The smell hit her like a sledgehammer to the sinuses as soon as she cracked the door.
Ella had been elbow deep in viscera too many times to count; the copper stench of ruptured arteries was as familiar to her as her own sweat.
But this wasn’t that.It was thick and meaty with a gag-inducing sweetness underneath, like a steak left to rot in the sun.
She gagged as her mind caught up with her nose.Bile scorched the back of her throat, but she swallowed it down.No time for squeamishness.No time for anything but the job.
‘No,’ Ella said.The word had slipped out unbidden.‘Goddammit, no.’
She shoved her way into the store, the same store she’d been at yesterday.Only now it looked much different, felt much different.Cops had a sixth sense for tragedy, and every nerve ending in her body was telling her that something had gone down here – and very recently.
‘Kane!’Ella shouted.‘Please say you’re in here.’
Dead silence.
Ella's boots squelched on the hardwood with every step, and when she looked down, her fears were confirmed.
Blood.Black and tarry, coating the floor and pooling around books like some hellish moat.Ella was walking on a liquid red carpet right into the belly of the beast.
The smell grew stronger as Ella moved deeper into the shop.She wanted to wretch, maybe wake up from this nightmare, but she couldn’t.
And then she reached the counter.
There he was, just to left, sitting upright against a bookshelf.
Or what was left of him, anyway.
A jagged gash from sternum to groin, tearing through his shabby clothes and turning Kane inside out.The wound was so deep that Ella could see pale coils of intestine glistening in the gloom.Blood had found its way onto every inch of his being, from his hair to his torso to his shoes.This scumbag killer–whatever he was–had eviscerated this harmless bookstore owner.It was something so beyond the pale that Ella's mind reeled as she tried to reject the reality of what was splattered in front of her.
And then she saw the kicker.
Not only had William Kane been gutted and left for dead, but his killer had left behind his now-infamous signature, too.
Wings, sprouting from either side of Kane's limp torso, were painted on the bookshelf behind him in blood.
Too late.William Kane was dead, and it was on her.She'd had the pieces, had them right there in her damn hands.But she'd been too slow to put them together.Too buried in her own head to see the full picture until it was splashed across the walls in screaming color.
The Angel Maker had beaten her again.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Drago LaChance felt like a corpse crawling out of his own grave as he hauled himself to his feet by the bedframe.For the second time in twenty-four hours, Drago had succumbed to a chemical-induced oblivion and welcomed it.The more time he spent there, the more he wanted to take up a permanent residence.
Because every time Drago LaChance woke up, the world was that little bit darker.It had been this way for almost a year now, ever since the universe took away his angel and left him alone.He always thought he was strong enough to weather any storm, even on his own, but reality and fantasy were two different things.
Although maybe they weren't, if the pictures in his phone gallery were anything to go by.Twice now, he'd woken up from some catatonic state and found images of dead women in his camera roll – images that he had no recollection of taking.But again, his life had been a blur for the past year anyway, and plenty of his elapsed memories had pictorial and video evidence proving their authenticity.
So, these dead women, these real-life angels, had to be real too.
Drago rummaged around on the bed for his cell and found it nestled beneath a pillow.Funny, he didn’t remember putting it there.He usually fell asleep with it in hand.He guessed it was more proof that he was indeed undergoing some kind of nocturnal transformation against his will.
His fingers shook as he swiped to unlock, some part of him already knowing what he'd find but needing the confirmation anyway.He wanted to see them again.Maybe they could jolt some memory from the back of his brain where the demons played.
And when Drago saw the most recent picture, the last cocktail of pills he’d swallowed threatened to come back up in liquid form.
There was a new one.
An all-too-familiar face drained of blood and life.
