, we get hilarious misfires. Sometimes, the misfires inspire ideas completely separate from the property or concept we were trying to illustrate.
The latest of these led to the idea for a brand-new character, Kenzie Cooper, and a story to introduce her to the world! (Jane Glix is the pen-name given unto us by the computer, so this and any future stories featuring the deadly Zodiac-based assassin!
Written in the Stars
The penthouse suite of the Hotel Metropol overlooked Red Square with the kind of view that cost more per night than most Russians earned in a year. Kenzie Cooper stood at the window, watching snow fall across the Kremlin's illuminated domes, calculating the precise moment a man would die. Her laptop sat open on the mahogany desk behind her, displaying two astrological charts side by side, their geometric patterns of houses and planetary aspects glowing softly in the darkened room.
On the left: Dmitri Ivanov, born March 15, 1968, at 3:47 AM in Novosibirsk. Sun in Pisces, Moon in Scorpio, Ascendant in Capricorn. A man whose natal chart spoke of ruthless ambition cloaked in emotional manipulation, of power accumulated through secrets and fear.
On the right: Her own chart, calculated for this specific moment in Moscow. Mars transiting her eighth house—the house of death and transformation. Jupiter forming a trine to her natal Pluto. The aspects were clear, undeniable. Tonight, the cosmos aligned for justice.
Kenzie had been tracking Ivanov for three months, ever since the dossier arrived through her usual channels. The file detailed his crimes with clinical precision: journalist assassinations disguised as accidents, political opponents poisoned with exotic compounds, entire villages displaced for mining operations that poisoned their water supplies. Ivanov had built his fortune on suffering, protected by a network of corrupt officials and the kind of wealth that made him untouchable through conventional means.
But Kenzie didn't operate through conventional means.
She returned to her laptop, studying the ephemeris for the evening. Ivanov would attend a private auction at the Pushkin Museum at nine o'clock—a gathering of oligarchs and international collectors bidding on looted antiquities. The event was invitation-only, security extensive but predictable. More importantly, the Moon would enter Ivanov's twelfth house at 9:47 PM, the house of hidden enemies and self-undoing. Saturn would simultaneously square his natal Mars.
The universe has a sense of timing, she thought, closing the laptop.
It hadn't always been this way—astrology was once just another curiosity, a peripheral skill she'd stumbled upon by accident. Now, it was as essential to her work as her custom-made Walther PPK.
Kenzie had discovered astrology during her first year as a professional. A target in Mumbai, a corrupt pharmaceutical executive, had kept an astrologer on retainer. While surveilling his office, she'd intercepted communications about "inauspicious timing" that caused the executive to cancel a trip. The trip would have taken him out of her reach for weeks. Instead, he'd stayed in Mumbai, and she'd completed her assignment on schedule.
Curiosity led her to study the charts herself. She approached it with the same analytical rigor she applied to ballistics, surveillance, and tactical planning. The patterns emerged quickly—not mystical prophecy, but a sophisticated timing system that mapped psychological vulnerabilities and optimal windows for action. Some might call it superstition. Kenzie called it another tool in her arsenal.
The Pushkin Museum glittered with old-world elegance, its neoclassical facade illuminated against the winter darkness. Kenzie arrived at eight-thirty, dressed in a black Valentino gown that cost more than her first car, her dark hair swept into an elegant chignon. The invitation she presented at the door was genuine, purchased from a minor aristocrat who needed cash more than culture.
Inside, the auction occupied the museum's main gallery, where priceless artifacts lined the walls in climate-controlled cases. The guests circulated with champagne flutes, their conversations a mixture of Russian, English, and French. Kenzie recognized several faces from intelligence briefings—arms dealers, money launderers, the architects of modern kleptocracy dressed in Brioni and Chanel.
Ivanov held court near a display of Scythian gold, surrounded by sycophants and bodyguards. He was shorter than his photographs suggested, with the soft features of someone who'd never missed a meal and the cold eyes of someone who'd ordered many final ones. His security detail consisted of four men, positioned at cardinal points around him, their attention focused outward on potential threats.
