Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The west end was one of the shittiest places on earth, quite literally with the way every step wasn’t met with a dry sound of stone, but the wet one of things Simon didn’t want to look at. The air was saturated with the smell of chemicals and decay to the point that, even with the heavy handkerchief covering his face, the man struggled. He was taking short breaths in a desperate attempt to not flood his lungs with rancid odors and diseases.
The bobby, MacTavish, walked in front of him, didn’t seem to mind the smell with the way he was talking his ears off. He didn’t seem to mind risking pneumonia just to puke an endless amount of uninteresting information about the neighbor and the last people that saw the victim.

It all started some weeks ago, with new attacks, originally linked to Spring-heeled Jack. It actually made sense at the time with how similar the cases were : A woman or even a girl, maybe she was at home or in the street, mostly at night, got attacked or scared by a creature-shaped man. If it wasn’t for the way they all described the man the same way, nothing would link all of those cases.

And here, with the poor souls so brutally separated from their bodies, there wasn’t even a sighting to make sure it was the same man. But it just made sense. The first victims were grabbed, strangled, their clothes ripped off of them, but every time at least one person heard them and made the culprit run away. It was a possibility that when no one heard the victims, he could finish his fatal plan.

What was strange was how localised the attacks were now. Since then, the Spring-heeled Jack appeared up north in Scotland, in Ireland also, but all the murders happened in London. The police force of the whole country had been notified. London’s police needed to know if any sighting happened elsewhere, to know if the man settled or if it was a copycat.

Not like he needed to wear a disguise with the state he was leaving his victims in.

Knowing who the victim saw before death was then useless, even walking here was useless, he knew what they would find. A still locked door, all the windows still closed or even locked from inside, probably no fireplace or with a stack too small even for a baby, and most importantly, no link between the victims. And Simon couldn't stop his eyebrow from twitching in frustration that the damn bobby was still talking.

The bobby finally shut it and stopped when they arrived in front of the building. From the street he could already get a whiff of the characteristic iron smell, probably escaping from the flat by an open window he couldn’t see from there. Less chance for a witness on the culprit’s escape. He got around the man and after getting in without any procedure, started climbing the stiff stairs, every one of them making the smell worse.

“ Wait !” MacTavish ran to him, jumping carelessly up the steps three by three, not caring or not conscious that the stairs weren’t built to accept that kind of assault, especially not now that they were old and worm-eaten.
“ What’s smelling like that ?” His voice got muffled half-way, quickly distorted by the handkerchief he pressed in front of his mouth and nose.

“ First murder, Constable MacTavish ?” Simon was grateful for the headband covering his own face, cutting out most of the smell with how thick it was. It was still nauseating but at least manageable.

“ Aye… And for you, Detective ?”

“ I don’t count.” It’s a lie, an obvious one for himself, but what is he supposed to say ? That it’s the fourteenth one? The forty-eighth one if he counts the war?

Their faces, or even names, are blurry in his memory, but every time he looked at their body it was covered by what seemed like a transparent veil, making the exposed meat more animal than human.

And this girl won't be any different.

On the third floor another constable was stationed in front of the flat to keep any curious onlookers from destroying any evidence, told them that it was her landlord that opened the flat with the spare key he had, worried by the strong smell and that he didn’t even enter the flat, having called them directly.

They entered the small flat, a cold and moulded thing big enough for just one bed, a little trunk and a makeshift kitchen. The window and shutters were closed, protecting the room from the warmer air outside, keeping the victim fresh and the room damp.

Simon still didn’t get why that Scot was thrown at him, what was he supposed to see that Simon wouldn't have already noticed ? It’s not like they could link the victims together or even know how the man could have possibly entered or got out.

The bobby was stuck in front of the bed, where the body still was. After examining everything they could, it would be taken to the hospital, where overqualified doctors could say that she suffered a terrible death.

Like they couldn’t tell.

Anna Hastings, 21 years old, celibate, no known family alive, working as a seamstress in one of the factories nearby.

She was laying on her back, arms raised over her head in a pose that seemed to come straight from a painting. Her head was slightly tilted to the side, resting on one of her arm. Her cushion was still under her and perfectly placed and with the dim light, she seemed almost normal and peaceful. With how good she looks in the dim light, it takes him a second to remember that he’s supposed to see the veil. A light translucid cover to hide her humanity, to protect his soul from the atrocities of death. He’s supposed to to feel at the back of his head in front of her, to see in her corpse more meat than humanity, but he doesn’t. It feels like she’s still somehow alive, like she’s still human and a thing deep in him doesn’t seem to be able to process it.

The bobby opened the window then the shutters before closing the window again, a vain attempt to keep the air cold. Simon’s eyes took a few seconds to get used to the light and the first thing he saw was an ocean of dark red.

Her nightgown and sheet had been opened by what seemed like a sharp knife, the sheets were drenched in dried blood, but for some rare untouched spots, Simon could tell the sheets were originally white. Most of her blood covered her clothes and the mattress, the rest were covering the walls, ceiling and some parts of her that were thrown on the ground. With the violence of the attack but her peaceful position, it seemed like he got to her as she was asleep, didn’t even let her get up.

After a deep breath he took a step closer and started examining her from head to toe..

Her left calf was destroyed beyond recognition, the foot that was supposed to be attached to it was nowhere to be seen.

“ Mactavish.” His voice startled the poor bobby, still stuck near the window, far from the poor girl.

“ Aye ?”

“ Search for her foot, see if the guy took it.”

“ The ..?” The man looked, really looked, at the body for what seemed to be the first time and became even whiter than her. He really was useless. Simon couldn’t grasp why he was forced to keep the bobby running between his legs like an annoying puppy, especially not when the man couldn’t even look at a dead body without looking sick.

“ If you need to puke, do it outside. We don’t want you to compromise the scene.” The man nodded, too stunned to react to the obvious attack and slowly began searching the little room.

The other leg’s calf was mostly untouched and the foot still there, covered by little scrapes and cuts that seemed more accidental than anything, but the thigh, that was another level of evil.

The flesh there was cut open, the bone exposed, but it didn’t seem to have stopped him. The bone itself was covered in profound lacerations, letting Simon see in the deepest ones, the soft pink of her marrow. The opening ran up to the hipbone, looking to be broken in half with the weird angle each leg had.

“ Found it, Detective.”

Simon didn’t even move his eyes from her. “ Where ?”

“ Just under the bed, I guess it fell?”

“ Perceptive, aren’t you ?” The bobby turned to him. The colour had returned to his face and, visibly, the desire to fight too, as he started talking his ear off again. Simon easily shut out his voice in his mind, reducing him to a simple static noise.

