The blood mixed with the snow creating a crimson slush, puddles of it surrounded the body. Besides Dante and the man bleeding out, they were the only people in the park. Dante stared at his work, he knew that his crave for kills were only going to get stronger now. He adjusted his grip on the Glock .22 and placed it back into its leather home. With a small scoff he turned around and began walking away. The police would be arriving soon, there’s no doubt that the gunshots were heard.
The night was cold and the snow began to fall once again onto the New York City streets, the snowflakes danced with the frozen wind and the moonlight poured into Dante’s bedroom and laid across his sky blue sheets. He wondered how long he would be able to hold out until his thirst for blood would bite at him again. This relapse, he knew, would hold a darker and more violent outcome than any he had experienced before. He turned on his side and looked at the badge on his bedside table. The bronze of the detective badge glowed in the moonlight. He grabbed it and ran his fingers against the cool numbers. He held it over an open drawer and let it slide out of his hands, with a slow, almost reluctant movement, he closed the drawer.
“Hey! Keep them behind the line!” was one of the last orders the detective gave before taking a sip from his lukewarm coffee. He rested his hand on his belt and sighed, I know I signed up to be on call, the detective thought, but this shit is way too early. “Detective Langston?” a voice called from behind him. Langston took another sip of his coffee and turned to the voice. “Thats me.” he answered. The voice that called for him came from a short, black haired police officer. “Dante wants you.” , the police officer said as he turned his body slightly and pointed at the man standing by the park bench. Dante stood silently with his signature look of a black tie, white dress shirt, around his neck hung his detectives badge.
“Dante?” Langston questioned as he approached the usually solitary man. Dante clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to get the blood running through his cold, frozen fingers, “What if I told you that I killed him?” Dante asked coldly, almost as if he thought Langston would actually believe him. Langston stood by him, nodded his head and took another sip from his, now cold, coffee, “I ever tell you you got a sick sense of humor?”, and with a small chuckle he patted Dante’s shoulder. “Now let’s going, the paperwork is piling up by the minute.” he added before he dumped the rest of his coffee off to the side and threw the cup into the trash bin.
Dante rubbed his hands together to try to get some sort of feeling into them, he turned and followed Langston. “ Hey, L.” Dante called out as he started to speed up his pace until he was walking side by side when Langston, “Ever wonder if killers go back to watch the detectives wonder at his work?” Langston stopped and looked around at the crowd of spectators and reporters being held back by a line of police tape and officers. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that the little bastard is here now.” Dante lightly nodded his head and walked past Langston who was still surveying the crowd, “Not a doubt in my mind.” he said again under his breath before turning to follow Dante.
Dante stood at the side of the body, recollecting the memories of last night's struggle. He could remember the sound of the three shots that rang out at approximately ten o'clock, two of them found their place in the man’s body. One in his shoulder and the other in his chest, almost directly in the middle of his heart. The third shot grazed his neck and flew into a nearby tree, but he doubted they would find that anytime soon. Dante made sure that the man was off the record, someone no one in the city knew. He did his homework on his victims before he approached them, but something was nagging at the back of his mind, like something was going to happen.
Langston crouched over the body and checked the dead man’s pockets. He pulled out a wallet and flipped it open, he took the I.D and looked it over. “Frederic Beau, twenty-three years old” he stood up and gave the I.D to a nearby police officer so it could be put into an evidence bag. Dante nodded and pointed at Beau’s neck, “Maybe a scratch?” Langston shook his head and replied, “Possibly, forensics could specify. Could be some DNA left behind.” Langston gave some orders to the forensics team to finish up and start packing.
Dante sat quietly in his black sedan as he watched everything get packed up. In a matter of a few hours the park looked back to normal. It was quiet and calm, the leafless trees blanketed in the falling snow. No evidence of any murder except for the scattered footprints and imprint of a body in the snow. He took off his badge and threw it onto the passenger seat, he undid his tie and started the car, coffee sounded pretty good right now.
