The Darkness of Ivy

by Jessica King

  “Unless there’s more than one killer,” Vince repeated in confirmation. “And there might be, but we have no other leads.” When Ivy said nothing else, Vince filled their silence by singing along to the radio.

  Ivy navigated through the site again, names and pictures scrolling past her. The website certainly showed Jeremiah’s affinity for video games. The general look of the site was an old-paper vibe, like a treasure map with wrinkled and yellowing edges. The text was all in dark, dark red like dried blood, and there were snippets and quotes about witches barely visible in the blank spaces.

  “We should call Emily again. Solidify for the Oscars,” Vince said.

  “What—” Ivy said, her head cocking to the side. A popup that looked like a splatter of blood jumped to the center of her screen.

  “Hmm?” Vince asked.

  “I just got invited to join the Kingsmen.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Monday, February 20, 2017, 12:03 p.m.

  Ivan’s brow crinkled. “And you said it was like a popup?” he said again. His eyes twitched as he scrolled through miles of code in a font that made Ivy’s eyes hurt.

  “Yeah,” Ivy said. The animated splatter of blood had only been there for about ten seconds. It had asked her to join the Kingsmen with simple “Yes” or “No thanks” boxes, like joining a squad of killers was as simple as downloading coupons.

  “It looks like they use cookies to see how much time you spend on the site, as well as your regular internet habits,” Ivan said.

  “So, say, for example,” Vince said, casting Ivy a mischievous look, “that you had an affinity for researching the mechanics of every Glock model ever made…”

  “And maybe you’ve been searching a lot about Wiccan practices and have spent a fair amount of time on the Kingsmen site as of late,” Ivy added, catching her partner’s drift.

  “Then you’re the perfect candidate for the Kingsmen to reach out to,” Ivan said, his head bobbing in agreement. “They’d be pretty interested in you because you seem interested in them, so that’s why you got the popup. But you said it only lasted, what, ten seconds?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “Then that’s essentially the digital version of a message that’s meant to self-destruct. So that if they accidentally mistargeted, like they did with you, you wouldn’t be able to bring that specific file back to me in a way that I could track it to the person who made it or, say, other people who clicked “yes.”

  “So, we could be dealing with lots of killers, so long as they received this popup?” Vince said.

  “Or if they simply bought into the ideology of the Kingsmen,” Ivy said. “Like, we don’t know if being a Kingsmen means just believing there are witches, or if a Kingsman means a murderer exclusively.

  “And it was smart to make it look like a game, like changing every work in progress to a date is some sort of objective,” Ivan said. “The more detached it seems, the easier it would be for a regular person to become a killer.”

  “They could be recruiting more people every day,” Vince said.

  “I can get you past the popup to make it seem like you’ve said yes,” Ivan said, opening a blank page of code. He copied the stream of information from the website and began changing some of the words in brackets. “Will just take a minute.”

  “Thank you,” Ivy said.

  Ivan typed quickly enough that the keystrokes didn’t sound like individual noises but rather a steady stream of movement. Or like a woodpecker at full speed.

  “Okay,” he said, pressing enter.

  A new screen popped up, and a video started playing, and he rushed to turn up the volume.

  The Kingsmen were founded during the Salem Witch Trials as a force to oppose evil and expel dark forces from our world.

  Due to their ability to reincarnate after death, the Kingsmen have been tasked with tracking down each new version of this evil as it is brought back into our lives again and again.

  There were now pictures of various women, animated to look as though they were being stacked upon by multiple copies of themselves in different outfits.

  We refer to these reincarnations as “lines.” In order to eliminate the line, every reincarnation of a witch must be eliminated—a difficult, but holy, task.

  The video showed three women, their pictures grainy from age. A description scrolled beneath their pictures claiming that these three witches were believed to be permanently dead due to the hard work of the Kingsmen. A reincarnation of each of them had not been spotted in over 150 years.

  The name Kingsmen has many meanings to us. The original creators believed themselves to be messengers of God, who they referred to as the King. While maintaining this belief of purpose and holy battle, the title of Kingsmen has evolved to mean much more. To mean the kings of our time.

  Pictures of priests, mobsters, and politicians flashed across the screen, each powerful figure labeled as a Kingsmen. The kings of their time, Ivy thought. The most influential people in society at any time could be “kings,” she supposed.

  Your job is to join in on this fight, and you are heartily welcomed. You will receive your assignment at the end of this video. Welcome to the Kingsmen.

  A series of images meant to invoke bravery, strength, and power slid across the screen, a scrapbook of encouragement for their new recruits. At the end of the video, as it faded out, a name faded in: Amrita Patel. Beneath her name showed a silhouette of a head, a small image of the card she’d seen too many times placed over her forehead. Beneath the picture in small letters were the words: “Placement: The Unholy Third Eye.”

  A woman with brown skin and dark hair woven into a braid dropping in front of her shoulder appeared. Her address, phone number, and email stayed there, along with a link to sign up for an alternative phone number and a phone number to text once that was done. Ivy took a picture before the information could disappear again. The website redirected them to a page on the website, where a series of women who looked just like Amrita Patel were lined up across the top of the page. Below them was a series of names, another line beginning with a woman named Nadia Setty, and ending with Amrita Patel, who now had “WIP” written next to her. A PDF of the card immediately downloaded.

