Lady Killer Killers
Prologue
Behind a star-studded dressing room door, Wallflower waved her hand in front of her mirror, bringing to life a holographic screen and a selection of outfits and costumes. She tapped one, and the particle emitter above her began to buzz, slowly trimming away at her old outfit and printing the new dress over her nanotex jumpsuit.
Who would have thought that the girl no one noticed in high school would become an actress? Now she had trainers and coaches giving her the perfect body, make-up artists giving her the perfect face, and designers giving her the perfect outfits. Rarity would be so proud. And that yellow complimented her hair so well.
I just wished I could tell her. But no. I had to get the shitty job and hide behind her couch while she got dressed. Yipee.
A knock came at her star-studded door. My time to shine? I thumbed the gun tucked into the back of my belt and grabbed a hold of my necklace, touching the gemstone, a little trinket from a by-gone age.
It still had its uses. With practice, the jewel even let me pick up fleeting thoughts from people without having to touch them.
“Sorry about this, Wallflower, but the director needs you back on set. He changed his mind about the last scene.”
“Again? Ugh, fine. I’ll get changed.”
A breath that I didn’t realize I was holding escaped my lungs. Man, I am not cut out for this. But at least I couldn’t hear any crazy thoughts floating around. I immediately took my hand off my gun and relaxed. The movie set was surrounded by security and stage technicians. Maybe he wasn’t here. How would he even have gotten in?
“You’re kidding me.” Wallflower waved her hand through the holographic screen, selecting her costume over and over again. “It was working just now.”
That’s weird. I peeked up at the particle emitter. It wasn’t like Twilight’s inventions to just break for no reason. Maybe they installed it wrong? Or meddled with the settings? Or scratched the emitter?
Wrong. Wrong. And wrong.
His hand punched through the hole where the emitter stuck out, ripping open the machinery installed above the ceiling and jumping down on top of Wallflower before she could start screaming.
“Metheius, stop!” I stood up, reaching for my gun. “Don’t do it!”
“No time! No time! No time!” I watched his wild-eyed grin as he jammed his knife through her throat, digging its point through the top of her skull.
My hand clenched around my gun and fired instantly, but with no time to aim by accuracy was total shit. He bolted, shoulder-ramming the door and high-tailing it out while I had to climb over the couch.
“What the hell?” the same stage tech’s voice came echoing back to the dressing room. “Oh fuck! What? Who the hell are you?”
“Shit,” I hissed without meaning to, hiding my face under my hood. He stumbled back, grabbing at his phone to call the police. That would be good, except he was about to sic them on the wrong person. And I didn’t have time to explain.
“Sorry about this, bud.” I spun my gun around and lunged at him, probably cracking his jaw in the process. But he would live. That’s a lot more than I could say to Wallflower.
I should have looked the body in the eye and at least admit I failed. But I couldn’t stomach what was behind me. Besides, the only meaningful apology left to do was make sure she was the last victim.
So I ran after him, hoping I could still catch the Lady Killer.
Part One
I leaned back on my hoverbike and squeezed my head out of my helmet as my leather jacket got caught on my seat. The red neon “DINER” sign seemed welcoming enough, but there were still shadows in the alleys behind it. The place was another antique of a by-gone age, local diners just barely skirting the scythe of time with their classic house recipes. I figured I’d find her here.
I heard the bacon was usually overcooked, but at least the pancakes were fluffy. Breakfast for dinner. Fun.
Why was she trying to stay low at a place like this? It wasn’t her speed. The last time I saw Adagio, she was still lip-syncing to backtracks and voice modulators. And now she was right there at the counter, staring back at me as I walked in.
“Welcome! Slow night, so grab any seat and I’ll be right with you.” She might’ve been flashing a smile, but I didn’t need to probe her mind to feel that she was lying through her teeth.
Glad to see the bitterness hadn’t died down. We, meaning my friends and I, had all but forgotten about the Sirens. She and her sisters were just a few inter-dimensional criminals banished from my world to wreak havoc on this one. Just another day in my life. We kicked their asses, sent them packing, only to find them pinching pennies and performing as B-listers at music festivals.
Then we moved on. Twilight started her own tech business, creating technology inspired by what she could do with magic. I went to art school. And no, I wasn’t unemployed afterwards. For a while there, it seemed like the past could stay in the past.
Adagio walked over to my table in the corner. Damn, her legs looked good in those black high heels, but they must’ve been killing her after a day.
“So, what are you having?” she asked.
“Are you on the menu?”
She flashed me a crooked smile. “You’re in the wrong place for that, Sunset Shimmer. Now order something before I kick you and your biker-chick costume to the curb.”
“When do you get off work? We need to talk.”
“I don’t need to do anything with you. You took everything from me.”
“Ten years ago. And you do need me, or at least you will.” I looked down at the menu. “I’ll have the breakfast platter, eggs over easy, fries instead of fruits, and homestyle pancakes if you don’t mind. Oh! And don’t burn my bacon, please.”
Adagio scrunched her face in a sarcastic grin and grabbed the menu from my hand, stomping off in her ridiculous heels. Those weren’t part of the dress code, were they? That’d just be cruel.
