The Soul Consortium by Simon West-Bulford

my involvement, were no longer able to speak. Attempts to discuss the demise of their friend resulted in prolonged episodes of mute panic and tearful hysteria. I chose not to investigate further.
    December 1: Jane Laughday. Survivor of a laboratory explosion.
    December 12: Jamie Colson. Remission from prostate cancer.
    February 14: Troy Davenport. Failed suicide attempt.
    March 3: Alfie Bennet. Sole survivor of a food poisoning scandal.
    May 29: Lisa Barclay. Thrown from a fairground ride.
    June 8: Tim Sweetman. Lived through an aneurysm.
    Died a few days later after a second aneurysm … with a little help from a certain cocktail of drugs, of course.
    The list went on. Each time I found out about people who had cheated my goddess I was there to ensure they paid their debt. And no matter how many times I tested Mr. Vieta’s ability to clean up my murderous mistakes, he would always be there, waiting.
    The entire nation, consumed by fascination, had labeled me the Magpie Killer. One particularly resourceful detective inspector noticed that all my victims had lost a personal item they had been using close to the time of death. The motive was unknown, but the discovery earned the inspector a commendation, a sizable reward, and a sudden brain seizure, for which I am quite sure was the handiwork of my creeping shadow, Keitus Vieta. The only communication the psychoanalysts could get from the inspector was a stream of letters scrawled in block capitals:
HEISNOWHERE.
And they were always followed by a long scream of terror that could only be silenced with morphine.
    Under such circumstances it seemed my calling was irrevocable. I would never be caught. But that all changed the following year, seven days after my forty-sixth birthday, the day Keitus Vieta chose to take something of mine.

NINE
     
    A ddiction is ugly. When one is deprived of their vice, the heart swells like a ravenous sponge. It becomes a fallen tyrant, screaming its demands and sobbing its grief in a volume that drowns out any words of quiet reason the mind might impart.
    Five months passed without a victim. I had gone longer than this before but not without consequences. I walked the streets in a daze, knowing only that my desires were unquenched. I scoured the papers, studied the local news, hovered around hospitals, but I had not found one person anywhere who had cheated Fate. Perhaps the true link to all the murders had been discovered, and the media had been silenced to flush me out. Perhaps Fate had abandoned me. Perhaps it was another test. But I know now that the answer is more subtle, more fitting than any of those.
    On my final day amongst the masses I walked the cliffs of Cornwall to clear my mind, following the coastal path to Tintagel—a place that breathes history through every ancient blade of grass and every moss-covered rock. I fished through my pockets to find my shades in the hope that I could dwell on the view for a time without squinting, but they had gone. When the seaside sun burns in the heights of a cloudless sky and the smell of ocean water fills every pore, one would have to be born without a soul not to smile. I watched anyway without my sunglasses.
    For a time I found my contentment, but the serenity was soon broken. Shouting is not something one expects on a pleasant Sunday morning walking the cliffs, but nevertheless, a short way ahead of me two men bellowed above the barking of a large dog. Other walkers gave the two men a wide berth but not me; I thrive on conflict.
    The argument had escalated into finger-stabbing posturing, and as I drew closer, I noticed that the man standing with his back to the cliff edge had lines of blood tracked across the back of his hand. The dog, still barking but restrained with no small effort by the other man, had blood on its teeth.
    “Of course he’s going to bloody bite. He thought you were threatening me.”
    “Threatening? I was running past.”
    “You knocked my arm. What the fuck did