Is it something in the air you breathe?

Is it something in the books you read?

Is it something in the things you do?

Is it something in the words you use?

Cos’ the lights and the lorries will show you where you want to go

And this is one hit to the body

One hit to the soul

It’s the one hi to the body

That won’t show

The small, forlorn house along a weathered street tried to stay hidden in the shadows cast over by trees and self-perceived lowliness. Elijah did not see any cars out in the driveway and after observing for quite some time, could not catch any silhouettes, moving or still, from inside the house through the dusty panes. It looked abandoned and scared and if it could inch away, Elijah was sure it would inch away from his approach.

He could only think of how alike the house was to the owner- the same shuffling in the shadows, the same loneliness in their huge eyes. The windows were closed but the glass panes gazed out with so much yearning; and yet, the bleak grayness inside were like liquid pupils that had grown too large in fear.

After deciding to check out Danny’s house before the inexperienced police force got to it and messed up the place, Elijah made a mad dash back to the motel, picked up the police report and his tape recorder, and called Lynn up at Tech to asked her to check for Danny’s home address. When he had all the information he needed, he sped down to Danny’s apartment and knew that if he just passed by the house without knowing who it belonged to, Danny’s face would immediately spring to his mind.

He took out his mobile, not wanting to disturb the house that chose to remain in its timidity. Not knowing why he dialed for Isaiah’s mobile, he was about to put it down when someone answered, sending his system into a slight shock as conflicting emotions churned his stomach and he could still recognize some- happiness, surprise, betrayal, anger.

And the most concentrated of all. Indifference. Now that he thought about it, was not indifference an emotion as well? A null emotion. The opposite of passion.

"Isaiah’s indisposed right now. Can I take a message?" Lynn’s unusually soft voice flooded through his mind and caused to straighten up and expel out the confusion inside him.

"Hello? Who’s that?" She asked irritably and Elijah realized that his mind had blanked out for a few seconds too long.

"Elijah."

There was a stunned sucking in of a deep breath on the other side before Lynn answered, "Oh… so… what else do you want? By the way, Gray is joining you this evening, he has grown quite high strung over this case and needs to do something first. He told you to hold off all operations until he arrives to back you up…"

"It’s not my business if he comes or not. I’ll double check again. Danny’s adderss is 10, End’s Road?"

"Yes… can’t forget such a bleak sounding address. I still can’t believe it’s him. From our discussions, he seemed pretty mild…" Her tone was somber. Too somber. At that precise moment after she finished, static pierced Elijah’s ear drums and he heard a beeping sound from his mobile.

"Serial killers come in all shapes and sizes." Elijah remarked dryly, unable to deal with the sympathy he heard in her voice. The roles should be reversed. He should be in Danny’s shoes. Danny, in all aspects, was perhaps a much better person than him. The parallel of the intensity of the loss they had suffered through driven them to polarized ends. Danny should use his passion and grief to fight for the side of the justice, take up something like Elijah’s job, after curbing his vengeful spirit of course.

Elijah should be the cold-hearted killer, leaving none alive in his carnage; his thirst for revenge.

"What’s that sound?"

"My phone’s running out of battery. I’ll call to check in again when I’m done." The static invaded the connection again and Elijah, a little annoyed by the disruptive sounds of bad connection, pulled his mobile away from his ear and disconnected the call with one press of the button but not before he heard Lynn saying something that he could not make up with the phone too far away from his ear.

He walked towards the front door, cutting through long, overgrown grass that had such pointed tips that they poked through his pants and brought him prickly discomfort. Quickening his pace, he tried to ignore that annoying jabbing for attention by the swaying blades and was relieved when he stepped on hard concrete again, on the slightly raised square platform leading to the rotting front door with a rusty lock.

He only hoped that the lock was not too rusted to be picked.

After he put on his gloves, he wrestled with the corroded lock, not realizing that he was holding his breath the entire time he was despicably trying to break into someone’s house without a warrant. The case was eating at him, the need to delve into Danny’s psychological realm was somehow becoming an obsession.

There was the familiar victorious ‘click’ and he swung the door opened cautiously.

Sunlight hesitantly beamed into the furtive shadows of the little house, obtusely connecting with the wood grains on the floor planks. However, the single, brave ray only illuminated the shadows, making them darker and more retreating then they already were. As Elijah stepped in, a slight gust of wind blew, causing dried, brown leaves that had gathered on the eaves of the little house to flutter down like wings of dead moths, some landing on his platinum blond head. Carelessly, Elijah swiped at his hair and watched as the crunchy, dehydrated leaves fall to the ground, some disintegrating in the process.

