by Jessica King
She staggered, her eyes wide, gulping down the room with frantic, too-fast glances. She looked down at the wound, put her hand over it. Her knees buckled, and there it was—the understanding that she wouldn’t be coming back from this. This, a knife in her heart, was her ending note. She fell to her knees, slack jawed as she looked at Mason, who had walked out of frame. She collapsed onto her side. No breath, no blinking. Just the cold, dead stare of a corpse.
Mason picked up his phone and turned the recording off.
“Good,” Lindsey said.
Aline clapped her hands quickly in agreement. It had been good. “Lovely death, Katie!” Aline cheered.
“That may or may not come out of your rug,” Jordan, who had secured Katie’s squib, said, pointing to where some of the blood had dripped along the coral-colored rug.
“That’s perfectly fine if it means my real blood doesn’t end up on it,” Katie said. She had that look in her eye that Aline recognized so well. It was sort of like a runner’s high, or at least she thought so. She had never been much of a runner. But performing a big scene always left her with that sort of light-headed feeling that Katie seemed to be feeling now.
She walked across the room and grabbed the two glasses of wine. Keeping one for herself and handing one to Katie, they clinked their glasses, and, as she expected, Katie took a long, solid drink from the glass. “Well done,” Aline said.
“Time to dye your hair!” Jordan said, grabbing a box of dye from her bag filled with production equipment and makeup. “Do you want to go blonde or,” she read off the box, “Raven Black?”
“I’ll go blonde,” Katie said.
“And this is precautionary,” Ivy said. “To really make this work, you’re going to want to stay in here, finish all the food you have before going out.” She motioned to Katie’s laptop on the table. “If you can get groceries delivered, I’d recommend that but not by your parents. They can’t be seen here, just in case someone is watching the place.”
“If you see anything weird, call us,” Vince said. “There’s a pretty regular patrol along this street, so officers are never really far from here.”
“Are any of the officers Kingsmen?” Katie asked.
Surely Ivy had already thought of this and feared for her own life because of it. “We can’t know for sure,” Ivy said. “But considering the target on my own back, and the fact that none of my fellow officers have aimed for it, it seems unlikely to me.”
Katie nodded several times in a row—her head bouncing more than bobbing. “Okay,” she said. “I mean, hopefully, I won’t need to call.”
Aline broke the tension with a twirl. She’d found that conversation topics didn’t alleviate topics that pulled people tight and taught, but rather, a distracting motion. She raised up onto her tiptoes and curtsied. She didn’t say anything, but she did feel the distance between breaths around her relax. Good.
Mason rubbed his hands together. “Well, that was strange,” he said. “But I think after this, I could recreate that a few times with some of my L.A. coven volunteers, and I’ll be on my way up the leaderboard!”
And into the ranks of the people who want to kill us all, Aline thought.
Her thoughts reminded her of her own death still being called for by the Kingsmen, but she pushed the thought away. They’d increased security so much she hardly visited the loo by herself anymore. She and Katie had agreed on strict safety measures until they had the time to consult with Ivy about it again. Aline looked over to the detective. She believed in Ivy and Vince. Perhaps by the time she and Emily had set up a time to review her security, the Kingsmen would be behind bars because of her two brilliant friends.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Monday, March 13, 2017, 6:48 p.m.
Varsity watched as the L.A. coven met in the house Becca had told him about. Disgusting. He couldn’t believe Edward Thorne, a Kingsman at one time, had been able to tolerate living so close to such a place. Hadn’t he sensed their depravity? He couldn’t see much from so far away, and he kept feeling the need to shove his binoculars beneath his car’s seat whenever he heard a noise that vaguely echoed a car’s engine. But he’d seen enough to know they were sitting in groups around candles. They appeared to be singing, but Varsity knew these women were likely chanting.
He was nervous about the plan. He’d pull police attention to this house, and hopefully, burn a few witches to ashes while he took his real prize. Edward Thorne.
