Hands—steady, practiced, and pale—moved with deliberate precision as they untied the cords of a bloodstained butcher’s apron. The knots came undone smoothly, pulled apart with the same patient care he gave to his carving work. He didn’t rip, tug, or discard; everything had its ritual, its rhythm.

He slipped the apron off his shoulders and folded it with meticulous attention, making sure the bloodied side was turned inward. The gesture wasn’t born of guilt or concealment—it was respect. Respect for the cloth that had shielded his body from the splash and spray, for the barrier between the mess and the maker.

He placed it gently atop the small canvas bag he always brought with him, the one that held his sharpening stones, his oil cloths, and other implements of care. His mother’s voice echoed softly in the recesses of his mind, steady and certain even after all these years. Take care of your tools and they’ll take care of you. She had meant garden shears and sewing scissors—but he had grown to understand the lesson differently.

To him, the apron was no less vital than the boning knife or the cleaver. It bore the weight of his craft. And after a long day on the block—carving meat, breaking bones, portioning cuts—it would be cleaned, aired, and restored, just like the rest.

He didn’t rush. He never did. Art deserved more than haste.

No—art deserved inspiration. It deserved attention. It deserved effort.

Anything less was butchery in the vulgar sense, not in the sacred one he practiced.

He took a moment to look around the backroom—stainless steel tables scrubbed clean, hooks empty, drains rinsed of the day’s red. The scent of iron and salt still lingered faintly in the air, but that was comforting to him. Honest. The smell of creation. Of transition.

He picked up the folded apron and cradled it under one arm, then turned out the lights with his free hand. One by one, the fluorescents overhead blinked off with soft clicks, casting the room into shadow. Another day complete. Another chorus of flesh and steel now silenced, its echoes stored inside him like lines in a poem.

Tomorrow, he would return. Tomorrow, there would be more cuts to make, more forms to shape.

But tonight?

Tonight, he would create something truly beautiful.

That would have to wait, though. It was still too early for that.

Time to punch out—not time to indulge in his passion.

He moved through the closing rituals with quiet precision. The folded apron was placed inside the plain canvas tote, zipped shut like it held nothing more than a lunchbox and a change of socks. The knife roll, already cleaned and secured, was tucked into its usual slot in his locker. He didn’t need to bring them home. Not those knives. They weren’t for art—they were for commerce. For playing the role.

He slipped off his rubber-soled work shoes and stepped into polished black boots. He shrugged into a denim jacket over his plain button-up shirt. Every piece was chosen to blend in—to disappear. Just another face among many. Just another working man headed home.

The key turned in the back door’s lock with a satisfying click, and the night greeted him with open arms. The city wasn’t quiet, not exactly, but it pulsed with a rhythm he understood—low, constant, chaotic beneath the surface. He breathed it in, let it settle in his lungs like incense before a ceremony.

Soon.

Soon, it would be time to create again.

But first… he had to be patient.

All art required was patience.

The city bus came like it always did, rumbling to a stop with a hiss of brakes and the low groan of weary hydraulics. He stepped aboard with the same quiet efficiency as always, flashing his pass without a word and gliding down the aisle like a ghost wrapped in denim.

He found a seat near the back—not the very last row, that drew too much attention, but close enough to observe. He sat with practiced posture, back straight, legs still, eyes half-lidded. He looked down—but not too far down—and out of the corner of his gaze, he watched.

Faces. Always the same kinds of faces. Office drones in wrinkled shirts and fast-food name tags. Single mothers with tired eyes and sticky-fingered toddlers. Students wired into their music, trying to mute the grind of the world. Even the driver—stoic, mechanical, part of the routine.

He quietly catalogued each one. Not their names—names didn’t matter. Not their jobs—those changed too easily. But their roles. Their functions. Their paths carved into the grooves of expectation. They were cogs, every one of them. Not defective. Not even particularly flawed. Just... predictable. Running as expected in a machine that survived precisely because none of them ever tried to deviate from the function they’d been assigned.

He looked down at his hands, still and calm in his lap.

He was a cog too, wasn’t he?

For now.

Just like every day from nine to five, he wore the same face they did. Neutral. Unremarkable. A mask molded from boredom and passivity. He walked the same line, followed the same rhythms—clock in, cut meat, clean blood, nod politely, clock out. The same menial tasks, the same meaningless chatter, the same damn fluorescent lights humming overhead like a lullaby for the soul-dead.

But didn’t all great artists wade through drudgery and mediocrity?

