It's strange really. Back in the days, when I was untouched by her, this place would have been just a police office. Drunkards in the tank, officers going about their day. Occasional tension might pop up when some looney started arguing about a ticket they got while they were alone on the road.

Now, it's different. The texture is different. I can see the texture of the concrete walls as if I was up close, yet I stand far away. People's smells cling to the inside of my nose, as if I were standing next to them. Their thoughts dance through my mind, thinking of everything and nothing, from hope to fear, from lust to revulsion.

The pattern has repeated itself more times than I can fathom, but this pattern must be broken. I scan the room and find an officer looking at me. His brow furrows and his eyes squint, highlighting the dark circles of sleeplessness nights. I hear his thoughts putting things together. I know him. He's been around. It's his personal mission to catch me.

I walk up to him, grab a seat from an empty nearby desk and sit down. Three officers are paying attention to me. I can smell the stench of the sweat from the lot of them, mixed with cheap tylenol, a hint of gunpowder and the sad stale aura of depression and a life lived too intensely. Though maybe, that's just me.

"Hello officer. I'm here to surrender myself to your custody. We need to talk. Now."

The officer's eyes widen. Two more cops pay attention. An old lady, whose cancer is nearly killing her yet she's unaware of it, turns her head.

"Wow there, slow down. Your name, please?"

"Patrick Mayhew Donovan. You know me as The Stripper. I killed fifteen men over the past three years in this state. If you need names, I remember all of them. Details too."

The entire police station grew silent, besides a fan rotating on its axle, attempting to freshen up the air in here. Several officers clench their jaws, I can hear the grinding of their poorly maintained teeth, as well as the release of several clasps of holsters.

From my coat pocket, I pull out a set of polaroids. Pictures of crime scenes as I left them. Victims when they were alive and after she and I killed them, stripping them of their flesh, draining their blood. The pictures came down on the desk, and he saw them. His eyes went wide like a dear in headlights. The heart in his chest that is bound to fail in two years starts beating twice as fast as he sees the pictures. He stands up immediately, the chair he rested on falling backwards, clanging on the stone floor. The pistol in his holster is drawn with damn near expertise and is pointed at my head.

I have been seated in this room for about three hours now. It's strange, but I'm sure they need time to put it all together. They don't know what I know. What they have, what they found when they searched me, as puzzle pieces that are incomplete. They won't like what they'll see if they put the whole thing together.

My strange friend, the police officer named Daniel Lofter, stands behind the glass, along with a federal agent and a detective. They've been discussing things such as evidence, motive, probably cause, the case they've built over the years. It's mind-numbingly boring chit chat, for which I don't have time.

"I suggest you ask your questions quickly. My time is limited. Before long, my partner will now I went to the police and will come here to kill me. If she finds you standing between me and her, she'll wipe you off the face of the planet. I know you only found 11 bodies. I will tell you where the other 4 are, if you send someone here."

I realized I came across as a bit desperate. Now that I'm not near her anymore, I'm starting to feel something. An impending sense of doom, like people who suffer heart attacks do. She helped suppress the fear. But the thoughts behind the mirror were also starting to get harder to decipher. My power is waning. She knows. She'll be coming. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The detective, after some quick dialogue, retreats from the room, walks around the walls and enters the room, holding a rather thick folder. A woman with an aged complexion, dark, well maintain long curls and the body language of determination and confidence. I respect that.

She considers slamming the file on the table, but maintains her composure and gently sets it down. Now that she's closer, I can tell her basic thoughts. Diana. That's her name. The very face of professionality and discipline. Cool and calm, collected. But I can smell the fury in her breath. The seething disappointment. In her head, she imagines brutalizing me, beating me to a pulp with her fists and a chair. Kicking me, slamming my heard through the one-way mirror and grinding my neck across the broken glass, tearing my neck to pieces. But she doesn't.

"I'm here. Things align with what you've said so far. We have more questions."

"I have some things to say first. About my partner. She is coming."

"So you weren't acting alone?"

"No. No I wasn't."

"Well, I'd prefer we start from the beginning here, so if we can put a narrative of sorts together."

"There's not time for that. You don't get it, detective, and I envy your ignorance. I have seen what she does. I know what she can make people do. She walks in human form, but that thing is not human. She is beyond you, beyond me. I simply got too close to her, got infected by her very presence."

"I did not prepare myself for a comic book villain breakdown, so try to keep your cool, here. An interrogator is on the way."

"Detective Matthews. He's flying in from Houston. 43 years old, a wife and two kids. Worked in different positions of the force over the last 15 years, from patrol officer all the way to his current position. His wife feels lonely when he isn't around, because he's a workaholic. When he dies, he will be the kind of person to regret not having spent as much time with his children as he could. He feels guilty over it already, and drinks to make it go away. Well, that and some of the other experiences he's had. Stellar record with the force, though. A good choice. If my partner doesn't rip the plane out of the sky, just to let us know that she's coming because now that I know, so does she."

I can feel the anxiety in her head, crawling from the bottom of her brains, around the outside, to the top. As if skeletal hands cradle her brains and give it a squeeze. She looks back at the mirror. My friend Daniel seems confused, but the federal agent's face turn white as a sheet. He pulls out a phone and starts calling his superior.

"Listen to me, Diana."

"I never told you my name."

"Of all the ridiculous things I just said, that shouldn't be the worst. The reason why I'm involving you and everyone here is because I'm trying to expose my partner in crime. The more people know about her, the harder it is for her to erase her tracks and disappear. Will you listen?"

"You have my undivided attention."

"Thank you, detective."

"What can you tell me about this partner of yours?"

