Rapture Noir: The Ellipse Murders

The Ellipse Murders

 

        The neon lights of Fort Frolic gave the shadows of the district distinct hues, and Sander Cohen used this to great effect. Like the red light districts of western cities you could often tell what kind of entertainment you could get from areas with color alone.

        Agatha Moore’s playfully pushed the man away, Francis she thought he’d called himself. He was rather dashing with his dark hair and little mustache. He’d smile and tell her she was lovely and kiss her neck some more. She felt his hand wander up her blouse and pretended not to notice.

        “Francis, what if someone sees?”

        “Oh, who would care?” he said back, kissing her ear, “Everyone knows Cohen doesn’t mind at all” He groped at her breast and she felt the wall against her back, it was wet, and her shirt stuck to her back.

        “W-wait” she said trying to push him away, “There’s something on me”

        “What now my dear?” he let her go and she felt at her back, it was wet, and sticky, she turned around. Agatha looked at her hand; even in the pink and greenish lights of the Fort she could see it was a deep dark red.

        “Is that blood?”

        The couple looked up and hanging over a railing against the wall above them, upside down from one leg, hung a dead man.

 

        From what I’d been told, the pictures weren’t much better then actually being there, you could almost smell the stink of the blood on them. The black and white and grays painted a bad picture.

        Whoever had killed the man didn’t want to take any chances, they didn’t just slit his throat, they’d all but decapitated him, the cut was right down to the bone all the way around his neck. In fact it was almost like they wanted him drained of all his blood, and they damn well did that. Massive amounts of blood were there oozing under the body and ruining the woman’s shirt that had found him. From the photo’s it looked as though they’d sliced into this neck and then threw him over. The impact sent a splash of blood around his head like a halo, and the rest just drained out.

        The man had worn some rather fancy duds as well. Clearly he was going to or coming from one of the more upper crust entertainment centers in the Fort. 

        I looked up at the wall, its surface fully stained with the man’s blood.

Why hang him like they did? From one leg over a railing, with one leg tied to the others thigh, and both hands tied behind his back? It was almost like they were trying to write the number four with the dead man’s body.

The security men had already packed up and left, but it wasn’t them that called me, it was the man’s family. More and more people trusted Ryan’s security forces less and less these days. Rapture was coming to a boil over the debates between Ryan and Fontaine, and people were starting to pick their sides.

        I just keep my head down about the whole thing and do what I can to help whoever comes to me for it. Besides it wasn’t like I needed more jobs. I still had the little girl to find, and the arson murders were still up in the air, and now this?

        I look back at the photos in my hand, and then slap them into the file, and pull out the witness reports.

        One Agatha Moore found the body. Early thirties and still a bit of a looker. She was alone when she leaned against the wall and found it wet, saw it was blood and then saw the body. Among the items found around the place were of course, the rope used to tie up the body and hang it, loose plaster along the railing and floor, and cut marks into the railing the body had hung from. Maybe a struggle that kicked up some plaster from the walls up there, the knife stabbing into the railing before the killer got things under control?

There were also new fliers for ‘Patrick and Moira’ but I doubt that had much to do with anything. The flied was different from the previous ones that showed the couple dancing. Instead this one showed the title characters standing apart with a third person in between them. The flier proclaimed it was the sixth version of the play. A silk handkerchief was also found, probably the victim’s given the material and lace trim of it. A few packages of cigarettes and an unopened condom were there as well.

I went around to the stairs and walked up to the next level of the district, and found my way back to the blood stain. There were certainly several cuts into the railing, but it looked more like scuffs and notches from just being banged against. Certainly not anything cause my erratic knife slashes. White particles were all over the railing as well, plaster? Kneeling down I looked around the floor edge and plaster still sat on the carpet there. But it was white, not the green of the wall. Not to mention there wasn’t any kind of damage done to the wall on this level.

        Of course there was artwork everywhere; the plaster could be from anything. Hell, from the look of it someone bumped one of the statuary while moving it.

        So what’s part of it and what isn’t?

        “Booker? Booker?”

        I leaned over the rail; below me was Abigail in another one of her pencil skirt reporter suits. I whistled and waved and she looked up and nodded.

