by Baker, Alex
True, the assailant doing the biting and the blood-letting had been the busier of the two killers, but Laura still wondered what had transpired that brought about the lag.
The upside, she decided: it had bought the force some time on the case, with the heat dying down some from the hierarchy. She had used that valuable time to follow leads and, after the first couple of days had passed, to contact other agencies in the surrounding area to see if anyone had been locked up that may be a potential lead, based on their background and criminal history. No such luck, she thought, as the effort had bore no fruit.
Nor had the department been fortunate enough for either killer to have just stopped or left town. With both assailants back hard at work, the media attention would be worse than ever, as would the pressure to make some headway.
Having finished putting his exploratory tools on a tray labeled ‘To be cleaned’, Micky turned his attention to her, taking his glasses off and letting them hang by the cord around his neck. “Now, Detective Stenks, where would you like to begin?” he asked, the thick overgrowth of his mustache almost entirely hiding his lips as he spoke.
“Let’s go with the biter, Micky,” she answered.
“Good choice,” the stocky chief coroner said as he picked up a clipboard full of scribbled notes and flipped through a few pages before finally stopping at one. “The most recent victim does not match those currently being investigated. What we have here is an older male victim, homeless to be exact, not the young adults that our killer has been hunting. I also understand that the body was hidden. Hidden well enough, in fact, that if a city worker had not ventured into the abandoned building for an unscheduled inspection of the water mains he probably would not have been found for quite some time.”
While correct, the information he was giving her was nothing Laura did not already know as the case lead. “I’m going to need better details than that, Micky.”
“Aye, I’ve got the nitty-gritty for you, Lass.” Before reading on, though, he looked up from his notes and gave her a smile. “There’s that fire I’ve been missing. That determination is what makes you…well, you; like a banshee, aye.”
Laura knew Micky meant well by the reference but being called a harbinger of death was not a comparison she felt she needed hanging on her already complicated emotional coatrack. Of course, the way things had been, she supposed that description worked about as well as any other.
Looking down at her nails, still ragged and picked over, Laura decided determining just who she was supposed to be was another case she did not feel she had made any headway on. It was like standing on a fence and waiting to fall off more than slowly climbing a hill, as her therapist had described it. Instead of reaching the summit and some clarity and then coming down the other side, she felt as if going either way was a descent into the darkness of not knowing who she would end up as. Just thinking about it seemed to add more frustration. How was she supposed to fix and accept who she was when she was not totally sure she wanted to change the things that others would deem as broken? She started to file her current feeling in one of her mental folders but stopped short. All of them felt overfull and useless at the moment with her having postponed her most recent session due to having to concentrate all of her time on the cases at hand. Or was that just a convenient excuse? Maybe I just need a mental trashcan, like the one on my computer desktop, to put all the folders in.
Instead, she smiled and answered back, “Thanks Micky. You know the way right to a woman’s heart…by talking about corpses.”
“Yes, when I say my women are cold-hearted,” he said, chuckling, “well, you get the point.” He went back to his notations. “There is another difference between the victims. The most recent one has a larger set of bite marks than the previous young men or animals that were found. Let me show you.” Putting aside the clipboard, he wheeled over a cart with a laptop on it and pulled up a file. Pictures, complete with details of the findings, came up.
“Sizing and teeth structure of the marks found on the young men clearly matches the animals that were found, as shown here. Now, take a look at the impressions left on our latest victim: larger, definitely indicating a different jaw structure. I’d say we are looking at a full grown adult and maybe a teen or slightly older. But that, Lass, is not the most interesting thing, by far.”
“Really?” Laura replied, noticing that Micky was really getting into the explanation. The man sure does love his dead. It was a real passion for him, that much was obvious. She found herself wondering what his life was like. Probably comes in to work each day excited to do what he does. Goes home to a quiet house. Has dinner with a wife that has been lovingly waiting for him. Tells her interesting stories behind the autopsies he’s performed that day. Gets up early on the weekend for coffee before going fishing. Spending each day having normal life.
A normal life; what was that like? Surely he had never experienced any situations on the level of severity that she had, would he?
Laura, becoming aware of the path her line of thinking was taking her down, made an effort to shake off the creeping loneliness and forced her concentration back on the matters at hand.
The stocky coroner clicked on another file, bringing up more forensic photos of bite victims. One she instantly recognized as Constance, making her stomach turn at the memory of the girl hanging by ropes with puncture wounds running up and down her arms. There was not enough Ambien in the world to keep her sleeping through the nightmares of those images that had plagued her since the incident.
“See here – we have impressions from victims that have been found in the Las Vegas area. And, in this photo that Dwayne was able to secure from their police department, we have the wounds forced onto young Miss Kysta.”
Micky paused to turn and face her, and Laura was sure he did it for intentional dramatic effect. She had seen him do it enough times to know, so she played along and feigned anxiousness. Had it been anyone else, they would have probably been told to get on with it, but Micky had been good to her ever since she had made detective, never treating her with anything but respect. It was a small effort to entertain him in return.
