Chapter Text
Moon. Bright, fat, glorious moon. The night slithered in like an unseen knife piercing skin, and now the only light that graces the rundown streets of Brockton Bay is that of the moon, up in the sky, unreachable, untouchable.
It’s cold here, at least compared to Miami, and neither the night sky nor the view of this Bay from up here hold a candle to the beauty of the Tropical paradise I used to call home. But the moon, ah, the moon is always the same, no matter where you are.
Hide. She will be here soon, Loyal Dog’s Shade whispers in my ear, forcing my attention back to the present.
I follow the Shade’s advice and duck behind one of the HVAC units, ready to lie in wait until my prey finally arrives.
A few minutes later, she leaps from the roof of the neighboring building to the one I’m in, her wispy, almost translucent form flickering beneath the moonlight, and landing with barely any noise. It’s admirable, really. Her skills and finesse with her power speak of countless nights of practice, maybe entire years perfecting each maneuver, movement, timing. It’s almost a shame that all of her effort will come to a stop tonight.
She looks around to try and make sure she is alone. Good instincts, just not good enough.
Go back to cover, minimize your silhouette, breathes the same Shade, a composite of military personnel, operatives, huntsmen killing at the command of others, tamed monsters with unbreakable discipline, but its advice is redundant at this point, long committed to rote memorization. My back is already against the HVAC, my clothes blend with the shadows that cover the roof, and Stalker does not actually think that anyone could be watching her, does not really expect to find anyone here with her. So instead of walking across the roof, she just casts a passing glance over the place where I hide.
I wait five, six, seven seconds. When I look around my cover again, her back is facing toward me, her guard completely lowered.
She approaches a vent and retrieves her backpack from inside it. As she opens it to take out her clothes, I stand up, quiet as a shadow, and take the syringe and the taser from their holsters.
Usually, the hardest part of any hunt is managing to isolate my target, approach them when there is no one around, when no one knows where they are, and no one will miss them until it’s too late. Even ex-cons have family, neighbors, a parole officer… Shadow Stalker? She has taken care to extricate herself from the support structures that are supposed to protect her: going on unsanctioned patrols, far beyond the watchful eye of the PRT; wandering the streets at night with no one by her side; making a habit of never answering her phone or checking her messages…
She is utterly convinced that she doesn’t need anyone, that no one has anything to offer her, and that no one can touch her—her power reflected in her habits—and that makes her careless. It barely took two weeks to figure out her patrol routes, her schedules, the places where she stops every night, where she stashes her civilian clothes.
At no point did it occur to her that she might be being followed, that the SUV circulating across the same twenty or so blocks she patrols every night might be tailing her. She has made my job much easier. Almost too much, almost boring.
But that’s okay, we’re almost to the fun part.
She finally takes off her heavy cloak, letting it fall to the ground, and then starts undoing the bands that hold her hockey mask in place. As soon as her hands are behind her head, far away from her crossbow, I move. Three long, silent steps, and the prongs of my taser make contact with the small of her back. Her body goes rigid as a board, her jaw shuts tight, and a small whimper escapes her as she falls to the ground. Called it.
She is not the first Breaker I’ve encountered. Some of them have powers that activate as soon as they get hurt—the memory of a woman turning into a puddle of goo as my needle went in, ruining months of planning, will never leave me—most of them have to do it consciously, but the ones that turn themselves into gases, wisps, ghosts? Years of research papers and personal experience have shown me that they always have trouble with electricity, something about exotic states of matter and excitation of energy.
While Shadow Stalker is still struggling for breath on the ground, I stab my needle in her neck—a movement perfected by exhaustive practice— and she goes completely limp.
My Dark Passenger sings in anticipation as we watch Stalker’s unconscious form lying before us. The pressure that has been building up inside us for almost two months now is reaching the boiling point, and I have no intentions of denying us the sweet release we carve any more time than necessary.
It’s barely past eleven, and she won’t be missed for quite a while yet. Wards always start their shifts past midday on weekends. I might be new to the Bay, but I’m not unfamiliar with the customs and protocols of law enforcement, not even those of the PRT and Protectorate—it would be dangerous to remain ignorant of them, given my proclivities.
I stash Stalker’s cloak and mask into her backpack, and with a huff, I lug her limp body over my shoulder. I’ve carried heavier things, heavier people, but an unconscious body is always harder and more awkward to carry than one thinks it should be.
I make my way inside the building and carefully descend the stairs to the abandoned penthouse.