He closed his car door with a quiet thump and slipped his bookbag onto his shoulders. As casually as he could manage, he walked across the suburban road and into the L.A. coven’s yard. The gate to the small backyard was a simple latch, and he sat down in a patch of the garden next to the wall’s siding, where he would be hidden from any windows.
He’d bought fifteen baseballs and tied cloth around them earlier in the day, and now he had what looked like fifteen craft ghosts from an elementary school project. But nonetheless, they would work. He pulled out the water bottles he’d meticulously filled with gasoline and began drenching each baseball.
After washing his hands with a bottle filled with regular water and putting on the fireproof gloves he’d bought—this takedown had quickly turned expensive, though he doubted he’d get a refund from the Kingsmen—he opened the Zippo lighter and took a deep breath. “Fifteen years of baseball better help me out right now,” he said, threatening his own pitching arm.
He placed the first five baseballs at the base of the house, using the leftover gasoline on the siding of the house. He set them on fire, and flames started to lick at the gasoline. The next five were aimed for the upstairs.
He’d been hoping for big upstairs windows like this. Apparently, witches liked sun-soaked areas, half the house was made of glass, but he decided that it was for the better. Made his job much easier, anyway. He set each baseball on fire and then sent them through the second-story windows, glass shattering inward into the house.
The first screams sounded from the living room, where he figured they were all sitting. He then threw the next five into the kitchen and watched as the downstairs filled with the bright, foggy yellows of flame.
The screams had become louder, and he grabbed his bag and sprinted. He knew the witches would be pouring out of the front of the house soon, but he couldn’t risk neighbors seeing him on the front lawn and calling the police too early. He heard a few shouts behind him, but no one came after him. Smart of them; he had a gun. He was far more dangerous than any spell they would cast on him.
As the house burned, he drove away, his car’s tires squealing against the sudden request for speed. One more target to take care of, and he would be on the top of the leaderboard. It seemed like Calla had decided to lay low; her scores had not gone up in days. He’d overtake her by midnight.
+++
Monday, March 13, 2017, 6:59 p.m.
Ivy sped toward the L.A. coven, which was now covered in flames and ringed by witches and curious neighbors. Ivy launched herself out of the car and toward the crowd of witches and wizards until she found Cassiopeia.
“Is there anyone still in there?” she asked, looking at the cheery house now spewing thick, black clouds.
Cassiopeia shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “We heard the glass breaking. I ran into the kitchen and saw the windows were broken, and there were flames catching onto all the rugs.”
“We need to clear a perimeter, give the fire department some room to work,” Vince said, coming up behind Ivy.
Ivy nodded and directed the witches to a neighbor’s lawn across the street. “Don’t let anyone drive yet. We want to check the cars, considering this is an intentional attack and not an accident, right?”
Cassiopeia nodded. Ivy turned, but Cassiopeia’s hand wrapped around Ivy’s arm. “Ivy,” she said. Ivy felt her eyes wide, her heart action-ready. “There’s a lot of important information in there,” she said. “It was written on the floor under the rugs.” Ivy quickly remembered the patchwork
of posters she’d found in Jeremiah Ethan’s home. She had looked for evidence of him being the Kingsmen’s first major killer in L.A. Instead, she’d found a web of clues trying to figure out who was the King of the Kingsmen, but Ethan hadn’t identified the key player.
“I don’t think the floors are going to make it,” Ivy said. She turned toward the house that was wrapped in orange and black. She could feel the heat from across the road, making her itch beneath her bullet-proof vest. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “We can go in if the structure is deemed safe, but I doubt it will be.”
Cassiopeia nodded as if she already suspected this might have been the news she’d received. Her lip wobbled. “Okay,” she said.
Ivy pressed her own lips together and put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. More sirens wailed down the end of the street—firetrucks. Ivy handed Cassiopeia off to a collection of crying witches, and went to join Vince, who was already talking to a fire marshal.
