It was just after 11:00 pm when Lucy knocked on the door to my office. Lucy, a blonde bombshell with a heart not yet ruined by the world and a mind as sharp as starlight piercing through a veil of darkness, was an asset I didn't know that I needed. The kind of dame that checked all the proverbial boxes with a face that could stop a man's heart or devour it - at least for someone looking for that kind of thing.


For me though, at least initially, I needed someone to answer the phones when I wasn't there. An intermediary between myself and the people who brought cases to my front door that I had no intention of ever taking. I'm not a Private Detective. No, that's where they have it wrong. Where they have the whole game mixed up. PI’s have a rule book to follow. I, on the other hand, simply put, am a man who, for the right amount of money, and the right client, can get answers. I'm who you come to when you need something done that you're sure the cops can't figure out.


Lucy had a way of telling people no that I just didn't. I'm brash and bold and dead honest which doesn't always rub people the right way. She could wear kids gloves when she had to but also turn into a fucking pitbull when the situation called for it. She has worked with me for about three months now and her value can't be overstated.


Matthias, there's a woman here to see you. She doesn't have an appointment but she strikes me as the type of girl that you would like to talk to and she has a case that feels - important.


Lucy knew best and she wouldn't send someone through my door if she herself wasn't also interested in the case. Neither of us liked to have our time wasted.


Give me five and then send her in, Luce.


I like to make them wait. It's a power move. Set the precedent right away that I'm in control. Besides, my fucking head was throbbing and anytime that I looked at the clock on the wall, it felt like the numbers were melting. It's gotta be this headache, I thought to myself. So I lit a cigarette, downed what was left of the bottle of Jim Beam in my desk drawer, and I waited. This headache never had a chance.


The rain outside had been relentless for what seemed like weeks now and it didn't feel like it would let up anytime soon. I peeked through the drawn blinds out into the city as I waited. The city was burning. Not physically but in the metaphorical sense. Slowly crumbling under the weight of its own self. Of its own bad decisions. A festering wound. Dark, grimey and dingy. This city is unrelenting. Blocks upon blocks of faceless apartment buildings. Some inhabited, most not. Derelict. Left to rot by poor policy decisions and a disdain for anyone not fortunate enough to rub elbows with the trust fund crowd. Connected by endless streams of traffic. Alleys filled with the down and outs. No landmarks. No cultural sectors. No parks. It was perfect.


The silence was broken as Lucy led the woman into the room. I didn't move my head to look at her but that perfume she was wearing cut through the stale cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey like a scalpel. I was mesmerized and I had still yet to see those eyes.


What kind of trouble are you in, Miss? I asked, continuing to watch the rain bleed down the windows. I know that If somehow you've found your way through my door, trouble has found you and the clock is ticking. But all that I could think about was that perfume. I've never smelled it before.


Matthias Syn. She said, Her voice, soft and subtle. Unbothered by whatever she was going to say next.


Two men are dead. She exclaimed. 


Men die, doll. Happens every day.


Not like this though, Matthias.


I turned to finally face her. The first thing I noticed were her eyes. They weren't just blue. That's the way a fool would describe them. Blue is a crayon, a two dollar dye. Hers were the kind of blue that exists just before the flame.


She didn't sit. A silver cigarette case slid from her clutch. She opened it. Empty.


Do I know them? The question lingered only briefly.


Charlie Nickels and Kieran King. Her eyes were downcast.


I scratched my head and smiled.


Yeah, I knew them. I thought to myself. These were very bad guys with connections reaching far past the top. King worked for one of the largest Asset Firms in the world. A Shadow Bank if we're being honest. The type of companies that have monopolized the media we consume, the houses we pretend that we will ever own, the food that we eat. They control entire governments. Dictate policy. Our unelected rulers.


Charlie was… an old man, begging to stay relevant, in a business that has long since passed him by. Too stubborn to see the writing on the wall. Charlie liked to cosplay Communist on social media under a screen name that he thought that only he knew. I stumbled upon Charlie around a year ago while I was looking into Kieran King and some offshore transactions his company had made. King has friends in high places. Which is why he was never going to get caught. I knew that wherever King went, Charlie followed. The story of Charlie's miserable goddamned life. Always a follower. Ever the opportunistic. If King and Nickels were dead, it was very intentional.


I didn't catch your name? I said. Too distracted by the perfume, those eyes, that dress. The color - Christ, the color. Not red. Not scarlet or crimson or any of those other half-assed words poets use to pretend they have an actual understanding of violence. This was the red a carotid makes on its first squirt. The red of a hotel room after the gun's still smoking but the screaming has finally stopped. It fits her like a curse fits a sinner: Perfectly.


Aurora. The name's Aurora. She said with a sharp whisper. A smile adorning her stunning face. That smile was a scalpel. It could cut through bone.


