Varner gave him a suspicious look. “That’s not just a guess, is it?”

“Hey, not bad for a cop,” the ghost said. “Think he can spell his own name too?”

Good one, Ray said.

Gryphon sighed, and Varner looked over his shoulder, following his gaze, trying to see what he saw. He couldn’t, of course. “No. there’s another victim here, Anna Alvarez. She doesn’t think much of our investigational skills.”

“Hey, you’re okay,” Anna said. “It’s the fucking cops that should have found this place three victims ago. What the fuck do we pay taxes for?” She paused briefly. “Okay, not me personally, but other people.”

Varner scanned the darkness, like Anna wasn’t standing a mere three feet from him, the blood in the hole in her forehead glimmering like sunlight on the surface of a stagnant pond. But she wasn’t there, not as far as Varner was concerned. After a moment, he turned back to him, and asked, “What can she tell us about him?”

Gryphon didn’t even ask, just looked at Anna and waited. The ghost shrugged and threw her hands in the air. “Fuck if I know, I was totally wasted when he did me.”

“Can I see?” he asked, knowing he’d regret it.

Kid, no, Hugh insisted. We can find him some other way. She was shot in the head - there’s probably no memories worth anything anyways.

She looked at him like he was insane. “What d’ya mean can you see? What the fuck is that? You gonna crack open my head and look in?”

“It’s just a process,” Gryphon told her. He noticed Varner staring at him out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t interrupt. “I don’t know how it works -”

And as if talking about it was the trigger, he suddenly got it - it flooded into his mind in a series of jagged images as sharp as glass and sensations that were so disorienting that he felt like he was suddenly on the deck of a sinking ship in a raging sea. Reality slid sideways and suddenly everything was too bright and too loud, images smeared across his retinas like the landscape flying by too fast for the eye to settle on anything, fragments of things that didn’t quite make sense. A slice of white - the van? - the beige/pink/tan of a Caucasian face, darkness, a bright flash like the light of a muzzle. A sharp pain augured through his brain like a drill bit, and nausea washed over him, dragging him back to a reality that was dark and somehow less vivid than the drug addled, damaged memories. He had a taste in his mouth of vomit, blood, and something like old pennies.

“Holy shit, are you okay?” Varner asked from somewhere over his head. Gryphon retched for a moment before realizing arms were across his chest, and slowly it dawned on him that Varner was holding him up. When had he collapsed?

When the disruption in his mind had settled and he felt the confines of his body around him again - and he got the urge to barf under control - he said, “’M fine, okay? Jus’ - fuck, I hate memories where I get shot in the head.”

“What?”

Gryphon tried to stand on his own power, failed, and then tried again, Varner still holding him the whole time. The second time he succeeded, but the cop seemed reluctant to let go. “I’m okay, I’ll be okay, I just … can someone help me sort through those images?”

“Huh?”

“I’m talking to my passengers.”

I saw shit, Ray said. What the fuck was that?

He offered her twenty five dollars for a blow job, and she figured she needed the money for a fix, Julie, of all people, said. While she was doing that in his van, he pulled out a gun and shot her, although she didn’t know he had a gun until the barrel was against her forehead.

Gryphon was honestly shocked on two fronts. Julie actually speaking, which was so rare he was always surprised she was still with him. But then there was the shocking fact that she actually saw a coherent narrative in all that mess. “You saw all that?”

It goes by fast, but it was there, she said. I don’t know why I could see it. Maybe because of how I died.

How would being beaten to death by a hammer allow her to see it better than the rest of them? Maybe it was the head injury connection, or perhaps the shocking amount of betrayal and needless brutality in the violence. “I’m okay, Jason, really,” Gryphon said, standing on his own. He wavered a moment, but he managed to stay vertical. “Holy fuck, I think we need a sketch artist. Julie, did you catch his face?”

I think so. She must have thought about it, because suddenly an image popped into his head, of a shadowy man who was so nondescript it was almost painful. Except for the look in his eye - it was remarkably cold, disdainful, and dead. It was the type of look that, if you saw it on an armed person, would make you wet your pants. You’d know you were doomed.

