Boom boom boom boom boom boom
Urgent, chaotic knocking rattled the door.
Footsteps shuffled across hardwood. An elderly woman approached, calling out questions that received no answer.
She opened the door.
A thin white shape floated past, limbless and formless, nothing visible except two dark eyes staring from the center of the pale sheet.
Before she could scream, the ghost lunged forward and threw its arms around her waist.
"Trick or treat!"
Small shadows emerged from everywhere. Witches with pointed hats and broomsticks. Reapers in black robes wielding plastic scythes. Devils with foam horns and toy pitchforks. One kid wore blue clothes and a red cape.
"Oh honey," the old woman laughed, "Superman isn't a ghost."
Halloween in Gotham. Adults prowled the streets in elaborate costumes, but the children owned the night. Little devils went door to door demanding tribute. Candy or consequences.
The old woman smiled and distributed sweets to the eager hands around her. As she turned back toward her door, something on the street caught her eye.
A man stood beneath a streetlight wearing a pumpkin on his head. In his hands, he held a small jack-o'-lantern.
"What an ugly pumpkin," she muttered. "Have we ever had one that hideous before?"
Jude felt distinctly uncomfortable.
He'd followed the system's navigation to the delivery location, but honestly? He hadn't expected the customer to choose pickup here.
The Diamond District. Gotham's crown jewel, sprawling across the southern end of the city about as far from the East End as geographically possible while remaining in the same metropolitan area.
As the name suggested, this was where Gotham's wealthy gathered. Where money concentrated like light through a magnifying glass, burning everything else to ash.
Gotham's crime rate decreased gradually from north to south. The Uptown districts, where the East End festered, represented chaos in its purest form. Most of Gotham's criminal statistics originated there. Murders, robberies, assaults, drug trafficking, all the standard urban horrors compressed into a few square miles of suffering.
Move south to Midtown—Otisburg, Burnley, the relatively stable areas—and crime became less common but more ambitious. Only serious criminals bothered working there. The crimes that did occur tended to be spectacular. Bank robberies at minimum. Usually worse.
Downtown Gotham, where the Diamond District gleamed, had the best public security in the city. The people living here existed in a completely different world than the rest of Gotham. If you only looked at Downtown, you might think Gotham had a shot at becoming the safest city in America.
The irony, of course, was that Falcone lived here. The godfather of Gotham's criminal empire. Maroni, too, the second-biggest gangster in the city. They lived openly in mansions, throwing parties, paying taxes.
So it wasn't that the crime rate was low. It was that the criminals here were never held accountable.
Groups of costumed revelers wandered the dim streets. A hulking figure in a hockey mask. A man in a black robe wielding a realistic knife. A clown with grotesque makeup clutching a red balloon. Someone wearing a paper bag over their head, brandishing a prop chainsaw. Zombies with rotting prosthetic skin.
Each costume more elaborate and disturbing than the last. Jude felt genuinely unsettled.
He looked down at the abstract little pumpkin lantern in his hands. The carved eyes resembled dead fish, glowing with sickly light. The grinning mouth had crooked scratches at the corners, like drool marks.
"There's really a rich person who wants to buy this thing?" He studied it skeptically. "Can this actually scare anyone?"
A figure appeared before him.
Black round hat. Loose trench coat. Face blurred in shadow. Rough work gloves. The whole ensemble screamed "assassin from a noir film." Just another Halloween costume on a street full of them.
The man walked up without speaking. Pointed at the small pumpkin lantern. Paid cash. Took the pumpkin. Left immediately without a word or even acknowledging Jude's existence.
"What an abstract costume choice," Jude muttered.
But the system flashed TASK COMPLETED, so he stopped caring. Two more jobs waited. No time to analyze mysterious customers with questionable taste in decorative gourds.
So on this particular Halloween, the Diamond District gained a new attraction: an abstract and hideous man wearing a pumpkin on his head, dressed in a cheap coat and thick work gloves, wandering aimlessly through wealthy streets. He looked exactly like the nonsensical killers from slasher films.
Pedestrians stopped to stare.
"What an abstract costume choice," the man in the trench coat thought, remembering the street vendor who'd sold him the pumpkin.
No. Focus. Not the time.
He moved lightly up a long, narrow staircase. Late night now. Most lights in the magnificent villa had been extinguished. Only a few scattered bulbs glowed along the second-floor corridor.
He walked through shadows, feeling his way forward. Most of the household slept, but from somewhere upstairs came the faint sound of running water.
The man in the trench coat drifted toward it silently, a shark following blood in dark water.
A hand turned the faucet. Water stopped rising in the bathtub, nearly full. In the misty steam, a figure hummed tunelessly and settled into the heat.
The bathroom light was dim. The man in the tub disliked bright lights lately. They made him uncomfortable. Made him feel exposed.
"Idiot Daniel," he muttered, sinking deeper into the water. The warmth enveloped him like darkness itself, reminding him of the feeling he'd had shooting the former bank president in the street.
Back then, he'd been sheltered by night and shadows inside the car. Safe. Protected. Anonymous. The feeling had been intoxicating enough to become addictive.
Of course, he wasn't always like this. Only after killing did he crave darkness. On normal days, he preferred wine-soaked parties, beautiful socialites, the satisfaction of being the center of attention.
A ray of light suddenly cut through the steam, forcing him to squint against the glare.
How did the door open?
The thought had barely formed when his pupils contracted. He realized the answer to his question.
The answer came in the form of muffled gunfire.
Pop. Pop. Pop.