The Poison of Ivy Page 8

  “It’s a body,” he said, laughing. The couple laughed back, uncertain, and looked like they were truly sizing up the box. Edward gave them a half-smile. “I’m kidding,” he said, and let his eyes grow sad. “All my ex-girlfriend’s stuff. Kind of a cathartic thing.”

  The couple eased, wanting to believe his lie. “Awe, well, I’m sorry,” the girl finally said, tugging her boyfriend along behind her.

  The rest of the journey to the end of the pier was empty and quiet, just the scraping of the tape against the rough wood of the pier, and then the loud thunk of the body hitting the water. He hoped the box managed to remain closed until the body was sunken on the ground. He didn’t know how long it would take for the body to decay. The Pacific was freezing cold at this time of year, and he hoped the fact that it was water would win out over the fact that it was refrigerator cold.

  When he returned home, all he’d had left was the rug and the car. The man had arrogantly hung his keys on Edward’s ring hook as if he were planning to leisurely drive home after killing him. Thankfully, he’d had a silencer on the gun—he’d need time to burn the rug, hide Owen’s car, and taxi home. But when he got back, he’d bleach the house, and it’d be over. The formation of a plan eased his mind.

  At least, it’d be over until the next one came. He rolled the rug. He needed to disappear.

  +++

  Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 7:13 a.m.

  The Tarot Killer had struck again. They weren’t in a mansion this time, though. They were in a small apartment, the victim sprawled in a beat-up sofa with a knife in her throat, and a gunshot wound in her stomach. A printed coupon sat on the cushion next to her.

  “The way the knife is lodged here,” Vince said, examining the knife with gloved hands, “kind of looks like the person … threw it.” Vince backed up and pretended to throw a knife, making little whooshing sounds like he was in a slow-motion movie. Normally, Ivy found the fact that he didn’t even realize he was regularly performing unprofessional antics to be funny. But today, she was annoyed.

  “If you knew there was a tarot reader out there killing people, why would you—” Ivy stopped herself. She never criticized victims, no matter what she thought of their decisions. Surely, the witch community had put out some sort of bat signal to one another not to go to a tarot reader until the one who had shot and killed several women was safely behind bars. “But then why take the shot?” Ivy said. “The bullet would have killed her, why throw the knife?”

  Vince paused his throwing of air knives. “To practice, maybe?” he said.

  It wasn’t a bad theory, but they had no way to prove it. But if the killer was interested in becoming proficient but not building a killer-identity, building up an arsenal of techniques was actually … smart.

  It was the same setup as the last time. The coffee table in front of them had been cleared for the tarot reading, but instead of cards, there was simply a Kingsmen card left.

  The crime scene was entirely immaculate. Ivy was experienced enough to know that people didn’t just leave tracks of muddy footprints behind them, but there was absolutely nothing. No evidence that any dirt had entered the house recently at all. Only a few pieces of grass next to the door as though the shoes had been abandoned before the killer could leave any indication of the size of their gait (and their height). She’d thought maybe they’d have some sort of environmental clue after finding out that their victim was not only practicing witchcraft but suffered from both agoraphobia and molysmophobia—the perfect combination for an absolutely spotless canvas on which the killer would accidentally leave a clue behind them. There weren’t even fingerprints on the table, which gleamed in the light from the window. When they removed the body, they’d have the knife tested, but due to its pristine shine, Ivy doubted they’d find anything there, either.

  “A gloved tarot reader?” Vince asked. “Maybe she wears some sort of costume?”

  “And someone who removes their shoes.”

  “The victim might have asked them to?”

  “Fair guess,” Ivy said. “But, I mean, if she had a costume, wouldn’t she have been wearing it at the first killing? Or, maybe the black hair is the costume?” Ivy felt a snowball theory coming on. “It’d be a good juxtaposition to the Prophetess, with the white hair.”

  “That’s true,” Vince said. “Dunno if that holds water, but it’s worth checking to see if there’s anything online.”

  Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 8:39 a.m.

  There wasn’t. Ivy pressed back into her swivel chair, and it squealed in protest. “How are we supposed to catch someone this careful?” Ivy asked. “I’ve never gotten so little from a crime scene before—a murder scene no less.”

  Vince shook his head. “We need to find this person,” he said. He added another folder to the ever-growing pile on his desk.

  “We need to find the leader,” Ivy said. “I want to catch every killer, too. But if we can find the person who is turning regular people into serial killers and crowd shooters, then we can at least staunch the flow, you know?”

  “He makes himself unreachable even to his followers,” Vince said. “I just don’t understand how we work backward from that.”

  “Cassiopeia messaged me this morning about someone who might at least be able to help us start,” Ivy said. “We could at least go talk to him. She said he could meet with us tomorrow.”

  “Good, because we have paperwork for days,” Vince said, letting his forehead fall to the desk. “Ow.”

  +++

  Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 5:16 p.m.

  Varsity was ready. He was meeting up with the redhead he’d met at that underground Prophetess club. He’d nearly vomited when they had started chanting some nonsense about protection. As if that could keep a force like the Kingsmen at bay. He ran a hand through his hair; he looked good, and he knew it. He’d started working out again since he’d heard about the Kingsmen, and any of the pieces of him that had gone soft in the years after high school sports had ended had already started melting or tightening. It was a welcome change, and he felt in control, strong, and steady—the way a Kingsman should feel. He had one of the Kingsmen cards in his wallet, and a gun strapped around his ankle. It was a small weapon, but it’d do the trick. He adjusted his pant leg around it until the weapon was completely invisible to his own eyes.

  He looked at his phone. Her name was Becca—not Rebecca, as she had informed him a few times as a means of flirting. Varsity doubted her real, full name was Becca without the first bit, but he’d gone along with it, flirting in any way he could to get her to agree to meet again in person. He had two other girls from that night in his phone, had already set up a date with the blonde and her Southern accent. It was the girl who spoke to him in Spanish and had said her family immigrated from Mexico, who was still being elusive when it came to date-planning. Marisol.

  He practiced his facial expressions in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and felt like a suave spy from the movies. Seducing an enemy to their death was truly badass, and he suddenly wished he took down the numbers of some of the people he met at the Kingsmen conference. He needed someone to brag to. Getting his name up on the Kingsmen leader board would have to do. Calla was doing ridiculously well. She’d killed eight witches already, way more than anyone else. He’d pegged her as the quiet, vicious type who thought they could kill and then would chicken out. He had not anticipated her to be this type of vicious, the type who excelled as a mass murderer. Everyone else on the board only had one kill—only Ink had taken out a WIP, Edward Thorne, and even that hadn’t given him enough points to overtake Calla.

  The competitive energy sung in Varsity’s veins. He rubbed his palms together, a slippery gel that would turn sticky in his hair, and drew his hands through his short locks, attempting to achieve more “volume,” as everyone seemed to keep insisting that he needed. He thought that “volume” made his head look too big compared to his body, but he always seemed to get more attention with the gel. Heading out s
ans-gel was no longer an option now that he’d decided his method of killing would be luring witches to him.

  His phone lit up. It was Marisol. Saturday wouldn’t work for her; she had a family thing. He asked her what type of thing. She replied that it was just a weekly thing she did with her family—they’re very tight-knit. Varsity said that he loved that, and he almost told her that he wished his family were close that like. He’d always been jealous of families that enjoyed their time together, who made space for it in their lives. He nearly asked if he could join but decided against it. He wasn’t entirely shameless—he knew it would make killing Marisol more difficult if he happened to like her family. Or their cooking, for that matter, he thought looking at the paper and tin tray he’d heated in the microwave.

  He and Becca were going to a movie before dinner—her preference—and he knew he’d be starving by the end of it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wednesday, March 8, 2017, 6:30 p.m.