  Ivy could hardly believe her eyes.

  “And just like that,” Vince said. “We’ve been recruited to be serial killers?” Ivy looked up at her partner. “Spooky,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

  The computer gave a little ring, and all three of them returned their attention to the monitor. A clock had popped up. One hundred hours showed and immediately began counting down.

  “Four days to kill someone seems a bit short,” Ivy said, watching the milliseconds begin the winding down of the clock.

  “You’ve done this before?” Vince asked, feigning shock.

  “Look at this,” Ivan said, pointing to a number at the very bottom of the site. “It says ‘Active: 2.’”

  Ivy had noticed the number before but thought it was some sort of simple label that website programmers needed. But now that it had changed, she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed it before.

  “So, like, two active killers?” Ivy asked.

  “Seems like it,” Ivan said. “You didn’t see it, but when the number changed from one to two, the text flashed.”

  “Us and—”

  “Barb’s killer,” Vince said.

  Her mother’s killer.

  The strange new connection to him, like she was on his side—even if it was fake—made her feel slimy inside.

  “Shouldn’t there be three killers?” Vince asked, breaking her from her thoughts. “You, the sharpshooter who took out Erin, and the sloppy shooter form Amber and Atlas?”

  “Maybe the site hasn’t updated?” Ivy asked, even though that seemed unlikely considering the immediate updates on the deaths of each woman. “Or maybe you have to make the kill to be active?”

  They had hardly finished coming up with theories by the time Ivy’s c
omputer dinged with a notification.

  “New article on the Kingsmen’s blog,” Ivy said, clicking over.

  “The website has a blog?” Vince asked. “And an option for notifications?”

  “Very socially savvy, apparently,” Ivy said.

  Several people have expressed interest on other internet platforms in becoming a more involved member of the Kingsmen. For the most part, fully active Kingsmen are chosen through a specific algorithm that shows a special skill set and interest. And one of you has shown these specific interests and has been invited to join the rank of Kingsmen throughout centuries who have been active and have been willing to risk their own souls to rid this world of darkness.

  However, there are still only two active Kingsmen at this time. It is a disappointing number, even more disappointing by one of our recent additions stepping down after his elimination of Erin Preston. A coward, by all definitions.

  This backset will not stop this powerful movement of truth and light. The coward who stepped down, you are no longer an active Kingsman or a Kingsman at all. To the soldier who has joined us, welcome.

  —J

  Ivy noted that the blog post was signed J, and the other was signed E. If the E was for Ethan, then in theory, this writer had a last name with a J. It wasn’t much to go on, but maybe their killer had a last name starting with J. She voiced this idea to Vince.

  “Creepy,” Vince said, drawing a circle in the air in front of the computer screen, as though he were lassoing the blog post. “That makes me feel weird because he’s welcoming you.” He held out his hands as if he were capturing her in a photo. “Never pictured you as a serial killer.”

  “I know,” Ivy said, her nose crinkling in disgust. “How could I fit into such a specific algorithm and they not recognize that I’m a police officer?”

  Vince shrugged. “Guess they didn’t add into the algorithm to disqualify someone who regularly does deep dives into FBI cold cases?”

  Ivy smiled. “They’re smart, but not smart enough, I guess.” She closed the tabs on her computer and stood. “Ready to go talk to some witches?” Ivy asked.

  Vince laughed. “One Aline is enough, isn’t it? I can’t imagine an entire group of Aline’s.”

  Ivy let the strangeness of being currently secretly allied with her mother’s killer slide away for a moment. “I feel like that would be a place where they only eat cotton candy.”

  “Apt,” Vince said, pointing to her. “Apt.”

  +++

  Monday, February 20, 2017, 3:18 p.m.

  He’d thrown up again. It seemed to disturb the fish, who now did the aquatic equivalent of pacing their tanks. He’d watched the past ten years of the Oscars online in the past three days, and he’d stopped every single one right at the moment he knew he would take the shot.

  It required Aline standing at the right moment and to stay standing long enough. But that was the gamble he’d have to take.

  He was sick of the speeches. He’d listened to 250 of them now, he guessed. And they were all the same. They thanked the Academy. They thanked their families. They thanked the people who had worked on the movie. And they thanked all the people they were surely forgetting to thank at that moment, covering all the bases.

  A few had brought up topics that were close to their hearts. Some ventured into politics or the environment or equal rights or some other hot button issue that inevitably received applause simply because people enjoyed being passionate about things that other people believed were important things to be passionate about. He knew viewers at home had one of two reactions to those types of things: they either rolled their eyes or had the entirely opposite reaction, in which social media nearly exploded with support. But it seemed that if the speaker cried, they got more applause. That had been the most consistent attribute of the speeches: the winner who cried the most received the loudest applause.

  No one had mentioned the darkness of witches lurking in their own midst, but then again, he knew how it sounded to the untrained person, to someone who had never taken time to explore that part of their world. It wasn’t a topic to include in a thirty-second speech and required nuance from listeners that he doubted most of the people in the audience would have.

