So the below quote is paraphrased from Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos, which is a fantastic book (and series) that I highly recommend, which refers to and relies heavily on Egyptian magic and superstitions. The main character, Theodosia, is the clever daughter of the owner of the second-largest museum in Britain and his adventurous American wife, who brings back plenty of artifacts. The problem is that Theo is the only one in the museum who can detect and counter all the heavy, dark-magic curses that have been laid on the multiple artifacts her parents own in the museum and are continually bringing back from Egypt to make new exhibits with, and her problems are further multiplied by the fact that, although she's the only one who knows and believes in them, these curses are both willing and able to work on everyone else in the museum –even on one rather memorable occasion, her beloved cat, Isis. It's a lovely series full of tongue-in-cheek snark and high adventure and curses and greedy secret societies and protective secret societies and exotic travels and all the rest of it. I seem to have spent most of my author's note extolling the virtues of another fictional work and have no more room left to talk, so please just enjoy the chapter below.
January 25th, 2017
Wax is very good at absorbing heka, or evil magic. It turns blackish-green in the presence of evil.
3rd Person POV:
Evidence:
Drawer flew from less than an inch away from a solid surface
Scent of must and earth (grave dirt?)
Blackened wax
Likely/Possible Culprit(s):
Angry Spirit
Curse
Ghost
Tommyknocker
Motive:
Happy family (bitter over the living/good?)
Alfred blundered onto something nasty
Arthur chewed on the end of his fountain pen pensively, the sunlight glimmering through the window of the diner and falling across the pages of his casebook. He sighed and ran a hand through his spiky, tousled blonde hair in frustration, laying down the pen. "Bollocks." he muttered under his breath, blowing out another frustrated sigh. It was all very well and good to assume that something on the other side of the veil had been involved with Alfred's death, but it was rather difficult to find out what and why, and even more difficult to prove it. He had to eliminate all possible options before he tried to confront –something– in a battle royal.
The problem with that was that Arthur was little more than an amateur when it came to magic and the supernatural. He knew the rough mechanics of many things, and he'd tried a few successful spells and hexes of his own (mostly geared towards protection of himself and others, and once, a drowsing spell that had led him and the police to an arsonist), but that was about it. He'd never had anything approaching an official tutor and what little he knew was cobbled from the few fragments of true magical spells he could find, all included in his own personal grimoire. The fact that he actually needed a grimoire was proof enough that he would never be a great magician –not that Arthur precisely cared. Much like modern-day swordplay, true magic was very much a niche market that was of very little practical use in day-to-day life.
"Here's some Darjeeling and a slice of apple pie, on the house~! Artie, you should have told me you were in town!"
His thoughts interrupted, Arthur jumped slightly as an enamel plate was suddenly put down on the table in front of him, accompanying a steaming mug of tea. His forest green eyes slowly traveled up the slender, pale arm holding the plate to find a puffy white sleeve, which led to a frothy shirt covered by a thin-strapped black dress, which hugged ample curves tightly before letting out at the waist, billowing around shapely legs. A black ribbon tied in a bow behind her ears, holding back short, slightly curvy strawberry-blonde locks. Eyes as green as his own sparkled in a friendly manner, and a catlike smile curved her pink lips. Arthur gave a slightly sad smile in response. "Hello there, luv."
Bel beamed and leaned down to hug him, and he wrapped an arm loosely around her shoulders in return and squeezed, pressing his face against her strawberry-scented hair. The waitress and him had enjoyed a –brief– affair after highschool as boyfriend and girlfriend, which had been cut short by Arthur's return to England. It had ended on surprisingly friendly terms, and Arthur often got long, chatty emails from Bel that kept him updated on the various incidents involving Holland-Handers and his hometown. He in return sometimes sent her fragments of the books he was attempting to write.
"I'm sorry about Alfred." Bel said seriously as they separated, and Arthur gave a weary shrug.
"We'll find out who did it." he replied, taking some cream from the condiment tree in the middle of the table and pouring it into his tea. "The police always do."
