Angel of Death

by J. Robert King

  “I would have to agree,” Michaels answered. “You cross-checked the prints with mental health records?”

  “We’re running all those checks. He’s left us plenty of evidence. It’s a broad hunting ground, though, with millions of people and tens of thousands of convicts in three separate state jurisdictions, not to mention all the counties and cities.”

  All right, enough already. Stop prattling. She sorted through the stark images. Police photographers had a knack for capturing not only the facts of a crime, but also the lurid terror of the scene. One image showed the headless, handless body leaning on the sofa as though still watching the blood-spattered TV

  screen. The flash had thrown the rest of the room into lurid, sinister darkness. Cushions and neck stump cast a shadow that looked like a range of steppes across the wall. The next photos showed details of the bloodstained carpet and wallpaper; others showed a handprint the size and shape of the one from Woodstock, the blood-spattered bathroom…

  “Anything turn up from interviewing the bartender, wait staff, and regulars?” Leland asked.

  “One of the busboys said he’d seen a guy that looked like Tom Petty, but with dark hair. Short, thin, vacant eyes. He hadn’t seen him before. He thought the man had talked to Mister Strange.”

  “Mister Strange?”

  Michaels grimaced an apology, and his hand briefly cradled her elbow. “That’s what locals called him. He was a little too friendly. He used to have all kinds of people in and out of that apartment. That’s why nobody paid any attention to Tom Petty.” He paused, chagrined again and suddenly tired. “Let’s go get a cup of coffee and talk away from all this.”

  “A cup of coffee?” Leland asked. “Aren’t you supposed to stay on duty?”

  Again the shrug. “I plugged in the pot downstairs and brewed a batch. I figured I needed it to stay awake.” He yawned conspicuously. “Horror takes it out of you, makes you shut down. Better get some coffee, don’t you think?”

  The detective gestured toward the door. “Sure, Sergeant. Lead on.”

  Oh, Detective Leland, you’ve done well so far. I have on occasion dealt with the Feds, but most law enforcers I’ve run into are simple, honest, small town cops in way over their heads. All of them, even the big city homicide detectives, have the sense to be frightened by their work. I sense the fright in you, too, sitting next to me at the bar, talking so matter-of-factly about our killer. But it isn’t just fright. It’s something bigger. It’s understanding; compassion.

  Ah, I’ve found the shred of memory it’s tied to. Your brother, Kerry. Twin brother. You lost him. This killer seems another Kerry to you, another boy suffering and sick and alone, desperate. You don’t want to just find this killer. You want to reach him. Perhaps redeem him, or at least yourself. It’s the impulse of a drowning soul to reach out to something, anything else – anything human.

  Well, you’re right about this killer. You’ve got Keith nailed to a T.

  “…before getting hold of Quantico, I had that much pulled together. White male, early thirties – he’s been at it for at least ten years now, by the trail of cases I’ve tracked through NCIC. Sergeant, we’re talking about over eighty-nine cases that fit the pattern. Even if a third of those are copycats, we’re talking about a rampage that tops even the most pessimistic estimates for Bundy, and double the killings done by Gacy.”

  Yes, more than double, Donna. Keith started when he was seventeen. He’s been killing in Chicagoland longer than I have. You don’t even have the first dozen or so on your computer. Those first kills were very smooth, artful. You’ve only gotten close now because he’s deteriorated so far. Ah, how adulthood ravages the soul.

  “I’m Azra,” I say.

  You stop in the middle of your monologue. “What?”

  You take a sip of coffee.

  “Azra is my name. You keep calling me Sergeant. My name’s Azra.”

  “Azra? What nationality is that? Bulgarian? Romanian?”

  “Hebrew. It’s short for Azrael. My mother was Jewish.”

  “Oh. My first name is Donna.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know? I haven’t told you.”

  “I told the lieutenant to call for you, remember? I’ve been following your casework. I’ve been assigned to know.”