He closed the door behind him.

So there must be something else, Elijah concluded. Something that caused the human spirit to snap. Something that separate evil from plain human fallacies. He would not call Danny evil yet. But even him, the glacier, would call the voices that Danny heard, one of the most malevolent forces in the world, able to twist good into evil and evil into good.

Not that Elijah was fanatically stringent on what was good and evil. But this mental foray had awakened some dormant sense in him, that there was perhaps something intrinsic in the human consciousness that clearly spelled out what was right and wrong. Everything else was subjective but that. Elijah could not believe Danny to have lost sight of that something inherent. Danny was still, despite what he had done, intrinsically good because Elijah knew Danny, in a way, was not in control of his own will when he did those terrible acts.

Elijah shook his head once vigorously to ride himself of the invidious thoughts he had about Isaiah that would soon spring forth jealousy to devour him mercilessly. As his stream of thoughts meandered into some intense introspective section, he too had made his way across the humble living room to a small hallway leading into two rooms. Both room doors were closed. He opened the door to his left and saw that the room it led to was empty and thus his attention on the other door instead. Danny must have lived alone.

The other door was not locked as well. He took out his tape-recorder, wondering for a moment why he would need it when he only used it when he wanted to talk to corpses without looking too conspicuous. No. He decided he need it then. He needed to talk to the violent, cold-hearted force that drove mild and meek Danny into such horrendous actions.

"So here I am, in your room. It’s clean… very neat. Very bare." He remarked as he took in the lack of furniture and decoration save some posters on the wall. The textbooks on the study table and a picture of Danny and Lenny in happier days, with Lenny throwing one protective arm around a shy, haunted Danny against the backdrop of the campus pasted on the side of the wardrobe, ascertained the room’s owner for Elijah. Danny had no computer, for which Elijah was not too surprised to discover. Danny worked in the Internet café and he could access the computers there. Elijah unclipped the notes that the killer left behind and scrutinized it, remembering the printer in Ben’s room at the same time.

"I should check out the printer in the café. See if it’s an inkjet, laser or bubblejet. The print-out of the calling cards were done with a laser printer, and most likely, laser printers aren’t used by home users. Ben’s printer is a Canon bubblejet which would produce rounded letterings, not what we’re looking for. But of course he could have printed the cards elsewhere. I have no definite conclusion." He spoke softly into the tape.

He saw three pill bottles on Danny’s study table and examined them out of cold curiosity. He read the labels on the first two and grimaced slightly. Popping the lid off one, he then pour out a few tablets into his palms. The ghosts of fatigue, dry mouth, vomit, diarrhea and all the horrible side effects which the doctors promised would ease up but never did, touched Elijah with their chilly fingers only to withdrew because they found something much colder and harsher.

He tilted his palm and let the pill slide out of his hand into the bottle again.

"You’re suffering from depression and is prescribed the medication, Elavil. But you’re not taking it anymore for the second bottle is unopened and the first one, dated quite a few months back is still three quarters full when, given the dosage, should already be emptied. Did someone ask you to stop the taking pills, Dan? Or they’re making you too sleepy? You do need focus to perform the ritualistic killings, don’t you? Has that someone instigated you to kill? The voices in your head, are they a manifestation of your worsening condition or something else?"

The third bottle was unlabelled. Holding it against a ray of sunlight that feebly streamed into the room through a dusty windowpane, he saw plenty of fingerprints smeared on it. He popped the lid open and emptied what few little white tablets that were left inside into his palm- studying them carefully, noting the name "Roche" and a circled "2" imprinted on one side.

"You used Rohypnol to drug Lenny and Sandy as it dissolves easily into drinks. How did you obtain this drug?"

Elijah set the bottle down and went over to Danny’s bed which was no more than just a mattress on a splintering wooden frame. He felt the pillow and took out the case which revealed nothing. Shaking the blanket and tearing the sheet off the thin mattress also yielded no results. Danny heard voices. Voices.

He placed his recorder on the bed and took out a Swiss Army Knife. Slashing the pillow, he inserted his hand inside and dug around for something out of the ordinary. He felt a small, hard lump, something like a bug and yet not quite. Withdrawing his hand, he let the disemboweled pillow fall limply onto the bed and examined the black, miniature speaker-like device in his hands. It was a sophisticated piece of equipment, definitely not anything that could be acquired on the market. He kept it in his pocket and picked up his recorder from the bed.

"I have with me here the possible source of the voices, Danny. Something like a reverse bug which Alicia planted underneath the table. There’s a force, all right. Something human. Someone spotted you and know you to be vulnerable. That someone must have known your history, your life. You must have confided in him but who? Who are you close to besides Lenny?"

