Dark Heart (6 page)

“Okay, Ace. How’s this, then? I think you should mope around your entire life, avoid any kind of intimacy with anyone except your invalid brother, hang out with the recently dead chasing fingerprints, hoping to find out that it was Colonel Mustard with a candlestick in the conservatory. It sounds like a fabulous life—at least for a David Lynch film. Not enough dwarves in it for Fellini.” He reached up and adjusted his glasses.

“Fuck you, Benny,” Sandra said, tipping her milk glass at him.

Benny sighed. “Even leaving out the incest angle, you’d be the first in a long time.”

“Pity party now?” Sandra arched an eyebrow. She’d meant it in jest, of course, but as soon as she said the words, she regretted them. They steered too close to dangerous waters. Dammit, she was tired. She should go straight to bed. She wasn’t alert enough to wrangle with Benny right now. He was smart, funny, and three steps ahead of her even when she was at the top of her form.

“You seemed to be in the mood for a bit of pity,” Benny said. Sometimes Sandra thought he brought up these subjects just to watch her squirm as she tried not to hurt his feelings.

“All right, all right. I give up. I can’t beat you with words, and I’m too tired to kick your ass properly. Can we save the yack-fest for another time when I’ve had more than, like, two hours sleep out of the last twenty-four? How’s the computer game design coming?”

“Almost finished. The project’s not due for another month. I’ll be done in a week.”

She nodded.

“How’s the case?” he asked.

She sighed, shook her head, “I don’t know. Not too good. I need to come up with something more for us to go on. I’m going to start checking specialty climbing shops or exotic blade-making shops or something tomorrow. The entire case sucks. And our guy did another one tonight. Just like Baxter.”

Benny raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was family tonight, though. A cop named Jack Madrone. You’ll probably read about it tomorrow in the papers under a suitably gruesome headline, no doubt, or maybe even catch it on the Net before then. We’re trying to keep the details of the murder quiet, but the killings are so sensational somebody will leak it. Probably already has leaked it.”

“Same way?”

“Yep. Same exact fuckin’ way. Hole straight through the rib cage.” She drank the rest of her milk and began rummaging again for solid food, a sandwich maybe, something to calm the rumblings in her gut. “Some kind of incisions on the chest surrounding the open wound.

“Yuck…” Ben wrinkled his nose.

“Yeah.” She paused. “I don’t mind telling you, Benny, this one creeps me out. Bad. Same feeling I got when I first saw Baxter’s body. Never felt it before on any other case. You’d think that finding number two would give us something to go on, but the case just keeps getting more improbable. Murder is supposed to make
more
sense the more data you collect, not less.”

He smiled. “You sound spooked.”

She pursed her lips. “I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah, spooked is right. And it takes a lot to spook me. But I’m intrigued, too. It’s weird, the whole thing is, and I want to figure it out.”

“Fine, then. Go for it. But do me a favor, huh?” Benny’s voice turned serious. “If your killer is taking cops, just make sure you don’t end up on his dance card, okay?”

“No,” she said. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“I always worry,” he said.

A
spattering of rain fell upon the dark rooftop. Deep music thrummed from below, a rhythmic base note under the twentieth-century snarl of the city.

Another sound intruded—the whoosh of air displaced by two mighty wings. A multitude of tiny puddles fled from the sound, blown from their resting places by the blast. Then came the thud and rustle of something heavy settling on the pebble-covered tarstrapped roof. Had there been anyone near enough to listen, they’d have heard the crunch of footprints among the rocks and the light scrape as a tail dragged along the surface. A series of small noises moved steadily closer to the skylight protruding from the roof’s surface. Then came the scrape of metal against metal as the skylight edged open a crack, apparently under its own power. The faint glow from the room below created ghostly highlights on the falling raindrops nearby. Off-key mechanical music carried through the night, the electronic tones from the security panel as an unseen claw pressed the keys that disabled the alarm system. A whirring sound and then the skylight opened fully, a mechanical maw. With a rush of wind, a shadow dropped through. The glass skylight closed behind it.

The creature who called himself the Wyrm flapped his wings once as he settled to the floor. Shadows fled from him as his clawed feet pressed deeply into the thick blue carpet.

He moved across the room with a snake-like grace. Muscles rippled under his scaly skin as he crossed the plush rug, which muffled the sound of his passing.

A full-length mirror stood on a smooth, marble dais roughly seven feet in diameter. He ascended two steps to stand before it. The mirror was old, older than he was himself. It was framed in wood, intricately carved. Knights with spears and shields fought dragons whose curved necks formed symmetric patterns at the mirror’s corners. The wood was layered in lustrous gold leaf, now cracked and flaking in places despite the loving care it had received through the centuries.

The Wyrm looked at his reflection. His flattened nose was ribbed with toughened skin, double ridged from the holes of its nostrils to the prominent bar of its brow. His mottled, scaled body was top-heavy, bowed by the heavy muscles required for flight. His was a physique built for strength, speed, and death—for chasing, trapping, catching, and killing prey.

