Saving Mercy

by Abbie Roads

  The sensation grew inside him, building and burning and yearning—almost like the rising of an orgasm.

  An incandescent flash behind his eyes, and Cain was gone.

  He was now the killer.

  Under his blade, the skin of the woman’s neck parted as easily as slicing through frothy cream. She made no sound. She did not flinch. She just stared at him with eyes full of wisdom and acceptance. It was odd how peaceful she was, how accepting she had been from the moment she’d seen him standing in her kitchen. Most people fought, clung to life with a tenacity that was incomprehensible—and frankly stupid.

  But not her. She’d known what most people didn’t: true suffering came from arguing with reality.

  Crimson arced from her neck. He caught the freshly oxygenated blood in a container. This blood was always the brightest, the reddest, the most stunning in color.

  Now she fought. Only it wasn’t her fighting. It was her body, overruling her mind at the massive loss of life force. She yelled, or at least she tried to. The duct tape over her mouth stifled the volume. Her arms wrenched at the tape securing her to the outdoor lounger. And then as if she had suddenly grabbed the reins on her galloping body, she calmed, breathing slow and deep through her nose. Her eyes met and held his—not in challenge or anger, but with grace and benediction.

  The steady pumping of blood slowed, and that ethereal thing that gave life dimmed, faded, and vanished.

  At one point so many years ago, he’d taken crude pleasure in the moment of dying. He’d evolved and transformed since then. Death itself no longer held pleasure; it was simply a side effect of creation. Small-minded people wouldn’t be able to understand. They wouldn’t be able to see his art. All they would see were death and a spent carcass.

  The song bubbled up inside him, so he sang it to the corpse as her blood filled his container.

  Lift your feet when you

  Dance around the old well,

  Be careful or you’ll tumble pell-mell.

  Look into the dark, dark, waters

  For the blood of your fathers.

  Show some courage, young man,

  Find your calling, young man.

  Save pomegranate seeds

  as payment for the ferryman,

  Offer red, red wine

  as payment to the bar man.

  Carve some red, red meat

  as food for the hungry man.

  Show some courage, young man,

  Find your calling, young man.

  The song he couldn’t help singing. A song of pain and love. Of hurt and hope. He didn’t know why the song and the memories it carried had become a part of his process, but it had. And he would honor the intuitions that guided him along this journey.

  He stepped back from the body, selected a brush, dipped it into the blood, and began painting.

  His first kill had been on a winter’s day. Blood in the snow. He remembered staring at that color combination and being utterly transfixed. He supposed the white wall and bright blood he swept over it with flourishes and sweeping arcs were an effort to re-create that experience, to perfect it.

  He lost track of himself while he painted, letting a divine force guide his hand. Time didn’t matter. The ache in his arms, the thirst in his throat didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, only creation.

  And then suddenly he stopped. Finished. His body no longer driven to add more strokes. He swallowed the dryness in his mouth and stepped back from the wall to take it in for the first time.

  His face tingled, an electric current pulsing just beneath his skin. Tears glazed his eyes—he wasn’t the crying type—but these weren’t sad, wimpy-ass tears. No, these tears were from witnessing beauty created from enlightenment and wrought by his own hand.

  On the wall, it was him again.

  His features were severe as he stood strong and proud like a warrior born of legend. He wore no shirt, exposing a plethora of scars and wounds. The damage done to his flesh made him appear invincible, as if he could only be wounded but never killed.

  Eyes. If eyes were the window to the soul, this man’s soul had exited his body. There was a blankness, an emptiness to his razor-focused gaze. The intensity of his stare—fixed on a point in front of him—was so real that it seemed some action should be happening mere feet in front of the blood portrait.

  The man held a knife, one with a curved blade—good for slitting and gutting, his fingers wrapped around the hilt so tight the ropy veins in his arm popped.

  But again, just as last time, wings dominated the portrait, each one larger than the man himself. Massive. Impressive. Destructive.

