Miss Murder

There she was, standing there in all of her glory, and Marcus Rent could do nothing but take in a shallow breath of satisfaction. He had been plotting and racing around for 3 years for this moment, staggering death rates climbing, newspapers chewing him up and spitting him out half digested, losing countless hours of sleep and possibly a few portions of his mind, just for this moment. The moment when all of that would be worth it. He had been doing this alone for a while now, everyone had given up. For what? To live in fear of this monster- no, he corrected himself, not a monster. A human being. Though she had been built up to a monster in his mind. He wished idly that she looked like one, wished she looked as terrifying as the portrait she displayed to the people.

But if he was being truthful to himself, like he always tried to be, she very well could've been the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his whole 26 years of life.

"You stand there as if you're shocked to see me," She said in her perfectly toned voice, her cherry  lips curved up into a smirk that seemed to be more a tone of voice than an expression. Marcus ran his fingers through his curly copper hair, not out of nervousness but out of relief, conversation always made things more comfortable for him.

"Not shocked," he said with a slight shake of his angled jaw,"I was expecting you, I just thought your schedule would be booked for quite some time." She let out a laugh, not a twisted one like he would've expected but something much more lovely. Like wind chimes clinking together in a soft summer breeze- he had to stop that. Stop analyzing everything she did, he would get caught up in her if he did, though he wanted so badly to hate her, to make her out as the terrifying threat she was, but her beauty was divine and he was having more than a difficult time rationalizing his emotions.

"Oh darling, I do not run on schedules, simply on my heartbeats and emotion." She tousled her golden hair, but Marcus couldn't remove his eyes from her brilliant green ones.

"That's dangerous, you know." Marcus said while turning to the kitchen, heading for the half filled bottle of scotch resting on the messy counter. "Running off emotions."

"Mmm, Danger is my middle name. Besides, why deny yourself of what you want?" She asked, laying herself across the couch as if she'd lived there her whole life. She looked like something out of a comic book, but in a sophisticated manner, it had to do something with the fishnet tights, Marcus noted idly, trying not to stare at her black lace corset.

"Because sometimes it's not always best. In addition, though, it can hurt people, not that you care much about that." Marcus said, not concerned with offending her as he dropped the ice into his mug. He had always been perturbed that he couldn't drink his expensive alcohol out of a proper glass, but money had been needed in other areas regarding his search.

"See, that's the problem with you mundanes, you think you have to make everyone around you happy when all you really need is to just think about yourself. People are too concerned with everyone else. Everyone would be much much happier if they put themselves first." She said, lifting her tauntingly long legs so they rested on the wall, her blonde curls resting on the floor and her green eyes resting on her black nails as if she was the most bored she had ever been in her life.

Marcus poured his drink and walked back into the living room, surveying the mysterious women with curious eyes, the sound of his familiar drink clinking in his hand. She tilted her head so she could observe him more realistically, her emerald eyes piercing through him like a dagger though she seemed to have no hostility toward him at all. "You're a terrible host." She stated, indifferent.

"Is that so?" Marcus asked, leaning against the wall and taking a sip out of his mug. He recalled his mother calling him an alcoholic just a few months before, and rejected the idea. The booze helped him think more solidly, alcoholics needed the drink to forget.

"It is," she said, answering his question while looking at the glass casings he had that held her things. "If you were a good one, you would've offered me a drink." Marcus found himself smirking at that.

"You wouldn't have taken it," he said and took another gulp out of his cup. It all seemed too casual to him, but yet in a sick kind of way he enjoyed the company.

"You still should've offered." She countered, but still there was no sign of hostility or anger in her voice.

"Excuse me," he said, pardoning himself for his bad behavior with a grin, "I'll be sure to offer you one next time." She chuckled at that, both knowing there would be no next time. With one of her fish-netted legs she tipped the clock on the wall so that it's rectangular shape hit the shelf where the glass casings belonged. Marcus watched out of pure fascination as the glass boxes filled with various weapons toppled on to each other, some cracking, others withstanding the blows completely, until the last one dropped off the shelf. It crashed to the floor, lining the dark hard wood and shag rug with pointed shards, deadly little weapons, each one something she could no undoubtedly destroy him with. 

But it wasn't the glass she had been wanting, it was the small piece of cloth that rested in the middle of the shattered glass that she was after. She moved the sharp pieces aside and picked up the white cloth gingerly, the lipstick stain still as red as the day she'd put it there. Her thin fingers ran over it lightly, cherishing the way the cloth felt. She kissed it again, her lips making the already perfect imprint just a few shades darker.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked quietly, her voice low and full of conflict. Emotion. Something he didn't think he would see from her.

