by N. M. Brown
Thinking it over carefully, McQueen thought what best to do in this situation. “So, don’t.” he found himself saying. Her eyes darted to his and looked at him like he was crazy. She couldn’t believe what he’d just said and frankly, he almost didn’t believe he’d said it either. “Don’t be something you’re not.” A weak smiled trailed his lips and he almost seized her hand. “Lizzy has only asked for you. Between the nonsense and the screams, she asked for you. If she’d asked for a priest or her mother I wouldn’t let you with in fifty feet of this room. But she didn’t. She asked for you. She knows you and knows you’re not kind or soft or… will sit there and let her cry on your shoulder.” He watched as a cool, calculating look grew in Echo’s eyes and she went back to looking through him, through the door and to Lizzy. “Don’t comfort her. She’ll get enough of that to last a life time. Be you.”
Back straightening and arms unwinding from her waist her voice came out strong. “Ok.”. She stepped around McQueen, grabbed the door handle herself and walked through the threshold with confidence. McQueen shivered as a single, fleeting thought raced through his head, he’d just given the demon of desires her wings and now she was going to soar.
XXVIII
All the other beds were empty in Lizzy’s room. The Nurse who’d arrived with McQueen gave her a suspicious look and hovered over Lizzy like a mother hen, but her eyes softened when McQueen came in behind her. Echo shivered again as Lizzy’s singular fiery green eye, surrounded by mottled yellows and dark blues, watched her every step. The broken prostitute didn’t smile, so Echo didn’t smile back, and she didn’t sit on the edge of the bed. She stopped by Lizzy’s feet; not too close but not too far away. She wouldn’t act like any normal person would. She still meant what she’d said to the Cadaver Doc; no evidence before her eyes was going to change her mind. Even as Lizzy watcher her now, alive and breathing, Echo thought she was better off dead.
The only sound was everyone’s breaths hissing in and out and the repetitive beep of the heart monitor. Echo's eyes flicked to the machine, watching the jagged blips. They were so harsh in their shape but represented a solid testament that Lizzy was still alive and kicking. Echo half wished McQueen would start talking but he had taken a stand further back, leaning on the opposite empty bed. He was just going to wait and see how things played out, the ass. Echo gripped her hands tighter making her nails bite into her skin. The pain was comforting.
“You look like shit.” She finally whispered taking in the missing legs, fingers, eye and of course the haunted, dead look in Lizzy’s complexion.
The staggered inhale by Nurse Willow, as her ID card read, was harsh against the calm, but she held her tongue perhaps due to a look McQueen gave her, or maybe it was because of Lizzy. Slowly, as if she’d forgotten she could, Lizzy smiled. Then she huffed out a cough which transformed into a beautiful, charming laugh. It was the kind of laugh that turned heads in a restaurant or made you smile right alongside them. Nurse Willow looked like she’d seen a ghost, eyes wide and face pale, and though she couldn’t see McQueen, Echo thought he might be smiling too.
Lizzy’s laugh quickly turned sour though; her breaths becoming ragged and tears streaming from one eye. Echo moved only slightly closer as the pungent smell of cleanliness wafted from the sheets making her wrinkle her nose. Lizzy slowly found her voice; tired and ragged from screaming but words tumbled from her mouth. “So painful… It hurts Echo.” Lizzy’s eye pooled again and her entire body went limp in the restraints. “I remember you. Pretty girl, pretty eyes; hair as dark as a raven, skin like fresh snow.” She sniffed. “I always liked your smile, never did I see such a beauty. I liked you best in the red lipstick. Made me smile. It made you look… dangerous. Wicked and fun. Like me.” Lizzy’s soft chuckled turned into a whimper as pain laced through her body. “Like I was…”
Echo didn’t know what to say. “Thank you.” was all she could think of, but Lizzy was already lost in her head, memories flashing across her face.
