Valentine (Cupid #2)

by Jade Eby

  Still, he didn’t want to take the chance that he could be wrong.

  If someone spotted him, they’d think he was a man with a drug habit, maybe a high school drop out that somehow stumbled into the job. To a millionaire, working for a cable company was just as menial as cleaning toilets.

  They’d assume Dale was a lazy smuck, and dismiss him without taking another look.

  Finished with his creation of Dale, Asher put on a book bag full of extra clothes, grabbed his bow and arrow, and then left through the back entrance where his motorcycle remained. Almost no one knew Asher had a bike, or that he could ride it.

  Asher rather liked that he was full of secrets. No one could ever claim he was boring.

  He took out his phone and typed.

  Asher: Where is he?

  Flame: Foster home. There was a benefit breakfast.

  Asher: People still there?

  Flame: No. Not even the kids.

  Asher: How sure are you that he’s alone?

  Minutes passed, before his driver replied.

  Flame: 80%

  Asher said no more, not wanting to get his driver in trouble, if something happened and they confiscated his messages. He’d involved the driver in enough of his nightly activities. If anyone could pinpoint him as Cupid, it would be Flame. The man had seen enough and taken him to several places to do his work.

  When they’d returned home last night, Asher asked more of him than he should. He told Flame to find Maxwell and follow him until Asher called.

  Asher jumped on his motorcycle, but before starting it up, he pulled out his phone and typed in a text.

  Asher: Take the rest of the week off.

  Flame: Are you sure?

  Asher: Yes.

  Right as Asher put his phone back in his pocket, it rang.

  “Hello?” Asher said.

  “Have I done something wrong, sir?” Flame asked.

  “No, not at all. I just think I’ve pushed you far enough. You’ve been busy all week. Have you gotten any sleep?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then take a break.”

  “But...”

  Asher raised his eyebrows. This was the most conversation he’d ever had with the man. Usually, they talked for no more than a few seconds.

  “But, what?” Asher asked.

  “Do you think you can trust her?”

  “Her?”

  “Mrs. Carson.”

  “Do you think that I shouldn’t?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. I just... don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “No?”

  “No, sir. If you get in trouble, then...”

  “You would. No, I can make sure that my activities will never fall on you. I have plans in place that involve us both, if things ever got hot on this island or anywhere else.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that when I started with you years ago, I’d just got off of probation and I can’t go—”

  “Nothing will come to you. Trust me. Do you?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s her that I’m worried about.”

  “I understand. Do you have a reason for this distrust?” Asher asked.

  “No, sir. It’s just that some people aren’t built for certain things, and some are.”

  “I would never involve her.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. I thought that you and she... you know, were going to be together.”

  “We are,” Asher declared.

  Silence sat on the line for a few seconds.

  “Then I hope that she is built for these certain things.”

  “Me too.”

  “And I would feel comfortable with not taking a week off right now. If that is okay with you. I would like to stay close to you.”

  “That’s fine, but get some rest.”

  “I will, sir.”

  He hung up the line abruptly. He’d already shown too much sentimentality toward Diana. He couldn’t let himself get wrapped up in another personal matter. He just couldn’t. There was too much to attend to.

  Asher sat on the motorcycle and stared up at the sunlight hitting his bedroom window. Diana still slept in his bed, comforted by the exhaustion of their sex last night.

  Would she be okay with me killing him right now? It must be yes. She told me to do it. Should I wait? No. She doesn’t want to know too much. But is that wrong? Should she want to know? Is she really built for my life?

  Asher took out his phone, yet again and typed his driver.

  Asher: After your rest, stay close to Mrs. Carson.

  Flame: Follow her?

  Unease sat at the bottom of his stomach.

  Asher: Make sure she doesn’t leave the property, unless it’s with you, and let me know when and where she goes.

  Flame: Yes, sir.

  It barely took him thirty minutes to get everything in order.

  There we go. I’m ready.