The place has seen better days, but that is more than ideal for my needs. On this, Shadow Stalker’s competence works against her: the apartment complex, condemned several years ago, is surrounded by a small plot of land that might have been a park once, but is now completely deserted; it quickly became a favorite spot for homeless individuals looking for a place to sleep, but the owner submitted several complaints to the authorities, so any squatters are long gone.
For Shadow Stalker, it’s a perfect hideout to lay low in case the PRT catches wind of her extracurricular activities—she even got herself a bug-out bag and a small, quiet generator— but an even better one for my killing room.
I prepared everything beforehand. The kitchen island is entirely covered in plastic, just like the floor and walls; the electric cord and tape I brought to restrain her is well in handy in my unassuming duffle bag, along with my knives and power tools; the photographs of her victims are already on display, taped to the wall so that, as soon as she wakes up, she will be able to appreciate them.
I would also have covered the windows with trash bags and newspapers, but one of the squatters did me the favor before being kicked out.
A younger Dexter wouldn’t have cared as much about the small details, would have enjoyed making a mess, getting his hands dirty, but as I’ve gotten older, and as the PRT has gotten its greedy little paws on more and more Thinkers, I’ve had to refine my process. Dexter is an adult now, and a very neat monster, if I say so myself.
I lay Stalker’s still unconscious body over the island, her legs dangling undignifiedly from one end, trails of saliva both down her chin and up her nose, and immediately begin searching her for anything dangerous. I get rid of her black bodysuit, take away her crossbow and quiver, obviously, but I also find two small, vicious-looking knives, and a turned-off flipphone from which I promptly extract the battery.
I take the cord, plug it into the inert generator, and begin restraining Stalker with loops around her wrists, around her arms and torso, her knees and ankles. As soon as I’m done with the cord, I secure each loop in place with enough tape to cause bruises. When I’m done, I stuff her mouth with a bunched-up rag I found in the kitchen and cover it with tape as well.
With the push of a button, the generator whirs to life. Shadow Stalker is left completely at my mercy.
Urgent matters taken care of, I leisurely get the rest of my things: scrubs, surgical gloves, sleeve guards, shoe covers, plastic apron, face shield… I lay out the roll bag with my knives over the nearby counter, and move one of the chairs left abandoned back to the kitchen.
Then, with everything in place, I sit, and I wait in almost complete darkness, the only light coming from a small, dusty skylight.
Anticipation burns inside me, and the hands of the Dark Passenger creep ever closer to the wheel.
The dose we used, carefully calibrated for the body mass of a tall, physically active sixteen-year-old girl, wears off not ten minutes later, but she is smart, her eyes remain closed, and her head stays in the very uncomfortable position we let it in, a slight change in her breathing the only indication that she has regained consciousness. It might have even worked, had she been the first to try it.
“The sooner you stop pretending, the sooner we will take out the rag,” We say lightly. “We didn't even dust it before stuffing it in your mouth. Think of all those nasty germs, not to mention the flavor.”
She gives up the pretense, opens her eyes, looks around. Her gaze drifts over the pictures lining the wall without any sign of interest or recognition, and it keeps moving all over the room and then her own body. When she notices that the thing tying her up is not just rope, she immediately sags and… relaxes might not be the right word, but it’s quite close.
We get up, rip the tape from her face and, being careful not to get our fingers too close to her teeth, take out the rag. She works her jaw a bit, but does not scream, or plead, or start hurling insults.
Instead, the first words out of her mouth are simply, “Electrical cord?”
We’re actually a bit impressed. Most of our playmates aren’t nearly this professional.
“Just so.” We answer.
“Figured it was just a matter of time before some asswhipper at the PRT leaked it to the Empire. So what, your bosses finally realized I’m a threat? Want to get rid of me?”
We can feel our eyebrows rising as she talks. We revise our impression of her and take away a few points. What we mistakenly interpreted as stoicism before is revealed to be anything but—she is conceited, self-assured to a ridiculous degree, and ascribes more importance to herself than she ever could hope to hold.
And she is utterly convinced that she is going to find a way out of this.
“We don’t work for the Empire. We’re more of a… self-employed kind of monster.”
She stops for a moment after hearing that, but doesn’t allow her expression to shift.
“So even the Nazis don’t want you? Damn, you must really suck, then. So what, did I nail one of your buddies? Wanna try to make me pay for getting rid of some kiddie diddler, some wife-beater, some rapist?”
