Toronto – 1:00 AM, Bloor Street West

The city never truly slept, but at this hour, it rested. The busy hum of life had faded to a distant murmur—occasional car engines growling in the distance, a siren wailing somewhere far away, the low, steady pulse of neon lights flickering against wet pavement.

The Back Nine Sports Bar had shut its doors for the night, its last, lingering patrons spilling out onto the sidewalk with unsteady steps and slurred goodbyes. The scent of stale beer clung to the air, mixing with exhaust fumes and the cold bite of early morning dampness.

Among the departing crowd was one man, staggering slightly as he adjusted his wrinkled suit jacket. He had come here looking for company, for the warmth of someone else's laughter, the brief illusion that life wasn’t as empty as it felt. Instead, he'd found himself alone at the bar, muttering to himself, drowning his sorrows one glass at a time.

Now, he walked home alone, his breath thick with the scent of alcohol. He barely noticed the way the night had changed, the way the usual background noise of the city had grown distant. He should have noticed.

But he didn’t.

His apartment was only a few blocks away. He knew the route well enough—even drunk, even on autopilot. Instead of sticking to the well-lit sidewalk, he veered left, stepping into the narrow side streets, just like he always did.

The alleyways behind Bloor were shortcuts, unassuming and quiet, lined with old brick buildings and rusting dumpsters. He’d walked them before, a dozen times, a hundred, without a second thought.

Tonight, though, they felt...different.

A thin layer of mist curled along the ground, clinging to the pavement like ghostly fingers. The buildings around him seemed taller, pressing in, their windows dark, like hollowed-out eyes watching his every move.

The buzz of the city felt muted, as though he had stepped through an invisible veil into another world—one that was quieter, heavier, wrong in a way he couldn’t quite name.

His steps slowed. A prickling unease crawled up the back of his neck.

Something was off.

He turned his head slightly, eyes darting toward the mouth of the alley. The neon lights from the bar were still visible, casting faint colors onto the street. He considered turning back.

Then—a sound.

Soft. Deliberate.

Not a distant voice, not the scurry of a rat, not the rustling of a plastic bag caught in the wind.

This was something else.

The kind of sound a blade makes when it’s drawn slowly from leather.

His breath caught.

Slowly, too slowly, he turned.

At first, he saw nothing. Just the empty alley stretching ahead, lined with garbage bins and discarded cardboard boxes. A single streetlamp buzzed weakly above, casting an anemic pool of yellow light.

Then—movement.

A figure, stepping out from behind a dumpster. Tall. Lean. Moving with a deliberate slowness that made his stomach twist.

The stranger stopped just outside the reach of the light, standing where the shadows were thickest. But the man could make out one thing.

A pair of pale blue eyes, locked onto him. Unblinking.

His breath hitched.

"Hey," he croaked, forcing his voice into something steadier. "What the hell, man?"

The stranger didn’t respond.

Didn’t move.

Just watched.

His skin crawled. The bar had been full of drunks, idiots spoiling for fights—but this was different. This wasn’t a mugger, wasn’t some kid looking for trouble. This was wrong.

His pulse pounded in his ears. He glanced toward the street behind him, debating if he should run—

The figure took a step forward.

Then another.

Slow. Precise.

A glint of silver in the dark.

A knife.

The man sucked in a sharp breath, heart hammering against his ribs. His mouth went dry.

"Look, I don’t want any trouble," he muttered, forcing his hands up. "I don’t got much cash on me, man. Just—just take what you want."

Still, no response.

Only the faintest tilt of the head. Studying him.

Like he was meat.

Then—the attack.

A blur of motion.

Pain erupted across his stomach, hot and wet.

He gasped, stumbling back, hands flying to the wound—warm blood spilled through his fingers. He barely had time to register it before—

Another cut.

This time across his throat.

A sharp, deep slice.

His knees buckled. His breath hitched, then gurgled, as if his lungs were filling with water. He tried to speak, to plead, but the words died in his throat, lost in the growing wetness spilling down his chest.

He collapsed onto his side, his vision tilting, the dim streetlight above blurring into a soft, golden haze.

The killer knelt beside him.

The last thing he saw—those pale blue eyes.

Cold. Calculating. Curious.

A voice, low and measured, whispered in his fading consciousness.

"You should’ve stayed at the bar."

Darkness swallowed him.

And the Bloor Bloodletter left another masterpiece in his wake.

***

Toronto – Two Days After Montreal

The heavy oak doors of Penrose Manor closed behind her with a solid thunk, echoing through the stillness of the foyer like punctuation. Coraline Penrose leaned against the wall just inside, her breath catching in her throat—not from exertion, but from something heavier. Weariness. Disillusionment.

Montreal was behind her.

 But not the way it haunted her.

She’d stopped Alfonso Ruso. She’d worked with the Midnights. She had even found something resembling kinship with Laura Locke. But Jean Bellrose—Monsieur Minuit—had left her with a rot she couldn’t scrub clean.

A vigilante on the take.

A man behind a mask who had once sworn to serve justice… now a puppet for the mob.

