The door opens, the tiny bell rings. Cars drive by outside. The middle-aged man with an apron comes into the space behind the counter, holding a tray of cakes. He looks at the customer; it’s a young woman with blue hair.  Her skin is white almost like porcelain, and her features do resemble a doll more than a human. She wears a black dress with frills and lace on the sleeves, knee length white socks and black flats with bows on them. She is elegant, but one feature stands out, an eye patch covers her left eye, its decorated in frills like the rest of her.

“Adel, what can I do for you today? The man smiles to the girls.

“The usual.” She replies.

“Will that be all? “

“Yes. Thank you” she takes the money out of a small elegant purse hanging from her shoulder.

She puts the money on the counter and takes the paper package; it’s giving off a sweet smell. 

“Thank you, come again.” the man watches her leave the bakery.

The girl walks down the street. She stops at a red light. The streets are empty aside from an occasional car. It’s still dark , the tall buildings block the light of the early sun. It rained that night, puddles on the sidewalks and the streets , the moisture in the air making the chill that much more unpleasant. A passing car splashed water on a woman standing on the opposite side of the street.  The light turns green. The girl known as Adel crosses the street and walks into an alley between two skyscrapers.  There are dozens of small shops and cafes, just beginning the preparations to open  for the day. It’s early, the morning traffic hasn’t even begun yet.  She enters a small coffee shop squeezed in between a large boutique and a restaurant. The attendant greets her.

“Good morning, Adel.”  He is a young man with blond hair and glasses.

“Morning.”

“I’ve got your order ready to go.” He hands her two paper cups, covered by plastic lids to keep the contents hot, and placed in cardboard tray for easy carrying.

She takes the coffee thanks him and leaves. The alley is starting to fill up with people, most of them wearing suits and holding briefcases. They spill out of the metro, just the first wave of commuters to work.  Stairs at the end of the alley lead down into the subway.  The train hasn’t left yet. She gets on, all the people got off; no one is going the same way. The car is empty.  The train reaches its last stop, she gets off.  The station is mostly empty; most people who live here have already left on an earlier train.

The neighborhood is different from the city center. There are no skyscrapers here, tall buildings yes, but not as tall. The place has a rundown look to it. Passing by several buildings the young woman makes a turn left and walks into a building made of red brick with a neon sign on that says “Studio”. She takes the elevator to the top floor.  The elevator opens and in front of it is a wooden double door. It’s not locked.

Inside the lighting is dim. The hall leads into a large room. The room is split in half by a red theatre curtain. The large glass windows are covered by thick white curtains that are closed. A table stands in front of the window that part of the room is lifted up slightly, with a couple of steps leading to it. On the lower area is the black leather sofa and an antique looking coffee table with a TV placed on a smaller table right in front of the red curtain. Adel walks past the sofa and the TV, behind the curtain and up the stairs. She opens the door. The room inside is lit by red neon lights, every corner; every wall is covered with dolls. Human sized dolls and doll parts, some are dressed and look like real human beings others are half finished and just stare blankly from their spots.  With her head resting on the table a red-haired woman is sleeping. Her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. Adel waves the sweet smelling bag in front of her.

“Wake up, Pamela”

The woman stirs. She sits up looking disoriented for a moment.  Adel puts the cup of coffee in front of her.

“Thanks” she says taking of her glasses and rubbing her eyes.

“Another all-nighter?”

“I’m trying to make a breakthrough in my research.” She said getting up and stretching her arms.  “I’ll take a shower, then we can get started on breakfast” she takes a small sip of her coffee.

Adel sets the table in the make shift living room. Croissant and cupcakes are now unpacked and sitting on a plate. The sound of the shower running can be heard from behind the curtain. Adel sits down and turns on the TV. The morning news are on.  The middle aged man talks about sports results, and then a different man starts talking about traffic accidents over the weekend.

“There has also been  an increase in dog attacks recently. Several people have been attacked by dogs in the suburbs. A couple was taken to the hospital due to severe amount of bites. While there is a fear of rabies, the doctors say there is nothing to worry about. We advise to take caution and not leave your home after dark if you live in the western suburbs as these attacks mostly happen after dark. If you notice some strange looking dogs in your area please call this number ….”  Pamela changes the channel to some classical music performance.

Her red hair is neatly done up into a new pony tail flowing down onto her shoulders. She’s wearing a white shirt, that is halfway unbuttoned and an equally white sleeveless shirt underneath, tucked into some black pants. She is wearing black ankle high boots on heels.

“You’re leaving?” Adel asks

“I have a few meetings today.” She says walking over a large desk standing near the window.

It is covered in papers and folders. Pamela takes the black leather jacket of the tall rotating chair and puts it on. Reaching into her pocket she takes out a pack of cigarettes, the brand looks nothing you could find in the store: the box is black and it has a golden butterfly on it.  Walking back to the table she lights it with a lighter. 

“I’ll come with you.” Adel says.

“No need. You’ll just get bored” Pamela grabs a croissant from the table.  She puffs out smoke that smells like incense more than tobacco. “I got a call from that institution.  School has   already started a few days ago, you should consider going.”

“I don’t want to” Adel says looking at the floor.

“I don’t blame you. Just consider it, alright.”

“I will.”

“Oh, and before I forget. It might take a while before I come back. I’ll need you to take some medicine to Mr. Thomson tonight. His back has been acting up again.  You remember the address?”

“I do.”

“Well, I’m off” Pamela turned around heading towards the door.

The door shut behind her with a click.

Í»

The classroom door closes with a click.  A dark haired boy looks at the empty seat as the male teacher takes attendance.

“Adel Carmine”

“Absent again?” a much bulkier brown haired boys says chuckling.

“Hey, isn’t the same last name as that artist?” some girl whispers.

“I guess she thinks she’s too rich to come to school like the rest of us.”

“Silence!” the teacher scolds the class.

 The class begins without any further interruption. The day passes by and the final bell of the day rings and everyone stars leaving, the halls are full of students.  The dark haired boy silently leaves his desk , long after everyone has left. The tall, well-built brown haired boy waits outside for him.

“What’s on your mind?”  he asks.

“What you mean?” the dark haired boys says.

“You always have that look when something is bothering you. So spill it.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s the new girl isn’t it? “He laughs and slaps the other boy on the back. “Man, you always hate it when people skip school. Bet that’s why they made you class rep for the third year in a row. “

“That’s not why.” He said defensively.

“Well what is it then?”

“I did a little digging on her.  “

“Oh?”

“Two years ago she was in her final year of school, and then she has been in the hospital for a year. I don’t know the exact reason why but … It just doesn’t seem fair – how they talk about her... “

“Can you blame her for not wanting to come back? I mean twenty or something and still going to school. Pretty embarrassing, right “

The boy shot him a glare.

“What?! I’m just saying….”

“Yeah, you’re right, but school is an important step in one life.  I think I’ll go talk to her, at least make sure she’s caught up to the studies and the homework. “

“Sorry, I got practice in twenty minutes.” The taller boy said.

“Don’t worry about it.  I’ll see you tomorrow”

“Yeah. See ya.”

The dark haired boy looks at the small sheet of paper with the address. The subway is full of people going home from work or school.   He exits the train in the last stop and walks between the block houses looking around anxiously.  It looks unwelcoming and not as neat or looked after as some of the other parts of town.  There are a few drunks  wandering around, even though it’s still light outside, a homeless man going through the trash in a shadowed alley way.  He hurries away upon seeing the man.  Stops to ask a woman with a grocery bag for directions.  He reaches the red building and looks though the names on the mail boxes. The name is no here. The slip of paper only has top floor written next to the address. An elderly woman comes down the stairs. 

“Excuse me. I’m looking for a classmate of mine. Is there someone with the last name Carmine living on the top floor?”

“Carmine? No, I don’t think so. The top floor has no apartments on it- it used to be a theater. Last I heard it’s been rented out for a company that uses it for storage. Nobody lives there. “

“I see.” He said disappointed. “Thank you for your time”

“Nobody lives there?” He wondered to himself looking at the top floor from the outside of the building.

There was a long line of long glass windows, no curtains and the outlines of something like boxes stacked on top of eachtoher could be seen. Crumbling the piece of paper he put it back into his pocket and headed towards the subway.

 

ͼ

Adel headed towards the small bungalow with a light grey fence. She wore a regular white shirt and a white knee length dress over it. The sleeves of the shirt decorated with slight frills. The straps of the dress were frilly and had black roses on them. The skirt of the dress was decorated as well with a pattern of silver roses on the right side.  The tall collar of the skirt was unbuttoned.  Adel knocked on the door. An elderly man opened.

“Good evening, Mr. Thomson. “

“Oh, it’s you Adel, come in.”

“I’m just here to deliver your medicine.”

“Margery made some apple pie. At least have some before you go.”

“Why not.” She said after a brief moment of consideration.

She enters the house.  When she leaves it is dark.  The lights in the street are on but the gaps between the lanterns are dark. The young woman calmly walks the street; there are no people around no cars either. The streets of the suburbs are empty.  Thomson house is on the edge of the suburbs where the street ends and open fields begin. The shadow of a factory in the distance.  Adel walks away from the house heading towards the main street where an occasional car passes by. It is quiet.  There is another street to her right. The lantern in that street blinks, flickering eerily.  A gust of wind blows, the lamp buzzes.  A dog growls.

Adel turns her head to look into the street. The light flickers, smell of iron hits her with the wind. Swinging in the wind from what appears to be leash is a woman, crimson flows down from her body staining the ground and flowing downhill towards the street. The sound of tearing flesh pierces the air. Adel looks from the body of the hanging woman to the left. There left in the street is a stroller; a dog standing on its hind legs has its head in the stroller. The bottom is dripping with blood.  A gasp escapes her. The dog moves, pulling its head out, the muzzle stained with blood. It growls and runs towards her. 

She braces herself. Raising her left arm in a defensive position. The dog jumps and bites into her arm.  She quickly raises her arm and dog that is biting into it, its paws lifting of the ground and slams it into the nearby concrete wall. The animal yelps and goes limp, unconscious. Voices in the distance, sounds of people running towards the commotion.

“Miss, are you alright?” someone asks Adel, who is looking at the torn sleeve of her shirt, there is no blood.

“Do you need an ambulance?

“Oh my god, what happened here?!” somebody screams

“It’s fine. It’s a prosthetic” she says and starts walking away.

“Wait, you should probably stay here for when the police comes.” The man says hesitantly.

“Just give them this.” She takes out a card from her pocket. “They’ll know what to do. “

The man looks at the card. It’s white business card with four red diamond shapes and a crescent moon in the middle and a phone number below the image.

ͽ

Pamela gets out of the red sedan and walks into the café. There are a few customers inside.  A man with a long black jacket, black turtle neck sweater and grey pants and shoulder length dark hair sits at the back corner. She heads towards him and takes a seat at his table. 

“So , to what do I owe the pleasure  this time, detective Amon?”

She begins taking out her pack of cigarettes when a panicked waitress rushes over.

“Miss, you can’t smoke in here.”

“It’s fine.” Pamela says calmly and makes a dismissive gesture with her hand.

The girl returns to the bar like nothing had happened.  The man chuckles.

“A useful trick, but it won’t help you to get out of that parking ticket.”

“What parking ticket?”

“That’s your car, right?” he points to the red car outside next to a no parking sign.

“And since whens that’s your job?”

“It’s not.” He said matter of factly “You may be a magus but even you should abide by the rules.”

“Which brings us to the reason I’m here. “

“As you are aware, strange things have been happening lately. “

“So I’ve noticed.” Pamela said.

“This latest incident is bizarre, but the worst part of it is that the police can’t really do anything about it. You’ve heard about the dog attacks that have been happening?”

“I have. “

“And…?”

“It’s definitely unnatural” Pamela said blowing out a puff of smoke.” But I would need a thorough investigation to tell you anything more. “

“You’ll take it?”

“Of course. We’ll discuss the payment later, but you can start by getting me out of that parking ticket.” She said, blowing another cloud of smoke. “ I’ll need the police information as well.”

“Of course. I’ll bring it over to your place, later. “

ͼ

A while after  it got dark rain began to fall. Adel sat on the sofa in the dark gazing at the window. Small gap in the curtains letting in the light from the street.  The door silently opened and the lights switched on.

“Oh.” Pamela said putting her hand bag down seeing Adel. “What are you doing in the dark?”

“Sorry, I broke it.” Adel said, her left arm hanging uselessly, hair slightly damp.

“Let me have a look at it.” She said, tossing her jacket on the sofa. “What happened?”

“A dog attacked me.”

“Dog?” Pamela’s eyes went wide.

“It was unnatural.” She began describing what happened.

Pamela pushed up her sleeve. Taking a set of small set of tools she began inspecting the arm. The surface around the bite marks was cracked.  Teeth marks were quite deep.  The arm itself was skin colored and felt soft to the touch like human skin, but it lacked warmth, the part where it was attached to the elbow looked like a ball joint on a doll.  Taking a small screw driver Pamela removed the arm from the joint.  She pressed the sides and a panel opened revealing the inner mechanisms. 

“It bit thought the cords - that’s why you can’t move it properly.” Pamela said examining the muscle like strings inside the arm.

“How long will it take?”

“I should be able to fix this in a day or so, but I have a lot of work. For now I’ll give you a spare one from one of my dolls.  It won’t be as light at this one so it might be a little uncomfortable.” She said moving behind the curtain and emerging with another arm.

Adel winced as Pamela attached the arm. It wasn’t as soft or elegant, it looked a dolls arm, the joints in the fingers and spot where the palm attached to the rest of the hand were all round.  Adel moved her new hand, inspecting the fingers.

“Get some rest now.” Pamela said. “And don’t worry about getting breakfast tomorrow. “

Adel nodded and headed behind the curtain.  She passes the stairs the lead to Pamela’s workshop, there is a small room converted into a kitchen on the right.  A shower and a toilet stand under the platform under stairs, hidden by a curtain when use, the curtain currently hangs opened, dim light reflecting from its plastic surface.  At the back of the hall is another room. Adel opens the door, the space inside is small but it’s enough. There is a bed, an old table with a chair, a door to a storage closet, now converted into a wardrobe.  There are books on the table and papers. She gets changed into her night gown, a ground length white gown with frills on end the sleeves.  The new arm feels heave and takes a few tries to get it into the sleeve. Eventually she succeeds. Getting into the bed she pulls the covers over herself and goes to sleep.

ͽ

Amon opens the door to his office.  It wasn’t locked, he remembered locking it however.  Inside, sitting next to the desk was young man with dark hair, glasses a black jacked with the school emblem on it.  He seemed to be asleep, with his head resting on his hand. As he closed the door the boy jumped awake.

“Sorry, the receptionist let me in.” he said.

“Do you need a ride home or something?” Amon said walking behind the desk.

“Actually I was hoping you would help me find someone. “The boy said.

“Look, we maybe cousins but I have a serious job to do. We’re working a big case right now.  I can’t promise you anything.”

The young man let’s his head down.

“I know that you’re busy, I’m sorry. I’ll go now.”  He said getting up.

“Who are you trying to find?” Amon asked

“A classmate of mine, she has never actually been to school though and I think the address she gave was a fake. I just want to make sure she’s alright and not in any danger. The school tried to contact her family but they never seem to be home.”

“What’s her name?”

“Adel Carmine.”

“Carmine” He said sounding amused.

“What’s so funny?”

“The address was not a fake, but you should leave it alone, for your own good. I’m serious”

“If you say so.”

“Look, if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes, I’ll give you a ride home.”  Amon said.

“Alright. I’ll be outside.”

Amon walked out of his office with a briefcase about ten minutes later. 

“Ready to go?”

“Sure”

They got into his car. A black sedan type car.

“Before I drop you off I need to go see someone for work.” He said.

“It’s alright. “The young man responded.

As the car drove from the main road and made a turn into a strangely familiar neighborhood it began to rain.  They stopped outside the same red brick building. The young man found himself staring at the top floor. There was no light up there. No sign that anyone lived there.

“Wait in the car.” Amon said getting out.

While he was staring at the dark windows the top floor, something pulled his gaze away. It was a girl walking in the rain without an umbrella. She was not in a hurry, like a person trying to get away from the rain would be.  Her hair was blue and contrasted with the white of her shirt. Her clothes looked expensive.  Grabbing his bag he rummaged in it for an umbrella.  Getting out of the car he walked up to her.  The girl looked at him but said nothing; he reached out the umbrella to her.

“Here.” He said smiling.

She held her left arm with her right one, just looking at him, before slowly reaching out and taking it.

“Thank you.”

He heard Amon call him and ran back to the car waving at her.

ͼ

 

Adel awoke, sun shining in thought the small window in her room. She turned on her side sleepily, her half opened eyes meeting the back umbrella resting on the table.  She frowned at the object.

“How am I supposed to return that?” she thought . “He didn’t even say his name.”

Getting out of bed she opened her wardrobe and took a white shirt that just like everything had long wide sleeves with decorative frills and lace. Placing it on the bed next to the dress from yesterday she grabbed her towel and left the room.  As the door closed behind her she hear the faint sound of tiny claws scraping across the wooden boards of the floor. A black Pomeranian emerged from the kitchen and walked up to her.  It waged its tail happily. Adel eyed the dog  suspiciously.  Pamela came in parting the curtain.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

“We have a dog?”

“Oh, this? I spent all night making that. Honestly, I’ve never made a dog before.”

“You made it?”

“To help you investigate the dog attacks. Hey, come here.” She motioned for the dog to come.

It turned around and walked up to her. Pamela picked it up.

“I’ll show you.” She said going up the stairs.

Placing the dog on the table she pressed a spot on the neck and it stopped moving. She opened the top part of the head. Inside was dark purple crystal ball.

“That stores its visual information.”

“So it’s like a camera.” Adel said.

“It’s magic, but yes, it just like a camera. Everything it sees will be sent and shown in there “She pointed to a much larger purple orb, so I can see everything as it happens. Its eyes are just like yours. “She said running her finger over the smooth blue glass inside the dog’s head.

Adel unconsciously moved her hand to the eye patch.

“If anything happens, I can take over from here. You should be fine. Now let’s go over the case information.” She closed the head and the dog wagged its tail barking happily.

The living room smelled like coffee.

“So what are your impressions, having been at the scene.” Pamela asked handing her a cup.

“I think it’s someone like you- someone with the power to control.”

“You’re right; it’s definitely some kind of mind control.” Pamela said. “But that doesn’t help us at all”

She took a folder and tossed a bunch of pictures on the table.

“In the past two weeks four have been attacked, this would make it a fifth incident. However over the course two months it would make this the sixteenth incident. Of course it was never the same dog, because once a dog attacks a person it is put down. Out of all these incidents, all except one has been lethal.  ”

“The one on the news, yesterday the couple was put in a hospital.” Adel remembered

“They got lucky. “

“Something about this is strange.” Adel said” if they use dogs to kill people, that I understand, but the woman. A dog could not have done that. “

“True. However there was nothing like that in any of the other crime scenes. This might mean that they have someone working with them, or that these are two unrelated incidents that just happened at the same time.”

“Is there a pattern?”

“Yes. All attacks happened when it was dark. This tells us something about the killer. All of the dog attacks happened after six o’clock so- after work hours. That is also when there people walking dogs around.”

“So they most likely have a day job.” Adel said.

“Probably. The first victim was most likely a homeless man, the police found a dead body in the alley about twenty minutes from the suburb area. Some by passer discovered a half-eaten body; it was hard to tell if he had already been before the dogs stated eating or died because of it. But it shortly after this that the attacks began. “

“A homeless man?” Adel borrowed her brows in thought.

“Yeah, a test most likely “Pamela said. “ They wanted to see what they can do, so they must have acquired their power quite recently. All the other incidents were the same: people who own dogs had their dogs suddenly turn on them and keep attacking until their owners were dead. Most attacks involve large to medium size dogs. All the incidents happened around that suburban area, so they must be someone who lives there or passes through the area on the way from work. ”

“What should I do?” Adel asked

“Take it with you; go ask around about anything suspicious in the area. Regardless whether they are a magus or an ability user, they must have left some traces behind. If we can learn the range of their ability we can use to our advantage.”

The Pomeranian hopped on the girls lap.

“Shouldn’t we name it?” Adel said.

Pamela was in thought for a while.

“Let me see. This is the first dog I’ve made so prototype α[1], the eyes are model β[2], so… how about Albert.”   

Adel laughed. This reminded her of the first time she met Pamela.

 

It was spring; the warm sun coming in thought the hospital window.  She had just woken up from a yearlong coma.  The room was a standard hospital room but everything felt strange.  She opened her eyes wider and realized that she indeed had two eyes. Raising her hand to her face she looked down seeing an arm that should not have been there. Throwing the cowers off she examined her legs – her right leg was there. She didn’t notice the woman with hair sitting in corner of the room.  It was the sudden smell of something herbal or floral, familiar yet undiscernibly that drew her attention.   It was then she noticed the woman and nearly fell out of the bed, her body weak from not being used.

“Don’t make a commotion” said the woman. “My name is Pamela. I’ m a doll maker and also a magus. I made that arm and that leg and your eye.”

She wanted to respond but her voice didn’t seem to work.

“I know what happened to you. I was there when they found you. I’m sorry.”

Weakly she reaches her hand out towards her. A desire to embrace the strange woman surging in her but her muscles is too weak.

“We still can’t find the people responsible. You’re not safe here.  Come with me- it’ll be safe. You’ll need a new name too. αΔ[3]λ[4] -  it’s Greek. Your  eyes is the first like that  so – α , the arm  is made from a new material so I haven’t made many of those either – Δ,  as for the leg – λ.  Put all those together and it sounds like – Adel. “

It had been a lot to take in at the time, but things have been getting better since Pamela showed up.

“Albert?” she looked at the dog on her lap. “I like it”

ͼ

After a shower and change of clothes she put a leash on the dog and went outside. People stopped to say how cute it was all the way to the underground.  She walked around the suburban neighborhood for a while not noticing anything strange.  There weren’t many people around; most were at school or work.  There were a few cats out but no stray dogs anywhere.

“I guess it’s just as Pamela said- the killed has a day job” she thought to herself.

“Adel” she heard a voice call out.

“Hello, Mr. Thomson” she said turning around.

“I heard about last night. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She said.

“Who’s your little friend?” the elderly man bent down to pet the dog.

“Oh, this is Albert. I’m looking after him.”

Albert licked the man’s fingers wagging his tail happily.

“Such a pity” the man said “the way these incidents have made people fear dogs. Several neighbors have given up their pets already.  It reminds of something happened years ago. There was a man who lived here, who hated dogs.” The elderly man pointed to the end of the street” he lived in the house I believe.”

“He hated dogs?”

“I don’t remember his name; it was over five years ago. But a dog had scared his grandson and the boy was so shocked he lost his speech. The man began to hate dogs to the point he began to poison them.”

“Poison?” Adel was surprised.

“He used to work at the factory before it closed. They made chemicals and pesticides there. He used meats with the chemicals in them to lure and kill dogs.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. I think he moved after the factory closed.”

ͼ

Amon got out of the car and entered the red brick building. The door wasn’t locked. The greying evening sky was visible thought the gap in the curtains.  Pamela was sitting at the desk going thought some papers.

“Any progress?” He asked

“A possible suspect, Adel is looking into it now. She should be back any moment.”

“Who’s the suspect?

“A former dog poisoner. Alfred Davis. Began poisoning dogs with chemicals after a loose dog scared his grandson. It was in the papers a few years ago.” She handed him a printed out copy of the article.

He read through it.

“I think I remember this one. People complained about the dogs going missing for a while. Then they all turned up dead in that factory. We never arrested the guy; there wasn’t enough evidence, even though everybody in the neighborhood claimed it was him.  Do you know what happened to him? You think it’s him again.”

“He got what he deserved.”  She said glancing outside.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“See for yourself” she threw him a folder.

“What is it?”

“A medical record.”

Amon’s eyes went wide for a moment.

“How did you get this?”

“I have my ways” she smiled

“It can’t be him” Amon said after looking thought it.

“You can never be sure.” Pamela said taking out a cigarette. “That’s why I sent Adel to inspect the situation. “ 

ͽ

Adel entered the hospital lobby.  Approaching the reception she smiled at the nurse there.

“I’m here to see a Mr. Alfred Davis. “

The nursed looked her over.

“I’m a student doing a project.” She said sheepishly.

A black Pomeranian dog slipped in through the door and headed into the nearest hallway.

“Honestly” the nurse sighed. “I don’t know what good seeing him will do. But make it quick. Third floor, to the left, he should be the only patient on that section of the floor.”

“Thank you.”

Adel walked up the stairs to the third floor. Taking a turn to the left she nearly bumped into a young man with a red hat and a dark green coat.  He moved past her without so much as an apology.  She continued walking. The door was half ajar.  There was a nurse inside. The window was slightly opened, curtains flapping in the breeze. In the bed was an elderly man with a life support machine and a breathing apparatus attached to him. The nurse turned noticing Adel. A vase of bright red carnations resting on the bedside table.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m doing a repot for school. What happened to him?”