  You seem flustered by that. Your hand trembles around the warm handle of the coffee cup. You’ve been reaching out all this while, but not now. That hand wants warmth, wants the touch of my hand, but instead it curves quietly around the feverish mug. Why not reach out to me? I’m young, handsome – a cop. Perhaps you glimpse darkly who I really am. Mortals have always shivered in my presence. I wish I had not made you shiver. It grieves me. To see you now not only drowning but cold. It makes me inexplicably sad.

  “How could so many similar deaths go unnoticed for so long?” I ask, prompting you from your distraction.

  “Jurisdiction. That’s one in Elm Grove, then one in Gary, then Whiting, then Racine, Lake Geneva, Berwyn, Rockford, Milwaukee, Pontiac – he got a train pass or a Greyhound card or something.”

  He also does a lot of walking, but I will not tell you that. I look into your eyes and see that eggshell fragility of mortals, that thinnest of all shields that I am sent to destroy. I will be destroying you, like all the others. Oh, how I wish I weren’t.

  I say, “There is too much here that seems planned – the changes in venue; the decapitation; the ability to kill someone, hang out a while, and then somehow, bloodlessly, walk away from the scene and go undetected. He may be psychotic now, but I imagine when he started this, he knew exactly what he was doing. A young psychopath who’s slowly lost his mind in the last decade or so.” That should shock you back to the case at hand.

  “Yes,” you respond, blinking. “Yes, it isn’t luck that’s kept this a secret for so long. He’s a mixed bag. That’s what Quantico said. They’ll be sending someone from Behavioral Sciences out. Once they heard the body count–”

  “Your body count.”

  “Yes, the one I compiled – once they heard the number of people, they couldn’t refuse. Anyway, they said over the phone that it sounded mixed, part organized and part chaotic. It would make sense he was sliding from one toward the other.”

  “What about the press? When they put together what you’ve put together… when they get wind of the FBI…”

  “I want to have this guy nabbed before then. If the story breaks, we’ll just see what we can do proactively through the media to draw him out. Of course, with how little attention he’s paid to the TV upstairs…”

  “Oh, you’ll get him soon. You’re just steps behind him, now.”

  You kiss me. It is a quick motion, a small, ducking sweetness on my cheek. You blush as you pull away. “I hope you’re right,” you say in dismissal. I gaze into your eyes, seeking what it was that made you kiss me. You try to hide it behind the weary, favorgranting facade of a hardened cop. I know you are no flirt, no jaded creature. That kiss meant something. Loneliness. I feel it, too. I’ve been utterly alone these years, and had not even known what to call it. To be lonely is bad enough, but to feel this aching draw of soul to soul and still be alone in it all…

  You are shutting down. You think I think you were too forward. You are more surprised and disturbed by the kiss than I, though it was only the chaste kiss of lip to cheek.

  Mine is not. I kiss your lips. Always before, that kiss has been a slaying one, though in this passionate rush, I will not let it be. I cap off the white-hot column of killing force. This kiss is tender, and again. I will not kill you with it.

  I will not kill you now.

  Perhaps not ever.

  Mother of God, what am I getting myself into? The thought was as much prayer as interjection.

  Leland drew back from the man, her eyes searching his. She expected to see something predatory in him, something prepared to pounce upon and exploit her supposed vulnerability. But she saw none of that. He did not wish her harm. He w
asn’t on the prowl. He was as vulnerable and lonely and desperate as she and –

  until a moment ago – he hadn’t even realized it. There, not ten feet from the police line that roped off the bloodstained ceiling and floor, the two cops clung to each other. Heat ghosted up from their shoulders into the chill place. Their lips met no more. They only embraced, two souls weary of the brutal world.

  SEVEN

  This is a cardinal sin. Angels are forbidden to fall in love with humans. Angels are to love God only. Whenever an angel finds love elsewhere, he is cast out of Heaven and plunges toward Hell.

  Think of Satan, whose self-love brought eternal damnation. Think of Harut and Marut, who loved a woman and so were tricked into telling her the secret name of God. They too were thrown down. Think of Semjaza and two hundred others angels who made love to humans and spawned the race of Nephilim –

  giants who terrorized the world in antediluvian times. All fell.