“Someone set the house on fire intentionally,” Vince was saying. “The people inside heard several crashes from both the upstairs and downstairs windows.”
Water was already being pumped, steam rising from the house as the firefighters started to douse the area.
“The noises came from the back yard?” the fire marshal asked.
“Yes, through the kitchen,” Ivy said.
“Let’s do a quick look. Wouldn’t believe how many people hurt themselves, pulling off this sort of thing,” he said.
They made their way to the backyard. The house was a dark, barbequed color across the back. Charred.
Vince walked to the exact center of the yard, spotting something. He picked it up and waved a white rectangle at Ivy.
A Kingsmen card.
+++
Monday, March 13, 2017, 7:08 p.m.
Edward had decided to move. Breaking his rent agreement was going to be expensive enough that he’d probably need to live in a motel for a while. That was fine, he decided. He’d rather be alive in a motel than dead in an L.A. apartment. He’d bought a trailer, but there was still only so much he’d be able to fit. He’d put most of his furniture up for sale online for dirt cheap. His direct messages were blowing up. He’d only posted his TV for sale forty-five minutes ago, and someone was already on their way to pick it up. He was afraid to post under his own name—it was more than likely that Kingsmen had followed him on social media, so he’d posted under a fake name.
This was the type of thing mothers warned their children about all the time. A man online with a seemingly generic name—he’d gone with Jackson Pollock, and no one seemed to bat an eye, which made him wonder if his high school had focused perhaps too much on art history education—and a picture of a dog in his profile instead of a face. He had no connected friends, no photo albums, nothing. And still, some nineteen-year-old was on their merry way to get a forty-inch television for a measly fifty bucks.
Edward would just leave whatever clothes didn’t fit into his three suitcases—did he really need more than three suitcases worth of clothes? He’d fished out his favorites first and was now stuffing in as many T-shirts and sweats as he could. He heard a knock on the door.
“Come in!” he yelled from the bedroom. He dug through his piles for a blanket to cover the TV with. He’d thrown away the box at some point, so a quilt would have to do. The front door squeaked on its hinges, and when he heard a voice that clearly belonged to someone older than nineteen, his stomach dropped.
“Didn’t think you’d make it so easy, Edward. I’m disappointed.”
He’d waited too long.
Edward scrambled for his gun. He thought he’d have more time before the Kingsmen found out that he was still alive, but he had been stupid. And now he would have to kill or be killed. He heard the footsteps move to the kitchen, and he took the extra moment to slip on his Kevlar vest.
+++
Monday, March 13, 2017, 7:11 p.m.
The idiot had invited him right in. Surely, this man knew he was being hunted. Varsity made his way through the house, taking careful, slow steps into the kitchen. Nothing. He whipped back around toward the front door—no Edward lunging for escape. The house was small, even for an outskirts-of-L.A. house, and there was only one hallway for him to go down. Edward must be in one of the bedrooms.
“Come out, Edward!” he called. His phone was already tucked into his shirt’s front pocket, his standard uniform nowadays. He wanted the King to see that he was having fun. That he was not only good at this but that he wasn’t scared of his targets. He’d deserve that top spot after this.
One knock on the door before it creaked open.
“Hey, Mr. Pollock, I’m here for—” the boy stopped in his tracks, his eyes locking onto Varsity’s gun before he met Varsity’s eyes. He put his hands up and took a step back. The teenager was still summer-tan, but his face had turned ghostly white, and Varsity sighed, turning the gun to the boy. The kid shook his head, and it looked like his lips were trying to either form please or no. He couldn’t tell.
He had never felt sorry for any of the witches he killed, and he knew he wouldn’t feel sorry if he took the teen out and chalked it up to collateral damage. But a small piece of him did recognize that this kid hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t really deserve to die the way his eliminated witches had.
“P-please,” the boy finally got out. He took another step back.
Varsity didn’t lower the gun, but he knew he didn’t have time to weigh his options any longer. “Sorry, kid,” he said and pulled the trigger.
