A Siren's Song (Ride of the Darkyrie 2) (7 page)

             
“You know art?” he sounded pleased.

             
“I’ve trained with the FBI, Richard. Of course I know this painting. Your ancestor’s case is one of the most widely studied.”

             
The Ripper case was to psychology and criminal justice students what the
Kobayashi Maru
was to Captain Kirk, a no-win scenario. A problem with no solution without redefining the question. There were no real answers.

             
Jack the Ripper had been a serial killer active in the East End of London in 1888. It was such a well-known case because it was one of the first to be the subject of media attention. A Victorian splatterfest. He’d murdered prostitutes, referred to as “unfortunates” in grisly ways, often destroying their genitals and taking organs as trophies.

             
It was often thought that the killer had been an undertaker, a butcher, or even a doctor. But back in the Victorian era, society was taught to believe that the upper classes and educated people were incapable of such barbaric horrors.

             
Although, new studies had come to light that even as recently as the Victorian age, the upper classes and even royalty had engaged in “corpse medicine”—the use of body parts to make tinctures and teas, salves, to cure certain ailments.

             
One of the suspects offered for consideration was a painter, Walter Sickert. He either knew who the Ripper was, or was the Ripper himself.

             
It was surreal to be standing there talking with Sickert’s descendent. I shivered.

             
Richard turned to me, his hand on my waist. “And what did you think of it, Brynn? His work? Who was your choice for the killer?”

             
“I didn’t have enough information.”

             
“Come on, just a little guess?” He stroked his thumb over my hip.

             
Another theory was that it had been Prince Albert, gone mad with syphilis. Or that it had been on the Queen’s orders to silence a Catholic prostitute the prince had married. The second theory had been the subject of a film with Johnny Depp called
From Hell
, which I’d watched with my father and we’d critiqued the portrayal of the murders. In the movie, the Ripper had shown the women his good will by offering them grapes. For reason, I’d always thought it would have been marzipan.

             
But even knowing the case file inside and out, I didn’t want to answer the question. It felt like I was submitting to some kind of test. I didn’t know who it was. The evidence was more than a hundred years old. If I could have time traveled, I might have been able to make that connection with his kills and catch him, but in the present? No.

             
“It was never proven if the prince had syphilis or not. By all verified accounts, he did not. He was also said to be developmentally disabled. I’ve ruled him out. It was never proven whether he had a relationship with that “unfortunate”. The Queen’s personal physician, Dr. Gull had the medical experience and by all accounts was a great man. Though I’ve found that great men often hide the darkest secrets. There are some who find nothing taboo in the search for knowledge, but I don’t think that fits his personality type.”

             
“Fascinating.”

             
“And your ancestor, I’m not sure what to think of him. Patricia Cornwell posits in her book he had a genetic anomaly that made him unable to perform sexually and in turn, made him hate women. If he was unable to perform, where did you come from? So my answer? I don’t think that we’ll ever know who the Ripper was and I think if he were alive today, he’d like that after all this time, no one knows for sure.”

             
“What about taking credit for his kills? Don’t you think he’d finally want the world to know?”

             
“Maybe. I couldn’t say. As I said before, I don’t have enough information.” I shrugged.

             
That was what Jason had said to me, I didn’t have all the information. I felt there should be a connection there, but I just couldn’t make it click.

             
My brain was twisting and turning all of this over and Richard had closed the distance between us, rested his forehead on mine. If he’d been one of the prey, he would have tried to kiss me, but that’s not where his pleasure lay. It was only death that fed his hunger.

             
His touch, his nearness, it did nothing to me like Jason’s had. Or the Cross—Stavros. No burning between my thighs, no rush of heat.

             
Though there was the burst of adrenaline, the quickening of breath.

             
Are you sure?

             
This time it was both Jason and the assassin’s voice in my head like some satanic Jiminy Cricket in stereo.

             
What could it hurt to be sure?

             
I’m always sure.

             
But what could it hurt to double check?

             
Everything. If I started second-guessing myself now… the thought trailed off. Just this one time, I’d double check. He wanted to tell me, I could feel it. Then I’d be sure and that rancid conscience thing in my head would shut the hell up and let me get on with my work.

             
“Do you know? Was it Walter Sickert who killed those women?” I asked breathlessly and hooked my hands around his biceps. “What about the other victims in Whitechapel killed in a similar way? Were they victims of the Ripper too?”

             
“I do know, but I’m not going to tell you,” he taunted.

             
“No?” I licked my lips. “Will you show me then? Is the way he killed in your DNA?”

             
“On the first date?” Richard’s tone was sly.

             
“It’s either that or we fall into bed with awkward sticky fumblings working toward a false fulfillment we know isn’t there.”

             
“All right, Brynn. I’ll show you mine, you show me yours? Tell me, do you want to paint on my canvas?”

             
My stomach flipped over on itself, my knees were suddenly jelly and I licked my lips again, unable to answer. He wanted to kill together.