  He dragged his gaze away from the portrait and raised his bloody hands to his face. His hands had crafted majesty and strength and utter indestructibility in a set of wings. The larger question—what did those particular wings symbolize? Flight. Freedom. Escape. Angel. Heaven.

  A thought floated into his mind, the wisps of it so thin that he almost couldn’t grab hold and make it solid. Most would say his art was evil, but nothing so profound, so ethereally beautiful could be evil.

  He tucked those thoughts away for the days of utter boredom ahead of him. He stood, uncapped the can of house paint, dipped a clean brush in the paint, and began covering his masterpiece stroke by stroke. Each swipe of his brush was an annihilation of art, but it had to be done. The world wasn’t ready for him. The world wouldn’t understand.

  The day had passed into evening by the time he was finished. Seven coats to hide his art from Luminol.

  “Look.” The female voice rang as loudly as an alarm.

  He whirled, expecting the woman to be communing through death’s mouth, but she lay as she had at her end.

  “At. Me.”

  Something tugged at his psyche, some urge to…to what?

  “Look. At. Me.”

  And then the world flashed with a lightning-like luminescence and everything changed.

  Cain sucked in breath after breath—couldn’t pull in enough oxygen to satisfy his body’s needs. The stench of rotting blood burrowed into his sinuses. He couldn’t remember any other scent. Death was all that existed. Liz’s death.

  A sledgehammer thumped inside his skull. He deserved the pain. What he did, what he saw, was born of the maliciousness of his father and therefore its own brand of evil.

  “Cain?”

  His name spoken by Mercy rushed over him like a cooling balm. He forced his eyes open. White light blinded him for a moment, then intensified the beating in his brain.

  His eyes slowly focused on the only thing he ever wanted to see. Mercy. She stood over him, her face marred with unconcealed concern.

  Something deep inside of him, something he kept buried, kept locked inside, stirred, stretched, and…

  Grew.

  It—whatever it was—expanded and spread until he felt as if he were about to explode into a million fleshy bits.

  “Mm…Mmm.” Christ, he was so far gone he almost couldn’t speak her name. “Mercy.” He meant to warn her. Tell her to back away from the monster, but her name came out sounding like a plea for surrender.

  That thing inside him reached critical mass.

  He couldn’t control it or himself.

  Chapter 11

  In a study of over two hundred and fifty family members of serial killers, I have discovered some surprising facts. Twenty-five percent of these family members reported bizarre moodiness, rage, or general oddness in their serial-killer family member. The other seventy-five percent of family members thought their husband, father, grandfather, or uncle was completely normal. Oftentimes, family members defended them and lived in a general state of denial for years after a conviction. The takeaway: these monsters are skilled chameleons.

  —Hugh John, PhD, Killer Minds

  Ten minutes ago…

  Me
rcy stood in Liz’s house, staring out the window at the lawn. Winter’s death was just beginning its reincarnation into spring. Bright-green shoots of grass were infiltrating the brown yard. Robins and sparrows hopped along the ground, looking for an easy meal after the rain. Out there, everything seemed so easy and carefree. In here, all she could think about was Liz.

  They were using Liz’s home as if she were in the other room making tea. It felt wrong to be here. Wrong to sit on her furniture. Wrong that Liz was dead.

  “Damn it.” Mercy’s hands balled into fists. Anger at herself burned a hole in her heart. She was a contagion. A disease. She should be quarantined. Isolated from all human contact. She couldn’t be trusted. She knew the consequences and was still selfish enough to put people in danger. “It’s my fault Liz is dead.” That one thought played over and over on an endless loop. If she’d just minded her own damned business. If she’d never talked to Liz. Never opened up. Never been friendly, then Liz would be alive right now.

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said that I don’t believe.” Dolan’s tone was conversational, like they were chatting about the weather, not Liz’s murder.

