The Darkness of Ivy

by Jessica King

  She pulled out the pictures no one knew she’d printed. She’d been startled by them at first. Ivy had opened the Paint application on their family computer in an attempt to make a scrapbook page to remember her mother’s final years of life. It was mostly a blue page with electronic-looking polka dots she’d made using the spray can feature, and she knew it’d waste the rest of the printer’s ink, but she didn’t care. When she’d tried to save it to the “Pictures” folder on their hard drive, she’d found photos of her mother. Dozens of them. Her mother on the floor with a gash in her throat. Her mother’s fingers with their chipped nail polish clutching the strange business card. Her mother in a cream-colored coffin with a silk kerchief around her neck to hide the gauze. She’d printed the pictures instead of her scrapbook page.

  Somehow the pictures of the coffin had seemed so much worse than the blood to Ivy back then. Her mother had been placed in a simple but pretty black dress. Someone had done her makeup, but by then, her skin had already gone sallow. Yellowed a bit. She looked cold.

  Then there were the newer files. At least newer to Ivy—the cold case files that had finally been put to rest and were only available to law enforcement. They didn’t tell her much more than Ivy’s own account did, but the official statement—typed and printed—at least seemed a bit more official than a report she’d written in bright-blue ink because it was her mother’s favorite color. She’d been the only one home when she’d heard the crash and the sudden slam of the door. The only surprise the report had given her was that her mother had died on a Thursday when Ivy could have sworn it was a Friday.

  Maybe because she didn’t go to school the next day. Or for weeks after. She’d been sent to therapy instead, where she had to talk about the blood over and over instead of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

  Within a few moments, her printer was warm with anything she could find about Amber Woodward—a woman with no criminal background and no outstanding life events. Normally, Ivy would have nearly written this one off as an angry ex or coworker.

  But that calling card.

  The image—or at least a rudimentary replica—was drawn in colored pencil in that pink notebook.

  The two had no connections. Her mother had worked at a marketing firm, dealing with large corporations, and Amber had been an aspiring model and an Aline Rousseau impersonator. Ivy briefly wondered if looking so much like a famous movie star was helpful or hurtful in a modeling career.

  When the call came, Ivy was neck-deep in papers. She checked the clock on her phone. Just past 5 a.m. was too early to be receiving a call unless something horrible had happened.

  And it had.

  Ivy wasn’t sure if it was the lack of sleep or the picture she’d received that made her feel as though she was drifting through a bad dream rather than walking onto a crime scene. The smell of stale coffee and industrial cleaner assaulted her nose as she strode through the collection of officers who had responded to the 9-1-1 call and stumbled to the body. Without her permission, her spine failed, and her hands found purchase on her knees, bracing to keep her upright.

  She was choking on air.

  Ivy was suddenly the twelve-year-old, throwing herself across the bloody, motionless body of her mother, screaming for her to wake up. Screaming for help. Screaming because that was the only thing a person could do when a piece of their heart had been ripped out.

  Then she was in the present again. An adult stooped over the body of a stranger in a coffee shop she’d never visited, biting her lip until it bled. She pressed her hand to her mouth, worried a drop of her own blood might fall onto the victim.

  It was her mother lying before her. Or, nearly her mother. This woman was at least five years older than her mother had been when she’d been murdered. But her face…Ivy had to stop herself from reaching out and touching the familiar cheekbones. The curve of lips that had kissed her so many times. It would be inappropriate to brush her mother’s brown curls away from the stranger’s face. It would be even worse to take a gloved hand and open the eyes that she already knew were a light-hazel color. A unique color she shared.

  Ivy pinched the bridge of her nose as she made her way to the right side of the body and opened the fisted hand. She knew what she’d find there.

  The card was crumpled a bit, as though the woman had tightened her hand around it with the last of her strength, a thought that made Ivy shudder until her teeth chattered.

  “Detective?”

  The word echoed in Ivy’s mind in a way that told her this was not the first time the officer at her side had tried to get her attention. She tried to smile a little as if to brush off her absence as a simple mistake, though Ivy felt herself blink slowly against the clouds in her mind.

