The Painter’s Last Fire

Cal Mercer liked fire because it told the truth.

It ate what it could. It left what it couldn’t. No speeches, no excuses, no second chances. In a city full of rehearsed apologies and polished lies, flame was the only honest thing he’d ever met.

He stood at the edge of Rivergate’s old warehouse district with his hands in his coat pockets and the kind of patience you only learn after you’ve watched something burn all the way down to the studs. The air had that winter taste: exhaust, cold metal, and a thin smell of the river that never quite washed away.

Across the street, the building waited like a bored animal. Three stories, red brick, boarded windows, a faded sign that once claimed it had been a textile mill, back when anyone still made anything here. Now it was a husk for pigeons, squatters, and whatever else the city forgot to bury.

Cal wasn’t here to burn it. Not tonight.

Tonight he was here because a painting had shown up inside it.

He kept the photo in his mind like an itch: the body laid out on the concrete floor of the second story, posed carefully, shoes aligned, hands folded, eyes closed. The face had been wiped clean of expression and blood both, like the killer wanted a neat presentation. Above the body, pinned to a rusted girder with two nails, was the painting.

Oil on canvas. Heavy, wet-looking strokes. Dark palette. A streetlight over an empty sidewalk. Snow falling in thick flecks. A smear of red under the light that you only understood after you stared at it long enough.

The police had called it a signature. The press had called it art. Cal had called it a message.

He’d learned to read messages in scorch marks, in melted plastic, in the way a fire climbed a wall. The killer’s canvas wasn’t for beauty. It was for control.

Cal’s phone buzzed. He looked down. A text from a number he didn’t have saved.

You’re early.

No name. No punctuation. Just that, like the sender was watching him and didn’t feel the need to pretend otherwise.

Cal didn’t answer. He put the phone away and watched the building. The street was mostly empty, but Rivergate had its own kind of nightlife: a distant siren that never got closer, a rattling bus that sounded like it was dying, a couple in hoodies moving fast with their heads down.

Cal’s mind wandered where it always did when he waited. It wandered to heat.

He wasn’t born ruthless. He’d been made that way, one match at a time.

The first time he set a fire, he was thirteen and angry at a world that had already decided what he was. His father drank away the grocery money. His mother worked doubles and came home with her face exhausted and her patience gone. Cal learned early that people didn’t change because you asked them nicely.

That first fire had been a trash can behind the school. Small. Stupid. It flared and died and left him with the taste of smoke in his mouth and a strange calm in his chest. He didn’t get caught. He did it again, then again, then bigger. Abandoned cars. Vacant lots. A shed behind a house where a man used to beat his dog.

By the time Cal was twenty-five, “accident” fires followed him like a rumor. By thirty, he’d graduated to precision. He didn’t do random. He did purposeful. He chose targets the way a surgeon chooses where to cut.

He told himself he burned rot out of the city. He told himself a lot of things.

Now, standing in the cold with Rivergate’s river wind tugging at his coat, he admitted something he didn’t say out loud: he liked the power. He liked deciding what stayed and what didn’t. He liked being the hand the city never saw.

The killer liked that too.

A car rolled up with its lights off and glided into a spot a block down. The engine shut off. A door opened. Closed. Footsteps.

Cal didn’t move, but his attention sharpened. He watched the sidewalk reflection in a puddle near the curb, the distorted shape of a person walking toward him.

“Cal Mercer,” a voice said behind him.

Cal turned slowly. The man was mid-thirties, thin, with a face that looked like it had been built from angles and regret. He wore a knit cap pulled low and a gray coat that didn’t fit right, like it had been borrowed from someone bigger.

“Detective Hale,” Cal said.

Hale’s eyes flicked over Cal’s hands, his stance, his calm. He looked like someone trying to decide if he should be afraid or offended.

“You got my message,” Hale said.

“I got something,” Cal replied.

Hale exhaled, a white cloud in the cold. “I don’t know why you agreed to meet.”

Cal nodded at the mill. “Because you don’t know how to catch him.”

Hale’s jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it.

