Dance with The Devil by Niall Teasdale

Author:Niall Teasdale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cybernetics, artificial intelligence, police procedural, serial killer, robots, ai, uploading

Part Four: Satan’s Master

New York Metro, 8th June 2062.

Renata Rana had been nailed to a tree in Prospect Park. Fox checked, and it was her own blood which had been used to paint various arcane symbols over her chest and stomach. White paint formed various other ideograms or glyphs, or whatever you wanted to call them, on the tree bark. A skull, which Mackenzie had identified as that of a goat, was on the grass in front of the body with a long-dead black candle mounted on top of it.

‘Looks kind of Satanic,’ Jan commented. ‘To be honest, it gives me the willies.’

‘Kind of Satanic, yeah,’ Fox agreed. ‘When we’ve got everything recorded, I want her taken down and the tree washed clean.’

‘You don’t think we should preserve it?’

‘This once, no.’ Fox frowned. ‘There’s something not right about this.’

‘No kidding!’

‘I mean, I don’t think this really is Satanic. I’ll consult an expert later.’

Jan grinned. ‘Sister Naomi?’

‘You can think of someone better than a nun? Well, maybe some academic type, but Naomi has a pretty solid grip on the subject. Do we have a cause of death, Mackenzie?’

The gynoid paused in her circling of the tree; she was recording the various symbols. ‘Subject to confirmation, I believe Miss Rana suffocated much as Mrs Dennell did. However, as with Miss Bristol, Miss Rana appears to have been penetrated multiple times. I have detected the same bovine seminal fluid in her vagina, mouth, and anus. Also, since I had plenty of her blood to work with and knew what I was looking for, I have determined that she had the same chemical cocktail in her bloodstream as Miss Bristol. The other victims have not.’

‘Yeah. This was ritual. Something special for the new moon.’

‘The nails which have been used to attach her to the tree are standard masonry nails, widely available. The staging appears to be an attempt to further the idea that there is a demon of some kind in Brooklyn. It is extremely elaborate. An escalation, perhaps.’

‘Could be. Certainly, the people responsible seem to be getting into the swing of things.’

Kit appeared beside Fox, dressed in her more formal skirt and pumps. ‘Miss Renata Rana was an exotic dancer. She worked in Clayton Tower and was noted for her flexibility. I found a number of glowing reviews of her dancing.’

‘So, she didn’t live around here?’ Fox asked.

Kit shook her head. ‘She lived in South Bronx.’

‘So, what was she doing here to get attacked by the android?’ Jan asked, though it sounded like a rhetorical question.

Fox answered her anyway. ‘I don’t think she was. When we’re finished here, you two can go check out her place of work. I’ll take her apartment with Kit. I suspect you’re going to find that she had some sort of private gig arranged last night or the night before.’

‘The night before,’ Mackenzie said. ‘My estimate of time of death is between twenty-eight and thirty hours ago.’

Fox nodded. ‘At least I wasn’t wasting my time on that Sprawl raid while she was being murdered.

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