Devil Take The Hindmost

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"I told yous, I fookin' told yous all!" Widdershinz positively vibrated with glee, surveying the rest of us with a proselytising zeal etched into every fibre of his being after we brought him up to speed.

Ty groaned when I suggested, perhaps, we needed some additional insight into the occult to help us over the line before he could start cracking heads. He, however, was perfectly content to crack them all now and let God, or one of their Devils, sort the guilty from the innocent.

While I too was keen Darren Atkins and the others get some form of justice, I wanted to ensure it was of the legal variety.

So, we all trooped out to the farm to seek an audience with the Strathclyde Sage who remained ensconced in the Pebble Deeping farmhouse. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the predicted, and now manifest, told-you-so-ing occurring, but needs must when the Devil drives, and by my watch we had under two hours until the sun rose on the day when another person was likely to die.

Priya, on the other hand, stayed behind at her place.

She offered to go through the CCTV footage while we followed some other leads, and both Ty and I had gratefully accepted. After her uncharacteristic display of emotion earlier, we worried that if it transpired the killer was a member of the Daughters of Wulfrun, she would take it very badly.

The affiliation of the murderer, it soon turned out, was an outstanding matter of some debate among the temporarily expanded Waifs and Strays team.

"The Daughters of Wulfrun have been investigated from time-to-time over the years, mostly at the insistence of sclerotic po-faced businessmen who lost out on a contract to a woman and cried foul. I don't believe they are capable of orchestrating a campaign of brutal murder.

The Call of the Void, on the other hand, are out-and-out satanists with a mixed gender membership, which would account for your run-ins with men in black hoodies," Cat gesticulated wildly as she put forward her theory.

"I have checked the files on them, and individuals believed to be members of The Void have been investigated for a whole host of things over the years, including animal mutilation, theft, poisoning, kidnapping and rape."

"Aye," Widdershinz nodded thoughtfully. "That all sounds plausible, and the subversion of societal norms, especially around birth, death and sex, are all key tae many who tread the left-hand path."

"All of the homeless victims had washed and ejaculated prior to their death," I mused. "And Weatherby's bedroom suggested it had been thoroughly used before his bathroom bloodletting."

"Barney was stark naked," Ty added by way of reminder.

"So, we can assume all of them had sex before they were killed, and none showed any signs of defence wounds?" I addressed the latter statement to Cat who flipped speedily through the illicit pictures of the police files on her phone.

"Nope."

"How do you kill a series of men without any of them trying to defend themselves?" I posed a rhetorical query. "It helps if the man in question actively wants to be in the presence of the killer, he trusts them or is distracted in some way."

"A woman. They fuck and then the guy is killed," Ty expressed what I was thinking.

"During or after," I affirmed. "And a woman, or women, assuming the victims are all straight, entices the victim and then ..." I tailed off.

"I don't think it would be very difficult. The guys on the street, Weatherby, Montague, I don't imagine they would turn down an offer."

"Sex as a ritual is common for occult groups," Widdershinz added, almost wistfully.