BeachCat: Hey there! I hoped you liked my most recent fanfic "Waiting on Her Angel." I had a lot of fun writing that.

Spade: Would you just get on with it!?

BC: (To Spade) Don't get your stitches in a twist! I'm getting to it. (To the reader) Yeah, so I'm working on a crossover between Detective Conan/Case Closed and one of my original stories. But before I get to the Prologue, I probably should introduce you to the characters from my story – "The Ace of Spades".

Of course you've sort of met my favorite little psychopathic, sadistic, serial killer character

Spade –

Spade glares at me from behind his stitched mask.: You call me your "favorite little" anything again and I will relieve the world of your damned existence and hide the pieces of your body in so many places that it would take a whole hell of a lot more than the king's horses and the king's men to even find you.

BC: T3T Fine… grumpy…

Spade is one of the main characters in my story and obviously the bad guy. He plagues the small city of Rookwood, killing off people from petty criminals to high-ranking officials with skeletons in their closets.

Okay, I know you probably know this song and dance – Bad-guy-who-kills-bad guys. But Spade isn't doing it for justice in any sense of the word; he just has a thing for screams of horror, the pleas for mercy from criminals, and the look they get in their eyes just before they die. In other words, Spade is one sick, twisted puppy.

Of course, what's a story without a hero, right? Ace Farthing,the best police detective Rookwood could ask for, is that hero.

:Edit: ... Due to my suspicion that this long character description is scaring off potential readers, I am moving the rest to end of the Prologue.

Spade: Aren't you forgetting something?

BC: Oh yeah, disclaimer time. I don't own Detective Conan/Case Closed or any of its characters, but – drum roll please! (Spade does nothing) – I do have my Spade! Yay!

Prologue: This has to be a Nightmare

The nights in Rookwood were oddly dark despite the number of large buildings, 24-hour stores, and the ever-flickering streetlights. That was the first thing he always noticed when he came here. The second was the ever-present cold, damp air. It caused the sides of buildings to drip on the roads and sidewalks, forming scattered puddles in every which way. Mushrooms and other varieties of slimy plant life clung to the cracked bases of every building. The whole city smelt of mold or one its other damp cousins. He didn't like it. He never liked being out and about in this city, but that was especially so at night. The place just didn't sit right with him.

He climbed out of his parked rental car and stepped onto the pavement. The man shuffled around to the sidewalk, grumbling something along the lines of "damn parking meters" as he fished for loose change in his oversized business overcoat pocket. Finding none, he cursed and gave the parking meter a good kick to vent some frustration. With a grinding click the parking meter's timer slipped and stuck on the five-minute mark and there it stayed.

"And the Ex said I would be stuck with bad karma," he said, smiling somewhat smugly, and gave the meter another kick for good measure.

Turning, he spotted a bar down the block from the motel he had been staying in the last two days. It was small and relatively unnoticeable during the day; he must have walked past it a dozen times. He would have missed it again if it weren't for the slow pulsating of the neon green 'open' sign in the window. The prospect of having a couple of shots and ridding himself of this eerie, overbearing weight of the city drew him in like a moth to a flame.

After grabbing his wallet from the passenger seat, he locked his car and made his way over to said bar, stopping when he spotted the name carved above the door – "A Regular Ol' Speakeasy." He shook his head at the name and reached for the door handle, but before he had even touched it, the door swung open. Almost immediately, something small bumped against his knee.

"Uwp!" Thump.

The man looked down in mild surprise. A boy about six or seven sat in the still-open doorway, rubbing his sore, knee-bumped head. He looked the boy over curiously. The kid was Asian, which was rather odd. There weren't many Asian families that lived in Rookwood, and, with the added high crime rate to the dreary scenery, the city had nonexistent tourism. But more importantly –

"Aren't you a little young to be drinking, boy?" The man asked, smiling at his joke.

The kid mumbled something darkly under his breath in some foreign language. The man's internal laughter ceased.

"What was that?"

"Eto..." The kid flashed an embarrassed smile, scratching the back of his head, "Sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you." With that said, the kid half-jogged his way toward the motel down the street.

