The Unkindest Cut, Part I: Star Power

By C. Mage

"Ms. Pierson, you're on in fifteen!"

Brittany Pierson, megastar of radio, TV, and silver screen (one movie in the can and another in the works), nodded and checked her appearance. Her hairstylist teased her hair, giving it her trademark look, that of someone who just came in from a heavy workout or a fresh bath. Once that was done, her stylist held up a mirror so Brittany could check every aspect of her appearance. The opening song was her more controversial, "Be My Master Tonight", and she'd decided to go with an Arabian-themed harem girl outfit, with a touch of leather here and there to look more exotic. Publicly, she enjoyed the limelight and the attention to her sexuality, but privately, she was beginning to have second thoughts about the entire public relations gimmick. The things I have to do to keep up record sales...retirement is really starting to look good right about now.

Her door opened and she looked up as a man entered wearing a SECURITY shirt and badge. "Connie, not another gift from your 'secret admirer'?" Brittany turned back towards the mirror, checking over her appearance once more. Everything had to be perfect for tonight. "Connie, how much time do I have left?"

"None," said a male voice right behind her. She was about to turn when a pair of strong hands grasped her arms, while another hand grabbed her trademark hairstyle and yanked it back, baring her throat. Her eyes went wild and she drew back a breath to scream, then something slashed through the front of her neck. The razor edge nearly sliced her voice box in two, reducing her terrified scream to a loud gurgling noise. The two murderers let her fall, and she tried to at least get a look at her assassins, but darkness took her vision and she collapsed, not quite dead. The two figures bent over her, and the last thing she heard before mercifully entering the hereafter was, "Once was slut, now is cut. What was within, is now without..."

"Alright...give me the bad news." Lt. Max Kellaway rubbed his head, shaking out a pair of Excedrin and popping them into his mouth, crunching them between his teeth.

"Just like the other two, I'm afraid. Brittany Pierson was apparently murdered by her hairstylist and one of her security men, both employed by her for almost her entire career. No apparent motives. Killing wound was made by a knife of some kind, razor sharp, cut her throat. The perpetrators then, while she was still yet alive, turned her on her back and started cutting into her with surgical precision. These two didn't hack into her, they removed her lungs and her liver. Those are yet to be accounted for." The officer pulled out another set of papers. "Both the hairstylist and the security man were found in the room, deep coma, looks of what can only be described as 'expressions of intense fear' on their faces, expressions that have yet to go away, according to the doctors."

"This is a nightmare...three popular stars, two actresses, one singer, all mutilated and with organs removed, people nearby almost frightened to death and no leads. You'd think it'd be easier...the press is having a field day, the Commissioner is breathing down my neck..." He sighed. "...and the feds are getting involved."

"Sir...if I may make a suggestion?"

Lt. Kellaway looked up. "Yes?"

"I know someone who might be able to help us out. He's had considerable experience with similarly bizarre happenings, and he is associated with an expert on the unusual as well."

"Can we trust him not to make a spectacle out of all this?"

"He was once NYPD, sir."

Lt. Kellaway sighed. "Better than nothing, I suppose. So, what's the name of this expert, by the way?"

"Lara Croft!"

Lara shook her head. She heard the familiar tone, realized that, once again, she was going to be in the fight of her life. It was going to be dangerous, having to work so hard to avoid pain, humiliation, the desire to take a human life. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that she felt overwhelmed, perhaps even, dare it could be voiced aloud...inadequate for this?

NO. She would proceed to the field of battle, even if it meant a losing fight.

Lara sighed and walked into the den where David was hooking up the PS2 and putting in the SOUL CALIBUR II disc. "Come on, Lara...time to play."

"David, sweetheart, couldn't we find something else to do? Go out for a drive? Watch a movie? Juggle live grenades?"

"Hey, you lost the coin toss fair and square. Tonight, we hang out, order in pizza and play some PS2."

"But why this game?"

"Because you need to get over this fear of failure. And let's face it, Lara, you are a poor loser." David smiled. "I know you've been having trouble with this game, so tonight, we're going to work on learnin' you a few things so I don't kick your butt all the time."

Lara looked at David, a tear forming in her eye. "You mean, we're not just going to fight tonight? You're going to help me master this bloody game?"

"Sure!"