“No, no. Nothing of the sort.” We say as we stop our pacing right in front of the counter, unrolling the bag and displaying our knives. When I look at her, I can see that her gaze is locked to their edges. “We would be quite the hypocrite if we hunted you down for taking out scum like that, even if your own code wasn’t as ironclad as ours.”
“The fuck are you talking about? Are you going to start making sense any time soon, or can I go already? And the fuck you keep going “we”? I don’t see anyone else here.”
“Look at the photos on the wall, Shadow Stalker.” We ignore her question and busy ourselves choosing our first knife—ceramic, light, elegant—. We hold it high, letting it bask in the dim moonlight that enters through the skylight, and smile.
“Fuck you.” She sneers.
We frown and, with our free hand, take hold of her face and force her to look at the wall.
“We said look! Even children are able to follow basic instructions. Do not. Make us. Doubt. Your competence more than we already do.” We instruct her, punctuating our words with violent shakes to her head.
She tries to resist, but it’s futile. I’m much stronger than her, and she lacks any leverage. Finally, her eyes land on the wall once again.
When I started my investigation on her, I heard the rumors about how she was pressed into the Wards for excessive use of force during her time as a vigilante: gangsters with broken kneecaps, busted teeth, arms bent the wrong way and, finally, an Empire member nailed to a wall, alive but by a miracle, nearly bleed out to death, that finally pushed the PRT to act. Excessive use of force, indeed, if maybe justified.
But her other victims…
Nine different pictures, all from last year, all of them of twisted, brutalized bodies abandoned in dark alleyways. Junkies, homeless, even a teenager found lying near a spraycan and an unfinished tag.
The cause of death always varied; the victims had nothing in common beyond opportunity. Even though the sheer brutality remained a fixed constant, no one at the precinct even thought that all the incidents could be connected, and certainly no one thought that they might be related to the shiny new ward of the PRT.
We would have missed it if we hadn’t been tailing her during her latest kill, but once you connect the dots—how all the murders have taken place around the area of her unauthorized patrols, how no one ever sees a suspect exiting the scenes—it was just a matter of some light digging in the police archives to identify all of her work, get the photographs printed from the case files.
One could be pressed to point the finger at the incompetence of the authorities, the police for failing to realize that the seemingly random homicides were the act of a single perpetrator, or the PRT for being oblivious to the murderous monster in their midst, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair.
By all appearances, Shadow Stalker is simply a troubled teenager who lashed out at the scum that preys on her community, didn’t know when to stop, had gone a bit too far. No one thought that there was reason to look further into her, that there was anything else to find.
We focus on her features as she examines each picture. Savoring the moment. Slowly, recognition dawns on her face, her pupils dilate, her nostrils flare, and—
“You’ve guh thu bhu kiddin muh,” she mutters, words mushed by my hold on her cheeks, voice low enough that we almost don’t hear it. “Ish thish rully ‘bout thosh fuckehs?”
We had expected many things, denials, pleas, even boastful acceptance of her actions, but this… We keep silent, let go of her face, and wait for her to continue.
She turns to look at me, exasperation obvious in her face.
“I’ve killed Empire officials, ABB pimps, even the owner of that fucking Taco Truck that creeps on little girls, and you want revenge for a bunch of nobodies?!”
For a moment, I feel stunned. Even the Dark Passenger doesn’t quite know what to do. I open my mouth, close it, open it again, but no words come to us.
“So…” I start after almost a minute of silence, “to be clear, you don’t deny that you killed all of those people. You admit to killing innocents, homeless, children. You aren’t even angry that you got caught. You just have a problem with what? That they’re not your greatest hits?”
“Fucking of course! If I get caught, then I at least want it to be over something that matters!”
“...Huh. Alright, then. That’s a first.” I must admit I understand it on some level. If I got caught one day, I would prefer to be known as the man who took down the Trinity Killer instead of, say, Billy Fleeter, the washed-up baseball player.
Still, I wouldn’t just go around admitting that. It would be even more pathetic. What would the other murderous freaks say of me at the annual get-together?
“Fuck it,” she utters, stopping my train of thought. “Say, you’re like me, right? You’re a predator too. I can see it in your eyes. And it's obvious you have some experience. What do you say you untie me and we talk shop, exchange a few tips?” Even if her eyes weren’t as dead as mine, I wouldn’t have fallen for that. Besides, I work alone. Maybe with my brother, but Doctor Dexter's practice is strictly a family business.
Instead of answering, I put my knife to her cheek and slice.