  “I didn’t kill her, but that doesn’t mean it’s not my fault. You want the doer of the deed? Find Dr. Payne. He’s obsessed with me, gets off on controlling me. And will hurt anyone who stands in the way of his access to me.” He had hurt Bo in the Center. Shot Mac. Shot Cain. And if she stayed anywhere near Cain, next time he might not be able to walk away with a flesh wound. Because there would be a next time. Dr. Payne-in-Her-Ass wouldn’t let her go so easily.

  “I don’t mean to sound like you’re not interesting—or good looking, for that matter—but why? Why’s he obsessed with you?”

  “I’m fascinating.” Sarcasm dominated her tone. “I survived your worst nightmare. Everyone said I was lucky. I wasn’t lucky. Everyone I ever loved died.” I almost died. She clasped her throat, feeling the thick, cold scar. She didn’t bother trying to smother the anger in her voice. She let it burn. “It’s been twenty years, and everyone still wants to talk about it. You know how many books, movies, and TV shows have been dedicated to Killion?”

  She turned away from the window.

  Dolan had sprawled out—still wearing his sunglasses—in one of Liz’s comfy chairs, looking as if he ought to be taking a midafternoon siesta instead of conducting an interview. His shades were aimed directly at her, and she could feel the intensity of his gaze. He was listening to every word she said and trying to hear the ones she didn’t.

  “Thousands. And every one of them mentions me. Society itself is obsessed with me. Dr. Payne just had unlimited access. And didn’t like it when his access was revoked.” Her hands were still balled into fists so tight they shook. “So yeah. Dr. Payne killed Liz because of me. Because of who I am. What I am.”

  Dolan stared at her for a long moment. Those damned sunglasses hid his eyes, keeping her from accurately interpreting his thoughts. Slowly, he shifted his gaze away from her and to the photo he’d set on the stand next to his chair. “You’re sure, absolutely certain, you have no memory of this symbol?”

  It was a picture from the worst day of her life. A picture of a smeary bloody cross with a hook in its tail. Funny how the image was similar to the one she had over her heart, to the one Cain had carved over his, and yet such a small thing—that curved tail—made it look wrong. Evil.

  “You’ve asked me this four different times in four different ways, and you can keep asking, but every time the answer is going to be the same. I don’t remember drawing it on the wall. I don’t remember ever seeing it until you showed it to me.”

  Dolan didn’t say anything, just aimed his mirrored shades at her.

  “You remind me of a gambler on one of those reality shows. Always wearing sunglasses to hide your eyes so no one will know what cards you’re holding.” She looked directly into his sunglasses and saw herself wearing Cain’s baggy clothes, dark splotches of color staining her shirt—blood. Even in miniature, her image was grotesque and obscene.

  She could wash the blood off, but there’d be no cleansing the guilt from her soul. “I’d like to be done with this. I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m covered in blood. I need a shower. Need some sleep. After that, if you need me to give you the same answers to the same questions, I’ll do that for you. But right now, I’m spent.”

  “I don’t know how long Cain is going to be.”

  Why did it matter how long Cain was going to be? Oh. Dawning understanding hit her slower than it should have. “I’m not going home with him.”

  Dolan quirked his head to the side as if she’d spoken words he didn’t understand. “I thought you two were together.”

  She couldn’t find any words of denial. She couldn’t find any words of affirmation. She couldn’t find any words at all.

  “Then I’m gonna need an address and number to contact you.” Dolan spoke the words with utter seriousness.

  “Seriously?” She was acting like a total bitch to this guy, but couldn’t seem to rein in the attitude. “I haven’t exactly had a chance to go apartment shopping since Liz and Cain broke me out of the Center.”

  “You need to stay close. Local law enforcement is going to want to talk to you about your experience with Payne and the Center.”

  “Find me a cheap motel, and that’s where I’ll be.”

  Dolan didn’t move, didn’t say anything, just aimed his sunglassed gaze at her as if he was still waiting for her to give him an answer. He heard her. He just didn’t like it.

