Lovely Violent Things: A Dark Romance (Hollow’s Row 2)
Lovely Violent Things: Chapter 3

HALEN

There’s a story of a monster that feeds off pain. Its fangs sink into the soul and siphon suffering like a vampire sucks blood. Misery slithers in its veins, sorrow is the sinew beneath its flesh. It’s a hollow vessel that leeches off agony the same way a creature of the dead feasts on sustaining lifeforce.

In the Greek mythos, poems were ascribed to a daemon like this, these personified spirits who embodied human pain and despair. They called them the Algea, the incarnations of our sins, and our mourning.

The human condition is such that we must give our overpowering emotions a name, even fashion them into monsters. So we can comprehend the depth of our heartache, understand our profound grief. So we can make sense of meaningless tragedies, and the pain we ourselves inflict. Then the resulting guilt.

So there’s a reason for all our suffering.

And further, so we can cast it out of our person as something abstract.

How else can we reconcile all that we endure?

The personification of my profound grief came to me in the form of a beautiful devil with clashing blue-and-green eyes and a smoldering, disarming smile.

My daemon sank his teeth into my flesh, lapped at my tears, feasted on my blood. He latched on to my soul and fed off my pain like a night terror crushes air from the lungs. He’s entwined around my bones, seeping deep into my very marrow.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape him. I feel him beneath my skin, his heated current sparking and burning my muscle, his destructive flame cauterizing my wounds.

Each marshy breath I drag into my lungs sears with the memory of Kallum. The electric feel of his touch, the sensation of his feverish gaze on my body. The charged moments between us are there behind every blink.

And as I work the newest Hollow’s Row crime scene, he’s the monster I’m searching for in every detail.

A deep plum tints the sky over the killing fields like the bruises marking my neck. The scent of rain drifts through the endless stretch of marsh reeds, adhering to the early morning dew.

I’ve been obsessively combing through the crime scene since I arrived on-site yesterday, searching for the one piece of evidence that will tie Professor Kallum Locke to the Harbinger killer’s latest victim.

I swipe the back of a gloved hand across my forehead, clearing away damp strands of my overgrown bangs from my brow. Any and every interference to slow me has become a festering annoyance.

Constructing the narrative of a crime scene where I already have the perpetrator in mind is a challenge I’ve never faced before. My point of view is biased. I’m envisioning everything through Kallum’s eyes, walking in his premeditated footsteps.

Which is dangerous. If I make one misstep, one oversight…

Well, I’ve already watched this play out in court once before.

I can’t let Kallum slip through the cracks of the justice system again.

As I refocus on the crime scene, I position the spotlight to project away from the victim. Kallum would have had no light to see by. There was only a sliver of moon at night.

When we were together at the ritual ground.

I chase the thought back to the dark corner of my mind. Then I shake out my gloved hands and stand in front of my tripod. Camera aimed at the intricate webbing of thread and discolored tongues strung between two eerie marsh trees, I snatch the remote from the depressed reed grass and commence the rapid-fire shutter clicks as I move through the scene.

In order to deconstruct the murder, essentially, I’m assembling the crime in reverse.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I let my senses absorb the malicious current lingering in the air as I imagine Kallum’s dark thoughts, the pitch-black savagery of his movements. Every action he took steeped in his own vicious brand of evil.

I know where and at what time I last saw him. I can place Kallum at the ritual ground at 4:45 a.m. My call to Agent Alister is timestamped. The next time Kallum was seen was by the two special agents who had been placed in charge of watching him. That was around 7:30 a.m.

To mark the time between, I’m building out from the moment the perpetrator placed the severed head next to the erected body amid the woven thread. That would have been the final touch.

While I’m estimating times, clocking the length of each individual action, I have to be mindful not to force a particular piece of evidence or outcome to tell the story I want verses what the evidence states.

For this very reason, I should recuse myself from the case—but there is no one else who will be more devoted to uncovering the truth.

Even if that ultimate truth buries me right along with Kallum.

A possibility I haven’t stopped long enough to fully absorb or process. I can’t, not now. Not when I’ve never been this close to catching the Harbinger before.

I’ll face any consequences when Kallum is locked away for good.

Fueled by anger and resentment and even humiliation, I finish logging the timeframe of displaying the victim’s body adorned as the death’s-head hawkmoth, then glance around at the crime-scene techs trading shifts.

I check my phone: 6:00 a.m.