Well, as old as the diner was, it brought back memories. Like spending hours in an office working on product ideas. Designing Twilight’s tech, or at least the aesthetic side, paid my way through art school. Generally, she just gave me a 3D-printed box filled with circuits and gizmos and asked me to figure it out.
Adagio came back out with the same predatory eyes and biting grin. “Here’s your food. Hope you choke on it.”
Would you believe me if I said it actually smelled good? The bacon was still sizzling and the eggs were steaming hot. I didn’t mean to sound so surprised, but it just came out. “Wow.”
Adagio crossed her arms. “What?”
“You made this?”
“We’re short-handed tonight. There’s no one else around.”
I poked the pancakes and ripped a piece off to test it. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to it?”
“Is that why you’re here?” Adagio slammed her hands on the table so hard the salt tipped over. “You have nothing going on in your perfect little life, so you had to come and mock me?”
I bit into a strip of bacon and chewed. “Notice anything weird lately?”
“No. Now shut up and eat, I have dishes to soak.”
“How about something magical?”
Now that caught her attention. Adagio whipped her head around, that blonde, puffy hair of hers bouncing around like cotton candy. “Magic? Like those toys your purple-haired friend invents?”
“I wouldn’t call a hoverbike a toy. And they’re not magic, either. Twilight was just inspired by what her gemstone lets her do. She used it to discover new properties of quantum locking, it’s just science from magic.”
“Save it,” Adagio put up her hand. “After all these years, you’ve stopped people like me from using magic, but who’s stopping you? Your friend’s no better than I was. But at least I accepted it.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Twilight’s nothing like you.” I stopped myself. I had to focus. Stay on target and get this over with for both of us. I grabbed my phone and showed Adagio the picture. “Seen this guy?”
“Middle-aged beardo with a scar over his face? What, are you looking for your boyfriend?” She laughed as if she thought she was funny.
“He’s infected with magic. The guy went crazy and he’s been killing girls across the country.”
Adagio squinted at the dark photo. “This prick? Dude looks like he could barely kick a cat. Plus, what girl would get within six feet of this guy?”
I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth, trying to do anything to unclench my obviously clenched jaws. “For starters, other girls with magic. Equestrian magic has been leaking through to this world for years. This guy’s been tracking anyone who’s come in contact with it.”
Adagio looked right at me, her face frozen stiff, lips curled halfway up into a snarl. “Magic. Like a Siren?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“And like you?”
“Potentially, if I don’t stop it first.”
She glanced at her feet, her cheeks pushing up the corners of her eyes, scoffing as she smirked. “Why would I believe you? And even if it was true, why would I help you? It’s been over ten years since any of us have had magic.”
“That’s it? What about Aria? Sonata? What if this guy has their scent right now?”
“They can handle themselves,” Adagio said, before returning to the kitchen.
From what I remembered about Sonata, somehow I doubted that very much. I finished the rest of my food before it went cold, and then pulled out the last card I had. Well, actually it was cash.
“What the hell is this?” Adagio bared her teeth when I went to pay.
“Uh, tips?”
“Three hundred?” She grabbed the roll of cash and waved it in my face before throwing it at my feet. “The breakfast platter was thirty dollars.”
I jumped back. “What the heck, dude?”
“You think you can just pay me to do what you want? I don’t need your fucking money. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
I tried to bite my tongue, but the words just slipped. “You know what? You have a lot of nerve after what you did. You want to turn over a new leaf? Fine. But don’t make me the demon of your story, you fucked up on your own.” I picked up the cash and slammed it on the table. “Now I’m trying to save your life. You want to fuck that up to?”
“Save my life from what, some guy? Please, you know how many guys I’ve had to teach a lesson to?” She smirked and stuck her chin out at me. “At least as many as you, I bet.”
“Yeah, you want to joke around?” I pulled out my phone and tapped on the top news report of the day. Wallflower’s murder. “Does this look like a joke?” I shoved the first image I could find. Even the censored gore couldn’t cover up all the blood on the mirror.
That shut Adagio up for a second. “Wallflower? As in the actress? So that’s how she does it.”
“No, she had it about ten years ago. Not long after my friends and I dealt with you. And she was just a normal human. So if she’s not safe, well, you can figure the next part out.”
“What happened to her?”
I swallowed, stuffing my anxiety. The memory of it came back in a flash for real this time as I tried to find the words I needed Adagio to hear.
“A John Doe. Can’t pin a name to his face, so that’s all I can go on right now. But the magic that got in his head, it’s obviously driving him insane. I watched him rip her throat out and cut her brain to pieces.”
“Okay, enough!” Adagio turned and put her hand to my phone screen, pushing it back. “I’ll help you catch your freak. Just let me grab the keys and lock up.”
We got off the highway and turned into one of the lower apartment complexes, the old buildings that were still built on the ground. Above us, Twilight’s tech soared. Literally. The moment Twilight’s hover engines hit the market, people started getting ideas. All they could think about were the dreams of old books made real: flying cars, floating cities, free healthcare.
Okay, so we never got around to fixing that last one.
Underneath the new hover complexes, apartments built on massive hover engines, the streets turned even darker than before. The moon and light pollution in the sky was blocked out, leaving the streets pitch black beyond the white light of the street lamps.
“Our place doesn’t have a parking spot,” Adagio said and then pointed to a space in front of the apartment’s office. “Take the guest parking.”
