by Steve McHugh
I raced back to Olivia who'd finished on her call. "We got the bastard," she said with a smile.
I passed her the photo, fully aware that it would deflate her happiness. "I think we have a really big fucking problem."
Olivia's enthusiasm was quickly dampened when I showed her the photo, and the realisation that Vicki knew not only Amber, but all five of the remaining victims. And that every single person in the photo was now dead, or missing.
"You searched the victims' houses. Did any of them have the same photo?" I asked as Olivia placed the frame back where it had come from.
She shook her head, appearing slightly dazed, as if the photo had literally knocked the sense out of her. "Damn it, Vicks. Where are you?"
"We'll find her," I said.
"I hope so. Neil should be waiting for us by now, maybe he has some answers."
Chapter 19
"Why are we at a human police station and not LOA headquarters?" I asked when we arrived at the police station.
"I might be able to answer that," Agent Reid said, as he stepped out from between a pair of parked cars. He dropped a cigarette onto the floor, and put it out with his foot. "Had to find a nice dark place to hide for a smoke," he said. "I'm meant to go to the designated smoking area, but I don't have the time to hunt for it."
"I have to admit, I was wondering about the locale myself, Agent Reid," Olivia said.
"As the humans are the ones taking the glory for the arrest, we might as well bring the prisoner here for questioning. There are runes on his manacles that stop him from changing. He's not going anywhere, and it gets the humans a little good publicity before he vanishes into a deep dark pit somewhere."
Olivia wasn't buying it. "The real reason, Agent."
Reid glanced at me before answering. "I wasn't sure that he would last the night at LOA headquarters. I'm pretty certain he would have had an accident."
"How many non-Avalon are there inside this station?"
"About ten," Reid replied. "There's up to a hundred and fifty during the day, normally about thirty or forty cops at night, but most of them are out working."
Reid opened the door for Olivia, and the three of us walked into the florescent-lit reception. "This way," Reid said. He entered a four digit code on a keypad and pushed the door open.
There were no human police on the way to the rear of the building where the interview rooms were, but when we arrived it was easy to figure out which room Neil was being held in. The two huge guards standing at rigid attention outside the door sort of gave it away.
We walked past the guards and into a small room which contained two metal chairs, a recording device and a small table. One wall was made of one-way glass, allowing us to stare at Neil Hatchell who sat in the next room, on one side of a bare table. His wrists were bound with thick steel manacles, which were then chained to the floor. The manacles and chain were both inscribed with runes.
His long, dirty-blond hair had been joined by the beginnings of a beard. His clothes — a pair of beige combats and a black hooded top — appeared to be old. The combats were frayed just above his shoeless feet. His fingers were dirty, and he had a smudge of redness on his cheek, along with red and puffy eyes. He kept twitching, scanning the room for whatever he expected to pounce out on him. He couldn't have been more a perfect suspect for a murder if he'd actually brought the body to the police himself.
He was ignoring Agent Greaves, who seemed to take the "yelling at the prisoner" approach to interviews. On a person like Neil, who didn't even seem to be taking notice, Greaves might as well have been talking to himself.
After a lot more shouting, Greaves told Neil he was going to die alone, and left the room, arriving in ours moments later.
"He'll crack," Greaves said. "Everyone does."
"He's not going anywhere," I said. "He's ignoring you."
Greaves stepped up to me. "You got a better idea?"
"Give me five minutes with him," I said to Olivia.
"You overstep your boundaries, and I'll have you out of there."
"Fair enough." I held out my hand as Olivia silenced Greaves' objections with a wave of her hand. "The manacles key, please."
"Not a fucking chance," Greaves said.
"Give it to him," Olivia ordered, giving me an expression which told me to watch my step.
Greaves all but slammed the key into my hand, and I walked out of the room and into the interview room. Neil stared at the ground, his eyes flicking toward me as I sat down.
"Hey, Neil," I said. "How's things?"
Neil looked up at me, and then started the twitching thing again.
"Ah, the marks of a madman: twitching, unable to look at anyone else, slightly unkempt. You're probably going to mumble something in a minute aren't you? You've probably already got something in mind. Well, don't let me stop you."
Neil stopped his movements and stared directly at me.
"I'm going to take a guess here. You were coached. Someone told you that, as the humans were interested in this case, if you made yourself appear to be batshit crazy, they would try you in a human court and put you in a mental institution. As a werewolf, you could break out of it anytime. And even if they put runes on you to stop your transformation, you're still better than any human. You could take care of yourself until you escape. That sound about right?"
Neil continued to stare.
"Well, it's not going to happen. You see, it only appears that those murders are being investigated as a human crime. The LOA is letting the humans take the glory. So, you will go back to the Hole for this, or Tartarus. Whichever they feel you deserve more."
That got his attention. Fear flickered behind his eyes, and I knew which one of the two he feared the most.
Neil had been placed on only in the third floor in the Hole on his last visit. If he was found guilty of these new murders, he would hopefully be placed a lot further down. No amount of backing is going to help a murderer of humans get away lightly twice. People like Neil were cut loose the second they stopped being useful.