Kenzie studied them with professional assessment. Ex-military, probably Spetsnaz, competent but overconfident. They expected threats to come from the obvious vectors—the entrances, the crowd, the windows. They didn't expect the threat to come from the stars themselves.
She checked her watch: 9:15 PM. The auction would begin in fifteen minutes. She needed to be in position before then.
The museum's layout had been memorized weeks ago through architectural plans and reconnaissance visits. The main gallery connected to a series of smaller exhibition rooms, which in turn led to administrative offices and storage areas. Security cameras covered the public spaces, but the back corridors operated on motion sensors and periodic guard patrols. The guards changed shifts at nine-thirty, creating a seven-minute window of reduced coverage.
Kenzie moved through the crowd with practiced ease, accepting champagne she wouldn't drink, exchanging pleasantries in flawless Russian with men whose fortunes were built on blood. She positioned herself near the gallery's eastern exit, the one that led toward the administrative wing.
At 9:22, she slipped through the doorway.
The corridor beyond was dimly lit, lined with storage rooms and conservation laboratories. Kenzie moved quickly but without apparent haste, her heels clicking softly on marble floors. Anyone who saw her would assume she was looking for a restroom or taking a phone call away from the crowd.
The conservation lab was unlocked, as her research had indicated it would be. Museums prioritized protecting their collections from the public, not from threats that originated within their own walls. Inside, she found what she needed: a white lab coat hanging on a hook, a security badge clipped to its pocket, and access to the museum's environmental control systems.
Kenzie pulled on the coat and studied the control panel mounted on the wall. The museum's climate control was sophisticated, designed to maintain precise temperature and humidity levels for artifact preservation. It also controlled the ventilation system for the entire building.
She removed a small vial from her evening bag—a custom compound synthesized by a chemist in Prague who asked no questions and accepted only cryptocurrency. The substance was colorless, odorless, and would disperse through the ventilation system as an aerosol. In low concentrations, it caused mild disorientation and nausea. In the concentration she was about to introduce into the main gallery's air supply, it would trigger acute respiratory distress in anyone exposed for more than ten minutes.
Anyone except Kenzie, who'd taken the antidote an hour before arriving.
She checked her watch again: 9:31 PM. The Moon had entered Ivanov's twelfth house three minutes ago. Saturn's square to his Mars was exact.
The stars don't lie, she thought, opening the vial.
The compound dispersed into the ventilation system with a soft hiss. Kenzie sealed the empty vial in a plastic bag, tucked it back into her evening bag, and returned the lab coat to its hook. She was back in the main gallery within four minutes, her absence unnoticed in the pre-auction excitement.
The auctioneer, a distinguished man in his sixties, took his position at the podium. The first lot was a Byzantine icon, its gold leaf catching the gallery lights. Bidding opened at five hundred thousand euros.
Kenzie positioned herself near the gallery's main entrance, far from Ivanov but with a clear line of sight. She watched the crowd, counting seconds in her head. The compound would take approximately eight minutes to reach effective concentration in the gallery's air supply.
At the six-minute mark, she noticed the first signs. A woman near the front touched her throat, her face suddenly pale. A man coughed into his hand, then coughed again, harder. The auctioneer paused mid-sentence, his voice catching.
By minute seven, the gallery had descended into chaos.
People stumbled toward exits, gasping for air that seemed to have turned thick and hostile. The bodyguards surrounding Ivanov moved to protect him, but they were affected too, their movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Someone screamed. Glass shattered as a guest collapsed into a display case.
Ivanov clutched at his chest, his face turning an alarming shade of purple. His bodyguards tried to move him toward the exit, but the crowd had become a panicked mass, everyone fighting for the doors simultaneously.
