Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (25 page)

His office phone pealed, exacerbating
the migraine. Hardly in the mood for conversation, he scooped up
the receiver.

“
Yes?”

“
Nikolai, are you available
for a moment?” He recognized the honeyed voice belonging to his
secretary.

“
Yes, go ahead.”

“
I found something eerie in
our crime reports. A misplaced report about a Vivian Xu.” Nikolai’s
heart thudded against his ribs. “Xu has not yet been arraigned for
attempted murder. Plus, there’s something highly disturbing in the
report.”

“
What?
” Nikolai demanded harshly. Perhaps too harshly. There was a
tense silence on the other end of the line.

“
The report includes a
photo from the crime scene. You can barely see words scrawled on
the pavement in blood.” The phone slipped from Nikolai’s
hand.

It dangled from the cord like a noose
tightening around his neck.

“
You cannot hurt me
anymore,” she said faintly.

* * *

Vivian frantically searched the
skyline, searching for a sign that would lead her to Camilla. She
cursed herself for not asking where her newspaper was
headquartered.

“
Come on,” she said,
dialing Camilla in another futile attempt to make
contact.

She desperately needed to speak with
her about the tape she recovered in the killer’s basement. If
anyone could track down this Viktor Rezník, a journalist
could.

The disturbing footage was still
cycling through her head; the tragic tale of a man who descended
into financial ruin and mental disease. No matter how many times
she mulled it over, it still didn’t make sense. Why didn’t the
Syllax overdose kill him?

What did his mother have to do with
this? Why was he torturing and killing young women?

You cannot hurt me
anymore.

Vivian clapped a hand to her wrist as
pain erupted on the surface.

“
Son of a bitch!” Her eyes
riveted on the mark tattooed on her skin. The vein rose like a
black welt against her deathly pallor. “How do I stop this?” she
pleaded. The Syllax was inevitably rushing toward her brain,
warping her nerves in irreversible ways. If only she had never
returned to the outskirts and encountered…
him
.

She rocked forward and collapsed
against the side of a building. She tried to hold on to a fragment
of reality, anything to keep the nightmares at bay. The outlines of
the city were swallowing everything around her, melting into a sea
of black and sulfuric red. She could feel something locked away in
her head suddenly squirm free, splitting her secret memories wide
open, letting the trauma and horror ooze into every crack of her
consciousness.

She remembered the night that should
have never transpired.

* * *

July 16, 1998

Time was fast approaching 12:50 a.m.
Vivian tapped her heel impatiently on the pavement. The customer
should have arrived in the metro alley twenty minutes ago. She
would grant him ten more minutes before she scouted the outlying
streets. After all, she desperately needed the income.

She fished out a cigarette to calm her
nerves and flicked her lighter. He was an odd fellow who approached
her a few nights ago, shaking uncontrollably under his jacket. He
couldn’t possibly be cold. Even the night air was humid from the
tepid summer. Vivian wondered if he was suffering from drug
withdrawal.

She hoped she didn’t catch a disease
from him if his intentions proved more carnal than submissive.
Hopefully he just required a few needles under his nails and she
could be on her way—with her pockets feeling a little heavier, of
course. But it was never that simple.

“
Red Widow.” She jumped at
the sound of his voice and her cigarette tumbled from her fingers.
It hissed in a puddle of rainwater, its embers winking out in the
dark.

“
I was just about to
leave,” Vivian said irately. She didn’t bother to meet his eyes as
she stuffed her hand in her purse for another cigarette. She always
smoked prior to appointments because the nicotine numbed her mouth
before kissing. “I have other appointments, you know.”

It was an empty lie, but there was no
harm in making him feel like her patience earned a little extra
compensation.

“
So what is your name?” She
dispensed with the repulsive titles most streetwalkers layered on
men: “honey,” “sweetie,” and “baby.” She only wanted a first name
she could easily detach herself from. Everything could be distilled
into business.

“
Viktor.”

“
Okay, Viktor. What do you
want me to do?” He shifted uncomfortably, scraping his heel against
the pavement.

“
I have an unusual
request.”

“
Don’t be shy. I’ve heard
all sorts of crazy things. It can’t be as bad as some of the things
I’ve agreed to.” Viktor took a deep breath.

“
I want you to bring me to
the brink of death. Dominate and destroy me. Punish me until my
flesh cannot translate pain anymore. Only when I begin to beg for
annihilation, do I want you to stop.”

Vivian ogled him in shock. What kind
of insane request was that? Did he seriously expect the Red Widow
to leave him in tatters? An awkward smile tugged at the corner of
her freshly painted lips. Was this a crude prank?

“
I think you have me
confused with someone else. I’m not in the habit of killing people.
I’m not even going to indulge that request.” Vivian turned on her
heel to leave the debauched man alone with his fantasy.

“
Please! I only ask that
you leave me near death.”

“
Why
do you want me to do this?”

His chest shuddered as he drew in a
startled breath.

“
The physical pain
distracts me from my inner torment.”

“
I’m sorry… I don’t think I
can do this. Frankly, I’ve done a lot of things that are a far cry
from humane. But
this
crosses the line. You need a therapist, not this.”

His hollow eyes locked with
hers.

“
Therapy cannot help me
overcome this suffering.”

“
Neither can I,” Vivian
huffed, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “I’m leaving now.
Don’t even think of following me.” His unblinking gaze never left
her, hardening into something treacherous.

“
Then maybe this will
convince you.” Her pulse staggered as his hand plunged into his
jacket. Suddenly she found herself staring at a wad of Czech bank
notes, the native form of paper currency. “Ten thousand crowns. Is
that enough?” 10,000 crowns was roughly the equivalent of 500
American dollars.

