I left the offices two hours later, freshly showered with clean coverall on, so that I didn’t smell of residual gunshot residue. I was going to be visiting a couple of upscale hotels today, and I didn’t want to make anyone more suspicious than they already would be of a stranger wandering around. Pest control workers who smelled like a shooting range were widely considered suspicious, as I had learned early on in my career. You don’t forget being tackled and detained by an overzealous security guard. And the fact that I had been carrying multiple weapons had not diffused the situation. The Organization had needed to send Suzette to ‘convince’ them to release me. It had taken forever to live that one down. I had been much more careful since then, because if I had to suffer Suzette’s smug smirk again, I might not be able to resist wiping it off her face, no matter how much trouble it got me into. Which would be a lot. Not all ubarae were so bad, most I had met, assuming you don’t count arresting as meeting, were perfectly nice. Often nicer than the average human. They were highly empathetic and deeply in touch with the feelings and needs of others. It could be hard to stay objective when you spend all your time with the worst criminals a group has to offer, but I always tried to remember that, for the most part, the ubarae wanted peace as much as humanity did, even Suzette. The killers were the exception, not the rule; even when it felt like they were everywhere. Of course, they weren’t. If they were, they would be much easier to find. With that in mind, I slipped in through the kitchen door of the Regent hotel. It was almost time for dinner, so the staff was busy. Steam and delicious aromas wafted up from the simmering pots and pans, and creative profanity came from the chefs. I had been in a lot of kitchens like this over the years and had noted a rather curious correlation between the quality of the swearing and the quality of the food. I’d asked somebody about it once, he’d grumbled something about passion and then cursed me out for interrupting his service. But he’d done it well, so I ordered dinner before I left. It had been fantastic. The most recent victim, Greg MacNeil, had been found in a room in this hotel, so I was planning to get a look at the scene, talk to the staff. I needed to know how the succubus was meeting her victims, and how she was deciding where to take them for ‘dinner’, so that I could intercept her. Hopefully she had a clear pattern when she hunted, it would make things easier. As I moved through the crowded kitchen, dodging knives and hot pans, a chef stepped out in front of me.
“What are you doing in here?” he snapped, still stirring a saucepan as he did.
I tapped the badge on the coveralls, conveying both boredom and authority with the gesture. I’d worked on that one for years.
“Pest control. Doing a routine sweep. Wouldn’t want the cockroaches to get a foothold, would we?”
The chef nodded distractedly,
“Just don’t let the guests see you.”
He turned back to his work. That was the best part of the pest control disguise, you were all but invisible. No one really wanted to think about what you did, but they certainly didn’t want to stop you from doing it. As long as I kept my head down and didn’t draw much attention to myself, I could pretty much go where I pleased. And I wanted to see the victim’s room. I suspected that it would have been cleaned and put back into service immediately, hotels like this couldn’t afford to let a room sit empty, so I had likely missed the chance to find any real evidence there before I even got the case, but I still needed to check. And even if there wasn’t anything there, the staff would certainly remember the death. So, I had waited for evening for two reasons, I needed the night shift to be back on, and I was hoping that my target might make another appearance here. Though I doubted I would get that lucky. I left the kitchen, making a show of checking the walls and floor for signs of infestation. In the hall, I dropped the pretense and made for the stairs. The police report said the victim had been found in room 304. That told me that I was dealing with a clever predator. Clever enough to make sure she had multiple escapes routes available. Higher floors were more desirable, but mostly limited escape routes to the elevators. That was a dangerous game to play, if you were planning to kill a man. My succubus wasn’t looking like a risk taker. That was bad. Risk takers were sloppy, easy to catch. I reached the third floor and started looking for the room. With any luck, it would be empty at the moment, the current occupants out on the town or at dinner. Just in case, I knocked on the door.
“Housekeeping,” if someone did answer, I was pretty sure I could make a case for pest control being part of housekeeping.
