Chapter 32

Chapter 32: Leda and the Swan 03
It was the same for anyone: it hurt too much.
Each of the following cuts was very deep—at least comparatively, far deeper than those small, trifling, thin wounds that were at most a centimeter deep. Although Hestal’s movements remained cautious and restrained—not yet deep enough to reach the abdominal cavity, but absolutely damaging to the muscle; who knew whether this was some strange form of mercy: otherwise, no matter who his prey was, they would have died before everything ended—Albanino still felt warm blood surging out in gushes with each of his movements.
He let out a few indistinct throat sounds, mixed with broken moans and curses: this was not a true refusal, only the most instinctive and direct response to pain. Hestal was still buried deep inside him; compared to the other wounds, that pain was faint and dull. The earlier lubrication had been careless—he was quite certain the opening must have torn, and now only blood was flowing down his leg.
Hestal’s knife pressed coldly against his abdomen, the penis still deeply wedged into his body, the other’s fingers closing on his leg, fingertips pressing forcefully into his thigh—one of these movements excited Hestal, and Albanino could sense it from the heavy gasps in his chest. Albanino looked at the other through eyelashes matted into clumps by tears or sweat (possibly blood), and the Westland Pianist watched him like a fanatical hunter.
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“Thirteen.” He breathlessly reported the number of knife marks to the other, a hoarse laugh in his voice. “…A rather auspicious number. I can probably guess what word you carved—I don’t even know if I should compliment you on your lack of taste.”
Hestal slowly placed his hand on the burning wounds on the other’s abdomen, blood surging beneath his palm. He slowly smeared the blood away and heard the other let out a choking gasp.
When Albanino’s gaze fell on him, it was unfocused, perched somewhere on his face like a easily startled bird. One of his legs still loosely and limply encircled Hestal’s waist, while the penis was completely soft and flaccid, looking almost like a kind of humiliation while the other was still partially buried inside him.
—Yet they both knew that was not the case.
Hestal chose this moment to toss the knife back onto the floor, cruelly bending the other man’s body—he felt as though he were wringing out a piece of cloth, squeezing blood through the wound and out of the other’s body—thrusting hard into Albanino’s body.
Albanino let out a low ah, his hands bound tightly above his head twitching gently. Hestal freed one blood-soaked hand and reached over to press down on his wrist, and could feel those fingers feebly spasming under his restraint, nails scraping messily across his palm.
Hestal even let his mind wander for a moment, wondering what would happen if he untied those piano wires: whether Albanino’s fingers would weakly claw across the floor or dig deeply into his shoulder.
He could feel a fire burning between his vertebrae, like the kind he felt when he killed, or perhaps more intense, closer to hunger, closer to sin itself. And Albanino was still struggling as best he could, smearing blood across the floor to make the scene look even more shocking.
“You like this,” Albanino’s voice rolled out tangled in gasps, shattered into fragments. Those green eyes seemed capable of holding both agony and madness at once—it was a deeply unsettling sight. “You like the feeling of controlling and judging me, and—ah, and I’m quite sure you at least like my face.”
Hestal wasn’t about to lack the self-awareness to deny that. If he refused to admit it, he’d be insulting the other man’s intelligence. Albanino’s looks were exactly his preferred type—or rather, the furthest thing from the figure that frequently appeared in his nightmares. This also explained why he was especially tolerant of the other man whenever Albanino paid him one of his frequent visits.
But he hated certain expressions that inadvertently leaked from the other man’s eyes. When this person smiled, it was as though he were forever assured of victory—even now. Those greens flickered like mad will-o’-the-wisps, but when they were occasionally veiled by mist, Albanino’s gaze looked almost joyful and indulgent.
This would always tell the truth: it was only because Albanino allowed it that they had been able to come this far.
And Hestal truly hated this feeling.
Albanino chattered on between low, choking gasps, using those broken, halting words to point out the truth—
“You like watching me get torn apart by you, you’d best display my remains in front of everyone—Hestal! Fuck!”
Hestal thrust a finger into the wound on his abdomen.
Blood was forced out from between his fingers and the gaping muscle, producing a wet, almost obscene sound. Albanino’s entire body jerked violently beneath his finger, his legs trembling, and the uncontrollable clenching of his inner walls forced a low growl from Hestal’s throat.