The whole pelvic part of her body was destroyed, even the bones and organs were hard to decipher. It wasn’t the first time the malice of their culprit focused on this part of the victims. Was it to hide what he did to them before killing them or was he unable to do anything in the first place ? It seemed crushed, cut, torn apart and ripped out to the point that, with the way the hipbone was broken under it, when the doctors would come to take the body, they would need to transport it in two or three separate parts.

The cut between her hips traveled all the way up to her collar bone. Her intestines were taken out, left in a loose circle all around her, not like it was made for real purpose, but just to get access to the backbone behind it. The stomach was punctured and nothing fell out of it other than for some stomach acid that burned any flesh it could touch. The diaphragm was cut in half and allowed the lungs to fall in the stomach’s original place.

The sternum had been ripped off, making the ribs look like something escaped from the inside. The bone was on the ground, thrown there carelessly, and the heart absent. Just like in the other murders.

Simon had to take a shaky breath as his eyes took in the scene.

Her neck and face were untouched, her hair still perfectly braided in a crown around her youthful features. Even with her eyes still open, and the terrible condition of her death, her expression was soft and peaceful. He couldn’t decipher if the way her lips were pinched was a smile or a weird cadaveric reaction.

She had light amber eyes, dried by now, that were still beautiful, long curls of blond hair that seemed soft and well taken care of. Her cheeks still had the fullness of youth and with her slightly crooked nose, she could be his sister.

He took a step in her direction and with two fingers, closed her eyes, finally letting her rest.

“ There's something weird here.”

“ What is ?” With the tip of his finger, Simon took a pearl of dried blood off of her cheek.

“ A powder, it’s nothing like I’ve ever seen, do the other murders have this too ?”

Anger started to bubble, almost outraged to have his paying of respects interrupted by some dirt. “ Why would we search through dirt !?”

The bobby frowned, his tone hardening. “ I didn’t say ‘dirt’, I used the word ‘powder’.”

“ Flour then, what is with it ?”

“ That’s not flour, it’s not salt or soot, that’s precisely why I’m taking notice.”

Simon sighed and turned around, crossing his arms. “ So you found a mysterious powder, so what ?”

MacTavish got up from the ground and looked back at him, the anger making him forget to cover his mouth from the iron smell. “ It may be important. You’re throwing away eventual clues real fast for a detective.”

“ Am I ? What would be that powder then ? There’s a magician throwing it around his victim’s flats? Can it open and lock doors on command ? Even if it fucking did, how could it lead us to know where to find him ?”

“ Maybe he bought it ! Or needs some specific chemicals to create it ! We don’t need to know what he’s using it for for it to be useful !”

“ And what if it was hers ? Some kind of makeup or whatever ?”

“ Makeup ?” MacTavish holds his arms out wide, highlighting the place they were in. “Really?”

“ Really. You told me so yourself that she got to go to the great exhibition the day of her death. Maybe it’s some weird stuff that had stuck onto her clothes from there.”

“ Then we can ask what clothes she was wearing and check them.”

“ Have fun buddy.”

Simon walked away, followed by the shadow of light amber eyes.

~

MacTavish didn’t even need to find out what clothes she wore the day before, since the powder couldn’t be found on any of her belongings. A further examination of the small flat couldn’t provide a logical source for it and the factory she was working at was also a dead end.

The bobby even finished examining the wall and her window to no avail. That’s when the detective began to take an interest in it. Even if the thing was flour or makeup, there wasn't a lot of possibility left for its origin.
If it wasn’t coming from her clothes, her work, her belongings or the building itself, there wasn’t much possibility. It could come from the people who found her or the cops, but there was no powder near the only entrance.

Simon was sitting behind his desk, a useless pen stuck between his index and middle finger, using to hit it against the hardwood. He wasn’t planning to take any notes but he needed to do something with his hands to get some energy out. The frown on MacTavish’s face, deepening over time with the annoying sound was just a little treat.

“ So.” The bobby tried as if talking would make the clatter stop. “ I got back to the victim’s flat before the doctors came to take the body.” It didn’t stop, and the frown deepened even more. If Simon continued, the other man’s eyebrow would touch, he smirked at the idea, hidden behind his handkerchief. “ There was a weird thing under the bed, like red dough. I'm wondering if most of the powder wasn’t under the bed and what we saw outside of it was just … pushed out ?”

Simon stopped moving his pen. “ So what, he hid under the bed and got out when she went to sleep ?”

“ I think so, those beds are pretty high and she didn’t have a trunk under it, it’s not hard to get under them.”

“ But then, why was there no powder in the main entrance ?”

“ They’re a lot of cults or witchcraft that use powders. I wouldn't be surprised if he had it in a purse and put it on himself before committing the crime. I need to search the topic a bit more for that, but I know where to go so it’s not a pro-”

Simon cut him there, couldn’t listen to more. “ Cults or witchcraft.” He just repeated flatly, not adding anything.

“ Yes ?” MacTavish didn’t seem to see the problem, acting like Simon just didn’t understand the words. “ As I said, I can find information easily-”

He cut him again. “ Of all the possibilities for this powder, the first you go to, is ‘cult or witchcraft’.”

The frown came back. “ Yes ?”

“ It could be drugs, something he had on his knife, something that fell from his pocket, why ‘cult or witchcraft’ ? That is the most stupid possibility.”

“ Oh my god. Is your office naturally this clean or is it the broom stuck in your bum ? They’re a bunch of people in america into this kind of stuff-”

One of Simon’s eyebrows slowly raised to his forehead as he processed what the man was saying and what he’s trying to say. He still can’t help it. “ Americans are into broom stuck there ?”

“ No !” His voice rises to an offended high pitch. “ Into mediumnity !”

Simon’s face twisted in a strange grimace, stuck between trying to not smile and the anger rising in him. “ We’re not in america, age-”

“ Ooh, thank you for that piece of information, luckily you’re here with your oh so sharp mind, what would we do without you ?!”

“ I won’t tolerate being spoken to in that tone, Constable!”

“ Then don’t talk to me with it ! I’m here to help and that’s what I’m doing ! You changed your mind with the powder, why are you so against everything I say !”

Simon stood up, his chair grating against the ground then falling over, hitting loudly the wall behind him. “ Because that poor girl was murdered by a beast and we can’t do shit about it !! She’s the third murder and our only lead is some weird powder on the ground !”

John stands as well, his blue eyes burning with cold flames. “ Then why close doors without any proof ?!”

The detective rounds his desk, standing just in front of the other man, like the difference in size itself would work in his favor. “ Because that’s just stupid ! Just because you got lucky with one thing you think you can say whatever shit you want and make it true !”

The bobby grabs him by the collar and yells something that can’t reach Simon’s brain. He feels lost, like in the bat of an eye, he’s on a whole different planet. Is it the way the man isn't scared of him ? Is it those blue eyes, the light hitting them just in the right angle for his iris to disappear ? He blinks once, twice, and other eyes come at him, fearless light amber ones, asking silently ‘why’.

