"I was literally singing to myself on my way home, after the killing. The tension, the desire to kill a woman had built up in such explosive proportions that when I finally pulled the trigger, all the pressures, all the tensions, all the hatred, had just vanished, dissipated, but only for a short time."
- David Richard Berkowitz
SEVEN
WOULD BANSHEE THREATEN TO slit my throat this time? Only time will tell. I drummed my fingers against the table, restless and terrified but very determined to milk information out of him. The sooner I did it, the less time I would need to spend with him. I was scared, yes, but I didn't want him to see that he had successfully affected me so I played on a poker face. Seeing him the day before had been a puncture wound to an inflated balloon, it reduced the tension.
When the buzz that signalled his entry rang through the air, like the bell for a death toll, I sat ramrod straight against the chair and watched the metal doors slide open. Banshee walked out, and all thoughts of me pressing him for hard information and pretending to be the tougher guy flew out the window. I was shocked.
Not because he had walked out in his usual lengthy strides with a scowl, no, it was because Banshee, Nicholas Dementia, was smiling.
He had on a smile that didn't show his teeth. It was a close-lipped smile and that was something I was grateful for. He walked in with a skip in his step, and his head bobbed slightly. I couldn't help the death drop that my jaw was doing at how petrifying he looked. I racked my brain through pages of the Bible to figure out a very important question. Did the devil ever dance? It was only when he had come close enough to sit down that I realised he was humming an unfamiliar tune.
When his 6"4 form finally settled into the chair before him, he glanced up at me. His gaze was cool, impassive, yet brighter than the last time I had seen him. His eyes moved from my parted lips, to my widened eyes, and when he had had enough of his fill of my face, he winked. Winked. It was so quick that I still believe that I had imagined it.
He stopped humming. His voice was smooth, British, but you couldn't miss the underlying fire beneath them. "Hello. Aria." He stated, leaning against the head of the chair. He looked relaxed, lazily gazing at me. I hated that the roles had been reversed, I was the tense one now.
My shock died down into confusion. "Hi.."
Maybe Frank Trellis had accidentally given me the wrong prisoner? Had I walked into the wrong room? I knew all the answers to my questions was a bold NO because Banshee couldn't be mistaken for everyone else. He stood out in the same way MonaLisa did in the Musee du Louvre, he struck you hard like a gash against soft flesh. A 6"4 needle in a haystack. He was, indeed, unique.
I said nothing else.
Then he frowned. He sat up, leaning his body on the table. I noticed that his fingers and hands were still bruised. More so than ever. His middle finger still bled at the knuckle. "Aren't you going to ask me why I'm so chipper?"
I rose a brow, leaning away. "Oh...Well..Why?"
And then he grinned.
A smile that revealed all entirety of his jagged teeth.
They glistened rudely, stained with flecks of green and yellow. Whenever I thought I'd gotten over the shock of his peculiar appearance, he found new ways to surprise me. When he smiled, he became a reflection of all the horrifying, blood-curdling, fears you had ever had rolled into one. His smile was made of barbed wires defying their purpose, not made to keep us out, but to trap us in. It matched his eyes, in all aspects. Big, soulless, dead. "I'm glad you asked."
I looked away, because I was sure my heart wouldn't have been able to cope with one more second of it. I still heard his voice, a smooth melody that would make you disbelieve it were coming from him. "Today is the 28th, it's an anniversary." He continued, humour in his voice. "A very special day for me."
There was my name again. A bullet straight into my heart. I sighed, forcing myself to look up. "What's the anniversary for?" I wanted to slap myself for sounding so breathless.
He shrugged, his smile was no longer there. Just an amusement that waltzed in between his dangerous eyes. He knew he had knocked me off my feet with that smile. "Now that's none of your fucking business."
I nodded quickly because I wasn't going to pry. Honestly, I didn't feel up for it. It was my second day with Banshee, I didn't want to bite more than I could chew. "Alright, Nicholas." I changed topics. "Tell me a bit about you, something other than the anniversary."
The question was a really long shot. He probably wouldn't answer it.
Banshee remained stoic. Only lifting a furrowed brow. "You mean, the things you haven't already assumed about me?"
"I'm not judgemental." I retorted, or so I had thought.
He scoffed and then his voice turned high pitched. "You're a disgusting murderer, Nicholas." And it took me a couple of seconds to realise that he was mocking me. That was what I had said on the first day we met. I gasped, but he looked impassive, like he hadn't just done what he'd done. His eyes narrowed. "Shut your mouth, it's rude to gape."
I held back whatever I could have said. Instead, I cleared my throat. "What I said was the truth."