The boy dropped to the ground, any evidence he would have carried back to the police leaking into the carpet with his blood.
Before he realized that the second bang wasn’t simply the echo of his own gun, he felt a horrible sting in his side. His knees buckled, but he managed to stay upright, even as he felt the sudden dip in his blood pressure as it gushed out of him. Varsity turned, aimed, fired. By the time he managed to get a good look at Edward Thorne, he realized that his bullet had hit a Kevlar vest instead of flesh. Varsity held up his hands, the gun shaking because of the pain in his side.
Edward’s eyes were cold as he closed one eye and pulled the trigger.
+++
Monday, March 13, 2017, 7:20 p.m.
Edward bit his finger to keep from yelling. The shooter had hit his vest, but it still burned, the skin peeking out from beneath the vest already turning a deep purple. But whoever had been taunting him moments ago was now sprawled on his floor. Edward turned the corner and found the voice he’d heard too late. TV kid. He checked his phone. Blake Leonard. Before he could avert his eyes from any more of the boy’s information, he’d already seen that the boy had a sister and a girlfriend and a black lab.
His cat, Timothy, howled from his crate, and Edward fell to his hands and knees, panic turning his vision black. He felt horrible dizziness, and then felt the sting of acid as he heaved the contents of his stomach onto the rug next to his supposed killer.
“Enough is enough,” he said, spitting the rest of the putrid liquid from his mouth. “Enough!” He yelled it this time, yelled it at the corpse. He moved to a clean patch of carpeting and wept into it, the smell of blood and gunpowder and vomit mixing into a scent he would only ever be able to label as death. He spat one more time. “I’m done.”
He picked himself up off the floor, brushed his teeth, picked up an angry Timothy, and walked to his car.
He left the forty-inch television, the three suitcases, the two bodies, and the puddle of vomit. He left it all, and he didn’t look back. He never wanted to see any of it again.
+++
Monday, March 13, 2017, 7:28 p.m.
“9-1-1 available units to 1362 Ocean Cove Avenue, multiple shots fired inside the home.”
Ivy turned on the sirens, and two different cars pulled over, believing they’d been pulled over for speeding. They had been speeding, but Ivy flew past them, cars pulling into the right lane to make room. Vince radioed in that th
ey were on the way.
The suburban street was run down and dark. The streetlights placed too far apart for being this far away from the center of the city. It made the whole thing look like the beginning of a horror film. Ivy had been to plenty of horror film-esque places since joining the force, but she’d never grown accustomed to places like that the way some officers had promised she would.
She turned off the siren but left the lights on as she and Vince got out of the car, weapons drawn.
Vince went to the door first. Three pounds against the door. “LAPD, open up!”
Ivy ticked off ten seconds in her head, and one quick scan of the neighborhood showed lights turning on in the surrounding homes, curious heads peeking through curtains. Vince repeated his request for entry, and Ivy ticked off another ten seconds. There was no car in the driveway, and the paint on the front entryway was so badly chipped, Ivy wondered if the place had been abandoned long ago. She checked the house number again. They were right, but it was quiet.
There hadn’t been any gunfire since they’d been on the street, so whatever had happened was likely over. But that also meant victims.
“Go,” she said.
Vince tried the doorknob. “Open,” he said. He kicked the door to see if the motion would result in any gunfire. It didn’t.
But the door didn’t open all the way. “Something blocking it?” Ivy asked.
“Heavy,” Vince said. His eyes told her he suspected a person, and they moved to either side of the door, their backs to the house. “Better to come out now,” Vince warned. No response.
Ivy motioned that she would check. She moved past the door quickly, glancing through the hinges as she went. “No one standing,” she said. “If it’s a body, it’s on the floor.”
Vince slipped into the doorway, gun drawn and whipped around the door. She slid after him, her back pressing against his as she scanned the room. “Man down,” she said, her voice calm even as she took in the body on the floor, covered in blood, and the puddle of vomit next to him.