Magic Murders

The year was 1999:

Liverpool Police Officer Barbara Clarke, had recently been promoted to Detective. A terrifying murder mystery was about to meet her that very December, just days before Christmas day. Neighbours called the police to the Price residence, as they could smell rotten meat stinking from the basement next door to them. Any seasoned Police man (or anyone with a basic knowledge of criminology), could tell this could only mean one of many things including; death. Yet the officers on duty hoped that wasn't the case, even though they could smell the stench of rot and decay emit from the basement of the big fancy house, even from all the way outside. They found that the front door was left unlocked and blood stained the handle in the shape of a hand. There was a trail of red gore leading all the way from the front door to the house's basement. The cops equipped their tasers and approached with the utmost caution, Constable Daniels called for more back up and an ambulance, expecting the absolute worst! So they tapped the basement door open with their finger tips and watched/heard the wooden door creak open slowly and loudly. Before their eyes; the sight of the whole Price family were butchered like slaughtered pigs! There was blood everywhere, all over the walls and floorboards, it was as sickening as it was unbelievably terrifying. The kids were far too young to die, nevermind skinned, just like potatoes. The wife got the least of it, a slice to the throat, but she was hung upside down like a slaughtered pig, her drying blood still dripping in big fat blobs onto the hard concrete ground. The father however, Dave Price, he got the absolute worst of it! He was stabbed one hundred and eighty seven times, all over his body, from head to toe. The poor father was so horribly cut up, half his limbs were dismembered. He was unrecognisable, as his face was nothing but grotesque mince meat. It was crystal clear, even to the regular police constables, that whoever did this had a serious vendetta against Dave especially, but killed the whole family seemingly out of spite. Now Dave was a rich man, who may have had a lot of enemies, it was possible that a crime lord or mafia type gang did this to him and his family. That's what became the theory among the Liverpool police, who opened an investigation into this murder. The blood on the front door handle was tested, it was Dave's own blood, mixed in with traces of his son, daughter and wife's. Most disappointing of all, was that there weren't any fingerprints to be found on the handle either. Only patterns of leather, proving the killer (whoever he or she) was, wore gloves. However it was the local CCTV footage that caught the suspect in the act, but to the shock and disgust of everyone who worked at the police station; the killer was dressed like a comic book supervillain! It was a tall, skinny man, dressed like the character of Trickster, a Raven Girl rival, who always used magic tricks to rob banks and commit other similar crimes. Trickster arrived in a black car outside Dave's house, the vehicle had no license plate on the back of it, so it was untraceable. The killer crept in, then later, the basement lights were switched on. You could see this, because there were small glass windows under the porch, where a basement was built. It was hard to see, but eventually the windows would get splashed with red blood, even the light would turn a darker shade of orange, almost pink by the end of the bloody murders. Then the lights would switch off. Soon, Trickster would exit through the front door, covered head to toe in the family's blood, smile wickedly, dance a little bit and climb inside the black car he arrived in. There was a second passenger inside the vehicle that was waiting for him, an accomplice of the killer. This man was hard to make out, as the footage was quite grainy and low quality. Although it appeared as if he had the nose of a pig, one either disfigured into a snout after a horrible accident of some kind, or perhaps a birth defect. Detective Barbara Clarke reviewed the horrifying footage extensively. She thought she almost recognised the man dressed as Trickster, yet she couldn't put her finger on who it was exactly. So, soon a nation wide manhunt was called into action.

News channels broadcast stories about the murder, alongside footage of Trickster leaving the house, covered in blood, with his accomplice (that many had nicknamed; 'Pigface') leaving the scene. Suspect sketches were printed all over newspapers around all the big English cities like Liverpool, London and Manchester. People of all ages within Liverpool were terrified, as obviously this killer had no morals when it came to murder. He'd end anyone, regardless of their age. Some news channels even blamed violent comic books and film adaptations; for idolising super villains like Trickster in the first place, because it was quite clear that someone was a little too inspired by these thrilling stories of fiction. However, somewhere, deep in the dirty grime of the city, under the darkest corners of Liverpool, the killer was probably laughing. Enjoying every news article and headline that spoke of his murder. Whoever Trickster was, he didn't plan on anymore murders after killing Dave and his family. That was a revenge murder, for reasons Detective Barbara Clarke would soon discover. Yet, the killer adored this attention and the fear that came with it, he loved seeing his favourite comic book villain get so much attention in the media too and was more than proud to be the living embodiment of that evil comic character so much, that he decided to keep up this trend of brutal murders.