Like a spell being broken, the Dark Passenger is once again one with me.
“Uh- fucking hell!” The fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Not as much as with you, that’s for sure.”
The wound is deep and long and, as blood starts flowing freely from it, we can almost see the reality of the situation materialising for her, sweat starting to trickle down her skin, her breath getting ever so slightly faster.
We shudder in contentment. Swiftly, we rest the knife over the counter, take two crystal slides out of the pocket of our scrubs, along with a dropper, and take a single drop from her still bleeding wound, deposit it ever so carefully on one of the slides, and press it with the other.
We hold the slides to the light and admire the latest addition to our collection. Like a red, blossoming moon.
“Fucking let me go!” Shadow Stalker screams. There it is, the desperation we're used to hearing. “Do you think you can get away with this?!”
We lower the slide, put it inside its little ziplock bag, and return it to our pocket. We look down at her, and we smile as we say, “Oh, but we already got away with it, Sophia.”
The moment her name crosses my lips, the rest of her anger leaves her face, and only the cold, sweet fear remains.
“I bet Armsmaster is already on his fucking way! They track their wards during patrol, you fucking moron! If you untie me right now, the PRT—”
We grab our knife, drive it right through her still tied hand. She opens her mouth as if to scream, but no sound comes out, and the small razor of a pencil sharpener that was doing its best to cut through the tape falls to the floor. Desperate, really. Even if she cut the tape, there would be no way for her to get free from the cord without me noticing.
“The PRT is not going to come save you. They only turn on their wards’ GPS during patrols, and Shadow Stalker is not on patrol.” We smile. "Is she, Sophia?”
She does not answer, too preoccupied thrashing this way and that, attempting to get free of her restraints. She even turns to shadow for a fraction of a second, but the fear of turning into well-done steak wins out, and she just keeps thrashing ineffectually.
No matter, we already got everything we wanted from her. She had gotten us all excited at first, thinking that she was something special, a fully realized monster. In the end, she is nothing but a sixteen-year-old girl, if a bloodthirsty one.
We leave the knife pinning her hand to the island, stuff the rag inside her mouth and cover it with tape once again as we turn to look over our collection of knives. Butcher? No, even if our knives are ceramic, we can’t just go cutting willy-nilly through a live cord.
A-ha! The ever-trusty filleting knife, long and pointy, and ideal for separating the skin from the muscle! We spin the knife a few times on our hand, enjoy the look of abject horror on Sophia’s face, and then we get to work.
===
Playtime ends faster than I would have liked. Sophia passed out before I was even done with her arm, and even after I woke her up, she just kept fainting again and again. So after just an hour, I had to put a knife through her heart.
Her Shade is still consolidating with the others, and I doubt I will get much info about the PRT due to the short time she was a ward, but I can already feel her memories about stashhouses and gang territories trickling in as she gets subsumed into the Wild Hunter.
Clean up after that goes well. She might have been fit, but at the end of the day, all muscle is is slightly tough meat, and my Sawzall makes quick work of her arms, legs, neck… The torso gives me a bit of trouble, some entrails get punctured and almost spill out, but I’m done in less than an hour.
I stuff all of her parts in my trash bags, along with the plastic wrapping, her phone, costume, crossbow and quiver. If she had been using her ward equipment, I would never have dared to go after her, not with the amount of tracking the government likes to put on their property, but I doubt any of the things she took with her while out solo were the ones given to her by her bosses.
All in all, I end up with four bags ready for disposal, plus my duffle bag and a pretty sturdy-looking backpack that I think my niece could use to replace her ruined one.
The generator I leave where it is. I might have kept it, but I already have a better one at home, a snazzy mint number that reminds me of the color of Lily Anne’s favorite onesie. The only reason I didn’t bring it is that carrying it would have been a pain.
I cross the strap of my duffel bag over my chest and take two of the bags with me. I’ll just have to leave everything on the ground floor and come back for the rest before taking everything to my car. Wouldn’t want to leave my trash on the unattended SUV for too—
As soon as I open the door of the penthouse, I know that my plans just went out the window.
The first thing I see is the face covered by a disposable mask, and immediately two Shades emerge at my sides, invisible to all but me, already whispering courses of action, vulnerabilities, routes of escape.
The second thing I notice is just how small the interloper is. Even in the near-complete darkness of the landing, I can tell that he is barely above 5’8’’, if at all. Clad in a baggy, ratty BBU hoodie, and slight as a twig. If need be, I could subdue him with one hand, then fish for my pocket knife and end things before anything else can surprise me, assuming that he is not some form of Brute.
