Alison Quirk and Mildred Firestone: Ten Merry Murders

Loki stood in his study, drinking hot chocolate. There were papers on the desk about artefacts he was tracking down. Afton always was nice enough to let him do all the paperwork. There were the faint noises of chatter from the other room. It was probably the television. He thought of yelling at her to turn the damn thing down, but thought against it. They had already had one argument on the way home. He wasn't going to get into another over television. Marty didn't seem to mind it. Then again, there was very little he showed he minded. He usually just stood in corners, as he was doing now. Not that it mattered much. The sound of the television was cut off abruptly and Loki was sure his fiancée was about to confront him. There were a few thumps, something glass broke, a whiny 'ow'. Frowning, Amantes moved towards the door, Marty close behind him. The door exploded. Amantes threw his arms up and stopped a good proportion of splinters from attacking his face as the blonde woman stepped through, walking towards him, hands covered in blood. Shadows pulsed around her and he reached for his desk, for a slightly damaged top hat. Shadows pulsed towards him, throwing him against the desk, but bringing the hat to him, meaning he could conduct his own shadows to counter hers. He was able to pull himself to his feet. It only now struck him that the blood on her hands was Afton's. Something tore inside him. He let out an inhuman scream and sent as many sharp shadows towards the blonde woman as he could. She brought up a sort of shield which then acted like a guillotine as it headed for Amantes' neck.

Alison's concentration was thrown a little by Marty covering her eyes with his hands. She jabbed her elbow back and he let out an animalistic roar, biting hard on her shoulder. She screamed, pulled his hair, pulled the hands away from her eyes and made another strike on Amantes, who had been trying to find an opening where he could strike without killing Marty as well. He threw himself to the side, timed it poorly, hit the desk and the shadows caught him. She laughed and Marty released her. She turned to him. he had realised already that his attacks would have no effect on her and was backing into the corner. She approached him and he sunk to the floor, hands clasped before him. "Please don't kill me..."
"But killing you would be so much more fun."
"Please! Please spare me, I won't tell anyone! I promise! You were after my friends! You have no reason to kill me! Please! Have mercy!"
"Honey, I have no clue what mercy is." And with that, she sent the shadows spiralling down.

-----

Anton walked back into the hotel, arms full of shopping. A man with dark skin and no hair stood at the front desk. He offered Shudder a smile, which the other man returned. He walked through the common room, where Indishan Anonymous still sat. The Australian man turned away when he entered, wanting to avoid conversation. With a shrug, Anton put away the shopping in the kitchen and returned to the front desk, ready to assist the dark-skinned man standing there with arranging a room or something. As he moved to the desk, passing the man, something sharp slid its way into his belly. He gasped, half doubling over, the man's arm stopping him from curling up any further. With a grin, Jayden Slander removed the knife and kicked Shudder to the floor. Anonymous watched the whole thing, super awesome ninja stealth mode on. Slander grinned and left the hotel and the detective moved to follow him, but there was a wet, unpleasant cough from behind. Shudder was still alive. He pulled a face, grabbed the fallen man and pulled him outside. He crouched beside him. "Help will be with you soon." He promised, taking out a phone. He went to get up, leave the hotel owner there, but he grabbed his shirt, preventing him from leaving. "I'm going after the man who did this." He prised his fingers away and pressed the dying man's hands against the wound. Something major had definitely been cut. He went to walk away and raised the phone to his ear, calling for an ambulance.

Unfortunately, it would not get there in time.

Meanwhile, Jayden presented evidence of the death as a birthday present to his boyfriend. He was not part of Mevolent's strike.

-----

Esra sighed. There was a yawn and a stretch after that. He stretched himself out across the bed and sighed. Bored. No plans. The Grotesquery was in a box in a different room, waiting to be further attacked to no avail. He shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to leave the little room, but he needed the loo...

The old bedsprings groaned as he pulled himself off the bed and the door decided to creak as well. He rolled his blue eyes and walked down the hall. His footsteps sounded louder than they should have. Almost as if there were two sets. He checked his watch, gave a passing glance out a window, stretched again and stopped abruptly. No warning. The second set of footsteps stopped a little too late. The man grinned and started walking again, as though he had noticed nothing. He could sense the person getting close. You know that feeling you get when someone gets close or is staring at you, the uncomfortable sensation. The person got closer, evidently taking large strides and only fitting their footsteps to his every other step. Once they were close enough, he turned suddenly, swinging his elbow out. She ducked and moved in to strike. He grabbed her wrist, keeping the blade just off his skin.

