by Hadena James
“Maybe, she metabolizes narcotics fairly quickly. I’d say for the next hour she’ll be completely useless, but after that…” Lucas answered.
“Where is my doctor?” I asked.
“Inside, watching Gabriel and Caleb,” Lucas told me. “Do you want some water or something?”
“I refuse to taint my body with water,” I answered. “Do you realize all the shit that’s in water? If I was going to drink water, I might as well just drink from a chemical barrel at an industrial factory.”
“Interesting,” Fiona answered.
“Oh, you just do not know. All those minerals and things they add to water, most of them are toxic in large doses. Like fluoride is super incredibly terrible for you if you do not need it and most of us actually do not need it. So we are just downing extra fluoride every time we drink water and fluoride is toxic in high doses. So, all those people who chug down three million ounces of water a day are going to die of fluoride poisoning. Then there is…”
“What would you prefer to drink?” Lucas interrupted me. I frowned at him, but felt the corners of my mouth move in the wrong direction.
“Mountain Dew,” I answered, not continuing with why we shouldn’t be chugging down water.
“We just injected you with a vaso-constrictor. I don’t think adding a vaso-dilator is a great idea. How about Sprite?” Lucas countered.
“So, you will offer to poison me with fluoride, but not caffeine? Not much of a friend, are you?” I snipped.
“Holy shit,” Fiona groaned. “If she doesn’t get over her anger with Patterson, she’s going to fall to pieces. We’ll be picking up her heroine overdosed body out of some flop house.”
“Patterson is not the problem,” I told her. “I am. I am pissed off at my mother for concealing the fact that Patterson and The Butcher were one and the same and that my grandfather was not dead, which sucks, but the truth is, it is me. I am mad at me. I should have killed him. I should have killed him before he killed Gertrude. I knew and I did not react. I let him kill her because I hated her and I secretly hoped he would not go down without a fight because I wanted to kill him too. But he did and now I have to accept the fact that my monster and his monster are not that different. If they were, I would have stopped him from killing his sister while she was in my custody. At the very least, I should be fired.”
“I didn’t think sociopaths had morals?” Fiona asked.
“We don’t, but we know our own demons pretty well and I am every bit as much a serial killer as Patterson.”
“To a degree, yes you are,” Lucas answered, “but you aren’t Patterson or even Eric. While you may enjoy killing, I never worry that you will start slaughtering people for fun if left unattended for a few hours. In other words, you control your bloodlust, not the other way around. That is the only difference between you and Patterson, but it’s a big difference and should be recognized as such.”
“Humph,” I snorted at him and thought about that. Even through the haze, I realized he was right. It was the missing piece of the puzzle that I had been struggling with for so long. My identity may include a few dead bodies, but I could control it. Patterson couldn’t. Eric couldn’t. The person taking tattoos couldn’t. I felt better, except for the mother thing. “Any advice about Mom?”
“She’s your mother, so talk to her about it. And listen to what she has to say. Even if she did know Patterson was The Butcher, she had a good reason for keeping it a secret,” Lucas told me.
“Great.” I smiled again instead of frowning. It was the drugs. They made me feel happy. Not in an “I’m high as a kite” kind of way, but in a “nothing hurts at this exact moment” way. Sometimes, I forgot that my body was becoming one giant scar that hurt all the time, because I was just used to it. “May I have a soda now?”
“How about milk?” Green offered. “It will help with the narcotics.”
“Sure, it is better than water,” I started to say more, but was stopped.
“Don’t go there again,” Lucas warned. “So, is it a bust for tonight?”
“Any stakeouts are a bust,” Gabriel informed us. “We didn’t think about that incident with Ear Brand. Everyone with a phone knows we are in New Orleans. We aren’t exactly discrete about anything. Any serial killers roaming the streets tonight will be on high alert.”
“Worse, your boogeyman isn’t having a great night,” Caleb motioned to me.