Lara looked upon David with a deep love that can only come from something truly heaven-sent. "I...cannot find the words...!"

"Well, I know you've been having some trouble, and I know how much you hate to lose in a fight, so..."

Lara leaped across the couch and kissed David soundly. "Take me, mold me into a true fighting game warrior Dave, and I'll wear that belly dance costume for you..."

The door opened and Mannfred entered slowly. "Lady Croft, there is an overseas phone call for you and David. Shall I put it through?"

Lara sighed. "Play-time's over, I suppose..." She stood up and walked saucily over to the phone, for David's benefit. He wasn't sure why Lara had become more playful in the last few weeks since his recovery, but he didn't mind that much.

It gave him time to figure out how to pop the question to her. Ever since he knew, deep in his heart, that he wanted to marry her, he'd been racking his brain to think of how and when to ask her to marry him. Being flat on his back for weeks gave him plenty of opportunity to think about it.

"Hello? Yes, this is Lara Croft. David Connors? Yes, he's here. Hold on a mo while I put you on the speaker." Lara pressed a button on the phone and asked, "Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear. How about...?"

"Kellaway?" David asked, surprised. "How the heck did you get this number?"

"You know me?" Kellaway asked.

"Yeah, I know you. The Montgomery case in '96? You wanted to bust me down to traffic cop for extraditing one of your suspects."

"Yeah, out a friggin' window."

"You wanted answers and I needed my perp returned to New York. We both got what we wanted after we got out of that tree."

"Nevertheless...." Kellaway continued testily, "I want to employ you both as consultants on a case we've got going on here."

"Both? Lara's not an officer of the law and never has been...well," David amended, looking at Lara, "not unless you count that night when you put on that officer's uniform and offered to frisk me."

"Yes, and I did get rather frisky as a result..."

"OH PLEASE," Kellaway groaned, "can't you two be serious about this? Three women have been butchered and mutilated beyond recognition and you two are screwing around, literally!"

That sobered them up. "Sorry, Kellaway," David said apologetically. "But the question stands, why Lara?"

"All of the killings had some elements that suggested the involvement of occult rituals. Lara's one of the best in that field."

"The best," David corrected. Lara smiled at him.

"So, David, Lara, you two going to help me out, or are you going to take turns bitching and breeding?"

"Back to the States. You know, it has been a while since I saw the skies over America." David looked out the window of the Concorde as the East Coast came with view. "I wonder why it's been so long since we came bacK?"

"Well, our last two jaunts across the Pond weren't not the most enjoyable of times. Nearly lynched by white supremacists and facing down zombies isn't what I'd call a good time."

David turned to Lara with a smile. "You are so full of crap."

"What?"

"You're an adrenaline junkie, just like me. You loved the excitement and don't try to tell me otherwise."

"Perhaps I did enjoy it...in a nerve-wracking-nightmarish-imminent-death sort of way. The point is, David, we're going to have to face facts. We may have to consider..."

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know. Let's take a look at the files they faxed over. I don't like the way this conversation is turning out." She clumsily, but effectively changed the subject, pulling out her laptop. "According to the information, we're dealing with some rather sick characters. Check out these photographs."

David looked at the scanned images and grimaced. "Ugh. Jeffrey Dahmer's Ugliest Home Videos." He checked the name on the photos and looked through the papers to confirm it. "Brittany Pierson, the pop singer? I knew her videos were wild, but this is beyond even the standards of rock & roll."

"Third in a line of three famous women. The first was Betty Boobs, a famous porn actress. Considered a veteran in the industry, someone apparently decided to put her to work in a snuff film. The second was Mary-Jerica Jones, an A-list actress who leaned towards provocative roles, untill someone decided she needed a role in a horror movie. And finally, Brittany."

"Connections?"

"Besides their fame, they all were killed by the same weapon, a razor-sharp knife. From the forensic reports, the knife was relatively small. All showed signs of being restrained by one or more persons at the time of their deaths. Death was invariably caused by a slash across the throat, bleeding the victim out as the culprit then proceeded to remove certain organs from the bodies. Although different organs were removed from each victim, they were removed with surgical precision."

"Witnesses?"

"In all cases, yes, but they're not very talkative. In every case, there was at least one person nearby who might've witnessed or taken part in the crime, but there's just one problem. In all instances, those individuals were incapable of providing testimony."

