Copycat Killer

by Hermione Stark

  Storm fires an accusing look at Remi, who opens her eyes wide in a mock innocent manner and shrugs her shoulders. As if she didn’t full well know that Diana worked here.

  “What are you up to?” he growls at Remi.

  “Nothing,” she exclaims. “Fancy seeing you here, Diana! It’s nice to bump into her again, isn’t it boss?”

  “The hell it is,” says Storm through gritted teeth.

  Diana returns to his side and coos. “Don’t be like that, boss man. I know you’re happy to see me.” She traces the outline of his bruised eye with a finger. “Poor baby, what happened here?”

  “You know exactly what happened there,” Storm growls.

  She makes a sound of startled exclamation. “Was that me? Oops! I would never have meant to spoil such a pretty face. Naughty Diana.” She slaps her own wrist.

  “What are you two talking about?” says Remi, looking from Storm to Diana and then back again.

  “Didn’t he tell you?” exclaims Diana with scandalized delight.

  “Tell us what?”

  Diana opens her eyes wide and bats her lashes. “Earlier today I happened to be passing by and found Raif Silverstone’s office door unlocked! It was practically inviting me in, and who was I to say no? So I popped in for a little look-see, and who should come by but this big handsome brute of a fellow,” — she pats Storm’s shoulders — “with little miss munchkin Beatrice Grictor prancing along in his wake.”

  Remi lets out a muffled giggle.

  “I mean, the woman was practically slavering,” Diana continues. “I thought I’d give them a bit of privacy by cramping myself beneath a desk, but then a little monster startled me, and out I popped! I gave Agent Storm here the shock of his life. I could tell I was intruding, so naturally I had to run away. I might have bumped into his face on my way out.”

  “What?” says Monroe, clearly struggling to wrap his head around this unlikely tale.

  “Well how could I resist?” says Diana. “Agent Storm’s face is so manly and bumpable after all.”

  “A monster?” says Leo.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She waves her hands airily. “Maybe it was a spider.”

  Storm glowers at her and she merely giggles. She perches on the edge of the table next to him and she bends close. For a moment Storm thinks she is about to kiss him and he moves back an inch, but then she merely tightens his loose tie.

  “I do love a beast in a smart suit,” she says. “It makes you look so very civilized.”

  She smiles when his eyes narrow, and whispers in his ear too quietly for the others to hear. “Let’s not pretend. I know a caged beast when I see one.” She flips his tie over his shoulder.

  It is like the whole thing is a show. He has no idea what she thinks she is doing. He had thought she’d be apologetic when she next saw him. Not this… whatever it is. He feels an edge of dislike he has never felt for Diana before. If Leo hadn’t verified her alibi, he might even be having second thoughts about her involvement.

  “Diana,” he says in a warning voice.

  “Diana-Shmiana,” she says. She struts around the table until she reaches Monroe.

  “Who’s this handsome young fellow?” she says, ducking down to his face level to take a close look. She tickles his chin, making Monroe blush. “My, aren’t you every teenage girl’s dream?”

  She rubs his shoulder and says. “Mmm. Nice.” She runs her hands sensually through his short brown hair, seeming to enjoy the feeling of the bristly ends against her palm. Monroe’s face gets redder and redder.

  Remi glowers at Diana, and Diana notices. Her eyes open wide. “Oh, excuse me!” she exclaims. “Are you two…?” She makes a crude gesture with her hands.

  “Diana, that’s enough!” Storm snaps. He grabs her by the wrist, tugging her firmly in the direction of the exit.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!” she gripes.

  As Storm pulls her out of the restaurant she spots a bunch of young people across the road. She waves at them to catch their attention. She blows a kiss to one of the young men in the group.

  “You,” she says. “Yes you. We’ve got a table inside for you, darling. Bring your friends if you want.” She winks at him.

  Inside Luca’s restaurant the customers are attentively watching the little scene. Storm hurries Diana away from the window. When she tries to yank away from him, he pushes her firmly against a wall.

  She laughs. “Ooh, is that how you like it?” she says. She grabs his tie and uses it to pull him closer. He tugs it away.

  He can feel his cheeks getting red with angry heat. His breathing is harsh. “What the hell has gotten into you?” he demands.

  “Oh baby, nothing yet,” she croons. “But we can change that if you like?”

  Storm swallows hard and takes a step back from her. “You’re not acting like yourself.” His eyes drop to her clothes.

  She sees it and she preens. “You like it? The punters have been practically throwing their tips at me. Had to come in tonight you see. Diana doesn’t like to let Luca down.”

  “Does your boss make you wear that?” he demands.

  “What do you care? I can wear what I like. I can do what I like. I don’t work for you any more, big shot Mr Agent Storm.”

  “Is that what this is about?” he asks harshly. “You’re angry with me? I’ve explained to you why! I didn't want to fire you. It’s for your own good.”

