Chapter 12
The dogs were restless. Pacing in their kennels.
Occasionally whining.
With a harsh command, he shushed them, then slipped past the cages to the door secreted in the floor of what had once been a granary, when his grandfather had owned this land, long before the barn had been converted to the kennels where his hounds now paced.
Satisfied the dogs had settled, he quietly unlocked the trapdoor and slipped down the stairs.
He was still excited, his blood pumping, exhilaration in his nerves and muscles.
He tried to quiet his accelerated heartbeat, but the electricity sizzling through his body made calming himself impossible.
He still could see the look of surprise and horror on that supercilious woman as he’d plunged his knife into her neck.
And to think she had actually tried to wound—no, kill—him with that ridiculous little pocket pistol.
Pink, no less.
The gun was a vanity object, like her false eyelashes, bleached hair, and ridiculous, expensive feline—all trappings of the life she led. The fake life she paraded to the world. Holier-than-thou and a sinner of outrageous proportions.
It had been oh so satisfying to watch her realize that she was dying, that she would leave this earthly world and have to face her own personal judgment day as she met her maker.
All her sins would be revealed.
Locked in his private space, he reminded himself not to fall into Mavis Greenlee’s trap, that he shouldn’t revel in his own accomplishments, not even if he was doing God’s bidding. There was no time for personal glorification.
He lowered himself onto a coarse straw pillow on the floor, bowed his head, and closed his eyes, reminding himself that he was but a vessel of the Lord, that he should not and would not allow his ego to overshadow his mission.
“I am your servant. All that I do is for you,” he whispered over and over as his mantra, until the adrenalin rush in his veins had evaporated and he was breathing evenly again, his composure intact, his mission clear.
His was not a blood lust.
His was a calling, and he had to remember that.
But just in case he got ahead of himself, he leaned backward and opened the cabinet where his weapons were stored.
He eyed them all.
The mace.
The whip.
A coil of barbed wire.
The branding iron.
The cat-o’-nine-tails.
Ah, that last one would do. He could use it and hide the welts.
He retrieved the weapon with its nine leather braids and hard knots. He thought of the braids as snakes and imagined them on pagan Medusa’s head as he felt the smooth wood handle. Removing his clothes, he decided that twenty lashes would suffice.
Then his mother’s voice echoed through his brain: “Really? Twenty? Do you think that’s enough for all the sin in you?”
He felt a quivering in his soul whenever he remembered her standing above him, looking down, the cross at her neck winking in the sunlight streaming through the windows as she stood, holding a butcher knife in one hand and tapping it sideways against the palm of her other.
Silently threatening. Causing a chill to run through his guts.
“I don’t think so.”
“Shut up.”
He closed his eyes, pushed her disapproving words out of his mind, refused to remember the downturn of her pale lips, the disappointment in her wide, gray eyes.
He wouldn’t think of her. Or of what she did.
He would deal with the here and now and cleanse the world. One sinning mortal at a time.
But first …
He raised the gleaming whip overhead, paused a second to contemplate his own sins, then cracked his wrist. “One.”
Snap!
Nine little bites on his back muscles. He flinched, grimacing, his body jumping with the first blow. Good. Of course, he couldn’t get as much power into the strokes inflicting the wounds himself, but it would do.
Again.
“Two.”
He struck. Hard as he could.
Felt the sharp pain. Sucked in his breath.
Again.
“Three.” He felt the first hot bloom of blood. The stinging cuts.
Again.
“Four.” His jaw tightened as the pain sharpened. Increased.
But he did not, would not stop.
He bit his lip to keep from crying out, then stopped before he drew blood and hence the possibility of attention. No. He would suffer in silence and control himself.
Again.
“Five.”
He kept at it.
Again!
Again!
Again!
With each stinging, successive blow, his knees became weaker, his resolve began to dilute, and he cried out.
At nineteen, he stumbled. Nearly passed out. Braced himself.
Again!
The cat-o’-nine-tails whirled above him and then flayed his bleeding flesh.
“Twenty,” he croaked, the pain radiating.