"Dead?"

"No, comatose. According to this, cat-scans were performed to locate any possible trauma to explain their conditions. Nothing. No unexplained brain trauma, no unexpected bio-chemical reactions. It's as if they just shut off."

David frowned. "Let me see the medical reports." Lara handed him the hardcopy and he looked them over. After a few minutes, he looked up. "Eureka."

"What? You found something?"

"I think so. Look at the examinations of the brain. There's the same patch of red on the MRI. And check out the chemical tests. High levels of endorphins and adrenaline."

"Isn't that common during crimes of passion?"

"Look at the levels. They are way above even those tolerances. And check out where the red area is. If this scan is correct, this is in the cross-section between higher brain functions and the pleasure/pain center of the brain."

"What do you deduce from all this, Mr. Holmes?" Lara asked, now quite curious.

"Not-so-elementary, Watson. According to these results, each one was experiencing extremely high levels of pleasure, indicating great euphoria during the crimes. Usually a candidate for serial killers, although this is high for even those. At the same time, the pain center of the brain was actually having a reaction so powerful, the synapses between that center and the rest of the brain were actually overloading, as if they were trying to short-circuit themselves. Mind-bending pleasure and deep-seated psychological pain at the same time? That's not possible...at least, under normal conditions."

"Since when have we ever been involved with conditions that could be considered, 'normal'?"

David looked at Lara's smirking face and nodded. "Things did get progressively wierder since I met you."

"So, you're the criminologist. What's our next step?"

"Figure out the motivations. Always boils down to one of three things: sex, money or power. Take any crime and one of those factors caused it. So...let's look at what we've got here. What's the common factor between them?"

"They are all celebrities."

David looked over the files. "No...never that simple. Let's look deeper. They don't run in the same circles, not in the same geographical area. But these women were hand-picked for a reason..." David looked over the files again. "Hmmm...maybe..."

"What?"

"It's a little thin."

"So, it might be better than nohing."

"According to this, the actress Mary-Jerica just wrapped up the seventh season of the seris, 'Lust in Metropolis', something I'm sure Clark Kent would not approve of, to say the least."

"How would that make a connection?"

"Don't think of the women. They're performers. Think of the roles they play."

Light dawned on Lara's face. "Their professional roles painted them as promiscuous women of loose virtue, to put it gently."

"Exactly. We're looking for a guy who seems to have a Jack-the-Ripper complex, or a copycat. But that's where the formula breaks down."

"What do you mean?"

"Serial killers like that work alone. These guys have a particular M.O. and they stick to it like krazyglue. This is the work of a small, very coordinated team, or teams. And those comatose victims with the fuses in their brains blown...were they witnesses who saw something horrible and wonderful at the same time, or did they all take part? And if they did take part, why? And there's something else that shows that someone is pulling their strings."

"What's that?"

"Body parts missing, all removed with a surgeon's skill, and there's no murder weapon left behind. Someone is masterminding all this." David closed the files and leaned back in his chair. "I gotta tell you, Lara, this guy looks like major bad news. I'm not fond of the idea of someone able to get close to celebrities with security better then the President with a head full of wiring this bad."

Lara nodded. "Dave, it's not all that, is it? I know you too well. Deep down, you really want, no, need to take this monster off the streets. As worried as you are, this is what you're good at doing. I may be able to decipher Sanskrit at fifty-five characters a minute, but I couldn't get half the insight you get from going through these files."

"Welll...OW!" David tuned to Lara after feeling her swat the back of his head. "What did you do THAT for?"

"To make sure you don't start getting a swelled head over it, that's all." Lara grinned, batting her eyelashes at him.

"Oh, ha ha. No playing rough, dear, or I'll make them take your pillow away."

"I've been asked to comply with your requests," Sgt. McCormick said with a polite smile. "Is there anything I can get for you?"

"Yeah, we need the original photographs of the crime scene."

Sgt. McCormick nodded as David sat down in one of the extra desks at the precinct and Lara did likewise across from him. Some of the other officers looked at them from time to time, but for the most part, the police left them alone. That suited them just fine.

