Alexis Beasley was thirty-one years old and had been with the RRT until a year ago. One of the few women there. That's because the demands were not light. Just carrying the heavy equipment and heavy ballistic helmets was something most women failed at simply because of their stature. Alexis Beasley was trained in hand-to-hand combat, could shoot, and, as a brunette woman, almost matched the killer's prey pattern. The only thing she needed to do was stuff her bust a bit. And put on a wig that transformed her practical short hairstyle into a wild, dark lion's mane for the RRT missions. Plus a mini skirt, tight lace-up top, faux tiger skin jacket, suspenders, and high heels.

"Can you walk in these?" asked Elizabeth with furrowed brows.

Alexis smiled broadly. "I'll be fine."

Jane took a deep breath and frowned a little. "Listen. We'll drop you off near the Velvet Pearl. With a private car. Preferably a Mercedes or Porsche, like the pimp is sending his best girl to hook up."

"And do I just stand there waiting?"

"Yes. You stay near the Velvet Pearl, the running house where Jacqueline, the first victim, worked for a while."

"And you?" Mulled by the whole thing, Alexis could tell. Busting apartments with other RRT colleagues was one thing. Being exposed to an unpredictable psychopath who no one yet knew who he was something else entirely.

"We'll keep an eye on you, of course. " Jane nodded in confirmation of her own words. "But to ensure nothing can go wrong, we'll equip you with this. "There was a suitcase on the table. "Nick!"

"It's a GPS tracker," Nick took over. Inside a plastic package were two little plates about the size of the head of a nail. Next to them was a black object about the size of a palm. Argus Nano, apparently the company name, was written on the package.

"GPS tracker?" asked Alexis, eyeing the thing suspiciously.

"This is the transmitter," Nick said. "It's best if the GPS tracker and the transmitter are close together."

"Like what?"

"For example, in your purse. The trackers can send signals for a few hours without the transmitter, but it stops because their power supply is exhausted."

Jane looked at the wall clock. "Eight p.m.," she said tensely. "That's the time the red-light district sends its kids out on the street, isn't it?

"Elizabeth took a deep breath and nodded. "As far as I know, yes."

xxx

He saw the woman.

She was exactly his type.

He would not only give her something.

He wanted her for himself. Completely and totally. Or better yet, whole and raw, he thought, smiling at his joke.

The night was on his side. So was the darkness. But the darkness was unpredictable, for it was not always dark.

He wanted to take it. Quietly.

And in doing so, he didn't want to be seen.

He had received a warning shot. They had found his playroom. For that, he knew who was hunting him. Elizabeth Rizzoli. And Maggie Ross. Who had been three at first and now only two. Maggie Ross had lost her child because of him. That was good.

On the other hand, they had found his playroom. That wasn't good. That's why he had to be even more careful from now on. Had to become even more invisible.

And for that, he needed the darkness.

The real darkness.

Darkness as black as my soul, he might have said, if he had had the humor for it. But he had no wit.

He had the desire. For this woman who stood there waiting for someone. Maybe for him.

He would provide the darkness.

And for the shadows.

xxx

It was evening. Elizabeth sat in Maggie's patient room, staring ahead of her with a deeply furrowed brow. "Do you think this is right?" she asked suddenly. "For me to sit here and let Alexis Beasley put herself in danger?"

Maggie slowly turned her head toward the detective and frowned as well. "Now, listen to me. You have other responsibilities besides the job. It would be best if you hadn't been on that raid in North End, either. I want to know what you were thinking."

What you were thinking ... Now the redhead sounded just like her parents.

Elizabeth looked closely at her wife, wide-eyed. "But this is my case."

Maggie straightened up a little in bed and licked her lips. "I don't think we'll catch the murderer so quickly unless he makes some serious mistakes now. From there, it's still your case when we're all fully back on our feet. Apart from that... Get used to things going on without you sometimes. The graveyards are full of irreplaceable people."