“Alright.” Pulled into the spot and extended the rubber bumpers below, shutting off the engine. We took the stairs up to her place on the third floor.
“So, do you even have a plan to catch this guy? This so-called ‘magic killer?’”
“Actually, the news is calling him the Lady Killer.”
Adagio blew her hair. “Of course they are.”
“Well, I figured it can’t be coincidence he’s in the city, and I don’t know of any other girls who’ve been in contact with magic who live in this area, so I was just going to get you and the other Sirens in one spot and wait for the killer to show up.”
“If you want bait, why haven’t you used yourself?”
“If he wanted to meet up, I wouldn’t have to chase him across the country. He might be insane, but he still knows I’ll shoot him the first chance I get.”
“Well, I’m not going to sit around waiting for you to save my ass.” Adagio unlocked the door to her apartment and we settled in.
I wasn’t going to have a rerun of last time. First thing, I flicked on all the lights. One light, actually, a single bulb hanging in the living room. I started checking the closets, showers, everything that someone could hide behind. Though I didn’t have to look for long. There was barely any furniture. Their single bedroom had been turned into storage space for a computer and some sound equipment. In the living room, they had three mattresses pressed to one side and a projector pointed at a blank wall.
“Go ahead, search away,” Adagio said, taking off her heels and slipping into a pair of sneakers. “Hey, while you’re at it, you can take out the trash while I get changed.”
“Sorry,” I turned to Adagio. “I guess, well, you three looked like you were doing okay the last time we met. I’m a little surprised.”
“We can’t all have our best friends be founders of successful companies.”
I nodded, scratching my head, trying to come up with casual conversation to clear the air, and failing miserably at it. Adagio grabbed a pair of leggings and a cropped, olive-green t-shirt from a wrinkled pile of clothes behind the mattresses. I turned around immediately when she started taking her diner uniform off right there in front of me.
“You really should stay here,” I told her. “Lock the door and keep a kitchen knife or something close. Tell me where Aria and Sonata are and I can bring them back here.”
“Sonata, maybe,” Adagio laughed, “but if you thought I was being a hardass, you’re not going to get through to Aria. Besides, I’m not going to wait around for a freakshow to kick down my door. We’d lose the deposit.”
“He almost ripped Wallflower’s head clean off with just a knife, and I only have one gun on me. I can’t chase him down and look after you at the same time.”
The gemstone on my neck grew warmer, and even though I wasn’t looking at her, I could feel Adagio’s anger radiating at me. “I’ll be fine. There’s this junkyard just outside of town, I go there every week to break whatever I can find.”
There was the sound of metal dragging behind me and I turned to find Adagio pulling a metal bat out from under what I assumed was the Sirens’ laundry pile. “Let’s hurry up. We can pick up Aria and Sonata together, they work at the same place.”
“We’re hunting a serial killer, not going to a nightclub. You might want something with more layers,” I said, looking at her outfit. Beneath her cropped shirt, the only thing covering her midriff was a black fishnet top. “Might help stop a cut or two.”
“Gee, that’s a nice way to say you think I dress like a slut,” Adagio kicked over the laundry pile and pulled a brown hoodie from under a tangled bundle of leggings.
“I didn’t mean—”
Adagio shoved me out of the way and stepped outside. “And just so you know, we are going to a nightclub. Might want to blend in. You know, like camouflage.”
“Wait.” I followed her, my jaw half-cocked while I tried to process her words. “Where do your sisters work?”
“It’s not what you think,” Adagio said.
She let go of my waist and pointed to a building lined with red and purple lights, outlining the silhouette of the entrance and the white fluorescent letters above the door that read: “THE JEALOUS SEA.” Magenta-tinted holographic screens were placed on either side of the door, playing a recording of dancers on loop. Outside, there was a short line of young twenty-somethings getting ready to rave the night away.
But the real attraction was the building above. Gravity lifts carried dancers and customers to the VIP floors, hovering a good many stories above the ground. Must’ve felt nice to look down at everything. We parked in the nearest spot on the street and stowed our helmets in the back.
“Hey, no need to get defensive. I have nothing against pole dancing,” I told her, “I can’t fault anyone for just trying to earn a living.”
“Aria just works at the bar,” she snapped back. “ And I don’t really know what Sonata does, but it can’t be that.” She gestured her palm at the holographic screens. “Frankly, she doesn’t have the coordination.”
I pushed the topic aside, we had more important issues. “Can you just call them and tell them to meet us outside? There’s no way the security will let us through with our weapons.”
Adagio dialled, but no answer. She tried Sonata as well, with equal luck. “Sonata never picks up during work,” she said, “but Aria’s always texting me.”
“Okay, then I’ll hold your bat for you. You go in there and bring your sisters out.”
“Without a weapon? After what happened to that girl in the news? Not a chance.”
I stuck my hand out, trying to take the bat from her. “I’d go, but Aria’s not going to listen to me. This isn’t the time to be stubborn, those bouncers aren’t going to let into a club with a fucking baseball bat.”
She huffed and threw her hood over her hair. “Maybe not, but they don’t have a psycho killer coming after them, so I don’t really care.”
There were two bouncers at the door, one outside and one inside. They saw Adagio skipping the line immediately and shined their flashlights in her face, telling her to back up. Being twice her size, I guess neither of them thought of her as a threat, but the receiving side of a baseball bat was bound to hurt, regardless of who was at the delivering end.
