Chapter 1
Last Summers Snow
As i rolled to the gate i saw her, she was beautiful. I could smell her perfume; sweet, bitter, tainted with light persperation. The gaurd stops the car, asks for my invitation. I give it to him. Eric Johanson it says, the corner holds a faint spot of blood, he doesnt notice. He steps back lightly and makes a note on his clipboard. That scent again, panic, desperation. Fear. The common ingredients at a dinner party. The valet takes my key and a lincoln; not too much, not too little. The door stands open, beckons me into its maw. I see him across the room, laughing, drinking, smiling. A father. A congressman. A child molester. He'll die across the room, there she is. She's shy and i can't believe it. So entrancing, im staring at a columbine. Aquilegia canadensis, they call it. I don't mean to stare, but I cannot relieve my eyes of her. She is my vision; no peripheral, nothing. I slide through the dancers, the waltz plays, and i slip to the bar. I sit, order a drink. The taste is dust in my throat, just liquid, not necessary, not special. She looks no-one in the eye, wary, like a doe with her fawn. How appropriate. There is a moment, she slaps him, and i watch her excited walk to the balcony through my tumbler. Time. I'm ready. The steel shocks me, like it always does. I step around the corner, blanketed in a shadow. I whisper to her, the tears lapping, falling in the snow, the last rain. I pull her close and she grips me confidently, no harm shall come from me. Her bodice pushes against me, and i hold her all the way down. I quietly put the syringe back in my jacket. I can't decide what to get for dinner.