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Hot breath blasted the nape of her neck like a Sahara breeze. Her legs strained to carry her forward in her race. She wanted to look behind her, but she knew he was close. Looking would slow her. The thing chased her stronger and wanted blood. Hers.
"I'm coming, sweetie." Its voice thundered from behind her. She couldn't see the man, nor did she know if it was human, but it sounded male. His voice sounded familiar, too, as though from a dream - the kind that faded with the sunrise. A phantom recollection. Malevolence laced with psychopathic delight in her fear.
Then the whistling! That tune. So familiar and so old.
Gay go up, and gay go down,
To ring the bells of London town.
She tripped, and its laughter shook her nerves like a chew toy in a dog's mouth. The laugh was full of sharp teeth that would tear her to shreds. At least, that's how it sounded. She wanted to scream, but it caught in her throat, obstructing her breath.
Bull's eyes and targets,
Say the bells of St. Marg'ret's.
Her fatigued limbs dragged like blocks of lead through tacky tar. And each step tortured her resolve. She wanted to stop, but self-preservation pushed her forward.
Again, her feet tangled each other. She tripped and fell.
The creature's laughter rolled from behind like a cheesy B-grade villain.
"It's been a long time. Did you miss me?"
A gasp escaped her throat. She tried to choke it back. Show no fear. He lives on others' dread, thrives in its grasp.
"It's been years since we last met." His voice boomed through the alleyway, bouncing off the brickwork that towered around her.
Her fingers, long and white, adorned with rings that no longer held value, clutched at a nearby bin for support. In vain, she tried to stand but fell again. She choked another scream upon realising. Her legs had vanished.
Instead, a long green scaly tail curled and twisted. It arced and flicked in time with her panicked thoughts as if it were a torturous body sock trapping her legs inside.
And from the alleyway's depths hovered two red luminous orbs. Towards her, blinking. They narrowed, and she recognised them as eyes on a face framed by blackness. This blackness wore a large top hat and a voluminous dark cape that spread through the night like death's wings.
A blade flicked outward, faster than a snake and twice as deadly. It cut, slashed and flashed in the night. She screamed, raising her arms in defence. Blood sprayed, splattered, and filled the air in clouds. The taste filled her mouth, coppery and rich. But she didn't feel the wounds. Whose blood was it?
And when she woke, his words filled her mind.
Remember me, Sirena...
***
Brianna Cogan stepped out of the police car, a hot coffee grasped in her hand. She screwed her face up at the beverage's rough, abrasive flavour and wished she hadn't bought it. At last, she swallowed with a painful gulp. It tasted like burnt beans dipped in caustic soda. She promised herself never to buy coffee at that diner again.
She refocused and looked at the alley, its entrance adorned with police tape. It looked like she was late. Lights flashed ahead; the police photographer was hard at work.
She approached Sergeant Hohenhaus from behind, tapping him on the shoulder. He jumped with a start before turning to face Brianna..
"Jeez, Cogan, don't do that." Hohenhaus noted the coffee in her hand, its steam hitting the cold air, and he looked at her. "I'm not sure you need that."
"Same guy?"
Hohenhaus nodded. "I almost lost my stomach," he said. "It's terrible. Whoever did it really hates his victims."
"Oh?" Brianna craned her neck, looking past him towards the alley. It was dark, almost as black as the stench drifting out to them. Hohenhaus choked a strangled gasp and Brianna noted his slight green-tinged complexion. The poor guy's stomach couldn't handle it. So she handed him her coffee.
"You look like you need this more than me," she said as he grasped for it.
His hands curled around the hot cup and Brianna remembered giving him coffee other times. Hohenhaus often asked or gained a coffee from her on call-outs. Had he been conning her all the time for free drinks?
Brianna shook her head at the thought as she approached the alley. "I'm going for a look. Try keeping that coffee down, Sarge."
"Knock yourself out." Hohenhaus swallowed a sip and his eyes lit up. "Hey, this is good shit."