Okay, Aurora, tell me what you know. I pulled the chair out and sat at my desk. I gestured for her to do the same. She didn't just sit. She manifested in the chair across from me. Who is this woman?


Three nights ago-


So, Friday, I interjected.


Yeah, Friday. I guess it would've been Friday. We were all at a club on the northside. The Velvet Guillotine. Do you know it? She asked, and there it was. Her power play. Yes, Aurora, I understand that you are a woman who hangs out in important circles. In exclusive clubs. You are somebody. Would it kill her ego if I told her that I didn't care? Would it stop this little game that we’re playing? Probably not. I'll play along. I like her style.


Of course. I said, I turned to Lucy who was still standing in the doorway. She rolled her eyes and smiled. She knew the game was on.


There was a party, hosted by the Vanguard Group. Everybody who is anybody was there.


Lucy chuckled under breath.


She continued. The word was that they had just secured the rights to a defense contract, making weapons for some occupied country, on the other side of the world. Everybody seemed to be having a good time. King and Charlie were both there and were partying all night. Pretty standard fare for that crowd.


When do we get to the good part? Lucy pleaded. I said that our time was important and Lucy was making that perfectly clear.


I'm getting there. The lady in red barked back.


So the party goes off without a hitch, except for, at the end of the night, King and Charlie were both violently ill. I just assumed that they had had too much to drink. They'd sleep it off and would have the weekend to recover.


But? Lucy and I said in unison.


But… she could now feel the tension in the room boiling over, But… come Monday morning, both were found dead in their apartments. No gunshot wounds. No knife wounds. No empty bottle of pills or a suicide note.


Poison. I said without hesitation. What else could it be? Two perfectly healthy men, well, one perfectly healthy man and Charlie. Still, all the signs pointed to them being poisoned. But why?


I've got to make a call. Give me just a second. I said, as I made my way past Lucy and the Woman.


I needed to see the bodies. I could call in a favor to Sarah. Sarah was the medical examiner of the county. A raven haired beauty with a lifetime obsession for the macabre. She loved her fucking job. Probably a little too much. Sarah and I knew each other a little too well. Through a drunken night filled with bad decisions that make it hard to look the other person in the eyes the next morning. I'd do it again.


I grabbed my cell phone and dialed her number. At this hour she'd still be at work. Or at least I was hoping she was.


Sarah.


Matthias. To what do I owe the pleasure? She asked, that flirty tone in her voice.


Are you still at work?


Yes and I think you knew that. She knows what's going on. I need a favor and I need it fast.


King and Nickels, I know that you've examined the bodies, what can you tell me? She's gonna make me beg. I can feel it.


How'd I know that's what you were calling about? You know that I can lose my job for telling you anything about this?


I know that you can, but you're gonna do it anyway. 


Goddamnit. Fine, but you owe me a drink for this.


You got it babe. They melt for me.


Aconitum napellus. Himalayan monkshood. Or said a way that you might understand, The Queen of Poisons. Traces were found in both victims' blood. The poison was ingested. Either through a drink, in a powder or I have even seen it filtered through charcoal and reduced to a syrupy concentrate and put into a perfume.


My mind started racing. My heart started beating faster.


Their fingers were twisted like roots, their lips blue-black and their pupils swallowed by dilation. I saw the signs almost immediately. King and Nickels were poisoned. The funny thing though, Matthias, I have a report sitting beside me, that is calling both of these deaths - suicide.


Suicide? So someone is trying to cover this up?


This report comes straight from the desk of the governor. She said, I could feel the tension in her voice. It was palpable.


I've been the M.E in this county for a decade and I've never had a report on my desk from the office of the governor. So you tell me.


Sarah, you're an angel. I'll call you about that drink soon. I pulled the phone from my ear.


But Matthia-





Sarah didn't know it, but she told me everything that I needed to know. Now I just needed the why?


I opened the door to the office and walked back in the room. Aurora and Lucy were standing on either side of me. I side eyed Lucy as I passed her, she knew that I was onto something. I pulled the seat up to my desk again and sat down. I leered at the clock. What the fuck is wrong with this clock? I rubbed my eyes with both hands before I started with the questions.


So, Aurora, I never got around to asking what it is that you do?


I'm in… finance. She hesitated. There was more to that and I knew it. I'm not the police, she doesn't have to be honest with me and she knew it.


Finance huh? I laughed.


That perfume you're wearing. What is that? Where'd you get it? I asked.


It was a gift. From a friend. She answered back.


The flame of rage flickered more and more through my veins with every syllable that passed through her perfect lips. A liar knows a liar.


Just tell me why? Why did you need to get rid of King and Nickels? What were they standing in the way of? The weight of the room was bearing down on her like a coffin lid.


What are you talking about? She said through a broken voice. Clearing her throat, she continued. I didn't have anything to do with this. I came here because I was told that you were a guy who could find things. Who could get answers to questions that other people are afraid to ask. And now, you're accusing me of… what exactly?


