“Perplexing. But it’s consistent with what you’re finding.”
“I think this means he had a large vehicle, like a van or a truck, and he killed them inside it, or at least he killed the last of the three inside it.”
“But consider his exposure to the moon. He needs to be exposed to it to offer his tributes.”
Liam reached for a speculative answer. “Maybe he had a sunroof. Or maybe he just waited until there were no other cars on the road and dragged his victims outside the vehicle one by one, killed them, and put their bodies back in.”
His father’s sigh was loud enough over the phone to give the young hunter his negative feedback. “I doubt it, but it may not be necessary to understand. Act upon the evidence you have now, then you can consider the more complex issues later.”
Liam wanted to use knowledge of the wraith’s vehicle to pursue him, but he found the elder hunter’s advice sound. “Okay, Father. Let’s act upon what we’ve confirmed today. He killed right here, a stone’s throw from Istanbul.”
“This wraith’s history is far less documented than Dianne’s victim, but I believe it’s logical to assume him less mobile based upon his tighter lunar cycle. Istanbul’s a large enough city for him to hide throughout his entire killing cycle, or at least it’s large enough for him to believe he can hide.”
“Then I’ll see you soon, you, Josh, and Nana?”
“We’ll be there tomorrow. Good bye, for now.”
Liam hung up and slid the phone into his pocket. Returning his thoughts to his immediate location, he turned towards Dianne.
Her eyes closed, she stood on the exact spot of the homicide, holding a dagger in her hands. But the weapon’s identity surprised him when it appeared translucent.
“Where’s my...” His voice tapered as he noticed she was in her own world, ignoring him. He concluded she’d returned his knife to its case and had grabbed her own weapon from wherever she’d hidden it.
Peaceful, she seemed captivated in a trance.
Enticed to gaze upon her beauty, he risked stepping close to her, but as he approached, he felt warm metal against his neck. Halting in his tracks, he glanced at her arm and gasped at how fast she’d raised her blade to his throat–with her eyes closed. “Bloody hell. What’s wrong with you?”
She remained in her silent trance.
He stepped back, and as his adrenaline subsided, he pulled out his phone, aimed it at his spellbound companion, and captured video.
Supernatural forces seeming to guide her slow, deliberate movement, she drew the knife back to her chest and clutched it with both hands.
“What the hell’s going on in your head?”
As if his quip prompted her, she lowered the dagger and opened her eyes. “Oh my God, you won’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
“I just had a flashback through his eyes.”
His adrenaline kicked in again. “The wraith’s eyes?”
She nodded several times.
“This is new. This has never happened.”
“Tell me about it!”
Since she seemed flustered, he tried to calm her. “You’re going to be fine, I’m sure.
“How long was I out?”
“Just a couple minutes. You were taking a video of the area when I turned away to call Father, and by the time I was done with him, you were in la la land.”
She slid the dagger between her jeans and her belt by her hip.
“Where were you hiding that?”
“I wasn’t hiding it. It was right here against my jeans the whole time.”
He struggled to believe it. “While you were driving and walking?”
“Yes! What’s wrong with you?”
He reminded himself to avoid agitating the empath with challenges about her behavior. He also reminded himself to concoct a tactic against the wraith that could capitalize upon her camouflage. “What did you see?”
“I was seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling… everything. It’s like I was him. Oh my God, I was him.”
He wanted to hug and reassure her, but he feared a knife to his neck. “Can you tell me about your experience?”
Her hands trembled. “I was killing women. It was sickening.”
“That may explain why you came within one motion of slicing my neck open.”
“What?”
“You don’t remember?”
“No! Did I hurt you?”
Recalling the fear, he caressed his throat. “I’m fine. It was just a scare, but you moved like lightning and put your dagger against my neck with your eyes closed.”
“Holy cow. I don’t remember.”
“No hard feelings, but I’ll have to never forget that you carry an invisible knife that likes to protect your personal space.”
Ignoring the comment, she began pacing. “I feel gross. Disgusting. He’s a monster.”
“I know, but you’ve faced a monster before and defeated him.”
“No, you don’t get it. This guy’s ten times worse. He’s getting a thrill out of killing. He’s sick. He’s a psychopath.”
“Can you tell me about it? It might help you feel better. It might help us catch him.”
She kept pacing. “I don’t know.”
A frightening possibility entered his mind. “Are you sure it’s a flashback and not a premonition?”
“Yeah. I think so. Pretty sure.”
“Try telling me about it. Let me see if I can help.
She stopped on the spot of the wraith’s latest homicide and spoke in a sad tone. “It’s going to make me feel sick to relive it. But here goes.” For some reason Liam considered too perfect to be random, she lowered her graceful fingers to the invisible dagger at her hip and caressed it, restarting her trance.
“Dianne?”
Her eyes closed, she ignored him. After she meditated in a moment metaphysical silence, her eyes flitted open. “I was him again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it wasn’t as bad. I was seeing clues. I was seeing how he picks his women. It’s disgusting. It’s sad.”
“Can you tell me?”
