From Murderer to Conqueror

by Jeff S.

  Eloise ran her normal track going through the winding trails. She could hear her feet crunching in the snow over her music, her breathing becoming harsh as she got closer to the end of her run. She got into her car to head home, sweat dripping off of her face. Eloise stopped at the bakery down the street from her apartment, getting her morning coffee and her bagel.

  After showering and changing into appropriate work clothes, she stood on the steps of the genetics lab, smiling wide. She had been interested in science since she was a little girl. The very thing that led to her success as an assassin. She was the best in the leagues at the age of twenty five, earning the right to she killed those that had abandoned the leagues.

  Eloise pulled at the large glass doors, a gust of cold air rushing at her face. She swiped her card in front of the car reader, a beep signaling her entry. She got to her desk quickly, throwing her things in the corner to start on her newest project: Finding a component that kills the DNA in blood. Her desk phone rang, pulling her from her own thoughts. Her boss called her down to the main floor where he had his office at.

  It was a private lab that any person would dream of where no expense was spared. It was something that you would see out of a TV show, everything shining and new, light glinting off of the metal when the lights came on. His office seemed to sing to her in a way that she didn’t know possible. The things Eloise could discover with this much opportunity was heart stopping.

  “Miss Park.” He didn’t move to stand, staying planted in his desk chair. She folded her hands behind her back in response. She had only met the man once, and last time his belly was more round, his face more stern. A hint of smoke stung the air, Eloise smiling at the recognizable smell. He had a stack of papers in front of him, neatly stacked with colored tabs sticking out from certain pieces of paper. He stared at her for a long moment, an uncomfortable feeling settling over her. He spoke without breaking eye contact, minimally blinking.

  “It has come to my attention that you know more about science than you lead on.” She had been at the genetics lab for only a short amount of time before she was quickly moved up in ranks. When she was a child her mother would take her to their lab in Germany every day when she wasn’t attending school. After their death and after moving to the states she continued to learn the craft, investing the majority of her free time to the sciences.

  “It is a bit of a passion I suppose.” I shrugged, taking note of everything in his office. He had equipment that she had never seen before, peaking her interest.

  “Well I have a rare opportunity. Something good for both you and I.” He leaned forward to rest his head on his hands.

  “I’m listening.” She narrowed his eyes, waiting for a tick to prove his lie. This man was strange, socially mostly, yet he knew that. She could see the way he concentrated on her, his hands held tightly together but she could hear his leg bouncing under his desk.

  “I assume you heard about the murder? I have a source,” He shifted his glance for a split second, telling his little lie, one she assumed was his obvious lack of other social contact. “And they tell me that the investigators on the case are useless.” He perked up like a kid looking at a bag of candy. His chest started to rise just a beat faster, an anxious look clouding his vision.

  “Sir I can read the news feeds as well. Everyone has social media accounts, it’s not a secret.” His look faltered, turning to one of fear.

  “No wait! I haven’t told you the deal yet!”

  “Sir I was not leaving.” His paranoia was the result of something he was keeping secret.

  “Oh, right.” He opened his mouth to breathe deeply, holding it in his lungs for a moment before expelling it in a gust. His eyes were still red from the smoke, staring straight at her. He coughed once, taking his gaze from hers. Eloise stared back at him without blinking, wanting him to feel uncomfortable.

  “The Police want you to work with them on the case. They asked me to find someone,” He paused, searching for the right words. There was something he didn’t want her knowing. “Different. Someone who can bring new light to the case. So I picked you.”

  He was asking her to solve the crime that he committed. It was a crazy idea, risky beyond her ability to control.

  She wanted the game. She craved it.

  She would help them track her. In fact, she would purposefully point out some of the things that she knew would be there. She was the best at covering her tracks.

  But even silence has a sound.

  If she lived to see the end of this without getting caught she would stay in this town this time and retire herself. But if caught, she would take the pill. Eloise played with the small baggie in her pocket. Every one of them had a matching bag with the words Iudicium Meum scrawled across it in white lettering. Meaning “My Choice.” It was their way of getting out of a hard situation. But Eloise wouldn’t use it this time, if she was caught then she deserved whatever punishment she got. She looked at him, pretending to ponder the decision she had already made.

  “I will do it. But I would require access to much better equipment than what I do currently.” She eyed his office again, filling her spirit with lust.

  “I will see to that.” He stood for the first time, Eloise noticing the zipper of his pants open to reveal pink printed undergarments. He stuck his hand out for her to shake. She refused, noticing black under his fingernails and a hair coming from a mole on the palm of his hand.

  Eloise went back to her office to await more instructions from the Crime Unit in town. Her phone rang the moment she sat in her chair, her heart immediately thumping hard in her chest. She killed people for a living, yet a phone call made her nervous.

