Angel of Death

TWENTY-THREE

Detective Donna Leland lay in St Mary’s hospital. She blinked. That was accomplishment enough after two months of coma.

The feeding tube that had snaked up her nose and down her throat had been pulled just this morning. The IVs still dripped their fluids into her veins. Catheters, too – she was invaded in half a dozen places but felt none of it. A two-month coma was plenty of time for her body to become accustomed to plastic and stainless steel and processed fluids and unregulated eliminations. It all felt completely natural. It all felt not at all.

That’s what coma was for. Anesthesia. The doctors had found no serious injuries beyond her concussion. The airbag had made certain of that. The tree had fallen on the empty passenger seat, missing her but bringing the roof of the car down on her head. She had a slight cranial contusion, perhaps enough to cause amnesia, but not coma.

Amnesia would have been more merciful. Now that she had awakened, she remembered it all. She remembered and cared enough to call the station for an update. The chief said he’d come out and explain things. He would arrive any moment.

“Detective!” came the voice from the doorway. Bigg’s face was red and fleshy beside the big spray of flowers he had bought in the gift shop downstairs. The thin plastic wrapper was still around the bundle, and it still bore a price tag. “So, you decided to come back to the land of the living.”

“Yeah,” she managed. She cleared her throat, swallowing painfully past the soreness from the feeding tube. “You didn’t have to drive out here.”

“Aww, it’s nothing.” He cantered in and pulled back the drapes. Sunlight stabbed against the ivory-colored wall. “I was hoping to see the old Donna again, you know.”

“Here I am. Got two months of beauty sleep.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah. Well. It looks good on you. You weren’t looking right during the whole trial.” He handed her the flowers.

She smiled, sniffing the frumpy bouquet. “Oh, that’s just TV cameras for you. They add ten pounds and twenty years.”

“I’m glad you can joke again. It’s good to see you without that creep hanging on to you.”

Donna blinked. “Thanks for the flowers.”

He gestured dismissively. “For the first couple days, it was round the clock guard – in case you-know-who would show up. He didn’t. Must’ve bought the story of your death. The press sure did. Ran with it. They care more about a good story than a true one.”

Donna took in the information. “What do you mean, in case you-know-who showed up? How could Azra show up?”

Biggs grimaced and changed the subject. “The judge didn’t see past all that malarkey about the Gulf War.”

“Malarkey?”

“Well, that part of it has only come out three weeks ago. It turns out that whole story was one Billings arranged from prison. His wife came out with it. Named names. There’re going to be seven different indictments. Falsifying information. Planting evidence. A bunch of computer tampering crimes.”

“It was a lie?”

“All of it. We know less about our Doe now than we thought we knew before your accident.”

“He always said it was made up,” Donna said. She swallowed sourly. “I’m the one who convinced him it was true. I’m the one who told him he had to believe, he had to live.” She shook her head, weary to the bone.

“So, has Illinois scheduled his trial yet?”

“Well, no. See, that’s the thing…”

“He’s been extradited already?”

“Well, no. Not extradited.”

“Where is he?” she asked, concern piercing her grogginess.

“He’s in Illinois, just not in custody.”

She sat up, and the blood drained from her face. “Not in custody?”

“He tried to kill himself – just after hearing about your accident. They rushed him to the hospital – this very hospital, but en route he killed everybody and took the ambulance. Even overturned a semi on the highway. Got away.”

“Mother of God. Well. God damn it, Azra. God damn it.”

The chief glanced down, chagrined. “Yes. Yes, it’s bad. He’s giving the Chicago cops quite a time. He’s escalated. Twenty-two in the last two months.”

Her eyes were pleading. “No. No. That’s not possible. No. He… he had such a heart, Chief. He was just a dog that had been kicked and kicked and kicked until he snapped at anything and everything, but I started to get through all of that. I saw the man trapped inside that monster, and I was bringing him out.” Donna sank back against her pillow.

“He’s not a lost child, Donna. You’ve been asleep. You haven’t seen the papers.”