        “So what’s this all about?” I handed her the file and she started reading. She stood there in her brown suit, pushing her hair back behind her ear eyes widening and brows furrowed at the more sordid details. I hadn’t seen Abby in some time, near on a week I’d say. I had an inkling to kiss her but, well, standing above a blood soaked wall was probably not the time nor the place.

“You get such interesting cases, Booker”

        “That’s one way to look at it,” I said, “I’m a little surprised you weren’t here sooner”

        “My editor says I’ve been giving him too much crime stuff” she said with a smirk, “So I’m officially here, unofficially”

        There was something different about her, now that I had a closer look. It was hard to tell in the many and changing lights of Fort Frolic but, well, it looked like her hair was darker, almost black.

        “So what’s it looking like Booker?”

        I looked down at the railing and the bloody wall below it, “Not sure lots of stuff around but, well given the area hard to tell what’s what. We need someone who’s more in tune with everything going on”

        She smiled like a snake, “Looks like we get to meet another big name in the city”

 

We didn’t get to meet Sander Cohen, the artist was far less interested in what I needed then the doctor had been, instead a man named Martin Finnegan met us.

He was a sculptor he said, the office he showed me to had several statues, presumably his own from the way he gushed over them. Marble and bronze they were all extremely lifelike, I half expected them to move when I turned around.

        Abigail had stayed outside of the hall that Cohen and his, well they called themselves disciples, kept their offices and studios, to ask around as to if anyone had seen the man prior to his murder.

        “It really was a shock, Mister DeWitt,” Finnegan said as he sat down at a small desk. It had to be small; both sides of it were flanked by statues of nude women in various states of self pleasure. Clearly Finnegan had something on his mind.

        “Do you have any idea as to who did this? Or why?”

        “I’m afraid not. But I’m sure I speak for Sander when I say that we hope that you and the security forces are able to find whoever did this.”

        I’m sure, “Mister Finnegan, where were you last night?”

The man smiled back at me, a cold smile, “I was here working on my latest sculpture, if you’d like to see it.”

        “Anyone that can verify that?”

        “My model for one thing, raven haired girl, blue eyes. She comes in every now and then to pose. A lovely little cocktail she is. Other than her my assistant can give you a list of other people who were around last night, I’m sure.”

        “What about Mister Cohen?”

        “I’m not sure anyone knows what Sander does when he’s not out on stage lapping up his praise. Most of the time he’s locking himself in his studio, or in that gaudy apartment of his.”

        “Was he even here?”

        “I doubt it. He’s become rather disillusioned with his recent play”

        “That would be ‘Moira and Patrick’?”

        “Yes that’s the one, the two lovers that keep finding each other after they die. At the end they need to chose if they really want to be together, or something like that. A little cliché but it puts the seats in the seats, as they say. I think I overheard him saying something about starting work on his true masterpiece.”

        Well that might be something Abigail could get a story out of at least, I got up to go, “Thank you very much Mister Finnegan”

        “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see the model? It’s coming out rather well. I’m thinking of calling it ‘Songbird in Repose’”

        I waved my hand, “I’ll pass, I was never much of one for art” Finnegan’s eyes were twitching as I closed the door behind me. Why do all these damn people want to show me these things? Through the red carpeted hallways of the ‘Rise Rapture Gallery’ my thoughts wandered to the body again. Abigail still had the photos but there’d be something wrong with a man if he couldn’t remember someone being trussed up like some kind of pig carcass.

        The way the body was arranged had to be the key. If they just wanted the body found they could have left it on the ground anywhere in the district. If they wanted the blood why leave it in the open to drain where they couldn’t get it.

And why even bother with tying the arms and legs like they had? I couldn’t think of any other murders that Rapture had seen like this, and certainly nothing else with whatever kind of imagery they were putting out with this. Knowing why the body was the way it was might not be a corner or even an edge piece to the puzzle, but maybe then it wouldn’t all just be sky.

I head over to Pharaoh’s Fortune, I liked the casino, it had a two drink minimum. With any luck Abby would meet me there once she found another witness.

 

        “What do you mean nothing?”

        “No one saw anything,” Abigail said, absentmindedly stirring her drink.

        “How do you flay the meat off a man’s neck and toss him over a railing without anyone seeing or hearing anything?”

        “I ‘unno.” She shrugged. We both drank.

