It’s common for weeks to pass and I don’t even notice it. I am so busy at all times that I hardly notice the sun rising, the moon swelling, and the heavens sweating.

I felt a sense of accomplishment at what I had achieved.

Or in better terms, what I became capable of.

Training with swords, fists, and staves in the mornings with an Easterner to learn a form of mythical martials arts that allowed me to best my peers with their military training.

Building new type of automobile that would go on advertisement come winter and gun training during the night to emphasize both day and night shooting.

I felt highly skilled.

I felt like if my mystical ability couldn’t take someone out at range or I got overwhelmed with numbers. Then I could retreat to close combat or modern weaponry without much effort. Saving my life in crucial times, thus I would never have to fear being without one of my main weapons.

Speaking of which, maybe I should revamp my wardrobe. Ninjas had these cool uniforms, as someone in the middle lands, shouldn’t I also have something that sets me apart?

I leaned back into my chair, after placing my utensils down onto the plate. I rang the bell and a servant came out of a side passage.

“Bring me graphene pencil and sketching paper.”

The servant bowed and disappeared.

Jeanne looked across the table at me before she too, put down her utensils.

“Did you get a feeling for something?” she asked.

I nodded, “I had a few ideas for clothing. Are you interested?”

She tilted her head as if studying me. Trying to figure out if I was yet again testing her or not.

“Of course, I learned a lot from my mother about tailoring. I still possessed the skills. Maybe we can work together on it?” She sounded hesitant as she bit upon the bait.

I bit my lip before chuckling, “I will give you a very limited sketch. Show me what you can do with it. If it is good, we can open up a branch store to sell some of your designs and you can keep seventy-five percent of the profits.”

The servant swept back into the room with the materials, a bead of sweat dribbled down the corner of his forehead as he presented the items to me.

Jeanne gave me a single nod for an answer.

I motioned for him to stay put as he controlled his breathing to the lowest output.

It took me a good bit to make several angles of clothing I wanted. To be fair, my taste in fashion has always been on whether or not the opposite sex thought I looked appealing in them or not.

I handed the sketches over to the servant, “take this to Jeanne, please.”

The servant took them and bowed before walking with crisp steps that sounded like he was former military and doing canter.

Jeanne looked over the rough sketches before she sat them aside.

“I can work with this. Should I also make functional lady-wear for…” She left it unspoken but I knew who she was referring to.

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I nodded and picked up my utensils.

***

Somewhere, sometime, Jeanne talked to Nancy and my butler into buying a pet. To me, buying a pet is one of those cute hand hold things you can cuddle in one arm and show off to people. Like, this little rat cost ten of thousands and it's from a rare overseas breed.

What she in fact bought was what I would qualify as an adult size predator that always looked at you like nom nom, bish.

If the beast wasn’t so tamed as to rest it head upon my lap or licked my hand. I might have killed it, or maybe it knows my first thought was to kill it and cook it.

Thus it submitted to me?

Whatever the reason, I dressed in heavy winter clothing and wrapped my gloved fist in a leash. I allowed it to lead me out of the house, down the lengthy driveway, towards the gates.

My breaths created little misty trails behind me and I felt like a train. Not that I am out of shape, but the cold and me weren’t best of friends.

As we reached the black iron gates that slide open, I noticed an ill fated comrade. Agent Smith huddled against the door of a steam carriage, rubbing her gloves hands together as she blew foggy breath into them.

The moment she spotted me, she bounced to life. Rushing towards me like an angry gorilla on the loose.

“Mister Lloyd, we have three other cases like the one before. How about you stop hiding in your cush mansion and come help save poor women?” She might have been cold but she shot fire at me with her words.

The large panther began growling, its heckles raising and it crouched down as if it was about to pounce.

Agent Smith took two steps back in rapid form. Her hand shot to the revolver on her waist but grabbed the hilt cover by her overcoat.

I laughed, “Down girl.”

The panther patted the ground with its paw before turning away from the agent, pulling me to continue the walk.

“So you were saying something about three more cases?” I helped her out.

Agent Smith took a moment to think before reaching in her carriage to grab a briefcase and rushing after me.

“You remember how you could bend and move the first victim?” She asked while digging into the briefcase. “You probably know that one or two hours after death rigor mortis sets in. Up to eighty-four hours after the body becomes flaccid again. However, it had been approximately six days when she went missing. We found her body due to an unknown caller suggesting. We weren’t the first on the scene but according to those first on the scene, her body was flaccid, but get this. We took her out of the building and her body turned rigid as a board.”

She pulled the flat side of the briefcase against her almost non-existent breast and began displaying pictures of what happened after. That being said, the body was in pieces. I shuffled through the pictures before looking at the new pictures.

“The guy that cuts into dead people said that she died instantly upon coming out and due to the weather conditions, reached that state of being like clay. There were no signs of poison or any other additive within her blood system or other organs. He made a suggestion that it might be of supernatural nature that kept her in a semi-dead like state.”

I tilted my head to look at the sun above and then turned back to the agent.

“First, your victims are hand picked because of a certain quality in looks, but what about temperament. Did you dig into their past?”

Agent Smith rolled her eyes, “Someone else is doing that. I just want to know what magical stuff is happening or I’ll send the big boss after you to make you personally work on the case. You still have three years until the contract is over.”

The panther stopped and growled.

Agent Smith who was looking smug, might smug. Jerked to a stop, dropping the briefcase as she made a hasty retreat while grabbing her gun.

I couldn’t blame her. I could feel the killing intent rolling off the panther and it wasn’t even directed at me.

I crouched down beside her and began rubbing her head, eliciting a deep purring from her.

“I have no experience working with detectives at best. I can only offer you suggestions that any of your forensic team could. To be honest, your killer probably hangs around to see you guys reactions to his quests. It would be something I would do if I needed to degrade myself to the level of kidnapping women.” I shrugged and continued walking.

“So you are pretty much a useless rich boy, huh. I told my Director you would be fucking useless. It was better just to let the nerds handle this without wasting time on useless playboys.” She spat off to the side and I watched her childish rant with an amused grin.

I walked off as she bent down and began picking up the pictures and what not. By the time I made it back to my block, the trees, shrubs, statues were obliterated. Someone took a sharp weapon and cleanly sliced them all. On the ground in front of the gate were words carved out, ‘Useless prick.’

I shook my head as I walked in, sending out servants to clean up the mess.

People were so childish these days.