Her name had been Amy Johnson.
The news people didn’t count her--or the two who had come after her, or that one boyfriend who had gotten in the way--among the Ripper’s victims. That was because he hadn’t developed a method yet. He had been inexperienced then…She’d been his first.
She had been a brunette, much like Penni. She’d had Penni’s figure--not too tall or thin, a little athletic, with those curves that drove him crazy--and had even shared eye colors with her; a kind of blue that looked nearly purple in certain lights. Maybe that’s why the tennis player attracted him…She looked just like Amy.
He had just turned eighteen, in the middle of his senior year at high school. She was twenty-three, the daughter of his English teacher and her father’s assistant. Looking back, that was a risky one--just a little too close to him. Then again, the risk was half the fun.
He’d shadowed Amy for two weeks. (That’s what he called it: shadowing.) He’d learned everything he’d ever wanted to know, and then some, in just two weeks. She had been shallow, slutty, and predictable.
He didn’t do most of the things he considered routine now. Of course he didn’t--he hadn’t thought of it yet. There was no slow torture, no messing with her mind, no sex…the latter more because he’d had no idea that the act would’ve made him want to. She’d still been bound and gagged like the others, and her End had been roughly the same.
He had been taking Advanced Anatomy/Physiology, but he learned that it wasn’t quite the same when looking at a real person instead of a drawing or mannequin…It was honestly guesswork: A cut here, a stab-and-twist there, a slash on a random, important-looking vein.
He had always known blood was pretty…But seeing it flow so freely, almost willingly, had taught him that it was gorgeous. It went well with anything, and was especially beautiful when splashed across a nice, pale face holding an expression of fear, confusion and pain and maybe just a hint of euphoria…
He cleared his mind. That was then. Amy was a has-been. This was now, and his current mark was about to be on the move.
From his perch on the roof of a tall apartment building, he had a perfect view of her entire daily path--the college, the high school, the bookstore, the coffee stand she always stopped at, and her house. Of course, the scope from his brother’s rifle helped, too.
He checked his pocket watch, a sliver-and-gold trinket that had belonged to his father and had been given to him by Reno on his sixteenth birthday. 8: 30 on the dot. Any second now…
There. Coming out of the bookstore, her shift over. He trained his scope on her, watching.
Penni was wearing the uniform that the bookstore made all of its female employees wear--Black blouse with their logo, and khaki knee-length skirts, braided hair tied with a purple ribbon (the color of the ribbon was her personal touch). As usual, Cypher smiled and whistled under his breath.
“Always love a girl in a uniform…” he said to himself quietly.
On cue, she stopped by the coffee stand. Large Double-Mocha cappuccino, extra sugar, light on the whipped topping. Her one vice in an otherwise reasonable diet.
She sipped at the cappuccino as she walked home. She pulled out her cell phone, a simple contraption without all the fancy features of most phones, and texted while she walked--‘On my way home. Tired from practice, going to bed early. Just save me some dinner, I’ll probably get up and eat it later.’ Once the message was finished, she slipped the phone back into her small purse, not making a single misstep or even having to look. She had memorized the route long before Cypher had.
The brunette was nearing the vents. She always tried to avoid them…Maybe she would get lucky and not get caught in the steam blast today.
“Three…Two…One…” Cypher counted down.
She almost avoided them, but a car came down the street and forced her onto the sidewalk. The steam burst blew her skirt up slightly, and she had to fight it from going up any further. She was cursing her luck (reading lips was a handy habit he had picked up along the way) and nearly dropped her drink. When she let go of her skirt to catch it, Cypher got a perfect view of her panties: Lavender with little black roses.
He was in the middle of imagining those panties being cut to shreds when he heard a wolf whistle. He snapped his attention back to her and noticed that two teenagers had just come out of a nearby alley to follow and harass her. One of the punks even slapped her on the butt, and dodged her hand when she attempted to slap him in the face, laughing at her all the while.
These same two had bothered her before, but he had ignored them…They were just stupid kids, after all, looking to be between fourteen and seventeen. But tonight they weren’t giving up, it seemed.
The older, bigger one of the two grabbed her by her braid, forcing her to stop. He could hear her little scream of pain, and it set his blood on fire. It took all his willpower to stay seated and not go down the fire escape to kick their asses.
“Stay clam…” he told himself. “They’ll quit--they always do. Just wait…”
He blocked out all other sounds and listened to the commotion below.