"Her preferred targets are men. She takes them, simply for the pleasure of tearing out of happiness in their hearts with her razor sharp teeth. I've seen her instill nightmares in men, leaving them weeping, gasping for air, making them call out her name. In her eyes, I see the ground and sky on fire, with no mercy at the end of days which she will bring. The blood of gods, fresh on her hands, with flaming wings and more eyes than I can count."

"This is hard to follow, Patrick."

"Fine. You want a description? She's beautiful. One look will take away your innocence, opening your mind to things you never could dream of before meeting her. She's a muse to anyone whose mind she breaks. Her hair is like fire, her skin like the porcelain of my grandmother's china set. Her eyes are greener than the leaves of summer. One look, and you'll know her name."

The federal agent returns to the room, phone still in hand, shocked. With a tremble in his hand and numbness in his mind, he tells Daniel of a plane crash just outside George Bush International. They both look at me.

"Her name is Jolene."

“Yeah so I would like to confess to all of these” he placed the box on the desk in front of the duty Sargent who seemed visibly confused.

“You want to confess to all of these…” he said pointing to the box. The man nodded and the Sargent moved the box towards him. He gingerly opened the lid peering inside.

“Fake IDs?” The Sargent ventured.

“Oh no. Each one is a missing person I think you will find. Well… a person I murdered that you won’t find is probably more to the point” the man couldn’t help but smile. He had always prided himself on being several steps ahead of the authorities.

“Johnson, Malloy, Williams front desk now!” The Sargent barked into his call button.

The three officers piled out of the station doors weapons at the ready. The man slowly raised his hands, a wry smile on his face. Swiftly the officers secured him barking orders and patting him down. They tugged at the ceremonial dagger in his waist belt until it came loose screaming “knife!” As they pushed his face into the hard floor. Still he smiled.

It was about half an hour before they brought him into an interrogation room. They came with water and food. It was a portly detective who came in first followed by an attractive young woman.

“Well hey there friend sorry you got a rough welcome…” he started trying to sound friendly.

“Please read me my rights. I waive my right to a lawyer and wish to make a full confession” the man said evenly just as he had practiced.

The man sat bolt upright. The woman lent in. “Ok I’ll do that.” She said rattling his rights off in a well practiced manner. “Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?” She said finally.

“Yes thank you” he purred “I wish the confess to the murders of all of the people whose IDs could be found in the box I gave the Sargent earlier. With each of the IDs is a note that contains the details of the murder and the location of what remains of the victim. I am of sane mind and contained in the box are the psychiatric records from my last 10 years of visits to three different and simultaneous psychiatric doctors that I have been seeing who will verify that fact. I have also take the liberty of including as much evidence as practicality possible for you to convict me of this crime. I expect and want no mercy.”

The woman now sat back as well. Both the detectives got up and walked out of the room without speaking.

Later in his cell the man could hear the clamour of the media and the arrival of the other agencies outside. This was the biggest case that had broken in their history and they had literary done nothing other than read him his rights and put him in jail. The addict in the cell next to him was beginning to go through withdrawals. “Yo man, you holding?” The desperation in his voice was obvious “like anything man? They shoulda given me something by now…”

The man just closed his eyes and smiled.

“junkie”

“What?!? I can’t I’m locked up!?! They took my dagger!” He pleaded

“junkie” they whispered again more forcefully

“They caught me! I’m in solitary I can’t DO anything!” He begged

“junkie” less of a whisper this time

His hand spasmed and began to elongate causing him extreme pain. He cried out as his hand morphed into a sharp point of flesh and bone.

Suddenly his body felt as if being pressed between two stone columns. Flattened. He cried out again. “What are you doing to me?!?”

“blessings” the whispers came back

“Yo are you ok there man?” The junkie called out.

“junkie” insisted the voice.

There was no doubt what he had to do. Less he be further blessed. He slipped between the bars of the cell easily in his new form. His spike like hand at the ready as he moved into the cell next door.

"So you did what?"

Detective Sergeant John is a female detective with a male surname. They still mock her up to this day in the unit. She's grown a huge beer belly in the last six months, like some sort of phantasmal pregnancy after she broke up with her boyfriend. Or an eldritch-belly, he might say. He saw plenty of them suspicious bloatings then sprouting in thousands tentacles, like a symphony of tentacular joy. He's looking at it.

"I'm tired of this worshipping thing. I can see no end to it."

Detective Sergeant John is aware of his gaze and instinctively lowers her eyes to check if anything is wrong with her t-shirt. That's a trivial interrogatory mistake, she's giving up authority just for some self-esteem issues. She raises her baby blue eyes up.

"Save me."

"Alright, let's pretend I believe you. You're the All-side Strangler. Give me proof. I'll help you."

They named it the "All-side Strangler" for it was spreading all around from the Westside and the Eastside, and the Northside to the Southside and they couldn't decide what was more preeminent.

"I can't. My god saved me from leaving any trace behind, thus saving me eternally from human justice."

"So you can't prove you're the strangler. Your god is saving you from our justice. Why are you betraying him?"

"I'm..."

There was a pause. A pause that seemed to increase Detective Sergeant John's belly considerably. But he never thought his act in terms of betrayal. He was just tired.

"You're what?"

"Look, maybe it's better we part ways."

Detective Sergeant John was fine with it and raised from her chair. Her clearance rate was shit enough for the month not to chase around any fool's claim.

He walked out the police station, she went back to her office, one hand on her belly. Maybe she was pregnant after all, she felt like throwing up. Throwing up a thousand squids.

He was out the police station. Maybe he needed one more victim. Just one more. Please. I'm not betraying you. I will never think about that again.

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