  But I am not like them. I am like Chamuel, the Dark Angel, who wrestled with Jacob beside the River Jabbok. I am to dwell among humans and wrestle with them throughout the long, dark night and cripple them if I must to win free. I am not meant to love them. But perhaps there are special cases. What of Michael, Zagazel, and Gabriel, who disobeyed God’s command that they kill Moses? Their love for the mortal caused them to sin, but they did not fall.

  Perhaps there will be a special case for me. I am a fool to think these things. No, I cannot let my heart wander from my ribs. I am to live among humans and strive with them – but to do it all chastely. I am to serve, to guide, to kill – but not to love. No wonder angels and cops are so lonely. I will not kill her now. In three weeks; we will see what three weeks brings.

  They are new. Their skin. Their hair. Their eyes. Especially their eyes. They stand in a thicket. That is how new they are. They stand in a thicket instead of a meadow. They fear the wild beasts with their fangs and stingers and claws and instincts. The animals they fear are the very ones they named.

  Adam means “mudman.” Eve means “living.”

  If it weren’t for the animal skins that God gave them, they would be naked.

  No instincts? Do you suppose they don’t know about…? Are they too stupid even to watch the rutting bulls and tangled spiders? They stand there, side by side and petrified. No, they cannot know. They do not know.

  I will take a human form, a man form with that magnificent penis of his and those ribs like war stripes. Azrael, you take a woman form, huge and round and all-powerful. Yes, beautiful.

  They see us. How can they not? They thought they were the only ones here. We stand in the meadow, leafshadows taking little nips out of our bright flesh. The wind is cool off the gray Euphrates.

  “Come over here, Adam,” I call. “I have something to show you. Bring your woman.”

  They approach. That is how new they are. Brawny and brown and beautiful, Adam says, “Who are you? Are you sent to us by the serpent?”

  I tilt my head. The black bristle of hair glints oily in the sunlight. “I am an angel of Yahweh, if that is what you mean, though what I want to reveal to you is the sort of knowledge he tends to overlook.”

  “Why aren’t you covered?” asks Eve. She is hugely fecund, and my body desires her. “Your rod should be covered.” She points.

  “That is what I wanted to show you. It is called a penis.”

  Suspicion beetles Adam’s brow. “Who are you?”

  “I am Samael, the Angel of Death.”

  His eyes grow wide. “You have come to slay us?”

  “No,” I reply, firm but gentle. “Not today. To be sure, your soul is mine for the taking when your time has come. You bartered away your immortality for the power to know good from evil. Now you know good from evil, but nothing else. This is something else.” I gesture toward my erection. “Adam, this is called a penis.”

  “Apenis.”

  “Penis. Just plain penis.”

  “Just plain penis.”

  “Except that it is anything but plain. Do you see how all creatures multiply upon the earth, birds and beasts and creeping things? This is how they multiply. It produces seed for more humans to grow.”

  “I have seen this seed. It is very warm and soft,” he says. “I planted some in the river.”

  “Good for you, Adam. But the river is not a good place to grow humans. Not the river or the field or the mountaintop. The only ground that will grow humans is Eve.”

  She looks frustrated by this turn in the conversation.

  “Why must I grow humans?”

  “Because Yahweh has cursed you. You will grow humans out of your body, and the man will use his penis to put seed inside of you. Beneath that triangle of black hair is a vagina, and it leads to a womb. That is where the humans will grow. See the vagina on Azrael? Lie down, Azrael. Spread your legs. See, Adam, how I put my penis in the vagina?”

  Adam nods very seriously, pushes an unsuspecting Eve onto the ground, and forces his way into her. “It hurts nicely.”

  “It is not nice,” says Eve. “It hurts not nicely at all.”

  “That is because you are cursed. Adam will use his penis not only to plant new humans inside you, but also to rule over you. His penis makes him angry and strong, and he will beat you and subjugate you because of it.”

