Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (29 page)

“
Shit…” He tried to wiggle
free, but the walls hugged him tight in its smothering embrace.
What if he couldn’t return the way he came? Panic lanced through
his brain. “Nikolai!” he yelled. He cursed under his breath as his
asthma set in in sharp spikes.

He tried to feel for his inhaler
tucked in his jacket’s breast pocket. Every second he remained
without it pushed him closer to the point of no return.

“
Nikolai…”

He jerked when he saw the figure at
the end of the tunnel. Its head was shaped like a gas mask,
illuminated by an arterial red.

The silhouette crooked his neck at a
peculiar angle like an owl, the eye sockets of his gas mask glaring
like open sores.

“
Who the hell are you?”
Martin barked. He looked down at the figure’s hand, drawn to the
needle in his grip. “Shit! Oh shit!”

Martin’s gun was holstered on his left
hip, pitifully out of reach of his right hand. Even his left
shoulder was lodged in place like a victim in a body cast. He could
sense the creature’s shadow drawing closer, an intoxicating
presence he couldn’t ward off.

Martin’s aching fingers stretched for
the firearm, just brushing against the hammer of his
gun.

“
Son of a bitch!” he
screamed. The silhouette came to a stop, ogling him through the gas
mask, mere inches away.

He slowly raised a finger to his mouth
to hush Martin.

SIXTEEN

Morning carried the icy forewarning of
winter, whispering through Vivian’s jacket. A premature frost
glazed the sidewalks as she wound past empty houses.

Dilapidated cables hung from telephone
poles like marrow stretched thin on bones. She cocked her head to
the left as a silhouette on a bicycle melted into the
mist.

Agate Rezník’s house awaited her. She
tiptoed toward the gates that separated her slice of land from the
rest of the world. Creeping vines snared the metal bars, bejeweled
with gray petals that curled in the frost. She brushed her fingers
against the flowers, taking in their corpse-like
texture.

She winced as she recalled all the
times she felt men’s blood flow through her hands and drip down her
fingertips. Those memories surged forth in such crystalline detail,
pouring into her from a font of horrors.

The most recent memory was
inescapable, a sight that toyed with her mind every waking hour
since… since last night.

Her victim’s face rose from the oily
pits of her nightmares when she closed her eyes to sleep. Only
after he scorched her soul with his death-defiant gaze did she wake
to the sound of gunfire.

It was her hand that pulled the
trigger. She had gunned down the homeless man in the alley on that
fateful eve. She had good reason to do so, of course. Any sane
human would defend his or herself against an armed man.

But had she resorted to lethal force
all too eagerly? Was she so accustomed to violence that she sought
no other alternative to her dilemma? Was she addicted to the thrill
of seeing agony illustrated in their faces?

She tangibly felt the perfume of dead
flesh clinging to her skin as a constant reminder of the life she
claimed.

I’m a
murderer
, she thought.
What separates me from the likes of Viktor Rezník? I may have
defended myself, but somewhere deep inside… I’m afraid I… enjoyed
it.

She wiped her hands against her jeans
as an afterthought, eternally tainted with the blood of another
human being.

She jumped as something squealed in
the distance, sending a shot of adrenaline straight to her heart.
Every sound resembled a police siren, and every shadow could be a
squad car waiting to waylay her.

She needed to find shelter
immediately. Vivian scratched the needle mark on her arm as she
thrust open the gates.

Mother, you cannot hurt me
anymore.
Those words Viktor spoke still
rattled in her head. She wondered what role, if any, his mother
played in these murders—or in shaping the identity of a
killer.

Vivian would have to frame her
questions carefully, peeling away the layers to discover the true
nature of Agate’s relationship with her son.

She knocked on the door. A few moments
passed before a latch clicked somewhere inside. The door creaked
open, and Vivian looked into stunningly green eyes. Agate Rezník
was a woman who proudly wore her sixty-nine years of age. She was
dressed in a vintage blue gown with her hair tied in a conservative
bun. She was a relic of an older age, permanently imprinted with a
sense of a simpler time.

Agate scanned her guest up and down,
reserving silent judgment.

“
Hello,” Vivian piped up.
“I’m a former colleague of Viktor. I lent him a book and I was
hoping to get it back.”

“
What is your
name?”

“
Vivian.”

She felt as though she had seen this
woman somewhere before. Agate pursed her lips together.

“
Viktor hasn’t been by the
house in ages. I’m afraid you won’t find anything here.”

“
Please!” Vivian said as
the door began to howl shut. “This book is very important to me! It
once belonged to my mother.” Agate’s eyes flashed from the shadows
congealed beyond the foyer. Vivian could almost see the seasons
reflecting in those uncanny, glass orbs; misty winters of long
past, honey gold autumns, and languishing summers.

Sixty-nine long years of loneliness
and strife stared back at her.

“
Come in then.” The door
yawned open to a musty abyss. Ignoring the stench, Vivian entered.
Antique clocks adorned the wooden walls and table. Every clock
ticked in unison, a concert of grating metal like insects buzzing
in the walls. How could Agate sleep in such a loathsome place? She
glanced at a pump organ dejected in the corner. The ivory keys
glowed a buttery orange in the slashes of sunlight peeping through
veiled curtains.

Agate curled up in a rocking chair
while Vivian took her rightful place on a yellowed, moth-eaten
couch.

Agate stared hard at the young woman,
equally fascinated and appalled by the red-eyed beauty.

“
I haven’t spoken to my son
in years. He dropped out of existence once he left home. I heard he
wasted a decade of his life in medical school.” Vivian cringed at
Agate’s apathy for her son. She hardly cared where he had
disappeared to.