Still, he forced an agonized grin. He’d met his goal, but he wouldn’t gloat, wouldn’t revel in it; otherwise, he would have to mete out more punishment.
He let his faltering smile of triumph fade, and he dropped to his knees to pray again.
His back was on fire.
Yet still he prayed.
Only when he was completely humble once more did he rise and step under the cold shower to rinse away the blood and sin. Afterward, he awkwardly applied some salve to his shoulders and back as best he could, then dressed again.
“Not good enough,” his mother’s voice mocked.
But he ignored her, set his jaw, and resumed his work.
He felt sufficiently obedient and humbled once more. Able to concentrate.
He rifled through his carefully catalogued vinyl records. Now that his rebellious, prideful fire had been smothered, he flipped past the heavy metal albums of the seventies and eighties. No Black Sabbath or Megadeth—they wouldn’t do. Not tonight. Nor would Metallica.
He kept searching until he found a choral arrangement of folk songs. Not his usual cup of tea, but appropriate for his mood.
With gentle fingers, he lowered the LP onto the turntable of the old Pioneer and switched it on.
A few scratches sounded as the record spun, and then the blended voices and intricate harmonies filled the room.
For a second, he pretended to be leading the ensemble, his imaginary baton sweeping in rhythm, his head moving as the music swelled.
Once the music filled him, he sat at the stool near his workbench and reached into his pocket for the small vial of blood he’d prepared earlier.
Painstakingly, he applied the blood to the smooth stone with a thin brush, meticulously tracing the number 1.
The music stopped, and he was forced to get up and flip the record over before the calming harmonies filled the space again.
Patiently, he waited for the blood to soak into the etching, then, satisfied, even a little proud, despite pride being a sin, he repeated the process, so he had two similar, if not identical stones.
Satisfied, his back still burning, he left one of the finished stones on his workbench, then, with the other in his hand, walked to the closet with the secret back panel.
His fingers found the niche in the wall to slide the panel aside.
Beyond, there was just enough space for a small stool and a corner curio cabinet.
Once settled onto the stool, he placed the newly finished stone next to the first two already gleaming in the cabinet under a strand of battery-powered lights.
Now there were three.
Though, of course, he was jumping the gun just a bit as the third sinner had yet to meet her maker.
But he planned to remedy that soon.
Very soon.
And these three polished rocks were just the beginning.
When his work was finished, there would be a collection of ten perfect tiny headstones. All inscribed. A perfect set.
“The only perfection is God,” his mother reminded him unkindly before he picked up the knife again. “To think otherwise is a sin.”
At four in the morning, the house was quiet, though the high-ceilinged foyer still blazed with lights from that oversize monstrosity of a chandelier. But all the techs were long gone, and the husband was on Tybee Island. Sol knew. She’d checked.
Now, with the deep blue of night still clinging to the town, she slipped through the wide front door, locked it behind her, and clicked off the lights.
The foyer instantly darkened; there was only a minimal glow from the kitchen, where the oven’s clock gave off a weak blue illumination.
She was lucky the house was down a long, twisting drive bordered by thick trees and shrubbery; no one should notice the house had suddenly gone dark.
Pulling a towel from her backpack, she quickly shed her clothes. Who knew how much time she had? Patrols had increased in the area, and she’d timed her visit carefully. Still, she didn’t want to be interrupted.
Or found out.
She eyed the bloodstain, still visible in the near darkness: an inky splotch coloring the thick carpet runner on the stairs and down to the marble floor.
Stepping forward, she let her bare feet sink into the still damp, sticky pool where Mavis Greenlee’s head had landed.
She felt the residual blood darken her soles.
Closing her eyes, she took a long breath, concentrated on evening her breathing, clearing her mind, slowing her heartbeat.
Quiet.
So quiet.
And then … she felt a twitch in her cheek. A quivering of her eyelids.
A shudder sizzled through her, crawling up her spine.
In an instant, she felt Mavis Greenlee’s presence, the bit of soul still lingering, as the woman’s final moments rippled through her.
Panic!
Fear!
Pain!
Her knees buckled and she was on the floor, her knees slamming into the coagulated blood.