Guilt hits him like a wall. MacTavish is still yelling but now his words are just distant information. The man is still trying to justify himself, to explain how it’s not that stupid, how they need to work on anything they have. And Anna is still looking at him, asking silently why he rejected the idea this hard.

It’s not like it was the weirdest thing he saw in his life, it’s not like a dead woman was in the back of his mind.

He took a step back and John’s hands let him go. “ So what now.” His voice was so low, he hated how tired he sounded suddenly. Even John was confused by the change but had the decency to not say anything about it.

“ We can ask herbalists, find groups that believe in mediumnity and that kind of thing, if our killer is into those kinds of spirituality, he may have entered in contact with them himself. A weird guy killing young women, they must have at least noticed he’s weird in some way.”

Simon looked back at his desk, at the chair still on the ground. “ Do you still have the powder ?”

John seemed insulted by the question. “ Of course I do.”

“ A herbalist might know what it is, or have the knowledge to identify it.”

“ That’s what I wanted to say before you started cutting me off, yes. It may sound stupid, but it allows us to answer a lot of questions at once.”

~

Mactavish ended up going to three different herbalists and none of them could identify the powder but all of them had the same conclusion : it wasn’t dust or some sort of useless byproduct of something else. One of them even offered to do some experiments on it. If set on fire, it would produce a flame completely red, not the usual gradient of white to red, and it would burn constantly, for hours even if left to it. What was even more intriguing was that setting it on fire wouldn’t create any byproduct and the flame would burn without creating soot or smoke. The powder when extinguished looked exactly the same than before.
If put in water, the grains seemed to stick to each other and repulse the water, floating without breaking the surface tension. Out of water, the powder was still dry to the touch. The herbalist even tried to feed it to a mouse and even if the animal ingested it without any trouble, it seemed like its biology didn’t react to it at all.

It’s when the constable tried his chances with mediums that things really became weird. Because of course those people would know what the powder was and of course MacTavish started to believe them. Simon couldn’t believe that in this century of science and mechanical progress, with the great exhibition still running in town, people could still believe in that kind of nonsense. Especially not a Scotsman, with how religious those ones were.

Simon got himself comfortable in his chair, tapping his pen on his desk, this time it wasn’t really to annoy the constable and more to get a bit of frustration out. “ Say that again ?”

“ I searched for them in the journal at first, then visited some encounter groups and started to talk to people who believed in it to find real mediums, that’s when I met that wom-” Simon pushed out an annoyed and loud noise, forcing him to stop talking.

“ Not that. I don’t care. The powder, what did you say ?”

The man defensively crossed his arms in front of him, he visibly couldn’t get used to the way Simon talked. “ The woman explained that it was used in rituals to summon a demon. I didn’t explain where I found it or my job but she was still able to say that the demon aims to kill and if it did, it certainly would be gruesome.”

He sighs, when was the last time the man in front of him even slept ? To talk so seriously about that, it must have been days, weeks even. “ A demon.”

“ Yes. She said it feeds on blood and death, so it would appear to kill and disappear when it’s done. It explains how the killer flew without anything open, why there’s no obvious link between the victims!” The more passionate he becomes in his explanations, the more joyful he seems to get, like he finally resolved everything and they just have to pick up their coats and curfews and London would be safe. “ She also said that it’s super rare, it must be coming from a single source, someone selling it or some kind of cult, we find them and that’s it!”

He takes a deep breath. “ A demon.”

MacTavish’s smile disappears and his arms tighten in front of him. “ It makes sense.”

“ A demon is making sense.”

“ Yes. Don’t repeat everything I say like I’m stupid.”

“ Stop blathering nonsense, then? Just saying.”

“ At least I’m working on it. What did you do aside from sitting at your desk drinking tea?”

Simon straightened up and put his forearms in front of him, the fingers of each hand interlocking on the wood of his desk. Amber eyes shining with outrage and defiance. “ See, while you were running around London chasing ghosts.” He ignored the image of Anna crossing her arms in the same annoyed manner as MacTavish in the corner of his vision. “I connected all the attack locations in London and the suburb before the murders to see a pattern then compared them to the location of the murders.”

The bobby’s face got from anger to interest as he seemed to notice the huge map splayed in front of Simon, and as the man continued his explanations, he got closer, looking at the multicolored straight pins carefully planted in it. “ I’m still mad.” MacTavish said, studying the map.

“ I’m not looking for forgiveness.”

The bobby ignored him. “ The red pins are the murders.” Simon hummed in return.

“ Blue the attacks, green the attacks after the first murder.” All the red and green pins were located in the same area, creating a loose and irregular circle in the south of london. Simon took his arms off of the desk to show the bottom of the circle. “ I plan to start rounding the area by night, with how close the murders and attacks are, it’s just a problem of covering it all.”

“ You'll go armed ?”

“ Of course, I always carry my gun.”

MacTavish’s eyes shined fiercely, a small smirk at the corner of his lips. “ I meant like holy water.”

“ Fuck’s sake.”

~

There was something unsettling in seeing a place that was supposed to be crowded being empty. The large roads and sidewalks of main avenues were letting Simon see far in front of him, discovering little architectural details usually hidden by dresses and the amount of people.

He was walking the streets since the sun had set, four days having passed and his sleep schedule adjusted.. Sleeping all day, getting his breakfast while others had dinner and then walking aimlessly, only paying attention to the street’s names to make sure he didn’t roam outside the circle. Then when the sun would rise, getting dinner in his flat and going to sleep.

At first, the idea of seeing nobody and talking to no one for days was enticing. No stupid bobby, no useless smalltalk, even being able to avoid his building’s caretaker. It sounded perfect. Until he actually had to do it, had to suffer pain in his jaw with how little he used it, and had to feel the way the primal part of his brain fought it from gregarious instincts.

The way people were running away from him at night didn’t help. He understood them, of course, even he didn’t know how he would react to seeing a brickhouse of a man walking alone at night. His clothes really didn’t help with the handkerchief always covering his face, his high hat making him look even taller, his long black coat and his cane topped with an engraved skull.

At the start of the night, there were still enough people for him to be able to walk without unsettling anyone, but the more the hours accumulated on his watch, the less people there were. More seeing him in the street was a vision of hell. Especially for drunk people. It was funny, somehow, to see someone getting out of their building, as slow and as silent as they could, probably aiming for a forbidden lover and seeing their face morphing to raw fear as soon as they saw him. How they would, as slowly and as silently, open their door again to walk in for a sin free and sleep free night.

