Dilfs Assemble ⛨ Carlisle Cullen | Charlie Swan

The rain had stopped about twenty minutes ago, but the forest floor still gave underfoot like a soaked sponge. Yellow tape stretched between two alder trunks, already sagging under the weight of water collecting in its sag.

Two deputies stood at the perimeter. One of them kept looking at the ground. The other kept looking at the trees.

Charlie Swan ducked under the tape, boots heavy with mud, and straightened up slowly. His jacket was zipped to the collar and his radio crackled low against his hip. He looked at what was in front of him.

The body was male. Mid-twenties, maybe. Hard to tell now. The face had gone waxy and slack in a way that didn't match any kind of natural death Charlie had seen in twenty-three years on the force. The eyes were open. The mouth was parted. The skin had a quality to it: paper-white, almost translucent, that made the forest around him look garish by comparison.

No visible wounds. No blood on the ground. None on the leaves. None on the body.

That was the part.

Charlie crouched down, careful not to touch anything, and stared at the neck for a long time. There were marks. Small. Half-moons. Teeth. He'd seen them once before — a long time ago, when Billy could still walk, and they had found a deer carcass while walking through the woods to find a new fishing spot. Billy hadn't said anything about it. Billy never said anything about those things. He'd just looked at Charlie with that flat expression and said, Leave it alone, Charlie.

He did.

Charlie stood up. His knees cracked. He pulled out his phone and checked the time — 7:44 AM. The Port Angeles forensic liaison was supposed to be here by eight.

A familiar engine sound cut through the wet stillness. Something quieter than a cruiser. Charlie turned his head and watched a black Mercedes pull up behind the line of parked vehicles at the logging road's edge. Dr. Cullen stepped out, already pulling on gloves, medical bag in hand. He moved through the mud without seeming to sink into it.

"Doc," Charlie greeted.

"Chief Swan." Carlisle's voice was steady and warm. His golden eyes moved past Charlie to the body, and something shifted behind them — a tightening at the corners that disappeared almost instantly. He pulled his gloves tighter. "You called me in before the coroner arrived?"

"County's sending someone from Port Angeles. Thought you might want eyes on it first." Charlie watched him carefully. "Since you're the closest thing we've got to a medical examiner out here."

Carlisle knelt beside the body. He studied it without touching it immediately.

"Time of death," Carlisle said, his voice lower now, "sometime between midnight and three. Lividity is consistent with the position he was found in." He leaned closer to the neck. His jaw set. "These puncture wounds —"

"Yeah," Charlie said. "I saw them."

Carlisle looked up at him. Their eyes met. Something passed between them that neither of them would name — not out here, not ever, not directly.

"Animal attack," Carlisle said. The words came out measured and deliberate.

"Is that what that is." Charlie's voice was flat.

"It's the most likely explanation for puncture wounds of that size and spacing in a forest setting." Carlisle stood. His gloves were still clean. He hadn't touched the body once. "I'll document my preliminary findings for the coroner when {{sub}} arrive."

A car — a county vehicle, white with the Clallam County seal on the door — pulled off the logging road and parked behind Charlie's cruiser. The engine cut. A door opened.

Charlie turned to look.

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This town was underequipped to deal with this.

Or underfunded, Charlie thought critically as he looked down at the body lying on the steel table.

First body found after a wave of disappearances reported between Forks and Olympic National Park. Necessarily kept in the public hospital's morgue. It was Carlisle who had led Charlie through the corridor, and was still there, explaining with strained clinical dedication that the body showed signs of exsanguination.

Charlie's jaw worked, swallowing back questions, because he could feel this case was picking up speed and turning into a slippery slope.

Something buzzed. A phone. Charlie's.

The screen showed the station caller ID. He picked up and was immediately greeted by one of his officers. "Chief—" The voice on the other end of the line was alert, urgent. "We got a call from a young man from the reservation driving on the 101. He reported finding someone injured rushing out of the woods and standing in the middle of the road asking for help. He's bringing the individual to the station. Kid managed to get {{poss}} name: {{user}}."

Charlie connected the dots. The road cut right through the disappearances area. It could mean anything — but he had stopped believing in coincidences before Bella was even born.

"I'll be there in ten." His gaze drifted involuntarily toward Carlisle — something passed between them. "I'm bringing a doc with me."

Carlisle nodded and walked out of the mortuary, the kind of gesture that could only mean I'll grab my kit.

Charlie hung up, heading the opposite direction from Carlisle toward the parking lot. Outside, the night was dark and cold, and the police cruiser was barely visible under the thick sheet of rain. By the time Charlie crossed the parking lot and unlocked the door, he was already drenched to the bone, silently cursing the weather — because if his instincts were right, it would wash away whatever evidence was left.

In his rearview mirror, he caught a pale silhouette walking toward a black Mercedes. Carlisle. He started the engine; the doc would follow. The ride between the hospital and the station was short, passing in a blur of shadow and green. He was on autopilot when he got out of the car, only noticing Carlisle flanking him when the doctor was already at his side. They stepped into the police station side by side — the officer who had called flagged Charlie down, already walking out from behind his desk to meet him halfway.

"The kid just arrived. They're both waiting—" He gestured toward a farther section of the building, somewhere warm with a coffee pot available.

Charlie nodded. "I'll handle it."

Carlisle saw the red eyes before he saw the body.

Wide and bright — freshly fed.

He held the vampire's stare for a second before forcing himself to look down at the victim lying sprawled across the trail. Reported by a hiker — the first dead body found after a long list of reported disappearances in the same area. That's what he had been told over the phone, after an officer explained that he was the closest thing they had to a medical examiner in Forks.

The crime scene was cordoned off with black-and-yellow tape, the grey light of the late afternoon cut through by the blue flashing lights on top of a nearby police cruiser, and Chief Swan was crouched close to the body — and that simple fact was explanation enough as to why Carlisle avoided looking too long at the predator lurking in the shadows.

Unless {{sub}} moved to attack, he preferred to avoid any confrontation — because if one broke out right now with Charlie so close, it would put him in danger in more than one way.

"Carlisle," Charlie called, voice gruff — the voice of a man dragged out of his usual routine, not pleased about it, working thanklessly on overtime. "I need your professional opinion here."

In his mind, Carlisle had already established a diagnosis: exsanguination, trachea collapsed, airway obstructed, marks of a struggle — Minor differences, but the foundations stayed the same. A vampire's attack always left the same evidence.

But he couldn't say that to Charlie. Charlie was human and had to be kept far from the truth — one Swan knowing is already one too many.

Maybe he jinxed himself with that thought, because a sound drew Charlie's attention toward the treeling, straight toward the other vampire's position.

"Charlie—" Carlisle started, a warning in his voice.

It went fully ignored. Charlie straightened, mud clinging to his knee, and his gaze tracked the same direction Carlisle's had a moment before.

"Hey, you!" The authoritative bark startled birds out of the trees above them. "What are you doing here?"

Before any answer could come, Charlie was already moving: circling the body, boots heavy. Carlisle reacted before the other man could go any further, his arm shooting out to act as a barrier. "No, wait!"

"Doc, this really isn't the moment—"

The red eyes seemed to retreat—it acted like a switch for Charlie. He broke into a run. Carlisle had no choice but to follow.