Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
JEX
The city doesn’t breathe; it wheezes. It’s a sick lung filled with neon smog and the smell of roasting trash. I’m sitting on the edge of a rooftop that feels like it’s crumbling under the weight of my own boredom, swinging my boots over a three-hundred-foot drop.
Below me, the streets are a grid of ants scurrying to jobs they hate and lives that don’t matter. They think they’re safe because they locked the “monsters” away behind the white walls of the Hillside Sanitarium. They think if they don’t look at the dark, the dark won’t look at them.
Idiots. The dark has twenty-twenty vision.
I flip a card between my knuckles—the Queen of Hearts. She’s seen better days. The edges are frayed, and there’s a dried brown smudge across her face that might be blood or might be chocolate. I haven’t decided yet.
“You see that, boys?” I chirp, not looking back at the three husks of men tied to the industrial vent behind me.
Their mouths are taped shut with neon-pink duct tape I found in a dumpster.
It clashes beautifully with the deep, bruised purple of their faces.
“The Queen is grumpy. She says the air tastes like… clinical trials and unwashed lab coats.”
One of the men—a mid-level enforcer who thought he was a big deal until I introduced his kneecap to a ball-peen hammer—makes a muffled, frantic sound.
“Oh, shhh,” I say, spinning around on my heels.
I hop off the ledge, my purple velvet coat fluttering behind me like the wings of a dying moth.
I crouch down in front of him, my face inches from his.
I’ve painted my smile a little wider tonight.
It feels… festive. “Don’t ruin the mood.
We’re talking about legacy. We’re talking about the girl they turned into a ghost.”
I lean in, the scent of my own sweat and cheap peppermint candy filling the space between us.
“They think they’re ‘treating’ her,” I whisper, my voice dropping into a jagged, gravelly crawl. “Dr. Aris. He’s got these clean hands, doesn’t he? He likes to play God with a pulse-oximeter and a silk stitch. He thinks because he can map a brain, he can own a soul.”
I stand up suddenly, letting out a sharp, barking laugh that echoes off the neighbouring brick walls. I kick a pile of discarded syringes across the roof.
“Ownership is such a funny word. You can’t own a fire, can you? You can only watch it burn until there’s nothing left but ash. And Hallow? She’s a goddamn inferno. He’s just too stupid to realise he’s standing in the centre of the tinderbox with a lit match.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out a handful of jagged metal teeth—pieces of a dental bridge I “borrowed” from a guard two nights ago. I drop them onto the rooftop one by one. Clink. Clink. Clink.
“Two hundred and fourteen days,” I mutter, my eyes going flat and cold. The “Joker” grin vanishes, replaced by a hollow, predatory stillness. “That’s how long he’s had his hands on her. That’s how long he’s been trying to turn my promise into a memory.”
I walk back to the ledge, looking toward the distant silhouette of the asylum on the hill. It looks like a tombstone in the moonlight.
“I don’t do mercy,” I tell the shivering men. “Mercy is for people who believe in a happy ending. I deal in punchlines. And the joke? The joke is that Aris thinks he’s the one holding the cards.”
I take the Queen of Hearts and flick her over the edge. I watch her flutter down, a tiny speck of red and white swallowed by the neon abyss.
“Smile, Doctor,” I snarl, my hand drifting to the heavy, serrated blade tucked into my waistband. “The audience is getting restless, and I’ve never been one to miss an opening night.”
I turn back to the men, the manic light returning to my eyes. I pick up the hammer.
“Now, who wants to help me practice my ‘bedside manner’?”
I look at the three of them, and I swear, I can almost hear the circus music starting. It’s that low, thumping tuba beat that says someone’s about to trip over a bucket of confetti—or their own intestines.
“Okay, okay! Don’t all talk at once,” I giggle, the sound jagged and sharp, like glass breaking in a velvet bag.
I hop toward the first one, the heavy hitter with the neck tattoos.
