Even in daylight, the seedy streets of Darkside were foreboding. A mix of Victorian and shantytown architecture was illuminated by the various colors of the flickering neon signs. Rats squeaked as they scurried out of sight into the shadows, and hooded figures in tattered cloaks haggled with stall owners over sundry wares.
I then paused as I heard a retching sound coming from behind me, and a second later, vomit came splattering down onto the cobblestone street, splashing my shoe with someone's half-digested lunch. I groaned in disgust as I stepped backwards and looked up from beneath the hood of my jacket, and I saw that a man dressed in the uniform of the Metropolitan Police heaving on the balcony above.
Stepping wide of the man's vomit puddle, I spotted a set of rickety stairs made of cobbled-together junk nearby, leading up to where the barfing bobby was. Pausing at the foot of the stairs, I nonchalantly flicked my foot for it to be set on fire, and the blue flames crackled as they burned away the policeman's puke. As the fire extinguished itself with a soft, snakelike hiss, leaving behind small wisps of smoke rising from the toe, I began my ascent up to the balcony.
As I reached the last flight of stairs, I spotted Priscilla and Inspector Shelley from behind the two cops standing guard, and I waved to them as I ascended the steps, metal clanging as my shoes landed on them.
Brushing past the guards with a muttered apology, I nodded to Priscilla and then to Inspector Shelley as she chewed something that sounded crunchy. "I remember you. You're Mercer, right?"
I nodded, and Inspector Shelley then held towards me what appeared to be a tin of little white candies. "Mint?"
"Sure." I said as I took one from the tin and popped it into my mouth. The peppermint flavor was strong, and I rolled it over several times in my mouth with my tongue, making sure to suck out every last bit of sweet, sharp flavor.
"Terrible habit." Inspector Shelley remarked as she too helped herself to a mint. "I needs to quit smoking, but I think I'll have to start again to get off the mints."
She then spared a glance over her shoulder towards the cop still puking over the railing, who must have vomited up the remains of a seven-course feast at this point.
"Ritual murders are hard on the digestive system, but it is part of the job. Part of this assignment. It's tough, and it takes some getting used to. Not everyone does, so they keep having to send me fresh meat. You'd think they'd do a more thorough job with the psych evaluation. The assignment is called 'Cults and the Occult' for a reason."
"So what happened here?" I asked, gesturing towards the yellow police tape all around us. Aside from the police marking their territory, nothing on the outside seemed out of place, so I assumed the murder took place behind the doors we were standing outside of.
"While you two were out of town, we tied a couple of homicides back to the exotic black markets here." Inspector Shelley explained. "Unnatural homicides… if murder was ever a natural part of things."
"So you need help with cleaning up?" I asked, but Inspector Shelley shook her head no.
"We'll take care of it. We always do… But before we do, you'll need to have a poke around the crime scene. Some… things need to be kept out of the official reports, even if the reports are automatically filed under Agenda 71."
I had no idea what the hell Agenda 71 meant, but Inspector Shelley continued explaining anyway. "It's procedure. Besides, Sonnac likes to send his own people for anything of this nature. I assume he told you what you're looking for?"
I glanced at Priscilla, but even she seemed at a loss. Guess Sonnac didn't see fit to tell her, either. Inspector Shelley then waved her hand dismissively. "Frankly, I don't want to know. I'd warn you, but I imagine you've seen worse since we last met."
Inspector Shelley then proffered us the tin of mints again. "One more for the road? It might help keep your dinner down."
"Thanks, but no thanks." Priscilla said, but I wordlessly took another mint as I swallowed my first. I popped the second into my mouth as Priscilla opened the door for me and stepped inside after me. The hallway the door lead into twisted and turned in ways that shouldn't have been possible due to the floor's small size, until it ended inside a meat locker, though I had no idea who used it, seeing as how inconvenient it would be to get its supply to the nearest restaurant, which was street level and on the far corner of the city block.
Around the corner, I caught my first glimpse of the scene of the crime. Red candles were laid in a half-circle facing towards the entrance, and trails of crimson wax all pointed to a mangled corpse lying on the floor. Around us, suspended from meat hooks, were several bloodied bodies, looking like men hung from the gallows.
I shivered, though not from the horrific sight. It was freezing cold in the meat locker. Here I was, not even sixteen and already used to the sight of dead bodies. Probably a bad sign.
I then noticed that on a nearby shelf, in the place of packaged meat and other foods, was a row of leather-bound books. Their spines had titles written in Mesopotamian cuneiform, Chinese characters, as well as other scripts I couldn't make heads or tails of. It was then that I heard Priscilla's voice. "Hey, take a look at these!"
I turned to see Priscilla holding one of those old-fashioned tape recorders in her hand. Atop the trolley next to her, I could see two more, each labeled with a number scribbled onto duct tape. As Priscilla pressed the play button, a voice began to speak and fill the meat locker. "This is Nick Lambe. I'm recording this as a reference for those who come after me. For future research."
Oh great, yet another magus that got too caught up in his research. Horror stories of magi crossing lines both formally and informally drawn by the Council of Venice were depressingly common. All the factions kept leashes on their occult academics to one extent or another. Even the Illuminati realize it's bad business to let too much of their talent get taken in by whatever the hell they conjured up this time.