“She had a nice smile too, that beautiful girl. Red as a rose like yours. And he, he had smelt like mint… a garden just for me. He made me promises… sweet whispers… They’d wanted me to make them happy, to scratch that itch…; they wanted to return the favour… I’ve never had a garden. Lavender, Hazel, Rosemary and Thyme. They kept me… keep me like a dress up doll…” Lizzy was speaking nonsense words, mind diving in odd directions. Over her shoulder, Echo could hear McQueen's pen scribbling as fast as it could, trying to get every word down.
“Sounds like a nice plan.” Echo replied, but the words sounded strained even to her. It didn’t matter though. Lizzy wasn’t listening.
“They had a garden, just for me to play in. Games for hours and hours of fun.” Lizzy’s chest rasped with a sob, “But it was stolen from us. Stole us, in my home. From my safe place. Robbed us, ripping us, ravaging us... The demon!” Lizzy spat, words on fire and spilling from her mouth so fast, so emotional Echo could only just keep up. “Teeth with no gums, no mouth, no voice. Endless screams so loud! Vicious claws and fangs…Make it. Stop! Make it stop! No peace, no peace! I wished for peace! …” Lizzy let out a ragged sob, her throat swelling with the effort. “‘No’, over and over, all of them, howling, biting, clawing at the walls. They wanted more, screamed for more… I thought they would help, begging them for help… but no, they werethere, dancing at our feet! Gnashed their teeth, bit their tongues. They laughed at us as we swung. They laughed when no one came. They said it was our fault. Our Sin. Our punishment. Laughed they did, laughed and luaghedlaughedlaughed!!” Lizzy’s voice broke into a scream, head wrenched backwards on the pillow.
“I think that’s enough!” Nurse Willow stated but Lizzy focused all her rage and pain into pulling at her restraints and flying up right in bed. It caused the little, mousy nurse to take a step back in shock.
“It was never enough! They kept coming and coming and asking for more and more.” Lizzy screamed. Echo stayed rooted to the floor in silence, even when Lizzy started to scream at her too. “YOU!” She snarled in her direction. “You. The shadows spoke of you! The monsters in the dark, the nightmares of old. It sob and wept! It plotted and screamed. You were a thief, a night crawler wrapped in shadow! You thief! How dare you!! They would have your downfall!” Lizzy stopped yelling and laughed, her manic mood swings turning everyone on their head. “You would not give the glory! So, they found someone else. Used someone else, a demon. A demon of sun and spice. Red was its colour, so beautiful so rich. It had gold in its eyes. It painted over its scars, war paint. Scars to the soul.” Lizzy dropped to a low, scared whisper. “It spat and snarled, cried and screamed. ‘Kill them, hurt them rip them apart.’ The snake of lies whispered in its ear! I begged it not to listen, but it had seen my soul, my shame!” Lizzy wept, ragged, distorted breaths pulling from her chest.
The heart monitor was erratic, but not even Nurse Willow moved to turn the sound off. It kept the real world in place and solid. The pain was so fresh on Lizzy’s face; she could almost draw you in and smother you with it.
“Baseborn! That was my name. They ripped apart my soul and re-forged it. Renamed it. It called me Doxy!” Lizzy began to spill other languages, words lost on her tongue. Lizzy kept screaming over and over, arms staking and her legless hips twisting in the restraints.
“That’s enough. Time to leave.” Nurse Willow’s voice was stronger this time, leaving no room to argue. Moving slowly McQueen grasped Echo’s arm and pulled her towards the door. Echo didn’t resist. Nurse Willow was already pulling an ugly looking needle from a draw and walking to Lizzy’s IV bag.
“NO! No more sleep, no more nightmares! I’ll be good. I’ll be good. I promise, I promise. Please don’t lock me in the dark again.” Lizzy sobbed. She’d transformed into a small, helpless girl crying in fear. “I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be good.” She whispered over and over, rocking side to side. Echo looked away and felt cold. Death didn’t bother her, but seeing Lizzy like that, having known her vibr
ant wicked side from before, it turned Echo’s mind over and over with question she thought she knew the answers too. She didn’t like it.