"Small world." The man mumbled, shaking his head. He turned and walked into the bar … and immediately wished he hadn't.

There weren't very many patrons, though it was Saturday night; however, it wasn't the number of patrons that worried him. They were all cops. Small groups of off duty cops of all kinds were scattered here and there, chatting of the day's goings on, leaning back in their seats, and drinking cheap, bottled beer. A couple of them who looked like detectives sat at the near-empty bar. Their bent forms and whispered conversation made the man uneasy, but since the bar was more private than the other tables he reluctantly sat a few seats down from the two detectives.

Shifting nervously in the presence of so many law enforcers, he hadn't noticed the bartender standing in front of him.

"Hello? Do you want a drink?" the bartender said for the third time.

"Oh, yeah... sorry. Whiskey." The man said, turning to the bartender. "Are there always, uh," he gestured towards the rest in the bar.

"Yeah, they're all regulars. Normally there's not so many," the bartender shook his head in honest disbelief. "Guess it's just a slow night."

The man grunted in mild agreement. There hadn't been as much crime lately. He had been to Rookwood many times in the past on … business-related trips, and each time he had witnessed drug deals, money laundering, and various other crimes being committed out in the open. It was a city filled with scum and those in the higher ups who were supposed to be the good guys didn't do much to help out the cops who were trying to get things under some control. That's how it had been the last time he'd been to good ol' Rookwood. Now, he could walk the streets without worrying about bumping into some sort of addict or getting mugged on the way from his motel room to the lobby. He didn't know what had happened, but he had heard rumors that somebody was killing off random criminals and general ne'er-do-wells. Of course, he didn't have anything to really worry about… he was just an informer in the city for business… a very well paid informer… he wasn't actually involved in any –

"Your Whiskey," the bartender said, setting down the shot glass.

"Huh!?" he saw the glass, "Oh, thanks," the man immediately downed it and set it down with a soft thump. He repeated this a couple more times, hoping he would start to feel his nerves loosen up. But they didn't and he could already guess the primary cause.

Damn those two were making him nervous. Sitting there whispering who knows what… What were they saying? The man was sitting only a few seats away but he couldn't catch a word of their conversation. He nearly jumped out of his seat when the Asian one – possibly the kid's father – suddenly sat up, as if in shock, then leaned in closer to the other, a pensive frown bent his small mustache. He muttered something. The other nodded; confirming whatever it was that other asked.

"Alright," the mustached man said with a heavy accent, "I am in."

"Arigato, Mouri-san." The other stood, shaking his hand; "I'll get an office ready for you. We can have you briefed tomorrow on all the details." The one called 'Mouri-san' stood and they both quickly strode out of the building.

The man just sat there, having absolutely no idea of what had just taken place.

After finding that he no longer had the taste for alcohol, he paid the bartender, and ducked out of the "speakeasy" as Normally. As. Possible.

He sighed. Turned out this was a bad week to quit smoking. Working his way through the late night smog, he wondered if he still had some cigarettes in the briefcase in his … car?

Where was his car?

It was no where to be seen.

He jogged to the parking meter, eyes wide and mouth agape. Blithering nonsense, he ran his hand up through his hair in absolute disbelief.

He cursed loudly, giving the parking meter a third, hard kick. He noticed, after jumping up and down in pain, a sticky note stuck on the front of the parking meter. Written on it in scribble scratch was "Meter out of order. Car towed. To reclaim vehicle call Rookwood's towing." followed by the company's number.

"Dammit," he groaned. All he wanted was for his day to just end so he could go to bed; was that too much to ask!?! . He reached into his coat pocket to get his cell phone… that he had left in the car. Of. Course. Maybe his Ex was right…Freaking karma…

He looked around hoping to find a pay phone when he saw that kid he'd bumped into before walk out of the motel.

"Hey kid!" The kid looked up from where he stood. The man walked over to him, asking,

"Do you know if there's a pay phone around here?"