“They’re the same,” he finally said with overemphasis, “and, they match the imprints on the old, homeless man that was just recently found.”
Actually, Laura found herself genuinely surprised; surprised and shocked. Ambrose was here, and there was finally proof of that. Her stomach, having just relaxed, tightened back up, to the point that she had to clear her throat of the bile that came up. Taking a deep breath and concentrating to keep from regurgitating further, a cold sweat broke out, adding to her discomfort.
Micky’s look turned to one of concern. “You okay, Lass?” he asked, but before she could answer, he was already bringing her a cup of water from the sink. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen you with a wee bit of the willies.”
Working hard to keep the cup from trembling in her hand, Laura took a few sips, managing to pull herself together. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. More disturbing, if it was even possible, was the fact that there were two killers now with the same M.O. in the area. It was too much of a coincidence for there not to be a connection.
“I’m okay, Micky. What else do you have?” She asked.
The older coroner flipped a page and took a moment to review his notes before beginning. “Ah, here we are – our costumed fallen hero. I wish I could tell you that I had something to add to what we already know about this, but it looks like it’s more of the same.”
“Tied, beaten, and sexually assaulted?” Laura asked.
“Aye,” Micky answered, closing the files he had opened on his laptop before wheeling the cart back to its storage spot. “Same pattern, same outcome. Different location, though. Heard she was found at La Plezka Hotel. Our attacker must be feeling the heat, huh?”
Changing the scenery was not uncommon, Laura thought, especially when the unsub knew the police had been snooping around. There were o
ther reasons too, though: the main one being that the killer had become more comfortable. Typically, the murders occurred in or near somewhere familiar to the assailant, but once the person had a feel for it, they would branch out. Still, Laura pondered, if this particular perp was accustomed to the surroundings of the Home Inn, where the line of homicides began, then it made sense he had spent time there before. Could they have even been in that location at the same time? He literally could have been in the room next to where she acted out her sexual exploits. The line of thinking struck her as familiar, and Laura recalled thinking the same thing about the bar the victims had frequented.
Coincidences threatening to cause her to totally zone out on Micky, Laura made a mental note to come back and give the subject more thought later.
“So, no weird contraptions or unusual murder weapons?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, Lass,” Mickey answered. “Good, old fashioned blunt force trauma; probably with something similar to your baton, just like the murders you investigated previously.”
Laura stood quietly again for a moment, going back through all of the details from each of the crimes, as she had done hundreds of time, hoping to gain some awareness into how all of these were connected. Nothing had changed.
Frustrated and feeling as if she were grasping at straws, Laura asked to see the body of the most recent Amazing Woman victim.
Micky led her over to a nearby examination table and pulled back the sheet. There was nothing remarkable about the body, at least nothing that screamed out as a clue as to why she was chosen. Laura figured the victim was probably close in age to herself, fit, and, aside from her injuries, appeared to have taken good care of herself.
Laura picked up the costume, which was lying in an evidence bag next to the body, and stared at it. For an instant, a crazy notion came to her. Glancing back at the deceased woman, Laura muttered, “We’re the same size.”
“Planning on taking up costume wearing, Lass?” Micky asked.
The comment caught Laura totally off-guard. Recovering quickly with a grunted expression of apathy, she thought about how close she may have come to being the person on the slab. All it would have taken was picking up the wrong person, yet that possibility had never prevented her from pursuing the fetish. She had been all too aware of the risks, but the urges were equally great. No, greater. She recalled how she had plunged headlong into her sexual quest with what really amounted to a false sense of control.
Resisting the desires, though, only seemed to make the impulse to act them out grow exponentially. Apparently someone else shared that overwhelming need.
Drawing back on the mounting number of coincidences she had tucked away as a mental note, a hunch came to her, and she decided to go look up a name from her recent past.
The prospect was a personally concerning one. Laura had been careful to keep her questionable sexual activities separated from her job, but if the possibility that crossed her mind turned out to be accurate then the two individual parts of her life would collide and in a possibly unpleasant way.
She decided to keep the idea under wraps until she could substantiate her intuition with sound evidence, but after that, she had to concede to herself that having someone to help deal with the circumstances was probably going to become necessary, especially if it meant not creating an even bigger entanglement for the department.
Help did not even feel like a strong enough word. Divulging the details of her fetish-style escapades had been a resort she would have never expected to come to. Maybe that was the problem, she thought. Maybe that was why it had felt so many times that she was close to the answer but could never come up with it. Could it be that subconsciously she had been repressing the idea because she already knew who the killer was and that she may somehow be tied to or, worse, responsible what was happening to these women?
Laura was going to need someone she could trust emphatically.
One step at a time. She decided to not get ahead of herself and see what came out of her findings first. There was still the possibility that she was wrong about her hunch.
