A Siren's Song (Ride of the Darkyrie 2) by Saranna DeWylde Read Free Book Online Page B

anyone.”
                  “Isn’t that what we all hope for when we agree to meet our friends’ friends in smoky bars and meat markets? When we paint our faces, slick back our manes and soak our bodies in chemicals that are supposed to encourage the opposite sex to see us as suitable mates? That there will be this click and it will be like we’ve known each other all our lives?”
                  Wow, I could not believe the garbage coming out of my mouth.
                  “That’s not for people like us.”
                  Hadn’t I mentioned that very thing to myself earlier? “Maybe it’s for us, too. Just in a different way?”
                  A very different way.
                  Our two point five would be the time it took me to move a razor from his left ear to his right ear and spill all of his red out onto the floor from his carotid artery.
                  In the blood…
                  “It’s not far from here and it’s a beautiful night for a walk,” he invited.
                  We walked in silence and he led me down several side streets and alleys, even backtracking a few times. As if I didn’t know these streets like the back of my own hand, as if I hadn’t hunted them and didn’t know my own territory.
                  It wasn’t a bad neighborhood at all. Full of artsy types and college kids. There were the occasional calls for disturbing the peace and general rowdiness, but all in all, rather mundane compared to Prospect.
                  I wondered if he thought he was taking me back to his place to kill me. If he believed I was one of them, a lamb to the slaughter? I’d soon find out.
                  He stopped in front of a small house, a solid little brick number with a stone porch and a fenced in back yard.
                  This wasn’t what I’d expected either. I thought he’d have a loft somewhere, much like mine. Full of windows and unlike mine, art deco nonsense.  Something artistic , since that was the angle he played. My guess was he lured his prey back to his home asking women to pose as models. He’d say he simply must paint them. Then he’d slip them some sort of drug or another in their wine and then he’d hack away at them, sculpting his masterpieces.
                  Realization struck like lightning. I had him all wrong. He painted them, I was sure of it. Probably in some artsy loft like I imagined, but this was where he brought them when it was time to die. “This isn’t where you live.”
                  He smiled again, shy and hesitant. “No, this is my studio.”
                  “The natural light isn’t good enough for painting.”
                  “No, not for painting.” Richard agreed, his voice low and amused, like he knew a secret I didn’t.
                  The interior was homey and warm, the walls a mocha color and the furniture brown gingham check. The wood floors were scarred, but had been polished until they gleamed. A print hung over the back of the couch. Walter Sickert’s most famous one that was supposed to reveal the identity of Jack the Ripper.
                  “Is that the original? I thought it was in a museum?”
                  “You know art?” he sounded pleased.
                  “I’ve trained with the FBI, Richard. Of course I know this painting. Your ancestor’s case is one of the most widely studied.”
                  The Ripper case was to psychology and criminal justice students what the Kobayashi Maru was to Captain Kirk, a no-win scenario. A problem with no solution without redefining the question. There were no real answers.
                  Jack the Ripper had been a serial killer active in the East End of London in 1888. It was such a