A Siren's Song

by Saranna Dewylde

  The Cross. It had to be. Just what I fucking needed. I decided maybe I should resign myself to zero productivity. There was no way I’d get anything done with Jason and the Cross up my ass every time I turned around.

  “You know that guy?”

  “What guy?” Had Richard seen him?

  “The guy that just darted around the corner. He was staring at you when we were inside.”

  I was really losing it if he’d been inside and I hadn’t even seen him. “I’m a cop. I meet new people every day under less than ideal circumstance. They tend to remember me more than I do them.”

  “I don’t know, Brynn. He was looking at you like he wanted to kill you.”

  “Also nothing new.” I shrugged. It didn’t matter if the Cross saw me kill. He knew what I was. I guessed if it came down to it, I wouldn’t stop if Jason was watching either. I’d rather he didn’t because I didn’t want him to see that part of me yet, but I had no choice. I’d been forged for killing—for death. I suppose it was stupid, but I wasn’t ready. “But I wouldn’t mind if we talked and walked at the same time.”

  “Of course.” He offered me his arm like some gentleman of yore.

  “So polite.”

  “A modern world doesn’t have to be an inconsiderate one.”

  I took his arm and felt silly doing it, but all the more so because of his seriousness. We wandered in companionable silence for a few moments, moving amongst the throngs out on the street. Then he pulled me into The Jerusalem Café. They had the best gyros I’d ever tasted, the meat so succulent and tender. The thought made my mouth water.

  We ate and talked—shared Turkish coffee and marzipan cake. I still hadn’t decided how I was going to kill him.

  When he excused himself to go to the restroom, I played with my salad, pushing it around on my plate trying to decide the best method of extermination.

  Someone slid in the booth a few minutes later, but it wasn’t Richard. It was the Cross.

  “What do you want? Either kill me, or fuck off. I’m working here,” I snarled.

  He tsked at me like I was some kind of naughty child. “You should be home reading the Hel Cycle. However will you ascend if you don’t know your seven labors like Hercules?”

  “Seven? I don’t have time for seven of anything.”

  “You have plenty of time to chat and play with your artiste.”

  “That’s because I’m going to kill him.”

  The candlelight played over his visage, making the burned side of his face look like it was still on fire just as the firelight had in the warehouse. I wondered if it still felt like it was burning when his skin was near a heat source.

  “Why is that?” he asked casually and took a bite of Richard’s gyro.

  “Because he’s a predator.”

  “Know that, do you? Without a doubt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you seen him kill?” He asked as he opened the pita bread and inspected the contents, seeming to find them lacking.

  “I don’t need to. I know when someone belongs to me.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” He dropped another dollop on Tzatziki sauce on the gyro and rolled the pita bread back up before taking another bite.

  “Do you know something I don’t?” Was it possible I was wrong?

  “I know plenty you don’t.” He paused dramatically and made it a point to overchew before he swallowed and spoke again. “But about your pretty boy? No.”

  “Then what do you want? And stop eating Richard’s gyro,” I hissed.

  “I want you to remember. So I can kill you and take your head back to my queen.”

  “I thought you wanted me dead because I wronged you?” This conversation was as surreal as it could get, but I found it strangely normal.

  “You did. Getting paid to kill you is just a bonus.”

  “I see.” I shoved my salad around my plate some more, using it almost like a Zen garden, tomatoes and olives instead of rocks, salad dressing instead of sand, raking little designs with my fork.

  “My face put you off your food?” he asked casually.

  “Your face is nowhere near as offensive as your sour mouth.”

  He laughed, his voice low and guttural, like the sound of rocks breaking on one another. “Read the Hel Cycle. You can bet your enemies have.” He got up, shoving the last bit of the gyro in his mouth.

  “How about you save me the time? Seven labors or some shit? What’s the first one?”

  “Why should I help you?” One dark slash of an eyebrow turned down as he narrowed his eyes, the other side where the burned flesh was unable to hold any expression.

  “You said it yourself. The sooner I ascend, the sooner you can kill me. Take my heart. Whatever.” I shrugged.

  “The first quest is to find the bridle for the eight-legged horse Sleipnir so you can travel between this world and Hel.”

  “Fantastic. Where am I supposed to find that?”

  “It’s your labor, not mine. Figure it out. Ask your daddy.”

  “My daddy is as dead as your mommy,” I sneered.

  He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t say another damn word about my mother.”

  I smiled and stabbed my fork through his thenar eminence, the rounded fleshy part where his thumb blended into his palm. To his credit, he didn’t make a sound, simply smiled back and released me before stalking out the door.

  With my fork.

  I motioned for the waiter and asked him to bring another plate of gyros for Richard and another fork for me.

  When he came back, there was something on his tray—something he said a gentleman had left for me.

  A sprig of night blooming jasmine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The waiter had no idea who’d left the jasmine—only that it was for me.

  When my date got back to the table, he said it would be pretty in my hair and settled it behind my ear.

  It was too much like wearing it for the killer—he’d sent me a token of his regard and I’d dutifully put it in my hair like some tribute. He was probably watching from somewhere and I itched to scan the crowd for him. He was higher on the food chain than Richard.

