Chapter 1: The Scent of Stardom

Chapter 1: The Scent of Stardom

The third ring of the phone was a threat. Not a physical one, but the kind that promised the landlord would finally change the locks. Jack Thorne let it ring a fourth time, a small battle of wills against the insistent chirping that echoed in his cavernous, half-empty office. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of jaundiced light cutting through the grimy window, illuminating a landscape of cold coffee cups and files that were more memory than active case.

He snatched the receiver on the fifth ring. "Thorne."

The voice on the other end was smooth, professional, and utterly out of place in his world. "Mr. Thorne, my name is Arthur Gable. I'm the personal manager for Seraphina Vance. Are you available for a consultation?"

Jack nearly laughed. Seraphina Vance. The name was plastered on every billboard, every bus stop, every magazine cover in Los Angeles. She was Hollywood’s newest darling, a supernova of talent and beauty. The kind of client who had teams of ex-Mossad agents for security, not a washed-up PI who paid his rent three weeks late.

"You've got the wrong number," Jack grunted, ready to hang up.

"I don't think so," the manager said, his voice tightening. "A certain Captain Miller from the LAPD—retired, of course—spoke highly of your... discretion. And your unique perspective on sensitive cases."

The name hit Jack like a ghost. Miller. The only man who hadn't called him crazy after the incident. The man who had quietly pushed him out the door of the department with a sad handshake and a warning to stay away from things that didn't bleed right. That "unique perspective" was the faint, silvery scar above his left eyebrow, a constant reminder of the night his world had cracked open. It was the source of his curse and his only real asset: The Glimmer.

"The rate is five hundred a day, plus expenses," Jack said, his desire for rent money crushing his desire to be left alone.

An hour later, he was guiding his beat-up Ford through the pristine, winding roads of the Hollywood Hills. He left the smog and desperation of the city below, ascending into a world of manicured lawns and houses that looked more like corporate headquarters than homes. Seraphina Vance's mansion was a fortress of white marble and glass, overlooking the sprawling city like a goddess on Olympus.

The manager, Gable, met him at the door. He was a man in a tailored suit who radiated an aura of controlled panic. But it was a normal aura, a dull, human gray in Jack’s vision. There was nothing out of place.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Thorne. Miss Vance is... distressed."

"That's usually why people call me," Jack said, stepping inside.

The interior was cold. Not in temperature, but in spirit. It was an opulent, sterile museum of a home, where every piece of furniture was a work of art and every surface shone with an impersonal gleam. It didn't feel lived in; it felt staged.

Then she walked down the grand staircase, and the air in the room changed.

Seraphina Vance was more beautiful in person than on screen, but that wasn’t what seized Jack’s attention. To his normal sight, she was a star—poised, stunning, with fire in her eyes. But through The Glimmer, she was a bonfire. A vibrant, crackling aura of brilliant orange and gold radiated from her, the Glimmer of a passionate soul at the peak of its power. It was the kind of raw creative energy that made someone a legend.

But something was wrong. Clinging to the edges of her magnificent aura was a faint, sickly-sweet haze, the color of faded rose petals and rot. And with it came a scent, one only he could perceive. It smelled like sugar left to spoil in the sun, a cloying sweetness that hinted at decay beneath.

His hand unconsciously drifted to the scar over his eye. He’d encountered that smell before. It was the scent of influence. Of a will being bent.

"Mr. Thorne?" Her voice was rich, but there was a tremor in it.

"Miss Vance," he said, forcing his eyes to focus on her face, not the creeping corruption of her Glimmer. "Your manager said you had a stalker problem."

She led him to a vast living room with a floor-to-ceiling window. She paced nervously, a caged lion in her own gilded cage.

"It started with letters," she began, her voice tight with anxiety. "Standard fan mail at first, but then they got... personal. He knew things. What I ate for breakfast, a conversation I had with my director. Then came the gifts. A single, perfect rose left on my doorstep every morning."

"You've gone to the police?" Jack asked, the question a formality.

"Of course," she said, waving a dismissive hand. "They put a patrol car at the end of the street. They said there's no direct threat. That he hasn't done anything illegal. They can't do anything until he does."

It was a standard story, the dark side of fame. But the cloying scent of rotting sugar was getting stronger, and the pinkish haze around her seemed to pulse faintly.

"Tell me about him," Jack said, his tone sharpening. "What's his name?"

Seraphina stopped pacing. A strange, almost placid look softened her features, momentarily dimming the fire in her eyes. The shift was so sudden it was jarring.

"His name is Fredrick," she said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "Fredrick Marr."

As she spoke the name, the sweet rot intensified. Jack saw the pink haze around her Glimmer swell, its tendrils momentarily reaching deeper into her brilliant aura, causing the gold and orange to flicker like a guttering flame. This wasn't just a man obsessed with her. This was something feasting on her.

"He's not like the others," she continued, her gaze unfocused, as if recalling a pleasant dream. "He says he understands me. The real me. Not Seraphina Vance the actress, but just... Seraphina. He's so gentle, so... devoted. It's almost flattering."

Obstacle. Her own perception of the threat was compromised. She saw a romantic figure; he smelled a predator.

"Flattering doesn't get a restraining order," Jack said bluntly, trying to cut through the fog. "Have you seen him?"

She nodded, a faint blush on her cheeks. "Once. From a distance. He was just watching my house from the road. He looked... normal. Handsome, even. Like he just stepped out of a small town in the Midwest. He just smiled and waved when our eyes met."

The description was a blank slate, a perfect camouflage. A wolf in sheep's clothing. This Fredrick Marr wasn't just a stalker; he was a parasite, and he'd already established a psychic link, feeding her a fantasy she desperately wanted to believe. He wasn't trying to get to her. He was already in.

"I need everything you have," Jack said, his mind racing. "The letters, photos of the gifts, any security footage you have of him."

His goal had just changed. This wasn't a simple scare-away job. He wasn't being hired to stop a man from getting to Seraphina Vance. He was being hired to perform an exorcism on her heart, to cut out a creature that she was beginning to mistake for love.

"Of course," she said, her voice regaining some of its professional crispness as she turned to leave the room. "I'll get my assistant to compile everything."

As she walked away, Jack stood motionless, the stench of rotting sugar filling his senses. He looked out the massive window at the city below, a million tiny lights burning in the twilight. Down there, people saw a star with a stalker problem. But up here, Jack Thorne saw a lamb being fattened for a slaughter he was the only one who could see. And the butcher was already sharpening his knife.