But as awful as the Hole was, Tartarus was a whole other league of scary. Every single person there was classed as an enemy of Avalon. And once you were imprisoned there, you never came back. Ever. I'd been there a few times, and the reality and the legend were vastly different. But that didn't stop people from believing the worst. Or stop me from playing on that fear.
"Tartarus scares you?" I asked. "Probably should. I don't think you'll like it there. A werewolf rapist like you, who likes to murder young girls? You'd last about ten minutes before one of the Titans tore you in half. And I mean that literally."
"You're right," he said. "I don't want to go to either of those. So what have you got?"
I placed the manacles key in front of him. "Take them off."
He hungrily picked up the key and removed the restraints, rubbing his wrists once they were off.
"If you try anything, I'll rip you in half myself," I said, and Neil nodded in agreement.
"Why did you get released from jail?"
Neil shrugged. "I didn't want to go. I was told I had to leave, and no questions. I wanted to stay. The beast in me had hurt those women, and I wasn't sure I could control it."
"Bullshit."
Neil had the audacity to smile.
"The beast wants to kill and taste blood," I said. "It doesn't rape. The man does. And if you lie to me again, I'll remove one of your hands."
The smile melted away. "You're not LOA," Neil said after a moment's silence.
"Never said I was, but you're still going to tell me two things-one, why Elijah was protecting you so furiously? And two, who's really murdering these women?"
Neil mimed locking his lips with a key and throwing it over his shoulder.
"So whoever this is scares you more than the LOA."
"I'm not going to help you put me in jail for the rest of my life."
"You want to know what confuses me? You're a predator, and you're free. So, why aren
't you doing what you've wanted to for so long?"
Neil smirked. "Who said I wasn't?"
"I saw your photos, lots of them, but you never touched any of those women. I think you were castrated, figuratively speaking anyway. I think you had to stay locked away until they needed you, because they couldn't trust you not to fuck it all up. Is that it? Did you have to ask permission to do anything?"
"Fuck you," he spat, and slammed one fist onto the table, which groaned from the impact. "I'm not some fucking pussy who wasn't allowed to have fun. They brought me hookers. Fucking served them up to me. I got mine every night." And then he realised that he'd opened his dumb mouth.
I smiled. "Who gave you those girls, and where are they now?"
He shook his head frantically. "No, fuck you. I'm not saying anything."
I stood. "Then we'll take you back to LOA headquarters and see how you fare."
"Look, I can't say anything. They'll kill me. And I don't mean in the way some fucking idiot from LOA will do it. These people do bad things. Each of the hookers was given to me for a few days, but after I was finished they were given to… damn, I don't even fucking know what they were. But I heard the screams."
"They killed more people?"
"Those in the woods are a statement. The others they're just… food."
"Did you see any of them?"
"They took to me a big house near the forest every day, but I only saw the security guys up close. But the others, the ones in charge, there were six of them, all wearing hoods and hanging around together. They scared me. Especially the big guy. He's fucking messed up. I only spoke to him once, but it felt like something was crawling around in my head."
"Anything else?"
Neil shook his head.
"Avalon will protect you." I said.
"Are you dense? Avalon is fucking involved."
I tried to get more out of Neil, but he clammed up and it was clear nothing short of torture was going to get him to reveal more information. And I doubted that Olivia would be too grateful if I started down that route, especially considering where we were. If there's one thing I've learnt about human cops over the years, it's that most of them don't want prisoners dying in their custody. The smart ones anyway.
Besides after spending so long in a small room with a slimy piece of shit like Neil, I needed some air. Agent Greaves resumed his shouting as he entered the interview room, but he nodded an acceptance at me before he went in. It was probably about as close to congratulations as that I was ever likely to get from him.
When I opened the police station's front doors, I almost walked directly into Agent Reid, Eric, who was on his mobile phone. He quickly hung up and put it back into his pocket, with a nervous smile. "Girlfriend," he said. "She's not too keen about me being out all hours when I said I'd be home."
"It's difficult keeping a relationship going, especially with your job."
"Tell me about it. She's human, too, so it's hard keeping some stuff from her."
"That I understand," I said honestly.
"You think he was lying about someone involved working for Avalon? You really think he didn't help kill those girls?"
I shook my head. "He's a predator and a psychopath, but he's nowhere near the level of our killer, and he's not our killer's helper either. And as for lying? I doubt it. I've seen a lot of liars in my life, and that would make him one of the best."
Eric glanced over his shoulder as a car pulled up somewhere in the distance. "This case is making me jumpy."
"How long have you been an agent?"
"Four years, served here for two. This is the first really big case I've dealt with. Well, the first with a serial killer. It's all fucking nuts. Those girls murdered like that, sends a chill up my spine." He glanced behind him again and shivered. "Fucking hell, I'm a grown man, shouldn't be spooked at nothing. I'm gonna go help Agent Greaves. He'll probably still be yelling."
"He's very good at it."
Eric smiled. "He's a good agent. He's a prick, but a good agent." Apparently that was the general consensus when it came to Agent Greaves. Eric made his way back inside, leaving me alone in the car park.