The third thing I notice is the luscious, curly black hair, identical to that of my older sister. Only then does the identity of the intruder make itself clear to me.
With a trembling hand, Taylor lowers her face mask, and I can see the still gleaming trails down her cheeks where her tears just recently dried.
“Is it true?” She asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
I… do not know what to say. Dozens of excuses pass through my head, and the Shades at my sides provide just as many, but without knowing how long she has been out here, anything I say will just make me look more guilty. Each second that passes in silence, the idea of killing her starts sounding more appealing, even if she is Annete’s daughter.
But who will play with Lily Anne?
Then, opportunely, thankfully, Taylor breaks the silence. “The things that she… that both of you said, about killing innocents? Killing children?”
It’s almost impossible not to notice how her hand goes to the pocket of the hoodie, how she is clutching something as if her life depends on it. A knife? A pencil? Hard to say, but I try to ignore it for now. Easy as it would be, I’m pretty sure Anne’s ghost would haunt me to the end of my days if I harmed her daughter, so instead I answer her question, trying to buy time to find another solution.
“It is. I put it together from police records. Kills near her usual hangouts, her stops during her patrols—”
“Patrols,” she interrupts me. “That too. She is- Sophia was Shadow Stalker? She was a ward? A hero?” The desperation in her voice is almost enough to drown her.
A plan starts forming in my head. A way to get out of this without having to stuff my own niece in a bunch of trash bags along with her bully.
“After…” I begin slowly, carefully choosing each word.” After what she did to you, I started looking into her, tried to press for a proper investigation, but the precinct was told to drop the case, and then the file was redacted. I didn't understand at first, not until I did some digging and found out that it was the PRT that ordered it.”
Slowly, Taylor’s grip loosens, and both her hands fall to her sides.
I can salvage this.
“I began to tail her then, and that’s when I found out that she was a killer. Once I knew, I gathered evidence, connected her to other cold cases, but looking into a ward is illegal, and could get me in real trouble. I knew there was nothing I could do within the system—”
“So then you killed her!?” She yells, voice trembling. I do not know if she is crying or laughing. Emotions are complex like that, especially looking from the outside in, if you ask me. “So what? You only kill o-other murderers?!”
Other murderers. I’m losing her.
I breathe in, breathe out. I dismiss both of my Shades and bring out The Thespian, let it guide my words, my expressions, my gestures. I lower my gaze, allow a smidge of regret and pain in my voice.
“Your grandfather, Harry, he took me in after my mother was killed. He believed in the law, and in doing what is right, but he was never able to convict the man who took my family from me.”
I swallow, open my mouth. Wait a second, then two, before continuing.
“Harry believed in the law, but he also knew that sometimes what is right and what is legal can’t coexist. Even though he tried, there were always monsters that escaped through the cracks in the system, evil people that his badge couldn’t stop. So he taught me, Taylor, how to get justice for those that the law does not care about.” The fact he was so horrified by the monster he created that he decided to end his life is not something she has to learn.
I look up, meet Taylor’s eyes, inject steel into my voice.
“Yes. I am a killer, Taylor, but I only kill those who deserve it.”
She is crying, again, and for a beat, I’m worried that she is afraid, so afraid that she will flee and I will have to chase her, but she does not run. Instead, her knees give out, and she falls to the floor. After a beat, I lower the trash bags, uncross the strap off my duffel bag, and crouch in front of her. I put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze, all the while fighting the impulse to go there, there.
It takes a while for her ugly sobs to die down. A minute turns to two, to five, to almost ten, but when her tears finally run dry, she speaks again, her voice rough and almost broken.
“I… I knew she was a bully, and that she liked to hurt me, to hurt people, but I never thought that…” She shakes her head, violently enough that I’m afraid her neck will snap. And then she locks her eyes with mine. “What you say about the system is true, isn’t it? I knew already, on some level. I’m not stupid. But… realizing that she got away with everything she did while working for the Protectorate, while being a hero? It makes me feel sick. It makes me feel like you were right.”
Somehow, Taylor starts crying again, but then she does something I did not expect. She throws herself at me, and she hugs me.
How did it end up like this? I ask, but neither my Shades nor I have an answer.
In the end, I do the only thing I can think of, the same thing I did for her when I came for the first time to the Bay, during Anne’s funeral, and I embrace her as tightly as I can.
The crisis is averted, at least for now. The rest will have to follow.