“Chemical poisoning, very severe. It led to kidney failure and partial paralysis. His been like this for the past few years.

“Would it be possible to talk?”

The nurse shook her head.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Goodbye then.” she turned around leaving the hospital.

Albert slipped out the door after her.

ͼ

 

“How did it go?” Pamela asked, upon Adel entering thought the door.

“He could not have done it. The nurse said he had paralysis and he’s attached to life support.”

“A magus could find ways to bypass such disabilities. “

“There were no signs of soul displacement, from what I could tell” Adel said.”

“That brings us back to square one.” Pamela said putting out her cigarette into the ashtray.

“What about the grandson?”

“I already checked. After the incident the family moved into another city. The boy lives and goes to school there. “

“Then the boy I saw…” Adel remembered”   I thought it was his grandson at first. There are no other patients currently in the same hall so there was no one else he could have been seeing.”

“A boy?”

“Around my age I think, I can’t tell exactly. “

“Did you see anyone similar last night?”

“I didn’t.”

“I have Amon looking into something. I have my suspicions but I’ll wait to see what he finds. There should be another attack tonight, so I’ll need you head out with Albert.  The fact that we don’t know the range of his ability bothers me.  He might need to stay close to the target he is controlling; if that’s the case we might a chance to capture him.”

“Understood.”

“Be careful, for now the target is an unknown.”

Adel went out the door with the black dog following behind her.  As soon as the door shut the phone began to ring somewhere under the stack of many papers. Pushing the stack of folders and papers Pamela reached for the red dial up phone.

“Amon?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’ve talked to some workers who used to work back at the factory.  Few were there during the incident. He was caught stealing chemicals from the tanks in the factory. He fell destabilizing the contained  and causing  it to spill- factory was closed down because of it. He’s been hospitalized ever since.  But one of his colleagues said something interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“He had seen the man in park with some kid. But this a while after his family moved away, the man confirmed it was not his grandson.”

“Five or six years ago he might have been kid, but now he would be around the same age as Adel.” Pamela said.

“Probably, yeah.”

“So that’s how it is. Did you know, Amon, hate is also a poison.  One that can be passed from person to person.  So he passed it to the boy.”

“You were right he did have an accomplice. “

“This only leaves the question of how he gained his ability.” Pamela said.

“Are you sure the old man was not magus?”

“Adel checked him. He is human. “

“Damn it.” Amon cursed on the other end of the line.

“Lately there has been a rise in the number of ability users, especially in this city.   When a person has a near death experience, something deeply traumatizing or even clinical death, sometime the survivor gains a unique skill or ability from the experience. Usually that possibility is less than one percent. “

“But lately there has been increase right?”

“Yes. Suddenly young people with abilities have been popping up like bubbles in a boiling pot. If I had a guess I’d say the possibility has been raised to nearly a hundred percent.”

“So what you’re saying is that somebody has is creating ability users.”

“Most likely, but they don’t seem to be taking the quantity over quality approach. All these people seem to be directionless, lost, using their new powers to lash out against the world  and create chaos.”

“That means more work for us and more problems for the city.”

“There’s more to it. The magic has always been limited recourse in the world. The world can only handle so much of it, that’s why magi are a minority and the rest of humans are oblivious to magic. But if this keeps up, the unnatural emergence of ability users will increase the amount of magic in the world beyond the point it can take and it will begin to break down the natural order of things and eventually the world itself. “

“So we catch this kid, he might be the lead to find the one behind this?”

“A likely possibility.”

“I’m stuck in traffic on the other end of town. I’m afraid you’ll have to go get him alone.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve sent Adel, she’ll handle this.”

“What can one girl do?”

ͼ

Adel walked down the dark street in the suburban area.  There weren’t many people outside: in the last hour she had only seen two. People were afraid of the dog attacks and avoided going outside after dark. This increase the chance that Adel would become the target. She removed the eye patch, revealing a purple eye with symbols around the pupil. It was dolls eye made by Pamela, one that could see through magic as well was see spirits, the colour contrasted with her natural blue eye and looked creepy so she kept it covered, but even though the cloth she could see things with it.

After two hours spent walking in circles she picked up no traces of anything suspicious. Unendingly her feet had led her to the house formerly inhabited by the dog poisoner.  She noticed a faint light beam, not inside the house, but outside. His family still owned the house, despite living in another city.  Tried to open the gate but it was locked. The only way in was to climb the gate. She could see thought the fence- the shimmering golden shape of a person in the deep dark blackness. No other details were visible.  Albert could not follow her. Briefly considering it she moved away from the gate, into the dark watching for anyone coming out.

No one seemed to be coming out. Twenty minutes passed and there was no light flashes, no sign of a person. She thought about climbing the fence and going in for a look. Footsteps echoed behind her. Turning around she saw a blond man with a golden retriever walking up the hill towards her. She hurriedly covered her eyes with the eye patch.

“Adel, what are you doing here this late?” he greeted

“Mr. Brown, good evening. I’m just walking Albert.” She said pointing to the dog next to her.

“You got a dog of your own, that’s great.”

“Yeah.

“That medicine you gave Tara really helped by the way” he petted the dog next to him that seemed  more interested in Albert.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Does anybody live there?” she asked looking at the house

“No, why?”

“I saw a light walking past it. Looked like a flashlight.”

“Seriously? I was going to check up on the place.  Since I live next door the owner’s family asked me to check on the house from time to time. “

He unlocked the front gate. The house was two story high, wooden planks on the outside windows dark. A white stone path leading to the house from the tall gate, a smooth tall concrete surrounded the house. The man took out a flashlight of his own.

“I don’t have the key to the house itself, I hope it was nothing” the man said as they began to circle the house from the left.  

The man kept looking at the windows. Tara – the dog barked. They had reached the end of the yards where a wooden shed stood.  The door of the shed was open.

“That is not usually open.” he said. “There should be a lock on it”

Approaching the shed saw the padlock broken on the ground.

“What was in here?”

“I don’t really know. Anyway, I need to repot this to the owner, he might know and then call the police.”

Adel gave the spot another look. There was an imprint in the dust, something large and round was there.

“Is there another exit from the property?” She asked.

“The back gate, but I don’t have the key for that; the owners said they lost it a long time ago.”

They walked over to the gate. It looked much older than the front gate; it was smooth, nothing to grab on to while climbing, the lock on the gate didn’t look damaged.

“And it opens up to…” Adel tried to think.

“The river road, I walk Tara there sometimes.”

The man walked out of the property with Adel following close behind, then locked the gate and headed home.  She heard Pamela’s voice coming from Albert.

“Head back; there is nothing to do here at the moment.”

ͼ

 

Amon had arrived at the studio bright and early that morning.  Three cups of coffee siting on the  antique coffee table next to the plate of doughnuts.

“ Why  change the pattern? Why now?” Amon looked at Pamela.

“We know for sure it was the same person.  The night something gets stolen a dog attack doesn’t happen. Besides none of the locks on the gats were broken so he used a key. The old man could have given him the key since they were close”

“You sound like you’ve been there.” Amon said.

“In a way.” She responded looking at the Pomeranian sleeping on the cushion next to the sofa. “ I also have a good guess to what was stolen from the shed. “

“A contained for chemicals, right? “ Amon answered

“Yes, that is my guess. He must have had a few of those since he was stealing them from the factory.”

“But it makes no sense. He has powers, why need chemicals?”

“Who knows? Maybe he wants to pay homage to his mentor. “

Amon’s mobile phone rings.  He picks up and immediately goes pale.

“Somebody saw a pack of dogs, about twenty of them moving through the north part of town.  A witness just reported seeing it.”

“So all of these attacks were a test, to see what he can do. Now he makes his move.” Pamela turned to Adel. “I’m going with Amon, you- head to the suburbs. “

“I’ll the men to open fire on any dogs wandering without owners.” Amon said reaching for the phone:” we can’t risk him launching an attack of that scale.”

“No need.” Pamela said.” It’s true he use the dogs to attack people but the dogs were always his goal- to make people fear them, to make people hate them and to kill them. The object of his hate is not humans but dogs, however that does not excuse him from the murders he committed, but before we can take him in he needs to be neutralized. I’m counting you, Adel.”

The young woman nodded.

ͼ

 

The sun was setting. There had been reports all day of dogs and groups of dogs seen moving through the city but the area Adel was in was quiet.  Long hours passed, people shot her and Albert looks of mistrust but nothing beyond that. Warnings were issued thought the television and radio for people to stain inside.  

Adel noticed a familiar looking dog running, the golden retriever Tara. It ran past her, there was blood on her fur. The dog just ran like the devil was chasing it. Running after her was the owner, one arm slightly bleeding with a bite mark on it. 

“She jumper out the window broke the glass by ramming it and bit me when I tried to stop her. I don’t know what got into her.” The man stopped, breathing heavy from running.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go look for her. You should get that wound looked at.”

“Adel, are you sure? “

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine” she smiled at him.

“If you say so.” He turned around and started heading home.

Adel walked down the hill where she had seen the dog run.   Removing her eye patch she could see what looked like a bright golden beacon. With her normal eye she could see the dark fields and the shadowed image of the factory.

She passed the warning signs with the signs of toxic danger .There were paw tracks in the mud. While the factory had been cleansed after the chemical spill, there was fear that the environment was still contaminated and no one wanted to work there.   Carefully she bent down to get in thought a hole in the fence.  The door was opened.  She entered the building looking around. The large room where the tanks of chemicals used to be was removed, not it was just a wide empty space.  Some of the chemical tanks used to be built in to the floor, now leaving giant pits. As Adel moved closer, walking between the pits on the metallic bridge she noticed sighs of life in there, golden glowing shapes crawling about. 

Footsteps reached her from the other end of the large room. A person with a flash light entered and behind him was a mass of dogs.

“Who are you?” he noticed Adel

It was the young man she had seen in the hospital.

“ Let me guess , you’re looking for your puppy. “ he said, then noticed Albert next to her” Well, today is not your lucky day.

ͽ

 

“What can one girl do?” Amon’s voice echoed from the other end of the line.

Pamela almost laughed.

“Adel’s ability makes her special.  Her power to put is simply is amplification. Everything that exists is made of multiple parts- aspects: elements of nature, life  death. Adel can amplify all or one of the aspects, even the void- the gap that exists between aspects.  That girl is something that maybe only happens once in a thousand years. “

ͼ

 

The boy closes his eyes and extends his arms towards Albert. The dog sits still by Adel.

“What?”  He opens his eyes, looking at the dog confused.

“Stop this.” Adel says. “Surrender peacefully.”

“Surrender? To you? “

“You killed people; you have to answer for that. Please come with me and turn yourself in.”

“Are you stupid? The dogs killed those people, not me.” He laughed.

“I know you can control them. ”

“Wait I remember you! In the hospital and then that night you were there. You know too much.” He closed his eyes again and the dogs began moving towards her, more dogs came running through the other door.  They were all large and medium size dogs of various breeds.  The none large black one jumped at her.  Adel closed her eyes, and opened them. Both eyes were now red with a pattern of two crossing spirals.  The dog hit an invisible and was knocked backwards before it could get to her.

“You’re like me” the young man was shocked. “I thought I was the only one. “

“No. There are many like you, but they are not like you. They use their power for good and helping people.”

“I am helping, helping to get rid of those mangy animals.” 

“No, what you did was murder. “ 

 The dogs bit into her right leg as she made a step forward. But she didn’t react, there was no blood.

“Don’t come any closer!”  he yelled

“Alright, I don’t really need to.” She said. The air becoming heavy and crushing his body to the ground.  “Amplification: aspect gravity, width 1 meter, length 1 meter.  “

The boy was struggling to keep himself from falling face flat to the ground.  All the dogs seemed to still and lay down not moving. She approached the boy. The leg with the dog bites on it was stating to  crack around the marks of the edges. She was stumbling at the gravity field took effect. Albert tried running after her but was forced to the ground, it’s body creaking and making cracking sounds. 

 “Get away from me” the boy yelled as Adel moved closer but he could hardly stand up, falling on his back in front of her.

“This is crazy. You’re not human. You’re some kind of monster.”

“Amplification: void” her eyes turned black with the spiral pattern assuming a white colour. A black aura surrounded her body, flowing from her into the boy. He screamed out, more in fear than in pain. A faint purple glow surrounded the boy’s body; the black began to consume the purple until it was all gone.

“What did you do to me?” he looked at her horrified. 

The crushing gravity stopped. All the dogs in the room began acting like normal dogs, looking around, whining, walking and looking for their owners.  The boy reached out closing his eyes but nothing happened.

“You can’t control them anymore. You’re done. I took your power away. But you still have to answer for what you did.”

Police sirens could be heard outside. The boy tried to run away but was stopped by Amon walking in thought the door. He forced the youth to the ground and handcuffed him, two police officers came in and took him away.

“Well done” Pamela said walking in.

“I think Albert is broken. I might have over done it.” She said looking at the dog doll that lay on the ground unable to get up.

“I’ll make a new one. Let’s go celebrate. “She said.

“Maybe later, I fell a little sleepy”

Turning around Pamela barely managed to catch the girl as she fell. Eyes closed, prosthetic leg shattered and barely supporting her weight.

“Maybe you overdid it – just a little bit.”

Amon helped carry Adel to Pamela’s car.

“I’ll let you once we question him” he says.

“Alright, see you then”

ͼ

Adel awoke in her room. Getting out of bed she noticed her leg was replaced with dolls.  Memories of last night came flooding back.  She looked at herself in the mirror, the eye patch removed and resting on the table.

“You’re some kind of monster.” The word echoed in her head.

Taking the eye patch she covered up the glass eye.  Pamela entered her room with a tray of pastries and coffee.

“Good morning.”

“Morning.” She said forcing a smile.

“Well, Amon finished questioning the lad, turns out his ability was natural. He had no family, Davis was like grandfather to him and the hate for dogs just got passed like an infectious disease thought their interactions. It’s a pity things turned out that way. Hate is a poison, one that eats way your soul until you become something that’s not human anymore – a monster. ”

Adel turned to look at her face.

“Don’t worry about what he said. You’re fine. Now get some breakfast we have long day ahead of us.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] α –alfa

 

[2] β - beta

[3]  Δ – delta

[4]  λ - lambda

2: Case 2 : Distorted Image

Amon looks at the dark haired boy in the chair.  Early morning sun is pouring into the office thought the gaps in the metal window blinds.

“Sorry, I called you here so early.”

“It’s nothing. I’m glad I can help.”

“I know you want to become a detective someday, so that’s why I called you. Lately we’ve been having problems with this new drug that hit the streets few months ago. It’s popular among teenagers. We did talk to the few we managed to catch. One of them said that dealer was wearing the uniform from your school.”

The young man’s face had the expression of shock on it but grows serious moments later.

“I’ll see if I can learn anything. “

“You are a civilian, so I’m going against regulations by asking you to get involved. If you feel like you’re in any kind of danger call me. You will only gather information; do not attempt to confront or follow any suspicious individuals. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.” The young man nodded.

“Will you be alright taking the bus? There somewhere I need to be soon.” Amon said.

“It’s not that far, I can walk.” He said getting up from the chair.

 They walk out of the office. Amon gets into his car, the young man starts walking the opposite way.

 

“A drug? In our school?” the tall browned haired young man says thinking for a moment.

“Shhh, not so loud, Travis” the dark haired man silences him.

“I don’t know about that. But there has been something strange going on with the minors. Seventh, eighth, even sixth grades. Students have been disappearing, mostly girls from what I’ve heard. I don’t know maybe there’s bad flue going around. I heard about it from a friend during basketball practice, I can ask him again.”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I’ll ask him during practice today. Now let’s go, class is stating.”

As they walk into the class and Travis takes seat, the other boy looks to the spot by the window. That seat is usually empty but not today. Sitting there is a girl with blue hair, braided into a loose braid flowing down her left shoulder. One eyes covered by bandages. She is looking out the window. A moment passes and the teacher clears his throat.

“Take your seat, Mr. Smith”

Realizing he was staring, the boy walks to his desk and sits down. She looks different from that rainy evening, the school uniform looks bland in comparison to the clothes she was wearing but he knows it’s the same girl.

“She finally came”

ͽ

Adel looked at the clothes on the mannequin. It was a black jacket and a knee length green skirt. Pamela brought it into her room this morning.

“What is that?” she asked

“Your school uniform.” Pamela said grinning

“I said I don’t want to go.” She said in protest.

“Calm down, it’s for a job. I’m too old to go so that leaves you.”

“A job?”

“An acquaintance of mine contacted me couple days ago. She’s a psychic who specializes in fortune telling.  A few students from that school had come to her for a reading and she had seen the same exact thing in all them. She believes there is restless spirit in the school that is trying to get young girls to join it in the afterlife.”

“So it’s a ghost.”

“Well I don’t know for certain, but I guess we’ll have to find out. I already took the payment from her, so we just need to do the job.”

Adel gave the uniform another look of resentment.

“Don’t worry about it. “ Pamela said. “Listen you do this for me and I’ll see about getting you into the College[1].”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” She said.

“Great.  I’m done with your new arm. You can try it on if you like.”

On the coffee table there was a case with the doll arm it.

“I had to ship it overseas to a friend who specializes in enchantments, so it took a while.  It has a glamour spell placed on it so it looks just like a normal arm to anyone. I made it stronger, so a dog can’t bite through it. Also there is a special metal mixed into the alloy of silver[2] and copper[3], so you should be careful when using your powers on it.  ”

“Alright.”

“Your leg is back too. “

Pamela takes the arm begins attaching it. Adel sits on the sofa with her head bowed.

“Thank you.” She says.

“Don’t mention it.” Pamela replies “Now the leg”

She removes the rough looking wooden doll leg and begins attaching the new one that looks like it was a real human limb. 

“Can you do something about this?” Adel points to her eye.

“I can give you a regular dolls eye, but you would lose the advantage of the enchantment. It would take me a month to make a new one for you.  I can change your hair, if you want” she points to the shelf next to the door that is full mannequin heads with wigs.

“No, it’s okay, I kind of like it.”

“You’ll start tomorrow. Amon will pick you up in the morning.”

“Amon?”

“I have to be at the exhibition opening, sadly. I need to make money to pay for things, doing police jobs is really not enough to make a living, but you’d be surprised how much people are willing to pay for these dolls.  What’s your problem with Amon?“

Adel bowed her head embarrassed.

“It’s just, that I have a feeling he doesn’t like me.”

“Would you feel any better, if I told he doesn’t like magic in general?”

“But he asks you for help all the time, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, and it kills him inside.” Pamela said with sarcastic tone in her voice” he comes from a long dried up line of mages who have lost the art. He knows magic exists and he can’t do anything about it because he is only human. But if it was up to him people like you and me wouldn’t exist.”

“Don’t worry, he won’t do anything drastic. He might have his pride but knows he can’t do anything against magic without help. He’ll trust you, eventually; you just have to prove to him you deserve it.” Pamela said noticing the sad expression on Adel’s face. 

“Cheer up- we’re going shopping.” Her voice changing from serious to carefree.” You need supplies for school, I need some parts to fix Albert, oh and I might as well make you something new to wear. What would you like?”

“Some pants would be nice for a change.” Adel said under her breath.

“How boring, a girl your age should wear beautiful dresses. “she said in an overly dramatic tone

“You wear pants all the time.”

“Yes, but I’m not a young girl, now am I? Beside they look so good on you” Pamela got a mischievous glint in her eye.

She snuck up behind Adel from behind and leaning over the edge of the sofa started tickling her. Adel burst out laughing.

“Stop it, please.”

“Not until you agree to wear the dress I’ll make you.”

“Alright, I’ll wear it.”

Pamela stopped. A smile on her face, as she watched the girl calm down, now smiling as well.

“Let’s go, I want to get to the market before the good stuff sells out.”

Adel jumped from the sofa and ran to her room to change.

ͼ

The bell rung and the students began pouring out of the class heading to the lunch hall. Adel remained in her seat, in the classroom. The special charm Pamela gave her has been working so far and any stranger who might have had any ill intentions or mere curiosity towards her, even if they wanted to approach her – didn’t. Her gaze was directed toward the window, from which the majority of the school building could be seen. Her magical eye examining the structure for any signs of a paranormal presence, seeing thought the walls, but every person why passed into her vision was ordinary.

“A ghost, huh?” she wondered.

Too lost in her thoughts she didn’t notice a tall, thin, slightly pale boy with dark hair approach her.

“Hello.”

She nearly jumped from her seat.

“We’ve met before. I don’t know if you remember. It was raining that day.”

“You’re the one with the umbrella.” She remembered.

“You do remember.” He smiled nervously

“Here, you can have it back.” She took it out from her hand bag.

He took it almost hesitantly.

“I’m Taliesin, the class representative so if you have any problems adapting, you can ask me for help.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” She said in an emotionless tone.

“Yo, Tal, you coming?” Travis called out from the hall.

“We’ll, I’ll be going now.”  He walked out of the classroom shakily and closed the door.

Travis burst out laughing.

“Man, what was that conversation? If you need tips on hitting on girls, I can give you some.”

“Shhh. Keep it down”

“Don’t want her to hear you like her?”

“It’s not that.” Taliesin grew serious” Remember how I said someone in the school was dealing drugs?”

“Yeah, but, you don’t think it’s her?”

“When I spoke to Amon about her he told me to drop it. So I did a little more digging.” He said pulling Travis into a nook behind the lockers, examining the hall to make sure it’s empty.

“She had been in the hospital two years ago, but beyond that there are no records of her. Adel Carmine didn’t exist before then. Her identity is fake. “

“You serious?”

“I am. Whatever is going on in this school I have a feeling she is involved somehow. “

“I got something too.  It’s just rumors, so take it however you want it. I spoke to my friend. He said he originally heard this from his sister who is in junior high here. Her friend mysteriously disappeared few days ago. She said she was being chased by a ghost. She didn’t come to school and she never came home. Few other girls have stopped coming to school too.  They say it’s a ghost of a male student that died from suicide and haunts the building where the junior and middle classrooms are.  Sounds stupid I know, but it could be some drug hallucination or something.”

“A ghost? I can’t tell Amon about something like that. But maybe if I learn the names of the missing girls and who they were in contact with last. “He said more to himself, expression becoming really focused.

“Leave it to the police, man. I know you want to be a detective, but you still need to graduate and go to college before that. Their parents already called the cops about the disappearance; the school has been keeping the whole thing under wraps to not cause panic. Come on, let’s go get some food.” 

They left the spot behind the lockers and began walking down to the cafeteria. The lunch break was halfway thought. They sat in the corner that had the view of the entire room. Taliesin hurriedly took bites of his sandwich, eyes darting from person to person.

“She’s not here” he said.

“Calm down, Sherlock, “Travis teased him” we got here late so maybe she ate before we got here. What is whit you today?”

He gave a sigh.

“I’m sorry. This the first time Amon has asked anything like this of me. I don’t want to let him down.”

“So what’s the big deal with this Amon guy? Do you like him or something?”

Taliesin shot him a glare

“He’s my cousin. It’s just, I’ve been living with my aunt, she’s Amon’s mother, ever since the accident that killed my parents. Amon became a detective shortly after; he was convinced it wasn’t an accident and that one’s responsible were still out there.  He pays the rent and my tuition; he works so hard – he’s never home.  I feel like he has done so much for me, I just want to help him.”

“Sorry. I understand how you feel, man. Wanting to help out is admirable but maybe you should find a better way to do it, like get a part time job to help with rent or something.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right”

They finished lunch and headed back to the classroom.  Adel was still sitting in her chair looking out the window.

“Was she here the whole time?” He wondered.

ͼ

“Adel!” His cry echoes thought the empty school ground.

The sky is dark, no sighs of people just the wind sweeping the leaves from the tree tops. The silence seems ominous, like the calm before the storm; air is full tension and a sense of eeriness and dread. The clouds gather growing darker and thicker. As the youth round the corner of the building there is a blast of some kind, almost like thunder but there is no lightning flash, just the sound that deafens. And just like dominoes one after the other the windows shatter one by one.  And this time a flash of actual lightning hits the ground and illuminates the sky. And he sees a figure on the roof a flash of blue hair in the brief moment of light.  She takes a step to the edge, arms outstretched to her sides. He can hear his heart pounding in his chest as he runs into the building and up the stairs.  The door leading to the roof of the school that is usually locked is now wide open. He sees her standing there as the rain begins to fall and lightning flashes again.

“I’m sorry. Please stop this” he yells, his voice swallowed by the wind.

The wind on the roof is a lot stronger than on the ground, it’s almost roaring now, growing stronger as it picks up speed. He can see her form almost tossed around by the wind, like a rag doll. She climbs on the edge of the roof.

“Please get down from there.”

She turns to look at him, rain streaking down her face and smiles, her face turning serene for a moment as she takes one more step and begins to fall. Taliesin falls to his knees arm outstretched towards her.

