Ruben mumbled a thank you and set to fillet the obnoxious fish.
No one had said that Kent had to taste this dish, right?
“What are you making?” a woman, Mary, Kent believed her name was, from the station in front of them asked.
“Pasta from whores,” Kent answered, and Ruben poked him in the ribs, kind of like Nicole usually did.
“It is called puttanesca,” Ruben corrected, “It is usually a pasta made with all of your leftovers.”
“Ah, then,” Mary said with a perfect smile. “Here is some of our sausage. I guess I got the amounts confused, and we have enough to feed a horse.”
Ruben took the sausage and went to work on it to cut it up for the sauce.
Kent went around his cooking station, since Ruben was all over their food, and joined the couple in front of them. “So what have we got doing on here?”
Mary smiled apologetically, while her husband, Tyler, tried to pretend he wasn’t here at all. “Trying for sausage stir fry, but it isn’t going quite so well.”
Kent leaned over and turned up the heat on the wok. “You just need a higher temperature and less oil,” he explained.
He’d watched enough cooking shows late at night during stakeouts. Thank God for Hulu.
“Thanks,” Mary said
“So, Tyler, how is it going?”
Oh, that burn to the cheek. Kent lived for that.
“It is going fine, Kent.”
Was that somehow supposed to be a burn? The guy clearly needed some work on that.
Mary got between them. It looked like Tyler did this frequently. “So this weather, right?” she said with a forced chuckle.
Yes, the weather. Nice tack away from your idiot boyfriend’s behavior.
“Just let me know if I can do anything to help,” Kent offered, knowing it would burn Tyler more than a little bit.”
“Now, now,” super-duper cheerleader said coming from behind. “If I’m not careful, you’ll take over the class.”
“Oh, trust me, I have no intention of doing so,” Kent laughed that awkward social laugh you got when you didn’t know how to reply. He knew how to reply, but he had to maintain his “normalness” tonight.
So Kent went back to his cooking station, as Ruben brought the spoon up to his mouth.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Kent warned. His mind had been assimilating everything happening. The social norms, the outside the social norms, the “vibe” of the couples. He’d learned quite a lot in the last few minutes.
“A chef must taste his creation. It’s an integrity thing,” Ruben said with just the slightest jab at Kent’s character.
“Sure, go ahead,” Kent suggested.
* * *
Ruben was already through his first swallow when he realized that had been way too easy. “Why?”
Kent got that smirk. Ruben stood up straight, putting the wooden spoon down. “I asked, why?”
Kent shrugged. “Apparently I forgot to share some vital information.”
Ruben took in a deep breath. This was why he hated Kent so much. Kent forgot nothing. Whatever Kent “forgot” he meant to forget.
“What?”
“Um, well, the killer we are after is a cannibal. Did I mention that?”
“No,” Ruben hissed, the horror rolling over him. “No…”
Kent shrugged in that way that didn’t mean sympathy at all, but that he’d gotten one over on Ruben. “At the least you still have your integrity.”
Ruben looked down at the spoon with little dots of sausage floating in the sauce. “No.”
Kent again shrugged.
“No,” Ruben repeated. No, he had not just eaten another human. But from Kent’s smirk, that was exactly what he’d done. There was a lot Ruben should be doing. Pulling his gun. Arresting the couple in front of them. Calling for back-up. But instead he lurched for the nearest trash can.
* * *
Luckily, Kent didn’t have to pretend to comfort Ruben. They were past that point. He spun on his heels to the couple in front of them.
“Are you…Are you…” Mary sputtered.
“Suggesting that your sausage is filled with human flesh, yes.”
The couple turned an odd shade of gray and both hurled into the sink. So it wasn’t them. Kent seriously doubted if even the most expert sociopath could fake projectile vomiting like that.
Kent turned, surveying the room. The rest of the couples looked equally horrified. “Where’s the instructor?”
