We walked down the hallway to her room. She still had trouble staying on her feet, but I was feeling alright. This time, I knew that was the Book's doing. Based on my weight and height alone, I knew I had gone in way over my head. I just hoped that it wouldn't all hit me at once right after I scored my kill.
Her apartment was much like her building, upscale and well kept. It wasn't any bigger than mine, but it was well decorated, and felt lush with life and personality. We half sat half fell onto the couch, and I produced the bottle from my jacket with a flourish.
I gave her a sideways glance. "You take vodka from near strangers off the street often?" She shrugged. "Not usually, but let's see how this goes, maybe I should make a habit of it." "Alright," I said, "Do you have any glasses?"
She raised an eyebrow, "You're not going to drink this neat, are you?" "Do you have something else in mind?" She stumbled to her feet and pulled me into the kitchen, where she made up come sugary concoction of juices and hard liquor.
She handed me my glass and I took a sip. It was sweet, disgustingly sweet, but still plenty strong. There was definitely enough alcohol to kill both of us, which was the idea, more or less, but I had an extra surprise on me to ensure that she would not survive.
The Book's luck must have returned to me, because I felt a tap on my shoulder. "Hey, wanna set those drinks down in front of the couch? I need to hit the potty quick." "Sounds good, good luck in there." I got back some drunken mumble that I think was supposed to be a thank you, but I ignored it and got to work.
Before that fateful night in the cave, I had suffered from constant, near crippling anxiety. I needed a ridiculous amount of Xanax just to get through a normal week. After the Book found me, I didn't really need it anymore, but I still stockpiled it and always kept some on me out of habit.
Xanax on it's own is strong and addictive, but not toxic, even in very large doses. Combined with alcohol though, it was a famous and deadly killer. I had two bars of it tucked deeply into my pocket, and I had smashed them up into a powder as soon as I had formulated my original plan.
I looked at our two drinks, and I quickly removed an ice cube from mine, so that mine had one and her's had two. I definitely didn't want to end up drinking my own poison; that was a humiliating way to die. I quickly overturned the powder into her beverage and stirred it with my finger. As I heard the toilet flush, I wiped my hand onto my shirt and carefully carried the drinks to table.
I did my best to look relaxed, and took a sip from the drink in my hand, making certain that it had only one ice cube in it. She came back in, and fell back on the couch. She leaned against me, her head on my shoulder, and her breath on my neck.
I wasn't a very touchy person, and getting leaned on usually made me a little uncomfortable, but the book was in full control, so I put my arm around her shoulder and let her snuggle her head under my chin. Satisfied, she took a long pull from her tainted drink.
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. She was already completely wasted, and the Xanax, combined with the additional drink, would probably do the trick. All I had to do now was hang around and make sure she finished it.
"So, where do you know Laura from?" "I haven't known her for too long. I'm kind of new in town, and we're both in the same... recreational organization." I frowned. "The way you said that makes it seem that it's anything but a recreational club." She shook her head profusely. "No, no, I mean it is, it's just, hard to explain."
I did want to find out more about Laura, but I let the matter drop, no point in pressuring a person who would be dead by my hand within the hour. She yawned and stretched herself out, pulling another swig from her glass. "You know, we could take this into a..... different room"
I already had a daily moral crisis from killing I was doing. I had absolutely no desire to add "Forced myself onto a dying person", to the ledger in my conscience. Besides, I needed to make sure she finished drinking. "Yeah, for sure, but in a few minutes, I want to finish this."
To her suggestible mind, that meant that it was high time for her to take another drink as well, and I watched with a smug satisfaction as my plan fell into place. I usually didn't like letting the Book control so much space in my mind, but in this case, it was extremely useful.
My personality, if left alone entirely, would have been desperately looking for proof of her evilness, and would have been extremely uncomfortable with the physical closeness required to seal the deal. But the Book had no qualms, and an innate intelligence that sometimes seemed to border on sentience. It felt like I could just sit back, relax, and let it use me as a tool for it's justice.
"So, what's it like working with that dreamboat?" "Dreamboat?" I asked, confused. "Riley, you silly head." Her words were extremely slurred now, and she seemed close to blacking out. And, as weird as it was that she was inviting me into her house at 1AM and asking me about another man, I had to agree, Riley was a dreamboat.
I answered honestly. "Riley's an extremely hard worker, and he has a lot of personal initiative. When he's around, things get done, plain and simple." She reached up and tried to play with my hair, and ended up just pulling on it over and over again. "Interesting." She purred. "He's so charismatic too, I'd almost call it supernatural, but that probably sounds stupid right?"
A few months ago, the idea of someone having enhanced charisma as a result of some unseen metaphysical process would have been absurd to me. But I was currently in possession of a Book that controlled my mind and made me murder complete strangers; I had lost my right to speak on the matter.