“Alright, you horny fuckers.” Adagio turned to the line. “Admission’s free tonight.” She grabbed the bouncer’s keycard and swiped the front door open. They kept their distance from her, but apparently, no one was going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or Siren, rather. They all swarmed in.
“What?” She caught me glaring at her.
“You forgot security cameras exist?”
“No, that’s what the hood is for.” Adagio pushed the door open for me.
I stumbled between crowds of elbows as soon as we stepped in. Adagio did a good job of pushing anyone who danced in her way, cutting through a path of men and women too high or excited to notice us. Just over the crowd, I could see more guards pushing their way to the entrance, which actually relieved me a bit to see that the security wasn’t lacking, even if Adagio had already taken off her brown jacket, blending her in with the rest of the crowd. I grabbed her wrist, whether she liked it or not, so we wouldn’t get separated.
Finding the bar didn’t take long, it was bright blue with holographic screens all across the shelves, with drones flying from end to end delivering drinks. The bartender didn’t even have to look anyone in the eye, just manage the drones and get everyone their orders.
But Aria wasn’t there.
“What the hell? Her shift’s not over yet.” Adagio kicked the side of the counter.
I started to reach for my pistol. I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was just the sweat and body heat, but I noticed that the gem on my necklace had gotten hotter. It was hard to hear over the EDM the DJ had remixed to hell, but I could definitely hear pieces of people's thoughts. The ravers were happy, tired, thirsty, pissed off, and everything in-between.
“You looking for Aria?” The bartender, some skinny bachelor with a puke-green mohawk, tapped us both on the shoulder. He pointed to Adagio. “You must be the sister. Yeah, she complains about you all the time.”
I laid a hand over Adagio, noticing her grip tighten around her bat. “Have you seen her? She’s not picking up her phone and there’s an, uh, family emergency.”
“If you find her, tell her she’s a total bitch,” he said. “She told me she had to use the bathroom about an hour ago and asked me to cover for her. Unless she’s clogging the pipes, I think she just wanted to ditch work.”
“An hour ago? Which way’s the bathroom?”
He pointed to the back end of the club, behind the stage and the DJ. I tried thanking him, but he was already fixated on his controls for the drink delivery drones, and Adagio was pulling me through the crowd again.
“Maybe next time, lead with the important shit,” she hissed, though with the music I heard most of it through her thoughts than with my ears. “But no, you just had to order eggs and bacon.”
I didn’t try digging too deep, I didn’t need to figure out how much Adagio cared for the other Sirens. They had years to split up and live their own lives, but whatever held them together, it was obviously strong enough. They were the Sirens, that’s all that mattered.
“Aria?” Adagio shouted, kicking open the bathroom door. We scared a couple of women cleaning up sweat-drenched make-up, but found no sign of Aria, or even a struggle.
“Don’t worry, if the Lady Killer was here, we’d know.”
“Yeah,” Adagio hissed, “I saw the picture, I don’t need a reminder. Hey, you!” She grabbed the first woman she saw standing by the sinks. “You see a purple-haired punk come through here? She’s about my height, looks like she knows where to get weed, and has bright blue highlights?”
The woman tried to break away, but Adagio gripped her so hard her arm looked like it was turning red. “I saw her going out back with some guy.”
“A guy? What did he look like? Did he have a beard? A scar?”
“I didn’t see!”
I pulled Adagio off of her. “That’s enough!” I turned to the woman. “I’m sorry, we’re working on her anger issues. Oh, and there’s a pretty high chance there’s a serial killer nearby, so you might want to go home for the night.”
We wasted no time running out of there. Not far from the bathroom was a storage closet where the club put its spare speakers and electronics, even a first-generation outfit printer. Which was ironic, considering most of the dancers that got up on stage preferred most of their clothes off. But down the hallway that connected the closet was an exit to the alleyway.
Loose glass crinkled when my boots crashed against the pavement. I was quick on my gun, but Adagio was quicker, raising her bat and standing in front of my sights. I leaned, trying to fire around her and get the man pressing her against the wall and putting his mouth on her neck.
Wait. His mouth?
“Got you, asshole!” Adagio swung her bat around, knocking the man over.
He clutched his arm as he screamed, curling up on the ground. “What the hell?” He had a blue-dyed goatee and so many piercings on his face that I was surprised he didn’t set off metal detectors a mile away. And he definitely wasn’t the Lady Killer.
“Adagio, stop!” I grabbed the bat from her hand.
She whirled around and came right up to my face. “What is your problem? I got him!”
Without answering, I simply cocked my head and glanced in Aria’s direction. But we both turned our heads when we heard a “zip” from her ripped, thigh-high jeans.
“Don’t tell me,” Adagio gaped, looking at the man on the ground and then back to her sister. “Is that why you didn’t answer your phone? What are you doing?”
“What are you doing at my work?” Aria accused back, fixing her glare on me next. “With her?”
“A little help?” the man whimpered. “I think it’s broken.”
Both Sirens turned to him. “Suck it up, bitch boy.”