Most of the crowd seemed mortified into stone. Except the potbellied guy. He actually seemed a little turned on. Maybe Kent had been wrong about him. Kent would have Joshua do a little research on the guy once all of this was taken care of.
“Instructor!” Kent demanded.
The guy finally took his eyes off of Ruben. “She went into the back.”
Of course she did. Kent scanned the room again. There was one person missing. Pudgy’s wife.
“Where’s your wife?” Kent asked.
“I…I don’t know.”
Well, Kent had a fair idea.
Rushing past the still-heaving Ruben, Kent made his way to the back of the studio and entered an “Employee Only” door. He thought the management would forgive him.
“Here, sociopath, here,” Kent sang out. He liked to out creep the serial killers.
There were lots of storage units and tables back here, but Kent made a beeline to the freezer unit. It just screamed sociopath hiding spot.
He wasn’t disappointed. Jerking open the door, there was the cooking coach with a nice long knife to the wife’s neck.
“Don’t come any closer,” the killer said, digging the blade into the woman’s soft neck. A line of red sprang up, as blood seeped out.
Oh, little baby serial killers. They were so cute. Thinking they could get past Kent.
The cooking instructor did not yet realize that Kent was the boogeyman of serial killers.
He was their Kryptonite.
Time to go through the motions, so that the victim could say he tried everything before he killed the killer. “Put the knife down. No one needs to die tonight.”
Total lie, but did Miss Cheerleader believe him?
The instructor chuckled. “That doesn’t seem very likely now does it?”
No, no it didn’t.
“Why?” Kent asked, just because he liked to listen to serial killers self-pontificate. Plus, it gave him a chance to ever so carefully creep forward and narrow the distance.
“Why not?” the instructor sneered. “How did you know?”
“Well, besides the fact you aren’t a woman?” Kent stated.
Okay, that got a rise out of the Cheerleader. “How dare you.”
“That neck scarf was a nice touch, but there are other indicators of gender. Your shoulders are too wide. Your hips too narrow.”
“You are good,” the instructor hissed.
Oh, how little she knew.
“Now get out of my way. You know I have the physical strength to do this,” Miss Cheerleader stated.
That was true, however Kent didn’t move a muscle. Hadn’t already narrowed the distance a good foot without the instructor noticing. He was almost in striking distance.
“Cannibals. There is usually a very specific pathology.”
“Oh really?” the instructor responded, seemingly truly interested in the answer. She had probably been wondering for a quite a while why she craved human flesh.
Kent could use this to his advantage, so why not a give a mini-seminar in cannibalism?
“The first reason that most become cannibals is to keep the dead one inside of them forever. To have those lost become their own flesh,” Kent explained. “Clearly that isn’t your gig.”
“No, most definitely not,” the instructor responded.
“The second is sexual gratification,” Kent explained. “Eating is the second most sensual act a person can do, so you can see how that works.”
“Again,
not me. I thought you said you knew my pathology,” the instructor demanded.
“Oh, I do,” Kent said, taking a full step forward. Miss Cheerleader was too intrigued to object. If anything, she now wanted Kent closer.
“You are the third most common,” Kent stated.
“Common?” the instructor queried.
Kent smiled. “You would be surprised. It is grossly under-reported, but there are hundreds in the US alone. Quadruple that worldwide.”
“So I am not alone?”
“Not nearly,” Kent replied. The serial killer veneer was falling away. The vulnerable Cheerleader was slowly being exposed. The soft underbelly of the murderer. The delicate side that created the monster. “You are a power ingester.”
“Power ingester?”
Kent nodded. “You were victimized, young, repeatedly, mercilessly. Am I right?”
The instructor only nodded, tears brimming on those fake eyelashes.
“So you felt powerless. My guess is your first kill was self-defense.” Again the nod. “Maybe a bit of flesh got into your mouth during the fight. Certainly blood did. In that moment of absolute panic and elation, you took your first bite. You felt powerful not just killing your abuser, but eating him was the ultimate transfer of power to you.”
