Cassie: Part III
Usually tonight was Cassie’s Christmas, but this year it was a true nightmare. In the two years she had lived in New Orleans, she had never had competition. In fact she wasn’t quite sure how she had known it when she saw her, but she just did. It had been nothing short of instinctual, like watching one predator encroach on the other’s territory. The only problem was that her completion was older and presumably more experienced than she was. It was Darwin’s theory in motion and she was struggling to survive.
It had been a month since she last hunted. With the introduction of another beautiful killer, her life was filled with an entirely new fear. Her story about Elijah had convinced the police, but not Evey. Unfortunately that meant that Cassie had to avoid the Dungeon every night that Evey worked, which was five nights a week. She was getting anxious and twitchy. She needed to kill. 
She grabbed the bottle of Absinthe from the cabinet above her sink and took a long drink to settle her nerves. Regardless of Evey and her new found competition, who the bar tender at Aunt Tiki’s had called Aphrodite (an alias or nickname), tonight Cassie went back to work. Tonight was Halloween.
She went over the plan again in her head. She would only have to get rid of one body tonight. Her favorite she would save for last but at least one would fall victim to death on the streets. She dressed in skin tight black leather crop pants with combat boots and a blue laced corset that made her eyes seem to glow in the dark. Her eyes were one of her biggest allies and she planned to utilize them tonight. Her hand bag consisted of her favorite fake ID, one hundred dollars, some blue black lipstick, and a single vile with two milligrams of poison. She figured that should be plenty. She had attached a dropper to the top of the vile that measured one drop to a quarter of a milligram of poison. She wanted to kill enough to satisfy her craving, even if that meant poisoning them a little and leaving them for alcohol to do the rest. Even if an autopsy showed the venom, there was no record of her ever even coming in contact with it. She took one last look in the mirror and decided to throw on a black and blue checkered fedora that matched her corset, and then walked out the door for a fanciful night.
The streets were jammed packed with people long before the sun set. Scantily dressed women claiming to be “zombie” or “vampire” victims outnumbered the underdressed male clientele at least three to one. Although these didn’t seem like good odds for her, Cassie loved a challenge, as long as it wasn’t against Aphrodite. Cassie never over dressed for Halloween. The natural cover of costume was enough fun for her since she was fully capable of operating without a cover. However, there were those who went above and beyond in their outfits. Three younger men dressed as the Blue Man Group were wandering Bourbon Street annoying the bartenders without a word, a couple posing as Mickey and Mallory Knox could have passed as the real deal, and there was a twenty something dressed as Princess Leia in the gold bikini almost made Cassie wish that she swung both ways.
The first two hours of the night were spent bar hopping and people watching. Cassie had perfected a plan for hunting, and although she usually only took one client a night, tonight she could handle at least two. She had acquired extra poison from the Golden Poison Frog in a black market purchase from one of the local voodoo shops. One milligram was enough to kill at least ten humans, and she had five milligrams. It had cost her a pretty penny and a favor since the priest, Karnak, knew exactly what she was capable of.
It wasn’t until right before her second kill that everything started to go wrong. Apparently Aphrodite, even dressed as such, didn’t believe in separating their shared hunting grounds. It was near midnight and the parties were just entering full swing. Cassie had been luring a twenty something dressed as a Viking for about an hour when Aphrodite showed up and broke all the rules of friendly competition. Not that Cassie expected it, but Aphrodite was ruthless.
His name was Chris. Cassie had gone to two bars and invested many fake smiles and giggles into this suspect. Apparently it wasn’t enough because the moment she walked in he was lost to her. Like a weak mined sailor to the most seductive siren, he turned and left her at the bar with Aphrodite’s first smile. Normally Cassie would have never given up as easily as she did that moment, but she wanted to enjoy herself. Soon the war would begin, but not tonight. Cassie left and found a goddess less bar and settled for a terribly annoying Chris Angel Kat Von D cross lookalike that couldn’t have been a better choice.
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