  God yes, the hunger had returned for sure. Diana was only a memory within the fog of the need to kill. Like all the other moments right before he drew his bow, Asher craved that coppery scent of blood, yearned for it to spill, to pool around Maxwell’s corpse.

  It mattered that it was Maxwell and no one else. He was done with taking the breath away from innocent people.

  And because the man represented so much evil—a demon that gnawed on children—Asher would take his time with him and leave his mark on the pedophile, inch by disgusting inch. Maybe, he’d let Maxwell beg for a while and hope for life, just to yank it from his sick, grasping hands. No matter the how or when, Asher would make Maxwell pay for the lives he’d ruined.

  He’d save those foster kids. Only God knew how much those kids had lost. Innocence stolen. Hope shattered. All he could do was kill the monster.

  A half an hour later, Asher parked blocks away from the foster home and set out on foot through the woods that Maxwell had walked him through last night. He’d taken note of every step. The whole time Maxwell chatted away, Asher wrote out his murder in his mind.

  Come to the foster home through the woods. There’s no cameras nor security.

  Kill him in the office. Make him scream.

  Change right there.

  Leave back out by the woods.

  Asher weaved between the trees. A good wind had picked up and washed the yachting accident’s stink off the island. More people traveled around Ovid today. He’d passed tons of people on his bike, with his helmet sitting firmly on his head and hiding his face. Some seafood festival was going on around the northern tip. Traffic went in that direction—a long road of Bugattis, Porches, and new Rolls-Royces. The foster home staff had probably taken the kids to the festival. The island didn’t provide many childrens activities so events like that were flooded with nannies running after little ones.

  The more Asher thought about it – the more he decided this was a terrible place to raise a child. It was a despicable city to deposit orphans that already had no family. But to leave them on an island with monsters like Maxwell? To have them grow up knowing they’ll most likely account for nothing, simply because they were born poor?

  Asher wished that wasn’t the reality, but it was.

  He crept through the woods, got to the back entrance, and used his lock pick to work the back door. In seconds, the knob turned with a gentle click. Breaking in was necessary. With places like this, most didn’t bother the kneeling cable guy in the hallway that looked to be doing his job.

  How else would he have gotten in, if not that someone had walked him through?

  Adrenaline pumped through his veins. He remembered all the details from Maxwell’s tour last night, knew the location of his office, although for some reason Maxwell hadn’t wanted to take Asher inside. Later, Asher figured the reason out from Diana.

  Asher stared at the door decorated in Maxwell’s name, and knocked.

  You’ll get some extra pain, since you sicked your psycho assistant on my Diana. I should kill her too… even though Diana said no.

  He placed th
e gloves on his hand and readied the bow, keeping it in one hand somewhat to his side. This was the moment he hated the most, the traveling to the victim with the bow and arrow out.

  If anyone else but Maxwell opened the door, they’d have to die. This time wasn’t like the others. He couldn’t let people go anymore. Too many depended on him to be careful—Diana and Flame being the first to pop into his mind.

  Please, let it be Maxwell.

  God answered his prayers. Maxwell’s face appeared as he opened his office door. “Theresa, where the hell have you been? Wait, you’re not, Theresa.”

  “No, I’m not.” Asher punched him in the face, slipped into the office, slammed the door behind him, and crashed his fist into his jaw again.

  “Ah!” Maxwell’s face was glass, and Asher’s hand, a slab of concrete. Maxwell fell to the floor like a shattered bowl that would never be glued back together again.

  The broken man touched the blood dripping out of his nose and looked at the red liquid on his fingers. “Who the hell are you?”

  Asher locked the door. “I’m a bad guy.”

  Maxwell shrieked when Asher stepped toward him.

  Maxwell’s finger shook as he pointed it. “You’re going to be a bad guy locked up in jail if you touch me again.”

  “And who’s going to catch me?” Within seconds, Asher got the bow and arrow in position and targeted Maxwell’s chest.

