Rain Rain Go Away 03

T/N: CW for description of sexual assault

Herstal blinked.

His muscles ached and his vision was immersed into total darkness; a small grunt of pain escaped between his lips as he slowly struggled against the slim sheets, which had faded from washing. Then, he realized his hands were tied sturdily behind his back, and his ankles were tied too.

Well, apparently "being hit by a stun gun by a stranger and losing consciousness, then locked up into god knows where" wasn't even one of the plots a typical mob lawyer would experience. He shifted with difficulty, surveying his surroundings.

The air was filled with the choking smell of smoke. Lying on his side, his gaze passed the edge of the bed to see a fraction of the ground – strictly speaking, it was very dirty. Not only was there a thin layer of dust, there was also cigarette ashes and extinguished cigarette butts scattered on the ground.

Clearly, he was in a very shabby bedroom, lying on a mattress with its nearly broken springs. And at the end of the room, a young man he saw this morning was sitting on an armchair, feeble because of its shabbiness.

The young man was staring tensely and nervously in his direction, with a hand on his roughly bandaged legs; blood was overflowing from under the bandages, clearly due to the courtesy of Herstal.

"Good afternoon, you're finally awake!" Noticing that he was awake, the young man abruptly sprang up from his chair and scurried to him in a couple of steps. He pressed one of his legs against the mattress, which sank with an unpleasant creak. The young face, pale from the absence of sunlight, revealed a brilliant smile, "You didn't wake up for a long time, I was so worried! Herstal... is that your name?"

That's because you stabbed me with a taser. Herstal silently criticized.

"Were you the one who stalked me yesterday? " Herstal leaned himself against the wall, ignoring the other's useless question. With difficulty, he adjusted his posture using his tightly bound ankles as support, "... 'Johnny the Killer'?"

It wasn't surprising that Herstal guessed who he was, since after all, he was someone who watched the news: a serial killer who liked to kidnap blond men in desolate locations; this had already caused a lot of trouble in the Great Lakes area.

This serial killer not only had kidnapped him, but clearly had investigated him thoroughly beforehand. This wasn't odd, because just by searching for the name of the firm, his photo would immediately pop out on Google.

"I'm really happy that you remembered my name. Please, call me Elliot." The young man replied with a big smile on his face. His whole body pounced on him, wrapping his arm around Herstal's shoulders and kissing his face carelessly with his lips . "So, now that we've gotten to know each other, you'll know what we'll do, right?"

Herstal desperately restrained the urge to flinch. He let out a low chuckle, voice as light as a gentle exhale. "What, are you planning to rape me?"

The midday sun was quite strong; it was in their expectations for it to be so sunny and cloudless after the rain. However, clearly the mood of the WLPD police detectives did not become much better because of the clear blue sky.

Albarino got out of the surveyor car, followed by Bates and Olga. Not far ahead, at least three police cars were parked. Lavazza Mercader and Officer Hardy were standing in the middle of the open space surrounded by these police cars: a Rolls-Royce Phantom, as conspicuous as you want it to be, parked in the middle of the road.

"Oh my God." Bates said sincerely. They had heard part of what had happened on the way here, but clearly after viewing this with their own eyes, this incident was still really difficult to accept.

"To be honest, there's been so much happening to Herstal lately that I strongly recommend actually applying for a witness protection program for him." Olga complained in a small voice.

They made their way to the back of the Rolls Royce, parked alone in the turnout area, their footsteps tapping the ground anxiously. Hardy looked over at them, a shallow mark squeezed into the space between his eyebrows.

"What happened?" Albarino asked lightly.

"A car's tire got flat on the road and had to stop," Hardy said. He raised up his hand, displaying the evidence bag in his hand to everyone: inside was a metallic object similar to a caltrop, with each of its sharp spines sparkling under the glow of the sunlight, "since someone scattered this thing onto the road. Then, the unfortunate car owner found an abandoned Rolls-Royce by the side of the road, and there were even bloodstains on the car door. Naturally, he called the police."

