Chapter 16: The Scorpio Session
The serial killer stood at the lectern like he belonged there.
Marcus had known the Scorpio Slasher taught at King's Dominion—the show had made a point of it, the dark irony of a mass murderer lecturing future assassins about psychology. But knowing something and watching it happen were different experiences entirely.
The man was unremarkable at first glance. Middle-aged, slightly soft around the middle, with the kind of face you'd forget five minutes after meeting. That was the point, Marcus realized. Predators who looked like predators didn't survive long. The successful ones looked like everyone else.
"Today," the Slasher said, his voice mild and professorial, "we discuss target selection."
The classroom was half-full—a mix of Legacies and Rats, though the seating arrangements made the hierarchy clear. Marcus sat near the back with Petra, who was doodling something violent in her notebook margins.
"Serial predators—and yes, I use that term deliberately—don't choose victims randomly." The Slasher clicked a remote, and a projector hummed to life. Crime scene photos appeared on the screen. "They select based on criteria. Vulnerability. Opportunity. And most importantly—resonance."
Marcus's skin prickled. He knew this lecture. Not from the show—the show had never gone into detail about what the Slasher actually taught. He knew it from somewhere else.
"Resonance," the Slasher continued, "is the connection between hunter and hunted. The quality that makes a specific target feel... right."
Isabella knew this, Marcus thought. She selected her targets the same way. The ones who deserved it. The ones whose deaths would mean something.
But that wasn't quite right either. Isabella had been a poisoner, not a serial killer. Her selections had been professional, transactional. This was something else.
The Slasher clicked to the next slide. Video footage now—grainy, black and white, clearly old. A man in a dark room, seated across from another man who was bound to a chair.
"Interrogation footage from 1923," the Slasher explained. "Ottoman intelligence services. Note the positioning—the interrogator keeps his subject's peripheral vision occupied while maintaining direct eye contact."
The video played. The bound man began to scream.
And Marcus's vision went white.
---
Istanbul. 1547.
The cell smells of fear and human waste. Tahir of the Crimson Hands kneels before his subject—a merchant who has been selling information to the Safavids. The merchant is still intact. That will change.
"I know nothing," the merchant whimpers. "I swear by Allah, I know nothing."
Tahir doesn't speak. Speaking is unnecessary at this stage. Instead, he shows the merchant his tools—laid out on silk, gleaming in lamplight. Each one designed for a specific purpose. Each one capable of producing specific results.
The merchant's eyes track across the display. His breathing accelerates. His pupils dilate.
Tahir selects a thin copper rod.
"The Crimson Hands have techniques," Tahir says softly, "that have been refined over centuries. Pain is a language. I am fluent."
The merchant begins to talk before the rod touches his skin.
---
Marcus gasped back to consciousness, gripping the edges of his desk so hard the wood creaked.
The classroom was still. The video had paused. Every eye was on him.
"Mr. Lopez." The Scorpio Slasher's voice was mild, curious. "You're very still."
Marcus looked up. His eyes felt wrong—too old, too knowing. Tahir's memories coiled behind his thoughts like snakes in tall grass. Interrogation techniques. Pressure points that produced compliance without leaving marks. The art of breaking minds while leaving bodies functional.
"Familiar material," Marcus managed.
The Slasher smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"Yes," he said. "I imagine it is."
The moment stretched. Marcus could feel the Slasher's attention like a physical weight—professional assessment from someone who recognized his own kind.
He knows, Marcus thought. He doesn't know WHAT, but he knows I'm not what I appear to be.
"Class dismissed early today," the Slasher said, still watching Marcus. "Review the assigned materials. We'll continue tomorrow."
Students filed out. Marcus stayed seated, waiting for his hands to stop shaking, for Tahir's presence to fade back into the genetic archives where it belonged.
Petra paused at his desk. "You okay?"
"Fine. Just a headache."
She didn't look convinced, but she left without pushing. Petra understood boundaries. It was one of the things Marcus appreciated about her.
When the room was empty, the Slasher spoke again.
"I've taught at this school for seven years, Mr. Lopez. I've seen students who were naturals—children of families where killing was tradition. I've seen prodigies who took to violence like ducks to water." He paused. "I've never seen someone recognize Ottoman interrogation techniques on first exposure."
"Lucky guess."
"No." The Slasher's smile returned, and this time there was something hungry in it. "No, it wasn't."
He gathered his materials and walked toward the door. Paused with his hand on the frame.
"We should talk sometime. Privately. I suspect we'd have... interesting conversations."
Then he was gone, and Marcus was alone with the echoes of memories that belonged to dead men.
His head pounded. The double exposure—Isabella's patterns, Tahir's techniques—had pushed his brain past comfortable limits. He needed food. Rest. Time to integrate what had flooded in.
The serial killer knows something when he sees it, Marcus thought. And he just saw something.
One more observer. One more threat. One more variable in an equation that was already too complicated.
He waited until his hands stopped shaking, then walked to his next class like nothing had happened.