Union of predators

The ABC-Atticus Publishing House represents the novel by Maxim Shattam "Union of Predators" (translation by Alla Belyak).

The first part of the Parisian Department of Investigations from the famous French author, who is compared with Stephen King. The French police are powerless before ruthless criminals, slowly torturing their victims. Each crime is marked with the same sign, but completely different people under different circumstances. The deadly fire of the war between the anonymouss is thrown into neighboring countries. Then the Parisian department of investigations with an experienced profiler in his ranks is taken up to business. Will they be able to stop this dangerous game or become a new target for perverted killers?

We offer to read a fragment of the novel.

“It looks like you are good here.”

“I do not regret that I resigned,” Michelis answered quickly, “if you are about it.” Here, in the mountains, I am calm, and my flock is with me. I do not want to drag the ghosts of the past here. Therefore, now you will quickly tell me your business, satisfy my curiosity, and then call your colonel and say that I listened to you, but did not help. And then you will return to the valley, sit down on the train and bring to everyone and everyone: in any, even worse, case, Richard Mikelis will not return to work. I listen to you.

Alexis swallowed, squeezed a hot cup with his hands, then he wanted to take a red folder, but the interlocutor abruptly stopped him:

- No, no photos and reports. I want to hear the case from your lips. In your words.

The gendarme shook his head slowly. He straightened up on the bench so that the vertebrae cracked. He was looking for where to start.

“Let's go from the main thing,” Mikelis prompted quietly, as if reading his thoughts.

Alexis decided to go on chronology:

- The first sacrifice was found on the shore of Marne in the department of hay and Marna, not far from a village forgotten by God called Annet.

- “The first sacrifice”, that is, you have a series of crimes?

Alexis nodded.

- It was the end of June. The victim turned out to be ... very badly damaged. And not because she was found in the water-the body did not remain there for long. Traces of numerous injuries. Torture, rape - all in full. Multiple traces of strangulation superimposed on each other. At first, the forensic expert decided that the killer did not immediately manage to strangle her and therefore took up the matter three or four times. But there were also characteristic signs of resuscitation: hematomas in the sternum-regime region, bruises on the nose and so on. Obviously, the one who did it with her, tortured her, raped and strangled her until she was on the verge of death. And then he returned her to life. He did it several times until she left completely. Her name was Kle ...

- Without names. Continue.

A little confused, Alexis licked his lips before continuing:

-The second sacrifice was found in the forest near Port-Marley, in the Ivelyn department, at the very beginning of August. Again, a woman, this time a little older, thirty -three years old. The same injuries, the same handwriting, the same attempts to strangle, and then reanimate the victim until it dies.

- Ivelyn is not in your sector, what do you have to do with it?

- Since the two thousand twelve years, the Parisian investigation department has jurisdiction at the national level. We can be transferred to us from all over the country if they are related to the investigation that is carried out with us. There is just such a case.

- How did you establish a connection between these two murders? The handwriting of the criminal?

- Yes. He strangles the sacrifices to their own underwear, simultaneously by force, then reanimates to force again, and so on. In addition, in both cases, he acted in the houses of his victims: we found traces of struggle, blood, sperm there ... But neither in the other case are any traces of hacking. Therefore, they gave him a nickname - a phantom. But that's not all. He cuts the letter on their back.

Mikelis raised his eyebrows in surprise:

- Does the word make up from the letters?

- No, the letter is always the same - e. And in front of her is an asterisk.

This time, Alexis pulled out a photograph from the red folder and moved it closer to the Crimi Nologa on the table.

Pink skin, many moles on the lower back.

And - a torn roller of the skin below the shoulder blades, a raspberry groove instead of ink, a strange message, like a stigma deeply imprinted in the flesh: *e .

“Two victims in less than four months,” Michelis remarked.

- This killer - yes.

Without releasing a photo from his hands, Mikelis raised his transparent eyes to the gendarme:

- And what, there is another?

- If only this type does not suffer from a split personality. In the period from July to September in the east of France, three victims were discovered in deserted places. This criminal does not torment the victims for a long time, kills quite quickly, different methods. I strangled only one. Real frantic beast. Nonhumans.

- And what, the first is not a beast?

- The first is more methodological. It is felt that he consistently realizes some kind of obsessive idea. The killer from the east is a butcher. Full scumbag. We call his beast.

- Is there a DNA for the second too?

- If we have everything we need by the phantom, because he left sperm, then on the beast, on the contrary, there is nothing. Apparently uses condoms.

Michelis grimaced, shifting his eyebrows:

- In that case, he is not a psycho, he owns himself.

- Maybe he did not end ... condoms are only an assumption.

- Did you try to find traces of lubrication in the laboratory?

- It was ... not easy. To say that he is a beast is still half a truth.

- Do you have three victims, and you did not find his pubic hair?

- No. Not a single one. Not a single hair, nothing.

-He had to leave something, especially in three crimes, he cannot be clean all the time.

-Just ... every time ... it's some kind of nightmare. You see, he ... he ...

- Well? What is he doing with them?

“We believe that he eats them.”

This time, Mikelis froze with an open mouth for a second.

- Why did you decide so?

- Traces of bites. Torn wounds, absent pieces of meat. He has a huge mouth. This is the only clue, if only we manage to use it. The forensic expert said that this is the biggest mouth that he has ever met. And amazing teeth.

- That is?

Alexis swallowed, he was embarrassed by these details.

- Sharp. As if the whole jaw is filled with fangs.

The criminologist thought, covering his mouth with a large palm. Finally, taking his hand, he asked quite seriously:

- So you hunt a vampire?

- Sometimes it seems to me so ...

-You are dealing with something between a psychotic and a psychopath. From the first - madness, from the second - meticulousness and thorough caution. Enough not-

The usual case, I agree.

- I warned you.

Mikelis took a sip of coffee and asked:

- What is the connection between the two series of murders?

- Three girls found in the east of France also have the letter *e , it is cut out with a knife on the buttock on the left side.

Mikelis sat for some time concentrated, plunging into his thoughts.

“Are you sure they have different handwriting, that these are two different killers?” He finally asked.

- Everything leads to such an idea.

- Another clue?

- According to the first - nothing. The second is less meticulous. In addition to traces of bites, we found prints of car tires for two of three crime seats.

- Did you identify the machine model?

- In the footsteps, it was possible to set the distance between the axes, the radius of rotation of the wheels and the type of tires. In principle, experts of the Forensic Research Institute of Forensics believe that this is the “Reno-Twingo” of the first model.

- DNA in the traces of bites? Saliva...

- Nothing ... I must say ... This is each time mess. The forensic expert only spread his hands: everything is flooded with blood, it spoils all the biomaterial, which is already extremely small.

- So, you have two serial killers, which, as you currently know, began criminal activities at about the same time and signed by the same symbol.

- We do not know whether they act together and exchange experience, or these are two freaks who, before liberation from prison, agreed to arrange a competition and now everyone lives on their own. But they are somehow connected.

1. Research Institute of Forensics of National Gendarmerie. - Note. trans.