“I hope it gets really really really cold in your room tonight and that the air turns bright orange.” I enunciated every word, knowing that he would watch me say them if I did it. He did. The shiver started near his midsection and moved out to his arms and legs. His teeth began to chatter.
“You suck,” Caleb stammered, “and you’re orange.”
“Fine, I hope the room is warm but mildly unpleasant smelling,” I told him. He watched me say the words. Not that he needed to accept to force him to see the colors. His teeth almost instantly stopped chattering and his hands only shook a little.
“Still orange,” he told me.
“Still somewhat mean,” I answered.
“Ace, I’m demanding you to work on your issues. You’re no good to me in this state. Worse, I can’t depend on you and I need to be able to depend on you,” Gabriel told me.
“Yep, on it. I cannot do anything about my mother at this exact point in time, but Lucas worked out my serial killer problem.”
“So, you are finally accepting that you aren’t a serial killer?”
“No, I am accepting that I am, in a way, and that is okay because I control it not the other way around,” I told him.
“How stoned are you?” Gabriel leaned in to examine me. He touched one of my eyelids and looked at the pupil. “You are not a serial killer, Aislinn.”
“I am like a serial killer,” I told him. “I enjoy killing, like a serial killer, and I do have a touch of bloodlust like a serial killer. The difference is that someone like Patterson cannot control those urges and I can.”
“Good grief.” Gabriel shook his head. “You aren’t a serial killer.”
“Gabriel,” Lucas gave him a look as he said his name. Something passed between them in that glance that I was too stoned to decipher. I had to admit, I was pretty high. I would ask about it later.
“Fine, let’s get her to her hotel.”
Remorse
The shower had run out of hot water ages ago. Her nude body shivered under the stream of cold water that poured down on her. Her mind didn’t understand that it was the water that had run cold. It had been cold when she stepped into the shower. Steam had been rising from behind the shower curtain, filling the small bathroom, but the water had felt cold when she stepped under it. Her skin, lobster red, had suffered for that feeling of cold as she had turned the hot water knob all the way up and the cold all the way off.
Yet, she had still been cold. She had still been numb. The coppery scent of blood still filled her nostrils. The accusing eyes had stared at her from the floor and they would haunt her for the rest of her life.
It had been fine when it was just some bumps and bruises. Even taking the proverbial pound of flesh hadn’t bothered her, but tonight, she had crossed from victim to killer. The thought made her throw up. Her stomach had emptied itself hours ago and the yellowish bile washed down the drain. It had no smell, not one that she could smell. The scent of blood had proliferated her olfactory system, overloaded it, ensuring that nothing else would ever be smelled again.
The machete lay by her feet on the floor of the shower. Pinkish trails still swirled away from the handle and blade. They were beautiful and disgusting at the same time.
The tear ducts of her eyes no longer produced tears, but the lump in her throat was still there and her breathing was too shallow. She tried to pull herself together and failed. She ended up sitting on the floor of the shower, the water pouring over her, as her body shook. Things had gone so wrong so fast. It was as if she had been possessed. Someone or something evil had taken
control of her, and she had watched with a mix of horror and fascination as her hands had wielded the machete with a grace and skill she hadn’t realized she was capable of producing.
It had been a mistake to return to that cursed house. Demons really did dwell within the shadows there. Their influence had caused such malice in her. It had to be. She was not capable of such horrible things.
That was it. She had been possessed. It was the only explanation. It hadn’t felt like her doing it. It had felt as if she had been a prisoner in her own body. Her eyes had watched as her hand had stabbed him in each leg. They had watched the spray as something important was severed. However, she hadn’t felt the shower of his blood on her body, drenching her through her clothes. It had been even worse with his head. She didn’t have the necessary strength to cut off someone’s head, and yet, she had watched herself do it. Incapable of stopping it as the blade had sliced through the skin and managed to go through the bones.
