by Carol A Park
Xathal stared at the paper containing Ivana’s first choice, then laid the paper down. “You want me to knowingly put these women in danger? Without even telling them?”
“Do you see another way?”
He shuffled his hat on and off. Then he rubbed his eyes. “What’s your plan?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ivana and Xathal had been biding their time in an empty room across the ally from the house where the presumed next victim lived since midnight on the seventh day. It was now closing in on eight o’clock, and still there had been no sign of Elidor. The woman, along with her baby, had been in and out throughout the day. She was out now.
Xathal had been fidgeting for hours: pacing, tapping, removing and turning his hat in his hands. Ivana, on the other hand, had sat motionless against the wall during that same time. As darkness fell, they had kept the room dark and had spoken little.
Waiting was always the most tedious part of her job, but she was used to it.
Xathal dropped his hat and looked more intently out the window.
Ivana straightened up. “Something happen?”
“She’s home again. This time she has another child with her, a little older.”
“What?” Ivana frowned and crawled over to the window to look through herself.
Indeed, she could see a young woman moving about in the room, just a small boarding room. She carried an infant on her chest while an older girl clung to her skirts.
“How did the fact that she had two children not come up in our survey of the three women?”
“Maybe the other child wasn’t there, like she wasn’t for most of today? Maybe my man didn’t think it was important? Maybe it isn’t her child? I…don’t know.”
She pressed her lips together. If she could have done it herself, she would have. But if Elidor had seen her anywhere near the homes of the three women in question…
No matter. It was what it was.
But where was Elidor? If he were coming here, surely he would have been here by now. Technically, he still had four hours, but why wait until so late?
Something wasn’t right.
Twenty-one. Sixteen. Newborn. Six months old.
Ivana had gone with the younger child.
But what if…
“Damn,” she whispered.
“That’s not what I want to hear,” said Xathal.
Elidor seemed to have chosen the other victims based on their similarity to the people in her life he was representing. She had assumed, then, that the child being the other person in her life whom she had lost, he would choose a child closest in age to hers, lost only a few hours after birth. But what was a few months in the age of a baby to a man like Elidor?
But it wasn’t about the child. It was about her, this time. She was the girl.
“You still have teams waiting nearby the other houses?”
“Yes, but—”
“Someone would have alerted us if they noticed anything, correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then we might still have time.” She stood up. “This isn’t the right woman.”
“That is not what I want to hear!”
“Get to the second team now. I’m going straight in; stay near, but give me five minutes before moving in.” She might still have a chance to take care of this herself, especially if she could catch him by surprise, but she wanted the backup if she needed it. “Do you understand?”
He nodded.
Ivana disappeared into the night.
The house was dark when she arrived. Unlike her first choice as a victim, who had lived in a boarding house, this girl shared an apartment with two other women.
Ivana already knew the girl’s housemates would be out. Xathal’s man had noted that they worked staggered shifts, so that one of them would always be home with the baby.
She had found a support system. She had done something Ivana had not even been able to do for herself, let alone herself and a child. A sort of fierce pride swelled in Ivana’s chest, surprising even herself.
Ivana brushed it aside. She felt, rather than knew, that she was short on time. The silence and darkness of the house unnerved her.
She scaled the wall and then inched along the roof until she reached a window that led into the apartment. She leaned over as far as she dared to see inside.
Only darkness.
She ran a hand over her face. She didn’t have the time to fully assess the situation.
She turned and dropped herself over the edge of the roof, lowering herself down until she found purchase on the windowsill. The window was already cracked open, which seemed unusual, given the time of year.
Had Elidor entered here? Worse yet, had he entered here and then left it open for her deliberately?
She made sure she had her balance, opened the window all the way, and then dropped inside.
She found herself in the main living area. A woodstove and pantry on one side, with a small round table in the middle, and then a few chairs and a row of shelves on the other side.
Near the window, a door led into another room. It was partially closed, but light shone through the crack.
Ivana crept closer to the door, staying away from the line of sight from within the room.
She dared to peek.
“You’re later than I expected. Did you get lost?”
Ivana froze. Damn. So much for surprise.
“Why do you hesitate? Come in. We have a guest.”
The last, she felt, was said to someone else, which was a positive sign, she supposed.
She glanced out the window. It would have taken Xathal a few minutes longer than herself to get to and instruct his team. She had maybe another six or seven minutes before they arrived.
She entered the room.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The woman was gagged, sitting on the bed with her wrists tied behind her back to the bedpost. Her shoulders were low and her head was bowed when Ivana first walked in, making her wonder at first if she was still alive. But at the sound of Ivana’s footsteps, the woman’s head jerked up.
Ivana halted inside the doorway. “Woman” was a strong word. Ivana was struck at once at how young the victim looked. Sixteen, the records had said; the youngest of all of Elidor’s victims, and she looked it. Just a girl. A girl like she had been.
