Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy

by Dana Stabenow

  The letter beside it, its ink faded but in a writing I knew well, said:

  My dear “cousin” Amy,

  I send you a studio portrait of your cousin Marcus and his new family, to add to your wall, that you might assure yourself that he is well and happy with his peculiar, rootless wife. I thank you for your friendship, and know that you remain in my affections always.

  The baby’s name, I should add, comes from a young boy who befriended me long ago, whose loss I regret, and whose memory I wished to honor.

  Your cousin by marriage, Bea

  I have to say, in the picture, she looked happier than I’d ever seen her.

  Appetite for Murder

  Simon R. Green

  I never wanted to be a Detective. But the call went out, and no-one else stood up, so I sold my soul to the company store, for a badge and a gun and a shift that never ends.

  The Nightside is London’s very own dirty little secret: a hidden realm of gods and monsters, magic and murder, and more sin and temptation than you can shake a wallet at. People come to the Nightside from all over the world, to indulge the pleasures and appetites that might not have a name but certainly have a price. It’s always night in the Nightside, always three o’clock on the morning, the hour that tries men’s souls and finds them wanting. The sun has never shone here, probably because it knows it isn’t welcome. This is a place to do things that can only be done in the shadows, in the dark.

  I’m Sam Warren. I was the first, and for a long time the only, Detective in the Nightside. I worked for the Authorities, those grey and faceless figures who run the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone does, or can. Even in a place where there is no crime, because everything is permitted, where sin and suffering, death and damnation are just business as usual… there are still those who go too far and have to be taken down hard. And for that, you need a Detective.

  We don’t get many serial killers in the Nightside. Mostly because amateurs don’t tend to last long amongst so much professional competition. But I was made Detective, more years ago than I care to remember, to hunt down the very first of these human monsters. His name was Shock-Headed Peter. He killed 347 men, women, and children before I caught him. Though that’s just an official estimate; we never found any of his victims’ bodies. Just their clothes. Wouldn’t surprise me if the real total was closer to a thousand. I caught him and put him away; but the things I saw, and the things I had to do, changed me forever.

  Made me the Nightside’s Detective, for all my sins, mea culpa.

  I’d just finished eating when the call came in. From the H P Lovecraft Memorial Library, home to more forbidden tomes under one roof than anywhere else. Browse at your own risk. It appeared the Nightside’s latest serial killer had struck again. Only this time he’d been interrupted, and the body was still warm, the blood still wet.

  I strode through the Library accompanied by a Mr. Pettigrew, a tall, storklike personage with wild eyes and a shock of white hair. He gabbled continuously as we made our way through the tall stacks, wringing his bony hands against his sunken chest. Mr. Pettigrew was Chief Librarian, and almost overcome with shame that such a vulgar thing should have happened in his Library.

  “It’s all such a mess!” he wailed. “And right in the middle of the Anthropology Section. We’ve only just finished refurbishing!”

  “What can you tell me about the victim?” I said patiently.

  “Oh, he’s dead. Yes. Very dead, in fact. Horribly mutilated, Detective! I don’t know how we’re going to get the blood out of the carpets.”

  “Did you happen to notice if there were any… pieces missing, from the body?”

  “Pieces? Oh dear,” said Mr. Pettigrew. “I can feel one of my heads coming on. I think I’m going to have to go and have a little lie down.”

  He took me as far as the Anthropology Section, then disappeared at speed. It hadn’t been twenty minutes since I got the call, but still someone had beaten me to the body. Crouching beside the bloody mess on the floor was the Nightside’s very own superheroine, Ms. Fate. She wore a highly polished black-leather outfit, complete with full face mask and cape; but somehow on her it never looked like a costume or some fetish thing. It looked like a uniform. Like work clothes. She even had a utility belt around her narrow waist, all golden clasps and bulging little pouches. I thought the high heels on the boots were a bit much, though. I came up on her from behind, making no noise at all, but she still knew I was there.

