String of Murder

by brett hicks

  She could have been killed for this affiliation.

  I thought to myself, and then I shook my head.

  No, because the first victim was a Brit!

  I huffed, and my mind seemed to be spiraling out of control, going in loops.

  “Did Donna have any scars?”

  I asked casually, and Jasmine indulged me with an answer, despite her avid curious mind burning to know what I was thinking about.

  “Just the scars of her birth. Her second son, he was turned, so they performed a C-section to remove him. She nearly died under the knife, as I am told.”

  I bit my lip and I sagged. Technically, it was a scar, but a lot of modern women had that kind of scar, so I couldn’t go chasing random theories just now.

  “Did you manage to scrape some of the skin under her nails? I am sure that one or both the women scratched their murderer.”

  Jasmine nodded, and she smiled and said, “It was conclusively identified as Caucasian in coloring after about a dozen doctors studied the samples at length.”

  Bobby sagged in relief, I knew why, and I did not blame him in the slightest!

  “Right, so we are looking for a white man, I could have told you that from the very first!”

  I said sassily, and Jasmine rolled her eyes. Bobby thanked her, and he practically drug me out of the room.

  Twenty:

  Something about the heightened senses at night lend aid to the unseen. It was nothing but a gut feeling that had me drawing my large .357, but no sooner than I had, I heard a voice from deep in the shadows across from my steam bike.

  “Oye, it’s just me, it’s Sting.”

  Note to self, don’t park in a dark and shadowy alley this late at night!

  I chided myself privately, and I slowly eased the hammer to rest carefully. The young man stepped out into the low light cast by the lamp across the main road. Sting looked a bit dirtier than was typical of him. I arched my brow and said, “Diving through the gutters, are we?”

  Sting gave me a look of pure annoyance, and he stepped forward.

  “I’ll take that payment now, and I would be just to ask for twice this fee, considering the level of trouble your seemingly mundane errand has led me to. You really don’t know how to do anything half-way do you, Julia?”

  I frowned deeply at the young man, and I noted the limp, bloody gashes on his left shoulder. I swore, and I rushed over to him and I inspected the wound.

  “Great Spirit above, I thought you were dying for a second there! We need to treat this; can you hold on to me while we ride back to my apartment? This needs to be cleaned properly and sown up.”

  Sting nodded slightly, and said, “Yeah, I’m good, just need to crash for a few, and I’ll be golden.”

  I snorted at his bravado, and I helped him onto the back of the bike.

  “Hold on tight Sting, I don’t want to cause turf wars by accidentally killing off the street-king.”

  Sting made a pained sound, and he said, “You really know how to flatter a guy, don’t you, Julia?”

  I snorted, and I rolled my eyes, even though I knew that he couldn’t see me in front of him.

  “Right, since charming men is something, I’m into .”

  Sting chuckled and said, “You and I both know that charm is a useful tool where we both come from. It has nothing to do with sex or attraction. It is just needed, needs, and is sometimes convenience.”

  He wasn’t wrong, not that I was going to inflate his youthful ego by admitting that to him!

  “You keep those hands on my waist, stray high or low, and you’ll be down a hand, are we clear?!”

  I said firmly, and Sting chuckled, but it sounded more pained than humorous to my ears. He sighed and said, “You never really sound much like a copper to me, you still have the streets in you, Julia. You know, we could rule this city together, you and I, we would be unstoppable.”

  I threw back my head and laughed, and then I took off and my steam engine roared to full power, picking up speed, quickly hitting the forty-five-miles and hour limiter of the engine.

  Sting wisely kept his hands inside the designated zone of approval and did not stray to explore flesh, or well leather really. The trip was made in ten minutes, and only three near-misses with other zooming steam bikes. To the rest of the city, I must have looked like a real lunatic! I knew how bad infection was, and Sting smelled like he had crawled through some very nasty places to find me. I was no modern medical doctor, but I knew that filth could cause all kinds of horrible effects on a wounded body. Most wounded soldiers died from gangrene in injuries, so keeping wounds clean was imperative.

