Demons do taxes. Vampires renew their licenses. The fae pay fines like everyone else.
Hydes are the panic button.
I chart them for a living—Under the Skin, five hundred episodes on how Personas choose, lie, and kill. It's Hyde Season: tethers snapping, headlines frothing. Now the bodies are turning up exactly like my episodes. A "Siren" laid out like Ep. 118. A "Rook" arranged like Ep. 42. My taxonomy, made murder.
HCU drags me in to "clarify." I bargain: five hundred signatures means I can spot your copycat faster than your whiteboards. The captain says yes. The detective doesn't—he just gets stuck with me. Clearance badge, shared car, glass-walled rooms where his body cam stares at my mic. Two seats apart and one secret between us.
The killer is somewhere inside my back catalog, counting down in poses only a true fan would know. The city wants answers, the tabloids want blood, my boyfriend wants me "safe." Instead I'm on ride-alongs, matching crime scenes to my own voice while someone with a talent for imitation keeps getting closer.
If I breathe wrong, it's on record. If I'm right, we catch a ghost wearing my words.
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