CRUCIFER, Bk. 1, Chapter 2

Peter stood before a curved wall of glass, gazing at the Hollywood Hills in the distance, which rolled dark and flecked with lights above the maze of towers. The Griffith Observatory perched on the tallest hill, its three, verdigris-frosted domes like a crown of rising moons.

He heard a ceramic clink and shifted his focus. Tony stood in the kitchen, reflected in the glass, pouring steaming tea into a pair of mugs, which she’d bought on their last trip to Little Tokyo. She wore a deep blue silk kimono that came to her ankles, and she’d pinned her long black hair into a French twist. She padded into the living room and handed him a mug, the stoneware rimmed with sea green glaze and lacking a handle. He wrapped his arm around her waist and she leaned her head on his shoulder. He caught a whiff of Chanel No. 5, his favorite perfume, but beneath the sweetness he could smell a hint of turpentine, like a bouquet of flowers on a pinewood box.

Tony gazed out the window. “What are you looking at?”

“When’s the last time you remember seeing the stars?”

She gave him a curious look, her blue eyes shadowed with kohl. “You mean, aside from when I fell in love with you?”

He glanced at her. “I’m serious.”

She smiled. “So am I.”

He kissed the side of her neck. “I think it was last summer.”

Tony fingered a gold cross that hung from a delicate chain, which he had given her on their one year anniversary. “It was New Year’s eve. Remember how we gasped? The stars were so much more impressive than the fireworks. It made me sad when all the smoke got in the way.”

“I remember.” He sipped his tea and tasted Genmaicha, the mildly astringent brew mellowed by roasted rice.

Tony frowned. “Your hand is shaking. How long has it been?”

He stared out the window.

“Peter...”

“I’m fine,” he snapped.

She stiffened and he swore he felt her temperature drop.

“Tony, I’m sorry. Look, I’m here, okay? I could have gotten a fix, but I thought you’d want to see me.”

“Don’t hang this on me.”

Peter sighed, “I’m not.”

“But the terrors...”

He forced a smile. “You keep them away.”

Tony caressed his cheek. “I wish that were true.”

She pulled away and glided to the center of the room. A vidscreen covered the middle third of the wall behind her. On the screen was a Japanese print of ink-brushed bamboo. She wrapped her hands around her mug. “Why don’t you move in?”

Peter stared into his mug. “We’ve been through this before.”

She picked up a silver frame that stood on the table. The photo showed them smiling as they leaned their heads together. “We could be happy. Live like a real couple.”

“You know I take house calls. I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

She gave him a pained look. “Which one am I?”

“That’s not fair.”

She set the photo on the table. “I went to see my friend, Father Alaric, this morning.”

Peter’s chest grew tight. He knew where this was going.

“He said there’s an opening at the new treatment center. St. Michael’s is state of the art and it’s funded by the church.”

“Do you know how they cure you? They pump you full of nanites. The last thing I want is to spend a week strapped to a bed while those little butchers swarm like gnats inside my head. That’s a mind-altering experience I can live without.”

“But you’re already altered. The Slam took care of that. It changed your receptors, rewrote the code.”

“At least my brain is still my own.”

“What’s left of it.”

Peter turned his back to her and pressed his hand on the window. He felt her watching him, but didn’t know what to say.

“There’s something I want to show you. I was saving it for your birthday.”

Peter lowered his arm and watched his handprint dissolve. “What is it?”

She set her mug down. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

He followed her into the hallway, skirting a bookcase. Art books crammed the lower shelves, several on Francis Bacon, and a mob of paper-machete skeletons stood on the top shelf. The Día de Los Muertos figures were painted garish colors, but didn’t seem out of place in her minimalist apartment. Her living space, like her life, was carefully segregated.

She took his hand and led him back to her studio. The door whisked open and a ventilation fan sucked the air inside. Unlike her living quarters, the studio was in chaos. She’d used the walls as giant palettes, smearing them with paint, and the floor was an action painting tracked through with footprints. Her work table was covered with cans and wrinkled tubes of oil paint. An avalanche of unfinished canvases buried the corner. A large canvas sat on an easel in the center of the room, but the painting faced away so he couldn’t see it. Before he could examine it, Tony grabbed his wrist and led him to another painting draped with a white sheet.

“Wait,” he said, “I want to peek at the one you’re working on.”

“It’s a mess. This is the one that I wanted to show you.” She reached for the sheet and hesitated, having second thoughts.

“What’s this?”

“Something that I made for you.”

He grinned. “You made me a painting?”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m afraid you’ll hate it.”

“Of course I won’t hate it. Come on, let me see!”

She bit her lip and pulled off the sheet. It crumpled to the floor. She pressed her hands against her lips, praying for forgiveness.

