“Subtle, like a freight train,” Malachi leaned against the wall.
“I think you mean fright train,” I corrected him.
“What’s a fright train?” He asked.
“I do not know, it just sounded appropriate,” I told him. “Maybe it’s the train that carries you to Hell.”
“You think there’s a train to Hell?”
“There should be an express line. It seems silly to pave the road with good intentions. A train, barreling out of control, wheels burning, rails smoking, and a replay of all the deeds that got you there seems like a more appropriate means of transportation.”
“You’ve given it some thought.”
“Not really,” I told him. “I just think that the road to Hell should be paved with something other than good intentions, especially since everyone says ‘it’s the thought that counts.’ You cannot have it both ways, either good intentions are bad or they’re not. Perhaps it should be paved with the dead wings of the fallen angels; that would also be appropriate.”
“Do you two want to help?” Rollins said to us.
“Help with what?” I asked. “We are not allowed to investigate. You do not like us touching things, so leaning against walls, enjoying a philosophical discussion about the road to hell seems like the best way to spend our time.”
“You’re supposed to be experts on this guy. Give me something useful,” Rollins snapped.
“He killed him,” Malachi offered. “Not as brutally as James Okafor, but it wasn’t an easy death either. I’d say Patterson enjoyed it.”
George “Corky” Makanga lay on the floor. His entrails were sitting next to his head. His eyes were in the fridge. His head had been bashed in. And because this didn’t seem bad enough, Patterson had carved the word “punished” on his chest.
“Do you have anything useful to add?” Rollins looked at me.
“Yeah, why are two guys from the Congo named George and James?” I asked.
“Sometimes, people change their first names during immigration to something more American,” Malachi told me.
“Oh, then I got nothing. I’m guessing that George here died because Patterson believed he was a soldier responsible for raping, pillaging and killing in the Congo. Obviously, he would not have made a very good Viking.”
“I’ve had it with you two,” Rollins was turning red and shouting. “You’re supposed to be helping me catch this bastard and so far you’ve discovered drugged puppies and Cain here broke into a house.”
“I did not break into a house. I had reason to believe there was a victim inside and the door was unlocked. I did not even enter the house first. If I had opened the door and been greeted by the smell of cookies, I would have closed it and we could have waited for your possible warrant. Unfortunately, I was greeted by the smell of death, so I told you to go inside, which you did. If he’d been alive, you could have arrested him for animal cruelty for drugging two small German Shepherds and leaving them to freeze to death in the cold weather.”
“I’m calling the director,” Rollins shouted as he walked outside.
“Okay,” Malachi shrugged. “Do you magically know where Patterson Clachan is going to turn up next?”
“Nope,” I answered. “I would not mind a nap though. His killing streak is making me tired.”
Malachi and I exited the house together. We’d seen enough blood and gore for one day. Night had descended upon us, but light pollution kept the stars from being seen. I stared at the sky anyway, hoping for at least a glimpse of a star.
Malachi lit a cigarette and handed it to me. I peeled off my patch without looking down before I accepted it. Rollins wasn’t shouting anymore. He looked like someone had fed him crow stew and the beak was stuck in his throat. Malachi lit a cigarette for himself.
“Should we see if we can make his head explode?” Malachi asked as he took his first drag.
“I thought baiting FBI agents was bad.”
“Some FBI agents. Others are just pencil necks in suits with badges and guns.”
“I take it you feel that way about Rollins.”
“Rollins is in over his head. Hell, you and I are in over our head. We can’t get ahead of him because we don’t know who’s on his list. All we can do is try to play catch up, but this one isn’t like a normal killer. He has a mission and obviously, little need for sleep.”
“That bugs me,” I admitted. “If he killed four people in thirty-six hours, how the heck is he still up and walking around? Why isn’t he comatose in a hotel room somewhere? Especially after what he did to James Okafor? The guy’s like the Energizer Bunny.”
“How many people have you actually killed?” Malachi asked.
“Oh no, we are not playing that game,” I told him.
“Six?” Malachi asked.
“Sure,” I answered.
“Seriously, Aislinn, how many?”
“Seriously?” I looked at him. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
“Seven,” Malachi answered.
“Five,” I told him.
“How long did you sleep after each of them?”
“Hours upon hours. Until they put me in a coma for my burns, my longest sleep records were held by those handful of days after the kill.”
“Not mine. After my third one, I didn’t sleep for four days. It’s my longest stretch with no sleep, but not by much. Your crash is faster than mine. I’ve always wondered why. I think it’s because of your migraines. My adrenaline levels off, but it levels off and it’s still really high. Yours levels off and it might still be really high, but I think that drop triggers a silent migraine.”
“Painless migraine,” I corrected.
“Fine, a painless migraine gets triggered because of the drop. That’s why you aren’t a serial killer. You may not consciously realize it, but when you crash, you have all the symptoms of a migraine except the pain. As a result, you can’t become a serial killer because it makes you physically ill.”
“Huh,” I thought about the theory. It made sense. Going head to head with a serial killer in a fight was a rush and I tended to sleep afterwards for long periods of time, but to kill a person was enormous. It was quite possible that the adrenaline rush gave me a migraine. “What if it’s the rush that causes the migraine? Maybe that is why I get so mean when I have the rush.”
“You do become super bitch when you have a migraine,” Malachi agreed. “This really only tells us that Patterson doesn’t have migraines.”
“You should point that out to Rollins. It might be useful at some point.”
