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Of course, that also made it impossible to recognize, if I might have known the person on the other end of the line.
“What?”
“Twelve. Do you think twelve is enough? Or should I go bigger? A baker’s dozen, that’s thirteen isn’t it? Thirteen is considered unlucky in some cultures. Some people are even afraid of it. Imagine. Being afraid of a number.”
I sat on the end of my bed, suddenly not able to trust my legs to keep me standing.
Do you think twelve is enough?
He was talking about the dead kids.
Cade stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall that divided the living room from the bedroom. He couldn’t hear what I was hearing, but something in my face told him it wasn’t good. His brows had knit together in the middle, forming a furrow of worry between his eyes.
I couldn’t comfort him right now.
“I think twelve is too many,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as measured as the robotic one on the phone. Turns out if I made the effort, I could sound pretty calm while talking to a serial killer.
“Can’t undo what’s been done,” he said.
“You can stop then.”
“I could stop, but I don’t want to. Don’t want to.” A small chuckle that sounded like static. “You see, the gods were meant to serve man, not the other way around. The gods were supposed to be there for us. Giving us what we need. Making our lives easier, better. Now we bend over backwards to sacrifice our children to them. We drop babies on their doorsteps and give them all our money. And what do we get in return?”
The question hung there, unanswered, so he added, “Nothing.”
I was shaking my head.
“They give us nothing,” he snarled.
“They give us everything.”
That staticky inhuman chuckle again. It was like someone who’d heard about laughter secondhand trying to imitate the sound. Creepy.
“What do you want?” I asked. There had to be something this unhinged lunatic was after. Something that might give me some clue where to start looking for him, or at least narrow down who he might be.
“I want them to suffer like they make us suffer. If they don’t understand pain, maybe they’ll understand loss.”
How to even begin to explain to this guy how wrong he was? The gods didn’t care if he was killing initiates. Well, Macha cared, but I think that had more to do with her pride and the lack of viable clerics she’d received over the last seventy years. Would the others really miss the children destined to serve them?
Probably not.
But if I explained that to this guy, it would just prove his insane theory. That the gods didn’t give two shits about us, and he would likely keep killing initiates until someone paid attention to him.
I sighed. “What do you want from me, then? You had to pick me for a reason.”
“You’re the only one who noticed.”
“What?”
“You’re the only cleric who went to see the body. You’re the only one who talked to the police. I’ve been watching. It was only you. Everyone else simply made the problem disappear, but not you. I think you’re different.”
“No.”
“I think you might be special.”
“I think you might be out of your fucking mind,” I snapped, unable to restrain myself any longer.
Cade hadn’t had much to go on, but now he came into the room, standing mere feet from me, looking for all the world like he wanted to punch someone for pissing me off this much. Who was he going to hit, though? The phone?