  “Hello, Detective Warren,” she said, in her low, smoky voice, not even glancing round. “You got here fast.”

  “Happened to be in the neighbourhood,” I said. “What have you found?”

  “All kinds of interesting things. Come and have a look.”

  Anyone else I would have sent packing, but not her. We’d worked a bunch of cases together, and she knew her stuff. We don’t get too many superheroes or vigilantes in the Nightside, mostly because they get killed off so damn quickly. Ms. Fate, that dark avenger of the night, was different. Very focused, very skilled, very professional. Would have made a good Detective. She made room for me to crouch down beside her. My knees made loud cracking noises in the Library hush.

  “You’re looking good, Detective,” Ms. Fate said easily. “Have you started dyeing your hair?”

  “Far too much grey,” I said. “I was starting to look my age, and I couldn’t have that.”

  “I’ve questioned the staff,” said Ms. Fate. “Knew you wouldn’t mind. No-one saw anything, but then no-one ever does, in the Nightside. Only one way into this Section, and only one way out, and he would have had blood all over him, but…”

  “Any camera surveillance?”

  “The kind of people who come here, to read the kind of books they keep here, really don’t want to be identified. So, no surveillance of any kind, scientific or mystical. There’s major security in place to keep any of the books from going walkabout, but that’s it.”

  “If our killer was interrupted, he may have left some clues behind,” I said. “This is his sixth victim. Maybe he got sloppy.”

  Ms. Fate nodded slowly, her expression unreadable behind her dark mask. Her eyes were very blue, very bright. “This has got to stop, Detective. Five previous victims, all horribly mutilated, all with missing organs. Different organs each time. Interestingly enough, the first victim was killed with a blade, but all the others were torn apart, through brute strength. Why change his MO after the first killing? Most serial killers cling to a pattern, a ritual, that means something significant to them.”

  “Maybe he decided a blade wasn’t personal enough,” I said. “Maybe he felt the need to get his hands dirty.”

  We both looked at the body in silence for a while. This one was different. The victim had been a werewolf and had been caught in midchange as he died. His face had elongated into a muzzle, his hands had claws, and patches of silver-grey fur showed clearly on his exposed skin. His clothes were ripped and torn and soaked with blood. He’d been gutted, torn raggedly open from chin to crotch, leaving a great crimson wound. There was blood all around him, and more spattered across the spines of books on the shelves.

  “It’s never easy to kill a werewolf,” Ms. Fate said finally. “But given the state of the wound’s edges, he wasn’t cut open. That rules out a silver dagger.”

  “No sign of a silver bullet either,” I observed.

  “Then we can probably rule out the Lone Ranger.” She rubbed her bare chin thoughtfully. “You know, the extent of these injuries reminds me a lot of cattle mutilations.”

  I looked at her. “Are we talking little grey aliens?”

  She smiled briefly, her scarlet lips standing out against the pale skin under the black mask. “Maybe I should check to see if he’s been probed?”

  “I think that was the least of his worries,” I said. “This must have been a really bad way to die. Our victim had his organs ripped out while he was still alive.”

  Ms. Fate busied herself taking samples from the
body and the crime scene, dropping them into sealable plastic bags and tucking them away in her belt pouches.

  “Don’t smile,” she said, not looking round. “Forensic science catches more killers than deductive thought.”

  “I never said a word,” I said innocently.

  “You didn’t have to. You only have to look at my utility belt, and your mouth starts twitching. I’ll have you know the things I store in my belt have saved my life on more than one occasion. Shuriken, smoke bombs, nausea-gas capsules, stun grenades… A girl has to be prepared for everything.” She stood up and looked down at the body. “It’s such a mess I can’t even tell which organs were taken; can you?”

  “The heart, certainly,” I said, standing up. “Anything else, we’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

  “I’ve already been through the clothing,” said Ms. Fate. “If there was any ID, the killer took it with him. But I did find a press pass, tucked away in his shoe. Said he worked for the Night Times. But no name on the pass, which is odd. Could be an investigative reporter, I suppose, working undercover.”

