First Chapter to a New Story

You asked for it, and here it is. The beginning of a new story, just for you. In case you missed it, I was given the following to work with:

Blovel (writing this as I go along - so expect some errors)
Unicorns
Sci-Fi
Kitchen Sink (I have to thank my husband for that one.)

Without further ado, I present you with Chapter One of MURDER MOST FANTASTICAL. Enjoy.

Chapter 1

Death Through the Eye of the Beholder

There was something satisfying about seeing his victim's face a split second before their death. The surprise, the disbelief, the horror, all flickering across their eyes almost too fast to discern one from the other. But not too fast for him. He was a professional. Death was his trade.

The face before him now was that of a young woman. A college student working towards a bachelor degree in journalism. A degree she would never fully earn.

She was at the disbelief stage, unable to trust her what her eyes were telling her brain. He couldn't blame her. It wasn't every day a man strode up, took off his hat, and revealed an unicorn horn sprouting from his forehead. Free of the necessary restraint, he shook his head and allowed his horn to extend to its full length. Killing was possible with a collapsed horn, but death came slower and more painfully than with a full skewer. Death like that wasn't fair to his victims, unless they were lawyers or bureaucrats who thrived on creating red tape. This girl was neither of those. Only a student with a school assignment who got too nosy.

“Sorry, sweetheart. Guy's got to do what a guy's got to do. You understand.”

Horror stage. Her eyes wide, tracking his approach. She stepped backwards, attempting to put space between them, but there wasn't much space to be had. The narrow alleyway he had followed her into ended at a chain-link fence, the gate padlocked. Her back hit and her hands quested at her sides for the latch that would never open for her.

“Nothing personal. You seem like a good kid. If only you kept your nose out of where it didn't belong. Shame. You would have made one heck of a reporter. You got the spunk and stubbornheadedness to hang onto a lead and follow it to the end. You simply picked the wrong lead to hold onto.”

“Please.” Her hands scrabbled, frantic to find a way out of the alley. The clanging of the gate would draw attention soon. If she came to her senses and screamed, help would race to her aid before he finished his job. Time for talking was over. He had his assignment and he knew what needed to be done.

“Close your eyes. Easier to die when you don't see it coming.”

“Die?”

Here came the scream. So much for making the whole incident easier on the girl. Normally he didn't feel bad about his kills, not that he was feeling bad about this one. There were simply some victims he didn't want to see suffer. Just because a guy was a killer didn't mean he didn't possess a heart.

The girl's mouth opened, a flash of teeth in the moonlight. Before she could emit a sound, the man lowered his head and charged.

A crunch of bone. A gurgle of blood. The dying gasps of the girl past the point of speech.

He backed away, red dripping down his horn and forehead. From his pocket he took out a black handkerchief he carried for occasions such as this. He wiped the blood from his horn and face, keeping an eye on the girl.

The hit had been clean. She suffered little, which would be some comfort to whatever family she had living around here. Her body slumped to the ground, a puppet with its strings cut. From her face, dead eyes stared up into space, searching for an answer to how she could die like this, at the end of a unicorn horn.

She should have seen it coming. During her research she had uncovered enough clues. She just hadn't been given the opportunity to assemble them all into a picture that made sense. If she had figured everything out, he wouldn't be standing here. He'd be in a cage somewhere awaiting testing. Not his idea of a good time.

His horn clean and retracted, he put his hat back on to cover the murder weapon. The coast clear, he sauntered out of the alleyway, whistling all the way home.

The papers the next morning would be fun, if the girl's body was discovered in time.

There was something satisfying about killing and leaving clues that didn't add up to anything reasonable. Watching the detectives trying to make sense of the crime scene was always an additional source of amusement.

As long as they refused to belief what their eyes told them, he was safe.

And they always refused to believe.