Chapter Forty-One
FORTY-ONE
Grace
The artist watched his final victim’s breathing slow to a halt as he put the finishing touches on her portrait.
Grace had been a pretty young thing, and he had almost felt sorrow as he went through the motions of robbing her pocketbook and drugging her brandy.
But the consumption had grown stronger in his body in recent days, and he knew he didn’t have long to live.
He had to find a fourth woman to complete the ritual; otherwise it would all be for nothing. This was his only chance to be cured.
He left Grace’s body bound to the chair as he carefully packed up his brushes and paint, then wrapped the canvas loosely in a dust sheet and collected his gas lamp.
He left the building without looking back and started the short walk home.
Someone would surely find her in the next few hours, the latest victim of a deranged killer the New York press had dubbed BBK.
He let himself into the tenement building at 105 Orchard Street, where he had initially marked his victims. People moved in and out constantly, so no one questioned four women leaving within two weeks. It happened all the time.
He entered his small ground floor room and placed Grace’s portrait on an easel, unwrapping the fabric slowly to keep it from smudging more than he had intended.
He studied the first three paintings where they were lined up against a wall; Lorenna, Frances and Nicole were complete and waiting for Grace to join them.
The paintings were beautiful in their own way, even though they bled suffering and horror, but that was part of the deal he was making.
Not only did these women have to suffer, but he also had to capture their agony so it could be passed on to anyone who viewed them.
He was trading their agony to save his own life.
The artist—Grace had known him as Niko, due to his habit of taking the name of the last woman he had killed—stood up and emptied his pockets as a thick, wet cough folded him in two.
He ignored the burning pain in his chest, wiped his bloody lips on his sleeve and pulled a lock of Grace’s blood-soaked hair from a handkerchief.
He leaned over, fighting off another fit of coughing as he took it back to his seat.
He lifted it to Grace’s portrait, using a still-deft hand to work it into the composition with a thin paintbrush.
Once he was satisfied, he sat back, staring at it as it dried. He was almost finished.
The artist placed Grace’s portrait with the others and dragged himself to the fifth and final canvas in the room, propping it on the easel where Grace’s had just been.
He had already used this once, but now he painted over it with thick blocks of color, allowing a hint of the bone beneath to remain.
He painted himself as he thought he truly must look.
A face began to emerge, covering the grinning skull, demonic and bloodthirsty, a tortured man who craved life at any cost. He stared into his own empty eyes and consulted the ragged parchment he had bought along with the tarot cards when he had been in London.
This was the final step. If he was to be cured, then he must use his own blood and hair as well as that of the women.
The artist took the strands of all the bloodied hair that he had saved over the last two weeks and placed them on his worn palette.
He could feel his life ebbing away as he worked, but he pressed on.
Surely this dark magic would work. He cut a piece of his own hair with a pair of dull shears, then used the blade to slice into his hand, though it did little more than nick his flesh.
He managed to squeeze a drop or two of his blood onto the palette and muddied it into the paint as his strength left him.
He pushed onward to finish his self-portrait and mutter the words on the parchment, believing they would truly save him. But it was too late.
As he opened his gas lamp and allowed the flames to consume the parchment, the artist drew his final breath, the consumption taking him before he could make the words true.