Page 1 of Butcher & Blackbird
PROLOGUE
1
ICHI-GO, ICHI-EE
SLOANE
Being a serial killer who kills serial killers is a great hobby…
Until you find yourself locked in a cage.
For three days.
With a dead body.
In the Louisiana summer.
With no air conditioning.
I glare at the fly-riddled corpse laying beyond the locked door of my cage. The buttons of Albert Briscoe’s shirt strain against the bloat of his distended, green-gray stomach. Hismovingstomach, the thin skin undulating over the gasses and maggots that chew through the flesh beneath. The stench of decay, the buzz of insects, the smell of shit and piss that have vacated his body, it’s fucking revolting. And I’m not squeamish. But I have standards. I prefer my corpses fresh. I just want to take my trophies and stage my scene andgo, not hang around and watch as they liquefy.
As if on cue, there’s a quiet tearing sound, like wet paper ripping apart.
“No...”
I can almost hear Albert from beyond the grave:Yes.
“Ohno no no…”
It’s happening. This is for killing me, you fucking bitch.
The skin splits open and a white mass of maggots tumbles out, like little orzo pastas. Except a significant number of those pastas are crawling toward me at a glacial pace, looking for a quiet place to complete the next stage of their maggoty lifecycle.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I schooch on my bum across the grimy stone floor of my cage to curl myself into a ball. My forehead presses to my knees until my brain aches. I start to hum in the hope I’ll drown out the sounds that are suddenly too loud around me. My melody grows louder, and louder, until my chapped lips start to form the occasional word.No one here can love or understand me… Blackbird, bye, bye …I hum and sing until the words fade away, and the melody too.
“I renounce my wicked ways,” I say after the song disintegrates among the dust motes and the hum of opalescent insect wings.
“That’s a shame. I bet I would like your wicked ways.”
I startle at the sound of a man’s deep, smooth voice, the cadence of a faint Irish accent warming every note. My curses cut the humid air when my head smashes against an iron cross-bar of my small cell as I scurry out of reach of the man who saunters into the thin thread of light from the narrow window, the glass opaque with fly shit.
“You seem to be in a predicament,” he says. A lopsided grin sneaks across his face, the rest of his features sheathed in shadow. He takes a few steps into the room to stare down at the corpse, bending to get a closer look. “What’s your name?”
I’m on day three of no coffee. No food. My stomach has probably imploded and sucked other organs into the void. A loud chorus of desperately hungry internal monologue is trying to convince me that those are, in fact, little orzo pastas marching toward me, and they might just be edible.
I can’t deal with this shit.
“I don’t think he’s going to answer you,” I say.
The man chuckles. “No shit. I already know who he is anyway. Albert Briscoe, the Beast of the Bayou.” The man’s gaze lingers on the corpse for a long moment before he shifts his attention to me. “But who areyou?”
I don’t answer, remaining still as the man takes careful, measured steps around the corner of the cage to get a better look at me where I’m huddled in the shadows. When he’s as close as the bars will allow, he crouches down. I try to hide beneath my tangled hair and folded limbs, giving him only my eyes.
And because my luck isthe worst, he, of course, isstunning.
Short brown hair, artfully disheveled. Strong features, but not severe. A sly smile with perfect teeth and a straight scar that cuts through his top lip, lips that are far too inviting given my current state of captivity, the bottom one a little fuller than the top. I shouldn’t be thinking about how I would like to bite it. Not at all.
But I am.
