CHAPTER ONE || COLE
“Who are you?” The man shook in my hands, his eyes so wide with terror that the whites around his irises were visible. We stood in a dingy basement that reeked of mildew and bleach, with the faintest hint of a charnel house. A single exposed bulb flickered overhead, casting long shadows across the bloodstained concrete floor. Fitting, really, for the events about to transpire. “And what’s wrong with your teeth?”
I fought the urge to smile at the question. Nothing whatsoever was wrong with my teeth. They were, even after all these years, still perfectly capable of tearing into his body and draining his life from him. But first, I had to be certain.
I fixed his gaze with mine, using only a fraction of the hypnotic power I could exert. His resistance collapsed at once, his expression going slack, eyes glazing over. “The police seek a killer who has murdered four young women in the Los Angeles area within the past two months, all of them blondes in their late twenties to early thirties. Did you kill those women?”
My voice probably sounded as if it came from somewhere deep inside his own mind—impossible to resist.
The man held in my grip spoke in a flat monotone, his subconscious responding automatically. “Yes.” He paused, then added, “But they won’t catch me.”
“Is that so?” I allowed myself a thin, satisfied smile. “Out of curiosity, has it only been four victims?”
It was important to know how much darkness I was about to extinguish from the world. Perhaps it was the predator in me, relishing the satisfaction of taking out the competition.
“No.” Though his expression stayed blank and his eyes unfocused, I could hear a note of pride in his voice.
“Ah,” I replied. “More than four, then. Have they all been from Los Angeles?”
“No. I moved here a few months ago.” He paused. “I’m getting more comfortable with the area, which is why I’ve started again.”
“Where did you move here from?”
“Chicago.”
“How many?”
He hesitated, blinking. “What?”
I scowled, annoyed with myself. Even after eight centuries, I had never quite learned patience. I tried again. “How many lives have you taken?”
He looked almost confused. “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know how many people you’ve killed?”
“No.”
I cocked my head, studying him. As far as prey went, he was unremarkable—mid-forties, balding, slightly pudgy, wire-rimmed glasses over cold, unfeeling eyes. But something about him must have been exceptional to have gotten away with murder so many times that he’d lost count.
Until now, of course.
“It’s been that many? Or have you simply never kept track?”
“Why count them? They’re nothing.” A flicker of whatever passed for emotion sparked back to life at last, and his expression darkened. “They’redirty. All of them.”
“Make a ballpark guess.”
“A dozen.”
“Ah,” I replied, suddenly bored with this exchange.
Still, I made him tell me about each one of his kills. It turned out to be thirteen victims in total. His thing was drugging thirty-something blonde women he met in bars, taking them to his home in Northridge, and dispatching them with claw hammers. Even so, he was meticulous, and the police likely wouldn’t have caught him. He had never anticipated a predator who could track him by scent.
He didn’t know what compelled him to kill, of course. They seldom do.
After I was done eliciting a confession so detailed and specific it would’ve made even the most seasoned law-enforcement professional green with envy, the predatory instincts within me could wait no longer.
“You won’t move.” I held his gaze. “You will keep still, and you won’t scream.”