We sat at a table, near the bar, the casino’s music and chimes and laughter and livelihood echoing around us, a concert of gambling. Waitresses walked amongst the tables carrying drinks and glasses wearing cocktail dresses and not so subtly flirting with the men they served. It reminded me of the Kashmir and Elizabeth.

        I glanced at Abigail and then back to my drink. Best to keep it under my hat and forget about it. Like it was that easy.

        “Let me see the file again” I asked. Abigail handed it over. Her hair was definitely different, it wasn’t the dark brown or auburn it was before, it was black. Had she dyed it? Why? I let it go and looked back at the photos. I doubted them shedding any new light for me, but at least they could take my mind off of the girl.

It was only then I noticed something in the photo’s on the man’s head there was something there, almost smudged by the lens, or maybe… maybe carved into the skin? It looked almost like an X with two I’s next to it.

        “Twelve?”

        “Twelve what?”

        I showed Abigail the photo. It was definitely roman numerals, Ecks Aie Aie, Twelve.

        “It’s not a very good photo Booker,” Abigail said putting down the picture,

        “No. That’s why I’ll have to pay the Morgue a visit. This could be a brand or something, a warning maybe? Whoever did this has already killed eleven other people, or they’re going to kill twelve more, maybe,” I downed my drink, “Either way I want to make sure I’m seeing this right”

        Abigail moved her chair closer to me, “It’s kind of late to head over there now…” she let the implication hang in the air. It was late. I hadn’t gotten the file or even to Fort Frolic until well past six, and sorting through everything and coming here had taken some time. Abigail batted her eyes.

        With the black hair, she looked like the girl, Elizabeth, nearly the same blue eyes, though Abigail’s hair was shorter, with a more angular face. It was still unnerving. I wanted to forget what had happened.

        “I should head home,” I said, standing up. Abigail’s face held a brief look of surprise and disappointment before she waved me off.

        “Alright, alright. I’ll see you later, Mister DeWitt”

 

        I light a cigarette as I walk through the waterways, the ocean surrounding me as I leave the Medical Pavilion. The doctors were none too happy to see me, and even less happy to know what Steinman himself had allowed me to sit around for the autopsy. Sure enough carved into the man’s head were the roman numerals for twelve.

        Beyond that the doctor didn’t find anything other than severe blood loss to be the cause of death. Thanks to scratches on the man’s spine the doctor figured the knife that carved up his neck was serrated, and needed to be at least a foot long to do the job. Drugs were found in his system, formyl trichloride chief amongst them. Chloroform. Stomach contests didn’t provide anything else and there was no evidence that the man did anything to prevent his grisly fate.

        I suck down on my coffin nail like I had a vendetta; the damn man’s body didn’t lead me much of anywhere. With so many scientists and doctors in Rapture chloroform was common as hell; I could probably head over to any store in Apollo Square and get myself a bottle. I wrench up on the door handle and as I wait for the door to open I’m standing there puffing like a nervous con hoping not to be found out.

        The whole thing had gone to hell. If I was hoping to get something from the autopsy all I was left with were center pieces and all the jigsaw curves looked the same. I just needed to find a corner and I could get in business. The door screeches and you can damn well hear the teeth on gears getting stripped.

        “God Dammit!” I kick at the door.

Most cases are easy; the last person to see the vic did it. Their best friend didn’t like that they got a raise. Most of the time they knew who attacked them. No one saw anything for this man, there was no guardian angel looking out for him, preacher. I leave the half open door, someone else will deal with it, there’s a tram stations in the pavilion anyway.

        Stepping back into the hospital my shoes ringed against the pristine white tiles of the district. Steinman’s advertisements for his beauty and surgery tonics line the walls between doors and waiting rooms. An entire district dedicated to beauty, I think I heard him say once. An entire part of the city that was a hospital.

        I was halfway through the place when a scream went out, and my feet started moving before I even thought of it. I was off and running towards it. Another scream, echoed through the walls of the pavilion, and then a shout for help and a third scream.

        A knot of people crowded around a small niche in the wall. I yell that I was a detective, and when no one moved, I shoved my way through the press. Through the other side I met with another ghastly scene.

        A woman, at least I think it was a woman, laid out on the ground. Around her body the floor was awash with blood and about her shoulders two bloody masses of flesh, large and pink. Around the masses were long white and red curved objects. It took me a moment to realize they were bones, the woman’s ribs. They formed bloody wings that stretched out from her shoulders. Her arms lay limp at her sides and on either side of her were cups, one was filled with water and the other with a red fluid, blood, I’d guess.