"Was it? How do you know I murdered those people?" He challenged, eyes cooling.
"It's in the file, it says you turned yourself in. What more do I need?" I challenged right back, unable to distinguish between the vehemence and disgust in my voice. "I saw the pictures of the bodies too, so you can't say the murders are false. You are a disgusting murderer."
His face twitched.
It almost glitched.
Silence.
It was a silence that was only silent in the way Banshee could make it. His face revealed nothing, and his mouth had twisted back into a straight line. It was like he took a few moments to blank out of our conversation, and at first, you would think he wasn't even listening but his eyes betrayed him. They flickered like a dying candle light.
"You don't understand what I'm capable of. What I could do to you. You don't know me, Aria." He mumbled, so softly that one would mistake it for whispering. My name was like a pencil jab in my eardrum.
"I believe the file." I whispered.
Then he breathed out, slowly.
I did too, in anticipation for what he would say next. Perhaps he would explain what he meant, why he said I don't know him. I was planning to use it to my advantage. Perhaps it would be my first step in understanding the why.
The explanation never came.
Instead, he asked in a voice that could freeze over ice. "Are you Christian, Aria?" — It had come softly, like a snake hissing for the first time.
His question threw me off, as he had probably intended. He would take advantage of my stumble and use it for his own gain. I pretended not to be shocked, even as my raised eyebrows contradicted me. "In a certain sense."
His question might have been harmless to anyone else but to me, it was dangerous. My past was spotted with Christian beliefs and I had been running away from it for a long time. I had come to associate the religion with my very troubling past.
Why was Banshee asking me this?
"That's a yes. Yes?" He prodded. Then he had the decency to look shocked. "You are? I would have never guessed." He continued, and because I had intrigued him, he sat back up, elbows on the table and everything. "You don't look the part."
"Religious beliefs don't have a look."
He shook his head, a shadow of a smile dashing his face. "No, I meant your eyes. There's no G-d in them." And for some irrational reason, he looked disappointed. Before I could open my mouth to berate his words about my godless eyes, he spoke again. "I had truly thought you'd be smarter than that."
Hidden behind my thoughts, I could hear the familiar horrified gasp of my mother. She would've keeled over if someone had said one negative word against her religion. The voice spurred me to spit out — "Smarter than believing in a Perfect G-d?"
And with that, Banshee tilted his head back and laughed.
His laughter was a roar, that split my eardrums in two. It sounded like nightmare fuel. Deciphering if it were a laugh or a cry for help was hard. His jagged teeth had reared its ugly head again and I was watching the scene unfold with horror in my bones. His throat bobbed up and down as the guttural noises escaped. Slowly, blackened fear was creeping up my spine. I didn't like the sound of it. I had pushed away from the table when I heard it.
"You said Perfect G-d?" He roared, in between a dwindling laugh. "You think G-d is perfect?"
I glanced quickly at the security cameras. Woah, woah, woah, Was this normal? — I could barely get out my words but he was talking and that was the reason I was in this room. Mirabel had said that anything he said was valuable in deciphering the big why.
I looked past him, through him, behind him. Anywhere but at him. "He is."
His laughter had died down into an uneasy smile. "Aria. Aria. Aria." He muttered. "It's unfortunate how very wrong you are. Your G-d is anything but perfect." Banshee tilted his head. "The problem is that you—"
I didn't want to hear this. It was not an area I wanted to go with Banshee of all the people in the world. I forced a smile, and shook my head. "Sorry but I'm not interested in—"
"Don't!" He hissed. His eyes blazed, like the fury of Hell. "Don't interrupt me again. The next time you do it, I won't hesitate."
I could hear my heartbeat speed up and my eyes slid down to the handcuffs restraining him.
Scarily, Banshee had split from a smile to a cry in a nano-second. Was he mad? Was he really, truly demented? Perhaps twelve years in a cage had made him lose his senses. I watched as his anger subsided, just like that, and that smile returned. "As I was saying," He emphasised. "The problem is that you, Christians, just die by a thousand qualifications."
Keep him talking, Aria.
"What does that mean?" I muttered, knowing exact,y what it meant. I was not stupid.
"What I mean is that you lot would give a limb to justify all the bullshit that G-d claims to be." He shifted on his chair. Let me give you an example of his bullshit. You say G-d created all forms in the world, right?"
I didn't argue because I knew it would either excite him or anger him. To me, both consequences were as gruesome as the other. "Yes."
His lips tilted, twitched, spasmed. "So G-d created the concept of Good."
"Yes."