  “I’ll check with the editor,” I said.

  “But what was he doing here? Research?”

  We both looked around, and Ms. Fate was the first to find a book lying on the floor, just outside the blood pool. She opened the book and flicked through it quickly.

  “Anything interesting?” I said.

  “Hard to tell. Some doctoral dissertation, on the cannibal practices of certain South American tribes.”

  I gestured for the book, and she handed it over. I skimmed quickly through the opening chapter. “Seems to be about the old cannibal myth that you are what you eat. You know—eat a brave man’s heart to become brave, a runner’s leg muscles to become fast…”

  We both looked at the torn open body on the floor, with its missing organs.

  “Could that be our murderer’s motivation?” said Ms. Fate. “He’s taking the organs so he can eat them later, and maybe… what? Gain new abilities? Run me through the details of the five previous victims, Detective.”

  “First was a minor Greek godling,” I said. “Supposedly descended from Hercules, at many removes. Very strong. Died of a single knife wound to the heart. Chest and arm muscles were taken.”

  “Just the one blow, to the heart,” said Ms. Fate. “You’d have to get in close for that. Which suggests the victim either knew his killer or had reason to trust him.”

  “If the killer has acquired a godling’s strength, he wouldn’t need a knife any more,” I said.

  “There’s more to it than that.” She looked like she might be frowning, behind her mask. “This whole hands-on thing shouts… passion. That the killer enjoyed it, or took some satisfaction from it.”

  “Second victim was a farseer,” I said. “What they call a remote viewer these days. Her head was smashed in, and her eyes taken. After that, an immortal who lost his testicles, a teleporter for a messenger service who had his brain ripped right out of his skull, and, finally, a minor radio-chat-show host, who lost his tongue and vocal cords.”

  “Why that last one?” said Ms. Fate. “What did the killer hope to gain? The gift of the gab?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” I said. “Presumably the killer believed that eating the werewolf’s missing organs would give him shape-changing abilities, or at least regeneration.”

  “He’s trying to eat himself into a more powerful person… Hell, just the godling’s strength and the werewolf’s abilities will make him really hard to take down. Have you come up with any leads yet, from the previous victims?”

  “No,” I said. “Nothing.”

  “Then I suppose we’d better run through the usual suspects, if only to cross them off. How about Mr. Stab, the legendary uncaught immortal serial killer of Old London Town?”

  “No,” I said. “He always uses a knife, or a scalpel. Always has, ever since 1888.”

  “All right; how about Arnold Drood, the Bloody Man?”

  “His own family tracked him down and killed him, just last year.”

  “Good. Shock-Headed Peter?”

  “Still in prison, where I put him,” I said. “And there he’ll stay, till the day he dies.”

  Ms. Fate sniffed. “Don’t know why they didn’t just execute him.”

  “Oh, they tried,” I said. “Several times, in fact. But it didn’t take.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Ms. Fate. She knelt again suddenly, and leant right over to study the dead man’s elongated muzzle. “Take a look at this, Detective. The nose and mouth tissues are eaten away. Right back to the bone in places. I wonder…” She produced a chemical kit from her belt and ran some quick tests. “I thought so. Silver. Definite traces of silver dust, in the nose, mouth, and throat. Now that was clever… Throw a handful of silver dust into the werewolf’s face, he breathes it in, unsuspecting, and his tissues would immediately react to the silver. It had to have been horribly painful, certainly enough to distract the victim and interrupt his shape change… while leaving him vulnerable to the killer’s exceptional strength.”

  “Well spotted,” I said. “I must be getting old. Was a time I wouldn’t have missed something like that.”

  “You’re not that old,” Ms. Fate said lightly.

  “Old enough that they want to retire me,” I said.