  ***

  I helped Sting up the steps, and he swore as he belonged on a freelancer’s ship. We came into my apartment, and Maria was still up, she took one look at the filthy, wounded boy and shot off to her apartment down the hall while muttering a list of supplies she was going to need. Grace studied the youth, and she quirked a brow.

  “I see your penchant for trouble is unchanged, Julia.”

  I gave her a dry laugh, and Sting’s pained voice interjected, “That’s exactly what I told her, ma’am.”

  He gave her a wan but striking boyishly handsome smile. Sting was not lying when he said knowing how to charm was a survival skill, it really was! Grace snorted and waved him off, “You can put that away kid, I’m a married woman.”

  Sting shrugged and said, “That’s too bad because you are an enchanting woman.”

  I popped him on the head lightly, and I pointed towards my bathroom.

  “Go take a good thorough bath, wash all that muck off. After that, we can see to the wounds. You don’t seem to be bleeding too bad now, so let’s try to clean this as best we can unless you want to lose an arm?”

  Sting’s expression sobered quickly, and he said, “Yeah, thanks for this Julia, seriously.”

  I waved him off, and said, “Orphan solidarity, kid.”

  He smiled slightly and nodded in agreement. I didn’t really care to help him in the bath. Sting knew what was at stake, so he would scrub himself down thoroughly. The cocky little shit wouldn’t want to have a nub for a left arm. Still, the fact that Sting had taken damage during the course of his little investigation was troubling. I have sparred with him before, he is no slouch, and he can keep me on my toes any day of the week, but I am still better. Sting would have to have either scrapped against someone at or above my level of skills in hand-to-hand, or he had somehow been set upon and taken by surprise. Knowing Sting, it was highly unlikely that it would be the second option. Sting is the craftiest, and stealthy street-rat to crawl out of the sewer since me.

  “Julie, what’s going on?”

  I whipped my head around at the sound of the small female voice. Avery’s brown hair was wild and bed-tussled from her sleep. She was wearing a pair of soft cotton pajamas we had recovered from her apartment. I guess she had not minded having the pieces of her former home here. I would do everything I could to make sure the rest of her stuff and her mother’s possessions found their way to her.

  “Hey there sugar, I brought a friend here. He was hurt while doing a job for me. He’s in the bathtub now, so don’t go in, you might see something you can never unsee.”

  Avery’s flushed instantly to bright pink, she was a cute little girl, and she would one day become the stunning beauty that her mother had been. Avery seemed to be straight, and her embarrassment confirmed this, not that I cared! I would raise the kid, not tell her who to like!

  “I’ll make coffee and boil some water. Momma always had boiling water when treating injuries.”

  I noted the casual nature in how she said this. Her mother had a habit of treating injuries, that was interesting. I knew enough about the Revolutionaries to know they always had one trained medic in every cell. If this was anything to go on, it might have made Mary the rev medic for this sector of the city. This was a possibility that could be researched later. Besides, it’s not like I can just walk up to their super-sec
ret hideouts and ask them nicely. The Nexus City cells have no knowledge of my existence, which was intentional since they could not spill information about me, if captured.

  Sting walked out in nothing but a towel and a smile. I groaned internally for forgetting to fish out some old clothes for him to wear.

  “Let me just get you something to wear, since my ward is in the kitchen. Stay put until I get you covered!”

  I said firmly, and Sting gave me an innocent look that all but actually said, “Who me?” Finding something for a young man to wear in my wardrobe was much easier than it had been, finding something for Avery. One of my oldest pair of well-worn buttery brown leather pants had been a boy’s design, to begin with, and I had several pure-black long sleeve shirts. They were fading, and the leather was cracked, but the clothes were sturdily made and had plenty of wear left in them.

  I came out into the hall and tossed Sting the clothes, and his eyes widened at the sight of the pants.

