by Unknown
He stepped in front of the stump, blocking it from view.
I watched as his dark eyes. They were not black, but there was definitely something dark behind them.
I skirted down farther into Shane to avoid detection. I suspected that Cutter’s demon might have been like me, a killer of killers. In that case it might be better to avoid him. Even great hunters return some of their catches back into the wild.
I was not yet convinced that Cutter deserved to be put down.
“I am now a part of the Woodsman investigation. He has transcended the jurisdiction of local law enforcement. This victim is from D.C. So it’s all hands on deck.
“For the moment, this case is still being investigated here by NYPD.
“I am here on an advisory position. But I believe that my team will be taking over in the next day or so.
“I’ve chased a lot of killers over the years, Shane. And I know them. This guy is one for the books. As of now we only know of three homicides that he is responsible for, but I suspect that it will turn out that he has killed more,” Cutter said.
He pulled out his Smartphone and began scrolling through it as he spoke.
Shane began to respond, but Cutter put his hand up fast, signaling Shane to remain silent and just listen.
“Jessica Long was a college student at Georgetown. She lived in D.C. like you. But her body was displayed here in New York, where you now live.
“Her roommate says that she was dating some prominent older man. They surmised that he was thirty years old. He had money. They think that he was a doctor, investor, or…lawyer,” Cutter said. His dark demon showed its teeth behind his eyes. I saw it. I wasn’t cowering, but hiding like a snake studying the approaching prey. The deadliest vipers won’t attack another predator unless provoked. I waited for provocation.
“Look at what this monster did to her,” Cutter said. He pushed his phone into Shane’s face. The swiftness of his action almost forced me to the surface out of reflex, but I resisted.
Shane looked in dismay at the image on the screen.
Another image followed; Cutter had the photos set up as a slideshow.
Jessica’s skin was completely replaced with wood. The Woodsman had amputated her legs from just below her pelvis. The stumps of her legs were wielded into elaborate metal planks onto the top of the tree stump. The tree stump became a part of her stumps.
Her arms were outstretched, held out by metal extensions that were attached to the poles.
It amazed me. The Woodsman had created art. Townsend Dry used to create works of art. The connections were significant, but borderline circumstantial.
Another picture flashed on the phone. I recognized Jessica’s position. The way that the Woodsman had posed her was exactly like one of Townsend’s sculptures at Cornell.
Townsend Dry had to be the Woodsman.
“One could even say that you fit the profile of the Woodsman. But don’t worry; I know where you were the night of the first murders, so you’re not on my radar,” Cutter said.
“Agent Cutter, why are we meeting here like this? Are you trying to intimidate me with these photos? I have met serial killers face to face. And I am not intimidated by you,” Shane responded.
Cutter leapt to a defensive position right in front of Shane. His eyes interlocked with ours.
“Watch it, slasher! I could open an investigation on you and your missing clients. How would you like that?
“Remember that we had an arrangement. You’re supposed to deliver information to me about the partners in your firm. The FBI thinks something has been going on. I suspect that if we dig enough we’ll find mountains of dirt on them.
“Now you have not checked in once with me since you have been in New York. I had the MPD back off from investigating you in exchange for your cooperation in securing information about the partners in your firm.
“I am here to collect. So what do you have for me?” Cutter asked. He backed away and scratched the back of his head. Cutter’s blond hair was cropped short.
“Agent Cutter,” Shane responded, his expression turned to one of severe agitation as I waded just beneath his outer surface. “I’m not your errand boy; I’m not your informant.
“I am, however, a lawyer and right now I am the acting director of an international law firm that has connections in the highest corridors of power.”
Shane’s eyes turned black as Cutter looked away for a short moment.
Then I said, “You don’t threaten me! You don’t scare me!”
I kept my back to Cutter, but I felt his eyes flare and stare coldly into me.
I turned back into Shane, who said, “Next time you want to speak to me, schedule an appointment. If we are done here, I have a multimillion-dollar law firm to run. Why don’t you go back to playing cops and serial killers?”
Shane glanced back only long enough for his eyes to meet Cutter’s cold gaze, and then he walked away from the agent, leaving him to stare at Shane’s back.
Agent Cutter needed a much closer examination. For now I had the Woodsman to look into, to hunt, to enjoy.
I needed to go back over and memorize the photos that Shane had taken of Townsend’s sculptures. I had a feeling that we would be seeing another macabre still-life murder, and soon unless I stopped him.
I realized that I was filling the role of protector more and more. The thought of saving the regular people from the clutches of other serial killers grew on me more and more.