Silence. I pulled a key card from my belt and opened the door. Perk of the job, the Organization had a master key for almost every hotel in the city. When a decent percentage of your employees possess a form of mind control abilities, it wasn’t a difficult feat to manage. Plenty of ubarae spent at least some time working with the Organization, performing minor tasks, helping to keep the peace. They didn’t like being associated with murderers any more than humans did. Maybe less, because they had more to lose if a reckless member of their species drew too much attention. The last thing they wanted was for humans to discover their secret, and to decide that all ubarae were monsters that needed to be wiped out. There were a lot more humans than ubarae, so despite their talents, it wouldn’t be much of a fight, if it came to that. I slipped into the room and pushed the door closed behind me. The only sign of anyone being here was a suitcase on the bed and a jacket hung up in the closet. I ignored those and surveyed the more permanent contents. It was a nice room, not ultra-luxurious, but very clean with high end furnishings. A king-sized bed dominated the room, across from it was a television set was tucked into an ornate bureau and next to it was a small desk and a chair. A little fridge took up the rest of the space in the bureau. A simple, utilitarian space meant for sleeping or… related activities. Occupation would be transient. Shame. Still, if only for the sake of thoroughness, I checked under the bed, the mattress, in the drawers. Nothing out of place. I had held out some hope that the cleaning crew had missed something, but there might not have been anything to miss in the first place. This wasn’t the type of crime that left a lot of evidence. At least, not the type of evidence that hotels would find unusual, or difficult to wash out of the sheets. I needed a fresh scene, but that meant another death, which was less than ideal. Time to talk to the staff. If something had been left behind, then they would have found it. So, I slipped out of the room and it clicked shut behind me. Based on the schedule, evening housekeeping should be arriving shortly, so I set off down the hall. I paused when I heard sobbing coming from around the corner. Peering around carefully, I saw two women in hotel uniforms standing by a cart at the far end of the corridor. The brunette had her face buried in her hands, the blonde across from her was pulling a load of towels from the cart, studiously ignoring her friend and trying to appear busy.
“I can’t believe that they expect me to go back in there, Becky,” the brunette sobbed. “They didn’t see him in there, like that. If they had, they wouldn’t make me do it.”
“Well, it is your section,” Becky paused with her towels, clearly knowing she should offer to help, but unwilling to do so. Not really friends, then.
“I don’t care. They could have at least given me the day off.”
“Well, someone would still have to clean that room, Alice,” Becky reasoned.
“Somebody died in there last night, Becky. You act like you don’t even care.”
Becky squirmed. She really didn’t seem to care much.
“We don’t have time for this, Alice. If people get back from dinner before we finish…”
“Can you do 304 for me, please?” Alice grabbed her hand, eyes imploring.
“I have my own rooms to finish.”
Becky glanced at the nearest door, then looked the towels in her hands. She was looking for a way out of this conversation. This looked like a good moment for me to jump in. I turned the corner and approached them.
“Somebody died here?” I tried to keep my tone light. Idle curiosity, nothing more.
Alice looked up, pleased that there was someone other than Becky for her to talk to. She was probably hoping that I would be sympathetic. If it got her talking, I would feel however she wanted. Alice nodded tearfully.
“I found him. In his room.”
“Oh my God, how terrible for you,” I gasped, trying to be appropriately shocked by the revelation. “I can’t imagine what that would be like! To see someone dead like that.”
“Don’t you see dead stuff like, all the time?” Becky looked pointedly at the exterminator’s logo. I was getting the impression that Becky was a bit of a jerk.
“Not people!” I lied. “That’s too horrible!”
“I know!” Alice seemed pleased that someone was finally taking her seriously, she had perked up noticeably.
I had to wonder how many dead people they found in this hotel that the girl was having so much trouble finding a sympathetic ear. Were all the mattresses soaked in arsenic or something? I made a mental note to never stay here.
“That is so tragic,” I shook my head. “I wonder if he had any family.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Alice pondered this. “I did see him in the hall earlier on the day he died, with a woman. She was gorgeous, too. I wonder if she was his wife?”
“Had she been staying with him in the room?”
“No, I am pretty sure he was alone before that. I cleaned the room every day and there was no sign of another person.”
“Did they check in together?”
Becky spoke up this time,
“Nope. He checked in a few days ago, alone. I think he was with the orthodontist convention they are holding downstairs. I bet she was a hooker.”
“Becky!” Alice gasped. “How can you say that? He’s dead!”