  “Something is happening,” Adam says, beginning to twitch.

  “Very good, Adam. You are planting your seed.”

  “Are you planting your seed, Samael?”

  “I am, but it will dissolve into air when Azrael and I do.”

  “It hurts nicely.”

  “Yes, Adam. It hurts nicely. Do this every day until Eve’s belly swells.”

  “I will do this every hour until her belly swells!”

  “You will not,” Eve reproved.

  “He rules over you, woman,” I say. “Yahweh has made it so. He will do this whenever he wishes. If you do not wish it, you call it rape, but Yahweh does not punish rape. Not yet, he doesn’t. He has some learning to do, too.”

  “Will the new humans grow out of my womb?”

  “They will grow in your womb, but will come out of your vagina.”

  “They must be very small new humans.”

  “Not small enough. You will have terrible pains when they come out. You may even die. One in three of your kind will die when they try to push their babies out.”

  “Why must we die?”

  “You are cursed.”

  “I do not want to have these new humans come out of me.”

  “It is not your choice. You are cursed. And if humans do not come out of you, all humans will die forever.”

  Adam pulled away from Eve. “Perhaps I will not do this every hour. It was interesting at first, but now it seems like nothing.”

  “Will this make my mate even more changeable and stupid than before?” Eve asked. “For if it does, I want no part in it.”

  “It is not your choice. You are cursed.”

  “I will go take a nap,” Adam said.

  “You go, Adam. You have learned to plant humans and to enjoy the plowing of the field. You even know the pleasure of planting your seed where it will not grow.”

  “I will go take a nap.”

  “You go, Adam. Eve, remain with us. We have things to show you about how to find some small enjoyment in this. And, though Yahweh will forbid it, we will show you even how to be rid of the new humans if you do not want them.”

  “I thank you, angel Samael. There must be some way to lessen the weight of this curse.”

  Already it begins.

  In Barrington, a drive-by shooting kills a couple of drunken businessmen; they were supposed to die by getting behind the wheel, hitting a tree, and going through the windshield.

  On the south side, a black boy drowns, swimming in an industrial area of Lake Michigan.

  A Latino gang leader has a heart attack at twentythree and dies, watching television. None of it makes any sense, but I’m having trouble keeping
up with all of the deaths. I’ve signed off on seventy-two that were mediocre, and I’ll go back to redo the other thirteen.

  How could I be having trouble? Time is nothing to me. Or, once it was. Once I could move through it without effort. Now, it is a struggle to tear my mind away from the Burlington station house where she works on her stacks and stacks of papers, or the unmarked squad car that she drives to scene after murder scene, reviewing the details in her head. The seat next to hers, whether in the car or in the station, is empty. I should be in it.

  How about I take Keith down to Griffith for another slaying? That would bring her down to Sergeant Michaels’s territory again. Or maybe I can stage an aborted copycat killing. Once she arrives, we could discover it was someone else, and then have time to talk. But there aren’t supposed to be any deaths in Griffith until Friday, and none that could use a serial killing until after Keith would be gone.

  Keith and Donna, both.

  We’ll see what these seven days bring…

  Serri was enormous. She had been pregnant now for twenty-nine months. She could barely breathe. She could not lie down, nor sit, nor stand, but only lean on that seven-hundred-pound bulk. Lean and eat. All the food went to the enormity within her. It had broken her spine at the pelvis, and her skin and muscles had distended around the huge blob. Her legs had shriveled to twin nothings, thinner than her arms and hanging limp over the stranded pelvic bone. It was a wonder she could defecate and pass urine, but it all oozed continually forth, pushed more by the pressure of the giant baby than by her musculature. Ephraim had wanted to kill the monstrosity when he discovered it could not be his. He had wanted to kill the baby and the wife, both. But when ten months became fifteen, and the pelvis broke free, he knew she bore the child of a fallen angel. He would not dare incur the wrath of the angels, nor of the Nephilim, who knew then of the pregnancy.

  It would have been more humane to slay the woman at nine months. Perhaps, though, this was better punishment.