Beatrice hurried down the alley, careful to avoid the piles of trash and murky puddles lining the edges. A fine rain dotted the surface of the water with tiny pinpricks. She flipped up her hood.   Ahead, she spotted a single light above a door in the otherwise dark alley. Paul’s Meats DELIVERIES, the sign read. She shifted the heavy bag on her shoulder and slipped a thin black case from her pocket. With practiced fingers, she worked the silver picks in the lock until she heard a satisfying click. The door unlocked. She let herself in.   She found herself at the end of a narrow hallway. It was pitch black, but she didn’t bother searching for a light switch. Instead, she pulled a small flashlight from her other pocket.   On her left, an office sat in disarray. Toppled desk chair. Papers littering the ground. A thick layer of dust coated the room. A room lined with floor to ceiling shelves was on her right. It, too, was empty except for a few sagging cardboard boxes. She continued.   Sweeping her flashlight around her as she walked, Beatrice saw nothing out of place. It looked like the abandoned butcher shop it was supposed to be. She came up to what looked like an industrial kitchen with stainless steel appliances along the walls and an old butcher block counter in the middle. Holding her light up higher to illuminate the top of the counter, she noted the brown, blotchy stains coloring the wood.   She approached the front of the shop. Earlier, when she’d scouted the location from the street, she’d seen steel shutters rolled over the front windows preventing any streetlight from entering. Now, she saw a soft orange glow at the end of the hallway. It couldn’t have come from outside.   In the center of the shop, surrounded by low-burning candles, lay the body of another victim. White wax pooled around the base of the candles, spilling together to form a ring around the body. The flames sputtered and dipped as they reached the end of their wicks making the shadows on the walls dance in eerie pulses of light.   Beatrice dropped her bag to the floor with a heavy thud. She rested her hands on her hips and sighed. I should’ve asked for more money, she thought.   There appeared to be little blood. Clean up would be easy. Still, she debated texting her client saying there would be an extra fee for this appointment. Killings of a ritualistic nature will be charged an additional weirdness fee for clean-up. She chuckled to herself.   Shrugging off her coat and tying her hair back, she got to work.