 

ͽ

Adel watched everyone leave the class as the final bell of the day rang. She slowly put her notebook away and walked into the hall.  The hall was currently empty. Looking out the hall window she saw the part of the school that was on the opposite side of the main entrance. Across the stadium was another similar building, it had its own stadium but the two were parted by a net like fence. Walking down the stairs to the front entrance she saw Taliesin siting there by the front stairs.

“You’re still here?” he said looking at her as she approached

“Someone is picking me up.” She said.

Somehow being around this young man was putting her on edge.

“Me too.” he said

“You said I can ask you about things.”

“Sure, what you want to ask?”

“What’s in the other building across from here?”

“You don’t know?” He looked up meeting her gaze; she turned her eyes away slightly embarrassed “it’s the junior and middle school.”

A black car stopped infron of the entrance and the driver honked the horn a few times. Both got up nearly at the same time and began walking towards the car, then gave eachtoher a strange look and stopped. Amon lowered the window and shouted.

“Get in, I don’t got have all day.”

Both got into the car. Taliesin taking the front seat and Adel in the back. They dropped her off first. The young man watched her get out and walks towards the red brick building.

“So, tell me, did you find anything out?” he asked pulling out of the drive way into the main road.

“Well, a few girls have gone missing from the middle school, but you probably know this already. And a... No nevermind”

“Tell me anyway.”

“No really it’s nothing.”

“I’ll decide that. As a detective you never know what could be important, so tell me.”

“It’s just a stupid rumor that a ghost of a male student is behind the disappearances.”

“A ghost?

“I told you it’s stupid.”

“I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’ll find out tomorrow anyway. We found one of the girls that went missing.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s dead- suicide. Ran away from home about a week ago, her parents said something about her believing that a ghost was after her. She had been dead for three day when they found the body, jumped off the bridge on the outskirts of town. Smashed her head on the rocks, the body was carried by the current far away. A fisherman found her. The camera on the bridge recorder the jump so we got all the evidence we need.”

“Could the ghost be a drug?” He asked silently.

“We checked her, no traces of any substances found. She must have really believed that there’s a ghost after her.”

There was a moment of silence in the car.

“We’re here.” Amon said stopping in front of a block off flats.

“You’re not coming?”

“I have some work to do. Do you mind taking the bus to school for the next couple of days?”

“Are you driving her to school?”

“It’s a favor for a friend.”

“Right, of course it is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Amon’s tone became strict.

“You told me to stay away from her. Why?

“Now is not the time for discussing that. I really need to go. “He said angrily and slammed the door, quickly moving from the spot into the street and vanishing in the mass of cars.

Í»

“Did you have fun at school?” Pamela asked as Adel walked in the door.

“Is this a real job?”

“Of course it is what makes you think otherwise?”

“I’ve been there almost an entire day, but I saw no traces of spirit energy or a spirit.” She said frustrated. “Did you just make this up to make me go to school?”

Pamela roared with laughter.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She said wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “I assure you there most definitely is ghost of some kind.” She grew more serious. “Have a look at these.”

Adel walked over to the desk and looked at the pictures of girls in their thirteen’s or possibly fourteens.

“These were the girls my friend did the readings for. And they were nearly identical, all showing a presence of evil and a fast approaching death. The girls asked her questions about ghosts. One of them was found dead this morning in the river and one is still missing. The girls seemed to believe there was an evil spirit coming after them. The one found dead died from suicide. She jumped of the bridge. It’s not unusual for people possessed by evil spirits to take their own lives in such a manner.”

“So I’ll have to go back tomorrow.” Adel said disappointed.

“Don’t look so down. School is important, and do try to make friends.”

“Friends” her mind drifted to that young man and the time she first saw him on that rainy evening.

Shaking her head she walked to her room. Pausing to stop by the work shop. Albert is placed on a holder, the broken limbs removed. Adel pets its head, feeling the soft fur under her fingers. Pamela didn’t have time to fix him yet.

“Friends. You used to have friends once.” She thinks to herself” I wonder where they are now? Probably going to college, maybe even have families .Do they remember me? They all must think I’m dead after what happened.” She sighs, tears welling up in her eyes.” It’s not fair.”

ͽ

Pamela looked out the window, slowly lighting a cigarette. Amon leaned against the desk.

“He confessed to the all the murders except one.” The man said

“The woman, right.”

“Yeah.”

“He has no reason to lie in these circumstances. It’s not like one less will make a difference in his sentence. Since his ability was to control dogs, I can see no way he could have done it without being present at the scene. But Adel would have seen him if he had, even if he was hidden.”

“That means we have another killer on the loose. But one thing I don’t get- why dogs? He hated them.”

“The abilities manifest most commonly as a result of trauma, something deeply scaring, or an encounter with death. These things damage a person physically, but more often the true damage is psychological. Psyche in modern psychology it’s used as a term for the human mind, but in ancient Greece it meant something else- the soul. The two are not mutually exclusive. Hate can scar the soul in many ways; it precisely that hate that manifested his power. These powers usually come from an aspect of the persons psyche. It can be the trauma itself, or ones deepest fears, something you hate or something you love.”

“So what about her powers?”

“Adel is different.  Her power is unlike anything I’ve seen so far. It’s like her power doesn’t come from her but from the Origin itself. “

“Origin?”

“The thing you humans mistakenly call god” she said breathing out smoke.

Amon’s eyes went wide, and then he grew serious, almost angry even.

“Don’t worry “Pamela cut in before he could say anything” she isn’t dangerous.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because more than anything else, she wants to be a normal girl. She hates her powers; she doesn’t want to be magical or special. She wants to go to school, hang out with friends and start a family like everyone else. She didn’t choose this.”

“I know that. I was there” He said anger still evident. “ it’s been three years, and we still haven’t caught the bastard that did it.”

“Since you’re so worried about her, I suppose you won’t mind giving her a ride to school for few days.”

“What? Why should i?”

“I have an exhibition coming up and Adel need to go to school for an investigation I’m doing for a friend. “

“She can take the bus, can’t she?”

“I just thought that since you’re so concerned about her, you could do it. You’re already taking that brat to school anyways.”

Amon was considering another reason to refuse. Pamela got up from the chair and walked up to him.

“If I recall you still owe me for that.” She whispered in his ear.

Amon tensed at her words, a slight blush creeping unto his face, looking around the room, but the two of them were the only people there.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

ͼ

Taliesin watched Amon leave his office and get into the car. He waited until the man drove away, before emerging from the dark alley he had been hiding in. Trying to look inconspicuous as he entered through the door.

“I’m sorry, Amon just left” said the blonde woman at the reception.

She had been talking on the phone with someone when he entered and placed her palm on the phone as she spoke to him.

“I know, he asked me to get something for him from his office, he forgot some files.” Taliesin said trying to keep a straight face.

She just nodded and went back to her phone conversation. He entered the office and began going through the files in the cabinets. After searching a few drawers he finally found with the name Adel on it.

“I knew it” he triumphantly thought to himself.

ͽ

Amon was in his office drinking coffee and going thought the reports when the phone rang. The blond receptionist poked her head inside.

“The found the missing girl.” she said.” I’ll divert them to you now.”

Amon pressed the button on his desk phone. A male office answered.

“Detective, Amon, we found the missing girl. Just like the previous one – suicide, jumped of the cliff outside of town near a bike road.  We’re going to start the autopsy.”

“I’ll be right over. This case gives me bad feeling.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t touch the evidence until I get there.”

He stormed out of the office to his car. The girls went missing about the same time, now both have turned up dead. Both complained to their parents about a ghost coming after them. Before he would have dismissed something like that as made up, but after being on the field for several years he had developed something he liked to believe was an instinct for detecting cases where the supernatural was involved. And this case was weird from the start. But now Pamela and Adel were involved, because of someone else this time but still involved in the same case regardless. He knew, somehow he could feel the ghost rumor in the school and the deaths were connected, he didn’t feel the need to ask Pamela for details to know that.

He entered the police station. A few officers greeted him.

“So there was a couple out jogging on the old bike road and they decided to film the sunrise but that was when the girl jumped from the cliff, they caught the whole thing on camera. “

“Only...” the other began” well, you’ll see it for yourself. It’s a little strange. “

Amon watched them put the disk from the camera in and the computer began to show the image of the rising sun. Then it flickered, black lines appearing in the image. A girl emerges from the bush and starts walking towards the edge.

“What the hell is this?” Amon said looking at the screen.

“We don’t know exactly. “The officer said.

It looked like two images were placed on top of one another. There were two images of the same girl. One was walking to the cliff with her arms outstretched; the other had her arms stretched but looked unnatural, her body contorting like she was trying to get out of some invisible rope , her feet floating slightly above ground.

“The image is somehow distorted, but the image of the girl walking off the edge is clearly the real one. The woman confirmer seeing her walks off. She even tried to call out to her.” The officer said.

“The girls said they were being hunted by a ghost.” Amon said.

“Sir, you can’t be serious. There is no such thing as ghosts.”

“The one on the bridge was that distorted too?”

“It was.” A middle aged man entered the room with a cup of coffee” I’ve seen it. I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

“This has not been edited at all right?” Amon asked

“No, we took it directly from the man’s camera after he had filmed. I don’t think he had time to watch it himself.” The younger officer said.

“I’m going to see an expert about this. I need the recording from the bridge and a copy of this one.  “

Í»

Taliesin flipped through the file. Eyes going wide as he read.

Adel, real name [crossed off], address [crossed off]. 

“Victim of the serial kidnaper that was active three years ago. The break in was reported by the neighbors of the family. Upon entering the officers found the dead bodies of Mr. and Mrs. [crossed off], identities confirmed by neighbors. Cause of death – blood loss due to multiple stab wounds.   Their daughter was missing from the scene. The search was canceled and the girl declared dead after six weeks.

Update.

[crossed off] was found in an apartment nine months later, in severe state of malnutrition and disfigurement. Evidence shows that she underwent extensive torture and abuse during the period of captivity.  The girl is being treated in a undisclosed location. Currently comatose. The kidnaper still evades capture.

Update.

 [crossed off] has made a full recovery. Currently living under the identity of Adel Carmine. “

Some loose pictures fell out of the folder. Taking a closer look he felt his stomach begin to turn. Covering his mount he got up and ran to the nearby bathroom. Taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. He splashed some water on his face.

“I’ve been an idiot” he realized.

After calming down he returned and put the file back in place. Taking an empty folder from the table, he walked out of the office. By the time he got to school it was lunch break.  The sky was growing dark with approaching rain clouds.

“Tal! It’s not like you to skip school” Travis called out.

“Sorry, there was something I had to do.” He said.

“Man, she’s a real bad influence on you”

“What you mean?”

“So you weren’t like following her all day or anything?” Travis said slightly surprised.

“Adel didn’t come to school today?.”

“Yeah, so I thought you were doing something crazy”

“Well I sort of did. I snuck into Amon’s office.”

“No way?”

“Well, she isn’t a drug dealer. Nothing like that. “

“Yeah, I figured as much.” Travis said.

“It’s weird she isn’t here today. Amon was supposed to drive her.” Taliesin thought to himself” Did something unexpected happen?”

Í»

Amon put the disk in. Pamela leaned back on the sofa.

“This better be urgent. I had to leave a client who was about to make a purchase on a very expensive doll.”

“It won’t take long.” He said, restlessly tapping his foot.

“So what do you think? Amon said after they looked thought the both recordings.

“What I think?”

“Is it a ghost or not?”

“It could be a lot of things. A ghost is one of the possibilities, but …. Both victims died in front of the camera, almost like somebody wanted it to be recorded. Then there’s the distortion itself. A spirit can distort the cognitive perception of reality of one person or several; however it is done by affecting the physical senses, so it would not show up on camera. I think that somebody really wants people to believe that these girls committed suicide and that a ghost made them do it. I think we have a murder disguised as suicide and the killer is most likely a student or a teacher at that school.”

“Damn it” Amon said frustrated” In this case there is nothing more i can do.”

“Don’t worry.” Pamela said” Adel will solve this problem”

Amon tensed

“Crap. I forgot…”

Pamela raised her eyebrow at him.

“You owe me for this.” She said leaning in to whisper into his ear.

ͼ

Adel looked at the building. Students were coming in and out all day, now it mostly empty only students who were in clubs remaining. The magical didn’t pick up anything out of the ordinary. She had been observing the middle school building all day. She saw the surviving one of the girls enter the school. There was no trace of spirit energy around her. The day passed uneventfully. As the evening drew closer the wind began to blow. Rain clouds gathering in the sky.  It was something like a flash in the corner of her eye. It could have been lightning but only her magical eyes saw it. It came from inside the building.

Taliesin spotted her near the middle school building. Surprised to see her there be turned towards the entrance gate. She was making her way around the school to the back side of it.

“Adel!” he called out.

She turned to look at him. Not sure of what to say to make him leave him alone.

“You weren’t in class to day. What are you doing here?

She didn’t answer him. There was another flash in her vision. Turning her head to the building and looking up. She could see a girl in the window. Taliesin might have started to lecture her on the importance of school and education but she didn’t listen. He seemed to notice after a while. The girl inside opened the window. He looked at the same direction Adel was looking. It was a girl around fourteen years of age. Adel recognized the girl as one from the pictures. Another flash- she couldn’t see what it was, not clearly, the image was brief and distorted. The girl put one leg on the windowsill, then the other. Taliesin called out to her.

“Please get down from there! It’s alright, we can help you.”

The girl didn’t seem to hear him. She was standing on the fifth floor window frame arms stretched out to her sides. Leaning over the edge she began to fall. It was then that Adel saw it clearly.  She ran towards the entrance.  Taliesin fell to his knees, eyes slowly wandering from the open window to the body on the ground. Bile rose in his throat and after a few moments of trying to hold it in, he gave up.

Somebody walked into the scene, he wasn’t sure but he heard someone scream. The image of the girl’s body still in his mind, slowly morphing into the images he saw in the photos and he threw up again.  Somebody offered him some water. People were asking him question, somebody had called the police.  But all the things happening around seemed slow, blurred out and unreal.  Amon showed up with the police.  It was only then that he remembered Adel walking into the school.

“Let’s go. She can come back on her own” He said.

“Are you sure? Weren’t you supposed to drive her to school today? She didn’t come to class.”

Amon tenses at his words.

“If she didn’t go to class, why was she here? Was she watching the middle school building?” gears in his head began to spin.

“Actually, I still feel a little sick.” He lied” I think I might get car sick. I’ll walk back, Amon.”

“ I know what you’re doing, so don’t”

The young man froze.

“The police are investigating the crime scene; you’ll just get in the way. Now get in the car.”

He got into the back seat, feeling suddenly exhausted by the events of the day and the shock.

“Amon, is it always like this?”

“No. it can much worse. It’s something you get used to over time. “

Í»

Adel walked the empty hallway. She didn’t have much time before somebody called the police. Standing outside the classroom the girl had jumped from. There were no traces of people being here right now, but somebody had very recently been here.

“I know you’re there” She called out. “You killed that girl”

A boy appeared out of thin air right in front of her. He had short brown hair and a mushroom haircut.

“You’re not real- just an illusion” She stated.

The boy changed from normal human into pale skin black eyes and a deep bleeding cut in his neck. A door to the nearby classroom opened and a desk came floating out. At great speed it was launched at Adel. She extended her hands forward and focused on the wood it was made from. The desk began to break apart before it impacted. The boy was gone when she looked around again.

“Stop hiding you coward”

Nobody answered her. Footsteps on the stairs could be heard coming up. Police officers showed up, telling everyone to leave the building so the investigation could be done. Adel left, still keeping watch of her surroundings. There were a few people in the building, mostly police officers. No trace of the boy or anything abnormal. She was certain she saw someone inside the bright flash and it was not the boy, but it was so brief Adel could not recall the image of that person even when she tried. 

ͼ

“I see.” Pamela said.” Projection mixed with some form of telekinetic abilities. This could be problematic.” She put the cigarette to her lips.

“Is it possible for someone to have two abilities?”

“No. They have ability like yours- one that has several aspects to it, or it’s an awakening of latent potential. “

“Awakening?”

“Yes, typically an awakening once the person awakens the ability inside themselves. But most of the time they awaken only a portion of the ability, usually somewhere between twenty and fifty percent.  The other half that remains is called latent potential. When using it the ability grows stronger and it might evolve, thus becoming possible to tap into one hundred percent of it so a latent awakening or more commonly – full awakening. If they are fully awakened I can see this case being a problem. With this power they might be able to elude even you.”

“What should I do?”

“For now? Nothing.” Pamela said.

Adel looked at her confused.

“Tomorrow is the last day of the exhibit. We know the killer is a fully awakened ability user, but we still don’t know the reason why they are killing, that might be the key to solving this whole mess. I’ll ask Amon to look into is further. You should keep going to school in the meantime, though I doubt they will come to school after what happened.”

Adel bowed her head. She was about to go to her room.

“Don’t feel bad.” Pamela turned in chair to face her.” There was nothing you could have done. There were people in the vicinity. Saving the girl was not possible under the circumstances. Even if you caught her, they would have probably snapped her neck using their telekinetic ability. What makes telekinesis so effective and dangerous is the ability to manipulate things from a distance. It’s concentration based ability, as long as you remain contracted you can be in a different place from your target and manipulate it. Add that to the ability to crate visual projections and it becomes a huge problem. Of course there is also the possibility that the killer is a magus and makes it even more dangerous. So stay alert.”

 

“The killer could be a magus?”

“However I think it is unlikely.” Pamela said getting up from the chair.

“How so?”

“The video recordings.” She said turning on the TV.

“The images are distorted. A magus could have prevented that from happening. If this was magic it would fall into the category of Conjuration. Making the images look like whatever you want them to should be child’s play for a magus. So we have to conclude that they couldn’t do that and the only reason would be that they are an ability user, or they didn’t think to do so- therefore they are a complete novice.”

“Could it be possible- the killer not knowing about the cameras?” Adel asked.

“The whole thing was staged in front of the cameras because the killer wanted people to see a suicide when it was in fact murder, however they made a mistake. The cameras recorded the projection but they also recorded the actual murder as well. “

“So what you’re saying it that they assumed the cameras would only record the projection?”

“Yeah, most likely. That’s why I think they lack experience, but not in using their powers- they were probably using them for a while now. The killer is not used to murder, most likely this the first time they used their abilities to kill someone so they didn’t know what would happen.” She puffs out more smoke.

“I know you might feel differently about this, but murder is not natural. Most people don’t plan it, going thought their daily lives believing they will never have to kill someone. Most cases murder is not intentional, it just happens by mistake- like some accident, like a moment where you let your emotions ahead before your head can catch up and stop you, and then you feel guilt – it’s human to err and murder is just that- a mistake.”

“However, there are some people that make conscious decisions to kill. That is different. A person can only kill a person once in their life and that is they themselves. When you consciously kill someone you kill a part of yourself and you stop being human. Those who can kill others and feel no remorse are not human but demons. “

“Demons…”

“Well, that is what they end up becoming in the end- after they die. Their fractured souls cannot maintain themselves so the pieces merge together forming a sentient mass that only seeks to make more pieces to sustain itself- more broken souls.  But no matter how much they consume, how much they kill the void inside only grows. In the end death is the absence of being – emptiness and emptiness cannot fill emptiness.

“So you think the killer didn’t plan to kill?”

“I’ll need more information for that, but why else go thought the trouble of doing  it in front of the cameras? They could have done it in another location and then there would have been no trace, they would have gotten away with everyone thinking it was suicide. But the fact that they were trying so hard to make it convincing tells me that they are not comfortable with killing.

“Isn’t just to avoid capture?” Adel asked

“Partially, yes.  But you know something- people only act guilty when they consciously know that they did something wrong. If they thought killing was acceptable they wouldn’t panic or make rushed decisions, there would no guilt- to them it’s normal so they did nothing wrong, thus don’t act guilty.” Pamela yawned, putting out the cigarette in the ashtray.

“Go get some sleep.” Pamela said yawning again. “There isn’t much to do, until we get more information.”

“Goodnight” Adel said walking to her room.

She lay on her bed looking at the ceiling. The events of the day playing back in her head. There was someone standing behind the girl in the white light, but she couldn’t see them. It had never bothered her before; her powers were an inconvenience most of the time. Pamela had warned her against using them recklessly: there is only so much magic the world can take all at once, and being able to amplify made her dangerous. Even without her ability she had potential a rare combination: both an ability user and a magus. A magus than can amplify magic. Adel had, despites Pamela advising her didn’t attempt to learn spells. No matter how much the woman wanted her to learn the art and attend the Collage, Adel insisted she was fine the way she was.

She reached out her prosthetic arm towards the ceiling.

“This is fine, isn’t it?”

 

ͼ

“Are you sure it’s alright for you to go to school what happened?” an elderly woman with greying blond hair asks.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Amy, I’m fine.” Taliesin said putting on a rain coat.

The night had been mostly sleepless but it gave him time to think. Why was Adel there? It bothered him. Something didn’t seem right, but he wasn’t sure what. This was probably not connected to the drug that was going around, but she was still involved in this somehow.  Obviously it was suicide, he had been there, seen it, and had nightmares about it. But it still felt like there was something he wasn’t seeing. Like pieces were missing.

“Did she know the girls was going to jump? No that’s impossible.” He thought to himself

“But why was she there. She was interested in the middle school building since the start. Is it because of the ghost story? A male student that hung himself in the classroom, I believe it goes something it like that. That classroom hasn’t been in use since I was in middle school but I’ve never heard a story like that.” He thought as he walked down the stairs of the apparent building.

“Maybe it happened after I moved on to high school? But i still did not remember hearing it.” Taking out his phone he began looking up articles online.

“It’s just like I thought. It never happened. The first and only suicide happened last year right before summer break began. There was a lot of debate whether the girl fell out the window or jumped off. Come to think of it, that’s the same class room… it’s the same window as yesterday… how can that be? “Scrolling down he saw a picture of five girls, friends of the diseased girls along with her.

“These girls! I know them, the one on the top right was the one jumped yesterday. The others are...i recognize them; they were the ones that went missing… except her he looked at the small blond girl in the back. All of this started with the death of one, the others are being haunted, but not by a ghost, by their guilt of not saving their friend. After one disappeared the others must have felt even worse. The remaining one- She might try to follow the others. Shit… I need to get this to Amon fast, we might be able to stop her.. “

After the third time of hearing the message “the person you are trying to reach is currently unavailable“ he wanted to smash his phone into the wall.

“Forget it. I’ll go talk to her myself.” He decided.

Í»

Amon looked at the girl beside him. People didn’t pay much attention to her, some kind of magic he supposed, but it still made him nervous. They walked down the hall to the morgue. Doctors and police officers passing by.

“So, like I said, they brought her in this morning. Jumped in front of the car, the driver didn’t see her until it was too late. No cameras this time, just an eye witness.”

“They can make people see anything they want.” Adel said.

“Right, that’s why I want you take a look.”

They enter the room with the body. Adel removed the eye patch. Amon looks at her with a look of disapproval.

“Well?”

“It’s not her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is someone else. “

Amon looked at the body of the blond girl on the slab.

“Someone else?”

“Short brown hair, teenager. Been dead for a while there are signs of decay. She was already dead when she got hit. But I guess we have the identity of the killer now.”

Amon looked at her for a moment.

“So the killer wanted to make it look it was them that died.”

“With that ability it would be easy to assume a new identity. “

ͼ

He looked at the spot where he saw her standing just moments ago.

“Adel, why?

He didn’t notice anyone else being there until he heard a voice.

“If you feel so bad about it then why not join her?”

Turning he saw the blonde girls from the picture.

“You? I need to talk to you…” he began remembering why he came there.

As he stood up and made a move towards the girl he felt his body freeze in place. he could not move, like some invisible ropes were holding him in place. Against his will his arms stretched to the sides. He looked at the girl confused; she held one of hands in front of herself twisting her fingers in a strange way.  Then he saw and felt his feet leave the ground and rise up and slowly float towards the edge of the roof.

“You. Did this? To those girls?” disbelief and logic were fighting against fact and reality in his mind.

“I didn’t have a choice.” She said

“Let me go, please. It’s not like anyone would believe me if told them. To be honest I still half can’t believe it myself.”

“You’re lying.” She shouted and he felt the grip on his body tighten, though he stopped moving.

“I saw with her yesterday. “

“You mean Adel. What does she have to do with this?”

“Stop lying!”

The strength of the force orang him became crushing and he could feel his shoulder dislocate.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, honest.”

He noticed the girl was shaking.

“I know she saw me yesterday, how could she see me? Nobody can see me, she could see thought my projections. She knew I killed Rena. She’s too dangerous. And since you are with her I have no choice. You know about me so you have to die.” 

With a surge of power she lifted him even higher of the ground. Taliesin shivered from the rush of cold air as he realized she was going to raise him even higher and toss him to the ground. Somehow talking about Adel made the girl scared or angry or perhaps a little bit of both. Ironically he recalled Amon’s words:” Don’t get involved. Don’t act alone.” He supposed he deserved in for going against warnings and rushing into this without telling anyone. 

