The 2nd Cycle of the Darc Murders Omnibus (the acclaimed series from #1 Police Procedural and Hard Boiled authors Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin)

by Carolyn McCray

  And while this one might be weak in endurance, she also promised a vigorous show as she crossed over. She might be the one.

  So much searching, to discover a vessel that could withstand the release of orgasm with the release of death. The throes of passion and the throes of death mingling and feeding off one another.

  The epiphanies that could be found in that moment… lovely thought.

  Not that this was the pinnacle of hidden knowledge. It merely stood as the next stop on this hedonistic journey.

  That was the idea that so few seemed to understand. There always remained another stop on the spiral down into decadence. No bottom existed to the pursuit of bodily excess.

  One of the acolytes slithered toward the Headminister, anticipating need. She retrieved one of the desserts from the nearby table… what was that? Ah yes. Crème brûlée. A favorite.

  The crack of the caramelized sugar on top was divine. The silky smoothness of the custard a revelation. The confection slid down the throat so readily, after lingering and melting on the tongue. The acolyte slipped, smearing some of the concoction on the Headminister’s cheek.

  For a moment, punishment was considered… and then rejected. This was also pleasure. Indulgence in its highest form. The excessive waste of something precious could also create ecstasy.

  Pulling the acolyte closer, the Headminister scooped up the dessert and began smearing it over her naked form, relishing in the spasms it evoked from her. She was doped with MDMA, of course. It only made sense to give the servants of Bacchus, the worshippers of Kama and Rati, the believers in Eros and Aphrodite, a drug that was referred to by the name of ecstasy itself.

  So good. So lovely.

  The Headminister glanced over to the ministrations given to the newest sacrificial virgin. That was figurative, of course. There was little way to verify the actual virginity of any given captive. Instead, they looked for certain signs, an innocence that defied this pornography worshipping age.

  Such an enlightened era.

  She was ready, it seemed. It was time.

  The Headminister leaned toward the gyrating acolyte and whispered in her ear.

  “Bring me the bat.”

  This night would be sure to end well.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Dude. This… This is just… wrong.”

  After dropping Janey off at Mala’s… they had somehow avoided telling her the whole story about what had gone on at the theatre… Trey had gone home and gone to bed. Well, after some “ministrations” from Maggie. Holy cow, this pregnancy thing worked that woman up.

  And then, after he’d finally gotten to sleep, at some point early in the morning, he had gotten a call from dispatch. Another dead body. Sometimes he hated his job.

  When you worked homicide as long as Trey had, you started to get a sense for when dispatch wasn’t giving you the whole story. This had been one of those times.

  And seeing the crime scene, Trey got it. He wouldn’t have been able to describe this over the phone, either.

  Fact of the matter was, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to detail it in the paperwork. The paperwork he would inevitably write up himself.

  Not that Trey was all that good at paperwork, although he’d gotten better over the years. It was just that when Darc took over that responsibility, no one could decipher what the freak he was writing about.

  So Trey had taken it on, like the good little soldier he was.

  Good little soldier. That’s not how he felt right at the moment.

  The forensics team, instead of engaging in their typical buzzing about, were all subdued, speaking in hushed whispers and, from what Trey could tell, trying to avoid looking at the dead girl in the center of it all. All except for the one taking pictures. What was his name? Bradford. Randall Bradford.

  Randall remained as close to the body as he could get, snapping shot after shot of the unfortunate victim in HD. Either the sight didn’t bother him, or he actually enjoyed it. Either way, the spectacle caused by the lights from his camera going off at random intervals added to the surreal quality of the crime scene.

  Trey and Darc stood on 1st Avenue, right in front of the Seattle Art Museum. The body had been found by a group of drunken clubbers. Trey could only imagine what their initial reaction had been.

  They were sitting underneath one of those foil emergency blankets, looking about as morose as a group could get. Trey understood.