This night wasn’t one of the fun ones though. No sinners or drunk people to scare off, no rat to share a puzzled look with, not even the ghostly presence of Anna following him around. Even the moon wasn’t there tonight, hidden by clouds and a light fog reflecting the street lamps’ warm glow. The day before was particularly hot, he had trouble sleeping and the night didn’t seem in a hurry to get rid of it, he felt damp, couldn’t wait to go home in the morning and scrab his skin raw.

Focused on trying to see the needles on his watch, to know how much time he had to walk before getting clean, he didn’t hear it. It’s when a window exploded into a thousand splinters and a man yelled that he noticed. Simon was so surprised that he didn’t even startle at the loud noise striking the night. Watch in hand, arm still raised to his face, he looked at the sound’s origin without moving. When he saw from the street a dark silhouette running that his legs started to move on pure instinct.

He had way too much clothes to run under this wet warmth and the man in front of him really didn’t steal his name of spring-heeled. Every time one of his feet left the ground it looked more like a jump than a step, for every one of his stride, Simon had to do two or three to cover the same distance. The man turned into Bedford Street, in a maze of smaller paths where Simon will never be able to catch up, he still ran as fast as he could. His shoes squealed against the pavement as they turned again, right into St Paul’s church.

It took him three long strides to stop abruptly.

The man had turned around, crouched over a low brick wall. The detective was stunned, a little voice deep in him murmuring that what he thought was burgundy red clothes, was in reality skin. Over this voice, the cacophony of his fear was unbearable. His body and soul didn’t know what to do, struck between fight and flight to the point he didn’t do anything, he couldn’t even tell if he was still breathing.

Two red eyes were sleazily piercing with a low glow a strange green fog surrounding the creature. He didn’t notice the color before that moment and couldn’t tell when the mist got from white to this green. The thing was naked, covered with a dark red skin that seemed dry and harsh, like an old leather forgotten in the sun for too long. The feet looked more like the ones of a hairless dog, short hooked fingers finished by terrifying claws, in the middle of which, he had his two hands resting on the stone.
They looked more human and it was even more terrifying with those same sharp and monstrous claws at the end. The picture of Anna’s body came back to him, how easy it must have been for the demon to shred her to pieces with those, how easy it would be to do the same to Simon right now.

He would be the first male victim of what was thought to be string-heel Jack, maybe that was why he was seeing her in the corner of his eyes, the idea of a malediction didn’t seem too absurd now.
The elbows were deformed, the bones sticking out at the top as if to highlight the huge and terrifying bull horns it has at the top of its almost human head. Almost. With his too long and pointy nose, with his long and sharp chin, with the snakish tongue that would dart regularly out of his mouth. And those eyes.

Those red shining eyes.

The thing lowered its head, opened its knees even more and its tail stopped moving in a position that seemed ready to jump. Movement came back in Simon’s limbs, he pressed his cane against him in a desperate attempt of comfort and protection as he raised his other hand to the creature, like it would be enough to stop the attack.

And the thing jumped.

High and quick, out of Simon’s reach, out of his terrified stare.

Simon stayed there an interminable second before the focus came back, to look at the empty space left by the gargoyle, the demon. As the green fog started to fade away, he got closer to the stone to look at the deep scratches left in the stone. He should go back to the street where he heard the window and the man, ask them questions, make sure the victim wasn’t too injured. He should get the police here, gather evidence, and search for the powder.

~

The walk to the commissioner’s office felt like a nightmare, even with dawn slowly blooming behind the buildings, he felt on the verge. Every brick chimney on the roofs made him startle, every noise would make him jump out of his skin, he felt like fear itself could kill him and couldn’t stop imagining his own face at the place of Anna’s. The same blond hair, the same crooked nose, the same amber eyes, the same fear crawling under his skin, it wasn’t hard to imagine him dead at her place.

Would MacTavish be able to look at his destroyed body, would he be on the verge to give his meals back too, would he scold his expressionless face, tell him even in death how he was right and Simon was a fool.

When he arrived, the sun was already starting to paint the sky, slowly turning purple to red, a dark shade at the middle of both that made him want to crawl out of his skin, to hide under his bed.

The constable was there, a warm cup of something between his hands, trying to wake himself up.

“ You’re coming back early today, Detect-” He cut himself as he looked at him. Even with the handkerchief covering almost all his face, Simon couldn’t hide the fear in his eyes, the way his eyebrows were stuck in a painful expression or the way his skin was pulled to the side. Mactavish put his mug on a desk and got closer. “ What happened ?”
How could he tell ? What word to use ? It wasn’t even ego that stopped him from saying the man was right, it was fear. Like saying it would make it real. It couldn’t be real so he couldn’t talk. “ I … I need a drink.”

“ I can make tea.” He was already turning to the kettle.

“ No.” Mactavish stopped in his movement. “ I need alcohol.”

The man turned to face him fully again. “ You can’t drink alcohol now, it’s not even six !”

He needed to drown, to disappear from his own head, to forget and lose consciousness under a bar. He turned around without another word. There wouldn’t be a bar open at this hour but he could still empty everything he could find in his flat. He didn’t want to do that alone and even if he couldn’t point out why he wanted MacTavish, he still felt better when the man started to follow him.

Simon didn’t want to think about what happened that night, about what he saw, and every time he tried to wonder why he wanted to drink with the constable, the images would come back to his mind.

They walked in absolute silence, the rare people they would cross weren’t that frightened by the detective’s look anymore, the dawn piercing the sky helping on that matter. MacTavish was a man that couldn’t shut his mouth, even when angry or frustrated, but he still seemed to understand what the other man needed. When Simon would look at him he didn’t even seem so tense, even would softly smile when their eyes met.

He really didn’t understand and didn’t want to think about that, about anything right now.

Simon’s flat was luxurious compared to Anna’s : multiple rooms, a pretty wallpaper in every one of them, big windows would bathe the place in this beautiful dawn sun and when the man took his hat off, his blond hair shone like gold.

They both took off their coats and as MacTavish sat in the main room’s couch, Simon knelt down and started to search his cabinets.

“ You gonna tell me what happened tonight ?”

Bottle in hand, he wanted to snap that he wasn’t drunk enough for that. But with the clock’s needle not even at seven, MacTavish sitting on his couch, he couldn’t. He couldn’t find in himself the anger necessary for that, couldn’t find the desire to see his lips frown in frustration, couldn’t find the amusement in the way he would cross his arms so tight in front of him.

If he listened to himself, he wanted nothing more than sleeping in protective arms, a soft voice telling him that everything would be okay and most importantly, needed to believe that voice.

Sadly all he had at hand was MacTavish and that bottle of bad alcohol. He put the second one on the ground without even caring enough to put it back in the cabinet and got up, looking at the other man.