“You don’t understand-”

“No, you don’t understand. He’s got you wrapped around his little finger – like Bundy, like Manson. He’s brainwashed you.”

“I love him.”

“Damn it, Donna,” Biggs snarled. He stepped away to the window and looked out grimly. “He’s not the man you knew. He’s changed his MO, for one. He works alone, now. He takes his victims’ heads and hands and makes masks and gloves out of them. His own identity has disappeared.” He turned back to Donna. “He’s always taking on the identities of his victims. He can be anyone, anywhere, at any time. He could be me.”

Donna stared intently in the chief’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said it. Just a figure of speech.” He paused, sniffing. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re awake. And if you’re serious about wanting to talk to him, you could help us catch him.”

Donna couldn’t answer at first. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Finally, she managed, “Whatever you need. We’ve got to get him off the streets.”

“All right,” he said grimly. “There’s going to be another plenary on the Son of Samael down in Chicago, three days from now. I figured, if we could get a special release from the doctor…”

“I’ll go, regardless.”

“There’s my girl. You’re kind of – well, you’re the expert on this guy. There’ll be FBI profilers there, discussion of proactive approaches, and all that.”

A troubled look came into her eyes. She swallowed and looked down at her swollen abdomen. “What about…?”

“The accident wasn’t enough. Besides, it’s a Catholic hospital, Donna. They did everything to make sure it survived.”

She breathed, staring blankly ahead like a frightened animal.

“You’ve still got a month to get it done legally. I’ve talked to a doctor who said she would take care of it after you’ve been stable for a week.”

A sudden brightness came into her eyes. “No. No, I’m glad. It’s all right. I’m Catholic, too, Captain. You knew that.”

“Yes, but in cases of rape-”

“But this wasn’t rape. My car ran into that tree, but I survived. The baby survived. God has done something here. It’s about time that God has done something. And I’m not going to undo it. If I’m going to live, the baby will, too.”

“You’re sure about this, Detective? The sins of the fathers, and all that. Aren’t you afraid whenever you look at him -?”

“There’s got to be redemption somewhere in this mess. It always takes a child to overcome the sins of a previous generation. There’s got to be redemption somewhere.”

He sat at the breakfast counter of a small, smoky diner. A plate of sunny-side-up eggs, bacon strips, and hash browns sent steam coiling up the valley of the newspaper. His fork sliced free a rounded wedge of egg, piercing the yolk, which oozed across the plate. He lifted the wet mass of white toward his lips – not his lips, but those of the fat grocer he had slain on the loading dock. The mask was becoming one of his favorites – comfortable and realistic. It was the first mask he’d filled out with foam rubber to make the jowls and bulbous nose and rings under the eyes turn out well. He would not have sat at the breakfast counter with any other mask, much less ordered a runny egg and crumbly hash browns.

The article he was reading was buried on page thirteen of the first section, unlike most of the stories written about him. He had almost missed the account.

“Which would have been a great shame,” he told himself.

KILLER’S COP GIRLFRIEND WAKES

AP International

Photo and Story by Blake Gaines

Previously reported dead, the Son of Samael’s female companion, Detective Donna Leland of the Burlington, Wisconsin, police, woke from a two-month coma yesterday, according to anonymous sources at St Mary’s Hospital, Racine, Wisconsin.

Detective Leland is widely considered the foremost expert on the man known as the Son of Samael. Police indicate that her death was falsely reported in order to keep the Son of Samael from targeting her during her coma.

Sources in the hospital indicate that Leland is pregnant, perhaps with the child of the Son of Samael. Despite an automobile accident and a two-month coma, the unborn child survives. Detective Leland has chosen to keep the baby, according to sources. She has one month in which to have a legal abortion. Detective Leland is reported to have claimed that the child “is the only innocent.”

Leland is scheduled to appear at tomorrow’s plenary session on catching the killer. Security will be tight at the session, open only to police personnel, fearing that the Son of Samael might try to attend the conference.