  They called her down to their office immediately, packing up her small box of belongings. She was not one to keep memorabilia with the amount that she moved around, yet she had some things to pass as normalcy.

  Chapter. 2

  The drive to the police department was short, yet it felt like it had taken hours. Traffic was slow from the late morning rush and the covering of snow from the night before. She passed an officer on a horse on her way up the long walkway, the man nodding and the horse neighing loudly. Her breath came out in a cloud, her hands tucked deeply into her pockets.

  The inside of the police department was new and sharp looking. The floors were a white tile and the walls mostly black and white with the county symbol painted against the far wall. To her left was a thick glass window with two older ladies sitting on the other side of it, headsets pushed into their ears. Neither of them said anything as Eloise stood in front of the glass, her box still in her hands. She knocked on the glass once, one lady putting her finger up and rolling her eyes before putting her attention back to her phone.

  “Miss Parker?” Someone behind her said. She turned to see an officer standing with his hand extended, a smile on his face.

  “It’s park.” She said, returning his smile and shaking his hand. She felt immediately at ease in this building, save for the two at the front desk.

  “I hope you did not wait long.” He sent a glare over her shoulder at the two behind the desk behind her. Eloise turned to see one of them turning red and the other retreating from her seat.

  “I just got here, it’s okay.” She waved the two away, watching the officer walk past her to slam his hand on the window.

  “This is your last warning ladies. The next time I will not be so nice.” He walked back towards her, an apologetic look on his face. “This is what you get when you can hire old convicts as dispatchers. Come on, I’ll show you around.” The officer grabbed the box from her, leading her through a door with a key code entry.

  “Why would you hire old convicts? That’s a strange concept. How does that even come up as an option?” Eloise watched the officer’s moves, memorizing as much as she could.

  “They cut down on costs. This way the parole officers can monitor them and we know they’re not out on the streets. Plus we don’t pay them as much as we would another e
mployee.” He laughed, pulling his belt up higher.

  He pointed to every room he passed, waving at the people who were in them, muttering grievances under his breath after a couple of them, Eloise laughing in response. Finally they got to another door with a keypad sitting in front of it.

  “Here, this should help you.” He handed her a piece of paper with a code on it. “It’s yours, so don’t give it to anyone else. You are limited on access, so there are places that you cannot enter, so don’t try anything you shouldn’t. You have access to the records room and the lab and your office, otherwise it is restricted. And I’m supposed to tell you that every room is under 24 hour surveillance.” He handed her a badge with her photo and name on it. She looked at him confused, taking the badge.

  “It was sent from your other employer. He really pushed to get you on this case.” The man gave her a look that said more than his words did. Her boss was up to something sneaky, and it seemed like it was in his own interest.

  “So I have an office?” She ignored the questions she wanted to ask, pointing at something different.

  “You do. It’s in the lab. You share the lab with the others, but you get your office to yourself.” He let her punch in her own code, following her through the door. Unlike the white and black theme of the rest of the building, this section felt like home. Screens lined the walls, different images and camera angles on all of them. It smelled sanitary, like the overuse of chemical cleaners. It was also colder, something she was used to from the genetics lab.

  There was one room filled floor to ceiling with vials of different blood samples, the names scrawled on them. The few techs that were there ogled at her as if she was a creature they not only feared but loathed. She was the person taking over their job, and she was at least ten years younger than those that she had seen so far.

  The officer spoke as he walked, Eloise hardly paying attention to him. Her vision was a tunnel, staring at everything she could.

  “This is where your office will be while you’re here.” He pushed open a door to a large office. It was furnished fully with the computer screen alight with life, a big black desk chair sitting in front of the cherry colored desk. Her heart was fluttering, her eyes wild. Eloise sat at a recycled glass desk with an out-of-date computer in a run down chair at the genetics lab. This was an upgrade far surpassing her needs, but fulfilling her wants.

  “Great. When do I get access to the case files?” The officer walked in to place her box down on the desk, leaning against it to look at her with a hunger in his eyes. She only just realized that he was not too much older than her with blue eyes that stood out against the darkness of his skin. She felt a flush of attraction, something she had not felt in many years. Eloise pushed it down as deep as she could without vanquishing it completely. She could use that to her advantage some day but she would not let it make her sloppy.

  He giggled once, looking at his shoes with a nervous smile. “I will get those to you as soon as the Chief releases them. You have been cleared to work here, but now we need your signature on a confidentiality form. As you may assume, that is an important part of working on a case that is not entirely public yet. He walked past her, getting a little too close. Eloise felt her heart flutter, a lump sticking in her throat. She watched him leave, her eyes lingering a little too long.