He heard his muscles sing thrilling songs of carnage as he moved. They craved violence. They cried for him to open his huge wings and go hunting. To glide to the street and wreak bloody havoc. Dive into the petty humans standing below and scatter them like sheep before the wolves. To rend them with claws and slaughter them in great red waves of death.

The creature straightened and stretched, feeling his power. Shivers coursed through his body in waves. His wings filled the room from side to side. The curved claws at the tip of each of his wings scraped along the ceiling. The need to escape the confines of the tiny room was almost unbearable. His lips pulled back to reveal rows of sharp teeth, jagged and askew. The creature let out a soft, whispery sigh, and slowly returned to its crouch.

“Enough,” he said. The creature’s voice was guttural, harsh in the silence. He dropped the skin he’d taken from the detective’s apartment onto the marble floor of the dais.

The creature brought his hands to his scaled chest, crossing them. A wet snapping sound filled the room. The creature grunted, clenched his teeth. Another snap sounded, quickly followed by a popping sound. The creature gasped as his wings crumpled down, bending and somehow folding into his back. The scaled skin around the wings warped and went flaccid, like a tent with the supports removed. The creature’s low growl became louder as the process continued. Flesh tore away from underneath the scales. Bunched, powerful muscles receded to normal size. Bones twisted and morphed, growing smaller, more delicate. Claws pulled away from the edges of fingers no longer curled like talons.

Instead of a nightmare creature, a man stood before the mirror, his human body surrounded and obscured by a translucent, gleaming cocoon—the skin of the monster he’d been. He fell to the floor, writhing as the last of the old skin ripped away. The agony lasted only a moment, but the intense pain left him weak and unable to move. Finally, slowly, his strength returned. His hands pulled viciously at the scales covering his chest, tearing them away, revealing his human flesh underneath, red and angry as a newborn’s. Justin emerged, wriggling naked from his prison, his raw skin shining wetly in the dim light.

Before he could take a breath the last miracle of transformation began. The redness of his skin faded before his eyes, leaving it smooth and pale. Healed. He was immortal. No illness could hold him captive, no injury or wound mar his body for more than a fleeting moment.

The face and form he saw reflected in the mirror were now quite human and very handsome, even obscured as they were by the strings of mucous that hung from his long black hair and naked body. The vile substance was a natural barrier between the human and the reptile parts of himself.

Justin gathered his hair into a ponytail and stripped the excess moisture from it. Droplets of fluid speckled the marble on the floor, already slimed and bloody from his transformation. He tried to think clinically, think about something other than what he was, what he’d done, and how he’d done it. Anything was better than thinking of that.

He stared down at the dots of blood on the marble. They made him think of a too-close view of a pointillist painting, maybe a Georges Seurat masterpiece of a walk in the park. The dots of color that formed the picture would be nonsensical up close. Viewers could only make sense of them at a distance. Seen as it was meant to be seen, the painting gave the illusion of people walking through the park, an illusion comprised of tiny dots of white, pink, green, blue, dots of red…red like blood.

Justin clenched his fist, clenched his teeth. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something else.
No emotion,
he thought.
Keep it bottled up, stare at the wall, go another place mentally. Be anywhere but here.

Tendons stood out starkly in Justin’s neck and arms as he fought for control. His stomach muscles tensed. His eyes flashed open and he turned away from the mirror. The freshly discarded skin caught his eye. He grimaced in repulsion. Evidence of what he truly was, evidence he couldn’t bear to see. Usually, he got rid of the skin as soon as possible. The Dumpster in the alley behind the club had always served, but no longer. He glanced at the other, older skin. He’d thought it safely disposed. But its discovery in the Dumpster had led to yet another bloody, screaming death.

No, he couldn’t use the Dumpster any longer. Have to come up with something else…but he couldn’t cope with that now. He could hardly cope with anything. Anything except…

He wrenched his gaze from the skin toward a more pleasant view. Drawings of all sizes covered the wall. Some were rendered in charcoal, some were done in pencil. A few watercolors glowed like gems among the mostly black-and-white collection. There were scenes from all over the city, views of the Chicago skyline, sketches of nearby country landscapes as well as busy city crowd scenes, finished portraits, quick sketches, simple line drawings. Some of the art work had been pinned up in careful order, arranged in lines like well-laid bricks. Other pieces flowed in chaotic streams across the wall, corners overlapping, images turned at odd angles.

The wall was filled with Justin’s own work. He rarely left it looking the same from day to day. He’d take drawings down and replace them with new ones often. His favorites stayed. His failed attempts rarely lasted more than a few hours. Sometimes his muse would send Justin out into the city for weeks at a time, and he would roam Chicago and its environs looking for suitable subject matter, sketching and painting everything that took his fancy.

Currently, Tina had center stage. Images of her dominated the collection of drawings. Tina laughing. Tina smiling coyly. Tina watching herself in the mirror, holding a blouse up against her chest. Tina diving for a volleyball, going for the save. Tina looking pensive. Tina the woman. Tina the girl-child.

