Prologue
Killer
The couple runs frantically down the dark halls of the top floor my hotel. I’m quite impress that the obese male is a faster sprinter than his one-hundred-pound lighter wife. Then again, I suppose I shouldn’t be. I understand as well as anyone that adrenaline can bring out the unexpected in people. Afterall, it was one unforgettable adrenaline rush two years ago that gave birth to my now favorite pastime: righting wrongs.
“PLEASE, SOMEBODY HELP US!!” The wife continues to sob and plead as they do everything they can to put more distance between me and themselves. The husband reaches the elevators at the end of the hall first and repetitively presses the buttons in hopes of summoning their escape. But it won’t come. We restrict all elevators from coming to this floor after a certain time every night. We keep this section of the resort blocked off from the rest of our guests so that we can do our job. Our nocturnal job. If our regular guests knew what we were doing to our VIP visitors, then we would surely be out of business. And we can’t have that.
I approach them calmly. There’s no need for urgency because we have all night for this to play out. It’s a good thing that I’m not much of an early bird. I prefer the night. That’s when all the fun happens.
“OH GOD, HE’S COMING! DO SOMETHING!!!” The wife is screaming at her overly large husband and I’m just a few feet away. She managed to throw her blow dryer at me back inside their suite when she first saw me ominously appear behind her in the bathroom mirror. It successfully hit me dead in the face, but it failed to slow me down. Not because she doesn’t have a good throwing arm—she does, and I’m quite impressed by it—but because pain doesn’t bother me anymore. It hasn’t for the last two years.
“MOVE!!!” The husband practically shoves the woman in the showy pajamas into my arms before dashing past us.
The lady is screaming hysterically as she tries to remove herself from me, but I have a nice grip on her rhinestone sleeve-covered arms. Seriously…who sleeps in rhinestones? I’m definitely doing the world a favor right now.
I remove one hand so that I can reach into my back pocket for one of my custom daggers. I don’t bother wasting a special one on the wife. I bring out a black and red karambit, which is a small dagger curved in a way that resembles a tiger’s claw and contains a finger ring. Perfect for the occasion. With every knife I craft, I take extra care making sure each one attains a sharpness that’s so smooth that when it pierces the skin, blood is seen before the pain is felt. I exhibit this by providing one swift slice to the rich lady’s neck.
She’s still screaming until she feels the warm red liquid spilling down her throat and onto her gaudy nightwear. Well, at least now that rhinestone atrocity finally has some real color. Eyes wide, the woman touches her neck with trembling fingers. A quiet gagging sound has quickly replaced her earlier troubled wails. It doesn’t take her long to drop to her knees. She has no more than a minute left.
With the same hand still holding the karambit, I take hold of her arm, careful no to cut her twice because once was enough to get the job done. I use my other hand to cup the back of her messy brown hair, the immaculate bun she styled it in for the night completely ruined due to hours of running from me. Then, I lay her on her back.
She clings to my clothes with bloody fingers. The scene is too similar to the one that occurred on that night two years ago. So, I pull her hands away and stand back up. She tries to reach for me. Her mouth is producing more gurgling disturbing sounds as she chokes on her own blood. I don’t care enough to keep her company in her final moments, so I turn my back on her. Afterall, she didn’t care enough to save all those kids her husband abducted. At some point, everyone must reap what they sow.
Now, it’s time for her disgusting husband to do the same. His demise won’t be as quick. It only takes me forty-three seconds to find him hiding on a balcony attached to one of the bedrooms in the penthouse. The idiot left the front door to the room wide open after running inside. I nearly chide him for making this too easy.
He’s trying to haul his obese body over the railing as though he truly believes that he could scale the building with his physique. Or maybe he’s choosing to be in control of his own death. As if I would grant the sick bastard such a privilege. After all, he took the lives of most of his victims which all were under the age of fourteen. This man is nothing but a revolting stain on this world which must be removed at once. “NO! NO!” He wails when he sees me again.
I make a show of holding out my freshly tainted dagger. His eyes bug out like a cartoon character. The man doesn’t have to guess what became of his flashy wife. However, I have another dagger in mind especially for beasts like him. I grin. I stalk closer.
He quickly snaps out of his initial shock and resumes his struggle of getting over the railing.