3
Carved Up
“I opened her breast and with a knife cut through the fleshy parts of the body. Then I arranged the body as a butcher does beef, and hacked it with the axe into pieces. I may say that while opening the body, I was so greedy that I trembled and could have cut out a piece and eaten it.”
–– Andreas Bichel, Bavarian Ripper
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The inside of Shane’s skull needed some reorganizing. I shuffled around memories that he didn’t need quick access to anymore, archiving them. Most of them were memories of happier times, as a child or away at summer camps or even law school. I never threw them away completely, only tucked them away deep into the filing cabinets of Shane’s subconscious.
I needed him in top form. We faced several threats: the Woodsman, Cutter, and possibly the FBI.
I couldn’t afford Shane faltering in any way. His anxieties, his guilt, and his sudden sense of morals had remained dormant for the last several months. I needed things to stay that way.
So far we had learned a lot about Townsend Dry, but little about the Woodsman. I was sure that Townsend was the Woodsman, but many of the details were still unclear to me. Why did the Woodsman perform his sick ritual? How did he choose his victims? Why date them? Why not just abduct them?
Amateur hunters shoot any animal that crosses their sights. Being excited to simply nab a kill, they disregard the joy of the kill and pull the trigger. Professional hunters kill for sport, usually avoiding the young, the sick, and the pregnant. They kill for trophies. Survivalists hunt for food. They kill only what they need and spare the rest.
Big game hunters only kill the most dangerous wildlife. They hunt the biggest predators, the deadliest opponents. They hunt the same way one plays chess. Every move counts. Every move is calculated.
The thrill of the hunt was a part of my ritual.
It was dangerous to underestimate a demon like the Woodsman. If I’d learned anything from the StoneCutter, it was to always assume that my prey was setting a trap of his own.
I wanted to learn more about the Woodsman before we sprung our trap. I couldn’t stalk a killer like him. He would see me coming from a mile away. No. The best way to study him was to watch his next victim. I suspected that the vivacious Detective Parks was next on his list. Why else would he be dating her?
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Today, Shane would follow the detective around, stalking her. He would use her to get to Townsend, to lure him out.
Her day went like this: She wo
ke up early, jogged up and down the streets near her apartment, listened to her iPod, stopped for a coffee, and walked back to her apartment.
After about another hour, she came down the stairs and walked to a little newsstand down the street. It was time for us to make a move.
Shane carried his briefcase and walked up next to her. He cleared his throat to get her attention.
She turned around and looked at him.
“Mr. Lasher,” she said.
“Hi,” Shane said.
“What are you doing in my neighborhood?” she asked.
“Do you live nearby?”
“Yeah, I live right over there,” she said, pointing at her street.
“Huh. I’m here meeting with a new client who hasn’t shown up. So I was just going to buy a newspaper and find a place to sit and read until he calls,” Shane said.
“How long are you gonna wait?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Not long,” he replied. “Where are you going?”
“I’m on my way into the station. We need some leads on the Woodsman.”
“So are you heading up the investigation?”
“I’m not. In fact, the FBI has stepped in already. So far they haven’t pulled it from us, but they will,” she said.
Then she paused and said, “I shouldn’t have told you that. I’m not supposed to talk about the investigation. And you already know this.”
“I do. I’ve known my fair share of cops,” Shane said.
“Your client has stood you up. So you might as well walk me down to the subway,” she said.
Shane nodded and asked, “How’s it going with Townsend?”
“It’s good. I really like him. He’s more upscale than most of the guys I get involved with. He’s like from another world. You know what I mean,” she said. The excitement in her voice was painfully obvious. It hurt Shane’s feelings a little. He liked her.
From his point of view, what was not to like? She was beautiful. She was young to be a homicide detective, so she had to be smart. She seemed smart.
And Sun Good would be jealous. Shane liked that part.
“I don’t understand,” Shane said, sarcastically. But she didn’t pick up on it. Maybe she wasn’t that smart.
“He’s like you. He’s upper class. He’s from a good family, went to a good school. You know all of that high society shit. He’s not from my side of town. He’s not full of bullshit like all of the guys I meet day in and day out,” she said.
“Yeah. I was being sarcastic,” he replied.
“I know. I was acting stupid. Don’t you spoiled types like that in a woman?”
Guess she was smart.
“Ha ha. No. I like smart women.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that you do,” she said. Then she shot him a smile that would outshine a diamond.
She had a bit of a seductress thing going on.
