A golden amulet depicting a scowling lion hung around Darla’s neck, the depressions in the metal dark with dried blood. The amulet opened to reveal a thin dagger which she used on a daily basis to kill people who weren’t expecting it. Today she sat in a business meeting, grey business suit on, listening to the way assets would be sold and repurchased within the company to bilk the stockholders. As they talked she lost herself in thought, pondering whether morals and principals were based on intelligence or whether you could be extremely intelligent and have no morals.

Then she excused herself to the ladies’ room and killed the cleaning lady. She wiped the lion dagger and returned it to the chain around her neck. Stepping over the body, she went back to the meeting. The technicalities of the bilking went on for hours. She watched Evan, who had a kind of manic excitement when he defrauded innocents. He got a lustful sparkle in his eye talking about it.

Later, after skillfully evading some pestering police investigators, Evan and Darla had lunch. The sparkle had gone from Evan’s eye and he seemed bored and distracted. Darla couldn’t help but fantasize about killing more people. She saw the bistro’s wait-staff covered in blood, even Evan with his neck slit, blood shooting out like water from a hose. “What are you thinking?” Evan asked her.

“About those securities. You really think no one will find out?” She asked him. His eyes came to life again. “The beauty of it is that they will thank us! Thank us!” He laughed, stuffing fries into his mouth with a suddenly renewed hunger.

When they got inside his car she took the lion and stabbed his neck. Soon the blood sprayed everywhere just like in her fantasy. Even she got blood on her. She got out of the car and took off her grey jacket, which had gotten spatters. She folded it over her arm and crossed the parking structure to the stairwell, wiping a few drops off her cheek.

Just before she went through the doorway she looked back at Evan, who she could barely see through the blood-soaked windshield. Then she went on down the stairs. She met a few tourists and she killed them in the stairwell- expertly slitting their throats before they could scream. She stood for a while looking at the bodies and felt a strange stirring of emotion.

By the time she’d made it down to the street level she was sobbing uncontrollably.

She went back up the stairs and knelt in front of the young girl she’d killed. She hugged her and sobbed, squeezing the dead body close to hers. When the police arrived they had some difficulty prying Darla off the girl.

Later, when the alley was full of police cars, an ambulance and a fire-engine, the detectives gave her a blanket and a cup of coffee and asked her some questions. She trembled silently for a while. Then she handed over the bloody lion amulet.

The detective examined the weapon. Then he called over to Carlos, the chief of police. Carlos inspected it next. Then, as he looked at Darla, a tremendous smile widened on his face. “I been looking for you for a long, long time,” he said. And as they cuffed her and put her in the back of the squad car, he walked around in circles, looking up towards the sky and repeatedly thanking God in his native Spanish.

Copyright © 2008. All Rights Reserved.