"Even psychopaths have emotions; then again, maybe not."
- Richard Ramirez, Night Stalker
FIVE
I KEPT PLAYING with the hem of my sweater in an attempt to hide the fact that I was scared shitless. I had walked into the room empty handed with nothing but the fire drill beat that my heart was pounding. Why had I let Frank Trellis talk me into this? Behind my thoughts, I knew the answer. I wanted to meet Nicholas Dementia. I really did, but at the same time, I wanted nothing of the sort.
Would I be dying by mental or physical trauma today? It was hard to tell. My heart was racing, my blood high above the average pressure, my nails dug so far in my palm that I knew I had caused damage to it. Would Banshee be big, burly, violent and painfully ugly? Or would he surpass my imagination and step out with red serpent skin, a beastly tail and two sharp horns on his head? Was that it? Was Banshee the devil?
I heard the buzz from a door that signalled it was time for him to come and I jolted in my seat. Unconsciously, my eyes moved to a small object on the wall at the other side of the room. The security camera. Knowing it was there and that the very well trained (as The Chief Guard had smugly commented) security crew was watching me made me feel less jittery. I still felt ill and was unable to remove my eyes from the metal doors that slid open painfully slowly.
It slid open to reveal the one person that terrified me the most.
He walked in alone, surprisingly, with no guards hopping around him with AK-47s pointed at his neck or Army Men hounding him with military rifles and bombs. No, he walked in like he had come at his own will. Banshee walked in like a King. I recalled words from the book of Revelations in the Holy Bible and found them fitting for the harrowing scene before me. He approached me like it were Judgement Day.
Rapture.
At first glance, you would think Banshee was unconventionally attractive. Then you would kick yourself for thinking like that. Because your eyes would then adjust past his façade, recall his beastly crimes and refocus. You would understand that Banshee was just as ugly as his crimes. He was not pretty with sad things in it but ugly with horrifying things buried deep within.
He was nothing like what I had expected him to be. He looked almost..normal. His hair was lengthy and let loose enough to reach his shoulders, it fell in sections over his face and danced when he walked. His arms were hidden under the orange overall he wore, it looked dirty and unkempt. Behind my fear, I thanked heavens for the glass between us. At least, I couldn't get a whiff of his scent.
I couldn't see his body but I knew he was huge, towering a good 6ft 4 if I had dared to guess. He took long, lengthy but painfully slow strides to the seat and lowered into the metal chair. Surprisingly, Banshee had no tattoos, skin as clear as crystal. Clear enough to see the blackness in his heart, probably. His hands and fingers were bruised to the bone. Bruised enough to still have dried blood on them. His lips remained sealed, straight, void of emotion.
Out of all his fantastic features, what terrified me the most were his eyes. They looked sad, with eye bags hovering underneath them, and they were hard on me. When I looked into them, I felt the same way I had when I looked into the dead eyes of my brother. Soulless, Horrifying, Demonic.
Even as the thick pane of glass separated us, I felt terrified to be face to face with someone as evil as Banshee. Whenever I blinked, images of him watching the life drain out of his victims and sobbing like a banshee afterwards played like a projector against my eyelids. Fear lacing through me, I realised that Banshee and I had been staring at each other for around five minutes.
Behind me, the clocked ticked past 12pm.
"Hello." He finally said, I could see a glimpse of his jagged teeth, they looked like the kind of teeth that monsters had in the comic books you read when you were thirteen. It made him look inhumane. His voice boomed but it was cultured and smooth, severely juxtaposing all that he was.
I started in a rush, because the adrenaline that had been in me was bubbling over. "Did they tell you what this was? What I'm doing-"
His voice cut through mine like a blade that was sharpened at the two edges. He said again in the voice that was too smooth to be his. "Yes, they did. I said Hello, don't be uncultured and introduce your self."
Banshee had a British accent. I was stunned. I nodded reluctantly and cleared my parched throat, lying through my clean teeth. "Hello, Banshee. I'm January."
He was the kind of person that took seconds to reply. He ate your words, tasted them, chewed it up into bits, swallowed and then replied. He parted his lips to speak. "Not Banshee." He shook his long bronzed hair. "It's Nicholas, or Nick. Banshee is for the press."
I felt my brows furrow. Nicholas was too normal a name for him, just as Richard, Nancy, Ted, Jack, Jeffery, John, Alex, Luke, Holmes were too normal a name for some terrible people I had heard about. I had assumed people like Banshee had been born with names given by the Devil.
He wasn't a Nick, the post man who worked on my street was called Nick.
"You're a disgusting murderer, Nicholas." I muttered, unable to control my words.
I didn't mean to say it out loud but due to the fact that I was repeating it in my head like a mantra to remind myself that he was dangerous, I had word vomited.
"How charming." Was what he replied.
His dead eyes remained on my face and his eyes moved from my eyes, down to my nose, mouth, ears and back to my fearful gaze. Finally, he cocked his head to the side and his eyes slid down to his handcuffs. "You know, I could snap these off if I wished to. I could shatter the glass-" He tapped on the glass, startling me. "- and reach over and break your fucking neck just for stating the obvious."
That escalated so fast. I bit back a gasp, keeping my face still.
"I could. But I wouldn't, cause it'll scare you away." He finished, his gaze anything but blank.
Oh, but it would kill me too. I felt a lick of fear course through my spine. The grip of fear had wrapped it's bony fingers around my trembling neck and squeezed.
I mumbled, knowing my job was to keep him talking. About anything. "Why do you care that it will frighten me?"