Then Adagio explained the situation to Aria, with me and my phone as backup, showing her the recent news. Since then, more people had been talking about it and posting articles everywhere on the net. Someone even got a hold of the uncensored images. I hated the idea of the world being able to see what the Lady Killer did to Wallflower but finding that image was a pretty easy way to convince Aria.
Part Two
We retreated to a twenty-four-hour internet cafe down the street, just for a moment to reassess. There was still Sonata to worry about. But, getting her out of the club was not in the cards for us, apparently.
“She works up on the VIP floors,” Aria told me. “Rakes in enough tips to cover rent from the rich old guys who go up there.”
“Tips for doing what?” I was surprised Adagio had to ask, but then again, even if they were sisters, the Sirens didn’t seem the kind to open up about their lives.
“Playing dress-up and serving drinks, I think,” Aria said. “But the point is, there’s only one way up into that place, and there’s no way this Lady Killer guy is getting up there. The gravity lift is packed with security, top and bottom. Frankly, she’s the safest out of all of us.”
“So what, we just leave her there?” I asked.
“Don’t see why not. Her shift’s already pretty late, but she usually works overtime to squeeze out more tips.”
“Phrasing,” Adagio said.
Aria scrunched her face at her. “You’re gross.”
“I’m gross?” Adagio sputtered a gaggle of misshapen words as if she was trying to say a dozen things at once, eventually settling down to just one. “Okay, let’s pause for a second.” She waved a finger around our table. “Between the three of us, who’s trying to kill a serial killer and who’s playing whack-a-mole with a stoner?”
“That’s none of your business,” Aria pointed her finger in Adagio’s face.
“Easy, we’re on the same side here,” I said. “What matters is Sonata’s hard to get to, so if the Lady Killer’s going to make a move, the only other people with magic in this city are us.”
“Lucky us,” Aria crossed her arms. “What’s his deal anyway? Why’s he only going after girls?”
“He’s going after magic,” I told her. “From what I've seen, magic tends to find girls more often. And if this is what it does to guys, I hope it stays that way.”
“This blows. We don’t even have magic anymore!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I looked them both over, thinking about how long it had been. “We haven’t seen each other for ten years, but you look like you aged, what, two or three?” I dangled my necklace around. “Same goes for this thing. Every time I read someone’s mind, I feel the feedback. I’m no Siren, but I feel a lot better than someone edging on thirty.”
“Great, more time stuck in this world with you.”
“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Twilight’s been studying how to recreate our longevity. Participating in studies pays a lot better than tips and serving out drinks.”
Aria’s eyes flared, and I was starting to get a sense of deja vu. “We don’t need handouts from you.” She slammed her fist on the table.
“Yeah, runs in the Siren family, I guess.”
As quietly as I could, I took my phone out and started searching for local news, lurking around tourist pages to see if anyone had posted photos with the Lady Killer in the background. With nothing else but time, Adagio and Aria fell into their own hushed conversation, mostly arguing about the dude Aria was definitely “doing the deed” with.
Finally, something popped up on social media. Someone had shared new photos of the Lady Killer in action, snarling at a group of onlookers and waving his knife around. It was his face alright, cut up and scarred from brow to eye. He had that same hungry, toothy grin. But the picture was half-covered by a thumb and impossible to pick apart for the location.
But there weren’t a lot of options to guess from. There were only four of us in the city. And when I looked down the street, it was from the Jealous Sea where everyone was screaming and running.
I had to close my eyes as we waded through the now silent nightclub, stepping over dozens of bodies. “I don’t get it, he’s never killed regular people before.”
“But what if those regular people stop him from getting to his target?” Adagio suggested and pointed her bat at the door to the gravity lift. There was a short staircase in the corner leading up to a locked door that read “LIFT” in fluorescent green letters.
“That might piss him off. But it looks like he couldn’t get up.” Though he tried. There were dents in the metal door where he bashed the bouncer’s head to try and unlock the door.
“Meaning, he’s still down here, with us,” Aria said. “And neither of you brought a spare weapon.”
“Grab a bottle?” I suggested, though my brain was already shutting down and getting ready for a fight.
“No time!” His voice erupted from a pile of dead pole dancers, followed by his hand. I pulled my gun as I fell, firing off one shot in his leg before his hands reached mine. He was covered in blood, head to toe, but I couldn’t slip away. His grip was supernaturally strong, grinding the bones in my hand against the handle of my gun. “Feed me! Feed me!”
He wrenched the gun from my hand and pinned my neck to the ground, slamming my head three times before he raised his knife. I moved to cover myself, but he let go at the last moment, turning to lunge his blade at Aria.
Amazingly, she slipped under him, leaving more marks on his face with half of a glass bottle. Circling, she backed off and let Adagio club him in the head a couple times until I retrieved my gun and shot him through the head. Twice. I had to be sure.
I almost didn’t believe it when his body crumpled to the ground. I took a deep, sharp breath and exhaled.
And just then, another voice startled me. “Woah! What happened?”
I turned to see Sonata, dressed in a form-fitting maid’s uniform that was almost certainly too tight, staring around at all the bodies.
“This explains the security alarm,” she tip-toed her way down the stairs. “Oh! Hi, Sunset! I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Uh, hi,” I replied, “I just got in.”
“She needed us to help her stop a serial killer,” Adagio smirked, tapping her bat on the Lady Killer’s forehead. “He turned out to be so easy to kill. Barely broke a sweat. Anyways, what are you wearing?”