  The body had been arranged right underneath the metal sculpture that was called the Hammering Man. The form’s arm continued to move up in slow motion, completing the act of hammering that it would do about four times each minute.

  Was it significant that this girl had been placed here?

  Darc remained squatted down by the head of the naked woman, doing his Darc hoodoo guru stuff. Trey could barely stand looking at the poor thing, much less examining her.

  The body was grotesque, the breasts swollen to gargantuan size and the legs spread to reveal… Trey found he wasn’t able to even think it, much less talk about it.

  “It appears that a saline solution was injected into the tissue of the breasts, accounting for their size,” the new M.E., Dr. Thomas Kelly, stated with a level of clinical interest resonating in his voice.

  The doctor was young and fresh-faced, apparently just graduated from Harvard or Yale or whatever Ivy League school it was that had a good med program. Trey had tuned the whole thing out, to be honest. Last time he’d spent hanging out with an M.E., the guy had turned out to be a freak of nature who wanted to kill him.

  It was getting to the point that Trey would be willing to suspect his mailman of being a serial killer. Or his mom.

  The image of Trey’s mother wielding a chainsaw sprang into his mind, and he had to fight the inappropriate desire to laugh. Not cool at a crime scene like this one.

  And his mother, rest-her-soul, would probably end up haunting him for his lapse. Dad would’ve thought it was funny. Not Mom.

  She was the one who had sent him to Catholic school. Her response would have been to force him to recite Hail Mary’s. Leave it to his mom to think she had the authority of a priest to assign penance.

  “The object inserted into the young woman’s vagina appears to be…” the young M.E. paused for a moment, from what Trey could tell, to gather himself. Might be that the well-educated doctor wasn’t as detached or clinical as he might want to appear. “Well, it appears to be a baseball bat.”

  “Hold on,” Randall Bradford said as he nudged the doctor aside to take a few shots of the woman’s lower half. Then, as if he wasn’t getting close enough, the young man stepped in between the victim’s legs and leaned in, the camera almost touching.

  That did it.

  Trey turned and ran to the side of the street, retching. Wouldn’t do to vomit all over the crime scene. One of the uniformed cops who had cordoned off the street looked on, nodding his head. None of the usual razzing for losing it at a crime scene.

  This went so far beyond the norm that usual customs went out the window.

  At least this time there weren’t a whole bunch of symbols and designs scrawled around the body. It appeared that maybe Hutchinson had been the last of those bastards.

  “The killing’s sexual,” Trey said. “I mean, that’s obvious, I guess. But was she…? Did the killer…?”

  “Hold on,” the M.E. stated, trotting over to his kit. He brought back a black light, holding it close to the body as he flipped the switch on.

  The strange unglow of the light was reflected back in phosphorescent brilliance. The young girl’s entire body seemed to be spattered in organic material.

  “There’s no way to know right now what this all is,” the doctor said, after clearing his throat. “I can’t imagine any one killer having this much…” He trailed off, seeming reluctant to continue his train of thought.

  You and me both, man. You and me both.

  “Wait.”

  It was Darc. He had come out of whatever fug
ue state he’d been in, and seemed like he was ready to join the party.

  “Shine the black light around the body,” he said, his tone flat.

  Dr. Kelly stepped back, and one of the cops swore.

  Trey mirrored the sentiment. The strange letters and pictures that he’d been so relieved not to see were all there. Written in organic matter that phosphoresced under the black light held by the good doctor.

  “Fascinating,” the doctor breathed. His face was rapt, and the level of the man’s focus disturbed Trey on a deep level. For his own part, Trey had to force himself to look.

  Darc stared at the symbols. “Sanskrit.”

  All Trey wanted to do was turn away, but once he’d glanced over, the glowing pictures pulled at him, compelling his attention. Once he gave it, he wished he hadn’t.

  “Hold on,” he said as he recognized one of the rough sketches he found there. “This looks like… Is this from the Kama Sutra?” Darc looked at him, his gaze intense. “What? I’m not a total moron.”