The serial killer had been haunting Rivergate for seven months, leaving bodies in places nobody checked until the smell forced them to. A maintenance tunnel behind the old hospital. A boarded church basement. A locked storage unit paid for with cash. And every time, the same calling card: a painting hung above the victim like a spotlight.

The papers called him The Painter. The police called him “Unknown Subject.” Hale, privately, called him a nightmare.

Cal called him competition.

Hale looked at the building. “You’ve been inside.”

“I’ve been places,” Cal said.

Hale’s eyes narrowed. “You burned the Marrow Street duplex.”

Cal didn’t bother denying that one either. The fire had gone up fast, a clean V-pattern he’d designed, flames chewing through cheap lumber like it was paper. A landlord had died in that blaze, a man who’d been cutting corners so long the building might as well have been a death trap already. Cal had found out the landlord’s insurance payout was going to his mistress, not the tenants he’d displaced. Cal didn’t like that.

Hale’s voice lowered. “We can’t work with you.”

Cal almost laughed. “You already are.”

Hale shifted his weight, like his feet were trying to leave without him. “We found your accelerant pattern on two other scenes. You were close. You were watching.”

Cal leaned in just enough to make Hale uncomfortable. “You’re here because you think I know something.”

Hale’s stare held. “I’m here because he contacted you.”

The air felt colder.

Cal’s phone buzzed again in his pocket. Like the sender enjoyed timing.

Cal pulled it out and read the new message.

Bring him upstairs.

Hale watched Cal’s face change. “What?”

Cal lifted the phone so Hale could see, but kept his thumb over the number. Hale read the message and went pale in a way he tried to hide.

“This is him,” Hale said.

“Yeah,” Cal replied.

Hale’s hand went to the inside of his coat. Not dramatic. Just careful. “We should call for backup.”

Cal’s eyes stayed on the mill. “Backup does what? Shows up late, steps in the wrong place, contaminates everything, then holds a press conference about progress?”

Hale’s nostrils flared. “This is police work.”

“This is theater,” Cal said. “He knows you. He knows your moves. He knows you want to be the hero. He invited you here, and you came. That’s not policing. That’s obedience.”

Hale looked like he wanted to punch Cal, arrest Cal, and ask Cal for help all at the same time. Instead he swallowed and said, “What’s your plan?”

Cal’s plan had been forming since the first painting showed up, since he realized what kind of killer he was dealing with. The Painter didn’t just kill. He curated. He wanted an audience, but a specific audience. He wanted his work seen by the right eyes.

Cal understood that hunger. Not the art part. The control part.

“My plan,” Cal said, “is to make him show his face.”

Hale’s eyes flicked to the mill again. “He’s inside.”

“He’s watching,” Cal corrected. “Maybe inside, maybe across the street, maybe from a car. He wants us to go to the painting.”

Hale swallowed. “And then what?”

Cal’s smile was small. “Then we give him what he wants.”

They crossed the street and stepped through the busted doorway. Inside, the mill smelled like damp brick and old oil. Their footsteps echoed, swallowed, then returned in dull repetitions. The light from Hale’s small flashlight swept over graffiti, collapsed beams, scattered bottles.

Cal didn’t need a flashlight. He’d been in burned buildings so often he knew how darkness moved. He knew how sound behaved in empty spaces.

They took the stairs carefully. The stairwell had gaps where steps had rotted away, forcing them to step over empty air. Hale went first, gun out now, trying to be brave.

On the second floor, the room opened into a wide space filled with dust and the skeletal remains of machines. The flashlight beam cut through the air like a blade. Cal saw the body immediately, even before Hale did.

A man in his twenties, dressed in clean clothes, laid on his back with his hands folded. No blood. No visible wound. His lips were slightly blue. A scarf tied around his neck, decorative, not functional. The kind of scarf you’d wear to look like you understood winter, not to survive it.

Above the body, pinned to a column, was the painting.

The same style. The same heavy strokes. This one showed a house in twilight, a porch light on, snow piled against the steps. The front door open just enough to show darkness inside. On the porch boards: four small shapes, like burned match heads arranged in a line.