Elizabeth gritted her teeth and nodded. "They're not full enough of serial killers, unfortunately. There are still too many of them running around free and alive."

Maggie nodded slowly. "I'm afraid that's true."

The detective looked at her smartphone. "Ma and Nick will let us know as soon as anything happens. Right now, Alexis Beasley is staying near the Velvet Pearl. Same place you ran into the killer."

Maggie closed her eyes for a moment. "Like that's a good omen." Then she looked at her wife, glad Elizabeth was with her instead of out in the field with Nick and Jane. "At least ... At least you're not wandering into strangers' apartments alone anymore, with some killers like the Nameless One* waiting for you."

Elizabeth frowned and nodded slowly. "Or this other guy, who I'm still unsure if he was more perpetrator or victim now. Carl or whatever his name was ... he had his torture cellar out there, didn't he, where he held for weeks the psychologist who testified in court against him?"

"Carl." Maggie nodded in resignation. "He was my intern, too."

Elizabeth looked out the window to the outside world. She was probably living on an island of the blessed, here in the hospital with Maggie, while others risked their lives or became victims. She, on the other hand, knowing all the horrors that could happen, was still safer in the end. Or so she hoped. Or rather, that's what she had expected. For those who knew precisely what horrors there were, were they less in danger? Were they immune to that very horror happening to them? Did paranoia help? Or was Elizabeth imagining it to give herself courage? Was it going to get everyone in the end if it was going to get them? Now that she'd gotten to a killer again. This murderer had taken something from her again and killed Maggie's and her baby. It was like that time with Legion.* The murderer she had hunted down and killed. The one who had eaten Isabel Venturas' baby before. And had thus kept to a passage from the Revelation of John: And the dragon stood before the woman who was to give birth. In order, if she had given birth, to eat her child.

Dragons come all the time, thought the detective. And we can live on our island of the blessed and hope that they do not come. Or live on constant alert and thereby hope they don't come. It's like the story about the umbrella, which you don't take with you so you don't get wet when it rains. No, by taking the umbrella with you, you prevent it from raining in the first place.

The dragons they were chasing ... For these murderers were like dragons. Dragons that killed, breathed fire, and couldn't be caught. We hunt the dragon, John Douglas of the FBI had once said, but sometimes the dragon wins.

Maggie turned her head toward the detective. Elizabeth had grabbed her cell phone. Just then, a text had come in.

Elizabeth pressed her lips together and shook her head. "No way!"

Maggie's eyebrows drew together. "What?"

"Complete blackout in North End. The whole neighborhood."

"About where --"

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Right where Alexis is."

Maggie sat up straight with a jerk. "Can that be a coincidence?"

Elizabeth stared thoughtfully at her phone and shrugged. "I hope so. But it does sound strange."

"And Alexis? Where is she now?"

"Ma and Nick still have her on their radar. She's moving north of the Velvet Pearl."

"And what's she saying?"

The detective chewed nervously on her lower lip. "Ma and Nick can't reach her. Maybe the blackout knocked out a cell tower?"

"But you have reception."

"Yes. But we're also much farther south. It may be down up north."

Maggie thought for a second and licked her lips. "You need to get there now, Liz! If the GPS trackers are out of power and the power outage means no transmission towers are working, you must go find her."

Elizabeth hesitated at that moment, clearly torn. On the one hand, she wanted to go in search of Alexis, and on the other hand, she wanted, needed to stay with her wife.

"Hey," Maggie said, and the internally torn detective looked at her. "You have to go and find Alexis!"

Elizabeth nodded slowly, got up from the chair, and picked up her coat that was hanging over the back of it. Then she walked over to the redhead lying in the bed and bent down. "I love you," she said before giving Maggie a soft kiss on the lips.

Maggie kept her eyes closed. "Please come back to me," she whispered after the detective had already made her way out of the patient's room.

xxx

Final cut

Possessed