“Really? What have you found so far?”
“Nothing substantial,” he admitted. “I’ve really just done some fact checking around the victims and their deaths, but I believe I’ve discovered a common link between all of them, something this killer is looking for, something he wants. But I can’t be sure until I get a bit more information.” Jason took a moment to divulge his rendezvous with Suzy and added that she was now a confidant of his. “I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you about this first, but I feel that I can trust her, and I need her help, I still do.”
Audrey beamed and walked over to him. She hugged him and told him she was happy he felt comfortable enough to trust her sister. “I know my family can be overbearing and wears on your nerves, but I’m glad you feel close enough to Suzy to trust her.”
I don’t feel like I had much of a choice in the matter. She had the answers I needed and there wasn’t anyone else I could trust or ask. But I guess I do feel like I can trust her, unlike her brother or mother. Honestly, all of the Castell family are unable to keep secrets, even Audrey, but I think both of them know how vital it is that no one else knows…and I know Suzy knows how to keep her mouth shut.
Jason walked back into the bathroom to retrieve the rest of his costume when he heard a voice. “Jason? I hope you can hear me.”
Suzy.
“I wanted to let you know I found the information you wanted. The first girl, Nicole, had O positive blood and Sasha had A positive.” There was a pause. “She’s dead Jason. Some girl in my American Literature course found her dead and missing half a kilogram of skin, mainly taken from her stomach, as well as a part of her scalp and half a liter of blood. I managed to figure this out by talking to the girl who found her, though I really feel like shit doing something that unseemly.” She stopped and he could hear her fumble for a cigarette and promptly light it after two tries. She blew the smoke out after a long draw and continued, “I think you’re right though, these killings are only getting closer…and I’m scared Jason. Is there any way you or Audrey could come and get me?”
I thought as much. This answers my questions as closely as I can guess right now.
“Audrey, what type of blood does Suzy have?” he asked her.
She thought for a moment before she gave an answer, “I believe it’s B positive, why?”
He smiled and told her he had the answer he was searching for. “I think I’m making some progress dear. But I need to call Suzy to tell her something, what’s her number?”
Audrey looked it up in her phone and relayed it to him. She asked while he dialed, “Do you think she’s in danger Jason?”
“She’s going to be fine…Suzy? This is Jason.”
“So you heard me then, I gather?”
“Yes. Let me ask, what type of blood do you have?”
“B positive.”
Jason let out a sigh of relief and told her she would be fine. “This killer won’t harm you. I found out that blood is the connecting factor in these murders.”
“Jason, they don’t have–”
“I know, I know, they have different blood types, but that doesn’t matter. This villain is hunting down people who have O positive or negative and A positive and negative blood types.”
“Why though?”
Should I really tell her? She probably suspects it already though…
Jason took an uneasy breath and told her he suspected the murderer was harvesting organs and vital fluids. “They’re either selling them for profit or using them for their own survival or for someone else’s. But assuming these thefts are for himself, he has A positive blood, and the four blood types I told you are all compatible with A positive blood types.”
Suzy swore under her breath and asked how Jason thought the killer discovered which people to snatch. “He wouldn’t just guess.”
“I gave that some thought. Maybe the killer really was a doctor at one point. I haven’t been able to confirm anything, but perhaps the victims were all patients at the same hospital and he managed to glean their information and whether they had any diseases he needed to avoid. But it’s my guess that this killer is very knowledgeable about his victims well before he captures them.”
“Fantastic,” muttered Suzy. “Does any of this help you get closer to finding this guy?”
Unfortunately no. Jason told her he wasn’t any closer, but he at least understood the killer’s motive and methodology behind who he targeted. “It won’t be too much of an aid immediately, but it will help to weed out any confusion when someone else vanishes.”
“Then what you’re saying is that you have to wait for someone else to be abducted?”
Jason told her he didn’t have another option. “There aren’t any missing persons that we know about in that area, Suzy. He could be relocating as we speak and searching high and low for him throughout Roehampton won’t help us at all. And I don’t have the ability to see through walls, so sadly I don’t know where to begin searching. And since I don’t have any suspects I wouldn’t be able to tell the killer from anyone else. I’ll keep you informed as things progress.”
“And you can continue to expect help from me, assuming I find anything.”
They said farewell and hung up. Jason rubbed his eyes and told Audrey there were six victims accounted for at that moment. I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t even know who I’m looking for. I’m grasping at straws trying to be a hero and I’m failing. I can’t do this. I can’t do this at all. Joshua Todd? A name, nothing more, nothing else. There are only cold trails and dead ends. I can’t figure this out. I can’t find anyone until I know someone else is taken. There’s nowhere else to go from here.