He leaned back against the tiny chair, his body seeming too big for it. He moved with caution, like he was carrying the entire world on his shoulders. Atlas. "Because it's been years since I've seen another real face but mine. If I ripped your throat, they won't let me see daylight for another twenty years and I'm not getting any younger." He looked up again, and I looked away. "Besides, January, you interest me."
I shook my head vigorously. I knew he was being coy to pique my interest. If he made me feel like I had interested him, I would begin to relax. I would think I had the upper hand. Then he would latch onto my vulnerability and fuck with my head. "No, I don't interest you, Nicholas. You just met me, you're only saying that so I feel like I've gotten your attention."
He stayed silent but if he had been thrown off, he didn't show it.
The silence stretched behind us for dire seconds.
And in between that, something similar to lightening bolt suddenly flickered in his eyes, as though he had seen something harrowing in me. His eyes narrowed slightly and he leaned closer, eyes falling against my facial features like a wet blanket. I felt uncomfortable, wanting to hide behind my hands.
He leaned back suddenly, then his lean fingers traced his jaw. His almighty voice came out toned down, slow, deep. "January."
I stole a glance at his face, it read mischief. "What?"
"Exactly. January, what?" He said.
I rose a brow.
"Your last name. Tell me what it is." The command was like a stray bullet firing through the air. It was hard, fast and had a form of recklessness that was unpleasant. His eyes were impassive but his jaw remained taut.
It had struck me on a wrong chord and that was why I shook my head. "N..no."
He hissed, as if burned. "I don't like the word no." He shook his head slowly, seemingly serene but anyone could see the fire in his eyes that years in SCCTD had failed to saunder. His lean fingers ran across his lips. "But I'll let that one slide"
"Try again. Tell me your last name."
"I..." I muttered, my voice sounding scratchy.
His eyes didn't change. It was like he wore a mask of impassivity. Did he even blink? His jaw twitched and he spoke again. "Alright, I'll make it easier for you cause you're a lady. Let's make a deal."
I was startled. "Excuse me?"
He nodded. "I'll pretend you interest me. That this-" He gestured at the space between us. "-is something I want to do and I'll feed you with all the lies you want. You get paid, and you get the fuck away before I hurt you really bad." He started, resting his hands on the table, his face was nearly pressed up on the glass. "All you have to do, darling, is tell me your real name."
His last sentence was bone chilling. How the hell did he know I had been lying? I froze. "But, how do you-?"
He cut me off with a clean thin slice.
"Amongst other reasons, I can tell that I terrify you. So the fact that you can listen to me say January without so much as a flicker in those charming eyes -" He bored holes into my brown eyes. "- shows that you're lying to me."
I opened my mouth. God, those eyes. "Wh..Why does it matter to you?" Why was he hell bent on knowing my name?
He shrugged. "Call it curiosity." He tongue darted out to swipe his lips, and the beastly teeth came out to play. "So what do you say to the deal?" His words slid out like a snakes hiss.
Go fuck yourself, was what I was saying (but if I told him that, I knew it wouldn't bode well). I wasn't making deals with the devil. It always came with a price. "Don't play games with me." I murmured, my gaze wary. "No deal."
A few dire seconds passed before his impassive face morphed into interest. Now, he looked intrigued. Christ, was he mentally delayed? He shook his head and kissed his teeth. "If I wanted to play games with you, you'd already be dead."
"And then you'd sob afterwards?" I muttered.
I didn't know where the words, or my voice had come from but it was shocking. It was like a loud screech in a room full of monks who had taken the vow of silence. I might as well have climbed over the glass pane and asked him to kill me like he did to his other victims. He looked like he wanted to do just that. He wanted to rip off his chains and rip my sharp mouth off. His eyes blazed with rekindled heat but yet, he didn't move.
I had to give it to him, he was controlled.
I wasn't going to apologise though.
Before any of us could react, the buzz that signalled his time to leave came. Because I had so much adrenaline inside me, the noise came as more of a shock than it should have. I flew up and out of my seat so fast that it was comical. Toppling over in my chair wasn't something I wanted to ever do in front of Banshee. Just take me now, Lord. I muttered.
I quickly composed myself and stood up, sliding back into the seat.
Banshee looked up at me, unamused. His gruff impassive facial expression cut me deeper than if he had threatened to murder me and all my family. It made me feel like an animal in a cage forced into a silly costume and told to do tricks. It made me feel irreversibly, irrevocably and undeniably foolish.
His eyes were fucking with my mental self esteem.
He closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them, they had changed.
There was amusement in his eyes and his mouth tilted. Just a tiny bit. A really infinitesimal smile that I could have possibly imagined. It wasn't a particularly nice smile. It was disturbing, like the feeling of a cold damp hand tracing the outlines of your throat.
It was brief and brutal because it struck me hard that someone like him could feel things. The thought was ghastly. If he really felt emotions, then that meant that he had formed a schema in his mind that viewed his crimes as A-OK.
I felt sick because I didn't want Banshee to smile with me.
Not him.
He pushed his chair back, finally getting up even when the buzz had come minutes ago. He got up on his own time, no one could force him out. He was untouchable. It was then that I realise that even if he were chained, and begging for freedom, sobbing and gnashing at his teeth, Banshee would still have power, in this building.
He said, when he reached the two metal doors.
"A smile, Aria. I'll spare your life."
I sat, frozen, on the thought that I had heard my name escape his lips.
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Meet Banshee! This is their first ever interview so I tried to make it SHORT, more about first impressions.