Sonatorrek: Þrymskviða - 2

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

WARNING: GRAPHICALLY VIOLENT SUBJECT MATTER

Kane finally solves the mystery of his serial killer, only to discover that he'd already failed in every way possible.



Kane sat with his head in his hands. What was matter with him? He hadn’t stopped the murders. He hadn’t figured out what was happening with this Thor character. All he’d done was fuck a half dozen friends on the job, and some of them were very far from single. He’d always thought of himself as one of the good guys, immune to the kinds of bullshit that others got themselves into. And instead, it turned out not only was he no better than them, but he was possibly a lot worse.

He forced himself to his feet, walking over to the desk. At this point, the four walls of the motel room were covered in notes, pictures and elements of his investigation. His eyes travelled the documents, searching for some scrap that he missed; some element that would suggest a pattern to the madness that seemed to envelope the town. Garrison looked again at the map of the area, and forced his scattered thoughts into some kind of order.

~Nothing is truly random, Garrison.~ Fred’s advice ran back and forth through his thoughts, hinting at something. Maybe the key was to look outside of the types of attacks and the time frames. Maybe there was another element in play. Wearily, he pulled a chair close and grabbed his notes.

Most of the crimes were ritualized crimes of passion; torture, rape, exploitation. The psychology suggested a deep sexual underpinning as opposed to power or control. His killer wasn’t looking to prove how smart he was; although he certainly liked to show that he was ahead of them. The randomness of the victims and the lack of consistency beyond the first few attacks really changed the scope. Bisexual rape wasn’t a common pattern in a true serial killer, but the methodology was too precise for a sexual predator. Was it a new classification, or did he push too hard to make it a single predator?

Serial killers by nature were loners, but what if this was ritual made to look like a single individual? He blinked, his eyes grainy as the new thought sleeted through. What if there were two people? Or even a group orchestrating things? Take away individual motive and what did you have?

Garrison got closer to the map, and pulled a marker out. He looked at his sheet and started to star locations of incidents, sketching them in lightly. Once he was done, he scrabbled about for a piece of chalk and started to sketch some lines in-between. He connected points, looking for any kind of pattern. After a moment he stopped, and pulled one of the books Amanda had dropped off for him. It had a wide list of traditional and modern runes for the Norse, and he flipped to the section on Loki.

There were several images, and he paused at one. It fit all but one point. Kane took a quick measurement and estimated the spaces between the other points to get a sense where the last one might be. He pulled up Google Maps and located the spot. It took him a second to recognize it: Harga’s Titty City.

He rushed out of his room, dialing the Chief’s number but Snorinsen wasn’t picking up. Kane pulled open the door to the front office, still dialing. “Jane, I need to send a fax-“ He started, but stopped when Bill Foster gave him a puzzled look.

“Sure thing, Agent Kane. Where to?”

“New York field office.” He passed off the piece of paper. “I thought Jane was working today.”

“That girl is in a heap of trouble when she gets home. Went to a party last night, and still hasn’t shown up. I just hope she didn’t get too drunk to remember to use protection.” Bill Foster was hardly an innocent. He’d had his share of girls out in the fields during parties in the bush, and had no illusions that the same was possible for his little girl. He just hoped she was smart enough not to make a mistake. She had a future beyond running a motel.

“Yeah.” Kane said, uncertainly. He passed over a number to go with the mapped rune. “That’s not like her.”

“No, Janey’s always been a good girl. But, well, they grow up fast out here. I’m hoping she just stayed at a friend’s and forgot to text me. Hard to come down on your daughter when she’s heard all the stories about you as a kid, you know?”

“Hey, let me know if you hear from her.” Kane backed out of the room, a deep unease settling in him. Cops learned to trust their gut when something felt wrong, and despite the utter wreck he was internally, he clung to those instincts. Getting back up to his room, he picked the book back up, and flipped a few pages over, to see one of the only written depictions of Norse ritual sacrifice.

'Meanwhile, the thrall girl went from one tent to the other and had sexual intercourse with the men. Every man told her "tell your master that I did this because of my love to him".

Thereafter, the thrall girl was taken away to the ship. She removed her bracelets and gave them to the old woman. Thereafter she removed her finger rings and gave them to the old woman's daughters, who had guarded her. Then they took her aboard the ship, but they did not allow her to enter the tent where the dead chieftain lay. The girl received several vessels of intoxicating drinks and she sang and bade her friend’s farewell.

Then the girl was pulled into the tent and the men started to beat on the shields so her screams could not be heard. Six men entered into the tent to have intercourse with the girl, after which they put her onto her master's bed. Two men grabbed her hands, and two men her wrists. The angel of death put a rope around her neck and while two men pulled the rope, the old woman stabbed the girl between her ribs with a knife.'

Was it just paranoia?

It didn’t matter.

Kane tore out of his room, vaulting the rail and landing beside his car. He pulled out with a spray of gravel. Logan had once taught him that there was a sense past the physical and the psychic. He called it a survival sense, which impossibly told you when your hunch had to be right. He could have killed the man for that. All he wanted to be wrong. Instead, he floored it, ignoring traffic signs and speed limits. Any trooper trying to follow him would be in for a chase.

As he drove, his phone went off with a text from Marie-Ange. The Sons of Hel and the Valhalla’s were meeting up. He should be there. It was his case, his responsibility, and the others were just helping him. But he’d already betrayed so much, it was easy to go just a little bit further and ignore the message. He left several voice mails for Arnie, but the Chief wasn’t available. After an eternity, he pulled into the parking lot, and sprinted from the car.

