The StoneCutter

by Scott Blade

Shane thought it best to keep up the charade of a normal life. So that night, we went out with friends to a posh D.C. restaurant called Chefs of the Capital. It was a popular place and always busy. The room was packed with famous politicians and greedy lobbyists. They chomped at the heels of the powerful Congressmen like starving pit bulls clutching at table scraps.

  Shane usually turned down invites from coworkers and other lawyers, but tonight we accepted an invite from one of the firm's more prestigious lawyers, Jack Crush.

  Jack and Shane were bitter rivals. Jack was always jealous of Shane's immediate success in the Shutter case. That case put Shane on the map. Before we had freed America's most talked about serial killer, Jack Crush was Graves and Associates' number one defense attorney. He had worked for years to rise to such a role. He was truly a gifted lawyer.

  Now, he lagged behind Shane. The Board denied Jack a partnership several times because he was too young. The rumor going around that they considered Shane for partner infuriated him.

  "So how is it going with the new StoneCutter defendant?" Jack asked. He leaned forward. The tip of his tie scraped the white-linen covered table as he spoke.

  Jack was younger than Shane. He graduated from law school only four years ago, but he was a prodigy, a rising star. He was ambitious and dangerous. He was definitely someone to lookout for.

  I saw something in him. Something resided behind his eyes, deep in the chasms of his head. I knew that there was a creature similar to myself lurking in the darkness. Then again, most lawyers had something dark living inside them. I had never seen any evidence that Jack was homicidal, so he was not fair game. Not yet anyway. The jury was still out on him.

  "Jack, I can't discuss the case with you or anyone else. You know that," Shane said.

  Shane drank vodka with Red Bull. He looked beyond Jack Crush and watched the sexy Sun Good as she stared through her champagne glass and back at Shane. She winked at us.

  She wore a turquoise blue tube-top with a zipper down the front. Sun's cleavage was nicely accented. Her long, black hair was down. She twirled it with her fingers as she studied Shane's activities from in the back of the dining room.

  "Come on. Your client is a real celebrity's son. Give me some details," Jack begged. He was drunker than usual. The jealousy must really be getting to him or the creature that lives inside him.

  "The only thing that I can tell you is that he is innocent. Now excuse me for a moment, Jack. I've got to piss," Shane said.

  Shane stood straight up out of his chair without giving Jack a second glance. We walked to the men's room, passing the bar and the prying Det. Sun Good.

  Shane snuck a peek at her. She followed us with her eyes. Her Capri blue jeans fit tightly to her thighs, showing off her muscular legs.

  Shane was horny for her. I knew it.

  We entered the men's room and Shane stared into the mirror. When most people looked into the mirror, they saw themselves. When I looked into the mirror, I saw my home, my real estate staring back at me.

  Shane turned the water on. A slow stream cascaded out. He watched as the water circled and slid down the drain.

  We needed to ditch Sun Good. She had to give up her quest. Shane thought hard, trying to figure out some way of eluding the great detective.

  Dress code, I told him. That was our answer. We needed to go somewhere that she couldn't. Then we could give her the slip so that we could retreat and start searching for the StoneCutter. His trail grew colder every moment that we delayed.

  Eating with friends, living this fantasy, drove us crazy. We needed to get back on the hunt.

  Shane took out his iPhone and googled nearby nightclubs. As a part of being a lawyer, and one of D.C.'s elite citizens, Shane had memberships to all of the most decadent nightclubs. We decided to go to Rushmore's Ultra Lounge. It was at the top of the Lincoln Hotel. Tonight there was a strict dress code. Sun Good would not be able to get inside in her casual clothes.

  Shane looked in the mirror and saw me smiling back at him from behind his eyes, the windows to my cave.

  |||||

  I watched Shane tidy up his social encounter with Jack Crush and the four other elite snobs that we pretended to be friends with. Then he took a taxi to pick up a couple of special friends.

  A half hour later, we walked straight into Rushmore's with two expensive hookers in-tow.

