Chapter 2
SAINT
Bronte
“The dead make better company than the living, mon ami,” I remark, snapping on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and grimacing down at the lifeless man gaping up at me with a missing throat. “Apologies for giving you the short end of the stick.”
Feet shuffle behind me, grating my senses.
“Did he just talk to a corpse?”
“I think so?”
“Is that normal?”
“Maybe for someone in a straightjacket.”
“Actually, it is normal.” I drop my backpack and sling a scowl over my shoulder at the four police officers clustered in the lavish living room.
Their uniforms are spotless, their badges pristine.
Rookies. “It’s no different than telling yourself affirmations in the mirror every day because your life is so pitiful you need a pep talk to be a functioning human.
” A young buck snickers, and a slow smile stretches my mouth a touch too wide to be friendly.
“It’s when they start talking back that you should consider bathing with a toaster, mes amis. ”
He greens in the face and bolts for the door.
I stifle a snort into my thermos. “Fucking cherry.”
“Lower the hackles, Bourbon,” says Detective Shane Scull as he lingers behind the deceased.
He’s a Type-A brute in peak physical and mental shape for a man in his sixties, with a salt-and-pepper buzz cut, alpha complex, and amber eyes like a lion.
I roll my eyes and he exhales another curt breath. “Do yourself a favor, and ignore them.”
I try, but then someone grumbles, “Must’ve skipped his own pep talk this morning.”
“He’s positively feral,” another sneers.
“Think he missed his annual rabies shot?”
The rookies snigger like hyenas, and my scowl deepens. If only disrespect incurred a death sentence. I’d wrap their hides around every copy of Crime and Punishment sitting in my Etsy queue just to spite the insolent pricks.
Sadly, I’m no murderer.
I am, however, a petty motherfucker.
Taking a long pull of my bold black brew, I draw the white sheet down the cadaver’s pelvis to reveal the shredded meat that was once the sorry sap’s cock and balls.
There goes another runner, dry heaving out the room.
I flip the sheet past the man’s thighs. They each sport the same variety of slits as those made by a lame on a fresh loaf of baked bread.
Just like that, Scull and I are the only living souls left inside the house.
Thank every angel above.
“Every time, Bourbon,” he grouses as I hide my satisfied smirk with another drag of coffee. “You run them out every single time.”
“They’re irritating,” I snap, rummaging through my pack for a medical mask to staunch the stench of rotting meat, “and judgmental.”
“They’re rookies. They’re meant to be irritating and judgmental. You, on the other hand, ought to be their patient and pleasant mentor, teaching them how they will be working with coroners once the training wheels are off. Not chasing them away every chance you get.”
“Not my fault they can’t handle a little gore.”
“It’s not the gore.” It’s you, he doesn’t say. You’re the problem.
It definitely is me.
Can I really be blamed? The living are such shit company.
Swallowing my pride, I click my penlight on and flash it over the body. The man was murdered in his living room. He’s restrained by a pair of pink feather handcuffs. Lacy black panties hang from his mouth. A pentagram circles him, drawn in his own blood.
There is no other evidence. As always, the killer was efficient in cleaning up and leaving only their calling card behind.
Over the years, I’ve had my theories. They’ve ranged from a lone serial killer to a fully organized cult. Both are prevalent in Salem. Especially given the city’s dark and bloody history.
“Care to introduce us, mon ami?”
Crossing his thick arms over his broad chest, Scull supplies, “This is Dr. Sebastian Bonaparte. Age thirty-seven. Professor of occult studies at St. Aurelius’s Liberal Arts.
The academy alerted local authorities when he didn’t show up for work three days in a row.
City cameras were scrubbed, along with those on the property.
Unsurprisingly, there were no witnesses.
There have been at least a dozen stalking claims and sexual assault charges filed over the past year, all dropped shortly after the reports came in.
Since Sebastian’s disappearance, the dean found historical email evidence of him blackmailing his targeted students to keep them quiet. ”
“Why wasn’t there ever a formal investigation?”
He shrugs. “Between the streak of withdrawn complaints and lack of sufficient evidence to pursue any case, the higher ups chalked the accusations to girls crying wolf.”
“Their mothers should’ve swallowed their batches,” I snicker, pointing my penlight at the sick fuck that definitely didn’t die slow enough. “Haven’t they heard the wolf is real in the end?”
“For Christ’s sake, Bourbon,” Scull hisses, rubbing his temple. “It’s Monday, it reeks in here, and we’re awake before the fucking birds. Could you just keep your opinions to yourself for once and fill in the blanks for me?”
A bit of a pissy response, but I let it slide. Aside from me, he’s the only person who actually gives a damn about finding the killer hiding in the shadows.
Swallowing the rest of my bitter remarks, I report the same details we’ve seen on these murder victims over the last decade: lacerations made with astonishing surgical precision, mutilated body parts, creative gags personalized to the deceased.
