I could smell the bad magic long before I entered the old warehouse.
Magic gone bad has a psychic stench all its own. I got a big whiff of it standing next to the patrolman who called me in, the kid whose partner went inside and never came back out. Sighing, I took a scalpel from my belt of parlor tricks and rolled up one sleeve.
"I need to find a bodyguard," I said. "I had a bodyguard, I wouldn't need to do this."
I started carving protective sigils into my arm with the scalpel, shallow wounds. They wouldn't do much against really nasty juju; but if some minor demon decided to lay a warm wet paw on me inside he'd find I'm not that appetizing.
The sight of my own skin gifted me with a sinking feeling in my belly. I hated the fading white scars on my skin, cheap tricks and rush jobs from old magic that dotted my flesh like morse code. Not for the first time, I wish I'd become a dentist instead.
"Wait here," I told the patrolman. He didn't argue.
Greasy soot lined the walls. Fingertips had traced out crude, ugly symbols in the black grime. Crumbled plaster ground to powder beneath my boots.
I found the first corpse pinned to a wall. Whoever had killed him had done a good job; talented use of nails and chains helped provide a fine exhibit on the inner workings of the human chest cavity. There were others, flayed and broken, drifting like grotesque art all around.
The butcher had not used any of his skill on his own murder. His body, clumsily shredded, lay sprawled on the floor near a flight of stairs.
And then I saw the patrolman's partner.
The state of magic-induced madness is terrifying. He had torn clumps of his hair from his head, and strands of it remained pasted to his fingers with blood. He had shredded his own eyelids with his fingernails, and lost eyelashes were scattered across the ragged remains of his face like wasted wishes.
He lumbered towards me and I lashed out at him with a quick telekinetic push. He climbed quickly to his feet, his ruined hands scrabbling across the concrete floor.
I won't lie to you. If there had been more of his mind left for me to work with I would have tricked him into believing he was bleeding to death and let phantom wounds stop his heart. I would have called it a mercy killing. He earned it. But illusions don't work on men whose minds have been obliterated. My next kinetic blast shoved him through a nearby plaster wall. He stopped moving, but I knew he wasn't dead. Poor man.
I righted my glasses on my face and walked down the stairs until I found what he had seen. I could feel the tendrils of madness reaching out from it, a small statuette with too many corners. Too many faces. It made my hair stand on end, just standing so close.
I should have destroyed it on the spot. I would have, if I'd had a sledgehammer or a baseball bat handy. Instead I throw a soot-stained tablecloth over it, and scooped up the statuette, bringing it with me into the daylight. I could hear it crying in the darkness, though. Crying like a child.
There were more police waiting for me when I stepped outside, including a lieutenant I'd dealt with in the past. Our eyes met, and I could feel him trying to bore through my blood-colored glasses to see my real eyes. I can't really show my real eyes anymore. They frighten people, and they are sensitive to light.
"You've got a man down inside," I said. "Be very careful who you send. It's safe now, but you should send the ones who can deal with the worst of it."
"Thanks, Doc," the lieutenant said, nodding. I grabbed his arm gently.
"If there's an opportunity to let him go in peace, do it," I said. "There's nothing left for him in this world anymore."
I threw the makeshift knapsack over my shoulder. And as I walked away, I could hear the statuette screaming, screaming like a calf being dragged to the slaughter.
Doc Silence, the third of October
I could smell the bad magic long before I entered the old warehouse.
Magic gone bad has a psychic stench all its own. I got a big whiff of it standing next to the patrolman who called me in, the kid whose partner went inside and never came back out. Sighing, I took a scalpel from my belt of parlor tricks and rolled up one sleeve.
"I need to find a bodyguard," I said. "I had a bodyguard, I wouldn't need to do this."
I started carving protective sigils into my arm with the scalpel, shallow wounds. They wouldn't do much against really nasty juju; but if some minor demon decided to lay a warm wet paw on me inside he'd find I'm not that appetizing.
The sight of my own skin gifted me with a sinking feeling in my belly. I hated the fading white scars on my skin, cheap tricks and rush jobs from old magic that dotted my flesh like morse code. Not for the first time, I wish I'd become a dentist instead.
"Wait here," I told the patrolman. He didn't argue.
Greasy soot lined the walls. Fingertips had traced out crude, ugly symbols in the black grime. Crumbled plaster ground to powder beneath my boots.
I found the first corpse pinned to a wall. Whoever had killed him had done a good job; talented use of nails and chains helped provide a fine exhibit on the inner workings of the human chest cavity. There were others, flayed and broken, drifting like grotesque art all around.
The butcher had not used any of his skill on his own murder. His body, clumsily shredded, lay sprawled on the floor near a flight of stairs.
And then I saw the patrolman's partner.
The state of magic-induced madness is terrifying. He had torn clumps of his hair from his head, and strands of it remained pasted to his fingers with blood. He had shredded his own eyelids with his fingernails, and lost eyelashes were scattered across the ragged remains of his face like wasted wishes.
He lumbered towards me and I lashed out at him with a quick telekinetic push. He climbed quickly to his feet, his ruined hands scrabbling across the concrete floor.
I won't lie to you. If there had been more of his mind left for me to work with I would have tricked him into believing he was bleeding to death and let phantom wounds stop his heart. I would have called it a mercy killing. He earned it. But illusions don't work on men whose minds have been obliterated. My next kinetic blast shoved him through a nearby plaster wall. He stopped moving, but I knew he wasn't dead. Poor man.
I righted my glasses on my face and walked down the stairs until I found what he had seen. I could feel the tendrils of madness reaching out from it, a small statuette with too many corners. Too many faces. It made my hair stand on end, just standing so close.
I should have destroyed it on the spot. I would have, if I'd had a sledgehammer or a baseball bat handy. Instead I throw a soot-stained tablecloth over it, and scooped up the statuette, bringing it with me into the daylight. I could hear it crying in the darkness, though. Crying like a child.
There were more police waiting for me when I stepped outside, including a lieutenant I'd dealt with in the past. Our eyes met, and I could feel him trying to bore through my blood-colored glasses to see my real eyes. I can't really show my real eyes anymore. They frighten people, and they are sensitive to light.
"You've got a man down inside," I said. "Be very careful who you send. It's safe now, but you should send the ones who can deal with the worst of it."
"Thanks, Doc," the lieutenant said, nodding. I grabbed his arm gently.
"If there's an opportunity to let him go in peace, do it," I said. "There's nothing left for him in this world anymore."
I threw the makeshift knapsack over my shoulder. And as I walked away, I could hear the statuette screaming, screaming like a calf being dragged to the slaughter.