Varner was looking at him quizzically. “Is there another ghost here?”

“Julie’s one of my passengers. And yeah, I know what this fucker looks like. I need a sketch artist.”

His eyebrows raised slightly, concern etching lines into his otherwise smooth face. Suddenly he looked a bit closer to his genuine age. “Are you sure you don’t need a hospital? That was a quite an episode you had.”

“It wasn’t an episode,” he replied scornfully. But what the hell was it? It wasn’t like he could remember. “It was just somebody else’s memory.”

“Of getting shot in the head.”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “That’s some gift you’ve got.”

He wanted to point out that it was no gift at all, but he obviously knew that.

Varner wanted to get a search warrant for the Packer’s building anyways, so Gryphon rode along with him back to the station, where the cops on duty who recognized him seemed genuinely surprised to see him. As police station’s went this one was pretty modern, echoing the usual rectangular shape but with a lot more glass and exposed steel than he was used to seeing in a cop shop, the interior bright white and full of utilitarian furniture, the air heavily conditioned and redolent of coffee and copier toner. It could have been an office, only with employees wearing polyester uniforms and carrying guns. Which was a scary sounding office, come to think of it.

Varner went right on back to his office - and you knew you were important if you had your own office - but on the way there they were intercepted by the biggest damn cop Gryphon had ever seen. He was maybe six foot six and well over two hundred pounds, although actually quite lean, athletically built. He was a fairly young light skinned black man with a rather severe buzz cut, like maybe two months ago he shaved his own head and thought better of it, and it was very slowly growing back. “Jase, something up?” he asked, giving Gryphon a suspicious look.

“Yeah, I need to get a search warrant, and someone with an identikit. Is Rochelle still here?”

The cop - who seemed to be named Glass - glanced towards the back, but it may just have been something to do while he was trying to remember. “I’m not sure. I’ll go check.”

“If she’s not, just tell Dihn he’s doing it.”

He followed Varner into his tiny office, which seemed to echo the interior of the rest of the place. Only there was a very old filing cabinet tucked into the far corner, and listing piles of papers beside an older model Dell desktop, which made it seem if not exactly homey at least a bit less cold. He sat in a stiff plastic chair as Varner sat in his more cushioned office chair and picked up the phone, calling the judge - or whoever; it was a judge, right? - for a warrant.

Gryphon quietly offered to let Julie take over and describe their guy, but she didn’t want to; she was content to let him be her voice. Which was typical really - Julie preferred other people speaking for her, perhaps because if there was a beating meted out for it, it’d be that person who suffered and not her. He couldn’t blame her really.

Rochelle must not have been here, as the person who came in with the identikit was a somewhat grumpy Vietnamese cop who complained that this wasn’t really part of his job, but Varner ignored him like he was used to this kind of thing. Eventually the picture they put together was of an oval faced man with thinning light brown hair that made his forehead look broader, and a Roman nose with a bump in the bridge, suggesting it had been broken eons ago. His eyes weren’t small more than they simply lacked a certain expressiveness that made them look like they were sinking into the wide expanse of his face. He wasn’t ugly nor good looking, striking or awful - he was just ordinary. He was the poster boy for the guy you saw twenty times every day and never really noticed. As soon as they were done, Dihn clicked his tongue, and said, “This guy is gonna be impossible to single out.”

“Not necessarily,” Varner said, glancing at him in a rather knowing way. Gryphon knew he meant he could find him simply by following the ghosts.

The story Varner told was that he (Gryphon) had seen this guy in the area after hearing a noise that sounded like a gunshot - it was sort of true, and yet mostly not. Gryphon was kind of amazed that a cop was lying his ass off to other cops right in front of him, but Hugh said, They’re people like everyone else. They lie. We firefighters do that too. Everybody lies. Sometimes professionally.

I was wondering when somebody was going to bring politicians into this, Mr. Aronofsky said.

Varner got his search warrant within two hours, and as they left the police station, he told Gryphon he wanted him to be on the scene, but clearly he couldn’t be inside while they were going over the place. He asked him to remain outside and let him know if any other ghosts popped up or relayed any helpful information.