             
Hell, but the intimacy of it was almost too much. I imagined what it would be like hunting with the Cross. Or with Jason.

             
Those weren’t things I could allow myself to think about. Especially not now, not here. I couldn’t afford to be distracted.

             
This predator had just admitted he had a canvas nearby, a warm, living human being. A person with a mother, a father, someone who made them cupcakes with Nutella frosting. My
raison d’etre—
to protect the prey had to be in the forefront of my mind, not getting my metaphorical dick wet.

             
“Yes.” I tightened my grip on his biceps.

             
“Downstairs to the basement then, pretty Brynn.”

             
I followed him into the quaint, country kitchen and down a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a suspiciously clean basement.

             
“You’re much too neat, Richard. This basement screams sociopath. Where are the things that mark human habitation?”

             
He laughed a light and merry sound. “You say that as if you are not human. For all that we think we’re not like them, we’re still homo sapiens.”

             
But I wasn’t. I was a goddess. The Queen of Hel. “I forget.”

             
“I’ve never shown this to anyone,” he began.

             
“Do you think I have? This is a new experience for me, too.” Only it meant nothing to me. He’d bare his darkness for me like a whore spreading her wares and I’d slit his throat and leave him to choke on his own blood.

             
I’d decided his death. Every time I thought of him, it was of putting a razor to his throat. I still didn’t know how I’d dispose of the body, especially if he had a captive. I couldn’t very well let her see me or what I did to him.

             
Richard took a deep breath and opened a hidden door.

       Manacled to a wall in that secret room hung Detective Tommy Anderson.

CHAPTER FIVE

             
I couldn’t stand the little bastard, but Tommy Anderson was a cop. Predator, prey, none of that mattered. He was a
cop
, my brother in blue.

             
The irony of it all was that Tommy was still an innocent. The line I’d been talking about, the one I predicted he’d cross and become a killer, he hadn’t done it yet. So he didn’t belong to me. I was as bound to protect him as I was any other, maybe even more so because he was a cop, too. I might end up killing him later, but right now, he was still under my protection.

             
“Me or him, Brynn Hill?” Richard taunted.

             
“You, of course.” I stepped out from behind him and quickly assessed Tommy’s condition. I didn’t have time to be surprised, or horrified, or anything else. I could feel those things later. I had to gauge the situation as quickly as I could and think on my feet logically and precisely to get him out alive.

             
Tommy’s chest rose and fell with uneven breaths, but he was still alive. Richard had sliced him with a surgical precision, drawing outlines with his blade of the different cuts of meat like he was an animal to be butchered for food. These cuts were superficial; Richard had been playing with him for some time by the state of the wounds. Some of the cuts were crusty and healing, others wept tiny blood tears orchestrated just for me.

             
This whole thing was just for me.
I hadn’t been wrong in assuming his prey was usually female, because I’m never wrong. If that was the absolute, then the only logical assumption could be that he’d set this whole thing up.

             
For the first time, I was out of my depth.

             
Yeah, with all the supernatural shit I was way out of my depth because I didn’t know what was going on, but this was my life’s work. I was always a step, even three, ahead of these killers. I always had the advantage. I was at a loss.

             
Richard had known what I was before he met me and that made him much more dangerous than I’d originally thought.

             
I had no weapons in my immediate reach and no plan; this wasn’t the time to play my hand.

             
“You’ve made quite the mess of him, haven’t you?” I remarked casually, still inspecting him like I would something pretty in a window display.

             
“Apologies, darling. I couldn’t wait.” Richard was breathing heavily, his body exhibiting all the classic signs of arousal.

             
He’d known I’d want to see his work. How had he known? Dread was a twisted ball of steel in my gut. “Did you take him just for me?”

             
“I might have.” He touched my hair reverently. “I had to know where your loyalties lay. We’re both something special, Brynn.”

             
Please, don’t let him say anything crazy
, I begged the universe and then I sighed. Crazy was relative. Especially since I was standing in this guy’s basement and we were discussing death as if we both did it every day the same as breathing.

             
While killing was as vital to me as breathing, it was a special occasion when it did happen.

             
“Have you been watching me, Richard?”

             
“Yes. For a few months now.” He sounded pleased, happy that I’d noticed.

             
My confidence returned. I hadn’t killed in a long time. He didn’t know everything about me. “That’s very sweet.” Yet there was a crack in the foundation of that confidence. He’d been watching me and I’d had no idea. With all of my extra senses and radar for aberration, he hadn’t set off any alarms until he’d been in The Riot Room. How many times could he have treated me like prey if he’d chosen?

             
His eyes were slits, almost reptilian and his nostrils flared. “Yes, you like that I watched you. That I coveted you, but you don’t like that you didn’t know I was there.”

             
“Of course I don’t. Would you?”

             
“No,” he laughed. “Should I tell you all about it?”

             
“Yes. When you first saw me. When you first coveted me.” That would give me time to think, to plan, and it would tell me what he knew about me. “I may be a killer, but I’m still a woman.”