"Evidence. From a crime scene." He remembered that crime scene. It was like it was yesterday, the crime scene that had haunted his dreams for years. The only one thing that had ever really disturbed him from his work. He could remember every second he was there, every emotion he felt within those seconds. The dreams had helped him with that, but more so than any of that he remembered the twisting in his stomach. He had never thought his stomach could twist so absurdly, so painfully, from just a sight.

He had opened the door, he wasn't the first one there, but he was one of them, he remembered seeing the white wall, spattered with the crimson liquid, his shoe dipping into it as soon as he opened the door. It was everywhere. A thin layer of blood covered every ounce of the wood floor. The blood wasn't even the worst part though, it was the temperature. The room itself had been icy cold, enough to raise goosebumps on his covered arms, but the floor was warm with the sticky liquid. Fresh, as if the body hadn't been torn apart 5 minutes before he walked in. The man was there, in the middle of the crimson pond, he looked as though he was floating though it was just an illusion to the mind, in a perfect stillness. A stillness you wouldn't have even been able to capture in a photograph. And even though all the gore around him seemed straight out of a horror film Marcus had never seen anyone look so peaceful. The stillness and the peacefulness of the handsome man had all about put Marcus into a coma he was so frightened. He was perfectly in tact, from the front, as if he was alive, not a scratch to bear another witness. But later the investigators had found that the line of his spine, all the way from his neck to the start of his pelvis, he been cut. Down the center. That's what had haunted him all those years, the stillness and the illusion that that man had never been broken into, never been torn apart in the first place. And then there was the kiss stain on that man's collar.

"Evidence?" she asked, as her thumb ran over a blood drop stain in the cloth. "And what did they find with this evidence?" The hair on Marcus' arm rose ever so slightly and he new he was heading into stormy weather, stormy weather with the most dangerous woman the world had ever seen.

"They found nothing. They couldn't get a match to any kind of DNA." Marcus informed her indifferently. As if the case hadn't affected him, as if he had just been telling another scientist the results.

"I wouldn't call that evidence, then." She sounded more calm, but there was an underlying tone that still kept Marcus on his toes. "You know, people don't understand me, Marcus." She said, starting up a new conversation as she twisted around on the couch, now sitting upright, her legs crossed as if she was trying to be polite.

"You are quite mysterious," Marcus agreed, taking a few more sips from his cup. If he waited much longer to solve this, he would end up just like another lily pad floating in a deadly pool.

"People only see what I've done, they think of me as some kind of monster." she explained, and she looked the most beautiful at that second. She looked deadly, mysterious, but poised and elegant. If Marcus was a different man, not so set on his work, he would've gladly melted at her feet.

"Do you see what you've done?" He asked her, setting his finished mug down on the small coffee table. The burn of the alcohol was helping his mind stay sharp. Keeping him awake in this deadly nightmare.

"Of course I have. I'm aware of my actions. I'm aware it's against the law. They were all terribly rotten people though, you see. I'm making the world a better place because of it." She explained, twisting a butterfly knife around in her fingers that she had drew from somewhere inside of her lace.

"Terrible?" Marcus asked, interested in this new part of her ever unfolding story. This was something that had not shown up in her victim's files.

"Oh yes." She said, flipping the butterfly knife faster now, a distraction her emerald eyes were ravishing in. "One man was a thief, he would seduce single women then take all their money, leaving them to starve. Some had children. Another was just an evil man, filled with hate for the world, he made everyone around him miserable to the point where some committed suicide. Oh, oh, but my favorite was that man--the big one, mm, what's his name-?" she asked him, her emerald eyes darting to his hazel ones for half a second then returning to the knife.

"Charles Montgomery." Marcus finished, remembering that bloody mess as well.

"Mhmm," she agreed, "he was so afraid of me." The smirk returned to her lips and it sent a chill down Marcus' spine. "He beat women, hired cheap prostitutes-killed a few of them because they were going to black mail him-"

"He killed a few of them?" Marcus asked, surprise showing a little too boldly in his features. She nodded quickly, the knife was spinning in her hands even faster now, the tricks becoming more complex and dangerous.

"The things you don't know about some of you people's politicians is amazing." She murmured, only slightly interested. There was a silence between them, a silence Marcus took to gather some of his thoughts, and what he came up with was simply that he was astounded with this woman. She wasn't a monster, simply someone who was living by her own rules, someone going by what she thought was just. A murderer, of course, but she seemed content with her self, proud, even. She didn't think she was a bad guy.