So on the night of Christmas Eve, he committed his second murder. This time it was televised, as TVs all over the country were hacked and shown the stage of Trickster's next magic murder. There was a wooden stage with red curtains behind it. That's all that millions of Britons saw on their television that night, for a short while at least. All programs and advertisements were interrupted to show this dim lit stage, filmed through an awfully low quality camera lens. Everyone stopped and stared in wonder or fear; as a woman dressed like a harlequin rolled out one long rectangle box on top of a rolling table with eight creaking wheels beneath it. Inside this red Christmas wrapped box was the body of a terrified woman, her mouth was bound with golden ribbon around her head, which was tied up into a decorative bow. The ginger haired harlequin bowed to the camera and smiled, before ballet dancing off of the stage excitedly. Then circus music played, as Trickster revealed himself from behind the red curtains. His smiling mustache waxed to perfection, his red blazer and black & white pinstripe pants were perfectly ironed too. He looked sensational, especially with his towering top hat, that was taller than normal. The woman trapped inside the box looked horrified, wiggling around, like a fish out of water!
"What's in the hat? Is it a cat?!" Some nasally voice laughed, from behind the camera.
"No not a cat!" Trickster grinned, stroking his hideous mustache, before removing the top hat and pulling something out, it was a, "big fat saw!" He laughed gleefully, as the blade was so tall it jiggled and made warping sounds. The camera man snickered wildly and wickedly, zooming in on the poor woman's face, whose eyes were bulging in frantic terror, looking up at the menacing saw blade! Then the video zoomed out to show Trickster sawing the blade into the rectangle box this poor woman was trapped inside of. Soon her muffled cries and screamed were heard under the gold ribbon around her mouth, as the saw got messy with blood and gore as it poked in and out of the box that encased her. Eventually, as this horrifying display finished, the woman stopped panicking and lay limp and lifeless; she had died, in front of millions of terrified viewers from all over the UK. Yet, this grotesque horror show was far from over! After her death, Trickster fiddled with a mechanism under the table, split it into two separate tables. Then he pulled them apart and the rectangle Christmas box was divided in two, the poor woman's entrails fell all over the stage floor in a big, bloody mess of guts.
"Ewww!" Trickster mocked, "must be her time of the month!"
The nasally voice behind the camera howled, absolutely howled in a fit of cruel, terrible laughter, loud, booming and disturbing. It was maniacal, wicked, unbelievably evil and foul. Yet Trickster's hyena laugh was somehow even more horrid to listen to, as it boomed even louder than this accomplice's, actually distorting the audio with how deafening it was to hear. The horrifying sound of a lunatic's joy, one that murdered purely for fun and 'entertainment'.
"Merry Christmas everyo-"
Then the video cut to 'technical difficulties' before eventually resuming with a news broadcast across all UK channels, discussing the nationwide hack that just took place. Many were horrified by what they just witnessed, it was a horrible out of date Halloween joke, one that almost everyone in the country despised. Yet, there were a few people who thought the footage was purely fictional, that it was all just special effects and clever staging. Others knew the dark, horrid truth however; it was real. Terrifyingly real. British police tracked down the signal from where the horrific murder was filmed. A whole squad of the SCO19 (Specialist Firearms Command) raided the old abandoned warehouse, where this murder was filmed. Unfortunately, Trickster and his goons were long gone. Not even the most skilled forensic could find any trace of him or his gang. The area in which this warehouse was, nobody had ventured there in decades. All CCTV had shut down because the area was a wasteland. To the frustration of Detective Clarke; Trickster had escaped with his crimes yet again. She did have a lead however, the woman found sawn in half, was the wife of a very successful car salesman by the name of Arthur Bennet, he actually owned the whole dealership and building. It was clear that Trickster was hunting down the richest people in Liverpool. The question was 'why?' but once that was answered, perhaps Detective Clarke would be one step closer to solving this case. So, with utmost embarrassment; she began reading the most iconic Raven Girl comics that featured the supervillain of Trickster. She did this in an attempt to discover what the comic character's motives were and to understand the reasons behind his actions. Detective Clarke kept this a secret from the rest of her team, not one of them would take her seriously for reading comics as 'research' during this murder investigation. Yet, she soon understood why Trickster was killing the people he killed. You see, this character (at least in the comic books) saw himself as a sort of Robin Hood, a man who wanted to dismantle the divide between the elites and peasants of society. Trickster was a character who acted posh and pompous, but secretly a rough speaking poor man who wanted to shatter the illusion of class. So with that information, Detective Clarke knew the real Trickster must've also been a man who hated the elite, one who sought to bring them down to his level. The story sounded familiar, long ago she remembered meeting someone just like that in her early days as a police constable, but for the life herself (and so many others); she just couldn't pinpoint who or when she met this person. Then she re-watched both videos of the Trickster killer, zooming in on his face, she could almost recognise the man behind the mustache, but not enough to say who he really was.