Fuck him! Ray exclaimed. We’re doin’ his work for him! Demand some scratch before you tell him one more fuckin’ thing.

But what ended up happening was Gryphon dozed in the backseat of a patrol car while the cops and the forensic teams went over the store. From the sudden flurry of activity, the uniformed people boiling out of the broken open door like ants from a disturbed hill, the killer hadn’t cleaned up as well as he thought he had. Gryphon didn’t think he’d actually sleep, but he dosed for a while, woken up once to find someone sitting in the back seat with him. It was Anna, the hole in her forehead still glistening wetly, dark blood dripping down her chin and hitting the seat with a soft plop. “You know why it took so long for anyone to notice? ‘Cause you can kill all the whores you like and no one cares.”

“They weren’t all whores,” he replied sleepily, rubbing his eyes, wondering when talking to people with grotesque head injuries had become normal.

“Naw, I guess not. Some of ‘em were just junkies, or stupid little girls who didn’t take to heart advice about taking rides with strangers. Either way, it was kinda amazing how he picked ones that he knew wouldn’t be missed very much. They were mainly white girls! Don’t missing white girls get all the media attention?”

“Being rich or at least fairly well off helps a lot. I don’t think anyone thinks much about the poor ones. If you’re poor, shit happens to you. It’s just not supposed to happen to the better off.” Wow, when had he gotten so cynical? Oh, right, when talking to dead people with head injuries became normal.

“Yeah, prob’ly.” She turned and looked out the passenger window at all the cop cars and some kind of forensics van, where the bulk of the activity was happening. “I wonder if they found my finger.”

“He chopped off your fingers?”

“No. But he was experimenting with a new chopping technique to make shorter work of the dismembering process, and he partially severed one of my fingers. While he was working on the rest of the body, a rat came along and chewed off the rest. He hates rats and he killed it, but he never noticed the missing finger.”

This may well be the most disgusting story I’ve ever heard, Sylvio said.

“Do you wanna kill him?”

Anna looked back at him, pondering her options. “I dunno. I want him to suffer. Can we nail him to a wall so it takes him three days to die?”

“That might be difficult. We’d need a really secluded place.”

Don’t even joke, Mr. Aronofsky scolded.

She sat back against the seat, and he could see a bit of the exit wound in the back of her skull. She had bloody clots of brain matter like raw meat in her blood stiffened hair, little white bits of skull sprinkled about like casually tossed confetti. “What do ya think they’ll do to him in prison?” she wondered.

Gryphon shrugged, as Ray said, I think serial killers are in one of two categories: if prisoners think they’re just mad dog crazy or bad ass, they avoid ‘em. Otherwise, they’re priority targets. Hurting or killing a serial killer will give you instant rep. That‘s why a lot of them are held in special custody.

“I’ll probably have to ask Varner, but I don’t know if he’d tell me.”

“He likes you. The cop.”

Gryphon shrugged. “I think he wishes he could see you and talk to you. It’d make his job infinitely easier.”

He looked out the windows at some of the cops talking, too far away for him to decently hear, while Anna shifted in her seat, a wet noise thanks to all the blood, and asked, “Why I haven’t I joined your crew? What’s that about?”

“I think you only wanted to impart a message. Or something. Really, I have no idea how this fucking thing works, what tips a ghost over into my realm. I’m a dumbass, I’m afraid. This gig couldn’t have gone to a worse person.”

“Maybe not. Maybe if someone knew what they were doin’, it would get … I dunno … all fucked up.”

Or you’d be a power crazed fuck like Louis Stanhope, Ruby said.

“But that works out best for all of you, not necessarily me.”

Well, there’s other benefits, right? Hugh ventured gamely. The psychokinesis is pretty neat.

“But that’s yours too. I’m always sick, always half dead.”

“At least you didn’t go all the way,” Anna said, pointing at the bullet hole in her forehead. That shut him up. It seemed petty to complain when he was still technically alive.