Sonata looked down at herself. “Uh, my uniform, I guess? One of the clients said I’d look good in this. But I think he just says that to all the girls. And look what I got for it!” She pulled a wad of cash from her apron pocket.
Aria’s hand moved like a whip, snatching the cash from her. “They just gave you this for dressing like a maid?” Her lips creased into a frown. “Why’d they turn me down for the job? I could totally do that!”
Sonata blinked at her. “Didn’t the manager say you have no people skills? Like, at all?” Aria growled back.
“Hey,” Adagio snapped her fingers, “both of you, focus. Any ideas on how to get rid of the body? If the police see bullet holes in a scene full of knife wounds, they might start asking questions.”
“Burn it,” Aria suggested, “plenty of booze for a fire”
“Bullet holes?” Sonata took a look at the Lady Killer and laughed. “Adagio, what are you talking about, you have a bat. I don’t see any bullet holes.”
Adagio groaned and lifted the bat off his face. “No, look, Sunset shot him in the—”
She froze.
No, wait, that’s a lie. We all froze. All of us except Sonata, who just kept the same blank stare. The three of us saw it happen, we saw me pump two rounds of lead into his brain. And they weren’t there at all.
For a moment, he looked frozen stiff, the blue lights of the club tinting his face and making him as pale as a ghost. The next, his skin warped and contorted, stretching like parafilm, his cheeks pulling his lips apart into a hungry grin.
He launched to his feet, but I was faster and I pulled Adagio aside before his knife could connect. Adagio swung her bat again, but he bent his spine back in half like a twisted limbo, before whipping up and placing a shallow cut on Sonata’s cheek.
I aimed at his chest this time, but Aria jumped in, wrapping one arm around his neck while her other hand grabbed at his eyes.
“That hurts!” he screamed.
They were too tangled up to risk a shot, so I took my chance to run up to him and pin my gun into his chest. I shot once into his chest, and he must have felt it because in the next moment he grabbed one of the drink delivery drones from the counter and smashed it in my face.
Everything went dark. The lights, the holographic screens, they all faded for a second. I felt someone grab the gun from me and when my vision finally returned, Adagio was taking aim. Aria was leaning against the counter, one hand clutching the other as blood dripped from her wrist.
The Lady Killer took a shot to the face, his jaw blowing into two pieces, but he kept coming forward until the gun clicked empty. He swung a wild slash at Adagio and blood sprayed from her forehead, covering her eyes.
“Don’t move!” I shouted at him as I struggled to my feet, my head still throbbing. “Just give up, you’re surrounded.”
“No time! It’s too late!” The hunger in his toothy grin faded, replaced with anger and frustration. He shouted at me the same way a dog barked at an intruder and then brought his knife to bear on Aria.
“Metheius! No!” I rushed to grab him, tackling him to the ground. Pain shot up my leg as I realized we landed on broken glass, but as he liked to say, there was no time. I scrambled for his knife, trying to find it and isolate it. I had to find it.
And when I couldn’t I turned to Aria. It was lodged in her stomach.
“Oh yes,” he groaned, “feed me!”
I scrambled off the ground, trying to get to her and stop the bleeding, but he grabbed my foot and pulled me back down. I thanked my jacket for taking the broken glass for me, but my head was still ringing, and by the time I had the sense to turn and face the Lady Killer again, he was already bolting through the back door.
“Aria?” Adagio spat blood and wiped her face clean. “Oh shit, are you okay?”
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Aria clenched her teeth, putting pressure where the knife jutted out.
“Sonata, call an ambulance!”
Her sister poked her head out from behind the DJ’s stage. “What happened?”
“Just do what I tell you!” Adagio yelled.
When Sonata called and the emergency services picked up, confirming an ambulance on its way, it gave us a moment of relief. But just a small one. Aria directed me to a first aid kit behind the counter and together Adagio and I sprayed the wound with antiseptic and applied gauze until the bleeding seemed to slow.
“How is he still alive?”
I looked up from Aria’s wound to see Adagio’s eyes staring me down with a mix of desperation and unfiltered hate.
“I don’t know—” I started to answer, but she slapped me across the face.
“Stop lying! You told me he didn’t have a name but you called him something just now. Matthew or something. And when he had you on the ground, he had the chance to kill you, but he didn’t. Why? What aren’t you telling me?”
I looked away. My gaze was pointed to the front door and the view of police and ambulance lights flashing across the street. But I couldn’t see the officers or medics, only the cluster of people clutching their slash wounds and making panicked phone calls, all surrounding us like a wall of despair.
There were some things I needed to take responsibility for.
“His name is Metheius Walker. He was a patient at a hospital with major depression and suicidal ideation. Twilight and I thought he’d be the perfect candidate to test a new design on him, a nerve stimulator that replicated the effect my magic has when it sends me people’s thoughts. The idea was to cure his depression by literally giving him positive thoughts. We didn't know it would do this to him.”
“So you thought it was a good idea to put magic into the head of a nutjob?”
“Hey! He was suffering and we had a way to make him happy.” I was surprised at how fast I snapped, but I wasn’t defending my actions. “Metheius was sick, and he wasn’t responding well to his medication. We were trying to make a better solution.”