Kent watched as the emotions rolled over the killer. He waited for exactly the right moment and lunged. He didn’t go for the knife. Anything he did there would only push it deeper into the woman’s neck.
No, he went for the elbow. He slammed into the killer’s elbow. Just like physics predicted, the knife flew forward, away from the victim’s flesh, and clattered on the cold floor.
Grabbing the woman’s wrist, he pulled her away from the killer. “Go!”
He didn’t have to tell the wife twice. She ran from the cooler. She must have bumped the door because it sprang back and latched itself. A problem that Kent would tackle after he took care of this killer.
However, unlike most serial killers, this one didn’t stand arrogant before him. Madness didn’t spark in her eyes. Instead she was crying. The killer sank to the frosty floor, hugging herself.
In this moment Kent could see the victim that she used to be. Her similarities to Dalia were too obvious to miss. Could Dalia have devolved to this place if Kent hadn’t intervened?
He steeled himself for what must come. No matter who the instructor had been before, she was now a killer and that would never change. She was a danger. Although she didn’t look like one right now.
The killer didn’t try to stop Kent from picking up the knife. She didn’t stop him as he stood over her.
“Come on, you’ve got to at least fight me,” Kent complained.
But Miss Less Than Cheery Cheerleader put her forehead against her knees and sobbed.
This was not how this was supposed to go. Maybe all those other dead serial killers weren’t technically self-defense in the end, but they had begun that way.
Not even Kent could summon up the outrage to bring the knife down. Someone else had created this killer. Had tainted her into the killer she’d become.
Still, she wouldn’t stop and could build a cult, and they’d seen exactly how well that had turned out in their last case.
Thankfully the cooler door jerked open.
Nicole. Her gun up. “Kent, I swear to God, I will shoot you if you don’t drop that knife.”
Sometimes the universe was generous. He was going to get props for doing exactly what he wanted to do anyway.
Kent backed away from the instructor and dropped the knife. It bounced to Nicole’s boots. She looked shocked that he had obeyed her order. Maybe he should have put up a little more objection.
“Her lucky day,” Kent said as he walked past Nicole to find a dozen policemen filling the studio. He headed for the back door. He hadn’t killed anyone, so no idiotic debriefing. No shots fired, so no shooting panel.
The cool air of the evening hit him in the face.
Tonight was a good night. For the first time in a long while, Kent was actually glad to have not killed a person.
Yep, tonight was a great night.
* * *
Nicole came up alongside Kent. “So, are you ready?”
Kent’s eyebrow went up. She could imagine he expected her to say a great many things, but not tonight.
“For date night?”
Then her husband’s eyebrow really went up.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Why would I be?” Nicole responded. “It has been too long. I’m even up for a sports bar.”
Kent put his elbow out. Nicole slid her arm through it, as EMTs rushed into the cooking studio. The world was filled with strobing red and blue lights.
“Now, for our first date night since Logan,” Kent said. “We are going to that new Ethiopian place you’ve been wanting to try.”
Nicole’s stomach lurched. She’d seen too much of the night on the big screen, thanks to Joshua. She wasn’t quite sure when she could eat meat again. Certainly not for a while.
“How about that salad place?”
Kent scanned her face and seemed to get it. “Sure. Salad it is. Good call.”
Nicole smiled as they walked to the Mustang. She’d parked in the back. She’d learned not to get stuck in the police car maze that usually happened out front.
“So, who is watching Logan?” Kent asked.
“Joshua.”
Kent spun around facing her. “Joshua? Our Joshua or did you get a ‘manny?’”
“No, our Joshua.”
Kent shook his head but with a grin. “You do realize all he is going to do is watch Guardians of the Galaxy on a loop, right?”
Nicole chuckled. “I put the DVD in for him before I left.”
“Good enough then,” Kent said, parting from her to go on the other side of the car. “Time to get our life back.
Nicole couldn’t agree more.
