5

Ackerman smiled a warm greeting as the wannabe-cowboy police captain approached the bars. He said, “I would extend a handshake, but your officers insisted on securing my arms behind my back.”

The captain said nothing. He merely observed with a stone face and eyes unreadable behind round wire-framed glasses. Ackerman had immediately noted the captain’s choice of weapons—two Colt Peacemakers, one on each hip.

Ackerman said, “I like your old wheel guns. A couple of famous pieces of Americana. Known as ‘The Gun That Won the West’”

The captain said nothing.

“You remind me of another little piggy I met on the road to Cancun. Actually, I believe that was the last occasion I was in a foreign nation, and I have to say that I find the Diné people to be significantly more hospitable than your Mexican neighbors. That now-deceased police captain underestimated my fortitude and the bloody lengths to which I would go for revenge. I only mention it because I see some parallels between your current predicament and the unfortunate deaths of a great many people south of the border. You see, that dead Mexican captain took someone dear to me. Just as your friend, John Canyon, has taken someone very close to me now. Would you like to know the ultimate fate of your Southern counterpart?”

The cowboy captain’s lip curled back. Ignoring Ackerman’s question, he said to the young male officer, “Pitka, go out to the tank and fill up a couple ten gallon buckets of water. Then bring them back in here and give our new friend a quick shower.”

The young female officer snapped, “Sir, that’s physical evidence. We can’t—”

“That’s enough, Liana. We have samples of the blood on the handles of his batons.”

Ackerman smiled and said, “Lee-anna. I like it. It suits you, which suits me, which is really all that matters.”

The captain said, “Pitka, go get the water. Now, please.”

Snapping to attention, the young officer nodded and rushed from the building.

As the door swung shut, Ackerman shot to his feet and attacked the metal bars separating him from the remaining officers. His spin kick struck with enough force to rattle the whole building. Both the captain and his subordinate involuntarily recoiled in fear. Ackerman laughed and said, “That other police captain I mentioned, the one who stole from me, ended up surviving under my care for weeks. I fed him a diet of his own flesh. We made a little game out of it. Perhaps I’ll also get to play with you. What do you think, Captain Yazzie? Would you like to know what you taste like? I have to admit that I’m curious. Perhaps we could share a piece.”

Officer Pitka, returning with the buckets of water, took one look at the expressions on the faces of his coworkers and said, “What did I miss?”

Yazzie replied, “Dowse him. We need to get a better look at our new friend.”

Ackerman could understand where the captain was coming from. He suspected it was quite unnerving for a normal to sit in the presence of a man whose torso was smeared with relatively fresh blood. Of course, Ackerman knew that Yazzie would be no less unnerved when he saw what was underneath the blood.

Most of Ackerman’s body was covered in scar tissue of one type or another. Some of the wounds had been inflicted courtesy of his deranged father—who had subjected him to unspeakable horrors and every pain imaginable in an attempt to engineer a perfect killing machine—but many of the scars had been earned during his various exploits. And many more were self-inflicted. Ackerman’s father had ultimately found no way to accomplish his goals without a bit of invasive brain surgery, and so, Francis Ackerman Sr. had performed delicate surgery on his son’s amygdala, the area of the brain responsible for a person’s sense of fear.

Still on his feet, Ackerman stepped forward and closed his eyes as he awaited the water. His hands remained behind his back and much of the gore wouldn’t rinse free without some scrubbing, but within a few seconds, the officers had succeeded in washing away a large percentage of the blood, enough to better reveal his face and his scars.

Liana gasped and quickly clamped a hand over her mouth as the roadmap of his pain was revealed. He looked down at himself, something that he rarely did. He didn’t like to dwell upon the past. But in this instance, he gazed down at his wounds with analytical eyes, trying to see the scars in the way that Liana saw them. He flexed the thick cords of sinew in his arms and watched the cuts and burns and gunshot wounds ripple in the artificial glow of the fluorescent lighting.

He wondered if the female was appalled or aroused by his naked torso. Perhaps a bit of both. He said, “I certainly feel refreshed. Is Mr. Canyon on his way?”

“Why would he be?” Yazzie asked.

“Don’t insult me with a half-hearted attempt at pretending that you’re a real cop. You’re a glorified security guard. The lot of you are. Keeping watch over Canyon’s town and his enterprises. My guess is that you were on the phone with him when the distress signal went out from Liana. And if you weren’t on the phone already, then that means that you called your master on the way.”

“I’m no man’s slave. But you’re right. I was on the phone with John, and he is on his way down from the ranch as we speak. I suggest you get a drink of water and get ready to do some talking. You can either talk to me, or talk to John. And when he asks a question and doesn’t like the answer, he’s likely to tear off all your fingernails.”

A grin forming across his handsome face, Ackerman said, “It’s been a while since I’ve had a partner on my dance card who really knows how to tango. And I so enjoy a good torture.”

“We’ll see how cocky you are when Big John gets here. You’d be a damn sight better off to just tell me what happened before he gets here, son.“

“Patience, captain. Patience is the first of two lessons every hunter must learn.”

“What’s the other?”

“Stay downwind of your prey. A hunter who fails in either of these arenas will either be going home hungry or will end up becoming someone else’s dinner.”

“And you’re an expert hunter. That right?”

“I’m an expert at many things. And yes, I am quite experienced in that arena. I enjoy the hunt. The anticipation of the kill. But I prefer consummation over foreplay.”

The captain pulled over a metal chair, the legs scraping against the linoleum floor the whole way. Sliding down onto the chair, Captain Yazzie said, “We have a forensic kit that can determine whether or not you came in here covered in human or animal blood. What’s that test going to show?”

“I love the smell of blood. Researchers in Sweden recently documented that a single molecule of a chemical released when lipids in blood break down after being exposed to air—the same molecule that gives it that metallic smell—causes humans to recoil and other predatory animals to lick their lips in anticipation. I suspect the Swedes would catch me salivating at the smell of blood. It is so sweet and beautiful to me, while it causes instinctive reactions of fear and revulsion in you normals. Perception and relativity, I suppose.”

“Come on, give me something. How about your name?”

Ackerman considered that. He couldn’t give his real name because the infamous serial murderer Francis Ackerman was officially dead. The Shepherd Organization had even paid for a plastic surgeon to change his face enough that no one could possibly recognize him.

He said, “You may call me…Frankenstein. Or Frank, for short.”