I told Devyn seven hours ago I’d take a break.

Which I did, technically. A tent has been erected just off the boardwalk of the public hunting grounds, where portalets and coolers of water are accessible. I’ve had to stop every few hours to tend to my menstrual flow, something I haven’t had to deal with in months. Not since the accident that claimed my fiancé and pregnancy.

Every time I change a sanitary napkin, the emotional wound is scraped open with fresh pain. Only now, there is also the appalling guilt of Kallum and I together.

I may have gotten a logical answer from my doctor for why this is happening to my body, but it’s not enough to calm the rising panic every time a visual of him between my thighs surfaces, and I see him tasting me, carving my skin…

A cramp twinges in my pelvis, and I touch my stomach, willing my thoughts back onto the task before me. An ache builds behind my eyes and my vision starts to blur. I ignore the dull throb in my head and push past the weariness pulling at my muscles.

A sinister voice crawls up from the trenches of my mind to whisper that if I stop—if I allow my thoughts to drift to anything other than the obsessive need to dissect this crime scene—I’ll be dragged right down to the abyss, to those flashes of memory I’m barely holding back.

The dam can’t break.

Since the moment Kallum slashed his palms and painted my body with his blood, images of the Cambridge murder have been assaulting my mind. Each time, a fragment longer, the grainy picture becoming a degree sharper.

All from the killer’s perspective.

“I’m just tired,” I mutter to myself as I suppress the imagery of a dead man’s mutilated face.

Despite what my mind is trying to make me believe, I had no reason to kill Professor Wellington six months ago…a stranger to me.

No motive. No evidence. No crime.

When reciting this mantra starts to lose effectiveness, I read the script inked on my forearm. The verse by Voltaire reminds me that I’m here in this moment. I only have to focus on this scene.

So I immerse myself fully. I imagine the Overman’s tongue exhibit already constructed when the Harbinger brought his victim to the hunting grounds. With the time constraint, he had almost thirty minutes to kill the victim by slicing his throat, remove the antlers, sever the head, then stage the scene.

He spread the arms along the woven thread backdrop and tied each wrist to a tree to resemble the wings of the moth. The face was chalked in black and white to portray the skull on the moth’s thorax. Every detail is precise to the previous Harbinger crime scenes.

The only anomaly is the antlers affixed to the victim’s head. Unlike Landry, where the antlers were strapped via a leather band, the victim has implants. An extreme measure taken by the offender to modify his higher men into his construct of the Dionysian Mysteries.

This is our first glimpse into what the missing victims have been subjected to for the past five years.

The Harbinger killer removed the antlers from the victim, but not by carving them out of the flesh; he sawed the horns off at the base of the bone.

This particular detail has been what’s kept me here, questioning the intent. Removing the antlers completely would be more authentic to the Harbinger’s desire to depict the moth.

Was it his intent to desecrate the Overman’s higher men? Or was it done purposely to reveal something about the Overman suspect?

The antlers have not been recovered.

While walking in the footsteps of the killer, timing each action he had to take, the blinking light of a firefly catches my notice. “What are you doing out so late,” I whisper to the insect. “Or this early, rather.”

I watch the nocturnal insect bob around one of the barren trees. My gaze drifts down and, as a detail comes into focus, my breath stills.

My mud boots make a squelching sound as I maneuver toward the spotlight and angle the beam on the wrist of the victim. The thread has been wrapped around his wrist several times. But there in the plied twine is a long fiber.

I retrieve a pair of tweezers and pluck the coarse string from the thread. Before I bag it, I use my phone to take pictures. After I’ve labeled the evidence sleeve, I hand it off to one of the task force agents overseeing the crime scene.

It could be nothing more than factory transfer on the skein of yarn. I’m sure just about every ball of yarn out there has different fibers and string from other skeins spooled in the same warehouse.

As my thoughts meander down that path, my wrist flares with an itch, and I circle my fingers around the rope burn. As if on cue to save me from my spiraling thoughts, I spot Devyn making her way up the boardwalk. She’s carrying a cardboard container with two coffee cups.

I remove my gloves and stuff them into my pocket, then hoist myself onto the edge of the weathered planks. I extend a hand to accept a coffee, and she raises the carton out of reach.

“No, ma’am,” she says. “This is not for you. You are cut off from caffeine.”

She’s dressed in black tactical pants and a matching rain jacket with the HRPD logo embroidered on the left breast. Her dark hair is pushed out of the way with a thick headband.