"I want to see the bloodstains," said Albarino.

Hardy nodded and led them past the rear of the car. There was a lot of blood on the ground on the side of the car which was closer to the center of the road; some of it gathered in small puddles, others dripped messily to the ground, and some had been smudged, a shocking line dragged out on the floor.

"This victim is very lucky." Mercader commented calmly. "The car's keys are still in the ignition. If the first person who found the car had not chosen to call the police, and chose to drive it away instead, we don't know how long it would have taken to find out that he had gone missing."

Hardy nodded with a troubled expression and continued, "The DNA has been sent for examination. The results aren't available yet; I hope it isn't Mr. Armalight's blood – when Thomas Norman was killed, we took his blood samples just to be safe. We should soon be able to compare the results."

Bates had already crouched down at the edge of the bloodstains, his fingers gently brushing over the gradually drying edge of the pool of blood. He said, "Bloodstain pattern analysis isn't easily done, since we have to go through a lot of strict steps to get to the results, but no matter what... I think a fight happened here."

Everyone looked at him.

It was Albarino who spoke first, who had apparently come to the same conclusion just now. "The amount of bleeding isn't fatal, but in fact, it isn't small. This probably isn't a pool of blood that can be left just by breaking someone's nose – one of them was holding a sharp weapon."

"The drops of blood on the ground are very messy, not like the spurt of blood that appears after the important arteries are injured. Perhaps that person didn't have a severe injury; all these drops of blood were flung around when he was quickly moving." Bates continued. He pointed at several drops of blood on the ground emphatically, although the others couldn't see any difference at all. "and these smudge marks, someone rolled over it after the blood fell on the ground. The clothing absorbed the blood, and was then smeared onto the road once more – you can see, there's a cloth-patterned bloodstain imprinted here."

"Herstal definitely did put up a good fight," Olga pointed out, with a light, worried snort. "This sounds like the sort of thing he would do."

"Yes. After all, Mr. Armalight is a very courageous man, as we can see from the kidnapping case Martin Jones caused." Bates nodded in agreement. "In any case, in the end the perpetrator must have subdued Mr. Armalight. The ground is too hard; I couldn't see any meaningful traces to extract. But to be safe, I'll ask someone to examine that car, although I don't think the perpetrator would leave fingerprints on there."

He stood up and went back over to the other CSIs. Albarino was still gazing at the blood on the ground; he was silent for a moment, then said, "It could be a stun gun or something. Several of 'Killer Johnny's' previous victims had burn marks on their skin due to electric shock."

Hardy was also looking in that direction. He seemed to recall something, slowly frowned and asked, "Since the perpetrator intended to knock down Herstal with a stun gun, it is unlikely that the perpetrator stabbed him with a sharp weapon such as a knife, right? – Injuring someone with a knife first, then switching to a stun gun? Would anyone do that?"

"So, it's possible that the blood was left by the injured perpetrator? The victim injured 'Johnny the Killer' in the process of resisting?" Mercader suddenly spoke up, sharply scanning the others. "Was the victim you were familiar with the type to carry a sharp weapon on him?"

"This is Westland City, Mercader." Olga snorted. She was always so hostile like this when up against Lavazza Mercader. "This place is full of people who carry weapons for their own protection. I'm pretty sure the chief forensic pathologist by my side has a pair of shoulder holsters under his beautiful coat."

Albarino flashed a kind and honest smile at Mercader.

"Fine. In short, I hope we can examine the perpetrator's DNA from these pools of blood, which can get rid of a lot of trouble." Mercader said unyieldingly. "I don't think there's anything else worth marking down here – Officer Hardy, please continue to visit witnesses and friends of the victim along with your officers. Perhaps someone close to Mr. Armalight could have noticed when he was targeted by Johnny. "

Hardy nodded and quickly arranged something in a low voice to one of the officers beside him.

