The steel drawers in the morgue oozed rose essential oil.
Lilith's latex gloves stuck to the handle of drawer No. 13, and the melted corpse wax mixed with the custom fragrance formed a strange paste. For five years, she sneaked into Chicago Memorial Hospital every week and used the stolen director's card to swipe open this electronic lock. But tonight the refrigerator was empty, with only a burnt wedding invitation stuck to the metal inner wall - printed with Isabella and Nathaniel's gold-plated names, and the date was the night she fell off the cliff five years ago.
"Surprise." Dr. Kovac's voice came from behind, the tip of the scalpel against her lower back, "The charred corpse you found is having a party in Manhattan." He lifted the white cloth, and the female corpse on the dissection table was wearing tulip earrings and half a wedding ring embedded between her sternum - it was the Cartier platinum ring that was melted by gasoline that year.
The old radio suddenly played the wedding march automatically. The corpse's fingers twitched and pointed to the ceiling. The surveillance screen lit up with a live broadcast of the New York charity dinner: Nathaniel was cutting a six-layer red velvet cake, Isella's tulip birthmark on her chest was shining under the spotlight, and the top layer of the cake was decorated with a burning wedding dress sugar doll.
***
In the banquet hall of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, the ice-carved tulips were dripping blood.
Isabella's Valentino couture dress was hidden under a heart rate monitor. Every time Nathaniel's fingers crossed her waistline, the LCD screen burst into epileptic green ripples. She crushed the monitor in the red velvet cake, and the cream mixed with electronic component fragments slid into the deep V neckline.
"The fire chief just bought a ticket to the Bahamas." Nathaniel's breath sprayed on the bruises behind her ears, "Do you think his yacht will 'accidentally' leak oil?" He turned the wedding ring, and the sapphire ring face popped out a micro blade, cutting the wedding dress sugar figurine in the cake - syrup mixed with red wine flowed from the skirt, just like the color of Evelyn's wound on the cliff.
Isabella suddenly grabbed his tie and pressed it against the cake, and the steel wire skeleton of the fondant rose pierced the corner of the man's mouth. When the dark red blood seeped into the cream vortex, she licked the sweet fishy smell on her fingertips: "Remember how to deal with a bloody shirt?" The diamond-studded mobile phone screen lit up with an encrypted email - a scan of a laundry receipt from five years ago, and the shirt numbered 1313 was left with gasoline and semen.
The alarm tore through the elegance of the masquerade. The fire sprinkler system suddenly started, and in the water mist mixed with the smell of gasoline, Isella saw a man in a firefighter's uniform cutting a champagne tower. The moment he turned around, the protective mask reflected the tulip birthmark on her collarbone, just like the corpse hand pointing to the ceiling in the morgue surveillance.
***
In an abandoned church in Chicago, Lilith is making lipstick with corpse oil.
The incinerator swallowed up pieces of wedding dresses, and the charred fish bones curled up in the flames into the shape of a fetus. In the refrigerator brought by Dr. Kovac, thirteen tubes of blood were marked with different dates - all of them were hippocampal inhibitors that she secretly replaced every month.
"They replicated your death." The doctor inserted the needle into her carotid artery, "This time it's double insurance: cake bomb and yacht oil leak." The LCD screen played the chaotic scene of the dinner party, and a blade popped out from the heel of Isella's high heels, pressing against Nathaniel's femoral artery.
Lilith suddenly tore open the sutures and took out a micro projector from the abdominal wound. Blue light was projected onto the statue of the Virgin Mary, and the surveillance video of the Devil's Corner Cliff five years ago began to play: Isabella, wearing a Chanel suit, held a torch, but after magnifying it thirty times, pixel particles were visible on the edge of the tulip birthmark on her chest - it was actually a post-production electronic tattoo.
"The rules of the game have changed." She sprinkled the ashes of the burning wedding dress into the centrifuge, and the separated platinum powder flickered in the test tube, "Real arsonists like to watch their prey kill each other."
Blood rain suddenly fell from the ventilation duct. The liquid mixed with gasoline formed a stream on the stone steps, and half of a burnt photo floated over - five years ago, the fire chief cried while holding the charred corpse, and the cufflinks on his uniform were the tulip diamond model that Nathaniel wore all year round.
***
In the underground parking lot in Manhattan, Isella's high heels sank into the oil.
"You stole my antidepressants." She touched up her makeup in front of the mirror of the fire hydrant. Her lip gloss was extracted from rose essential oil in the morgue. "It makes me dream about Evelyn's wedding dress on fire every day." The hum of hydraulic pliers came from the shadows. A man in a fire uniform was sawing off the brake line of a Bentley.
The man took off his protective mask, and flesh-colored petals bloomed on his burned left face: "You should thank those medicines." His voice was like the friction of rusty steel bones, "Otherwise, how could you smell the gasoline in Nathaniel's suit?"
Isella's pearl bracelet suddenly broke, and the round beads rolled into the oil puddle. When the man leaned over to pick it up, she threw the lighter into the sewer. The explosion overturned three luxury cars. In the firelight, their confrontational figures were projected on the load-bearing wall, like vicious beasts biting in a shadow play.
"Why did you fake my birthmark?" She pulled open her collar, her tulip tattoo undulating in the heat, "You knew Evelyn would fall off the cliff five years ago?"
The fire chief raised the flamethrower, and the blue flame licked the gasoline at her feet: "Because a true bride needs three funerals to be reborn." He threw the charred fire log, and on the record page of June 13, 1994, the younger version of him was crying while hugging a female corpse in a wedding dress - the corpse had the same tulip birthmark on the left chest.
***
At three o'clock in the morning, Lilith's sewing machine pierced the silence.
Platinum powder extracted from the centrifuge was being woven into the waistband of the wedding dress, and each silk thread was soaked in rose essential oil from the morgue. When Dr. Kovac injected the 13th tube of blood into her spine, the surveillance screen suddenly switched: Nathaniel's private plane was loading 20 barrels of aviation fuel, and Isella's passport information appeared on the Interpol Red Notice.
"It's time to change the fuel." The doctor kicked the gasoline barrel towards the incinerator, "Guess who sewed flame retardant into the silk wedding dress?"
Lilith bit off the sewing thread, and blood beads seeped into the tulip pattern embroidered with platinum thread. The church's stained windows exploded, and under the searchlight of the fire helicopter, thirteen models wearing blood-red wedding dresses were suspended in the air. Each veil was embellished with burnt South Sea pearls, colliding with funeral bells in the night wind.
She raised the flamethrower to ignite the first wedding dress, watching the flames spread along the platinum thread to form a star map. As the burning model fell into the Chicago River, the LED screen of the financial building on the opposite bank suddenly broadcast urgent news: Blackwood Group's stock price plummeted 13%, and thirteen charred bodies wearing antique wedding dresses were found on the Devil's Corner Cliff.