I feign insult with a scowl. “How am I supposed to function without mocha-flavored caffeine?”

“Halen, I know you didn’t leave.” She arches a sculpted eyebrow against her pretty, warm-brown complexion. “You’ve been on this scene for…” She trails off, shaking her head. “I lost count. But I know it’s now been too damn long. You’re leaving to get some sleep.”

“I just need to do one more thing—”

“No. You need rest. Have you even slept once since the attack at the ritual crime scene?”

No rest for the wicked.

The thought comes to me unbidden. I don’t even know who first said it, and I realize Kallum would know. He’d have a whole lecture on the etymology behind it and how the saying altered over the years. He’d somehow layer a veiled sexual innuendo in his lesson, ending on a wink that would make my heart flutter.

And dammit, I despise the part of me that aches with a homesick pang at the thought.

I do need sleep.

At Devyn’s concerned expression, I sigh. “Fine. I’ll head to the hotel for a few hours.”

“Good. Because if your overtired ass touches this scene again, I’m writing you up,” she threatens, eyeing the marsh crime scene lit up by spotlights.

My brows knit together, my smile tight. “Do you have the authority to do that? What exactly is a write-up for a consultant?”

She makes a point of taking a long sip of coffee to ignore my question. Then she uses the steps placed at the side of the boardwalk to enter the scene. “Medical examiner is removing the victim soon anyway, before the storm hits.”

I nod slowly as I breathe in the earthy scent of pending rain.

After Devyn sets her coffees on a table, she grabs her crime-scene kit and begins laying out her impression tools, lining up her brushes in order by size. Then she removes a binder from her pack and hands it to me.

“Look it over and sign,” she says. “I was able to sweet talk Iris into letting you keep your room at the inn. Expenses covered by the HRPD for the next week. Considering all the rooms are now rented out to media parasites, it’s the best offer the department could make.”

“No, this is perfect. Thank you.” I accept the binder and briefly flip through the consulting contract. I would have agreed to work the case for free. But, seeing as how that might come across as a bit obsessive and raise some red flags, I decided it was time to officially go solo.

“I’ll get this back to you soon,” I tell her. “Who do I answer to, by the way?”

Her features draw together. “Well, Detective Emmons has taken a leave of absence.”

“Understandable.” The decapitated victim erected in the center of the crime scene was identified as his younger brother. The one who went missing with the other thirty-two disappeared residents over five years ago, whose dismembered organs and body parts have been appearing in ritualistic crime scenes all over the killing fields.

“So,” Devyn says, resigned, “Detective Riddick is his second in command, and has taken charge of the case until further notice.”

My gaze narrows on her. “You said that so formally.”

Her laugh is clipped. “Yeah, well. You’ll understand when you meet him. The man has absolutely no sense of humor, let’s just say that.”

“Oh, that sounds like a match made in law enforcement heaven for Agent Alister.”

“At least you still have a sense of humor,” she says with a smirk. “Dark though it may be.”

I slip the binder under my arm and drop down from the boardwalk. “See. I’m fine. I really should finish cataloging the removal of the antlers from the victim’s head before the medical examiner arrives.”

“God, you said that way too casually. It’s getting harder to stomach this case. And no,” she says, a hard reprimand. “Go to the inn. Get rested up. I promise, if anything important happens, I will call you, Halen.”

I hesitate only a moment before nodding my agreement. Technically, the Hollow’s Row Police Department now signs my checks, even though I haven’t stopped long enough to negotiate my own pay-rate as an independent consultant.

When I was fired from CrimeTech, I had no further purpose here. Then the news broke of the newest victim of the Harbinger killer being discovered right here in this town.

That changed everything.

Before Devyn heads deeper into the scene, I ask her, “Is there any update on what I gave you?”

As Devyn is a forensic analyst and the closest thing I have to an ally here—and a friend—I entrusted her with the evidence from Kallum’s ritual. The wine bottle. The crown of bone. The robe I was wearing. A self-administered SAEK (sexual assault evidence kit).

The last one I hesitated on. No, Kallum didn’t force himself on me. I was a willing participant. And according to the tox screen run at the hospital, no drugs were found in my system. I wasn’t drugged. But, as I can’t yet logically explain what happened to me during the ritual, I have to question and test everything.

It didn’t register until I got back to the hotel and went through my bag what was missing from the collected evidence.

The carving knife.

Sometimes, it’s what’s absent that is the biggest clue.

