William Bernhardt - Dark Eye

“It was your damned pendulum, you-”

“Looks nasty. Could be infected. Needs attention.”

“Leave me alone!”

“Fear not, I know just the thing.” He lifted a bucket and placed it on the edge of the table where she could just see it. “Heavy. Needs to be stirred.” He took a large wooden ladle and swirled it through what appeared to be a thick gray muck. “There. That’s better.”

“What is that? What are you going to do with it? Are you going to put that on me?”

“Of course not. This is not the salve. This is but the living environment.” He dipped the ladle into the bucket, this time just skimming the surface.

It came back with something.

He brought the ladle around so that she could see it, letting a splotch of gray goo splash down on her neck. It was small, thin, and writhing, greenish black in color. As he held it close to her face, the putrid smell made her turn away.

“What the hell is that?”

“Don’t you know, Tiffany? It’s the best thing for an infection. In the prophet’s time, all the best physicians used them, a practice that has sadly fallen out of favor.” He leaned in closer, pressing the lip of the ladle against her cheek. “It’s a leech.”

“Get it away from me!”

“No, no, you don’t understand. It’s a good little creature. It’ll clean your wounds. Suck out the poison.”

“I said, get it away!”

“Don’t be silly. You’ll hurt his feelings. Now where was that wound? Oh, yes.” He tilted the ladle until the leech slowly oozed out and plopped onto her left breast.

“Get it off me! Get it off!”

“Don’t fuss so. Let it do its work.”

“Get it off!” Her voice screeched, panic rising. She squirmed as the slimy creature oozed its way across her. “Get-it-off!”

“Many hardy souls such as yourself are quite resilient when it comes to physical torment or fear, yet still have a weakness. Spiders, perhaps. Loud noises. But I suspected that you might have a touch of tactile defensiveness. We all do, of course, to varying degrees. But your case might be more extreme.” He smiled. “Oh, look. The little beastie has found the wound. Engaging suckers.”

“Please make it stop.” She was sobbing, her voice bubbling, tears streaking. “Please make it stop.”

“Just leave it to him. He knows what’s best for what ails you. Oh-look! Another wound.” With his fingertip, he traced a line up the inside of her upper thigh. “Fortunately, I have more of these salutary animalcules.”

“No! Not there!”

He plopped another leech onto her leg. Tiffany writhed and shivered, thrusting herself forward and backward, right and left, trying to shake it off, to no avail.

“Is that a pimple on your face? Oh, I hate those.”

“Please don’t. Please don’t.”

“Here comes another helper.”

“Not on my face! Please! Not on my-”

He dropped it just above her upper lip. It immediately began to slither toward her mouth.

Her eyes widened with fear and helplessness. She didn’t dare speak, but she bucked against the table, thrusting her hips, squirming, trying to relieve herself of the slimy creatures.

“Honestly, Tiffany, you will carry on, won’t you? About three puny leeches? The way you’re behaving, I might as well-you know what? I think I will.”

He tilted the bucket and dumped it, gray ooze and leeches alike, on top of her. Tiffany was deluged with the muck, in her eyes, in her mouth, every crevice and orifice.

She sputtered and spit, trying to keep it out of her mouth, but it was useless. She spat out a leech, gagging. She shuddered, unable to hold still. Her eyes were wide as balloons, her breathing a rapid-fire succession of jagged intakes, her chest heaving. She couldn’t speak, but was reduced to making incoherent guttural noises, vacant and horrifying.

“How does it feel?” he asked, truly curious. “Having that sucking sensation all over your body, on your hands, your face, even your most private parts? Is it too awful? Or is it, as you young girls say, a turn-on?”

“Please make it stop, please make it stop, please make it stop…”

“Oh, Tiffany, my dear, you don’t need me to do that. It will stop, sooner than you might imagine. You see, those leeches are more than just disgusting. They are poisonous. Instead of ridding your body of toxins, they are actually infecting you, tainting your bloodstream with a potent cyanide derivative.” He looked at her levelly. “You will be dead soon, Tiffany. And then you won’t be able to feel the little creatures at all.”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeease!” At least, that’s what he thought she was saying, but her shrieks were so piercing at this point he couldn’t make it out with any degree of fidelity.

“Goodbye, Tiffany. I’ll let you spend your final moments in peace.” Even as she cried and pleaded with him, he laid down the bucket, wiped his hands on a towel, and left the room.

She screamed for more than an hour before it was over.

“Who the hell is the leak?” Patrick bellowed, slamming the front door behind him.

I looked up, as did virtually everyone in the building. Outside, I could see reporters’ faces jammed up against the glass like trick-or-treaters with their own perverse way of celebrating the forthcoming holiday. We were under siege. Had been all day.

Patrick stomped through the aisles, pushing aside locals and feds alike. I had never seen him in such a state. “It’s one thing to leak our theories. New developments. But we don’t even know for sure that Edgar took these girls!” He pounded his fists against the staircase banister. “For all we really know, they could be holed up at the Flamingo with their quarterback boyfriends!”

I knew what he was talking about. The morning papers had leaked the names of the three potential abductees-Tiffany and Judy and JJ. While cautiously reporting that the LVPD was investigating the possibility, they strongly suggested that it was a fact-that the girls were now dead and that it was all our fault.

“Is this tirade supposed to accomplish something?” I asked when he made it to my desk.

“Excuse me very much,” he spat back. “You may be used to this kind of amateurism, but at the Bureau, we don’t countenance leaks. They compromise the investigation!” He headed down the stairs. “I’m going to talk to our criminalists.”

Because those FBI guys are so much smarter than I am? Even though they don’t have the sense to take off their sunglasses when they come inside? Even though they dress like extras from Men in Black ?

I gave the desk a shove, kicked back in my chair. I shouldn’t let it get to me. He was just frustrated, like everyone else connected to this case. But he doesn’t have to take it out on me. Especially after all I’ve been through. After all that we’ve… shared.

Damn. Amazing how much less sexy guys are when they’re acting like assholes.

Tiffany did not die. The leeches were infected with a mild paralytic, enough that she might well think she was dying (and did). But not nearly enough to kill her. He had planned it that way.

She had screamed and begged for mercy till her voice was shredded and her tears were dry and there was nothing she could do but wait to die. But she did not.

“Tiffany! Still with us? Lovely.” She was shivering, making quiet sobbing noises, her naked body covered with dried slime, leeches, and the remnants of leeches. They had sucked all over her body; her flesh was variegated with bruises and discoloration. Her eyes were cloudy and her expression was vacant, but he could see she was still there. Part of her, anyway.

“I’m sure you must be thinking horrible thoughts about me right now, thinking I’ve been terrible to you. If only you could understand that it is not so. Per contra, this has all been for your benefit.”