The body cooled faster than expected. Death had a way of stealing heat from the world, one greedy inch at a time.
Carmen stood over Adrian's crumpled form, wiping the blade clean with a strip of cloth torn from his own coat. She moved slowly, methodically, like a priest preparing an altar rather than a woman scrubbing blood from steel. Julian crouched beside the body, checking for anything they might have missed—a wallet, a trinket, a loose thread that could be traced back to them. There was nothing. Adrian had brought himself here with nothing but arrogance and a knife, and Carmen had taken even those from him.
Vivienne stayed near the orchestra pit, her back pressed against the cold stone wall. She hadn't spoken since Carmen carved the final spiral into Adrian's flesh. Her hands trembled in her lap, forgotten ink staining her palms where she had dropped the notebook. She wanted to look away, to close her eyes, but she couldn't. Carmen hadn't given her permission to leave yet, and some small, terrified part of Vivienne still thought that mattered.
Julian rose and wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving darkening streaks in the chill air. His face was calm, untroubled. A craftsman pleased with the work.
Carmen dropped the rag onto Adrian's chest. She regarded the mess for a long moment, then lifted her gaze to Julian.
"We make it disappear," she said.
Julian nodded. No ceremony. No debate. Just the next inevitable step.
They worked in silence. Julian retrieved a rusted wheelbarrow from the basement, the metal screeching low and ugly as he dragged it across the broken floorboards. Carmen lifted Adrian's body with a strength that belied her frame, folding him into the barrow, tucking him beneath scraps of rotted wood and torn velvet they scavenged from the wings.
Vivienne watched, numb.
They wheeled him through the alleys behind the theatre, slipping through the veins of London like blood pooling under broken skin. The gaslights burned low and mean. The fog hung thick and yellow. No one saw. No one ever did.
They chose the river.
It took him without ceremony, swallowing Adrian whole beneath its slick black surface. No grave. No stone. No name. Only silence and water and the spiral tightening around the city's throat.
Carmen stood at the river's edge, watching until the last air bubbles disappeared, until the darkness closed back over him completely.
Julian lit a cigarette, the flare of the match a small defiance against the heavy mist.
"Done," he said.
Carmen turned away without looking back.
They returned to the flat just before sunrise. London lay still, breathing shallowly in its sleep. In the hearth, the last coals had died into ash. The windows wept slow trails of condensation, the breath of a thousand unseen fears.
Julian dropped into the battered chair by the fire, dragging a bottle of whiskey onto his knee. He drank straight from it, the gesture lazy, practiced.
Carmen peeled off her gloves with the same meticulous precision she used with knives. She set them beside her boots, crossed the room to the writing desk tucked against the wall, and sat with her back to the cold hearth.
Vivienne hovered awkwardly near the door, arms wrapped tight around herself. She looked from Julian to Carmen, but neither of them acknowledged her. She had been useful. She had witnessed what they needed her to witness. But she was a pawn again now. A piece, not a player.
Finally, she found her voice.
"What now?" she whispered.
Carmen didn't turn. Her voice floated back, low and even.
"Now we remind the city who owns its fear."
Vivienne swallowed, the movement scraping raw down her throat.
"And... me?"
Carmen turned then, just enough for Vivienne to catch the weight of her gaze.
"You'll do what you always do," Carmen said. "You'll write it down."
Vivienne nodded too quickly, heart hammering against her ribs.
She didn't see the glance Julian and Carmen exchanged. The unspoken decision passing between them like a blade drawn across a throat. Vivienne was useful. For now. But pawns were made to be sacrificed, especially when the board grew crowded, especially when the spiral demanded more.
Carmen rose and crossed the room in a glide of black fabric, pouring herself a glass of wine, the color of fresh blood. She took a slow sip, savoring it.
"We have work to do," she said.
Julian smiled from the depths of the chair, a lazy, dangerous thing.
The fire spat and hissed behind them, throwing long, thin shadows across the walls.
Vivienne sat down at the small kitchen table, trembling fingers fumbling for her pen. She began to write, not because she had anything left to say, but because it was the only thing keeping her hands from shaking, the only thing that made her feel like she still mattered.
Outside, London stirred fitfully, already bleeding from a thousand unseen cuts.
And Carmen Vale smiled into her glass, already dreaming of where she would strike next.