It should’ve been unthinkable. But it happened. It happened right in front of her.

Coraline pushed off the wall and moved through the grand halls of the manor, shedding her coat like it was armor she no longer needed. Her heels clicked against the marble, sharp and solitary, a staccato rhythm of thoughts she couldn’t shake.

Jean had worn the mask of justice while pocketing blood money.

And Coraline had helped expose him.

So why did it still feel like failure?

She paused near the mantle in her father’s study, fingers brushing against the old photograph that sat there. Her grandfather, Reggie Penrose aka the Silver Fox, stared out at her from the past—sharp-eyed, debonair, a man who had once moved through the criminal underworld like a ghost. He had believed in rules, in lines that could not be crossed.

But what good were rules when the people who wore masks didn’t follow them?

Coraline exhaled slowly, resting her hands on the back of a leather chair as her mind spiraled.

If Jean could fall—so could others.

How many more masks were hiding monsters underneath?

A familiar voice cut through her thoughts.

“Don’t suppose you brought me a croissant, did you?”

Coraline turned, a ghost of a smirk finding its way to her lips.

 “Next time I go toe-to-toe with the Mob, I’ll pencil in a pastry run.”

John stood in the doorway with his usual mix of bedhead and brilliance, holding a steaming mug of coffee that smelled like it could resurrect the dead. He slid it across the table as she stepped into the kitchen, settling into her usual chair like muscle memory.

“Welcome home, boss.” He handed her a newspaper—well, what pretended to be one. The Toronto Mask wasn’t exactly Pulitzer material, but it was good at sniffing out the kind of weird that fell between the cracks of official channels. Vigilantes, Specials, cryptids, conspiracy theories. She’d scoff at it, if it hadn’t turned out right more often than she'd care to admit.

She took a sip of the coffee—jet fuel with a hint of vanilla—and glanced down at the headline.

THREE DEAD NEAR BLOOR STREET IN JUST AS MANY WEEKS — ARE POLICE HIDING A MONSTER?

She raised an eyebrow.

John folded his arms, already waiting for her reaction. “Yeah. Thought that might catch your eye.”

Coraline scanned the subheadings—unconfirmed reports of surgical mutilation, victims found with missing organs, no suspects, no security footage, no comment from the RCMP.

“Someone’s trying very hard not to say ‘serial killer,’” she muttered.

“Or the cops are trying to keep the lid on something nastier,” John offered. “There’s chatter on the back channels. Words like ‘butcher,’ ‘surgeon,’ even one mention of ‘cannibal.’ But no names. Just fear.”

Coraline tapped the edge of the mug, her mind shifting gears.

Bloor Street. Surgical cuts. No evidence.

This wasn’t sloppy work. This was precise. Cold. Deliberate.

“This feel like a Special to you?” she asked.

John shrugged. “Feels like someone who knows their way around a rib cage.”

She set the mug down, her eyes narrowing on the paper.

“Get me the files. Autopsy leaks, crime scene chatter—whatever you can pull from the darker corners.”

John nodded. “On it.”

Coraline didn’t say the word.

But hunt was already blooming in her chest.

The Vulpes had dealt with her share of killers.

Mob enforcers. Hired guns. Specialists who smiled when they twisted the knife. She’d stood across rooftops from gangland legends, slipped through the cracks of the city’s worst-kept secrets. She’d even survived her first encounter with a full-blown costumed madwoman—Psychedelic—whose chaos-fueled rampage through Toronto left the streets reeling and Coraline with a fresh scar and a new understanding of madness.

But this? This was different.

She didn’t need to read between the lines. The press was already painting it as a new urban legend. The blogs were worse, speculating wildly. A few were even daring to whisper it—Canada’s Jack the Ripper.

Coraline’s fingers tightened around her coffee mug, the porcelain groaning faintly in her grip.

The article described it clinically: “Methodical mutilation,” “surgical precision,” “bodies drained of blood.” But the spaces between the words told the real story. Whoever was behind it wasn’t just killing—they were carving. A butcher with a scalpel. A monster who didn’t kill to escape or survive or send a message.

They killed to create.

Each body was arranged, like a gallery exhibit. One officer had leaked that the latest victim’s spine had been displayed like a sculpture. Another claimed that parts were... missing. Taken. Trophies, they said.

No one wanted to use the C-word. But the possibility clung to the case like a shadow.

Cannibal.

Bloodletter, they called him.

A crude name, but not inaccurate.

Her city had seen plenty of blood spilled—some by her hand, when there was no other choice. But this wasn’t about turf or vengeance or even power.

This was ritual.

This was sick and twisted art.

And as much as she wished Montreal had been her hardest challenge, something in her gut told her the Bloodletter was just beginning.

She closed the file, her breath steady, cold.

"This isn't a drug dealer or a mob prince," she murmured aloud. "This is someone who wants to be caught… just to see who comes looking."

And she was going to find him.

One way or another.

Still—she had to check herself.

Because in this world, the usual suspects didn’t always wear human skin.

