The system had confirmed: counterfeit bills. Jude felt no particular guilt about burning them.
What concerned him was scale. Producing this volume of fake currency, hiding it this effectively—that required serious organization. Professionals with resources. Which meant if they caught whoever burned their stockpile, the response would be focused and methodical. Not random street violence. Not opportunistic shootout chaos. This would be hunting.
Being targeted by organized criminals was exponentially more dangerous than bus crashes or restaurant gunfights. Those had been chaotic, survivable through luck and hiding. This would be systematic. They wouldn't stop until the problem was solved permanently.
"System, can you confirm nobody saw me enter?"
Silence. He opened the interface, pulled up his infiltration route, and submitted it to the Q&A function.
Cost: $1.
Infiltration process evaluated. Status: Covert. No witnesses detected.
Worth every point.
"In that case..." He stared at the green mountain, licked the corner of his mouth unconsciously.
"Might as well get to work."
Glug glug glug glug.
Gasoline poured from the barrel, splashing across bundled notes. The pungent chemical smell saturated the air immediately. He couldn't exactly walk to a gas station and haul fuel back here, and the warehouse didn't conveniently stock accelerants for its own destruction.
So: system mall. Another expenditure, but necessary.
He emptied the barrel across the money mountain, watching the colorful bills darken with accelerant. An irrational pang hit him—lizard-brain distress from someone who counted pennies and had just doused more cash than he'd earn in years. These pretty rectangles would be ash in moments.
Not a rational response. Had to be done. Counterfeit currency was useless. The system's rewards were invaluable—twenty thousand asset points for this job. Intermediate skills. Quality equipment. Maybe enough savings for something expensive down the line.
He struck a long match—also purchased from the mall—and placed it carefully on the gasoline-soaked floor. It would burn slowly, giving him time to clear the building before ignition. Makeshift timer. When the match reached its root, it would light the accelerant.
No reason to watch.
He turned and ran.
Distance equaled safety. The farther he was when the fire started, the less likely anyone would connect him to it. Following the evacuation route, he deployed his newly purchased climbing skills and scrambled back up and out. Fortunately, the exit didn't require advanced technique. No need to spend more points upgrading.
A dark figure emerged from the warehouse exterior like a spider—all wrong angles and desperate efficiency. It dropped to the street, slipped into the Halloween crowds, and disappeared.
The white ghost mask went back on. Just another costume.
Moments after the ghost vanished, fire erupted inside.
Flames roared. Thick smoke mixed with gasoline fumes and burning paper billowed into the street, carrying the distinctive smell of incinerated money.
"Someone call 911! That building's on fire!"
"Call the GCPD!"
In the chaos and gathering crowd, nobody noticed the figure in the black robe slipping away through clusters of costumed revelers.
"He was shot twice in the head. I can tell you a less evil person wouldn't have met this end."
"District Attorney Dent." The voice came from the shadows, steady and authoritative. "I don't want to hear you say that again—publicly or privately. Focus on the evidence."
Both Gordon and Harvey fell silent immediately. The voice belonged to someone who commanded natural authority—whose thinking was always methodical, analytical, capable of seeing patterns others missed.
Batman stepped forward into the dim bathroom light.
"A .22 caliber pistol left at the scene. Grip wrapped, serial number filed. The killer knew how to thwart investigation. Professional experience or significant knowledge of firearms and forensics."
"Baby pacifier as makeshift suppressor," Gordon added. "Cheap but effective."
Batman paused before addressing the third piece of evidence. Not because it was subtle—the opposite. At this murder scene, it stood out like a flare in darkness.
All three turned their attention to it.
"I don't want to be misled by this," Gordon said carefully, searching for words, "but it's..."
The pumpkin lantern sat on the bathroom floor, carved face twisted in apparent agony. The expression evoked strange aesthetic qualities—shadows of classical composition, hints of impressionist technique, surrealist finishing touches. All compressed into one small, spectacularly hideous gourd.
"It's unbearably ugly," Harvey finished. "I've never seen a worse jack-o'-lantern in my life. If you carried this around, even on Halloween, everyone who saw it would stop and stare."
"It doesn't fit the killer's cautious profile," Batman said. "I understand the ritual aspect—leaving a jack-o'-lantern on Halloween. I don't understand this inconsistency in execution."
"Maybe he carved it himself?" Gordon suggested. "If he didn't buy it from a store, no paper trail."
"Even if he bought it somewhere, we'd never track it down." Harvey shook his head. "Thousands of people buy pumpkins for Halloween. Can we at least check for prints?"
"Unlikely. The lantern was wrapped in plastic." Gordon frowned. "But worth trying."
"Johnny Vitti." Batman's voice carried weight. "Who in Gotham is bold enough to kill him?"
Before anyone could answer, Gordon's phone rang.
He answered immediately. "Gordon."
His expression shifted from professional calm to genuine alarm.
"Commissioner Gordon!" The voice was panicked, loud enough for Harvey and Batman to hear fragments. "We have a situation—warehouse fire in the Diamond District—smoke everywhere—"
Gordon's knuckles went white.
"—hundred-dollar bills flying out of the smoke! Everything burning in there is money!"