"Schwandner should be able to bring us the newest update on the trace examination from the CSI's crime lab soon, and we'll recover what happened exactly at the scene based on that." Mercader continued, then he looked at Albarino consultingly. "Dr. Bacchus, I brought the autopsy reports on the other victims in this series of serial killings from Quantico. If you're willing to, can you help us see these reports to see if there's any new discoveries?"

"With great pleasure." Albarino replied, smirking.

"– Molozer." Finally, Mercader said this, sounding a little uncertain.

"No." Olga replied without raising her head up, staring down as if the ants crawling across the ground were the source of her inspiration.

There was an awkward pause, then Mercader's voice softened a little, "You're a consultant for the WLPD. We need you; you yourself know that you were once the best out of all of us... not to mention, Herstal Armalight is your friend, right?"

"They are as clear as glass before my eyes, Mercader." Olga frowned, replying in this manner. "So my intuition tells me you probably won't like this case and everything that'll happen in succession after this – you never liked madmen, did you? I don't think Westland City is for you."

"We need to crack this case." Mercader replied with a taut face, nodding to Olga before striding off in the direction of the surveyor car.

There were still CSIs in blue protective suits at work, with Bates standing in their midst, frowning tightly. Albarino and Olga stood among the busy crowd, looking like reefs standing straight between rapid blue rivers. Albarino scanned the bustling crowd, then asked Olga, "As a matter of fact, you won't really not care about the progress of the case. You will come back to the police station with us, right?"

"I guess I can't stay out of this case just because I hate Mercader, right? Besides, it is something that involves Herstal too." Olga shrugged, her voice sounding almost like a sigh.

Albarino laughed, "I guess it has nothing to do with Herstal per se – for you, you can't miss the chance to discover the truth."

"'The truth is rarely pure and never simple'." Olga replied, "You know that very well, don't you, Al?"

" – Wilde." Albarino replied with a smirk, his expression firmly congealed on his face like a mask.

"Let's go." Olga finally showed her first smile for today. "In that case, we'll have to speed up: given that serial killer's peculiar compulsions, so long as another round of rain comes, Herstal could be killed at any time."

Herstal's hands were getting numb from being tied behind him for so long, but he didn't expect his situation to get any better: it's obviously unlikely for a serial killer to trust you enough to untie your hands on the first day. "Johnny the Killer" – the man insisted that Herstal call him "Elliot" – clearly enjoyed the feeling of taking care of someone who had their upper body bound.

There was a passionate, tender look in the young man's eyes, which was what the average person would call love, but Herstal would rather call that craziness. Elliot, now sitting by the bed, with a stupid Chinese takeout paper pail in his hand, said in a cheerful, soft voice, "It's time to eat."

– Looking at the spoon in the other's hand, Herstal knew that this person planned to feed him.

Everything Herstal knew about "Johnny the Killer" was from the newspapers. Apparently, when the Westland Pianist and Sunday Gardener were not committing crimes, the local media had a lot of interest in this killer who was a frequent perpetrator in several nearby states.

From the newspapers, it was clear that the killer did not deliberately torture his victims, nor did he abuse, beat or starve them, provided, of course, that you were willing to remove sexual assault from the "abuse" category.

According to this, Herstal had a vague idea of this serial killer, and now his suspicions were further confirmed by the other's appearance.

He didn't know how long he had to be locked up in this place, so it was better not to not go on hunger strikes at this time; he accepted the spoonful of food in Elliot's hand, slowly chewed the greasy rice. The other looked at him, beaming with happiness due to his obedience.

At this moment, Herstal thought distractly: if a person like him was unfortunate enough to be under arrest and get imprisoned, and he was the other's defense lawyer, he would certainly use mental illness as a defense.

Yes, that was very easy to see. Herstal had spent less than four hours with Elliot and was certain that the other had mental illness, perhaps delusional disorder or something similar – Johnny the Killer was a completely different kind of serial killer in comparison with the Sunday Gardener. Albarino Bacchus might indeed be a psychopath, and it was very doubtful whether he could empathize with others or not, but at least he had perfected the skill of blending in with the crowd.