I gave a halfhearted chuckle. "No, that's not stupid Monica. Riley always knows what to say and when to say it, like he has a voice in his head that tells him exactly what to say and when to say it." She giggled. "It's weird that you two are friends, you're complete opposites."
I hid my grimace. She would be dead in a few minutes, so there was no need to verbally lash out at her. She had calmed down a bit, and her breathing was becoming slower. Soon, she would fall asleep and probably never reawaken. The Book began to thump in anticipation, with a slow, forceful rhythm.
Monica yawned, her head rested against my chest. "Do you have two hearts?" I froze. "Uhh, what?" "It just feels like you have two heartbeats." "I uhh, have a little heart murmur." I didn't even know what a heart murmur was, but it was the best I could come up with.
She was still awake, her eyes open just a sliver, her body heavy and limp. I knew she was evil, and that I had no choice in the matter, but having her die in my arms was emotionally unsettling. Neck breaking and organ stabbing were messy, but at least they were fast and impersonal.
She didn't push the matter, and more or less just accepted my excuse. Her eyes were shut now, and I could feel the slowness of her own breathing, and I could tell that it was almost over. I closed my own eyes and entered a semi-meditative state. For a moment, I tried to pretend that I was somewhere else.
I pictured myself in a beautiful log cabin, somewhere in the sprawling forests of New England. I was sitting on a soft couch in a cozy little living room, a roaring fire just a few feet away from me. I saw and felt it all; the warm heat radiating throughout the room, the dance of the flame light against the walls of the otherwise dark room.
The person next to me was not a dying villain, but a wife or a partner, a person that truly loved me. And just for a moment, I found myself lost in this fantasy, my mind dissolved into a sea of peace. I was broken from my stupor by the Book, which was squirming and wiggling to get my attention.
I was so lost in thought that I didn't notice Monica had stopped breathing entirely. I sighed, and pushed what was now a corpse off of me, laying her down awkwardly on the sofa. I wanted to take a blanket off of her bed and cover her up, but I needed to make it seem like only one person had been here.
To that nature, I took my glass, and emptied it out, and gave it a quick wash in the sink. I put on a spare pair of gloves I usually kept on me, and put the offending glass back into her cabinet. My fingerprints were definitely on several objects in the house, but I didn't think that would be too big of a deal.
I might not ever have visitors in my apartment, but normal people often did, so the presence of someone else's finger prints wouldn't be too strange. An autopsy may or may not reveal the drugs in her system, but that probably wouldn't get back to me either. The cameras in the building may have seen her and I walking up together, which might be a problem for me later, but there was little I could do about that.
As long as the whole thing seemed like ethanol poisoning or an overdose, no one would come looking for a murderer. I walked over to her window. She was only on the third floor, but she lacked a fire escape for me to walk down.
The Book gave me a reassuring thump, as if to say, "Don't worry, you'll be fine." The Book was rarely wrong, so I opened the window and stuck my head out. There was no one in the small side alley next to the building, or in the street adjacent. I climbed out and dangled from the windowsill. I reached up with my left hand and shut the window with a jerky grab.
I was definitely stronger these days, but hanging from a rectangular window sill with one hand was still a challenge. There was nothing below to break my fall, which was probably for the best. I was escaping out a window to avoid drawing attention, and landing on a dumpster with a loud bang would defeat the purpose.
Resigned to my fate, I let go of the window and let myself fall. There was a brief moment of speed and fear, and then a hard collision with the ground. I had fallen on my feet into a crouch, and then lost my balance and fell onto my back.
Pain shot through my legs and body, and I clenched my teeth to avoid screaming out. I laid there for a moment, the searing pain of the impact tearing through me. I was glad that the alley was dry, and that I could endure my suffering without getting coated with freezing water.
After a moment, I put my hands behind me, and tried to see if my legs would still work. To my surprise, nothing was broken, and the pain was pretty bearable. Both my ankles hurt with the pain of a mild sprain, and my knees were sore, but I was able to walk. I brushed myself off and began the mile trek back to my house.
I knew my way form the part of town Monica lived in, and with the help of adrenaline, I managed to make it back about fifteen minutes later. As I entered, Mr. Fourier saw me and cringed, probably remembering my late arrival the night before.
"Good evening Mr. Fourier! Don't worry sir, I found some self control tonight, I can get to the elevator just fine." The older man seemed visibly relieved. "Alright son, I'm glad your safe, enjoy your night." "Of course, and you as well."
I was glad the conversation went off without a hitch, because I was gradually growing drunk again, as the Book's forced sobriety began to wear off. Now that I was clear of danger, my coherency was quickly declining. I managed to make it into my room and lock the door behind me, but I could feel my vision blurring and my body wavering.
I planned to go straight to bed, but before I could take more than two steps into my living space, my vision went dark and my legs collapsed beneath me.