The computer screen's glare was the first thing to beam into her eyes, as daybreak encroached. Or... No, rather...
Blearily, Kasumi dragged her face up from the keyboard, grimacing at the indents of the keys she could feel against her skin even without looking. Blinking several times, she fumbled a bit before scrubbing the morning gunk out of her eyes and frowning at the window. The blinds, as usual for any window in her home, were closed and tilted up to maximize the amount of light they could prevent entering the domicile.
What... time was it?
12:34 pm glared out from the corner of her monitor.
Ah. She'd overworked last night. With the blinds closed and her head facing away from the window the way she'd nodded off, she'd been plenty exhausted enough to sleep through the siren's call of the sun. Honestly, she wasn't sure when the last time she'd crashed like this was, never mind the last time she'd woken up at her desk. Maybe she was growing lazy about her internal sense of time? Jen should have let herself in with the hidden spare house key and woken her up by now, as was her-
Her brows furrowed, lip curling in distaste at the mess of random keystrokes filling up the open document on her screen. Clearly, the result of a night of basically rolling her face across the keys. Snorting, she highlighted the mass of nonsense, scrolling up until she felt she had it all and deleted it. Shaking her head, she looked at what she'd been working on last night, and-
Oh.Right, she was... gathering public police reports, scrutinizing masses of witness statements. All of it. All these efforts...
Useless.Expression darkening, Kasumi saved the document's progress as it was and closed it, making a quick run through of her computer's processes to double check she hadn't managed to do anything stupid with unconscious button mashing. Seeing none, she shoved her chair back and stood, panning her gaze across a room -a
house honestly- that felt emptier somehow. Jaw clenching, her nostrils flared, as she shook her head and marched to the closet to grab a change of clothes.
Bathed and spruced up, Kasumi sat at the dining room table, shoving a large "brunch" down her throat. Admittedly, she was barely tasting the food, her gaze focused on the television screen and the news channel. As usual, the host blathering on about the only thing they seemed to want to natter about these days in their prime time hours: "The Killer". They had a couple titles that had been bandied about, among which the most popular seemed to be "The Cobbler", "The Foot Fetish Killer", and "The Night Prowler". Any other time before, Kasumi would have scoffed, brushed off Jen's needling and tuned the nonsense out, perhaps even switched to another channel... assuming all she would find elsewhere wasn't more of the same. It wasn't her problem. Someone else would handle it. Probably. Eventually. Only...
For a moment, she almost imagined her soup tasted like blood and then realized she'd bit her lip hard enough to break skin. Her hand was shaking, as she slowly and deliberately forced herself to put down her spoon before she accidentally bent or crushed it. Closing her eyes, she sucked in a slow, shaky inhale through her nose, held her breath and exhaled long and low. She let the news wash over her, just meaningless noise, as she steadied her pounding pulse in her ears, quieting the bubbling fury that made her want to clench her jaw so hard her teeth would break. She wanted to break something. She wanted to
scream, but she didn't.
That would be so very useless.Opening her eyes, she brushed a finger, briefly encased in spectral gold, across her lip and impassively weathered the itching sting of her lip closing up, as the broken flesh was sealed. Licking her lips did away with the remainder of the bloody residue, as she continued her meal shortly thereafter without further incident. The television had been muted but left running, her eyes occasionally flickering to the subtitles.
In some ways, the return of silence felt even more damning, as she finished her food, washed the dishes and filled the dishwasher a little more. It wasn't quite full yet, so she'd wait to run it till perhaps later tonight.
Closing the dishwasher, she spared the television another glance and then stepped over to the table to grab the remote and unmute it again. They were talking about the latest victims. As usual with the killer's MO, it seemed to be more women in their mid to early 20's, again with a variety of races and builds, and again... with each victim rather distinctly missing their feet. Other than that, no patterns seemed to stand out, or if there were any further patterns, the police weren't letting that information free to the public. The newscaster was talking about the latest victim now, about where they had been found, the estimated time of death, so-claimed witnesses that had seen her shortly before the attack and more importantly... who presumably had that corpse right now,
the police.
With a ping, a quarter she had been fiddling with flew into the air and morphed, sprouting antenna, legs and paper-thin wings, and long before it had hit the ground, a butterfly was currently making itself well at home, flittering about the cozy house. Striding from the kitchen, Kasumi turned off the television and placed the remote next to it, as she began making her preparations for departure.
Buttons were double and triple checked on her button-up white shirt. Collar was straightened and black tie was secured, immaculately pressed as always. Smart grey slacks, secured by a belt, accompanied shiny black shoes, as she looked herself over in the full-length mirror of her room. The butterfly occasionally flittering around her head, as she fixed her pink hair into a tight braid. Again, there was that minor spurt of annoyance at what had become her natural hue since the day she awakened to her potential, but it was brushed off as usual. It wasn't like she ultimately hated the color, just the fact that she'd had no control over it, and she really didn't feel like wasting her time dyeing it, especially since her roots would still grow out rather noticeably pink.
Instead, she'd long since decided she would own it. Ridiculous as it was, somehow, she felt like she made it work...
Sitting down at her desk, she went through the task of manually loading several handgun magazines and double-checking the integrity of the weapon they were made for. 17 rounds apiece. Three magazines. One loaded, no rounds chambered, safety on. Securing her concealed-carry holster firmly beneath her left arm, she tucked the weapon into its home and the ammunition with it. Opening her primary closet, she retrieved her current favorite long-coat, a warm black affair with deep pockets. Slipping it over her shoulders, she stepped back in front of the mirror and fiddled with the lapels until she was satisfied with their professionalism, letting a small empty smile reach her face.
Ready as I'll ever be.The butterfly followed her, as she made her final checks. Watch? Check. Phone? Check. Gloves? Check. Various keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Pepper spray? Check. Lighter... She fiddled with the object in her pocket with a fond caress.
Check. With how limited her sources of reliable information were, unfortunately, she could only make so many preparations and assumptions at this stage.
However...
She felt the feather-light touch of the butterfly alighting on her fingertip, smiling coldly, as she took back what she'd given it, reverting the creature into an inert quarter once more. Flipping the coin with a ping, she caught it and slipped it into her pocket, as she stepped outside and locked the door of her single-story home.
The beginnings of a plan were forming.For conventional law enforcement, the killer had left no clues, no real leads or chinks in their armor. Such was more than evidenced by how long they had managed to operate freely in this city. Though, she would grant, perhaps, that such wasn't so unusual, even with how high profile the murderer had become. In all of millions of people, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. However...
she was not
conventional by any means, and they had made but one fatal mistake.
She forewent her car, as discretion would be of fair importance here. Only a fool underestimated the might of modern technology's ability to track people the law wanted found, and the fewer trails she left, the better. One hand in a coat pocket, Kasumi set off at a brisk stride towards the nearest bus station, consulting her phone's GPS map system. And upon the screen, her destination was made clear, the place that just about any murder victim's corpse was most liable to be stored,
especially in a sensitive case such as this:
The New York State Police Forensic Investigation Center.The killer may not have left any leads...
But they'd left all she needed to
make one.
Einherjar 906
TheWendil
Noctis
Danyel
Reisling
Guardian Angel Haruki
Izurich
4wheathRmany
