Fury From Hell (15 page)

He moved like a cobra and latched onto her budding left breast and squeezed it until a whimper escaped her.  In a frenzy of panic and movement, Jennifer blindly struck out at him and caught him with her nails on the side of his face.  He growled and covered the side of his face.  Jennifer took the opportunity and scrambled out of her narrow now overcrowded twin bed.

Falling, tangled amongst her sheets she slithered across the floor and got out the door kicking the sheets off before he realized she was out of the bed.  She ran downstairs and into the kitchen.  Her mind focused on the hefty meat cleaver.  She grabbed it out of the butcher’s block and headed to the mudroom for shoes and a jacket.  Young Jennifer heard him thundering down the stairs and instantly decided to just head out the door.

Running full out towards the neighbor’s fence in the back, she began preparing herself to scale the six foot fence strategizing how not to injure herself with the cleaver.  She was caught off guard when her Uncle tackled her from behind.  She prepared for the inevitable fall by dropping the cleaver flat.  She fell on top of it without harm.  She took a deep breath but he clamped a sweaty hand over her mouth.  She bit down on the calloused flesh to no avail.  The cleaver handle was grinding against her ribs.  Escape route thoughts flew threw her mind as she flailed her one free arm.  Jennifer elbowed him in the gut, balled herself up and rolled using her legs to gain leverage and power.  She scooped up the cleaver when her other hand got free from his grip.  With deadly force, she turned and lunged with the cleaver straight into his soft flabby gut.

When they both came to rest, she was astride him with the cleaver’s blade fully embedded within the folds of his flesh.  Blood was oozing out around the silver blade.

The horror of realization began to dawn in his eyes.

Staring down at her hands, and seeing streaks of blood — Jennifer panicked.  She stumbled to her feet. 

“Wait!  You — you can’t just leave me here!  Call the cops…an ambulance — call somebody!”

She backed away from him slowly before turning to dash for the fence.  She scaled it in moments.  When she landed on the other side she kept running.  Jennifer didn’t stop running until she ran into her mother’s friend, Phoebe, who grabbed the hysterical girl into a fierce hug three miles away from her home.  Phoebe held Jennifer until the crying subsided over an hour later.

***

Fury Abatu watched the host from deep inside making sure to stay hidden from the host’s detection.  Watching the brutal scene unfold in the host’s mind, the Fury knew it had made a huge blunder in falling asleep after feasting on Derrick.  This could cost the Fury avenging Kyma Barnes’ death, and therefore Kyma’s soul, if the Jennifer host’s mind cracked and spun out of control.  The Fury’s powers did not extend to managing maniacal hosts.  Abatu left that to older more ferocious demons such as the yellow-eyed demons…

Sighing, Abatu realized, too late, yet another oversight, not ensuring that this host’s past was something it could live with.  Abatu knew Jennifer had killed in self-defense but the demon was thrown off by Jennifer’s rigid self-control.  In its haste for a host body, it failed to delve deeply enough.  Clearly, the taint the Fury picked up was the young girl leaving her uncle to die.  That was due to youth and inexperience; it did not stem from wishing the man evil.

Checking quickly, Abatu found out the true source of the taint — Jennifer
thought
she was evil.  She felt that not trying to save the man who abused her made her just as bad as he was.  This was the source of her guilt…the taint that Abatu thought was a sign that the Jennifer was the perfect host.  Abatu became uneasy.  This was not an ideal host.  Mulling the situation over, Abatu knew it had to find a way for the Jennifer host to accept killing, or else Abatu would lose her first soul ever.

Clicking its nail-tipped talons, Abatu cackled.  It would plant self-defense rationales and images into the host’s memory banks along with the buried memories just in case.  This was the only possible justification this host would accept for killing anyone.  Once this belief was in place, it would make it easier for the demon to do its kill-feeds with minimal clean up work afterwards inside the host’s mind.

Satisfied with this strategy Abatu wondered if there were other buried memories in this host’s mind that could cause trouble.  A niggling worry wormed its way through the demon.  It feared this host was too damaged for the work it needed the host to do.