Bel's eyes sparkled as she flicked the edge of the menu in her hand back up against her shoulder. "Oh, that's right! You're a private investigator now. How's that?" she asked as she slid into the chair opposite him and laid the menu back down.
"Stunningly dull." Arthur replied crisply, taking an experimental sip of his tea. "Very few people have problems so serious they don't take to the police –and even fewer of them go to amateurs like me to solve them."
Bel poured sympathetically. "Well, you're doing alright anyways. How long until you hop back over the pond?"
Arthur took a bite of the pie, and chewed thoroughly before responding. Holland-Handers had a reputation for the best apple pies in town for a reason. "After the funeral, at the earliest." he replied, flipping his casebook shut. There was no reason to go shouting his suspicions to the world, after all, especially when belief in the supernatural nowadays often got one a nice padded room and an off-white straightjacket.
He saw Bel's eyes flicker towards the movement, but she made no comment. They raised to his own, and she gave a sad, fond little smile. "I won't tell anyone anything, Arthur." she said softly, placing her hand atop his own, resting on the casebook. "You can trust me."
Arthur's lips curved upward in a brief smile of his own, and then he slid both his hand and the casebook away from her. "I know, luv. But there are some things rambling about in my mind, when I work certain cases, that make me seem a complete nutter."
One of Bel's perfectly plucked eyebrows rose upwards. "Oh. Are you still messing around with that supernatural mumbo jumbo?" she asked matter-of-factly, and Arthur just about spat out his tea. He'd nearly forgotten about that one time where Bel had approached him about the herbs he'd stuffed under her eaves and demanded an explanation, to which he, red-faced, stammered out that he was a bit of an occultist and that they were designed for protection, health, and good luck. He vaguely remembered that she had beamed and told him it was incredibly sweet for him to worry about her like that, which was followed by some rather…adult rated activities.
"Ah…yes." he said, placing the cup back on the napkin –he briefly mourned the lack of saucers– with his cheeks slightly tinted pink. "Yes I am."
He glanced around the diner briefly. This time of the afternoon, there was almost no one inside –the reason why Bel was able to sit and chat with him for so long and not need to attend to her duties as a waitress. The head cook, Francis, as he remembered, was quite lenient with her and the other waitresses' time, as long as they were not actively eating into the profits. He locked eyes with her again and leaned inward, lowering his voice. "And I think…I think there might have been something at Alfred's crime scene."
Bel's eyes brightened with avid curiosity, and she leaned forward as well. "What?" she whispered back, and Arthur bit the inside of his cheek.
"Well, that's the problem." he admitted. "In this day and age, grimoires and bestiaries aren't exactly two a tenner. But I know there was something evil there. I smelled what I'm fairly certain was dirt where no dirt should be, chiefly in our living room; the murder scene. The candle wax I spilled there turned black –which candle wax tends to do in the presence of a malicious magical creature or being. The set of drawers that killed him moved from less than an inch away from a solid wall, with enough force to break bones."
"That does sound fishy." Bel whispered conspiratorially, her eyebrows furrowing above her narrowed eyes.
Arthur nodded. "The trouble is, without knowing exactly what I'm dealing with, there's no way a novice like me could throw myself into a general magna exilium without cocking everything up." he grouched with a heavy sigh, leaning back to run his fingers through his bangs and tug irritably.
Bel raised her eyebrow in silent question.
"A banishment ritual." Arthur clarified, still frowning heavily in concentration through his fingers. "It's guaranteed to remove all sorts of nasty buggers, but only if it's done exactly right. Knowing what I'm dealing with is a big component, since I, as an amateur, can't just push my way through it with sheer bloody force."
"Hm. Well, if you need anything, you know where I am." Bel said briskly, favoring him with a bright smile before coming to her feet. "Do you need a place to stay for the night? My door is always open."
Arthur gave a short laugh. "Thanks luv, but I'm not as unprepared as all that." he told her with a grin, raising his cup to her. "I've already got a motel room, complete with moldy paper and creaky bedsprings."
