Darling, Pass the Knife

Chop. Chop. Chop.

The knife slammed against the cutting board, getting just a bit louder with every strike. The cadence and the wet squelch that followed had Daniel picturing a guillotine snapping rhythmically over and over as it tried to cut through a particularly thick neck.

All around Victoria’s apartment, moonlight dragged itself through rain-streaked windows until Daniel finally clawed his way back to consciousness with a low groan from deep within his throat. His eyelids peeled open one at a time, and he winced. The stab wound beneath his ribs reopened with every breath he took, the sight and accompanying noises bringing a pleased little grin to Victoria’s face.

Daniel shifted in the chair, trying to drag his hands toward his face, but soon found coarse rope cinched his wrists tight behind the chair’s wooden frame.

The kitchen smelled of rosemary, of butter browning in the pan, and red wine breathing from an open glass. Beneath it all lingered another scent Daniel could recognize faster than he could recognize his mother’s cigarettes.

Blood.

“You know,” Victoria said, turning the meat with tongs, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve lost my touch. Men usually beg me for mercy the moment they wake up.”

At the stove, Victoria took a long sip of the liquid that had the dark red tint of wine but clung to and stained the glass like blood. Tasting both on her tongue, she gave a long sigh.

A white apron hugged her waist over a yellow dress, the sleeves folded to the elbows. As she paced around the kitchen, she hummed an old cheery tune. Grease stained her wrist, but another stain darkened the cuff near her forearm, reddish-brown at the center where the fabric had soaked deepest. Anyone without a taste for the morbid, anyone who hadn’t spent time among the damned would have likely mistaken it for sauce, but Daniel knew exactly how blood dried. He knew how old it was depending on fabric quality, temperature, and time exposed to air.

He had spent fifteen years analyzing and memorizing death in its various forms. How thick and how thin the blood looked against the tile grout compared to the coat linings. How it hid beneath floorboards, under fingernails, and, most delicious of all (if anyone were to ask him), beneath wedding rings.

Daniel leaned back, and the chair answered with a strained creak. “Maybe you’re just getting old, Vic.”

A smile curled instantly at the corners of her mouth, pleased rather than insulted. “Is that any way to speak to a lady, dearest?”

“Lady?” His laugh scraped out rough. “Is the lady in the room with us?”

“You wound me,” Victoria lamented, a hand on her chest, as the pan hissed louder. “And after all I’ve done for you…” She plated the meat with a gaze that bordered on mocking. “Honestly, my dear,” she mused, “you should’ve arrested me when you had the chance. Waiting this long almost makes it look like you knew I’d come to you eventually. Like you wanted me to.”

Daniel smiled, unable to stop himself. “I didn’t know. But I hoped.”

Victoria turned fully toward him, leaning one hip against the table. “My, detective. What would your poor wife say?”

“Probably thank you for stabbing me.”

That earned a quick but genuine chuckle from Victoria. “Tell me,” she said after a moment, glancing back toward the stove, “what gave me away?”

Daniel hummed and rolled his shoulders against the ropes. “The choir boy.”

Intrigue flashed across Victoria’s face. “Oh?” she purred.

“He had ligature marks from piano wire.” Daniel held her gaze. “You play piano.”

“Many people play piano.”

“You removed two fingers after killing him.”

Victoria’s grin widened, pride blooming across her face without the slightest trace of shame. “And how does that point to me, exactly?”

“Because they were cut with precision, but not the precision of a surgeon. They were cut with a cleaver.” Daniel watched her carefully as he spoke, cataloguing every flicker in her eyes as she hung onto his every word. “The calluses on your right hand matched the wire tension needed for the murder. I theorized that whoever killed him either cooked professionally or trained under a chef. And then I saw your kitchen. Your freezer smelled like bleach.”

Victoria barked out a laugh so genuine it nearly sounded affectionate. “Oh, that beautiful brain of yours, Detective.” She sighed, then reined herself back in, casting a dark, scathing look his way. “Took you long enough.”

Daniel’s gaze turned toward the stove again. “What cut is it?”

“Are you asking out of professional curiosity?”

“I’m asking because I’d like to know your technique before I taste human flesh.”

“Ah.” Her smile returned tenfold. “Fair enough. But you’ll have to see for yourself.”

The record player crackled, switching to the next song somewhere in the living room while Victoria plated another serving for herself.