Hadn’t so many of them—Picasso, Poe, even Van Gogh—been ignored or ridiculed in their time, trudging through poverty or madness while the world passed them by, blind to genius dressed in rags?

It was no different for him.

Artists, true ones, often had to labor unnoticed in silence, chained to the very systems that would one day tremble at the brilliance of their legacy.

That was part of the art, wasn’t it? The camouflage. The patience. The suffering endured before the unveiling.

Let them think he was just another face on the bus.

They'd see.

Eventually, they'd all see.

He tilted his head just slightly, the motion subtle, feline—thoughtful. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his lips. No one noticed. They never did. Too wrapped up in their own little worlds, their eyes glued to screens, books, windows, or simply staring blankly ahead as if trying to ignore their own existence. Each of them trapped in the fragile snow globe of their life, convinced they were the center of something meaningful.

It was almost funny.

None of them had the faintest idea that the very monster they whispered about, the creature they feared, the name that stained their headlines and nightmares… was right here among them. Sitting two rows back from the driver. Breathing the same air. Holding the same transfer stub.

His eyes drifted lazily to the passenger across from him—an older man clutching a wrinkled tabloid. The cover was dominated by one headline, bold and brash in red:

WHO IS THE BLOODLETTER?

The irony struck him like a warm slap of amusement. He almost laughed. Almost.

The man turned the page, oblivious.

He shifted in his seat just enough to glance out the window, his reflection staring back at him. Plain. Pale. Forgettable.

A ghost with a pulse.

And no one ever noticed the ghost until the blood was already dry.

Who is the Bloodletter? He repeated the question silently, letting the words echo through the hollow corridors of his mind.

Why, he answered after a beat, his lips barely twitching with the thought, an artist, of course.

Not a butcher. Not a lunatic. Not some base creature lashing out at the world in rage or desperation. No, he was something more. Something transcendent.

The artist who will show you all what you’ve forgotten—that you do not value life until it ends.

Until it's splayed before you, cooling and still. Until you're forced to look at death with your own eyes and realize what was truly there all along: fragility. Finitude. Truth.

They worship distractions and shallow comforts, all while convincing themselves they’re immortal. He would correct that mistake. With his hands, with his tools, with his art.

Because only in the presence of death does life finally matter.

And he would make sure they saw it—up close, raw, and red.

The bus came to a slow, rolling stop, the brakes hissing like some great beast exhaling its last breath. He stood with calm purpose, his movements neither rushed nor sluggish—just another commuter heading home after a long, forgettable shift.

From here, it was one transfer and then the final walk to his modest apartment. The same routine. The same path. Familiar, invisible.

But once he reached home—once the apron was cleaned, the knives inspected, the mundane shed like old skin—then his true evening would begin.

Then the artist would awaken.

He would breathe in the silence, sharpen his thoughts, and prepare. Somewhere out there, beneath the electric glow of the city, his next canvas waited—oblivious.

And before the sun rose… it would be painted.

***

Martha sighed softly as she and Coraline made their way back to the Mustang, the day’s warmth starting to wane beneath the late afternoon sky. Gravel crunched underfoot, the only sound between them for a few moments until Martha finally broke the silence with a reluctant smile.

“I wish I had an excuse to hang out with you tonight,” she said, brushing a bit of windblown hair from her face. “But there's some gala my mother insists I attend. Another charity thing where we pretend to care about art or sick children or land preservation. You know the type.”

Coraline smirked as she unlocked the driver’s side door and leaned in to toss her bag onto the seat. “Let me guess—floor-length gown, three-hundred-dollar plate, and four hours of avoiding the creepy old business associates your father still calls friends?”

“Don’t forget the part where I smile politely while someone tells me how ‘refreshing’ it is to meet a proper young lady,” Martha added with a dramatic roll of her eyes. “Gotta keep up the brand, right?”

Coraline chuckled. “You’re a damn good actress, I’ll give you that.”

Martha leaned against the car door, her tone softening. “And you’ve got your hands full with Alice’s case. Not exactly a light docket.”

Coraline nodded, slipping into the seat and adjusting the mirror. “Yeah. Research, mostly,” she said smoothly.

It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. There was research to be done—files to review, reports to scan, timelines to cross-reference. But her real work tonight wasn’t going to happen at her desk. It would be done from rooftops and alleyways, in shadows and silence. The fox would be back on patrol.

And if she was lucky, she'd find a trail. Maybe even his trail.

She gave Martha a parting smile, one tinged with affection and just enough weariness to sell the cover. “Try not to get caught sneaking out of the gala for a smoke again.”

