The Artist

Damien’s skin crawled like a decrepit breeze had passed over him as he observed another motel room with its all-too-familiar dirty gray carpeting and bedding best left untouched. But ‘The Artist’ had left his mark. The walls had been freshly painted crimson—the generic container of white paint blended with the victim’s blood still sat in the bathroom. Then there was the smell, sulphuric notes hiding under the stench of rust.

As for the exsanguinated victim left kneeling in the center of the room, he was as pale as a sculpture, arranged with wire and metal. His back flayed open like wings.

It had taken Damien a few minutes to place the scene. Like the rest, it was from an old show. The killer might be brutal and meticulous, but he lacked creativity and didn’t seem to mind plagiarizing Hollywood.

His phone buzzed, vibrating his khakis and shattering his deja vu as his hazy eyes focused back onto the identical motel across the street. Even a state away, some things stayed the same. A fogged breath escaped his lips as he used the one flickering street lamp and the half-moon’s light to make sure no cars had come or gone from the parking lot.

He needed to cut back on the Modafinil; it kept him awake but did nothing for the exhaustion rotting his bones. Worse, he had started drifting while awake. He had been taking it for weeks, ever since Mikhail, and the side effects were starting to outweigh the benefits, but he just needed to hold on a little longer.

Shaking the daze away, he checked his phone. Jill: “The lead didn’t pan out. Any luck on your side?”

Fishing out a vape from his trench coat’s inner pocket, he took a hit. He was tempted to go for the Marlboro, but Jill would kill him for stinking up the car again. He texted back: “Got my eyes on another motel. But I bet a round that it’s a goose.”

“Not taking that bet. It’s late, you should call it a day.” Her single fire texts suddenly stopped, replaced with a series of dots. She was trying to pull him back from the brink, but he wasn’t near cliff’s edge yet. He had a feeling about this motel. As for the suspicious man he had stumbled across, that was a crapshoot. His phone buzzed. “The locals might not have experience, but they’re good enough for staking out unless you have some clue you’ve been holding out on me?”

He further loosened his navy tie till it hung completely slack. He took another look at the old, beaten-up Camaro he had started tracking. Its driver was apparently normal. A scraggly beard, unkempt black hair, and wearing a worn denim jacket. Yet, Damien had this itch when he saw him. Like the man was wearing a costume. “Just my gut. Chances are he’s long gone, but if he’s not, this is the place. I know it. Hell, I’d bet a round for the whole bar next time we’re back at Bukowski’s.”

“Shit. You’ve gotta stop doing this shit without backup. Give me an hour and I’ll join you.”

Damien checked the time; it was near nine. “Don’t. Tonight’s a bust. I’m gonna head out to the local Uni’s library and unwind.”

Dots appeared under her name again, but he tossed his phone onto the passenger seat and grabbed his thermos, taking a strong drink of the still-steaming coffee. He already knew what was going through Jill’s head. She’d try to ask about his family before stopping and pressuring him to just go to the hotel for some sleep, but Damien was sick of them.

It was the tail end of finals week, and the library would be open all night. Better yet, whatever students hadn’t gone home for the holidays would be lingering. He needed that type of peace if he wanted proper rest, but before he left, he wanted a closer look at the Camaro. It hadn’t moved for hours and probably wouldn’t for the rest of the night.

Stepping out of his car, a cold breeze caressed him, the coffee’s residual warmth quickly evaporating. Sticking to night’s shadows, he walked across the street and did his best to stay out of view.

Ignoring the scant few other parked cars, he crouched and approached the Camaro that was parked in front of its drivers’ room. He went around the car’s trunk to the passenger side, stopping at the rear row. The model was old and beat-up, its windows tightly shut. It wouldn’t have an alarm. Pulling out a slim jim from under his coat, he opened the door with a click.

From the corner of his eye, a shadow twitched. His head snapped towards it, across the lot, under rustling leaves stood a human-shaped blob. It was nothing, but Damien couldn’t stop his hand from settling onto his holstered gun. The thing reeked of death and despair. It was lingering in the air until it wasn’t. A passing car’s headlights dissolved the blob into nothing but shrubs as a sharp laugh rang in his ears.

Looking around, seeing no one else, he shook his head and focused on the car. It was too clean and didn’t smell of tobacco or alcohol; instead, there was an earthy whiff of cologne or an air freshener. Nothing concrete, but in his books, it made the man driving it even more suspicious.

Carefully, he closed the door just as streams of light barely missed him as a curtain rustled and partially opened. Leaning against the car, staying still, he stared at the man bathed in his room’s light. His dull eyes were hungry. Horns dripping ichor protruded from his head as he opened his mouth, revealing a fanged grin.