        Her stomach was also covered in blood, but ragged gashes made an unmistakable pattern there, an ‘X’ and ‘I’ and a ‘V’.

        Fourteen.

A numbered body laid out to be found and killed in a horrific way. Two bodies in as many days. Blood still oozed from the body, bright red, loose, fresh blood. This was done recently.

I whirled around, “Someone get me a camera quick! Who found the body?”

The people around the niche just talked amongst themselves.

        “Dammit who found the body?!”

        “I-I did” a girl, blond with short hair raised her hand.

        “Did you see anything? Anything at all?”

        “N-no I just... I-I-I just,”

        “Where’s the damn camera? Focus! Did anyone go into or out of here? Anyone?”

        “N-no!”

        “I-I’ve got a camera!” a man came forward, an older camera in his hands.

        “Takes pictures of everything here. Everything. And not just one, a bunch of everything, got it?” I turned back to the girl, “You didn’t see anyone come in or out? Did you hear anything? Another scream? Anything at all?”

        “I-I-I” I was scaring her, I knew, but whoever did this could still be near.

        “I heard something!” Another man, older than me by a long ways, “Sounded like a, like a clap.”

        “A clap?”

        “Like uh, like thunder” he said, “But not very loud. A rush of wind, and then a clap.”

        Behind me the man with the camera took more and more photos, “Did anyone else hear or see anything? Anyone?” the people still remaining mumbled and grumbled, ‘No’s’ rang out. IU turned from them back to the body. The Pavilion’s doctors would be here soon, no doubt about it and on their tails would be the security forces. Like hell I’d let them muck about in this.

        I walked around the body, making sure not to step in the slowly growing pool of blood. The woman was naked from the waist up, the letters caved into her stomach. Without her ribs her chest was almost deflated like an empty ball. Unless I turned over the body I couldn’t say if there were any other injuries, but the ribs and whatever it was that was lying next to her had to come out of her from somewhere.

        The cups were strange. Those with how the body was arranged brought everything into a disturbingly ritualistic view. Ryan’s men would want this squashed out quick.

I stepped around to the women’s feet; she was wearing a skirt the hem of which was soaked with water, nearly sodden. Stuck to the skirt were white particles. They crumbled easily enough between my fingers.

        More plaster or grout from the tiles? It wasn’t coarse enough to be grout and it smeared more easily the wetter it was. Plaster. I stood over the girl and looked at the wound in her stomach. It was jagged, a lot like the one cut into the man’s head.

        I took a step back, and felt something under my shoe. I looked down to find a round object, a poker chip I realized once I’d picked it up. A simply clay chip pressed to have a pyramid on one side and an Egyptian death mask on the other. A Pharaoh’s Fortune chip. It was the woman’s it brought a connection between her and the previous victim, they were both in Fort Frolic before dying, possibly right before dying. And both had plaster on or near the body. The man it could easily be a coincidence but in the medical pavilion I doubted much plaster would be thrown around without some kind of trail and there wasn’t one from the girl.

        I pocketed the chip just as some medical men showed up. The girl’s body was going to be brought in and examined.

 

        “So what killed her, doc?”

        “Blood loss, just like the last one, Mister DeWitt”

The woman’s cold body was laid out on the slab, lights all around her. She’d been cleaned up, and you could now easily see the letters cut into her abdomen.

        “What about everything else? The bones and all that?”

        “Ahh well” the man lifted up the body, showing her back, two long cuts ran down her spine, “Her ribs were sawed off at her spine and broken and pulled out, then her lungs were pulled out as well. It’s called a-“

        “Blood Eagle” I said. In Germany we’d heard some stories about it. It was supposed to be a torture that Vikings did to people that crossed them or betrayed them. We’d heard stories of German’s doing it to prisoners. The people were supposed to still be alive when it happened.

        “Right.”

        “What about blood work? Was all this stuff hers? Was she drugged?”

        “It was all her blood, near as we can tell. And just like the last stiff you came to see she’s got formyl trichloride. Someone drugged her up just like the last guy”

        He drugs them, takes them wherever he wants to dump them, and guts ‘em? The doctor goes on about detail on what he can tell on the bones. I can already bet it’s a long knife or something similar, serrated and about a foot long.