  "Shane, we need to get some party favors," Lisa said as she caressed Nina, the blond one.

  Both girls were fit and clean looking. They were merely props for Shane. We used them for appearance's sake. Shane hadn't seen the detective following us, but I knew that she was around. I sensed it. Her car trailed behind us at every turn, around every street corner.

  The line to get into Rushmore's Club stretched out past the entrance to the building next door, a closed investment office. The wait just to get into the nightclub was an hour long for most people. For people like Shane, there was no wait.

  Shane used his celebrity status to get us right to the beginning of the line. The bouncer pulled back the red rope and beckoned us to pass.

  "Shane, I can't believe that you got us in," Nina said. Her skirt rode so high up her legs that we could see the bottom of her ass. Not my forte, but Shane didn't mind. Out of the two of us, he was the most human. He possessed human desires. I only had animal desires.

  I looked around. I lost Det. Sun Good after we stepped out of the taxi. I knew that she still followed us. Shane and I imagined that she drove up to the nightclub, tried to get in and was turned away because of the strict dress code. Our plan worked.

  We sat at a nice table in VIP for an hour. The girls danced with each other and drank the overpriced champagne. Occasionally their lips met, followed by an alluring kiss that caught the attention of the men below. Once or twice Nina's hand climbed up Lisa's tight skirt. This scene did little to arouse my attention. I focused on our cop problem.

  Shane barely touched his drink. Instead, he thought of likely suspects for the StoneCutter. We knew that Alex was innocent of the StoneCutter's crimes, but who was left? His brother, Martin was still on our list, but did he frame his own brother?

  Our table was located on the second floor balcony overlooking the dance floor. The crowd chaotically danced to the techno sounds emitting from the D.J.'s booth.

  The music thumped and shook the floor. I could feel its echo rattling Shane's teeth like a xylophone while I stood behind them, banging away.

  After thirty minutes, and no sign of Det. Sun Good, I began to relax. I nestled comfortably near the back of Shane's brain, coiled like a snake. I believed that we had discouraged her, but I should have never underestimated the drive in her.

  Catching a sudden movement in his peripherals, Shane looked down and saw her standing in the middle of the dance floor. She wore a silver dress with a halter top. It glimmered and reflected the multicolored lights that flashed across the nightclub.

  She stood like a vision of a lady-killer’s dead wife. The bitch returned for revenge. She stared straight into Shane. Their eyes locked like some sick romantic music video.

  Marilyn Manson eat your heart out.

  I wanted to kill her. She started to piss me off. We wasted all of this time trying to ditch the law. We should have been out searching for the StoneCutter. He was my prize, my trophy. Who was he?

  "Shane, take us to the dance floor," Lisa begged.

  Nina fixed her top. Part of her breast was exposed. I hadn't noticed. I was only looking at Sun Good.

  "Ladies, that is a great idea," Shane replied. He stood up from his chair. In one swift gulp, he swallowed the remainder of his champagne. We led the girls down to the dance floor. Shane was ready to play the part of a prowling bachelor.

  Sun Good moved to the bar. She fought off one drunken guy after the next. She was only interested in us. I had to admire her hunter instincts. She was good at her job, which made her dangerous to us.

  The girls pulled Shane out to the middle of the dance floor. The te
chno music pumped with no real sense of lyrics. The rhythm filled Shane's blood. We danced with both of the girls closely tangled in our space. With the flashing strobe lights, arms and legs floundering about, Shane and the girls resembled a tangled tree of body parts. I relished this vision. I savored it. At night in Shane's sleep, I projected visions like this one across the skies of his dreams—images of body parts.

  Shane could see Det. Sun Good scowling at us from across the room. He wasn't sure if it was a scowl out of jealousy, discernment, or sexual attraction. Perhaps, she judged us.