  I was surprised that Richard didn’t ask about his food, he didn’t touch it. He simply paid the bill and we left.

  As we went outside, I tried to remove the flowers, but Richard grabbed my hand and held it. “It’s such a pretty contrast with your dark hair. It pleases my muse to see it. Did you know that the Hindus used jasmine as offerings to their gods?”

  I couldn’t say anything else about it without revealing something about the case. So I wore it, but I decided to push back. “Who am I to deny your muse? Maybe you’ll show me some of the things she’s helped you create?”

  “You want to see my studio?” He sounded surprised.

  “I’d love to.”

  “It’s not in the best part of town,” he started.

  He didn’t want me there. Even more interesting. But I’d make him come out and say that he didn’t want me at his place and why. “I’m a cop. I think I’ll be okay.”

  “Do you want to pick up your car?”

  I didn’t want anyone to see me parked outside of his place. “No, Jason will take care of it.”

  “You must like me a lot to come to my house with no way to get home if the evening doesn’t go well.” His gaze was as sharp as a razor on my face.

  What a creepy thing to say. I raised my eyebrow. “Do you anticipate it won’t go well or is this you seeing what it will take to keep me from the inside of your studio?

  “Picked up on that, did you?” He smirked.

  “I did. And it only makes me want to see it more.”

  He stopped and turned to me, flashing all of his teeth at me again in what other people would call a smile. “I’m nervous about showing you my work.”

  “I promise I’d love nothing better than to see your work.” I knew we weren’t talking abo
ut oils on canvas.

  “It’s unfinished,” Richard said shyly, the toothy grin having retreated into a fey, almost bashful smile.

  “Well, you mustn’t show me anything until you’re ready. Sometimes it takes time for a true masterpiece to be ready.” Not unlike the Capri Killer. Not unlike myself.

  He reached out and smoothed a flyway behind my ear, his fingers then hovered over that sprig of white jasmine blooms. “You’re so beautiful, Brynn.” Richard looked thoughtful for a moment. “Who are you?”

  I am your queen, your goddess, the beginning and end of all things, I am Helreggin, a voice that was not mine screamed in my head. Instead, I answered, “Just a girl.”

  “No, you’re like some witch.” His expression twisted almost as if he were in pain.

  “Such pretty words,” I snorted.

  “No, it’s just…” he trailed off for a moment. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve known you for all of a second and I want to show you things I’ve never shown anyone.”

  “Isn’t that what we all hope for when we agree to meet our friends’ friends in smoky bars and meat markets? When we paint our faces, slick back our manes and soak our bodies in chemicals that are supposed to encourage the opposite sex to see us as suitable mates? That there will be this click and it will be like we’ve known each other all our lives?”

  Wow, I could not believe the garbage coming out of my mouth.

  “That’s not for people like us.”

  Hadn’t I mentioned that very thing to myself earlier? “Maybe it’s for us, too. Just in a different way?”

  A very different way.

  Our two point five would be the time it took me to move a razor from his left ear to his right ear and spill all of his red out onto the floor from his carotid artery.

  In the blood…

  “It’s not far from here and it’s a beautiful night for a walk,” he invited.

  We walked in silence and he led me down several side streets and alleys, even backtracking a few times. As if I didn’t know these streets like the back of my own hand, as if I hadn’t hunted them and didn’t know my own territory.

  It wasn’t a bad neighborhood at all. Full of artsy types and college kids. There were the occasional calls for disturbing the peace and general rowdiness, but all in all, rather mundane compared to Prospect.

  I wondered if he thought he was taking me back to his place to kill me. If he believed I was one of them, a lamb to the slaughter? I’d soon find out.

  He stopped in front of a small house, a solid little brick number with a stone porch and a fenced in back yard.

  This wasn’t what I’d expected either. I thought he’d have a loft somewhere, much like mine. Full of windows and unlike mine, art deco nonsense. Something artistic, since that was the angle he played. My guess was he lured his prey back to his home asking women to pose as models. He’d say he simply must paint them. Then he’d slip them some sort of drug or another in their wine and then he’d hack away at them, sculpting his masterpieces.

  Realization struck like lightning. I had him all wrong. He painted them, I was sure of it. Probably in some artsy loft like I imagined, but this was where he brought them when it was time to die. “This isn’t where you live.”

  He smiled again, shy and hesitant. “No, this is my studio.”

  “The natural light isn’t good enough for painting.”

  “No, not for painting.” Richard agreed, his voice low and amused, like he knew a secret I didn’t.

  The interior was homey and warm, the walls a mocha color and the furniture brown gingham check. The wood floors were scarred, but had been polished until they gleamed. A print hung over the back of the couch. Walter Sickert’s most famous one that was supposed to reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper.

  “Is that the original? I thought it was in a museum?”

  “You know art?” he sounded pleased.

  “I’ve trained with the FBI, Richard. Of course I know this painting. Your ancestor’s case is one of the most widely studied.”