  “You sure you want to part with these?”

  He asked, and I gave him a crooked smile.

  “No, but it beats having Avery scared for life at the sight of your skinny naked ass.”

  Sting rolled his eyes and he slunk back into the bathroom to dress. He came back out, and the leathers looked much better on him than they ever had on me. He filled out the shirt surprisingly well, though his bony body was still lanky and awkward in some places. He had the presence of mind to roll up the sleeve. Sting had taken ownership of the clothes, so he was already ensuring that they did not start out with blood stains.

  “Julie, I have the boiling water on the stove, and some coffee brewing in the electric maker thing.”

  Avery came around the corner, and she stopped in her tracks when she spotted Sting. Sting had gone very still as well. This interaction was bazaar, but I remembered being a teen not so long ago. He shot her a winning smile and said, “You must be Avery, you are thrice as beautiful as Julia claimed you to be.”

  The silver-tongued little devil took her hand and kissed it like some British count, or courtesan flirting with his intended. Avery bit her lip and looked perplexed at this teen boy’s behavior towards her, and her pink cheeks told me that she wasn’t at all unhappy about the sudden attention.

  She smiled and said, “Hi, what’s your name?”

  I interjected, “He’s trouble, with a capital T and insert an extra B.”

  Sting looked at me, faux hurt and said, “Julia, is that how you think the brave young man who bleeds to come and warn you?”

  I frowned, and I said, “Let’s get this cleaned out properly, then you can tell me all about who got the better of you.”

  Sting nodded slightly, and he looked around, and Avery said, “Follow me, we can sit you in the kitchen. That looks terribly bad!”

  She sounded so girlish, so, well like a teenage girl who just met a very handsome devil—emphasis on the devil portion! Sting was milking her gentle nursemaid treatment for all it was worth, and I had a sudden desire to create a few new bloody holes in the young lad. Grace helped me with the wound, and Maria rushed back in with a large medical kit worthy of a hospital nurse.

  Sting was pampered properly by four women, I’m pretty sure if Maria had been a young woman like the rest of us, this would have been his adolescent definition of heaven. I wasn’t at all happy with how much attention the lad was showing my new ward! Sting and I were going to have a long talk, one involving dirks, and possibly loading pistols.

  Maria and the others finally left later in the night. Bobby took Grace home, and Maria had given Sting a sleeping draft. She said it was some sort of natural sedative. She was very selective about what she used, considering the new rise in chemical manipulation, and artificial substances being created in science labs, or in medical research laboratories.

  After Sting showing up hurt, I decided it was wise to stay up. I sat with my chair facing the door, and I had my revolver on my lap. I felt like closing my eyes would be inviting trouble into my home tonight.

  Twenty-One:

  After Sting had been tended to so thoroughly that I was scared he might opt to never leave my home, I sat down next to him. His eyes were on Avery, the skinny little girl was only two years younger than him, so I guess it made sense that she looked like a more mature creature to Sting’s still child-framed eyes of maturity and growth.

  I showed everyone away, and I locked my eyes on Sting’s miss-match blue-brown mixed gaze. He huffed and scratched at his cheek absently.

  “So, what happened to you Sting? Who got the better of you?”

  He looked almost offended at the non-accusation. He huffed, and he puffed out his chest.

  “Some bugger heard me making discrete inquiries about your lovely young lady. This was before word hit the street, that her mum was found dead, mind you. He approached me, asked if I could lead him to Avery, said he was an uncle from Ireland, but I wasn’t buying any of that muck. The guy was dressed like a local off-the-boat thug, even had the brown and light tan mixed leathers that people know as the family colors for the McNeil’s.”

  That sounded very strange, and a little unsettling, to say the very least.

  “What did he look like?”

  Sting sniffed and said, “About your height, maybe an inch taller, flaming orange-red hair, and built like one of those boxer blokes from the Britannia homeland.”

  My gut sizzled with deep suspicion. Why would a mobbed-up man be killing women—assuming this red-head was the same bastard I was now hunting.