“I thought you were dead.” A sucking breath came into him. “I died, too. It’s too late for me, now. It’s too late for us.”

The coffee felt hot on Samael’s true lips, glued behind and beneath those of his victim. He folded the paper once, twice, and then set it beside his plate. The eggs were getting cold.

“But it will be good to see you again, Donna, my angel,” he said to himself, tears tracing the line of spirit gum under his eyes. “I’m glad one of us still lives.”

Sergeant Mike Uriel sat in Arlington Heights’s East High School theater. Nearly a thousand delegates were in attendance. Many were detectives, many others beat cops, administrators, dispatchers – even neighborhood watch captains, ministers, teachers, reporters, boy’s club advisors, and other average citizens. The theater had a carnival atmosphere: masses come to gawk at human grotesqueries.

That’s why they will never catch me, thought Mike Uriel, leaning back in his seat. They all think I’m human.

All but, perhaps, one. Detective Donna Leland spoke from a wheelchair, unable to stand for long periods. She wore a suit jacket and blouse, but in place of the slacks was a skirt that allowed room for her pregnant belly.

“-I have, needless to say, learned a lot about serial criminals in my pursuit of and relationship with the Son of Samael. Profilers from the Quantico Behavioral Sciences Unit have given me a crash course in understanding the thinking of psychotics and psychopaths. Being Azra’s confidante has taught me even more. We were companions, the killer and I. We were intimate. I knew Azra the man before I knew Samael the monster.”

The crowd’s polite hush deepened into silence. Unfair, Donna. Unfair. You said you would not testify against me. You said you would not abandon me.

“The inevitable result of our liaison is this child I now carry, his child. The other result is an especial insight into the mind of this man. I share these insights with you in hopes, not only, of getting him off the streets, but also of helping him. Of saving him and all of us.”

The lines are drawn now, my angel. You have betrayed me. The lines are drawn.

“For example, is this man a psychotic or a psychopath? Is he deluded about his own nature, and therefore committing his crimes due to paranoid schizophrenia? Or does he know exactly what he is doing, merely disguising the fulfillment of his violent sexual fantasies in a guise of madness?

“Originally, we had Keith McFarland to explain many of the disorganized, psychotic elements of these crimes. No longer. The Son of Samael has likely killed another twenty-three people without McFarland. Even so, these crimes continue to show signs of a psychotic – many clues left at the crime scenes, high-risk victims, ritualized manipulation of the body, and so forth. Remember, our man has likely committed these acts solo.”

Yes, I committed them on my own, but was prompted by you and all of you and the hosts of Heaven and Hell and God him- self. You all are complicit in my crimes. You all are accomplices, and you all will be victims.

“On the other hand, other aspects of the crime scenes

– those committed with McFarland and those committed solo – indicate someone utterly methodical, manipulative, and premeditative. Certainly Azra showed all these signs, and his canny ability to elude and taunt police even now demonstrates this psychopathic side.

“Add to this obvious discrepancy two very distinct and equally incredible stories of this man’s past. The first story, reported widely by the Son of Samael and, by all appearances, believed by him, is that he was the angel of death assigned to the greater MilwaukeeChicago area. His work as an angel of death fits very nicely with the psychopathic elements of the crimes. Control is the hallmark of this kind of killer, knowing the victims in advance, humanizing them during the act, and taking an artistic care in the ways the deaths occur.

It is the truth. I was an angel. Only among humans does the truth enslave.

“The other story, that the Son of Samael was a POW MIA from the Gulf War, fits well with the psychotic elements – a man driven to commit heinous acts by some half-understood delusion, sometimes in broad daylight, often leaving a crime scene filled with clues.”

That is the lie – the lie you taught me to believe.

“I suggest a temporal distinction. Prior to the murder of Derek Billings, Samael believed himself to be an angel, and his involvement in the murders had an organized quality. Afterward, he believed himself to be a madman, and his murders – specifically the killing of Derek Billings – became psychotic.”