I could tell he was feeding off my unease because right then, he smiled, another of his infamous grins. "And somewhere out of it, the concept of Evil came along."
"You could put it that way." I muttered. Where was he going with this?
"The concept of Evil can not come out of its own self. It needs to be created somehow. And the only Creator is G-d. Therefore G-d, perfectly good G-d, created evil?" He gestured with his hand while he talked and it was the most action I had seem him do. This was another Banshee, like as though the one from yesterday had been brutally killed.
I let his words sink in and glued it to my brain. I was going to listen because his words could open up levels of his mind to me.What I wasn't going to do was satisfy him with a feasible response. If I did, he could get into my brain and try to understand my thought process. If I did, I would end up mentioning my past and he would surely get the upper hand.
Besides, his logic was much too warped from mine.
I shrugged, keeping a blank face.
And he suddenly looked livid.
"Answer the fucking question like a true Christian!" He suddenly roared. His fists slammed hard on the table and his eyes blazed. I had wanted him to keep talking so I could get more information from him but now, he seemed to be losing control, and I was somewhat becoming numb from fear.
I kept my face void of all the hurricane emotions in me. I comforted myself with the thought that I could leave whenever I wanted to. Barely above a whisper —"G-d didn't create evil."
"But He created me." He hissed.
Oh. My widened eyes was enough of a reply.
He smiled wickedly, more intrigued than before. "You believe G-d is omniscient?"
When I nodded, his eyes twinkled. No, —like supernovas, his eyes exploded. "That means G-d knows exactly who goes to Heaven and Hell before they are even born and yet puts humans through all the evils in the world?"
Did he have a point? A dirty voice in my head mused. Before I could dwell on the question, I slammed the door shut on that thought so hard that I could almost hear the sound of an actual door close.
"He only knows—"
"A rhetorical, Aria." His warning glare cut me off. "You're telling me that a G-d, who is all loving, knows that I do all kinds of shit to innocent people but does jackshit to stop it? He watched many die by my hand, sat back and relaxed for the show?"
Let him talk, Aria.
He continued, his voice melting into a harsh puddle. "Or are you telling me that a God who is all powerful cannot simply make the world void of evil? Which is it? Which of these shows you that the bastard is perfect? Which one is it?"
I winced at the violence in his words. In seeing his frustration, I realised that something was fuelling it. There wasn't just hate laced in his words, there was a heavy pile of resentment, pent up anger and belief cloaking them. He was either doing this because something inside him had been triggered or he was just a really good actor.
Cotton pads of terror had padded the insides of my mouth and I sounded muffled. "He got you arrested, didn't he?"
He jabbed a bruised finger at his chest. "I turned my goddamn self in."
Even if I wanted to argue with him, I physically couldn't because his face was twisting into one of derangement. He was getting excited. "Don't question God."
And Banshee's eyes flew wide open like saucers. "Don't question—?!" He shook his head. "Damn it, Aria, I know you're not stupid."
When I didn't reply, he sighed, falling back against his chair. "You remind me of someone I killed a while ago. The whore didn't stop praying to God to save her, right until the blood gagged her throat and blinded her. I killed her. I did it. And God didn't, or couldn't stop me."
Did you cry afterwards? You did. Why did you cry? —was what I wanted to ask but instead I said. "Perhaps He let you do it because he knows the woman has a better place in heaven."
"Fuck that." He groaned and then slammed a fist against the table so hard that I feared it'd crack. He leaned closer, face almost pressing up against the glass. "Fuck. That. If she was destined for this heaven that you speak of why—" His chest heaved, and his voice went octaves louder. "— did your God let her die like she were an animal?! Why did he let me rip out her throat with my pair of scissors?"
Just then, by seeing the flames in his eyes, I knew that if Banshee and I had not been separated by the glass wall, the Devil would shy away from the consequences of his actions. I was swimming in a myriad of fear.
I only gulped, unable to move.
Banshee's eyes twitched and he heaved, not screaming anymore. "If she was destined for heaven from the start, why send her here where people like me dwell?"
The silence between us was pregnant.
Within the silence, his anger had dissipated.
Now, he smiled, like he had won a challenge. "Tell me why, Aria?"
My heart was racing and I was bitter. "Perhaps she had a purpose on earth before you killed her."
"She was a prostitute, what other purpose did she have but to suck my dick for £10?"
I was exasperated at this back and forth. I wanted to know why he was doing this. "Why are you arguing about this with me? All He asks is for you to worship him, love him, follow his laws. There's nothing wrong with that."
"That's a long fucking list." He whistled. "He sounds like a needy bastard."
"He sacrificed himself, died, for us."
