Steve McHugh - Born of Hatred

After a lot more shouting, Greaves told Neil he was going to die alone, and left the room, arriving in ours moments later.

"He'll crack," Greaves said. "Everyone does."

"He's not going anywhere," I said. "He's ignoring you."

Greaves stepped up to me. "You got a better idea?"

"Give me five minutes with him," I said to Olivia.

"You overstep your boundaries, and I'll have you out of there."

"Fair enough." I held out my hand as Olivia silenced Greaves' objections with a wave of her hand. "The manacles key, please."

"Not a fucking chance," Greaves said.

"Give it to him," Olivia ordered, giving me an expression which told me to watch my step.

Greaves all but slammed the key into my hand, and I walked out of the room and into the interview room. Neil stared at the ground, his eyes flicking toward me as I sat down.

"Hey, Neil," I said. "How's things?"

Neil looked up at me, and then started the twitching thing again.

"Ah, the marks of a madman: twitching, unable to look at anyone else, slightly unkempt. You're probably going to mumble something in a minute aren't you? You've probably already got something in mind. Well, don't let me stop you."

Neil stopped his movements and stared directly at me.

"I'm going to take a guess here. You were coached. Someone told you that, as the humans were interested in this case, if you made yourself appear to be batshit crazy, they would try you in a human court and put you in a mental institution. As a werewolf, you could break out of it anytime. And even if they put runes on you to stop your transformation, you're still better than any human. You could take care of yourself until you escape. That sound about right?"

Neil continued to stare.

"Well, it's not going to happen. You see, it only appears that those murders are being investigated as a human crime. The LOA is letting the humans take the glory. So, you will go back to the Hole for this, or Tartarus. Whichever they feel you deserve more."

That got his attention. Fear flickered behind his eyes, and I knew which one of the two he feared the most.

Neil had been placed on only in the third floor in the Hole on his last visit. If he was found guilty of these new murders, he would hopefully be placed a lot further down. No amount of backing is going to help a murderer of humans get away lightly twice. People like Neil were cut loose the second they stopped being useful.

But as awful as the Hole was, Tartarus was a whole other league of scary. Every single person there was classed as an enemy of Avalon. And once you were imprisoned there, you never came back. Ever. I'd been there a few times, and the reality and the legend were vastly different. But that didn't stop people from believing the worst. Or stop me from playing on that fear.

"Tartarus scares you?" I asked. "Probably should. I don't think you'll like it there. A werewolf rapist like you, who likes to murder young girls? You'd last about ten minutes before one of the Titans tore you in half. And I mean that literally."

"You're right," he said. "I don't want to go to either of those. So what have you got?"

I placed the manacles key in front of him. "Take them off."

He hungrily picked up the key and removed the restraints, rubbing his wrists once they were off.

"If you try anything, I'll rip you in half myself," I said, and Neil nodded in agreement.

"Why did you get released from jail?"

Neil shrugged. "I didn't want to go. I was told I had to leave, and no questions. I wanted to stay. The beast in me had hurt those women, and I wasn't sure I could control it."

"Bullshit."

Neil had the audacity to smile.

"The beast wants to kill and taste blood," I said. "It doesn't rape. The man does. And if you lie to me again, I'll remove one of your hands."

The smile melted away. "You're not LOA," Neil said after a moment's silence.

"Never said I was, but you're still going to tell me two things-one, why Elijah was protecting you so furiously? And two, who's really murdering these women?"

Neil mimed locking his lips with a key and throwing it over his shoulder.

"So whoever this is scares you more than the LOA."

"I'm not going to help you put me in jail for the rest of my life."

"You want to know what confuses me? You're a predator, and you're free. So, why aren't you doing what you've wanted to for so long?"

Neil smirked. "Who said I wasn't?"

"I saw your photos, lots of them, but you never touched any of those women. I think you were castrated, figuratively speaking anyway. I think you had to stay locked away until they needed you, because they couldn't trust you not to fuck it all up. Is that it? Did you have to ask permission to do anything?"

"Fuck you," he spat, and slammed one fist onto the table, which groaned from the impact. "I'm not some fucking pussy who wasn't allowed to have fun. They brought me hookers. Fucking served them up to me. I got mine every night." And then he realised that he'd opened his dumb mouth.

I smiled. "Who gave you those girls, and where are they now?"

He shook his head frantically. "No, fuck you. I'm not saying anything."

I stood. "Then we'll take you back to LOA headquarters and see how you fare."

"Look, I can't say anything. They'll kill me. And I don't mean in the way some fucking idiot from LOA will do it. These people do bad things. Each of the hookers was given to me for a few days, but after I was finished they were given to… damn, I don't even fucking know what they were. But I heard the screams."

"They killed more people?"

"Those in the woods are a statement. The others they're just… food."

"Did you see any of them?"

"They took to me a big house near the forest every day, but I only saw the security guys up close. But the others, the ones in charge, there were six of them, all wearing hoods and hanging around together. They scared me. Especially the big guy. He's fucking messed up. I only spoke to him once, but it felt like something was crawling around in my head."

"Anything else?"

Neil shook his head.

"Avalon will protect you." I said.

"Are you dense? Avalon is fucking involved."

I tried to get more out of Neil, but he clammed up and it was clear nothing short of torture was going to get him to reveal more information. And I doubted that Olivia would be too grateful if I started down that route, especially considering where we were. If there's one thing I've learnt about human cops over the years, it's that most of them don't want prisoners dying in their custody. The smart ones anyway.

Besides after spending so long in a small room with a slimy piece of shit like Neil, I needed some air. Agent Greaves resumed his shouting as he entered the interview room, but he nodded an acceptance at me before he went in. It was probably about as close to congratulations as that I was ever likely to get from him.

When I opened the police station's front doors, I almost walked directly into Agent Reid, Eric, who was on his mobile phone. He quickly hung up and put it back into his pocket, with a nervous smile. "Girlfriend," he said. "She's not too keen about me being out all hours when I said I'd be home."

"It's difficult keeping a relationship going, especially with your job."

"Tell me about it. She's human, too, so it's hard keeping some stuff from her."

"That I understand," I said honestly.

"You think he was lying about someone involved working for Avalon? You really think he didn't help kill those girls?"

I shook my head. "He's a predator and a psychopath, but he's nowhere near the level of our killer, and he's not our killer's helper either. And as for lying? I doubt it. I've seen a lot of liars in my life, and that would make him one of the best."

Eric glanced over his shoulder as a car pulled up somewhere in the distance. "This case is making me jumpy."