J King - Angel of Death

The detective gestured toward the door. “Sure, Sergeant. Lead on.”

Oh, Detective Leland, you’ve done well so far. I have on occasion dealt with the Feds, but most law enforcers I’ve run into are simple, honest, small town cops in way over their heads. All of them, even the big city homicide detectives, have the sense to be frightened by their work. I sense the fright in you, too, sitting next to me at the bar, talking so matter-of-factly about our killer. But it isn’t just fright. It’s something bigger. It’s understanding; compassion.

Ah, I’ve found the shred of memory it’s tied to. Your brother, Kerry. Twin brother. You lost him. This killer seems another Kerry to you, another boy suffering and sick and alone, desperate. You don’t want to just find this killer. You want to reach him. Perhaps redeem him, or at least yourself. It’s the impulse of a drowning soul to reach out to something, anything else – anything human.

Well, you’re right about this killer. You’ve got Keith nailed to a T.

“…before getting hold of Quantico, I had that much pulled together. White male, early thirties – he’s been at it for at least ten years now, by the trail of cases I’ve tracked through NCIC. Sergeant, we’re talking about over eighty-nine cases that fit the pattern. Even if a third of those are copycats, we’re talking about a rampage that tops even the most pessimistic estimates for Bundy, and double the killings done by Gacy.”

Yes, more than double, Donna. Keith started when he was seventeen. He’s been killing in Chicagoland longer than I have. You don’t even have the first dozen or so on your computer. Those first kills were very smooth, artful. You’ve only gotten close now because he’s deteriorated so far. Ah, how adulthood ravages the soul.

“I’m Azra,” I say.

You stop in the middle of your monologue. “What?”

You take a sip of coffee.

“Azra is my name. You keep calling me Sergeant. My name’s Azra.”

“Azra? What nationality is that? Bulgarian? Romanian?”

“Hebrew. It’s short for Azrael. My mother was Jewish.”

“Oh. My first name is Donna.”

“I know.”

“How do you know? I haven’t told you.”

“I told the lieutenant to call for you, remember? I’ve been following your casework. I’ve been assigned to know.”

You seem flustered by that. Your hand trembles around the warm handle of the coffee cup. You’ve been reaching out all this while, but not now. That hand wants warmth, wants the touch of my hand, but instead it curves quietly around the feverish mug. Why not reach out to me? I’m young, handsome – a cop. Perhaps you glimpse darkly who I really am. Mortals have always shivered in my presence. I wish I had not made you shiver. It grieves me. To see you now not only drowning but cold. It makes me inexplicably sad.

“How could so many similar deaths go unnoticed for so long?” I ask, prompting you from your distraction.

“Jurisdiction. That’s one in Elm Grove, then one in Gary, then Whiting, then Racine, Lake Geneva, Berwyn, Rockford, Milwaukee, Pontiac – he got a train pass or a Greyhound card or something.”

He also does a lot of walking, but I will not tell you that. I look into your eyes and see that eggshell fragility of mortals, that thinnest of all shields that I am sent to destroy. I will be destroying you, like all the others. Oh, how I wish I weren’t.

I say, “There is too much here that seems planned – the changes in venue; the decapitation; the ability to kill someone, hang out a while, and then somehow, bloodlessly, walk away from the scene and go undetected. He may be psychotic now, but I imagine when he started this, he knew exactly what he was doing. A young psychopath who’s slowly lost his mind in the last decade or so.” That should shock you back to the case at hand.

“Yes,” you respond, blinking. “Yes, it isn’t luck that’s kept this a secret for so long. He’s a mixed bag. That’s what Quantico said. They’ll be sending someone from Behavioral Sciences out. Once they heard the body count-”

“Your body count.”

“Yes, the one I compiled – once they heard the number of people, they couldn’t refuse. Anyway, they said over the phone that it sounded mixed, part organized and part chaotic. It would make sense he was sliding from one toward the other.”

“What about the press? When they put together what you’ve put together… when they get wind of the FBI…”

“I want to have this guy nabbed before then. If the story breaks, we’ll just see what we can do proactively through the media to draw him out. Of course, with how little attention he’s paid to the TV upstairs…”

“Oh, you’ll get him soon. You’re just steps behind him, now.”

You kiss me. It is a quick motion, a small, ducking sweetness on my cheek. You blush as you pull away. “I hope you’re right,” you say in dismissal. I gaze into your eyes, seeking what it was that made you kiss me. You try to hide it behind the weary, favorgranting facade of a hardened cop. I know you are no flirt, no jaded creature. That kiss meant something. Loneliness. I feel it, too. I’ve been utterly alone these years, and had not even known what to call it. To be lonely is bad enough, but to feel this aching draw of soul to soul and still be alone in it all…

You are shutting down. You think I think you were too forward. You are more surprised and disturbed by the kiss than I, though it was only the chaste kiss of lip to cheek.

Mine is not. I kiss your lips. Always before, that kiss has been a slaying one, though in this passionate rush, I will not let it be. I cap off the white-hot column of killing force. This kiss is tender, and again. I will not kill you with it.

I will not kill you now.

Perhaps not ever.

Mother of God, what am I getting myself into? The thought was as much prayer as interjection.

Leland drew back from the man, her eyes searching his. She expected to see something predatory in him, something prepared to pounce upon and exploit her supposed vulnerability. But she saw none of that. He did not wish her harm. He wasn’t on the prowl. He was as vulnerable and lonely and desperate as she and – until a moment ago – he hadn’t even realized it. There, not ten feet from the police line that roped off the bloodstained ceiling and floor, the two cops clung to each other. Heat ghosted up from their shoulders into the chill place. Their lips met no more. They only embraced, two souls weary of the brutal world.

This is a cardinal sin. Angels are forbidden to fall in love with humans. Angels are to love God only. Whenever an angel finds love elsewhere, he is cast out of Heaven and plunges toward Hell.

Think of Satan, whose self-love brought eternal damnation. Think of Harut and Marut, who loved a woman and so were tricked into telling her the secret name of God. They too were thrown down. Think of Semjaza and two hundred others angels who made love to humans and spawned the race of Nephilim – giants who terrorized the world in antediluvian times. All fell.

But I am not like them. I am like Chamuel, the Dark Angel, who wrestled with Jacob beside the River Jabbok. I am to dwell among humans and wrestle with them throughout the long, dark night and cripple them if I must to win free. I am not meant to love them. But perhaps there are special cases. What of Michael, Zagazel, and Gabriel, who disobeyed God’s command that they kill Moses? Their love for the mortal caused them to sin, but they did not fall.

Perhaps there will be a special case for me. I am a fool to think these things. No, I cannot let my heart wander from my ribs. I am to live among humans and strive with them – but to do it all chastely. I am to serve, to guide, to kill – but not to love. No wonder angels and cops are so lonely. I will not kill her now. In three weeks; we will see what three weeks brings.