In this case, a rapist died with panties in his mouth. Justice served on a gilded platter, if you ask me.
Every single victim has been a criminal, typically the bottomfeeders of Salem no higher on the underworld food chain than rats.
Whoever is killing them knows the cops aren’t doing shit to find them.
The most police have done is kept the news of these murders under wraps, blinding the public to our very own vigilante doing their job better than them.
Not that the cops care. Even after the DNA samples collected from each kill have consistently pointed toward an exotic cat used to deliver the deathblow, they’ve turned their cheeks. Why wouldn’t they? The killer is taking a sizable load off their backs.
Or, such as in Sebastian’s case, shouldering the entire damn precinct.
When I’m finished with my assessment I already know will go no further than a filing cabinet, Scull takes his leave to debrief his recruits.
Alone with the body, I scan the mangled cadaver.
Searching for any imperfection discernible as remarkably his: tattoos, scars, blemishes, birthmarks.
If he’s doomed to a fiery grave like the rest, it’s a necessary precaution before his hide becomes my next premium leather project.
My rebound books cannot be linked back to criminals meant for the incinerator. A single DNA test would spell my downfall, but I market the skin as animal hide to avoid any mishaps. False advertisement has saved me from a padded cell so far.
Thankfully, Sebastian’s canvas is a clean slate.
“Fantastique,” I utter beneath my breath. “I think I’ll wrap you around Jane Eyre. A tale about a woman, written by a woman. Seems fitting for your debut, no?”
He doesn’t confirm or deny, which I take as a promising sign. The moment these dead bastards wake and talk back, I’ll be the one bathing with a toaster.
As I head for the door, a flash of color snags my attention.
Edging a pool of dim light on the floor beneath a nearby scene lamp, something pink winks at me.
Grabbing a clear evidence bag and pliers from my pack, I kneel and pinch between the prongs a strand of someone’s hair.
It’s long, sleek, and straight. Not synthetic, fully human.
A wicked smile stretches my lips taut. This may as well be a piece of priceless treasure. Even if the strand is from a wig or some type of extension made with human hair, it’s as traceable as a fingerprint.
I should call Scull back in here. But if I do, his superiors will take this glittering gem and let it dull in an evidence locker until the case inevitably grows frost. And the mysterious vigilante will continue their killing spree.
Their victims may be criminals, but there’s no knowing when the city’s guardian angel will turn on the innocent.
Heroes so often fall from grace. How long until this one trades their halo for horns?
The chambers of my heart stutter as a very insane, very illegal idea forms.
“I probably shouldn’t test this to find out who they are so I can hunt them myself.” I leer at the corpse of a predator searching endlessly for the paradise he’ll never see. “Guess that would make me no better than you, wouldn’t it?”
Yet there’s a grinding gnaw at the back of my skull. It’s the same feeling I had twenty years ago, when home was a deadbeat’s house in Texas and every day was a game of survival. Listening to intuition saved both me and my brother then. I’ll be damned if I ignore it now.
I seal the pink strand in the evidence bag and slip it into my pack.
“Don’t judge me,” I toss back to the dead prick, his gaze mercifully unmoving. “I’m no saint, but I’m nothing like you.”
I deliver the felonious evidence to the local medical examiner’s office, calling in a long overdue favor Quinn Wildes still owes me for her most recent rebind of Dracula.
After my brief explanation of the case and the gold I’ve just handed her, she stealthily slips the evidence bag into a pocket of her lab coat and pantomimes slitting her own throat to indicate her consent to keep quiet.
I let loose an easy chuckle. Quinn is the only person aside from my brother who has the power to make me laugh on a bad day.
From outside the thin plexiglass window separating us, I ask, “How long, ma chérie?”
Quinn scrunches her freckled nose and glances over her shoulder at the lab bustling with staff carrying armfuls of specimens and reports. “At least a few months.”
I blink. “Sorry, did you say ‘months?’”
Her sharp sigh ruffles her wild cinnamon curls. “This is a forensics lab in Salem, Bronte. We’re a bit backlogged.”
“How can I jump the line?”
She starts to laugh then stops when I don’t join in. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“What gave you the impression I wasn’t?”
Rolling her deep sapphire doe eyes, she inches closer and murmurs, “Look, you know I’m good for my word. But if you want this to stay off the radar, there is no jumping the line. You’re just going to have to wait your turn.”
Leaning my arms on the counter, I tap a knuckle against the base of the window and rub my thumb and forefinger together in a covert motion asking, Price?
For a moment, her stare is all stone. I wait for her to tell me to piss off.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, she casually reaches under the counter and withdraws a worn copy of Carmilla that hasn’t seen a good day in at least ten years.
I know the feeling.
“Weeks is the best I can promise without raising any flags,” she says quietly, sliding the book to me like it’s secretly stuffed with cocaine.
My smile grows fiendish.
I know the perfect criminal to wrap it in.