by Tim Stevens
He saw the East River before him, the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge stretching away in the distance.
*
“Prove it,” the woman said. “Prove to me you really understand me. That we’re soulmates.”
Venn stared at her, not because he didn’t understand, but because his movements were still delayed by the anesthetic. But she seemed to take his expression for incomprehension.
She indicated with the Beretta, then pointed to the icepick she’d dropped at his feet. Venn looked at it. Then looked at the bum.
They’d found him huddled under the bridge, swaddled in filthy, rotting linen. At first Venn thought he was dead, but when Sally-Jo nudged him with her foot, he stirred and gazed up blearily. A bottle of methylated spirits in a paper bag poked out of his fist.
“Do it,” said Sally-Jo. “Look at him. He’s a violator.”
The bum was too far gone to say anything. But he blinked at the gun in the woman’s hand, and something close to fear flickered in his eyes above his matted beard.
Venn stood a couple of yards away from the bum, the river lapping at the concrete slope near his feet. His arms hung limply at his sides.
He was so tired. So tired...
“Joe.” She took a step toward Venn, the river at her back. “Do it. For me. For us. It’ll be the final sign. The final bond between us.”
Venn stooped, felt the ground rush up toward him, and almost threw up again. he steadied himself with a hand on the concrete bank and groped for the icepick with his other. Straightening up was almost as difficult as stooping had been.
The bum burbled something, tried to sit up, but couldn’t.
Venn was ten feet from Sally-Jo. Under normal circumstances, he might – might – have considered rushing her, opening with a feint of some kind. She had the gun, but it hung down carelessly at her side. But he knew his reflexes would fail him, and he’d more than likely end up on his ass, or in the river.
And he wouldn’t get a second chance.
He raised his head, gazed at the woman.
“It’s not this man you want to kill.”
His voice sounded thicker even than it had down in the basement earlier.
“It’s Frank.”
Her face hardened in the dim light reflecting off the river.
Venn let the icepick drop from his fingers, heard it clatter on the bank and roll down.
“You’ll never be free from Frank unless you kill him.”
She said: “I can’t.”
“Then he’ll always be a part of you. Always.”
“He isn’t a part of me!” For the first time since she’d abducted Venn, he heard her raise her voice. “He’s already dead!”
“I don’t think so, Sally-Jo,” said Venn.
He risked a step toward her. Felt the ground unsteady beneath his feet.
“You tried to kill him once before, didn’t you? Out there in Switzerland.”
Her eyes were wide with dread. “Don’t say it,” she hissed.
“At the Sigma clinic. Five years ago.”
It had been in the text message Fil had sent him, just before Sally-Jo had attacked him.
The Sigma clinics specialize in gender reassignment surgery. The best in the world.
Sex changes.
“You felt afterward that you’d violated, butchered Frank. That’s the reason for all of these killings. You’re punishing people who have abused their bodies, trying to expunge your own guilt, for abusing your own.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered, taking a step forward herself. “I’m a woman. I’ve always been a woman.”
“Maybe you are now,” said Venn. “And maybe, psychologically, you’ve always been one, too. But you once had a man’s body. Frank’s. And however much you desired to get rid of it, you still feel you violated it. That’s why you leave the Sigma brand on their foreheads. It’s a reference to the place where the ultimate violation, the original sin, was carried out.”
Her whole body was shaking now. Her head, too.
“Dale Fincher knew about you, didn’t he?” Venn pressed on. “When you were stationed together. He knew you were Sally-Jo, trapped inside Frank. And you loved him. He wasn’t gay, was he? Just an insecure young man who fell in love with you, with Sally-Jo, but couldn’t get over the fact that you looked the way you did. He recognized you that night in the bar, didn’t he? Saw that his Sally-Jo had come back. In her real body this time. But he had to die, because he had no respect for his own body. He cut himself.”
As he spoke, he felt his strength returning, degree by degree, assisted by the bracing cold coming off the river. Overhead, the sky was starting to lighten almost imperceptibly as dawn advanced, and Venn felt he was drawing strength from this too.
He took another step forward, mindful of the slipperiness of the bank’s sloping concrete. There was now no more than a four-foot gap between them.
“Frank’s still alive, Sally-Jo. And he always will be. Because he’s your past, and the past never goes away.”
She opened her mouth, let it hang like that.
“So you have a choice. Kill Frank, now. End it forever. Or kill me, escape, and live with Frank for the rest of your days. Always with you, always controlling you.”
She lifted the Beretta. Turned it. Placed the barrel to the side of her head.
Venn gave a faint nod. “He’ll try and talk you out of it. Don’t listen to him, Sally-Jo.”
He watched her finger tighten on the trigger behind the guard.
Her eyes seemed to focus inward.
As if she was... listening.
She brought the gun down and toward Venn even as he lunged for her, his reflexes still slow, terribly slow, and for a moment he thought he’d misjudged it and he was going to go flailing past her and then she’d have the drop on him and it would all be over.
But his fist connected with her forearm, with the tender plexus of nerves beneath the skin, and she hissed and grabbed her arm and Venn seized the Beretta’s barrel and jerked it loose from her fingers.
He fumbled with it, trying to turn it round. As he did so, Sally-Jo turned and began running down the bank.
Her flat shoes sloshed in the water where the river met the flat part of the bank. Venn got the Beretta’s stock in his hand and tried to focus on her as she bobbed and weaved into the distance.
“Stop,” he called, his voice weak one more.
She began scrambling up the slope of the bank toward the wall at the top.
Venn crouched, because he felt more stable hunkering down, and drew a bead on her figure.
He wouldn’t be able to make it up after her in time. Although he heard sirens, frantic and multiple, they sounded far away.
She reached the wall at the top and swung her leg over it.
Venn thought of her torment, the unimaginable mess her mind must have been for all these years.
Then he thought of Harmony, in hospital, pulled back from death by the narrowest of margins.
He fired, again and again, emptying the Beretta.
The woman peeled back from the wall, dropped onto the concrete bank and slid down, tumbling over and over like a rag doll, before landing in the water with a heavy splash.
Venn lowered the gun. He shifted so that his butt was on the bank. Over to his right, the homeless guy had pulled himself to a sitting position and was staring, his mouth moving soundlessly.
Venn closed his eyes.
There’d be Teller, soon, and questions. Lots of questions. More than he felt he could cope with.
There’d be Harmony, too, in the ICU, weakened but alive.
And there’d be Beth.
His eyes still closed, Venn smiled.
THE END
FROM THE AUTHOR
Joe Venn returns in Epsilon Creed.
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Tim Stevens
BOOKS BY TIM STEVENS
John Purkiss series
Ratcatcher
Delivering Caliban
Jokerman
Tundra
Haven (short story)
John Purkiss Box Set Volume 1 (Ratcatcher, Delivering Caliban, Jokerman)
Spiked (short story exclusive to mailing list subscribers)
Cronos Rising
Nemesis (coming in 2015)
Martin Calvary series
Severance Kill
Annihilation Myths
Redemption Road (coming in 2015)
Joe Venn series
Omega Dog
Delta Ghost
Alpha Kill
Sigma Curse
Joe Venn Four Pack (Omega Dog, Delta Ghost, Alpha Kill, Sigma Curse)
Epsilon Creed
Gamma Blade (coming in 2015)
Shorter stories and novellas
Reunion
Snout