        I left the pavilion a second time, lighting up another cigarette. I came to the Pavilion first thing and it was already past midday. I needed a drink.

        The door through the waterway was fixed by the time I’d gotten back. I yanked at the handle again and turned as the gears whirled and the door opened. Turning, I ran straight into someone.

        “Oof, Oh well, fancy meeting you here, Mister DeWitt”

        Bright blue eyes like a cloudless morning looked back at me, black hair tumbled to her shoulders and sunny red lips pursed into a smile and all at once a vision of the Kashmir stage came back to me.

 

Another day, another bar, another table. Elizabeth sat opposite me this time, another cocktail in her hands, what was it called this time? Possession? A green drink. I watched her take a sip and briefly wondered how it would taste, even more so how it would taste from her lips.

I swallowed the thought and my whiskey.

It had been hard staying on the job at Kashmir, after her song. I still had the Meyer and Hayes file open on my desk. The help at Kashmir hadn’t been much, well help, and it had gone cold. It was unfortunate to say but it seemed that I’d just have to wait for someone else to get ashed.

        The dress she’d worn then made the open collared blouse and tight skirt she wore now look downright homely.

        “I’m surprised you hadn’t heard anything about it” I really was, the girl seemed to know everything going on with me, did she even know I was at the restaurant that night?

        “I guess I’m just not much with the paper” she said with another smile. Since I guessed her name she didn’t give me those sarcastic grins anymore. And since Kashmir…well, a smile from her felt nice.

        “Two people dead, same circumstances. And really butchered too, blood ev-“ I shook my head, “Not the kind of conversation with a lady.

        A grin like a lioness, “I don’t really think of myself as a lady, not with you, Booker” She took another drink as I choked on mine.

        I coughed and continued, “Lots of blood. And the bodies were set up like a ritual. The man was hung upside down and the girl made to look like an angel with cups. They both had numbers cut into them”

        She stop drinking and put down the glass. Her brow was furrowed, “That sounds familiar,” she said, “What was it like?”

        “Er…“ well why not, Abigail always helped me out, “The man was hanging upside down from a wall in Frolic, hanging from one leg, with his other tied to it, bending at the knee. Both his arms were behind his back.  The way the blood slapped around his head it looked like a halo. The damnedest thing was that he had lettered cut into his head, two ‘I’s’ and an ‘X’ like the number twelve.”

        Elizabeth looked into her glass, eyes flitting from one side to the other, “I know that, I know that…” she said.

        After a few moments I continued on, “The girl had her ribs and lungs town out to look like wings, like an angel. There were also two cups by her, one had water and the other blood.”

        She set down the glass, “Show me what they looked like”

        The barman was nice enough to give me a pen, I sketched out as best I could what the bodies looked like. A man hanging from one leg with his other leg and arms behind him, and the girl with bloody wings and two cups by her hands, Elizabeth looked at them for some time before saying anything

        “Do you know anything about Tarot cards, Booker?”

        “What?”

        “Tarot Cards,” she said again, putting down the napkins I’d drawn on, “They’re like playing cards; they used to just be that but some people think you can tell the future with them”

        “That seems kind of farfetched”

        “Tell that to people that believe,” Elizabeth said. She pointed at the drawing of the man, “This is The Hanged Man, and this” she pointed to the girl, “is Temperance”

        “So it’s what, ritual killing? They’re trying to tell the future?”

        Elizabeth shrugged, “Maybe? The meaning the cards are supposed to have change on how they’re drawn and in what position they’re in.” she sighed looking at my drawings, “The Hanged Man is about things like sacrifice, letting go, and accepting fate and being at peace with it. But also about staying in line and accepting a new point of view and patience.” She held up the woman, “Temperance is about harmony, and moderation. Bringing things together. Healing”

        “So what, the guy wants to bring people together so they’re at peace?”

        She shrugged, “Things aren’t exactly peaceful in Rapture. How were they found? The meaning’s different if they’re upside down.”

        “Well the man was just like that, hanging from a railing.”

        “You said they had numbers in them? From how he was hung what did the numbers look like?”

        “Er.. Ecks, Aie Aie. Twelve, right?”

        “Just like this?” under the drawing she wrote out the letters.

        “Yeah”

        “And the girl?”