He looked out the window at the spinning lights of cherry and sapphire, casting lurching shadows on the scarred pavement, and suddenly felt a certain odd coldness on his leg. He looked down to see that Anna was patting his knee in a comforting manner. “What are you gonna do to him? You gonna chop him up like a deer too?”

He glanced at her sharply. “Like a deer?” It took him a moment, but he got there. “Holy shit, he’s a hunter? That makes sense. Only now he’s changed game.”

She shrugged. “’Spose so, but there’s no sport in shooting someone point blank in the head.”

“No, there’s not. But it’s probably the kill that gets his rocks off, not the hunt.”

Man where do all these warped fuckers come from? Ruby wondered irritably. Is there a place in Texas just churning these shit suckers out?

Anna quirked an eyebrow at him, a tacit prompt. “So what’re you gonna do? Turn him over to the cops? Kill him?”

He shook his head and shrugged, not sure how to answer her. “I don’t know.” And he didn’t. He hadn’t decided yet how to proceed. He just assumed that he or his passengers would know when the time came, as they always seemed to. It was as mysterious as the process that allowed people to join him and left others out.

After a minute she nodded, as if that had been a fair answer. “Be careful. This fucker’s crazy.”

Undoubtedly, but he liked to think he was crazy too, so he knew the terrain. He gave her a faint smile, sorry she was dead, as she seemed like she had probably been a cool - albeit troubled - person when she was alive. “Don’t worry. All apologies to zombie films, but you can’t kill what’s already dead.”

Since Fiona had told Velvet she’d bring him over, he had his excuse to leave the club, but not escape Holden - Holden offered to drive him and Fiona to Velvet’s place, and Fiona figured that might be a good idea. She returned to the back to change, and they left, waiting outside for her. “I’m so sorry about that,” Holden told him, once they were out in the cool night air. For once, Roan was surprised how good exhaust heavy air smelled. There were too many bodies in that club, the smell was too close, too tainted with blood. It wasn’t precisely claustrophobia, but it did fill him with the urge to escape. “I didn’t realize -”

“Just stop there,” he interrupted impatiently. “I don’t know what story you’ve built in your head, but the lack of proper ventilation in there was driving me apeshit. I’m a virus child; I need to breathe and be able to clear the Human scents out of my head. That’s all.”

Holden nodded, but the look he was giving him suggested he thought he was lying. Well, he partially was, but it still pissed him off. “So what else can you do?”

That threw him for a moment. “What?”

“What other “special abilities” do you have? I mean, you can smell the slightest traces of blood, and you can deck a lion with one punch, so what else can you do?”

“Deck a lion? Where the fuck did you get that from?”

“Are you kidding? I have the video saved to my iPhone!”

He groaned and shook his head in disgust. YouTube was going to be the death of him. “Look, I didn’t “deck” it. It had been drugged, it was just making a last attempt before unconsciousness. And I didn’t even punch it, I just used an open palm strike.”

“Which is more impressive,” Holden claimed. “Shit man, you’re like a real life superhero. And you’re a friend of Dorothy too, which is so fucking cool. You should be promoting yourself, man. You could charge to show up at pride parades; you’d make a mint.”

He glared at him, fighting to keep his anger under control. “I’m a joke, is that it?”

Holden actually did a slight double take, eyes widening in surprise, and backed up a step. He was starting to get a scent of fear off him, beneath the smell of all the product in his hair. “No! I just meant -”

“You just meant I’m a freak and I should make money off of it. Come see the amazing cat faced boy. “ He took a step towards him, lowering his head but keeping his eyes locked on him. “Maybe I can put out a DVD, huh? Watch him transform and break every fucking bone in his body. I’ll make thousands in the fetish market.”

“You’re taking this totally the wrong way, and would you please stop growling at me? I’m wrong, okay, I’m an asshole, you’re freaking me out. I’m sorry.”

He was growling? Yes, apparently he was, and his hands had curled into fists at his sides. The depth of his own rage had completely surprised him. And Holden too, obviously. For the first time he seemed to have a genuine expression on his face; he wasn’t being coy or flirtatious or sly - he was suddenly concerned that he was upsetting the crazy person. Roan was suddenly aware of muscles twitching in his face and arms, and he was humiliated. Had being in that place upset him that much? He honestly had no idea.