The corners of Albanino’s eyes were red, and beneath them were nothing but physiological tears brought on by stimulation. Even so, he seemed to be morbidly enjoying this experience far too much. Even with his whole body covered in blood, it didn’t stop him from curling the corners of his lips and forcing out a provocative smile at Hestal.
Then, Hestal released the hand pressing down on his wrist and instead pressed it against his neck.
His palm pressed against the Adam’s apple, the violently throbbing pulse, and the clammy, sweat-slicked skin. His fingers dug into that soft flesh, and he could feel the other’s near-reflexive, dry swallow.
Herstal followed his own desires as he took possession of the other’s body, and just as willingly followed his own desires as he slowly tightened his fingers. He could feel Albanino’s silent struggle as his breath was cut off. This method was slower, more painful than simply cutting off the blood supply to the brain, and it suited his preferences far better.
The other’s breathing grew more labored with each passing moment, until at last it fell silent with an abrupt, rasping hiss.
Herstal pushed and forced the other’s legs apart until he had bent his body completely and cruelly, prying his legs open and pressing his knees up until they touched his chest. He felt the blood flowing across Albanino’s chest and abdomen, slowly soaking through the front of his clothes. In his final convulsions of suffocation, Albanino unconsciously clenched his entrance, until Herstal brutally slammed into the deepest part, breaking through those spasming, soft membranes, and reached a hot, almost painful climax.
Albanino must have been in shock from lack of oxygen for a few seconds—there was no doubt about it—until Hestal released his grip. During that process, he had genuinely spent half a second considering whether to just strangle Albanino to death like that—allowing air to flow back through his tormented trachea into his lungs.
Hestal had no need to hide the fact that his back ached and his legs had gone numb from the uncomfortable position and the wooden floor. After all, he was the one who had been imprisoned by the killer Johnny for two days, and to pick up his own work again on the very night he had just escaped from a serial killer’s clutches was, frankly, a bit too dedicated—even by serial killer standards.
So he felt he had every reason to slow his pace. He didn’t rush to pull out of the other’s body, only straightened the other’s legs. Albanino lay entirely in his own pool of blood, his body twitching slightly, blood still dripping steadily from the messy carvings on his abdomen, his skin glistening with sweat.
The scent of white wine in the room had been overshadowed by the smell of blood. A few dying orange sparks flickered in the fireplace. Albanino watched him—though his gaze was unfocused, he was still watching him—a smile pursed at the corner of his mouth.
After a moment of silence, Hestal asked in a low voice, “Have I fallen into your web?”
—They had come this far only because Albanino allowed it.
Albanino’s voice was hoarse and broken, yet forever assured of victory.
“Perhaps so,” he said, “Pianist.”
A tremor at the waist, and from then on was sown
Crumbling walls and ruined ramparts, roofs and city towers burned,
And the death of Agamemnon.
When the shrill ringing of the telephone cut through the air, Bart Hardy was deep in sleep. The sound of rain outside the window had dwindled to almost nothing—this should have been a beautiful night.
One of his arms was wrapped around his wife, their precious daughter squeezed between them like a little rabbit, her flushed face poking out from under the covers. When the phone rang, the little girl let out a whimper and turned to burrow into her mother’s arms.
His wife was already awake. As Hardy fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp on his side, she gave him a dazed, puzzled look.
Hardy was all too familiar with this routine—some colleague from the WLPD calling to interrupt his sleep, telling him there was a drunk husband who’d shot his wife, a night-shift worker killed by a mugger in a dark alley, gangs clashing somewhere and leaving a field of corpses… This was Westland, after all. This was his life.
But maybe not: the caller ID showed a completely unfamiliar number, which caught his attention.
“Hello?” Hardy answered the phone with a frown. “This is Bart Hardy.”
There was a faint crackle of static, and then a voice came through—one that had clearly been run through a voice changer. The voice spoke as if reading from a script, enunciating each word with painstaking precision, likely in an attempt to conceal its owner’s distinctive speech patterns.
“Good evening,” the grating voice said slowly, “Officer Hardy.”
