Hunter's Moon Case 0: The Missing Girl

Blood. I could smell it, bitter and acrid in the air. My heart began to pound, and I felt a tingle in my bones. I'd been on the trail of a man for three blocks, rumor had it the man knew something about a missing girl. Her parents were worried that she'd run off with a boyfriend, or had gotten involved in drugs. The truth it seemed would be worse. I slipped down the black alley toward the large metal door I had seen him vanish into moments before. Sliding the door open as quietly as I could I was assaulted by the smell...blood, sweat, fresh and sticky sweet. My guts turned and I felt the pressure building in my joints. I had to keep it together...part of me had already put together the information my mind was still processing, and that part was furious.
Abigail Meryl was a smart girl, seventeen years old, and pretty. Auburn ringlets of hair and the kind of smile that makes boys stupid. Her grades were good, only dark spot on her record was a guy called Spider. Her parents hated him, he was a low-life wanna-be thug that thought owning a bike made him a biker. To her though, he was worldly, opinionated, and a free spirit. Elton "Spider" Browning had a rap sheet  of juvenile crimes and misdemeanors that was almost as sad as his name. Problem is, he got in hot water with a pusher he owed money too...the girl became collateral. Some boyfriend eh? Spider led me to the pusher...who led me to this guy, who led me to the blood behind the door.
The door lead to what looked like an old coin-laundry, with boarded up windows. An old pinball machine in the far corner, still sang and chirped a desperate cry for the attention of the bored and the solace of a few quarters. The smell was stronger as I slowly made my way down the rows of old machines to the office. Again my chest tightened and my joints ached as a heard a faint whimper. I tried to steady myself...and leaned on the wall, once I regained control I rapped a knuckle across the top of the door frame. The startled swearing was worth every moment, and I smiled in spite of myself. I could hear the man's footsteps against the tile floor, and smelled something else...gun oil. My jaw tried to dislocate itself at the scent and whole body ached, and stretched against its own frame.
What happened next was a blur of motion. The man kicked the door open, and thrust his gun into the room. My right hand lurched forward, and caught him across the extended gun arm. The twisted talons, that used to be my fingers tearing meat from bone and reducing his limb to a ruined bleeding mess.  My left caught him across the shoulder and tossed him like a toy to the floor against the nearby machines. I felt the rest of me begin to change as I calmly kicked the door closed. Abigail Meryl had been through enough...she shouldn't have to see what would come next.
An hour later, Abigail was sitting in the back of an ambulance, giving her statement to a police officer about a block away from where I found her. I couldn't risk the police seeing the kind of mess I left back there. I started my slow walk back home in the night air, letting it fill me. It was going to rain. I could smell it. The rain had just started when I reached my office, the cot in the back calling to me like a siren. As I lay there, staring at the ceiling waiting for the last of the adrenaline to drain away, I looked at the shadow cast by the light of dawn across my window etching. The words reflected in shadows on my ceiling, "Jack Talbot P.I."