With a low growl forming deep in the demon’s throat,  it was angry at itself but knew that it did all it could do about the host’s memories but wondered how it could calm the host’s mind.  Thinking frantically, the Fury remembered — joy!  This host responded well to pleasure since it had had so little of it in her life thus far.  The Fury threw up an image of Chad…

Jennifer’s tears eased as she recalled the handsome barman.  Out of all of the mess, he was the one bright spot.  He made her smile.  Her smile faltered as another possible consequence slammed into her mind.

What if I didn’t wear protection?  What if I’m pregnant?  Oh, God…

Her mind tumbled into a downward cyclical abyss threatening to take her sanity with it.

The Fury blew away the tumultuous winds in the host’s mind and infused the host with a massive sleep spell.

Jennifer turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.  She wrapped up in her terry robe and walked wearily into the bedroom where she flung herself into bed praying she would sleep through Sunday.  She wanted to forget everything and just go straight into work on Monday morning.   Jennifer’s last thought before the Abatu’s sleep spell took effect was she would call Chad tomorrow.

***

Saturday, November 10
^th
, Night

The buzzing was bothering her.  She sat up and looked around.  She was in a bland beige room devoid of personality.  There was the bed she was on, two plain night tables with lamps on each stand — both of them were off.  There was a dresser with a bevel-edged mirror and a TV on a simple black stand.  The curtains were the tan elegant floral pattern seen in low-budget motels and the carpet was threadbare in spots.  The only chair in the room had a rip in the fabric where some of the stuffing was sticking out.

The buzzing was coming from the bathroom.  Jennifer got up and went to investigate.  She looked down and saw she was fully dressed in her gabardine pants and the sparkly top.  Her feet were clad in the funky boots but they made not one sound on the worn carpet.  She peered into the bathroom that was brightly lit and saw a vision she would not soon forget; a tall man, a little over six feet, with dark blonde hair and a solid build stood before her.  He was shaving — the source of the buzzing — but he was shaving his skin off.  It was coming off in narrow sheets of skin.  He was slicing it as thin as good Prosciutto.  Where his eyes should have been were empty sockets with blood seeping out.  His fingers were almost perfectly clean against his sightless face but his movement belied what her brain knew to be the truth.  Too horrified to scream, and too dumbfounded to move, Jennifer watched as the man turned towards her.  He waved with a ghost of a smile playing around his lips.

“I’ll be right in.  I just wanted to freshen up for you,” he said in a refined, modulated tone. 

When he turned Jennifer could then see what she had missed before — his chest was torn asunder and his stomach cavity was just like his eye sockets…open, empty and oozing blood.  With a full smile, the man turned back towards the mirror and began to shave skin off the other side of his face seemingly trying to make it even on both sides…

Jennifer woke up screaming clutching her face and stomach alternately remembering his cavernous eye sockets still vivid in her mind’s eye.

***

Sunday, November 11
^th
- Morning

Sunday dawned bright and clear but Jennifer didn’t revel in it.  She sat on the floor in a corner of her bedroom, legs drawn to her chest, dark smudges under her eyes and an unbearable pain in her chest.  Only by rocking could she subdue her disconsolate mood.  The remembered nightmare not only fouled her conscious mind it wound its way through her unconscious making sleep unsustainable for long periods of time.  Every time she drifted off, the dream returned with a ferocity that threatened to hold Jennifer captive in the nightmare until she asphyxiated.

Her alarm went off for the tenth time.  She blinked rapidly as a shaft of sunlight shot across the room.  Warding off the yellow rays, as if they were her nemesis, Jennifer unfolded herself out of the uncomfortable position which she had held for hours and headed for the shower.

When she emerged half an hour later, her skin was pruned and a light shimmer of heat escaped from her saturated pores.  Brushing her dark brown curly hair Jennifer stared at her reflection and formulated a plan:  Work.  She would throw herself into solving the Barnes case and stay awake 24/7, if need be.  Coffee and Red Bull would be her bosom buddies more than ever before. With luck, at night the overload of caffeine and the resulting crash should allow her to enjoy dreamless, albeit, unhealthy sleep.

Hey…sleep is sleep!
 