“Yeah, but let’s sit down in the car. This is wearing me out.”
“Fine, let me help you.” He extended the cast on his injured arm, rethought his strategy, and stepped to her other side.
She grabbed his forearm. “Thanks. This story’s going to be long, and it’s going to be nasty.”
CHAPTER 16
Eight weeks earlier, Edric made the mistake of waiting to purchase his women the day of April’s full moon.
After buying two women at the auction block, he grew anxious as a man with German accent, a tailored suit, sunglasses, and a ponytail latched onto his desired third victim.
The German raised his hand. “Two thousand.”
From the stage, the long-haired minion projected his voice over the audience. “I have two thousand liras from the gentleman with the sunglasses. Can I get twenty-one hundred liras? Twenty-one hundred for this lovely Egyptian goddess?”
With two thousand liras remaining in his buyer’s account, Edric had reached his limit. Desperate, he raised a finger.
“I have twenty-one hundred from… wait. I’ve got the signal from the back of the room. Sorry, sir, you’ll have to deposit more funds into your account to bid further.”
Terrified he would come up short on tributes, he nodded his understanding and lifted his cell phone to access his bank. The weak signal slowed his application to a crawl, and he left the room to improve his connection.
Outside the building, he fumbled through brightening his touchscreen, logging in, and typing in a sum of money to transfer from his main account to the one facing his peddler of human flesh. To his horror, he’d already maxed out his daily transfer limit in preparation for the auction.
“Damn!” He buried his phone into his pocket and reentered the building. Though he’d just left, the guards subjected him to the usual security process, slowing his return. When
he reached the auction floor, a girl with a starting bid beyond his reach stood on the stage.
Frantic, he sought the seller in the back of the room.
Flanked by two husky bodyguards, the short, barrel-chested boss looked at Edric with a face of stone and spoke with a gravelly voice.
“I know what you want. The answer is no.”
“But I’ve got the money.”
“That’s what they all say. I extend no credit to first-time bidders.” The boss glanced at his guards, who seemed to moonlight as his lackeys as they laughed at his next comment. “I extend no credit to my long-term customers either.”
As he turned in defeat, the wraith smelled the sharp, spicy sweet scent of the seller’s cologne. Desperate to find a third tribute, he scanned the audience and saw the victor of his failed bid watching the present auction.
He brushed by random shoulders to reach the German’s side. “I will pay you twenty-five hundred for her.”
The German man’s ponytail wiggled as he scoffed. “I’m rather attached to her already.”
“Three thousand.”
“She’s not that pretty. Why are you so desperate?”
The truth was impossible to share, and every lie running through his mind was weak. “I must have her. Thirty-five hundred.”
Removing his sunglasses, the man turned and looked at Edric with dark, penetrating eyes. “Four thousand. Cash. You have one hour, or I leave with her.”
He could withdraw the cash from a local branch of his bank and return in time. “Agreed.”
Two hours later, the relieved wraith drove his van of three Egyptian women through the city. Killing had been easy in his past, but operating to the deadline of a setting moon with minimal guidance from his Master was proving difficult.
His lording spirit had uttered a wordless warning–give tribute far from the warehouse since hunters would discover the location, and avoid witnesses since incompetence would be punished.
To prove his competence, he’d planned it out… the van, a secluded corner atop a parking garage, the back of the vehicle facing the rising moon. He’d even checked the spot last night, verifying he’d operate under the moon’s light when it reached its predictable elevation in tonight’s sky.
As he rolled the vehicle up the final ramp to the exposed fifth floor of the parking structure, adrenaline pumped through his veins. Relieved to see an empty expanse of parking spots in the late evening darkness, he drove to the lot’s far corner.
After aiming the rear of the cargo bay at the low moon, he kept the engine running to preserve its rumbling, distracting noise. He stepped from the driver’s seat, walked to the opposite side of the vehicle, and opened the passenger door. Under the glove box, his weapons case called to him. He opened it, withdrew his dagger, and slid it between his belt and his pants. He then yanked the painter’s tarp from the passenger seat and carried it the van’s rear.
When he swung open the doors, three swarthy-skinned, shackled women remained uncertain of his presence until the fresh air cued them. With noise canceling headphones over their ears and blindfolds covering their eyes, they lacked their major senses and looked towards the draft Edric created when he unsealed their enclosed environment.
To avoid panicking them, he gently lowered the tarp over the rear section of the cargo bay’s floor and unfurled it. He ducked under the ceiling and crouched while approaching the closest woman. He pulled off her headphones and spoke in his best Arabic. “Sit on the edge of the van, and I will help you to the curb.”
“Why won’t you let me see?”
“I’m sorry, the clients demand it. They don’t want their women knowing their surroundings. I promise they will treat you well, however.”
“Anything to get out of this van and see again.”
“Yes.” He reached for the keychain in his pocket, lifted it to his face, and examined it. Finding the correct key, he slid it into the latch and unshackled her from the floor. “Come. Stay low.” He grabbed her arm and lifted her towards the moonlit back of the bay.