Aria, even in her condition, snickered at me. “I don’t know if you heard, but they invented something called therapy.”
Adagio shot her a look. “Shut up and stop shifting around.”
“In here!” Glass on the floor cracked as the paramedics finally made their way into the club with a stretcher for Aria and more gauze pads for the cut on Adagio’s forehead. I had cuts on my leg as well from the glass, but luckily my jeans had taken the brunt of it and they were more like scrapes. Bandages and disinfectant were all I needed.
Sonata, though she wasn’t hurt, went with Aria in the ambulance to keep her company.
“We’ll get your sister to safety,” one of the medics told Adagio, “but you and your friend should be good to leave. I think the police will probably want to talk to you before you do, though. To find out who did all this.”
Adagio looked at me, and I could feel exactly what she was imagining. Get the police to handle it, tell them who to use as bait, and explain where exactly this unkillable serial killer came from.
Then she asked the big question. “Why didn’t you go to the police first?”
I gave my answer, not that it was any good. “We haven’t exactly been open about using magic to inspire technology. If the world knew about an untapped resource, do you think humans would just ignore it?”
“Instead you tried to fix it yourself. And you couldn’t protect Wallflower on your own. That’s what I don’t like about you. You act like you’re so good, but if your good intentions caused all this, are you really any better than the rest of us?”
She was right. I wasn’t. I never said I was better than anyone, but now wasn’t time to fight over semantics. “I can’t undo my mistakes, but I can stop it from getting worse. I just need your help.”
“I wasn’t done asking questions. You messed with his head, but how is he healing from a gunshot?”
“Remember how I said Twilight wanted to figure out how magic gives us longevity? We’ve also been looking at ways to heal injuries with it as well. Twilight thought his condition might be physical, not just mental. I don’t know the first thing about the technical side of it, but obviously, that part worked.”
“A little too well.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
Agadio sighed and tossed my gun at my feet. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. The clip was empty.
“There isn’t a ‘we.’ You need to stop him, and I want payback. As soon as he’s gone, you can move on.”
“You’re not going to contact the police?”
“No, I’m not. I don’t like you even on the best of days, but it beats dealing with a world full of humans with magic. Now come on. If it’s magic he wants, I know the perfect place to feed the fucker.”
Part Three
I kept chewing on Adagio’s questions, thinking about what the Lady Killer wanted. What Metheius Walker wanted. Replicating my gemstone’s abilities didn’t need magic at all. Thoughts and feelings, images and sounds, they were all just electrochemical stimulations. My gemstone communicated with my mind by causing those stimulations, reading and transmitting one person’s memories into my mind.
Twilight described it like playing Simon Says. Whatever my gemstone did with magic, we’d do with an AI chip and sets of electrodes on his brain. Thinking it through in my head, we really did sound like mad scientists.
Did that mean I was the hunchbacked assistant?
Adagio held up her bat, kicking over a steel drum and bashing a dent into its side. “Metheius! Come out, come out, you twisted little gremlin. Come and choke on my fat bat!”
If there was anywhere for him to run to, it’d be the junkyard. The rest of the city was crawling with cops, and by now, the photos from everyone who survived the nightclub were circulating on everyone’s social feed. The Lady Killer had gone viral, meaning there was nowhere left to hide.
Still, I hung as far back as I could and parked my hoverbike behind a pile of scrapped engine parts. Metheius, as crazy as he was, didn’t seem to want to kill me. It was cold comfort, though, knowing Adagio had to be the bait.
My phone buzzed with a text message. From Twilight, of course. I was surprised she hadn’t noticed the news sooner.
“I take it you haven’t caught him yet?”
“No,” I texted back, “but working on another trap with Adagio.”
“You trust her?”
“Yeah, but the question is if she trusts me. IDK. She probably doesn’t. I had to tell her the truth.”
The three little dots popped up on the screen as Twilight typed, vanishing for a moment, only to appear again. After a few minutes of silence, all she sent was a simple “Why?”
“Because we made a mistake. And she figured out something was wrong.”
“She might give us trouble. You shouldn’t trust anyone with that kind of information.”
I frowned. Twilight wasn’t out here with us, who was she to say who I shouldn’t trust. Adagio had every chance to go to the cops, to expose everything we had done, but instead, she was being the bait. I typed about as much on my phone, but at the last moment deleted it. I understood what Twilight was worried about. But she had to give me more credit than that.
“This is for the best. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
I flinched as my ears rang from Adagio’s racket. She smashed open a car window and busted the bumper off. “There you are!” she yelled, even louder than before. “Come to finish the job?” I peaked over the top of a flattened RV, following her taunting gaze to a stack of old cars, where Metheius stood on top, his jaw already reformed.
He jumped down, audibly snapping his ankles into pieces on the landing, but standing right back up seconds later.
Instead of a knife, he picked up a rod of rebar from the ground and pointed it at Adagio as if he was accepting her challenge.
“Feed me!” he shouted, curling his posture over into a hunched sprint.
“Yeah, that’s what every guy says.” Adagio pulled her arm back and gave her bat a full swing, taking his jaw off again. His tongue dangled out, but it barely seemed to annoy him. He kept coming, swiping left and right, eventually bending her bat with the steel bar.
