Killing Me Softly. Maggie Shayne

He knew, you see. Or, at least, he suspected.

      Gently, we pulled the covers back.

      And the dark twin within my soul roared in delight, even while I shook my head in denial. For the person in the bed was not the man I had come here to kill.

      A young woman was lying there instead. She was sound asleep and reeking of beer, but still, beautiful. In the darkness, her skin appeared pale and flawless. Her hair was long, straight and sleek. Just the way I liked it. It looked to be light brown.

      It had to be, my newly awakened twin whispered to me. That’s your favorite shade, isn’t it? She’s here for us. I knew she would be. So did you. Come on, don’t deny it. You knew.

      What I knew, I reminded myself, was that the voice, the twin, was not real. It was nothing more than a part of my mind, a twisted part, the part I’d managed to ignore all this time. Though I’d never silenced him entirely. Even while he’d slept, I heard him in my dreams. Maybe he only slept while I was awake, and vice versa. I wished he would shut up now, though, because this was not what I wanted. Not now.

      You knew she would be here, he pressed. Sooner or later, she had to be. That’s why you used the T-Bird tonight. It’s why you brought the kit in with you.

      But he was wrong. I carried the kit as reminder—a testament to the power of my will and my ability to control the impulse. To control him.

      Bullshit. You brought it for this. You brought it in hopes of finding this very moment—this moment we both knew would come. It’s a gift! You’ve been waiting sixteen years for this! Take it out. Come on, take it out. You know you want to.

      No.

      Yes. And you know you will. We will. Why fight what we are?

      My hands trembling, I slid the backpack off my shoulders and, reaching inside, pulled out the leather bag. The one that hadn’t seen use in the sixteen years since I’d taken my final victim and framed another man for the crime. It was about the size of a shaving kit, with a zipper on three sides. I felt alive again as I slowly unzipped it, careful not to make too much noise and yet exhilarated at the risk that I would be heard. I leaned over her. I felt passion I hadn’t felt in a decade and a half. My heartbeat pounded in my ears, as my skin heated and my hands tingled. It seemed as if my other half melded with me as I crept to the head of the bed and stood between her and the wall behind me. So I could get her from behind and watch her face in the mirror that topped the dresser on the opposite side of the room.

      I took the black silk stocking from the kit and slid it carefully beneath her neck, all without disturbing her drunken sleep. Her skin was warm against my gloved fingertips. I heard the twin inside me groan in delicious anticipation as we pulled the stocking into position. As we began to pull it tight. And then tighter. And tighter still.

      She came awake fast. Her eyes flew wide, and her hands rose to clutch at her throat. I pulled the stocking even tighter, lifting her upper body off the bed as I did, so that she, too, could see the entire game play out in the mirror.

      As I’d hoped, the sight enhanced her terror. Seeing me there, behind her, all in black, big and powerful, steadily choking the life out of her. She knew there was no hope. She thrashed in the bed, mouth opening wide, face turning red. A rush, not unlike the one produced by a hit of Ecstasy, only much, much better, washed through my body like a warm, vibrant, all-encompassing wave as we slowly, steadily, squeezed the life out of her. She wasn’t so pretty anymore, with her tongue swollen and filling the space between her parted lips.

      When her eyes rolled back in her head, I let go of the stocking and turned to the case again. I took out the two custom-made shot glasses, with the artwork on them that so seemed to reflect the predator inside me. The crimes we committed together. I took out the copper flask, as well, and I poured both shot glasses full of whiskey.

      After a moment, she started to rouse. Her eyelids trembled rapidly, before they fully opened, then widened as she realized I was still there. She opened her mouth to speak, and I gripped her chin with one hand, forcing her teeth open. I poured her shot of whiskey into her throat. She couldn’t swallow; she began to choke. Without letting a second tick past, I dropped the glass and grabbed the black stocking again, and this time I pulled it tighter, jerking it harder, twisting it with all my might and easily crushing her throat with that soft bit of black silk.

      I heard the gurgling as she drowned in the whiskey. I saw the foamy spit running over her lower lip and her chin. Her eyes bulged as if they would pop, tears running from the outer corners. Her entire body jerked and spasmed. A single purple vein in her forehead expanded and pulsed beneath her blue-tinted skin.

      And then it stopped pulsing.

      There was a palpable change when they died. I always knew the very moment when it happened. There was no more awareness on their part, no more struggle or shock or fear. There was just a sudden absence of…of everything, really. And, with it, came a rush of release within me that made an ordinary orgasm pale in comparison. There was nothing like this feeling. Nothing.

      As life fled the girl’s body, as I felt it flee, the sensation continued trembling through me. It lit me up. I felt it in every nerve ending, in every deliciously sensitized inch of my skin, in the quivering of my stomach and the aftershocks convulsing my muscles. I eased the pressure on the silk stocking, my head tipping back, my eyes falling closed as I sighed and shuddered in delectable bliss.

      Then slowly, cell by cell, my brain came back online, like a computer being rebooted. The lights came on in order. The hard drive began to whir. The pleasure ebbed into a warm glow that filled my body and would last, I knew, for days. But the delight receded enough to allow rationality and practical considerations renewed access to the forefront of my mind.

      I hadn’t accomplished what I had set out to do tonight. Not precisely. But I could still achieve the end I’d intended. I’d just need to take a slightly different, and perhaps more torturous, path to get to the same destination. I could still do it. I knew how.

      And besides, this way was so much better.

      You’re right, I told my twin, alive and wide-awake inside me now. It was. God, it was. It’s been so long.

      Sixteen years too long.

      I nodded. Then quickly stopped myself. It won’t happen again, though. As good as it was, I can’t let it happen again. I won’t.

      Oh, who the hell are you kidding? You’re back, my friend. You’re back, and you’re glad of it. You’ve missed this. You know you have.

      Ignoring the one who, in that moment, felt like my oldest and dearest friend—and the only one who ever had or ever would understand me—I released the stocking that had seen so many throats before, slid it from around her neck and returned it to the case. I had other work to do this night, to make this go the way I needed it to. But first, there was one more thing.

      I picked up the second shot glass, from where I’d set it on the nightstand, put it to my lips and tipped it up, swallowing my celebratory drink.

      My nightcap.

      It was tradition, after all.

      1

      Bryan Kendall awoke with a crushing headache that turned into blinding dizziness when he rolled over. It was only then, as his hand swung out and hit something cold and hard, that he realized he wasn’t in his bed.

      He was on the bathroom floor.

      “Hell,” he muttered. “Must’ve been some party.”

      He tried to think back but remembered nothing, and really didn’t care all that much at the moment. He had a case of cottonmouth that made anything short of the house being on fire uninteresting in comparison. He needed liquid. Any liquid. Now.

      He opened his eyes, then squeezed them shut against the morning light slanting in through the bathroom windowpane. The sun seemed unreasonably bright this morning. Gripping the sink with one hand, he pulled himself up onto his feet, then leaned over it and cranked on the taps. He bent