Cloy

Detective Gerneth leaned against the doorframe and watched the forensic examiners. Like scavengers attacking carrion, they descended on the room. Heads bent like vultures they meticulously pick apart every bit of evidence from metaphorical bones. Or in some cases, Gerneth decided, from real physical bones.

He considered the room. Sterile, functional lighting and Spartan furnishings. Clearly, the artist devoted his finances to his medium. Littering the studio were bizarre shapes, metal twisted into forms not unlike those in a painting by Dali. Gerneth could almost feel sick and disoriented just looking at the sculptures.

The room smelled heavily of oxide from the iron the artist wrought his stomach churning masterpieces out of. Gerneth thought this convenient. The sickly foreign smell of iron would cloy his senses, desensitize it to the scent of blood that’s so strangely alike in odour. This was good. Gerneth was starting to worry. He was worried he’d developed a bloodlust, a kinship, feeling of being at home in a particularly gory crime scene.