I know that you did it, Aurora. I don't know why. I'm starting to piece it together. Kieran King and Charlie Nickels are shitty people. Just in general. I'm starting to wonder if I even care why you did it? This world is a better place without those guys in it. That I won't argue. But you sit here and look me in the eye and lie to me, when you didn't have to.


That perfume you're wearing. Did you wear that Friday night when you met up with King and Nickels?


Uhh-


Just… don't. So how does it work? Is it airborne? No, can't be that. If it were airborne, no one would've left that party alive.


So it's touch. It has to be touch. A woman that looks like you, would have any man in her orbit, eating out of the palm of her hands. It's easy for you and it was easy that night. You hugged them didn't you? That's how it activated it. The alcohol in their system already was doing most of the heavy lifting. All that you needed was the opportunity. Get them both in the vicinity. Pull them close. Whisper something in their ear. Slide a finger down their cheek. Just make sure that they inhale your perfume.


They were dead before the doors locked on the Velvet Guillotine. They just didn't know it. They died inhaling beauty. Her beauty.


There was that smile again. That scalpel that could cut through bone.




My alarm clock blared as I woke in a cold sweat. I looked around at an empty hotel room and all that I could do was smirk. I looked at the clock on the stand next to the bed.











They swoon with every word that I speak. That's the thing about charisma, it makes everyone believe. Words wrapped in poisonous promises. Lies slithered into wanting ears. Words that pierce the consciousness. My words, wielded as weapons because it's not about being right, it's about being convincing. That's what most people don't understand. Matthias Syn pokes holes in the soaring fantasies of progress. In the suffocating uniformity that is everyday life. Because I've seen the monsters under the bed and I refuse to let the world sleep in peace.


When your eyes close in the darkest rooms and your mind races through the in-between, what do you see, Kieran? When you're truly honest with yourself, do you see what I see?


Because I see a shadow without a wall to fall on. A ghost without a machine. A specter haunting the halls of his own delusions. You paint a target on your back that is borne of arrogance and desperation. A desperation to stay relevant in a changing landscape. A landscape that has changed infinitely since you won this tournament just a year ago. New faces, new names. But the only one that truly matters is mine. Syn. Say it with your entire fucking chest because I'm the future and I'll be on full display. When I'm finished with you Kieran, you'll be a King only in surname.


We lose ourselves in the primitive. In the glow of a pirate world. Like a delicate rock carved by the wind, chasing some fatalistic dream that's buried in your head, that no one else can see. You'll stare empty headed through a thousand false horizons, through the ruminations in your mind, and you’ll see the vision of an iron fisted ruler stomping across a kingdom. But that's nothing more than a myth born of fear rather than reality. Reality paints a different picture for you, Kieran King.


With each passing day, you notice a little more that your hairline recedes. That the wrinkles on your forehead and just above your cheeks get a little more pronounced. A place where you're forced to come to terms with your own mortality. With a reality that haunts you when your eyes close. Honesty forces you to ask the most important question.


Is. This. It?


You'll tell yourself no. You'll sell yourself some gossamer story spun together by wishful thinking. A web too high to climb. A story where you're not just a paper tiger. A story where the younger, faster, stronger, version of yourself isn't torn and frayed at the ends. And through distorted eyes you'll reckon with yourself that Matthias Syn CAN never be what I am. WILL never be what I am. You'll force yourself to believe, Kieran.


A house of cards built on a shaky understanding of the dark between the stars. Just another in a long line of men who were well dressed but the suit was cheap. The mirror holds its form until the reflection blinks and its blinking, Kieran.


You drip condescension towards your peers yet desperately want their approval. And that's the difference between you and I. I don't give a fuck about them. I don't give a fuck what they think. That's just the truth, babe. I'll force them to understand that below my boots, lies a changing of the guard. It can't be stopped now. The winds of fortune are pushing through this federation. Tales of twisted cities turned to dust, litter the history books. The annals of time. Yours will be no different. This world has never been fair and for you it never will be.


What a strange parade of sounds that lonely thrown must make when you lay your head down.


You look around but act as if you can't see the rest of us. When it's you, Kieran, trapped in a name that he can't escape. Living somewhere just outside the lens of oblivion. Your tears will dry, Kieran, just give them time. This is yours and yours alone. Forget heaping praise towards the sky, there's no one there to hear you. So you'll try to rebuild but the foundation erodes because something has to die when a star is born. They'll have to cut a new key to the Kingdom and as they place it into my hand, I want you to remember that I was always the howling wind, the ivy crawling up the curtain walls.


I am the nightmare that followed you out of your dreams. I've got poison in my bite. And as the venom rushes into your veins, I want you to know that I'm the buzzard on your aging shoulder and I'm going to pick your fucking bones clean.