  “I’ll go home then.” The words came out exasperated and yet laced with a defiant strength. No way would she spend time in the same house her family had been murdered in. But if Dolan thought she was there, he’d let the issue go and she’d find someplace—anyplace—else to go.

  Dolan took the photo of the symbol off the stand and tucked it into a zippered folder. “I’ll drop you off.”

  Great. She’d have to wait until he drove off, then walk back to town. Cain’s cash would come in handy to rent a room at a small motel. Then tomorrow she’d begin working on getting her life back. Priority one: get an ID and gain access to her bank account.

  But what about Cain? With the reality of walking away from him staring her in the face, she knew the truth. She couldn’t sneak off without a good-bye. A thank-you. An I’m sorry. Her legs acted before her brain gave them the command and took her across the room toward the door he’d disappeared behind.

  Dolan caught her arm, his hold on her gentle, but firm enough to get her attention. “Don’t interrupt him.” His voice sounded every bit the authoritarian FBI guy.

  Not that it mattered to her. She would not leave Cain without seeing him one last time. Maybe she just needed to make certain he was okay. More likely she wanted to absorb the sensation of being in his presence and store it away in her memory for all the lonely days and nights that stretched out in front of her.

  There was a peace that came from being with him. She didn’t have to worry about his ulterior motives because he’d been through something nearly as bad. He was the only person who didn’t want anything from her. And the only one who understood how horror and survival had transformed them into something different.

  And this was the last time she’d see him—she’d make certain of that. Her eyes burned.

  Nope. Tears were not going to happen right now. No way. Later. But not now.

  With very little effort, she pulled away from Dolan. Her muscles tensed, waiting for him to argue with her, grab her again, but he simply watched her walk away.

  She had expected to see Cain on the other side of that door. What she hadn’t expected was a completely empty kitchen that looked like it should be featured in some magazine.

  Even though the day was cloudy, the light shining through the windows was clean and cheerful as it bounced off the white cabinets and gleaming app
liances. A large farm table sat in the middle of the room. She could practically see a family sitting around that table talking, laughing, eating. For a brief moment, she imagined her family sitting there. But those what-might-have-been thoughts never ended well. She forced the picture out of her mind.

  The sickeningly sweet scent of dying flowers came from an oversized vase of wilting daffodils in the center of the table. Their brilliant yellow had faded to a duller shade, a melancholy shade. Who knew yellow—the happiest color—could ever be sad?

  On the other side of the table, the back door stood wide open, like an awful invitation. One she wanted to refuse but knew she couldn’t.

  Her legs felt awkward and heavy as she crossed the kitchen and walked through the doorway.

  Red. Everywhere. She wanted there to have been some bizarre accident with a can of red paint and recognized her thoughts for what they were. Denial. All that red was blood.

  And Cain knelt in the middle of it. Crimson wetness slicked his face and his chest, and dripped from his hands. His eyes were feral and devoid of human compassion and empathy, looking beyond her, through her as if she didn’t exist. He looked a lot like the man who’d murdered her family, the man who celebrated the sensation of blood on skin.

  Her heart hit the pause button. For one second…two…three…she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Her legs trembled with the urge to run fast and far from this guy.

  This wasn’t really Cain. It was some other version of him. The monster of his father’s making. The real Cain had saved her life and taken care of her when she was too sick to take care of herself. The real Cain had made SpaghettiOs for her. Any man who loved SpaghettiOs couldn’t be all bad.

  Her legs were stiff as a pair of stilts as she moved toward him. “Cain?”

  Behind her, she heard Dolan step out on the porch. He sucked in a shocked breath. She glanced over her shoulder at him. He knew Cain. Knew this wasn’t Cain. And probably knew what to do.

  Nope.

  Dolan’s sunglasses might hide his eyes, but they did nothing to hide the way his mouth hung open or the way his hand rested on the gun strapped to his waist.