Who did this to you? Sol silently asked, wincing.
Who is he?
Why did he leave his calling card in the form of a smooth, marked stone?
In her mind, she heard the blast of a gun, felt the world reel, the renewed, sharp agony of Mavis’s head cracking against the floor. Somewhere, a cat was crying, and the assailant flew down the stairs, his face in shadow, the blade in his hand glinting under the incandescence of the chandelier.
A scream erupted.
He struck.
Hard.
Fast.
The knife flashed.
Hatred.
Anger.
The blade dripping in blood.
Trembling, Sol tried to hold on to her own presence as she reached across the void attempting to connect, but Mavis’s soul was rising, that scrap of her that remained, leaving.
No!
Not yet!
Who is he?
Who did this to you?
But that final bit of Mavis twirled ever skyward.
“Who?” Sol yelled, slamming her fist onto the bloody floor.
And then she heard it.
“Lucifer.” The name of the devil whispered through the cavernous foyer, but in her mind’s eye, in her vision of Mavis dying, Sol realized the dead woman’s lips never moved.
She began to shiver.
Was suddenly cold to the bone.
She blinked.
Caught her breath.
She would learn nothing more. Unsteadily, she rose and, once the vision had passed completely, cleaned her feet and knees as best as she could, then dressed and swiped the towel across the bloody marble.
She wasn’t worried about fingerprints. She’d left some earlier in the day.
She might have to come up with some explanation about the disturbed bloodstain, but she didn’t think so.
The police were done with the scene, and she doubted Archer Greenlee would notice or care.
She tucked the stained towel into her backpack and turned on the foyer lights again, then hurried outside to the spot where she’d hidden the bicycle she’d ridden through the town.
She hadn’t risked driving her own vehicle, didn’t want anyone or any street or neighbor’s camera to have caught it as she’d driven by or parked at the Greenlee estate.
She was dressed in black, wearing a mask, hiding her own identity, just as the killer might have.
She was only three blocks down the street when she looked over her shoulder at the sound of a car engine. A police cruiser had turned onto the street behind her and was slowing near the entrance to the Greenlee home.
Quickly, she cut down an alley so as not to be seen. She had every right to be at the crime scene as an investigating officer, but she didn’t want to lie nor have to come up with any kind of excuse.
Not yet.
She’d save that for later if anyone noticed the disturbance in the blood within the house.
She avoided what little traffic there was, but noticed, as she reached her apartment house, that the city was coming to life.
The early-morning risers had turned on lights and were probably already making coffee.
She noticed a couple jogging a few blocks ahead, their reflective shoes and wristbands glowing in the dark.
From several streets over, she heard the rumble of garbage trucks starting their rounds.
A delivery van rolled down the street in front of the building, and the old guy who lived in a condo across the street was walking his ancient Labrador retriever as he did every morning before dawn.
Sol rode in a wide circle to avoid the parking lot’s camera, then slipped into the back of her ground-floor unit unnoticed.
After parking her bike in the hallway and locking the sliding door behind her, she took the bloody towel from her backpack and shoved it to the bottom of her under-the-sink trash can.
She made her way to the bathroom, stripped, lathered her entire body, then stood under a steaming, hot spray until the blood on her feet and knees had completely washed away and the cold she’d felt in her soul had finally dissipated.
With water streaming down her body, she leaned her head against the wet tiles of the small shower stall, whispered a prayer, and was finally able to center herself again.
Twisting off the taps, she took her towel from its hook and dried off before wrapping her wet hair in a turban and donning her white sack dress.
In her bedroom, she lit a candle, drinking in the cleansing smells of cedar and lavender before sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor and again praying.
This time not to the Christian God but to any spirit who would listen.
“Help me,” she murmured. “Help me find this madman before he strikes again.” She breathed deeply, hoping her prayers had been heard and would soon be answered, but inside her soul, she feared that the gods were quietly reminding her of the lessons she’d learned in her youth: “Find strength in yourself, Sol. We are here only to guide you.”
“Then, please do it. Guide me.”
She heard no answer, but knew in her heart the horrible truth: The murders had just begun.
This killer was far from finished.