Filling the Emptiness
Immersed in the chill, granite breath of rain-soaked pavement, the hard oily bite of drenched asphalt, a confusing burst of blended aromas -- someone's garbage -- the short man pads downhill in the rain, ears laid back to keep the drops out, head down, nostrils flared to the wind's information network. He clutches his spare belongings to his chest, almost hunching over them, as if to protect them from the rain.
Eyes narrowed to slits, such that they look (and all but are) completely closed, the raindrake makes his way along the sidewalk with the unmistakable homeless-person gait, the stiff-kneed shuffle designed to hide their scuffed, dirty pads. He sees, yes, some things, fuzzy gray things, but he is lulled by the gossipping rain, barely aware of anything at all except the miasmic molecular paradigm provided by his muzzle.
For a long time, he walks like this, grinning broadly to himself with his eyes seemingly shut, shuffling down the street as he hugs a paper back full of unidentifiable objects to his chest. His long hair is ragged, unkempt, uneven. To any observing, the raindrake might seem to make random changes of direction. The ambling, purposeless gait, weaving right to left across the sidewalk as he goes, presents the raindrake as just another drunken bum. The Krros' wardrobe does little to dispel that impression. His jeans were black at one point, but a dull gray is the best they can muster at this point, streaked with pale earthy marks of age. The T-shirt is black, generic, and old. All but hidden within his brown oilcloth trench coat, two sizes too large, with his auburn mane trailing over his face, the small man is easy to ignore.
It is gray and cool and calm in his place. For his part, he is aware of the people he passes only in the vaguest of senses; cinders, embers, candle-flames and bonfires, their varied individual scents and presences caper brightly across his awareness, but he notices them as children notice the stars: bright and pretty and far, far away, too far away to be real in any practical sense. So he passes them by, ignoring them as utterly as they ignore him. He is looking for something.
Caressing, chuckling into his pinioned ears, the rain runs through his hair, twisting its way over the ridges and valleys of his curled muzzle. A few drops make their suicide leap from his whiskers, more over his bared teeth, mixing with saliva to fall to the ubiquitous puddles five feet four inches below. Crinkling its way into his awareness, the paper bag emits a pained metallic crunch as he clutches it ever tighter to his chest. Like setting fireworks off in a darkened auditorium, the scent-feel of his quarry explodes into being, and though his every instinct demands he run as fast as he can, the raindrake merely shuffles a little faster, grinning, grinning all the while.
Soft, shining, welcoming, cool brown mud-scent wafts across 'Cet's nostrils as he creeps on all fours through the garden, his thin body pressed as close as possible to the ground, paper bag clutched in his jaws. Wan pearlescent moonlight traces the outlines of the invader who tests the window, finds it unlocked, and lifts it open with easy professional grace.
A gunshot cracks the night; stillness immediately consumes his being, and he holds the shape of a particularly fat wisteria trunk until his busy brain determines the shot came from north-northwest thirty-two-hundred-feet-that-way; nothing-to-do-with-me.
The weasel, grinning his emptiness to the shadows, slips into the chicken coop.
In the center of the universe, his handiwork, throbbing dizzily with the tingling rush of pure Life-gnosis, the raindrake snaps his teeth together, incapable of completely stifling an intoxicated little giggle. His mind knows that he must escape, that the blue overseers will arrive quickly, that the building will soon begin to burn in earnest. But his brain is awash with the turbulent thrashing ecstacy of what he has just done, the events of the last hour spinning and tumbling across his consciousness until they become his awareness, the alpha and omega of existence. Metallic-tasting saliva oozes from the corner of his mouth as he stands enraptured ...
Hands gloved, muddy paws leaving prints all but indistinguishable from a larger feline's, he had crept, body arched forward onto all fours, sucking as deeply and thoroughly from the air in the house as possible without making a sound. A growl must be stifled as some hapless cub's fear-pain-blood markers, obscenely cradled within a shell of semen-sex scent, oozes putrescently from the vicinity of the living room. 'Cet knows what is buried in the basement of this house. 'Cet knows who lives here. He smells it.
And besides, his stomach is empty, most intolerably empty. Glowing embers in the pit of his belly hissing and sparking, driving him on, the stairs disappear beneath his effortless tread, slipping as if shadow-subtance through the nightshroud within the big Victorian.
