by Hadena James
“Dr. Cain,” the mountain began to talk. His voice was not as deep as one expected. It did not reverberate through the body, shaking the lungs as the sound rung in your ears. It was a bit higher pitched than my mind had told me it would sound.
“We met in the hospital, I am US Marshal Lucas McMichaels and this is Marshal Xavier Reece. Do you remember us?” He continued.
“Vaguely,” I told him, honestly. “I remember you being there, I don’t remember what we talked about or anything.”
Nyleena came in and sat down with me. She had turned on lawyer mode. Her eyes were cold and unreadable. She would tell me what questions to answer and what ones to ignore.
“Yes, sorry about the circumstances,” Marshal Reece, bender-man, said. “We would have preferred to meet under different circumstances. Your essay a few years ago about torture used by the Catholic Church was fascinating.”
“I’m sorry, have I missed something?” I asked both of them.
“You really don’t remember why we are here,” McMichaels gave a sigh.
“You aren’t here to arrest me or question me about this attack?” I decided to go with blunt.
This got me a smile from both men and a stern look from Nyleena.
“No, ma’am,” McMichaels seemed to relax a little. “Unless there is something you’d like to confess. I mean, we know all about you and frankly…”
The large man spread his arms wide. I understood what he was getting at. I rolled my eyes.
“In the United States, one out of every two people will meet a serial killer in their life, of those, only about 2% of the 400 million people will ever be a victim. I have been picked by two serial killers and a serial rapist. The odds are astronomically against it being a coincidence.”
“They are, but then, most people don’t survive an attack at eight years old,” Reece grinned at me. “But this recent encounter with a serial rapist or your previous encounters with serial killers aren’t why we are here. They are just why we know you exist and might be an expert on them. We do know you’re an expert on torture and that is why we are here.”
“You want to torture someone using medieval means?” I frowned at them.
“No, we want your opinion on someone that does,” McMichaels pulled out a folder.
“Ms. Clachan,” he turned to Nyleena. “These photos are graphic.”
“Try being friends with my cousin and a prosecutor for the federal government,” Nyleena kept his gaze for a couple of seconds.
“All right,” McMichaels opened the folder.
Several photos were on top. I took hold of the photos carefully. For a moment, my mind didn’t make sense of the first image. Suddenly, it came into view, crystal clear. My stomach flopped. Nyleena gasped and looked away.
I was looking at people. They had been impaled on stakes, roughly fifteen foot tall. There were ten people total. Each had about a foot of the stake sticking out of their mouths.
In the foreground was the most disturbing part. There was a large, wooden table with chairs. Empty plates decorated the center of the table and one place setting was left. It had obviously been used.
I frowned harder. Nyleena excused herself from the room. I understood her need to run away. I wanted to run away. However, I recognized the scene.
“It is from a book,” I handed the folder back to him. “It is a drawing from an obscure book on torture; this particular scene is about the infamous Vlad Tepes or Dracula. It is said that he impaled all the peasants who owed him money and dined while they died. It could be an old wives’ tale or it could be real, Tepes was a cruel man brought up in cruel circumstances.”
I got up and went to my bookcase. I pulled out a book. It was bound in leather with tape along the spine. The language was German. I opened it to the page with the drawing and handed it to McMichaels.
“Very obscure, I found the book when I was young. It was in a garage sale that a neighbor from Germany had. He was a history professor at the University in my home town. I kept in touch with him until he died a few years ago. He taught me German.”
“What is it?” Reece asked.
“Literally, it means Book of Torture. It was written by a sociologist when the term didn’t exist. It explores the reasons behind torture and why it was accepted. However, this version hasn’t been in print for at least 70 years, possibly a hell of a lot longer. The Nazis banned it. I’m not even sure how many copies exist in the modern day. You can’t check it out from any library that I’ve ever been to. However, I’m sure that is not the only time that scene has been depicted. As I said earlier, it is a well-known story about Tepes. My only concern with that picture you have and the one in that book is the exact number of people. Your picture has ten, that drawing has ten. Every other one I’ve seen has lots or it has only a few.”
I sat back down, something nagging at the back of my brain. I waited for it to form. When it did, I cringed.
“I hate to ask, but the impaling, was it done properly?” I closed my eyes. It was not something I wanted to think about.
“Explain properly?”
“They are all female in the photo and the drawing. The other thing I find disturbing. However, in the book, it talks about Tepes impaling males through the anus and females through the vagina. Ropes were tied to their ankles; they were pulled down upon the stake. It was painful and not an immediate death. Once the impaling was started, they would stop and let gravity do the rest. Gravity would find the path of least resistance, hence the stake coming out the mouth. If they were impaled properly, they were put on the stake, alive, through the vagina, and pulled down until only about a foot to a foot and half of the stake had disappeared. Gravity would have done the rest.”
“Yes, it was done properly,” Reece masked his face.
“Why bring this to me?”
“You’re an expert on historic torture and you’ve survived two serial killers, which might make you an expert on them as well,” McMichaels told me. “This isn’t the first.”
“He’s impaled more people?” The thought was horrifying.
“No, we found a group of ten women stuffed into five Iron Maidens about three months ago. Six months ago, we found a group of ten women, drawn and quartered.”
My blood ran cold and my heart nearly stopped beating. I licked my lips and took the book back from Reece. I turned to the first drawing and handed it back to him.
“Your killer has a copy of this book,” I pointed to the first drawing. It contained the remains of ten women, tossed in a heap, all drawn and quartered.
“What on…” McMichaels took it from Reece.
“This book was written before sociology or psychology was a science, they were just philosophies. A few bright people tossing around ideas really, the author hired an artist to do the drawings in the book. One of the other members of his group noticed a disturbing pattern. All the drawings pictured women, ten of them to be exact. He also noticed that it appeared to be the same ten women in each picture. He got onto the local police. The local police got onto the artist and found the remains of ten women in his basement. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for cannibalism. The book was never printed again. In 1934, it was suggested that it be printed without the pictures, but the thought so repulsed the Nazi party, that they refused. They began collecting all the copies they could of it. They were among the first books burnt. To think of a German cannibal was too much even for Hitler. So they tried to erase him from the German histories. Did a pretty good job. You won’t find his paintings anywhere and there are very few surviving copies of this book. About ten years ago, it was reprinted finally, but without the pictures and it had been reworked enough to get a different name stamped on the cover. However, if I’m right, the killer has an original.”
I opened to another page. There was a picture of five Iron Maidens, doors open. Each held the bodies of two women, blood visible as it drip
ped down their bodies and made puddles on the floors.
Chapter 5