MacTavish wasn’t moving, still that softness in his eyes, waiting patiently for Simon to open up. It was dreadful to appear so transparent in front of him. The detective always had this weird pride in seeming impenetrable, to only be an imposing shadow people couldn’t interact with, couldn’t mess with. His left hand got under his handkerchief, brushing his skin like he could get rid of how uncomfortable it was, to feel the tissue against his face and get comfort in its presence.

The other man still didn’t talk, didn’t really move, showing a patience Simon didn’t know he could have.

“ I’m …” MacTavish moved imperceptibly, but Simon didn’t know what he wanted to say, didn’t know if he ever had something to say. As he still wasn’t talking, the bobby finally got up, took a glass that was abandoned on a coffee table and got closer.

He knelt down in front of Simon and took the bottle, Simon’s stare following him as he stood back up. The detective felt like he could dive into his eyes. His skin shining like copper under the sun, his black lashes circling around bottomless pools, his lips weren’t even that colorful but still, he wanted, desired, craved.

“ I think you really need it.” He did. MacTavish looked down to open the bottle with his teeth and poured a glass of the amber liquid. Simon took his Handkerchief off and as the other man noticed the movement, he avoided looking at his face, still not taking a step back. “Take it, you need it.”

And he took.

Simon closed the gap between them, crushed his lips against John’s. The bottle and the glass fell to the ground as the bobby’s arms wrapped around his neck, amber liquid permeating in his delicate carpet, fighting the parquet’s varnish to tint a forever stain. John took a step back, Simon a step forward and as the bobby tried to take them nicely to the couch, the other man stepped on the glass and in the loss of balance, they both fell hard on the ground.

Immobile and silent, heads slightly tilted to the side to listen to his downstairs neighbor for any annoyed scream, John would finally laugh when they didn’t come. He softly caressed Simon’s cheek.

“ If you just wanted to kiss me, you could have just said so.”

“ Oh shut the fuck up.”

And they kissed again.

Warm lips against his, strong arms crushing him in a hug, he finally could drown in those pools, could feel his head go empty and for the first time since the last evening, sleep coming at him. They stayed on the stained carpet until Simon drifted into the arms of Morpheus, and when the sun blinded him despite his slumber, John took him to his bed, and Simon refused to let him go.

When he woke up in the evening, John was still there, eating a piece of bread with cheese and dropping crust everywhere in his sheets. Simon didn’t have the energy to get angry at him, pressing himself a little bit more against the man’s thigh.

“ Awake ?” Simon hummed as the only answer. “ Are you feeling better ?” Images of the demon came back at him and the weight of all it was implying left him unable to breathe. John’s hand got to his back and rubbed slowly. “ I take that as a no. A constable came at noon with a message, there was another attack.”

Simon sighed, hid his face the best he could. “ Castle street.”

“ How do you- Okay, so you saw something, you found the culprit ?”

“ If we follow your hypothesis. No.” He knew he sounded uselessly mysterious, but even in his own bed, with the windows and panes closed, John right here, Anna’s amber eyes burning the back of his head, he still couldn’t gather the courage to talk, to make it the truth.

“ My hypothesis ? That woman you mean ? The demon thing ?”

Simon’s absence of heat and or answer were ultimately the loudest one, curling a little bit more on himself.

“ You … You saw a demon ?”

Simon grunted in assent, John turned to press closer to Simon, to seek comfort in the other’s presence. But visibly, where Simon felt better with acting like it never happened, the other man needed information. “ Are you sure ? It wasn’t a disguise ?”

“ Yes. No.”

“ You don’t seem injured, it didn’t try to attack you ?” Simon hummed bleakly at that as John pressed a bit closer again, making the bed squeak. “ I asked the constable to check for powder before he left. I described it to him so we might know if it’s really linked but … No doubt about that now, I guess. All the victims are women, even now, we can’t ask all of London’s men to check under their bed for a weird powder, see if it’s decided like that or if it only works on women.”

Simon finally stood up, just sitting next to the other man, shoulder against shoulder. “ We touched the powder with our bare hands and nothing happened to us, the herbalist kept it in his store for several days and touched it too without anything happening too.”

“ Maybe it doesn’t stay active once it is used.”

“ And we won’t give the powder to a woman to try it, even with a protective service that would be stupid.”

John hummed at that. “ And it’s not like we need to know it only works on a woman to go forward.” He took a deep breath. “ We can treat the case as a hitman thing, stopping the hitman is not the most important, in our case it’s who or how the clients get in touch with the hitman. It also explains why the victims had no link between each other, they were all victims-” He stopped himself and turned to Simon. “ Are we sure they are victims ?”

“ What ?” The heat came back at him as a tidal wave.

“ Maybe they consented to that ? They were the ones putting the powder there ?”

“ I don’t want another fight because you said something stupid again.”

John frowned, crossing his arms. “ I was right all the other times.”

“ If they were the one doing this, we would have found the container in Anna’s room.”

“ Anna ? You call her by her name ?”

Simon flushed and as the embarrassment made him reach for his handkerchief, it grew even more as he remembered he didn’t have it, as he saw John’s eyes stuck on him. But even if he wanted to come clean, to explain that he felt close enough to her to do so, that if she didn’t want him she would have told him. How was he supposed to explain that he could see her ? What was he even seeing, her ghost ? A quirk of his brain shaken by the state of her corpse and the lack of veil ? He would have to explain the veil too ?

John sighed again. “ Alright, no need to have that face, call her as you please. But yeah, if there were no containers, we would have found the powder on her hands or at least a pocket.”

Simon blinked twice to get back on track, ignored the comment about his face and cleared his throat. “ We used to ignore their personal life because nothing was linking the victims, but with a hitman it’s different, if someone hated them to the point of getting them killed, they didn’t need to know each other to get the powder at the same source.”

“ The last time miss Hast-” He cut himself and turned to Simon. “ That Anna was seen alive, she was coming back from the Great Exhibition and she had a fight with a man.”

“ A fight ? With who ?”

“ I don’t know, a certain detective made sure to tell me it was useless information so I didn’t push.”

It was harsh but fair, it hurts how useless he was in the whole case. If it wasn’t for MacTavish, for John, who knew at what point he would still be at, how many victims would have to happen before he started to notice it all. John found about the fight, found the powder, the woman who helped them, even the idea to triangulate their positions came to Simon after a fight with John. He passed his hand over his face to wash it all away. He still knew that even if he found it all, he had needed to see the beast to believe it, even now he struggled to do so, no lesser clues would have been of any help.

“ Remind me when we’re done to write a letter to your superior.”

“ Hm ? What for ?”

“ You deserve a promotion, or at least a pay increase.”

John looked almost pissed and in a movement that at first seemed like he would walk away, he got one of his legs over Simon and sat on his lap.

