'Who in their right mind would have weird shit sitting around the second you stepped into the house, Tommy?' I asked. “He might be nuts, but I'm guessing he's not the 'hang the dead corpses of your victims from the ceiling of your home' kind of nuts.'
I started searching the flat, but found nothing more than an incredibly tidy place and some questionable movies next to the huge TV in his front room. Off the large main room was a kitchen at one end and hallway at the other. The kitchen, like everything else, was so clean that I made out my reflection in the marble worktops and although there was a lot of raw meat in the fridge, none of it looked out of place in a werewolf's kitchen.
The hallway led to two bedrooms and a bathroom, all of which mimicked the rest of the place. 'Tommy, there's nothing here. I've found some porn in the bedroom, which wasn't exactly a pleasant sight, but nothing illegal about it.'
'What do you mean?'
'Extreme domination stuff,' I said candidly. 'Women being tied up, gagged, beaten, that kind of thing. Not exactly my cup of tea, but also not an indication that he's butchering women in his bathtub. Which, by the way, is also spotless.' I walked to the large window at the end of the hallway and looked down on the parking lot below me. 'People like this don't just give up and stop trying.'
'I know,' Tommy said. 'They get worse, not better. All that pent up rage and aggression he would have had in prison, he wouldn't have just forgotten about it.'
'He's either letting it out somewhere else, or he's castrated himself and he can't do a damn thing anymore.'
'Something isn't right here,' Tommy said.
I rested my forehead against the glass pane and thought about where I would stash something I didn't want people to find. I'd want it nearby, I'd need it close so that I could go and look at it, to relive how I'd felt whilst I was doing whatever it was that had made me happy. 'Did Neil take souvenirs?' I asked.
There was a rustle of paper before Tommy spoke. 'He took their purses. Left them the money, but took everything else. The purses were recovered when he was arrested.'
'Does it say where they were found?'
More rustling. 'Attic.'
'This place doesn't have an attic,' I said.
I walked back to the master bedroom and glanced around. It was barely decorated with a bed, TV and chest of drawers. A wooden chair sat next to the window and a door led to a small, but well-maintained bathroom.
The only other item in the bedroom was the large built-in wardrobe. I opened the double doors and revealed a long row of clothes. I hadn't given it much thought the first time round, but it wasn't cluttered or full. I cursed myself and pushed all the clothes aside, revealing two leather handles at the top of the cupboard, which once pulled down revealed a hidden room.
Once I'd removed the false panel of the wardrobe and tossed it onto the bed, I noticed a light switch just inside and above where the panel sat. I flicked it on, bathing the small room in light.
Once fully inside the room, I started my search. It took about three seconds before I found something wrong. Really wrong.
A desk had been placed under one of two lights, with a large pin up board behind it, leaning up against the wall. It contained pictures of women. 'Tommy, do you have pictures of Neil's previous victims down there?'
'Yeah,' he said. 'You need copies?'
'Text them to me.'
Sure enough, after a few minutes, several texts appeared on my phone, and my fears were confirmed. 'He has pictures of every victim up here.'
'Anyone new?'
I scanned the photos, dozens in all, each overlapping the one closest to it until it formed some sort of hideous collage of stalking. 'Four new girls, their photos are the same.'
'The same how?' Tommy asked.
'He stalked them from a distance like with his previous victims. If he's hurt any of them, I can't see any evidence to say he did it in here.' I opened the drawers on the desk and found a large map, part of which was circled in red pen with the word 'farm' written beside it. I used my phone to take several close up photos before continuing my search of the room.
'I might be wrong,' I said after finding some thick iron chains which were secured to both the floor and ceiling. 'He's more than equipped to hurt people here.'
'You sure?'
'There's a map with the word 'farm' and a circled area, that mean anything to you?'
'A farm, you're sure?' Tommy asked.
'Ask me again if I'm sure about something, Tommy. Yes, I'm fucking sure. No one has photos of people they've stalked and then a map of a farm in the middle of nowhere, unless they're doing something horrific.'
'My client was informed that the police got a tip-off about some sort of suspicious activity taking place at an abandoned farm about thirty miles outside of the city. Apparently no one has had time to check it out yet; they've been getting crackpot calls about that serial killer in the news. Could the serial killer be Neil?'
'It's possible,' I said. 'It's worth looking into at any point.' I stood and brushed my hands on my trousers, before switching the light off and leaving the room. The LOA, the Law of Avalon, would want to look into Neil's activities. Hopefully this time they'd make sure he couldn't get out again, preferably with a more permanent residency somewhere a little hotter.
I replaced the panel, ensuring nothing appeared too out of place, but as I stepped out of the wardrobe, I caught my foot on something and slipped back, landing with a bang. I stood to close the doors and paused when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun shell being loaded. 'Tommy, we have a much bigger problem.'
Chapter 3
The blast missed me, and I hit the floor, rolling until my back was against the wall next to where the now ruined door sat.
A second later, when my ears stopped ringing, I heard the sound of smashing glass from the direction of the living room. I edged along the wall and peered through the hole in the wooden bedroom door into the hallway beyond, finding it empty except for a discarded shotgun on the floor.
I sprinted into the living room, only to find one of the dozen windows was shattered. Although acutely aware of how exposed I was standing in the middle of a large open room, I made my way to the window and stared out, looking down the hundred and fifty feet to the ground below.
Neil was hanging from a rope about fifty feet off the ground, moving very slowly down toward his escape. The rope was attached to some climbing gear, which had been built into the curtain frame. It extended along the entire length of the room. A small box behind the frame contained the rope, obviously strong enough to hold a fully grown man, but small enough that it was easily concealable. It was quite a clever idea; smash the window, grab the rope and rappel down the side of the building.
'We've got ourselves a rabbit,' I said. 'Right now he's hanging from a rope at the opposite side of the building to you.'
'On the way,' Tommy said.
'From the speed he's going, I could probably get to him before he hits the ground. I don’t think he’s tried this before.' I grabbed the rope with both hands, and created a cushion of hardened air between my skin and the black rope. When I felt secure, I pulled myself up and through the broken window and began my decent.
I used the air magic to allow the rope to slide quickly through my hands without discomfort, while keeping enough friction there to stop me from falling without control.
It took all of five seconds for an almighty bang to sound from beneath me. I glanced down as Neil cursed loudly, while dislodging himself from the roof of the soft-top car he'd fallen on. Unfortunately, by the time I'd reached the ground he was already off across the road and heading toward a large park, although his limp made it impossible for him to sprint anywhere at meaningful speed.