Kenzie moved against the flow, her breathing steady and controlled. The antidote worked perfectly, allowing her to navigate the chaos while others struggled. She reached Ivanov just as his bodyguards lost their grip on him, their own respiratory systems failing.
She took his arm, steadying him. "Let me help," she said in Russian.
He looked at her with desperate, uncomprehending eyes, too oxygen-deprived to question or resist. She guided him away from the main exits, toward the eastern corridor she'd used earlier. Behind them, museum security and emergency responders were flooding into the gallery, trying to manage the crisis.
The corridor was empty, the chaos of the gallery muffled by thick walls and closed doors. Ivanov leaned heavily against her, his breathing labored and wet-sounding. They were alone.
She lowered him to the floor with surprising gentleness. His eyes searched her face, confused, pleading.
"The Moon entered your twelfth house tonight," Kenzie said quietly. "Hidden enemies."
Dmitri Ivanov. Born March 15, 1968, in Novosibirsk. Sun in Pisces, Moon in Scorpio. His natal chart had been fascinating to study—all that Scorpio energy in his eighth house, the house of death and other people's resources. He'd spent his life taking what belonged to others. Money, land, lives.
Saturn squared your natal Mars at exactly 9:31 PM, she thought, watching his face. Did you feel the shift?
Ivanov's fingers grasped weakly at her gown, his eyes widening with understanding and terror. She remained still, professional, her expression neutral as the compound completed its work. His struggles weakened, then ceased. His eyes remained open, staring at nothing.
All those bodyguards scanning rooftops and checking credentials, she mused, and the real threat was the woman in Valentino who knew her way around an ephemeris.
Kenzie checked his pulse, found none, and stood. She removed a small syringe from her evening bag—a second compound, this one designed to mimic the symptoms of a massive heart attack. She administered it quickly, professionally, then returned the syringe to her bag.
The medical examiners would find a man who'd died of cardiac arrest during a mass panic event. Tragic but unsurprising, given his age and the stress of the situation. The compound in the ventilation system would be traced to a faulty seal in the museum's climate control system, a terrible accident that would result in lawsuits and resignations but no criminal charges.
Kenzie straightened her gown and walked back toward the gallery, her heels clicking against the marble with measured precision. The chaos had subsided into organized emergency response. Paramedics moved between guests sprawled on benches and leaning against walls, oxygen masks pressed to pale faces. Security personnel coordinated evacuations in low, urgent voices. The grand space that had glittered with champagne and ambition an hour ago now hummed with the fluorescent efficiency of crisis management.
No one paid attention to one more well-dressed woman emerging from the corridors, her face appropriately shocked and concerned. She'd practiced this expression in mirrors across a dozen cities—the slight widening of the eyes, the hand pressed briefly to her chest, the careful way she avoided looking directly at the bodies being loaded onto gurneys.
Outside, the Moscow night had turned cold. Blue and red lights strobed across the museum's neoclassical facade. Kenzie accepted a blanket from a paramedic, wrapped it around her shoulders, and stood among the other survivors. She watched the organized chaos with the detached interest of someone observing a play she'd written herself. Every element had unfolded exactly as the charts predicted. Saturn's square to Ivanov's Mars at 9:31 PM. The panic beginning at 9:27. His death at 9:34.
Precision, she thought. The cosmos rewards precision.
A police officer approached with a tablet, taking statements. Kenzie waited her turn, mentally rehearsing her story. When he reached her, she gave her account in flawless Russian, describing the panic and her own escape through a side corridor. Yes, she'd seen others in distress—an elderly woman, a young couple, several men in tuxedos. No, she hadn't witnessed anything suspicious before the incident. She'd been admiring a Fabergé egg in the east wing when people started coughing.
The officer's eyes were tired, overwhelmed. He typed her statement with two fingers, asked for her hotel information, and moved on to the next witness. The whole interaction took twelve minutes.
They let her go within an hour.
