Clever Sleazoid
Prologue.
3AM. The stench of eroded flesh blends with the city’s stench of sin and fear. An intoxicating cocktail that brings with it an unsettling giddiness. My head is heavy, my sleepy eyes water as they survey the scene below. She could’ve been beautiful. It’s impossible to tell. Her face is now a mask of congealed blood and exposed muscle, half her skull’s grin visible. Dark blue eyes stare blindly from decimated sockets, seeing nothing but oblivion. Though, as they bore into me, I feel like they can see through me, in my mind, searching my through soul for my secrets.
I look away, turn my blurry gaze to the fat, balding man beside me and ask for his verdict. He shrugs and sips his lukewarm coffee, squeezing the polystyrene cup between his chubby fingers. He gives me information that I already knew and wasn’t particularly helpful the first time I heard it.
Twenty-four years old. Female. Prostitute.
Add that to the one found hung in a warehouse last Tuesday and the other found tied to a tree just two days ago… three. Three lives that we have failed to save. And we wonder why people are losing faith in the police.
I feel my stomach twitch violently, a wave of nausea flooding my head. To think that there was someone lurking in the city that could take such a young life without a second thought… well, it was frightening. To think that you could face fate around the next corner in the form of such a brutal killer was terrible. It could be you. It could be me.
In fact, yes, it could be me. Me. A woman, looked down upon by her far superior male colleagues, discriminated against by the pond life of society. Hell, even the murderers were doing it now. Why? Because I haven’t got a Y chromosome. This obviously means I’m incompetent.
I groan, as I realise I’m starting to sound remarkably like my mother and turn back to the broken bloodied corpse. Just another victim, marked with his trademark white feather.
The Angel, they call him. The Angel of Death.
I look away, turn my blurry gaze to the fat, balding man beside me and ask for his verdict. He shrugs and sips his lukewarm coffee, squeezing the polystyrene cup between his chubby fingers. He gives me information that I already knew and wasn’t particularly helpful the first time I heard it.
Twenty-four years old. Female. Prostitute.
Add that to the one found hung in a warehouse last Tuesday and the other found tied to a tree just two days ago… three. Three lives that we have failed to save. And we wonder why people are losing faith in the police.
I feel my stomach twitch violently, a wave of nausea flooding my head. To think that there was someone lurking in the city that could take such a young life without a second thought… well, it was frightening. To think that you could face fate around the next corner in the form of such a brutal killer was terrible. It could be you. It could be me.
In fact, yes, it could be me. Me. A woman, looked down upon by her far superior male colleagues, discriminated against by the pond life of society. Hell, even the murderers were doing it now. Why? Because I haven’t got a Y chromosome. This obviously means I’m incompetent.
I groan, as I realise I’m starting to sound remarkably like my mother and turn back to the broken bloodied corpse. Just another victim, marked with his trademark white feather.
The Angel, they call him. The Angel of Death.