London was a beautiful city. People lived good lives. They were happy. But everyone had secrets. Some were small. Some were bad. And sometimes, a secret was so dark it could turn a person into a monster.
Detective Miller ducked under the police tape. The morning air was cold, and the grass crunched under his shoes. The woman lay on the ground, her skin pale under the grey sky. She was naked, and a map of brutal stab wounds covered her body from her throat to her calves.
One of her hands was thrown out to the side, and on it, a single fingernail was missing, torn clean from the root.
Her other hand was clenched into a tight, white-knuckled fist, as if holding onto a final, desperate secret.
The forensic team arrived in a hushed, efficient swarm. Behind them, Miller's own unit stepped onto the scene.
Sarah Chen, his partner, moved to his side. She was already pulling on a pair of latex gloves, her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that highlighted her focused expression.
Ben "Hawk" Hawkins, a veteran with twenty years on the job, lit a cigarette despite a sharp look from a crime scene tech. His coat was rumpled, and his eyes held their usual tired cynicism.
The newest member, Rookie Davis, hung back a few steps. His face was a shade paler than usual, and he was actively trying to look anywhere but at the body on the ground.
The lead forensics expert, Dr. Aris, knelt beside the victim. She didn't look up as Miller approached.
"Overkill," she said, her voice calm and clinical. "This wasn't just about killing her. This was personal. He wanted to destroy her."
She gestured with a gloved finger towards the woman's clenched fist.
"See that? She grabbed something from him during the struggle. It was the last thing she ever did."
She carefully pried open the stiffened fingers. Inside was a crumpled piece of paper, stained with sweat and a smudge of blood. With tweezers, she unfolded it and read the typed words aloud, her voice losing its clinical edge for a moment.
"... the hypocrites will deserve a place worse than disbelievers in hell."
A heavy silence fell over the group. The city sounds in the distance seemed to fade away.
Miller stared at the small piece of paper. It wasn't a random clue; it was a message. A judgment.
"He's not just killing them," Miller said, his voice low. "He's sentencing them."
Beside him, Sarah Chen let out a slow breath. "So we're not looking for a murderer. We're looking for a preacher."
Miller stared at the small piece of paper, a cold certainty settling in his gut. He'd seen this before. Not this exact verse, but the method. The sermon.
"It's him," Miller said, his voice flat and final. "The same guy. This is victim number six."
The weight of the words landed on everyone. Hawk took a long, final drag on his cigarette before grinding it under his heel.
"Six?" Rookie Davis breathed out, the number hanging in the cold air.
Sarah Chen's eyes were hard. "He's escalating. The overkill… the message left on the body itself now instead of nearby. He's getting angrier."
Miller nodded, his jaw tight. They were no longer just collecting evidence from a crime scene. They were reading a madman's diary, one bloody chapter at a time.
shook his head, a grim, unpleasant thought taking shape.
"Not angrier," he corrected, his voice low. "Look at the placement. He posed her. He left the note in her hand for us to find, like a party favor. He's not getting angrier. He's getting more theatrical. He's enjoying this."
The idea was more chilling than simple rage. A killer who saw this as a game was far less predictable.
As if on cue, one of the uniformed officers from the search team approached, holding an evidence bag. Inside was a single, unmarked digital video disk, its surface smeared with dirt and a faint, rusty smear of blood.
"We found this, Detective," the officer said. "It was tucked right under her, like he wanted to make sure we didn't miss it."
Miller took the bag, holding the disk up to the grey light. It was a message, just like the verse. But this one, he knew, was meant to be played.
took the bagged CD, his eyes still on the body. He needed to anchor this, to find a pattern in the chaos.
"Ben," Miller said, without turning. "Any theories?"
Behind him, Ben "Hawk" Hawkins let out a grunt, followed by the sound of him lighting a fresh cigarette.
"None that stick," Hawk's voice was a dry rasp. "This guy... he's a ghost. Six victims. Men, women. Different ages, different parts of the city. No connection. He takes a different trophy every time—a locket, a business card, a piece of hair. Now a fingernail. And the method? A shooting, a poisoning, two stabbings, a bludgeoning. It's like he's trying out every tool in the shed."
He exhaled a plume of smoke that was torn apart by the wind.
"He's not following a pattern. He's just... collecting. And we've got nothing to tie it all together except for his little sermons."
---
The drive back to the precinct was swallowed by a heavy silence. The CD in the evidence bag seemed to radiate a new, more personal kind of menace.
Inside the dim viewing room, the air was tight with anticipation. Rookie Davis's hands fumbled before the disk slid home with a definitive click.
"Let's get this over with," Ben "Hawk" Hawkins grumbled from the back, his voice a low anchor in the tense quiet.
The screen flickered to life. The image was stark and grim. The woman from the park was bound to a simple chair, her eyes wide with a terror that was painfully human. Then, the figure emerged. He was encased in a single, seamless black suit that covered him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, leaving not a single inch of skin visible. It was a second skin of pure void, with no discernible mouth or eyes, just the vague impression of a face beneath the tight, matte fabric.
But the voice that cut through the silence was all wrong. It was high-pitched, light, and conversational, like a child sharing a secret, seeming to emanate from the featureless form.
"Hello, Sergeant Miller! I made this for you."
The glint of a knife, long and professional, appeared in his gloved hand. The assault began—a brutal, efficient, and thoroughly adult act of violence. And the childish voice narrated it with a placid, observational tone.
"You see? It has to be just right. From the top all the way down."
Sarah Chen's breath hitched. Her eyes, usually so sharp and analytical, widened in raw disbelief. The dissonance between the savage imagery and the singsong voice was a psychological gut-punch.
Rookie Davis made a choked sound and twisted away from the screen, his face ashen. He focused on the floor, his shoulders hunched, completely destabilized by the grotesque mismatch.
Hawk watched, his stony expression hardening into something colder and more dangerous. This was a deeper perversion than simple rage.
"It's my favorite thing to do," the voice confided, cheerful and warm. "It's so much fun."
The figure finally stilled and leaned close to the camera, his blank, faceless head filling the screen.
"I put a present for you inside her. It's a surprise! You have to go find it."
A soft, genuine-sounding chuckle escaped the speaker.
"After all… I'm just a hypocrite. Isn't that silly?"
The screen went black.
The silence in the room was absolute, thick with the echo of that innocent, melodic laugh. Davis was visibly shaking, struggling to control his breathing. Chen stared at the blank screen, her professional mask utterly shattered, replaced by a deep, unsettled horror.
Hawk pushed off the wall, his eyes burning with a cold, clean fury. His voice was a low, graveled snarl.
"My God. This isn't a killer, Miller. He's a sick fuck."
Miller rose slowly, his own composure a stark, icy contrast to the emotional chaos around him. He absorbed the shaken states of his junior detectives, then met Hawk's furious gaze.
"The voice is the costume," Miller said, his tone flat and dangerously calm. "He's performing. And he left a part of the set inside our victim."
He turned and strode toward the door without another look back.
"The morgue. Now."