At the top of the stairs, the invader rises carefully to his hind legs, big latranic ears swiveling, jaw dropped, muzzle sucking air through nostrils, over the scent-organ in his mouth. Three in the master bedroom. Prey. The damaged child is in there as well. Stuttering, thudding, the raindrake's heart is like a trigger, a valve, and he finds himself moving forward with each pump, and now his leather-gloved hand rests on the doorknob, turning it ...
First, drawing a pre-loaded syringe from his bag, he injects some of its contents into the keyhole on the knob of the master bedroom, then opens the door. Here he pauses in surprise, for the door opens not on a master bedroom per se, but a master bedroom converted to an S&M chamber. All the standard implements, plus many no one would ever consent to having used on them, hang or lie gleaming and ready for use, except for a few dildos, which seem to have been forgotten about. They lie abandoned in the vaginas and anuses of three bound and ball-gagged deer fawns, hardly fourteen winters old, lying pitifully on their sides. Each fawn's bindings are ultimately chained to the leg of a bed more decadent than luxurious, in which sleep a stag, a boar-pig, and a flatface.
'Cet's senses blaze across the room as he closes and locks the door behind himself automatically, his eyes snapping open in response to the feedback from his nose and ears. Lean tresspasser, lurking watcher in the darkness, the raindrake holds his pose there, motionless. Then, stuttering and jumping, his heart accelerates, taking everything else with it. He has just enough time to think, Didn't need these after all, and carefully sets his bag down, with nary a crackle to announce his presence. The instant the bag leaves his fingers, he is in motion. Molten bronze burns cold into the startled eyes of the stag lying in the center of the bed as his alertness comes far too late. He brings his arms up to defend himself just as the hunter lands on his chest, talons flexing through the leather as if it were paper to embed themselves like marlin hooks in the stag's flesh.
Watching a predator drag his partner in both white-collar and sex crime out of bed with his claws would prove the first time, but far from the last, when Leslie Allen Everret, fifty-three, CFO of Scalds and Caviar, would deeply and sincerely regret installing the newest, highest-quality, all-but-invisible soundproofing in their 'play room'.
All ten fore-talons flexed as far as they'll go, hooked deep and well in the man's chest, 'Cet flexes his whole body wildly, using the last bit of surprise he has to yank the much larger man backward and off balance. The stag bellows surprised pain as they tumble off the side of the bed to the floor. The stag tries to use his superior weight to pin his attacker to the ground, and the roll ends with 'Cet on his back. What begins as an enraged roar on the stag's part curdles into a terrified squeal as the raindrake kicks out with his hind paws, mercilessly ending the conflict then and there. Acetyl shoves the dying buck away even as the man's steaming entrails burst from his shredded torso, while meanwhile the bald monkey runs screaming for the door, heedless of his nudity. 'Cet's 'trapping mix' had done its job, however, and the panicking man is unable to so much as budge the door, despite jerking with all his might.
Hot, steaming, the heady scent of blood and entrails floods through the raindrake's consciousness, and the room, vivid grayscale with faded color to him, takes on a reddish aura around the edges. The room ceases to exist. Everything ceases to exist save the corpse, the blood, but most importantly, the enemies still alive. He doesn't bother to rise to his feet before springing from the pile of entrails back onto the bed. A hissing snarl rends the air as 'Cet throws himself at the boar-pig, his jaws snapping shut around the man's arm, clawed hands scrabbling for the boar's back and chest, just as that same arm's hand closes around a handgun. Shouting obscenities and demands for information (who-are-you-what's-this-about-how-dare-you,) practically screaming his outrage at this astonishing insult, the boar tries to throw the predator off, but 'Cet grinds his teeth deeper, deeper, until a sharp blow across the head nearly stuns him, forcing his jaw to relax. As the hunter reels, Everett tries to follow that blow up with a second, only to impale his own forearm on 'Cet's forehead spike. An instant later that hand is torn off as 'Cet jerks himself away, slashing indiscriminately at the boar as he lunges again for the gun arm with his teeth, as if trying to bite it off.