Elijah paused for a moment to recollect his thoughts. Re-playing his one-sided conversation back to himself and thinking about all other conversations he had, all other clues he found, he tried to see a link that he had missed before.

"Could it be Ben? But I’m… his girlfriend, a Jew. A girlfriend or a possible victim to prey on? What are the killings for? A ritualistic thing? If yes, why is it done so haphazardly without any fixed time interval? The first killer’s in New Orleans. If he’s involved in the PolSci Inner Sanctum somehow, then he could have known Alvin and the rest of you. Did you go to the convention as well? Damn! Why didn’t I think of these questions to ask you before?"

He went to a corner in the room and sat down, calming himself down. He could always go over the police station to talk to Danny but he had a feeling Danny was no longer talking to anyone. The dazed look on his face when Jacob Stern took him into the station told Elijah that Danny was too far gone.

"The mastermind. He told you to drain the blood from the victims and transport them away. The place they were killed at was secret but their bodies must be shown to the public, always put in easy places for people to find. You were probably trying to drug the priest as well to bring him to the secret place and kill him but couldn’t, that’s why the ritual is ruined. For you, it’s a ritual. For the mastermind? What is it? The cards that he told you leave, they tell us simplistically the manifestation of a dark philosophy from a mad man’s rambling in prison. The calls that were made. The first one is in the wee hours of morning from the report. The second… what time… what are the times… why are the timing different? Clock… Isaiah saw a clock… the garbage man found the second body first in the morning but still a call was made after. There must be some newsflash that would come, why would you still feel the need to call? To risk discovery?… the calls… calls…Alicia works in the telephone exchange. She can rig the calls easily if she knew how and somehow, they could be programmed to go off at certain times. It’s possible, difficult but possible." Elijah chanted to himself as he closed his eyes and pounded the back of his head against the wall.

"Calling cards. Call. Calling cards with a lesson… each calling card is like a lesson, telling us why the person has to die. Lessons…. Links… who else is link to all of you?"

Elijah stood up, thankful for smooth blood circulation still. He took a closer look at the posters on Danny’s wall. A grid map caught his eyes. A grid map of Eaeshore.

His heart beat wildly.

"The torn-off part of the note found in Alicia’s apartment. Sanders. 650 found next to Sanders. Call made early in the morning. 650. 0650. The map here, its coordinates looked to be printed from afar but is actually drawn. The x-axis is labeled all the way until 24 and the y-axis until 60. 0650. We have our first point. The second call will be the second point…is that where the Swastika is hidden? In this map?" The missing part of the paper must have all the timings next to victim’s names and they must mean something. Or was he only guessing? Clutching at thin straws again?

The map was completely pasted on the wall. Tearing it down was futile for it would be destroyed. Elijah took out the police report and memorized the times of the other two victims. The time of the call made to the police for Lenny’s death was indeed six-fifty in the morning. The call for Sandy was made at eight forty in the morning. The two points made one diagonal line down a square but without one least one more combination, Elijah could not make out the picture but he would bet his life that was where the missing Swastika was hidden.

"The mastermind had already laid down the combination but gave you the lock. Will all this lead to something for me? Why is he doing this? Lesson? To teach us a lesson in Hitler’s warped idea? Is there really a cult of Hitler or something else? The reversed bug… too sophisticated… is this cult an organized crime then with access to all these new inventions? Am I close to the reason why we are assigned to this case instead of the FBI?"

He walked over to Danny’s wardrobe and opened it up, finding a drawer inside, the only drawer he chanced during his sweep of Danny’s room. Opening it up, he found modules syllabus and some photo albums. Flipping through the photo albums, he saw a few group photos taken but Danny was not in them. He could recognize Ben, Shelly, Lenny, and Alvin with an arm around Sandy’s waist but he could not place the devilishly handsome man with a ponytail embracing the group from behind. He took one out to take a closer look.

"You should be the photographer. This man, with this group bounded together only by their final year project and Alvin’s thesis must be their professor. Professor Carter.

Professor… lesson… but anyone can teach a lesson… right?

A professor in Political Science… his modules mostly on Second World Wars, politics and philosophy…" Elijah’s voice drifted off but his thoughts did not. He eyed Danny’s modules syllabuses and, putting two and two together, an idea struck him.

He sifted through Danny’s modules after pocketing the photo and saw a few of his History modules crossed with Political Science modules. In his first year, he took a module on "The Fall of Nazism." In his second year, he took another module called, "The Intellectual Path of Politics." In his third year, his taste-buds remained the same as he took the module "Personalities, War and Philosophies."