“Aw, c’mon baby, don’t be like that. We just want a little fun…” said the smaller one. He had a badly-cut faux-hawk, dyed green with his dark roots showing. His clothes consisted of torn jeans and a black tee-shirt with the logo of some band Cypher had never heard of on it.
“I said get off of me!” Penni exclaimed, reaching for her purse.
That’s right, girl…Go for the mace, he thought.
But the bigger one had snatched it away from her. His hair was long and greasy, hanging in his face. He supposed the two either shared a closet or shopped at the same stores. The punk chuckled, holding the purse away so she couldn’t get to it.
Faux-hawk laughed. “You want it back? Just come with us and--”
Penni used one of her long, tennis-strengthened legs to kick the teen square in the crotch, and wheeled around to do the same to the other one. The both keeled over with little whimpering sounds. She grabbed her purse back and ran towards home.
Cypher silently cheered for her.
After the two of them recovered, the stood up and cursed her.
“Stupid whore! She’ll pay for that!” Faux-hawk, who was obviously the louder one, screamed.
“Oh, yes she will…She has to walk this street every day. If not tomorrow, then some day soon…We’ll get her.”
Oh no, this wouldn’t do. This would not do at all.
His protective instincts, which he had been holding back since these two made their appearances, came back with a vengeance. Those punks had it coming. He burned their faces into his memory, packed up the scope, and made his way off the roof.
She had gotten away this time. Next time the assholes would bring weapons. Next time she was going to get hurt…Or worse.
And that was his job. Her life was his, and his alone. She belonged to HIM. And tonight, those cretins were going to learn that the hard way.
* * *
One down, one to go.
Faux-hawk was up against the alley wall, whimpering, “Oh God please, whoever-you-are, take my wallet, take his, take whatever you want, just please don’t kill me!”
Cypher’s eyes glowed. “Anything?”
“Yes, anything!” the punk was backed into a corner now, his frightened gaze flicking from Cypher to the bloody knife in his hand to his buddy, throat slashed and gushing, staining the ground red.
He felt a grin, one he liked to call his crazy-face smile, spread on his lips. He stalked catlike toward the teenager, who was whining like a scared puppy.
“But the only thing I want…Is your life.” Cypher noted that his voice sounded like black silk; enticing but dangerous, smooth but frightening. Did his voice always do that when an End was near?
“You…You’re come kind of psycho, aren’t you!?”
A laugh. Cypher guessed it had come from him, but it didn’t sound like him at all.
“Psycho? No. I know what I’m doing. I’m protecting what’s mine.”
“The hell are you talking about?!”
“Pehoni. Brunette, eyes that look purple. You and your pal have been harassing her for a couple of weeks now, and I won’t have it.”
“…That girl with the coffee?! You’re gonna kill me over messing with her a little!?!”
“I don’t think you understand yet.” He was right up on the kid, close enough to smell pot on his breath, pinning him against the bricks. “She’s mine.” He traced his knife along the teen’s jaw line, not cutting but leaving a trail of red. It glinted in the light, and a single ruby drop fell onto Faux-hawk’s shoes.
The punk looked like he was going to scream, so Cypher quickly pushed away from him to slip the blade between his ribs. There, lung punctured. No screaming now.
“And now, I teach you to not touch things that do not belong to you.”
* * *
He vomited into the garbage can for the third time.
Lord God, why did I do that?! Those two were so stoned they had no idea who they were, let alone what they were doing!!
It had been getting worse lately…This bloodlust, this urge to kill. But he didn’t realize that it was getting so bad that he would go so far off-target, and over something so trivial, nonetheless.
Maybe I don’t have it under control after all…Maybe it’s the other way around…
It’s been too long. Julie was almost three weeks ago. You’ve been going at one-a-week for the last three months, so you’re just going through withdrawal…like a junkie without his smack. You’re liable to do crazy things.
But it’s still wrong! I shouldn’t be doing this at all!
You can’t change what you are.
A Trojan Horse.
A wolf in sheep’s clothing.
A monster.
He wanted to stop. He really did. He had actually truly liked some of the girls. Julie, for instance, had been artistic and funny and interesting, not shallow at all. Hannah, too--she was smart and laidback and fun. But Hannah had nearly gotten him caught. She fought too much, made a racket.
Part of him wanted to get caught. At leas then he’d stop. That was the same part of him that wanted his brother to get caught at work. Maybe then they’d be saved.