---*---
11:40 AM
Seattle, Washington
Rachel followed Vladimir through the streets near the University of Washington. Their search over the past few days gained them nothing and because of that they were both irritable. It didn’t help that Rachel refused to search day in and day out for Cipriana, (as she felt having dinner with her aunt and getting a good night’s rest were just as vital to their progress as the search itself). Since they needed to restart their search each morning the areas they covered couldn’t be deemed exempt and everywhere they went needed to be rechecked. Truthfully, Vladimir felt the entire process was a waste of time.
“Why aren’t we in school?” Rachel asked him.
Vladimir simply told her the matter at hand was more important than attending her high school classes. “Would you rather sit through classes until two in the afternoon?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then please stop complaining.”
After a bit more walking Rachel asked how they were supposed to find her. “We can’t just leave this to chance can we?”
“Not if we actually want to find her,” he muttered.
“Then why are we wasting time like this?”
Vladimir said he was unsure himself and doubted they were truly sent out to encounter Cipriana by happenstance.
“Then what are we doing out here?”
“Again, I do not know.”
Vladimir led her into a small field of grass between two roads and stopped underneath the shade of a maple tree. He crossed his arms and remained quiet while cars drove past.
Rachel looked at the college campus and even though it was the middle of the school day plenty of students were out enjoying the morning or traveling to and from classes. She took a seat in the grass and looked at an intersection nearby as all of the cars flowed past one another like various streams or rivers. Their island of grass and maple trees wasn’t anything but a brief blip on the maps of travelers of the world.
“Is Constantine really that much of a threat?”
“Yes,” Vladimir flatly told her. “If he was not we would not have to stop him.”
“Can he really destroy everyone?”
“I believe he cannot at this moment otherwise he would already have done so.”
“But he’s
going to find a way?”
He nodded, “Unless we stop him.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Vladimir let out a sigh and asked why an angel would waste his time if Constantine wasn’t a threat. “Pyotr would never have become an angel if Constantine was not a danger to mankind.”
Rachel looked away from him and asked why he wanted to stop him. “Why do you feel like it’s your job to stop him?”
Vladimir rubbed his eyes and reminded her that Constantine was his friend. “I should have noticed the change in him and done something to either stop him or comfort him and curb his desire for destruction.” He asked what she would do if one of her friends took up a bad habit. “You would want to help them, right?”
She admitted that she would and apologized. Rachel waited a moment before he asked how close he was to Cipriana and the others, but Vladimir only told her they were friends for years before Constantine rebelled and their lives changed from what they would have been.
“Cipriana was a lovely young woman,” he started. “She was very affectionate, honest, and loyal. We attended the same school and I can recall many evenings where she and I and our friends would sit out and watch the stars and name all of the constellations we could remember. Her family moved to London, which is where I am from as well, though I was born in Romania,” Vladimir stopped himself and returned to his comments on Cipriana, “Her parents left Italy during that nation’s reunification after the Napoleonic rule and ended up in London in eighteen-thirty. I remember her father’s home, how he had a wonderful library filled with strange and beautifully bound books I had never heard of. He was the one who taught me to read and speak Italian, though I must admit I am quite poor at the language now, since I haven’t needed to use it since the end of the Second World War. Cipriana was an only child, as many of our friends were, and that may have been why we were so very close. We were all surrogate siblings in one way or another.”
He let out another breath and told her they should move on and started off without her.
---*---
4:18 PM
Seattle, Washington
Lauren sat on one of the four cots away from Strom and faced the entryway. They hardly spoke two words to one another since Nick left earlier that morning. All she did was sit with her head in her hands, gaze off dispassionately, and occasionally let out a nearly inaudible sigh. She cried too. Strom on the other hand kept to himself and read all day. In fact, he’d read through The Great Gatsby, Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot, Save Me the Waltz, Tender is the Night, and was partly through a collection of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories. He’d offered Lauren a pick out of his humble library, but she simply refused and continued to sit quietly at the end of her cot.
He stopped at The End of Something, dog-eared the page, and set the book aside. “You need to do something,” he started, “You’re distracting, to say the least.”
“Just leave me alone.”
Strom struggled to prop himself up and eventually sat at the edge of his cot. The pain nearly made him cry out, but he managed, choked back the knowledge that he wasn’t helping himself at all and set himself at the end of the bed. He took a breath and said, “You miss them, right?”
“What?”
“Your parents,” he repeated, “You–”
“Don’t you talk to me about them,” she snapped. “I don’t want to hear a damn word out of you.”
Her words echoed for a brief second and left an uncomfortable silence. Lauren looked away, but Strom didn’t budge.
He looked at the ground between his cot and the next and asked what her parents did for work.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” she reiterated.
Strom waited a moment before he told her both his mother and father worked as bakers. “At least, that’s what they did when I was young. I don’t even know if they’re alive anymore,” he admitted.
Lauren shut her eyes and told him to stop talking. “I don’t want any advice or sympathy or condolences from you.”
“Because of who I am?”
“Yes.”