  “You? You’ll never retire! You live for this job.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve done it so long it’s all I’ve got now. But I am getting old. Slow. Still better than any of these upstart latecomers, like John Taylor and Tommy Oblivion.”

  “You look fine to me,” Ms. Fate said firmly. “In pretty good shape, too, for a man of your age. How do you manage it?”

  I smiled. “We all have our secrets.”

  “Of course. This is the Nightside, after all.”

  “I could have worked out your secret identity,” I said. “If I’d wanted to.”

  “Perhaps. Though it might have surprised you. Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Professional courtesy? Or maybe I just liked the idea of knowing there was someone else around who wanted to catch murderers as much as I did.”

  “You can depend on me,” said Ms. Fate.

  Our next port of call was the Nightside’s one and only autopsy room. We do have a CSI, but it only has four people in it. And only one Coroner, Dr. West. Short, stocky fellow with a smiling face and flat straw yellow hair. I wouldn’t leave him alone with the body of anyone I cared about, but he’s good enough at his job.

  By the time Ms. Fate and I got there, Dr. West already had the werewolf’s body laid out on his slab. He was washing the naked body with great thoroughness and crooning a song to it as we entered. He looked round unhurriedly and waggled the fingers of one podgy hand at us.

  “Come in, come in! So nice to have visitors. So nice! Of course, I’m never alone down here, but I do miss good conversation. Take a look at this.”

  He put down his wet sponge, picked up a long surgical instrument, and started poking around inside the body’s massive wound. Ms. Fate and I moved closer, while still maintaining a respectful distance. Dr. West tended to get over-excited with a scalpel in his hand, and we didn’t want to get spattered.

  Dr. West thrust both his hands into the cavity and started rooting around with quite unnecessary enthusiasm. “The heart is missing,” he said cheerfully. “Also, the liver. Yes. Yes… Not cut out, torn out… Made a real mess of this poor fellow’s insides, hard to be sure of anything else… Not sure what to put down as actual cause of death: blood loss, trauma, shock… Heart attack? Yes. That covers it. So, another victim for our current serial killer. Number six… how very industrious. Oh yes. Haven’t even got a name for your chart, have we, boy? Just another John Doe… But not to worry; I’ve got a nice little locker waiting for you, nice and cosy, next to your fellow victims.”

  “You have got to stop talking to the corpses like that,” I said sternly. “One of these days someone will catch yo
u at it.”

  Dr. West stuck out his tongue at me. “Let them. See if I care. See if they can get anyone else to do this job.”

  “How long have you been Coroner, Dr. West?” said Ms. Fate, tactfully changing the subject.

  “Oh, years and years, my dear. I was made Coroner the same year Samuel here was made Detective. Oh yes, we go way back, Samuel and I. All because of that nasty Shock-Headed Peter… The Authorities decided that such a successful serial killer was bad for business, and therefore Something Must Be Done. It’s all about popular perception, you see… There are many things in the Nightside far more dangerous than any human killer could ever hope to be, but the Authorities, bless their grey little hearts, wanted visitors to feel safe, so…”

  He stopped and looked at me sourly. “You’d never believe he and I were the same age, would you? How do you do it, Samuel?”

  “Healthy eating,” I said. “And lots of vitamins.”

  “Why haven’t you called in Walker?” Ms. Fate said suddenly. “He speaks for the Authorities, with a Voice everyone has to obey; and I’ve heard it said he once made a corpse sit up on a slab and answer his questions.”

  “Oh he did, he did,” said Dr. West, pulling his hands out of the body with a nasty sucking sound. “I was there at the time, and very edifying it was, too. But unfortunately, all six of our victims had their tongues torn out. After our killer had taken the bits and pieces he wanted. Which suggests our killer had reason to be afraid of Walker.”

  “Hell,” I said. “Everyone’s got good reason to be afraid of Walker.”

  Dr. West shrugged, threw aside his scalpel and slipped off his latex gloves with a deliberate flourish, as though to make clear he’d done all that could reasonably be expected of him.