Saved from what, though? They lived comfortably--awkwardly, but comfortably. Reno had his swords, Cypher a knife, and Reno got paid while Cypher did what he did out of pure want to do it. Society looked down on what they did, but who was really in the wrong? For two years Cypher had been roaming the streets of Paradise, stalking and killing dozens of women, and Reno had been assassinating people for the ‘agency’ for as long as Cypher could remember. And while they were careful, no one was perfect. So why hadn’t one of them been caught? If they hadn’t been caught by now, wasn’t that a sign from some kind of higher power that they deserved to remain free and continue their work?
But that was crazy talk. Which must fit, because he had to be crazy. What kind of sane person stalked, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed people?
You’ve killed fifty-four--oops, fifty-six now--people over the last two years. You’ve been picking up the pace lately, and striking closer to home. You’re getting bolder. Odds are you’re not going to stop until you get caught or get bored of it, and neither is likely going to happen any time soon. And, as you told that pothead, you know exactly what you’re doing. You’re not crazy.
But I am, I have to be; I’m ARGUING with MYSELF, for Christ’s sake!
Admit it: you like what you do. You love it, in fact.
NO! I…
But it was a pointless fight, one he wouldn’t win…Because he DID love it, in the way people who have stage fright love getting called on in class, or people who are afraid of pain love to poke a sore tooth, or people who hate blood love to pick scabs. (Those guys are the real wackos…who would hate something so essential and lovely?)
His stomach had quieted down, even though his mind wouldn’t shut up. He checked his pocket watch again. It was only 9:15. He couldn’t go home yet; Reno still needed the house to be empty.
There was nothing for him to do but to keep shadowing. He silenced all his mind’s protests and composed himself.
Time to get back on routine…
* * *
It was just after 11:00 when he slipped out of his clothes and got ready for bed.
Tomorrow night…
He’d gotten into her bedroom earlier (no easy feat considering she slept on the second floor and locked her window) and had been so very tempted to do it tonight, to quell the lust with her blood…But he hadn’t been prepared; no ropes, no duct tape, knife dulled from the Ending of those two punks, only one rubber (with three being the bare minimum he’d need), none of the other ‘tools of the trade’.
So it would be tomorrow night. Friday. Friday was the best day, for both him and her--he was off work, so was she. Reno would be out late, as always, her father worked overtime on Fridays, and her sister went to a friend’s house to stay the night. He silenced his own mental protests again and formulated a plan.
That’s plenty of time…If not, if her father comes home, then I’ll End him too, or bring her here. Probably the latter--I want this to be special. I want this one to be the best yet. I’m gonna take my sweet, sweet time with Penni.
He was just getting into a ‘good’ mood to think about the things he would do to her when there was a knock on the door. Cypher, slightly annoyed, call out sarcastically, “Yes, brother?”
“You got a phone call while you were out.”
Instantly all thoughts, sarcastic or otherwise, vanished from his mind. He was flabbergasted--he’d only given his number out when required, and he hadn’t gotten a phone call since junior year of high school. “The hell…? Who the hell was it?”
“Some girl…I didn’t answer, as I was occupied at the time. She left a voicemail, though, so I took a listen. Sounded like your type.”
Stunned, he grabbed the phone that sat largely unused off his desk and checked out the caller ID. Upon seeing it, he felt his stomach drop to the floor.
Geistweld, Claus. 555-1321. 9:07 PM.
Penni’s home phone number.
He heard his brother walking away, and waited until he heard the older man’s door close to access the phone’s voicemail. After hearing the computerized voice tell him he had one message, there was a beep and her beautiful voice filled his ear.
“Um…Hey, Cypher, this is Penni, from the tennis team…I, uh…wow, this is awkward…I got your number from Jeremy, and I thought I’d…well, do you want to go out for coffee sometime? Maybe…After classes tomorrow? I…I know this sounds stalkerish, but I’m…I’d like to get to know you better. Let me know before classes are over, okay?”
His body, on autopilot, hung up the phone, clicked off the light, turned on the radio, and climbed into bed. The entire time, his mind was racing with several trains of thought at once.
Why did Jeremy give her my number?/She wants to talk to me?!/Trust me, dear, you don’t sound ‘stalkerish’./Before classes are over? Her classes are all over the place! and one other that drowned out all the others:
This changes everything.
* * *
