All self-assurance had drained from Jane's face. "We have several problems," she said. "If I've been informed correctly, the perpetrators from Quincy Market, Herbert Mencer in particular, have confessed and aren't even trying to deny anything. Or is there anything new from your side?"

Nikki cleared her throat and pressed her lips together as her grandmother looked at her. "I'm afraid it's as you say."

Jane took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "And then we don't just have the problem with this BlackRat, or whatever that greaser is called. We also have a completely different problem." She pressed her lips together. "Slaughterman."

Elizabeth drew her eyebrows together. "Has anything turned up from him yet?"

Jane looked at her daughter closely. "You could say that. There's a video of him cutting off his little fingers. And now I've received a report from the FBI about a new murder. In Concord, New Hampshire."

Nikki exhaled loudly and dropped her chin to her chest.

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. "How many victims?"

Jane gave the Lieutenant a long look and pressed her lips together. "Four. Two men, two women. The murder is already circulating on the internet. One couple was having sex in the tent when the perpetrator approached and pierced them both with some lance. He pierced the heart and lungs of both victims. According to initial reports, he cut the throats of the other two with a hunting knife."

Elizabeth pursed her lips and nodded slowly. "No survivors?"

"No."

"And no one heard anything?"

Jane leaned back in her desk chair and pursed her lips. "The perpetrator or perpetrators weren't stupid," she explained. "There was an open-air concert nearby. It was so loud at times that you couldn't hear any screams. I don't think there were many screams if I read the first report from Concord's ME correctly. The killer struck so quickly that everyone was dead instantly. Or at least extremely quickly, so there was barely time to scream." She took a deep breath and raised her eyebrows. "But that wasn't the end of it." She handed the Lieutenant a file. "All the victims had at least a hundred stab wounds each."

Elizabeth glanced at the file. "Post mortem, I presume?"

"That's right, Lieutenant. Death would have come far too quickly for anything else."

"Normally a sign of a personal relationship between perpetrator and victim. An overkill. The perpetrator changes the method or the murder weapon, even though the victim is already life-threateningly injured or perhaps even dead," Nikki suddenly said.

Jane looked at her for a long time and frowned a little. "Very true, Officer O'Laighin."

Nikki cleared her throat quietly and gritted her teeth. "I don't suppose we have any evidence of a relationship crime?"

Jane stood up from her chair with a sigh and shoved her hands into her pants pockets as she walked to her window front. "You're right about that. In this case, the perpetrator was concerned with the staging of his crime, which he had planned precisely: he took a very close look at the location and the circumstances, such as the concert, and chose the victims accordingly. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But that's not all. Here." She returned to her desk and turned her laptop towards the two women. "There."

Elizabeth blinked, barely noticing. "This is a real horror show. Always something new."

"Please, Elizabeth." Jane looked at her daughter reprovingly as her gaze wandered to Nikki. "You have a strong stomach." With that, she started the video.

First, two tents could be seen. One of them was half collapsed. Slaughterman had stabbed the two lovers through the tent canvas with his lance or whatever he had with him.

But the worst thing happened outside the tent. The video showed a man cutting out pieces of flesh from the corpses and holding them in the campfire. He looked around like a ghoul digging up a corpse for consumption. Then he looked at the camera.

"Actually," said the man, "I wanted to eat my victims raw, preferably still alive, like the lion in the savannah. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that you can't eat raw meat with human teeth. So, unfortunately, I have to keep the meat on fire. Our teeth are too degraded to tear chunks out of the meat." He pulled a piece of muscle he had cut from the upper arm of one of the young men out of the campfire, bit into it, and chewed.

"What the God of Blood commanded his disciples to do," Nikki muttered disgustingly. "Those of you who can even bring yourselves to eat parts of the meat raw shall be especially rewarded."

Jane pressed her lips together. "Right, he took that literally. As best he could with his teeth, anyway."

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "He even apologized for having to fry it for a minute."

Jane made a face. "Look, here's the best part."

As the man chewed, his hands were visible, and the fingers of his right and left hands had the words KILL and HATE tattooed on the inside, so it wasn't immediately apparent. The two little fingers were severed just below the palm. The wounds had been sealed by heat; at least, they looked black and burned out.