She made awkward, uncertain steps as she followed him towards the open air and under the moon’s mystical light.
“Stop. Sit.” He lowered her to her haunches. “Throw your legs out.”
Contorting, she wiggled her leg irons over the cargo bay’s lip.
Withdrawing his knife and holding it aligned with his forearm, he lied. “I will now help you down.” He crouched behind her, slipped his hands under her arms, and reached forward.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m helping you down.” He clutched the bronze handle with both hands, aimed the blade and her heart, and pulled the knife into her chest. The knife glowed red, signaling acceptance of the tribute.
She gasped, shuddered, and collapsed to the tarp.
With her blood gushing, he unfurled the tarp deeper into the van and then rolled her to the side. He stood, avoided the forming pool of red fluid, and walked towards the next, unaware victim.
After killing the next two tributes, he drove away.
Three corpses bleeding in the cabin, the wraith backed the van into his warehouse. To simplify the final steps, he parked the vehicle near a sewer drain. After stopping the engine, he walked to the rear of the cargo bed, opened the doors, and watched the blood trickle to the floor.
As the crimson fluid flowed into the drain, he started his next gruesome task.
Hurried steps brought him to his workbench where he unlocked a drawer containing his stainless steel butcher’s bone saw. He returned to the vehicle and climbed inside. Kneeling into the pool of blood on the tarp, he grabbed a foot and rested the tool’s teeth on a shin.
He started cutting. With patience and effort, the lower leg came off. Cradling the removed partial limb against his chest, he carried it to the used animal incinerator that abutted a warehouse wall.
Standing twelve feet tall, the apparatus promised a clean burn. Having bought it from a retiring poultry farmer, the wraith had connected it to his building’s natural gas line. He pushed the severed leg into its lower chamber, latched shut the heavy door, and turned on the machine.
Based upon advertised burn rates, he expected the bloodied limb to become ashes in less than an hour. During that time, he further dismembered the corpses for disposal in the incinerator, which would also consume his clothes and his tarp before he cleaned his floor and his van’s cargo bed with water and oxidized bleach.
While he cut into body parts, he reminded himself to move more money into his bidding account and to buy his women ahead of time, to avoid the risk of failure. That would require holding them until the next full moon, necessitating his idea of adding shackles and plumbing to the vacant offices.
He also needed a new killing location for May’s full moon. It had to be distant from the warehouse and the parking garage.
Recalling the maps of Istanbul, he decided upon a dirt road populated by sheep between the forested hills to the west.
CHAPTER 17
Fatigued, Dianne smelled sheep manure as she rolled forward from the passenger seat of the Fiat 500X.
The young hunter’s strong arms stopped her. “Easy. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? I just lived through his murders twice.” She’d experienced it through the wraith’s senses and had recounted the story to Liam, sharing whatever details she could recall under his rigorous questioning.
“Sorry.”
Living the past through a monster’s body was a new experience. It unnerved her. “Do you think it at least helped?”
“I don’t know how much yet, but yeah, you opened up a lot of possibilities. We know he’s bought the tributes at auction, he killed the first group on a parking garage, he killed the second group here, he’s used a white van, and he’s had access to a large building.”
She swallowed to quell a rising nausea. “And he has a big saw and a cremation machine.”
“We knew it would be ugly.”
“Not this ugly. He
makes my victim in Michigan look like a boy scout.”
“Are you sure this was a flashback and not a premonition?”
She knew she’d relived history. “Seriously? How many times are you going to ask?”
“I’m just trying to be certain.”
“I’m certain. What more do you need?”
“I guess you have new power. You didn’t have your dagger during the hunt last time. This time, it’s acting like some sort of charm and helping you see clues.”
“But you don’t know how useful they are yet.”
His face showed concern. “I’ll need Father’s help. This is a lot to deal with.”
She recalled the hunters’ rules precluding their requesting assistance. “I wish we could call a professional detective.”
“What would we say? You saw the world through the killer’s eyes?”
“Some police forces use mediums.”
His smile put her at ease. “True, but we have the Lady of the Dagger and the two best wraith hunters ever, not to mention a couple volunteers from your family.”
The thought of her family lifted her spirits. “Yeah. Brilliant Josh and Machinegun Nana.”
He chuckled. “Machinegun Nana! I love it. How can we fail with Machinegun Nana on our team?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re in too deep with this. It’s happening so fast.”
“It’s been a fast few days. Let’s get you out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wherever. You’ve done enough today. I’m giving you the evening off.”
As she watched the evening’s shoppers scurrying for their last street-side bargains, she dipped her rolled grape leaf into a cup of yogurt. The summer breeze carried the vibrant music from the central square to her ears. Looking up as she bit into the tangy tartness, she saw a man twirling in a dress. “How cool.”
Across the wrought iron table, Liam shoved a roasted chicken leg into his mouth. “Huh?”
“You eat like a caveman.”
Dropping the half-eaten limb onto a bed of bulgur wheat, he mumbled his retort. “Is that a compliment?”
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