The front door was locked, with a note on the door saying ‘temporarily closed’, but Kane snapped the lock with ease and walked in, gun at ready. He moved through the darkened bar and earned a surprised gasp from an older woman at the bar. She was in her forties, dirty blonde, and what looks she might have possessed once marred by obviously alcohol abuse. She looked at him in shock, but Kane held up a badge.

“FBI. Is there anyone else in the bar?”

“No. No, just me.”

“Ms Lushton?”

“That’s right.” She raised her chin, shock starting to ebb. “This is my place and-“

“Shut. Up.” Kane’s look cut her off. “Who came through here?”

“I don’t—“

“WHO CAME THROUGH HERE!” He screamed at her, gun wavering from the safe position, and she scuttled to the protection of the bar.

“They came through hours ago.” She said, huddled. “I didn’t do nothing! You got no right to-“
“Shut up.” Kane said again and looked at the door. “You go and call the police station. You tell whoever is there to send everything they have here. Do you understand?” She nodded mutely, but Kane had already forgotten her. The door through the back of the bar led into the porn studio.
Kane was moving carefully through the halls, when he noticed the first television on. He stopped, peering closer.

Jane was lying on a table, naked and crying, as the bulk of a man moved to obscure her. Kane squeezed his eyes shut, turning away, but he couldn’t shut his ears to her cries. He smashed a hand through the television, cutting out the sound and image, but as he looked around, every television in the studio seemed to go on. There were wall mounted flat-screens, desk-side personal units, and worst of all, production banks. As he moved through the studio, they all were all, assaulting him on all sides with the screams and the horrible organic sounds of violation.

She was sixteen. It cascaded through his skull. She was sixteen. And he’d been right there. Right fucking there and he hadn’t protected her. Worse, he thought back to what Bill had told him. If he was right, the innocent girl was taken around the same time he’d been ignoring a relationship just so he could get balls deep in Marie-Ange and pretend everything was alright for a moment.

Stupid, selfish, asshole! Kane pushed through, throat thick from the self-loathing. This is your fault, he said to himself, as the young girl was subject to every kind of violation. He should be made to watch it. Every minute of someone else suffering because of him.

Kane pushed through the main studio and found the last possible vacant spot; a faux basement dungeon. The door was locked, but his kick shattered it. Back in his mind, he played a little scene, despite what he had seen, that somehow he was in time. That she was alright.

The body on the table was obscene in death. It looked like it was torn open by an animal, and was so badly covered in burns and bruises that her pale flesh was barely visible. There was no last minute rescue. No redemption. No hero. Kane made an inarticulate sound, and felt his legs buckle. He turned and vomited, wishing that he could switch spots with the body.

“It had to happen, Garrison.” Kane looked up, as Arnie settled himself into chair near the table. He was naked, his paunch sagging over his torso. He was splattered in blood from his knees to his chest, and Kane could recognize his body in the video that continued to play. “This place sometimes becomes too much for people; too close to everyone, too isolated out in the woods. It’s the worst of both worlds some years.”

“What?” Kane’s voice was choked, distanced from his own ears.

“It wasn’t one person, Garrison. Never was, never is. Alex was the target of the whole football team. Couldn’t tell me why they did it. Maggie and Ed did each other. She begged him to strangle her while he was inside her, knowing full well he couldn’t live with himself after. There was no one serial killer.”

“But- there was a pattern. A rune. I followed the…” He trailed off.

“I’m sorry, son. It’s not the case. Maybe a couple of those half-Indian girls that disappeared. But the worst of it was the good people of Aitkins.”

“I don’t understand.” The claim was a whisper, as Kane was on his knees, helpless to process what he was hearing.

“No one is so good that they don’t have a monster lurking inside, Kane. That’s what thirty years as a cop has taught me.”

“Why?” His voice was choked, as Kane begged for some kind of sense; something that made things more than just a random incidence. “Arnie, why her?”

Arnie looked over at the ruined body, and his fingers brushed across it. “She felt good.”

Something froze in Garrison at the moment. The tears stopped, as did the uncertainty. He raised his gun, and from his knees shot Chief Arnie Snorinsen twice in the face. The man pitched over at the impact, and was left sprawled on the ground, naked and dead. Kane ripped a fake tapestry from the dungeon wall and pulled it over Jane’s body, unable to bring himself to look at her face.

The screens still showed the assault, and Jane’s feeble begging for her life. Kane looked up and saw the figure of the elder Lushton, stepping infront of the young, bound girl. The wicked knife she was carrying buried itself into her stomach, and the screams reached a higher pitch. Kane’s face screwed up as he tried to wipe the sound from his memory. Hadn’t he sent her to call the cops?

The knife buried itself in his back, just above the right kidney, and only his preternatural reflexes allowed him to catch the knife hand before she could yank it across his spine. He wrenched her to one side, and without a moment’s hesitation shot her between the eyes. Kane limped from the room, up the stairs, holding the wound with his hand.

It was all random, all tied to Thor. He’d screwed it up from the start. If he’d focused on his mission, maybe he could have stopped it. Stupid. So fucking sure of himself that it was one person that he threw the chance away. And now they were all facing whatever was waiting for them at the meeting. He staggered down the halls, towards the exit and his car. He had to get there. He’d already gotten others killed for his stupidity. He couldn’t allow anyone else to do the same.