"All three were taught by Professor Carter. And these modules must be where you got to know Lenny and the rest."

He extracted the relevant syllabus and made his way out of Danny’s room. Feeling a need to warn Stern about Carter, Elijah took out his mobile and, immediately, his lips stretched. His mobile had died on him. He would have to find a public phone and make a personal visit to Professor Carter. He exited from Danny’s house and ran back to his Toyota. While he was driving away, several blocks down already and about to turn out, he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw a car pulling up at Danny’s house and then a female figure exiting from it.

Elijah spotted a mailbox and made a quick decision. He could end the case once and for all here but accidents could always happen. He was not up against someone stupid and thus, he did not want to take any chances. He took out a pen and circled the professor and Ben’s face on the photograph. He then clipped the photograph and the syllabuses together with the report and placed the mini-tape of his recording as well as the bug in the pocket of the file dropped the whole package into the mailbox. Tilting the rearview mirror of the car in an askew angle such that it would point to the mailbox from the interior of the car, he was satisfied with the clue he left behind and exited the Toyota.

And then he ran back to Danny’s house, his gun ready in his hands. He stopped for a moment before he approached Danny’s driveway, trying to peer inside the white Honda parked there from where he was. Satisfied that there was no one inside, he crossed the driveway which was the patch of overgrown grass that he hated so much earlier on and made his way stealthily and cautiously through the opened doorway and across the hall. He could hear the sounds of things being rummaged through and the slamming of the wardrobe door.

Someone was cursing out loud.

That someone was Alicia.

Elijah pressed himself flat against the wall, situating himself just next to the door. He heard footsteps approaching the door and the moment Alicia stuck her pretty head out of the door, he pointed the gun to her skull.

"Don’t move or I’ll shoot," he commanded tersely, noting the bulge in her jeans pocket. "And take the gun out from your pocket slowly and slide it across the floor to the other room."

There was a tense silence of about five seconds before she did as he said and then raised her hand in surrender. "Elijah Raily. Don’t shoot me. I can bring you to someone. Someone who knows everything and who will set your mind free. You have a lot of knots inside your heart, don’t you?"

Elijah was not in the least bit startled by what she had said. "Where’s Carter?"

"Let me bring you to him, Elijah. I won’t trick you. You hold my life now in your hands. How does that feel?" Her voice was strangely soothing- not at all like anything the flippant waitress would say in the café.

"I’ll bring you to the police and you can tell them where’s Carter. Move it!" He ordered her but she only shook her head.

"By the time we reach the police, he’ll have already flee. He will if I don’t return by the stipulated time. If you come with me, you can catch him…you’ll know why we do what we do." She cajoled sweetly, like a nymph tempting him to enter the waters to join her.

"I’ll be behind you, with this gun aimed at you. I won’t miss. I never miss." He nudged her with the gun and watched her as she smiled with some uncanny resplendent glow on her face as she walked ahead of him.

"We’ll take your car." Elijah informed her curtly.

"Where’s yours? It’s a pretty Mustang." She asked him casually, like her life was not in danger, like he was a friendly acquaintance of hers.

Elijah dismissed her question, glad for the fact that she was still in the dark about his change of car. It made the Toyota, such an old beat-up beacon pointing to the evidence, less conspicuous to her.

"We’ll take yours." He stately repeatedly and she shrugged. They exited from the house and reached the Honda parked outside. He made her open the car door to the passenger side and when she sat down, he took out a pair of handcuffs from behind and cuffed her to the car door handle. She raised her head up and smiled at him.

"I’m always more attracted to you. You’re a very beautiful man. I love your coldness. Too bad you didn’t frisk me for the gun. It’ll be interesting to be frisked by you."

Elijah simply pressed the lock down and slammed the car door shut. He climbed into the driver’s seat and then turned towards her.

"Keys."

"This time, you’ll have to reach inside my pocket and take it yourself." She beamed and batted her eyelashes at him. With lightning speed, he pressed the gun against her temple.

"I warn you not to try anything funny. Reach into your pocket and take the keys out."

"You cuffed me…"

"Use the other hand." His tone was impassive; directive. She sighed and struggled too exaggeratedly to reach into the right pocket with her left hand, curving her body like a temptress luring her victim to bed and death. Ire crept up to squeeze Elijah’s heart and made him impatient. She had dragged time on for far too long, and thus, Elijah cocked his gun.

"Ok… hold it…here. Take it. You really hurt me." She pouted and passed the jingling keys to him. As he took it from her, she held on to his hand for a very brief moment, giving him a most flirtatious wink.

Ignoring her, Elijah started the car and followed her bored instructions to the real mastermind.