Concentrate on the drawings,
he told himself. His eyes fell on a landscape where the bare branches of winter trees were bending before a gale wind.
Think of that day when it blew so hard you could scarcely keep the pages
from ripping off of your pad as you sketched. Think of that plastic bag that flew through the air and smacked you in the face because you were too busy drawing to notice it was coming…

…just like Madrone smacked into the wall where you threw him before you killed him.

The death of the detective refused to stay safely buried in that part of Justin’s subconscious that he never visited willingly. The joy he’d felt in killing the man thrummed through his bones. He looked down at his hand, now human and covered with slime. The warm moisture felt like the blood that had dripped from his fingers as Madrone’s heart slid from them to the floor.

Justin choked and spun away, stumbled down the steps away from the mirror and the abandoned skin of his transformation.

And it goes to show you, doesn’t it, Justin? If you try to resist the master, he lets you feast on the horror of your deeds after they’re done.

He hadn’t wanted to kill Madrone. No more than he’d wanted to kill the security guard Baxter a fortnight ago. But the Dragon would not be denied, and Justin now bore the weight of the Dragon’s disapproval in addition to the weight of his own self-loathing.

Both men had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was all. But that didn’t change or justify what had happened to them at his hands. Justin knew that as surely as he knew he’d had little or no choice but to kill them.

Baxter’s death had been one of those unforeseen things, totally unplanned. Justin had been at the university to retrieve an artifact at the Dragon’s request, nothing more. He’d been in the main building at midnight, pulling an ancient chalice from its dusty display case. Baxter had startled Justin, startled him for several reasons.

Justin had been in the Wyrm shape that night, completely under the Dragon’s compulsion, more passenger than free-willed entity. His mission nearly accomplished, he’d relaxed his watchfulness for a split second as the power of the artifact had pulsed through him. His senses were so acute in the Wyrm state that he was rarely surprised by his surroundings, but Baxter had run into the room at just the wrong instant. A second earlier or later, and Justin would have faded into the shadows before the guard saw him. In Justin’s confusion, he’d reacted before conscious thought could kick in. The security guard hadn’t even had time to draw a breath before his heart was on the floor.

And Carlton Wheeler, the lawyer. Justin’s self-loathing turned to rage for a moment as he thought of that death. Omar had killed him. Omar, Kalzar’s apprentice, sent to Justin to study the arts of the disciples. Sent to Justin to make his life a living hell, more likely.

Killing Wheeler was supposed to be a quiet task. A textbook assassination, a case the cops would open and close faster than a bad book. Justin had listened and taught Omar as he’d planned it, watched attentively as Omar set it up, practically held his hand as he pulled the trigger.

Wheeler’s death was supposed to be airtight, a closed room murder mystery. No detective on earth could’ve tracked it to the killer…

…until that feckless idiot Omar had started babbling in bars about the murder to anybody who’d listen!

And then there was the cop…

Justin threw himself against the wall, pounding it with his fists. He knocked a hole in the plaster, ripping open the skin on his knuckles. Justin paused, staring down at the blood welling up from the uneven cuts on his fingers. The crimson flow slowed and stopped as he watched. The wounds mended and his pale skin gleamed pearl-like, smooth and perfect in the soft light.

“I didn’t want to…” Justin whispered. The pain in his soul threatened to burst it. He whirled around, perhaps hoping he could escape the torment hounding him if he just moved quickly enough, but he knew from long experience it was no use. He’d made his choice centuries ago, when he accepted the Dragon’s offer of eternal life in exchange for eternal servitude. If he’d known then what he knew now, would he have still made the same choices? Who knew? Certainly not Justin.

The fight went out of him and memories overwhelmed him. His back thumped up against the wall as he let the pain take him. Slowly, so slowly he could feel the texture of the plaster surface in all its detail against the skin of his back, he slid to the floor, trusting in the wall’s support, until he felt his buttocks touch the carpet.

“I was wrong…” Each word he spoke was a sliver of fear, a regret that stabbed him like a shard of glass in his heart. And each word could bring down upon him the wrath of the Dragon. The pain would be endless, unbearable, the damage physical as well as mental. And the injuries inflicted by the Dragon would not heal until the Dragon wished them to. The cuts would not close. The bruises would not heal. The pain would not cease, perhaps ever. Justin couldn’t be killed, but if the Dragon wished it, Justin could spend his eternity in endless torment.

“I could have intimidated him,” Justin murmured. “Taken the skin, rendered him unconscious. Who would have believed him when he described what he saw? He’d never tell a soul, because people would think he’d had too much to drink or had sampled the fruits of a drug bust or lost his mind. He’d probably wonder if that wasn’t the truth himself.”

But the dragon-like body that was the Wyrm was not fully under Justin’s control. As an underling, a
dragonling,
in fact, the Wyrm was an extension of the Dragon, and it had its own drive, its own agenda, its own missions. When the Wyrm wanted blood, Justin was merely a passenger in his own flesh, a watcher from within. Even the transformation was most often a matter of the Dragon’s bidding, out of his control. When he resisted the Dragon in the slightest way, he earned the kind of pain that would quickly kill a mere mortal, pain he endured until the Dragon felt he’d learned his lesson.