The Knife
The Slasher had been surprisingly easy to capture. He had been armed with nothing but the now famous knife, and had broken down crying and cooperated completely once it was out of his grip. The Slasher, terror of the entire state, sat weeping incoherently in the back of a squad car.
The knife itself rested in an evidence bag held by Officer Kyle Bowman. It was a ghastly-looking thing. The files identified it as a Mangbetu sickle, with a long curving blade and a handle made of ivory and carved ironwood. Feathers from some exotic bird had been tied to the pommel. The knife had obviously been cared for almost reverently. The blade was polished to a mirror finish, and not even the feathers showed the slightest stain of blood. It was almost beautiful, in a macabre kind of way.
Knives were really terrifying weapons when you got down to it. A scrape or even an animal claw mark was a good honest wound. A blunt weapon at least depended on the strength of the assailant. A knife, though; with almost no push behind the attack a sharp knife would cleave clean red lines and arcs, unnaturally even separations in the flesh welling with blo–His partner called to him. Kyle realized that he had been staring at the knife resting, so seemingly innocent, in its evidence bag. Staring at it for quite some time. He followed his partner back to the squad car, feeling oddly dazed.
Kyle would have preferred to go home and rest, but the Slasher had been a big case, and they wanted him to get his part of the paperwork done as soon as possible. As he signed one bit of bureaucratic nonsense after another, he began to become entranced with the way the pen cut the white surface of the paper, leaving neat black loops of letters behind.
Kyle awoke on his desk and realized several hours had passed. Since it was already evening he decided whatever paperwork he hadn’t finished before he’d fallen asleep could wait until tomorrow. Part of his mind wondered why his fellow officers had allowed him to sleep at the precinct, but something pushed the thought away before he could dwell on it. His feet slid in something wet as he walked out of the building, but he hardly noticed.
His wife was watching television when he got home. She turned to greet him, but suddenly started to scream. He tried to comfort her, but she just backed away, screaming and pointing at his hand. Kyle looked down at his hand, saw his wife’s reflection in the polished blade he carried, and immediately realized what was upsetting her. Her skin didn’t have nearly enough beautiful red lines and arcs. Well, he could fix that for her.