A camera flash filled the gloom ahead, and Brianna's coffee rose in her throat at the brief glimpse. A smell of stale urine made her nose feel like falling off her face, and blood clung to the brickwork in splashes. The spatter marks screamed the killer's passionate fury. Brianna covered her mouth and nose with a latex-gloved hand as she choked back the coffee.
Brianna's gaze zipped to the victim, or what remained of her.
The corpse's legs lay spread open with a bloody river pooling between them. Her underwear formed a dark red reminder of something terrible. The attacker had torn it apart, and it looked like something had penetrated - something sharp. A coat, perhaps made of fake fur but matted in fresh body fluids, lay underneath the victim like a macabre picnic cloth.
"I reckon it was a Liston knife."
Brianna jumped and faced the voice's source: the forensics unit's photographer. "Higgins," Brianna gasped. "You startled me."
Higgins lifted the PC tablet, aimed, and took another photo. This time, Brianna blinked before the flash blinded her.
"What's a Liston knife?"
Higgins checked the photo she snapped with the tablet's camera before turning around. "A Liston is a long surgical knife. Popular legends say Jack the Ripper used one. I've seen those slashes in pictures of the Ripper's handiwork."
"The Ripper?" Brianna scoffed. "Do you think it's his ghost doing this?"
No sooner had Brianna spoken than goosebumps prickled to her skin's surface. It sounded strange to mention ghosts. In the past, she'd fostered healthy scepticism on the subject. But, the humorous held some truth for her. Brianna had met Craig Ramsey, and his spirit companion Emily Fraser, smashing her scepticism.
Higgins looked back at Brianna. Her expression resembled Brianna's from the past, a time before ghosts were real. "What the hell, Detective?" she said. "No. But I reckon we have an enthusiast on our hands."
"Brilliant," she said, stopping again at her words. 'Brilliant' was one of Craig's favourite words. "I mean-" she paused "-what else can you tell me?"
Higgins pointed at the victim. "Do you see the incisions? It looks like a surgeon's cuts, someone looking for vital organs. That main one there-" she pointed towards the chest "-is under the rib cage. I reckon he was trying for the heart."
A rumbling sound of retching and vomiting from behind made them turn around. Unseen, Hohenhaus had returned and reacted to the scene. But Brianna noticed something else. The sergeant's wide eyes were glancing to the left, and she followed his contorted gaze. There, near a bin, she noticed a lump of something, about three-or-four inches long. Some kind of lump.
Brianna noted the wall above it showed a splattery circle, haloed by bloody specks. The killer had thrown the meaty lump at the wall, and it splashed like a soggy sponge before falling to the ground. "What is that?"
Higgins turned on her iPhone's torch, shining it upon the mass. "It looks like half a kidney."
Brianna's Armed Forces history had exposed her to many things, terrible things, and this was too much for her. But a ghoulish sense of curiosity gripped her, and she had to ask. "Half a kidney?"
The forensic investigator gripped the kidney, her face showing concentration as she tried not to drop the slippery thing, and dropped it into a zip-lock bag. She sealed it and showed it to Brianna. "Yep. A little under half." She peered at it through her glasses and then Brianna saw something she never expected. The investigator blanched and looked away.
Brianna wanted to say something but refrained. It would be hypocritical to criticise the forensics investigator's weak stomach while her own performed a double pike, twist and roll. So she waited for Higgins to recover enough to speak. "Are you okay?"
Higgins took a breath, blinked, and exhaled. She wouldn't vomit. "The sick bastard has taken a bite out of it."
Brianna's tanned features blanched at the thought. "A cannibal?"
"What's that on the wall?" Hohenhaus asked, moving his light to see better. He paused, his jaw hung open in shock. "Oh, jeez."
Smeared in blood not yet dried, thin creeks of it trickling along the brickwork, was a message.
HELLO, MY SWEETIES. DID YOU MISS ME?