        “Same thing, on her stomach Ecks Aie Vee, fourteen” again she wrote them out under the drawing. But they weren’t that way, they were reversed.

        “So, they were upside down?” she said.

        “I guess so” I watched Elizabeth turned the picture over.

        “Temperance upside down means the opposite of its usual meanings. Unbalanced, excess. The cups she’s supposed to hold are water and wine. Normally she’s making the wine weaker, the other way around and you just get stronger wine. They probably had a reason to put them where they were.”

        “The girl, the angel. She’s about healing? Well that’s why she’s at the Pavilion. But what about the man? Letting go? Acceptance? What’s that got to do with Fort Frolic?”

        “Maybe like… seeing someone else’s point of view?”

        It was a long shot, but I didn’t know anything about this symbolism garbage. So they were both made to look like Tarot cards, at least that explains some of the reason behind the state of the bodies. A little bit more of the puzzle fell out, and I may have just found a corner and two edges were feeling to be about the right shape. There was a pattern here.

        “Why set them up as these cards if not to try to tell the future with them, in some way?”

        “What do you mean?”

“The… the Hanged Man, What’s he represent?”

        “Giving up, giving in, patience, non-action”

“Oh lord,” Could it really have been that easy? A damn pun? “Patience, like patients. The Hanged Man points to the Medical Pavilion and the girl. Healing right?”

Elizabeth smiled and nodded, she almost looked nostalgic? Like she’d seen this before.

        So the first body leads to the second, and the second should lead on to, hopefully where the next person is supposed to be killed, and not just another bloody corpse, “What does temperance mean?”

        “Upside down it means excess, not keeping things in balance, uhm…”

        I pulled out the casino chip from my pocket and smiled, a two drink minimum.

 

        Abigail stood in Fort Frolic, looking at the still bloodstained wall, doing her best to imagine what the body had looked like without imagining the blood oozing out of it.

        It wasn’t so much the blood that disturbed her as it was the ritual look of it. She’d gotten through that ‘Angel’ case fine, but that was just a killing. This was more like a, a slaughter. She snapped her fingers and a flame blossomed from them and she looked more closely at the wall.

        Abigail had never had a plasmid before. The ability to use them was rather exhilarating, making fire from your hand. She hadn’t much thought about it until she’d gone through Booker’s desk and saw his notes. After that she went to the Pavilion and got a gene tonic for her hair, Raven Black. When she thought about it more it was a silly thing to do but after a few days she liked the black hair, so she decided why not, and got Incinerate as well. Booker used it for a lighter all the time, it couldn’t be so bad.

        Content that there was nothing new with the wall she rubbed the flame out on her fingers and turned around, the lights and sounds of Fort Frolic ahead of her. Booker hadn’t talked to her about what he’d found out at the Pavilion, but she’d gotten word that another body had been found. She went to Bookers apartment but it was empty, so she came back here. Abigail figured that there must have been something they’d missed, so it was back to square one, as it were.

        While debating on where to go next, she’d caught sight of her man. She was about to call out when she noticed he was arm in arm with another woman, black hair and, if you asked Abigail, a far fuller figure then herself. She looked familiar. They headed up the stairs and she followed them all the way to Pharaoh’s Fortune.

       

        The Casino blared and clanged around us, slot machines dolling out pittance for the fortune they took in. If I was right about what the cards were supposed to mean then my man was in here somewhere, ready and waiting. Elizabeth had said that the Wheel of Fortune was probably the most fitting for the casino, representing sudden change, possibilities and destiny. The hope of people trying to get rich. The other body pointing back here also fit with people being taken from Fort Frolic. The Casino wasn’t as lively tonight as usual, maybe word of the hanged man had gotten around. Dead bodies tended to put people off. Elizabeth was talking to herself absentmindedly.

        Walking through the slots and tables I couldn’t help but notice a number of the prizes had changed. Money was of course always a winner, but there were now prizes like tickets to shows, and even gene tonics and plasmids. One bank of slot machines attested to a winning take being Winters Blast. Why anyone would need to freeze what they touch was beyond me.

        “This would be faster if we split u-“

        “Booker?”

        Elizabeth let go of my arm as I turned around to see Abby standing there, hands on her hips.

        “Abby?”

“Who’s thi-?” Abigail waved her hand at Elizabeth, “You, You’re that missing girl Booker was looking for.”

