Releasing him with a shove, she stepped away.
The whores ran over to Jimbo, offering sympathy and assistance—and getting cursed for their efforts. Gaby walked away from them all. She didn’t want to be followed, so she didn’t dare run.
The invading affliction boiled to the surface, but didn’t yet take over. She had time.
She’d get him. Or her.
And when she did, God Himself wouldn’t interfere.
Nervousness kept Oren walking fast down the third dark, narrow alley. He had to make it quick to hedge off possible harm to himself. So far, he hadn’t had much luck. Evening would prove a better time for his goal, but he lacked the courage necessary to wander the alleys, in the slums, during the dark of the night.
Like engorged veins, broken pipes climbed the outer walls enclosing the alley, trickling fluid, making the way slick. Mold grew rampant. Rats fed off refuse.
It was all so distasteful—and yet, so necessary.
Because of her.
Because of that damned cop.
Up ahead, at the bottom of concrete stairs leading farther into the bowels of hell, Oren saw what appeared to be a shrouded head.
His third, rapid target for the day.
He always saved the best for last.
To be safe, Oren slipped on gloves, then withdrew the one remaining hypodermic and prepared it for use.
The waiting body didn’t move.
The nearer Oren got, the more details were illuminated. Grizzled graying hair poked out from beneath an old knit hat. Long, knobby fingers, disfigured with arthritis, clutched an all but empty bottle of booze. The reek of unwashed, aging skin and hair emanated from the huddled form.
Heavy in his pocket, the knife he’d brought along encouraged and titillated him.
He could barely wait.
The fouled drugs he’d dropped off at the crack house were amusing, giving the possibility of multiple deaths if a druggie chose to share.
The pipe bomb left near the playground, waiting for some idiot child to detonate, kept his anticipation sky-high.
But this, the promise of real bloodshed, pleased him the most.
Giddy excitement threatened to bubble over, stealing his control. Oren tamped it down. This foul creature wouldn’t offer much of a challenge to his intelligence and cunning, but it’d pose confusion to the bitch and to the cop.
That counted for a lot.
Oren was only a few feet away when the bedraggled, decrepit being stirred. He looked up through watery, faded eyes, vague with indulgence and pathos.
Too stupid to sense his own inescapable death.
Lunging forward, Oren stabbed the syringe into the man’s chest with brutish delight.
The victim’s wrinkled mouth opened in terror; a feeble hand batted at the needle.
But already, the lethal dose of drugs scoured through his bloodstream, rendering him mute, paralyzed.
Defenseless.
Unwilling to waste time, Oren retrieved the syringe, broke off the needle against the brick wall, and dropped it back into his pocket.
The man’s head slumped to the side.
Such an easy death for him; unfortunately, he wouldn’t feel a thing.
Oren withdrew the knife. For only a moment, he fingered the hilt, letting his palm become accustomed to the grip, the weight.
The man twitched, a spontaneous pinching of muscles, and that stimulated Oren, quickened his heartbeat and his glee. Laughing, he stabbed the man in the cheek.
Blood spurted out against the bricks, bathing the dull rust in glistening crimson.
Oh God, that felt good.
He stabbed again, this time sinking half the blade into the man’s shoulder. Then into his chest. His thigh.
Entranced by his bloody results, at the display of gore and torn muscle, Oren slashed at the deceased man’s nose, leaving cartilage exposed as the only tether keeping it on his face.
Seeing the nose dangling there, Oren tipped his head. And laughed.
The idiot drunkard looked so ridiculous.
But the enjoyment couldn’t last. He didn’t dare vacillate; strike and move. That was the plan. Again and again.
With one last thrust, Oren buried the knife into the man’s face. It deflected off his cheekbone and slipped alongside his temple, under saggy skin and putrid flesh.
Macabre.
Oren loved it.
Oh how he would enjoy the look on the cop’s face when he found the man. But some pleasures would be denied him. Oren accepted that.
Stripping off his gloves, he pocketed them, and with a cursory inspection to certify no blood splatters marred his tidy clothes, he went on through the alley and out the other side. Within half an hour, he’d be back at his house, secluded, safe, watching the news for any word of the destruction he’d wrought.
If it all wasn’t such a bother, he’d be having the time of his life.
Gaby was closing in on her prey when an onslaught of sensation contracted her muscles and stiffened her bones. No, no!
Pain of this magnitude either meant she was too late, or there were multiple threats.
Caught in an illimitable quandary, the pain intensified to egregious proportions. She stumbled, fell against a wall.
What to do?
Closing her eyes, she tried to bank the physical misery and clear her mind for instruction. Gasping in deep, fast breaths, she separated the callings, weighed them, and made a choice. For one calling, she was already too late to gain anything. For another, there was still time.
From what she prevised, only one summons would offer erudition.
God help her if she chose the wrong one.
Hating herself, Gaby gave over to the deepest encroachment of consecrated instruction. Driven forward, following a compulsion, she traversed to a dark alley. The pain blistered and popped—then settled into a fizzling ache.
Too late. She knew it, and still she hastened in, her knife in hand, her senses on alert. She was so immersed in the need to find a live body that she nearly tripped over a dead one.
She pulled back and focused on the grisly scene.
Blood drenched a human’s clothes, splattered the surrounding bricks, the hard ground beneath. The body, still in a semi-upright position, was so abused, Gaby couldn’t determine if it was male or female.
But it was a stranger.
And this was all for show.
Careful not to disrupt anything, knowing that somewhere here, a clue waited, she scoured the area and, eventually, descried the needle.
Bingo. The tie she needed to convince Luther that the attacks were related.
By the looks of things, the poor drunk hadn’t put up much of a struggle, meaning he’d probably died before the mutilation.
Tipping her head back to see beyond the old towering buildings, Gaby peered up to the cloudless sky. “Very merciful. Thank you.”
Urgency pressed in on her, reminding her that this corpse wasn’t the only source of her suffering. Keeping the heterogeneous pains segregated, she decided she had to quickly notify Luther of the incident before following the other dictate.
Backing out of the alley, she went to the nearest pay phone, dug out Luther’s card and some change, and put in the call.
Sounding harried and frustrated, he answered on the first ring. “Detective Cross.”
“It’s me.”
His tone changed. “Gaby?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” Ever since she’d stood him up for breakfast a few days ago, and then rescued the woman from the fire, she’d avoided him. She had to avoid him in order to sense these perversions. Around him, her perception was blown to hell. “Surprise, surprise, huh?”
After a tick of silence, he asked, “Is everything okay?”
Straight to the chase, huh? Maybe he was still pissed at her. And maybe he’d finally given up on her.
She wouldn’t blame him either way. “Actually . . . no. I hate to fuck up your day, but—”