Kayotik growled, aiming a kick at his shins, hoping to pitch him onto the knife, but he turned his stumble into twisting into her, almost stabbing her with the knife instead. She wrapped an arm around his throat and tried to pull the knife arm free. "You just made a mistake, Sunshine."
He gagged and dug his fingers into the arm around his waist. Platona turned the knife and wrenched to the side, dragging it across his side. He let out a scream, twisting his head and biting down on something hard enough to draw blood. She pushed him to the floor and threw herself at him, knife flashing. He brought his legs up and arms over to shield himself and tried to kick her away. She crawled closer to his torso, grunting at the kicks but still going. On an impulse, he sat up, grabbed her hair, put a hand to her face and the hand glowed white. She pulled away, screaming. Now she was very pissed off. The knife slashed towards him, through his arm. He held the injury with his other hand, feeling the warm blood seep through. He edged back and she held her hand out, blasting him with coloured energy. He was thrown back and when he opened his eyes his vision swam before him. Kayotik straddled him, raising the knife...

-----

Millie (Mildred) sat in a tree, watching as Kayotik used a nearby tree to get herself out of the castle. She watched the other brunette drop gracefully from the tree and went to meet her. "Hi Platz." She said, smiling as though this was just a normal meet between friends.
Platona 'Platz' Kayotik smiled back, emerald eyes twinkling maliciously. "Hiya, Millie. How have things been treating you? Good to see Ally didn't top you."
"I'm too good for her to get the best of me."
"Cool. You up to anything right now?"
"Killing things." Mildred responded with a nonchalant shrug.
"Hey, same! Maybe we could kill things together!"
Millie nodded. "Sure. C'mon." They walked side-by side and chatted merrily for a few minutes. Millie lagged behind slightly. Platz never got the chance to realise she had been stabbed from behind. One down, one to go.

-----

Ursa was stalking Firestone's third scheduled kill. Hato walked down the hall in a truly foul mood. Borealis followed. He looked like he had his own destination to get to. When she stopped, he would go into a room or stop to tie his shoe. He took the gun from a holster at his waist and shot the bullet through his jacket, keeping the gun well hidden. He watched Hato collapse and Cleavers come over. The Australian assassin turned to leave and found his way barred. Well hell.

-----

Meanwhile, Alison was already heading towards her next target in Ireland. Ghastly was just settling down for bed. He didn't hear the creaky floorboard. The bedroom door was left ajar and Quirk found sneaking in far too easy. He was asleep when she approached. She didn't want to go for a conventional stab this time, so she eased a pillow from beneath his head and went to smother him instead. Obviously, he woke up and struggled, but she pinned him down with her shadows. She stayed a good twenty minutes after he had gone limp.

-----

Jim Craddock and Mariposa Scarr were informants for Mevolent who kept close eyes on what was going on around the world. Niall stood around a corner, hacking Scarr's phone. Scarr noticed pretty quickly, began cursing and trying to track the hacker. Liam stepped out into their line of sight and Niall ran to a safe place, sealing Craddock and Scarr in with the vampire. Louis checked his watch. Time was ticking over. Nearly night...

-----

Doctor Nye heard something fall over behind it. It turned briefly, but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps it had left that jar of suspicious stuff too close to the edge. It shrugged and went back to dissecting things. It turned again, thinking it had heard something again, but nothing was there.
"Hello, Doctor."
It turned again, back the way it had been facing originally. Mildred Firestone smiled. "I'd like to ask you something."
It gave no response, just narrowed its yellow eyes at her.
"What is dying actually like?" She leapt over the corpse, booting the doctor in the chest. It stumbled back and raised its hands in a surrendering gesture.
"There's no need to kill me..."
"There is, actually. I have all the reason in the world." She held up a scalpel. She lunged at it, but it kept her at bay with one of its long limbs. She sighed, gestured and shadows dived for it. Being tall and skinny as it was, and just plain unnatural, it was able to evade death, but Millie got a few good injuries in there. She backed it up against a corner with her strikes. It had nowhere left to go, and she didn't bother listening to its last plea for life. Shadows rose behind her and he opened its mouth to call for help, but she drove the shadows through before anything other than the slightest squeak could be uttered.

-----

Gale swallowed nervously. He had never met this Loyalty Seamless bloke, and he was certainly a better fighter, a better sorcerer and a better brain than the cocky redhead. Loy was also only toying with him, stalling for the real killer to get here, and already Gale had a broken leg, a possible concussion and something bleeding enough to be of concern. A blonde girl shadow-walked over, giggling. She told Loy of her previous kill. They both had a good laugh and turned on Gale. He clicked his fingers and threw fire at them. Quirk shadow-walked away and Loyalty ran. The girl appeared behind him now and he turned as fast as he could, which wasn't very, and found himself on his back. He pushed at the air, throwing her off balance. The man hauled him up and held him steady, but Gale always had some fighting spirit and he had just located his cutlass. He used the air to pull the sword closer, catching it and driving it into Loy's leg, then attempted to use it to parry Alison's shadows, only he was tired and injured and each shadow crawled closer. It was inevitable that soon they would be slicing into his ribcage.

((And I wasn't even in one of my killing moods when I wrote most of this...just when I got the idea...but it provides a perfect bridge to the next chapter, and now I am sleepy, so there is a danger here of me becoming hyper, weird and killing more people.))