        One look at Abigail’s face reminded me of what I’d come home to one night, it seemed so long ago now. Papers strewn over my desk, the notes and pictures of Elizabeth on top. Oh hell, first that and now she sees me walking arm in arm with the girl? It wasn’t even my idea, Elizabeth just did it, why didn’t I pull away?

        Before I could say anything Elizabeth stepped up to her and smiled giving her a friendly hello. They shook hands. “I’m Elizabeth, and you are?”

        To her credit, Abby took the girls hand and shook it, “I’m Abigail.”

        If looks could kill I’d be a black smudge on the wall.

After the glare at me, Abigail looked Elizabeth up and down. Suddenly I felt more like a ref at a boxing match then some guy in a casino.

        “So what do you do, Elizabeth?”

        “Oh, odd jobs, this and that” she said with a smile, “You?”

        As Abby started to tell her about her work as a reporter I heard something that I hadn’t in some time, a rush, like wind blowing through trees.

        There wasn’t any wind in rapture.

As the thought entered my mind I could hear a pop, a clap like thunder, but softer and quieter, just like the man at the Pavilion had said.

        Whatever it was, it had been moving behind me, without a thought I turned and ran. I could hear Abigail and Elizabeth call my name.

        Whoever was doing this, they needed a secluded spot to do it. The Casino wasn’t full but there were still plenty of people, and alcoves were not in plentiful supply here, save for the- The Restrooms!

        Skidding on the carpet I took the turn sharply and dashed for the far wall, the men’s and women’s rooms were off a small corridor from the power tables there. If you wanted a place to be alone in a crowded room, it was there. I knew form experience.

        Rounding a table and entering the small hallway I finally got a look at the handiwork in progress. A man was holding a girls head, blood dripping from her neck as she slashed a long serrated knife over her eyes. It was clear she was already dead, living people have more of a stomach then she did, and their guts weren’t strewn over the floor in a large circle.

        “Hold it!”My gun was out and pointed right at the man’s head, “Drop the knife”

Wild eyes stared back at me. I’d seen eyes like that before, some time ago, when I saved a girl from a homeless workless man at Dionysus. He gurgled something to himself and dropped the girl, taking a step forward.

        It was then that Elizabeth and Abigail showed up. I’m not sure why, but the man shrieked something about an angel and threw the knife. As soon as his arm raised I turned and grabbed both girls, the three of us tumbling down as the blade flew overhead and buried itself into the side of a poker table. That was when the first woman screamed.

        Another soft pop and a rush of air. As soon as I got up and turned the man was gone.

Shit. Someone still had one of those teleportation plasmids. With the screaming and yelling I couldn’t hear anything. The plasmid was good but you could tell where they were going sometimes. Sounds, the air, they had tells. With all the commotion I had none of it.

        “He’s… he’s going to the bar, Booker!”

        I didn’t wait another second. After it was over I’d wonder how she knew, or why I believed her. Her eyes were closed then, and you couldn’t even see the bar from where we were, but I ran all the same. Just as I arrived at the area the man appeared again and I barreled into him. We both hit hard against the side of the bar, and it took me a moment to get up from the daze, but he was already up, and soon I felt his hand around my neck. God the man was strong, far stronger then he looked.

        This close I could see him more clearly, his skin drooped under his eyes and along his jaw on his left, but was pulled tight in other places. He stank of blood and sweat and filth. The skin at his lips was pulled in such a way that he always had a half sneer on his face. If ever there was a face to what people were calling Splicers this damn well was it.

        “I’m going to enjoy making you into a piece” he slurred as he brought me close.

        “Let go of him!” a hand came from behind him, slapping the side of his face and spinning him and dropping me. As I coughed Abigail stood face to face with the Splicer.

        “Abb-by, g-go! Run” the man grabbed at her arm when she tried to retreat and again wrapped his hands around a neck. I kicked at the man’s shins but before I could connect another punch went into the man’s face. It was Elizabeth this time and the man and Abby both stumbled away from her. I stood back up, gun at the ready.

        “You’ve got nowhere to go, buddy.” I said, “Just come along nice and easy.”

He didn’t yell the word. It was just a gurgle and a slur like everything else he’d uttered up to that point, a simple ‘No’ but it still blew me across the bar and into a slot machine all the same.