Lara looked around surreptitiously, trying to look as if she belonged behind a police desk. One of the female officers walked over to them, carrying a manila envelope. "Here you go," she said with a smile, the eyes lingering just a little too long over Lara's body with admiration, then she went back to her desk. Lara turned to David and whispered, "Am I wearing a sign that says, 'Make A Pass At Me'?"

"You're irresistable, get used to it." David smiled.

Lara sighed and took out the stack of photos, looking them over. Instead of looking at the body, she concentrated on looking over the crime scene, passing each one to David as she finished examining them. Instead of making a neat stack like Lara did, David systematically arranged the photos around the desk, setting up a "big picture" look at them. "Anything, Lara?"

"Look at the second group of seven pictures. Those marks look like the sigils used by the Order of St. Hermes."

"I saw the marks, but what do they mean?"

"They're used for certain forbidden rituals involving sacrifices. They're abominations cannibalized from exorcism rituals."

"Sounds gruesome. Could they be anything else?"

"Unlikely. What are you getting?"

"A theory. But this only looks like part of the puzzle. There's something missing." He looked them over. "We've got a pattern, though. Lara, tell me about these rituals."

"During the Dark Ages, the Order of St. Hermes was the part of the Catholic Church dedicated to knowledge of other occult practices. To defend themselves against evil spiris, they created wards and circles to protect themselves against the influence of those hostile spirits."

"Demons."

"Among other things, yes. These symbols were used to keep the soul from being released, trapping them to where they could be addressed and banished. The thing of it is, these are incorrectly used."

"You lost me."

"Think of it like someone using an ambulance as a moving van. The ambulance is intended for one purpose, but adapted for another. Same for these runes..."

David nodded, then went back to the inventory of the crime scenes. As he pored over the evidence, something caught his eye. He tapped the intercom. "Sergeant, bring in the letters from the crime scene."

"You have an idea, Dave?"

"Better. A hunch."

The policeman brought in the letters and David looked through them, picking out ones from each of the crime scenes. "This one's from the first murder...and this one's from the second...and this one just came in from the third."

"What's your hunch?"

"These murders were planned for a purpose. People with purposes like these tend not to be modest. Comes from a deep-seated need to prove that they're smarter than the rest of the planet....yeah. I think we just got our first lead." He tapped the intercom. "Call Kellaway, get him in here now."

Kellaway looked at David as they rode the helicopter at breakneck speed towards Beverly Hills. "Okay, hotshot, why are we all rushing to Haylie Straw's house?"

David held up the three letters, all copied onto transparency paper. "The perp sent us a warning for the two successive murders."

"Those were poems sent from different addresses, different handwriting. They're clean."

"Not quite. If you examine the letters a little more closely, all of them have different handwriting for the letters...but the handwriting's the same on the signature. Look at the names. Jason Rathbone, Arthur Indias, Carl Praetorius."

One of the rookies in the back of the helicopter caught it. "They're all actors who've played villains in movies. Rathbone played Moriarty, Indias played Fu Manchu and Praetorius played Mr. Big." Everyone turned to look at the rookie.

The rookie shrugged, blushing slightly. "I took Theatre in college."

"Okay, genius," Kellaway said to David, "but apart from the names, which could be a coincidence..."

"Take the first poem." He placed one of the transparencies on a projector. "If you take the third letter after every comma and every second letter at the start of every line..." David took a marker and singled out the letters, spelling a name: Mary-Jericha Jones. It also spelled out a body part: Lungs. "The second victim had her lungs removed, right?"

"Holy shit..." said the officer to David's left. Lara smiled as she sat across from David in the passenger cabin; she enjoyed watchin David's mind at work.

"Now look at the second letter found at the second murder. This time, as you can see..." David put up the second transparency, already marked, "...the code spells out: 'Brittany Pierson, Liver'." He turned back to the other policemen assembled there. "And then there's the third letter. As soon a I decoded it, I called you." He handed it to Kellaway, who spelled out the marked letters: "Haylie Straw, Heart." "Why Haylie Straw?"

"I can only guess, based on the motivations of our perp, that he was unhappy with some of Haylie's roles as an actress since she earned the Oscar. In the next few roles, as I recall, she played characters who were a little 'randy', to put it nicely. And since our boy looks down on that sort of thing..."

"Christ...the press'll have a field day with this."

"Not if we stop him," Lara said levelly. "What was the last contact anyone had with Ms. Straw?"