  Eloise shook her head, sitting in her desk chair and swirling around. She suppressed a scream in delight, holding her hands to her mouth. She hadn’t been this excited since her promotion from “Assassin” to “Assassin of the Corp”- a much more valiant title. It took her only a few minutes to get her things set up, her OCD putting everything in a specific spot. Her attention to detail was the one thing that always saved her, noticing things that the feeble eye would otherwise skip.

  The captain came in after twenty minutes, placing a stack of papers on the desk for her to sign, explaining everything as he went on. It took a monumental amount of time; time she could have used to work. She was curious how long it would take them to discover her and if they even would.

  “Get a good night of rest Parker.” The captain saluted her before clicking his heels together and leaving. She stared at her door for a long moment, a look of perplexity on her face.

  It was a good thing “Park” wasn’t her real last name, otherwise she would have gotten upset over the wrong title. Her real last name was much less pronounceable and much less american. Eloise was used to her identity changing; something necessary for ner profession.

  Chapter. 3

  The next morning came around, Eloise heading to her office early to look at all of the equipment she had access to. The other techs started to file in one at a time, none of them acknowledging her. She stayed busy going over the files that had been placed on her desk.

  “Did you solve the case yet?” She looked up instantly, seeing the officer standing in her doorway leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Not yet, but I feel like I can sense the killer already.” She laughed inside, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. She felt the muscles around her eyes tense, controlling them to not give anything away.

  “Good. Now keep that with you, we’re going to the scene.” A smile lit up his face, uncrossing his arms to lean on her desk instead.

  “Now I must ask, seeing as how I didn’t learn it yesterday, what exactly is your name? Or what should I address you as?” She saw a nametag with a long name that she struggled with in her head.

  “Call me Peter.” He laughed, pronouncing his last name with a strong Polish accent.

  “Peter it is. Let’s get going before the snow hits.” He helped her pull her coat over her shoulders, his fingers connecting with her neck to send chills down her back. She watched the scenery as he drove, sitting in the font with him. She felt odd being in a police car, something her kind often tried to avoid. She tried to imagine the circumstance different, where she had been caught and was sitting in the back behind the thin black bars and plastic separating the two. It was easier to do so with the thick silence in the car.

  He pulled his cruiser over to the side of the road, the body being directly north of where they were. The snow had just started, the flakes falling straight from the sky with no wind to blow it around. She followed him in silence, her heart beating faster and faster as they glot close to the body. Eloise knew it would be just on the other side of the cluster of rocks that lay ahead of them. There was barely a path, but Peter seemed to know exactly where to go.

  But the body was not where she had left it. There was not even a clue that the body was where she had put it. Eloise tried to hide every emotion that she could feel pass over her face. Instead it was a a few meters to the left, in a different cluster of trees. She remembered exactly where she had left it and she was careful in making sure no one knew she was there.

  Eloise pulled gloves onto her hands, scanning the ground for footprints or anything else that she could see out of the ordinary. There was too much snow to be able to fully see anything, the same thought she had when placing the body where she had originally.

  The game had turned from capturing herself to discovering who was toying with her.

  She noticed a few small drops of blood dripped in the snow; it was still fairly fresh. Whoever had moved her did it recently, probably messing with her. Eloise was going crazy in her mind. She knelt to collect the blood, knowing that it was probably too diluted to get any hits off of. The body was cold, but still fresh. Her lips were purple, her hair standing out against the white of the snow, her nails starting to darken.

  Eloise moved the girls hair out of the way, exposing the injection site right behind the ear. The skin was raised slightly and the small hole was black. She remembered pushing the needle into the girls flesh. How it felt gliding through the skin and catching at the muscle, forcing her to push a little harder against the sleeping woman. At that moment she awoke, starting to squirm against Eloise. It took her only a moment to disable the oth
er woman, holding her hand over her mouth until the light went from her eyes.

  “I see you are no stranger to death.” Peter pulled her from her thoughts, bringing her back to reality. Eloise smiled shyly, looking at him from over her glasses. He stood a few yards back, having to talk loudly for her to hear.

  “No this is my first actually.” She lied, feeling her cheeks flush. “I have studied so many dead things that a human body really doesn’t mean that much to me. Besides, the dead are easy. They don’t bite you or yell at you or make you do things you don’t want to. Us humans are so pushy.” She snapped her jaw shut, hoping he wouldn’t read too far into her words. Something about Peter sent her mind flying, making her sloppy.

  “Well, that makes one of us. I could never get used to seeing someone from my town lying dead in the snow.” He made a face of disgust, taking a deep breath and holding it in. He tried to keep his eyes from the girl on the ground, looking too long at Eloise. She laughed, turning back to the body.