The words hung in the air between them.
Maneuvering the lights down closer to the body, Strickland tried to explain. “First of all, the man’s head wasn’t cut off his body. It was torn off.”
He bent over the corpse. “See this ragged tear here?” he asked, pointing to what was left of the man’s neck. The flesh at that point rose and fell in uneven peaks and valleys. “If the killer had used a knife or some other sharp object to sever the head, we’d see a relatively smooth cut.”
“What about a saw?” Damon asked. “That wouldn’t leave a smooth edge, would it?”
“No, but it would be a uniform tear. This is too uneven to be a saw blade.” He paused and looked up to make certain Damon was following his explanation. When he saw that he was, Strickland continued. “Do you remember a game we used to play with dandelions when we were kids? Something about Momma having a baby and her head popped off?”
“You’re not saying…?”
Ed smiled a strange and bitter smile. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Something pulled this man’s head from his body as easily as we used to flip those flowers off their stems.”
Damon stared down at the corpse with a whole new sense of horror.
“It gets worse. With the exception of his eyes, still in the head you recovered from the toilet and the intestines you found strung all over the bedroom, all the other soft organs in the body have been removed.”
“Removed?” The slight tremor in Damon’s voice suggested he already knew what Strickland meant by the euphemism.
Again the smile. “Removed. Eaten. Devoured. Call it what you will. As far as I can tell, the beast, whatever it is, got his heart, his kidneys, his liver, even his tongue and testicles.”
“Oh, God,” said Damon, as he fought to make his mind accept what he was hearing.
“My thoughts exactly.” Strickland flipped off the lights and covered the body.
Damon finally got his thoughts in order. “How come you’re so certain it’s an animal? Couldn’t a human, albeit a very sick one, have done the same thing? Look at that guy Dahmer. He was certainly capable of something like that.”
“Sure, I guess it would be possible. But not in this case. No human left the teeth marks I found.”
“Teeth marks?” Damon echoed. He was starting to feel a little slow on the uptake.
Ed moved over to the other table. Turning on the lights and drawing back the sheet as he had before, he exposed Cummings’ head and limbs.
“The bones had been deeply scored at the point of separation from the rest of the limb. My first hunch was that the marks were caused by some kind of tool, maybe a tire iron or an ax, but on closer examination I realized that they were really the imprints left when the beast crushed the limbs between its jaws. Its teeth are curved inward, at an angle, so when they cut through the skin and hit the bone, they leave evidence of their passing”—Ed turned the foot so Damon could see the exposed cross section of the bone—“and if you look closely, you’ll see that the marrow has been sucked out as well. While the creature had less time with Bannerman and Jones, their bodies showed many of the same results.”
“Jesus! What kind of animal are we talking about here, Ed?”
The medical examiner shrugged. “Damned if I know. Something big enough to tackle a full-grown man. Something that’s not only not afraid of him, but also happens to like how he tastes. But I’m afraid there’s more. I found the same strange lack of blood with this body as I did with Halloran’s corpse.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“ ’Fraid not. No blood, and the veins themselves collapsed throughout the entire system. I can’t explain it any more than I could when I talked to you yesterday. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“So what you’re saying is that whatever killed Halloran also killed the Cummingses as well?”
“It appears that way.”
Damon was perplexed. “Why didn’t it feast on Halloran, too? Why just the older couple and my men?”
“Who knows? Could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe it was just thirsty the first time.” Strickland’s weak attempt at humor blew right past Damon. For all he knew, it might not be a joke at all.
“You ready for the rest?”
“There’s more?” Damon asked him, incredulously.
Strickland picked the head up off the table and turned it around so Damon could see the fist-sized hole in the back of the man’s skull.
“It ate his brain, too,” Strickland replied.
21
CONFRONTATION
Later that night, Gabriel lay quietly in his room, thinking about the past. Once he’d been young and powerful, but that time had long since faded into dust. His end was approaching, he knew that, and in certain ways he welcomed it. He lifted one frail hand and stared at it, remembering how it had appeared long ago, smooth and strong, a power to be reckoned with, not liver-spotted and weak as it was now. The years had, at last, taken their toll on his physical form.
His mind was as sharp as ever, though, and he decided to make use of its powers one last time before he moved on from this place. Settling back against his pillows, he gathered his strength and, with a sharp mental shove, cast his consciousness out beyond the walls of the facility in which he lay to the crisp, clean air of the summer night. While the Na’Karat might have the physical power to fly, Gabriel’s kind flew in other, truer ways, and he wouldn’t have traded it for the world.
He soared above the buildings, reveling in his freedom, then swooped down toward the forest floor below. As he did so, a rabbit jumped out of the undergrowth and stopped to feed on a patch of clover.
What would it be like to exist as you do, my little fellow?he asked it silently.To have no responsibilities, no worries, to sleep at night without the burden of suffocating doubts that plague you like a leprous disease rotting you away from the inside out? What would it be like, to think only of the present moment, with no thought or consideration to the future or the past?
The rabbit stiffened suddenly, as if sensing his presence, and with a sudden burst of speed it spun to the right and disappeared into the undergrowth.
Gabriel watched it go, following its passage into the woods by listening for the tiny thump of its heart. He wished his furry friend good fortune, then sent his presence soaring high above the ground to view the world once more in the fashion of his youth, before the coming of man and the war that destroyed his people.
Once his “eyes” had seen enough, he returned to his body and lay there in the darkness of his room, waiting.
Instead of concentrating on the confrontation he knew would soon occur, his thoughts drifted.
An image of a woman formed in his mind. She was beautiful, a golden-haired goddess with eyes of emerald green and cherry red lips.
Ah, Mira, my beautiful Mira! How long has it been?he thought sadly. His heart ached for her just as it had in ages past, when they had walked hand in hand beneath the golden spires of their fair city. He loved her as strongly as he had in the days of his youth. If anything, that devotion had grown stronger with the passage of time, until he felt close to bursting with his longing for her. He could remember her face as clearly now as if he’d seen it only yesterday; he could trace its soft, gentle curves in the air with his eyes and feel the heat of her breath on his lips. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they were reunited, and he secretly longed for his journey through the ages to be over so that he could join her in the afterworld.