"Anyone could sacrifice themselves like that."
"That's a lie."
"I could die for you." He spat. "And I don't even know you." He smiled again. "Does that make me a G-d?"
I pushed my chair back.
What was the point of this discussion? —was all that was going through my head. For some reason, it was exactly then that I wanted to leave. The session was nearing to a close anyway. "Excuse me."
When I stood, Banshee stood too, shoving his chair back so hard that it flew behind him. That stopped me. He slammed his handcuffed hand against the glass and the blood from his bruised fingers left a print. "We're not finished."
I glanced back at the discreet exit door that was five steps away from my chair and then back at his wild, wild eyes.
Then some thing strange happened.
On seeing my fear, his face changed. He stepped back from the glass. He almost looked like he was softening, breathing hard. Then Banshee said. "I'm sorry for yelling. I'm sorry. Don't leave yet. Just answer this."
I froze, because of the softness of his voice.
He whispered, straining against his handcuffs. "Isn't there one person in your life that has made you question whether G-d exists after all? One person that was a testimony that showed that even he did exist, He was capable of making mistakes?"
Instantly, I felt like I had exploded out of my skin and transported back into the past.
Monochrome images of my childhood flashed before my eyes. Cinematic images of all the things that have ever happened in my life. All the tragedy, the death, the blood, the tears, the hate, the deep hate, and for the finale, the one man behind my nightmares.
There was.
There was.
There was.
Banshee's smooth voice broke me out of my reverie. "I know there is."
Oh, but there was no way he could know.
____
Stepping out of the room, I was faced with a wide eyed Frank, and two other assistants who seemed just as startled as he was. I could see his hand clamped tight around a walkie talkie, his knuckles looked white. "Are you alright?"
I could trace the concern on each of their faces. My voice was breathless, like I had run a 100m sprint race. "Yeah, I'm fine..."
"Really? Are you sure?" Frank prodded, stepping closer to me. He looked like pale and he had splotches of sweat on his armpits. "What did you say to him to make him that way? What happened in there?" Frank scowled suddenly and then looked at the door from which I had come in. "Did you tell him anything about you?"
He was pelting me with so many questions but it was the last one that stuck like adhesive. What kind of question was that? I was confused. "No."
He heaved a rough sigh and looked away.
"What's going on?" I muttered, directing it at the assistants.
I noticed two screens on the table before them. One that revealed Banshee slowly trudging through the doors and the other showed a close up of the table that I and Banshee sat at. I noticed in the the first screen that none of the guards that surrounded Banshee moved to touch him.
Breaking me out of my reverie, an assistant wearing headphones cleared his throat. "Apologies for the confusion, Miss Black. Prisoner 143 just seemed very upset and he's not often this way."
I shrugged. "I'm not sure why. I was confused too." I wrinkled my nose. "He did make talk about today being an anniversary and then I said-" I paused. This wasn't the normal procedure. I knew, from the last time I had been here, that I was supposed to go into the small room with the recording device. "Wait, am I not going to record this session? Did I do something wrong?"
Frank wasn't saying anything. He looked intrigued, watching me pensively.
The headphone wearing assistant spoke instead. "No, no, you didn't. Normal procedures will be taken. We're just very curious that you managed to get this reaction out of a normally impassive prisoner."
I frowned. "I don't know why he was like that."
The other assistant who had been silent finally spoke. He was looking at papers scattered on the table. "You said he said it's an anniversary? That's strange." He looked back at the other assistant. "He called today his anniversary. Make a note of it."
My brows furrowed. "Why is it strange?"
And Frank spoke, a serious expression on his face. "It has to do with his mother."
His mother?
And it hit me like a freight train.
Banshee had done all that on purpose.
I know he had wanted me to know that the anniversary had to do with his mother. He had asked me if I believed in G-d and his final question was if there was somebody who made me feel like G-d was capable of making mistakes. Had he indirectly told me something about his mother? Was she his reason for doubting G-d's effervescence? Was she the reason for his vehement argument against G-d's presumed perfection?
Perhaps she she bad to him like....the man from my past was to me? Did he and I finally have something in common? My voice was small. "His mother, who is she?"
The other two people looked away and only Frank watched me carefully. He picked up Banshees file and showed me exactly who she was.
- CRIMES COMMITTED: The murder of Lorraine Dementia, aged 71.
- Date of death: 28/09/1998
To ice the entire cake, he elaborated. "The anniversary of the day he killed his own mother."
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[a/n] This was a hard chapter to write because I don't know if I was getting my point a cross properly. I will return to edit it! 💔 DOUBLE UPDATE!