  “Stayed up all night,” she said, but the officer didn’t look convinced. “Do-do I know you?” Ivy asked, hating the tremor in her voice.

  “Joyce’s new partner,” the man said, pointing to Ivy’s friend.

  Joyce was filling out a report from a shaken employee who was clutching his bookbag to his chest like a shield. His badge read: Kenshin Zhang.

  “Harbors moved to the San Fran department. Family stuff or something.”

  As if hearing their conversation, Joyce turned around, and Ivy felt the silent question. Ivy shook her head, and Joyce handed the report to the officer beside her and skirted around the body to Ivy.

  “She looks like my mom,” Ivy whispered.

  Joyce was clearly trying to hold back her instinct to comfort her friend, to maintain the professionalism the setting required. She placed a hand on Ivy’s back. “Pull yourself together,” Joyce said, though her voice was warm.

  Ivy shook her shoulders and focused on the differences between the woman and her mother instead of the similarities. The victim was wearing a necklace that her mother would never have chosen to wear over the circular pendant Ivy had given her. “This is connected to my case,” she said. “And my mom.”

  It was the fact that Joyce remained silent that reminded Ivy why the woman was such a good friend. She didn’t try to explain why that made no sense. Didn’t try to convince Ivy that her eyes were playing tricks on her when it came to the dead lookalike of her mother.

  “I’ll tell the chief they’re connected, and to put this one under you.”

  Ivy thanked her before moving to one of the tables and pulling her laptop from her bag. If Ivy had learned anything as a detective, it was that a whole lot could be solved by a detailed Google search. She typed in the stranger’s name first, and then her mother’s.

  Atlas Hale.

  Bethany Hart.

  Clenching her teeth, Ivy pressed the “Enter” key. The only result that included both of their names belonged to a website that claimed to know the identity of witches throughout history.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ivy said under her breath.

  She clicked the link, which took her to a landing page with the word “KINGSMEN” in all caps across the top. Beneath the search function, she found several photos of her mother. Or, at least, women who looked very, very much like her mother.

  There have been six occurrences of the witch, Mary Caste, since 1693. Any previous occurrences are unknown. The death dates of each of the witch’s reincarnations are listed below:

  Mary Caste: 1693

  Annabelle Smith: 1800

  Carol Jones: 1866

  Cassandra Goldstein: 1912

  Bethany Hart: 2002

  She swallowed at the mention of her mother.

  Atlas Hale: 2017

  Ivy looked up, almost as if to check that the body of Atlas Hale was still there, still draining of life’s warmth. Whoever was running this web page was keeping up with it…to the minute.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sunday, February 12, 2017, 6:33 a.m.

  “Vince, you need to come to the station.”

  “It is 6:30 a.m., you crazy person.” Vince’s voice on the other end of the phone was muffled with the so
unds of sleep and rustling pillows.

  “I let you sleep an extra hour before calling you. I found something you need to see.” Ivy paced the length of the tiles, one step every three tiles. There was only one officer besides her now, the others out on an early patrol, and even then, there was a soft snore coming from the officer. The station echoed with the hum of the emergency signs when it was just her around, and she liked the way it felt; she and the building were keeping some sort of secret. She kept her footsteps quiet, and the space went dark blue under the barely there light before sunrise.

  “Not to be insensitive, Ivy,” Vince said, “but, I mean, our victim, she’s already dead. And I know this is an important case—”

  “I think someone alive might be in danger,” Ivy said, cutting him off. She clicked on the coffee pot. “I’m making your brew. Just get here, okay?” The coffee pot gurgled in protest, agreeing with Vince that it was much too early.

  She was greeted with the silence of an ended call, which meant “yes” with a dose of attitude. Ivy worried at her lip as she cracked open the window closest to her desk. She’d solved lots of cases in the past, had even saved a few from an untimely death. But she had never had such a high-profile case before. Who did she even call about this?