  “You don't decide what is for my own good. I decide. And if you don’t like it, you can push off. Like everybody else.” Her voice breaks a little at those final words, and Storm’s heart clenches.

  “Diana,” he says softly. “You need help. You need to talk to someone about what you’re going through. You can’t brush your grief under the carpet and hope it goes away.”

  “This has nothing to do with grief!” she snaps. “What would you know about it? I want my goddamn job back, and I am going to get it. I’m beating you. You're going down the wrong rabbit hole, Mr Hot Shot.”

  “I told you to stay out of this case.”

  “But why, baby? It does you no good. You would be looking at little Mrs Sweetie-Pie, Beatrice Grictor, too if you weren’t so busy panting after her.”

  “I’m not panting—”

  He cuts himself off abruptly, realizing it is doing either of them any good to get sucked into whatever game she is playing. “Beatrice Grictor has an airtight alibi.”

  “Puh-lease. I bet she crooked her sweet little finger and fifty panting air-tight alibis appeared, all of your gender.”

  “Just one,” he says coldly. “Griggori Vetruvin, the Otherworld Ambassador to London, if you must know. The Ambassador, Diana. It’s you who is disappearing down a rabbit hole. You’re not yourself. Are you on something?”

  She laughs. “Why would I be on something, baby? I’m high on life and the smell of victory.”

  “You should apologize to Beatrice. She’s the only reason we didn’t come to find you with an arrest warrant. She refused to press charges.”

  “Diana!” calls a voice, startling both of them.

  A portly middle-aged man standing in the restaurant doorway is looking their way. Storm realizes that he is towering over Diana in a menacing manner and takes another step away from her.

  “This guy bothering you, Diana?” the portly man asks.

  “Everything’s fine, Luca,” she says. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Luca gives Storm a grim and lingering look of warning before disappearing back inside the restaurant.

  Storm turns to Diana. “You’ve got a good thing going here, Diana. An employer who cares about you. I’m serious about you getting help. Do you really want to throw it all away? Trust me, I know how easily the slippery slope gets you. You’ll be at the bottom before you even know it.”

  To his frustration the expression on her face doesn't even change. “Don’t worry about me, baby,” she says. “I know how to get what I want.” Then she kisses him on the lips, hard.


  Chapter 14

  DIANA

  Pssst. Wakey wakey, sleepy head.

  I groan, feeling like my head has been hit with a truck.

  Daylight’s wasting, the little voice complains. We’ve got a wager to win.

  “Why do you even care? You didn’t care about me getting my agency job back.” Even the sound of my own voice hurts.

  I’ve changed my mind, she purrs. Nothing gets me going like a good challenge.

  “My head feels terrible. Did you make me drink last night? I can’t remember… stuff.”

  She laughs. I don’t need to get drunk to have a good time.

  “But I don’t feel good.”

  Then you shouldn’t have fought me so hard. If you’d just let me do what I wanted you would be waking up feeling pretty good about now.

  Fragments are coming back to me. I remember fighting with her last night. I remember serving a customer at the restaurant. I remember coming home and collapsing into bed with exhaustion.

  Beastie, who is curled up like a warm ball against my lower back, growls a little in her sleep, dissatisfied with my fidgeting.

  I try to remember more of yesterday. Things are fuzzy. What is clear is the memory of going to Beatrice Grictor’s house, of being cramped under the desk in Raif’s office and that horrible vision of fire burning in my mind.

  Except it hadn’t been a vision. Not exactly. It felt like something else. I had been filled with this horrible fear, like this thing was pushing at my mind, trying to see in. And I had screamed and screamed.

  And then… Then what?

  I groan, and sit up in bed to take a sip of water from the glass I keep beside the bed. The fear had come when I had touched that symbol on the paper. The little voice had forced me to drag my fingers away from it, causing the darkness and pain to subside.

  I had emerged panting and in shock, to find myself staring into the face of an utterly bewildered Beatrice Grictor who had given a pitiable little cry of astonishment. Behind her Storm had been rolling his eyes and muttering something no doubt unpleasant under his breath. He had looked more exasperated than furious. And then he had reached for me. And then…

  “You took over!” I say. “You took over and you made me run. You punched Storm in the face!”

  You’re damn right I did, she says smugly. He was about to arrest you.

  “No, he wasn’t. He already knew I was there and he didn’t say anything!”

  That changed the second you screeched like a banshee. If Beatrice Grictor had wanted you charged, that is what he would have done.

  I grunt in annoyance. She is probably right. He would have had to. And then my wager with the chief would have been over for sure.

  Admit it, she says. I saved your ass, and his too. Because if she thought you and he were there together — which she would have known the second you looked at him with your puppy dog eyes — she would have complained to the Agency. And kaput goes your precious job, and probably his too.

