Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) (31 page)

“
Grade 4 tends to grow
rapidly and multiply throughout the body, but I suspect it would
take longer to develop in a human host. To be honest, I’ve never
seen anything quite like this. There may be a catalyst agent I’m
overlooking that accelerates the process.”

“
What else?”

“
I’ve been wrong about this
drug from the start. I originally thought it was salvia because of
the hallucinogenic properties, but the chemical structure is
similar to cocaine because of the tropane ring—”

“
What is it,
Jezebel?!
”

She looked at a loss.

“
Scopolamine.”

Nikolai’s heart sank. Long before he
joined law enforcement, Czechoslavak communist secret police used
scopolamine to extract confessions from prisoners. Scopolamine had
since been debunked as a “truth serum,” but Viktor obviously
thought it still contained mental properties worth
exploring.

“
Scopolamine…” Jezebel
hesitated. “It can produce vivid hallucinations like salvia. But
it’s a tropane alkaloid like cocaine. Nonetheless, scopolamine
doesn’t produce these tumor formations. This has been synthetically
modified. You’d need a state of the art lab to produce
this.”

Nikolai fell silent.

“
Is there any
left?”

“
Just a little,” Jezebel
said, offering up the syringe in a biohazard bag. They both
regarded it like a radioactive bomb.

“
I’ll drop it off at the
evidence locker,” Nikolai murmured, hypnotized by the exotic
liquid. He could only imagine the havoc this drug might reap on a
young woman’s brain.

* * *

Vivian backed away from the eerie
portrait.

A younger Agate reflected behind the
glass with long blonde hair, green eyes, and an icy complexion.
Just like Krista. And Natalie. Only then did it begin to dawn on
her.

“
Oh God,” she whispered.
“When he overdosed on Syllax, it didn’t kill him; it brought out
the repressed trauma from his childhood. It must have driven him
insane. When he selects a victim, he sees only his mother. He
thinks he’s killing her over and over again.”

She shuddered at the
thought.

Viktor was like a child trapped in a
man’s body, albeit a child who craved offerings of torture and
death. She had to believe there was some semblance of a conscience
in him. Enduring abuse wasn’t an excuse to slaughter and maim
innocent women as he pleased. But as far as he knew, they weren’t
innocent. In his dazed eyes, all of his victims were his
mother.

She numbly emerged from Viktor’s
bedroom.

“
Where have you been?”
Vivian jumped at the grating sound of Agate’s voice. The harsh
matron stood in the doorway to the living room, remarkably imposing
for her small stature.

“
I’m sorry, I needed to use
the bathroom,” Vivian babbled. “I wasn’t feeling well. I’m… I’m in
my second trimester. In fact, I think it’s time for me to go home
and rest.”

“
You certainly don’t look
like you’re with child.” Agate looked at her belly with a predatory
gaze. “I suppose we all can’t be quite as lucky as you… and retain
our natural shape.”

“
Thanks, I guess. I may
have my shape but that’s bound to change in a few months. Plus, the
morning sickness doesn’t spare me.”

“
Try eating some dry
crackers in the morning to calm your stomach.”

“
Thanks. I’ll give it a
try.”

Soon, Vivian was standing on the
doorstep outside. Agate looked at Vivian’s belly again.

“
Are you
married?”

“
No.”

Agate inflated herself with a deep,
vehement breath, but she didn’t speak a word. Vivian quickly
scuttled off the porch, anxious to leave before she was dragged
into a storm of righteous wrath. Agate’s voice brought her
screeching to a halt.

“
You forgot about the book.
Should I make a quick scan of Viktor’s room?”

“
No, that’s okay,” Vivian
said, feeling the journal weigh heavy in her pocket.
I already have the book I need.

“
Well, in any case, good
luck being a mother. It takes a certain strength and discipline to
nurture a child.”

Is that how you justify
beating your child? To build up his character?
She clenched her fists as she glowered at the vile
woman.

“
Thanks. I’ll keep that in
mind.” Agate watched Vivian vanish into the mist. Finally, she shut
the door to a house filled with a child’s tormented
memories.

A swirling miasma drenched the
neighborhood. Almost on instinct, Vivian’s hand dove into her
pocket to retrieve her cell phone. A few clicks later and she was
listening to it ring.

“
Hello?”

“
Nikolai, I’ve come across
something amazing. I think I know why Viktor is murdering women and
how he selects his victims.”

“
How?
”

“
I found Viktor’s diary in
his mother’s house. He was a practiced psychiatrist with a long
history of psychological research. He was working with a
pharmaceutical company to mass produce a drug called Syllax. It’s
the drug he’s been injecting into all of his victims!”

Nikolai began to stammer
incomprehensibly. Vivian had never heard him sound so
confused.

“
He
injected—why?!”

“
Here’s where everything
gets fucked up. Syllax was designed to medicate patients with
severely repressed trauma. It unlocks the subconscious and induces
a sort of hypnotic state. Syllax would supposedly help patients
open up about their repressed memories.

“
The disturbing thing is
Syllax was only recently taken off the market. It was prescribed at
multiple clinics around Prague. Viktor overdosed on Syllax but
instead of killing him, it evoked repressed memories of his abusive
mother. All of his victims physically resemble her. That’s how he
chooses them! He must think he’s killing his mother over and over
again—”

The signal died. Vivian looked down at
her phone in confusion.

“
Nikolai?” Only static
replied.

Nikolai’s thumb rested on the end
button. He stared at his phone as his entire body quaked. That
sensation reached deep down into his core, compressing the breath
in his chest. He found it difficult to comprehend anything in that
moment. What had she just uttered to him?

Syllax.

