Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

Snuff the Suff was the chant of the victims’ families during the penalty phase of the trial.

“Where’s all that stuff hidden, Bill? It’s been waiting out there for years now, and the elements can only be ruining it. We’re already going to be accused of planting it to create a scam defense— we need to dig the stuff up before there’s nothing left of it to find.”

“I ever tell you how much I enjoy Shelley Long?” he asked. “And Bonnie Bedelia, too. Here—I even keep track of their birthdays.”

With that, Bill opened a manila envelope and pulled out newspaper clippings about actresses Shelley Long and Bonnie Bedelia, along with a sheet of legal paper on which he had handwritten their biographies and other pertinent facts.

We then spent the next half hour discussing his favorite Hollywood stars and reviewing his outline for what he hoped would be the next Die Hard movie. He called it Die Hard : Dam Hard . In it the venerable Bruce Willis and his movie wife— Bonnie Bedelia — had to stop terrorists from blowing up the Grand Coulee Dam.

As for the killing clothes and the killing kit, they’re still out there somewhere—in the desert, by the sea, under a rock, by a tree, in a cove, behind a wall—and someday someone will come across them and wonder what they mean. Hopefully, that person won’t try the clothes on for size—who knows what they could make a person do.

Sheathed as it was, the sword called “Daystryker” would not cut. But I have a powerful, strong arm and the blow should have felled any man. As Daystryker landed at the juncture of neck and shoulder, Lupien acted as though he had been hit by naught but a feather. As he reached for me, I upended the table and flung it at him. It halted him only long enough to swing an arm sideways and shatter it like so much kindling wood. However, it gave me enough time to dash through the doorway and into the next room.

I slammed the door and threw the bolt. That should hold Lupien long enough for me to attain my desire, I thought to myself. But never before had I seen Lupien exhibit such strength and it would bode much ill for him to lay hands upon me. Ordinarily, his sinews were near the power of mine own. But now his might could be my bane.

I crossed the room in half a dozen strides and stood between the window and the blazing fireplace. Barely had I begun to trace my portal when a mighty crash sounded from the doorway. Turning from the wall, facing the bolted door, I saw Lupien’s arm protruding through it and into the room. Slowly, his arm bent at the elbow and drew back. The door splintered and fell away from its hinges, littering the stone floor. Lupien strode through the now open archway and raised his huge hands toward me. Behind him a hooded figure moved into my sight, and quickly I realized who my real adversary actually was. The creature held a small crystalline sphere in his claw-like hand and I knew Lupien for the puppet he was and from whence his strength had come. The meaning of the clouded look in his eyes now became clear to me, also. Taking two steps to my right now placed me within arm-span of the fireplace and I raised my voice aloud, speaking plainly in the gnome’s own language.

“Hear me well, Wick! Stop him or I’ll throw this into the fire. Verily, you can see just how hot it is, and you’ll get naught but slag for your efforts.”

Being born in the fires of a sun, no ordinary flame could harm Daystryker. But Wick didn’t know that. I held Daystryker toward the fire and Wick’s evil eyes grew wide. He hurriedly covered the glowing sphere he held, and, slowly, the vacant look in Lupien’s eyes cleared. Then they closed and he limply folded to the floor, oblivious to everything happening around him. Wick slowly advanced further into the room. He had slipped the crystalline sphere into his cloak, but had not yet brought his hand back into sight. I knew he now had his hand closed around something else. But I had no idea what other tricks this strange gnome had available to him, nor was I curious enough to find out. I softly spoke a few words in the tongue of the Ancients, and Wick must have guessed what was coming, for he brought his hand out of his cloak empty and threw both arms up to cover his eyes. As I spoke the last word of the incantation, an invisible weight gathered itself and settled in my left hand. Tossing that weight forward, I willed it to fall at Wick’s feet. As it hit the floor, there was a soft pop and a cloud of smoke instantly formed about the gnome. The power of the spell would hold him for the nonce, so he could neither move nor see.

Quickly, I slung Daystryker across my back and returned to the wall, where I finished outlining my portal. After completing the tracing, which would open my path through dimensions, I turned and hurried to Lupien, hoisted him to my shoulder and again returned to the portal tracing, I couldn’t leave Lupien in Wick’s clutches because the gnome would inflict grievous vengeance upon him if I did.

After placing my hands on opposite sides of the tracing, the space inside the portal suddenly became a mass of shifting, kaleidoscopic colors. As I took my first step forward, passing through the wall, I envied Lupien his unconsciousness. Colors could now be smelled; sound could be tasted; odors had rough textures and the force of pressure, and that pressure was painful. My senses were being assaulted in ways which would send most people into the world of insanity.

Luckily, it only lasted the few seconds it took me to take my next couple steps. My third step brought me into a world of bright sunshine, clean air and soft grasses ’neath my sandalled feet. The portal I had stepped through winked out of existence without a sound and could not be reopened by anyone, save myself. This world and the world in which Wick lived were in two different planes of existence. Even if Wick could open a portal, he wouldn’t be able to find out which plane of existence Lupien and I had entered among the thousands that are possible.

I stooped to lay Lupien on the grass and then moved back sev-eral feet to await his return to consciousness. I wasn’t about to take a chance on his dislike for me causing him to make a mistake when he came to. Slipping Daystryker from where it hung across my back, I settled down upon the veldt grass myself and began my meditation ritual. Sitting cross-legged, I spanned Daystryker across my knees and rested my hands upon it. My eyes slid half closed and I muttered softly to myself the litany I had learned under very unusual circumstances. For that matter, this whole affair came about because of some very, very unusual, painful circumstances.

Six years ago and worlds away, I was an irrelevant cog at a computer firm. Worlds away, not in time and space, but in what can only be described as dimensions. Now I dress in animal hides and sandals, carry a sword, and have, at times, even found myself speaking in languages I’ve never heard before. And I was now being considered as the savior of a race of a troubled people. Many times in my life I had heard that the brain is the most mysterious organ in the human body. Little did I know how mysterious until that moment six years ago when I was awakened by a whisper from the dark.

My name was Michael Dermott, born in St. Charles, Illinois, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and sixty-five. Six years ago, I was twenty-two and holding down a promising job at Compnet Research Corporation, one of the best computer research and development companies in Southern California. At five foot eight, a hundred and seventy pounds soaking wet, with blond hair and green eyes, I was often mistaken for the typical California ‘Beach Bum’, although I’d spent very little time at the beach. A bit of a computer nerd, I lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment near the beach in the city of Oceanside. I’m perfectly aware that I’m not much to look at, as far as women are concerned. In fact, I’ve always been kind of intimidated by good-looking women. For general information, good-looking women are as numerous as the stars in the sky in Oceanside. Needless to say, this fact was the primary reason for my self-imposed solitude.