Mortal Fear

CHAPTER 3

Dear Father,

We landed in Michigan in the afternoon. So gray after the decadent green of New Orleans. As gray as our fatigue. My joints ached constantly; we had to fly through the black heart of a storm.

I varied the transport this time, and the technique. I learned from my mistake with Karin. How disconcerting to recognize naivete in oneself, even after years of cynicism.

I was drunk with anticipation. Our seduction had been a long and baroque one, a progression from the sacred to the profane. I sat on the patient’s patio with the notebook and the cell phone, knowing she believed she was interacting with a man thousands of miles distant, a faceless lover, and me sitting less than twenty feet away.

I crept to her window and watched her typing her responses. Kali stroked me as I watched, spilling my seed in the flower bed. Will the FBI look there, I wonder? For footprints, yes. For semen, no. They will find that where they expect to find it, but of course it will not be mine.

I could not resist telling Rosalind I was there. There was no risk; she could not call the police while linked to EROS, and Kali was already inside. Terror was absolute. Paralyzing. Kali demonstrated exemplary control, reassuring after the blood lust of New Orleans. And this time I left a note, a passage you read me long ago:

I have reached the limits of endurance. My back is to the wall; I can retreat no further. I have found God but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie. The dawn is breaking on a new world, a jungle world in which the lean spirits roam with sharp claws. If I am a hyena I am a lean and hungry one: I go forth to fatten myself.

I know, I know. But I’m tired of leaving biological refuse. Why not mislead with a little flair? You of all people should appreciate that. This is just the kind of rot they salivate over at Quantico. It will be the only file written in French, but nevertheless I signed it “Henri.” Subtlety is wasted on the police. By the time they translate it, the procedure will be complete. The lab work tonight. A day to collect the next patient. Another to rest my joints, to steady my fingers.

Then I cut my way into Valhalla.