  Perhaps that’s why he was only one of two active Kingsmen. There had been two for the past few weeks, but for a few hours, he’d been the only one, simultaneously feeling special and isolated. He’d done his research.

  “There used to be hundreds of Kingsmen,” he said to the pacing fish. “But the rapid movement of the media mind doesn’t stick on one topic for long, and even if the Kingsmen were famous today, they’d be whittled down to single-digit active numbers again in days, Tiger Lily,” he said to the fish closest to him.

  “That’s why I’ve become so tired of people,” he said, and Tiger Lily blew her bubbles of agreement. “Their never-ending shifts in opinion are so hard to predict.” Even his reputation among the people he worked with constantly shifted so easily, just from a single rumor or word taken out of context.

  He wondered if he would be allowed to write blog posts someday. It’d never been offered to him, but he felt that he had so much to say. Maybe his powerful words could help the world find another Kingsman. He sighed and fell back into his armchair.

  +++

  Monday, February 20, 2017, 4:00 p.m.

  The headquarters for The Protection of the Female Goddess was not exactly what Ivy expected but wasn’t exactly far off, either.

  A part of Ivy expected something between a haunted house and a treehouse, and the boutique home they ended up at was a pretty good middle ground. The house was white, the siding stuck with dirt and old grass clippings. The stairs led up to a Southern-style porch, which wrapped all the way around the house, white wooden columns with chipping paint standing proudly every six or seven feet.

  When they knocked, an actual piece of wood moved from the lavender-painted door, and two big green eyes behind thick glasses peered at them.

  “I’m Detective Hart,” Ivy said. “This is my partner, Detective Benton.”

  “Ah yes,” a sultry voice said.

  The panel quickly slammed shut, and Ivy could hear at least five different locks being unlocked. Chain, deadbolt, electronic, inside key, and another deadbolt, or at least that’s how it sounded. Ivy looked up, where a camera was perched and staring back at her. The door swung open with a creak that made Ivy’s hair stand on end.

  “Please, come in. Watch your step.”

  Ivy looked down and saw a series of rugs. A decorative welcome mat was stitched together with a thicker, older looking mat that had a series of runes painted on it, as well as a few words in Latin, though Ivy couldn’t identify them. It looked like the floor of the entire home was like that—a series of overlapping or sown together rugs occasionally giving way to hardwood floors, and Ivy couldn’t imagine how anyone would manage to drag their feet in a home like this. There were small obstacles all over the place, too: actual mini cauldrons, meals left half-finished, books left open to leather bookmarks.

  “Is it just you here?” Ivy asked.

  “Oh no,” Cassiopeia said. “I’m the one who runs things for The Protection of the Female Goddess. I do all our online things, and I’m the face when need be. But I’m sure you can understand why most of the girls are afraid to step forward in support or with the threats they’ve received—the last thing they want is to be more public.

  She led them through the house, where two dogs and a cat lounged, and a parakeet perched high above the standing piano. She took them back into a cramped room that seemed to serve as an office. Old teacups were all over the place, and Ivy couldn’t tell if it was because they were used or because they were for decoration and thought it best not to ask. A bookshelf behind the woman’s desk held several books and even more bottles. But it was the filing cabinet that Cassiopeia made a beeline for.

  She pulled out a stack of papers as large as her hands could hold.

  “Printed em
ails, some of this stuff our members all across the country sent in. It’s not just the women on that website that get threatened. The Kingsmen have a further reach than their openly online presence might suggest. And even if not all their members will go so far to kill, they’ll threaten anyone they think might use magic.” She shook her head. “About six of our girls live here, and three of them aren’t even listed on that site. They’re just incredibly talented, and they received death threats for practicing witchcraft, and then they found The Protection.”

  Ivy and Vince thumbed through the papers. Countless emails from different anonymous addresses threatened death in all capital letters. Some of the hate notes were still in their various envelopes with no return addresses. From the handwriting, Ivy assumed it was both men and women sending these notes, promising that God would punish them, that they would be reincarnated into slugs, that they would kill them slowly. The details were gruesome. A few of the letters were old-school murder notes made out of magazine letters.

  “Some of the Kingsmen tend to be a bit theatric,” Cassiopeia said.

  “They really want to enjoy this,” Vince said, holding up one of the more elaborate messages, a homemade pop-up card with a very detailed killing scene. “It’s sick.”

  Cassiopeia nodded gravely. “This is just one file,” she said. “We keep them all, in case they would be useful for evidence, but they’re all anonymous, untraceable,” she said. “I try to be there for them,” she said. “They’re scary to receive.”

  “Have you ever gotten any delivered here?” Ivy asked. Cassiopeia shook her head. “Not at this location. We usually end up moving every other year, though. Someone eventually finds out, and then we pack up and leave within a few days. I’m constantly searching for houses. The new address spreads along the grapevine as needed, but most of our members communicate solely online for safety.”

  “And you organized all this?” Ivy asked.

  “The online is me,” Cassiopeia said. “But originally, a woman named Bethany Hart organized—”