He felt his body rise up and the suddenly jerk down thought the air. He closed his eyes tight expecting the impact. But it never came. Opening his eyes he saw that he was still up in the air above the roof. Not that far from the edge but not hanging over it. He heard footsteps. Adel emerged from the passage way and walked up to him. Touching his leg with one hand and suddenly he felt the strange force vanish and he fell onto the roof.  The girl looked at Adel scared. An air conditioner ripper of the wall and rose into the air launching towards Adel.

“Get away from me!” the girl yelled.

“You already tried this trick and it didn’t work.” She extended her hand towards the incoming conditioner and it began to rust and break apart at a rapid rate, reduced to a handful of metallic parts and falling down t her feet.

“You could have used your powers for something else. Did you really have to use them for murder?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.” She launched another air condoner at Adel.

She didn’t seem fazed and kept walking towards the girl.

“That’s not an excuse. “

The girl was backing away as Adel approached.

“I won’t let you kill me!” she yelled

For a moment Adel rose above the ground with her arms extended but soon she fell down, the hold on her vanishing.

“I’m not like you. I don’t kill. You will go to jail and repent for your crimes.”

A black aura appeared around Adel and began to extend towards the girl. Black eclipsing the transparent aura of power around the girl until there was nothing left. 

“What did you do to me?” She was down on her knees crying.

“I’ve sealed your powers. You can’t hurt anyone anymore. Now come with me, the police are waiting downstairs. It’s over. “

“My powers?! Gone?! No... No…” The girl was shaking her head.

She extended her arm forwards and nothing happened.

“No… How am I going to live now? I can’t…. he’ll be disappointed in me.”

“Come here, you can cry on the way to the station.” Adel stepped towards the girl.

 “No!” she ran over to the edge of the roof.

“Please, wait.” Taliesin reached out walking to stand next to Adel. “They won’t hurt you there, I promise.”

The girls just smiled at him and leaned back – falling.

ͼ

 The car ride was silent. Amon was waiting outside the school. The stood there holding the door opened and didn’t say a single word. Some woman with a red car picked up Adel. The police took the body of the girl. Now that her identity was know there would be a full scale investigation.  He looked at the rain drops not really seeing them, trying to wrap his brain around what he saw. Everyone today had heard of some form of fiction where telekinetic powers existed, however nobody expects to encounter then in reality.  The warnings Aon gave him before made a lot more sense now, as well why Adel had been in school so little.

They stopped in front of the building and Taliesin got out. He expects Amon to drive off almost instantly but to his surprise he heard the door open. Amon walked up to him.

“I’m sorry, I should have listened to you.” He said looking down at the puddle in front of him.

“Yeah, you should have. “ Amon said embracing him.

“I’m glad you’re safe. “

It was barely a whisper but he heard it. Amon let go of him quickly and got back in the car. Taliesin felt something warm on his face and he suddenly realized he was crying but with the rain no could really tell. It was a strange feeling, both happy and sad at once.  He knew a small part of what Amon must have felt. Because he felt it too: now that he knew, it was going to be difficult to stay way. It a new and exciting yet absolutely terrifying thing.  This opened a door of completely new possibility and his mind began to race. A horrible realization was about dawn on him, but the boy stopped it- closing the door before it fully opened. Shaking his head he realized he had been standing in the rain, completely soaked and people passing by were giving him weird looks.  He ran to the entrance, worrying just how mad his aunt will be about the watery mess on her new carpet.

 

The next morning was sunny. He awoke with hazy memories of a dream. After breakfast he set out to school.  Adel wasn’t in class.

“Well, I guess she doesn’t really need to be here anymore.” He thought to himself.

Silently tearing out a piece of paper he began to write.

“At least I’ll know I gave it try.” He thought.

Í»

Amon sat on the sofa in Pamela’s living room, uncomfortably looking at Pamela who had what looked like a body of a dog on her lap, stomach open and her hands inside it plugin in tubes tightening strings. A small screwdriver tucked behind her ear.  Adel walked in carrying a tea tray with three cups a teapot and some cookies.

“So what’s the deal with this one? You found something out?” Pamela asked not looking away from the work she was doing.

“Yeah. We did a full search of the house. She was too far gone. I doubt even we could have done something.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Pamela said.

“We found a diary I her room. I seems her powers awoke a couple of years ago. Her family was know to us. The neighbors have called the police many times due to noise complains.”

“Those being?”

“Her father was unemployed and a heavy drinker. The mother quit her job a year ago.  The reports were noise complains but it was really..

“Domestic violence.” Pamela said.

“Yeah.  Fortunately enough the girl had no bruised on her when she was examined or else we would have taken her into care. “

“That’s because she used her powers to hide them. I image few things would have been as scary for a child with abilities as being taken by the police.”

“True, he did write about that as well. Someone told her she would be turned into an experiment and dissected tortured for the rest of her life if her powers were found out.”

“Someone?”  Pamela turned to him now, eyebrow raised.

“The girl only referred to this person as “Him”. We believe it was boy. The other girl’s parents said that they would spend time in the company of older boys they supposedly met during summer jobs. There might have been something illegal going on like drugs or prostitution but now that they’re dead we have no leads to pursue. “

“Why did she kill them? From what I understand they were friends.” Adel asked.

“Right. So the first victim, the girl who supposedly died before summer break. She was already dead when people saw her jump. The suicide was apparently a cover up. Amy decided to scare her friends by telling them a ghost story and holding a séance in the school to summon a spirit. Then using her powers to make them believe there was a ghost. One of the girls fell down the stairs and must had broken her neck in the dark as they all ran from the ghost. So as she wrote in her diary, she was scared and made it look a suicide to hide that fact that she had powers from the others. She thought if they saw their friend die they would keep quiet about the whole thing.”

“So she caused on of her friends to die by accident and freaked out and made like look like the girl who was already dead jumped the window at the same time as threw the dead body out.” Pamela summed it up.

“Yes.” Amon sighed.

“But why kill the others?”

“Well this is where it gets worse. Sometime during break she offed her parents using that power. During one of the fathers drunken rampages. She had already believed herself to be irredeemable for committing murder of the first girl. Most of it seems like it was written by someone not right in the head. “

“So she felt guilty for the death of the first girl even if it was an accident.” Adel was surprised.

“True. Before she was just scared but after the first recording that mentions meeting “him” it becomes completely insane. Paranoid and illogical. She began to suspect her friends were aware that she had powers because “he” told her so. The girls were asking about her parents and it made her believe they suspected her.  “

“So she was misled into thinking that killing was the only way out.” Pamela said. “She could have been redeemed quite easily.”

“How can you be sure?” Amon said.

“Because despite killing so many people she was never comfortable with it. She was scared because she felt guilty she knew it was wrong. Somebody took advantage of her insecurities and pushed her to do horrible things.  What a waste, someone with a full awakening on our side could have accomplished great things. Whoever “he” is they sure don’t know how to judge potential “Pamela sighed.

“We have a problem on our hands.” Amon said.

“I know.” Pamela said. “I assume we have no way of finding “him””

“No. Well, I’ll be going there’s work to do.”

 

As Amon left Adel noticed a paper fall out from between the door. She picked it up. Amon looked back at her and just shook his head. She noticed her name on it. Opening it she read it.

“Having a job is good and all, but you should come to school when you can. Education is important.  

Taliesin “

Somehow the strange note made smile a little.

“Well, I guess we can get rid of your uniform since we don’t need it anymore.” Pamela said stretching her arms.

“Actually, if it’s alright with you, I would like to keep going to school.” Adel said.

Pamela turned to look at her. Adel quickly hid the note behind her back.

“What’s gotten into you? I thought you hate school.”

“Well…uh… education is important. Beside don’t I need a graduation paper from a highshool to get in to the collage? “

“Well, I was going to get you a fake one made but you if want to go the long way , be my guest.” She said a wicked gleam in her eye.

“I wonder what he will say?” she wondered to herself.

“I should have Albert up and running in an hour, you can take him for walk later. Could you give me hand with this?”

“Sure” She walked over to help Pamela.

ͼ

The cool evening wind blew in the city center.  Adel had stopped in the bakery for some pie. Albert was walking around looking at things. Pamela gave him a more dog like programing so she didn’t have to be in control the whole time.  Adel had been lost in thought. She didn’t notice a man approach and even when he did she was not aware of him instantly.  Noticing someone standing so close she was startled. The charm should have kept strangers at bay so this man walking up to her was unexpected.

“Oh, pardon me. I didn’t mean to startle you. “he said, sounding rather cheerful.

“You were so still; I thought you were a doll for a moment.”

The stranger wore a bright red suit, most suits people wear are black, but this one was bright red and instead of a jacked he wore a tail coat. He had long blonde hair, reaching down to his knees and bangs covering most of his forehead. There was something androgynous about the look and features of the face.  It was impossible to tell his age, he could have been anywhere from twenty to forty or even sixty.

“No it’s alright, I was just thinking. I guess I got too absorbed.” She was still unsure how react to this person.

Adel was still shocked, she quested it must be shock, her senses were still dazed. It had taken her while to answer.

“Oh, where are my manners. John White.”

“Adel”

“Adel, what a lovely name. Now that was no longer strangers. Allow me to make it for startling you with a cup of coffee.”

“Sure.”

Usually other people made her feel uncomfortable but this time Adel felt strangely not on guard.

“Hope you don’t mind me prying, but what thoughts could have such lovely young lady as yourself so preoccupied?” he asked.

The waiter brought them the coffees.

Normally Adel would have lied and said it was something like school or anything small. But this time to this man she felt like she could tell the truth. She had been thinking about the girl from yesterday. Not sawing a victim was one thing but not sawing the killer…. She knew Pamela’s views on it – all lives are equal. But as much as she tried she could not completely accept those views.

“It’s a bit of a moral dilemma. “ She said slightly embarrassed to be discussing this with a stranger

“What if you could save a person’s life but that person has done something horrible? I know we should try to help people regardless because all lives are equally important but I don’t think I can do that.“

“My dear, you have nothing to be ashamed off. We all wonder sometimes. Are you familiar with taiji?

“Taiji? The symbol of yin and yang.”

“Yes, though it is so much more. “He makes takes a paper napkin and dips his spoon in coffee dripping it unto the paper. As it begins to soak it up Adel notices it forming the symbol.

“You notice how there a white circle in the black half of it and black circle in the white one. Do you know what it represents?”

“That there is potential for evil even in good people and the opposite.”

“You’re not wrong but there is so much more to this. It means opposing forces, light and dark, man and woman. But inside each there is part of the other. Like you said even the kindest of people can be capable of evil deeds. However to take one path or another is a choice. Every time we chose we take power from one side and give to the other. But there must be a balance.”

He had stacked sugar cubes on top one other while talking , placing the coffee spoon on top of it and keeping in place by placing a sugar cube on each then moving the right one to the left side. The spoon seemed like it will fall down but he placed his finger on the other end of it keeping it balance.

“So let’s say you make a choice to save someone’s life, is it good or bad?”

“Good, right?”

“Good for you. Now, let’s say the person you decided to save has already a choice. Before you ever decided to save them hey have already decided to die.”

Adel felt a chill run down her spine. It’s almost like he could see into her mind.

“If you save from death someone who does not wish to be saved, do you think that’s good or bad? Of course this all hypothetical. Even if you save them they will probably just die anyways because that is what they decided.  In the only chooses we have power over are our own. So you should not feel guilty over the choices you didn’t make.”

Adel looked at the strange man, feeling strangely better than she did before.  But at the same time curious about how he knew.

“How did…” she began.

“How did I know, you were talking about a specific situation? Well it’s all over your face, dear. I mean no offence. And all over the new, such a tragedy, those poor girls” he sighed.

“I quite enjoyed our little philosophical discussion but I’m afraid I have business to attend to. If you were interested in having another philosophical discussion..” he made gesture with his hand, reaching a closed but empty palm and pulling out a card out of it and handing it to Adel. “You can reach me at this address.”

Adel looked at the card. At the top was a star in a circle surrounded by a crescent moon on the right and a waning moon on the left – the sigh of the Collage. Beneath the name John White with the tittle professor.  When she looked up from the card he was already gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] A special school for magi.

[2] Have protective properties against evil and negative energies.

[3] Has properties that conduct and amplify energy.

3: Case 3 : Shadowed Memories

The street is bustling with people, even though it’s late. Shops are closing while clubs and bars are opening. Some are leaving to go home, while others are arriving: moving mostly in groups of two or more, single individuals are rare. This part of town is not a safe one, alongside the many night clubs there is prostitution and drug trade, several kidnappings and murders happen in this are every year. Amon scans the crowd, careful to not look suspicious, as if he was just another bar patron rushing home. In the dark alleys, away from the lights of the main street silhouettes can be seen moving about. Amon waits before there is no one around then darts into one such alley. A tall man in a long thick looking coat is leaning against the wall of a building. He doesn’t move or look at him as Amon approaches.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where I could get my hands on some Nirvana?” the detective asks.

ͼ

Adel sat in her seat on the back of Pamela’s car, nervously clutching her school bag. She had decided to continue going to school, but a part of her wondered if it was the right decision. He had seen her seen her powers, he knew she was different, so why ask her to come back? Remembering that stranger in the rain who gave her an umbrella, she hoped it was because that was just the way he was.

“Alright, were here.” Pamela said yawning.

“Thank you.” Adel said getting out.

“Don’t mention it. I have to meet with a client anyways.”

Pamela drove off.  Adel waited a little, until there were no more people in the front yard before entering. She knew that Pamela could fix this and modify his memories with magic, it would seem like the incident never happened. Amon might also pressure her to do this, but so far neither of them said anything about there being problems because of a witness.  It had been a few days since the incident on the roof and it was only now that she built up the courage to come back to school.

The class had already begun once she entered, just like before nobody really paid her much attention because of the charm. Taliesin raised his head and smiled at her. She smiled back nervously. Classes passed by rather fast. Adel realized school was quite dull. Before, she had been a good student and always paid attention in class, but after two years spent under Pamela’s tutorage all the subjects seemed irrelevant. She didn’t take any notes, since most of the things she already knew from before or knew more about them than the textbooks explained. When the bell for lunch finally rang and everyone began squeezing out the door into the hall, Taliesin approached her.

“I’m glad you came back.” He said.

Adel wasn’t sure what to say. She just nodded.

She was afraid he would start asking her questions about her powers so as soon the bell rang she out of the classroom and spending most of her time in the back of the library, next to the girls bathroom. Unfortunately the library did not allow food, but she still felt too nervous to even eat.

Most people didn’t bother her because of the charm, but Taliesin was not most people. People talked behind her back about things they didn’t know and it didn’t bother Adel. The girls could say how stuck up she was because she never talked to anyone or what’s the deal with her hair? They didn’t know her, so it didn’t matter. She had been called worst things than “stuck up bitch”, by worse people than shallow high school girls. But Taliesin knew her, the real her- he knew about her powers and he could hurt her if he wanted to. She wanted to believe he was a good person but she had seen good people do bad things with good intentions.

 

ͽ

Adel looked around the room. It was wide and open with high ceiling. One section of it resembles a living room .One part of the floor was higher, that section seemed to serve as an office. The rest of the room was hidden by a large red curtain.

“This will be you home now.” Pamela said.

It all felt like a dream. After waking up in the hospital it all felt unreal. She wasn’t even sure what seemed more unrealistic: the past or the present. Sometimes it seemed like she will wake up in her own bed and mother will making breakfast, and some times, and those times filled with her with dread, she wondered if she was going to wake up tied to the chair in that dark room again.

She had nothing of her own with her. The clothes she wore were brought to her by Pamela. She wasn’t allowed to take her old clothes or any of her old things. They said it was for her safety, to make her unrecognizable because the man did this to her was still at large.

She stayed in the small room that Pamela had shown her to. For the next few days she mostly slept, still feeling weak from moths spent in bed at the hospital. Pamela drove her to a check-up once but other than that she never went outside. When she did move around, she tired quite fast and making a trip from her room to the living room at first was tiring. But the doctors encouraged her to move around more and assured her that she could lead a normal life again once her body readjusted. So she tried to walk around more. 

Pamela would leave for long periods of time; she said it was for work. The first few days she got by, snacking on the cookies and chocolates that were around the place in various bowls that were covered by books or stacks of papers, while she waited for Pamela to return with some kind takeout food. Pamela was disorganized, as Adel noticed. But on the fourth day she couldn’t find anything else. Making her way to the kitchen she tried to make something to eat. Reaching for a plate on the high shelf she lost her balance and fell. The plate broke.

“I’m very sorry.” She apologized when Pamela returned.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s just broken.” She placed the larger pieces of the plate on the table in front of her and extended her hands holding them over the pieces.

Adel felt a shiver run down her spine and for a moment she only saw Pamela holding her hands but then she began to see a green light surrounding them and the plate. She stared in awe as the plate repaired itself. Then she remembered Pamela telling her she was a magus.

“This is magic? That light “

“You can see it?”

 “Yes. “

“Good. “Pamela said. “That eye I made for you is special, it’s the first of its kind, but I wasn’t sure it would work. “

She moved her hand to the eye patch

“So it’s because of this eye.”

“The one who kidnapped you, he had powers.” Pamela said. “So if you see people or objects emitting a light that means they are magical. The man who did this to you, he had powers. This should help you avoid danger.

“Thank you” the girls said still trying to understand everything that was going on.

“One more thing.” Pamela said” I know you probably don’t remember. But that night, when we found you, you did something.”

“Something?” Adel began to think back

“You used magic” Pamela said

“I did?”

“That was how we found you. It’s not uncommon. Sometimes a magus falls in love or has an illegitimate child with a normal human. The potential to use magic remains in the blood and sometimes can awaken under extreme conditions. One of your ancestors was likely a magus and the stress caused you to awaken the magic that was in your blood. “she explained.

Adel looked at the plate then at her own hands.

“So I can do things like that?”

“In time, if you train,- you will.”

It seemed surreal to the girl but also exiting. However the excitement quickly wore off. Pamela arranged a simple test to show Adel that she did have magic.

“Now, for a little theory first.” The redhead said “There four main types of magic: Conjuring, Manipulation, transmutation and alchemy. Conjuring is the most complex ones and  the rarest- it is the creation of various mater or entities from one’s own energy. Transmutation – changing one mater or its properties into something else. Manipulation is self-explanatory.  Alchemy is unique because it combines the previous three but to do so uses tools and not a person own energy. Individuals with low mana, that’s magic power or energy, often choose that.  A magus can learn all of them but usually has one type they excel at. My magic is manipulation.”

“What’s my type?”

“We’ll soon see. You will know because it will be the thing you will not have to work hard at -it will just come to you. “

“Manipulation and transmutation are the two most common types so let’s start with those.”

She lit a candle and extended he hand; the flame rose up and moved even without wind.  Adel watched.

“Now you try.”

She looked at the candle then hesitantly extended her hand. The fire slowly swayed from left to right then backwards. Adel felt joy surge thought her. Felling bolder she tried to make the flame go higher. The aura around the candle that she could see with her magical eye, began to expand and shot up like a fountain engulfing the candle and melting it. Adel jumped back startled.

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that was… interesting” Pamela said examining the puddle of wax and the scorched table.

“I’m sorry” the girl repeated.

“Don’t worry about it.  You might a very skilled manipulator; it’s too soon to tell. Let’s switch to something safer.”

She brought an arm of a doll. The arm began to crawl on the table, then picked up a pen and wrote something on a piece of paper.

“Amazing! “ Adel exclaimed.

“Try making it move”

Despite her attempts the arm did not move.

“Interesting” Pamela watched her while smoking a cigarette. “Let’s try something else”

“Alright.” Adel agreed, she was breathing heavily.

“Basic transmutation” Pamela said ripping the piece of paper into pieces then making whole again.

“Now you try.” She ripped it in two.

Adel managed to mend it.

“Now for a more advanced test.” She tore it into small pieces.

Adel managed to get some of the pieces to merge back together but more than half still remained ripped.

“So far, average on both” Pamela said” Could it really be?” she thought to herself.

“What now? “Adel asked

“Conjuring, but I’m really bad at that. Just think of anything: a thing or animal- visualize it in your head and imagine it materializing in this room. “

“Anything?”

“How about an apple, to make it simple. Hold out one hand like you were holding it. Imagine it in your mind, feel its weight with your hand. What color is it?”

“Um… red.” the girl said, closing her eyes tightly. 

Minutes passed but nothing happened.

“Alright, that’s enough. Open your eyes.”

Adel looked at her empty palm.

“Don’t worry about it.” Pamela said.

Adel felt exhausted.

“Get some rest, you look tired. We can train some more in the morning. “

“Alright then, goodnight.”

It was few hours later that night, Pamela sat on the sofa reading thought files when she felt something hit the back of her head. It wasn’t strong but it still stung. Turning to look she noticed a red apple on the sofa next to her. Picking it up she looked at it.

“It couldn’t be…” he thought were interrupted by a strange feeling up her spine and a scream coming from Adel’s room.  She ran in. the girl was on her bed - still asleep. Probably having a nightmare from the way she was thrashing. Pamela climbed on the bed and tried to shake her awake.

“Get away from me!” the girl yelled.

Pamela felt her body being lifted off the bed and slammed against the wall. All the furniture In the room rose up from the floor. Pamela realize she was preparing for an attack against an imaginary opponent.

“Shit.” She cursed under her breath.

Even if she wanted to she could not stop all the furniture in time. Trying to guess which one would be less painful to get hit with and which one was most likely to be launched first. To her surprise all of them launched towards her at once. Reaching out she attempted to stop the table, putting all of her force into pushing back. To her surprise all the furniture stopped in the air, still surprised Pamela attempted to get them back down to the ground and they did, then she moved herself down from the wall.

“Adel wake up!” she yelled.

The girl finally awoke. Looking around scared and confused. Pamela embraced her.

“Shh, it’s alright, you’re save here.” She said as the girl began crying.

“I’m sorry, I cause you trouble again.” She said holding tightly on the cup of tea Pamela brought her.

“No, you didn’t.  But there is something I need to discuss with you.” She took out the apple from her pocket.

“This just fell on my head , appearing seemingly out of nowhere.”

Adel looked at the fruit confused.

“This would indicate that you have proficiency in all three types of magic- that should be impossible. Furthermore, you used our magic during that nightmare and I noticed something- I was able to use my powers in a way I never had before. Normally I   can move only one large object. While several small ones are no big deal, I was able to control four large objects at the same time and  myself. ”

“What does it mean?” Adel look frightened

“It should be impossible but somehow it happened, - you were the one using magic, however it affected me and my magic. “ Pamela frowned, deep in thought “ I think, that night something else happened. It sound impossible but at the same time there is nothing else this could be. You have an ability.”

Ability?”

“Yes, aside from being a magus you also have a unique ability. Sometimes people who experience severe trauma awaken powers witching themselves. It is different from magic however. Mages can learn magic, ability users only have one ability- it can be trained but it does not make one a magus. I’ve never heard of a magus awakening an ability before. But you somehow did it, yours is a double awakening a magus  an with ability.”

“What is my ability?” Adel asked.

“If I had to make a guess-  I’d say you can amplify magic. A magus with the ability to amplify magic -how ironic.. “Pamela began laughing “There are thousands who would do anything to have such power. With this power you could do anything, it makes you pretty much a god.”

Adel drew back in fear.

“Did you take me in.. Only to use me?!” She got up from her seat” I don’t want to be a god , or a magus- I want to be a human!”

“You already are. I’m not going to use you, but there are countless others who would if they knew you exist. They might try to convince you it’s for the higher good, for world peace or for justice or some such nonsense. This power is yours and I won’t make you anything you don’t want to I promise. So we keep this between us. However your ability makes your magic unstable and difficult to control, especially during your nightmare. You tapped into that power unconsciously- that’s dangerous. I can suppress your memories of the trauma, that would make the power more stable, but that is only if you agree to it.”

Adel nodded.

“Can’t you just make it go away?”

“I’m afraid that is impossible. If there was a way to seal abilities…” she sighed “ so many lives could be saved.”

 “And I don’t want to learn magic anymore” Adel said.

“It’s a pity but I won’t force you to. Let me know if you change your mind”

 

ͼ

 

Taliesin watched Adel round the corner before heading out himself.  It had been a week since she came back to school, but the young woman had been avoiding him like the plague. He knew why but it still somewhat hurt.  He did want to ask her about the strange power he had seen her display but more so than that he had wanted to thank her for saving his life. 

On his way home he stopped by Amon’s office.

“Hi, any news from him?” he asked the woman at the front desk.

“No, not yet. Nothing since last Friday.” She said.

“I see. “He said disappointed

“I’ll call you if I hear from him.” She said.

“Please do. Aunt Amy has been worried about him.”

“Damn it, Amon, where are you?” the boy wondered leaving.” He said this will only take a couple of nights, but it’s already been almost a week.”