God damned plasmids.

        They were the biggest problem. How do you stop a person with God damned magic powers? As I tried to pull myself up from the ruined and twisted metal and glass and plastic and wood coins and paper clinked around me, until I heard distinct ping of glass and looked down. A hypo lay at my feet with a label bearing a snowflake.

        Everyone had their own way of using Plasmids. Most just associated the power with a hand movement. You didn’t need the friction to make the fire for incinerate, but in people’s minds it made sense, so it worked. So how do you stop someone from using plasmids? You take away how they think it should work. I grabbed the hypo and slid the needle into my arm. When I’d gotten Incinerate my veins felt like they were filled with gasoline, like at the slightest spark I’d go up in flames. This time it was cold, freezing, I looked at my hands and I could see my veins they grew larger and larger, swelling red and then turning black, frost crawled over my fingers and the black bite spread over my whole hand. And soon enough my hand felt hard, like stone. The pain of it was incredible. It took me days to feel right after my first plasmid. I didn’t really have that luxury this time.

        Through blurry eyes the man was back on his feet, and he’d grabbed and tossed Elizabeth down with Abby. I stumbled as I got up, something cut through my clothes and into my arm, metal from the machine I’d wager. My heart pounded in my head as I moved as quickly as I could towards the three. I man stretched out his hand and, snapping his fingers, was filled with flame.

        “It’s the Tower for you two” I could barely hear him say, he pulled his hand back and I grabbed his wrist.

He shrieked and the fire went out, the heat of his own skin sending up plums of steam as it met my own freezing grasp. His skin quickly puffed up red and tender before the black frostbite started to creep out from my hand, followed quickly by a thin sheet of ice. The man screamed and wriggled but I held on tight, my own hand screaming at me as every movement sent jolts of pain through my arm. Before long the man’s entire hand was coated in ice and unmoving. He was down on his knees. I raised up his arm and brought my pistol down on his fingers. The sound of flesh and bone shattering wasn’t all that different from glass. I doubted he could feel it, but he wailed all the same, whatever concentration allowed him to send the shockwave with his voice before was gone. Even so, best to play it safe. I dropped his ruined arm and put my hand over his mouth, his lips were wet, and they froze even faster than his hand had.

 

        Afterwards both Abigail and Elizabeth tried to hug me, but I pulled my arm away from both of them. I doubted I could be able to touch much of anything until I could get the plasmid under control. They both settled for a half hug of my shoulder.

        The Security boys came eventually, and did their checks on citizens of Rapture. The Splicer was a man named Heath Hayes. They didn’t tell me if there was any relation to Angela. He was another follower of Sander Cohen, though the other ‘disciples’ said he wasn’t particularly good, or even noticed by the man.

They’d found his apartment in Olympus Heights, and his studio at Fort Frolic. The murder scenes were bloody, but his home and office were covered in gore. There were more bodies there, tied up and laid out and withered. In his home they found a deck of Tarot cards, with some of them laid out in a wide ‘V’, The Hangdman, Temperance and Wheel of Fortune among them. It seemed he became obsessed with the deck, and dealt out a future he thought he could make come true.

        Once his lips were thawed enough to speak Hayes muttered and sputtered about ADAM, he needed eve, or a plasmid, anything. They gave him an Eve hypo and he calmed down, and started to spill everything he knew. He killed the people, he wanted to please Sander. The other’s only made copies of people as art, but he made people art. It was insane and Sander’s cronies said as much.

        Thanks to the spread of the cards in Hayes’ apartment’s the papers ended up calling it the Ellipse Murders. Abigail said she wanted it to call it the Tarot Terror, but her editor turned her down. That was strange; he always seemed to do what she wanted before.

 

        I shut off the water to my shower. I couldn’t really tell if the water was boiling or tepid. Since getting Winter’s Blast into my system it was getting harder to feel heat. I didn’t feel cold, it just seemed more and more I couldn’t feel any kind of temperature change. Probably just a side effect of the plasmid. I grabbed a towel and scrubbed my body free of as much water as I could.

        Stepping out of the shower I looked around my home turned office. Papers still strewn over my desk. Clothes mostly where I’d let them drop. I’d half expected to see Abigail in my bed, in some part of my mind I might even have hoped to see Elizabeth there.

        For once I was glad to see it was empty.