  By the time Vince arrived, Ivy had an impressive number of tabs pulled up on her computer and the taste of stale coffee on her tongue. She doubted anyone in the entire department would be able to remember the last time the coffee maker had a good scrub, and it was starting to infect even the fresh pots of morning coffee.

  “You’ll crash the thing if you keep doing this,” he said, wincing at his still too hot coffee. Without looking up, Ivy passed him one of the creamers she hadn’t used. He grunted in response as he took it and poured it into his coffee. “What could be so important?”

  Ivy updated him on the list of the supposed Mary Caste reincarnations. Vince dropped into a crouch beside her desk, getting a better look at her screen. Vince whispered to himself as he read aloud and Ivy stared at the pictures. The woman looked like a series of Before and After photos, but which pictures were Befores and which pictures were Afters depended entirely on the viewer. Her mother’s photo was a professional business photo. Her hair was down and straight, and she was wearing a simple necklace and a soft smile. Atlas Hale was the exact opposite: the ends of her hair were fringed in red despite her age, and she was grinning in a stylish outfit that showed off well-sculpted shoulders.

  “Your mom?” he asked, looking at Ivy out of the corners of his eyes. “Did she do any, you know,” Vince wiggled his fingers, “witchcraft?”

  Ivy nearly coughed her own coffee across the computer’s monitor. “Seriously?”

  “I just—”

  “No,” Ivy said. “She was into essential oils and stuff, but no, nothing like that.” Ivy pointed to the last name on the list. “Atlas Hale turned up dead this morning, with the card in her hand like my mom.” She clicked a few times to zoom in on the hand holding the card. She’d noticed the bracelet the woman wore when she’d examined the body, the charm bracelet with only one charm. Ivy squinted again at the design embossed into the flat, circular charm. A crest of some sort, though she didn’t recognize it. Ivy pointed to the charm’s design, and Vince shook his head.

  “Video game thing?” he guessed. He tapped a finger along the printed picture of Amber Woodward and the business card covering her lips. “Does the placement mean anything?” he asked. He tried to find a place to put the picture on Ivy’s cluttered desk. He decided on the keyboard, the only clear space.

  “Don’t know, but both of those places seem pretty intentional. It seems like it’d be easier to just leave the card next to the body,” Ivy said. “It could be some sort of message the killer is trying to leave, maybe some reference?” Ivy struggled with one of the desk drawers, a stack of papers crunching as her fingers flipped through a series of documents. “Had a case that aligned with the chakras of the body once,” she said, pulling out the file and flipping to the diagram of the chakras of the body she’d printed. She pointed to the throat chakra. “I mean, maybe—but they chose the lips, which seems clearly different to me. And there’s nothing for the hands.”

  “But why switch it up if there’s not a message there?” Vince asked. “Do you think it’s a different guy?”

  Ivy pointed to him, swallowing a large gulp of coffee, trying to down it before it got too cold. “Not a different killer, a different line,” she said, pulling up the website again. “Maybe he’s using different placements not necessarily to send a message but to categorize the women?” Ivy spoke with her hands, trying to show the tiers of reincarnations that the killer believed the women belonged to. “So, supposedly, Mary Caste was not the only Mary Caste, but my mom, and Hale, and all these other people. So, I would guess that each woman in this line had a card placed in their right hand. But then, look at what happens here.”

  Ivy moved the cursor to the search mechanism on the website because, apparently, even witch hunters needed a search feature, and she typed in Amber Woodward’s name before pressing enter.

  There have been six occurrences of the witch Sarah Pepper since 1692. Any previous occurrences are unknown. The death dates of each of the witch’s reincarnations are listed below:

  Sarah Pepper: 1692

  Rebecca Simpers: 1780

  Harriet Wilson: 1843

  Ethel Miller: 1922

  Nancy Caughman: 1963

  Amber Woodward: 2017*

  Aline Rousseau: WIP*

  “Aline Rousseau, like—” Vince said, and Ivy nodded. She pointed down to what the asterisk indicated.