Holden still looked nervous. “Are you gonna be okay?”

Roan shook his head and turned away, taking deep, calming breaths. “I’m fine. Just … leave it.”

“Great, yeah - forgotten.” He paused briefly and uncomfortably before adding, “Do, um, do your eyes do something? ‘Cause I swear I saw them start to change shape …”

“Hey boys, hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long,” Fiona said, coming out of the warehouse/club. She’d changed into a baggy Microsoft t-shirt, jeans, and black and white Converse tennis shoes, a gym bag presumably full of fetish wear slung over her shoulder. She didn’t even look partially related to the dominatrix he met in the club. Her hair was still in a tight ponytail, though.

“Actually, I think you’re saving my life,” Holden said, like he was joking. He probably wasn’t.

“Where does she live?” Roan asked, hoping he sounded normal. As far as he could tell, he did.

Velvet didn’t live that far away, as she had an apartment in the Roosevelt Arms, a building smack in the center of downtown. It wasn’t the best neighborhood, but it was probably cheap. Roan voluntarily sat in the back seat, ceding the front passenger seat to Fiona, as Holden attempted to navigate the always fun downtown corridor.

Fiona played with the radio, as she must not have liked Fugazi, and crossed a snippet of ludicrous news. That made her stop, turn it down, and ask, “Do a lot of gay guys pick up guys in bathrooms?”

Both he and Holden groaned in unison - they were both expecting the question - and Holden said, “That is so old school.”

“Yeah, it’s pre-Stonewall,” Roan agreed. “And maybe just a bit after.”

“We can go to bars and meet guys for hook ups, or set something up on Craigslist now. I don’t think I know anyone who’s ever had a trick in the bathroom.”

“I don’t either. I think it’s just for the desperate closet queens, and those who get a thrill out of semi-public sex.”

“Guys too embarrassed to be seen in a gay bar,” Holden agreed with a nod. “And too cheap to hire me.”

“Do you think this means all Republican homo haters are actually gay?” Fiona wondered, taking her hair out of the ponytail. As she undid what must have been an industrial strength rubber band, a few tresses of crimson hair came with it - extensions. “I mean, wasn’t there that guy down in Florida who got busted for offering a narc twenty bucks for a blowjob?”

Holden scoffed. “Twenty bucks wouldn’t even get a hand job from me.”

“I think all people who are way too obsessed with other people’s sex lives are hiding something,” Roan said, watching a couple of clearly drunk men on the sidewalk arguing at a bus stop. He couldn’t really make out words, although he could read their lips quite well and hear an occasional expletive. He wasn‘t sure if it would sputter out, or if he should call 911 just so the cops would get here by the time one of them pulled a knife. “And why are all these police departments wasting time and money on these stupid, petty busts? They should be out there doing something more productive. It even verges on harassment, at least in this case - that guy in Florida was a fucking moron and was just asking to be busted, not only as a hypocrite and a racist scumbag, but one too stupid to know where to actually hire a hustler. But this other stupid hypocritical scumbag didn’t actually commit an arrestable offense. Disorderly conduct? That’s just a charge you throw when you have nothing else. He should have fought it in court; he should have pointed out what a crock of shit - no pun intended - the whole sting was. But that would require him to stop saying “I’m not gay” at some point, and that’s not going to happen.”

Holden chuckled and eyed him curiously in the rearview mirror. “Oh my god. Is Officer Roan accusing other cops of harassment?”

“Hey, it’s a macho culture, and no one knows that better than me. As “enlightened” as police departments like to say they are now, there’s still the racists and the homophobes. Some police departments don’t discourage the oh so wonderfully named “fag bashing” at all. Believe me, I got a lot of shit for being openly gay, although since they knew I’d give ‘em shit back, they kept their insults and pranks anonymous.” He paused briefly. “Of course it was never actually anonymous, because I have a virus child’s sense of smell, but that’s how idiotic these guys were. And they carry guns. Everyone should be upset about that.”