And the girl was a mess. Dirt and tears smeared her face, the corners of her mouth were rubbed raw, and her hair was a tangle. Despairing eyes flickered with hope when she saw Ivana, and she struggled against her bonds again.
As for the child…
He sat at Elidor’s feet, innocently unaware of what was going on around him while he played with a cloth book. At his mother’s renewed struggles, his head swiveled to look at her, but the newcomer was more interesting, and so his gaze soon turned toward Ivana.
Unknowing that above him stood a madman with a sharp blade in his hand.
Elidor had been watching her. He only spoke now when her eyes had turned away from the girl and the babe and toward him. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Ivana let out a slow hiss through her teeth, meeting Elidor’s eyes. This was not a situation she could safely eliminate him in. Now, she had to stall him long enough for Xathal’s men to arrive. “And you weren’t last time?” Her eyes roved to the girl and back. “Things seem different this time. Why?”
He laughed, his empty, mirthless laugh. “Which do you think would be worse? To kill the woman first or the child?”
“Put the knife down, Elidor. Or better yet, let her go, and let’s finish this, you and I. That’s what this is about anyway, isn’t it?”
He ignored her, instead choosing to crouch down beside the babe. The child glanced curiously up at him.
The mother shrieked through her gag and hurled herself against her bonds.
Elidor looked up at the girl, studied her for a moment, and then glanced at Ivana. “Yes, clearly, the child. You see, I’m learning.”
Come
on, Xathal. It had to have been five minutes. How long had it taken him to get to the team?
She took a step toward the child, but Elidor’s eyes grew hard, dangerous, and she froze.
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” he said, bringing the knife too close to the child.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “It makes no sense, not for someone like you.”
He closed his eyes. “Someone like me,” he repeated. “What does that mean? What am I?” He opened them again. “Does it bother you?” he asked, not for the first time, except this time he was dangling a knife over a babe’s head.
“No,” she said, and it was mostly true.
“You lie. You’re not like me.” He picked up the child and rose to his feet, and then walked over to the girl and sat next to her on the bed. He balanced the child on his lap and ungagged the girl with a free hand.
“Put him down!” she shrieked. “Monster!”
He ignored her and instead shifted the child farther away from the girl.
She changed tactics. “Please,” she said, addressing Ivana. “Please help me.”
Elidor cocked his head and spoke only to Ivana. “Does it tear at you? Rend you? What are all those words people use?”
“What is this about?” Ivana asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“Let my son go. Take me, but let him go,” the girl whimpered.
“Does this break your heart?” Elidor continued, unmoved. “What does that feel like? Tell me!”
What did he want from Ivana?
She glanced at the girl, whose body was trembling, and yet, her eyes still flicked to her son, as if to make sure that in the midst of it, he was still alive.
Where. Are. They?
“I don’t understand,” Ivana said.
“I know you do. Or you used to.” He drew a thin chain out from under his tunic and let it rest on his chest. Her sister’s necklace. “I saw it every time you took out that blade.”
She frowned—and the door to the room burst open.
Amidst the shouts of Xathal’s men, Ivana lunged toward Elidor, which was just as well because he shoved the child toward the edge of the bed and dove for the window.
Ivana cursed, caught the babe, and handed him to his mother, who had already had her bonds undone by one of the Watchmen.
Another was standing at the window, his head out, looking up. “He’s on the roof!”
“Move!” she shouted, and the Watchman moved aside just in time for her to step up on the windowsill. A quick glance told her the path Elidor had taken. She flung herself to an external wooden stair outside the next apartment over, darted up the stairs as far as they would take her, climbed up on the railing, and jumped for the lip of the roof.
She caught it and heaved herself up in time to see him hurling himself across the gap between this building and the next—a narrow alley below—and land on the other side.
He would not get away this time.
She took a deep breath, sprinted across the roof, and leapt across the gap in pursuit.
Elidor was slowing. Ivana could tell. She had pursued him across the rooftops of the second district for close to five minutes, and she had gained on him, now landing on the roof of a building before he had jumped off to the next.
And he had stumbled, briefly, the last time he had landed from yet another jump.
They were coming out of the dense residential area and closer to the main thoroughfare that led to the city through the southern gate. He was soon going to run out of buildings close enough together that he could leap.
She didn’t know where he intended on going, but—
There. He had reached the end.
He halted at the edge of the building and stared across the street to the one on the other side, as if gauging the distance.
He couldn’t make that jump. He knew it. She knew it.
He turned and lowered himself over the edge of the wall to climb down, but his hesitation had allowed her to close in on him.
She couldn’t lose him in the streets. He had too many places to hide.
She drew her dagger and hurled herself toward him, lashing out at the fingers still gripping the edge of the roof.