He’s trying to tell me something through the pink tape, his eyes bulging until the whites are mapped with red spiderwebs.
“What’s that, Sparky? You think I’m being unreasonable? After you and your little friends helped Miller load her into that van six months ago?”
I don’t wait for the answer. I swing the ball-peen hammer.
The sound is delicious. It’s a wet, heavy thwack as the rounded end meets his kneecap. Bone doesn’t just break; it shatters like a cheap dinner plate. He lets out a muffled, high-pitched shriek that dies in his throat as his body jolts against the vents.
“Ooh, a high C! We’ve got a tenor!” I clap my hands, the hammer head slick with a smear of something grey and greasy. “But the rhythm is off. Let’s fix the percussion.”
I move to the second guy. He’s already pissed himself, a dark stain spreading across his expensive slacks. I tsk-tsk, shaking my head. “Cleanliness is next to godliness, and you smell like a subway urinal, pal.”
I reach into my coat and pull out a handful of long, rusted upholstery needles I stole from a tailor in the Narrows. I lean in, my breath hot against the tape over his mouth.
“Aris likes to see how the brain reacts to electricity,” I whisper, my voice dropping into that dark, honey-thick crawl. “Me? I’m more of a traditionalist. I like to see how the skin reacts to tension.”
I start sliding the needles in—slowly. One through the earlobe. One through the soft webbing between his fingers. One right under the fingernail. He’s vibrating now, a human tuning fork of pure agony. I stand back, admiring my work. He looks like a pincushion made of meat.
“Beautiful. Avant-garde. Very ‘Fall Collection,’” I sneer.
Then I turn to the last one. The leader. The one who actually held the door open while they threw Hallow inside like a bag of trash. My smile doesn’t just fade; it dies. My face goes heavy, a mask of cold, white stone.
“You,” I say. No more giggles. Just the sound of the wind whistling through the city’s ribs. “You watched her. You saw her face. You saw the way she looked at the sky before they took it away from her.”
I grab the serrated blade from my waistband. It’s notched and ugly, meant for tearing, not cutting. I drive it into his shoulder, twisting the steel until I feel the joint pop out of the socket. He’s screaming behind the tape, his chest heaving so hard the plastic vents are rattling.
“You want to know what the punchline is?” I ask, leaning close enough to lick a drop of sweat off his temple. “The punchline is that I’m going to leave you here for the crows. But I’m not a total monster. I’m leaving you with a little something for the afterlife.”
I finish them one by one. It’s a messy, wet business—a symphony of squelch and crunch.
I use the hammer to cave in the ribs of the first one until his chest looks like a collapsed birdcage.
I use the needles on the second until he’s more metal than man.
And the leader? I take my time with the blade, carving the memory of Hallow’s scream into his very skin.
When the roof is quiet—save for the wet drip-drip-drip of blood into the drain—I reach into my inner pocket.
I pull out three pristine cards. The Ace of Spades. The Joker. And the Queen of Hearts—a fresh one, without the smudge.
I walk to the first body. I use a stapler I “liberated” from an office building and chunk—the Ace goes right into the centre of his forehead.
“For the muscle,” I mutter.
I move to the second. Chunk—the Joker goes right over his heart, the staple biting through the paper and into the purple muscle beneath.
“For the laughs.”
I stop at the leader. His eyes are still open, staring at the neon signs of the city, fixed in a permanent state of “oh fuck.” I take the Queen of Hearts and I press it into the bloody mess of his chest. I don’t use a staple this time. I just let the blood act as the glue.
“And this one… this one is for the promise.”
I stand up, wiping my hands on my purple lapels, leaving long, dark streaks on the velvet. I look toward the Hillside Sanitarium. The white walls are calling.
“Alright, boys! That’s a wrap!” I shout to the corpses, spreading my arms wide. “I’ve got a date with a Doctor, and I’d hate to be late for the autopsy.”
I hop over the ledge, sliding down the fire escape like a shadow.