Dark Goddess

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THE ROTTWEILER’S HEAD LAY IN A BUSH, JUST OFF the snow-sprinkled path. The body was several yards farther, its chest carved open so the ribs stuck out of the skin like a row of gruesome lollipops.

Billi covered her face with her sleeve. The cold night air was fresh with January frost, but the corpse stank of spilt intestines. The dog was, had been, brutishly big, but its size had not saved it from being torn apart.

“Well?” asked Pelleas as he searched farther along the path, scanning the ground with his flashlight. They were on the edge of the woods, spiny trees to one side and a low hedge bordering a white-coated field to the other. The dense snow clouds of the day had lifted, leaving the velvet-black sky hazy with starlight and the crescent moon. The sky over London never looked like this-vast and fathomless.

Billi snapped off at wig and used it to bind her long black hair in a loose bun. She leaned over the corpse, directing her flashlight at the wounds. She’d seen the pictures of the other slaughtered victims, but the artificial eye of the lens had made them seem remote, fake even. This was sickeningly real. She poked at the body with a stick and grimaced as semi-congealed blood oozed from the gaping tears. They hadn’t been made with knives-that much was obvious.

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