  He was no stranger to the Kama Sutra. One of his friends, whose parents had been kind of super hippies, had brought their copy to school.

  “This is not the Kama Sutra,” Darc corrected him. “This parallels one of the more esoteric of the Hindu Tantras. There are sixty-four in all, but only one that deals with coitus. But in these renderings there are quite a few radical differences in content.”

  As Trey looked closer, he could see the differences to which Darc referred. Trey couldn’t imagine these renderings showing up in any kind of scripture, no matter what religion they were from. There was nothing sacred about this.

  In every detailed depiction of a lovemaking pose, there had been some act of violence imposed over the surface. In one, the standard missionary became a perversion as the woman choked the man atop her. There was another with a man sitting up, the woman straddling him, while he held a knife to her throat and the blood gushed over his naked body.

  Picture after picture of the vilest depravity mingled with horror. They assaulted the senses, violated everything that strove to be filled with goodness and light. This was an abomination.

  And one thought ran through Trey’s mind.

  It was a good thing he had already thrown up.

  * * *

  She’d lasted longer than the Headminister had given her credit for. And at the end, her demise had been almost… sweet.

  No huge climactic finish. No epiphanies. No esoteric knowledge imparted to the worshippers of Baal and Ashtoreth.

  But something about the young woman’s death had been satisfying to the Headminister. Almost touching.

  Now it fell to the acolytes to find another offering. Another who might be worthy of sacrifice to the gods of wine and fertility and the seeking after the pleasures of the flesh. Only in the full embracing of the body’s desires could the spirit be nourished.

  And Seattle was a lush playground, providing almost infinite possibilities to any true seekers of divine knowledge. The Headminister felt a stirring below, an urging forward to the work.

  There was a languishing feel to the desire. A yearning to take it slowly, to relish in each shift and nuance in the growing sensations.

  An acolyte, sensitized to the needs of her leader, moved closer, running her hand up and down over the exposed skin that ached to be touched. Perhaps, while waiting for a suitable ram to be provided by the heavens, a less-worthy goat could take its place.

  The Headminister’s grip tightened, and a cry of pleasure or pain escaped the lips of the young acolyte.

  Ah yes, little one. You feel your time drawing close. Please me while you can.

  She tried.

  She tried her level best.

  * * *

  “Where were you last night?” Mala asked, doing what she could to keep the accusation out of her tone.

  From the answering expression on Carly’s face, it appeared that Mala had failed. The girl stiffened up, her eyes growing hard and sharp.

  To her credit, she didn’t yell. They had progressed that far, at least.

  “I was out.”

  That had become Carly’s stock answer when Mala asked her what she’d been doing. As if that nonresponse was somehow specific enough to be considered an answer.

  “Out?”

  “Yes. Out.”

  Janey had already left for a play date at her friend Jessalyn’s house, and Mala’s plan was to join her later on. It had been a while since she’d been able to spend any time with Cat, Jessalyn’s mother, and she could use some adult girl time.

  But that left her here with Carly, who hadn’t come in until sometime around three o’clock that morning. Late nights weren’t off the table, especially considering that Carly was over eighteen. That didn’t mean, however, that Carly didn’t at least need to let her know where she was and when to expect her home.

  It was more than just courtesy. Mala had some idea of the nasty things that could happen in Seattle. Having them happen to Carly would wreck her. And Janey.

  Mala strolled over to the front door, blocking the exit. The young woman saw the flanking move and, rather than try to combat it, changed directions and flopped onto the living room sofa.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “What?” The word dripped with defensive energy and exasperation.

  “I just think we need to talk for a bit,” Mala replied, trying to dissipate some of the charge that was building up in the conversation. “Spend some time establishing boundaries that I feel--”

  “You seriously have no clue,” Carly interrupted her. “You do get that I’ve lived on the streets, right? Like, there’s nothing I haven’t seen. Probably done.” Her jaw thrust out in defiance, daring Mala to test her.