“Need some help?” I offer in my most polite voice. Sometimes, I prefer to take on a sinister edge whenever I choose to speak to my victims. However, it’s also fun to make them believe that I can be reasoned with when I sound civilized. Nevertheless, they all soon learn that I’m resolute in every task I perform, never wavering.
“Look, man! What do you want? Whoever is paying you to do this, I can triple it, alright?” I pause my steps, and I can tell that he actually thinks that I’m interested in his proposal. “Just name your price,” he encourages me.
“Your thumb.”
The chubby man blanches. “What?”
“Let me have your thumb and I’ll let you live.”
“M-My…thumb???”
“I have to give the man who hired me something to show that I completed my job.” The lie comes out effortlessly. I tilt my head to the side with mild curiosity, waiting to see what he’s willing to do to stay alive.
“But…”
“What’s wrong? Afraid you can’t choke small necks with nine fingers?”
His face pales. “I…I don’t…I mean I didn’t…”
“Are you about to reveal that you’re a liar on top of being a child killer?”
He tries his best to look appalled. It’s no wonder he’s not in the acting industry. His skills are completely non-existent. “No! I’m not a…look…whatever your employer told you was a lie. I would never—”
“If you really want to live, you should stop talking right now and give up that stubby finger. I’ll even let you pick the one off your non-dominant hand if that helps.” He doesn’t look the slightest bit grateful for my leniency. What an ungracious, both-thumbs-entitled beast! I shake my head and tsk at his hesitation.
As I put one foot in front of the other again, he stops me.
“Okay, okay!” The pathetic stain in front of me extends his trembling left hand to me.
I swift with my dagger swapping and the take his hand in both my black gloved ones, pressing the cutting edge of one of my most beautiful dagger against his thumb. This one possesses a black and gold hilt with an intricate rune design embedded within. It’s an upside down “Y” with a third stem emerging from the middle. But the most beautiful part is the golden spiraling blade. “Shall we count to three?” I ask like a sympathetic friend as I press my weapon against his thumb. The cyclone dagger isn’t typically design for this type of usage but my struggle in easily removing his finger will result in an even greater suffering for him.
He nods reluctantly, throat bobbing frantically. His face is drenched in sweat, causing me to wonder how much of his perspiration is due to fear and then over-exertion.
“Go on and start us off.”
He takes the biggest breath possible before beginning. “O—” Before he can get that lone syllable out of his mouth, I begin my aggressive slicing of his finger. Technically, it’s more of a brutal scraping. The ugly man’s screeching makes me think of a dying whale. I’ve never heard a whale dying before but this man’s agony gives life to my imagination. I have to put a little more effort into my work when I meet resistance from his bone. When I don’t think he can get any louder, he proves me wrong. He drops to his knees and tries to halt my progress with his five-finger-in-tact hand. His adrenaline must be what’s making him stronger because he’s nearly successful with throwing me off of him.
But I’m able to re-steady myself and resume my task.
The man cries, begs, and then cries some more with a repulsive mixture of tears and snot. His screams morph into broken whimpers when I’ve collected my stubby prize from him. I hold it close up to my face between my thumb and pointer finger to examine it, ignoring the deep crimson oozing down my glove. “Hmm…you know something, Miller? I don’t think this is going to be enough after all.”
“W…w-wh…” Judging from how hard his body’s trembling and his speaking difficulty, the ugly beast seems to be going into shock from the pain. His body falls to the ground, and he shakes even harder.
“Now, don’t go having a seizure on me, Miller.” My voice is bored. “That’s no fun.” His body doesn’t listen to me. I sigh and roll my eyes. Looks like I am going to have to make this quick if I want him to die by my blade and not from the electrical discharge in his brain. I had no intention of letting him live after removing his thumb, but I did want to have some fun with giving him false hope. So much for that plan. I kneel over him and quickly plunged my dagger into his heart. This is what my golden spiral is created to do. The beast stills immediately. “Even the way you die is a disappointment. Go to hell where you belong.” I watch him so closely that I see the precise moment when life leaves his body. Another beastly stain has been removed from God’s creation. The world may never become squeaky clean but I’m determined to keep doing my part, one stain removal at a time.
