A Siren's Song (Ride of the Darkyrie 2) (5 page)

             
Ted Bundy, Albert Fish, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, serial killers who all had mismatched ears and eyes. One ear was noticeably longer than the other and both protruded from their heads. Their eyebrows were also mismatched. Of course, all aberration is visible around or in the eyes. It’s why they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.

             
Asymmetry was like the red violin shape on the back of a poisonous spider, the bright colors of certain frogs—nature’s warning label.

             
This one was like Bundy. He was supposed to be handsome, and I’d bet he’d be charming right up until he slipped a knife between my ribs.  

             
I smiled back, showing him all of my white, sparkly teeth in return.

             
“And you said she was nice,” he elbowed Jenna.

             
Jenna took a swig from her beer. “She
is
nice.”

             
“No, no.” He shook his head. “That’s what you say when a woman has nothing else to recommend her.”

             
Jason nodded his agreement and Jenna rolled her eyes. “Brynn, this is Richard Sickert.”

             
“Nice to meet you, Richard Sickert.” I sat down between him and Jason. His name was familiar to me somehow, but I couldn’t place it.

             
I was relieved and horrified at the same time. Relieved because although his façade was everything I should find attractive, the only thing that moved me was the thought of killing him.

             
And I was horrified for the same reason.

             
If my body had the same reaction to all males, I could have shrugged it off as some biological tic of no more importance than sneezing. Instead, the attraction was only to two specific males. Of course, I hadn’t gauged my reaction to every male walking the earth, but this Richard Sickert was as good a test as any. Maybe even better because he was a killer like me. Most animals don’t mate outside their species.

             
So why was I attracted to Jason? He wasn’t a killer.

             
As if answering my question, he turned and his mouth curved in something that wasn’t really a smile. The air around him seemed to shimmer and for the fraction of a second, he was brighter—golden and I saw the impression of a sword hanging from his back the same as I’d seen the wings on San Angeles. Then it was gone.

             
He shoved a beer at me and went to get another one.

             
“So, you’re a cop?” Richard asked to get my attention.

             
I nodded and tried to remember all of the courtesies of this getting to know you crap.

             
“Thank God you’re not a writer.”

             
That made me laugh. “Why is that?”

             
“Jenna told me that you’re not only a detective, but you’re a profiler too.”

             
“Well, I don’t have all the letters after my name.” I’d have to talk to Jenna later about telling people about the profiling. That was probably what made him want to meet me. To see if he could slip under my radar.

             
Then I realized he hadn’t answered my question. “Why do writers annoy you?”

             
“I’m a painter. But that’s not why they hound me. If it was for my art, I’d be ecstatic. Patricia Cornwell wrote a book about my great-great-grandfather and now everyone else wants to write one, too.”

             
It clicked where I recognized his name from. Walter Sickert. The current darling of Ripperologists everywhere. My date for the evening was descended from Jack the Ripper, if recent theories were to be believed.

             
I knew then exactly how to lull him into a sense of safety. I nodded. “I know what that’s like. My father was Erik Hill.”

             
“That’s why you’re a cop. To make amends for what he did?” He raised a brow in question.

             
Not by a long shot, buddy
. I managed to keep my laughter subdued to a chuckle. “Sure.” I nodded. “And it’s what I know.”  Our eyes met and I looked at him meaningfully for a long moment.
Yeah, that’s it. Come take tea with me said the spider to the fly.

             
“You’re not at all what I expected, Brynn.” Richard sounded pleased.

             
I’m usually not. “Neither are you.”

             
I suppose it was wrong, but he’d roused an academic curiosity. I wanted to slap him on a slide and shove him under a microscope. He was a killer to be sure, but was it something in the blood?

             
In the blood. In the blood. In the…

             
I pushed the thoughts of blood out of my head. The Capri Killer was gaining the market share of my brain. I had to be careful or I’d start thinking more and more like him until I was killing like him. I had to be careful not to fall too far down the rabbit hole when I climbed into their heads.

             
It had always been my belief that killers were born. Some switches were flipped by circumstance, but other had been on since they were mewling little beasts pushed from the dark of the womb. But this would be scientific proof. What about his father and his father before him? Had they been killers as well or had that dark depravity lain sleeping in the DNA the same as eye color and height, looking for the proper match to manifest?

             
“So how did you meet Jenna?”

             
He took a drink of his beer. “She answered my ad for a model when we were in college.”

             
“You guys have been friends a long time? I wonder how we didn’t meet before.” She was going to miss him when was gone. I’d spare her pain if I could, but I couldn’t allow him to keep walking around breathing. Killing.

             
“I’m really not very social. I’d rather work than socialize,” he said it like it was a dirty confession.

             
“Me too.” As we talked, I found I liked him. I’d try to make his death painless.

             
“This really isn’t my scene. Wanna get out of here?” Richard asked as he slipped his arm around my waist.

             
“Yeah, I do. Let me run to the restroom first and I’ll meet you outside.”