“No promises,” Martha said with a wink, already turning back toward her family’s sleek black car that was waiting at the far end of the lot for her. “Take care of yourself, Cora.”

“You too,” Coraline replied, then started the engine.

As the Mustang roared to life, Coraline didn’t glance back. She let the warm hum of the engine fill her ears, her thoughts already shifting. The sun was lowering. And Toronto’s killer didn’t rest.

As she drove back toward Toronto, the golden light of early evening casting long shadows across the highway, Coraline's mind began to drift. The day with Martha had offered a few hours of reprieve, but now the mask of friendship and normalcy slipped back into the passenger seat, replaced by something far more familiar—obsession.

Her thoughts turned to criminology, to psychology, to the grim calculus of murder. She wasn’t just trying to catch a killer—she was trying to understand him. What kind of person butchered with such surgical precision? What drove someone to turn alleyways into galleries of death, leaving bodies as statements? This wasn’t chaos—it was composed, deliberate, performative. It was theater soaked in blood. And every tableau left behind screamed one thing: Look at me.

Coraline knew enough about killers to recognize a need for control when she saw it. The Bloodletter wasn't lashing out blindly—he was crafting something. Which meant he’d do it again. He had to. Artists didn’t stop creating.

She gripped the wheel a little tighter. The profiler in her mind was already sketching him out. Male. Educated. Likely someone with experience in anatomy or manual trades—maybe even medicine or butchery. Organized. Disciplined. Comfortable moving through the city unnoticed. He wouldn’t seem like a monster. That was part of the game. He probably smiled at his neighbors. Tipped the barista. Lived a quiet, tidy life.

But beneath it all, Coraline was certain—he saw himself as more than human. He believed he was better.

And that made him dangerous in a way most killers weren’t.

The Mustang hummed as it ate the miles. The city skyline was beginning to rise in the distance, cool steel and glass stretching up toward a darkening sky.

By the time she crossed back into city limits, Coraline Penrose would be gone.

And the Vulpes would be on the hunt.

A part of her wished it was the local gangs, or one of the known syndicates. Hell, even a masked supervillain would have been preferable. They were problems, yes—but they were predictable problems. You could track a syndicate’s turf wars. You could decipher a villain’s twisted logic, their vendettas, their desire for power or recognition. There were patterns, motives, rules—even if those rules were cruel and chaotic, they could still be followed, exploited, undone.

But a serial killer?

A real one—disciplined, precise, unhurried?

That was a different kind of darkness.

No flashy costume. No bombastic manifesto. Just quiet, deliberate death.

And worse—this one wasn’t sloppy. He wasn’t desperate. He knew what he was doing.

That chilled her more than anything else.

Because when you hunt people like that… they hunted you back.

The worst part was she had nothing. No evidence. No witnesses. Not even a breadcrumb of forensic sloppiness to follow. Whoever the Bloodletter was, he—or she—was a ghost. Coraline didn’t doubt that the RCMP had more than they were letting on, but getting her hands on it? That was a problem. One she was going to have to find a way around—and soon—if she had any hope of staying ahead of this monster.

Her thoughts drifted to Detective Olivia Benoit.

She liked her.

Didn’t want to, not at first, but Coraline had a sharp instinct for reading people— dealing with liars, crooks, and courtroom sharks had taught her that much. Benoit was no pushover. She had steel in her spine, scars behind her eyes, and a mind that didn’t miss much. More importantly, Coraline trusted her. That alone was rarer than gold.

Still… trust wasn’t the same as access.

A part of her—maybe the naive part—wished she could just walk into Benoit’s office, pull up a chair, and ask to see her notes over a cup of coffee. But the reality was simpler and harsher.

Vigilantes weren’t exactly legal in Canada. The Vulpes didn’t have a badge. She didn’t wear a cape sanctioned by Ottawa. She was an outlaw, even if she was a righteous one. And even the most sympathetic cop—Benoit included—wasn’t going to just hand over classified case files because the fox in red asked nicely and promised to play fair.

No, if Coraline wanted to get what she needed… she’d have to be smart.

And fast.

Before the Bloodletter carved another name into the city.

That—or steal the data from the RCMP.

Coraline’s grip tightened slightly on the wheel as that thought settled into place. It wasn’t an abstract idea. It was a plan, half-formed but growing clearer by the second. She knew she wasn’t above it. Never had been.