“He wasn’t the other night. I saw him with her in the elevator. Couldn’t keep his hands off her, even though I was in there with them. What a perv.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I saw him meet her in the lobby, then he took her upstairs. She was really attractive, far too good for him. He had to have been paying her.”
Becky was awfully cynical for someone so young.
“Maybe she really was an escort or something,” Alice seemed scandalized. Maybe she hadn’t worked here long.
It was a possibility, though. A lot of ubarae became escorts, for obvious reasons. But usually not the killers. It was too easy to follow the trail back to an agency. Of course, that had changed somewhat, with the advent of Craigslist and similar sites that let escorts easily work alone, without leaving much of a trace.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Have you ever seen her here before?”
“No, I think I would have remembered her,” Becky smirked.
This was what I needed. If he checked in alone and was here for several days, that meant he likely hadn’t come here specifically to meet the killer. And if he came down to meet her in the lobby and brought her back to the room, that meant that she came to him, he didn’t meet her in a bar or a club. That narrowed things down. He had to have contacted her in some way, arranged to meet her here. Likely on an app. I wondered if the people in the Tech department had finished with the victim’s cellphone yet. I’d have to ask when I got back to the office. I asked a few more questions of Alice, made some appropriately sympathetic noises and then excused myself to get back to work. I talked to a few more employees at the front desk before I went. Those that remembered anything backed up Becky and Alice. The victim was alone, they had never seen the woman before that night, and she was too good for him. I wasn’t going to learn anything new here. I needed to get back to the office and check the victim’s records, see how he had met the succubus. I sighed deeply. This looked like it was going to require some desk work. I preferred the more… hands on approach, when possible. Stalking the ubarae in a club or other hot spot, hunting them in their own territory. Compared to that, phone records and emails were dreadfully dull. But this succubus looked to be cautious. She didn’t hunt in the open, she had her victims come to her, one way or another. Which meant that I needed to find a connection to her, before I could lure her out into the open. Boring. But it was my job, so I might as well get to it.
When I arrived back at the office, I swung by tech services and obtained the carefully annotated lists of all the phone calls, texts, websites, and app usage from all the victims, in the days leading up to their deaths. Now all I needed to do was figure out what they had in common. There were plenty of similarities between the three men. The succubus obviously had a type. All three men were middle aged, balding and married. They were all from out of town, travelling for business and staying at one of the nicer hotels in the area. And, apparently all were seeking a little company while on the road. Carmine had once told me that the temperament and emotions of a person flavored them differently. If that was really true, this succubus must have a taste for desperation or betrayal. That probably said something unflattering about her. Although, she was killing people, so that was an admittedly minor detail. But it could help me lure her out. And it looked like I now knew where to start. It turned out that all three men had been using the same dating app. One of those ones that were popular these days, where you get a picture, a short description, and then you decide if you wanted to meet for casual sex. This particular app seemed to be targeted to travelers looking to hook up with locals where they were staying. Unfortunately, none of their matches were the same, and the accounts of the last woman each had matched with had all been deleted. It seemed like she only used an account once, then burned it once she killed. Still, it seemed likely that she would have created a new account, which meant that it was time to do a little catfishing. I pulled out my phone and made a call,
“Hey, Tom?”
“What’s up, Ray?”
“Want to come help me pretend to be a middle-aged, married guy?”
There was a brief pause,
“You know I am not any of those things, right?”
“Well, you are a guy. And middle age isn’t far off,” I smirked.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” I could hear his little frown, “Alright, I’ll be there in a minute.”
I knew he wouldn’t refuse. Tom had always wanted to do field work, but he could only do so in a support role. The fact that he wasn’t a Partial had been a great disappointment to him. To his credit, at least he didn’t take it out on the people who were. Many of the others were not so understanding. It led to some tension, between the Partials and the Immune. The Immune typically felt that Partials got all the excitement, credit and preferential treatment. The Partials, in turn, felt that they did most of the work, took most of the risks and did all the overtime. The Organization did their best to manage the problem with team building exercises and the like, but there was only so much you could do with a sack race and a barbeque. People were professional and polite, but friendships were rare. Tom and I, well, we had hit it off during our training and had just forgotten to develop a frosty, professional distance afterwards. He was a good guy. And interoffice politics were a waste of time, as far as I was concerned. By the time Tom reached my office, I had finished picking out a picture to use for my new dating account. He looked a little like George Costanza. Not too much, of course, but he was shorter and balding, with dark hair and glasses. Most importantly, whoever he was, he showed up on the 15th page of Google image search results, so there was little chance of anyone recognizing it as a stock photo. Tom peered over my shoulder at the screen.