"I see your point of view," Marcus acknowledged, "But I don't understand the gore." She laughed at that, wholeheartedly with genuine humor, exposing her perfect white teeth. Then like that, the knife flew out of her hand and into the wall next to Marcus' face with a flash of silver. Not an inch away from his ear. Marcus tried to keep calm at that, flexing his jaw and keeping his breathing even, fear was only something that got you in trouble. She rose up from the couch then and walked over to him, her high heels carrying her as if she weighed nothing, flawlessly as if she was walking on some sort of black cloud.

She stopped when her face was just inches away from Marcus' her hand over the handle of the knife. She moved in closer still, her lips just inches from his and her eyes no longer meeting his own but mapping his face as if she wanted to remember him forever. "I like blood," she said in a whisper, her eyes meeting his once again, the words sent a shiver down his spine, and the way she looked at him didn't make him feel at ease. "I like the color, the way something so simple-a liquid can control something so great like a life. Did you ever think about the fact that without the liquid concoction your body makes up so perfectly beneath your veins that you would die? And just spilling it can take away your life...fascinating really." Marcus couldn't find it in himself to react, though his composure was perfect his mind was racing. She was going to kill him, he knew it.

"Are you going to kill me?" he found himself asking before he could control the words. They had no emotion. He stated it more like a fact than a question. She yanked the knife out of the wall with a flick of her wrist then looked back at him, confusion strong in her eyes and a slight frown on her lips.

"Of course not." she said as if he was some kind of ridiculous, as if she had never harmed a man in her life. "My killings are personal...justified. Killing such an attractive, intelligent creature like you would be wrong." Marcus found himself chuckling at that, relief washing down every part of his body, because he believed her. And even beyond that..he felt comfortable with her.

"I came here to see you." She clarified, stroking his face with one of her thin fingers.

"Why?" Marcus asked with a scoff, clearly unimpressed with himself.

"Because you have a fascination for me. I thought-no. Never mind." Marcus looked at her, taken aback. Did, did she want some kind of romantic encounter with him? Was the mistress of death...lonely?

"What did you think?" He asked, clenching his jaw, unsure of what he wanted the answer to be.

"I thought you, you of all people would have the guts." she said, looking lost, vulnerable even.

"Had the guts to what?" He asked, leaning into her even though his heart screamed not to, but she was pulling away.

"To get rid of me. I thought, well. I came here. I came here to die, Marcus." That turned everything Marcus had ever thought about this day around. This woman had taken so many lives, but yet right in that moment the only one he valued was hers. She was too cunning, too brilliant to waste away under the dirt like her victims. She deserved it, yes, but she was much too smart to allow that to happen to herself.

"Why on earth would you want to do that?" he asked, wanting so badly to reach out and touch her porcelain skin, to feel that she was real because for so long she had just been a murderer in the paper, a topic to talk about, a story to scare children with.

"I don't belong here, you see." She was flipping the knife around again, avoiding his eyes. "I belong where the dead are. I belong in a life where there is no judgement, only the souls of the forgotten. I've shared my experiences, I've had my fun, but I'm done now. There's nothing left to hold here. But, you see, I admire myself much too much to take my own life, which is why I'm giving it to you." And with that, she handed the butterfly knife over to him. Marcus took it, his well worked hands shaking ever so slightly. For most of his career he had hunted down this woman, studied how she worked, tried to figure out her next move. But she was random. And not one of his long studies or long nights without sleep had prepared him for the fact that she wanted to die. That she wanted him to kill her.

He felt the blade with his thumb, pressing down onto it until it drew a thick line of blood that oozed around the surface. She looked at the blade then at him, her eyes pleading.

"Take me to him," she said softly, putting her hand around his and forcing the blade to her neck, "Let me see the one I crave so badly."

"Who?" Marcus asked, his hand shaking more violently now. She closed her beautiful eyes, a tear slid slowly, tenderly down her face, carressing the skin like it never wanted to let go.

"Please." she asked again, her whisper full of emotion. Marcus let her guide his hand, she pushed the blade down and a smile played on her lips as she embraced the pain. "I'm coming home my darling," she whispered but it was distorted with the lack of oxygen the blood was consuming. Marcus found tears streaming out of his eyes, his whole body quivering with raw emotions, emotions he hadn't felt in a long time.

"You loved him." He stated, remembering how peaceful the man looked, lying there in his red pond. She nodded, letting a new stream of crimson stain her corset.

"He drank a poison. I tried to save him, I wanted him to live so badly. It was too late. I was angry. I made a scene. I wanted everyone to feel as disgusted by his death--as-as I was." Marcus helped her fall, he laid her on the ground gently and she smiled up at him, her ashy hands gripping his arms. Marcus couldn't stop the tears now, they were mixing in with her own crimson filling. "Thank you," She whispered, and kissed him on the collar.

Miss Murder died like that. The notorious mother of massacre, with a smile on her lips. And peace in her black heart.