Tom, who was on night duty, was about to carry a stack of crime scene investigation reports to the forensic examiners’ office—that was how the day began for the forensic examiners at the Westland City Forensics Bureau. But he had only made it halfway there—and then Officer Hardy came rushing in, a group of gun-toting SWAT officers trailing behind him.
“Ah!” Tom was genuinely startled by them, nearly flinging the report in his hands away, while Hardy screeched to a halt right in front of him and demanded point-blank, “Where is your morgue?”
Even for an intern forensic examiner, this was a bit too horrifying of an opening. Poor Tommy, driven by Officer Hardy’s practically blazing glare, ran all the way toward the morgue—along the way, he even spotted their forensic supervisor swallowed up in the flood of people. God.
Finally, this massive procession came to a stop at the morgue entrance. The forensic supervisor stood beside Hardy, trembling as he handed over a set of keys, his hand shaking so badly when he picked out the morgue key that the whole bundle clattered loudly.
Tommy was squeezed to the very back of the crowd by a group of heavily armed police officers in bulletproof vests, utterly bewildered, yet somehow his intuition told him something terrible was about to happen, and he stood there alone with his heart pounding like thunder.
Officer Hardy slowly turned the key in the lock of the morgue door, then gestured to the officers behind him. Immediately after, gun in hand, he took advantage of the moment to slam his shoulder hard against the morgue door, forcing it open.
His pistol swept into the room—the lights in the morgue were on, a stark, pitiless white, but there seemed to be no sign of the target he was looking for.
Tommy had initially been blocked behind the crowd, unable to see what exactly was going on inside the morgue, but all the officers had abruptly fallen into silence, staring straight into the ghastly white depths of the room as though they were looking upon something utterly unbelievable.
A faint, elusive salty smell of rust drifted slowly out through the gaps between the crowd.
“Fuck, God,” Tommy heard the usually composed Officer Hardy say incoherently, “Christ.”
Tommy shifted his feet at the back of the crowd—just one of those coincidences he would never be able to feel grateful for in the years to come—and finally stood at an angle where he could vaguely see inside the morgue, and then—then he saw it.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Bates said with a frown.
“And you should? Since when are you researchers responsible for reading Miranda rights?” Olga retorted. “I know you mean well, but for goodness’ sake, cut me some slack—I’m already sleep-deprived as it is. I thought the only bastard disturbing me tonight would be McCard.”
Strictly speaking, it should have been last night when she was disturbed by McCard—it was already past five in the morning now—but no one cared about such details.
The two of them jumped out of the car almost simultaneously, clearly both having received Hardy’s message. The car was parked in the private driveway in front of Albanino’s house, with two other police cars parked alongside, their lights flashing.
The rain had weakened to the point that only the occasional ripples on the puddles revealed it had not yet stopped. The ground was moist and soft, and the air carried a fresh bitterness unique to the aftermath of rain—while Bates hurriedly put on his gloves as he ran alongside the police officers. Having heard that Hestal had already been rescued, he had thought they might finally have a somewhat peaceful night.
But apparently not.
“He must have left before the rain let up. On the way here, I paid attention to the tire tracks—there were only some traces blurred beyond recognition by the rainwater, no longer of any value for judgment.” When they reached the door, Bates said this to the four officers who were on high alert, “What Bart said on the phone was right—there’s no way he’s still inside.”
The lead officer nodded, then waved for both Olga and Bates to step back a bit, before cautiously reaching out to push the door: the front door of Albanino’s house was ajar, steeped in a dark shadow that looked unmistakably sinister.
The door was pushed open without a sound. Several officers slipped inside with guns and flashlights raised, methodically checking the entire room, loudly informing each other that each area was clear. Bates had searched Albanino’s home before, back when Albanino was suspected of killing Sarah Adelman, and was quite familiar with the layout inside. So he quickly felt his way in and found the light switch on the wall.
He flicked the light on with a click, and at the same time, Olga stepped through the doorway.
She heard Bates say, tongue-tied: “My God.”
There were obvious signs of a struggle in the room. A glass photo frame on the cabinet against the wall had fallen to the floor and shattered into pieces on impact; the fireplace had gone out, leaving only a pile of black charcoal and fresh ashes; on a table near the fireplace sat a bottle of white wine… or rather, there had once been a bottle of white wine there, and now the bottle and glasses had all been knocked over onto the ground. It was easy to imagine what Albanino had been doing when he was attacked.