"I… I retrieved an item from a crate that came through the warehouse." The voice of Nick Lambe continued. "I could hear it from my office the night it arrived. It whispered to me.
"It's an Egyptian mirror in the shape of an ankh. Very old, can't place it. Ebony frame, polished metal surface, but not copper. Inscribed with the symbol of the sun god, Aten. But most incredibly, it's full of stars. The mirror isn't a mirror. It's a window into another world."
Like the worst novels, I could already tell where this was going, and my hunch was confirmed by Nick Lambe's next words. "I'm going to London. I have contacts there, and I can find the tools I need. Ingredients… I'm going to find a way to open the window."
As the recording stopped, Priscilla reached for the next one, and we listened in silence as Nick Lambe spoke in a frightened voice that sounded like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in ages. "The stars are talking to me. I don't sleep anymore. W-When I slip into dreaming, I hear them. They whisper. T-They tell me to do things…
"The mirror is hungry. For blood. For flesh. Oh, God help me, I can't stop myself… I want to do everything it's asked me to. Oh, what's happening to me?"
The third recording proved itself to be just as bleak as the other two, with the desperate, despairing voice Nick Lambe sounding all throughout the meat locker. "Oh, Jesus! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus fucking Christ! What have I done? What have I done?
"I've killed. I've fed the mirror. It was insatiable. It wanted more, and then the window opened and the darkness came through. Now this… thing is inside me. It's multiplying. L-Like, uh… Worms, squirming in my soul.
Nick Lambe took a deep, shaky breath to steady himself before speaking. "If the darkness breaks free, it'll… I have to trap it. Inside me. I have to bind it. In a prison of flesh, the thing inside me and the mirror that unleashed it. There's a spell. I found a book. It's… I need to sacrifice myself to trap it. It has to be contained, even if it means… Oh my god… May God have mercy on my dark soul…"
The recording came to an end with a soft click, and Priscilla set it gently down onto the trolley next to the others. We both then turned our gazes towards the candles surrounding the body, their wicks still burning and flickering. "Those candles… Are they…?"
"Yes." Priscilla answered as she set down her duffel bag and unzipped it out. As she brought out her shotgun, she said, "They're the things still binding the 'darkness' to the body of Nick Lambe. I bet if we snuff them out, whatever possess Nick will be set free, allowing us to take it down. You ready?"
I nodded as I drew my Beretta from its holster and switched the safety off. Checking to make sure the chamber was loaded, I then took up a position in the corner of the room, with Priscilla positioning herself in another. Raising my hand, I then felt a breeze begin to swirl around my hand, and as I held out my hand towards the candles, the wind I had conjured up blew out their wicks.
For a moment, there was a pregnant silence in the air, but then I felt my earplugs muffle the sound of a thunderous roar filling the room. One moment, I was on my feet, and in the next, I was sitting on my ass in a corner of the room, dazed. Shaking off my confusion, I then brought my gun up to fire at the monster as I scrambled to my feet.
The monster in question was dressed like your stereotypical Grim Reaper: a skeleton dressed in a black hooded robe, wielding a large scythe with a slightly-curved shaft. As Priscilla opened fire on the Reaper with her shotgun, I let loose with a bunch of mundane bullets, not wanting to risk being roasted alive. Off in the distance, I could hear the doors to the meat locker bang open, and I could only hope that was Inspector Shelley coming in with backup.
I hit the floor as I was caught with no ammo in my gun, and the Reaper's scythe just barely missed me, leaving a long gash in the wall. I then gave it a little something to think about, in the form of a fiery Reinforced fist to its skeletal face. As it staggered backwards, or rather, floated backwards like a struck balloon, Priscilla followed through with a shotgun blast to the face.
It was then that Inspector Shelley arrived with the rest of the cops, pistols in hand, and our guns joined theirs in a crescendo of gunfire that probably would've left us all deaf if we hadn't been wearing earplugs. Even amidst the gunshots, I could hear the Reaper wailings it death cry, which just goes to show that you have nothing to fear, provided you had enough bullets, of course.
The scythe clattered onto the floor, knocking over some of the red candles before dissipating into particles, and the Reaper crumpled to a heap of black cloth onto the floor, looking like a pile of really dirty laundry. As the police officers lowered their weapons, Priscilla and I stepped forward to inspect the Reaper's remains. As we knelt down near the heap of cloth, we spotted something gleaming from within the blackness. After putting on my shooting gloves, I reached in order to examine the object.
As Nick Lambe had described it, the ankh was made of a polished black metal we couldn't identify, and it looked like a T with a loop on top of it. It was plain-looking, but I could feel the power coming from it, like I was gazing at a stormy sea on the horizon. I then looked to see Priscilla bring out a carved wooden box from her duffel bag.
The dark wood of the box was covered in runes, hieroglyphics, and all manner of ancient protective scripts, so much so that I could probably put a live grenade in there, shut the lid, and not hear so much as a pop come from the gap between the lid and box.
Anyway, as the ankh was placed within the velvet interior of the box, Priscilla shut the lid and put the box back into the duffel bag. Getting up from the floor, Priscilla then turned to Inspector Shelley. "Thanks for the save, Inspector. Chase and I'll be going now. I know exactly who to see about stuff like this."