Tortured Dreams

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter 28

Gabriel decorated my hotel room when we returned. His shoes were on the floor by the fridge, his coat had been slung across the bed and his body was reclined in a chair with his socked feet on the table. I glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice or care. They had been unwilling to let me smoke in the SUV. It had been a few hours since I'd had one. I could go a few more, but I didn't want to. I headed towards the balcony.

"Uh, no," Xavier grabbed my arm and stuck a patch on it.

"This is not the same as a cigarette."

"You are not going out on the balcony and smoking. It's cold and you are recovering from hypothermia. You'll have to do with a patch," Xavier told me.

"That sucks," I sank into a chair and looked out the glass door.

We had exhausted a good portion of the last 24 hours dealing with Baker, his shenanigans and hospitals, ensuring that we were no closer to finding our victims or our killer. My mood sank a little. We had lost a day, a day our victims didn't have.

"Come on," Lucas hit my leg.

"What?" I asked him.

"It's time to re-evaluate our torturer." He informed me.

"Re-evaluate our torturer?" I looked at him, my head tilted to the side.

"If you are right, then my profile would be wrong," he told me.

"Ah, I see," I moved to the small table and sat down. My attention was still drawn to the balcony door.

It took a while to notice that it wasn't as dark as it had been when we came in. Dark was slowly removing itself from the world, being replaced by the daylight. Not that Chicago is ever really dark. There were still street lights and lights from the El-Trains. Car headlights cast shadows around corners and onto buildings, warping the shadows, creating illusions in the light and dark. It did not improve the oppressive semi-darkness, but seemed to somehow make it worse, more dreadful. The people of this afflicted city would awake to their morning papers to find headlines like "Ten Women Still Missing in the Greater Chicago Area. Police Still Have No Clues About Murdered Woman Found Under Bridge."

"Ace?" Lucas brought me back to him.

"Sorry, what?"

"Do I remove likes torture from the list?"

"Not in the least," I shrugged. "There are many things about medieval torturers that aren't known, but to remove likes it, probably doesn't fit. We have every indication that they did enjoy their jobs, at least to some extent. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been able to sleep. They would have closed their eyes and heard screaming in their ears. Just because something is legal or is sanctified, doesn't mean it is still easy to do. The average person, even in the Middle Ages, would not have been able to stomach the hands on part. That's why there are hangman's bags and executioner suits. You have to dehumanize the person you are killing. The same holds true for torturers, but unlike an executioner, the event or sequence of events are going to last a lot longer. Modern humans are used to going to a job they hate. They think anyone can do it. But this, this isn't a job you can hate and do."

"Ok, what about the rest of it?" Lucas handed me a piece of paper.

"Not sure about the gender. Male, female, still a tossup unless you can show me real evidence that a man did it. Was there semen found in the sexual assaults?"

"No, just spermacide and traces of latex, an excessive amount of yeast, and..." Xavier trailed off.

"And a condom was used." I finished for Xavier. "So, you still can't say for sure it is male or female."