  “So, he was mobbed? Have you seen him before?”

  Sting frowned at me and said, “That’s the thing, I don’t think he was really with the McNeil’s. He didn’t understand me when I asked him about the black cigar. It’s a mob code, something I was taught when I did a few money drops for the family. You don’t know the code, then cut-n-run. Well, I asked him if he had a black cigar, and I could give em’ more info.”

  I nodded, and I listened with rapt attention.

  “Well, he said, ‘Got no bloody cigars, filthy things, that.’ So, needless to say, my senses were on edge now, and I took another good look at the git. He was in brand-new leathers like he had just grabbed em’ off the rack, n such. I told him to come back with the black cigar, and three gold coins. Was try’in to blow em’ off the smart way, set up a meet, never show. Well, he saw through the ruse, and well, he lashed out at me. I got my dirk into his palm, he lost grip and he slashed at me a few times, but I managed to get away. Bugger-all, that git was a fast bastard, and he was strong too! Was lucky ye gave me that nice four-inch silver dirk of yer’s a while back. Technically, ye saved my life today.”

  I lightly slapped him on the right shoulder, and I nodded to him. Sting might be a bit on the illegal side, but I liked him. I was very relieved that he managed to get away from a potential serial killer with no more than two gashes to his left shoulder.

  “Blimey, you did a damn right good job coming back alive. I am sorry that my seemingly harmless errand put you at knife’s edge of a killer!”

  I fished out a gold coin and two more silver ones, and I handed them to Sting.

  “I would give you more, for the trouble, but well you know how it is. I got a new house-mate to feed, and all that.”

  Sting pocketed the coins and shrugged, then he winced in pain.

  “You keep yer word, that’s better than most the city, lass.”

  I sniffed in amusement, and I frowned slightly.

  “Do you think he works for one of the other families? He could be trying to shift focus in the wrong direction?”

  Sting shrugged with his good shoulder, and said, “Couldn’t tell ye for certain, but pretty sure he would have known the code word if he was just some local thug with a family backing.”

  I sighed, and I muttered, ‘What the hell does that leave us with?”

  Sting chuckled darkly, and said, “That leaves you with a bloody case to solve, and me with some more money in me pocket than I had befor
e all this, so we will make do, yeah?”

  I grinned at the young man, he was a wise-ass, and he was totally inappropriate company now that I had a little girl to worry about, but I just admired Sting’s unique perspective. I would not preach at him, as many an orphan had preached at me when I was his age. I could talk myself in circles, and Sting would still do what he thought was right for him, no matter where that put him, legally speaking. I tried very hard to keep a non-judgmental attitude with Sting, but I couldn’t help but see massive talents going to waste on the streets.

  “We should pin a damn black badge on you Sting, considering you were able to learn that much and escape with your life.”

  Sting smirked at me, and said, “You really don’t want to tell me what to do, but you still couldn’t help but launch that statement, huh lass?”

  I laughed in honest, and I nodded in a concession to his point.

  “Just saying, you have all the chops for the job, but I’ll shut my mouth. You know me, I’m above all that preachy shit.”

  He chortled, and he laid out on my couch as I stood up.

  “I have to get back to work, but you can stay here while you heal up, Maria will kill us both if her handy work gets undone due to your hobbies. That does not give you permission to flirt with Avery!”

  I said firmly, and Sting looked up at me as if he were a baby-faced innocent bystander.

  “I would never dream of crossing any lines with you, Julia.”

  I leaned in and said, “It’s not me I’m worried about lines being crossed with, and you know it.”

  He smiled like the mix-eyed devil that he was, and he conceded my point.

  “Avery is a singularly beautiful lass.”

  I gave him that scalding look only mothers could give, and said, “Keep your admiration to afar.”

  He sighed and smacked his lips together.

  “Yer taking all the fun outta this domestic situation, lass.”

  “That’s still detective lass, to you mister!”