  Calla slipped off her shoes upon entering her mother’s home. She’d always found it an annoyingly enforced rule growing up. Something very not American that she constantly had to ask her friends to do. But now that she had experienced life in an apartment with white carpet in college, she understood.

  “Ma!” she called. Her brain moved lethargically from English to Mandarin.

  Her mother’s slipping steps moved through the house. She tended to drag her feet in her house slippers, which always wore them out quickly. But it did mean that Calla always had an easy time buying her birthday gifts.

  Her mother turned the corner and squinted. “Something is wrong, Lily. I can feel.”

  “Nothing is wrong,” she said, sighing.

  “Your Mandarin sounds sloppy.”

  “That’s because I have to use English more than Mandarin.” Calla hung her jacket on the coatrack.

  “Not around your ma.”

  Calla brushed past her mother. She was a skilled fighter, and she didn’t have any blood on her clothes. But her mother had a weird intuition about when she’d done something wrong. Calla didn’t feel guilty about killing the witch she’d seen today per se, but she felt weird leaving a crime scene and returning home. Perhaps becoming a murderer was the true mark that she needed to move out.

  Bao, their black cat, moved between Calla’s shins. If she moved out, her mother would only have Bao, and Bao was often grumpy. Calla supposed she was often grumpy herself, but she never bit her mother, which was certainly a step up from Bao’s behavior. “Just need a nice bath,” Calla said.

  “Do you feel bad?” her mother asked, now following Calla as she made her way to the bathroom.

  She suddenly didn’t want her mother to touch her at all—she still felt the death on her, like an aura. She didn’t want it on her mother. “No, no,” Calla said, putting out her hands.

  It made her mother stop, her slippers swishing against the wood floors in an abrupt stop and her eyebrows scrunching tight. Calla pasted on a smile. “All fine, I just need a bath.” She nodded and slipped into the bathroom.

  “I’ll make soup!” her mother called, her swishing slippers moving toward the kitchen.

  Calla pressed her forehead against the closed door. Her phone lit, and she closed her eyes. She didn’t know if she wanted to do this anymore. She started at the wall, wishing she could step into one of the frames, go back, and be her younger self.

  She hated that her mother had insisted on using the bathroom wall like some sort of glorified refrigerator door of excellence. But her bathroom was also the bathroom guests and family members used. “Everyone has to go to the bathroom, and they’ll all see how great you are,” had been her mother’s excuse. Her mother was an undercover humble woman. She’d never brag about Calla to anyone, but she’d rather let them see Calla’s achievements when they would inevitably need to use the restroom, and then feel obligated to comment on one of the many pieces of Calla’s history framed prettily on the wall. The frames were even visible in the mirror, so no one could possibly miss them.

  “If they say nothing after going in there, they are the rude one, not me,” her mother always said.

  Calla stared at the frames in turn. Pictures of her at every graduation her schools had from kindergarten through her most recent master’s degree. Framed awards. Her article that had made an appearance in a national newspaper. Her award for first in show at a regional science fair. All-star regional soccer player. State award pageant winner. Not to mention her various belts in taekwondo and jiu-jitsu, among others. A picture of her performing her winning tap solo (which she had choreographed). The wall paraded a show pony of a daughter—an overachiever at her finest.

  She wondered how her mother would feel knowing her daughter was miles ahead on the leaderboard of a righteous murdering cult. That’s what it was, a cult. She wasn’t naïve like some of the other members who simply thought of it as a group or a fraternity or whatever softened synonyms the people running this outfit had called it.

  She’d wanted to do something that did good. That worked toward a higher purpose than the merits that her mother might nail to this wall. Something she’d never take credit for, but it wouldn’t matter because she’d done something superhuman for a reason.

  She turned on the shower, which immediately started steaming. Her mother didn’t care if half of the lightbulbs in the house didn’t work—she had always been a stickler about having great water pressure and hot water as soon as she turned on the faucet. The room started to steam, and she pulled off the clothes that were untouched by blood but nonetheless had witnessed murder.