“
He hasn’t stopped by to
see you?”

“
No, I’m afraid not. That’s
the gratitude I receive for raising my own flesh and blood. One day
he decides to abandon me to my lonesome self and escape into his
studies. Speaking of which, tell me about this book you lent my
son.”

Vivian hesitated, unprepared for the
question. Agate studied her curiously.

“
Well?
”

“
It was a psychology book
my mother gave me. It was about nurturing children.”

Agate didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she
seemed to instantly lose interest in the conversation, rummaging
through her purse in search of something.

“
My mother used to counsel
youths with troubled pasts,” Vivian continued. “She grew to love
them as if they were her very own children.”

Still no response bubbled forth from
Agate.

Vivian decided it was time for a new
tactic. She would outstretch her claws and go straight for the
jugular.

“
Viktor never mentioned
anything about his family.”

“
That doesn’t surprise me,”
Agate snapped. “Family was the furthest thing from his mind. He was
an impetuous child without a father figure in his life. Naturally,
the burden of discipline fell on me. It became my duty to shape his
character and rein him in when he strayed out of
bounds.”

“
How did Viktor
misbehave?”

Her eyes rounded in awe when Agate set
a peculiar device on the table. A syringe. It was pre-filled with a
colorless solution, nothing like the Syllax currently residing in
Vivian’s veins. She absently stroked her arm, recalling the
poisonous bite of the needle.

“
Viktor had a tendency to
wander away from home. Sometimes he disappeared into the
neighboring forest overnight. When he returned, he would bring wild
animals home with him; pitiful creatures ridden with parasites and
disease. He tried to nurse them back to health, but few survived.
Of course, I didn’t allow Viktor to keep the animals as pets. I
made him release them back into the wild.”

She rolled up her sleeve, exposing
spider veins that twisted and turned under her parchment skin.
Vivian also noted the many bruises from clustering
injections.

“
Eventually, Viktor took an
interest in human disease,” Agate said, swabbing her arm with an
alcohol wipe. “But he held no interest in diseases of the body. He
was fascinated by mental diseases, how they originated and how they
could be treated. He always expressed an interest in helping
others.”

He certainly isn’t helping
now
, Vivian thought.

Agate could barely hold the needle
steady as she attempted to administer the medication. The needle
poked her fingers instead of her arm, drawing pinpricks of
blood.

“
Do you want my help?”
Vivian asked.

“
Please.”

Vivian took her trembling hand and
picked up the syringe. “Glatiramer acetate” was printed across the
affronting device in large, bold lettering. The word jogged a
memory in the recesses of her mind, likely from one of her pre-med
classes. Glatiramer acetate was commonly used to treat multiple
sclerosis, an inflammatory disease that eats away at the myelin
sheath surrounding the nerves and spinal cord. Over time, the
disease would retard the nerve impulses and leave areas of scarring
called sclerosis. The victim’s vision would disintegrate and the
bladder would ultimately fail. She could only imagine the pain
Agate must be subject to every day.

Vivian inserted the needle deep under
the skin, through layers of muscle and fat. She coolly depressed
the plunger, drinking in the smell of sterile alcohol to preoccupy
her mind.

She shouldn’t be squirming at the
sight of needles. After all, this was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
To be a nurse and practice medicine on others?

Agate sank back with a heavy
sigh.

“
Viktor wanted to be a
counselor, but he also excelled in medicine. He attended some
school for psychology. I always wanted him to become an
electrician, but he had his mind set on other silly
things.”

“
What’s so silly about
being a counselor?”

“
Therapists only enable
problems with their petty assurances. They sit there, nod their
heads, and tell those decrepit souls what they want to hear. At its
core, therapy comes down to a bunch of psychobabble, hypnosis, and
prescription drugs. Why don’t these psychiatrists tell those idiots
to face their problems and move on?”

“
I doubt it’s that
easy.”

“
Of course it is! My son
used to be a troublemaker and a degenerate good-for-nothing, but I
didn’t drag him to the doctor and spoon feed him drugs. I put him
in his place and he never acted up again. I didn’t need any fancy
pills or therapy to fix my son. Drugs are a crutch for the weak.”
She leaned forward in her chair with a splitting creak.
“
Weak.”

Vivian bolted up as a high-pitched
whistle screeched from somewhere in the house.

“
I have some tea boiling on
the stove,” Agate said. “Would you like some?”

“
Yes.” Agate didn’t rise
from her chair. “Please,” she quickly added.

That word seemed to release her from
her rickety perch, and she shuffled toward the kitchen. Vivian
glanced at the antique clocks overhead. Their incessant ticking
left an itch in her brain—always grating and chiming in their
eternal quest to scratch off one more second.

She couldn’t stand to be in this room
any longer. Only a masochist would reside in a house stocked with
this many clocks. At her wits end, she leaped off the couch and
peeked inside the kitchen.

The reclusive woman was nowhere in
sight. She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that came over her in
that moment. It felt as though she had been alone in the house the
entire time.

Spinning away from the kitchen, she
marched down the hall. The chuckling clocks and pendulums goaded
her onward. Where had Agate gone? Had she only imagined the tiny
woman who birthed a monster?

“
Mrs. Rezník?”

Vivian nudged open a door to one of
the rooms. The ghost of dawn oozed through the wilting curtains. A
sewing machine rested on the chest of drawers, delicately awaiting
Agate’s fingers to sew another dress she would never wear. To
Vivian’s left, she saw a black and white photograph of a male
silhouette, presumably her husband. She completely forgot to ask
about what happened to Mr. Rezník. By the looks of the double bed,
Agate once slept alongside him.