With a careless shrug, Jennifer grabbed her work bag.  She stuffed the money from her clutch in it then went into her closet.  She hauled out her gear putting on her police issue weapon and holster.  She ignored the feelings of uneasiness when she spied the .38.  Quickly putting away her gun case, she slammed her closet door shut and stalked out of her apartment.  Her work bag swung wildly as she jabbed the air like she was beating a punching bag as she ran down the stairs faster than was her norm.

***

Twenty-seven minutes later, she was seated in front of her computer in her cubicle within the confines of the precinct’s bullpen.  Jennifer already felt more composed.  The world made sense from her cheap rolling chair.  It had a broken right armrest along with a wheel that always got stuck and made skid marks on the tile floor underneath her.  A protective plastic pad wasn’t in the budget for a low-rung detective like her.  The only thing good about her little spot was her new computer.  It was fast, quiet and raring to go just like she was.

At 8:10 on a Sunday morning, the precinct was not a beehive of activity.  It was just the opposite which was a balm for her battered soul.

Peeking out surreptitiously, Abatu saw the billowing noxious clouds of Jennifer’s mood combined with the host’s caffeinated beverages.  The Fury had its own emotion to contend with…heightened worry.  The host was
not
doing well and needed a release.  The Fury sent the host an image of Chad and then bided its time as it shifted into the background once more.

Reading onscreen, Jennifer rested her chin on her palm as she read a murder report.  Unexpectedly, she thought of Chad and her desire to connect with him in some way.  She glanced at her desk phone and ignored the thought.

I need to focus right now.  I can always call Chad later…

The report in front of her was similar to the one she had written for Kyma Barnes.

“The victim’s right arm broken in three places: the humerus, radius and ulna.  Two clean breaks and one jagged.  The perpetrator seemed to have trouble on the last break; victim must have put up a fight at that point.  Victim’s face was beaten beyond visual recognition and aggressive sexual mutilation.  Both breasts bruised and mutilated.  After raping victim, vagina also mutilated.  Wounds inflicted prior to death.  Victim suffered extreme pain and blood loss.  Perp left victim to bleed to death after defecating on her.”

Jennifer sighed and rubbed her eyes trying to get the image out of her head.  Scrolling through more of the report, Jennifer found what she had been seeking.

“Forensics found one strand of hair.  No match from the database.  Checking international sources to see if perp can be found.  Case going into inactive case files.  No further leads at this time.”

Jennifer quickly scrolled up and jotted down the detective’s name — Castleman.  Jennifer noted the precinct was in Jefferson City, Missouri.  “Great, just my luck.  Nice and far away.”

Checking the time zone, Jennifer knew it was still too early to call.  Missouri was an hour behind New York.  Slamming her fist on her desk she suppressed a curse but pressed on.  She was pacified in that there was a strand of hair in the middle of the country that might tie her case to Castleman’s which would cement her theory of a serial killer.  Realizing nothing much else could be done on that front Jennifer went back to the list Gerald gave her.  The two days off had given her mind a break from the case in spite of the nightmares and the vast holes in her memory that, thankfully, did not seem to extend to her work memories.

With fresh eyes, she reviewed her notes and looked for other avenues to pursue.  Kyma’s friends were a dead end.  Maybe the strand of hair wouldn’t be.  What if the guy was a client at the salon?  Maybe the perp was a one-time visitor so that he could watch Kyma and blend in at the same time?  Jennifer checked the report and didn’t see anything about the hair strand being dyed.

Sucking in a breath she grabbed her cell and dialed.  It rang twice before a sleepy voice bellowed into her ear,

“What the hell do you want at eight-fucking-forty-five on a Sunday?”

“Yeah well this is my way of thanking you for dolling me up the other night.  So, now that pleasantries are out of the way — did my perp ever dye his hair?”

Babs snorted. 

“Okay, I see how you roll, Holden.  Dye job?  Lemme think.  The rape case, right?”

“Yeah, the only one I’ve got…”

“But, I — unlike you — have about seventeen other cases I’m working on concurrently.  Gotta sort through the shit in my head.  Hold on, wait.”