By this time, the only sounds coming from Everett are high-pitched squeals of fright as he begins to realise that self-defense is more than packing a piece you've never fired. Flexing his neck like a pit bull, 'Cet finally jerks it back with a large mouthful of the boar's flesh crushed in his jaws. The pistol tumbles to the floor despite Everett's desperate attempts to keep his fingers flexed taught around it, and the terrified industry mogul twists to flee just in time for both of 'Cet's foretalons to flash out and across the back of his neck and his upper spine. As if he's done this a hundred times before, he aims each slash to drag his claws between the vertebrae, and the boar follows his ineffective weapon, breaking his nose on the rich shag carpet as his body collapses in two different directions on the bed, spraying blood for three full seconds as the overwrought heart spasms before finally coming to a halt. As if oblivious to his enemy's death, 'Cet lunges for the torso, tearing into it, hooking his claws beneath the ribs to pull them out through the skin, ripping the chestplate away with his teeth, burrowing through the flesh with his jaws until he finds what he's after and rises, tossing the ragged, leaking heart up so as to snatch it out of the air again with his jaws. The burst of blood and flavour over his tongue sends a shudder of joy through the hunter; the morsel is swallowed slowly, luxuriantly.
Only now does 'Cet turn from the bed, arms hanging limp at his sides, so thoroughly soaked in blood that the tufts of fur at his elbows drip almost as much as his talons, to face the no-tail ape where he cowers against the door, whimpering, crying. Reeking and hot, the scent of urine pokes his nostrils unpleasantly, drawing a cerise-hued sneeze. Reaching to his belt, he unbuttons the safety strap lying across the guard of his fighting knife, drawing it with luxuriant anticipation from its sheath. Upon sight of the gleaming steel, the man shrieks and makes a dive for safety, but 'Cet wheels and stomps down on his back, slamming him with a merciless splash into what used to be the stag's inner plumbing, claws digging into his bare back. Working quickly, he draws the knife down the man's back, digging his claws in harder to quell the doomed flatface's struggles. Then, he hums to himself, as if changing his mind, then almost casually kicks the man hard in the side, just coincidentally failing to retract his claws. Again, and again, until, sobbing, the man rolls over onto his back to escape the next merciless strike. When the man's soft belly and all-too-vulnerable genitals come into view, a jagged grin twists the predator's expression into a lusting, empty-bellied leer. Before the flatface has a chance to object, he slices the genitals away in one clean stroke.
Immediately he lunges forward, kneeling on the man's chest to prevent him from escaping. "Watch. You will watch," Acetyl thunders low but intense when the man flinches away, "or you will partake." 'Cet's victim watches, owlish with fright, as the attacker slices his penis up just as if it were a banana, into his own mouth. But just as he's about to begin chewing, he pauses, smirks, and grunts, "Have some!"
'Cet cannot remember, could not tell, if the last one died of the extensive mutilation to his torso and limbs, or of his last meal. Slices of his own penis and testicles happened to become lodged in the man's esophagus. And his trachea.
Oh well, the hunter muses, washing gore from his forearm via his rough, almost catlike tongue. At least I have time to eat...
"This is unbelievable."
"Sorry, man. They didn't hear anything, they say. Every last one."
Detective Callan sat down hard, slamming his seal-furred fist vindictively against the heavy teak table. The vermilion pulse of stymied frustration disguised the pain of bruised knuckles. Rubbing his forehead, the shepherd cross let his breath out in a long, slow, growling sigh. His partner, a skinny wolf/wolfhound cross, sits down across from his superior with a helpless shrug.
"This isn't the Iron fucking Triangle, Denis," Callan snarled abruptly, inflicting more abuse upon the hapless table, this time holding a fork. Bang! "These aren't Underground types, who wouldn't hear anything if you detonated a fucking nuke under their meth labs. This is Isleview! The richest sonofabitching district in the city!"
"Not inclined to lie," Denis continued reluctantly. He flinched, not because the big dog chose that moment to commit further furniture abuse, but because his first good look at the master bedroom came to mind again, frozen crystal-perfect in his memory like a Kodak moment gone nightmarishly wrong.
By the time the fire department had managed to put out the blaze, most of the media mogul's manse had been ravenously devoured by the blue-tinged flames. The crime scene techs were still looking for traces of accelerant. One room proved to be soundproofed, and thus coincidentally fireproofed, and this was the only room in which evidence remained. Not like there was much useful to be found ...