“ Did you kiss me because you’re afraid ?”

“ What ?” Simon’s head felt so light, he couldn’t think properly, just enough to look quickly around in the bedroom, scared to see Anna’s eyes fixed on them. Whatever she was now, at least she seemed to still be aware of privacy.

“ You kissed me because you wanted to or you kissed me because you’re afraid and need to be comforted ?”

John’s weight on him, his warmth permeating into his body, his own fire roaring, Simon was afraid but it wasn’t of the demon. Red burned his skin from ears to the neck and he gulped loudly. His hands were laid down on the sheets, almost touching John’s knees and he didn’t know what to do with them now. He gulped again as John started to smile.

“ Poor thing, all that ?”

“ Shut up, MacTavish.” His voice sounded too deep even for him.

“ You know that I was sent here because I want to be a detective too ? I want to prove myself, but I’m already good at the job. I feel your thumbs against my knees.” Simon squeezed his fingers to forbid them to move again, making John smile even more. “ I see how red your skin is even in the dark, I see the way your pupils are blown out.”

“ It's dark, you’ve just said it. You never noticed it just expands with the lack of light ? Not that sharp for a detective wanna be.”

John’s smile went from soft to mischievous. “ Is that what it was, all those fights ?”

“ You don't make any sense.” Simon snapped.

“ A prelude to that, a nuptial parade.”

“ Fuck you.” And John laughed, making Simon go impossibly red. It was only an insult, something a lot of men told to a lot of other men all the time, especially when no women were there to listen. But they weren’t in a pub, they weren’t full of beer and having a fight over a stupid game.

“ I’m waiting.”

Simon harshly pushed him away and stood up as John was still laughing on his bed. “ We need to make a plan for finding the hitman’s source. Stop fucking giggling on my bed and get your stupid brain to work.”

“ Why make it work if it’s stupid ?”

Simon walked around the bed where John was still laying down on his back, put his hands on each side of his head and looked down. “ Because it’s so stupid that you're somehow able to go full circle and be smart.”

John laughed even more, raised his hands to grab Simon’s nape and pulled him in a long kiss they both needed. “ We can go back to Anna’s neighbor, ask about that man, find him then interrogate him. If it’s him, however he got his filthy hands on the powder,he sure thinks he’s out of danger, no bobby would think about that kind of hitman. Someone overconfident is someone who makes mistakes, we may even be able to make him talk without brutality.”

“ Like what ? ‘Hello guy, we noticed the powder on Anna after her death, where did you get it ?’”

“ Why not.”

“ I would like to say it’s stupid, but until now, every stupid thing you said or did worked.”

“ Would it be the marvelous detective Simon Riley, giving me, a poor commoner, a compliment ?!” John smiled a toothy grin.

“ Calm down, even if you’re right sometimes, you’re still a scot.” He spit the last word like it hurt his mouth to say it and as the bobby was ready to get up and fight about it, a bird landed on his balustrade. Soft feathers and strong muscles hitting on the metallic panes and Simon felt his soul leave his body.

Years in the army trained him to be scared in silence, to keep inside anything that would put his life in danger, but the other man couldn’t miss the way his face contorted in terror, his eyes got full of unshed tears and his whole body stopped moving, stopped breathing.

Barely more than a whisper, John got so soft. “ Simon, it’s a bird, it’s alright, the sun is still shining and I’m here.”

The detective closed his eyes, forcing the tears out of it and after an effort that seemed impossible, he took a shaky breath. The thing wasn’t just a monster, a werewolf where he would just need to realise ‘alright, it exists’, if it existed, did hell too ? Would being killed by a demon send your soul straight to hell ? Was it why Anna stuck to him, to avoid this fate ? If he got killed by it, would both of them be sentenced to eternal damnation ? He opened his eyes slowly, he wasn’t just scared of death, he was scared of the state Anna ended in, of hellish fire.

His eyes met kind blue ones. Scared to death by all of it, by the realisation that heaven and hell have existed, his first reaction was to find another man and sin with him. He looked down, couldn't stand the guilt bubbling in him. He condemned John to the same fate, not letting him know beforehand.

“ I am so sorry.” Confessed Simon.

“ What for ?”

“ It’s … the hitman, it must come from somewhere, right ?”

John frowned, confused. “ I guess ?”

“ And- And I-”

“ And you kissed me ?”

“ Yes.” The bobby’s smile came back, relaxing like it was nothing to worry about. Simon frowned even more facing John’s carelessness. “ Don’t smile like that you brainless rat, it’s important.”

“ Why so ?”

“ Eternal damnation, ever heard of it ?”

John rolled on the bed to sit, taking Simon’s hand to pull him and have him sit too. His hands still in his, he chuckled a bit. “ I really don’t understand how someone as smart as you can also be this stupid.”

He snapped. “ Don’t you ever-” And John cut him.

“ Simon. It’s not because it looks like one that it’s one, Catholics also are not the only ones with those kind of creatures, not all religions have hells.”

“ But all of them condemn what we just did.”

“ So what ? Ever read the bible, Simon ? Eating shrimp is a sin too.”

He pressed his lips in a fine line and as he was wondering what to answer to prove him wrong, he realised how much calmer he was. His heart was beating a slow rhythm, his breathing perfectly under control. “ Are you making me angry to keep me from being afraid ?”

“ Me talking to you doesn’t necessarily mean I want you to be angry.”
He raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “ That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

John squeezed his hand to the point of pain, seemed to hesitate between kicking him or kissing him before settling for the second.

Having the detective cooperate on going back to a classic sleep schedule was a mission the constable wasn’t ready for. It seemed that the fear he felt that night awakened an infinite amount of others, much more personal demons, that the man hid in him. The nightmares morphed into each other, letting his father carry red glowy eyes, the man he killed with his bayonet now covered with thick leathery skin. Even Anna wasn’t safe in this land covered with green fog, under Simon’s helpless stare the beast would be able to join that world, to touch her, to kill her again. This time she would be fully awake, wouldn’t die of a quick death and from a voice he couldn’t hear but still understand, she would cry and scream for his help.

All those sceneries would end the same way, Simon waking up in a scream, eyes full of unshed tears. John at first started to sleep on his couch, then on a bunch of blankets thrown on Simon’s bedroom’s ground, to finally, sleeping in his bed. With the days passing, to the fear was added the guilt, the one of sleeping with John, the one of letting the culprits walk freely.

The unknown bobby came back the day after, providing proof that the powder was indeed found on the last victim’s dress and he left with other orders to interrogate her on who put it there. The poor woman, scared to the bones, cut at multiple places, couldn’t speak without crying and fainting.

All that was left was Anna’s altercation before her death.

