Page 73 of Virgin Sacrifice

Unfortunately, there were far too many interesting things going on back home for me to dillydally exchanging pleasantries with a dead man. And most importantly, that was where Starbright was.

I had about as much respect for the twins as I did for anyone besides Lucian, but I didn’t like the idea of them being responsible for Luz on their own. Not that they knew I had taken to stalking her almost as much as they had, although I would be surprised if Alister didn’t at least suspect me. And it certainly wasn’t my fault that I was better at it.

I was pretty sure neither of the twins had caught her trip into the forest a couple of weeks ago when she was supposed to be in NYC with her cousins or some shit like that. I didn’t know exactly what she had been doing all alone in the woods, but I wasn’t worried. I had already deduced that my star only burned brighter when darkness fell.

I had been struggling to come up with the appropriate romantic gesture to begin wooing her. Something that could top nailing a pig’s heart to her door. A human one was the obvious choice, but I suspected that Luz was picky and wouldn’t be impressed by any old heart. It would have to belong to someone whose death was worthy of being part of what would one day soon become the story of how we fell in love.

“Oh goodness, sorry about that Petey,” I said when I realized I had gone clean through his stomach and back out the other side. The poor man was still breathing, although each breath grew labored, his eyes had rolled to the back of his head and he no longer had the strength to struggle against his restraints.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever lost your head over a girl before, but, man, it’s a doozy.”

Ali, and to a lesser extent Nix, were so blinded by their obsession with her past that they couldn’t see the gift of her being here right now. That was why they were making mistakes, and letting others continue to slip by them and get to her.

It ended when I got back home, I had decided.

Luz was one smart cookie, but I didn’t like that she didn’t have all the information. I knew that she had been alerted about the discovery of the two bodies with their hearts removed, but Lucian had directed the police chief to hold back notice of the third body they had found, Gloria something or other.

While the other girls had been ritualistically laid out with their hearts displayed, the third victim had been found washed up along the coast, long dead, with her head bashed in. Unlike the other murders, everything about this one was sloppy, from the obvious cause of death to the failure to account for the ocean currents and tide. She had also been raped, where the first two victims were untouched, and her heart was in good condition, you know, for a dead person.

As one of the world’s most prolific killers, I had more than passing knowledge of what went on in the darkest of men’s minds. Ritualistic murder and opportunistic rape were two vastly different types of crime, done by two very different killers. The former spoke to a bigger plan and calculated control, while the latter was likely just your run-of-the-mill power-obsessed piece of shit who liked to hurt women. But I couldn’t allow either one to get close to Starbright.

I found myself reaching deep into old Petey’s insides, looking for something to squish. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be soon, and I needed that satisfying squelch of blood and viscera in between my fingers like some people needed a smoke. By the time I was done using his kidneys as stress balls, the poor fella had finally left this earthly plane.

Standing up to admire my handiwork, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the sheer depravity of the mess I had left behind. No doubt about it. This was art. For all we knew I could be the next Jackson Pollock, but because my medium was blood and guts, instead of paint and canvas, the world would be forever denied my gift.

I let out a deliberately heavy sigh.

Pity looked good on me, so I liked to practice faking it when I got the chance.

Thank goodness I wasn’t responsible for my own cleanup anymore. Even if Lucian and I weren’t besties (which we were, no matter what he said) I would happily work for the Blackwell family gratis for the rest of my life if it meant I didn’t have to clean up my own messes. Do you think Picasso cleaned his studio?

All I had to do was wash myself up and then the professionals would come in and do their magic. Sometimes the client wanted it set up so that it just looked like the victim was missing, other times they needed the body found. Often, they wanted proof of death. The cleaners would take care of all of it. From removing the evidence that I was ever there to documenting Petey’s final condition.

Making my way over to the apartment’s fancy digital shower, I realized that the music had shut off at some point.

“Siri, play Tori Amos ‘Cornflake Girl’ again,” I barked out as I set the shower to a nice scalding-hot temperature and began stripping down. The sleeves of my button-down were soaked past my elbows in blood, and the shirt landed on the marbled floor with a satisfying plop. Unfortunately, it also sent a spray of blood across my shiny brown loafers.

Sorry, Lucian, guess these ones will have to go too.

Luckily, I always traveled with a spare.

I stepped into the shower and began systematically scrubbing away the blood from my flesh. Most people didn’t understand that in large volumes it was pretty sticky stuff, far more viscous than water, and once it started to congeal you had to really work to make sure you got it all off. It would hardly do to leave bloody prints all over Heathrow as I made my way out of town.

Once I was assured that all evidence of Petey had been removed and was safely swirling down the drain, I allowed myself to relax and let my mind wander back to Hollow Oak.

I had never cared much for the female offerings of the university before. When Lucian and Locke attended, I had declined to enroll, choosing to focus on the more hands-on aspects of the murder-for-hire business. Regardless, I would have had a buffet of beauties available to me due to my association with the Blackwells, but I never had even the slightest urge to indulge with one of the many attractive coeds on campus.

I wasn’t a saint, far from it. But the vapid viperous women of Hollow Oak did nothing for me.

Until her.

I’d admit, when Nix first started going on about the girl who found a heart nailed to her door, I was far more interested in meeting her suitor than her. But the question of why her stuck with me.

I found myself taking a stroll through campus, eager to find out what kind of woman invoked such a passionate, arduous act of love. Oh, I had the dossier Ali had put together on her, photos included, but nothing gave me insight into a person quite like seeing them IRL.

And then, when I saw her, I just knew.

It was a balmy fall day, and there she sat on one of the benches outlining the quad, talking to some red-headed girl. She was practically incandescent in gentle sunlight, her long dark hair falling in shiny waves down her back, the ends floating around her tiny waist that was only further accentuated by the neat-fitting tartan skirt she wore. Her golden-brown legs were crossed at the ankle, which, when paired with her crisp white sneakers and ankle socks, was unbearably coy and sexy at the same time for some reason. Paired with the simple cream crewneck she wore over a sharp white button-down, it gave off serious naughty schoolgirl vibes, a fantasy that I had found utterly uninspiring until her.

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