             
Jason still hadn’t come back to the table and Jenna was talking with a couple guys from the table behind us. I touched her shoulder and nodded at the door.

             
“Is he leaving?” she demanded.

             
“So am I. It’s a good thing.”

             
“Yay!” she mouthed and held up crossed fingers in a show of support, and I headed toward the ladies room.

             
The corridor was dark, the shadows heavy and smoke made for a choking fog. A hand came out of the pitch and grabbed my arm.

             
My fist shot out and I found myself slammed against the wall with my hands behind my back. I was about to raise my knee when I realized it was Jason who held me.

             
“What are you doing, Brynn?” His breath smelled of Guinness, but he wasn’t drunk.

             
“What are
you
doing?” I demanded. “You keep grabbing me like I belong to you. I don’t.” But I made no move to free myself. I didn’t want to, it felt too good. The way his knee fit between my thighs, his broad chest against my breasts, and the solid weight of him pinning me against the wall.

             
He leaned closer. “You used to. And I belonged to you.”

             
I couldn’t breathe, but it wasn’t like when I’d thought I was dying, it was something else. His body burned, scalded wherever it touched me. I wanted to burn more. Hotter. Longer. I wanted him to incinerate me.

             
“Come home with me, Brynn.” Jason’s voice wrapped around me and burrowed into secret places.

             
My mouth was suddenly dry as I imagined doing just that. Really surrendering to him, not an act, not what I thought he wanted to see toward any end but pleasure. He was hard against my thigh and it sent a punch of desire through me.

             
Fuck, but no wonder people did such things to feel this. It was almost as good as killing.

             
I was wet for him, imagining him drilling into me, holding me just like this—so hard, so strong, so
alpha
.

             
Yes,
part of me cried. If I’d worn the miniskirt, he could have been—no. I couldn’t do this. I had to—

             
He crushed his lips to mine and I couldn’t think, I could only feel. Jason’s mouth was as hard as marble, but it was hot, too and it transmuted my blood to lava boiling through my veins. He tasted of Guinness and salt, but of something else, too. Something cold and hot at the same time.

             
“Don’t go with him,” he murmured against my lips.

             
Him
. Richard was waiting for me. I turned my face away from Jason. “I have to.”

             
“Why, because Jenna set you up with him? She won’t care.” He brushed his lips against mine again, one hand slid up my side and to my breast. “Tell him you changed your mind.” His lips moved to my throat.

             
My heartbeat pulsed through my entire body and centered wherever he touched me. I didn’t want it to end, but I had a man to kill.

             
“Jason, I have to. It’s what I was born for.” It was the closest I could come to a confession. If he knew Helreggin, then he would know what I had to do.

             
He released me abruptly and I was suddenly cold. I would do anything to have his hands on me again. Anything but what he needed me to do.

             
“You were born to fu—”

             
“You don’t understand.” I interrupted him and sighed.

             
“You’re right, I don’t.” He walked away from me.

             
I didn’t have time to think about what had just happened, because Richard was waiting for me. I pushed my way through the crowd and out the door to see Richard leaning against the wall of the next building, cigarette dangling from his elegant fingers.

             
“Thought you changed your mind.”

             
It would have been his lucky day if I had changed my mind, but the need in me was too strong. He wasn’t a virus like my father, he was a bacterium and I was the antibiotic. This was what I was meant to do.

             
“Just had to say my goodbyes and freshen up.” I’d never actually made it into the restroom to freshen up, but it was more about the ritual than anything else anyway.

             
“What would you like to do?” He dropped the cigarette and put it out with his boot.

             
Interesting. He wasn’t going for the score, asking me if I wanted to go to his studio to look at his art, but I was sure his true art was death. “I didn’t get that far.” I offered him a shy smile and put the ball back firmly in his court.

             
I felt a presence at my back, some intensity burrowing though my spine like a bullet. I spun around and saw the tails of a leather trench coat like bird’s wings disappear around the corner and into the alley on the other side of us.

             
The Cross. It had to be. Just what I fucking needed. I decided maybe I should resign myself to zero productivity. There was no way I’d get anything done with Jason and the Cross up my ass every time I turned around.

             
“You know that guy?”

             
“What guy?” Had Richard seen him?

             
“The guy that just darted around the corner. He was staring at you when we were inside.”

             
I was really losing it if he’d been inside and I hadn’t even seen him. “I’m a cop. I meet new people every day under less than ideal circumstance. They tend to remember me more than I do them.”

             
“I don’t know, Brynn. He was looking at you like he wanted to kill you.”

             
“Also nothing new.” I shrugged. It didn’t matter if the Cross saw me kill. He knew what I was. I guessed if it came down to it, I wouldn’t stop if Jason was watching either. I’d rather he didn’t because I didn’t want him to see that part of me yet, but I had no choice. I’d been forged for killing—for death. I suppose it was stupid, but I wasn’t ready. “But I wouldn’t mind if we talked and walked at the same time.”