Then in the year 2000, January 13th (which so happened to be on a Friday), a wealthy family on holiday in the Scottish countryside were hunted down one by one. Who by? You guessed it, Trickster, the harlequin and Pigface. All of which chased after the father, wife and son of this family, leaving only the daughter, Cindy Luna, alive to tell her tale. She saw everything. The killings began early in the evening, when Trickster himself knocked at the cabin door they were staying in. The father of the family, he opened the door and met face to face with the living comic book supervillain.
"Why are you bothering us?!" The father barked.
"You've been selected my dear fellow!" Trickster began.
"Wait a minute... No, wait a minute, no! No! You're the guy, that television broadcast. Tha- that was you!"
"Ah..." Trickster frowned, "I had this whole scheme planned and everything, look outside I got a whole camera crew. Oh well, I guess." The mad man shrugged comically, "my sharp pointy wand will do!" He stabbed the father! Just like that, he pulled out his magician's wand that ended in a silver blade and jammed it straight into the poor Dad's stomach.
"No!" Screamed the mother.
"Ru- ru- run..." The father drooled fountains of blood, before fainting to the floor.
"Not quite the magic trick I had in mind..." Trickster grinned, wiping away the splattered blood that stained his perfectly ironed suit. The rest of the family ran through the back exit, sprinting blindly into the woods surrounding the cabin.
"I guess it's one of those horror movies!" Trickster howled like a hyena, as the three last family members screamed into the darkness. Cindy hid with her brother and mother in a cave full of bugs, moisture and sharp edges. It was a far cry from the nice cosy cabin they had stayed, or the big fancy house Cindy had grown up in. As the night dragged on, the voices of Trickster and his gang enclosed. So they all fled in different directions, because otherwise they'd all come into that damp little, dark cave. Cindy ran north and saw the Pignosed man chase her brother to the east, while the harlequin raced after her mother gleefully into the west. Trickster followed behind Cindy giggling joyfully, until she tripped over a log in the dark and busted her nose into the bark of a tree. When Trickster saw what became of her face, he stopped laughing. He looked down upon her grimly and said; "that happened to me..." Pointing at his crooked hooked nose. So he let her live, out of some bizarre twist of fate, Trickster felt pity for such a young girl to have her nose become crooked and broken just like his. Unfortunately the rest of Cindy's family were not so lucky.

Upon hearing this horror story, Detective Clarke's mind raced with memories. People told her about someone she cared about, one who broke their nose in hospital and never looked the same again. Yet she still couldn't picture this man or woman's face, almost like she hadn't actually seen it after the fact. Maybe it wasn't an adult, but a child she knew, that's why it upset her. Maybe whoever this Trickster character was, he were only a boy when she met him. However, Detective Clarke had helped many young boys when she was a police woman. Perhaps his current age would giveaway the identity of this man, so looked at the footage of him again. From the first and second murders. The man behind the costume looked young, perhaps early twenties, if not younger. She tried to picture his face without his misshapen nose, in a flash she saw a young boy's face. One that was scared and very, very alone. Still, she just couldn't quite remember who that was exactly. It was driving her crazy!

One night towards the end of January, Detective Clarke was so bored at home she decided to read one of those Raven Girl comics she bought, just for fun this time. To get her mind off the whole case, even if they did involve the supervillain Trickster in one way or the other. In this particular comic she read, the identity of Raven Girl was finally revealed to the world. Her name was Barbara Clarke.
"Wait..." Detective Clarke breathed, staring at the sans comic font that seemed to stand out loudly and brightly upon the pulp paper page of that comic. That was her name. She remembered now, someone had told her that. Back in the early 1990s, some kid, in the backseat of her police car.
"Whose that?" She remembered asking when the boy said her name was the same as Raven Girl's.
"Only my favourite superhero!" Romero said. That was his name, Romero! He had a bad father. A father named Dave. Dave Price and his family were Trickster's first victim. Trickster hates the upper class, but Romero lived a life of poverty. So maybe he saw a rich man with the same name of his father, one who lived a life of luxury. One whose kids lived in riches not rags. Romero was jealous. He's jealous of the rich, more so than most. Now Detective Clarke remembered her friend in child protective services, the woman was named Emily Cartwright and she wanted to know more about little Romero, as he tried to escape her and broke his nose running away, after he fell to the ground and smashed his face, exactly like Cindy did on night her family were murdered. Romero saw himself in that poor girl and let her live. Everything was clicking together at last! The last time she heard about Romero, was that he was living in an awful orphanage named Blackstate Manor. There was a chance, a slim one at that, but a lead nonetheless; that they would know enough information about Romero Price for Detective Clarke to discover his location.