Turning to leave, she tossed the bagged super hero uniform to Micky. “Probably look better on you.”
“I’ll let you know if anything new presents itself, Lass,” Micky said, covering the body back up. “Guess we better get you ladies back on ice.”
18
Streams of moonlight shown through gaps in the leaves of the thick oak growing just outside the back of the Kysta house. Nestled among the branches, picking at the bark, Constance watched as bats flittering in the sky made small dark streaks. Feeding. Yes, feeding.
The insects did not stand a chance; plucked from the air like helpless victims. Their sole purpose in life: to supply nourishment for a superior predator and allow another to feed and live.
It was the order of things: inferior versus superior. Some things were bred to be meals; some to live, and Constance accepted that. She needed to feel alive.
A bat flew in close and, with blinding reactionary speed, she caught it. At first she turned it side to side, examining the winged animal and watching it struggle hopelessly against her grip. It bit and tore at her fingers, to no avail. The young female flashed her own teeth at it, as if to intimidate with her own superiority, before finally sinking them into the small mammal and sucking it dry.
Satisfied with her dominance but not with the pathetically small meal, she cast the limp body aside. “Nothing left for you now but the maggots,” she said.
Standing and walking deftly along the branch she had perched on, Constance made her way close enough to her open bedroom window to be able to easily leap over to the sill and cross the threshold of the dark room.
Instantly the musky smell assaulted her heightened olfactory senses, causing her to bristle like a wild animal. “I know you’re here, Freak! Come out!”
Emerging from the shadows, eye-shine prominent as the small amount of light coming through the window reflected off Ambrose’s retina. “Freak?” he replied, his raspy voice and odd accent biting at her ears. “A little harsh of an introduction between old friends, is it not?”
Everything about him was feeding the frenzy she was now in: his smell, his audacity, and his calm, confident demeanor. Deep inside her a door unlocked and opened, unleashing a flood of buried feelings and memories: his tongue on her body, flesh being torn, penetration and violation, torture, and worse of all, the look of satisfaction in his eyes.
This was the moment she had been waiting for; the opportunity to dismantle him – to make him pay.
Constance bared her canine-like teeth and flared her fingers, preparing razor-sharp nails.
Ambrose stood patiently, seemingly not fazed nor concerned about her reaction. Was he expecting me to act this way?
It did not matter. She was going to tear his flesh off little bits at a time, drain him of all his precious lifeblood, and feast upon all of it until he begged for mercy. She would do that. She would be the final thing he saw before he took his last breath. She would be the very definition of vengeance. She would…
Do nothing.
Rage began to give way to frustration. Try as she might, she just could not bring herself to initiate the assault. Even more infuriating was the growing sensation that, instead of him cowering at her feet, she should be following him – that he was in charge.
“Are you done with your tantrum, young one?” he asked, sarcasm and dominance lacing his words.
Emotions and instincts rose up in conflict once again, as Constance tried to will herself to act but could not. The thought that Ambrose may be doing to her what she had done to a number of young men, controlling and influencing them, angered her even more. Still, it was not enough.
“I can see by your reaction that the answer is ‘No’,” Ambrose stated. “You seek to harm me; to make me pay for my past slights against you. Correct? Would you care to know why you cannot? Or shall I wait until you have exhausted yourself and then explain
?”
Constance accepted her growing inability to act with a loud exasperation, followed by throwing her arms down by her side and yelling, “Fine”.
“Very well,” he acknowledge, grinning at her acceptance of the situation. “The past is just that, young one, the past. It holds no bearing on the perfection that you are now, except that I am the one that initiated your rebirth. You have been tainted with my blood and so are now one of the brood; one of the pack. And I, well, to put it simply, am now your pack father; your leader. While the strength that flows through you is admirable, you lack the fortitude to overcome the sheer power of will that I have built up for well over a century.”
Flopping down on the bed, the teen began to gracelessly accept the situation. Oddly, the sickening repulsion that had initially welled up was already fading into the background, as if it were all a part of some distant dream. An almost euphoric feeling crept over her. She felt safe and secure in the elder man’s presence, like a mere pup.
Ambrose continued. “Embrace what you have become. It feels incredible, does it not?”
For a brief moment, Constance felt herself slipping consciousness, almost as if falling into a peaceful slumber. It was soothing and inviting and every word Ambrose spoke lulled her in further like the sway of a rhythmic and harmonic sound. Catching herself, though, she began shaking loose from the fogginess. Not totally understanding what was happening at first, she had fought back enough to realize that this almost certainly had to be the way her victims had succumbed to her. She decided to ask him something that might break or, at the very least, distract him from his concentration long enough for her to recapture all of her faculties.
“What exactly are we?” she asked.
The beast-like-man seemed inspired to answer the question. “We, my child? We are evolution. We are superiority. We are hunters of the night; the fears of mortal men; a force of nature. We are blood-dealers. We are abominations, and we are vengeance.”