“Who is that guy?”
“I think I am going to call him Henry Carpenter. What do you think?”
“Who is he really?”
“A guy who posed for a stock photo at some point,” I shrugged.
“So, what are the guidelines here? Who are we trying to be?”
“Our succubus has a type,” I explained. “She likes men like Henry here. A little bit older, upper middle class, but not rich. They all spent a lot of time trolling apps and were turned down a lot before they landed on our target. Her type seems to be a man looking to cheat on his wife with an attractive, younger woman, but not looking for a long-term affair. A man who isn’t considered especially attractive by others and may be a bit desperate for attention.”
“Interesting,” Tom nodded slowly. “That is a bit more specific than usual. Almost like a human serial killer. Most would go after anyone who responded to their profile.”
“True. I wonder if it is just a matter of preference, or if she gets something else out of it.”
“Any sign she is robbing them?”
“Looks like she took whatever cash they had, but nothing that could be traced, like credit cards or ID.”
That was the other reason that ubarae who killed rarely became escorts, why bother when you could just take what you wanted once you killed the victim?
“Of course not. If she wants this dismissed as a natural death, she can’t take things that would definitely be missed. The cops will probably reason that the victim just didn’t have any cash on them when they died.”
I nodded,
“This one is pretty clever. She doesn’t hunt in the open, or steal anything traceable. And the witness accounts of the woman seen with the victims is vague at best. So, we are going to make a profile that resembles our victims’ and hope to draw her out.”
“Makes sense. Won’t it be tricky to flesh out a full personality, though?”
I laughed out loud,
“Personality? This is not that kind of dating app. We get a couple of sentences to describe what we want, a few checkboxes for interests, and a picture. People here don’t want to share that much about themselves. The whole point is to match with a partner that they will hopefully never see again.”
“You know, I’ve always thought that seems a little dangerous. Meeting with a perfect stranger like that.”
“Maybe. But not really any more dangerous than meeting a stranger in a bar, as we both know. Life is dangerous, Tom.”
“I suppose. But more to the point, if everything is so vague, how do we catch her interest?”
“I think that we should just try hitting all the same marks as the original victims. Mention the nice hotel we will be staying in, that we are looking for a good time, that we will be in town about a week. Then check the same interest boxes and maybe make a casual reference to our wife.”
“People mention their significant others in these things?”
“Sure, sometimes,” I had seen it before. “It is part of the thrill for some people. It makes it illicit, exciting. Some people bank on that to give themselves more cachet.”
Tom rolled his eyes,
“Alright, let’s get this done.”
Once the profile for Henry Carpenter was put together, we started browsing through the list of potential matches. None of the victims had any matches in common, but the fake names they had been texting had pictures that looked similar to the descriptions from the witnesses. The photos were not great, though. At least not for my purposes. They were often taken from a distance and she wore a lot of hats, sunglasses and different makeup styles. It was hard to definitively recognize the woman. Having multiple fake profiles, she likely obscured her looks intentionally. Still, it would help me narrow down the candidate profiles. She was tall and slender, with long dark hair, blue eyes (when you could see them) and a very pale complexion. I glanced at the picture of a short blonde and swiped left to the next profile.
“Any luck yet?” I asked.
“Nope,” Tom groaned. “How do I let you talk me into doing these things?”
“You know, some people actually do this voluntarily, on their own time.”
“People do a lot of strange things.”
I didn’t have a response to that. He wasn’t exactly wrong. I swiped away another image.
“Besides, you love this stuff and you know it.”
“Love is a strong word,” Tom grumbled, but I could see the little smile he suppressed.