She’d been trained as a thief first and foremost—trained by the best. Her grandfather, Reggie Penrose, hadn’t just taught her lockpicking and sleight of hand, but the philosophy behind it. Sometimes, he’d said, doing the right thing meant getting your hands dirty. Real justice didn’t always wear a robe and sit behind a bench. Sometimes it wore gloves and a mask.

It was a lesson she had taken to heart.

And if that meant slipping past some outdated security protocols, dodging a few patrol cameras, and ghosting through an RCMP precinct to hack into their servers or pull physical case files and morgue reports—well, then that was what she’d do. The fox had her claws for a reason.

Justice came first. The law? That was negotiable.

Especially when there was blood in the streets, and the killer was still out there—waiting to make their next "statement."

Toronto rose in the distance like a jagged promise—glass and steel catching the evening light, shimmering just enough to make you forget how much darkness pulsed beneath it.

Coraline veered off the main highway, tires humming softly as she took a familiar backroad, one that wound like a secret through stretches of suburban woodland and upscale silence. This wasn’t the way most people reached the Penrose Estate. This was the other way, the path reserved for shadows and secrets, the one that led not to the grand front steps—but to the hidden rear entrance of the Fox Den.

As the trees thickened and the road narrowed, her posture shifted. Relaxation gave way to purpose. The sun was starting to dip behind the skyline, casting long shadows that seemed to lean in, like listeners to a whispered promise.

Soon, she would suit up.

And with any luck, she wouldn’t just be patrolling tonight.

She’d be hunting. And if the Bloodletter was out there—lurking, waiting, preparing his next grotesque “masterpiece”— Then maybe, just maybe, the fox would find him first.

***

Detective Olivia Benoit rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, wincing at the gritty ache behind them. The office around her was quieting—phones stopped ringing, chairs scraped back as officers clocked out, and somewhere someone turned off the breakroom light with a final flick. But she barely registered it. The work day might be winding down, but her work? Her work was just hitting its stride.

She took a sip of her coffee, if it could still be called that—thick, bitter sludge that tasted like it had been brewed sometime before the last full moon. Still, it served its purpose. She needed the kick, the fuel to keep her mind running at the speed she demanded of it.

Her eyes wandered back to the corkboard dominating the far wall of her office, a tapestry of obsession and deduction. Photos of the victims, each printed in matte to dull the horror just enough to stay sane. Forensic notes scribbled in black ink. Maps with radiating circles. Reports pinned beside post-its bearing theories and fragments of overheard gossip. Red yarn connected these fragments in loops and stretches, forming a visual symphony of violence and mystery.

It was crude, borderline cliché—but sometimes the old-school methods helped her brain process things better than scrolling through digital files.

“This has to mean something,” she muttered to herself. “Everything means something.”

Three victims, different weapons, different methods, different backgrounds. No unifying motive—except Bloor Street. Except the pose. Except the missing pieces, taken like trophies.

She took another sip of coffee, eyes narrowing. There was a pattern. There had to be. She just hadn’t found the right lens to view it through yet.

But she would.

Because someone out there was treating her city like a gallery for murder.

And Olivia Benoit didn’t lose.

She glanced at a note pinned near the center of the board—handwritten in her own tight script: “All slash marks made with well-honed blades—quality over type.”

That detail had stuck with her.

It told her more than most people would notice. This killer didn’t care what kind of blade he used—not in terms of brand, material, or flashiness. He wasn’t obsessed with a signature weapon like so many serials tended to be. No, what mattered to him was the condition. Sharpness. Precision. He could pick a kitchen knife, a hunting blade, or a workman’s utility tool—but whatever it was, he made sure it was in perfect shape. That said something. It spoke to care. To ritual. To a craftsman’s pride.

Her gaze shifted to a small evidence photo tacked beside it—the bleached knife they’d recovered last week. Found behind a dumpster in an alley two blocks from the latest crime scene. Not hidden, not buried. Placed. Like a calling card.

That knife had matched the wounds inflicted on the third victim down to the serration pattern and angle of the cuts. It was a commonly available model—nothing fancy, easy to purchase at a hardware store or find in a pawnshop. Mass-produced and forgettable. Except this one had been sharpened beyond factory specs. Honed to a degree that required both knowledge and time. Whoever the Bloodletter was, they took pride in that edge.

And then they tossed it like trash where it would definitely be found.

Olivia’s jaw clenched as she studied the pinned photos. That was deliberate. A message. Not just “I know what I’m doing,” but “you’ll never catch me.”

He was taunting them.

And worse—he was good at it.

