Chapter four
The Other was in her body. She felt her stretch and pace in the depths of her mind. She was anxious. She had every right to be.
Jane raised her head and scented the air. She could smell the damp city, the pavement radiating humidity after the light rain before. She could smell frustration on the people that walked right past her and she could guess the reason for it. They were late for work or they were disappointed with their lives. She could smell anger on the heavy man who almost bumped into her and she could smell the coffee from the diner just around the corner.
She took in another another deep breath and caught the scent of her pray. She frowned when the smell was followed by the stench of blood. Nobody heard the soft growl slipping her lips, merely an instinctive response of a predator to the smell of a wounded creature. She run, her running shoes tapping against the pavement as she dashed inside the alley and grabbed the fire escape. She entered the building through a side window and run down a flight of stairs. She stood in front of the door and drove her right leg through it. The wood splintered and broke and she slipped past it inside the apartment.
The smell of blood got thicker there and she followed it until she reached the bedroom door and she looked down at the scene before her. A woman was lying naked in bed, her eyes rolled back in her head. She was dead, Jane could hear that her heart had stopped beating. A man was leaning over her, fully clothed, his mouth clamped at her throat. For a minute Jane watched his throat tense as he swallowed convulsively. He was so focused on what he was doing he still hadn't noticed her.
Pathetic.
She grabbed him by the back of his neck and picked him clean of the bed, throwing him against the floor. It was only then that he actually realised he was not alone.
''It's over. The line has been crossed and you have been found guilty.'' She said and raised the Desert Eagle pistol she had pulled from her hip holster the minute she entered. ''You are sentenced to death.'' She didn't struggle to say the words, she had repeated them more times than she cared to remember.
''Wh-What?!'' He shouted, crawling backwards, away from her, without daring to pull his eyes away. ''Lady, you nuts?''
She cocked the gun, wordlessly. She allowed the Other to reach the surface and her eyes glowed blue with energy.
''This won't do anything, just reason with me here!'' He kept on talking but she shook her head. She reached with her right hand, the pistol unwavering in front of her and she turned her head to the side, lowering her shirt just enough for him to see the tattoo just , a simple calligraphic ''X'' just over her colarbone.
''It's you...'' He whispered in horror and Jane replied merely my a clenching of her jaw. He recognised her immediately and he immediately knew she wasn't carrying ordinary bullets. The tattoo was the last thing he saw before Jane pulled the trigger and the man tumbled on the wood floor, his blood pooling around his head like a halo.
She reached for the girl and picked her up sadly, placing a gentle kiss on top of her head. She had never seen that woman in her life but she she apologised mutely to her. She had been a victim, in the wrong place, the wrong time. She knew how to disappear and nobody noticed her carrying the woman from roof to roof until she finally lowered her down in front of the back door of a chinese restaurant and then called a Cleaner to deal with any traces in the apartment. This wasn't the way to respect a woman but Jane had no other choice.
It was her job. She was the Executioner, after all.
Maura Isles was confused. She was also tired, but mainly she was confused. When she returned home Dennis was nowhere to be found but she knew he would soon return and she was going to pay for being stupid enough to let that woman talk to him that way. Danny had an especially sleepless night too and she hated leaving him alone with the baby-sitter. She guessed that much like her he was also buzzed and stressed from the crash. She hadn't slept at all during the night though, she had just tried to calm her son down and he had been inconsolable.
The car, she thought. Dennis is going to be so angry when he realises the car is smashed. She didn't think repair could do anything about it. It was weird he would be angry, it was going to be her money paying for a new one, but she knew he would anyway. He would find her stupid and clumsy with the wheel, he would tell her if she couldn't keep out of an accident she shouldn't drive anymore and take the subway instead. And she would listen to him because deep down she would really think she was just too clumsy to even handle a car.
She returned her attention to the item causing her confusion and she lowered her eyes into the single shiny bullet. It hadn't shattered or been otherwise deformed on impact. It wasn't made of what a normal bullet was made of, instead it had a thick coating of silver on the outside. She looked back at the man lying in her autopsy table. He was naked but covered from the waist down. She had taken that bullet out of his brain, he had died instantly.
Something nagged her. She had found traces of blood in his mouth and she wondered if it was a result from hemorrhage in the cranium. She decided to check his stomach also, in case he had vomited blood as a result of some chronic image. She didn't want to miss something her first day in this new precinct. People seemed to dislike ME s in that building, something that made her wonder if her predecessor, Dr Pike had anything to do with that.
She had just lifted the scalpel to start the Y incision when she head footsteps approach. She turned expecting to see Suzie, the young Asian senior criminalist but she saw someone she hadn't expected to ever see again.
''Dr Isles.'' The woman said, surprise in her features also. ''I heard there's a new ME in town. Didn't know it was you.''
''Jane...'' Was all Maura managed to utter.
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LK