  “No. No. No.” Fear blared in Maxwell’s eyes, as the reality of the situation must’ve hit his brain. “No. I-I didn’t do anything wrong. This can’t be—”

  “Do what I say and I won’t kill you right now.”

  “Yes! Of course! Whatever you want.” Maxwell raised his hands in the air. “Anything.”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Maxwell’s mouth dropped open. “My clothes?”

  Asher pointed the arrow at the palm of Maxwell’s right hand and released. It sliced through the air, faster than he could blink. The sharp tip met soft flesh. It pierced through blood and veins. Plastered the hand to the floor just like a thumb tack would hold a piece of paper to a cork board.

  “Any more questions?” Asher asked.

  “Oh God! Please! Oh God. It hurts. It burns.” Maxwell fumbled with his free hand to open his pants buckle, but was failing miserably. “Please. My hand. Oh God.”

  Chuckling to himself, Asher pulled out another arrow from his backpack. “I bet you’re wishing that you hadn’t made the office sound proof, right?”

  “I-I... ” Maxwell shook as he pushed his pants down. Every few seconds, he glanced back at the arrow keeping his right hand to the floor. “I-I... ”

  “You-You what?” Asher pointed the target at Maxwell’s forehead.

  Gasping, the man stumbled through his words. “I didn’t... make the office... sound proof.”

  “Yet, you love it just the same.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, the kids would.”

  “Don’t you hurt my kids! Take me instead.”

  “Finally, something we agree on.”

  “Don’t you touch them!” Maxwell shoved his pants down to his knees and exposed blue boxers with yellow smiley faces painted on the front.

  “I should kill you just for those boxers alone. Is that what greets the kids’ eyes right before you stuff your nasty dick into their little mouths?” Asher pointed the arrow at Maxwell’s forehead.

  “I never!”

  “Never?”

  “Never! I would never. I’ve never, ever touched my kids.” Tears spilled from Maxwell’s eyes. “All my life, I’ve protected them and others. You don’t understand—”

  “Take your dick out.”

  “Please,” Maxwell whined. “Please. Please. Don’t hurt me. I’m so scared.”

  “You should be.”

  “I’m so scared.”

  “I’m sure the kids were too.”

  “I didn’t.” Spasms quaked through the man. Spit flew out of his mouth. Out of all the others Asher had killed, this man had no dignity what so ever.

  “Take your dick out,” Asher growled.

  Maxwell pulled the flimsy thing out of the hole of his smiley face boxers, his fingers shaking with the movement. It lay there.

  “How many kids have seen this?” Asher asked.

  “None. Never. No one. I swear.”

  “How many kids without a caring parent to love them, have come to this facility with hope, and you’ve fucked the glory of life right out of their little bodies?” Rage roared in Asher. “How many!?”

  “None!”

  “How many!?”

  “None. I swear.”

  Asher targeted Maxwell’s dick and released the bow. The pointed-tip slammed into the shaft with a boom, and kept that body part to the floor. Maxwell was now nailed to the ground by his hand and dick, there’d be no more running.

  No more chances for him to get out of this.

  “Too bad,” Asher said. “I wish I had a number. Now, when I cut you, I’ll have to guess the amount of kids you’ve injured, and just carve it in that way.”

  Maxwell no longer spoke. He just shook and groveled, his gaze locked on the green and dark brown liquids spilling around the arrow and his penis.

  Interesting. I should study anatomy way more than I do. Those are beautiful colors right there.

  Asher kneeled and gazed at the punctured penis, studied the torn flesh that surrounded the arrow’s length like a sick blooming flower.

  Asher breathed in the scents around him—blood, urine, and something else.

  Aww. Fear. Yes. It’s been a minute since I’ve smelled good old-fashioned fear. I should’ve brought Diana here. Would she have loved to see this? Definitely.

  Maxwell mumbled words to himself, “God take me into your gates and bless me. I’ve done my best t-to live your way. I-I’ve—”

  “Shut up. Before I cut your tongue next.”