Did I overlook it when I was hastily gathering items at the ritual ground? Or was it removed from my bag afterward?

“Halen? Did you hear me?”

I blink hard and recenter my focus. “Yeah, sorry. Just zoned out for a second.”

“Uh-huh.” Devyn turns toward her kit. “Well, in order to process everything you gave me stealthily, it’s going to take a bit of time. The lab is overworked with this case.”

A bite the corner of my lip. “Of course. I was just hoping…” I shake my head, having no idea what hope even means anymore.

“I know,” she says, her tone soft and reassuring as she faces me. “Look. Whatever happened to you out there—” she nods in the general direction of the ritual crime scene “—it’s going to take even more time for you to process that. You’re a psychologist, Halen. You know this. Give yourself enough time to equilibrate or recalibrate or whatever.”

A thin smile ghosts my lips. I nod appreciatively. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” She steps closer and drops her voice low. “And if you need to talk about anything that might have happened between you and a certain devastatingly sexy expert consultant. Hey, no judgment. I’m here for that. But if he hurt you—”

“No. I promise. Nothing like that.” I meet her concerned gaze, and really hope I’m convincing. “As crazy as it sounds, I just want to make sure I’m not losing my mind.”

Her mouth twists into a smile. “Oh, I can confirm that for you right now. You’re absolutely batshit. But, I suspect that’s why you’re so good at what you do.”

An amused laugh escapes, and I appreciate her attempt to put me at ease despite our grisly surroundings and the obvious stress of the case. “Thanks. I think…”

“You’re welcome. Now, get out of here before you fall asleep on a pile of evidence.”

Devyn heads to the center of the scene to confer with one of the federal agents on the task force, leaving me feeling some strange, vulnerable melancholy.

Typically, my field manager Aubrey would check in a couple times before I closed out my day. I’d send in my field reports. I have a strict routine. Had a routine. And that might be all I’m feeling, the lack of structure. What kept my mind focused, busy. Off of painful reminders of the past.

Once I have my tripod and tools packed in my case, I hoist the strap over my shoulder, groaning at the tender ache in my back. Really, as the adrenaline that’s been fueling my manic efforts to process this scene starts to wane, every sensitive bruise and injury on my body makes itself known.

My back bears the scrapes from the bark where I was bound to a tree. My wrists are abraded with rope burn. My skin is covered in scratches and bruises and bite marks, and a sigil is carved into my innermost upper thigh.

My whole body thrums with a painful, visceral reminder of Kallum.

The hotel room has a soaking tub, and I’m thinking about submerging myself for the next several hours when an alarming sensation prickles the back of my neck, lifting the fine hairs along my body.

As the early morning air crackles with a volatile, kinetic force, I sense the moment he enters my energy field. Like the darkest flint striking an abrasive surface, the friction of his presence scratches over my skin, heating my flesh.

His fiery chaos pulses against my logical defenses, and my breathing becomes erratic. I can feel him, tangible, magnetic, drawing me in like a moth to a frenzied flame.

I don’t miss the dark irony as I stand amid a crime scene designed by the Harbinger himself.

My heart clenches in my chest, and suddenly every molecule vibrates with his frequency as I gravitate toward the boardwalk and climb the steps onto the worn planks. Gathering my remaining strength, I look down the walkway.

Kallum’s striking silhouette is framed by the hazy glow of the lamps.

Like a lit match dropped to a trail of gasoline, the distance between us blazes through the dark. He eats each step with a sure but unhurried stride, his gaze intently aimed on me, making the world fall away.

Sheathed in a designer black suit tailored to his beautiful form, he’s the devil of deception and debauchery descending on Hollow’s Row once again.

Kallum is flanked by Agent Alister and another special agent—one of the tagalong feds.

The closer he draws, a gauzy web of indecision spools around my mind, the heavy thud of my heart drowns out the background of the marsh. White noise fills my head and my hand clasps the bag strap so tightly my fingers go numb.

It’s only been hours since I last saw him, and I’ve already forgotten how consuming his presence is, how—when his sole attention is directed on me—he desires to make me feel like I’m the only person in the universe.

A dangerously deceptive illusion by the chaos magician himself.

Breath bated, I hold his intense stare as he coasts toward me, close enough that when I’m forced to take a breath, his scent of spicy sandalwood burns in my lungs.

Kallum’s mouth tips into a devastatingly beautiful smile. “Hello, Halen.”