"Yeah, I think there's one down there." The kid pointed down the alleyway between the motel and some other building. A dark, misty, scary, and not to mention a dead-end alleyway.

"Thanks," he said, but his shoulders slumped in disappointment. Could this day get any worse? A low rumbling rolled across the sky. The man's shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Where exactly is it in there?" He asked this not because he was scared or anything… he just wanted to save time… right…

"Here, I'll show you," the kid sighed and walked into the alley. The man followed while attempting to convince himself that if a six or seven year-old kid could walk into a dark alleyway in a city like this without hesitation than surely he could. He would soon wish he had just gone to bed.

About halfway through the alley the kid stopped.

"What's up? You –"

"Shh!" The kid put a hand up, motioning for the man to come closer, "Listen." The boy whispered; his voice was dead serious.

The man was silent, straining his ears to hear whatever the kid was trying to point out. He waited, but there was nothing. But before he could tell the kid to stop fooling around he did hear it. It sounded almost like weeping… or maybe just whimpering; he couldn't tell. All he knew was that it came from the shadows at the end of the alleyway and that it sent chills racing down his spine.

"He-hello?" The kid at his knee waved up frantically, eyes wide, mouthing 'Be quiet!'

The man fell silent.

And so did the noise.

For what felt like hours the man and the boy stood silently, listening. There was a sudden flash of lightening which illuminated the entire alleyway… including the figure standing about ten feet away from where the man and boy stood. Shadows fell again, and as the rumbling thunder died away, he heard the noise again. It wasn't weeping like the man first thought; no, it was laughter. High and almost desperate sounding laughter.

There was a footstep, and another, and another, coming towards them. The man quickly picked up the boy and tossed him behind a trashcan, hoping that maybe he could escape. As the footsteps grew closer, there was a click, and the whistle of metal through air.

Burning pain exploded through his leg as the bullet hit its mark. The man's knees buckled and he fell to the side.

"You think you've seen suffering?" Another click, another whistle, more pain but now in his other leg. "You think you've seen death?" Click, whistle, arm.

The man tried desperately to crawl away from the figure stepping out of the shadows, silenced gun in hand and a twisted stitched smile on his face.

"You can't unless you've seen through my eyes."

"Who are you!?!" The man cried out as the pain in his heavily bleeding limbs grew worse.

The figure paused, tilting his head slightly to the side. His stitched smile twisted up into a wicked smirk.

"Who am I?" He placed the tip of the silencer barrel gently on the man's forehead, "I'm the carrion bird, and I've come to wish you goodbye."

This has to be a nightmare…

Click

Character Description Continued:

Ace knows all that is needed to know about criminal minds and is the head of the Spade case. He's usually a nice guy, almost shy even, but when it comes to Spade, you could say that he would do anything to catch him and put him behind bars. You can't blame him for hating Spade; Spade is the main suspect for the murder of Ace's father, Arthur T. Farthing.

Alright, let's meet Ace's team, shall we?

Firstly, there's Samantha "Sam" LeCroy, Ace's partner and secret fiancée. She is probably the only sound of reason in the group (and the only female member). She's also the best shot of them all.

Second is "Big Mac" Johnson, a bit of a ruffian and beast of a man, but he's the best bud (on the job or at the bar) Ace could ever want.

Then there's Luke Glass. He does more in-office work than fieldwork. Background research, communication, tracking, etc.

Lastly, there's Marshal "Fitzy" Fitzgerald. He is Ace's senior officer but was off duty for about a year before they pulled him back in for his expertise. But just 'cause he was retired doesn't mean he doesn't have a ton of spunk left in him. This 68-year-old could whoop any punk's butt, anywhere, anytime.

Some other characters!

Mayor Alfred Quincy

Chief of Police Charley Miller

Detective James O'Reilly

Motel Attendants, John Merck and Jillian Hill

Kindly Random Gentlemen, Stan Walsh

Bar owner, Jack Stevens

And other random and most likely expendable characters!

So what do you think? Should I continue or is it uninteresting? Please review or Spade will kill me in my sleep. :'(