The city didn't even have time to bury its dead before Carmen chose the next move.
She sat at the kitchen table, legs crossed, the fire burning low and mean behind her. The newspaper lay spread before her, headlines shrieking about the massacre at the theatre, names of the dead printed in bold ink like prayers no one would answer.
Julian smoked by the window, the smoke wreathing him like a second skin.
Callum sprawled across the couch, boot tapping a slow, impatient rhythm against the stained wood floor.
Carmen tapped a finger against the newspaper once, twice, a surgeon marking where the incision would begin.
"The city leaders will meet," she said, voice soft, almost bored. "Emergency sessions. Strategy. They'll pretend they can fix this."
Julian snorted, flicking ash onto the floor.
"They're already bleeding out. They just don't know it yet."
Callum grinned, the cut across his cheek still raw from a street fight two nights ago, a bright slash against the pale of his skin.
Carmen smiled, small and private.
"Then we'll make them know."
The meeting was scheduled at the High Court.
Marble floors. Crystal chandeliers. Paintings of men who thought they could outlive their own mistakes.
Perfect.
Carmen didn't want blood this time.
She wanted fear.
Real fear.
Not the kind that came from dead actresses and butchered merchants.
The kind that came from understanding you were not safe in the halls you built to protect yourself.
The plan was simple.
Brutal.
Callum would breach the court during the meeting.
He would leave one of the bodies — not just dead.
Ruined.
Something so terrible no one could mistake it for anything but a message.
Carmen would handle the second part — planting evidence in the mayor's office that pointed nowhere and everywhere at once.
A spiral carved into the inside of a desk drawer.
A blood-stained ribbon tucked inside a law book.
Symbols without meaning. Meaning without mercy.
Enough to crack their minds open and let the fear crawl in.
The night before, Carmen stood on the roof with Julian, watching the fog roll over the city like a living thing.
"It's almost beautiful," Julian said, lighting a cigarette.
Carmen didn't smile.
"Rot usually is," she said.
He turned to her, something sharp flickering in his gaze.
"And after?"
Carmen looked out over the rooftops, the alleys, the dim yellow glow of windows where people still believed in safety.
"After," she said, "we find another city."
Julian smiled, slow and sure.
The spiral was never meant to end.
It was meant to devour.
Hargreave didn't sleep.
He hadn't for days.
He sat in the dark, watching the city through the cracked window, the bloodshot reflection of his own eyes staring back at him.
He had tried to save it once.
Believed in something bigger than himself.
Law.
Order.
Justice.
Now he saw it for what it was — a veneer stretched over rot, cracking at the seams.
He saw Carmen in his dreams now.
Not her face.
Never her face.
Just the suggestion of her — a figure standing in the flames, smiling as the world burned down around her.
He poured another glass of whiskey with a hand that didn't shake anymore.
He knew what he had to do.
It wasn't about catching them.
It wasn't even about stopping them.
It was about making sure the city didn't forget who had let the wolves inside the gates.
Even if he had to become worse than them to do it.
Callum struck during the second hour of the meeting.
The guards never saw him coming.
The secretary never screamed — he was dead too fast for that.
Callum carved him open from collarbone to pelvis, arranging the body carefully across the polished marble floor, a spiral of intestines looping outward like a grotesque bloom.
By the time the council members realized what was happening, it was already over.
Callum was gone, slipping through the hidden servant's passageways built for men who thought themselves too important to walk among the common filth.
Carmen watched from the upper balcony, gloved hands resting lightly on the railing.
When the first scream ripped through the court, she closed her eyes and listened.
Not like someone savoring a triumph.
But like someone listening to a song they had heard a thousand times before and still found beautiful.
Julian joined her moments later, brushing dust from his coat sleeve.
"Did you leave the evidence?"
Carmen nodded.
"They'll blame each other first."
Julian smiled.
"And when that fails?"
Carmen's smile was sharper, hungrier.
"They'll blame the dark."
By nightfall, the city was a pressure cooker.
Panic seethed under every cobblestone.
Anyone who looked wrong, dressed wrong, walked wrong was a suspect.
The papers ran headlines screaming about cults, demons, anarchists.
No one said what Carmen already knew.
It was none of those things.
It was just people.
Hungry.
Broken.
Free.
In the flat, Callum polished his knife, his mouth twitching in a grin that was too wide, too eager.
Carmen watched him for a long time.
She knew he wouldn't last.
Not like Julian.
Not like her.
Callum was a firecracker.
Brilliant.
Destructive.
Short-lived.
But for now, he burned bright enough.
For now, he would carry the spiral a little further.
Julian poured whiskey into three glasses.
Callum drank first, laughing.
Carmen drank second, her eyes never leaving the window where the city churned below.
Julian drank last, his smile thin and private.
The spiral turned.
The city bled.
And none of them looked back.