  I grimace. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

  I frown. I am getting a vague memory of Storm being mad at me in the restaurant last night. Had he been at the restaurant last night? Oh God. Yes he had been there, and the whole team too. And she had been inside my head making me say terrible things. And, oh God, the look on Remi’s face when I had teased her about the new guy. Forget tease, I had been downright rude.

  I bury my head in my hands in shame. Remi had been the only one trying to give me a proper chance in the team.

  “How could you do that to her?” I snarl.

  Oh please, even you have to admit it was fun, Miss Prissy Pants, she says, sounding amused. And anyway, those two clearly wanted to get into each other’s pants. I just brought it all out into the open so that they can move onto the next step.

  “You had no right to do that!”

  I didn’t hear you complaining when I helped you kiss Storm, she says slyly.

  The blood drains from my face. “Oh my God,” I whisper. She made me kiss Storm. She had yanked him down by his shirt and kissed him. I close my eyes in mortification. Storm hadn’t kissed me back.

  He didn’t push you away either, she says.

  That was because I had gathered my wits and snatched control away from the little voice. It had been me that had pulled away and marched back inside the restaurant before she jumped his bones. Thank God for that. At least I hadn’t given him a chance to reject me. Because I know he would have pushed me away. I know it for sure.

  I push aside my sheets and climb out of bed. In the mirror that is hanging over the back of my door I can see that I am still in last night’s clothes. I scrunch my eyes shut in dismay. It is not an outfit I would have picked. What must Luca have thought when I walked in wearing that?

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again,” I hiss. “Don’t you ever ever do that to me, or I swear—”

  Except I have nothing to threaten her with. Dr Carrington had diagnosed it as dissociative personality disorder. But he misjudged it. I’m not like normal people. I’m the Angel of Death. Not that I ever told him that, because then he would have thought I was crazy for sure. And so what if I made up a little voice in my head to turn to for support when life got too scary? She helped me deal with the loneliness of living with the Coltons. It’s no big deal. At some point I’ll unmake her, and that will be that.

  I can feel her moping inside my mind. Whatever, she says sulkily as she curls up into a little ball and proceeds to ignore me.

  I find the clothes that I had been wearing to Beatrice Grictor’s office dumped in the pile on the floor. I go through the pockets and to my relief I find in there the little envelope that had been hidden behind the photograph in Raif’s office. The photograph is there too, folded into quarters. At least the little voice had the sense to bring them with me. I probably would have dumped them as I ran.

  The wizard’s business card is still inside the little envelope. Theodore Grimshaw, Purveyor of Needs, has an address in Soho, which I imagine must be his business address. By the time I get there I have figured out in my head what I need to say to him. I figure that a wizardly purveyor of needs must be a canny sort who won’t be forthcoming with his information.

  Grimshaw’s turns out to be what looks like a rundown pawnshop, from the outside at least. The window is full of lots of old jewelry and watches and other bric-a-brac. I peek in the window, but I can’t see anyone inside. Not any customers, and not Theodore Grimshaw himself.

  I am just about to push the door open when my phone rings. I pull it out of my satchel. I grimace as the caller ID shows me that it is Smithers. I debate ignoring it, but then I change my mind.

  “Hi Eric,” I say, answering it.

  There is the tiniest momentary silence. Smithers is shocked. “It’s Mr Smithers to you,” he says.

  “Yeah, whatever, Eric. What do you want?”

  “Where are you?” he demands. “You didn’t turn up yesterday. You can’t turn up without calling in sick. Who do you think you are? I’ll make an exception for yesterday, but if you don’t turn up within the next ten minutes—”

  “You’ll what? I’ve already lost three shifts because of you. What exactly are you going to do to me now?”

  “I did no such thing! Three shifts? What are you talking about?”

  “One, you wouldn’t let me leave early for a funeral on Friday so I had to give all my money to Rosalie for the Friday shift. Two, you stole my Saturday shift and gave it to Rosalie. Three, because of you Rosalie forced me to give her my Wednesday shift at the Ambassador’s ball too. That’s three shifts. Can’t you count?”

  “Don’t you dare blame me for your problems!”

  “You’re the one that is causing my problems. You’ve lost me a lot of money by failing to notify me of the fraud incident. And how am I supposed to pay my rent and earn a decent living if you keep giving my shifts away? And then not even notifying me until I actually turn up to work is taking the cake. Now you know how it feels.
”

  “Don’t think I haven’t got your number, miss! Your girlfriend calls you and you’re so desperate to get into her pants that you make up some lie about a funeral? What funeral when you don’t even have a family? Rosalie was right about you. Every word out of your mouth is a lie. If you don’t get here within the next twenty minutes you’re fired, my girl!”

  “First, I’m not your girl. Second, how can I be fired when I’ve already resigned?” And then I hang up the phone.