  *indicates a double occurrence of the same witch. The power to “clone” suggests a particularly powerful witch and a very dangerous line.

  Vince ran his hand across the back of his neck and blew out a long, slow breath. “So, the idea of Amber impersonating Aline and being alive at the same time would only solidify this theory for anyone following this… Who is this person? Like, do they have an alias or something?”

  Ivy shook her head. “Just says ‘Kingsmen’ on the site, which would at least explain the K in the design,” she said. “I can’t trace it back to anyone yet, and the only indication left with the bodies has been the calling cards. I’m gonna have to get some extra help for that, but whoever they are, they’re pretty well hidden.” She bounced her legs, trying to get rid of the extra caffeine making her buzz. “But I think our more pressing matter is to get in touch with Aline Rousseau. If she’s their ‘work in progress,’ I’m assuming that means she’s next.”

  Vince bit down a smile.

  “You’re not gonna get to meet her,” Ivy said, returning her gaze to the screen. She pulled up an internet browser and found Aline’s Hollywood address within seconds, a fact that didn’t make Ivy feel great about the possibility of the starlet maintaining secrecy about her whereabouts. She skimmed through the actress’s social media; she posted everything about her schedule: where she ate, what studio she’d be at, everything.

  “You don’t know that,” Vince said, his voice childish and grumpy.

  “Can you please focus?” Ivy rolled her chair across his toe, and Vince cleared his throat.

  “Right, you’re right.” He pulled his chair next to hers in front of the computer and scratched at the morning stubble he hadn’t had time to shave off. He swiveled himself back and forth, drumming to some unknown beat on the end of her desk. “So, if we don’t know who to track, and they’re striking so quickly, we should contact her security?”

  “I guess so,” Ivy said. “Do you think she has a handler or something?” Ivy scrolled through paparazzi images of Aline. She seemed to constantly be flanked by two men who never wore smiles.

  “On it,” Vince said, rolling back to his desk. His computer whirred as he fired it up, his fingers flying across the keys.

  “It doesn’t make sense, though,” Ivy mused aloud. She looked at the estimated times of death of the two women, an
approximation of a mere seven hours between them.

  “What’s that?” Vince asked from his hunched state behind the screen. The glow of it turned his eyes a bright-white color, which Ivy found to be disconcerting. She turned her gaze to the windows, which were lighting up yellow and orange. It was still too early to hear the rumble of traffic that flowed around the building like water around a rock, but the streetlights were beginning to blink out, and the early morning sounds of joggers drifted in through the open window.

  “A serial killer strikes in two different locations in less than twelve hours?” Unless the bodies were found at the same location, it wasn’t normal.

  “He might have something to prove,” Vince said. “Maybe he’s trying to get media attention about it? If he’s trying to terrorize the women on the website—or at least the ones who know they’re on the site, I guess—they’re definitely going to see news about this and take it as a threat.”

  “Most of them go into hiding for a bit, though. One killing could be just as effective as two if he just wants attention,” Ivy said. Her eyes went unfocused as she stared at the picture of the business card on Amber Woodward’s lips. That was certainly enough of a statement. If the killer wanted to say more, they could have left a note on the card. Some sort of sinister pronouncement. “Why not just leave an actual message with the first body, some sort of declaration, if he’s trying to target a specific group? Who would take the risk, knowing that police are on the lookout for someone escaping the scene? Those two locations aren’t really that far apart. Seems risky to me.”

  “Serial killers are crazy people.” Vince crunched into a chip dramatically, placing sonic punctuation on his sentence.

  “Crazy but not risky,” Ivy said.

  Vince shrugged it off, but Ivy couldn’t shake the feeling that there must be something unusual about this particular serial killer. Not that she’d ever come across a person who she’d considered a “normal” serial killer, but this seemed different. Perhaps it was just her mom’s connection, the aching that Ivy felt beneath the relentless determination she had for the case. But despite her uneasiness, she was happy to finally have some sort of clue, some sort of next step after over a decade of waiting for a hint on where to move, where to look.