“Ah, but two men fucking is so much worse,” Holden said sarcastically. “Let’s face it, the more Republican and gay hating they are, the more I suspect they really crave cock.”

“Well, have you seen most of their wives?” Fiona said. “Who wouldn’t crave cock?” She then turned in her seat to look back at Roan in open surprise. “You used to be a cop?”

As he nodded, Holden added, “How do you think we know each other?”

She let a small, amused gasp. “You busted him?”

Roan shook his head, wondering how that conversation had digressed over here. Oh right, his fault - he had to get on his soapbox. “No, but I was around when he was run in once.”

“Roan is being modest,” Holden told her. “Me and this other hustler called Cowboy got caught in a prostitution sting, although I knew Cowboy had just been approached by a cop and was getting set up, but see what trying to be a good Samaritan gets me? Anyways, we got hauled in, and this fat pig of a cop was giving us shit - what the fuck was his name? Wiggums?”

“It should have been, but it was Clarkson.” Len Clarkson, one of those “anonymous” insulters he had to deal with. He really didn’t miss that bastard when he left the force.

“Whatever. Anyways, Roan came over and told him to knock it off, and they got in an argument which ended with Wiggums stomping away and poor Officer Roan processing our paperwork. For a pig, Roan was suspiciously nice.”

“I don’t see the point of adding misery to people who are already having a shitty night, or day, as the case may be.”

Fiona kept looking at him with an endearingly goofy grin on her face. “Wow. You’re thoughtful.” She smacked Holden on the back of the shoulder. “He’s thoughtful. Why the hell aren’t you dating him? If you won’t, I will. And hon, I know you’re gay, but I don’t give a shit.”

Holden gave her his patented sly smile. “I don’t date. I just fuck for money.”

“You don’t date? At all?” she asked in disbelief.

“No. Why would I? Dating’s all about sex, and I have my fill of that.”

She shook her head and threw Roan a “can you believe this guy” look over her shoulder. “Mr. Cynical. So who broke your heart?”

Holden continued to smile and shook his head. “No one. That dating bullshit is just for other people.”

She gasped dramatically. “Oh. My. God. Roan, are you hearing this? He’s a dating virgin.”

Roan actually laughed in spite of himself, but mainly because Holden seemed genuinely uncomfortable by the accusation. “I am not! I mean, I’ve dated, like in high school, but it’s bullshit.”

She gave Holden’s arm a playful shove. “Whoever he was, he must have done some job on you. I’ve never considered chucking it all and just becoming a prostitute ‘cause some guy was a total dick to me.”

Roan caught Holden scowling in the rearview mirror, and he tried very hard not to smirk. “That wasn’t it at all,” he complained, but didn’t go on to explain what it had actually been.

Roan decided to change the topic, if only to keep Holden from pouting the rest of the way there. “So Fiona, how does a person become a professional dominatrix?”

She sighed and tucked her hair extensions into her already stuffed gym bag. “Well, I was laid off by a certain software company that shall remain nameless, but I’m sure you can guess which one.”

He nodded. “Explains the shirt.”

“And they had to lay me off at the worst possible time. Sure, I have tech skills, but so did every other schmuck in line at the unemployment office. Well, this was around Halloween, and my friend thought she’d cheer me up by taking me out to this big Halloween ‘do at The Rafters. I didn’t really feel like it, but she was able to cadge a costume for me from Goldie’s. You know Goldie’s?”

It took him a moment. “The sex shop?”

“Yeah. She works there. Anyways, she brought me this dominatrix costume, and while I felt as silly as hell, I did feel kinda sexy. I also won second place in the Rafter’s costume contest, which was an ego boost. I kept the costume, and I realized that the idea of actually being one sounded fun. I mean, I always liked a little light bondage, and beating the shit out of guys and getting paid for it? Heaven. I started emailing this other dominatrix I came across in an ad in the back of the Stranger, Tansy, and she started to give me some tips on breaking into the biz.”

“She wasn’t afraid of the competition?” Holden teased.