Temptation pulled at her heartstrings.
It wasn’t greed that whispered in her ears when she saw the money;
only sheer desperation.

“
I have no interest in your
body,” he said. “I won’t even touch you. I only wish to submit to
you.”

Vivian remained hypnotized
by the money within her grasp. 10,000 crowns could buy many things
in these dank alleys: fresh bread, a warm coat, even escape.
So many things.

She hesitantly set down her purse on
the rain-spattered pavement. An unnerving smile twitched across
Viktor’s face as Vivian removed the tools of her trade.

After all, every fantasy has a
price.

* * *

Vivian reeled away from the edge of
the busy street. She didn’t even flinch as a car blurred past
within an inch of her, its horn screaming in fury. How long had she
been wandering in a trance?

Vivian clutched her head.

She tried to put a name and face to
the man she assaulted. She took a strange satisfaction in hurting
him, as though he represented every deviant who ever objectified
her. He was the man she almost murdered in the streets before
Nikolai detained her.

She tried to deny that she could be
responsible for such a depraved act. Even when Nikolai interrogated
her, she barely remembered what occurred. A violent frenzy had
taken hold of her in those sordid hours of the night—but Syllax
managed to dig up that repressed secret. Every wicked
detail.

“
Viktor,” she
breathed.

Suddenly, she remembered
the victim’s words before the arrest.
You
hurt me. It feels so exquisite.

The killer had uttered those same
words in the basement. Vivian fumbled for her phone and dialed a
familiar number—but it did not belong to Camilla. There was only
one person she could turn to now.

“
Vivian?”

Her heart skipped at the sound of
Nikolai’s voice.

“
Nikolai, I have a lead I
need you to follow. I think I know who the killer is.”

“
Really? Thank
God!”

“
When you arrested me, you
took a man into custody, didn’t you?”

“
Yes.”

“
What was his
name?”

“
I was just looking into it
when you called. What the hell is going on, Vivian? The same words
left at every crime scene—they were found in the alley where I
arrested you!”

“
Just look up the damn
name!”

“
Okay, calm down.” Vivian
pressed the phone closer to her cheek. She could hear him flipping
frantically through papers on his desk. Almost a minute passed
before his voice resounded. “Viktor Rezník.” The name sent a chill
down her spine.

“
Whatever happened to
him?”

“
He was taken to the
hospital for treatment. I don’t know what became of him. I checked
up on him four, maybe five weeks ago, but he had been released from
care.”

“
What?
” Vivian demanded, sensing there was something he was not
revealing. “What else?”

She winced as static crackled from the
other end of the line.

“
LaCroix was abducted
shortly after his release.”

“
It’s
him
,” she insisted.

“
How do you
know?”

“
I found a tape in the
house—his name was on the papers—I mean… Damn it, Nikolai, you just
have to trust me!”

“
Jesus,” he cursed. “We let
him go… Perhaps I should have let you kill him.”

“
Well, it’s too late for
regrets now. We have to catch him before we find another mangled
body hanging from the ceiling.”

“
Fine. I want to see this
tape and analyze it. If what you say is true, this could be the
break we’ve been waiting for. Where is it?”

Vivian slapped her pockets,
frantically searching for the evidence.

“
I left it in the VCR at
the house. I need to go back and—”

A shrill ring buzzed over the
phone.

“
Sorry, Vivian, I have a
call coming in from the medical examiner. I’ll call you back as
soon as I’m finished here.”

“
Okay.” He quickly switched
over.

“
Jezebel?”

Twenty minutes later, Nikolai found
himself sprinting down the halls of the medical examiner’s office.
He almost didn’t see the lab technician pushing a cart stocked with
vials of blood. Nikolai twisted his body and narrowly avoided
colliding with the hazardous cargo.

“
Watch out!”

“
Sorry!” Nikolai cried,
rounding the corner. He caught a few technicians staring at him as
he raced past tightly-sealed labs.

His brief conversation with
Jezebel continued to echo in his head.
Meet
me in the morgue as soon as possible. You have to see this for
yourself.

Her words left him spinning in a
whirlwind of anticipation, dreading the moment he would step inside
the icy morgue. Rather than indulge his curiosity and say anymore,
Jezebel hung up, letting Nikolai’s most twisted fears take
seed.

He paused outside the lab, gripped by
a sudden wave of hesitation. He bit his lip and pushed through the
door. The plunge in temperature instantly sent needles of ice
poking through his veins. The shock elicited a gasp that birthed a
million tiny snowflakes into the surrounding air. He felt feeble
and naked despite the jacket against his skin.

“
Where is Tatiana today?”
Nikolai looked across the counter, where Jezebel was acutely
watching him.

“
Pursuing independent
leads.”

“
That’s a shame. We have
results for the blood smear on the walls.”

“
Already? What did you
learn?”

“
Come, take a look.” She
arranged the blood slides under a dual-piece microscope, allowing
both she and Nikolai to view the sample simultaneously. After
futzing with the knobs, Nikolai focused on the microorganisms
stained pink.

“
Okay, I give up. What is
this?”

“
See the fuzzy-looking
white blood cells?” Nikolai squinted like a jeweler ogling a
freshly cut diamond. “The purple ones, Nikolai. They indicate hairy
cell leukemia. The cause of HCL is unknown, but some premature
studies have linked it to exposure to industrial and pharmaceutical
chemicals. HCL accounts for only two percent of adult leukemias, so
you’ll be hard pressed to find many cases like this. I thought for
sure I would find a positive match in our offender
index.”