I walked further away from the building and stretched my neck. It was freezing cold outside, and I was tempted to use my magic to keep myself warm, but the temperature kept me awake and alert for the moment, so I tolerated it.
"You were impressive in there," Olivia said as she exited the police station and made her way toward me.
"Tartarus scares people."
"None of the LOA would have used that. Why do I get the feeling that you could have called some people and your treat become a reality?"
I smiled. "It helps having some friends in high places. Or low ones, depending on your point of view."
"I thought you were all cold, heartless bastards, or rather you are until you need to pretend otherwise."
"Maybe my demeanour was the reason I left."
"I'm amazed they let you. I thought the only way out was death."
Olivia was fishing. Damn Tommy for coming up with the idea of me being Faceless, but I wasn't about to break down and tell her the truth.
"A story for another time," I said as a noise in the distance caught my attention. It was a crunching sound, like something walking over a car roof and bending the metal. I searched the area, trying to figure out where the sound had come from, when a second noise came from the opposite side of the car park.
"What was that?" Olivia asked, a hand instinctively resting on her holstered sidearm.
A tall, heavy-set man walked steadily toward us, the darkness obscuring most of his features until he stopped under a street light and the horror of what he was dawned on me like a nuclear explosion. He wore a long, dark coat, over a dark suit. Long, gangly fingers, that couldn't have possibly belonged to a human anymore, flexed as he stared at Olivia intently.
The man's face was grey and scarred, and the skin was pulled tightly over the skull. The only colour belonged to his bright red eyes. I'd seen those eyes before, I'd seen them bore into me as they bathed in my destruction, and the memory caused fear to jolt inside me. The face of evil reanimated.
Three creatures revealed themselves all at once, crouched on the roofs of three different cars.
"Hello, Olivia," he said and I noticed her staring at one of the creatures. "Do you remember me?"
"Peter Jarvis," Olivia said softly. "You're supposed to be dead."
"Ah, death is but a step."
"Lich," I whispered.
The man's head snapped toward me. "And we have a winner. You must be the outsider. I thought I'd come to deliver you a message. Olivia is going to die at my hand, when the time is right. You, however, hold nothing I require. You can walk away without harm if you allow me to take Neil and do not interfere in my plans."
"I think I can speak for everyone when I tell you to go fuck yourself," I said.
"That's a real shame," Peter said. "Olivia, before I go I have someone you should meet." One of the creatures got down from the roof of the nearest car and half walked, half padded over to Peter, who rested his hand on her head.
"Do you recognise her?" he asked.
"Vicki," Olivia said. "You son-of-a-bitch, what did you do to her?"
"She's my pet. Allow me to introduce you to two others."
He waved his hand toward us and the two creatures moved faster than any human ever could, springing from the darkness, too quick for Olivia to remove her gun, let alone fire it. The first one ran for Olivia who dodged aside and used her elemental water powers to take the legs from out under her attacker.
I turned as a second creature dove toward me. A blast of air magic knocked it backwards. I solidified the air, just enough to entangle the creature and then flipped it up, over my head and released the magic as the two attackers neared one another. They both went down hard, eerie shrieks leaving inhuman mouths as they scrambled to get back to their feet.
"What the fuck are they?" Olivia gasped.
"Ghouls," I said, but before I could finish, Olivia emptied a clip into the nearest bald-headed bastard. It dropped back to the floor, and its comrade performed something akin to a smile, its jaw dislocating and dropping open to show rows of razor sharp teeth as Peter, the lich, laughed.
A second later shots rang out from behind us and Agent Reid ran past, shooting the whole time with his Glock. Each bullet hit the lich in the chest, but he didn't go down. He turned on his heel and ran into the darkness of the streets beyond, the ghoul who used to be Vicki right behind him. I tried to call out to stop Reid but he didn't hear me and sprinted after the lich, following him around a corner and out of sight.
I hoped he'd be able to hold his own, but I knew from experience that a lich could carve through most people like they were made of paper.
The ghoul on the floor stayed still for a moment, and then laughed, returning my attention to it. The sound was horrible, nowhere near the laugh of the human it used to be. It got back to its feet and spat onto the floor, and the sound of the bullets and blood hitting the concrete floor turned Olivia's face pale.
"What the hell," she whispered and reloaded her gun.
"Only way to kill them is to cut their head off," I said. "Magic won't work either, so I need you to go get some silver daggers or swords or something. Because right now the best we can do is knock them down."
"I can't leave you out here," she said.
The first ghoul dove toward me and met a torrent of fire, keeping both it and its brethren away. "Magic will hurt them, but not kill them. I'll be fine, but unless we get something to cut them, we're both screwed."
Olivia watched in horror as one of the ghouls jumped through the fire. "Go already," I shouted and slammed another jet of fire into the ghoul, which drove it back.
Olivia turned and sprinted into the police station, and I killed the flames. I couldn't have kept it up all night, and, if I was honest, I had no idea how much magic I had left in me after what had happened at the fight a few hours earlier. Or how long before what was inside of me tried to come out, and then… well, and then, things would get a hell of a lot worse.
