There was a knock at the door and Fleur De Lis rushed towards it. Her heart was hammering and a darkness was doing its best to crush it in a vice of anxiety and worry.
She crammed her face against the peephole, letting out an audible sigh of relief. It wasn’t the cops, it wasn’t any potential witnesses, and it wasn’t Copper looking for his husband. It was, in fact, the only pony she actually wanted to see.
Fleur threw open the door. “Trois!”
Her brother flashed a cheery smile. “Hello, ma petite soeur, and what do I owe this unexpected pleasure to?”
He stepped into the townhouse, dropping a bag in the entryway.
“You look like shit,” Fleur said, her relief immediately turning to a stern frown.
This was true. He was thin and haggard looking. His blue, red, and white mane was greasy and unwashed. There were bags under his eyes and when he flashed a smile, Fleur couldn’t help but notice that one of his teeth was missing.
Trois Couleur shook his head. “Well if I would’ve known that you were going to need help at nine in the morning, I would have avoided going on a heroin binge with a couple of the girls from Sapphire’s last night. But you didn’t give me too much of a head’s up, no? Speak of…”
“I need…” Fleur sighed, biting her lower lip. “There’s another one.”
Trois cocked a brow and started to chuckle. “Why am I not surprised? No, no, you never invite me over unless it’s something dire.” He grabbed his bag, within his magic, and started on his way towards her bedroom. “When is the last time that I was invited over to Friendsgiving or Hearth’s Warming?”
Fleur sighed. “Not in the last few…”
“You get caught dating one transgender prostitute and the next thing you know you’re dead to the family.” Trois tutted softly and motioned for her to follow. “You’d think since Dad was trying to rebrand himself as some kind of progressive, he would be more opened minded to that kind of stuff.” He shook his head slowly. “By the way, Ember Essence is doing good.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Fleur said.
“I know you weren’t,” Trois grumbled under his breath.
Together they made their way up the flight of stairs and to the door of Fleur’s bedroom.
“What was it?” Trois asked.
He pulled out a joint.
“Should you really be smoking at a time like this?” Fleur asked.
Trois offered it to her. “No, but you should. You’re trembling, my poor dear.” He flashed a cheeky grin. “But don’t you worry, your big brother is here to take care of everything.”
He pushed into the room with Fleur following behind.
She popped the joint into her mouth and used a cantrip to light it, taking a heavy drag and holding the alluring smoke in her lungs. Hopefully, it was just weed because the last thing she needed was to go on a trip in a situation like this.
Trois let out a low whistle and shook his head. “I don’t usually question your taste in…”
“I leached over seven hundred thousand bits from his accounts,” she said, cutting him off. “I know he isn’t the most conventional looking stallion but…”
Trois nodded. “Any chance you ended up in the will?”
“He’s married.”
“Shame.”
Plopped in the middle of the floor was the fat carcass of an earth pony. His eyes were opened in utter horror and some weird foam was sprouting from his blue lips. It didn’t take a doctor to figure out that he was long past the point of saving.
“But for real,” Trois said. “What was it?”
Fleur let out another drag. “Cocaine.”
The weed seemed to already be working, making the shake in her forelegs fade away.
“Yours or his?” Trois asked, plopping the bag down beside the corpse.
“Does it matter?” Fleur responded.
“Well if it was his, I’d feel less guilty using it than if it were your own, considering that he won’t be enjoying it anymore” Trois looked at her. “Are your nerves settled?”
Fleur nodded.
“Would you mind cutting me a couple of lines then?” Trois asked, rolling his hoof. “It helps settle my nerves and invigorates my imagination. Very productive in this line of work.”
Fleur snorted but obliged him, walking over to her nightstand. She opened it and pulled out a baggie full of white powder.
“You know,” Trois said. When Fleur looked over, she saw him looking into the pony’s face. “He reminds me of a pony I served with in Maregeria.”
“Impossible, he’s as Equestrian as they come,” Fleur said.
“Like yourself?” Trois joked, throwing her a knowing look. “Quite a few rich ponies left Prance at that time and landed on their hooves as newly minted Equestrian nobility. It turns out that money can make questions about lineage fade away pretty quickly.”
Fleur sighed. “And hypothetically, if he was from Prance, how many war crimes did he…”
“I mean, ma petite soeur, a pony did not live through Maregeria without committing a war crime or two.” Trois laughed as he opened his bag and pulled out a hack saw. “Nothing you should really be concerned with, however. Most of us got out of there as upstanding patriots whose actions you really shouldn’t think too hard about.”
“Like yourself,” Fleur quipped.
She grabbed a razor and started to cut the small mound of cocaine into fine lines.
“Oh no, I came out of there totally and utterly fucked up,” Trois said, shaking his head. “But hey!” He pointed his hoof towards her. “At least it benefits you on occasion, no?”