She hadn’t felt herself move away from him. She hadn’t felt anything until warm urine had ran down her legs and soaked the carpet beneath her. Then she regained control of herself, no longer a prisoner watching some monster take over and kill a person, and she instantly began to sob. The sobbing had only abated when her tear ducts had stopped producing tears.
What was she going to do? Her mind instantly turned to her job. She could turn herself in. Explain everything to her cop coworkers and beg for leniency. She might get a plea deal.
Or maybe she should find a voodoo priestess to banish the demon that had touched her. Was he still lurking inside her? Was he just waiting for another opportunity to kill? She had never been religious or spiritual, but she was now in a fight for her very life. Perhaps even the soul she wasn’t convinced existed. Just because she hadn’t believed, didn’t mean she had been right. What was that saying? Something about, ‘just because you don’t believe in the devil didn’t mean he didn’t believe in you’. That was fitting at the moment. She had been a disbeliever, but she could no longer deny that real evil existed in the world.
She had felt it. She had been its instrument of death. She had been forced to be a passenger within her own body while it did things she would never condone.
Her memory was sketchy. She had picked him up in the street after seeing the SCTU outside the club where her last victim had been. How had she lured him to that house? How had she restrained him? Where had the machete come from? Had it been in the house already or had she found it somewhere else?
Her brain failed to conjure up the memories she was searching for. She crawled from the shower, slithering along the bathroom floor and into her studio apartment. The lights were all off. She didn’t turn them on as she moved to her hands and knees. A weird sound was in the room, a mewing sound that hurt her ears. Her bed was miles away and she wanted nothing more than to crawl in bed and forget. Maybe she would never wake up. Maybe this was all a nightmare. Maybe she would wake up in the morning and find that she had stayed at work all night and not watched someone die in front of her. Suddenly, her hand found the footboard of the bed. It had been so far away. Had it moved closer? Was the demon still playing tricks on her?
Her arms pulled her up. Her knees were still weak and threatened not to hold her slender frame as she maneuvered to get into the bed. Once inside, she slipped under the covers, jerking and tugging as they stuck to her wet flesh. The pillow felt hard and uncomfortable, but it was good enough. She didn’t attempt to fluff it or flip it over. Her hands, her treacherous murdering hands, continued to pull on the covers until even her head was under them. Maybe she would suffocate. Maybe she was already suffocating and this was some sort of hallucination caused by oxygen deprivation.
It was awful. The entire thing was awful. She moved just in time. Her stomach squeezed itself together again. Acrid bile burned her throat, her mouth, soaked the edge of the sheet, and landed on the floor. It sounded like blood raining down on hardwood.
It had to be a nightmare. She could never kill someone. Hurt them, yes. She was angry enough to hurt lots of people, people that hurt her. But to kill someone, no, she wasn’t capable of that. It was just not possible. Her mind reeled, playing different scenes of his death over and over again on her closed eyelids. Her thoughts raced. Had she killed someone? Or had she just dreamed it all?
What had happened? She wasn’t sure anymore. Everything was wrong, but she didn’t know what everything was. She didn’t understand what was wrong. Time slowed for her. Her mind grabbed onto possession again. It wasn’t she that had killed. It couldn’t have been. It had been something else. Something else had taken over her body. It had moved her muscles and controlled her mind, forcing her to do things that she would never do.
She wanted to die. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to live. All of it was wrong. How could she end up in a room with a dead body? How could she end up watching someone die? It wasn’t possible.
It just wasn’t possible.
Apex
Smoke from his cigarette wafted into the dense, night air. Summers in New Orleans were always humid. This had to be a record setter though. He could feel the dampness in his clothing. The hotel was entirely non-smoking, but the nice, private balcony that he had paid extra for, gave him a place to stand and watch. He seemed to spend much of his time watching. Taking up smoking had seemed like an appropriate cover for his watching, especially now that everyone in the universe had decided smoking was bad for you. People noticed his cigarette and the offensive smell more than the man smoking it, and it gave him a reason to be outdoors, staring at something only he could supposedly see.