Kenzie walked back to the Hotel Metropol rather than taking a taxi. She needed the cold air, the movement, the transition between one reality and another. Moscow at night was all golden domes and dark streets, the city's imperial past pressing against its oligarchic present. Her breath misted in the air. Her feet ached in the Louboutins, but the discomfort felt grounding, real.
She thought about Ivanov's chart as she walked. That Scorpio Moon had made him dangerous, secretive, capable of profound cruelty. But it had also made him predictable. Men with that much fixed water energy always believed they could control the depths, never realizing the depths would eventually consume them.
You were always going to drown, she thought. I just chose when and where.
The hotel lobby was warm, bright, blessedly normal. The night clerk nodded to her as she crossed to the elevators. In her suite, Kenzie stood at the window for a long moment, looking out at the city. Red Square glowed in the distance. Somewhere out there, Ivanov's body was being examined, photographed, documented. His death would make the news by morning. Business magnate dies in museum tragedy. His widow would weep for the cameras. His enemies would privately celebrate.
And Kenzie would be gone.
She turned from the window and began to pack with methodical efficiency. The evening bag with its incriminating contents would be incinerated in a private facility outside Moscow. The Valentino gown would be donated to a charity shop in Berlin. The laptop with its astrological charts would be wiped and disposed of in Prague.
Before shutting down the computer, she opened her own natal chart one final time. Mars had moved into her ninth house—the house of long journeys and foreign lands. Jupiter was approaching a conjunction with her Midheaven, the point of career and public reputation.
New opportunities, she thought. Recognition for work well done.
The encrypted message arrived as she was closing the laptop. A new assignment, this one in Singapore. A human trafficker with connections to government officials, a man whose crimes had gone unpunished for decades. The dossier included his birth data: August 3, 1972, 11:23 PM, Manila.
Kenzie opened her ephemeris and began calculating. The target's chart showed a challenging Saturn return approaching, with Pluto transiting his fourth house—the house of endings and final resting places. In six weeks, there would be a lunar eclipse in his eighth house.
Perfect, she thought.
She booked a flight to Singapore under one of her alternate identities, then spent an hour studying the target's astrological profile. Sun in Leo, Moon in Gemini, Ascendant in Aries. A man of ego and cunning, someone who believed himself untouchable. His chart showed a pattern of Jupiter protecting him from consequences, expansive luck that had kept him one step ahead of justice for years.
But Jupiter's protection was waning. The eclipse would strip away his defenses, expose his vulnerabilities. And Kenzie would be there when it did.
She'd learned long ago that justice operated on multiple levels. There were the courts and laws, systems designed by humans and corrupted by them. And then there were the older laws, the patterns written in the movements of planets and stars, the cosmic mathematics that governed rise and fall, action and consequence.
Some called it fate. Others called it superstition. Kenzie called it mathematics.
The snow had stopped falling over Red Square. The Kremlin's domes gleamed under clearing skies, and somewhere in the city, emergency services were still processing the tragedy at the Pushkin Museum. By morning, the news would report Dmitri Ivanov's death as a terrible accident, one victim among many in a mass casualty event.
No one would suspect murder. No one would trace the compound or question the timing. No one would think to cast an astrological chart for the moment of his death and see the patterns written there—the cosmic signature of justice delivered with precision and purpose.
Kenzie closed her laptop and looked out at the Moscow skyline one final time. Somewhere above the city lights, invisible in the urban glow, the planets continued their ancient dance. Mars and Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto, the Moon waxing and waning through its eternal cycle.
The stars didn't lie. They simply revealed what was already written—in the charts, in the patterns, in the inevitable mathematics of consequence.
And Kenzie Cooper knew how to read them.
She left the Hotel Metropol at dawn, another anonymous traveler departing Moscow. By the time Ivanov's associates began asking questions, she would be in Singapore, studying another chart, planning another operation, following the cosmic roadmap that had never steered her wrong.
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Does Kenzie deserve a second appearance? Let us know, and we'll see what Jane Glix can come up with. :)
