Outsider (5 page)

Terri opened the bottle of mescal between two
numbers, shouted over the punters: “Thanx, Sid, wherever you are!”
moved her head to her right side and spotted the writer who had cut
herself an almost cozy corner in front of Dawn’s keyboards. The
singer handed the bottle over and Sid, savouring the taste of
Mexican alcohol, thought that every time tequila went down her
throat, it always had something to do with the Second Look singer.
Why not, at least, she’d be bound to keep sober.

* * * * * * *

The mesmerizing woman with gypsy eyes and
gothic looks had, at first, focused her attention on the woman with
the green mohican, tattoos and cut-off, kaki trousers. But this
woman, despite an obvious sensitivity spilling out of her every
pore, was in no way responding to her power of suggestion. She was
somehow protected by the very music possessing her body, by the
very voice tearing at her heart. Whenever she’d catch her
attention, and the briefest moment should have been enough, the
dancer seemed to amazingly gain extra energy and dance even more
wildly. Ah, she would be no easy prey, she would be enjoyable
prey.

But song after song, the gypsy-eyed woman
felt increasingly frustrated. Her chosen victim was more and more
lost to her power, more and more lost to the world. It was getting
seriously tiring. What cat-and-mouse game was that?

Moving on to an easier quarry was becoming a
safer bet. She needed to feed. The small woman with brown, short
hair and grey eyes, who had been watching her on and off, would be
that choice. So eager. An easy toy to play with, to tease, eyes
flirting, maybe yes, maybe no, dancing bodies ideal props for a
creature of great will. Just tantalize her, make her want, make her
burn up with desire, pull her leash tighter and tighter.

When Terri finished screaming,
“Think
twice before you jump”
, or dive, the mesmerizing creature
decided to close her net. Her eyes smiled for Alexi only, beckoning
her, creating a path across the dancing crowd, like the ocean
opening to power. And Alexi followed obediently, oblivious to the
exalted audience, followed her doomed fate.

* * * * * * *

The singer was always in motion, jumping,
dancing, seducing the crowd, with her voice and with her sensual
moves. Her wildness was a sweaty affair. She picked up a pint glass
of water, emptied it over her head and shook the wavy snakes of her
red hair, spraying water all over the place, over the first row of
delighted dancers, and over Dawn’s keyboards, who didn’t swear nor
really complain, equal to herself. She attempted to sponge the
puddles of water with a sheet of paper but had to give up. She had
only two hands to keep on playing the wild music and sing the
backing vocals.

Sid watched the action, her eyes seeing it in
slow motion, like so many years ago she had seen her friend Annick
breaking the safety glass of the alarm system in a subway political
action.

Her vision went back to normal as suddenly.
She sighed and stopped dancing. She couldn’t help being the good
person she was, despite her permanent state of mania. She forked
out part of the toilet paper forever lining her deep pockets and
dried up the top keyboard, careful not to modify the settings. Even
if she felt in the middle of a personal vendetta with this band.
But she was not about to let them know. Not yet. The musician
smiled her thanx, unaware of her effect on Sid, unaware of Sid’s
sudden confusion, unaware of Sid’s inner turmoil. Should she hate
Second Look? Should she love them? Should she feel resentful?
Should she feel grateful? Because of them, she was losing her
musical thread and couldn’t figure out if it was a blessing or a
curse. Or maybe the curse was in the multiplicity of her
talents…

The show went on.

* * * * * * *

A parking lot backed the pub. The moon was
magnificent in its fullness, adding to the natural power of the
gypsy-eyed woman.

Alexi felt mesmerized and couldn’t mind. The
beautiful creature smiled at her, showing canines slightly longer
and sharper than human. Alexi didn’t notice or didn’t understand.
Desire was burning her inside out, spilling breathlessly between
her lips. She painfully longed to taste the red, tantalizing lips
and let her fingers wander down the pale skin of the smooth
stomach. The subject of her desire smiled even more broadly,
showing even more canines and, maintaining the veil of illusion
over the victim’s mind, she swiftly bit the tender skin in the
curve of the neck. The sweet and rich blood started to flow across
her greedy tongue, satisfyingly. Vegetarian’s blood was always
sweet, while meat-eater’s was slightly bitter. She’d always had a
sweet tooth.