That was the biggest problem that faced mankind. They had stopped paying attention. No one noticed anything anymore. He could have taken out a handgun in the middle of Grand Central Station and eyewitnesses would give a hundred different descriptions of him. They would probably all remember that he smelled of cigarette smoke, but not what color his hair was.
There was a lot of money at stake tonight. He always required a day or two to make a decision on a contract. This allowed him some time to research the target. This time, the target was a US Marshal and a damn good one too, by all accounts. He’d made them say the name three times to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. He couldn’t imagine what the giant, hulking man giving the lighter female a piggy-back ride into the hotel had done to earn his salary, but it had to be serious. Most people wouldn’t contact him because he wasn’t cheap. He wouldn’t get out of bed for less than a few million, let alone take out his rifle.
He was curious about this one. He never got curious. This time, he just couldn’t imagine a serial killer hiring him to take down a member of the SCTU and if it was a serial killer, the target would have been Aislinn Cain, not Lucas McMichaels. It had to be something very personal, but the target was very high profile. It would be like gunning down another member of the Beatles. Love it or hate it, modern society had made the SCTU and VCU celebrities.
Honestly, Apex was surprised anyone would offer any kind of contract on a member of either unit. It wasn’t just that they were high profile targets, they were high risk targets. They were referred to as teams, but they were more like a pack. It didn’t matter that they didn’t share the same initials, they were not individuals within a unit. That had been proven repeatedly. Taking down any member would result in consequences, consequences that might involve never finding a body. They had groupies within the community of serial killers. Even if the SCTU and VCU didn’t track you down, someone else might.
This job was a suicide mission. He’d already talked himself out of the job when Aislinn Cain and Lucas McMichaels reappeared on the street. They were arguing over whether she should or should not smoke a cigarette after a migraine. He lit another cigarette of his own and continued to watch. Despite McMichaels’ disapproval, Aislinn Cain lit a cigarette. She even dared to exhale smoke in his direction, which he waved away.
The curiosity was killing him. Someone was offering ten milli
on dollars for Lucas McMichaels dead. To take the contract would be a disaster for the shooter. He briefly wondered if it was a trap to snare someone like him. He also wondered if Aislinn Cain was off her game enough for someone to take the shot right now and not be caught. The answer came to him as her body stiffened. A casual observer wouldn’t have noticed, but he did. His gaze instantly began to search for the source of her alertness. He found it half way down the block. A man was walking towards their hotel. It was obvious that he was not intoxicated or on any sort of drugs. His gait was too steady, his footfalls too soft. His shoes should have echoed on the poorly trespassed road, yet they didn’t. The man didn’t slow as he passed, but he did notice the two of them. Within a minute, he was gone, turning the corner and disappearing. Aislinn Cain’s face swung up and met his. He looked through the darkness and found only more darkness in her eyes. She had been aware of him the entire time.
As Apex stared into that emptiness, he suddenly realized exactly why Aislinn Cain had a fan club of serial killers. He stubbed out his cigarette and retreated to his darkened room. Those eyes haunted him. He’d seen the darkness before. He had even snuffed the life out of them before, but there was something sinister about Aislinn Cain. She was a predator of predators. People like him didn’t have a prayer of surviving if she caught their scent. He had no need to prove himself bigger and badder than she was. However, he did understand why others felt and acted upon that urge. It was why she was such an effective member of the SCTU. Serial killers would practically beat down her door in an effort to prove exactly how tough they were.
Even the darkest parts of him couldn’t imagine the tortures she would inflict if someone were to kill someone important to her. Killing Lucas McMichaels would definitely unhinge her. His memory quickly found the manhunt that occurred after the death of another member of the SCTU. The killer had gotten off light, facing Patterson Clachan, The Butcher, instead of Aislinn Cain and Malachi Blake.