded him.
“We don’t know who did this. I might not even be the only wolf here. I don’t know the region. I don’t know whose territory I’m on.”
“Territory…”, Sirius scoffed, “Do you also piss to mark it? Make sure to call David Attenborough if you ever want your biography written, wolf.”
“It’s not funny.”
“Guys, I think we should go to the next one”, Marlene announced. “I’ve seen it here.”
“Yeah, me too”, Dorcas agreed.
So they went, and while they walked to the next location the gossip at school had led them to, Remus froze in his steps. The rest of the group didn’t notice since they were walking in front of him and were too busy chatting, but Sirius did. Remus looked at nothing in particular and sniffed the air in ways Sirius could once again relentlessly bully him for if he so pleased. He decided not to when he saw the look in the werewolfs eyes. “You smell that too, right?”, he asked.
Sirius hadn’t been breathing for a while to avoid most of the smell of blood from the earth, but now he risked it again, just a tiny whiff of air in through his nose. All his senses were alarmed. It was unmistakably the smell of blood that entered his lungs, but it wasn’t like the crime scenes, where the blood had clotted in the ground. It was fresh, and very present, but strong enough to not be inside a body anymore. He shot Remus a worried look. “Do you know where it’s coming from?”, he asked.
“Such prominent smell? Of course”, Remus said before he caught the attention of the others. “Guys, I believe we should head this direction”, he said before trailing of. Sirius did his best not to breathe anymore, not to take in any more of that bloody smell. Because, if his fangs weren’t out before, they definitely were now, and if the fresh blood kept tickling his senses, his instincts might desire more than just the smell, and if he wanted a taste, one of his friends would fall victim.
“What? No!”, Dorcas replied. “I’ve clearly heard the other body was near the lake.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard so too”, followed Lily.
“I go wherever the ladies want me to go”, added James.
“You’ll want to check this side out too, trust me”, Remus said and trailed of anyways, following the smell. They cut through the forest in a straight line -Remus didn’t care to stay on the paths, he only followed his nose- and Remus made sure to walk shoulder to shoulder with Sirius before handing him something. Obviously the others behind them weren’t meant to see what it was. When Sirius looked down in his hand, he saw a clove of garlic. Already his skin began to itch like something crawled underneath it. He wanted to throw the clove on the ground, but Remus said: “Eat it.”
“Are you insane?”, Sirius asked. “Have you been carrying that with you this whole time? You want me dead or something?” He probably did though.
“You already are”, Remus remarked. “And it takes a lot more than one little clove of garlic to kill a vampire. You should see yourself right now, you’re barely in control. If those people really are your friends, if you really care about them, you’ll eat that right now to take your appetite away before you attack any of them.”
Sirius considered his words. He was right. He was dying for just little taste of blood on his tongue again. His plan B was to run away when it got too bad, say he suddenly felt sick or something. They’d believe it; it would work. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to his friends. But all things considered, maybe he didn’t want to abandon his friends in a dark forest near a fresh dead body and a psychotic, murderous werewolf who was very likely responsible for the past five murders in the same forest. So he threw the clove of garlic in his mouth and bit down on it.
It didn’t even take a second before he started regretting that decision with his life. Pain shot through his mouth, where the taste first hit him, but then also through his entire head and down his throat. He found it hard to breath even though he didn’t even need to do so, but he couldn’t if he tried. His airways were blocked and he tried to curse something to Remus or at least just scream in pain, but no sound would leave his throat. His eyes were wide open but he couldn’t see a thing anymore, like someone had thrown a black veil over his head. Remus didn’t say anything as he put his arm over Sirius’ lower back to guide him through the darkness. Sirius felt as though he was getting kidnapped. Was the rest even still behind them? He felt weak in the knees and Remus supported a lot more of his body weight than he let it seem.
“It won’t stay this bad very long”, he reassured him. Sirius wanted to argue and cuss him out for all that was and wasn’t holy, but he didn’t have the voice for it anymore. “It works, right?”, Remus then asked.
Sirius’ mouth was completely numb. He couldn’t really feel his tongue enough to know if his fangs were still out or not and he couldn’t lift his arm to check either, but his mouth was numb, and he was so repulsed by the taste of the garlic that his appetite had completely disappeared. Just why did this werewolf have to know more about vampires than Sirius did himself? Maybe because no vampire in their right mind would even think of tasting garlic, and Remus had probably already fought some of them off by forcing them to bite down on it anyways.
He was also right when he said the worst side effects would quickly wear of, because he had already regained parts of his vision when they found the body. He had heard some of the girls and James scream and he didn’t know if it was the garlic or the sight in front of his eyes that made him want to throw up. Between the still black blotches he saw something that was barely even human anymore. The body was unmistakably covered in fresh blood, here and there it still gushed out of assaulted limbs, but Sirius couldn’t smell any of it over the horrific garlic taste.
Dorcas had knelt down besides the victim. She appeared to be crying, but Sirius wasn’t sure. He couldn’t do much else besides leaning on Remus and hoping no one noticed he probably looked like he was on drugs.
“Don’t touch her!”, Remus warned. The victim was a middle aged woman. The dress she once wore was torn to pieces along with her skin. Her face was barely recognisable and way too much bones were either visible or snapped in two like a twig, or both. They all stared in horror. “You’ll leave fingerprints and DNA if you do so”, Remus continued. “We should call the police.”
“How the hell did you know this was here?”, Marlene asked.
“Can’t the weird new kid just have a nose for dead bodies?”, Remus suggested. “I had a hunch”, he said then to sound more reasonable.
“A hunch?”, Marlene repeated.
“Yes. The uhh… How do you say that?”, Remus struggled to find the right words. Only now Sirius noticed he had some weird accent he tried to hide. With all the other stuff he had going on he never really paid attention to it.
“The vibes were off”, Sirius helped, surprised his voice was somewhat back already.
“Yes! That! Thank you Sirius”, Remus said excited.
“What the hell is going on with you?”, James then asked Sirius worried. Apparently they also hadn’t been paying any attention to him up until now. James tried to look Sirius in the eye but Sirius didn’t really know which one of the three faces behind the black blotches to look back at.
“Are you high?”, he asked like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Remus do you know?”, he went to ask Remus -who still supported like half his body weight- when Sirius didn’t answer him. “Why are you holding him like that?”
Sirius felt Remus’ muscles tense up before he let him go. He still hadn’t regained any of the strength the garlic took from his body, on the contrary, the effect seemed to travel downwards from his head to his limbs, and he collapsed on the ground, next to the dead woman. He heard the others panic, but he couldn’t really move. Or breathe.