Back home, after the homework was done he listened for the sounds of his aunt preparing for sleep. The light in his room turned off, not wanting to risk her seeing the light if she got up later at night. Reaching down under his bed into an old cardboard box, under some clothes and erotic magazines, which belonged to Amon, he took out a laptop.  It was small, easy to fit into a bag but he didn’t risk taking outside his room. He turned it on and entered the password. There was a single file folder on the desk top. Clicking on it another window popped up demanding a password. Inside were more folders – each one under the protection of a password.  Since the incident on the roof he began collecting data about strange and unsolved murders, mysterious disappearances and people who were believed to have powers. The existence of powers made him look at every case from a different angle.

The particular folder he opened contained articles about the fire at his house and the death of his parents. He had copies of the police reports. The fire started inside the house. Street cameras around the house show that no one had entered or left the house prior to the fire starting. Everything points to it being just an unfortunate accident: perhaps a gas leak or a malfunction in the electric wiring. Yet Amon insisted it was a murder. The police searched for signs of arson but never found any.  Taliesin had always believed Amon was just too shocked to except it. Growing up without a father, he and Taliesin’s father were close. But lately a new possibility opened up the: death of his parents was indeed a murder – an unconventional one.  He searched for articles about fires similar to this one and there were many, it was difficult to say which ones might have been paranormal but he found one other that stood out. It had happened when he just a baby: a politician died right before the election when his car suddenly burst into flames the moment he got into it. The man was popular and would have won the election if not for his unfortunate death.  Tal remembered seeing a picture of the man along with his father – they seemed to have known eachtoher.  It had taken him the majority of his childhood to accept the death of his parents, that in the end it was an accident, something no one could have predicted, something that could happen to anyone. But now he was beginning to doubt the truth he had once struggled to accept.

The phenomenon of simultaneous combustion was not unheard of: something – item or person for no explained reason suddenly burst into flames. This was associated with the pyro kinetic ability- setting things on fire with the power of one’s mind.  Someone with such ability could have caused a fire inside the house without having to enter- Taliesin was sure but just like Amon- he lacked proof. Adel could be his chance of finding the man, or group responsible. He knew he would have to talk to her eventually, but he was unsure of what to say. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the phone ringing.

Í»

Adel sat on her bed stroking Albert’s soft fur and looking out the window into the full moon. It was past midnight but she didn’t feel like sleeping, despite having to go to school in a few hours. She was used to getting much earlier after going to bed late, something that was unavoidable when living with Pamela.

There was a sound of the phone ringing and a hushed voice answering. From where she was she could not hear what the conversation was about, but nobody called this late unless there was an emergency. Adel got of the bed and changed out of her nightgown. Few moments later Pamela opened the door to her room.

“Let’s go, I think they found Amon.”

“Where is he?” Adel asked walking down the stairs.

“In the hospital”

“The hospital? What happened?”

“They said it was a car accident, but this whole thing feels off.” Pamela got into her car with Adel right behind her and Albert on the seat next to her.

Upon arriving at the hospital a nurse greeted them. She wore the standard white uniform, light brown hair tied into a bun. She looked like she could be in her late twenties.

“You’re from the Carmine agency?” she was surprised seeing them.

Pamela had hurriedly tied back her hair and pulled on a coat on top of simple “v” neck t-shirt and jeans. Adel was in her school uniform holding Albert.

“I’m afraid we don’t allow dogs.” The woman said.

“No problem, he isn’t a dog. It’s just a doll” Pamela said making a dismissive gesture.

“A doll, right of course- there’s no problem” the woman said.

“More importantly.” Pamela said taking out one of her cigarettes.

The nurse gave her glance.

“It’s nothing; now tell us about where you found him.”

“Right.” The nurse looked away and started walking.

“He was brought in less than an hour ago. The driver said that he was just wandering in the middle of the street.”

“Where was that?”

“On the outskirts of town near the cliff he said, where the road goes up hill and there’s a one way road.  He wasn’t going fast, so he said, but it was dark and he didn’t see the man before he was right in front of the car, when he tried to stop it was already too late.  The driver called an ambulance and escorted him here.“

“What’s his condition?”

“No head trauma or any severe injuries, just bruises and a fractured humerus but for some reason he won’t regain consciousness.”

“And you’re positive that there was no head injury?” Pamela asked

“There was no damage to the head thankfully; the doctors had already run the tests.”

“I see.” Pamela blew out a puff of smoke that stretched behind her like a line, merging with a previous line of smoke she had exhaled. 

“We’re here” the nurse said stopping by the door.

Opening the door they went inside. The nurse returned to her post. Lying in bed with an IV inserted into his arm was indeed Amon. Pamela pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. She took out a small round metallic bell on a string from her pocket. It made no sound but Amon’s eyes shot open and he attempted to sit up, groaning as he leaned on the injured arm.

“Pamela? Where am I?” he looked disoriented.

“In the hospital.”

“What? “

“You got hit by a car while wandering the outskirts near the cliffs. Any particular reason you were there?”

“I was? I don’t remember” he said clutching his head.

“What is the last thing you remember?”

“I was at the night club district around the station area. I was looking for leads on the new drug as part of an undercover investigation.”

“Do you know what day it is?” Pamela asked

“October the 22nd, right?” he said

“Wrong, October 28th “she corrected.

“What? How can that be?”

“You’ve been missing for almost an entire week.” Pamela said.

“A week… but I can’t remember a single thing.”

The door opened loudly and an out of breath Taliesin emerged.

“I came as soon I heard. Amon, are you alright?”

“Calm down, kid, I’m fine.”

“What happened to you?”

“That’s what we’re in the process of trying to figure out.” Pamela said.

Taliesin only then noticed there were other people in the room.

“Oh, um.. You’re here too?” He noticed Adel in the back of the room.

“And you’re?”

“Pamela.”

“Taliesin.”

“I brought some clothes for you. “He said removing the large duffle bag from his shoulder.

“Thanks. You don’t need to worry. Go home now; you got school in the morning don’t you? And tell Amy not to worry” Amon said looking at Taliesin.

The boy bowed his head.

“Goodnight, then. I’ll come visit with Amy tomorrow.”

“Hold on. I’ll give you a ride. Busses and trains no longer run at this hour.” Pamela said looking at her watch.  “Why don’t you and Adel wait outside?”

Adel left the room with Taliesin following after.  The two sat down on the chairs at the waiting area.

“You brought a dog to the hospital?” he looked at Albert disapprovingly.

“It’s a doll.” She said.

“Right… sure it is?” He said as the dog wagged his tail and moved his head.

“Pamela made him for a case… with magic.” she said the last bit more silently, unsure if it was alright to say that part out loud.

“What’s his name?”

“Albert.“

Pamela soon emerged from the room.

“Here’s a list of things I need you to get from home” she handed a note and some bills to Adel.

“Take a taxi there, get the things and come back here. I’ll take Taliesin home and meet you back here.”

“Understood.” Adel said.

“Let’s go” Pamela said to the boy as Adel walked towards the elevator.

“My car’s the other way.” She explained while lighting another cigarette.

“Hey, you can’t smoke in a hospital!”

“Don’t make such a fuss out of it. These aren’t regular cigarettes; you won’t find anything that’s bad in them. “

Sniffing the air he had to admit that the cigarettes did smell more like incense than tobacco.

“A lot of people meet the end of their lives in places such as hospitals. But not all of the dead can move on right after they died. In most cases they remain here, sometimes for centuries waiting so they can finally pass on. Some turn evil and begin to prey on the living. Mages can use their power to control those spirits and have them act as spies. These cigarettes keep them at bay, one can never be too careful “Pamela explained, not turning back to see if he still following.  

“A mage? Is that what Adel is?” he asked.

“No, she is different. She was not born with her powers. Have you ever heard of someone waking up from many years in a coma and being able to speak a language they never learnt? Or a man surviving a plane crash and then developing the power to move objects with his mind? We call people like that ability users. The trauma and the intense emotions they experienced during it cause them to awaken abilities, often of the supernatural kind. “

Taliesin recalled the photos in the folder and shuddered.

“But Adel is special. “ Pamela said opening the car door.

“Her trauma was more severe than most. As a result her powers are a lot stronger . These case are usually very rare, but lately we have been dealing with a lot more people who awoken abilities. I’d say we’ve had more in the past two years, in this city alone, than the entire world has in the past century. “

“Do you know what’s causing it?”

“Not a clue. “ Pamela admitted

“What happened to Amon? You know, right?”

“Most likely someone either erased or altered his memories.” She said

“That’s possible?”

“Through the use of certain drugs and procedures, and of course through use of magic, yes. “

“Will he be alright?”

“Don’t worry about him- he’ll be fine” Pamela said stopping next to the building.

“Thank you. “ Taliesin said getting out of the car.

Suddenly he felt exhausted. He wasn’t sure how he made it to his room or what he told his aunt who was up and waiting in the kitchen, collapsing on his bed he fell into sleep.

ͼ

Pamela got back to the hospital. Adel was already sitting in the room.

“You will have to spend the night here.” Pamela said looking at Amon.

“I know.”

“It is more than likely that magic was used on you. That being said, we need to take precautions. Perhaps altering your memory was not enough. In the possibility of an attempt at you live, I’ll set up a protection barrier.”

Amon let out a frustrated sighed.

“I must have been really close. Damn it. We were trying to shut down the Nirvana ring for months now and I screwed this all up.”

“It’s not your fault. It was impossible to know that they have a magus working with them. Most likely hired one for protection.”

“You can restore them, right?”

“I’m sorry to say, that is not something I can do efficiently. “ Pamela said. “Even if I were to try, restoring memories is a very complicated procedure and if something goes wrong – it might reduce you into a vegetable. My specialty as a magus is incompatible with the types of magic needed for memory restoration. But there is a way to bypass that- Adel” Pamela turned towards the girl.

“Me?” Adel looked confused.

“You could restore Amon’s memories.”

“But I don’t know how. “

“Don’t worry, I‘ll teach you the basics of it. However, it will only work in the case of the memories being altered. It will not restore the memories that have been removed. Considering that most mages specializing in this use a mixture of removal and alteration it is a very likely chance we can recover some of them.”

“How can you be sure?” Amon asked” this isn’t your specialty, after all”

“I have the theoretical knowledge of the process but not the skill to perform it. Just like some people are born with natural athletic skill and some are born with a proficiency at mathematics or arts, and they all are capable of learning mathematics but the one with born with natural proficiency will excel in it. Mages can learn all types of magic but have one specific type that they excel at.  It takes years to learn memory restoration for those who have the proficiency, for someone like me it might as well be impossible. Besides we don’t have years, do we?”

“No we don’t” Amon said.

“Adel, I ‘m not forcing you to do this, but there may be some clues within his memories that can help us find a lead and we don’t have much time.” Pamela said. “There is the possibility that they viewed all of your memories while you were in their custody. “

Amon went pale as a sheet.

“But that would mean….”

“Yes, they likely have access to all the secret police information that was inside your head.”

“Shit.” He slammed the bed with his uninjured hand.

“Despite that, they let you walk out alive, so it seems they believe they have the upper hand on the situation. “

“How soon can you do it?”

“That depends on...” she looked at Adel. “Give us a couple of days. I think the hospital is unsafe for this. Once you’re out we’ll do it at my place.”

“Please think about it..” Pamela said as they were leaving the hospital.

ͼ

Adel had been lying in bed awake all night, thinking about what answer to give Pamela. No, should have been obvious, but she found that she could not say those two syllables, yet she could not say the other word either. She got out of bed and left for school early wanting to avoid Pamela. As the class finally began she was still considering her choice. A part of her  knew why she didn’t want to do it. As much as she wanted to do the right thing, and helping someone was the right thing, if she failed he would be worse than dead. And then hoe would that make her any different from those who used their powers to harm others?

Lost in her own thoughts she didn’t notice Taliesin walk in to class late and getting reprimanded by the teacher.  The boy looked at her, hoping to catch her attention but she didn’t turn around. Things went by like this: him sneaking occasional glances her way, with the same result. After the bell for lunch rang he finally approached her, having decided that they need to talk.

” Say, do you mind having lunch with me?” he said walking up to her, before she could run off.

“No.” she said after a moment of silence.

Adel felt like there was something more to that offer, like he really wanted to say: let’s talk about the other day on the roof. Her fear got worse when he took the stairs to the upper floors instead of the cafeteria.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought it would be better to eat somewhere less crowded.”

He opened the door to what looked like an old classroom. Inside it had a rather cozy environment with soft chairs and a table, some bookshelves and plants. The metal blinds were half closed but sunlight was pouring in like a flood.

“This is the student council room. “He said. “They use it for meetings, mostly.”

He took out a plastic box out of his bag and turned the electric kettle on. It then that Adel realized she didn’t bring anything.  He placed the now open box on the table. Inside were several sandwiches.

“Don’t worry you can have some, if you’d like.” He said.

“Thanks.” She took one hesitantly.

“My aunt made those; she’s really good at cooking”

Adel took a bite.

“It’s good” she said.

The kettle gave a short whistle before switching off. Taliesin poured the water onto the tea.

“Sorry, they only have one kind here.” He said.

“It’s alright.”

He sat down next to her. A moment of silence passed. Adel wondered if she should say something and he seemed to be wondering the same.

“Please, let me go first” he said.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. I know about happened to you. I … Amon asked me to investigate a rumor about someone selling drugs at the school and for a while I thought it was you. So I went behind his back and looked at your file. I’m sorry. I know that’s deeply personal information and I had no right to see that.”

Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t this. Him knowing about the  incident, about her powers. Amon and Pamela were the only ones who knew. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this, but he could have just said nothing. And yet he apologized. He seemed honest.

“Well… I guess its fine… as long as it’s just you who knows”

“I lost my parents too. “He said after a pause

“I’m sorry.” She said.

“It’s been more than ten years since then. My dad was a prosecutor and mom worked at court. One night there was a fire, the whole house was ablaze. Somehow I made it out alright but my parents didn’t. My mom’s sister, she’s Amon’s mother, took me in. After that night he became a detective. You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t feel like you can. I know it can be painful to remember. “

Adel wasn’t sure she could remember.

“I don’t know if I could remember. Pamela said she suppressed my memories, because they make me unstable.”

“Is that like what they did to Amon?” He asked.

“No, it’s different.”

“But he can be fixed, right? It’s not like the movies where he will just forget everything?”

“No, well if you do it right that is. Altered memories can be restored but if they are removed, it’s impossible without finding them first. “

“It seems really complicated.” He said.

“ It is. There are only few people in town that specialize in this. Pamela has worked with two of them before. “

Yet Pamela wanted her do this, why?

“Have you called anyone about Amon’s memories back.”

Adel shook her head:

“No, not yet. “ she went silent for a moment” those people are not like Pamela . The Carmine agency works with the police, we have a contract, but they don’t. Because memory manipulation is a very rare skill so they work for anyone who pays them. We don’t know who removed Amon’s memories; it could have been one of them. ….I’m the only one who can do it .” realization struck her.

“Can you?” Taliesin looked at her hopeful

“Pamela think’s that I can. “she said.

“This might be the only lead.” He sighed “If only I hadn’t been so useless. Amon asked for my help and I failed him. I want to be a detective, like him. I thought if I proved myself Amon would rely on me more. So when I found a link between the girls I rushed over to the school thinking she was going to be the next victim. It never occurred to me that I might be in danger. If you hadn’t showed up – I would be dead. You saved my life. Thank you. Thank you for saving my life.  ” he looked her in the eyes saying it.

No one had thanked her before. Most of the time there weren’t people around when she went in to arrest someone, and there were- they would run away from her or cover in fear and then later would have their memories altered and forget it ever happened.

“um… sure…it’s my job after all.” She said felling her face heat up.

“Hey, Tal!” the door opened and the tall, brown haired boy poked his head in.

“Travis?!” Taliesin nearly jumped from his seat.

“Oh... I didn’t mean to interrupt anything...” he said looking at Adel.

“You didn’t .Um.. Travis is my childhood friend.”

Travis was still in his sports clothes.

“Man, I’m starving.” He said dropping next to Tal and grabbing a sandwich.” The tournament is next month so we have to practice during lunch break.”

“Class is about to start. You’d better hurry and change, you know the teacher will freak if you go into class in your sports clothes again.” Taliesin said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Actually I might stay here and take a nap, I’m beat.” Travis said.

“You can’t skip classes, or you’ll fall behind.”

“I’d like to see how enthusiastic you’d be about class if you had to run along the river for an hour. “

“Fine, do whatever you want; it’s only your future.” Taliesin said in a mocking tone.

Travis burst into laughter:

“You sound like my mom.”

Adel couldn’t help herself and giggled, the boys turned to her.

“What’s so funny?” Taliesin asked confused

“The two of you really are good friend. I think it’s a little cute.” She said, remembering her old friends from school.

“Oh man, now I’m embarrassed. Never had a girl call me cute before.” Travis said looking away.

“Let’s get going or we’ll be late.” Adel said getting up

“Right”

The classes went on as usual. Travis never showed up for class, making the teacher very angry. After school was out Taliesin approached her.

“I know I don’t really have a right to ask anything of you, but please help Amon. This might be the only chance to find clues about the drug ring that has been selling Nirvana. I’ll pay you if you want. He had been putting his all into this case. Please.”

“I…I can try. But if I make a mistake.. he might lose his memories,” she said

“I see…” he said “ Well, I believe in you.”

Adel looked at him bewildered.

“You’re amazing. I know you can do it.”

ͼ

Pamela was sitting by the large window, reading a newspaper and smoking a cigarette when the door opened. Albert rose from his spot by the door greet her, Adel picking him up and marching up the desk.

“I’ll do it”

“Wow.. why the sudden change of heart?” Pamela raised an eyebrow

“I’m the only one who can do it, right. Because there is a possibility that the same people who do work for us could be working with the drug dealers. “

“Good job” Pamela clapped her hands a few times. “Let’s get started”

 

Pamela got a round bowl of water, it was ceramic with a rose on the bottom. Beside her on the table were two jugs.

“It’s been a while” the woman remarked.

“Yeah.” Adel said.

It had been a while since she trained in magic.

“Don’t worry. It’s only practice. First try manipulating the water. “

Adel put her hands on the edges of the bowl. The water began to swirl, left, then right.

“Alright, now part it down the middle.” Pamela instructed.

Adel focused. The water began to move to the edges of the bowl, leaving the rose in the middle exposed.

“Keep it spinning, Clockwise.” Pamela said.  Taking out a stop watch from her pocket.

Adel closed her eyes, feeling sweat form on her brow. Keeping the water spinning was easy but to keep her mind focused on two tasks for a long time was not.

“Keep going. It’s been thirty seconds.”

“How much longer?”

“Two minutes would be ideal.”

“That long?”

“It’s a start. Mind diving takes hours”

Adel said nothing, choosing to focus on the water. The watch beeped after what felt like hours.

“Alright. Now let’s try something else.”

Pamela took one of the jugs and poured something black in to the water.

“Change it back to clear.”

Adel focused on how the water felt and looked. The blackness began to retreat in to the middle of the bowl. Until the final black spot was gone.

“Well, you’ve got the basics down. Now the real fun begins.” Pamela said.

Bubbles began rising from the bowls and both jugs at the same time, some small, some as big as plates. Ones were transparent; others black and the third kind were light grey.

“Now, this part I can’t help you with. I need you to conjure images in the clear ones. Anything simple: bird, a flower single object.”

Adel focused one the water bubble infron of her, remembering the rose pattern on the bowl. A transparent image appeared in the bubble.

“Good.” Pamela moved the water bubble and made it collide with a black one, it absorbed the water into itself.

“Restore the image.”

 

ͼ

Police cars surrounded an old warehouse, there were many like it by the river.  Old rusted metal walls and tin roofs , surrounded by houses. Up on the hill and across the street old wooden houses stood, some were inhabited while some looked neglected and derelict. This area was close to the city limits, many even considered it out of town.

Amon entered the warehouse. Nothing looked familiar. Police officers searched through the other ones. This one at least, was empty: no crates, no parts of cars or machines, no bags of sand or giant piles of logs. The middle one out the five.  Closing his eyes Amon walked to the middle of the empty building.  Whatever was here was not here anymore.  Only  lingering echoes, distant shadows of memory that beyond his reach. Reaching out he tried to grab it only to feel nothing in his hand. It was so close, like he could almost remember; all senses burning with recollection but the image would not come. The memory isn’t there.

Adel waits by the car. Amon leaves the warehouse.

“Are you sure, you saw nothing else?” he asks getting into the car.

“I’m sure.” The girl says.

 

ͽ

 

Adel reaches out into the swirling darkness before her and a bubble emerges. She reaches out and it becomes clear. Inside is an image of a house. It is a dark night, no lights on- everyone is asleep. Suddenly there is burst of red inside the house, another flash and another. The windows are alight but not with light. Fire breaks the glass windows and climbs to the roof of the bungalow. A car pulls into the drive way, and a man gets out, he reaches into his pocket for the phone. He call out names. Adel follows him as he runs around the house to the terrace and breaks the glass to open the door.  The main entrance is covered in flames. Something else moves, a shadow in the shadows. Vaguely illuminated by the burning fires, a shape of a man wearing something like a robe with a hood that cowers his face. The man looks at the shape, call out to it.  Another window breaks and he looks away just for a moment, when he looks again the shape is gone.

4: Case 4: Seeing Red

    

Case 4: Seeing Red

 

 

Adel entered her room, tossing her school bag unto the chair. Her eyes stopped on a dark blue dress with a golden pattern of crescent moons around the lace decorating the bottom of the skirt and sleeves.  The door opened and Pamela walked in holding a long pointy hat with a star on the tip.

“Hey, your back!”

“What’s is this?” Adel asked looking between the dress and the hat.

“I finished the dress I was making for you.”

“I see that. What’s up with the hat?”

“Well, it is Halloween. So I figured I’ll make you cute costume.”

“I’m not a little kid!”

“You don’t need to be kid to have fun.  Besides, you promised me you would wear anything I make”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice.”

“Don’t be like that. Just try it on”

“I’ll think about it.”

?

Taliesin sat down at his computer only to be interrupted by a hundred dollar bill flashed before him.  Looking up he saw Amon, dressing in his leather coat.

“Could you take her out somewhere nice?”

“Huh?”

“Adel.”

“I know what you’re talking about. Why do I have to it? If you want to thank her, do it yourself.”

“I’m busy. I just got out of the hospital and  I’ve been having to explain myself and take medical tests all day. Tomorrow too.  Probably the whole of next week too. I messed up a big operation and I can’t just tell them about the magic part either. “

“Send her flowers” he said looking back at the computer screen.

“Didn’t she save your life as well?”

“I’ve already thanked her for that.” He said.

He heard the door close and looked towards it, noticing the money placed on the edge of his desk.  Getting up he went out of the room.  His aunt was watching television in the living room.

“Amon just left, dear. Did you need him for something?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Poor thing, you must be so lonely. “

“No, I’m alright.” He said and hurried back towards his room.

“If only you had girlfriend. I’ve heard about this great new French bakery that opened up while I was in the hair salon. They say their cakes are to die for. “

Taliesin sighed shutting the door to his room. He hadn’t left his room all weekend. Travis was visiting relatives out of town and Amon just got back from the hospital and was swarmed with work. Maybe he was feeling a little lonely. 

Looking at the money he thought about his aunt’s not so subtle hint.  Looking up the address of the place he grabbed his coat.

“I’m going for a walk” he said running out the door.

It was a cloudy afternoon, puddles all around the streets but no rain, at least not yet. The French dessert café was couple blocks down from where he lived so the boy decided to walk. The gloomy autumn atmosphere slightly brightened up by the lights of the Halloween decorations in the windows of shops.  There was a small crown of people in the shop. Casually waking around he looked at the many different small, brightly colored and decorative pasties and large cakes and desserts in beautiful tall glasses.  French names making hard to tell what anything was.  Then he glanced over at the prices ….

“What are those made of? How can something so small be so expensive…..  There’s no way I can afford a whole cake. “He panicked inwardly. 

On his way out he noticed a poster: “Halloween special offer for couples: 100 samples for 29.99. Registration needed. ”

He had to stop himself from laughing out loud

“So that why aunt Amy brought up the girlfriend thing.”

Turning back he walked back to the counter.

“Excuse me, I would like to register for the special event.” He said.

?

The school was empty, most students having gone home already. Gentle sound of steady rain hitting the ground. But the quiet was deceptive.

Wet dirt trampled and stained with blood by the stadium fence. A trail leading away from a much larger puddle. Bloody handprint on the white wall. The sound of slow steady steps. Whimpering cries come from a figure hunched on the floor and a room full of sports supplies. But the trail blood leads straight to its hiding spot. The figure turns. There, in the doorway stands a person.

The silence is interrupted by the sounds of flesh tearing and breaking bones and muffled cries, as red seeps from under the closed door of the storage room.

 

?