BONUS MATERIAL
If you would prefer to skip the bonus material and go straight to the Afterword, just click here
DEVIOUS – The prequel short story to 9th Circle
PROLOGUE
The sun had set long, long ago.
The streets of Seattle became a very different place when it was dark. Let’s be honest, even during the day, things had a tendency to be a bit bleak in the Pacific Northwest. But after dark, things got downright creepy.
A light drizzle, nothing more than a clear late summer night for anyone who had grown up here, weighed down Abby’s bleach-blonde hair. She had not grown up here. For her, this much precipitation was the rough equivalent of a downpour. Phoenix, Arizona wasn’t known for its abundant annual rainfall.
How she had ended up here she knew very well, but couldn’t believe to this day. A guy. It was always a guy, wasn’t it? A boy and his band, wanting to test the waters in a bigger city, but without the balls to head to Vegas or L.A. She should’ve known then.
Now, a year and a half later, the band had broken up, and the boyfriend had headed out somewhere for parts unknown. And Abby? Abby was stuck in a lease with a job that paid just well enough that she didn’t want to leave it, but not well enough for her to ever really get ahead.
Tonight was the first night she had gone out on her own since the breakup three months ago. She’d grabbed a couple of the girls from work and jetted down to the Foundation Nightclub, a local hotspot just a couple of blocks away from Pike Place Market.
It was a little touristy, sure, but Abby was still new enough to Seattle that being a tourist was okay by her. The drinks were expensive, but she didn’t normally have to worry too much about that. And the guys there were a bit more upscale than her grungy ex.
But after both of her friends had gotten picked up and it had started getting late, Abby had decided to head home. Drinking alone in a bar just felt way too pathetic.
The problem with that? Abby couldn’t remember where she had parked. Maybe that last cosmopolitan had been a bad idea. She would’ve hailed
a cab and come back for her VW bug tomorrow, but in looking for the parking lot where she’d left it, she’d entered into some much narrower streets that were pretty quiet, even for this area. There wasn’t a cab anywhere in sight.
She pulled off her heels, feeling the wet cool of the sidewalk soothe her aching feet. Going out on a Friday after work always sounded like such a great idea, but man, was she beat. Next time she planned an outing with the girls, it would be on a Saturday. And the girls would be ones who wouldn’t abandon her at the first sign of a smile from a cute guy.
Whatever. She was over it.
Now that the clatter of her own heels wasn’t ringing in her ears, Abby could’ve sworn she heard something. She stopped for a moment, but whatever it was had dissipated into the surrounding mist.
How many times had she thought she was being followed late at night, only to realize it was her over-active imagination? Abby chuckled to herself and started walking again. Time to fish her phone out of the bag she called her purse and figure out where the hell she was.
Rummaging through the accumulated crap of at least three years—once Abby found a purse she liked, she used it until it disintegrated—she finally got her fingers around her smartphone and swiped down the screen to wake it up.
No reception. Sonofa…if she hadn’t signed a two-year contract with this idiotic company before moving out here, she would’ve ditched them a long time ago. There were more holes in her coverage here than in a fine piece of Swiss cheese.
Glancing around, Abby looked for any street sign that might look even remotely familiar. As she spun around in a circle, she saw a dark blur move into the shadows cast by a building that blocked the hazy light from a nearby streetlamp. Was that the direction from which she had heard that sound earlier? Hard to tell in the dark, with all the drizzle.
She was being ridiculous. It was just some person, or maybe even a stray animal trying to hug the sides of the businesses to take advantage of their canopies to keep the moisture off. No one was following her. Of course not.
But somehow, as she started walking again, her steps were more purposeful, more rapid, less likely to veer to one side or another. That wasn’t being paranoid. She was just tired of being stuck out in the rain. Time to get home.
2nd Cycle of the Harbinger Series: The continuation of the #1 Hard-boiled/Police Procedural smash Plain Jane Page 36