Vivian knew far too much. This
revelation could spell the end of his career, even his life. He
snatched his car keys and teetered toward the door leading to the
alley.

* * *

Camilla kicked in the door to
Nikolai’s house.

“
Ouch!” she said, hopping
forward and clutching her foot. “Stupid door!” She immediately shut
it behind her and looked around. Even though his car wasn’t parked
outside, she half-expected Nikolai to come bounding down the
hall.

“
Well, Nikolai, let’s see
what’s got you so riled about the LaCroix investigation.” She
glanced across a house that felt anything other than a home.
Radiators groaned from the kitchen and muted light glossed over the
walls. Somewhere in the background, a broken TV hummed blissfully.
Photo frames dangled from the walls, but the pictures had been
mysteriously removed. Camilla never would have guessed someone
actually ate and slept in this house.

A strange smell tickled her senses as
she ventured up the stairs. She sniffed again and drew it deeper
into her nostrils. Something was burning. She galloped up the
stairs and sprinted down the hall. Those flames could be consuming
evidence for all she knew—or a young woman’s body. Her shoulder
rammed against the bedroom door, surprising herself when it nearly
flung off the hinges.

She was greeted by dozens of burning
candles in the darkness. On a chest of drawers, a teddy bear
cradled a portrait of a young girl between its fluffy arms, showing
the pride and joy of Nikolai’s life.

Kindergarten drawings
surrounded the portrait, crudely depicting a smiling girl with her
arms wrapped around a man.
I luv you,
Daddy
was scrawled in red crayon around the
smiling pair. Camilla could only look on with wonder at the shrine
dedicated to preserving the memory of a young girl.

She reached out to stroke Emily’s
portrait, imagining how beautiful the girl must have been when she
glowed with life.

In that moment, Camilla felt guilty
for invading the sanctity of her bedroom, even if the little girl
would never return. She affectionately adjusted the portrait in the
teddy bear’s arms before abandoning the shrine.

The hazy aroma of candles clung to her
clothes as she swept into the hall. One room yet remained that
begged to be explored. Her hand closed around the handle to
Nikolai’s bedroom. The door swung inward and the stained carpet
leaped out at her.

A mess of half-emptied beer bottles
sprawled across the floor. She could almost smell the depression
oozing across this sanctuary of vice.

Perhaps she erred in coming here.
Nikolai lent the impression of a broken man consumed in guilt over
the loss of his daughter, not a homicidal killer. Nonetheless, she
was certain he had sent her that threatening letter about the
LaCroix investigation.

She needed to know why.

She approached a nightstand and pried
open the drawer.

“
Tokens of his memories?”
she wondered, ogling a collection of keys, rings, and a weathered
journal. It was hard to imagine this stingy man attaching sentiment
to anything. Camilla retrieved the journal and opened to the silk
bookmark. A black and white photo slipped out of the pages, landing
at her feet. Stooping down to retrieve it, she studied a portrait
of a much younger Nikolai, his arm tangled around the waist of a
glamorous woman. She was struck by the boyish smile on his
face.

Camilla set the journal in the drawer
and instantly realized something was amiss. She ran her fingers
along the inside of the compartment.

“
There’s a false bottom,”
she whispered. Digging out the tokens of Nikolai’s past, she flung
them onto the bed. With trembling hands, she pried open the hidden
compartment.

Syringes.

Her heart convulsed. An orange
substance swam inside. She remembered what Vivian had told her
about the injection sites on Krista and Natalie, and the strange
drug the killer injected in her.

Syllax.

The slam of a door rattled the walls
of the house. Every nerve in Camilla’s body ignited in
dismay.

“
Nikolai,” she breathed.
Her body hurled across the room toward the windows, fumbling for
the latch. It took mere seconds to realize she was trapped. There
was no mechanism to open the window.

“
Shit!”

With the last bout of adrenaline, she
flung herself to the floor and crawled under the bed. Several
anguished heartbeats later, the bedroom door burst open.

“
Damn it! I can’t let this
happen!” Malice dripped from Nikolai’s voice, punctuating each
word. “How did she find out?!”

Camilla slowly reached into her
pocket. She pulled out her recorder. She winced as it turned on
with a beep, hopeful he wouldn’t hear anything.

She pressed record.

Nikolai jerked to a stop. He looked
around the room, becoming deathly silent. A fragrance so
reminiscent of vanilla permeated his room. He sniffed the air,
tasting Camilla’s perfume.

“
Emily?” he whispered. He
swiveled toward his daughter’s room, half-expecting the door to
creak open. When it did not, Nikolai lifted a trembling hand to his
head.

That omnipresent pain never leaved,
much like the emotional scars that stippled his heart. He retrieved
his pistol and ejected the magazine, spilling bullets across the
floor. One of the slugs rolled under the bed and tickled Camilla’s
fingers.

Nikolai flung open the drawers to the
dresser, his eyes roaming across neatly pressed shirts and slacks.
He dug through them with fury until his hand closed around an
antique jewelry box. He cradled it in the palm of his hand the way
a priest might hold a chalice. With a flick of his wrist, he
revealed the treasure inside: little totems of steel gleaming in
the hazy sunlight.

He caressed one of the bullets between
his fingertips, respectful of the deadly power it possessed. The
jacket was cut at the hollow, allowing it to unfold to six sharp
petals after penetration.

The sharp claws would tear through
flesh with brutal efficiency, eviscerating any organs in its path.
Even when the bullets had inflicted the maximum damage to the
victim, its talons would still pose a risk to any coroner rooting
through the skull.

“
You’ve left me with no
choice, Vivian—” He meticulously thumbed the bullets into a fresh
magazine. Cocking the pistol, he reached for his pager. Fresh
static crackled as he lifted it to his lips.