  The Ripper case was to psychology and criminal justice students what the Kobayashi Maru was to Captain Kirk, a no-win scenario. A problem with no solution without redefining the question. There were no real answers.

  Jack the Ripper had been a serial killer active in the East End of London in 1888. It was such a well-known case because it was one of the first to be the subject of media attention. A Victorian splatterfest. He’d murdered prostitutes, referred to as “unfortunates” in grisly ways, often destroying their genitals and taking organs as trophies.

  It was often thought that the killer had been an undertaker, a butcher, or even a doctor. But back in the Victorian era, society was taught to believe that the upper classes and educated people were incapable of such barbaric horrors.

  Although, new studies had come to light that even as recently as the Victorian age, the upper classes and even royalty had engaged in “corpse medicine”—the use of body parts to make tinctures and teas, salves, to cure certain ailments.

  One of the suspects offered for consideration was a painter, Walter Sickert. He either knew who the Ripper was, or was the Ripper himself.

  It was surreal to be standing there talking with Sickert’s descendent. I shivered.

  Richard turned to me, his hand on my waist. “And what did you think of it, Brynn? His work? Who was your choice for the killer?”

  “I didn’t have enough information.”

  “Come on, just a little guess?” He stroked his thumb over my hip.

  Another theory was that it had been Prince Albert, gone mad with syphilis. Or that it had been on the Queen’s orders to silence a Catholic prostitute the prince had married. The second theory had been the subject of a film with Johnny Depp called From Hell, which I’d watched with my father and we’d critiqued the portrayal of the murders. In the movie, the Ripper had shown the women his good will by offering them grapes. For reason, I’d always thought it would have been marzipan.

  But even knowing the case file inside and out, I didn’t want to answer the question. It felt like I was submitting to some kind of test. I didn’t know who it was. The evidence was more than a hundred years old. If I could have time traveled, I might have been able to make that connection with his kills and catch him, but in the present? No.

  “It was never proven if the prince had syphilis or not. By all verified accounts, he did not. He was also said to be developmentally disabled. I’ve ruled him out. It was never proven whether he had a relationship with that “unfortunate”. The Queen’s personal physician, Dr. Gull had the medical experience and by all accounts was a great man. Though I’ve found that great men often hide the darkest secrets. There are some who find nothing taboo in the search for knowledge, but I don’t think that fits his personality type.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “And your ancestor, I’m not sure what to think of him. Patricia Cornwell posits in her book he had a genetic anomaly that made him unable to perform sexually and in turn, made him hate women. If he was unable to perform, where did you come from? So my answer? I don’t think that we’ll ever know who the Ripper was and I think if he were alive today, he’d like that after all this time, no one knows for sure.”

  “What about taking credit for his kills? Don’t you think he’d finally want the world to know?”

  “Maybe. I couldn’t say. As I said before, I don’t have enough information.” I shrugged.

  That was what Jason had said to me, I didn’t have all the information. I felt there should be a connection there, but I just couldn’t make it click.

  My brain was twisting and turning all of this over and Richard had closed the distance between us, rested his forehead on mine. If he’d been one of the prey, he would have tried to kiss me, but that’s not where his pleasure lay. It was only death that fed his hunger.

  His touch, his nearness, it did nothing to me like Jason’s had. Or the Cross—Stavros. No burning between my thighs, no rus
h of heat.

  Though there was the burst of adrenaline, the quickening of breath.

  Are you sure?

  This time it was both Jason and the assassin’s voice in my head like some satanic Jiminy Cricket in stereo.

  What could it hurt to be sure?

  I’m always sure.

  But what could it hurt to double check?

  Everything. If I started second-guessing myself now… the thought trailed off. Just this one time, I’d double check. He wanted to tell me, I could feel it. Then I’d be sure and that rancid conscience thing in my head would shut the hell up and let me get on with my work.

  “Do you know? Was it Walter Sickert who killed those women?” I asked breathlessly and hooked my hands around his biceps. “What about the other victims in Whitechapel killed in a similar way? Were they victims of the Ripper too?”

  “I do know, but I’m not going to tell you,” he taunted.

  “No?” I licked my lips. “Will you show me then? Is the way he killed in your DNA?”

  “On the first date?” Richard’s tone was sly.

  “It’s either that or we fall into bed with awkward sticky fumblings working toward a false fulfillment we know isn’t there.”

  “All right, Brynn. I’ll show you mine, you show me yours? Tell me, do you want to paint on my canvas?”

  My stomach flipped over on itself, my knees were suddenly jelly and I licked my lips again, unable to answer. He wanted to kill together.

  Hell, but the intimacy of it was almost too much. I imagined what it would be like hunting with the Cross. Or with Jason.

  Those weren’t things I could allow myself to think about. Especially not now, not here. I couldn’t afford to be distracted.

  This predator had just admitted he had a canvas nearby, a warm, living human being. A person with a mother, a father, someone who made them cupcakes with Nutella frosting. My raison d’etre—to protect the prey had to be in the forefront of my mind, not getting my metaphorical dick wet.

  “Yes.” I tightened my grip on his biceps.

  “Downstairs to the basement then, pretty Brynn.”