Hale moved closer, gun raised. “Jesus.”

Cal crouched by the victim, looking at the face. The man’s eyes were closed, lashes frosted with something that might have been spray. Cal touched the neck lightly. Cold. Stiff. Gone for hours.

Hale stared up at the painting. “He’s escalating. He’s getting bolder.”

Cal didn’t answer. He was watching the corners, the high beams, the shadows near the far wall.

The phone buzzed again.

Look up.

Cal lifted his gaze, slow, careful.

A second painting hung on the opposite wall, higher up, almost lost in the dark. Hale’s flashlight moved, and when it hit the canvas, Hale froze.

The painting showed this room. The same machines. The same column. The same body.

And in the painting, two figures stood over the corpse: one with a gun, one with his hands in his pockets.

Hale’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s us.”

Cal felt something like respect twist in his stomach. The killer wasn’t just predicting. He was staging reality.

A sound came from above them. Not footsteps. A slow scrape, like something being dragged.

Hale swung his flashlight upward. “Who’s there?”

Silence.

Then a voice, calm and close, spoke from somewhere in the rafters.

“Detective Hale,” it said, like greeting an old friend. “You brought him.”

Hale’s gun followed the voice. “Show yourself.”

Cal’s eyes tracked the beams. He saw movement. A silhouette shifting behind hanging sheets of plastic, high up where the old catwalk ran.

The voice continued. “He doesn’t belong to you, detective. He belongs to the flame.”

Cal felt Hale glance at him without moving his head.

“You know who I am,” Hale called.

A soft chuckle floated down. “Of course. You’ve been chasing me like a man chasing his own shadow. But you brought me something better.”

Cal spoke, his voice flat. “You want to be seen.”

The voice paused, amused. “And you want to be understood.”

Cal stood slowly. “You’re not a painter.”

Silence again.

Then: “No?”

“You’re a collector,” Cal said. “The paintings aren’t art. They’re trophies. You don’t care about beauty. You care about proof.”

The voice above shifted, like the speaker leaned forward. “Proof of what?”

Cal’s gaze stayed locked on the dark strip of catwalk. “Proof that you decide the story.”

Hale’s flashlight shook slightly. He steadied it, but his breath gave him away.

The voice laughed again. “Then tell me, Cal Mercer. What story do you think you’re in?”

Cal didn’t like hearing his name from that mouth. It meant the killer had done homework. It meant Cal wasn’t just an observer. He was a subject.

Cal reached into his coat slowly. Hale tensed, thinking it was a weapon.

Cal pulled out a small, squat object wrapped in cloth.

Hale hissed, “What is that?”

Cal unwrapped it. A glass jar with a metal lid. Inside: a thick, pale gel that clung to the sides.

Hale’s eyes widened. “You brought accelerant.”

“I always bring options,” Cal said.

The voice above went quiet. No taunt. No laugh. Interest.

Cal held the jar up. “You want to control the ending. So do I.”

Hale’s voice tightened. “Cal, don’t.”

Cal kept his eyes on the catwalk. “You’ve been leaving paintings because you want your work found. You want your audience to walk into the room. You want them to stand right where you planned.”

The voice above said, “Yes.”

Cal took a step toward the center of the room, away from the stairs. “So here’s the thing. You don’t get to do it alone.”

Hale’s gun tracked Cal now, torn between the voice above and the man beside him.

Cal unscrewed the jar lid. The sharp chemical smell rose immediately, harsh and clean. He poured a line onto the floor in a slow curve, the gel thick enough to hold shape, catching the flashlight beam like wet glass.

The voice above sounded almost delighted. “You’re going to burn my gallery.”

“I’m going to burn your hiding place,” Cal said. “And I’m going to force you down here where the air is real and the exits are few.”

Hale’s face contorted. “This is insane. We’re inside.”

Cal glanced at Hale, quick. “Then you should leave.”

Hale didn’t move.

The voice above said softly, “He won’t leave. He needs the arrest. He needs the ending where he’s right.”

Cal poured another line. He drew it like he was sketching, like he was signing his own work.