  At first, she’d wanted to be an avenging angel. Now, she just wanted out. Holding her breath, she opened the message on her phone.

  Ivy Hart: WIP Points: 50 | Reincarnation Points: 6 | Difficulty Points: 15 (LAPD)

  She was worried this was going to happen. She’d been too good. And whoever had gotten assigned the officer first must have failed. She gritted her teeth so hard she was worried they might crack from the pressure. She’d been grinding them in her sleep if the jaw pain she woke up with daily now was any testament.

  She sat in the water, her dark hair winding around her body like ebony snakes. Couldn’t she get some sort of special treatment for rising—and staying—at the top since the Kingsmen gathering? Maybe she could just retire quietly without being labeled as a WIP.

  “You know better,” she whispered to herself. And she did. They’d been clear. If a Kingsman made it past their first kill, they were officially “activated.” No way out. I’ve joined the mafia, she thought.

  Hiding things from her mother had always been a difficult task—her mother was a nosy woman. But, in her teenage years, she’d eventually figured out ways to keep things hidden. The water around her sloshed in protest as she reached across the floor to the small shelving unit along the wall, fishing the Kingsmen manual she’d bought at the gathering from an empty tampon box.

  There had to be some sort of clause that could get her out of this. She skimmed through the table of contents, finally reaching Retirement. She flipped through the manual.

  An active Kingsman is invited, but not required, to retire at the age of 65 (or the standard national age of retirement at the time of reading). Unofficial retirement before the retirement age is considered dishonorable discharge from the rank of active Kingsman and will result as the active Kingsman being labeled a WIP (work in progress) in relation to the official Kingsmen organization. They will then be assigned to an active Kingsmen for elimination.

  Exceptions to this rule involve serious health concerns (long-term illnesses, long-term crippling effects, blindness, hospitalization for over one month, and on a case-by-case basis for certain path-altering conditions) or death. In both cases, the active Kingsman will be considered to be retired with honors.

  Calla looked down at her legs, her purple-painted toes perched on the edges of the bathtub. She’d always been active; she couldn’t imagine permanently crippling herself. How would she
even go about it? But surely, a wheelchair was better than prison? She shuddered. A wheelchair was most certainly better than death.

  She jerked her hands up, the edges of the manual dipping into the scented water and kept reading.

  Smaller illnesses: If a Kingsman on “trial” upon receiving their first assignment finds themselves too ill to perform the first elimination within four days (flu, a broken bone, etc.), the Kingsman will be allowed a leave of absence depending on their specific case. They will be given a new start date and will be expected to perform their first elimination within four days of said start date.

  Leaves of absence: After their initial four-day “trial” period being successfully completed, an activated Kingsman may take up to six weeks between each witch elimination. If the Kingsman finds that not to be a suitable amount of time (extended vacation, under investigation, significant work obligations, etc.), the Kingsman may receive an extension on their next elimination. These will be approved on a case by case basis, and proof must be provided for consideration. Only one leave of absence may be taken within a two-year period.

  Six weeks. Calla pinched her cheeks, hoping to revive some of their color. She felt like she would vomit. Six weeks to figure out how to kill an LAPD officer who likely did not want her tarot read to her in the privacy of her own home. She knew that Ivy Hart was likely the one examining what was left behind at her victim’s homes. Calla wasn’t worried about being caught; if nothing else, she was incredibly detailed, and she hadn’t left a crumb of evidence.

  Six weeks was long enough to become friends, she supposed. Six weeks to endear her enough that she might get Ivy alone, unprotected, and off her guard. Even as the sharp sting of vomit threatened at her throat, she knew what she needed to do. She’d find the perfect time, then emerge as a helpless bird that needed Ivy’s help. She’d get the detective alone for a moment and finish her. It was this or become a WIP. Become a WIP who lived with her mother who would easily be considered collateral damage by the right type of Kingsman. She dunked her head beneath the silky water and blew out bubbles in a sigh. When she reemerged, it was to her mother’s voice.