"Maybe," said the man, "I'll manage to turn the sex drive into a killer drive one day? To achieve true satisfaction only through killing? Not like these worms here, sticking their dicks in somewhere, but inserting spears, knives, and blades somewhere and feeling and tasting the hot blood. Every knife driven into soft flesh is a sacrifice to the God of Blood. Next, I will place their skulls in the fire until the flesh melts from their skulls, and I have only their skulls left. I am the greatest servant of the God of Blood. I am the Arch demon of Murder; I am Slaughterman!"

The screen went black.

Nikki made a face and swallowed. "Damn," she gasped, looking at her grandmother. "How are the click-through rates on this video?"

Jane looked at her for a long time and pursed her lips. "They're in the millions."

Elizabeth exhaled loudly. "I'm not surprised."

Jane closed her laptop dramatically and slowly. "But one thing is terrible. Because do you know where this fucking video was first shown?"

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows slowly. "Let me guess. On the homepage of the Boston Globe."

Nikki looked at the two older women. "With a text from BlackRat?"

Jane went behind her desk and sat down in her chair. "Yes to both. So I have two assignments for you. No, three: get that damn God of Blood, get that Slaughterman if that's not the same psychopath. And especially: get that BlackRat!"

xxx

David Komsalis had a visitor, but not one he would have wanted. The BPD cops had built around his desk like an army about to lay siege to a city.

"So," Elizabeth Rizzoli said, "either you come clean now about who this BlackRat writes for you, or we'll have all the computers in the newsroom confiscated and all the data searched. Of course, you'll get everything back when we're done. But it'll take a few weeks until we're done and you get those files back. So what have you got for us?"

David knew when there was no point in playing poker anymore. "All right," he said, "he's just sent me a new video."

"About what?"

"About a vote by Slaughterman," David said. "Where the next murder is to take place."

"Again," Nikki muttered. "The last time was Concord. And where do you want the next murder to take place?"

"Saratoga Springs. The video is going through social media right now, too."

Elizabeth and Nikki looked at David's laptop, which was flickering with images of Saratoga Springs. Broadcast vans had taken up quarters there. A reporter spoke into the camera: "Forensics from Saratoga Springs are assisting the FBI and are still analyzing the crime scene. The bodies, or what's left of them, are currently being autopsied by the local ME. At that moment, a new message from the killer, who calls himself Slaughterman, has reached us: a vote has revealed that the next murder will take place right here in Saratoga Springs. The whole town is living in fear, the first vigilante groups have announced themselves, the mayor is calling for calm, but he's in a pretty lonely position, and the police units from other states have already been called in --"

Elizabeth growled softly. "Like moths following the light, all these vultures are going to Saratoga Springs. Let's hope there is a murder then. She looked at Nikki. "Otherwise, all this excitement was for nothing."

Nikki looked at her mother and barely suppressed an eye roll.

David looked at the Lieutenant with a smarmy grin. "And this from you? A homicide detective?"

Elizabeth scowled at the hack. "Still a lieutenant to you. And don't worry about my attitude towards the perpetrator. You run off now and find the contact details of this BlackRat. You have exactly five minutes!"

"All right," David grumbled, "I'll be right back. Just wait a minute."

Nikki looked around the office for a moment and took a deep breath. "You know what this all reminds me of? Oliver Stone's movie Natural Born Killers. Where the killers become a fucking media event. It is an extreme version of Bonnie and Clyde, where the media maker even becomes an accomplice to the killers in the end. After the movie, some people imitated the murders. The movie was even banned in some countries."

Elizabeth frowned and licked her lips, raising her eyebrows briefly. "That God of Blood and Slaughterman are in their movie, Nikki."

The office door flew open. David Komsalis stood in the doorway. "Here's the information you asked for," he said, handing Elizabeth a piece of paper.

Elizabeth skimmed the document and furrowed her brows. "Chris Barnes, then. This is BlackRat?" She looked piercingly at David.

"Yes, that's his name. With contact details. Cell phone number and e-mail."

"And the home address? Where does he live?"

"I don't know that. I don't!"

Elizabeth looked at him sharply and growled softly. "We'll find out."

David sat back down at his desk. "Are we done then?"

Elizabeth stood almost twice as tall as she was in the office and looked at the man. "On the contrary, Dave, we're just getting started!"