Her Name Is Murder

one

Murder peered out from the backstage area. The venue was packed. She was finally back in New York City, her town.

Murder loved it here most of all. She'd lived in many major cities, and a few minor ones too, but this was the one. This was home. This time she wasn't leaving.

She had a plan.

The lights went down, her intro music played. This was Murder LaVoe's first official concert as "Lady Dreamscapes."

Murder walked to the front of the stage as the single spotlight lit her moon-white skin. As she took another step forward, her long wavy red hair caught the light, and her large green eyes shone through her golden masquerade mask like the rarest emeralds.

The crowd was quickly silenced as if their breath had instantly, and singularly, been taken away. She loved this part. She lived for it. No matter how tough things got, performing made it all worth it. That, and Levi. He was right there in the front row, as usual, smiling that roguish smile and flashing devilishly white teeth. She had lamented his queerness on a near daily basis for at least a half century, but she had grown to love him like a brother.

She picked up the violin from its stand at the front of the stage. Levi began clapping and cheering as the audience followed his lead. He had knocked them from their stupor. She began with a classic and technically perfect rendition of Greensleeves. As she played, she gracefully waltzed to the riser which was set upstage center. Her green dress whipped around her legs like long uncut blades of grass. She thought of the blades she'd run through in France almost 500 years ago.

Murder played to a microphone on the riser which took her last bars and looped them. She hung the violin on a player's stand and began playing the KORG synthesizer below it. Greensleeves transformed slowly into Secret by the Pierces.

As she sang the words, she imagined the Pierces were like her. Mostly Immortal, sentenced to keep a secret they probably couldn't. She sang the last line to her first arrangement for the evening with a knowing grin that told the crowd she wouldn't be revealing her identity to them anytime soon.

"'Cause two can keep a secret if one of them is—" A shot rang out from the back of the room as Lady Dreamscapes fell to the stage.

Levi shot up. Security was already converging on the stage. He turned toward the balcony. He could see the shooter running. He knew where the balcony stairs let out into the lobby and he thought he could certainly beat her there.

He hadn't though. As he arrived, he saw her at the front door, raven black hair, mask... no, bandana, obscuring her lower face. She ran through the door to the seat of a strategically parked blood-red Aventador. She winked at Levi as she sped away without even stopping to pull the door down.

Murder sat up. She looked at her arm; it was merely grazed and healing quickly. She turned and grabbed a towel from the riser to cover it with. The security guard offered her a hand, which she took, righted herself, and then planted a peck on his stubbled cheek. "Thank you for the assistance, dear." Her accent was one of a woman who had travelled all over Europe, vaguely British but with so many other tones. It was refined to a point where no one would be able to pin down her birthplace from it.

She tied the towel around her arm and picked up an ornate guitar from a nearby stand. She walked to the microphone, "'Tis merely a scratch! I'm afraid it takes better aim than that to finish off a Lady!" The crowd cheered, but then groaned, as a police officer walked up and onto the stage.

He stepped to the microphone and cleared his throat. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this area is now a crime scene, and you are all witnesses. Unfortunately, this lovely young lady needs a doctor and we need to interview as many of you as possible." The crowd slumped into their seats, wholly disheartened.