Time slowed, sweat pooled, and then the curtain closed.

After waiting till the count of 50, Damien kept his steps silent as he rushed away from the Camaro and went back to his car while muttering, “Damnit. The doc said there’d be no side effects. What’s with all this bullshit?”

His leather seat crinkled and groaned as he slid onto it. His engine roared to life while he grabbed his phone and sent Jill the suspect’s license plate. “Got my eye on someone suspicious, put word out so we know if he makes a run for it.”

“Your gut or did you find something?”

No shit he found something, a demon in disguise. His head ached. It was just another slip of the mind after pulling an all-nighter, but he couldn’t be losing it. If he saw something like that, it was because his instincts were trying to warn him. “Nothing concrete, but he’s staying at the motel.”

“Should I call it in?” Ah Jill, always by the book.

“Don’t wanna spook him or anyone else. I checked his car, no tools, and I didn’t see him move anything into his room. Should be good for the night.”

“Alright. I’m headed over now. Send me your hotel, and we’ll debrief tomorrow.”

Damien sent a thumbs up before driving towards the library. The roads were slick and mostly empty. It made the street lights and concrete roads blur together as he took another hit from his vape and swallowed down some more coffee. “What am I missing?”

Victims had nothing in common. Most were probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then there were the locations, three by the Pacific out near LA, three near cornfields and mobsters, and now five in the east. Most in motels, but every now and then, he’d pick a different spot. Some public facility too trafficked to ignore.

If the pattern held, they were due one more victim before he started his long road trip back to the west. The killer’s route wasn’t a straight line, not enough to narrow down where he’d strike next, but it was almost definite it’d be in this state. And this town, it was Damien’s. If the killer was mocking him, he wouldn’t pass up another chance to twist the knife.

Somehow he made it to the library, parking on the livelier street without crashing. The occasional student could be seen walking to or from their dorms while the large library built in the Neo-Gothic style made of red sandstone and white facades, shined mellow light out from its pointed windows and into the night.

Grabbing his phone, he dimmed the screen to its lowest setting and began reviewing the case files. He skipped the most recent victim and didn’t stop scrolling until he stopped at a picture of an old friend, a former partner from when Damien was fresh out. The fifth victim. His head in a cardboard box next to his heavily drugged wife, who had been left untouched—physically at least. Another recreation, and it couldn’t just be a coincidence. But Damien hadn’t been targeted again.

He couldn’t stop picturing Mikhail’s smiling face transposed over his dead eyes. That damn smile. The man was weathered, dour, but once he retired it was like life had been breathed back into him. He posted pictures of playing with his grandkids a revolting number of times and even began bowling in a league.

Mikhail’s gruff voice whispered in the distance, “Damien.”

Waking up, he glanced around his empty car before looking back down at his now locked screen. Flicking his finger across the phone, it turned back on. Half an hour gone.

With a sigh, Damien left his car and entered Avery Memorial Library. It smelt of cracked leather and radiator steam, it always did in the winter.

Quick enough, he passed the front desk, giving a polite nod to the night librarian cocooned in her shawl. This wasn’t his first night here, but he was still surprised seeing Mrs. Combs. She had been the librarian when he was a student and though older now, she had hardly changed. Except for the cane she used and which went tap, tap, tap on the tiles within this hushed cathedral that echoed only with faint whispers, rustling paper, and clicking keys.

Damien went straight through the first floor, a quarter-filled with students bent over books like penitents at prayer. Green-glassed brass lamps hummed with fatigue. Reaching a nondescript door, he entered the stairway and hurried down the concrete steps to the second sub-basement.

The stacks were far less renovated than upstairs, colder, quieter, but peaceful. Finding a quiet corner where the bare overhead lights were dimmest, he settled into a slightly uncomfortable chair and pulled out his phone. He scrolled all the way to the first victim.

It was the only one that didn’t match the pattern, that seemed too sloppy, that wasted days and weeks of local police time. An adjunct professor brutally murdered with an axe. It had all the hallmarks of a crime of passion. The murder weapon was left behind, wood had been stained in blood, and the kicker was that the married man had been having an affair with a student.

If the girl and wife hadn’t had an airtight alibi, one of them would be rotting in a prison somewhere. Hell, connecting the dots was only possible once they realized the killer liked working with sets of three. The poor professor was the only murder that fit the timeline and geography.