Simon refused to let John investigate alone and by the fifth day, it was proven useless to try to get restful sleep with him. It’s with bags almost black under his eyes that they get back to the south east. Between his handkerchief and the state of his eyes, he seemed to scare people even more, even with John’s friendly smile next to him. The man proved himself to be easy to find, a certain Joseph Cole and the more they asked questions in the neighborhood, the more Simon felt a raging silence. Of course finding him was important, keeping him intact to ask for the powder and save many other lives, but when they would know, when he wouldn’t be useful, was another story.

He couldn’t listen, daydreaming about what he would do, how he could mimic what Anna underwent, replacing claws with a sharpened knife.

After two hours discovering how he used to harass the poor woman for her hand, how he would yell at her in the street, following her, grabbing her or even trying to enter her flat, like any of those things could have worked, the man proved to be even easier to find.

Both men didn’t hide their interrogations or the way they would go from one store to the other to ask questions and as they were out of a little bar, a man ran at them.

“ Y’all the fuckers searching for me ?!” Small, thin, looking like a sick rabid lizard, his body was as pathetic as his mind.

John smiled politely. “ Joseph ?”

“ We’re not friends, mate, keep my name out your dirty mouth.”

“ Cole then, can we talk somewhere more private ?”

He hummed in the negative, frowning. “ Whatever you have to say, you can say it here. What’d you want with my fiancée ? She’s dead, stop with y’all questions.”

Anna tilted her head to the side, hands in fists against her hips, the perfect look of a scolding mother and somehow, it helped Simon away from the desire to kill him right now, just for using the word “fiancée”.

John smiled even more. “ Yeah, well, if you insist, I’ve heard from … People, friends of friends if I may say, that you happened to find a powd-”

Joseph jumped on John to tackle his hand on his mouth and as Simon started to move, he snapped to him. “ Calm down, gorilla, not here, come.” And on that he left, walking surprisingly quick and without looking behind him if they could follow.

The distance between them allowed John to ramble. “ ‘Fiancée’, I swear this moron… And then you have the audacity to call me stupid, as if pretty as the sun she was-” Simon frowned at the word ‘was’. “She could never be interested in this cockroach, and it’s not just like the guy is ugly as horse shit but he’s also kind as one. I’ll need to wash my face at least ten times. I don't know how I can kiss my girl with that mouth now.” It was the first time Simon heard John call him like that, it was almost surprising for him to not mind the possessive adjective. The ‘girl’ chuckled as Anna walked next to them, seeming delighted by the monologue.

“Your girl.” The detective said again, unable to hide the way his eyes pinched with his smile.

John blushed slightly at that. “ Listen. Yes.”

“ The last time you talked about her you seemed to hate her.” Lying was a second nature to him and never in life did he have this much fun to do so.

“ I do. I did. She… Do we really need to talk about that now ?”

“ Why not, he seems ready to cross the whole of London at this pace and I’m curious. She’s haughty, you both fight all the time, she insults you.”

John got more and more red and as he was trying to find his words, the lizard in front of them stopped abruptly in a small alley and turned to them. “ The powder, it’s for the haughty girl ?”

Simon’s dark stare came back instantly. “ Yes.”

“ The guy sells it as a revenge thing, no word that revenge actually means killing, if I knew I would have tasted her before.”

John smiled again, way more tense. “ That’s actually what I’ve heard it was about, the killing part. No bobby can prove anything with just a powder, it’s perfect.”

“ Don’t make my mistake then and taste her before.”

“ Already did.” He answered, a little bit too harshly for what was supposedly to be a friendly talk.

It made Joseph laugh. “ Smart guy. The powder is sold by a herbalist not far from here, the name of his store is ‘bloodroot herbalism’, ask for revenge powder, he really sells it under that name.”

John turned to Simon and casually asked. “ Now or later ?” It was a question so simple, Joseph simply smiled, imagining certainly that John was eager to get rid of that annoying woman. But the ‘woman’ knew, would he get Anna’s revenge now or later.

Frowning and sighing, he answered in a breath. “ Better safe than sorry.” And he walked away, not paying attention to John exchanging some more words with Joseph before running back to him. “ Is this store one of those you visited for the powder ?”

“ Luckily no. One of the herbalists I saw even convinced me to not go there, a charlatan he said.”

Simon huffed humorlessly. “ Who’s the charlatan then ?”

“ What do you mean ?”

“ The charlatan, is he the respectable man or the one that actually has something that works.”

“ Does he even know that it works ?”

Simon stopped in the middle of the street, struck. Even as cops they couldn’t arrest anyone for what they did, they couldn’t bring proof without getting sent to a sanatorium. Their only option to bring justice, or at least revenge, was to destroy everything linked to the case, but also to beat the hell out of all the culprits. It wasn’t like it would be the first time in this life or the one before he illegally brought what he felt like to be justice, but what would they do, if the seller didn’t know.

“ Simon ?”

He gulped. “ What do we do if that's the case ?”

“ If he doesn’t know ?”

“ Yes.”

“ We…” John crossed his arms in front of him. “ We can…”

“ And what do we do if he gets the powder from somewhere else ? If it comes from abroad ? It wouldn’t be surprising for that kind of store.”

“ Listen. We’ll see as things come, like we did until now. Maybe he just crafts it and he knows where we can get rid of everything without trouble.”

He took a deep breath and started walking again.

The herbal store didn’t look like much, the wood of the frontage seemed worm-eaten, covered in black mold and moss at the bottom, buying medication or tea seemed like a health hazard. When John pushed the front door, entering first, they were met by the slight tingle of a bell and the terrible smell of strong spices covering rot. The place was damp, dark, they almost had to walk sideways to get to a path between the huge shelves covered in who knew what.

At the bottom of the store a little counter was covered in multiple layers of scaled paint, it was hard to decipher any of the real colors between the lack of light and the amount of dust, but the most recent color seemed to be originally a mossy green.

Behind it, walked a small man, old as Babylon and with a creepy vibe sticking to him. Hairy eyebrows crossed his whole face, touching his temples on the side and reuniting in the middle, under them were a pair of fierce grey eyes circled with small glasses. No fat to plump his old face, instead looking like slack skin draped on a skull. His lips seemed nonexistent, a simple line that opened wide to rotten teeth and a putrid smell.

“ May I help you, Gentlemen ?” He smiled to show that half the upper dentition was missing.

John was the one to smile again and even if his breath was shortened to not get any more of the smell than necessary, he still sounded friendly. “ I heard you were selling, say something like… a revenge dust?”

He smiled even more. “ Ooh, yes, yes. Do you know how it works or do you need explanations ?”

“ Explanations would be lovely.”

The old man turned to the back of his store, searching at the back of it behind a little curtain. “ It is a powder, you’ll see it’s really light and doesn’t look like much. The powder carries a curse, but don’t worry it doesn’t affect men.” He laughed and John felt obligated to laugh too. “ So yes, revenge, but only on women.”