“No, she works up north - we don’t have the same clientele. The dominatrix thing is only a part time gig - I’m a freelance web designer too. Only sadly, a lot of people don’t need my services anymore. I’m making a lot more as a dominatrix nowadays. There’s lots of men who want to be beaten and bossed around by a big breasted woman in a catsuit.”

Roan smiled, trying hard not to laugh, while Holden said, “Well, if you put it that way, how much do you charge?”

They all laughed, which was a good tension breaker. But he liked Fiona. He had no idea what he thought a dominatrix would be like, but this probably wouldn’t have occurred to him.

While Holden was looking for a place to park - always tricky downtown - Fiona filled him in one Velvet a/k/a Christine. She was what was known as a “slave” - she liked to be dominated. Fiona didn’t know much about her since she went for male “masters”, but she said she knew she was a teacher (!), and usually only came to the club looking for a new “experience”, but she hadn’t been back since Crow went bugfuck on her. She liked to be dominated, but not beaten.

Holden found a parking space, but Fiona told him to stay with the car, as Velvet had only agreed to see Roan, and she was fragile right now. Holden clearly wanted to protest, but Fiona was a dominatrix after all, and she brooked no sass. This made Roan like her all the more, and kind of wish he was straight, as he bet she’d be an awesome girlfriend.

As they left the car and Fiona led the way to the somewhat decrepit looking old brick building, he asked, “Do you have any secretarial skills? Because I need an assistant.”

She gave him a sidelong glance with her vivid blue eyes, and barked a short, sharp laugh. “You’re offering me a job?”

“I could use a person like you. I bet you could get those bill shirkers to pay up in no time.”

“Ha! Yeah, I bet I could, especially if I brought the bullwhip.” She paused briefly, her look turning slightly suspicious. “So you said back in the car that you were a virus child. Does that mean what I think it means?”

He uncovered his wrist and showed her his Leo tattoo. She looked at it and nodded soberly, but then looked at him with bright eyes. “Holy shit! You’re the guy who decked the lion, aren’t you? I thought you looked familiar!”

He hated YouTube. He wished it would die of mad cow disease.

The apartment building, as old as it looked, still had a fairly modern buzz in system, but with Fiona there he had no problem getting in. The stairwells were narrow, dark and cramped, and smelled like some drunken assholes had been peeing there instead of waiting to reach their apartment. This seemed like the kind of place where the cops would be getting domestic violence calls every Saturday night.

Christine lived on the third floor, third door on the left of a poorly lit corridor, and she had five locks on her door judging from all the unlocking she had to do before letting them in. Roan had no idea who he was expecting, but still probably not the person who greeted them: a small woman, mid-thirties, five foot five in stocking feet, maybe a hundred and forty pounds, with dull brown hair in a modified bowl cut and a plain but not unattractive face still discolored by bruises around her eyes that concealer hadn’t hid very well. Because the flesh was still slightly swollen around them, her eyes looked tiny, grey-blue thumbprints in risen dough.

She wore a shapeless and undoubtedly cheap floral pattern dress whose main colors were antique yellow and faded blue, and when Roan shook her hand it was clammy and seemed to have no strength in it whatsoever. She seemed to either be trying to fade into the woodwork or trying to slip through the floor, become something intangible and invisible.

Her apartment was neatly appointed and sparse, thrift shop chic but without Holden‘s style or budget, with a couple of “World’s Best Teacher” knickknacks scattered about. The place smelled like she just had pesto laced pasta for dinner.

She offered them coffee, which they both declined, and they both sat on a floral patterned loveseat while Christine curled up on a corner of her brown sofa, holding a steaming mug of Earl Grey tea laced with a bit of brandy.

Because she seemed more comfortable talking to Fiona than him - which would make sense, as a man had beaten her, and she probably didn’t look too kindly on strange males right now - he let Fiona steer the conversation after he asked basic questions. Christine spoke in a voice so soft and embarrassed it was almost drowned out by the street noise below.

She met Crow that night at the Dungeon, and she thought he was reasonably attractive, or at least “very masculine”, which was the type she liked. Also, judging by his rather “straight” (square) wardrobe, she figured he wasn’t a “freak”, but she soon discovered she was wrong.