Bel laughed with him, then bade him a short farewell and went to attend to some newly-arrived customers as Arthur stared at his casebook, sipping his tea musingly.
***Time Skip***
Arthur had spent most of the rest of the day going around town, re-familiarizing himself with the sights and streets. It'd been three years since he'd last prowled the area, and the knowledge of where everything was almost always turned out to be vital in a case. He could probably have gotten away with going straight back to his rooms, since he was a semi-native of the area anyways, but it never hurt to refresh his memory –especially when he was involved in such a personal case.
September was only the very cusp of becoming October, so the trees were already blazing, phoenix-like, with fall colors, and the air was crisp, growing chilly as night approached –Arthur would be very glad of his long black coat before the day was out.
He smiled as he sauntered along the narrow, slanted streets of the oldest part of town, spotting the bakery that had been there time-out-of-mind, with several sets of twisted-iron chairs and small café tables placed outside on the pavement, the better to serve customers. He remembered the many occasions when he and Alfred had been taken here by their parents, and how disproportionately heavy those delicate-looking chairs were; every time he and Alfred tried to shift them, they'd had to pull with all their might as the legs screeched demonically on the concrete. He also remembered how vexing the lacework on the café tables was when one was eating one of the bakery's signature professionally-iced hard cookies, how the wasted crumbs would fall right through the scrolling vines and leaves, only to be snatched up by a sparrow or pigeon.
He sauntered on, crossing the old railroad tracks and into the outdoor art park that snaked alongside them for a little while. This tiny park, barely a block long, was ever-changing, with the new artwork from the students of the district constantly replacing the old, but there were a few constant landmarks; the giant, blue-painted ironwork horse, for one, and the disproportionately huge lawn chairs positioned to watch the tracks. There was the arbor, and the optical-illusion-slats that always had a tiger painted on one side and a jungle painted on the other, so the image would change as you walked along it. There was the painted wooden crosspiece that for the life of him Arthur could never find a purpose for, but children loved climbing all over and hiding inside.
He glanced at his watch and sighed as he went back to his car, which he had parked there earlier in the afternoon. He would have to hurry to make it back to his motel in time to unpack before supper with his parents. The book in his pocket seemed to burn against his skin, demanding to be read, as he unlocked the door and put the keys in the ignition, but he reined himself in with a sharp exercise of will. He would have patience. If he went too hastily, he could very well muff up the entire investigation.
***Time Skip***
Dinner had been…tense, to say the least. As soon as Arthur had walked in the door of Applebee's his mother had been all over him, sobbing, as if she was afraid that he would have been mugged or murdered during his jaunt about town. His father had been white to the lips, and only spoke in terse, clipped sentences, accompanied by little jerks of his head and twitches of his fingers. Alfred's loss loomed too large in their minds for any of them to make idle conversation, and the wound of his death was still too new, too raw, for them to speak of. There were a few muttered attempts at conversation, about Arthur's occupation, his life in Britain, the tentative questions drifting into the stale air like fragments of ash.
Is it good to be back home? Yes, I suppose it was. You always did like your native country better than here.
Private investigator? How was that going? Not well? Oh. Oh well, then. Paying the bills?
Oh yes, yes of course, another job. That makes sense, you've always been so clever. What kind of job?
Oh, an author, well that's, that's just lovely. Making a lot? No? The two jobs are just keeping you stable?
Well that's just wonderful.
Arthur hated the bland, boring conversation, hated the clipped, choreographed questions as he and his parents danced around the fact that there was one empty spot at the table, one voice that was not heard among them. He had never been terribly close to any of his brief succession of foster parents before he had been dropped with the Jones', and even with them, he had always been a slightly distant child.