“This hasn’t happened too often,” Fleur grumbled.
Trois snorted and looked at the corpse. “Three times is an awful lot when a body is involved, Fleur. At least in my professional opinion.”
Fleur came back over, placing the tray of cocaine down on a coffee table next to Trois and the body.
Trois muttered a thanks and pressed his nose against it, snorting one of the lines. And of course, he left a little dusting on the tip of his snout, since he was a classy stallion.
With the narcotics now in his system, he seemed to enter a grove, grinning as he got to work.
Fleur, for very obvious and weak-stomached reasons, forced herself to look away. Though the sound of a hacksaw going through flesh wasn’t too much better in the grand scheme of things.
“Can you do me a favour, ma petite soeur?” Trois asked.
Fleur nodded and moved towards the bathroom. “Bathtub full of bleach?”
This earned her a cheery laugh from her brother. “See don’t we make a fine team? It’s like we finish each other’s sentences.” He sighed. “You really must invite me and Ember over. We miss you dearly.”
“I’ll take it into consideration,” Fleur grumbled as she started to rummage through her cupboards, pulling out the necessary cleaning products.
From the neighbouring room, Trois screamed in utter horror.
“Motherfucker,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Fleur gasped and jerked back sharply, cracking her skull against the underside of her cupboard. She grunted through the pain and looked over, seeing that Trois’ face was plastered with blood.
He reached up with a hoof, wiping it away. Though it had already started to stain. “You could’ve warned me that he was still fresh.” He growled and jabbed a hoof into the stallion’s side. “His blood hasn’t even finished clouting yet!”
“Well I’m sorry,” Fleur grumbled, narrowing her gaze. “And how exactly was I supposed to know if his blood had clouted or not? This is your area of expertise, not mine.”
Trois simply shrugged. “I’m just saying that a little bit of head’s up would’ve been appreciated. You need to remember the rule of hoof when it comes to this. It takes at least six hours after the pulse stops for the blood to solidify. Any sooner and you’re in for…” He motioned to his reddened face. “This!”
He sighed and levitated over a hindleg, plopping it onto the bathroom floor.
It made Fleur’s stomach churn. She tried to ignore it as she dumped her entire cleaning cabinet into the bathtub. Thankfully the potent smell of bleach cleared away the sickly and coppery essence of gore.
“You know this would be so much easier if you’d just let me torch the place,” Trois grumbled. “You could just claim arson and get the insurance money.”
Fleur scoffed. “I’m very attached to this property, Trois. It’s close to downtown and all of my favourite boutiques.” She shook her head. “There’s no way I’m going to let you torch it.”
Before their conversation could continue, there was a knock at the downstair door.
Fleur growled and stormed out, doing her best to avoid the sight of her brother removing more body parts. He was already neck deep in viscera and her future cleaning bill wept at the thought of getting that off of the hardwoods.”
“How do I look?” she asked.
Trois hummed. “Bitchy, high class, and a little desperate. Why?”
Fleur huffed, her gaze narrowing. “Is there red on me?”
Trois inspected her for a moment, tilting his head to the side. “No, there is no red on you.”
“Thank you!” Fleur chimed as she threw on a smile and forced her way down the stairs.
She made it to the landing and the front door. Once more, she peered through the peephole.
“Oh fuck,” she softly hissed, her voice hardly louder than a whisper.
It was Copper Forge, the husband of the current dissection project upstairs.
Fleur drew in a breath and opened the door, really hoping that her smile would win the day.
“Cop-” she started.
“Where is he?” the earth pony growled, forcing his way past her and into the townhouse.
Fleur frowned. “Who?”
“Look, you fucking miserable whore, I know that you and Copper have been sleeping toget…” He paused, his fury fading to a hollow fear. “Is that blood?”
“Pardon?” Fleur asked. She glanced in the mirror and saw that there was a speckling of red right across her face.
Oh fuck.
Copper let out a choked note, as if a dozen different statements were trying their best to crawl their way up his throat. None of them would break free however as Fleur panicked and toppled over one of the entryway’s statues.
It landed right on top of Copper’s head.
A head, which popped like a cherry, splattering Fleur and the surrounding entryway in… in things that were best not to describe.
“Trois!” Fleur screamed, trying to flick the blood, and additional pulp, off her pale coat.
There was a pause, then a meek. “Yes, ma petite soeur?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that I had blood on my face?” she demanded.
Another pause. Then an equally meek chuckle. “I have uh… I have trouble looking you in the eye?”
Fleur growled and let out a distressed note that echoed through the entire house.
“Is there another one?” Trois asked.
Fleur nodded. Then realizing he couldn’t see her, sighed. “Yes. Yes, there is another body to deal with.”
This earned her a hearty laugh from her brother.
“Glad to hear that the killer instinct runs in the family!”
Author's Note
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