THE LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - BWS

five

I didn't have much sleep last night. My thoughts were stolen by Dr. Stoker— by William. He was all I could think about until I finally passed out some time after three in the morning. I had replayed our conversations a million times, and every single time I was left wondering how I went from suspicious when we were in his office, to telling him my life story at the restaurant. I couldn't deny the attraction I had for him, and the effect he had on my body that seemed to react in the most bizarre ways when I was close to him. But that didn't explain why I had felt so at ease with him that I told him things I had never shared before.

My thoughts always circled back to how the evening had ended. The threat in his voice when he told me to be careful. Had I imagined it? I was certain I didn't. But he seemed sincere when he said he had a nice time, or he was a good actor. In any case, he was hiding something and the Hunter in me itched to discover what.

Sorry Rick, I wasn't going home today.

Sitting on the uncomfortable bed of my motel room, I scrolled the internet looking for anything I could find on Dr. William Stoker. Dee lay next to me, her head resting on my thigh. I sighed for the tenth time in the last five minutes. There wasn't much about him online. No social media presence, and if it wasn't for the list of doctors' names on the hospital's website, I wouldn't have found anything at all. For such a praised doctor, I found it hard to believe he hadn't published any medical articles or hadn't been mentioned anywhere.

Dee's head suddenly lifted in alert, and not even a second later my phone started ringing.

"Good girl," I praised her as I scratched her fur behind her ears. Her ability to foresee some things was a real blessing when we were out on a job.

I looked at the screen, my eyebrows arching in surprise at the sight of the caller ID.

"Good morning, Chief," I greeted the man after placing the phone over my ear. "Any new leads?"

"I'm afraid not, but we have a second victim."

I froze. That was exactly what I feared. All doubts suddenly left me. I couldn't leave, not with a creature roaming free and on a killing spree. I needed to find whatever it was, and kill it myself.

I drove straight to the coroner's office where Chief Turner was waiting for me in the parking lot.

"Good morning, agent," he said with a nod and I returned the greeting. "I thought you'd be interested in seeing this."

I was grateful the Chief was as open and willing to share info with me as he was. It was unfortunately not often the case.

"The body was found near Upper Weston, not far from the hospital, shredded to pieces. To be honest with you, I'm glad to have support from the Bureau on that one. I've really never seen anything like this," he continued as we entered the building and made our way down to the basement floor.

The smell of chemicals and death hit me the moment we left the elevator and entered the hallway, the same way it had a few days ago.

"Same marks on the body? Are we sure the same cre—" I almost slipped. "The same animal did that?"

"They looked the same, but Dr. Stoker will be able to confirm that," he said just as we entered the office and my blood turned to ice.

William was standing on the other side of the room, leaning above a corpse, surgical instruments in his gloved hands and deep inside the stew on the mortuary trolley. Dressed in the same outfit as the day before, except for the white lab coat, he looked just as dashing and the fact that he had his hands deep in flesh didn't even change that. I wondered why he was wearing the same clothes, and put it on the fact that he had most likely spent the night at the hospital.