He'd always assumed it was because of his upbringing; the son of two up-and-coming medical professionals didn't exactly get a lot of attention and love. He'd barely even known his birth parents. Once he was old enough to cook and not drown himself in the bathtub, they'd more or less abandoned him to the tender mercies of a series of nannies, daycares, and other relatives. His uncles on both sides of the family, Allistor, Seamus, and Dylan, were absolute tossers, and he'd avoided them as much as possible growing up. The only person he'd found even mildly tolerable in his entire extended family was his cousin, Oliver –he was Dylan's son, and four years younger than Arthur. Briefly he had wondered what his cousin was up to now, then shrugged. Oliver had always given him a ring when he was worried about something, but he hadn't called in years. Arthur assumed he had sorted himself out in school; the poor chap was always a bit of a worrier.
After a while, excuses were made and an exit was planned. Arthur pried himself out of the maternal embrace and slunk to his car, waiting until he had gotten out of the parking lot and onto the road before letting out a long sigh of relief. Grief that had purposefully been muted, dulled, and repressed, the better to study the case, had reared its ugly head during dinner as his parents quite obviously mourned and avoided mentioning Alfred, and his hands tightened on the wheel as he drove. There was a gnawing feeling inside of his chest, a feeling of emptiness, pain, and loss.
Alfred was gone.
Forever.
Arthur had to pull over or slow down several times on the way back to the motel to blink tears out of his eyes or wipe them on his sleeve, and he arrived at the dusty, mildewed building with reddened eyes and a gloomy heart. He parked the car he had rented, trudged through the unassuming lobby –like a thousand of its kind; tatty furniture, bowl of mints on the check-in desk, newspapers and magazines on the coffee tables, the musty, astringent smell of carpeting in the air, dull wallpaper– and down the hall into his room. He collapsed on the bed –creaky bedsprings, just like he'd told Bel– and let out a long, suffering moan into the thin pillow. His foster brother had meant a lot more to him than any of his adult caretakers, and now he had to face the fact that he was gone, gone forever.
Well, unless he used necromancy, but that was a road best left untraveled.
After a few moments, Arthur slowly pulled himself up on his elbows and grit his teeth. Crying into the sheets like a child wouldn't do him or anyone else one blind bit of good. He had to pull himself together if he was ever going to find Alfred's killer. He rolled over and reached inside his pocket, turning on the bedside lamp in the same movement. He scooted himself backwards until he was up against the backboard, pulling out and opening up the leather-bound book he had found in Alfred's drawer.
One, this is totally not a diary. It is a very masculine journal.
Arthur raised a single eyebrow. My God, was he that insecure over it? He thought dryly, before his bushy eyebrows knotted. Why would Alfred have kept a dai –a journal, if he disliked the idea so much?
Hi to anyone that picks this up, by the way, my name is Alfred F. Jones. I'm a freshman in college on a football scholarship and I plan to be a lawyer. (Boring I know, but, like, justice and saving people's lives, dude. Being a cop takes too much energy anyways, and they don't let you eat as much McDonald's.)
If you're reading this, there's a good chance that you're either a nasty snoop, or I'm dead. If you're snooping around and I'm still alive, then get your nose outta my journal and hit the road.
Arthur's fingers tightened around the edges of the book excitedly. This was turning out to be a windfall of epic proportions! Something, somehow, somewhere, had tipped Alfred off to the possibility that he might die soon –a possibility that, unfortunately, soon became reality.
Now all Arthur had to do was figure out what it was and suss it out of its hiding place.
If I'm dead under…strange circumstances…then this journal might give you clues. I…I'm having a hard time figuring out what's real and what's not anymore, so I'm putting everything in here so that if I survive this than maybe I can look back and make some sense outta it. Or if I don't survive this, maybe someone else can for me. Lookin' at you, Arthur, because what's been happening to me seems like it'd be right up your alley, and you're a terrible snoop anyways.
Arthur snorted indignantly.
Plus you've got mad detective skills.
Anyway, if I'm not battier than a bowl of Count Chocula, here are three things for anyone trying to solve this after me. You need to play by these rules.
1. Avoid reflective surfaces at all costs.
2. Whatever you do, don't break a mirror or anything else reflective.
3. It never comes when there's company. DO NOT stay alone.
7.24 PM, USA Central Time