  But Mala refused to rise to the bait. “This isn’t about what you have or haven’t done or experienced. This is about us finding a way to live together in peace.”

  “If you hate me being here so much, why don’t you just kick me out?” Carly’s tone was aggressive, but Mala could swear that there was fear in the girl’s eyes.

  On an intellectual level, Mala understood what was happening here. That didn’t make it any easier to manage. How many parents had she counseled through moments just like this one?

  Mala had prided herself on being compassionate and understanding with those parents. And, at least according to them, she’d done a good job.

  After living with Carly for the last little while, though, Mala realized that she’d never had a clue what those parents were going through. She’d been faking her way through every teenage crisis she’d managed.

  But just because she hadn’t lived through it before, that didn’t make the advice she’d given wrong. They were sound principles. They were also difficult… almost counterintuitive… to implement.

  And one of the most important ideas was one of staying soft and nonreactive. So Mala waited to respond. She slowed her breath. Opened up her heart.

  “Carly,” Mala said, sitting down opposite the girl in the easy chair, “I love having you here.”

  Carly glared the question at her, and Mala chuckled in spite of herself. There were many things you could say about Carly, but her being unobservant wasn’t one of them.

  “I’m not saying I’m enjoying it all that much right now,” she amended. “But having you here, seeing you grow up, watching you interact with Janey…” Mala let those thoughts sink in for a moment before she continued. “I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”

  The tears that had been building up in Carly’s eyes spilled over, running down her cheeks and alongside her nose. She rubbed her hand over her face, and Mala reached for a tissue from the box on the sofa table.

  Carly accepted the offering with a look of gratitude. Whether it had been Mala’s softening or her own realization that she didn’t have to fight, the girl had let go of the anger that had tinged the entire conversation up to that moment.

  “I don’t fit,” she said through her tears, and then she ducked her head down.
“I want to. But I don’t.”

  “What do you mean?” Mala asked.

  “I’m eighteen. I’m supposed to be an adult,” she said, her tears causing her to hiccup out the words. “But I’m not. Not really.”

  “Well, you never really had a stable place to be able to--”

  “No. Don’t.” Carly cut her off. “I’m sorry, but I don’t need you to tell me that it’s not my fault. That’s not what I’m looking for. I know all the reasons why I’m messed up. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m messed up, you know?”

  Mala did know, and her heart ached for this damaged little girl. But there was an essential part of this that Carly wasn’t seeing.

  “You’re messed up. That’s true,” Mala affirmed. “But do you think that I’m not?”

  Carly’s head popped up at that. The blank but intent look on her face confirmed that Mala had grabbed her attention. Good. She hadn’t lost all her skill as a psychologist.

  “But you… you had parents, and a good home…” Carly’s voice trailed off in confusion.

  “Yes. I did. I also had a father who wanted to marry me off to a suitable man from India without my consent, as well as a mother who was going to let him. And a brother who committed suicide because he couldn’t figure out how to navigate the dynamics of our home.”

  With each confession, Carly’s surprise grew. And that wall of “you can’t understand my pain” around her seemed to soften with each passing word spoken.

  “I want you to know something,” Mala confessed. “I love my family. And they did the best they could. But that doesn’t mean I’m not totally screwed up.”

  Reaching out a hand, Mala cupped the back of Carly’s neck and stared deep into her eyes. Carly’s eyes darted about for a moment like an animal cornered and in danger, but then she seemed to catch Mala’s gaze enough to see that there was no harm there.

  A surge of connection ran through Mala as Carly opened up to her, and tears welled up in both sets of eyes. Things weren’t perfect. They weren’t likely to become perfect any time soon. But Mala allowed herself to fall in love with the radiant… and yes, scared… little girl she saw trapped inside that tough shell that Carly kept around her most of the time.