Peter’s eyes grew wide as he took in the painting. A Tau cross, made of steel, rose from a sea of blood, the shaft notched like the gears of an old machine. Meat hooks attached to chains hung from the crossbeam, turning the cross into a scale of suffering. A giant snake--or was it a worm?--looped around the cross, with lesions on its ashen skin like a bad case of syphilis. The snake had a human head which sagged over the beam, and a crown of razor wire dug into his brow. The man’s face was frozen between a snarl and a scream. Peter cringed as he recognized the face as his own.

Two figures flanked the cross, a bald man and a woman, both gazing up at him with cold metal faces. The woman had blue eyes and dull pewter skin, but the man’s metal skin had been scorched in a furnace. Both were dressed like the priests of a metal god. The woman was Tony, the man, his best friend, Rath.

Peter winced and shut his eyes, feeling sick inside.

Tony touched his shoulder.

“Don’t!” he jerked away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His voice was tortured--“Why?”

Tony’s eyes filled with tears. “Because that’s how I see you.”

Peter’s brow creased with pain. “Is that who I am?”

“I know it’s terrible, but it’s a message of hope. The two people who love you most never leave your side.”

He forced himself to look again. “Then why am I screaming?”

“You hate it, don’t you?”

“I hate its truth.” He turned to her, his face slack. “It’s the best you’ve ever done.”

Tony wiped her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He pressed his forehead to her own, kissed her trembling lips. Then he gently raised her chin and looked into her eyes. “I’m the one who hurt you. I promise I’ll get help.”

“You’ll call Father Alaric?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She hugged him and he stroked her hair, staring at the cross.


#


Later, they curled up in bed, unable to sleep, with the white down comforter pushed down to their waists. Tony laid her head on his chest, caressed his pallid skin, and traced the trail of fine black hair that led down to his crotch. The soft peaks of her breasts pressed against his ribs. He ran his fingers down her spine and her skin broke out in goose bumps. She slid her hand beneath the sheet and gently squeezed his cock. He dry-swallowed, removed her hand and placed it on his heart.

“I’m not--”

He felt her stiffen. “What? Not in the mood?”

His eyes were desolate. “Not clean,” he told her.

Tony squeezed his hand.

“Can you just hold me?” he asked. “I want to fall asleep in your arms.”

“I love you, Peter.”

He pressed her fingers to his lips. “I love you too.”

He held her, closed his eyes and heard her breaths grow shallow. Finally, fell asleep, but it wasn’t peaceful. In his dreams he was a serpent hanging on a cross.


#


Lieutenant Monica Regent walked down the rain-swept alley, with the Crime Scene Evidence Probe floating behind her. Regent was the head of the Serial Homicide Task Force, and right now she regretted following in her father’s footsteps.

Behind her, three patrol cars cordoned off the alley, their flashing red and blue lights streaking through the rain. A yellow force beam glowed between a pair of warning lights, holding back the crowd from the Church of Steel. The officers who manned the line shivered in their rain gear. Several hacks and rivet heads were weeping for their friend, while others jockeyed for a glimpse of the latest spectacle.

She came to an abrupt stop when she reached the body, her face hard and cold grey eyes reflecting ruby wings. Water trickled down her black vinyl trench coat, the fabric streaked with blue light from the glowing pentagram. She glanced back at the droid. “CSEP, start analysis.”

CSEP drifted past her and canvassed the crime scene, the cameras on its spidery arms snapping photographs. Every time the strobes flashed, they erased the victim’s wings, but Regent knew the video would show the holograms. The hustler was stretched out like he’d been crucified, and his green eyes, the pupils blown, were fixed on the sky. The rain pooled in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, as if the clouds wept for him because he couldn’t cry.

She gazed into the rain-filled pit where Travis’ heart had been. Footsteps splashed behind her as her partner approached.

Rodriguez stopped beside her and sniffed to clear his nose. He stood a head taller than her, broad and muscular, with narrow eyes, a wedge-shaped jaw, and a thin moustache. His head was shaved high and tight, a style that he’d kept ever since his brief stint in the space marines. He gripped two cups of coffee and handed one to her.

“Thanks,” she said. She peeled back the lid and sniffed the steaming brew.

“Black, no sugar. Just the way you like it.”

She warmed her hands on the cup. “Where did you get it?”

“In the club. You should see it. It’s a regular Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“Sounds like your kind of place. I’m surprised you didn’t stay.”

Rodriquez smirked. “I forgot to bring my nipple clamps.”

Regent sipped her coffee and nodded toward the body. “You’ll want something stronger than this before we’re done here.”

Rodriguez followed her gaze. “Our perp’s a twisted fuck. He put that junkie on display like a piece of public art.”

She threw him a sideways glance. “Colorful as always.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Cocky bastard.”

“That’s what I thought.”