I was mad to believe I could be human.

“So, what does the Son of Samael believe himself to be now? Interestingly, his first post-escape civilian victim was a priest, whom he shot but did not dismember. In fact, the lethal wound on the priest’s abdomen had been inexpertly bandaged. A cashier at a gas station nearby, who said she spoke to the Son of Samael the night before and the day after the priest’s death, said he wanted everyone to know he was polite to her, paid his money, and did not threaten. He said, ‘Tell them what I was like. Tell them what I was.’

“Here lies another transformation. Having at last been convinced of his humanity, the Son of Samael acts according to it. He tries to kill himself when he believes I am dead, then kills only to escape paramedics and police, then shoots a priest who is about to summon police, but feeling bad about it, tries to save the man’s life. The priest’s death is the final indicator to the Son of Samael that he can never live as a decent human, that he will be hunted all his life, and when caught in a situation that requires him to kill, he will kill.”

Oh, Donna, even now, you know me so well. I wish we could go back. I wish I could turn time backward as once I could.

“But the final transformation, the stressor that preceded this latest rash of killings, was the announcement of the falsehood of the Son of Samael’s human past. Here is a man who, after much browbeating, was at last convinced that he was human, and had the name William B. Dance, and had a very specific past filled with horrific tortures. Now he is told that that very past is a lie. All he is left with is his belief in an angelic origin, and his knowledge that he cannot regain his lost divinity. With the death of the priest, he could not even retain his humanity. So, what sort of creature is he now? What kind of being kills humans with impunity?

“Fallen angels. Fiends. Demons. At the tattoo parlor, there was a drawing that none of the workers had seen before, an ornately patterned mask. The Des Plaines police recently learned the face is a ritual mask of Shaytan, the Arabic name for Satan.”

Very good, my angel. Very good.

“Do you see? He thinks he has fallen from the heavens here to Earth for a short while, and descended farther than that to an abode in Hell. He is rejected by God and man. He is alone in torment, and desires only to strike out of the black heart of Hell to terrorize those with the smug fortune of living above.”

You know me so well. If I cannot have you as a companion, I will be content to have you as an adversary.

“Now, what does all of this have to do with catching Samael? First of all, it gives us a model for judging his behavior. When he believed himself to be an angel, he killed accordingly. When he believed himself to be human, he killed accordingly. Now, believing himself to be Satan incarnate, his murders are vicious, brazen, defiant acts of revenge.

“Our proactive strategies, therefore, ought to involve actions that wound his pride. He needs to be made a fool of in order for him to take the bait. Unlike the angel, who sought to kill anonymously, the new Son of Samael wants everyone to know who is doing the killing. He acts out of egotism. He wants publicity. He’s probably read every account printed about him, noting the names of writers who build up his violence and power, and noting also those who trivialize his position. Understanding this dynamic gives us a starting point for luring him in.”

A plenary such as this one would be irresistible.

“Even so, he uses the very faces and hands of his victims as disguises. This shows his utter contempt for humanity. Having been human for a few short months, he thinks he knows enough about us to despise us. We can expect many more such attacks on humanity, perhaps something at a school or a YMCA, perhaps something at a hospital or nursery.”

Thanks for the ideas.

“In the end, it does not matter whether this man was ever an angel, or is now a demon. All that matters is that he thinks he is these things, and acts accordingly. My time is just about up, I see, but I’d like to open the floor for questions.”

Perfect, thought Mike Uriel, standing up and raising his hand.

Detective Leland pointed his way, and all eyes turned toward him.

Lowering his hand – in fact, the somewhat fleshy hand of the old man – he growled out a question in an old-man voice. “You say that this demonic killer will be looking to attack humanity – children in particular. What do you think the killer’s intent is toward your child?”

Even from that distance, he could see her face whiten. A growl of offense moved through the crowd. Mike Uriel did not sit, though, awaiting a reply. Detective Leland waved away the angry sound of the crowd and said, “No, no. It’s a good question. I’m up to my eyeballs in this particular case, and my child will be, as well. Let’s first get this straight – the child is mine, not his, not the department’s. And, secondly, let’s hope the Son of Samael is caught before the baby is born, in another four months. If not, he may well try to take the baby.”