So she and her partner, Detective Grimsby, drove to the old abandoned orphanage alone, as this was just a hunch, not much of a lead to warrant a whole police force behind her. Yet, upon arriving at the derelict mansion, she saw gangsters all over the place. They were all fashioned like stage magicians in fancy black and red suits. The woman dressed like slutty harlequins, full of make-up and short skimpy skirts. They all smoked and acted tough, big chopper bikes roared around the place too. This was clearly a gang hideout. Trickster's gang hideout. It even looked like something out of those Raven Girl comics that she had been reading. Her partner called in reinforcements, although it was already too late; as several gangsters stopped Detective Clarke and her partner.
"Pigs!" One of them yelled, pulling out a long barrel revolver, painted red, looking like some elongated flare gun. It was a truly comical weapon to behold. Bang! Bang! The gun shot twice!
"Crap!" Detective Grimsby screamed, crashing the car into the mansion's big, black, brick wall in a panic! The magic gang roared in triumph, pulling the unconscious Detectives out onto the ground outside.

Detective Clarke awoke, she was tied to a spinning wheel, like the ones seen in casinos. The pig-faced accomplice was snorting in her face, giggling in a squealing voice that was nauseating to hear. She looked to her left and saw her partner also tied up to another spinning wheel. In front of her, standing behind Pig Face, was a camera being operated by the ginger haired harlequin from the magic murder video that was seen all over the country. Further back there was a red door, painted that way in a grotesque and vivid palette. Soon the very same circus music from that horrible broadcast began, then that hideous red door creaked open. The harlequin pressed a button on the camera that flickered a red light, recording the scene of both Detectives on the spinning wheels. Detective Clarke knew what was happening, this was the next murder and she would be the victim. Then, within that moment of realisation; Trickster stepped out of the door, bowing his head with the top hat leaning forwards. He danced a little, strutted left and right.
"Romero Price!" Detective Clarke yelled and the Trickster stood stiff and suddenly frowned.
"Romero is dead." He said.
"I remember you!" Detective Clarke cried, tears raining down her face, "you were just a boy!"
"Shut up!" Trickster growled, marching towards her.
"Tell them!" She looked at the camera, "tell the whole world how your father beat you for wasting money, how you lived like a slave and just how scared you were!"
"Turn off the camera!" He ordered the harlequin, it stopped flickering, the broadcast had ended.

"You must be that Emily bitch!"

"No, no Romero I'm Raven Girl!"

"Wha- what?!" His jaw dropped suddenly.

"I'm Barbara Clarke, that nice police woman, you remember?"

Trickster was a loss for words, he looked angry yet conflicted.

"We gonna kill them, boss?!" Pig Face asked.

"Ye-" Trickster paused, "I- I don't know..." He shook his head, before pulling his top hat down onto the ground.

"Boss!" The harlequin groaned. Trickster just stood there, staring at the ground like a lost orphan boy. Then he wept, his face grimaced into a pained expression, remembering the abuse. Dave's belt against his young tender back!

"N- n- no..." Trickster cried, shaking his head, "Romero is dead! Dead! Dead! Dead!"

"Reinforcements are coming!" Detective Grimsby called out, "it's over, Romero!"

"I- it- it's not over!" Trickster roared, picking up his top hat again and strutting forwards, painfully forcing his former self, Romero Price, deep deep down into his subconscious, carrying on with his comic character.

"Trickster isn't real, Romero!" Detective Clarke cried, "he's just a comic character! That's all he ever was, that's not you!"

"Be quiet, silly detective!" He spoke in that posh voice that wasn't Romero's, only Trickster's. Then, suddenly; special forces stormed into the room, before Trickster could even surrender, he was shot to bloody pieces by an M4 machine gun, so were all of his goons, the harlequin and Pigface, all butchered and massacred by a storm of speeding bullets. It was over, in an instant. Detective Clarke screamed. She wanted Romero to snap out of his madness, but he didn't. He became Trickster, one hundred and ten percent, never to recover from his delusions. The mad magician had finally met his end.