“Just as useful as your bullet train to Hell,” Malachi flashed me a grin. It was genuine, which was rare for Malachi. It didn’t make him look younger, it made him look evil. If Satan smiled at me like that, it wouldn’t terrify me even half as much as Malachi doing it. It made his cold eyes suddenly sparkle, making his impressively green eyes even more dazzling. His normally ageless face, developed wrinkles, making him appear older. His mouth softened, making his lips appear fuller. It only lasted a second, maybe two, certainly not much longer than that. It was gone as dramatically as it had come. He went back to wearing his perfect mask with cold eyes and a face that showed no expressions or even hints that expressions were even possible.
As scary as those real smiles were, it also made me understand why Malachi was a “ladies’ man.” He was an attractive male with high testosterone levels and a good build. His face was timeless with only a shadow of stubble that was always well groomed. His green eyes were brilliant even when they were cold and distant, a green that was unnatural in a human being or any living thing for that matter. His dark complexion made them seem even greener. His skin was naturally a shade darker than mine, speaking of something Mediterranean in his ancestry; even in the winter he had a tan. In contrast, he had brown hair that was lighter than mine, darker than a dirty blonde, but lighter than a true brunette. He kept it cut very short, hiding the secret that it was naturally curly.
Also, Malachi was tall with a lanky, but athletic build. For everyone else on the planet, I considered lanky and athletic an impossible combination. Malachi was exactly 192 pounds, with muscle definition around his arms and legs and washboard abs. What made him seem lanky was that he was six feet, ten inches tall, with a fifty-eight inch inseam, meaning my nose was almost even with his navel. The long legs made him seem taller and thinner.
Being a woman with no interest in sex, I didn’t know if high testosterone levels were important to other woman, but I had a feeling they were. Women seemed to be attracted to dominant, alpha male types fueled by testosterone. Malachi certainly fit the bill, except with me.
I was a problem for Malachi, a weakness. It was hard to see, even harder to understand. Most people believed Malachi wanted to jump my bones. This wasn’t actually the case. If I ever decided to develop a sex drive, Malachi would be at the front of the line, vying for first dibs, but it wasn’t really because he wanted to have sex with me. It was because he couldn’t control me. I could and would and did tell him no whenever it struck my fancy. Very few people said no to Malachi and no one ever said it more than a few times. I had been telling him no for decades. No, you can’t torture my roommate. No, you shouldn’t abuse your position of power for your own amusement. No, you can’t pick up women when I’m with you, it’s weird. No, you can’t kick that guy’s ass just because he’s a jerk.
The other problem was that since I did tell Malachi no, he had come to depend on me. Not like most people depend on their friends, but like I depended on Nyleena. In the darkest recesses of Malachi’s mind, it was my voice he heard when he needed to make a moral decision. If my voice ever disappeared, bad things would happen. He knew it. I knew it. As long as I was alive and well, the voice remained present. However, I was aware that Gabriel had been responsible for keeping his leash while I’d been in a coma and it had been difficult. As a result, after I had been put into the coma, Malachi had called the hospital every day to check on me. That’s how he’d managed to be there when they woke me.
Standing next to him, in the dark, with a dead body in the house behind us and serial killer on the loose, I couldn’t imagine my life without him. One day, that would change. He’d cross the line or I would and we’d be forced to put the other one down. Until then, I was fine with him standing beside me in the dark. It was better to have the devil at your hip than behind your back.
“Ok, is he going after Gertrude, Joe and August or will he let justice take care of them?” I asked.
“Beats me,” Malachi stubbed out his cigarette. “If they weren’t in federal custody, I think he’d go after them, but they are. He has a list of targets, but I don’t know who they are. John Bryan more than likely, also in custody. Any enemies you had as a child, that list is too long for us to protect. He killed a guy because the guy shot at you in high school.”
“And was trying to frame me for murder,” I added. Gabriel had told me the story at the hospital the first day after Nyleena’s surgery.
“Framing you for murder might have been the bigger incident,” Malachi conceded.
“I also think the list would include Nyleena’s enemies. He swears he did not mean to shoot her in the face. Killing her enemies would be a good way to prove it.”
“Does Nyleena actually have enemies? Part of the reason I have issues with her is because she’s such a goody-two-shoes.”
“Nyleena is a federal prosecutor. She has enemies and she is not a goody-two-shoes, she just is not deranged like you,” I thought for a moment, “or me for that matter. She’s had speeding tickets and parking tickets and once, she drove after smoking part of a joint.”
“Nyleena smokes pot?” Malachi looked doubtful.
“No, she smoked pot in college with other college kids. She did it like seven times. You know how many times I’ve smoked pot? None. She does normal ‘bad’ things. We are the aberration, not her, Malachi.”
“Well, when you put it that way, she’s still a goody-two-shoes, she’s just experimented with life a little.”
“How many times have you smoked pot?” I asked, suddenly curious.
“Once,” Malachi looked at Rollins. Rollins was still on the phone, but he hadn’t said anything for a long time. He looked defeated. “It slows down your reflexes.”
“You realize we are being outsmarted by a serial killer?”
“I’d say he’s a genius though and he’s had a lot of experience.”
“We are supposed to be geniuses, yet, he is still outsmarting us.”
“He isn’t really outsmarting us, we just don’t have any leads.”
“Do you think clues are going to fall out of the sky and magically land in our laps?”
“Nope.” Malachi walked towards Rollins. He took the phone from the other agent, said a few words and hung up. “You want to know where Patterson Clachan is going to be. You’re going to have to set a trap for him.”
“How do we do that?” Rollins’ voice was barely audible.
“Her,” Malachi pointed at me.