And the other things in the room could prove what had happened after he was attacked.
Because: across the entire wall of the living room, the attacker had plastered printed papers everywhere. Those color-printed images covered the wallpaper beneath, draping the room in a hideous new skin. At a glance, most of the color-printed pictures showed wounds—all kinds of ferocious wounds, splattered pools of blood, pale skin beaded with blood.
But there were still some—
“The killer sexually assaulted him,” Olga’s gaze landed on certain specific photos, which seemed to have an abnormal fixation on capturing the victim’s private areas. “Clearly, the killer attacked him and then sexually assaulted him.”
Her voice was surprisingly steady—steady enough that one could understand why Lavasa McCade insisted she was unfit for BAU work. Bates let out a pained grunt in his throat, as if begging her to shut up.
The faint smell of blood in the room was mixed with a fruity aroma of wine, more or less overpowering the metallic scent, but Bates still felt nauseous—something that had rarely happened to him in the many years since he joined the CSI.
The entire living room floor was covered in bloodstains—some already dried, others still wet from having pooled too thickly to congeal. Most had coagulated into pools, and one could imagine that when the blood had flowed out, the victim had been lying on the ground unable to move. The rest had been smeared across the solid wood floor in long, harrowing streaks—disordered and chaotic, crisscrossing one another. Looking at them, one could picture the traces of a human body struggling.
And in the middle of the blood pools lay something.
Olga and Bates walked over silently. The police officers, who had found nothing in their search, had also returned, staring at the scene with terrified eyes. They had seen many bloodier crime scenes, but clearly the fact that the victim was their colleague made it all the more frightening.
Olga gazed at the round object soaked through with blood.
“An apple.”
She said.
It was a long and silent second.
Tommy held his breath, trembling all over.
(Later, he would truly come to understand—that was the Westland Pianist, bringing mockery and fear, blood and storm-like death.)
In the very center of the morgue, he saw a completely naked Albanino Bacchus—a mobile dissection cart was placed in the middle of the morgue; they sometimes used it when transporting bodies from here to the morgue, or sometimes the police would examine bodies directly in the morgue.
But now, Albanino had been “placed” (the word made Tommy feel sick) on that mobile dissection cart, countless gleaming piano strings binding his torso and limbs, suspending him half-seated in midair, the other ends of those piano strings fixed to somewhere on the ceiling, glinting under the light like spider silk.
Albanino’s skin looked covered in wounds, surrounded by countless red and swollen thin knife cuts, like a scorching net draped over his skin. His head drooped, brown curls scattered messily over his forehead, almost soaked black with blood. He was clearly unconscious, entirely bound by these piano strings, posed in a posture the killer desired:
He lay half-reclined facing the door of the morgue, his left leg—the one farther from the observers—bent at the knee, his left hand resting on that knee. The piano wire fixed to his elbow and wrist forced that arm to point forever limply toward somewhere at his side.
Then Tommy saw something else—something horrifying. He saw a series of wounds across Albanino’s waist and abdomen, seemingly deeper than all the other cuts on his body, the flesh curling back, gruesomely forming a string of bloody letters that squatted amid the smeared blood on his skin. Several of the letters had elongated tails that stretched long and suggestively down along his iliac furrow toward his lower abdomen.
B-I-T-C-H.
“God,” Tommy murmured, feeling a phantom retch rise in his throat. He staggered back a step and accidentally collided with a man.
It was a man with wheat-colored skin whom he had never seen before, with deep furrows knitted between his brows. The man steadied his shoulder, then pushed him away—not too hard, not too gently. At the same time, Officer Hardy also turned to look at the man, and said in a hurried, rather disapproving tone: “Agent McCade—”
“Michelangelo.” The man called Agent McCade spoke coldly with a frown, his gaze fixed on the battered Albanino Bacchus in the distance.
“That is Michelangelo Buonarroti’s *The Creation of Adam*.”
Note:
[1] “The Creation of Adam” is one of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel ceiling, “Genesis,” which Michelangelo created for the Vatican.