Not a single item of furniture, not even one knick-knack, was out of line. No fiber, mane hairs, or fur were collected at the scene, despite footprint and other evidence that the murderer was a mammal. There was no evidence of a struggle ... except for the blood, and remains. Crimson stains adorn the entire room, floor, walls, ceiling, peacock-tail fans, castoff, and at least two large puddles. Aside from the obvious, all evidence of previous criminal wrongdoing in that room had been practically destroyed by the sheer messiness of this particular event, which deeply disappointed the whole department. They'd been hoping to nail N. Allen Everett for molestation and sex slavery if they couldn't get him for his well known but impossible-to-prove white-collar chicanery. So much for that, on all too many levels. And the bodies ...
Denis swallowed, closing his eyes against the image. "Why didn't we find the children? We know what he was doing," the junior detective begins in a dejected tone, but his partner cuts him off with a frustrated snarl. Shaking his head, Callan gestures broadly with both hands.
"Maybe we fuckin' did! How the fuck can we tell? This rip-roaring rat-bastard tortured them so much, the medical examiner still hasn't finished determining how MANY DBs were found, much less how they died -- and no one heard a single scream?"
"Soundproofing..."
Detective Callan slammed the table again. Bang!
Cat-slit molten bronze locks blinkless to shattered innocence in bottle green.
The raindrake smears the girl's head with blood as he brushes her hair out of her face, gently removing the object of torment without looking at her nakedness. This is the last of the slaves. The others lie nearby, freed by their slaver's killer.
"Don't worry," Acetyl Diamorphine whispers to the deer-girl, as if unaware of his tongue licking blood from his muzzle. Despite his frightning visage, the girl's mouth twitches into something a generous person would interpret as a sad smile. It seems what she has experienced in this room, and this house, leaves a mere killer with no power to frighten her.
"I'll set you free, like them, if you want," his voice murmurs, seeming to share its pitch and cadence with raindrops drumming the canopy of a forest. Broad whiskered muzzle leaning close to hers, his cool breath whuffing into her nostrils, they breathe each other in for an amber-still moment. She nods, a broken gesture. Tears pool above her lower lids as she bites her lip, trying not to cry out in pain. Her neck has been injured somehow.
Nodding, he pets her head once more before ever-so-carefully taking hold to tilt her head back. The slow throb of her pulse presses against his tongue, drawing a low thrumming purr up from deep in his chest, and he rips her whole neck away, commuting her sentence of lifelong solitary confinement to the death sentence in a single clean blow. The chunk of flesh is crunched, crushed, and by fixing his jaws around the stump just in time, he washes it down with her own arterial spray.
Fawn's blood geysers forth into his mouth, cascading through his teeth and over his jaws, rushing riverlike down his throat. Swallowing wholesale her bodily life as it fans from the little throat leaves him as drunk with its sweet rich purity as the other two did when he 'released' them. Tearing a chunk of flesh from her shoulder, he feels her spirit slip through him on its way to the Otherside, curling its ephemeral being around his own, locked in a body as it was. Soon he feels all three girl-spirits hovering around him, and their presence brings a flavor and texture to their meat that makes him shiver with pleasure as he devours their tiny naked bodies, savouring not only the flavor of their flesh but the satisfaction of freeing them from their torment, the very knowledge of their presence among his 'collection' of small spirits he's released from their bodies.
How does anyone else get by without kinre of their own? He has often wondered about this, but he cannot get distracted from the task at hand. He consumes every trace of the girls save the restraints and 'toys' that were used on them; these he packs up loosely to carry out, but not away.
After cutting a nice selection of lengthy ham, pork, and venison, 'Cet washes himself thoroughly with his own tongue, licking every speck of blood and gore from his 'fur', even from the surface of the scales from which the strong but soft extrusions which comprise his fur. Turning the knob slowly and carefully, the door opens. From his paper bag he removes several smaller plastic bags, into which he carefully wraps and places his meat. Packaging this carefully away, he shuts the door behind him.
One last thing ... After working up a bit of a head, the Krros carefully expirates a thin, fine stream of caustic, oxygen-reactive chemicals from the glands in his throat. The strong base begins to melt away the floor even as it catches fire.
In the shadow of a roaring conflagration a coyote pads slinkily away, full-bellied and satisfied, leaving the dismembered remains of three weasels in the blazing skeleton of their private personal henhouse, licking his chops as the sirens blare and flare onto the scene behind him.