“Take the baby? Why would he want it?” asked Mike Uriel. “Wouldn’t a demon prefer to kill the child so that nothing of his humanity would remain?”

“Perhaps,” Donna responded slowly, as though she hadn’t considered that possibility. “But he may want to claim the child as his own, as the flesh and blood incarnation of evil. The son of Satan, and all that.”

Mike Uriel nodded. The pleased smile on his face quirked the skin of the dead man. “Thank you. Most insightful, most helpful. Thank you.”

The ambulance waited outside the stage door, and a line of policemen stood on either side of the walkway, a gauntlet Detective Leland must run.

Leland was in no shape to run. She felt like sleeping for three days. Another officer wheeled her chair out the doorway and toward the waiting ambulance. She smiled wanly and waved. The cops cheered her, some reaching out to pat her back in appreciation. When she reached the ambulance bumper, a thin young paramedic emerged from within and took her hand, gently helping her up into the vehicle. He guided her to a gurney and helped her lie down. Leland touched a hand to her chest, breathing hard from even that little exertion. The paramedic blinked his sensitive silvery eyes and handed her an oxygen mask. He eased the handle. “Just until you catch your breath.”

She didn’t put the plastic cup over her face, clutching it in one hand. “Wait until the crowd can’t see.”

He laughed a little. “That’s easy enough.” He lifted the folded wheelchair into the back of the ambulance, swung the doors closed, and stowed the chair. “There. How about you take a whiff of that stuff?”

She already had the mask over her face. Two breaths later, she was unconscious.

“All right, go ahead,” the young paramedic said to the driver.

The ambulance let out a small bleep as it lurched forward. The paramedic drew the door to the cab closed, then moved to the side of the unconscious lieutenant. He lifted the oxygen mask from her face and shut off the cock. Then, from his own face, he peeled away a mask of skin and stowed it in a bag at his belt. The Son of Samael grinned, rubbing away the clinging balls of spirit gum. Beneath lay the blue-gray crazings of the demon tattoo. Lines ran along his cheekbones, outlined his eye sockets and lips, and thickened into black swarms upon his brow. The whole of the tattoo formed an exaggerated skull, and every line upon it flamed with the fires of death.

“Oh, Donna. I know we can never return to that place of bliss. But I wanted to kiss you again with my own lips.”

He leaned over her, laid his lips upon hers, and kissed her, long and lingeringly. Drawing away, he watched her, the slow rise and fall of breath in her chest.

“You were right about me. You are the only one. You understand me. You are the Antivirgin, who will always intercede for me. We have communed, have shared a maculate conception. In that, we will be forever joined.

“But the child conceived by us – it cannot be allowed to live,” he said, pulling down a syringe he had laid aside.

He drew a three-inch cardiac needle from an adjacent drawer and fitted it to the wide cylinder. Then, stabbing the side of a bottle of window-washing liquid, he drew the blue stuff up into the syringe.

“I want nothing of me to remain in the mortal realm. Why else do you think I’ve stolen so many faces and hands? I want to pass completely from this flesh. Already I do not identify myself with my own features. I certainly won’t have my face and hands running around on another body.”

He pulled the shirt back from her pregnant belly, probed for a hard spot – the baby’s shoulder or head or hip – and then rammed the needle home, emptying the shaft in one long compression. Donna did not move at all, except from the jolt of his fist. When he drew the needle out, there was a little clear fluid mixed with the blood and window cleaner. That seemed a good sign. He leaned away, sliding the door back just slightly.

“How much farther to the first tollbooth?” he asked the driver.

“About ten minutes,” the driver responded. “Why?

You got a girlfriend there?”

“No. I just thought I’d stretch my legs.”

“How’s the cop doing?”

“Sleeping like a baby.”