The Case of Hannah Louvre
There’s something lurking in this town.
Hannah Louvre was an art student — apt, given her last name — when I came upon her one December evening. She sat in a coffee shop, stirring what appeared to be an herbal tea that gave the appearance of lukewarm piss, and I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she sat unaware to my attention.
Death came in many guises, but the one I’d perfected over the years had treated me well: no one knew what I was from a glance because I always appeared homely and unassuming even to the best of them. I was not the type to be approached — yet I wasn’t the type to be outmatched either. That was for lesser beings.
“Is this seat taken?” I asked, soft as rain, after I had skulked close enough to be on the other end of Hannah’s table. She startled, looking up with a flash of recognition as if she could sense what I was — but then the awareness was gone the next instant, flared away by a confusion before settling into a blasé expression that made me feel all the bolder.
“By all means,” she said, gesturing to the seat, right before she retreated back to her handheld device that would be outdated in a year’s time. But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t going anywhere.
I could see the lifelines scattered around her head like a halo, tangled like a web…