“ Children too ?” Simon cut in, anger growing in him.

“ Children too!” He answered with a smile in his voice. “ Also infants or elderly, really, just women.”

“ You tried on all of those ?” John asked.

“ Of course I did, I make sure to only sell products that work, and it’s also really fun to watch. But I don’t advise you to do so.”

“What kind of revenge is it ?”

The man pushed the curtain and stared at them. “ What did your friend say ?”

“ That the curse is … Definitive.”

“ Definitive ?” He echoed with a weird frown.

“ It kills.”

“ Oh !” He laughed happily. “ Yes, it does. It’s nice to have clients that know what’s up for once.”

Simon got closer to the counter. “ You don’t tell them otherwise ?”

“ And what, risk them saying anything compromising to unworthy ears ?” He came back from behind the curtain with a small pouch. “ Here it is. You seem knowledgeable but just in case : throw the powder on her or put it in her bedroom, it must be close to her for several hours before the night to act properly.”

“ Doesn’t it put any woman that would live with her in danger ?”

“ I don’t think so, I would have known by now.”

“ How ?” Asked harshly Simon.

“ Well, newspapers.” He said, like the man was as tall as stupid.

The detective took another step forward and John put his hand on his forearms, still smiling. “I’m curious. Do you craft it ,or do you buy it ?”

The old man stared at Simon for a long second before turning to John. “ No and no. I have a limited stock. But if you don’t stop acting weird, I won’t allow you to buy any of it, it’s rare and precious.”

For the first time since they were here, John’s smile became genuine. “ Don’t worry, we have all the information we need.”

As soon as he finished talking, Simon took another step toward the counter and in an agile movement put both his hands on it, shifted his weight to the front and jumped over it, landing just in front of the old man. As John slowly walked around the counter, Simon grabbed a strange glass flask and crushed it on the seller’s head, releasing a weird purple smoke. Screaming and falling to the ground, the herbalist looked at one after the other.

Panic and the weird stain contorted his face in an inhumane expression.“ What are you doing ?!”

Simon put his feet on each side of the old man as John stepped over him, aiming for the curtain and its mysteries.

The backshop was even more overloaded than the front, the smell worse too. The bobby’s ears were drowned by the sounds of Simon’s work and the herbalist's cries, making it harder to focus on his own mission. A quick glance around him proved how time consuming finding the good box with the powder in it would be, so he turned back and pushed the curtain.

“ Simon, wait a second.” Stopping his fist right in the air, the man looked up and hummed with a question, John knelt down to look at the elderly man. “ The revenge powder, what box?”

A sob made him spit blood and instead of answering, tried to grab John’s ankle, making him take a step back. “ P-p’ea-” Another gob of bloody spit.

“ I may put the muzzle back on him if you answer.”

He coughed, dirting Simon’s trousers. “ Z-ze go’d boss…”

“ The gold box ?” As soon as the seller nodded, he got back up and returned to search in the backstore, ear buzzings from the yellings. Finding gold in a light so low wasn’t easy and he settled to strike a match to test the shininess of any box he saw. It took at least ten minutes, between striking the match, getting close, making sure it wasn’t gold, having to take out another match and repeating the whole process again and again. At the fifth one, the little flame crackled furiously before going close enough for the test, morphing from time to time to a deep monochrome red, when getting even closer, the box shined in gold.

“ Found it.” He said proudly. “ You can finish and we go.”

“ Witnesses ?” Simon answered, slightly out of breath, enough for John to notice that the elder stopped screaming.

“ Even if someone manages to link it to us, what’s going to happen ? ‘A constable and a detective got to a random herbalist and beat him to death’ ?”

“ You got a point.” He stood up, looking down at the mush of meat.

John looked down too. “ I won’t ask if he’s dead, so let’s go.”

It was a good thing that Simon’s clothes were mostly black as the blood started to dry, it also became invisible on his clothes. He still had to wash his hands and when it was done at a little fountain, they aimed for Joseph.

The box was almost full, made of some sort of stone and really heavy. Too scared to throw the powder in the river or to just abandon the item in any of their flat, John used rope and a small bag they found in the herbalist’s store to secure it.

They easily found the man in a pub, drinking with what seemed to be drinking friends. As the short plan they agreed on dictated, John took big steps in his direction, proclaimed with a strong authoritarian voice that he was under arrest and did just that. It was a bold thing to do, quite stupid too without their uniform and being only the both of them, but it still worked, most people too stunned by surprise and alcohol to intervene.

Joseph screamed and tried to fight back until they were outside where he laughed. “ You both don’t have the smarts to be police, you couldn’t ask to go talk ? What’s the fuss ? He was short on it ?” The absence of silence, the way John still held him strongly and the direction they took all helped the fear to grow in Joseph through the intoxication. By the time he remembered he should fight them off, it was too late.

A heavy kick behind the knee made him fall to the ground. “ That hurts !” He whined.

“ Oh, it will.” John said casually as Simon raised his foot once again, this time aiming for the teeth.

The detective contemplated for a long time doing to him what happened to Anna, mimicking with a knife what claw and teeth did. It’s not like in this neighborhood anyone was crazy enough to intervene when hearing screams, especially a man’s. The temptation still felt light against Anna’s stare, against the idea that her innocent eyes would see it. Beating a man to death was a thing, mutilation and torture until it delivered him was another and he couldn’t bring his heart to it.

He still took his knife out as John walked around to maintain Joseph on the ground and mute him with Simon’s gloves. As soon as it was done, the detective knelt down and shoved the knife between his legs, aiming roughly for the most sensitive organs. He ignored the scream.

“ Why are you yelling, it’s not like you need it.” He took the knife back and stabbed him again. “ Seeing why you did that to her, it seems natural to start there, right ?”

By the fourth stab, Joseph stopped screaming. By the seventh, he stopped moving at all. He was supposed to get revenge by default of justice, to make it worth it for him, an eye for an eye, all that, but it felt useless. He couldn’t bring Anna back, couldn’t learn what she enjoyed to do, what she wanted to do, was she in love, did she want a family of her own. He couldn’t. The pain slowly was replaced by anger, frustration, he couldn’t even be sure it would free her soul, if it even was his soul and not a trick of his own mind.

He aimed for the neck, looked as the blade went out at the other side and took it out. He couldn’t live in a world knowing Anna was there, but at least he wouldn’t.
John gave the gloves back and stood up. “ We need a good night of sleep.”

“ And a bath.”

“ God yes. I need my girl to scrub my back and make me a good meal.”

Simon chuckled. “ You wish.”

They walked home, he could almost hear a third pair of steps next to them.