He let go of the roof with the hand she had aimed for, causing her to miss, but the leg he had braced against the side of the building, the same one that he had fallen on a week ago, gave way, and he lost his grip with the other hand.
She grabbed for his other hand, and he scrambled for purchase, found it, and then lost it. She was forced to let go, lest she be dragged over the roof herself. He half-slid, half-fell against the wall toward the ground below.
She didn’t wait to see what happened. She sheathed her dagger and turned to climb down herself. The sound of an impact and a grunt came from below her, but by the time she made it down and turned, the hem of his cloak was already disappearing around the corner.
She ran to the corner, rounded the edge—
And found herself being dragged backward into the darkness of the alley beyond, a knife at her throat.
“Here!” she screamed. “Xathal!”
He growled and hurled her against a wall—the dead end of an alley.
She hit it, gasped, and fell to her hands and knees.
He stood above her, a menacing shadow blocking the only way out.
She was trapped.
She stood, and when she made to reach for her dagger, he moved closer, his dagger held out and ready to strike.
“Don’t!” he said. “Just tell me!”
They were back to this again? She held her hands out to either side. “All right. Just relax.”
His eyes were wild and angry; she had never seen him look so out of control.
He divested her of her own dagger and threw it out into the street.
She had to calm him down, get him talking again, to give Xathal and his team time to find her. “I really don’t understand.”
“You can remember. You remember what it feels like.”
She was becoming exasperated now. “I don’t want to remember. That was the whole point of all of this, Elidor. You know that. Or you would if you had been paying attention.”
He stepped in close and dug the point of his dagger into her neck. “Tell me! Tell me what you felt!”
Her fist clenched reflexively. “It hurt,” she spat out.
His eyes were hungry. “Tell me.”
She closed her eyes and then opened them again. How to make him understand? “Very well. Imagine that after a long, hard fight, you’ve been bested in hand-to-hand combat,” she said. “You lie flat on your back, wounds smarting, feeling so tired that you can hardly move.
“Your victor stands over you and laughs. And rather than honorably reach down to help you up, he deliberately puts the heel of his boot on your chest and starts grinding it down.” She touched his chest, and he didn’t move. “Slowly. Painfully. You feel the gravel pressing into your back. Your lungs begin to lose air. Your vision blackens.”
The anger had drained out of his eyes. Instead, they had glazed over. She lifted her hand and pushed the dagger away from her throat. “All you can feel, all you know is the certainty that this is the end. And yet it isn’t. The pain of the boot heel goes on, and on, and your arms are lead, you have no strength to move, you’re helpless to get up, until…”
She tugged up the sleeve to one arm, baring the scars that were still visible, even if the wounds themselves had healed long ago. “Until you would gladly find any other lesser source of pain to distract you from the agony.”
His eyes roved to her arm. His lips parted. Something almost pained flickered across his eyes. “You are,” he whispered, “the closest thing I’ve ever had to understanding.”
And in that moment, she finally understood as well.
He really didn’t get it.
He had been living despair vicariously through her, via the only connection he understood: blood. Physical pain. Violence. He had never experienced his ow
n emotional pain as he ought to have, given his past, and perhaps he knew he should have. Perhaps this had been his way of doing so.
It may have started as mere fascination, perhaps at her plight and obvious misery when he found her in the streets. But it had evolved into more. Since the time he had first seen blood on her fingers, he had discovered his muse and succor.
And then she had learned to kill. She had learned to wall off the pain, control her anger, bury her hurt. He had lost his medication.
But she also understood in that moment that no matter how tall and thick those walls were, she would never be like him.
Not truly.
Had he been trying to goad her into harming herself again? Was that what all of this had been about? Perhaps it had started as a lashing out, a release for his anger—but then the Watch had unexpectedly asked them to become involved. Had he then seen an opportunity?
Had he played this entire game in a vain attempt to return her to her previous state of pain? It hadn’t worked, of course. It had been unsettling, the similarities—but these were strangers to her. She had been trained far too well to let their deaths affect her. She had no connection with them. He didn’t understand. He had never understood.
But he had been trying to, hadn’t he? That picture, on the wall. His obsession with their faces. His insistence that she dine with him.
Tell me.
She leaned down and pulled out her boot knife, and, her eyes never leaving Elidor and his dagger, now held loosely in his hand, she skimmed it across her forearm.
And as her own blood welled up, it was as though some of the memories she had tried to bury beneath thick skin, now cut, were trying to seep out as well.
But his hand lowered.
“Why did you kill those first women, Elidor?” she asked softly.
He licked his lips. “I…didn’t want to,” he said. “Not really. I just wanted to see them bleed. And they wouldn’t—they wouldn’t cooperate.” He licked his lips again, appearing at a loss.
She had never seen him appear so helpless and out of control. He had even stuttered. “But you knew that you couldn’t then leave them alive after torturing them.”