Strom nodded and looked over to his small pile of books, most of which he’d read before he sustained his injuries. He gave Nick a small list of materials he hoped Nick would get for him on his way home, most of which comprised Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Salinger, and some odds and ends. He even told Nick to take his Maserati GranTurismo to school or wherever he needed to go, but quickly realized Nick didn’t know how to drive stick very well and that the vehicle would only attract attention.
Nick and Lauren left each evening to get food and occasionally entertainment (which was always a novel for Strom, seeing as both Nick and Lauren would sit quietly and keep to themselves). In fact, whenever Nick left she would accompany him, with the exceptions being his schooling or if he left to see his girlfriend. Strom guessed she would have left on her own had she not feared the possibility of Dalton attacking her. He guessed that since he could hardly sit up, couldn’t stand or walk, or even raise his arms fully that Lauren felt fine being cooped up somewhere with him, seeing as if Strom tried anything she would be able to stop him. He never tried anything and never would; all he’d done since she became apprised of his identity was eat, sleep, and read.
“Who do you think I am?” he suddenly asked her. “You’re dead set that you know who I am, so I’d just like to know what it is that I am.”
“You’re a killer for starters,” she murmured.
“So are soldiers,” he muttered. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Soldiers fight for their country.”
“I fight for myself and that’s all.” He struggled to adjust his glasses and added, “Soldiers have an enemy they try to keep in their sights; I only kill those I’m paid to kill. If either of us is considered–”
“You can’t honestly believe that you’re justified do you?” she stopped him and leered at him. “You fight for yourself, right? You’re nothing more than a selfish prick.”
He looked at her and admitted that he wasn’t a saint. “I don’t enjoy what I do, you know.”
“Then why do you kill people if you dislike it?”
“Why does anyone work a job they hate?” He waited for a response which never came and finally answered it himself, “It’s because it pays well.”
“Then you’re greedy.”
“So what? Loads of people are and–”
“They don’t kill others.”
“Some of them do.”
“We aren’t talking about them,” she spat, “We’re talking about why you’re the monster that you are.”
Her words hung in the air a moment before Strom slowly repeated them. “You know what? The guy who killed your mom and dad–”
“I don’t–”
“Listen to me!” he barked. “I don’t give a shit if you don’t like me or if you’ll ever like me, but you will at the very least act cordially toward me. I’m still human and I know that what you’re going through is painful and all I’m trying to do is help, but you’re acting like a stuck up bitch who thinks she’s too good for me. For all I know you are a better person than I am, I mean, it wouldn’t take much, but out of all the so-called ‘evil’ I’ve done you’re spitting on the one good thing I’m trying to do to help you. Now I’m sorry your mother and father were killed, I am; but unless you talk to someone about it you’re unlikely to ever get through it.” Strom struggled to lie back down and pick up his book, but he managed on his own. He opened it back up to The End of Something and added, “I don’t even care if you don’t want to talk to me, just talk about it with someone. Someone like Nick…” He unfolded the small corner of his book and mentioned that Nick knew what she was going through and could benefit from talking to her as well.
---*---
4:47 PM
Seattle, Washington
Drake sat with Hiromi at what Drake’s father called a ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant. It was probably accurate, but Drake loved th
e food and he knew his girlfriend would appreciate it as well. The small Japanese bar and grill was home to comfort foods of the aforementioned nation and offered a delicious selection of relatively cheap meals, (not that Drake was in anyway a cheapskate). He wanted to take his girlfriend to one of his favorite places in Seattle, right at the heart of the International District.
He mentioned to her that he would often have dinner with his late father at various places across the city, but the little bar and grill was always his favorite. “I don’t know what it is about it,” he told her, “I just thought it was really cool to sit here, eat Japanese food that wasn’t from a local teriyaki place, and actually be surrounded by people who were invested in the food and not the fact that it was a quick eat so they could get on with their lives.”
She giggled and told him the restaurant was pretty much exactly what he didn’t think it was. “Most of these people probably live around here and just eat here because it’s quick, Drake.”
He smiled and said he knew. “I didn’t realize it when I was younger. Now it just holds a lot of good memories.”
They glanced through the small menus they were presented with at the beginning of their evening and casually selected something before their waiter arrived. Drake ordered chicken katsu and Hiromi selected prawn yakisoba. They opted out of beverages in favor of the ice water they already had with them at the table.
“So how’s school going?” he asked.
She nodded and said everything was fine. “I like my classes and I’ve made some friends, so I’m happy. How about you? How are your classes?”
He shrugged and said they were fine.
They sat quietly for a moment before he asked her what her family was like.
“My father works for a law firm in Tokyo and my mother is what you would call a stay at home mom,” she started. “My father’s a rather uptight person, partly because of his job, but he still manages to make my mother and I laugh, so it’s not as if he’s mean. My mother is really sweet and looks after everyone as best she can; she really only wants to make people happy.”
Regenesis (Book 1): Impact Page 56