The coffee shop was warm and smelled of freshly baked pastries. Dante took his cup, offered a friendly nod to the cashier and put his change into the jar with paper taped to it labeled TIPS. He sat down at a booth next to a large window and took a sip from his coffee, he looked outside into the soft, white New York City streets. He was ready to kill again, he felt the heat in his blood. This was something he had learned to live with, but he knew that one day it would be the death of him and he felt it was someday soon. When Dante finished his coffee he left the cup on the table and walked out into the freezing white storm. He settled into his car and turned it on when a he heard the sound of the safety being turned off on a gun.
Besides the sound of the engine running, the inside of the car was silent. Dante cleared his mind and tried to put together a game plan, he looked into the mirror and saw a man with his face bandaged. Where his eyes would be were blood stains in the form of X’s. He wore on his head a dark brown fedora, the collar of his matching trench coat was popped. Dante couldn’t be for sure but the area where his mouth would moved up, making the bandage shift showing the outline of a smile. “Let’s make a deal.”, the man said with a voice that cut through the heavy silence. “I know what you do Dante,” he let a moment pass before he finished his sentence, “ you’re a killer, and you enjoy it. I don’t blame you, I myself have moments when I need to fulfill the emptiness that resides within me.” he leaned forward. Dante could feel a heat, not like the warmness of breath but a burning heat, one that could be compared to flames. “And that’s a lot of emptiness,” the man finished. Dante shifted in his seat uneasily, something about this guy was off, nothing made Dante as uncomfortable as the ironic coldness of this man’s voice did. The man sat back, still holding the gun up behind the headrest of Dante’s seat. “I want to make a deal, if you give me something. I can promise that you that I can send the thirst of killing away from you. But, I want something as insignificant as,” he paused again, almost as if he was actually thinking of an example, “something like your soul.” This guy was a nutcase, his soul? He must’ve been some kind of radical satanist, thinking he could collect souls or some bullshit. Dante nodded and looked into his lap, “And if I don’t agree?” he said as he slowly reached for his holster. The man chuckled and pulled back the hammer of Dante’s weapon, “Then i’ll kill you with your own gun and get what I want anyway” Under his wrappings he smiled again, “Kind of a poetic death isn’t it?” Dante never believed in God, nor has he ever believed in devils or demons, but if making the deal would get him to put the gun away, he would take it.
Almost as if the man was reading Dante’s mind, he said “Okay then.” He tossed the gun into his left hand and extended his right to close the deal. Dante slowly turned and accepted his handshake. Almost immediately, the top of his right hand began to burn. The sensation made his hand feel like it was being branded. He snatched his hand away and held his wrist, scanning his hand in pain. When he looked back up the man was gone and the heat disappeared from his hand. Dante looked around the outside of the car, searching for something to prove that he hadn’t hallucinated, that he didn’t just have a mental breakdown. He sat back in his seat and stared outside the front of his car, his hand felt numb. He leaned his head back against the rest and closed his eyes.
Dante arrived home and recided in the darkness of his one bedroom apartment. He sat at the edge of his bed with his right hand wrapped tightly in coffee shop napkins. Dante stared silently into the mirror in front of him, and the man that looked back, Dante didn’t want to believe was himself. He looked deeply into his own eyes, witnessing the darkness that was yet to be removed from inside of him. Dante sighed and hung his head with his eyes closed, the sound of something dripping into a puddle broke the uneasy silence. Dante opened his eyes to see a puddle of blood forming on the rug in front of him, he clenched his right hand and the dripping stopped momentarily.
Dante tossed the bloodied rag into the sink and looked at the back of his hand, the scar of a number lay dead in the middle of it. He turned the faucet on and the hot water began pouring into the sink. Dante opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a roll of gauze tape and alcohol. He placed them both onto the sink before closing the cabinet door. He wasn’t exactly sure what the hell had happened this afternoon. The man with the X eyes talking about souls and killing. Who the hell could he tell about this? Absolutely no one, because it didn’t make any sense. He would be written off as the detective that had finally broke. The man that snapped under the weight of the world. Dante finished cleaning the mark on his hand and wrapped it in clean gauze before he went to lay down.
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