The Impaler

Chapter 30

Twenty minutes later, Edmund Lambert returned to the electrics shop to find the white rose from Cindy Smith sticking out of his book bag. He knew it was from her; had seen one of the assistant stage managers carrying the vase into her dressing room earlier that afternoon when he arrived at the theater.

Edmund removed the flower and sniffed it—stroked the petals with the tip of his nose and wondered if it was a sign from the Prince.

He’d read the news on the electrics shop computer; had even gone to CNN.com to watch the video. The police had found Billy Canning, and the press had already tied him to Randall Donovan. They would no doubt unearth the connection to Leona Bonita and Angel’s very soon, too. In fact, Edmund suspected the police might already know about Angel’s; had probably pieced it together as soon as they found Donovan.

The General had been fortunate in the beginning. The police had bought his telephone call about the Latino gangs, but the General didn’t know why they never connected Rodriguez to Angel’s. All part of the equation, he’d concluded. It’d been the same for Billy Canning. And, after all, the Prince hadn’t been worried about the police finding him all the way out there in the woods anytime soon.

“Touch the doorway,” Edmund heard the General say in his mind. He closed his eyes and saw the sodomite staring up at him from the chair in horror—his eyes filled with tears, with the disbelieving desperation of one who had sinned. “Touch the doorway,” the General repeated.

“Please, God,” the sodomite cried as he raised a trembling hand—his one free hand—and touched the General’s chest. “Please, I did what you wanted me to do, now please let me go.”

“Will you know him when he comes for you?” the General asked, guiding the sodomite’s fingers along the outside of the doorway.

“Please, I did what you—”

“Will you know him when he comes for you?”

“Yes,” the sodomite said weakly. “Yes, now please let me go.”

“And what will you tell him, soldier?”

“Jesus Christ, I—”

“What will you tell him, soldier?”

“I accept my mission.”

“And why do you accept?”

“The nine to three,” the sodomite whimpered, his tears flowing freely. “It is my destiny as written in the stars.”

The General strapped down the sodomite’s free hand and began gathering up the tattoo equipment. The sodomite screamed again to be set free, but the General ignored him. Besides, the sodomite hardly had any voice left at all. He’d been in the chair for over a week.

And despite the circumstances, even the Prince was impressed with the sodomite’s work on the doorway—or at least he seemed to be. The power of the first doorway, the one on the throne, was already beginning to weaken by that point. The General had only allowed the sodomite’s right hand to be free and kept his Beretta pointed at his head the entire time he used his needle. That was one of the reasons the tattoo had taken so long to be completed; for even though the General was strong, his arm often grew tired from holding the gun for long stretches at a time.

The General often wondered if the police knew about the stolen tattoo equipment—older equipment, which the General had taken from a storage closet at Canning’s. He also wondered if the sodomite’s lover ever suspected his beau was having an affair at the tattoo parlor behind his back. Granted, the Prince hadn’t allowed the affair to go on long. Just long enough for the sinful sodomite to touch and kiss the doorway; just long enough for him to let his guard down and become attracted to the young man who called himself Ken Ralston.

But now, over two months later, the General understood that with the discovery of the corrupt lawyer the FBI was involved. And thus the General also understood that, now that the authorities had ditched the drug cartel connection and were calling him a serial killer—Vlad the Impaler, how ridiculous!—well, now things would have to be different.

No, the General would not be able to go back to West Hargett Street tonight. Instead, he would have to spend the evening in consultation with the Prince.

The rose. Cindy Smith. The cast party Friday night.

Perhaps the Prince would like the General to recruit his soldiers elsewhere?

Edmund took a deep breath. He needn’t worry about all that now, for unlike the beginning, when the General had to decode and interpret the messages from the Prince on his own, now the General could ask the Prince directly, and the Prince would answer him with his visions.

As long as the doorway remained open.

Edmund returned the rose to his book bag and sat admiring it for a long time—its stem, a long wooden stake planted in the earth; the flower itself, the scrubbed-white flesh of the next soldier.

A sign, he heard the General whisper in his mind. The female most certainly has given us a sign.

Chapter 31

Markham sat at the Resident Agency conference table with a sea of paperwork stretched out before him. He had been there all day; had gone home at 2 a.m. the night before and only punched four restless hours of sleep on the clock before returning to the Resident Agency at eight.

The story broke about four hours later, and was all over the news by three that afternoon—Rodriguez and Guerrera, Donovan and Canning, all connected in their grisly, graphic glory. The FBI had learned that the groundskeeper who’d discovered Donovan in the baseball field was going to talk. He’d already made a public statement and was scheduled to appear on Nancy Grace that evening. Gurganus would roll soon, too, he knew. They always did.

Word had also gotten out about the writing on Canning’s chest via “a reliable source inside the investigation.” Markham thought most likely one of Sergeant Powell’s boys had been paid off, and unless the FBI didn’t deal with this information swiftly, the vultures were going to be a pain in the ass about it. Fortunately, an FBI spokesperson had tem- porarily dodged the question during a press conference earlier that afternoon.

However, rather than seeing all the media attention as a roadblock, Markham relished the idea of getting the vultures to work for him for a change. And so the FBI decided to release an incomplete image of the writing found on Billy Canning’s torso. They would also alter the image to include a line of what they said “appeared to be Romanian.” This would satisfy the press and let them run with the Vlad angle while the FBI followed their real leads.

Their real leads.

Markham stared down at them on the table. It had taken him, along with Schaap and their consultant in the classical studies department at NC State, over twelve hours to put it all together—feverish bouts of research and discussion broken up by long stretches of waiting while this or that theory was followed up on. This last follow-up had taken the longest of them all. Markham had been waiting to hear back for almost two hours. But that was all right, for this last follow-up was indeed going to be the last—the most important piece of the puzzle; the proof that all his research had not been for naught.

“Here it is,” Schaap said, entering. “I got one of the boys preparing the JPEG scan as we speak.”

He handed Markham a copy of a black-and-white photograph.

Markham studied it for an entire minute without speaking.

“I’ll call Alan Gates,” he said finally.

But he did not move.

No, for the moment Sam Markham was content to just sit there gaping, unable to believe his eyes.

Chapter 32