– The man in front of him obviously couldn't fit into human society.

Look at where they were now: a dusty apartment, exactly the kind of place someone who has lost motivation for their life would choose for themselves. The young man sitting across from him, feeding him, was handsome, but clearly he did not pay much attention to his appearance. Herstal also remembered that the Ford sedan he drove was also dusty.

Herstal had already noticed before that Elliot's hair was long. In addition to a ponytail on the back of his head, there were also a lot of loose strands of hair in front of his forehead, and now they were all clipped to the top of his head with clips. However, Herstal believed that these strands of hair were probably let down when the man was dealing with others.

He could easily conjure up an outline of a figure in his mind: this man wore inconspicuous clothes, with his hair down to hide his face and block out the measuring gaze of others. He may have tried to avoid eye contact in his life, reclusive, eccentric, roaming on the fringes of the crowd, but now he had all his hair in front of his forehead pinned back.

Because he wanted Herstal to see his face.

It was interesting, Herstal still sneered in the bottom of his heart, that this serial killer was seeking an emotional connection with his victim.

This explained a lot of things: why Johnny the Killer, apart from restraining his victims of freedom, did his best to take care of them until he had no choice but to kill them for whatever reason. Elliot followed certain rules in selecting his victims, blond, handsome, slightly older than him. Was that due to his preference?

Herstal swallowed the grains of rice. He had little appetite, but clearly Elliot wasn't going to stop until he had eaten enough food. Partly to avoid the impending spoon shoving over to him, partly to confirm his suspicions, he then opened his mouth to ask, "Did you feed those who were with you before, Elliot?"

He muddled out the wording along the lines of "kidnapped by you", thinking that maybe Elliot didn't think those people were kidnapped by him at all. Maybe he didn't even think that almost cutting their head off was murdering them. A mental illness patient could be thinking about anything in his mind.

Elliot gave a low, joyful laugh, clearly enjoying the subject, "Are you jealous?"

Yes, in the eyes of this serial killer, they obviously should be passionately in love. Perhaps those victims were the very "lovers" he had chosen according to his own standards; but they were all killed without any exception, perhaps because even though Elliot was crazy to this extent, in the end he too finally realized that the poor guys were only wholeheartedly interested in running away from him.

"Can't I?" Herstal asked rhetorically without changing his expression. He had said a lot more things that went against his convictions when defending members of the gang than this, so this was nothing. "After all, I have nowhere else to go now. Shouldn't I care about such problems?"

"Oh!" Elliot whispered, fumbling to put the paper pail on the folding table by the side, then quickly pounced over and threw his arms around Herstal's shoulders.

Those dry, cracked lips landed passionately on his lower jaw and neck, bringing an unpleasant touch. Herstal took a deep breath, knowing that the last thing he should do now was to provoke the other, to see how the other cut his victim's necks. Slowly, slowly, he tilted his head back, exposing his throat, carefully calculating the angle to show submission –

"Come, my dear child." The man said, his hair immersed in the blurry divine light of the stained glass windows. "My dear child, I am washing you of your sins."

Herstal's throat choked on sinister words and sentences and his urge to vomit, but not a trace of either leaked out in the end. Elliot buried his head in the shoulder of his neck and gently nipped at a small patch of skin, licking it wet.

He demanded fanatically, "Say that again."

"Say what again?" Herstal asked, then he had a flash of realization. "Oh."

He sneered somewhere in the bottom of his heart, feeling a callous joy because he hit the bullseye. When he spoke, he lowered his voice as much as possible, as if he didn't notice that the other's member was becoming more excited and his gradually louder intake of breath.

In a sense, Herstal knew what was bound to happen, since after all, the other man was indeed a rapist. But he also got the key: the same key that was used to save his own life and to wreck the other.

How easy it was to take a man's life.

Herstal obediently repeated, "I have nowhere else to go now."

He paused, then added more bargaining chips and said, "Clearly, you're all I have left, Elliot."