Damien had fallen for the trick as well, wasting hours scouring the case for clues before eventually realizing that for all the sloppiness the scene portrayed, it was meticulously clear of evidence. Too clean for a first-timer. Which meant the killer hadn’t been experimenting when he went from axe to machete to knife in those first three murders.

What was the killer trying to say? Damien’s imagination flickered across scenes of Jack Nicholson breaking through a door. Of Christian Bale in a raincoat. Of a deformed boogeyman stalking a Louisiana swamp. None of them fit the scene the killer had left.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back into the wooden chair. What was he missing? No one else wanted to admit that this was a bored killer mocking them, but the lack of evidence and repeated dead ends was damning. He was showboating.

Darkness gripped Damien as he slipped into sleep. A twisted dream trying to recall a nearly forgotten film. A college-aged girl. Her father, the Thumbprint Killer, temporarily discarding his MO for a sloppy axe.

A loud slam jerked Damien awake as Jill screamed, “Boo.”

His hand went for his gun while his sleep-addled brain caught the squeak of rubber soles on the basement floor. HVAC hummed and the overhead lights whined as they seemed to dim even more. Steadying his breath, Damien listened for more, but the floor sounded as empty as it always was. Still, he asked, “Who’s there?”

When no one answered, he calmed down and found his phone on the floor, dead. With a grumble, he put it away while chewing over his dream. Most of it had already left him, but the plot lingered. Another movie. A message of disdain. ‘The Artist’ was a facade, a sick game an experienced serial killer was using to play with them, with the public.

From the very beginning, he was telling them, “I’m a professional pretending to be something else. Come, find your dead ends while I taunt you.”

Mikhail’s death was another message. “I see you, Damien, why don’t you see me?”

What about angel wings? The killer wasn’t religious; he was sure of it.

A light flickered ahead, one sandwiched between two narrow shelves. In a daze, Damien felt something calling to him. Standing, he wandered over to the failing lights and slipped between two stacks. His steps muffled on the red carpet.

The row was long, and it took what felt like minutes before the tugging in his chest went away. He scanned the shelves; one old, leather-bound book grabbing his attention. The color hadn’t faded from its sharp red title: Malleus Maleficarum.

Grabbing it, he flipped it open, revealing obscure Latin, but between the lines and in the margins were annotations left in English. The text was occult nonsense, but he skimmed it anyway. Only stopping when he reached a heavily annotated section.

The notes described a ritual for creating a tulpa. The details were as in-depth as they were ridiculous. Requiring death, a large audience, whispers of fear, and an active participant as sacrifice.

The participant was a key ingredient, and several pages were reserved for explaining how the further along the ritual went, the more their inner eye would open, increasing the difficulty of their successful sacrifice.

Tired, he sat down on the carpet and continued to carefully read the text, fighting past his drooping eyes. Then, darkness.

“Goddamnit, Damien!” Jill’s sharp whisper woke him as the cold concrete floor seeped past his clothes and into his skin. His mouth tasting vaguely of iron. Another strange dream. He sat up groggily, forcing himself to focus on Jill’s crouching form as she chided him. “You’re getting some goddamn R&R after today.”

She was wearing a navy suit, but her brunette hair was tied up in a bun. She must have been in a rush. He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off. “No excuses. The killer struck again, so we have some time anyway.”

“Shit. Where, when?”

She squinted her crystal-blue eyes. “Dead for more than a day. Found him a floor above us, in a closed off section in the library.”

What little heat was left in Damien’s body fled him as the cold woke him. “Shit. Was it a student? How about the suspect I mentioned, any eyes on him?”

She helped him up as he grabbed the book resting near him. It was one on films: Cinema of the Occult. “The person you thought you saw was reported missing last night. His wife hadn’t seen him for two days and considering the state of the body upstairs, the killer must have disguised himself as the vic.”

He skimmed through the book’s pages, normal except for someone’s occult scribblings in the margins. Putting the book back, he said, “You sent people to the motel?”

“Yeah. The car’s still there, but no perp.”

She started leading him to the crime scene as he replied, “Phone’s dead, but I took some pics. We should be able to hone in on a description if a forensic analyst can look past the disguise.”

They planned back and forth, but Damien’s words sounded distant. He was here last night, and the night before. How the hell had he missed the killer? Maybe they had even walked right by each other? Maybe he was even here last night, stalking him, watching him as he slept.

His hand went to his mouth. The taste of iron remained on his tongue.

Jill slowed down and stared at him. “Damien?”

He shook it off. They were getting close. They’d work the scene. He’d get his sleep on the plane when they headed back towards Chicago.

He’d find the damn bastard before he finished his art constellation.

As for the Modafinil—he’d stomach through it just a little bit longer.