Hale’s voice cracked. “Cal, stop. We can’t risk this.”

Cal’s hands didn’t shake. “You already risked it when you came alone. You came because you wanted to be the one. You wanted the case.”

Hale’s jaw clenched. “And you wanted what?”

Cal looked up into the dark. “I want him.”

The voice above grew quieter, and for the first time it sounded serious. “To kill me?”

Cal shook his head once. “To end you.”

The killer laughed, but it had an edge now. “The difference is smaller than you pretend.”

Cal capped the jar and slipped it back into his coat. Then he pulled out a matchbook. Plain. White. Cheap. The kind you could get at any bar.

Hale’s gun now pointed directly at Cal. “Put it away.”

Cal didn’t look at Hale. “You’re shaking, detective.”

“I’m warning you.”

Cal opened the matchbook and slid one match out. He held it between his fingers, staring at the dark head.

He thought of all the times fire had done what the law couldn’t. All the times it had punished people the city protected. All the times it had made things simple.

He also thought of the bodies the Painter left behind, arranged like props, turned into scenery. Cal wasn’t sentimental, but he didn’t like waste. He didn’t like people being turned into messages.

The voice above said, “Strike it.”

Cal struck the match.

The flare lit his face in orange for a moment, carving shadows into his cheekbones, reflecting in Hale’s wide eyes. The smell of sulfur bloomed sharp and immediate.

Cal let the flame burn down just a little, close enough to feel the warmth on his fingers. Then he dropped it onto the first line of gel.

The fire caught instantly, rolling along the path like it had been waiting. It didn’t explode. It didn’t roar. It crawled with purpose, spreading in smooth tongues, licking at the floor, climbing toward the next line.

Hale cursed and backed toward the stairs. “You did it. You actually did it.”

Cal’s eyes stayed on the catwalk. Smoke began to curl upward, thin at first, then thicker as the gel fed the flames.

The voice above changed. Not panic. But tension. “You’re trying to trap me.”

“I’m trying to meet you,” Cal said.

A shadow moved fast on the catwalk. Then another sound: a hatch slamming, metal on metal. The killer was repositioning.

Cal stepped closer to the center of the room, placing himself where the painting had shown him. He could feel the heat rising, the air shifting. Fire changed rooms. It changed people.

Hale shouted, “Get out, Cal!”

Cal ignored him. “Come down,” he called.

The killer’s voice was closer now, coming from above the stairs. “You’re brave.”

Cal’s laugh was short. “No. I’m practical. You’re not leaving without showing yourself. You can’t stand it.”

Another movement. A shape dropped from the catwalk and hit the floor hard, rolling. Hale swung his flashlight and gun, ready to fire.

The figure stood.

He was wearing a painter’s apron, dark with stains. His face was covered with a simple white mask, the kind you’d use for sanding. Eye holes cut clean, no expression.

He held something in his hand.

Not a brush.

A camera.

He raised it and snapped a photo. The flash popped bright, freezing the moment: the flames creeping across the floor, the dead body, Hale with his gun, Cal standing like he owned the inferno.

The killer’s voice came muffled through the mask. “This is the piece.”

Hale fired. The shot cracked the air. The bullet hit the floor near the killer’s feet, sparking.

The killer didn’t flinch. He tilted his head, studying Hale like Hale was a disappointing student.

Cal moved fast, grabbing a rusted metal bar from the ground and swinging. The bar caught the killer in the shoulder with a dull impact. The camera flew from his hand and clattered across the floor.

The killer stumbled back, and the flames reached the edge of the gel line that curved behind him. The fire rose, cutting off his retreat toward the far wall.

Hale shouted, “On the ground!”

The killer laughed, hoarse. He reached into his apron and pulled out a small bottle. He uncapped it with his teeth and tossed it toward the fire line.

The bottle shattered. Something flared, sudden and hungry. The fire jumped higher, hotter, biting at the air.

Cal felt his eyebrows singe. Hale coughed, eyes watering.