Alexi never knew that her blood was drained
out of her body. She felt greater pleasure than she ever imagined
possible, while her life left her, gently sipped away.

* * * * * * *

That night, Second Look didn’t perform
Predator, Lita’s favorite number. They were too short of time. The
crowd wanted more. But pubs always closed, regardless.

Sid contemplated the audience, exchanged
glances with the gypsy-eyed woman. Of course, she could only see a
blurred image of the eyes enhanced with kohl. She looked away, not
knowing that this slight physical defect had prevented her from
experiencing the encounter of a lifetime, with the only creature
who could have granted her death wish, not just in a pleasurable
manner, but also in a way that wouldn’t have spelled karmic
disaster for her Akashic records.

Lita and Jenny started to wonder where the
hell Alexi might have disappeared. To the bar? No, it was way after
the last-drink bell. To the loo then?

The mysterious creature, feeling high and
unreal, as ever after feeding, thought that three drained corpses
at three Second Look gigs were more than enough to attract the
police’s attention. Blame it on the rock band for having such a
tasty following. Maybe, she mused, she’d let herself be tempted by
the green-mohicaned woman at their next London gig. Before moving
on swiftly. This Sid could provide her with a very enjoyable
challenge and give greater climax to the blood drinking.

The intended prey, feeling high, too high,
higher than whatever normal was (was it the electrifying
combination of the music and the voice, was it the anti-depressant
she took daily to prevent herself from carving senseless lines all
over her body, or was it the energy of the crowd enclosed in the
closed parallelogram of the pub invading her aura, once again?
She’ll really have to do something about it), feeling kind of
manic, contemplated Terri actively greeting friends and groupies,
signing white T-shirts. Dawn had left the stage. The writer’s mind
amused itself with a new idea, a new short story to write. Ah, to
kill again. After all, being a writer was about playing at being
god. All-mighty power over every character. A bounty hunter might
shoot to death a werefrog, and consequently being killed by a
werescorpion. The idea simply delighted her. But this was mere
child’s play that she could write easily and lightly. The Great
Work was still to come. Second Look would unintentionally provide
the ideal soundtrack. And unknown to everyone, a creature of
darkness would hunt among the exalted groupies.

For Sid, playing with monsters was the
equivalent of playing with genders.

This was no ordinary murder case; it had
“serial killer” written all over. Third victim with the same
baffling blood loss. And puncture marks on the neck. Two. It could
have been an animal, a wild beast. But there was no sign of
struggle, no chewing of flesh. Where was the blood? Vampire bats
were too small for such amount and generally stuck to cattle, in
Central and South America. He would probably get another repeat
forensic report: spacing between punctures corresponding to spacing
between human canines. Very sharp canines. He knew better than
letting his imagination take off on a flight of fancy. He didn’t
believe in monsters. He believed in human monsters: it was all in
the mind. Or another bad penny novel.

D.I. Madison sighed and scratched his neck at
the base of his short, blond hair. His pale, blue eyes, paler than
his blue suit, scanned the light-flooded pub where various people
were waiting for his blessing to pack up and go home. He sighed
again and granted them his assent with a shooing motion. The staff
had been the only ones left by the time some unsuspecting drunk had
stumbled over the corpse, screamed uncannily and fainted, in the
car park.

Once again the death was frustratingly
pointing at a rock band called Second Look. He already knew what
they would say when interviewed. This M.O. was doing his head in.
It was the kind that could make or break a career. For Madison,
despite his still young age, no cracking would mean a breaking,
regardless of his allies in superior hierarchy. The nephew of
another high-ranking cop shot in the line of duty, an exceptional
cop himself, he loved his job.