Her eyes followed the red strings on the board, each one stretching from crime scene photos and forensics notes to a laminated map of downtown Toronto. Bloor Street cut across it like a wound—an arterial road, old and vital. All three murders had occurred within a few blocks of it, in different neighborhoods, but always close enough to trace the killer’s obsession.

Pinned just above the map, scrawled in her own blocky handwriting, was the question she kept coming back to again and again:

“Why Bloor Street?”

She took another sip of the burnt, bitter coffee and grimaced. It wasn’t the worst thing she’d swallowed this week.

What was it about Bloor?

The geography didn’t make it easy. The street cut east to west across a diverse cross-section of the city—arts districts, transit hubs, university zones, nightlife, quiet residential stretches. It was a chameleon of a street, changing faces every ten blocks.

Was it the people?

Tourists, students, nine-to-fivers, the unhoused, barflies, baristas, buskers. Bloor had all of them. A walking study in social contrast. Maybe the killer liked that. Maybe it gave him options. Maybe he saw them as different shades on a palette.

Or maybe—and this thought chilled her—it wasn’t about who was on Bloor Street.

Maybe it was about him.

Something personal. A memory. A ritual. A fixation. Killers like this didn’t always choose their hunting grounds logically. Sometimes, it wasn’t about patterns at all—it was about meaning.

Her eyes narrowed at the map.

What had happened on Bloor Street in his life? And how many more would have to die before she found out?

Then there were the wounds.

They kept her up at night—not just because of the brutality, but because of the precision. The killer didn’t just lash out. He struck with intent. Every cut landed where it counted—arteries, pressure points, joints. Whoever he was, he didn’t just want his victims dead. He wanted them drained. Wanted the blood to flow, and flow cleanly. As if it mattered. As if that was the part he cared about.

It told her a lot. This wasn't some wild-eyed maniac with a grudge and a kitchen knife. No, this was someone who understood anatomy—deeply. More than what you pick up from true crime podcasts or watching too many B-movie slashers. This was studied. Practiced. Obsessive.

She didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but she’d already scrawled it in the corner of her notes:

"Fetishist? Ritualist? Hematophile?"

And then she’d crossed them out. Too early to guess motive, too late not to wonder.

She didn't think he was in medicine—not exactly. Someone that deep in the field would know easier ways to kill. Cleaner. Quieter. If this man had access to medical-grade knowledge and tools, he could’ve made his victims disappear. Overdoses, staged suicides, missing persons dumped in the lake with a few precise injections to shut their hearts down. There were simpler ways.

But he chose dark alleys and backstreets. He chose brutality. He wanted the blood visible. The display.

No, this wasn't about utility. It was about obsession.

And obsession had a smell.

She could feel it in every detail of the case. It wasn’t just about killing. It was about creating. As if each murder was his version of a painting or a sculpture.

Which meant he wasn’t going to stop.

Not until someone found him.

Or until he ran out of canvas.

Though she didn’t rule it out entirely—that the killer might be a doctor or pre-med student. The trophy-taking complicated things. Every body had been missing something: a piece, a part, sometimes internal, sometimes external. And the morgue reports were clear—those removals weren’t messy. They were precise. Organs excised cleanly, muscles separated along natural fascia lines. That wasn’t the work of someone who’d watched a few online videos. It was practiced. Educated.

Heck, maybe he was a mortician. Or someone who worked with cadavers in a teaching hospital. The possibilities weren’t small, and that frustrated her more than anything. Too many professions gave someone just enough knowledge to do this sort of thing well, and too many of them came with perfectly legal access to blades and labs.

And then there were the damn tabloids.

She’d seen the headlines:

“Cannibal Killer Stalks Bloor Street!”

“Is the Bloodletter Eating His Victims?”

“Ritual Murder or Midnight Feast?”

Ridiculous. Infuriating. But also—not impossible. It wouldn’t be the first time a killer spiraled into that territory. The missing parts could be for consumption. But just because it was possible didn’t mean it was the most likely explanation. The tabloids didn’t care about that, of course. They weren’t trying to help. They were trying to sell.

And that didn’t help her.

Didn’t help the investigation.

Didn’t help the people most at risk.

Because that was the worst part. The Bloodletter didn’t care who his victims were. No pattern of gender, age, race, or occupation. A rough sleeper in one case, a drunk office worker in another. A woman walking home from a late shift. All that mattered to him was the opportunity—and maybe the blood.

That meant anyone with a pulse was a potential target. Every night that passed without answers was another night someone might end up face-down in a pool of their own rapidly draining blood, reduced to a headline.

She clenched her jaw and picked up the morgue file again.

This wasn’t about fear. This was about urgency.