Daniel watched the food. Victoria watched Daniel watching the food. Neither blinked much, and neither dared to breathe too deeply. A palpable silence stretched tighter between them, each waiting for the other to break first. Heat crawled slowly up Daniel’s neck beneath her attention, and that awareness irritated him more than the ropes digging into his wrists.

It was Daniel who gave in first. “Who’s the lucky bastard?”

Victoria crossed one leg over the other as she sat across from him. “Bernard Lemaire. Forty-six. Financial crimes attorney. Buried women in debt. Then buried one in his backyard.”

“You’re saying you killed him for moral reasons?” Daniel scoffed. “You?”

“Oh, don’t look so disappointed.” Victoria sliced into the meat, steam curling upward in pale ribbons. “God forbid I have hobbies and principles. But no.” She hummed, short and sweet. “I killed him because he pronounced my last name incorrectly. On purpose. Quite rude, that one.”

Daniel laughed. The sound ricocheted through the apartment, and Victoria practically lit up at hearing it, laughing right back, louder than him, almost making a contest out of it.

As Daniel’s laughter faded, he lifted his eyes toward her slowly, staring through hooded lids. “Why am I not dead yet, Vic?”

“Because…” Victoria raised her wineglass and took a slow sip without breaking eye contact. Red stained the inside of her lips. “Your third victim gave you away.”

Daniel’s mouth twitched, a microscopic betrayal at the corner of his lips before he smothered it.

“The man in Southside,” Victoria continued conversationally. “The loving husband with the murdered wife. Everyone knew who did it, but your department couldn’t prove it. Tragic little affair, wouldn’t you say? Very emotional funeral. Half the mourners looked more disappointed at you than grief-stricken.” Her smile unfolded gradually over the rim of the glass. “I was disappointed too. You were wearing that hideous tie. Grey is not your color.”

“You were there?”

“Back pew.” Victoria waved a hand around. “The coffee tasted like burnt soil.” She made a distressed sound at the back of her throat, the mere memory offending her. “I nearly left.”

A cold sensation settled low in Daniel’s stomach, though fear had very little to do with it. Fear constricted his throat. This feeling did the opposite. It made him breathe better, peeled apart every layer he had spent years stitching closed. Another person had looked directly into the wreckage inside his wretched mind and smiled instead of recoiling. Another predator had seen the blood beneath the fingernails he scrubbed raw every night and, instead of calling the cops, admired the craftsmanship. Or so he hoped his artistry was a thing to be admired.

“You stabbed the husband fourteen times,” Victoria said. “Police reports withheld that detail from the press, but you told a colleague the killer must’ve been angry.”

Daniel stayed quiet as Victoria leaned forward slightly across the table, candlelight slipping over her face.

“Fourteen is indulgence, my dear,” she whispered, voice low and warm. “Fourteen is… rather intimate, wouldn’t you say?”

The words settled heavily in Daniel’s chest because they were true.

A detective by profession. A murderer by appetite.

For years, he had hidden it masterfully beneath paperwork, sleepless nights, case files lined with precinct dust ground deep into the seams. He hunted men for sport, though not because they had insulted him or attacked his loved ones. He went after respectable monsters, men who paid for their alibis. Men who killed and thought they’d get away with it. Daniel would call himself a vigilante of sorts, a serial killer for killers. Daniel tracked them down, cornered them, learned their habits, and then killed them, not to be celebrated as a hero, but because everybody wanted them gone and nobody cared whether their killer was ever caught. Because someone had done the world a favor and removed the parasites. And after every kill, Daniel slept beautifully, better than after any prayer his mother had once forced into his mouth as a child. Satisfied at having made the world a better place.

“And then,” Victoria continued, her delight curling around every syllable, “I checked your evidence logs. Funny little inconsistencies scattered everywhere. Missing photographs. One molar mysteriously disappears from storage. You like trophies too, don’t you?” Her grin widened. “Honestly, Daniel, it almost feels like you wanted somebody to notice.”

“Doesn’t every artist yearn for an audience?”

“You,” Victoria scoffed, “are the furthest thing from an artist imaginable, dear. You’re a butcher.”

Chop.

Another clean slice came away from the steak, and that’s when Daniel realized he hadn’t even noticed Victoria picking the knife up again.

“I, meanwhile,” Victoria said, inspecting the sharpness with approval, “possess vision.” She brought the knife closer to Daniel’s throat, close enough to touch the protruding vein there.

Daniel snorted through his nose, graceless and genuinely entertained, and Victoria begrudgingly discovered she enjoyed the sound far more than she should have.