  None of which would have surprised me. She was always attracted to Shane. Somewhere deep within the trenches of her desires, buried past the mud and soot, she harbored feelings for him. I knew it. I controlled Shane's killer instincts, and they were housed right next to his sexual ones. I sensed the attraction that grappled between Sun Good and my vessel.

  |||||

  Sun Good grew up between two different plains of existence. In one, her homeland, she lived with her father in Japan. She grew up under a strict upbringing. Her father treated her harshly and critically, judging all of her actions. He ruled over her like a dictator. She was his illegitimate child. He treated her like an outcast, a leper, an exiled daughter.

  She lived most of her childhood believing that she was impure. Her father only raised her out of obligation for his sin. She had two half-sisters. They treated her like Cinderella. She cleaned, cooked, and scrubbed for their affections. Yet, Sun Good had no Prince Charming, no white knight, no one saved her. I hoped that she didn't think that Shane would be her savior now.

  In her early teenage years, she found her mother on the internet. She lived in Sacramento, California. They started emailing. By that summer, Sun Good moved to the U.S.

  In the States, Sun Good discovered her sexual powers over boys. Boys ignored her in Japan. Here, she was one of them. Here, they accepted her. They sought after her. They fought over her.

  Sun seduced American men into doing what she wanted them to; when she wanted them too. She could will them into doing almost anything. The first American man to ever reject her powers of seduction was Shane Lasher. He confused her. He was perfect in every way. He had the perfect body, the perfect job, and money. Yet, something about him was strange, peculiar.

  When she first met Shane, they dated for a short time. He never let her stay over at his place. As much as Shane liked her, neither of us trusted her. Normally, he left her place in the morning before she woke up.

  Sun Good's detective instincts warned her about Shane's behavior. Her instincts told her that something was fishy about us. The host of her brain suspected Shane.

  So I made Shane break up with his Asian toy. I thought that it was in our best interest to let her go before she discovered our secrets, before the controller of her brain discovered the master of Shane's.

  Sun Good leaned against the bar when one particular guy approached her. They spoke for a while. She pretended to be interested in him. He was younger and well-dressed. Shane became slightly jealous, and he rarely got jealous. Lately, he experienced emotions that I never knew he had. I didn't like discovering that my vessel kept his own secrets.

  We needed to find the StoneCutter and kill him, so that we could right the course of our life. We were losing balance. Shane was losing control. I was losing control. And all of it was because of a woman.

  I'm not the kind of creature that loses control because of a woman. I'm the kind of creature that kills and devours anyone who gets in my way, including women.

  Sun Good flirted back with the young man, tantalizing him, taunting Shane.

  Shane danced, sandwiched between the two expensive hookers.

  Suddenly, without my direction, he separated from them and marched toward Sun Good at the bar.

  I wasn't sure what he was doing. He acted without my consent.

  We walked up the steps toward the ivory-topped bar. Sun Good noticed us approaching. She leaned into the young man and kissed him.

  I could feel the champagne coursing through Shane's veins. It was making my control over him even more difficult to maintain.

  "What are you doing?" he asked in a dark, rough tone.

  She ignored him. This angered both of us. No one ignored us––no one.

  Shane grabbed her shoulder, breaking her free from the embrace of the guy that she just met.

  "Hey buddy!" the man said. He stepped in close to Shane. It was too close. He threatened our space. I reacted out of instinct. I could have showed some restraint, but I protected Shane when we came into physical danger. No one was going to harm my vessel. He was mine alone to harm.

  The nightclub's strobing lights glimmered off of Shane's face. Sun Good squinted in disbelief at what she witnessed. Shane's eyes turned black. His skin revealed creature-like features. My scales appeared across Shane's face, my face. Instead of the stubble that barely hinted from Shane's cheeks, she watched my tentacles growing out into the darkness. Only with every sweep of the light from the spinning strobes had she seen the detail in my features, but she wasn't sure what she saw.

  I came out to protect Shane. I came out to play.

  With two swift movements I grabbed hold of the man's thumb, snapped it back until it broke, and grappled his throat tightly with my other hand. The young man crashed into the bar's countertop. He winced in pain and squeezed his thumb. I almost crushed his throat. That would have killed him instantly, but I didn't want that.