We worked in silence for a time, but he did have a point, this was tedious work. A bit of conversation could kill some time, and there was something I had been wanting to talk to him about for awhile. Since we were alone, it seemed like as good a time as any.
“Hey, Tom? Can I ask you something?”
“What’s on your mind?” he swiped his phone again.
“Is it just me, or have Carmine and Suzette been hanging around a lot, lately?”
“What do you mean? They work here. They are liaisons from the ubarae Council. That’s what they do, liaise.”
“Well yes, I know that,” I hesitated. “That isn’t what I mean. They seem to be hanging around more than necessary. Just… chatting.”
“Being sociable with their coworkers? What shocking behavior!” Tom seemed to be mocking me. “Look, Ray, I know that you don’t interact much with other people, at least not as yourself, but the rest of us kind of enjoy it sometimes.”
“There are rules in place to limit their contact with the rest of us for a reason. You know that.”
“Oh, don’t be a stick in the mud, Ray. We are all professionals, here. People know how to handle themselves. Since when are you such a stickler for the rules anyway?”
“I don’t know I just…”
“Don’t like Suzette,” Tom finished with an eyeroll.
“Well, I can’t say I would be broken up if she spent a little less time around here,” I admitted.
“She isn’t so bad,” Tom chuckled. “Sometimes she even brings us donuts.”
“I suppose you’re right,” I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Forget I said anything.”
“Already forgotten, don’t worry about it.”
We returned to our screens. Tom had a point. I was probably just being too sensitive to it, because she rubbed me the wrong way. I needed to cut Suzette a bit of slack. We were all on the same side, after all. It wasn’t like she was hanging around just to bother me.
“What do you think of this one?” I held up my phone.
“Hmm, could be her. Though, it could also be about 20% of the women on here.”
I swiped right,
“Well, depending on how many respond, I might be going on a lot of dates. Though, half of them could be the same person, for all I know.”
“How exactly are you planning to swing that? You don’t exactly look like your profile picture.”
“I know that. I’m not actually planning to meet any of these people, obviously. I just need to set up a meeting somewhere public, so that I can see them. We don’t need to go for milkshakes for me to figure out if they are ubarae. Then we just need to get DNA to compare to the victims and we will have this case wrapped up.”
“Kind of crummy to stand up all those other women, though.”
“I won’t be the first person to no-show a date. I’m sure they’ll get over it. Besides, it is in service of the greater good,” I shrugged.
“Well, at least text them to say you can’t make it, once you know.”
“Oh, fine. Bleeding heart.”
“It doesn’t cost anything to be nice.”
“How many matches are we at, now?”
“15, I think.”
“Ok, that is probably enough for a start.”
“Worried you are going to be swarmed by admirers?”
“Oh, not me. The phone number on the account is yours.”
“What!? When did you do that?”
I winked at him,
“You said you wanted to help me out with this. Just, answer any texts and set up a meeting if they ask. It shouldn’t be hard, we aren’t trying to start a relationship, after all. Oh, and if you have some free time, maybe start a few more accounts with different photos, you know, cast a wider net?”
“What exactly are you going to be doing while I manage your social life?”
“I am going to go canvas more hotels, see if I can find any that she frequents. Maybe one of them will even have seen her tonight. There is no guarantee that we will find her from this, so I need to get back out there and see if I can intercept her on her way to meet a victim. After that, I am going to go talk to the medical examiner, make sure we have some evidence to compare to our suspect, when I get her back here.”
“There are a lot of hotels in this city, you know?”
“Exactly why I need your help. I will be up all night visiting places. If you could just monitor the account for me?” I smiled hopefully.
“Oh fine,” Tom sulked. “I’ll send you a message if we get any bites. I assume you want to set up a meeting as soon as possible?”
“You assume correctly.”
“Alright, you go get to it. I will hold the fort here.”
“And if you are bored and want to keep looking for more matches…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tom muttered as he left my office to go back to his desk.
I smiled as he walked away. Tom grumbled a bit, but I knew he really loved being part of the investigation. And with the current drought of new Partials, he might be getting even more involved soon enough. We were going to need more support in the field, or they would burn everyone out. Maybe Tom would finally get his chance. But until then, I had the work of at least two people to do, so I needed to get moving.