That was my cue. I pulled a new clip from my jacket pocket and reloaded my pistol, putting two rounds into each of his knees. Metheius rolled over, collapsing on the ground. We didn’t give him a chance to get up. Adagio bent her aluminium bat even more, using it like a sledgehammer and wailing away on his chest, while I grabbed a brick off the ground and dropped it on his throat.
Adagio cracked his skull repeatedly. “Think he’s dead yet?”
“How should I know?” In the moment where we both paused to take a breath, we could hear his shattered bones grinding together as his body jiggled and shifted around, pulling itself back together.
“The fuck? What is it going to take?” Adagio kicked him in the face. “Stop healing!” She hit him, again and again, until the puddle that could have been his brain could have easily been mistaken for any other part of his body, if it wasn’t for the circuit that was left behind.
“Is that it?” Adagio picked it up. “This is what you put in him?”
Well, yes and no. It wasn’t supposed to be glowing. And it wasn’t supposed to be shaped like a crystal. It looked almost like mine, a reddish-orange crystal, except it had been polished and ground down into a flat, circular disk and inlaid gold wiring.
“You said you didn’t use magic.”
“We didn’t! Twilight showed me the chip we put in his head, this isn’t it.”
“Then she obviously changed her mind. She couldn’t pull it off with technology alone.” She held it up and took a closer look in the moonlight. “This is why he didn’t attack you. Look at this thing, it’s exactly the same as yours.”
“How is that possible?”
“Are you really going to ask that?” Adagio raised a brow. “Your friend can make buildings fly and 3D-printed clothes. I doubt this is beyond her.”
“But, Twilight wouldn’t.”
“She already did.”
Then I closed my eyes and realized that I had to face the truth. It didn’t matter how I felt about Twilight or our work. Even if she was just trying to help him, we went too far. If I was in the wrong for lying about Metheius, which I was, then she had to answer for this too.
“Destroy it,” I told Adagio.
“Obviously.” But when she dropped it on the ground and swung her bat down, Metheius’s hand was there to catch it. His head hadn’t even reformed completely, but we had already wasted too much time. He grabbed the circuit, shoving it back in his half-formed head, and pulled the bat from Adagio’s hands.
I raised my gun to shoot, but he was on top of her in an instant, his stump legs destroying themselves from the effort of the lunge. He yanked her hair, dragging her down and clamping his hands around her neck. I shot his elbows, his arms, but either I missed a critical part or it just wasn’t enough to stop him.
I knew I needed to act fast, but I couldn’t see another option. I was almost out of bullets, and there was no way I could beat him in a straight fight. He’d just kill me too, I thought to myself. Wait, no he wouldn’t.
It was impossible to verify my hunch, but in that moment of clarity and adrenaline, I knew my intuition was on the mark.
“Metheius!” I shouted for his attention. “What’s more valuable to you? Another kill, or your life?” I aimed the gun at my head. “Twilight modelled her device after my gemstone, but even magic has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? You need me.”
As his head slowly reformed, I could see his muscles pull into a grimace. “No! No!” He let go of Adagio’s throat and grabbed the bat, raising it over his head. “I kill her! I will, I kill!”
“I know you do, buddy. I made you this way. And now I have to take you back.”
“No, no, no!” He screamed and jumped up, but his legs had barely repaired themselves and snapped again from the effort, dropping his soft head on the ground and giving me a clear shot of the gemstone circuit. I pulled the trigger and Methiheius Walker, the Lady Killer, went limp as his body, no longer held together by magic and science, broke apart into a chunky puddle.
I ordered sausage links from the diner the next day. We shouldn’t have been eating breakfast like we knew each other, but we were, Adagio and I. Aria was still recovering from surgery with Sonata by her side.
“She’s got this wicked scar across her belly,” Adagio read Sonata’s text message. “I think she actually likes it.”
“Until we get the hospital bill,” she muttered to herself.
I jammed my fork through a sausage. “You should let me cover it. It’s my fault, after all.”
“Yeah, it is. But also Twilight’s. Let her cover it.”
“You don’t blame me?”
She shrugged. “Lot of blame to go around. But you put yourself on the line to fix it. That’s more than I’ve ever done, so it’s not on me to judge.”
“You put your life on the line plenty of times last night.”
“Not that I had a choice.”
The strange thing was how familiar it felt, talking to her. It shouldn’t have, we were ten years older even if we didn’t look like it, and to begin with, we hardly knew each other. We were simply natural high school enemies. Former enemies.
My phone buzzed. It was Twilight with a very long text message. I could feel Adagio watch me as my eyes widened at each line of text, my fears growing as I wondered how she’d take the news I was about to say.
“Yeah, so,” I chuckled, “remember how I said we were testing devices on Metheius?”
Adagio’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“Well, I didn’t technically lie. But I also might have, maybe, left out the part where we had more than one test subject.” I winced as I showed her the photo Twilight had sent me. “His name’s Oryan Beltrand, a musician who was trying to get over an opioid addiction.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“On the bright side, Twilight promised me she didn’t implant anything in him. On the downside, our temporary treatment might’ve scrambled his brain. He was caught strangling his girlfriend and just escaped police custody.”
“Okay, fine,” Adagio groaned. “Just ask.”
“Do you want to help me catch another lady killer?”
“Depends. Are you going to buy me a new baseball bat?”