A constable, first officer on the scene,
broke his train of wandering thoughts, confirming that no one had
noticed anything or anyone out of the ordinary. Except maybe for
the bunch of women who had searched and enquired about a missing
friend in the crowd of punters before leaving the premises, still
friendless. Unfortunately the info was within the vague boundaries
of a sketchy description applying to quite a number of the London
population.

Madison sighed for the third time. In a few
hours, he’ll have to get into the now routine knocking on three
doors. “The shiny saddle of a repetitive loop”, he muttered for
himself.

* * * * * * *

Terri Harley opened the door with bleary,
brown eyes and a dark mauve toweling robe covering her with one
size too many. Madison noticed she had hardly slept. Possibly an
insomniac. She stood there staring at him for a full ten seconds,
her brain slowly registering the situation, a cog creaking the next
one into working gear, before letting him in. Her slippered feet
shuffled to the kitchen. He followed. Terri’s partner, Justine, a
willowy beauty with dark hair, waltzed out of the bathroom, fully
made-up and decently outfitted, and joined them.

“What’s up?” She enquired, seriousness
darkening her eyes.

“Gimme coffee and ask him,” Terri slouched on
a countertop.

“I’ll need to see Dawn Ferndale, too.”

Dawn, in between homes (the water pipes of
her new house were currently attended by an army of disagreeing
plumbers), happened to be squatting Terri and Justine’s spare
room.

* * * * * * *

He questioned the singer first, playing the
loop of sentences accordingly punctuated. At what time did you
arrive? At what time did you leave? What about your crew? Dawn
Ferndale? Your partner? Who did you talk with? Then, he outed the
victim’s weekly travel card dutifully sealed in an evidence bag,
that he had previously stashed in an inside pocket.

Recognition flooded Terri’s still sleepy
eyes. Yes, she knew the woman, a regular groupie, often attending
Second Look’s gigs with a bunch of similarly looking friends. No,
she didn’t know her address or any specific particular. Alexi
wasn’t the kind of groupie always queuing to chat with Terri or
Dawn.

Damn it! Terry worried for the safety of her
fans. Third death in the audience. Third murder. Madison hadn’t
mentioned the mysterious and complete lack of blood in and out of
the corpse. Sucked dry… This detail hadn’t been released to the
press for any of the cases. He dreaded the imagination of the
media.

The keyboard player walked into the kitchen,
pale green clothes hiding her curves. Her eyes met Madison’s
without flinching and she poured herself a mug of hot and strong
coffee, not bothering with sugar or milk.

“Look!” Terri almost shouted. “Someone was
killed again last night!”

Dawn stared at the photo pass but offered no
pearl of wisdom. D.I. Madison asked Terri to leave the kitchen,
guessing she would squat behind the shut door with Justine. Having
been in charge of this serial case since murder one, he needed no
second sight to know Dawn would give only laconic and succinct
answers. Like the singer, she had noticed nothing different, she
could yield no light over the frustrating case.

In turn, Justine corroborated the statements
of the band, the complete waste of his time, and provided names and
addresses of friends who could vouch for her own whereabouts at all
times that night, minus a window of five minutes when she would
have needed super-speed to commit the crime.

D.I. Madison left, none the more
knowledgeable. On his way to South London where the crew resided,
wasting more petrol and more time on the futile wild goose chase,
he started to wonder. Ok, he had three murders. Same M.O.
Assumption: same killer, or killers. This killer could be anyone,
yes, but not necessarily one close to the rock band or a groupie.
The gigs could be just a convenient killing ground, a smoke screen
to distract the police. What if the culprit was no stranger to
murder? On a hunch, Madison picked up his mobile phone, not waiting
for the next red light, to auto-dial and talked to one of his
detectives, ordering a research of all unexplained murders for the
past year within London and its extended suburb. Maybe, just maybe,
the whole sad story had nothing to do with Second Look and Terri
and Dawn were just plain unlucky.

In the meantime, he felt very glad the
morning rush hour was over.

INTERLUDE
(By courtesy of the
author Sid Wasgo)

THE BEAST(s)

(To Terri and Dawn, “Second Look”,
respect)