The killer backed toward the stairs, but the fire was spreading now, blocking clean paths, filling the room with smoke. He looked at Cal. Through the mask, his eyes gleamed with something close to joy.

“You think you’re different,” the killer said. “But you brought your own ending. You always do.”

Cal lunged again. He grabbed the killer by the apron, yanking him forward. The fabric tore. The killer slipped, falling hard onto his back near the dead body. His mask knocked against the concrete.

Hale was there, gun raised, coughing, eyes streaming. He reached down, trying to cuff the killer, but the killer twisted violently, knocking Hale’s hand away.

Cal stomped down on the killer’s wrist, hard enough to hear a crack. The killer screamed, the sound raw and human.

Cal leaned over him, close enough to smell sweat and paint and something metallic. “No more paintings.”

The killer’s eyes locked on Cal. “You’re the masterpiece,” he rasped.

Smoke thickened fast now, rolling down from the ceiling. The fire had found something dry and eager. The mill was waking up.

Hale grabbed Cal’s arm. “We have to go. Now.”

Cal looked at the killer pinned under his boot and felt the old urge rise. The urge to solve things his way. The urge to finish.

The killer smiled behind the mask, seeing it. “Do it,” he whispered. “Make it clean. Make it final.”

Cal’s throat tightened. Not from smoke. From choice.

He stepped back.

Hale hauled the killer up, half dragging him toward the stairs. The killer fought, but his broken wrist and Cal’s brutality had taken some of the strength out of him. He stumbled, coughing, laughing, then coughing again.

They got to the stairwell, and Cal looked back once.

The paintings were still there, pinned in place, watching the room burn. The dead man lay in the middle of it, unclaimed, his sacrifice unnoticed by everyone except the flames.

The killer twisted his head to look back too, like he couldn’t stand leaving his work behind. “They’ll never know,” he said. “They’ll only see the smoke. They’ll never know what it cost.”

Cal stared at the body, then at the fire, then at the paintings.

“Yeah,” Cal said, voice low. “Only the dead know.”

They pushed down the stairs into colder air, into the street where the night looked normal from a distance, where people could pretend a building burning was just another headline.

Behind them, the mill roared as the fire took full hold.

Hale leaned against a parked car, coughing until he gagged, keeping his gun on the killer even as sirens finally started to grow louder in the distance. He looked at Cal with eyes full of fury and something else he didn’t want to name.

“You set a trap that could’ve killed us,” Hale spat.

Cal watched the smoke climb into the sky. “It worked.”

Hale shook his head. “You’re not a hero.”

Cal didn’t argue. He didn’t need that title. He didn’t want it.

The killer, held between them, laughed softly through the mask. “You’re going to make me famous,” he said. “You’re going to tell my story.”

Cal stepped close and grabbed the mask, ripping it off hard.

The man beneath it had a plain face. Forgettable. That was the worst kind. Eyes too bright, lips cracked, cheeks hollow. He looked like someone who could walk past you in a grocery store and you’d forget him before you reached the parking lot.

Cal stared at him, memorizing him. Not for justice. For certainty.

“No,” Cal said. “I’m going to erase you.”

The killer’s smile faded, just a little.

Sirens screamed closer. Red and blue lights flickered across the wet street. Somewhere behind them, glass popped in the burning mill, and a section of roof collapsed with a sound like a giant exhaling.

Hale tightened his grip on the killer and finally, finally, looked like a man who understood the cost of endings.

Cal stood with his hands in his pockets again, watching the building burn, feeling the heat on his face from across the street. His own fire. His own truth.

Up on the second floor, where the paintings had hung, the flames would take the canvas last. Oil fed fire. Pigment turned to ash. The killer’s calling card would disappear into smoke and sparks.

The city would wake up tomorrow with another scar, another story, another set of opinions.

But the dead man on the concrete, the one who’d been placed like a prop beneath the painting, would remain what he had been the whole time: the silent price of somebody else’s message.

Cal didn’t look away until the windows blew out and the heat hit the street like a wave.

Only the dead would know of their sacrifice.

Cal knew too.

And that was going to haunt him longer than the smoke.