Shane smiled back.
“There’s the subway stop. I’ve got to head in. It was nice running into you,” she said. She started to hug Shane, but stopped halfway and came at him with a hearty handshake instead.
She started to walk off. Shane called after her, “Hey!”
She spun around.
“Yeah,” she said.
“What are you doing tonight? Do you want to grab a drink or something?” he asked.
She smiled and paused for a moment. She looked up into the sky as if the right thing to say would fly overhead, attached to a plane on one of those sky messages.
“I’m seeing Townsend tonight,” she finally responded.
“Where? We can double. I’ll bring my girlfriend,” Shane said.
I shook my scaly head. We had no girlfriend and she knew it.
“You have a girlfriend? And you were just hitting on me?” she asked.
“You caught me. But I wasn’t hitting on you. I’m flirting with you to get information on the Woodsman. Professional curiosity.”
“Interested? Why?” she responded.
Then she said, “There is no suspect for you to defend yet.”
“It’s because I’m fascinated by you. Besides, you know my reputation. I like serial killers,” he said. Then he realized how creepy that sounded.
So he said, “I meant that you’re right. This Woodsman, whenever you catch him, will need a good defender.”
“Shameless. Are you sure that you’re not just saying that so you can get closer to me? I studied up on you after our first meeting. You have a reputation of being a womanizer.”
“No, my womanizing days are done. Although you do kind of bring out my primal urges.”
“You’re bad,” she said.
You have no idea, I thought. I hoped that Shane’s impromptu ploy had worked. Otherwise we would be stalking her and Townsend on their date tonight.
It could play out like a literal third wheel.
Sandy thought for a second, then smiled at Shane again.
“You still have my card, right?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“My cell is on there. Text me this afternoon. We’ll meet tonight for dinner, the four of us. And you’d better have a ‘girlfriend.’ I really like Townsend. I don’t want him to think that I invited you because I secretly want you.”
“Got it, but I don’t think that it’s much of a secret that you want me. I think that’s fairly obvious,” he said.
She smirked, turned, and entered the subway.
Some jokes never worked, but Shane insisted on not thinking first and speaking later. I had seen that trait in a lot of normal men, so I guessed that it went well with our camouflage.
Shane watched as the vivacious detective vanished into the darkness below the street.
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In a high-ceilinged, darkened loft, the Woodsman was busy. He crafted and I watched from Shane’s head.
This vision began as a bird’s-eye view like an out-of-body experience. Then my view zoomed in and stopped at a side angle.
The Woodsman sat on a stool, inches from a metal worktable. He wielded metal pieces together, creating some new type of contraption.
I hissed, thinking about how perverse he was.
The Woodsman’s face remained obscured from me. This happened whenever my target was a powerful specimen. He would make a fine trophy. I desired to have his blood on my hands.
Not seeing his face made no difference. I was sure that it was Townsend.
The Woodsman suddenly stopped what he was doing. He looked over his shoulder as if he sensed that I watched him. He paused for a moment and then studied the large room behind him. I turned and looked as well.
The room was his lair. I could see odd shapes stacked all over the space. There were long metal rods fused together in strange ways. I saw cables and wires hanging from the ceiling. In one corner of the loft was an enormous stack of coiled chains.
Broken pieces of wood had been piled up in one of the corners.
Mannequin limbs hung on the walls like stuffed animal heads in a hunter’s trophy room.
And then there was the liquid wood. It churned and boiled in a large pot over a grate in the floor. Beneath the grate was a roaring gas fire.
The Woodsman had an impressive setup. The whole scene was like an industrial-style dungeon. It was like something from a Freddy Krueger movie.
The loft was enormous. It must have taken up an entire floor of whatever building it was in.
I didn’t see any weapons, but I imagined that the Woodsman had them stashed somewhere. Probably in a room against the far corner. The darkness was so thick around the edges of the lair that I couldn’t make out anything beyond the burning pot of liquid wood.
The Woodsman’s eyes glared around and then he returned to his preparation.
Tonight would be the night. He had worked on the Detective for long enough. She was his next target. Tonight he would have his way with her, or so he thought.
Tonight I would intervene and have my way with him. Tonight he would be a part o
f one of his own demented sculptures.
Again, I would be playing the part of a hero. Not my intention, but that was what I had become, some sort of antihero.
Shane’s eyes were closed. He rested peacefully on the sofa in his office. I let him rest. Like a pet viper, I coiled up inside of his brain and shut my eyes. It was time for both of us to regain our energy.