As McQueen opened the door, Lizzy suddenly let out a blood curdling scream. The little child was gone, and a manic woman was lying in her place. Mouth wide, and her face pale, her final words rushed out, as her tongue lashed in her mouth. “Kill it! Kill it all! Take their bones and their flesh, take their trophies and titles. Rid the world of them. To ash and dust!” Lizzy took a breath, Echo tensed as Lizzy’s eye grew wide in desperation and fear. “And then return, victorious and crowned in a wreath of death and end me. Promise you will end me?” Her last words were said in but a hushed whisper, voice low and deadly. Lizzy meant every word.
Echo didn’t even feel herself nod as McQueen pushed her from the room, her feet tripping over themselves, but a sigh of relief slipped from Lizzy’s lips and a look of peace flooded her face. Peace had been promised to her, but Echo didn’t know how she would keep it.
✽ ✽ ✽
“I don’t care if I have to chain you up in the stations break room for the rest of time. If I ever find you in this room again while Lizzy is recuperating, with so much as a malice thought in your head, I will imprison you in the darkest hole in the deepest pit and I will throw away the key.” McQueen seethed, practically foaming at the mouth and his whole-body vibrating with rage.
So clearly, he’d seen Echo’s nod of promise at Lizzy’s request to die. He was a stupid man if he thought Echo would agree to murder in front of an officer of the law, but then Echo wasn’t sure what she had promised. Lizzy’s words had been twisted and broken, jumping from past to present, from pain to revenge, Echo couldn’t make heads or tails of most of it.
Instead she rolled her eyes at him. She could do this; the back and forth, the bite of an insult and laugh at humanities stupidity. She could tease him and play with him. That was normal for her. So that’s what she would do. “Did you get everything down?” She asked, indicating to his note pad, several pages flung forward as he hurriedly turned to the next page. “Or did you just make this excursion a reason to see me?”
Glancing downMcQueen'snote pad had crushed under closed fist, some pages ripped, others had crinkled. “Shit.” He hissed, moving to the empty nurse’s station to fix them. “I got most of it.” He confessed, eyes scanning the pages as he pressed them flat, almost hoping something would pop up and say, ‘here’s your killer’.
“Most? That’s how you Detectives work now, is it?” She laughed, feeling her body slowly lower back to earth from whatever twisted plane she’d just walked out of. What had she been thinking? No matter what Bris suggested, no life was worth that experience. “Oh wait, I forgot. Little Queenie is all alone. How is Hale by the way, still chasing shadows in the dark?”
McQueen visibly gritted his teeth. “He’s working. We have more than enough leads to follow and are spread thin.” He focussed on his notes. “Now despite your reluctance, I will thank you for coming to see Lizzy. There might be something in here.” Echo wasn’t sure if McQueen was trying to convince her or himself, but he wasn’t doing a great job. She looked at his haggard face and as her eyes travelled down, she had to hold back a snort at the Detectives odd socks. She sighed heavily…
“Want to compare notes?” Echo almost wanted to swallow the words back as they left her mouth. Bris had really done a number on her, Echo thought. The littlest of Sin’s had turned her world inside out, bringing up memories and feelings that she had thought she had long buried. She needed a distraction and she suddenly had a thought. Archer wanted her close to the case, so she would stick close. Close enough to wrap it up and be done with it all.
“Compare…” McQueen shook his head. “It’s against policy to discuss an open case with a civilian.”
Echo looked up and down the corridor and shrugged. “I don’t see any law-abiding Officers to catch you in the act. In fact, it only took me a few minutes to convince the Officers who were here to leave. It’s surprising what twenty-quid and the suggestion of coffee will make a reluctant worker do.” As McQueen was about to argue she butted in before he could, “And I don’t see anyone else offering.” That made McQueen pause, “I know the case and I know the victims. I know the patrons; their personalities and I know the House. I have no doubt my knowledge contains things you haven’t even considered. You really would be stupid to turn me down. I’m not a generous person Queenie.”
He seemed to take a deep breath as if to calm himself, needing to roll his neck out before answering. “Sure.” He strained out.