Although at first he played by the rules, tying the restraints as tight as she wanted, et cetera, he started to get a little too rough with her, pinching and biting. When she told him to stop and used the safe word, he proceeded to punch her in the face, all the while calling her names (she said the “c word”, which Roan thought was awfully prim for a woman who just admitted liking nipple clamps). That was when Fiona came into the picture, hitting him in the ear and getting him off of her, and Rocky and Yogi were summoned, briefly hearing the story before tossing Crow out on his ass.

Roan asked if he had any distinguishing characteristics the others might not have noticed, or if he talked about himself at all. She thought about it, sipping her potent tea, staring at her threadbare smoke blue carpet all the while. “He had a Marine tattoo on his upper left arm. USMC, an eagle tattoo. I think there were some numbers or letters, I didn’t get a real good look at it, it was kind of faded. Also he had the shadow of a wedding ring on his right hand, a discolored area on his finger. He didn’t really talk about himself, although he said he had to drive a while to get there.”

“From where?”

She shook her head and looked up, but seemed only to be able to look at his knees. “I don’t know. I asked, but he didn’t tell me.”

He really didn’t like this; in fact, he hated it. He was starting to get the feeling this guy was much more dangerous than they actually realized, mainly because he was a conniving bastard. What a perfect victim in Christine! Was she actually going to go to the police, tell them she was assaulted in an illegal sex club, and, oh yeah, she consented to be tied up, but that was different? It was, but he knew many cops, lawyers, and judges wouldn’t necessarily care about the finer points between bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism. And on top of this, young male hustlers, too new to the scene to realize they were being set up, and too scared to file a report with the cops. Oh, he loathed this man - he was a fucking bully, preying on those who felt they could lose everything if they reported him. They were victimized twice. When he found this fuck, it would take all his willpower not to jump up and down on his head.

He thanked her for her time and willingness to talk to him as a prelude to leaving, and Christine seemed relieved. But as she escorted them to the door, she asked, “Do you think you’ll find him?”

“I’ll find him,” he promised her. “And if he’s lucky, the cops will get to him first.”

“And he can do it too,” Fiona told her, reaching out and squeezing his bicep. “He’s stronger than he looks.”

Oh, that goddamn YouTube clip again. Could a website die of syphilis?

As they headed back down the stairs, he pulled out his cell and called Murphy. “Dropkick, you have to do something for me,” he said, as soon as she picked up.

She groaned into the phone. “I’m just leaving. Kim will skin me alive if I’m late for dinner tonight.”

“Fine, assign it to a rookie. I need to know if there are any female prostitutes in the city who have recently been beating victims. Not just battered, but maybe tied up and possibly tortured, bitten. Done by johns, not pimps.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You think our mad bastard swapped genders?”

“I think gender is irrelevant to him. He gets off on his power over others and other people’s pain, maybe even their fear. He’s a twisted sick fuck who knows exactly who he can prey on, and he’s probably gloating over it.” Shit, he probably was - he had to troll the internet, see if he could find a blog or maybe a forum where he was crowing (fucking hell - Crow. Goddamn, he hated this fucker) over this.

“I’ll get someone on it. So, Roan, you got info I can use yet?”

“Mid-thirties Caucasian, ex-Marine, probably married or recently divorced, probably a suburban dweller.”

“Well, at least I know you’re working,” she replied acerbically. “But I could have pulled all that from a profiler. Except the ex-Marine bit; maybe I can follow up on that. You got a witness who will testify?”

“Not yet. But I’ve only begun to look.”

“Keep looking. And thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. The more I learn about this putz, the more I want to nail him to a wall with an industrial stapler.”

Murphy cleared her throat in a vaguely threatening manner. “You’re looking for us. This is not a case. Don’t let it be personal.”

“I got it.” But it was too late now; this already felt personal. He hated people who picked on easy victims, and this guy didn’t do anything but.

By the time he tucked the phone back in his pocket, they were outside the Roosevelt Arms. Fiona linked her arm around his, and asked, “So, does this assistant job have medical coverage?”

Well, what do you know? Maybe he was going to hire a dominatrix after all.