Adel awoke next morning to find the apartment empty. There was a note on the table that said; “out of town. Be back in a few days. Stay out of trouble “Adel smiled and went over to pet Albert who was sleeping on the sofa. The dog lifted its head and looked at her. She was used to being alone, with Pamela often gone for work reasons, but knowing she would be gone for several days was different. She had brought Adel everywhere with her, well almost.  It felt like she trusted Adel more, leaving her alone like this.

She spotted a box of cigarettes on the table. It was open, with only one remaining. For the longest time the girl had been curious and Pamela did say there was not tobacco inside.  She considers briefly if it’s a test, but knowing how the woman leaves things all over the place that seemed unlikely. She glances over at the dog- still asleep. The clock ticks, the longer hand moves closer to twelve- it’s six o clock. A car drives by on the road, distant sound of a door creaking, and then all fades to silence. While Adel is used to it, it’s also somehow uncomfortable. She takes the cigarette, the lighter is who knows where. It smells like incense, like rosemary and sage and other plants she doesn’t recognize- it smells like Pamela. The whole place would smell like it, but now it’s gone.

Pamela had always been there, ever since she got out of the hospital. The only person she had been in constant contact with. Even with her memories suppressed Adel still felt uneasy whenever there was somebody at the door. She would hide in her room when another person came over. It got easier as time went on, but deep down she was scared and Pamela probably realized this. She pushed Adel to go  to the store, to help with the cases, to go out- and she did. But deep down she knew she could just run back to her for help and Pamela would have the answer.

“No” Adel thought to herself” Pamela is a good person, but in the end just a person- she has her own life.”

After the incident it was like regressing back to being a child, being scared of strangers and loud noises, seeing monsters in the dark and running to Pamela every time things seemed bad. She had gotten attached, perhaps a little too much, she realized. Yes, the woman got her back on her feet in more ways than one, but now Adel felt like she was ready to walk on her own.  After all Pamela wasn’t going to be there for her all the time, was she? She had gotten so used to this way of living that she had forgotten about making a life for herself. Becoming a magus seemed like a scary idea at first, just wrapping her head around all of it was, but now she had to admit she was curious about magic. Going to the Collage and becoming a magus, maybe opening her own agency- it didn’t seem so bad. She twirls the cigarette between her fingers looking at it, then stops and puts it back. Getting up she goes back to her room and gets dressed in school clothes.

?

Pamela yawned, it was afternoon but she had been up late as usual. Amon had taken Adel to the warehouse before dropping her off to school and now he was here.

“Hey” she said reaching for an empty cup” what brings you here so yearly?”

“I need to talk to you”

“OF course you do. Why else come to me?” she got up and walked towards the kitchen.

“Coffee, right?”

“Yeah.  This memory erasing thing, I  ...” he followed after her.

“You want to know if there is a way to prevent it. There is” she said, taking another cup from the cupboard. “And it’s not cheap”

“Money isn’t an issue. So what is it?”

“Anti-mind hacking chips.” She said pouring water into a kettle.

“Chips? As in microchips?”

“Yeah. Special alloy with enchantments that prevent mind hacking. But of course since it is a physical object that is inserted into your skull, it can also be removed. So it’s not risk free.”

“And it will work on an ordinary human?”

“Many government official and military officers have those. They don’t just block out mind hacking either. Each chip emits a unique trace that can be tracked.”

“So it’s like a tracking device?”

“Essentially, yes” Pamela said pouring the coffee.

Amon took the cup and leaned his back against the counter.

“You seem to know a lot about this. Any particular reason?”

Pamela moved her ponytail to the side, exposing her neck.

“I got one a while ago. Have a few secrets I want to keep secret.” She smiled mischievously.

“I can imagine... How long does it take?”

“Between the surgery and the healing… I’d say a week at most.”

“A week?”

“They use magic healing.”

“There is one more thing I want to ask you. That eye you made for her. Do you think you could make me one?”

 

?

“There is something I want to ask you. “ Taliesin awkwardly approached Adel after the bell for lunch rang.

The girl looked at him.

“What is it?”

“I want to ask you out. It’s not a date or anything like that” he began feeling nervous about the whole idea.” A local café is have a special event this weekend. It seems like fun, but Travis has practice and I don’t really know anyone else. If you’re not interested I’ll understand.”

“I’ll go.”

“I’ll pick you up tonight. How’s five o’clock?”

“Five then.

Adel smiled. It seemed like another lifetime since she had gone out with somebody. She tried to remember the guy she dated back in high school. What was his name? She could not remember it, though it seemed like it was on the tip of her tongue.

Once, the idea of a normal life: a husband, a family was all she could imagine. Now she was surprised to remember that such things existed. Maybe eventually, she would settle down with someone. “Right. It’s not like I can live with Pamela forever.” She thought to herself.

 

 

Adel looked at the dress briefly, then at the other dresses in the closet.  The calendar on the wall said it was Halloween. After brief consideration she put on the witch dress. Pamela was incredibly good at sowing, the dress fit her perfectly.  On her way out of the room she grabbed the pointy witch’s hat.

“I am a witch after all” she thought to herself.

Taliesin stood behind the door of Adel’s place nervous. Last time he came there he got told no one lived there and all he could see was storage crates. But he had seen Amon go in and out of the place many times. But he wasn’t sure how the thing worked. If he opened the door what would be on the other side? While he was standing there the door opened. He saw a brief flash of large crates and then Adel appeared.

“Taliesin?”

“Oh, hi” he said feeling embarrassed.

“Why were you standing there?”

“Well, I’m not sure how the door works…i mean it looks like a different place inside”

“Oh, that right, Pamela never invited you over” Adel realized.

“Invite? You mean like a vampire?”

“Same idea. A person cannot enter without being invited by the master of the home.”

“I see.” He said fascinated. “Magic sure is a handy thing”

“We should probably get going or we’ll miss the train. “She said looking at the watch.

“Right.”

The area outside was not as empty as usual, there were people walking. Some children in costumes and adults and teens going to party. Taliesin adjusted his top hat and took Adel’s hand as some rather menacing looking teens walked near them. Adel turned to look at him, surprised. Taliesin suddenly realized what he did and blushed.

“I’m sorry.”

The teens walked past and he breathed a sigh. Adel smiled.

“They looked rather menacing.” He said.

“Thank you.” She said. “By the way that magician costume is really cute”

Taliesin felt his face blushing. Just as he was about to leave his aunt started pestering him to put on a costume for Halloween. Despite coming up with a lie that he going to tutor Travis in math she insisted. She had found Amon’s old magician costume, since Amon had been taller than Taliesin even when he was younger it fir the boy rather well. He did however managed to leave the cape behind.

“It’s like aunt Amy has a sense for these things” he thought.

“Thanks … You look lovely, really” he said.

Adel smiled and turned around the material of the dress was darker than her hair making the color stand out more, he stars and moons glimmered once they caught light.

 

Once they made it to the café it was full of people, most of them in costumes and all were couples. Taliesin briefly imagined himself there with Travis and quickly vanished the thought. No, that would never work. A woman dressed in a dress decorated to look like a cake was registering people. They were escorted to a table. The chairs were soft pink plush and white wood, the tablecloth was lacy and matched the pink of the chairs. Adel looked around the place, taking it all in.  it looked really expensive, and there were couples all around. He said it wasn’t a date.

“Why did you pick this place?” she asked.

“Amon asked me to thank you for him, and this place was having an event. But that’s not really why…” he paused as the waitress brought a platter confectionary.

The bottom of the platter was the largest and hade several slices of cakes and pies, the second layer was smaller and loaded with small square cakes and macaroons, the top most part was full of cookies of various kinds. 

“You may order two drinks as part of the deal.” The waitress said placing the pink menus on the table.

“I’ll be having a rose tea” Adel said.

“Darjeeling tea, please. “

The waitress momentarily returned with an elegant tea pot and poured the tea into porcelain cups. Adel lift a finger to her temple and made a spinning motion clock wise and counter clockwise several times. There was brief moment when Taliesin heard buzzing in his ears. 

“We can talk now.”  She took a sip of her tea.

“The real reason is, I want to hire you.”

Adel looked at him, eye gazing into his with a seriousness in them.

“What for?”

“Remember when I told you about the drugs at our school? Well they never found who it was. The police were never formally investigating to begin with. The school got searched after the suicide but that’s it. I know the manufacturers have most likely left town, but if there really is a trader here, they will have a way to contact whoever is making the drugs to get more. Furthermore, there might have been a relation between the girls from the “suicide” case and the drug dealer. I’ve heard Amon talking on the phone, that three of the girls had gotten jobs at the station area and met some boy and then started working late night shifts. Station area is where the drugs were mostly sold. And to think that they died around the same time, when the police started investigating Nirvana, someone had influenced the girl to use her powers to kill the others. Whoever that person was, might have had reasons to do it.”

“If that person is someone in our school…. I understand. I’ll help you. ” Adel said.

“Thank you. “

“I’m doing this for my own reasons.” She said.

“That’s fine with me.”

“ So this drug, do you know anything about it?” Adel took bite of one of the small cakes.

White and dark chocolate formed a checker pattern on the top, white the sides had bows of dark chocolate. The inside made from soft and fluffy dough and vanilla cream.  

“Well, all in know is that it’s dangerous to people who take it.” Taliesin took a slice of green colored cake and put into his plate. It had a taste of green tea to it.

“The people taking it the most are young, a lot of teenagers but in some cases even children. The side effects are what brought it to attention. Some have ended up in a coma, others are completely non-responsive but conscious. Some have died but these cases are rare, however. Most were found in a catatonic state but regained consciousness, however they exhibited symptoms of severe depression, some have attempted suicide right after coming out of it. Others show mental instability, insanity even as well as what seems to be a loss of memory. ”

“Is that unusual?” Adel asked

“Well some drugs can cause mental distress or temporary dementia while in effect but not to this degree. The strangest part of all this were the blood tests- they were clean. But many have confirmed after coming to consciousness, to have taken the drug.”

“So it doesn’t come up on the blood tests?” Adel took another cake. It was pink with dried raspberries sprinkled on top

“This is what has the police so desperate to put a stop to it. But now that magic is involved, this matter is on different level. “Taliesin took a sip of his tea.

“It’s probably alchemy. “ Adel said.

“Alchemy? “

“I’ve never trained it in it, and Pamela doesn’t use it much. I just know it’s one of the types of magic. The drug could be made using alchemy and imbued with magical properties. That could be the whole reason the side effects are so bad. For people who have low mana being exposed to magic can be dangerous. So putting it into your body would make it even worse.”

“ I see. So if a magus took it, what would happen?”

“Maybe nothing? Or maybe it would just make them high, like a normal drug.” Adel sighed

This was something that Pamela would have knowledge on, but she wasn’t here.  There was a laugh from a couple behind them, causing both to turn and look.

“I’m sorry. I guess this isn’t a good place to be having a conversation like this.” Taliesin said.

“I don’t think there is a good place to have these kind of conversations.” Adel said.

He took a sip of the tea, closing his eyes for a moment.

“You know, my mother really like Darjeeling tea. She used to smell like it. It’s kind of nostalgic.”

Suddenly Adel had a flash of images in her mind- the night of the fire.

“I need to tell you something.” She said “When I was looking for the memories in Amon’s mind I saw something. The night your parents died… there was…Amon saw someone… there was a person in the back yard. They had a hood on and stayed in the shadows.”

Taliesin put his cup down loudly causing the waitress to look over.

“Thank you telling me.” He said in a solemn voice. “To be honest, I was thinking about the possibility myself. I suppose you don’t know any way of find whoever it was.”

“Afraid not, any magus could use fire. But it could also be someone with an ability.”

“Right, I’m sure Amon has looked into this. He probably didn’t want to say anything without having hard evidence that the person was involved and not just a passerby.”

The waitress informed them that they had fifteen minutes left of their reservation time.

“Could we have the rest to go?” Taliesin asked.

“That will cost extra.”

“No problem”

“Could you pack it into two separate bags?”

Half of the cakes and cookies sat there untouched.

“Do they really expect two people to eat all of this in one hour?” He said looking at the colorful baked goods.

“I guess I don’t eat as much sugar as I used to.” Adel noticed two girls in pink princess gowns with an empty platter on their table.

They left the café into the chilly autumn air. The dress Adel wore was quite warm, but the skirt only reached up to the knees.

“I’ll walk you home” Taliesin said.

“You live the opposite way, right? The subway will be fine, I can make it from there. “

“Are you sure?” Taliesin remembered her powers” Alright then.”

  Adel looked like any other girl and being around her he would often forget that there was so much more to her. She could protect herself from anything fat better than anything he could do for her. They walked to the subway in relative silence. The train arrived shortly after.

“Thank you, I had fun, tonight” Adel said before boarding.

“I’m glad you did.” He said before the door closed.

 

?

Amon took a sip of the cheap gas station coffee and leaned back in his seat. After a few minutes Pamela got back into the driver’s seat.

 “Would you mind telling me where exactly are we going?”

“You know already. “

“I know the place but where is it?”

“You’ll see. I can’t tell you more. “

Pamela turned the radio on. Some country music was playing.  She reached over to the glove compartment and took a cigarette.

“Shoot, I’m running low.” She said with an unlit cigarette in her mouth.

There were three cigarettes left in the compartment.

“Just make some more.” Amon said scrolling a window open.

“I don’t make them. But since we’re heading that way I might as well grab some.” She lit the cigarette and started the engine.

Amon frowned at that.

“How can you see anything with this smoke?”

“I can see just fine, don’t worry.”

The white smoke swirled around in the car, filling it with the sweet scent of flowers and incense. Amon sniffed the air.

“It’s different”

“It is. Just a precaution but no one will able to track us this way, magically or otherwise.”

“You think someone would try to follow us?” Amon was surprised.

“Well, considering what happened to you, there is a possibility. I don’t like to take chances.”

“That’s a good thing”

“Also, I’ve looked into your other request. I could be done, but it will take some time. The eye still requires an amount of mana from the person but I should work with some adjustments. It’s good that were going there. Before the surgery they will have your mana measure, since the chips work in a similar way. “

“I’m not a magus, how can you be certain I have it?”

“Everyone has it. Most people don’t have enough to cast spells, because there is a limit to how much magic the planet can take all at once. So there is a limit to how many mages there can be in the world. Magical tools however don’t require one to be magus to use them, as long as a person has mana the tool will work to some extent. Conspiring you had mages in your ancestry, I’d say you’ll have no problem.”

?

The student council room was empty. Rain slowly fell on the ground with a monotonic tap. Adel waited for Taliesin. School was over, only students in clubs remained, and a few who wanted to study in the library.

“Sorry, did I keep you waiting?” The door opened.

Adel shook her head.

He took the key and locked the door from inside.

“I don’t want Travis barging in like last time. I’ve asked him about rumors of drugs when Amon told me to investigate the first time. No one in his team know anything, or at least won’t talk about it. But he did say something about there being a ghost in the junior high building and that what lead me to investigate.”

“Considering those girls were junior high, it possible the drug dealer is a junior too.” Adel said.

“There might be more than one. From what I’ve heard the boy was older than the girls. He could be a high school student. “

“How do we go about catching them?” Adel asked

“That is what I wanted to talk to you about. We need to make them expose themselves somehow.” Taliesin said setting the kettle to boil.

“We could pretend we want to buy it and ask around” Adel said. 

“True. That’s what Amon did. But they might be warned to be cautious of non-regulars.”

“ What do you have in mind?”

“ It’s a risky move, but what if we made them think the police was on to them?”

“Wouldn’t that make them even more cautious?”

“That might be the case, but if it’s a kid in junior high, then they might slip up and give themselves away.”

“ How will we know when that happens?” Adel asked.

“I have an idea. We can go the principle, he knows Amon works with the police. If I tell him someone in the uniform of our school was seen and is under suspicion of distributing drugs, I’m sure he won’t mind helping. The new could post fliers over the school asking students who have information to call a certain number.”

“That sounds like a good plan, but won’t the police find out?”

“The is a chance, but I don’t plan on using the police number.” He took out mobile phone. “ I bought a new phone and a sim card. I plan to give this number on posters. What we need now is a way to observe the locations of posters.” He said taking out mugs from the cupboard.

“Observe them? Why?”

“The reaction will most likely will give the person away. People can control their faces, but there is that initial moment of shock that can’t be masked. We could use those reactions to make a list of suspects and investigate them further.”

“Wow, you sound like a real detective.” Adel said. “But I can only observe one spot using Albert.”

“The dog?” Taliesin put the coffee mug on the table in front of Adel.

“It’s a doll. Pamela made it for a case and there is magical recording device that records what it sees like a camera.”

“That’s is only one spot, but I could make it work. We could put up one single poster, right in front of the school entrance where the billboard is. One in our and one in the junior building. Two should be enough.”

“But that still leaves the problem of watching the second building”

“I have it covered, well kind of.” He took out a video camera. “ it’s now new but it has a timer so I can set it to film for a while.”

“But you can’t just set up a camera in the school foyer and film the students.” Adel pointed out.

“Well I was hoping you could make it invisible or something.” He said.

“Well, a charm might work but we’ll need something more. I can make it that people don’t approach it, but if a camera is out in the open they will still see it and question it. We need to put into something.”

“This is going to be tricky” Tal sighed.

?

The group of students gathered around the billboard. Most were looking at the timetables for classes of clubs. Taliesin took out the black phone and looked at it. Silence, no calls, a few random messages but nothing serious. The majority of people looked at the board before classes started in the morning and during lunch break when students had the most time.  Those were the time frames Tal had set the camera to film. While Albert observed the time after school when most went home in addition to those two times.

 “ I can’t believe it” he sighed again” after the public announcement no one actually called.”

“No one seems to be too intimidated by the fliers either.” Adel said, looking over the faces of students.

Several tapes with dates sat on the table.

“There was a group of girls that seemed scared by the announcement on the first day.”

“I don’t think fifth grade kids are doing this.” Adel said” Considering I had Albert follow them home for the past few days, they don’t seem suspicious at all.”

“Yeah, I know” he said lowering his head” and the locker search didn’t give any results. I’m glad the principle did that but I guess no one would be dumb enough to keep drugs in their school locker.”

“Considering they sell them late in the evening or at night, I think so too.” Adel said. “Also, I’ve been thinking about something. Are you sure there even is a drug?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we know one of them or few of them used memory manipulation or mind hacking on Amon. You said Nirvana causes memory loss and some takers become catatonic or comatose. Those are side effects of mind hacking that was performed incorrectly. Maybe all these people were made to think they took a drug but in reality just had their minds altered.”

Taliesin looked at her like he had never considered it.

“No, I. there was a packet. One of the people found unconscious had it.” He began searching through his phone. “Here I took the picture of the photo.”

There was a tiny light blue square with a slight rip in it, placed inside a plastic bag.

“It was empty but, I’m sure the drug is real. They found a few more like it in alleys around the station. Only fingerprints were of the people who took it. If they were altering memories, no need to leave these behind.”

“You would be surprised by somethings people can come up with. “Adel said “I don’t know why someone would do this, but creating a fictional drug and faking evidence of its existence would not surprise me.”

“I guess, if we haven’t found evidence by now, there might not be any.” Taliesin said in a defeated tone. “And here I wanted to surprise Amon with some good news.”

“They’ll be back in two days. We should finish up the investigation.” Adel said.

“Yeah. Though I have no idea what to tell the principle.” He said yawning.

“Just tell him the school is clean and I’m sure he will be happy.”

“Yeah. It had been getting hard to come up with excuses as to why no actual police showed up at the school at all.”

“No news on the other lead either” Adel said.

“This is a huge dead end.”

?

It had been raining a lot since November started. Wednesday afterschool afternoon was quiet. Taliesin and Adel sat in the empty cafeteria discussing their investigation under a privacy charm. The windows opened up to the stadium and the track field. 

“Do you mind if I stop by the gym and see if Travis is still there? “

“No, go ahead I’ll wait by the exit.” Adel said.

He had been spending most of his time in Pamela’s apartment with Adel looking at the recordings of students reactions, but had little to no results. The first time he saw it was surprise, but it quickly became mundane. However today he had a surprise, not the kind he had expected, but he realized he should have expected it.  Travis pushed him into a wall on the way to meet Adel during lunch.

“What gives man?”

“Travis? What are you doing?”

“I should be asking you. I thought we’re friends”

“We are.”

“Then how come I don’t see you anymore. And whenever I do you’re with her”

“Wait, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I... well I just… we’re just working on project together.”

“You’re bad liar, Tal. Look I get it. You fell for her, whatever. Just don’t forget who your friends are”

Travis stormed off, leaving Tal standing there confused.

“Is he jealous?” he thought.” But he’s right, I have been ignoring him. We’ve been friend for a long time. I used to tell him everything, but I don’t think I can tell him about everything that’s been going on. “

 He wanted to properly apologize to Travis, realizing he owed him an explanation. While telling the truth was not an option, some version of the truth was better than nothing. Unfolding his umbrella he began walking to where the gym building and the dressing rooms were. Then he noticed something on the ground- blood.  There was something of a trail of it, half washed by the rain.  Taking his phone he typed a message for Adel “blood by the gym.”, and took off running at the direction it was leading. By the field fence four large figures stood. The sound of the metal net of the fence rattling and thuds of the kicks landing on the figure knelt on the ground reached his ears. He ignored the vibration of his phone as he approached.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He said to the four boys, who were all taller and more muscular than him.

“None of your business, four eyes” a tall blonde said.

“Bullying is against the school rules! If you don’t stop I will report you!”

All of them stopped and turned towards him.

“IS that so?” a boy with a shaved head cracked his fists. “We weren’t bullying anyone, right boy?” he turned to boy on the ground. “Just teaching him a lesson not to steal.”

The others nodded in agreement.

“And what did he steal from you?”

“This little brat borrowed some money from us and he won’t give it back, see.”

Adel came rushing from around the corner.

“IS everything alright?”

Behind her boys in the school team uniforms were coming.

“Let’s get out of here.” The blond said.

The four began walking away. The shaved head one spat at Taliesin’s feet.  He ignored it and walked over to the boy on the ground.

“Are you alright? Can you hear me? Can you move at all?”

The boy looked up at him, face beaten black and blue, blood running down from his nose.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Adel asked, a little out of breath.

“We need to get him to the nurse, if not the hospital.” Tal said trying to put the boys hand over his shoulder but realized he couldn’t lift him.

“Hey, easy dude. We’ll handle this.” Travis and another boy from the team came up to them.

The boys lift him up easily. Taliesin and Adel followed behind.

“I can’t believe anyone would do this. People can be so horrible.”

Adel remained silent for a while.

“You know, I think I sued to be the same as them.” She said.

Taliesin looked at her with a look of disbelief.

“I mean I never beat any one up physically, but   I and my friends used to criticize anyone who was different and we didn’t think it was wrong. It just felt like everyone should be like us because were the majority, because were popular and means we’re right.”

“Being popular, being strong or rich doesn’t make you right.” Taliesin said.

“It doesn’t.” she agreed” but a lot of people feel that way, thinking that they are entitled to being right because they part larger group. I can understand how it feels and why people do it. But even if I could go back, even if my parents were somehow alive again. I couldn’t like that life that I used to, because I’m not the person I used to be.”

“I’m glad you’re not.” He said looking her in the eye.

They waited outside the nurse’s room. Travis joining them.

“You just had to play the hero, didn’t you?”

“He could have been seriously hurt.”

“I know that. But listen, those guys... One of them got kicked out from the basketball team by the coach. The blond one, I think his name is Derek or something.  He’s been caught taking something and it ain’t protein powder. He’s been acting all aggressive and hurting some of the guys during the game. Provoking fights that sort of shit.”

“Why didn’t anyone call the police?” Taliesin said.

“Coach did. Got him to take a blood test, he was clean. He insisted it was new food supplement. He was suspended from school for starting fights. “

“Do you think?” Adel leaned in and whispered to Tal.

He nodded.

“Hey what are you two whispering about?”

“Nothing” Taliesin said.

“Look I ain’t stupid. I know you put up the fliers about the drugs at school. “

“I did.” He admitted.

“Look, Derek is an ass but you don’t want to mess with the guy. Coach came in with a broken arm after he got suspended. Those friends of his aren’t even students here, the ball guy was expelled years ago. I don’t know about the others...”

“If he is responsible than I’ll catch him. I can’t believe you knew about this guy and didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell you because I knew you would go after him. I don’t wanna see you in a body bag, Tal. What you’re doing is dangerous.”

“No, then only dangerous thing is letting people like that think they can get away with anything simply because people find them scary.”

“I’ll help you” Adel said.

“Fine, you both do what you want. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Travis walked away.

?

Taliesin opened his eyes. The black Pomeranian was sleeping on his chest. It was early morning, light coming in through gaps in the curtains. Adel was already up, a plate of hot sandwiches and paper cups of coffee on the table.

“Morning”

“Good morning” he said turning his head.