Most victims of hers became unbearably dull once the promise of death entered the room, once they had screamed their lungs out. They cried. Bargained. Drifted away from themselves entirely. Occasionally, they vomited. Daniel, however, danced with death as though he heard music no one else could.

“You aren’t eating,” Victoria observed eventually, pouting. “Feeling unwell, darling?”

“Hard to eat with my hands tied behind my back.”

“Nonsense.” Victoria gestured lazily toward the plate with her fork.

Go on, her eyes said.

Daniel let out a rough little laugh, his disbelief wrapped tightly around it.

Surely not, his expression answered back.

Victoria only held his gaze, entirely serious. “Every restaurant has policies,” she said with a shrug, then sighed long and heavy. “But I suppose you’ve caught me in a generous mood.”

This time she cut off a smaller piece. Steam curled upward, carrying rosemary, garlic, and that unmistakable rotten sweetness beneath it all. Human flesh smelled disappointingly similar to chicken when cooked correctly.

Victoria rose from her chair and circled the table at an unhurried pace, one hand folded behind her back while the other carried the fork.

Daniel tracked her approach as she stepped closer, closer, close enough now to catch the scent of perfume. Expensive fabric brushed against his shoulder as Victoria stopped beside him, and suddenly he became aware of every exposed inch of skin along his neck.

“You know,” Victoria whispered near his ear, “men start gagging around this part.”

“I imagine most men haven’t spent years drenched in other men’s blood.”

A small, indulgent smile spread slowly across Victoria’s face. “That,” she said, “is precisely why you’ll be my favorite trophy.”

The fork hovered near Daniel’s mouth, held there like an invitation rather than a threat. That made it infinitely worse because no force compelled him to do this. It would be his decision to lean forward and take a bite. His depravity.

Daniel stared at the bite while darker thoughts churned beneath the surface. Refuse, and this evening could end with him butchered into pieces, the next meal hissing in the pan. Accept, and there would be no line left to pretend still existed. Then again, Daniel had crossed every meaningful boundary years ago.

Victoria’s expression softened with terrible fondness when Daniel finally opened his mouth. Satisfaction flickered across her face so quickly it nearly escaped notice. Heat stirred beneath her skin as she watched him bite carefully against the fork, eyes fixed on her the entire time while he chewed.

“Well?” Victoria asked the moment he swallowed.

Daniel regarded her with complete seriousness. Then he hummed thoughtfully and said, “Needs salt.”

Silence crashed across the apartment, and for one suspended second, Daniel genuinely expected to blink and find a knife buried beneath his ribs. Maybe dragged across his throat.

He watched Victoria’s face carefully, waiting for her to take offense and start her bloody song and dance.

Instead, Victoria laughed so violently she had to brace one hand against the back of Daniel’s chair. Bright laughter rang through the apartment with near-manic delight, lively enough to border on derangement.

“Oh, you,” she breathed eventually. “I knew there was a reason I spared you.”

“You haven’t spared me yet.”

“Mm. No.” The smile faded gradually from Victoria’s face, though warmth remained stubbornly in her eyes afterward. She looked at Daniel differently now. Before, there had only been hunger. Curiosity, perhaps. Now amusement tangled together with the first dangerous traces of affection.

The fork tapped lightly against the plate before Victoria carved off another bite. “This one,” she informed him, “has shallots.”

Daniel tilted his head up at her. “Trying to impress me? What would my wife say?”

“Probably thank me for tying you up.”

“You restrain all your dates?”

“Well.” Victoria glanced pointedly toward the ropes. “I do have a reputation to maintain.”

“Cut the shit, Vic.” Daniel tilted his head slightly, studying her with open appraisal. “What happens to me now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You caught me. I caught you. We share hobbies.” Beneath the table, Daniel flexed one hand experimentally, drawing attention to it, working feeling back into stiff fingers. “What happens next?”

Victoria chewed thoughtfully for a moment. She reached out and loosened one cord around Daniel’s wrist, though not enough to free him completely.

Daniel studied her. He had his opening now.

“A relationship built on honesty,” Victoria said as she returned to her seat, “is terribly rare these days. I don’t trust you, but I can be honest with you.” She lifted her wineglass lazily, as if in a small toast. “Wouldn’t you say the same, dear?”

“Depends.” Daniel rubbed circulation slowly back into his hand. “Are you planning to kill me and eat me?”

“Depends.” Victoria smiled across the candlelight, eyes gleaming amber in the dim apartment. “You’ve never hunted a woman before. Can I be your exception?”

Daniel smiled back.