"Her publicist said she was seen leaving a party just over an hour ago, heading for home. Our ETA is twelve minutes."

"Let's hope she's got good security." David looked out the window at the lights of Hollywood below. As he did, Lara looked at David with concern. It was easy for her to see that this case was becoming personal for him. She knew how he acted when things got personal for him and hoped he'd be able to stay objective.

"Car's in the garage..." David put his hand on the hood, drawing it away quickly. "Engine's hot."

Kellaway nodded. "Alright Connors, Croft, both of you back off. We'll take it from here and we'll do the talking."

David nodded with a roll of his eyes. "Of course. You've got a shot at Police Commissioner to think about."

Kellaway shot David a dirty look and headed for the door, a squad of men on his heels. David and Lara followed behind, but not too close behind. Kellaway walked to the door and knocked loudly. "Ms. Straw, it's the police!!" he yelled. "This is an emergency!!"

No answer, not even from a servant. Kellaway pounded on the door. "MS. STRAW!"

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Lara took a running jump and leaped up to the second-floor window, climbing in and looking around. She walked through the bedroom quickly and looked down the hallway.

Down in the courtyard, Kellawa swore and looked at David. "If she disturbs evidence I'll have you both shipped back to England in boxes!" He spun back towards the door as it opened, revealing the pale face of Lara Croft. "What's going on?"

"It's bad..." Lara Croft said hollowly. The police rushed in and David followed behind, looking at Lara with worry.

"Lara, what's wrong?"

"Don't go up there, Dave."

Lara's tone was scaring him. "I have to, Lara, it's a crime scene."

"Dave, please..."

David looked at her, then headed upstairs. He passed two small groups of policemen kneeling next to a maid and a butler, both prone and unmoving. He stopped at the master bedroom and looked inside.

It was a bloodbath, literally.

The entire room was spattered with blood, thick red liquid dripping down from the walls and the furniture. Kellaway stood amid the gore, plastic booties protecting his shoes, as well as the other feet in the room. The blood-soaked carpet made squelching noises as he walked around to a section of wall that didn't have a uniform coat of blood on it. Instead of a thin layer of blood, there were letters, words written in blood on the vanity mirror:

LARA CROFT, YOU'RE NEXT.

David stared at the message, then turned to Kellaway. The lieutenant wasn't angry anymore, at least not at Lara.

"Scour this room...there's has to be some kind of clue. Every object gets catalogued." Kellaway turned to David. "You better get out of here. This place is going to be a media frenzy all too quickly. I'll call you both when we clear the crime scene."

David didn't answer. He turned and walked out of the room to find Lara standing there, still pale, but trying not to look alarmed. David knew she was, however.

Somewhere, out in the darkness, there was an invisible enemy who seemed to attack and murder without fear or obstruction, and could disappear without a trace...and who knew Lara was in town within a day of her arrival.

"Come on, Lara...let's get some sleep," he said comfortingly. He knew, unfortunately, that neither of them would be sleeping well that night.

Ten minutes after they left, one of the detectives, a woman named Jo Morelli, saw something under the comatose form of the butler. She rolled the body over slightly, revealing a slim metal object. She picked it up to get a better look at it.

As she touched it, her eyes went glassy for a few seconds, then turned back to normal. Her lips curled into a vicious smile, so vicious and wide that it hurt to wear it.

"Jo?"

Jo turned back, a neutral expression on her face. "Yeah?"

"Find anything?" Kellaway asked.

Jo shook her head. "Nothing so far."

"Alright, let me know if you find a lead." Kellaway walked off to the main part of the house as the medical examiners arrived.

Jo nodded, then slipped the scalpel under her sleeve when she was sure no one was looking. She then stood up, heading downstairs. She passed Kellaway and said idly, "I'll check the garage, see if I can find anything."

"Good. Let Griggs know."

"You got it." Jo walked through the hall to the kitchen, then towards the garage. Just outside in th garage, hidden among some clothes boxes and tools sat a small cooler. She opened it up and looked inside.

Jo smiled as she regarded the still warm heart within the cooler. "There you are...not too much longer. Then the fun can really begin."

She closed it and walked to her patrol car. She realized there was much to do before the night was over, and she was more than prepared for it.

She was, to coin a phrase, crazy for it...

TO BE CONTINUED...