CSEP extended one of its arms and photographed Travis’ hand. A UV scanner whirred over the hole in his chest. When it finished, CSEP glided over the body, scanning it from head to foot with a pair of survey lasers. CRIMENET would use the scans to build a 3D model, which it would store as a forensic avatar. CSEP finished the scan and waited for instructions.

“CSEP, sleep.” Regent said.

The droid’s legs retracted. It floated to the pentagram and powered down its sensors.

“Where’s the M.E.?” Regent asked.

“He’s still en route.”

“We’re losing evidence to the rain. Trace is a wash. If he doesn’t get here soon, there’ll be nothing left to bag.”

“He was in bed when he got the call. Not everyone sleeps in a coffin.”

She gave him a scathing look.

He raised his hands. “I’m kidding.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said earlier. About this being public art.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Our perp’s gone public in a big way. He’s overconfident. There’s a good chance he screwed up and left something behind. If he did, I don’t want it going down the drain.”

“CSEP’s finished with the prelim. We should pitch a tent. Hell, you’ll be doing the M.E. a favor.”

Regent looked past the body to the far end of the alley, where a couple black-and-whites flanked an evidence van with “CORONER” stenciled on the side in yellow letters. Evidence techs huddled around the open cargo bay with their collection kits stacked inside the hold. A cryopod was secured to the deck like a sleek white coffin.

Regent called out to them. “We can’t wait any longer. I need you to bring your kits and set up a tent.”

The techs hauled out the poles and set them up along the walls. Generators tipped the poles like rocket-launched grenades. They turned them on and a ruby force field flashed over their heads.

Regent stepped under the tent as the techs brought over their kits. She pulled a lipstick case-sized chamber off her utility belt, thumbed the top and popped out three glass and metal marbles. Pressing buttons on the spheres, she gave them instructions. “Triangle, floodlight mode, height, two-point-five meters. Target victim on the ground, positioned in the center.” She tossed the spheres into the air and they flew to their positions, lighting up the corpse from just below the tent. Rodriquez stood behind her as she squatted near the body. Setting down her coffee, she popped open a kit, tugged on a pair of gloves and tilted Travis’ head. Unlike the last two victims, his throat wasn’t cut. She pulled down his split lip. His teeth were gummy with blood.

She grabbed a pair of tweezers and tugged a shard of glass out of his palm. Blood and glowing ice blue liquid seeped out of the wound. “Lotus. He crushed a vial during the struggle.”

Rodriguez took a closer look. “It broke when he hit the perp.”

“Maybe.” She dropped the shard into a container. She turned over Travis’ hand. His knuckles were abraded. “Looks like he punched a wall. We need to find the rest of the vial. I’m hoping we can lift a partial off the stopper. Same goes for his boots. I want them bagged and tagged.”

“You think he OD’d?”

“If he was lucky. One thing’s for sure though, he didn’t go down easy.”

“That’s not what his rap sheet says.”

“Show a little respect.”

Rodriguez frowned at Travis’ crotch. “You think he was raped?”

“With all the traffic from the club, I’m betting no, but he sure as hell didn’t get the Lotus for free. We’ll have to wait for the pelvic exam and a swab for semen. See if there is any rectal tearing or bleeding. I’ll leave that for the M.E.”

“Sounds like a hot date.”

“Where’s the kid who discovered the body?”

“He’s waiting in the club.” Rodriguez turned on his pad and scrolled through his notes. “The kid’s name is Jarrett Spencer. White male, age nineteen. He entered the alley to take a piss, and that’s when he found the body. The bartender and owner of the club is a woman named Sandra Wells. She said a guy she’d never seen before cruised the victim, and they got into an argument when the suspect propositioned him. The suspect left the club and Warth followed him.”

“What about the Lotus?”

“She didn’t mention it, but get this, she said the john was dressed like a priest.”

“Jesus.” Regent stripped off her gloves and dropped them in a waste bag.

“At least it explains the messages we found near the other bodies. If he thinks he’s a priest, it’s a personal crusade.”

“What if he really is a priest? Have you considered that?”

“I don’t think butchering prostitutes fits the job description.”

“Obviously, he doesn’t consider murder a sin.”

Rodriguez took a gulp of coffee. “Exactly my point.”

She wanted to smack the cup from his hand. “You’re missing the point. If he thinks he’s serving God, it’s sacrifice, not murder. The killer is playing by God’s rules, not ours.”

Rodriguez frowned at the corpse. The ruby wings flickered out. “If that’s how God treats his angels, what are we fighting for?”

Her throat burned. “To prove we are better than our maker.” She stood up, cinched her belt and strode toward the police line.

“Regent?” he called after her.

She didn’t answer.

The rain trickled down her back, colder than before. The officers that manned the line let her through the barrier, and she waded through the huddled mass of pierced and painted mourners. They parted in silence as she climbed the steps of the Church of Steel. She paused and gazed at the rose window high above the doors. The fractured disk of scarlet glass blazed like the eye of Hell.