Until she had more evidence, Coraline knew she couldn’t assume this was a run-of-the-mill serial killer. There were real monsters out there—vampires, werewolves, rogue AIs, even the odd renegade super soldier whose programming had snapped in the wrong back alley. Hell, it could be a hitter getting creative. Making statements with entrails, because someone paid them to be memorable. Wouldn’t be the first time.

But even with all that…

Her training in criminology was screaming.

This felt personal. Controlled. Ritualistic.

And her instincts—razor-honed from a lifetime of walking the line between evidence and impulse—told her she was right. Until something proved otherwise, she was moving forward under one working assumption:

They had a serial killer in Toronto. 

And he was only getting started.

***

Elsewhere – An ally near Bloor Street

The alley was already taped off, flashing red-and-blue lights painting the brickwork in grim pulses as uniformed officers moved with stiff, uneasy motions.

A body was being loaded into the coroner’s van—zippered, bagged, and out of sight—but its absence hung thick in the air, like the blood hadn’t been cleaned, like the horror still lingered between the damp walls.

One officer stood near the edge of the scene, his face pale and his coffee untouched. “Ten years on the force,” he muttered to no one in particular, “never seen anything like this. Not even close.”

A crime scene photographer crouched nearby, snapping a final shot of the chalk outline before shaking his head. “They’re saying RCMP’s taking over. Guess it’s above our paygrade now.”

As if on cue, a black RCMP cruiser pulled up, its tires crunching softly on broken glass.

The passenger door opened.

And Detective Olivia “Liv” Benoit stepped out.

Trim and composed, she moved like a woman born in crime scenes—confident, practiced, with the calm stillness of someone who’d seen worse than this but never let it harden her. Her RCMP coat flared slightly as she walked, a badge clipped neatly at her waist and a pair of latex gloves already in her hand.

Shoulder-length dark brown hair was tied back in a tight ponytail—practical, professional. Hazel eyes scanned the scene with surgical precision, flicking from trace markings on the walls to the footprints half-hidden beneath the plastic sheeting. Every detail mattered. Every missed piece might cost another life.

“Detective Benoit?” one of the city officers asked, trying not to sound too relieved.

She gave a short nod. “Walk me through it.”

The officer hesitated, then handed her a preliminary report. “Victim’s male, mid-to-late forties. No ID yet. Multiple deep lacerations, heavy blood loss, but the body itself was—” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “—rearranged.”

Liv’s jaw tightened. She didn’t flinch, didn’t frown—but her eyes said enough.

“And blood?” she asked.

The officer shook his head. “Practically none left at the scene. EMTs said he looked like a husk. Like he’d been drained.”

Liv crouched beside a puddle near the dumpster, eyes narrowing at the faint reddish residue caught in the cracks of the concrete. Her fingers ghosted above it—not touching, just feeling.

“No drag marks,” she murmured. “So he wasn’t killed elsewhere. This was the site.”

“Yeah,” the officer said quietly. “Right here. Broad alley. No cameras. No witnesses.”

Liv stood again, glancing toward the rooftops. “Someone knew this street. Knew the angles. The blind spots.” She flipped through the preliminary photos on the tablet handed to her. “Clean cuts. No hesitation marks. Whoever did this didn’t just want to kill him. They wanted to display him.”

Another officer swallowed hard. “Like some kind of message?”

“No,” Liv said softly, turning back toward the body bag. “More like… a signature.”

She didn’t say the name, not yet. But it was already forming on everyone’s lips.

The headlines were calling him the Bloor Street Bloodletter.

And Olivia Benoit had a feeling this was only the beginning.

Liv exhaled slowly, a breath measured and heavy with calculation.

This was bad.

Toronto was already teetering—gang violence was on the rise, crime syndicates were locking horns over territory, and Specials with god complexes were becoming more common than morning traffic. The last thing this city needed was some Jack the Ripper wannabe turning alleyways into operating tables.

She stepped deeper into the scene, scanning the alley one last time.

The crime site was—she had to admit—cleaner than expected. Too clean.

No careless footprints. No spatter trail. No fibers, no discarded gloves, no DNA. The blood had pooled only where he wanted it to. The scene was composed, not chaotic.

This wasn’t a spree killer losing control.

This was someone who thought it through.

 Someone who planned.

If this killer wanted to be caught, they weren’t going to make it easy.

She took a final look at the chalk outline and the now-empty space where the body had been. Then she turned back to the officers still milling about behind the tape.

“Alright,” she said, her voice even but firm, “I’m heading back to the station. I want full access to the case files—any similar patterns, unsolveds from the last year, city-wide, not just Toronto. Pull from Montreal and Ottawa too, just in case this is someone on the move.”

A few of the officers nodded.

She looked at them a beat longer. “And watch your backs. This one’s smart. Careful. Calculated.”

Liv paused at the edge of the scene, glancing back once more at the alley before adding, almost as an afterthought:

“Stay safe out there, boys.”

Then she climbed into her cruiser and pulled into the early morning street, taillights disappearing into the mist that still clung to Bloor like the city didn’t want to let go of the blood it had swallowed.