Albert twitched its ears and yawned, then stretched opening up its eyes. The dog plopped down to the ground. Taliesin sat up, the grey wool cover sliding down. Lifting his legs off the sofa onto the ground he took a cup of coffee. For the last few days he had gotten used to waking on the sofa.

“Their coming back today” Adel said.

“Yeah. I can’t believe it’s been a week. Feel more like months”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t much help” Adel said.

“You were a lot of help. I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I did without you.”

“When I’ve worked on cases before I’ve had Pamela to advise me. But doing this without her was kind of fun too.”

“Yeah, it was kind of fun. I ended up learning a lot from this. Still I wish we had caught the guy. I was so certain it was Derek. “

“Yeah, but there is no way.”

Derek had been a false lead. The guy was a thug and had issues with violence but he wasn’t the drug the dealer. That day after the talk with Travis, they talked to the principle about the incident and while he was distracted Tal took a picture of Derek’s file. Finding out where he lived they sent Albert to spy on the place. Derek left home in the evening but that was to go to work. He worked at the port cargo dock unloading and uploading cargo, his three friends were working there too. The port was on the other side town and they worked a shift until midnight and headed straight home.  The times when the merchant was spotted at the station was within the time frame the four spent at works.

“I feel sorry for the boy, too. Looks like Derek had been beating on him a lot”

Taliesin recalled running into the boy the next day at school. Before he could say anything the boy spoke, shoulder length brown hair falling on his beaten face.

“Don’t go thinking you save me. This wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. “

It hurt hearing that.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“What can they do? Derek would just beat them up if they tried talking to him.”

Taliesin had never face a problem like this, a person who simply refused to believe there was anything that could be done to change the situation.

“I won’t let him hurt you anymore. We can be friends.”

“You’ll just get you’re self-killed.”  

 

“I feel like did something wrong” he admitted” like somehow by saving him I made things worse.”

Adel sat down next to him.

“You can’t save everyone. Some people are beyond saving. Pamela used to tell me that some people simply cannot accept happiness or happy ending because deep down they don’t want to be happy and they have the right. A person must want to be saved first, then they can be. But sometimes people need help in realizing what they really want deep down.”

“So I shouldn’t give up on him. Derek won’t be back to school until next term, so that gives me time.”

“Yeah, you should try. Pamela has been trying too. You know before I got my ability, the only way of dealing with people who had abilities was to put them down.  Once we discovered I could shut their abilities down she begged me to work on cases, to save as many people as possible. After the incident I was so scared of everything and these powers made things even more confusing. But now I think that maybe I got this ability for a reason. In the past two years the numbers of people with abilities had been growing. Pamela said it would be an incident every few months before. But in the last eighteen months it’s increased by two hundred percent and still growing.”

“That’s bad.”

“It is. The world is like bowls and magic is like water. There is only so much of it than the world can old and yet magic keeps pouring into the world with these new ability users. A bowls will just overflow and the excess will pour out, but the planet has no outlet so the magic will just lash out uncontrollably until everything is destroyed.”

“That’s horrible. But maybe the world is trying to balance itself. Maybe your power is a result of that.”

“I never thought about it this way.” Adel said. “Pamela created a program for all the people whose abilities I took. They can choose to remain in prison or go into the program and return to live a normal life in society. Believe it or not there were quite a few that chose to remain in prison for life rather than work for redemption. You can’t save everyone, but you won’t know unless you try.”

 

                                    ?

Two weeks passed without incident. Amon was back to work. Pamela was preparing for a new doll show. Taliesin tried to balance his time between Travis and Morty, that was the boy’s name. While reluctant he began to warm up to Taliesin. He began to tutor the boy, who was in the first years of high school. Travis tried talking him into joining the team. Sometimes Adel joined them.  There were no new cases so far and the two kept quiet about their failed investigation.

Adel was cleaning up after art class.  Taliesin looked over at her shoulder.

“Is that supposed to be a lion?”

“It’s Albert” she said holding out a small clay sculpture.

“You’re not very good at this.”

“I could always do this” she held her hand over it and the clay molded into a perfect shape of a dog.

“That’s cheating.” He said.

“I know.” She made the sculpture go back to a weird cross between a dog and lion.

“Hurry up you two” Travis yelled from the hall.

They finished cleaning up and went down to the entrance.

“Strange, Morty should be done PE.” Tal said looking at the clock.

“There was none. Coach called in sick and they don’t have a substitute yet. “Travis said.

“Maybe he left already. I mean he got out two hours early.”

“Why didn’t he text me?” Tal looked at his phone. “I’ll go see if he’s at the library.”

“Wait up” Adel said.

The library was empty. Taliesin tried to call him on the phone.

“So answer.” He said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Maybe his sound is off from class.” Travis said.

As they were debating what to do a figure emerged from behind the corner. It was the guy with the shaved head. Blood was running down his face, he clutched his side and leaned on the wall with his right hand.

“Please…. You gotta help them…” he said.

“What happened?”

“The gym. He’s gone crazy.”

Taliesin turned to Travis:

“Get an ambulance and the police.”

He and Adel took off running towards the gym. There were puddles of blood, much larger than he had seen before, a trail of blood leading towards the school and another leading towards the gym. A bloody handprint pressed into the wall.  Taliesin ran inside yelling:

“Morty!”

“STAY AWAY!”

It took him a while to fully comprehend the scene before him. Morty was holding a baseball bat but there was something different about him. A reddish sparkling glow was coming off of him and the air rippled as if from intense heat. He swung the bat and the air  rippled, some support beams fell from the ceiling, the boards of the floor broke. Next to him on the ground was a bloody mess flesh and paste.

“Morty, please calm down” Tal said.

The boy turned around.

“Whoever you are stay away!” he said, his eyes were glazed over with a red mist like membrane.

“It’s me Taliesin! Listen to me, please. Calm down!”

Morty stopped for a moment.

“Tal.. Taliesin?” then he suddenly howled in pain and his left arm began to expand in size, muscles growing larger and skin tearing, blood shooting out in small burst.

“The kids gone crazy” the shaved head guy followed them back.

“What did you do?” Taliesin said 

“I, we just … we didn’t know he would. We just gave him some stuff.”

“What stuff?” Adel asked

“I don’t know … he had it on him and we just forced it down his throat… Derek filmed it. Then he passed out… and we thought he was dead.. so we kicked him a bit to wake him up and the went crazy.”

Taliesin felt rage well up inside him. Clenching his fist he punched the guy as hard as he could, sending him off balance and to the ground.

“Get out of her because right now I might just kill you.” He turned towards Morty who was kneeling on the ground coughing up blood.

Adel moved towards him.

“Morty, I’m here. We’ll help you. It’s going to be alright. Adel, can you help him?”

“I think so.”

She took of the eye patch. Both of her eyes began to turn black with a white spiral patterns where her pupil had been.

“Amplification: void.”

Morty’s arm bulged. Twisting, contorting, more blood pouring out as he screamed. Then it stopped and he collapsed to the floor. Taliesin ran to him.

“Morty. Are you alright? Help will be here soon, we’ll get you to a hospital.  “

“Taliesin, I’m sorry.” Tears began streaming down his face” You were so good to me, you helped me and I .. what did I do? I don’t know.  Derek he said he would hurt you . I couldn’t take it, he said things about you. I couldn’t led them get away.

“Don’t talk. Save your energy. You’ll be alright”

Morty tried to reach into his pocket but the deformed hand didn’t listen. Taliesin reached into it and took out a key.

“ta. Take it. Under bed… floor.. Destroy it.. All of it… I don’t want anyone to suffer like me. I knew it was bad, I knew but I did, Derek made me pay him for the camera, I broke, I needed money. I don’t want to do it anymore. This is hell, nobody should feel like this.

Adel looked around the gym, there was a cylinder contained with a lid, in size about the same as a can of soda but it was empty.

“I think this is from what they gave him.”

“Adel? Morty said weakly. ”You’re here?”

“You can’t see?” Taliesin asked.

“All I see is red.” He lost consciousness with those words.

Travis, Amon, several, medics, police men and teachers rushed into the room.

 

?

Taliesin sat at the paper covered desk at Pamela’s apartment. Adel explained the situatuan starting from the beginning, including their attempted investigation.  Pamela sat leaning back in her chair and said nothing. Amon leaned against the window looking dead serious.  A cardboard bow sat on the table.

“Honestly I don’t know if I should be angry ar ashamed” Amon said

Taliesin bowed his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Well I think it was quite ingenious.” Pamela said. “After all the kid managed to get results. “

She gestured to the box. Inside were round containers of powder.

“I never would have thought Morty was the one we were looking for.” Taliesin said.

“Me neither, he was a nice guy.” Adel said.

“More importantly, what happened to him?” Taliesin asked.

“From what I can tell he awoken an ability.  “Pamela said.

“But what was the cause of it?” Adel asked

“He had been abused, he was still healing physically, stress, a combination of these things. You said they forced a substance down his throat. ? “Pamela asked.

“Yeah. A whole container full. I saw the video.” Amon said.

“Then the cause was most likely death from overdose. It looks like he is dead for two minutes before they start kicking him. Death was most likely what triggered the awakening. But I’ll be able to tell you more after I analyze it. I’m no expert in alchemical analysis but we need to find out why it doesn’t come up the blood tests.” Pamela said.

 

Two days passed since the incident .Morty was comatose in a hospital. The police were guarding him and waiting to question on that happened once he woke up.  Adel and Taliesin had permission to visit. Taliesin had gone down stairs to show Travis the way. Adel took the time to go the bath room to wash some fruit.

Taliesin saw Travis enter the hospital and waived.

“Hey. You decided to come.”

“Yeah, I mean, we might have no know each other long but he’s a nice kid. I’m still a little confused on what happened back there.”

“We all are” Taliesin said.

He noticed a police officer coming down the stairs. He was the one stationed at Morty’s room.

“ Is everything alright officer?” Taliesin asked

The man looked at him with a blank face before shaking his head.

“oh, what am I doing here?” the man looked at him.

“Is everything okay?” Travis asked

“All of a sudden I had the urge to go downstairs. “The officer said” how strange. I need to get back to my post.”

Taking the elevator back they saw Adel ran past them in the hall.

“Adel?”

She turned around but then ran around the corner.

“What happened” the police man asked

“Morty, he’s dead.” She said

“What?!”

“I was in the bathroom washing fruits. And I hear the beeping. I went out and I the back of someone walking out of the room. It was a man. I tried to call a nurse but they won’t respond.”

The police man ran to the post where the nurses were.  The nurse was sitting in the chairs while the alarm the panel was blinking and beeping. The woman stared into a wall and kept counting. Other police officers on the floor were sitting and staring at a static television.

“What in bloody hell is going on here?” the police man said

Once she had finished counting to one thousand the nurse suddenly snapped out of it.

“What was I doing?” she panicked seeing the alarm.

The two police men jumped looking around as if awoken from a dream. Morty was rushed into the emergency room where the doctors tried to reanimate him.

Adel, Taliesin and Travis sat in the waiting room. Adel called Pamela over to pick them up. The doctors were too late, Morty was gone. Travis’s dad picked him up.

“It’s like they were hypnotized.” Taliesin said. “Why would anyone kill him?”

“ I know you’re upset. I’ve lost a close friend once too.” Pamela said” but listen to this. I’ve began analyzing Nirvana’s alchemical composition and I’ve found some fascinating stuff. Those it’s not a drug. The substances are mostly herbal, a small amount of psychedelic ones, but nothing to potent. Most of these have a ritualistic purpose in many different cultures.”

“Ritualistic?” Adel and Taliesin looked at each other.

“Yeah, all of them were mainly used to achieve a state of trace, where one soul leave their body and enters the highest real of being, god’s realm, or spirit realm. All of this is done to achieve enlightenment. It’s something people train for many years with meditation and discipline.”

“What is Enlightenment?” Tal wondered.

“People have different may thing they believe it to be, but in truth it is the awakening of a powerful energy dormant deep inside a person, known as kundalini, that the word they use in Hindu. Monks train for many years and that might not be enough for some. If done incorrectly it can kill you, or leave you in a comatose state or paralyzed physically, sometimes can cause insanity, severe depression and suicide. Sound familiar?”

“Those are the side effects of the Nirvana drug” Taliesin said.

“Nirvana is the Buddhist term for the state of enlightenment.” Pamela said.

“So this drug is forcing people to have awakenings” Adel said.

“It’s just a theory, but I think this counts as a strong enough shock to cause someone to awaken abilities. It’s possible the drug caused your friend to develop strange powers.”

“Wait” Taliesin interrupted” Adel said the number of people with abilities had been rising for the past year. Nirvana was only discovered about six months ago by the police, but out in the underground it could have been going around for much longer.”

“Someone is making a is selling this substance that causes people to have abilities and upset the natural balance of the world.” Adel summed it up.

“It’s starting to look like it.” Pamela said.” I’ll be taking it to an alchemist friend of mine for more detailed analysis.”

The car stopped outside the house. Amon was just getting out of his.

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you on the way” Pamela said.

“What’s the hurry?” Amon asked

Pamela was rushing up the steps.  Everyone tried to keep up.

“I’ll tell you inside.”

She moved to inlock the door but it opened in its own. Pamela motioned for everyone to be quiet. Amon took his gun out. Adel tried to see anything with her magic eye. Pamela rushed inside pushing the door open and ran towards to room on the left where she was doing the research. The door was open and there was smoke coming from it. Pamela covered her nose with her elbow and so did everyone else. A gust of wind shot thought the hall and blasted the door open.

“Go!” Pamela ran forward.

There was a pile of smoldering ash on the research table. Empty containers littered the floor.

“Show yourself!” Pamela shouted and the room seemed to ripple like water.

Something moved in the shadows of the giant book cases. It was a human size doll, not finished, only half the face painted on, naked and missing one arm. It moved like it was alive. Amon shot, Pamela tried to take control of it. But was almost physically pushed back ass the doll imitated a laugh. Then it bowed and jumped out the window. They ran down stairs but was just a wooden doll on the concrete. 

“Damn, got away” Pamela cursed.

 

 

5: Case 5: Host Jacker

 

Adel stared at the windows of the car. They had been driving for hours now. Light rain pouring over the highway.  The clock on the panel of the car radio said it was 8 AM, school was just starting. Pamela stared at the road with a strange determined look on her face.  Usually car rides with her were relaxing, not this time. No music was playing, not a word was said since they left. A cigarette was smoking in her mouth, teeth biting into it and brows furrowed. Adel didn’t dare disturb the silence. 

The car took a turn from the highway, approaching a city. Morning traffic was starting as people rushed to work. Tall grey buildings cast shadows on the streets.  Pamela took a turn after turn and Adel could not keep up with the direction they were going in. it seemed like they were in outer part of town. Finally they came to a stop outside a tattoo salon. Adel looked at the sign “Noir Tattoo’s” with surprise.  The sign on the door said “closed” but Pamela opened the door and went in. Adel followed after her.  The chime on the door made a sound. Pamela sat down one of the leather armchairs in the waiting area. Adel did the same, eyes wandering over the beautiful art work on the walls. Drawings of flowers, birds, animals, and people made from lines and dots, yet detailed and life like. She got up to look closer.

“Like what you see?” came a voice from behind

A tall, pale, dark haired woman stood on the stairs that were out of sight from the entrance. She wore a black dress with a wide belt around her waist, knee length shoes with high heels. Black hair flowing down her back, several earrings decorating the one visible ear. Her arms were bare, exposing the many tattoos that decorated them. On the right a circle of fire around the writs and the legs of a doberman rising out of it. The dog took up most of the space up to the elbow. Above it were what looked like a bird of prey in flight and the sun and on the left side of the dog was a moon and an owl. All images were black with some skin acting as the filling where needed. The left hand, starting with a rose bush and thorns wrapping around a sword, was a dead tree and leaves blowing in the wind.

Pamela stood up from her seat and approached the woman.

“Pam, it’s good to see you.” The woman extended her arms embracing Pamela briefly.

“Yeah.” Pamela then turned to Adel “Adel, this is Tanith Noir. Tanith, Adel’s my apprentice.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Adel said still confused why they were here.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Tanith said.

“Can we talk somewhere private?” Pamela asked.

“Upstairs. I’ll tell Vincent to make so tea. He’s my apprentice.” Tanith said.

“You’re coming too.” Pamela said looking at Adel.

Usually when they went somewhere Pamela would make her wait in the car or the waiting area. She had never heard Pamela mention Tanith before, but she never mentioned any of her friends or associates by names. Adel followed up the stairs. There was and armored door with a code lock next to it.  Behind it was something that resembled an apartment. The salon was in a two story building.  The walls were a light cream color and devoid of any art work. There was a hall and doors to several rooms.  A young man came out of one of the rooms. He looked around the same age as Adel. Black hair reaching up to his chin. It was slightly wavy and one side was shaved. He had several piercings in his ears and a nose ring. Two metal orbs under his lower lip. Hints of a tattoo were peeking out from the collar of the black t-shirt with some band Adel never heard of. The twisting style of writing made the name impossible to read and the image of skulls around an altar meant it was probably a metal band. Baggy black pants, no slippers. Toe nails painted with black nail polish. He had tattoos covering both arms.

“Hi” he said looking surprised to see people here.

He ran a hand though his hair trying to get it to stay behind his ear, finger nails also painted black.

“This is my apprentice- Vincent” Tanith said.

“Just call me V” he said.

“Hello” Pamela said.

“I know you” he said looking at Pamela “I’ve seen your work. It’s quite impressive”

“Thank you” Pamela said.

“Hi, I’m Adel” she introduced herself.

“V, get us something to drink and we’ll start the meeting.”

Tanith lead the way into a room down the hall. It was like a combination between an office, with a large desk and file cabinets and a kitchen.  She sat down on the chair next to the coffee table.  Pamela and Adel taking a seat on the other chairs. V went into the kitchen area and started making coffee.

“Again, thanks for coming on such short notice” Tanith said.

“I’m not going to lie; I have a personal interest in this case.” Pamela said.

“Whatever the case maybe, I’m thankful that you’re here. This is a little bit out of my usual ones. “Tanith said.” I specialize in searching for people, so when the offer from secret services came in I was a little surprised”

V put down a cup of coffee in front of Tanith.

“Sugar? Milk?” He looked between Pamela and Adel.

“Two sugars and no milk” Pamela said.

“Milk and two sugar” Adel.

“So tell me more about your target” Pamela said.

“Well, he or she is a wanted criminal across the world. A hacker that has committed several serious crimes, hacked into secret government databases in the USA, China, UK, Switzerland, France, you name it. However they are also known for mind hacking, and taking control of people to carry out assassinations. The FBI and Interpol have named them the Host Jacker. “

“There could be a link between this case and our home invader” Pamela said looking at Adel. “ For a start it should be impossible for anyone to break into my apartment. “

“I was just a surprised as you when I got the news” Tanith said. “Nobody came through my end”

“I’ve checked in with her as well, nothing went wrong it. Yet somehow someone got inside.” Pamela said taking sip of the coffee V placed down before her.

“The spell protecting our home is a special one.” Pamela said.” It’s collaboration between me, Tanith and one other person. The warehouse you see from the outside actually belongs to Tanith. If anyone tried to enter without being invited, the moment they stepped though the door they would be brought to that warehouse. The same would happen if they used the window or tried to get in some other way. If they tried to use magic to get in the other person would be alerted. “

“There should be no physical way to enter the apartment without being invited.”

“You mean It was someone we know?” Adel said concerned.

“I don’t think so. The amount of people I’ve invited into my home” she started counting on her fingers” Tanith and the other person who helped create this spell- but neither of them specialize in manipulation magic or have mind hacking skills. Adel.  And few months ago- Amon. “

“Um.. I’ve invited Taliesin” Adel said.

“Regardless neither he nor Amon is mage.  So you see how impossible it is one of us to have done it.”

“So what you’re saying is that they didn’t get inside physically” V said.

“That is the only conclusion. “ Pamela said. “Somehow they got into my apartment and took control of one of my dolls to destroy any traces of Nirvana and my research on it.

“It’s not impossible to remote control objects with magic “V said. “ I’ve seen you’re work in magazines and on television many times.”

“That is not the case. The doll I was working on had never been displayed before. It wasn’t even finished. So they couldn’t have seen it before. “Pamela said.

“You said the hacker takes control of people” Adel said.

“True” Tanith said” but from what I gathered about them, it’s not impossible.”

“People have a consciousness, a mind that is always active and a will that resists control. A doll has none of it. For someone who is used to manipulate people this is nothing. “Pamela said.

“From what I found on the internet this guy is very specific about how he does things” V said” he likes to announce what he will do before he does it. Sometimes explaining exactly how he will do it. Problem no one believes it until after it happens. He said he would make the vice secretary kill the minister during a meeting. Wouldn’t you know it, it happened, but nobody believed it until after.”

“I’ve heard about this incident, it was four years ago I believe” Pamela said. “Well he, if it is a he, strikes me as quite the performer. “

“I think it’s a guy” V said” out of the cases he’s taken control of people none were women”

„So we can asume that whoever they are they identify as male.“ Tanith said.

„Not nesceserily“ Pamela said“ I do believe this person is an ability user. While it is true the could be a magus, but i find that posibility unlikekly.“

„How so?“ Tanith asked.

„A magus has more limitations. While an ability user is capable to perform one specific funtion and that function only, they do it with a lot more potency.“ Pamela explained.

„So this person is an abilty user with an ability to control other people. However we still don‘t know the limits of that ability.“

„This is the tricky part. „ Pamela said. „Figuring out how the ability works. Let‘s start with the posible range.“

„They have comited crimes in twenty nine diferent countries, that‘s excluding the hacking“ V said.

„Dont you think somebody would have seen the same person hanging around the crime scenes in all the locations?“ Tanith said.

„If that were that case he would have been caught long time ago, right?“

„So it‘s definetly a long rage ability.“ Tanith said.

Adel listened to the conversation, not saying anything. A job that involved cathign a criminal that was world famous, was not something she had done before.

„What do you think ,Adel“Pamela asked.

The qustion startled har and she took a moment to answer.

„A long range ability seems the most likely, but...“ she took some of the files from the table and flipped though them „ i think ... it seems like he can just jump from one host to another at will. While the hosts are all in close priximity. It could in fact be be a short range ability.“

„However it still doesn‘t explain how he got inside my appartment“ Pamela said.“ Both magic and abilities require a trigger or certain conditions to be met.“

„You said no one had seen the doll before. So we can rule out sigh“ Tanith said.

„Yes, but it doesn‘t make it easier. Most conditions are  based on the sences. He couldn‘t have touched it. „

„Are you sure? Somebody could have tampered wit the materials during delivery?“ V said.

„I collect all my meterials my self and i inspect them. I can say they didn‘t have anything placed on them“

„Smell is also out. So is taste.“ Tanit said.“ Sound?“

„This is the tricky part. All of these seem to require a physical contact or close presence to the object that is being manipulated.“ Pamela said. „We know he didn‘t get inside physicaly, yet still somehow got inside“ 

Everybody sat there thinking. Adel was silent, not having anything to contribute. Her own head racing to comprehend all that was happening. Then she remebered something.

„What about the hospital? All those people were mind controled. Was this the same guy then?“

„No, considering the information we have, the Host Jacker can only control one person at the time. Further more, those people in the hospital were acting like they were given a specific comand and once they carried it out they had no memory of it.“Pamela said. „ It‘s a diferent kind of mind control. We  also know that you saw a glimpse of the person who maybe responcible. Unfortunatly the security guard deleted all the footage from the hospital security cameras so we couldn‘t find out who he was.“ She continued.

Adel sighed, feeling frightened by the situatuation.

„These people have some very strong individuals working for them“ Pamela said.

„All this just for some drug?“ Tanith  wondered.

„No, i think the drug is a means to an end. They are after something else.“ Pamela said. „ and i beleive this case might help us get some answers to what it is. „

?

                             

Taliesin stared at the empty desk  where Adel should have been sitting. He should have figured that after the incident she wouldn‘t come to school. Somehow, someone broke into the appartment. While unsure of how magic worked he could not get the image of the half finished doll moving on its own. It seemed sureal. But then he realized he should get used to strange and unreal seeming things happening around him. If he wanted to be a detective anyways. Morty‘s death still haunted him. Those lat moments he got to spend with the boy surfaced every time he tried to sleep. Somebody he knew was killed, again and he couldn‘t do anything to stop it.

Class passed by in what seeemd like a second that got extended and put into slow motion. Nothing changed, at least he didn‘t notice anything changing or moving around him and then it was over. Travis seemed to notice that he wasn‘t feeling well.

„Are you going to eat lunch?“ He asked walking up Tal.

„Lunch isn‘t until third period.“ He said.

„Right,“ Travis sighed“ you might wanna chack the clock.“

Looking at the clock on the classroom wall Tal fel his eyes go wide.

„It‘s third period already?“

„Do you need to see the nurse or something?“

„No, I‘m fine“

„You don‘t look fine. Lucy came in during the middle of the second class and you didn‘t even lecture her about punctuality or something.“

„She did? I didn‘t notice“

„That girl must really be something. She‘s not here for one day and you‘re a wreck“ Travis said jokingly.