The young man spouted out a choke of ecstasy between the nooks of his neck. Herstal could hear the rustling of fabric from the other's flustered, disorderly actions[1], and the sound of unzipping zippers. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and he had neither the desire or the power to stop it.

[1]手忙脚乱, idiom, to be flustered

The young man was embracing him tightly, recklessly thrusting his crotch, rubbing his dripping wet pre-ejaculate fluid onto his leg, his lips brushing past the corner of his mouth. Someone who closely faced him – against his will – and masturbated with his hand would just bring him a familiar, retching sensation; at this kind of moment he would much rather put his thoughts elsewhere. This lamentable delusional disorder patient, he thought. Subtle hints were clearly everywhere, right before his eyes; for this kind of person, they would clearly believe that the golden-haired prey they picked was deeply in love with him now.

Stories like this, more often than not, end very tragically.

"I'm so glad you said that." Elliot said in his ear, his breath scorching, his voice shattering; the sound of sticky, watery sounds squeezing out between his fingers, "Just stay here and let me take care of you –"

Herstal froze slightly as he suddenly realized a problem.

– Elliot's feelings for his victims were not just "love", he loved in a strange way. When Herstal told him "You're all I have left", Elliot got strangely excited; the other looked excessively happy that he was eating food out of his hand, which wasn't a necessary step to keep his captive alive, since he clearly enjoyed the whole process. He said, "Let me take care of you", right?

This was not an equal romantic relationship, even for a person with delusional disorder who firmly believed that he was passionately in love with a stranger.

– Clearly, Johnny the Killer really enjoyed putting his victims in a vulnerable position and taking care of them by himself.

Elliot let out a shuddering moan in his ear, ejaculating onto his leg.

It was a second of silence. The young man's fingers trembled as he smeared the sticky liquid on his pants, trying to make it cover as much surface area as possible, just as Hephaestus had vainly pursued Athena.

His fingers swirled possessively on Herstal's legs, rubbing the liquid into the fabric until his prisoner could feel the wet fabric against his skin; Herstal's thoughts had drifted off into the distance.

– When Albarino went to have dinner with him, he said to him, "Because when irrational desire, pursuing the enjoyment of beauty, has gained the mastery over judgment that prompts to right conduct, and has acquired from other desires, akin to it, fresh strength to strain towards bodily beauty, that very strength provides it with its name – it is the strong passion called love."

It is the strong passion called love.

Plato's Phaedrus, of course. But why would Albarino suddenly quote that? He didn't think that Albarino really defined the complex relationship between them as "love". Moreover, Albarino wouldn't lack enough self-knowledge to admit that he had mental defects, but talk about "love" – they both knew it was meaningless.

Additionally, the love spoken of in Phaedrus was the love between an ancient Greek elder and a young man, a relationship which is obviously very different from the modern definition of love. Unless that was a hint, an allusion to something that Albarino knew would happen which Herstal himself did not yet know.

Plato argued in Phaedrus: the lover likes people who are weaker than himself.

All these defects of mind and more in the beloved are bound to be a source of pleasure to the lover; if they do not exist already as innate qualities, he will cultivate them, for not to do so means depriving himself of immediate pleasure.

Johnny the Killer really, really enjoyed the feeling of taking care of his victims. He liked the fact that the other was tied up helplessly at his mercy; liked that the other was eating off his hands; liked that the other could go nowhere, but to wait for his return.

Elliot murmured a confession in his ear, "I love you so much."

Herstal frowned. Elliot, of course, didn't see the icy emotion gradually building up in his eyes; it was the bloodthirsty, murderous intent from the Westland Pianist.

– The only question remains: what role did Albarino Bacchus play in the whole thing?

Author's Notes

1. The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.

– Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

2. Hephaestus once tried to woo the virgin goddess Athena and dripped semen on Athena's leg. The angry Athena wiped off the semen with wool and threw it onto the ground, which caused the earth goddess and mother Gaia to give birth to Erichthonius.