  Tears streaked down Maxwell’s reddening face. Snot dripped in green goop from one nostril. “I swear. Please. Please. Don’t kill me. I’m scared to die. I don’t know what’s on the other side.”

  “Don’t you know? It’s your God that you’ve just been praying to.”

  “Is he really there?”

  “Him or her. Yes.”

  “Will this God take me?”

  Asher positioned the third arrow and pointed it at Maxwell’s chest. “No. That God won’t take you, but someone else will.”

  The arrow flew through the air and buried into Maxwell’s chest. He crashed into the floor, screaming.

  “Don’t worry. I made sure not to get your heart. We’ve only just begun. No need to rush.” Asher dropped his bow and arrow, took out his knife, and walked over to his victim. “So you asked me a question. Will your God take you? No, I say. Never. Not a sick man like you.”

  “I-I didn’t touch the kids. I-I—”

  “However, there is a comforting alternative. You have a new master. A grotesque one on hooves, but one nonetheless. This God lives far below. He waits behind the gates of hell, rubbing his horned cock and spilling his sperm into flames.”

  “P-please just kill me now. I can’t take this.”

  “Have you ever dreamed of fucking a devil?”

  The man shook his head no and cried some more when he spotted the knife in Asher’s hands.

  “Oh, goodie. Then you’re in for a surprise. That’s what you deserve, to be bent over and slammed into raw.” Asher caressed Maxwell’s chin with the blade, one long swipe. “Satan loves me too. It’s an odd relationship. I send him things every month, although I don’t serve him. I send him back his monsters. He loves those presents.”

  “I’m not a monster. I swear.”

  Asher knew he shouldn’t have, but he did it anyway. With his finger, he dabbed at Maxwell’s tears and tasted them. Salty liquid greeted his tongue. A shudder ran through him.

  All Maxwell could do was scream over and over.

  Asher put one finger to M
axwell’s lips. “Shhh. Remember, no one can hear, but me. And you don’t want to annoy me. Although you’re going to die in lots of pain, I do try to keep it somewhat humane. But if you force my hand with annoyance,” he leaned in closer and whispered into Maxwell’s ears, “I’ll fucking make you bellow like a pig while you watch all of your body parts in a pile in front of you. There are ways to keep you alive enough to see your legs get separated from your body, inch by inch.”

  Maxwell cringed and shut his eyes.

  Asher cleared his throat. “Now what was I saying. Oh yeah. Right now, I’m going to wrap you up, really well, and send you along to your new God. Too bad all of those kids you hurt couldn’t have been here to see it.”

  And so, Asher began his dance.

  Although the arrow was fun, nothing gave Asher more pleasure than a nice carving of flesh. A blade melting through skin, stained with a red tint. It could’ve been the closeness that was necessary with a knife.

  Stabbing a person was intimate, erotic in the cruelest way.

  Each time, Asher thrust the blade into Maxwell’s shivering flesh, Asher’s cock hardened just a little bit more.

  He pounded that blade into the man’s gut. Warm blood spurted onto his gloves. A sloshing sound filled the air, it reminded him of the sex with Diana the night before. How wet and gushy she’d been? How lovely his cock dripped with her?

  God, I wish I could take these gloves off and stick my hand in his stomach. I bet it’s as warm as my Diana’s pussy.

  Maxwell whimpered.

  Asher laughed. “If you only knew what I was thinking, you’d probably cry out louder.”

  Asher did his job with skill, flayed the man hard with his knife.

  He hammered it into him,

  quickly,

  with no grace,

  just desire to bring more pain.

  Boom.

  Boom.

  Over and over.

  Bits of skin flew in the air like flakes flew when one picked ice. The body jumped with each impact, each greeting of flesh and knife. A few times, the sharp tip hit bone and scraping sounds ensued. It gave him a new idea, so Asher drew zig zags into the bone’s white hardness.