  Complete shock draped across Sun's face. She had no idea that Shane was so powerful and violent. Of course, she saw me, not Shane.

  "Shane! Let him go!" Sun shouted. She grabbed onto Shane's forearm with both of her hands. Underneath her grip, she felt the texture of what she thought was Shane's cold skin. She actually touched my reptilian scales as they seeped back into Shane's body, like water down a drain.

  "Sorry," Shane said. Slowly, he released the young man and backed away.

  Like a switchblade, I retracted back into my hole. I left Shane to his apologies, something that I did not do. I never apologized. I felt no remorse.

  The young man attempted to move his thumb, but it was broken.

  "I'm going to call the cops on you," the young man exclaimed.

  "I'm so....." Shane began to apologize, but was interrupted by Sun Good. She held out her badge to the young man.

  "No, you won't! If you tell the police, then I will tell them about how you tried to solicit sex from an undercover officer. So beat it," Sun Good demanded.

  The man looked at the badge and cringed. He turned and stormed off.

  Sun Good turned back to Shane.

  "I never knew that you were capable of violence, Shane," she said. She gripped the bottom of her skirt and pulled it down, adjusting it.

  "I didn't realize that you were such a dirty cop, using your badge like that," he said.

  She laughed.

  "Sorry if I embarrassed you. I guess I'm a little drunk and seeing that guy's hands on you made me jealous. Just some old feelings, I apologize," Shane said. He hung his head in embarrassment. I'm not sure why.

  "Shane," she began.

  "Yes?" he asked.

  "Let's have a drink," she said.

  "Let's," Shane agreed.

  |||||

  I watched as Shane and Sun Good chatted it up. They drank and flirted like high school teenagers. I slithered around Shane's brain sick of listening to their dribble. I imagined that I was biding my time until I could quickly stab her in the throat with a broken champagne glass and then silently hide her body among the night clubbers and drug-induced waitresses.

  Of course, I would never be able to pull that off, but I reached the limits of how much more flirtation I could handle with this woman. I had this problem with Shane and one other girl when we were a lot younger. However, I took care of that problem early on.

  I couldn't have Shane falling in love. Love was a danger to us. It complicated things. It hindered our natural ability to kill, to hunt. />
  "Why did we break up?" Sun Good asked.

  Stab her Shane! Stab her now!

  "I didn't want to be serious with anyone. You know how important my career is to me. A serious relationship, especially with a cop, is a huge conflict of interest. Take our current case for example. I'm defending Alex Kline from the accusations that your department is making, and you are trying to help prosecute him, an innocent boy," Shane said. That was a good answer. Shane's powerful, silver tongue and my savagery made us such an impressive killing machine. His sleazy, silver tongue and my slithering, snake-like body made quite the pair.

  "I guess that makes sense. You could have just told me that back when we dated," she said.

  He shrugged.

  Sun Good accepted Shane's excuses. Looks like I won't have to force him to stab her after all. I realized that Shane's weapons of charm and words might actually shake Det. Sun Good off of our trail—the diplomatic approach.

  "Sorry about how I abruptly ended our relationship. I got scared. I started to have feelings for you and that terrified me to my core," Shane said. In a way, he told her the truth. I lived at his core. Nothing terrified me, but the feelings that Shane spoke of did concern me. I had no room inside of him for weak feelings like infatuation or worse, love.

  I needed my vessel to remain under my influence and no one else's, not his hearts or his loins.

  Nina and Lisa grinded on each other for a while; then they ran off to the bathroom together. Shane noticed that they were gone a long time, probably to do cocaine, but he did not care. They served their purpose.

  We had found a new strategy––seduction.

  "I have to get up early in the morning. I have to meet with my client," Shane said, smirking.

  "Oh, so now you want to leave?"

  "I was trying to say that I know that you have to get up early, is all. I know that you have to follow me around all day and spy on me and what not."

  "That is true," she responded, uncrossing her muscular legs. He noticed the glimmer of her silver thong.

  "You could just wake up at my place. That would make it easier for you to know exactly what I was doing," Shane said, smiling at her.