Constantine Capers: The Pennington Perplexity by Natalie Brianne (new ebook reader TXT) 📕

the evening paper that the date was a bit different from what I expected. Perhaps I have some sort of memory loss?”

The Shadow’s face contorted in such an expression of disgust and anger that Mira felt certain it would fall off. It took all her discipline not to chuckle. The Shadow picked up the journal and handed it to him.

“Read this,” she snarled. Byron shrugged, sat down and opened the journal, perusing the pages. All others in the room focused on him. He read to about a quarter of the way in, then looked up.

“Do I need to read all of this? It is a bit lengthy.” He flipped back and forth between a few of the pages. The Shadow groaned in frustration and took the journal back from him, skipped forward a dozen or so pages and shoved it back.

“Read from there.” Byron nodded and continued. As he read, his face softened, and he seemed to read certain passages a few times over. He reached the end and looked up at them.

“Where is this Mira Blayse? I’d rather like to meet her.” A twinge of a smirk shadowed his lips.

“She was supposed to come here with you.” The Shadow’s honey-smooth voice turned sour and raw as she glared at him.

“Well, obviously, she hasn’t. She seems like a smart girl based on what I’ve written about her. Now I’m guessing you are the smugglers and mercenary that I’ve been trying to track down? How nice of you to give me an invitation to your meeting.”

“We invited you here to tie up some loose ends.”

“Loose ends?”

“Yes. You know a bit too much about the Order of Circe. You and Miss Blayse. We were going to go with the theatrical for this, but seeing as things haven’t exactly gone according to plan, we’ll have to forego them.”

“Oh?” Byron sat in his chair, completely unimpressed. In fact, he yawned.

The Shadow’s face contorted again, and she gestured to the two smugglers. They hoisted him up to standing, each holding one of his arms. A flicker of recognition crossed Byron’s face, and he struggled. They pulled his arms back.

“Take off his suit coat.” The Shadow picked up the needle and flicked it a few times. Joe took a knife from his pocket and cut the back of Byron’s suit and shirt open. He pulled hard on the sleeves of both, and they came ripping off, the buttons of his shirt shooting off one by one. Sam did the same to the other side. Mira noticed a few scars on his chest. She fingered the gun in her pocket.

“Do you know how many lives have been lost because of curiosity, Detective?”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Would you care to tell me?”

“Countless. In this case, eight people have died thus far because Clement Pennington decided to find out what was behind a mysterious grate.”

“Eight people? You seem to have miscounted. I only count two murders. Mr. Pennington’s and Mr. Graham’s.”

“Ah, but that is where you and the police would be wrong. You see, the Order tried something new with this murder. Normally when an important killing is about to take place, Circe plans several robberies to take place around the same time. That way the police are distracted, and the killer has a bit more time to cover their tracks. This time they used the same principle and experimented with murder.”

Mira’s stomach churned. All the facts of the Whitechapel case came back to her. The first case popped up back in April, around the same time that Molly Bridges first met Clement Pennington. Several others in August and September. Her uncle mentioned two murders occurred just the day before. The Order of Circe connected them all.

“You say there have been eight deaths connected with this case?”

“Eight. Six of them were women of no importance or great wealth. Unconnected. All are perfect fodder for a gruesome killing spree spread across several months and taken out by several killers with a bloodlust. Untraceable.”

Byron gritted his teeth and the Shadow just laughed. “Once the distraction of a mass murderer was set into motion, I murdered Clement Pennington. Then, of course, you had to get involved, and that led to the death of Mr. David Graham.”

“He didn’t have to die. Enough people have died,” Byron clenched his fists.

“Perhaps you are right. But death can be so useful. And in the case of these ‘Whitechapel murders,’ as the police have been calling them, there are so many killers, they will never be caught. And who knows? Perhaps there will even be copycat killers that will be even worse.”

“How dare you toy with human life and treat it as if it is nothing?” He seethed.

“And what are you going to do, little detective?”

“Fight ‘til my dying breath.”

“Oh, how cliché. Luckily for us, we don’t have to wait long.”

Byron pulled harder against the two smugglers, to no avail. They held him fast, and the Shadow moved closer to him, tracing a finger beneath the line of his jaw. Her voice lowered. Mira could barely make it out.

“I planned on killing Miss Blayse in front of you before you died. But seeing as she isn’t here, I’ll just take the consolation that you’ll know that she will die and leave this mortal world without ever knowing what happened to you. She won’t even know the full extent of why she is dying. Just like her parents.”

Mira opened the door and cocked the gun pointing it straight at the Shadow’s head.

“What about my parents?” The room stood in stunned silence, staring at her. Byron spoke first.

“M…Mira?”

“I told you I was coming with you, Byron. Now Shadow, or Molly as you are sometimes called, if you could please set the syringe down and step away from Mr. Constantine?” The Shadow slowly stepped away and placed the syringe on the table.

“And hands above your head if you would?” Mira gestured with the pistol. The Shadow’s hands rose.

Mira smiled. “Thank you very much.”

“You’re bluffing. Surely, you’re bluffing.”

“I may not look