„That‘s not why..“

„I know.“ He said solemnly. „If you don‘t wanna talk about it, thats fine“

„I do“ he said looking around the empty class room“ not here“

They walked out of the classroom and headed to the student council room, stopping to get some drinks from the vending machine.

„I still can‘t wrapp around my head what happaned to Morty.“ Travis said taking a sip from the can of „Sprite“. „I mean straight up murder, like in the movies“ he said leaning against the wall.

Taliesin said nothing slowly drinking the bitter black coffee he got from the machine.

„Travis, I ... I guess I never told you. The drug dealer i‘ve been looking for, that was Morty.“

Travis nearly spit out the drink.

„You mean it?“

„He confessed before we took him to the hospital. I didn‘t know either. But he had info the police could have used to trace them so ... „

„They shut him up. Shit“ Travis sat down, bowing his head and staring at the carpet for a moment. „This is a lot to take in.“

„I‘m sorry.“ Tal said. „ They also broke into Adel‘s place. Her guardian does work for the police sometimes, that why I got close her. She was helping me work on this.“

„Yeah, I figured you weren‘t the type to fall in love just  like that. But you could have told me.“

„I‘m sorrry. I just can‘t help thinking.  My dad became a prosecutor because he wanted to do the right thing. My mom, just happaned to fall in love with him. But in the end she died because of it. The fire was clearly intended  for my dad, but she just got cauth up in it. I feel like I‘ve gotten caught up in something dangerous and people around me are being dragged into it.Amon, Adel they  can take care of themselves, but if something happaned to aunt Amy, or you.  I feel like we shoudn‘t be seen spending so much time together. They might come after you to get to me.“

„Would you listen to yourself?  Next you gonna start dressing in costumes and hanging out in a cave? If  i‘m not around who‘s gonna protect your scrawny ass? „ Travis teased, flaxing his muscles. „ You‘re dead in a fight and we both know it.“

He said nothing, realising Travis had a point. There was no way he could get a gun license, but learning how to fight sounded like a good idea.

?

Adel tried to keep with the conversation. Ability trigers that didn‘t involve the five basic sences seemed dificult to figure out. This led her to think about her own triger. Her ability activated when she wanted, but she did have to see the person, saying the comand physicaly also helped to make the process go smother almost like putting her intention to words somehow stabilised it. She wondered if she could do it without seeing. It seeemd imposible. Somehow she would find a way to see using her abilty, even she blindfolded. Or more likely her ability would find a way to meet it‘s own conditions once activated.

„How do you see without seeing?“ lost in her thoughts she said it out loud.

Pamela and V turned their heads towards her.  Tanith was washing the mugs in the kitchen part of the room.

„A diferent way of seeing“ Pamela paused her own train of thought.

„Possible“ V said.“ Some indirect way that can replace the sence of sight.“

„I was just thinking“ Adel said, feeling stupid for saying anything.

„No.“ V said“ i think i‘ve got it. This guy‘s a hacker right. So he can use the cameras on the streets to see by hacking them. If he need to see his target to control them then he can do without ever having to move from place to place.“

„But there must still be a range limit. He can‘t control somebody in Chine whe being in the US.“ Pamela said.

„Why not?“ Adel asked.

„The farther away the targer it the weaker the magic becomes.“ Pamela said.

„It‘s like wi-fi, the further away from the sorce, the worse the signal recption gets.“ V said. He sat with his legs pulled up on the chair and help his phone in front of his face.

„So how far can your range reach?“ Adel asked Pamela

V raised his index finger.

„ I would hold that answer. „ he pointed to his phone „ computers aren‘t the only things that can be hacked. Video and audio capture capable devices that eveybody has on htem at all times. Gps tracking included. He could be listening to everything that‘s happening in this room right now. „

Pamela cursed under her breath.

„I had my laptop  in the room i was working on the Nirvana research. The doll was also there. Shit.“

„That‘s how he got inside. Not physicaly, but digitaly.“ V said.

„I suggest we get rid of any digital devices  before continuing this session“ Pamela said.

After placing their phones and Tanith laptop in a diferernt room an locking it they went back in.

„This makes our job incredibily difficult“ Tanith said. „ Any information we send, no matter how encripted can fall into his hands. „

„I‘ll admit , when I sat up the defences I didn‘t acount for hacking“ Pamela said.

„But it should be possible to trace the signal back to the hacker“ Adel said.

„Well, the FBI would have caught him by now if it was that easy.“ V said.

„We need to look for things like street cameras, too. He could spy on us. Any people that seem like thay are acting suspicious. „ Tanith  looked out the window into the street.

„Really anyone with a cellphone in their pocket getting close to us could be used as a spy without knowing.“ V said.

Adel sighed.

„How do we catch somebody like that?“

It seemed like one of those uncatchable criminal mastermind she had seen in the movies.

„Well, finding him is the first part“ Tanith said“ finding people is usualy my specialty, but this is different. I need name or a face, a personal item something i can trace back to the person. All these files and a nickname aren‘t personal enought.“

„I have an idea“ Pamela said.“ Mind teaching Adel our location magic?“

„No, but i don‘t see what good it will do.“

„ I think it‘s something that might be usefull. Adel has a rather unique ability“ Pamela said.

„I see. We can give it a try tonight.“

„ I also have another idea“ Pamela said“ the clients have to get ahold of him for jobs. We could contact him under the pretense of trying to hire him.

„That FBI already tried that.“ V said“ the building htey were told to meet exploded, details unclear. But  I think  we have more chanses to get him to come to us, than finding him. Remeber the furum posts that denied his existance? He agresively replied to those with actions. This guy is arrogant and we can use it againt him. But we need to be smart about this“

„ Me and Adel both have anti- mind hacking chips, so he shouldn‘t be able to do anything to us.“ Pamela said.

„Since he only seems to target males the rest of you should be safe“ V said.

„We can continue this after  lunch“ Tanith said. „ Though considering the situation , i‘m not sure it‘s a good idea to go out.

„I‘ll go get something from across the street“ V said.“ You can keep an eye on me, so it should be safe.“

„Take Adel with you“ Pamela said.

V just shrugged.

Adel followed him out of the room. Vincent went to change, so she stood outside in the hall wondering why Pamela even brought her along. May she thought the appartment wasn‘t safe anymore. That was probably the main reason, because Adel didn‘t feel like she was going to be usefull during something like this. V came back, wearing boots  and a long leather coat. Adel didn‘t have a coat. Pamela just told her to get dressed and get in the car without much explanations. She had her usual shirt and dress combo on. The dress was a warmer one, made from wool and less decorative, just plain black knee lenght dress with thick straps over the shoulders. It was beginig to look like they would be spending the night here, or even staying for several days. It was the first time they had gone anywhere without coming back home for the night.

„Nervous?“ V observed as they went down the stairs into the salon.

„This seems complicated and diferent from most stuff we‘ve worked on before.“ She said.

„Really? Cause it looks to me like you‘re the ones who get all the difficult stuff. This drug ring seems like a big deal.“

„This is a recent development. It‘s only been isolated cases until now. But, well i guess they weren‘t as  isolated as we first thought.“

„This sort of thing happens a lot when looking for people. Looking for one person you find clues while looking for someone else. It‘s better to look at clusters of disaperances, there is often a patern.“

„Patern, huh.“ Adel wondered if those incidets faormed a pattern that they couldn‘t see. „ I guess we never tried looking for one.“

V put his finger to his lips and opened the door. The street was empty. They walked around the front of the studio to where the large window of the office overlooked the street. It was a pedestrian street separating the small building of the studio and few other lower ones from the tall ones on the other side. The first floor had a cafe, old sign read „ La Blank“. It was dark from the dim lighting, the interior looked old, like it was opened in the 90‘s and hasn‘t been renewed since. Behind the bar was a tall, muscular black man with a bald head, polishing a glass.

„V „ he smiled

„Hey, Tony.“

„What will it be? A table for two?“ he winked noticing Adel.

„Take out. Long day at the office.“

„Alright, then. The special today is pizza.“

„ I‘ll take the special, the usual for Tanith. Anything you want?“ He said lookin at Adel

„I‘m not sure. Everything sounds good.“ Adel said looking at the menu, realising just how hungry she was.

„I think i know something the lady might like“ Tony said.

„Pamela might like the fish.“ She said.

„Right. It‘ll be ready in a bit“ Tony said walking thought a door behind the bar.

Adel noticed a tribal style tattoo on his arm, only partialy covered by the rolled up sleeve.

„He‘s a customer.“ V said noticing Adel looking at the tattoo.

„That makes sence, being neighbours.“ She said, looking out the window to the „Noir“ building.

„They go way back. He helped Tanith find the place for the salon.“

„ Isn‘t it tough managing both an agency and a busness?“ Adel wondered.

„ Not really. She‘s been doing  by her self a long time.“

„How long have you been her aprentice?“

„I‘d say about three years.“

„Really? It‘s my third year with Pamela“ Adel said surprised by the strange quisnsidence.

„The search agancy used to belong to her fiance.“ V said.

„What happaned?“

„Don‘t know. One day he went to investigate a case and he just never came back. She tried looking for him, but it was like there was no physical trace of him left on the planed. Like he just vanished. She took over the agency after.“

„Can people really just vanish like that?“

„It‘s rare, but it happens.

„And nobody knows how or why?„

„There are theories.“ V said.

„Like what?“

„Like ghosts, fairys, aliens.“

„ Those arent real“ Adel said.

„ It‘s like the devils proof. You can‘t say the devil doesn‘t exist because you havent met him.You can‘t say that you haven‘t met him either. Most people asume they know what devil looks like, but if the devil look‘s diferent that what you believe , then will you know it‘s the devil? After all most people will say magic doesn‘t exist if you ask them.“

„I guess thats true“ Adel said. „ but knowing it‘s magic doesn‘t make it less frightening when strange things start to happen.

„No, it doesn‘t“ V agreed.

Tony emerged from the kitchen with bags of food.

„Here, ya go.“ He said handing a bag to V.

„Thanks, Tony. Add this to the tab.“

„Sure. Keep it up. Jut pay up till the end of the moth or  I‘ll be getting my next one for free.“

„ Got it.“

Adel took the other bag with food and they headed back to the salon.

?

Taliesin tried to focus on the math equations but the angry stomping from the other room kept distracting him. Amon has been home for two days and it was starting to get on everyones nerves. Aunt Amy had kept him busy with chores but he had gotten them all done already. Putting the textbook down he left his room.

„Keep it up and the neighbours will start sending noise complaints.“

Amon had stacks of files and boxes in the living room. Lifting them, rearangifn them, skatering pappers all over.

„What are you doing?“ Taliesing asked

„I‘m looking for a lead.“ He said, kneeling over the files scatered on the floor.

„Good luck finding one in this mess“

„ I‘m sure i missed something. I need to get these reorganized. You can help me“

„I‘ve got homework“

„It can wait!“

Taliesin sighed.

„I know you got suspended. Maybe try taking it easy for now.“

„I can‘t take it easy. Not when the entire police force had gone insane. They have completly  called of any investigation that had anything to do Nirvana, saying it‘s components do not contain anything that couls be considered narcotics. Can you believe that? After everything that happaned, they flushed all the samples we got them down the toilet! Like it some kind of joke!“ he slamed a box down on the stack of boxes causing it to tumble.

„ You only got suspended because you kept trying to look into it after they caled it off.“

„What was i supposed to do?! You know how dangerous this thing is. I have to keep looking, into this.“

„ They got the police under their control. There is nothing we can do.“

„If, i can find evidence i can takes to people outside the city. I have to do something.“

„So you‘d end up dead like my parents?“ Taliesin covered his mouth a little too late.

Amon was looking at him but he didn‘t see him as his vision began to blur.

„I‘m sorry“ he said.

Amon said nothing. Tal went back into his room.

Doing the right thing was important,that was what he always told himself. Helping others, promoting moral values, ensuring people followed the rules. So why was he questioning it all now. It was his dream to become a detective since he was little. Mortys death, the way the people in the hospital were acting, the police sudenly stopping all investigations into Nirvana and destroying all the powder samples. Amon getting suspended for trying to continue his investigation. Slowly it became clear just how overwhelmed they were. What if this wasn‘t a fight they could win? What if Amon died?. What if they came after him and autn Amy. They didn‘t have magic to fight back. What if doing the right meant they all got killed. His father never gave in, never took bribes and no matter what was at stake did what he beleived was right. And where did it get him?

He felt pathetic. So long he had wanted to become part of an investigation like this and now he was scared. Dying hasn‘t scared him before, it didn‘t particularly scare him now, but having other people die as a result of his actions did. It has been silent for a long while now.

„I‘m sorry“ came Amons voice from behind the door.“ I wish i could tell you that everything will be alright. But I wont... I‘m sorry i got you dragged into this.  Look after Amy for me.“

Talisien said nothing. It was the long silence that acompanied thos words, that brought the feeling of something final. Amon was gone, that much he knew. It will be a long time before he sees him again.

„I should have kept my mouth shut“ he thought to himself.“ Now his going to do something alone.“

Feeling like he couldn‘t sit in his room any longer he got dressed. Amy  was in the hall with bags of grocerys.

„Oh my, did something happen?“

„No. Everythings fine. Amon‘s gone to stay at some friends place.“ He lied, managing a half balievable smile. „I‘m going for a walk.“ Grabbing his jacked off the coat rack he left.

It was dark in the windows of Adel‘s place. It always was. Her phone didn‘t answer. he told himself, he should have figured, after all Pamela‘s car wasn‘t there. It could be a long time before they come back, if at all. Slowly walking back to the train he got. He hadn‘t been to this part of town, it was further than the usual stop he got out. The area looked shady and dirty. Dark alies and broken street lights. Half convinced he got the wrong adress and thinking he should just go back. Then he saw the green neon sighn in the window. He knocked. The door opened. A tall asian man stood in the door way.

?

After luch and more discusions they had finaly decided on a plan. V started tracking forums that the Host Jacker has posted responces in.

„Adel can see magic with the eye I made her.“ Pamela explained.

„Now, you will need to look for any abnormalitys in the magical signature.“ She said looking at Adel. „ For that, i think if would be better if you saw all of our magic. Every person that has magic emits it in a unique way, that the magical signature.“

„Right. I‘ll try.“ Adel focused on the magical eye. She has seem Pamelas magic before.

A white cloud rose of her body, surounding it lightly.

„When a person is affected by the magic of another it should leave traces in their magic. „ Pamema continued.

„My turn.“ Tanith said.

He magic was more like pale gold in colur and focused strongly around her arms.

„Okey, I think I got it.“ Adel said.

V got of the chair and stood up straight.

Adel saw a light in the middle of his chest that was a diferent color than the rest of his magic but then traces of the white light seemd to bleed into his magic.

„That quite a handy tool“ he said looking at he purple glowing eye.

„I can make you one if you want. But i need to warn you, it‘s expencive.“ Pamela said.

„I‘m fine.“

„What does my magic look like?“ Adel wondered.

„Well, go ahead and take a look?“ Tanith pointed to the ground lenght mirror in the wardrobe door.

Adel never tried to see her own magic before. There wasn‘t one particular color to it, all the colors seemed to change and morpg one out of the other.

„It‘s wierd“ she said.

„Most mages don‘t know what their magic looks like.“ Pamela said. „ tracking people based on their magic signature  is not something that‘s been done before. Well there are tools for that, but they only work if you have the persons magic aplied to them first. Most mages can‘t see magic in it‘s raw form before it befomes a spell.  And after it is cast it once again becomes invisible, but it leaves a trace. This little experiemnt of mine is proving very usefull.“

„Seein magical signatures and traces of spells than can be followed back to the caster. This could be revolutionary.“ V said.

„ I‘m certain it would, but I would rather not see it in the wrong hands. I‘m working on many  things. Needless to say i needed to keep them safe. „

„You have nothing to fear from us.“ Tanith reasured her.

„I know. Now comes the difficult part. We lay the bait and hope he takes it.“

They tied V to a chair, with him being the only male and thus the only candidate for being taken control of. Positng taunting masseges on several forums  daring the Host Jacker to take control of one of them if he exist. Adel stood in the corner with the magical activated but covered by the bandage. Pamela and Tanith stood on the either sides of Vincent. Phones pilled on the table, cameras facing the ceiling so.

„He isn‘t going to show up“ Tanith said with a sigh“ it‘s been two hours.“

„Spineless coward must have lost the nerwe when he found out I was on the case.“ Pamela laughed.

Adel was concerned about the the messages she saw but didn‘t get to read. Taliesin had been trying to reach her. She was worried that something might have happaned. Hopefuly he was only calling to ask her about why she missed a day of school and the importance of attendance and good grades. Distracted she almost didn‘t notice that something was strange. Tanith and Pamela had been chating the whole time. Adel was certain she was the only one who could see it.

„It‘s here“ she shouted.

Tanith and Pamela began looking around the room. Pamela turned around for a moment and then there was a cahnge in her composure.

„ Well, well. Wot h‘ave we here.“ Adel had never heard Pamela speaking in an accent before. „ the sorriest buncha loosers i‘ve ever seen, thats for sure.“

„You‘re..“ V looked shocked.

„Thas right pretty boy. I‘m the Host Jacker“

„But, I thought..“

„You thought I can‘t control girls?! I know, I‘ve been listening. Ya aitn the first tah thing that either. It doesn‘t matter who hired ya, ya won‘t find me. Not in million fucking years. I kn ow waht yer little plan is. Ya thought ya could get lure me out and catch me in yer pathetic trap.“ The Host Jacker  pointed to V, still tied to a the chair.

 „ Now, nobody, move a muscle,  „ picking up  a knife from the table, and lifting it up Pamelas  throat.„ Now, this is a warning.“ Picking up Pamelas phone Host Jacker turned on the camera.“ And a little insurance.“ Still holding the knife to Pamelas neck, he began taking off her shirt and bra.

„All right, now listten ere, I don‘t apreachiate it when people insult me. „ He said to the camera.“So why don‘t ya stick to what yer ginger cunt is good at and play with yer dolls. Ya or any of yer friends try coming after me again. I wont be so nice. First off, a lot of people will these. “ Using the camera he took pictures of Pamelas exposed body“ but if yer really looking for trouble. Yer carriers, this little place, I can run ya into the ground so bad that the only job yer gonna get will be seeling yer asses on the street.  Ye got that?“ Host jacker pointed the knife at Tanith.

Tanith slowly nodded.

„Good.“ Lovering the knife the tossed  it to the floor.

Pamela blinked looking down  at herself.

„Why am I naked?“

„Well. He took control of you“ Tanith said slowly approaching.

V stared at the floor the whole time, avoiding to look at Pamela‘s direction.  Pamelas face was  red as a beet as he buttoned up her shirt and rewieved the recording on her phone.

„Adel, did you get it?“

„I did.“

„We‘re following, now“

„ Well, there isn‘t much to follow.“ Adel said.

They untied V and left  the room.

„What do you mean?“ Pameal asked still trying to compose herself.

„There was no trail. It was like an orb of light. Well not symetrycal, there were all these roatating dots flying around in a cloud of mist and ...“ she  closed her eyes recaling she shape that she saw and made a transparent image apear above her hand.

„That‘s a magical signature!“ V looked at it surprised.

„It almost looks like a brain“ Tanith said.

„A brain. That‘s it.“ Pamela said. „ It should have been imposible for him to mind hack me since i have the anti hacking chip.  But somehow he still took over.“

„That is strange.“ V admited.

„ It‘s not mind hacking. „ Pamela said.“ It‘s possesion“

„Soul displacement“ Adel said after a pause.

„Most likely.“ Pamela said. Adel what do you remember.“

„Soul displacement occurs most comonlty when the soul of a person becomes trapped and unable to move on. In cases of suden death, tragic accidents, long lasting comas a soul might become active outside the host body in attemps to draw attention of someone who may help. In extreme cases if a soul lingers too long after death it might become agresive.“

„That‘s not the case here.“ Pamela said“ he is most certainly still alive. Sometimes spirits can take control of peoples actions something that‘s called possesion. I think that is the Host Jackers ability.“

„A magus can learn to exit their body for brief moments and exist as a spirit. „ Tanith said.

„But they wouldn‘t be able to posses someone in that state.“ Pamela stated.

„I‘ve never encountered souls displacemnt.“Tanith said.

„I‘ve read about it“ Pamela said“ something i‘ve been looking into.  I have another theory  based on the shape. The brain- all of our thoughts, memories are stored in it. Some even say that the soul of a person resides in the brain. But the general tendency is that the ghost dosn‘t wander too far from it‘s physical body. He is most likely somewhere in this town, right now.“

„If only i had something physical of his ,i could find him.“ Tanith said growing frustrated.

„It doesn‘t matter.“ Pamela said. „ the way things are, even if we did find him. We have no means of containing him. From the data we‘ve gathered he can just jump from one host to another.  Judging from how powerful he is  I will make a guess that he is closer to the dead than the living. Most likely someone in a comatose state or a deep state of uncontiousness. „

„Woudn‘t that person have dificulty to move around?“ V asked“ I mean going to China and other countries.“

„The body can be transported. Although I think I have a guess on his range. Tanith would you mind showing Adel the locating method you use.“

„No, not at  all.“ Tanith said.

The went back into the room, V took all the callphones outside the room.Tanith put down a map of the the city and took a small bag, taking a pendulum made from black crystal out of it. Holding up the pendulum over the map.

„Pamela Carmine“ she said and pendulum moved to a spot on the map and began spining in place.

„Host Jacket“ the pendulum didn‘t move at all. „ It doesn‘t work.“

„Let Adel try.“ Pamela said.

Adel took the pendulum.

„Hold it steady. Don‘t move your hand. Try to imagine the person you are trying to find. Their face, or atlest if you know their name try to imagine them and where they are in the momoment. „

Adel wondered if she she should test it with someone she knew but then, she already knew where Taliesin was. Her mind went back to the doll in the room, and then  to the image of the brain like mist cloud  she saw in the room.

„It‘s moving.“

Adel opened her eyes. The pendulum was around the same spot where it had showed Pamela was.

„What were  you concentrating on? “

„On the the image I saw when he apeared here.“

„ So you were rememebrering.It can  show locations where somebody was. There is a diferance between was and is. Looking in the present is not as easy as findind what has been. „ Tanith held her hand over Adels.

„Adel, try amplifying the search magic.“ Pamela said.

„Alright. I‘ll try.“

Tanith took the pendulum again. Adel held her hand placing it over.

„Host Jacker“ Tanith said.

Adel tried to look too, focusing on more on the feeling of standing in the room and trying to sense the direction she needed to look in.

The pendulum began swinging around the coty map.

„Incredible“ Tanith said.“ But it can‘t be right.“

„That‘s easy to check.“ V said bringing over a larger map.

They tested again with a country map and even a world map.

„It moves to the same place.“ Tanith concluded. „ He is somewhere in the city.“

„ Now ask where he‘s been on the day of the break in.“ Pamela said.

Tanith and Adel focused again.

„Strange it hasn‘t moved, still spining around the city.“ V said observing the pendulum.

„No, i think he broke in from here.“ Pamela said.

„ But thats imposbile.“ Tanith said „ i would put his bility range to over 400 km. [1].

„Normaly I would agree.“ Pamela said“ but judjing the use of computers and phones as posible transmitors range can be elimitated.  This ability seems to allow him to stay away from his body for long period of time if not complelty.  In adition he can use technology to transmit himself, while being unseen to most people.  Even if we find his body, the ghost will just slip away into someone else.“

„Even if we find him, we can catch him“ Tanith realized.

„That‘s why he‘s so over confident that no will ever get him“ V said. „ After all, how does one catch a ghost?“

„ There are way. But he won‘t fall for a trap. We need let him think he‘s won. We have to let him for now.  Until we have a way of containing him.

?

The next morning Tanith gave Adel another lesson in using the pendulum and after a good-bey luch they set of.

„ I‘m sorry I wasn‘t much help to you „ Pamela said.

„That‘s alright. I shoun‘t have exepted such a complicated job.“ Tanith apologised as they were saying their goobeys.

„Let me know if you ever want a tattoo“ V said.

Adel smiled.

„I wouldn‘t know what to get, but thanks.“

Sitting in the car she looked at her phone suspiciously. Talieisn had called her a bunch of times yesterday but now he wasn‘t picking up. A part of her  wnated to ell him about the whole ordeal but Pamela had made everyone swear nobody would talk about this until they had a way of capturing the Host Jacker.

Adel looked at the black ink on her arm. It was somethin Tanith came up with. A way to pass messages without the use of phones or computers. It looked looked like a flower for now. Tanith was transmuter. The tattoo was embued wit her magic and the inked image could change into what ever she wanted. Adel embued some of her own magic into the ink, so they could send messeges back. She wondered what Tanith was going to draw with it.

 

[1] 250 miles