Allowing a small smile, Echo rounded the hospital desk, claiming a wheelie chair of her own and pulled another alongside. She settled under the desk ready like a child at school, thirsty for knowledge. “Ok.” Echo repeated compellingly.
“…ok.” McQueen said hesitantly, sitting also. Echo smiled as she took in the Detective’s weary look and the slight panic she could sense off him. It was endearing to know he feared her in one way or another, it made her smile. She knew she was acting out of character but keeping her play toy on his toes never hurt. Plus, by helping, she could enjoy some real one on one time.
XXIX
“D
emons are not real.” McQueen stated pounding his fist on the desk top. His coat was off, his tie had been loosened and he’d run his fingers through his hair who knew how many times. He and Echo had been sat behind the nurse’s station for what felt like hours. When McQueen did allow himself to glance at his watch it was only about mid-day. So, it really had been hours.
“How can you say that?” Echo spat back. She was still fully dressed and didn’t look rustled. She also seemed to be enjoying debating a lot more than McQueen was. “Lizzy spoke of them multiple times and described them more than once.”
“She was hanging in the air with serious blood loss. She’d been tortured for hours and witnessed the deaths of two people who she was intending to have intimate relationships with. She could have seen anything. Hallucinations are very common with blood loss.” Echo just rolled her eyes at McQueen’s argument. “Fine, real or not real, we have no evidence of multiple killers, let alone more them. The crime scenes are all too similar and there is no way more such people could commit such crimes and not have in-fighting and fall apart. It’s much more likely that a hit man was used; Maddock. If we can find the proof that there was a hit on the latest victims, we’d have him.”
“You have no evidence at all except a commission payment, but you still believe it was a hit? I must commend your detective work; once again you surprise me with your blind arrogance, but we’ll move past that.” Echo muttered under her breath with a smile. There was a humorous gleam in her eyes that McQueen was sure he’d never seen before. “Shall we go over what we worked out that actually makes sense?”
Ignoring her gibe, McQueen continued. “We should focus on her other descriptions. The twisted son of a bitch taunted her. He likes to be dramatic.” McQueen stated with a frown, “Scars also suggest he’s got a sordid past; maybe military…?” McQueen looked over to Echo but instead of her soft smile he’d grown to look for, he saw disbelief. “What?”
Echo just shook her head. “You think the killer is a man?” She laughed. “It’s not a man. It’s a woman.” McQueen frowned and was about to argue but Echo held up a hand to silence him. “She saw Lizzy’s shame in her soul?? Can you imagine a man seeing such things?”
“Men can be observant too.” He defended. Echo snorted hard and McQueen found a chuckle slipping between his lips. She might have been slightly right, but that didn’t mean the killer was a woman, “Besides, the physical strength to hang the bodies puts a notch towards it being a man.” McQueen deduced with pride. “Women can be strong, but this is a vile criminal act. Women tend towards the poisons and the hands-clean approach.” McQueen’s mind stuttered as he recalled who he was talking to and her… special skill set. He quickly pushed on, “Lizzy’s not sane. What she sees and what is real are not the same.”
“Fine,” Echo retorted, “Say your right, and it’s a man and say that it’s not your hit man Maddock’s doing? What would interest a man in killing two men, a prostitute and a mistress? And what about the Indian angle: a demon of sun and spice? I can say that there are only a handful of men that would match that description who regularly go to the House.”
“The Indian angle could just be his choice of killing. It doesn’t mean he is of Indian decent. There’s so much shit on the internet nowadays.” McQueen defended.
“Oh, so the killer picks a random way to kill his victims off the internet somewhere?” Echo’s sarcasm ran thick. “Lizzy also said they wore war paint? Maybe the killer’s a Highlander. Should I write you a list of all the Scottish customers we have? Because you don’t get much sun up there in the snow, or spice unless you count some old wives’ homemade soup. He’d be far out of is comfort zone in that regard.” McQueen chuckled and shook his head. He watched Echo as she waited for his retort. “What?” She snapped impatiently.
